Palash Speaks

Malaysia rejects US criticism on Hindu temples
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
Malaysia rejects US criticism on Hindu temples
Kuala Lumpur: Citing the presence of over 70,000 Hindu temples, Malaysia has rejected criticism by the US while asking it to probe its own human rights record at home and in Iraq.
A US Congress-appointed commission had expressed concern at the destruction of Hindu temples and other alleged discrimination faced by religious minorities in Malaysia.
Reacting strongly, but asking his countrymen to ignore it, Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said the Indian government knew for a fact that the Indians in Malaysia were not being mistreated.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom had urged the Bush Administration to raise the matter with the Malaysian government and insisted that immediate measures be taken to protect sacred sites and prevent further destruction.
"I have not seen many temples in other countries but in Malaysia, there are over 70,000 temples. In some places, we even have problems getting approvals to build mosques," Albar said.
The ethnic Indian community has been in the news recently after the Malaysian police cracked down on a rally on Nov. 25 of more than 10,000 ethnic Indians. The Indians were protesting marginalisation of the ethnic Indian community in that country and also to support a $4 trillion lawsuit filed in London in August by Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), a rights group demanding that Britain compensate Malaysian Indians for bringing their ancestors to the country as indentured laborers and exploiting them.
Albar said the police action against demonstrations and rallies in recent weeks was to maintain peace and stability and was within the norms of universal practice, the New Straits Times reported today.
"If they (demonstrators) want to get together within the law and not cause problems to other citizens, the government will have no problem with that. But if they want to jeopardise public safety, we definitely have to take action.
"What our police and other authorities have done is acceptable worldwide. They have been very cautious before taking action.
"But public freedom does not mean chaos. Even the US government will not allow this to happen in America," he said, adding that the US government clearly did not understand the situation in Malaysia.
On the US human rights report, Syed Hamid said, "The US writes reports on every country because they think they are the superpower." He took a dig at the US' own human rights record, as it has unilaterally detained thousands of people without trial in Guantanamo Bay.
US soldiers have also been found to have murdered and tortured hundreds of people in the detention camp and in Iraq, he charged.
"We should not over-react to US comments because they themselves have a lot of things in their backyard. They should try to settle their own problems and not interfere."
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has denied the charge of ethnic cleansing levelled by Hindraf that alleged that 35,000 Hindu temples have been destroyed by the Malaysian authorities since the independence in 1957.
Pakistan warns of strong response to N-weapons seizure bid
Islamabad: Pakistan's military has warned that it will resist any international attempt to seize its nuclear arsenal, as the country successfully test-fired the nuclear-capable Hatf-VII Babur cruise missile.
"No responsible state in the world will contemplate such an impossible operation," a statement released by Gen. Tariq Majeed, chairman of Pakistan's joint chiefs of staff, said.
"Yet, if someone did create such a scenario, Pakistan will meet the challenge strongly," he said.
The Bush administration has reportedly been drafting contingency plans to secure the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan if President Pervez Musharraf's government collapsed amid the ongoing political crisis or Muslim terrorist groups based here seized power.
Options under consideration include sending in US military units to forcibly find and remove the estimated 50 nuclear warheads in Pakistan's possession, or assisting the country's military in moving the weapons to safe locations inside or outside the country.
Majeed asserted that such contingency plans were unnecessary.
"Pakistan's nuclear assets are very safe and secure, and there is a very strong security system in place which can ward off all threats, internal as well as external," he said.
The New York Times had reported last month that the US was assisting Pakistan in securing its nuclear weapons through a classified $100 million programme.
The programme includes supplying helicopters, night vision goggles, and nuclear detection equipment to help the Pakistani military secure its nuclear material, warheads and laboratories, the newspaper reported.
Russia withdraws from key arms restraint treaty
Moscow: Russia has suspended participation in a key Cold War treaty limiting armed forces in Europe amid mounting East-West security tensions.
Russia has suspended all activities towards observing the treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) since the midnight of Dec. 12, The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
"This step has been prompted by exceptional circumstances related to the CFE's contents, which concern Russia's security and require urgent measures," the ministry said.
The treaty was a vital part of Cold War arms-restraint agreements signed between 16 NATO members and six former Warsaw Pact nations in 1990, but Russia is the only state to have signed an amended draft of the document since the strategic upheaval accompanying the fall of the Soviet Union.
In a statement issued by NATO's headquarters in Brussels, the western military alliance expressed "deep regret" over Russia's decision to unilaterally "suspend" implementation of its CFE obligations.
"This is particularly disappointing because ... (NATO) allies have worked intensively with other Treaty partners over the past months to try to resolve the Russian Federation's concerns constructively," NATO said.
NATO reaffirmed its right to "take any steps provided for by the treaty and international law", and at the same time insisted that it still wanted to "resolve the current impasse and preserve the benefits" of the treaty.
European officials pressed Russia not to abstain from the treaty, saying it could lead to a disintegration of the network of Cold War security treaties and a new arms race.
Russian army chief of General Staff Yury Baluyevsky said last month that Russia was ready to negotiate, but would not be bothered if the treaty "altogether disappeared".

Are Americans really 'Better than That?
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
Ray McGovern: Are Americans really 'Better than That?' (commondream
Posted by: "Romi Elnagar" luesapphire48@yahoo.com">bluesapphire48@yahoo.com bluesapphire48
Wed Dec 12, 2007 7:21 pm (PST)
http://www.commondr eams.org/ archive/2007/ 12/12/5794/
Are Americans Really ¡®Better Than That?¡¯ by Ray McGovern
A boyish, inquisitive face with an innocent look peered out from the Washington Post¡¯s lead story yesterday on torture. It was well groomed, pink-shirted John Kiriakou, a CIA interrogator who could just as easily pass for the local youth minister.
The report by the Post¡¯s Joby Warrick and Dan Eggen, which describes Kiriakou¡¯s experience in interrogating suspected terrorists, raises in an unusually direct way an abiding question: Should the United States of America be using forms of torture dating back to the Spanish Inquisition?
Nowhere is the mood of that infamous period better portrayed than in the famous Grand Inquisitor chapter of Dostoyevsky¡¯s Brothers Karamazov . Dostoevsky was unusually gifted at plumbing the human heart. While it has been 127 years since he wrote Brothers Karamazov , he nonetheless captures the trap into which so many Americans have fallen in forfeiting freedom through fear. His portrayal of Inquisition reality brings us to the brink of the moral precipice on which our country teeters today. It is as though he knew what would be in store for us as fear was artificially stoked after the attacks of 9/11.
In the story, Dostoevsky¡¯s Grand Inquisitor (the Cardinal of Seville) ridicules Christ for imposing on humans the heavy burden of freedom of conscience, and explains how it is far better, for all concerned, to dull that conscience and to rule by deceit, violence, and fear:
¡°Didst thou forget that man prefers peace, and even death, to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil?¡­We teach them that it¡¯s not the free judgment of their hearts, but mystery which they must follow blindly, even against their conscience¡­. In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet [and] become obedient¡­We shall tell them that we are Thy servants and rule them in Thy name¡­. we shall be forced to lie¡­. We shall tell them that every sin will be expiated if it is done with our permission.¡±
The Grand Inquisitor, in Brothers Karamazov
Kiriakou was one of the first interrogators to interview suspected terrorist Abu Zubayda in a Pakistani military hospital, where Zubayda was recovering from wounds suffered during his capture in early 2002. When he refused to provide information about al-Qaeda¡¯s infrastructure, he was flown to a secret CIA prison where, according to Kiriakou, the interrogation team strapped Abu Zubayda to a board, wrapped his nose and mouth in cellophane, and forced water into his throat. In just 35 seconds, viola! Abu Zubayda starting talking. That is called waterboarding.
The 15 & 16 Century Spanish inquisitors were not squeamish, and had little need for circumlocutions or euphemisms like ¡°alternative set of procedures¡± that are part of President George W. Bush¡¯s lexicon. The Spanish called this procedure, quite plainly, ¡°tortura del agua.¡± Lacking cellophane, they inserted a cloth into the victim¡¯s mouth, forcing the victim to ingest water spilled from a jar starting the drowning process. Four centuries later, the Gestapo put out several technically improved releases of this operating system of torture, so to speak.
Quick; someone please tell newly confirmed Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who told reporters yesterday he still cannot decide whether waterboarding is torture.
Abu Zubayda: Poster Child
The information from John Kiriakou confirms what has long been a no-brainer but not definitively established before; namely, that President George W. Bush¡¯s ¡°alternative set of procedures¡± for interrogation by C.I.A. includes waterboarding. Zubayda was given pride of place in George W. Bush¡¯s remarkable speech of Sept. 6, 2006, in which he bragged about the effectiveness of such procedures and appealed successfully for passage of the Military Commissions Act. That law allows a president to define what set of interrogation procedures can be used by the C.I.A. This is Bush on Sept. 6, 2006:
We believe that Zubayda was a senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden¡­[and that] he had run a terrorist camp in Afghanistan where some of the 9/11 hijackers trained¡­We knew that Zubayda had more information that could save innocent lives, but he stopped talking¡­And so the CIA used an alternative set of procedures¡­The Department of Justice reviewed the authorized methods extensively and determined them to be lawful¡­. But I can say the procedures were tough, and they were safe, and lawful, and necessary.
Zubayda was questioned using these procedures, and soon he began to provide information on key al-Qaeda operatives, including information that helped us find and capture more of those responsible for the attacks on September the 11th. For example, Zubayda identified one of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed¡¯s accomplices in the 9/11 attacks ¡ª a terrorist named Ramzi bin al Shibh. The information Zubayda provided helped lead to the capture of bin al Shibh. And together these two terrorists provided information that helped in the planning and execution of the operation that captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Bush claimed that his interrogation program had saved lives, and Kiriakou says the use of waterboarding ¡°probably saved lives.¡± We cannot know for sure if this is true. Off-the-record interviews with intelligence officials strongly suggest that there is much prevarication and exaggeration in president¡¯s claims about lives saved and operations disrupted, and that the his assertions merit no more credulity than other claims-for example, that Iran¡¯s nuclear weapons program poses a threat to the U.S., even though it has been stopped for four years.
Other U.S. intelligence officials take issue with the C.I.A.¡¯s version of the questioning of Zubayda. Some say that initially he was cooperating with F.B.I. interrogators using a nonconfrontational approach, when C.I.A . assumed control and opted for more aggressive tactics. After that experience, the F.B.I. reportedly warned its agents to avoid interrogation sessions at which harsh methods were used.
As for credibility, never has a U.S. president¡¯s word been so cheapened as it is today. In late July 2007, we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity joined with Justin Frank, MD, psychiatrist, professor at George Washington University Hospital, and author of ¡°Bush on the Couch,¡± to search for insight on how President Bush thinks. See ¡°Dangers of a Cornered Bush,¡±from which we excerpt the following:
His pathology is a patchwork of false beliefs and incomplete information woven into what he asserts is the whole truth¡­He lies-not just to us, but to himself as well¡­What makes lying so easy for Bush is his contempt-for language, for law, and for anybody who dares question him¡­. So his words mean nothing. That is very important for people to understand.
This Is Oversight?
The past few weeks have witnessed an unseemly square dance in Congress, highlighting conflicting claims about what those who are supposed to be overseeing the intelligence community knew and when they knew it-about torture, about Iran, about many things. It is nothing short of an insult to the Founders that members of the House and Senate can find nothing more useful to do than wring their hands over their largely self-inflicted powerlessness.
Lawmakers have been so thoroughly intimidated by the White House that I get physically ill watching the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Jane Harman, Bob Graham, and Jay Rockefeller moan about how secretive and nasty the Bush administration has been. Harman complained recently that when she was ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee some of the material (on interrogations) was so highly classified that she had to take a ¡°second oath¡± to protect it.
What about the solemn oath they all take to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic? Should not that oath transcend and govern others that an administration might require for access to secret materials?
Senator Dick Durbin of the Senate Intelligence Committee has complained that he was aware that classified information did not justify the conclusion in 2002 that Iraq had unconventional weapons, but he could not say anything because it was classified! Durbin explained:
¡­We¡¯re duty-bound once we enter that room to respect classified information. Everything you hear is supposed to stay in the room¡­I certainly had enough to know that the statements that were made about mushroom clouds were not the conclusions of someone in the administration who was really being honest about the full debate. But you really know, walking in the room, what the rules of the game will be.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has admitted knowing for several years about the Bush administration¡¯ s eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant. She was briefed on it when she was ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee when Bush and Cheney took office. One key unanswered question is this: Was she told that within days of their taking office-that is, seven months before 9/11, the National Security Agency¡¯s electronic vacuum cleaner had already begun to suck up information on Americans-the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, not to mention the Constitution, be damned?
In a Washington Post op-ed of Jan. 15, 2006, Pelosi proudly advertised her uniquely long tenure on the Intelligence Committee and acknowledged that she was one of the privileged handful of lawmakers who were briefed. ¡°This is how I came to be informed of President Bush¡¯s authorization for the NSA to conduct certain types of surveillance.¡± She then proceeded to demonstrate the bowing and scraping characteristic of her subservient attitude toward the Executive Branch:
¡°But when the administration notifies Congress in this manner, it is not seeking approval. There is a clear expectation that the information will be shared by no one, including other members of the intelligence committees. As a result, only a few members of Congress were aware of the president¡¯s surveillance program, and they were constrained from discussing it more widely.¡±
And so too, may we assume, with respect to torture? This is oversight?
Neutered Watchdogs: Rockefeller and Reyes
What can we expect from the current Senate and House oversight chairmen regarding the recently disclosed, deliberate destruction of two tapes of harsh interrogations of Abu Zubayda and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri? (Al-Nashiri is thought to have played a role in the attack on the USS Cole.) On the Senate side, expect nothing of Mr. Milquetoast Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who, it is said, is so afraid of his own shadow that he only ventures outdoors at night or in bad weather.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes has a different kind of problem, and should recuse himself. He has been fawning all over Jos¨¦ Rodriguez, the former CIA Deputy Director of Operations who ordered the tapes destroyed.
On August 16, 2007 Congressman Reyes told a conference in El Paso he considered Rodriguez ¡°an American hero,¡± proudly adding that, ¡°with a few liberties that Hollywood takes, the exploits of Jos¨¦ Rodriguez are documented in the FOX TV series ¡°24.¡± I am told that almost every episode of ¡°24¡å includes at least one scene glorifying torture, usually with lead man Jack Bauer playing a main role. Reyes made it clear he is a big fan of Bauer and ¡°24.¡±
Were that not enough, after Rodriguez¡¯ role in destroying the interrogation tapes became public, Reyes immediately cautioned against allowing investigations to find just one ¡°scapegoat¡± (no secret to whom he was referring). And so, unless Reyes does recuse himself, look for a ¡°complete and thorough¡± investigation of the kind favored by the Nixon White House. (Just when you may have thought it could not get any worse!)
Torture as Technique: Stark Differences in View
On Sept. 6, 2006, the very day Bush bragged about his ¡°alternative set of procedures for interrogation¡± and appealed for legislation allowing the C.I.A. to continue using them, the head of Army intelligence, Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, took a very different tack. Conducting a Pentagon briefing shortly before the president gave his own speech, Kimmons underscored the fact that the revised Army manual for interrogation is in sync with the Geneva treaties. Then, conceding past ¡°transgressions and mistakes,¡± Kimmons updated something I learned 45 years ago as a second lieutenant in Army intelligence:
¡°No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years, hard years, tells us that.¡±
Grabbing the headlines the following day, was Bush¡¯s admission that the CIA has taken ¡°high-value¡± captives to prisons abroad for interrogation using ¡°tough¡± techniques prohibited by the revised Army field manual-and by Geneva, for that matter. Gen. Kimmons displayed uncommon courage in facing into that wind.
How About- Stop Torture Because It¡¯s Wrong?
Have you noticed the shameful silence of our institutional churches, synagogues, and mosques? True, on occasion a professor of moral theology will speak out. Professor William Schweiker of the Chicago Divinity School, for example, has heaped scorn on the scenario of the lone knower of the facts whose torture is thought to be able to save millions of lives. He notes that such is ¡°the stuff of bad spy movies and bad exam questions in ethics courses.¡± Schweiker warns Christians, in particular:
¡°Not to fall prey to fear and questionable reasoning and this continue to support an unjust and vile practice that demeans the nation¡¯s highest political and moral ideals, even as it desecrates one of the most important practices and symbols (Baptism) of the Christian faith.¡±
http://marty- center.uchicago. edu/sightings/ archive_2007/ 1129.shtml
And, to its credit, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, a coalition of 130 religious organizations from left to right on the political spectrum, yesterday issued a strong call for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the C.I.A.¡¯s destruction of the videotapes of harsh interrogation techniques. NRCAT¡¯s founder, Princeton Theological Seminary professor George Hunsinger told the press that ¡°to acknowledge that waterboarding is torture is like conceding that the sun rises in the east,¡± adding:
¡°All the dissembling in high places that makes these shocking abuses possible must be brought to an end. But they will undoubtedly continue unless those responsible for them are held accountable. Clearly a joint probe by the Justice Department and the CIA ¡ª agencies that are both seriously compromised ¡ª is not enough. A special counsel is an essential first step.¡±
But where are the official voices of the institutional churches, synagogues, and mosques in this country. In effect, they are ordaining Jack Bauer with their silence.
This Happened Before
With very few exceptions, the institutional churches in Nazi Germany kept a shameful silence, denying believers the moral authority and leadership so needed to stand up to Gestapo torturers. Indeed, many of the bishops-like military leaders, and jurists-swore a personal oath to Hitler. For his part, the Nazi leader moved quite quickly to ensure that there was a pastor-whether Evangelical or Catholic-in every parish in Germany. He saw this as a source of support and stability for his regime. And, sadly, it was.
While the Nazis were systematically torturing and even murdering defenseless victims, they kept repeating assurances that not a single hair of anyone¡¯s head would be harmed. (Shades of the familiar refrain ¡°we do not torture.¡±) And the propaganda machine under Joseph Goebbels made a fine art of what President Bush calls the need to ¡°catapult the propaganda.¡±
Sebastian Haffner, a young German lawyer in Berlin during the thirties kept a journal that his children subsequently published in book form as ¡°Defying Hitler.¡± His fascinating account of Germany in the thirties provides many thoughtful insights into prevailing attitudes and the lack of moral leadership. Haffner¡¯s journal depicted the kind of ambiance in which the approach of the Grand Inquisitor would, and did, flourish -¡±in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet [and] become obedient:¡±
¡°The weather in March 1933 was glorious. Was it not wonderful to¡­merge with festive crowds and listen to speeches about freedom and homeland? (It was certainly better than having one¡¯s belly pumped up with a water hose in some hidden secret police cellar.)¡±
Breeding and Breakdown
Haffner closes his chapter on 1933 with observations that, in my view, apply much too aptly to America today:
¡°The sequence of events is, as you see, not so unnatural. It is wholly within the normal range of psychology, and it helps to explain the almost inexplicable. The only thing that is missing is what in animals is called ¡®breeding.¡¯ This is a solid inner kernel that cannot be shaken by external pressures and forces, something noble and steely, a reserve of pride, principle, and dignity to be drawn on in the hour of trial. It is missing in Germans. As a nation we are soft, unreliable, and without backbone. That was shown in March 1933. At the moment of truth, when other nations rise spontaneously to the occasion, the Germans collectively and limply collapsed. They yielded and capitulated, and suffered a nervous breakdown.¡±
C.I.A.¡¯s John Kiriakou says he is now convinced that waterboarding is torture and he is against it. He adds, ¡°Americans are better than that.¡±
But Are We Better Than That?
Sadly, that remains to be seen. With virtually all religious institutions, politicians, and educators all squandering what moral authority they have left, the Jack Bauer culture threatens to win out in the end. We cannot let that happen.
The upcoming duel on the missing interrogation tapes will again bring the issue of torture front and center. And, strangely, waterboarding and other Jack Bauer tradecraft tools still enjoy a strong constituency.
Here¡¯s where we come in; for we are the ones we¡¯ve been waiting for. As one of my intelligence alumni colleagues noted recently, this is about our country losing its soul. Let¡¯s rise to the occasion and stop unconscionable policies like torture. True patriotism goes well beyond a flag-on-the- lapel. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. noted, ¡°Sometimes you have to put your body into it.¡± Besides, we need to keep the water hose from pumping up our bellies and those of our loved ones. I only wish that were as remote a possibility as it was before President Bush and his associates came up with their ¡°alternative set of procedures.¡±
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He was an Army officer and then a C.I.A. analyst for 27 years, and now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
This article appeared first on Consortiumnews. com.

Hamas is a truth on the ground.
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

From: lekha

Hamas is here to stay
Post-Annapolis, those interested in resolving the conflict have no option but to knock on its door
A Good Comment
By Azzam Tamimi
(Dr Azzam Tamimi is the director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought (IIPT), London. He has been visiting professor at Kyoto University (2004) and Nagoya University (2006). He has published several books, the most recent of which was on Islam and democracy, Rachid Ghannouchi, Democrat within Islamism (Oxford University Press, New York, 2001))
The Guardian
"......The reality is that Annapolis has primarily been about two things; first, maintaining the sanctions against the Gaza Strip and increasing the pressure on Hamas; and second, re-launching the Road Map, which had long been dead and buried.....
Few lessons seem to have been learned by those who devised the policy of sanctions. The US and Israel assume that the sanctions are working and that Hamas is losing support. Policy makers in Washington are clearly guided, or misguided, by wishful thinking and misinformation. There is no evidence whatsoever that Hamas's popularity has dwindled. To the contrary, the people of Gaza blame the crisis more on Abbas than on Hamas. The economy is indeed in bad shape in Gaza. But the strip is safer than ever before. Few people blame Hamas for shortages of food, medicine or fuel but most people are grateful for security, something which most Gazans missed when Abbas's men were in charge. The economic situation is not as bad in the West Bank. Yet, most of its inhabitants feel insecure. Scores of Palestinians are arrested every day by Israel or the PNA while thugs acting with impunity continue to have a free hand in harassing people and abusing them.
The Ramallah government is seen by many Fatah loyalists as a bunch of outsiders. An increasing number of Fatah leaders have recently been more vocal in calling for its replacement. A statement released in Ramallah by Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has gone as far as describing Fayyad's administration as a puppet government of Israel and the US.
A recent debacle by the PNA representative at the UN, who is not a Fatah member, urging the General Assembly to adopt a resolution declaring Hamas "an outlawed militia" sent many Fatah supporters wondering who the man was speaking for. There can be nothing more tarnishing to Fatah's image than the project of reform the movement is said to undertake under the supervision of Dennis Ross who is commissioned and funded by the US Congress and who has been visiting the West Bank frequently for this purpose......
Deluded by wishful thinking, the Israelis and the Americans have been wagering on the losing horse. There is only one way out of the current predicament and that is to abandon the policy of turning the PNA into another Lahad entity and seek an understanding with Hamas. The movement should be talked to without preconditions....."

# posted by Tony : 4:43 AM

Imposed Hunger in Gaza, the Army in Indonesia (counterpunch)
Posted by: "Romi Elnagar" luesapphire48@yahoo.com">bluesapphire48@yahoo.com bluesapphire48
Wed Dec 12, 2007 11:28 am (PST)
December 8 / 9, 2007
http://www.counterp unch.org/ nairn12082007. html
Questions of Logic and Activism Imposed Hunger in Gaza, the Army in Indonesia By ALLAN NAIRN
The UN World Food Program estimates that, in the wake of Israel's cutoffs,"Food imports into the Gaza Strip are only enough to meet 41 percent of demand," (paraphrase by the UN-sponsored news agency, IRIN. IRIN, Jerusalem, "Only 41 percent of Gaza's food import needs being met," 6 December 2007), ie. Gazan food intake has been cut by a shock 59 percent.
Even a small cut in food consumption can stunt or kill already hungry people, particularly infants in the brain-development stage.
The UN sponsored IRIN news service reports that "Israeli travel and trade restrictions have led to a decline in purchasing power in Gaza. A recent WFP survey found that of the 62 percent of people who said they had reduced their expenditure in recent months, 97 percent reported a decrease in spending on clothing and 93 percent on food."
IRIN cites the case of Naheda Ghabaien, "a mother of five in the Beach refugee camp in central Gaza" whose husband "used to work three or four days a week bringing home about US$10 a day" but now, post sanctions, "only works a few days a month."
At least the Ghabaien family is getting some aid, unlike so many other nutritionally threatened people around the world. Every twelve weeks, another UN agency (UNRWA) gives them "amounts of rice, flour, oil and sugar that can last for four to six weeks. The family rarely eats meat anymore, relying mostly on vegetables."
"'When the agency food runs out,'" IRIN quotes Naheda Ghabaien as saying, "we buy the food we need on credit from the grocer. When my husband works, most of his daily earnings go to settling the debt."
The news agency notes that "(a)id workers say these sorts of coping mechanisms are reaching their limits" and cannot keep yielding food for Gaza's straitened people much longer.
Israel's government says that its sanctions are legal -- ie. are not a disproportionate reprisal, which is a war crime -- so it is logically saying that these food and other cutoffs are not worse than the Gazan rocketing of Israel.
So, if that is the case, Israel should be willing to agree to a simple switch: Gaza gets the power and right to effectively cut off 59% of Israel's food (as well as being able to shut its electricity, fuel, communications, medical supplies, travel rights, airspace etc.), and Israel gets the right to rocket Gaza as Gaza has rocketed Israel, ie. in a manner that has killed Israeli civilians at the rate of roughly one every four months.
Would the Israeli government agree to this bargain that is strictly based on its own legal logic?
Of course not. They'd be foolish if they did. They already bomb and shell Gaza, and other places, at will, killing Palestinan and Arab civilians at roughly the rate of ten for each Israeli civilian (for statistics within the Occupied Territories, see the Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, http://www.btselem. org), and if anyone were to cut more than half of Israel's food, as Israel is now doing to Gaza, that place would immediately be leveled by Israel, and/or the United States.
As in so many other cases, power, not a power-wielder' s own legal logic, prevails.
In Indonesia, a Muslim-majority country ostensibly critical of Israel -- but whose killer armed forces have discreetly taken Israeli aid -- the President, Gen. Susilo, is in the process of appointing his country's army commander as the overall armed forces chief, even though it is not the army's turn in the supposed rotation.
Reuters, Jakarta (November 28, 2007) calls it "a move some observers say will ensure [Susilo] the support of the powerful military in the run-up to 2009 elections" (also see AFP, Jakarta, December 6, 2007, which draws the same conclusion) which is required since, as political Jakarta knows, no one wins and governs without the army.
The twist is that, a few years ago, when Indonesia started putting in non-army men (ie. air force and navy men) as armed forces commanders, this was hailed as progress and reform by the regime's academic and political apologists.
Their somewhat self-incriminating argument was that since most civilian killings were done by the army (which is true), things would be better with the navy (that helped abduct many tens of thousands in post-'99-vote Timor, and this year did a massacre in Java [see posting of November 13, 2007, "Vomiting to Death on a Plane. Arsenic Democracy."] ) or the air force (that bombed Timor and Aceh) in charge.
If they believed their own logic they should now say that this appointment of an army man is a regression, a conclusion unlikely to be drawn, since the US Congress is just now deciding just how many millions they are going to give these very armed forces.
In fact, the State Department this week was putting out urgent queries around Washington that make it sound as if they are planning to openly aid Kopassus, the most notoriously sadistic army unit, and, historically, the most heavily US-trained one.
(Gen. Prabowo, the most notorious of all Kopassus commanders -- and that is saying a lot -- did his training at Fort Benning and Fort Bragg, among other places, and, his murderous record notwithstanding, was once cited in a US Embassy memo as an example of the success of US training, specifically the IMET [International Military Education and Training] program. Prabowo once complained to an American that all this had been a mixed blessing for him since, he said, some other Indonesian generals made fun of him because he spoke English so well; he said they called him "The American").
The phone number of the US Congress is 202-224-3121, the members of the deciding Conference Committee are listed below, and the East Timor & Indonesia Action Network, ETAN (http://etan. org/) has documented background information and action suggestions, as a starting point.
Activism actually beat the US Executive (under presidents Bush I and Clinton) and, through military aid cutoffs forced via Congress, helped to bring down Suharto and free occupied Timor.
(Suharto's old security chief, Adm. Sudomo once told me that Suharto fell because they failed to open fire early and thoroughly on the Jakarta student demonstrators, because they feared further US aid cutoffs, as were imposed after the '91 Dili, Timor massacre. As I left his vast cement-bunker house, adorned with pictures of him and the US golfer, Arnold Palmer, I realized that he probably hadn't paid attention to who he was telling this story to, since on the way out he gave me a book that condemned me for my actions at Dili, and after.)
Those activist victories were possible in part because Indonesia was not a Washington priority. It was handled mainly by middle-level bureaucrats. The big boys were busy with other killer forces. Likewise, our entire fierce nine-year Congressional aid-cut struggle was ignored by the US corporate media, which was in a way frustrating, but in another way perhaps good, since that may have delayed the counter-mobilizatio n by Jakarta, US corporations, and the US diplomatic/ military/ intelligence establishment that didn't get serious until 1994 with the launching of the US-Indonesia Society lobby group (in which Gen. Prabowo had a hand), and other initiatives.
Israel/ Palestine is an entirely different matter, top of the government, media, and counter-mobilizatio n lists. Efforts to change that policy cannot hope to steal a march under the political radar. But the distinguished -- and therefore, often vilified -- scholar of the matter, Norman G. Finkelstein (highly praised by the most serious figures, eg. Raul Hilberg, Avi Shlaim, while, at the same time, lied about by others) believes that a slow shift in US opinion is underway, starting, interestingly, among younger US Jews.
Power is one thing. Fact and logic are another. They should not be confused.
The sooner people at our end, the trigger-end, honestly open their eyes and simply see, the sooner people at the exit-end -- where the bullets and food-cuts come out -- will stop having their own eyes forcibly and permanently closed by death.
Allan Nairn's blog, News and Comment, is at http://www.newsc. blogspot. com/
Backlash (al-Ahram)
Posted by: "Romi Elnagar" luesapphire48@yahoo.com">bluesapphire48@yahoo.com bluesapphire48
Wed Dec 12, 2007 7:22 pm (PST)
http://weekly. ahram.org. eg/2007/874/ fr1.htm
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Click to view caption Young Palestinian relatives of Hamas militant Eyad Aziz grieve during his funeral. Yesterday dawn, two Palestinians were killed and four injured as Israeli tanks fired shells towards a group of Hamas militants on the outskirts of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip. Since the meeting in Annapolis, 22 Palestinians had been killed during Israeli attacks on the occupied territories
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The real goal of Annapolis
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Anyone following the commentary filling Palestinian newspapers funded by the Salam Fayyad government can hardly fail to have missed the change in the direction espoused by these papers -- which typically promote the views of the Palestinian Authority (PA) -- since the Annapolis meeting.
The majority of columnists and opinion writers are now warning Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas against accepting American- Israeli proposals that will deepen rifts in Palestine's body politic. Writers and members of the elite connected to the PA who previously defended the attendance of the leadership at the meeting with enthusiasm now express embarrassment over Israel's interpretation of what was agreed in Annapolis.
Statements such as that made by the Israel premier Ehud Olmert that the end of 2008 is not an obligatory date for Israel to complete negotiations with the PA, or by Olmert's deputy, Avigdor Lieberman, who said even the end of 2008 may not be an appropriate date for ending the conflict, have undermined Abbas's credibility and ruined his attempts to frame the Annapolis meeting as a Palestinian success.
Observations by Israeli human rights organisations following the Annapolis meeting further complicate the picture. They have noted that Olmert's government continues not only to encourage settlement construction but consistently fails to take action against settlers who build without permits from the Israeli army authorities.
Meanwhile, the suffering of Palestinians in the West Bank, where the Fayyad government is in charge, continues unabated. Assassinations, arrests, restrictions on movement and settler attacks against Palestinians continue at pre-Annapolis levels. More damaging to Abbas's credibility is that Israel's interpretation of what took place at Annapolis has not stopped his security forces from continuing the policy of "complementary" work, joining the Israeli army to quash resistance in the West Bank, particularly by Hamas.
Ghassan Al-Khatib, who held several ministerial positions in previous Abbas governments, says that many Palestinians now see Abbas's security agencies as playing the same as Antoine Lahad's pro-Israeli South Lebanese Army during Israel's occupation of South Lebanon.
Further diminishing the margins for manoeuvre available to Abbas and his advisors is the fact that the American administration, in order to appease Israel, has withdrawn a non-binding resolution proposal from the UN Security Council supporting the outcome of the Annapolis meeting. The withdrawal of the proposal is being interpreted as further evidence of US bias towards Israel and of Washington's inability to monitor, let alone arbitrate, the implementation of understandings reached in Annapolis.
The stresses are being felt within Fatah itself, with some of its leaders publicly speaking out against Annapolis.
Sources close to the movement told Al-Ahram Weekly that a group of leaders within Fatah is waiting for an opportunity to meet with Abu Mazen and urge him to resume dialogue with Hamas. They believe Abbas miscalculated that his hard stance against Hamas would convince Israel and Washington to grant him political gains, arguing that Israel will remain inflexible until the Palestinians unite.
There is a growing conviction among Fatah leaders, say sources, that Abbas's political life is reaching an end, speeded on by the public perception that Annapolis was an out and out failure. Many anticipate that the Palestinian president will submit his resignation, and want to see differences with Hamas settled before this happens.
Hamas itself expects that the fallout from Annapolis will be an intensification of Israeli hostility towards resistance in the Gaza Strip, with some predicting that a wide-scale Israeli military campaign will accompany a tightening of the siege.
Prominent Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya warns that the movement will adopt unprecedented ways of protesting against the continued siege. "Palestinians will not stay patient as they are slowly strangled by the siege," he told the Weekly. "We are capable of undertaking actions that will make international and regional forces realise how much they erred in supporting the siege of our people."
Nehad Al-Sheikh Khalil, a writer and researcher specialising in Palestinian domestic affairs, sees the main problem facing Abbas post- Annapolis as Olmert's return to the "non-sacred schedules" employed by former Israeli premiere Yitzhak Rabin to wriggle out of Israel's obligations under the Oslo Accords.
"Following Annapolis Palestinian public opinion is increasingly convinced that we are on the threshold of a new catastrophe [Nakba], granting legitimacy to Israeli plans for mass population transfers now that Bush has characterised Palestine as the national homeland of the Jews," he told the Weekly.
Khalil points to the growing conviction among Palestinians that a new stage in the struggle to save Jerusalem and affirm the right of return of refugees is becoming inevitable. Such a conviction, he believes, could take the form of tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees marching to the Erez crossing, which leads to Israel, to demand the implementation of Security Council Resolution 194 calling for the return of refugees and underlining their determination to return to the areas from which their families were driven.
Khalil stresses that the Annapolis meeting has served only to harm Abbas's political agenda and his rejection of the militarisation of armed resistance against the occupation at a time when even those close to him realise that its outcome will help Israel not only establish settlements as facts on the ground but also improve Tel Aviv's international standing without Israel showing any flexibility towards the Palestinians.
Widening Palestinian divisions was always one of the goals of Tel Aviv and Washington at Annapolis. Ironically, Israel's selective reading of the meeting's joint declaration of intentions may yet prompt Palestinians to heal these rifts. (see p.6)

Bush's Phoney Iran 'Threat' Exposed
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
Bush's Phoney Iran 'Threat' Exposed (Niagara Falls Reporter)
Posted by: "Romi Elnagar" luesapphire48@yahoo.com">bluesapphire48@yahoo.com bluesapphire48
Wed Dec 12, 2007 7:22 pm (PST)
BUSH'S PHONY IRAN 'THREAT' EXPOSED By Bill Gallagher DETROIT -- The stunned reaction of so many to the intelligence report that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003 frankly stuns me. President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and their legions of neoconservative warmongers use lies and deceptions so routinely, I've learned to anticipate them. The mainstream media trumpeted the assessment in a National Intelligence Estimate as a "bombshell," a "major reversal" and a "shocking development. " Where have these people been? Don't they remember the serial lies used to sell the war in Iraq? "Mushroom cloud" Condi Rice told us we had to invade Iraq to avoid nuclear annihilation. Cheney declared with sober certainty that Saddam Hussein had "reconstituted nuclear weapons." The script is predictable. Describe a doomsday scenario, scare the hell out of people and get the compliant media to serve as the echo
chamber for the inflamed, lie-laced rhetoric. CNN, determined to challenge the Fox News Channel as the "We Love War" network, already had produced a piece aimed at ramping up the propaganda for war with Iran. Originally slated to air this Wednesday on "CNN Presents," the program dubbed "We Were Warned -- Iran Goes Nuclear" was billed as a "speculative documentary" (read: fiction). The shameless shills at CNN had actors and former government officials playing the roles of government leaders discussing how to cope with the Iranian nuclear threat. The special has been postponed because, as CNN Vice President Mark Nelson told Variety, it was "based on a different set of rules and a different set of conditions," noting the NIE report "changed everything." What's changed? Bush still insists Iran remains "dangerous," especially "if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," which Iranian scientists certainly have. The executives at CNN are still
hucksters and whores. So let's go on with the show. In October -- long after learning Iran had no nuclear weapons program -- Bush was warning us that we needed to confront Iran "if you're interested in avoiding World War III." Norman Podhoretz, the neocon nut and Rudy Giuliani's foreign policy adviser, had been urging Bush to launch an attack on Iran as soon as possible -- an event Podhoretz says he and his ilk "pray every day" for. The "bad news" of the NIE had the neocons rattled for a few minutes, but they quickly spun a new set of lies to try to twist the truth, threatening their march to yet another disastrous war. Remember, all the manly men -- including Podhoretz -- who signed the Project for a New American Century's manifesto in 1999 wanted to confront Iraq and Iran with or without those nations possessing nuclear weapons. The neocon goal, which Bush dutifully pursues, is to position the United States and Israel as the only significant military
powers in the Middle East, and thus control the petroleum reserves and dominate the region economically. The "war on terror" and fabricated "threats" from Iraq and Iran are ruses to justify permanent U.S. military bases in the neighborhood. Podhoretz sees a plot and another intelligence community move to undermine Bush. "This time, the purpose is to head off the possibility that the president may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installation, " Podhoretz writes. Think Progress reports a Podhoretz rant in which he argued the "intelligence community, having been excoriated for supporting the then universal belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, is now bending over backward to counter what has up to now been a similarly universal view ... that Iran is hell-bent on developing nuclear weapons." The godfather of the neocons declared that, "having been excoriated as well for minimizing the time it would take Saddam to add nuclear weapons to
his arsenal, the intelligence community is now bending over backward to maximize the time it will take Iran to reach the same goal." Podhoretz, upon whom Bush conferred a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004, sees a conspiracy: "The intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again." Mercy me! Call in the National Guard! It's another "intelligence failure." The bastards are out to get Bush and are shaping the facts to thwart the next neocon-planned war. Cheney is a master leaker. Just ask Scooter Libby and Valerie Plame Wilson. Big Dick told Politico.com that the NIE on Iran was released because the administration wanted to be "upfront with what we know." Pure crap. Cheney would have deep-sixed the report if he'd thought he could get away with it. Later, in a lapse into honesty, Cheney admitted one reason the report was made public was because "everything leaks." Cheney and
Bush kept the NIE under wraps for as long as they could, releasing it only when they feared the anticipated leak would show they are even bigger lying sons of bitches than is recognized. Juan Cole of the University of Michigan offers a penetrating analysis on how the NIE became public. Cole is a scholar and seeker of the truth. I have interviewed him several times at his Ann Arbor home. His living room is lined with the kind of books you know Cheney and Bush would never read. Cole is a realist and he has been right on the keys issues in the Middle East as often as Podhoretz has been wrong. On his blog, Informed Comment, Cole presented this view on the release of the NIE: "My guess is that Admiral William J. Fallon, the CENTCOM commander, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, may well have cooperated with figures in the intelligence world to get the report written and some of it released, especially since Congress had mandated that
it be completed and its findings conveyed by a date certain." Fallon has reportedly said privately an attack on Iran "will not happen on my watch." Cole writes Mullen "has worried that the way the U.S. is bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq will prevent Washington from replying decisively to any other foe or crisis." Cole sees the Irish sailors skillfully outmaneuvering the vice president in alerting the world about Iran's nonexistent nuclear weapons program: "Cheney clearly was making a push for war on Iran his fall. The real puzzle is how the NIE got past his team of plumbers, which still includes convicted perjurer Scooter Libby. That's why I say there was more moxie behind the NIE, of the sort an admiral has, or better two admirals." Two years after Iran abandoned its nuclear program, Cheney proclaimed just the opposite with his typical certitude and ominous tones. Tehran was a threat to world peace, sponsoring terrorism and building a "fairly robust
nuclear program," Cheney said on the "Imus in the Morning" show on Jan. 21, 2005, a few hours before Bush's second inaugural address. In the same interview, Cheney suggested a surrogate for violence: "Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards." Cheney was doing more than thinking out loud. In September, "Newsweek" magazine reported Cheney was pressing the Israelis to launch missile strikes on Iran. According to the report, Cheney's former Middle East adviser David Wurmser told a small group that Cheney wanted to ask Israel to do the dirty work. Two-thirds of Israelis oppose an attack on Iran, a new poll shows. The Israelis, like the American people, are far more restrained than their political leaders. I would suggest that if Israel bombs Iran, special arrangements should be made
for Cheney and Podhoretz to participate. They can take on the role of Major T.J. "King" Kong, the Slim Pickens character in the film "Dr. Strangelove. " They can put on their cowboys hats and mount the bombs they love, riding them to glory and oblivion. But, silly me, I should know desiccated chickenhawks like Cheney and Podhoretz never get their own vile feathers ruffled.
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Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is gallaghernewsman@ sbcglobal. net. Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsrep orter.com Dec. 11 2007
http://www.niagaraf allsreporter. com/gallagher344 .html

Dalit Women in Leadership and Problems of Dalit Mobilisation
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
Tumkur Dalit panchayats are highly replicable, thus , I have been writing all these days. Even a Marxist minister like Anil Sarkar was thrilled when I reported him Tumkur Experiment on his mobile phone. Mind you, Anil sarkar is the architect of CPIM`s dalit Agenda. He is the only Marxist leader who not only supports Mayawati`s social engineering but also wrote poems on her. He is also the only Marxist leader in India who recognises the nationality problems in North east and also supprts Assam Tribals demanding reservation. Anil Sarkar sets his political agenda with dalit resurgence. He spoke that this south Indian experiment has to be considered well by National dalit movement. Meanwhile, I talked to dalit and Human rights activists accross the country and abroad. I got lots of feedback and mails, phone calls. I am amazed to see so many NGOs and orgs working for dalit, subaltern and tribal welfare as well as mobilisation. i talked to both factions of BAMCEF, janadesh leadership and others. But it is quite disheartening that we haven`t been able to get a breakthrough to mobilise a real national dalit movement. Contrarily, Black untouchable antiimperialism resistance forum seems to be much more viable. It is perhaps because of the interference of polity and politics which help to continue the Caste hindu Manusmriti Dominance and the politics of resistance is also translated into the powergame of dominance by Ruling Hegemony!
Jyothi and Raj wrote books like Dalitology, Dalit Think, Cosmology and Dalitocracy to do the fundamental work of Theory and then translated the theory into work with solid base of Dalit Panchayat centred around Bhooshakti Kendra. The most excellent work of dalit Panchayat is empowerment of Dalit Women. Internal governance as well as particiaption in national polity depends on this very base. Friends do recognise this, it is true. But unfortunately most of us refuse to go back to roots. dalit legacy has indigenous socila cultural infrastructure. We have to just readjust a little bit this structure to replicate dalit panchayat. for Example, the Matusa in Bengal have their own grassroot network of Harichand Guruchand sabha. We discussed this point with them. They were enthusiastic. But as the Left rulers are facing stiff resistance in Nandigaram and Singur, as Left has to subvert the Dalit Muslim Insurrection, Dalits as well as minorities are managed well by ruling Hegemony. Marxist Sun Shine in nandigram has exposed the Genocide culture of the Ruling class as well as the regemented gestapo. thus , the dalits in general, dare not to go against the Ruling Hegemony. That`s why, despite the fact that no castehindu human being has been killed in nandigaram and all victims belong to dalit and minority communities- SC and ST communities as well as minorities align with the ruling Caste Hindu marxists.
More over, opposing CPIM in Bengal means deportation as hundreds of anti CPIM dali refugees have been arrested branded as bangladeshi nationals.
Dalit Bengali refugees resettled elsewhere, as in Orissa, Maharashtra, Assam, Delhi, Rajsthan, Bihar, UP, MP, Chhattisgargh and Uttaranchal are deprived of citizenship, reservation, mothertongue and all human and civil rights. Dalits and tribals do not befriend them. Thus, discussions on dalit Panchayat in those refugee areas also seem to be remote possibility.
Like Matua, dalits have other traditional bases to begin with.
Bamcef showed interest. But it has not the will. janadesh is also a little bit politicalised.
I am a amazed to relise the detached reaction of rest of the country except Jharkhnad on Assam Tribal Genocide. Dalit org and Tribal leadership seemed mute. Why?
Like the mainstream ruling Hegemony, the dalit leadership is also uninterested to address nationality problems. As we see the reverse in tamilnadu. They identify themselves as nationality but never as the most significant part of dalit Legacy.
Despite all our hard work, genuine concerns, commitment and activism we happen to be isolated islands. Thus, the enslavement is predestined and has to continue!
May we not break the Status quo?
"73 Amendment to the constitution of India has created a legitimate political space from women to establish governance at the grassroots for the purpose of achieving economic development and administering social justice. Occupying the space by the rustic women folk is not an easy task though it is legitimate for them. This work focuses its attention on the process of recruitment of the women to the various Panchayat positions. It seeks to analyse the pattern of their emergence. This study captures the bases of power that operates at the micro level. The whole analysis is based on the scientific application of positional, reputational and decision-making approaches and the integration of all the three approaches."
"The subject of Dalit Identity has of late developed into a new area of research. Today, scholars approach this subject with much more sophistication than what they used to do about two decades back. This project marks a welcome recognition of the achievements registered by Dalits in various spheres of life despite the adverse circumstances they were placed in. Glearing examples in the respect are those of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Babu Jagjivan Ram and K.R. Narayanan who played commemorable roles in various fields, particularly in the fields of framing of the constitution of India, fighting for the country’s emancipation and securing of social justice for the depressed classes respectively. A part from the Dalit leaders of the past, the project also focusses on the contribution made by present day leaders like Kashi Ram, Mayawati, Ram Vilas Paswan, Meera Kumar, Surajbhan, Ajit Jogi and so on.
"This project covers a wide variety of themes ranging from the caste system in India to the spread of Buddhism to the biographical speeches of some of the eminent Dalit leaders. This project would go a longway in establishing the identity of the Dalits on a firm footing and in evadicating the notion that the Dalits occupy an inferior position in society. This project would prove to be of immense use to researchers as well as laymen."

Children burnt alive by mother in Madhya Pradesh
Bhopal: Three children have been killed by their parents in two separate incidents in Madhya Pradesh, police officials said Thursday.
A woman, Malti, Wednesday burned alive her six-month-old son Abhishek and daughter Saloni aged two on a stove at their home in Harda district's Dwip Kala village.
"She has been arrested from a nearby forest where she was hiding behind the bushes," Harda police superintendent Akhilesh Kumar Jain said.
Malti told the police that she took the extreme step because her husband did not pay any attention to the family and she was unable to feed the children.
In another case, Prem Singh Kewat, a resident of Pipariya town in Hoshangabad district, Wednesday threw his nine-month-old son Lakhan and two-year-old daughter Rachna on a railway track because he believed they were borne out of his wife's illicit relationship.
While Lakhan died on the spot, Rachna sustained injuries and is undergoing treatment at a local hospital.
DALITS WOMEN AND CHILDREN’S RIGHTS AMONG THE BACKWARD CLASSES

Brief description
DALITS WOMEN AND CHILDREN’S RIGHTS AMONG THE BACKWARD CLASSES
Vision, Objectives and Goals
• To promote the Dalit Women to be paid just wages in the semi-bonded labour
• To eradicate the practice of Yogini (temple prostitution), and child marriage cum prostitution which still exist in the villages, ability to voice to be heard in court incase injustice done them.
• Alienate the child labour. Thus claim the right of opportunity, right of being heard in the court, right of being educated, right of equal treatment in rural community ,
• To radicate the concept of untouchability village thus empowering the Dalits community in preference to women and in conscientizing the community for empowering women in the society where a male dominated society reigns supreme/prevails especially among backward communities called as dalits
• Rural dwellers in India are belied and bluffed and made used of by the landlords and local politicians and other money lenders. So whatever, they produce are grabbed indirectly by these greedy middle-men. Further, when rural folks take loans they are given with very high interest which they cannot repay even during their life-time
Transferability
Women and Children's right can be applicable in any part of the world
•To promote the Dalit Women to be paid just wages in the semi-bonded labour
• To eradicate the practice of Yogini (temple prostitution), and child marriage cum prostitution which still exist in the villages, ability to voice to be heard in court incase injustice done them.
• Alienate the child labour. Thus claim the right of opportunity, right of being heard in the court, right of being educated, right of equal treatment in rural community ,
• To radicate the concept of untouchability village thus empowering the Dalits community in preference to women and in conscientizing the community for empowering women in the society where a male dominated society reigns supreme/prevails especially among backward communities called as dalits
• Rural dwellers in India are belied and bluffed and made used of by the landlords and local politicians and other money lenders. So whatever, they produce are grabbed indirectly by these greedy middle-men. Further, when rural folks take loans they are given with very high interest which they cannot repay even during their life-time
Project summary
The need of the proposed project to the suffering Dalit (Scheduled Caste or the backward classes) beneficiaries is very high, who are living below the poverty line and taken advantage of. This programme will help to promote to improve and better life situation in general among the Dalits. It paves the way for all “PEACE, JUSTICE and man power is the strength of a growing Nation even at macro-level” and for its eradication of unjust society that exists in every level of our Indian society. It is hoped that after your kind in-favour consideration we shall furnish with legal documents which for your kind inquiry into our matter in the project application
The Dalit question

S. VISWANATHAN
DALITH PIRACHINAI MUNNOKKIA PATHAI: D. Raja; Translated from the English original Dalit Question —The Way Forward by N. Muthumogan; New Century Book House (P) Limited, 41-B, SIDCO Industrial Estate, Ambathur, Chennai-600098. Rs. 35.
THE DALIT question is perhaps as old as Hindu society. It has its origin in the birth-based, graded caste system that was put in place thousands of years ago. The system, sanctified by Vedic texts, divided the society into four caste-class groups (Chathurvarnas). A section of the society was excluded from this stratification to do odd jobs for the others. These segregated people are the Dalits. They have been discriminated against, denied access to education, natural resources, public facilities and places of worship, forced to work free or for low wages under degrading conditions, and subjected to social oppression and economic exploitation. Besides they have to face brutal attacks, physical and verbal, their women are raped and their houses burnt, by the people of higher castes often with state connivance.
Historians, sociologists and political thinkers across the globe have studied the plight of these victims of prejudice and its implications for the society at large. Raja looks at Dalit issues from a Marxist perspective. He shows how the social, national, and working class movements could not do much to end social oppression and economic inequality. The deep divide in society, he notes, has only helped the landlord-bourgeoisie classes to continue their exploitation. He agrees with B.R. Ambedkar’s perception that a classless society is impossible without a casteless society and stresses the need to intensify class struggles of the toiling people “in a comprehensive way” against both social oppression and economic discrimination. Translated by Muthumohan the booklet is eminently readable.
http://www.hindu.com/br/2007/11/27/stories/2007112750041400.htm
Dalit women: embodying peace
Written by Jyothi Raj
Tuesday, 25 September 2007
Overcoming the label ‘untouchable', India's Dalit women are proving themselves models of peace. Story by Jyothi Raj.
Despite the violations heaped on them, Dalit women - dismissed by some as ‘untouchable' - have contributed greatly to peace building in India. They have been able to live with peace and harmony in their homes, communities, villages and workplaces and in society at large, standing up to onslaughts by dominant forces, energising and strengthening their families and communities.
Despite the violations heaped on them, Dalit women - dismissed by some as ‘untouchable' - have contributed greatly to peace building in India. They have been able to live with peace and harmony in their homes, communities, villages and workplaces and in society at large, standing up to onslaughts by dominant forces, energising and strengthening their families and communities.
A Dalit woman's world gives her strength to transcend selfishness. As discrimination in the name of caste, class, gender and race go on, Dalit women want to promote peace and reconciliation. For centuries, Dalit have been victimised by majority groups, who took their land and gave them humiliating labels, including unseeables and untouchables.
A culture of violent gods and goddesses was used to destroy their Indigenous internal governing system, appropriating their peaceful culture and civilisation. The caste system established systematic inequality, most manifest in the practice of untouchability. Ideas of purity and pollution, and superiority and inferiority undermined Dalit dignity and honour.
Dalit women have not forgotten the historical injustices done them, but are guided by a desire for peace and harmony. They have developed an ability to transcend humiliations and provide unlimited space even to oppressors. Exploited, dominated, oppressed and discriminated against, they have not struck back.
Revenge is not in the Dalit dictionary, especially that of Dalit women. They may strike back in anger - to establish their dignity and peace - but not in revenge. Dalit women look at life differently than men or dominant caste women. Their life is guided by intuitive wisdom, emerging from an in-depth desire for peace and harmony.
A Dalit woman's life challenges paradigms of dominance. Her philosophy is simple, full of life, energy and celebration. This philosophy of life needs to be understood outside the context of taking space, land and the dignity and lives of women.
Due to their capacity to nurture and protect life, Dalit women are able to sustain relationships, not minding insults and humiliations whether external or within their community and family, transforming them into the energy of life. This transformation into energy spontaneously leads to a celebration of life.
Institutional violence and violence in all forms are not part of Dalit women's culture, which upholds life and cannot induce pain or cause death. Dalit women seek to settle even the most violent situation for peace. They keep their family and community together and can forgive oppressors.
Dominant religions and ideologies often encourage negative attitudes about women. But Dalit culture has always held women in respect as mothers. Of course, even some Dalit exclusion brings hatred; inclusion brings peace and minority women because they are inclusive in nature and value solidarity. Including Dalit women and other Indigenous women in government could bring prosperity for all people.
Violence takes away life to fulfil a need to establish dominant power. The ultimate goal of violence is to eliminate the life of innocent people, eliminating the dignity of women and Dalits, and establishing control over Indigenous people. Violence uses military might to destroy Indigenous cultures and civilisation.
In Dalit women's view, different cultural practices are celebrated, respected and accepted. There is no room for insulting other cultures. Dalit culture does not subjugate people.
Peace activists from Dalit communities aim to involve women from all minority and Indigenous communities in leadership. Their philiosophy upholds the dignity of all human beings and calls for a spirit of egalitarianism.
It also urges equal distribution of material and values according to one's need, access by all to resources and an end to violence, discrimination and the production of weapons of mass destruction.
According to Dalit women's philiosophy there would be no conquest, no violence, no subjugation and no appropriation of nature, no graded inequality prescribed by a caste system, no practices based on discourses of purity and pollution. Men and women would be treated equally without discrimination. Protection of women's dignity would be the prime goal
Though India is a secular country, caste laws are still influential. With Dalit women involved in leadership, the country could be governed effectively on the basis of constitutional law. Each community would have the opportunity to be internally governed, and discrimination based on differences would not be allowed. Differences would be treated equally.
The now dominant political culture could grow and develop with more empowerment of every minority community. The only choice left is to leave governance of this world in the hands of Indigenous people.
In India, more governance should go into the hands of the Dalit community and Dalit women. Let Dalit and all Indigenous women have more say in leadership, making societies inclusive for all to live with dignity and honour.
Jyothi Raj is director of Rural Education for Development Society (REDS), a Dalit rights organisation in southern India. For more information visit www.dalitreds.in
Photo: Nishant Lalwani
Dear Friends, Greetings from Delhi,

Recently Dr. Rahul Deepankar and I attended the opening session of the Second National Conference of Dalit Organizations (NACDOR) at the Constitutional Club Lawns in New Delhi. According to the organizers several hundred Dalit organizations from all over India participated; about 6,000 to 8,000 participants marched to the Indian Parliament on Dec. 5 morning. The inaugural session was from 6 to 8 pm same evening. The National Convener, Mr. Ashok Bharti, invited the lead delegates from different states to give their reports. NACDOR say they are not associated with any political party.

I wish to share my limited impression of this event just to recognize the energy and effort behind the social changes taking place in India. Paradoxically, while nobody sits on a chair before an empowered Dalit leader, Mayawati; millions of Dalits are deprived of their dignity, even basic human rights, while they struggle and suffer in misery.

The reports by the delegate leaders indicated considerable awareness and also unhappiness/ anger in the Dalit communities because of social inequality, discrimination and injustice they still face at many places in India. At the same time one could not miss the collective energy, individual assertiveness, and hope of those who spoke and attended this National Conference.

Many Dalit Muslims also participated. The lead person from Bihar, a Dalit Muslim, Mr. Usman Halalkhore (his first name from memory), spoke very passionately about the condition of Dalit Muslims. He was quite critical of the Indian Muslim leaders ("Ashraf" Muslims), who maintained, ignoring reality, that there was no caste system among Muslims and thus prevented inclusion of Dalit Muslims in the SC/OBC classification depriving them of needed reservations and support. Mr. Halalkhore enumerated several categories of Dalit Muslims in Bihar who face discrimination from fellow Muslims too, e.g. denying burial in their cemeteries, social acceptance, etc.

The details of the three day conference should be on the NACDOR website, www.nacdor.org.

Copy pasted below is informational just to indicate the purpose, scope, and the focus areas of this conference:

National Conference of Dalit Organizations (NACDOR) and Centre for Alternative Dalit Media
Vision and Voices of New Dalits
National Conference of Dalit Organizations (NACDOR) and Centre for Alternative Dalit Media will organize Second National Conference of Dalit Organizations or the NACDOR-II from 5-10 December 2007 in New Delhi. More than thousand Dalit Organizations from all over India will participate in this conference. NACDOR-II will begin with a traditional Dalit March to Parliament on 5 December, the World Dignity Day - International Day of Dalits' Struggle. About 10 thousand Dalits from different parts of India will participate in this March. The Conference will end with NACDOR's tradition of lighting 1000 lights of Dignity at India Gate on 10 December 2007.
As a prelude to this, Centre for Alternative Dalil Media and National Conference of Dalit Organizations (NACDOR) will organize Round Tables on five critical issues in New Delhi from 2 - 4 November 2007. Each will cover one specific theme and one specific issue. The five issues of Round Tables are:

Social Exclusion and Discrimination: Towards Inclusive Society
Dalits: Opportunities for Socially Responsible Organizations
Feminism: Understanding Twin Dimension of Exclusion
Dignity: Mainstreaming Dalits, Excluded and Marginalized
Governance: Right Based Model
We aim at bringing Dalit intelligentsia, progressive thinkers, researchers, ideologues and social activists to discuss and debate Dalits and their issues in the current context. Deliberations and conclusions of Round Tables would be shared with the community, civil society organisations, organisations of business and industry and of course peoples' representatives from Panchayat to Parliament. These deliberations will help us in evolving New Dalit Agenda.
We invite discussion papers from Dalit intelligentsia, independent scholars, progressive thinkers, researchers, ideologues and social activists on any of the five issues. Each paper accepted will receive an honorarium of Rs. 5000/- and the person will be invited to present the paper to the Round Tables in New Delhi. The papers will be the part of NACDOR-II proceedings and would be published on the occasion of NACDOR-II.
Ashok Bharti
National Convener
National Conference of Dalit Organizations (NACDOR)
M-3/22, Model Town-III, Delhi 110009
Email: nacdor2@gmail. com

Dalits mobilising
By Gail Omvedt
The Hindu
27 May, 2003
A three day international Dalit Conference in the coastal Canadian city of Vancouver, inaugurated by the former President, K. R. Narayanan, brought together Dalits and their sympathisers from all over the world and cast a new challenge before Indian political parties seeking to woo Dalit votes in the upcoming elections. The Vancouver Declaration demanded a rightful share for Dalits in India's wealth, institutions, and capital — with specific reference to Dalit women — and called on all corporations, including multinationals, to recognise their social responsibilities. This reflected debates and meetings of the recent past in which we can see a genuine internationalisation of the anti-caste movement.
Though an international conference was held in Malaysia in 1988, the first real thrust came with the United Nations-sponsored World Conference on Racism held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. With the support of a few NGOs and energetic mobilisation by Dalits — including many based in north America — through email and other sources, Dalits and their sympathisers pressed their demands for treating caste as an ongoing reality, a major source of discrimination and oppression. Against major opposition from the Indian Government, Dalits succeeded at Durban in bringing their case to the international arena, forging alliances with disparate groups from African-Americans to the Burakumin in Japan. The official WCAR did not accept Dalit demands, yielding to the official Indian Government position in this respect.
However, in a more recent meeting of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in August 2002, discrimination based on "caste and analogous systems of inherited status" was focussed on and a document adopted to challenge the global dimensions of caste discrimination and similar forms of social hierarchy. This is considered a major step forward not only by Dalits but also by representatives of other oppressed groups. The major step forward in terms of policy, however, was taken at the Bhopal conference, held on January 12-13, 2002 — the first Indian Government response to the issues raised at Durban — bringing together some 250 delegates from all over India as part of an enthusiastic gathering that totalled nearly 2000, including Dalits from Madhya Pradesh. While sponsored by the Madhya Pradesh Government under the leadership of Digvijay Singh, the initiative was taken by Dalit activists and the document finally accepted was chosen by the conference delegates without Government intervention. Its recommendations focussed on "diversity" — the share in resources and wealth which the Vancouver Declaration talks about, ranging from land to every Dalit family and providing a major percentage of Government contracts to Dalits as a first step in what is sometimes called "reservation in the private sector". These are beginning to be implemented by the Madhya Pradesh Government, often against strong caste Hindu resistance — particularly on land issues.
Following Bhopal, another important challenge was expressed to the intellectual defenders of caste when Professors Eleanor Zelliot and Gary Tartakov, two major U.S.-based academic sympathisers of Dalits, organised a full-day symposium on "Challenges to Caste" as a pre-conference event on October 10, just before the massive three-day South Asia academic conference held every year in Madiscon, Wisconsin.
Two other events at the same time also brought forward the new academic thrust — one, a conference at the University of Iowa which brought together Dalits and African-Americans, and the other, a symposium on October 18 on "Caste and its Discontents" at the Columbia University, a major centre of academic studies on South Asia in the U.S. Considering that academic studies on India and abroad are increasingly dominated by upper-caste expatriates from India, these events represented a major step forward, though the programmes did not have the direct political implications of either Bhopal or Durban. In some ways, the agenda both at Durban and Bhopal suffered from some limitations.
At Durban, the framework of specific U.N. language — in particular, having to fit caste within the framework of "race" (many argued afterwards that indeed "caste" could be considered a broader concept) — was in some ways hampering. In turn, the Bhopal conference, focussed primarily on economic issues, did not discuss culture — though the delegates at the conference frequently brought up issues of cultural and religious identity. This was not only related to the "Hindu identity" politics prevailing in Uttar Pradesh; the drafters of the Bhopal document also defend this with the argument that disassociation of caste from economic opportunity will represent the most major step forward under current conditions.
The Vancouver conference, however, discussed both cultural and economic issues. On the agenda were many of the issues being endlessly discussed throughout India in regard to caste: the problems of atrocities, of Dalit women; the question of social justice and transformation. Sessions were also held on Dalit literature, "Interfaith discourses for Dalits' development" and "Ideology and Vision of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and Shri Guru Ravidass." These sessions were chaired by Paul Diwekar, Vimal Thorat, Chanan Chahal and R.K. Nayak, while the chairperson of the conference itself was K.P. Singh, a political scientist now based at the University of Washington in Seattle.
In fact, the very holding of the conference was made possible largely due to the contributions of the Shri Guru Ravidass Sabhas of Vancouver and other Canadian cities. This indicates an important reality of Indian life abroad: the role of religious institutions in providing a community life, a basis for what many call "social capital." This has been heavily lacking among those few Dalits who have made it to the U.S.
Canadian Dalits have been in some ways in a stronger position than Dalits in the U.S. simply because there has been much more working class immigration. In the U.S., most Dalits are doctors, engineers or even businessmen; few are in the academic world, with Dr. Singh being one of the major exceptions. Some changes are gradually taking place here, with institutions such as the Ford Foundation sponsoring Dalit students doing Ph.D. abroad, and with even the Madhya Pradesh Government having committed itself to sponsoring 10 Dalits and Adivasis for post-graduate study in the U.S.
Only in some places in Canada has something like a Dalit community developed, and strikingly, this has been made possible by the religious integration and motivation provided by the Guru Ravidass institutions. Ravidass himself was one of many radical `bhaktas' who challenged caste identity and Brahmanic priestly monopoly during the 15th to 17th centuries in India — a period long after the defeat of Buddhism. While in most cases, the radicals were absorbed in the general cooptation of `bhakti', this did not happen so thoroughly with Ravidass, and the Ravidass movement has developed a strong sense of anti-Hindu identity. In Canada, freed from much of the economic and political hegemony of the upper castes, institutions like the Guru Ravidass Sabha have flourished.
Thus, the development of a new Dalit pride as well is pushing forward a growing self-confidence reflecting itself at the level of social and political organisation. In India, and the world as a whole, while politicians like Mayawati symbolise the new cultural-moral self-confidence of Dalits, and those like Digvijay Singh are pushing forward the economic agenda, Dalits themselves are calling for action on all fronts, a cultural-economic and political revolution.
http://www.countercurrents.org/dalit-omvedt270503.htm

Dalit Feminism
By M. Swathy Margaret
03 June, 2005
Insight
I am a Dalit-middle-class, University educated, Telugu speaking Dalit-Christian-Woman. All these identities have a role in the way I perceive myself and the worlds I inhabit. I, as a Dalit woman, primarily write for Dalit women to uphold our interests. This statement of mine is necessary because if we do not define ourselves for ourselves, we will be defined by others – for their use and to our detriment. This voice is not representative of all Dalit women. However, I know that my voice is important because it is the voice of a socially denigrated category, suppressed and silenced.
My own self-perception and understanding as a Dalit woman, as a point of intersection/an overlap between the categories “Dalit” and “woman”, took shape in the University of Hyderabad when I joined there for my M.A. in English. I fell in love with the sprawling campus instantly. Some familiar-looking young men came to my aid in filling the endless forms and challans, saying they are from the Ambedkar Students’ Union. Hearing Ambedkar’s name I knew I belonged there. However, it did not take much time before I realized they refused to see an equal intellectual comrade in me. Like the majority of men, they acknowledge a dalit woman’s presence as only fit for handing over bouquets to the guest speakers they invite for their meetings. At the most, she can give the vote of thanks. They do not consider her in important decisions or in writing papers. Later I learned that excluding women from their committees was a deliberate policy they followed as they believed women’s presence would cause “problems” and come in the way of serious politics. Women inevitably mean “problems”, their sexuality being an uncontrolled wild beast waiting to pounce upon the unassuming dalit men in the movement. It is assumed that they divert the attention from the larger concerns of the moveme

PROBLEMS AND MEANS OF INTEGRATION OF THE DALITS Palash Biswas Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551 Email: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com PROBLEMS AND MEANS OF INTEGRATION OF THE DALITS AND BACKWARD CLASSES IN THE MAINSTREAM OF SOCIETY http://www.cpim.org/misc/1998_ambedkar_sry.htm (Government of West Bengal, Dr. Ambedkar Fortnight Celebration Committee Seminar on Social Justice, April 25, 1998) Sitaram Yechury It is, indeed, appropriate that the Government of West Bengal is observing the Dr. Ambedkar fortnight Celebration on his birth anniversary and organising this seminar on social justice. The topic: "Problems and means of integration of the dalits and backward classes in the mainstream of society" is one that must engage every conscious Indian interested in the progress of our country and welfare of our people. In recent period, this issue has not only engaged policy makers but has become an important element of political mobilisation. While we shall return to this aspect later, it is necessary to recollect the following warning of Dr. Ambedkar: "On 26th January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics, we will be recognising the principle of one man-one vote and one vote- one value. In our social and economic life, we shall by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man-one value. "How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? "If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has laboriously built up." (From Dr. B.R. Ambedkar's speech in the Constituent Assembly on 25th November, 1949) On another occasion, speaking of social reform, Dr. Ambedkar had to say: "There is nothing fixed, nothing eternal, nothing sanatan; that everything is changing, that change is the law of life for individuals as well as for society.... "Stability is wanted but not at the cost of change when the change is imperative. Adjustment is wanted but not at the sacrifice of social justice.... "The path of s

Tamil Nadu's Dalit saga
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Tamil Nadu's Dalit saga
C. T. KURIEN
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2223/stories/20051118000407000.htm
DALITS - for long considered and treated as outcastes in a strictly caste-based social order, later attempted to be glorified as Harijans or people of God, and Scheduled Castes from the time of the adoption of the Constitution in 1950 - constitute approximately a fifth of the population of the country as also of Tamil Nadu. Their contemporary position is the theme of the two volumes brought together here.
Viswanathan's work consists of some 50 pieces published in Frontline from 1995 to 2004, which regular readers may recall. These pieces, which included the chilling accounts of the Melavalavu murders of 1997 and the Tirunelveli massacre of 1999, were the attempt of a dedicated journalist to bring to the notice of the public the atrocities against Dalits in Tamil Nadu in the 1990s and the early part of the present decade and the many ways Dalits have been responding to the situation. The collection comes with an Introduction by Ravikumar. It deals briefly with the question of the origins of the groups of people referred to as Dalits, the anti-Brahmin movement in Dravidian land and the ascendancy of non-brahmins, and the present attitude of the leading political parties towards Dalits.
Hugo Gorringe is a sociologist at the University of Scotland and his work is based on field studies he did in the 1980s and 1990s in Tamil Nadu concentrating on Madurai and neighbouring areas. It also deals with the contemporary conditions of Dalits with a focus on Dalit organisations, especially the Dalit Panther Iyakam (DPI), known also as the Liberation Panthers, led by Thirumavalavan. It is more an analytical study and considers the following questions: "(a) How can democracy be preserved or even enhanced under conditions of extra-institutional mobilisation? (b) What is the current situation of Dalits in Tamil Nadu and how and why, if at all, Dalits resort to protest? (c) How are egalitarian and democratic ideas initiated at the local level? (d) How do action concepts of social movements translate into everyday lives of their members? (e) How are the demands and fears of Dalits located and played out in spatial terms? (f) Finally, what are the implications of Dalits' entry into politics for the `democratisation of democracy' in Tamil Nadu and India?" (Untouchable Citizens, page 22).
Although done independently and with different objectives, the two studies have much in common. Their focus on Tamil Nadu is because of the Dravidian movement's long history of fight against caste discrimination, championing the cause of those once considered to be underdogs. What the two studies bring out is that the oppression that Dalits experience today is caused not by the "upper castes", but by those who were once at the lowest level in the caste hierarchy, socially only slightly above that of Dalits. The equality and justice that the Dravidian movement fought for, and to a measure achieved, were to be limited to the Backward Castes, it would appear. These caste groups, now in power, would like to see the former outcastes remain where they have always been.
But, of course, Dalits can no longer be excluded. The Constitution and laws of the land are now, in principle at least, fully inclusive. Untouchability, once the clearest manifestation of social exclusion, is now illegal and the practice of it in any form is a punishable offence. Over the past five decades there have been many determined efforts to make the principle of inclusion effective, starting with reservation of seats for Dalits in legislative bodies and subsequently in educational institutions and public services. And by a variety of objective criteria, the condition of Dalits today is far better than what it was in the past.
What both Viswanathan and Gorringe bring out is that paradoxical though it may appear, it is precisely the legal inclusion of the Dalits and the progress that they have made and continue make that constitute the Dalit problem today. Once Dalits were excluded and suppressed. Now they are included and oppressed. "Numerous are the ways in which Dalits are tormented. They are murdered and maimed; women are raped; their children are abused and deprived of schooling; they are disposssessed of their property; their houses are torched; they are denied their legitimate rights; and their sources of livelihood are destroyed," wrote Viswanathan in one of his pieces in 2002 (Dalits in Dravidian Land, page 241).
But why? Consider the following: "The first Dalit graduate from a village in Madurai district walked home at the end of the term passing through the upper-caste area of his village wearing shoes and trousers. Perceiving this to be a challenge to their authority, Backward Caste youths set upon him and beat him to death" (Untouchable Citizens, page 185). Two young people, both students at Annamalai University, fell in love and married. The young man was a Dalit. The young woman's family, belonging to the Vanniar caste, above Dalits in the caste hierarchy, objected to the marriage and the couple was found dead under suspicious circumstances (Dalits in Dravidian Land). In July 1998, soon after K.R. Narayanan took over as President, a group of Dalit youths attempted to celebrate the fact of a Dalit becoming the First Citizen of the country. Caste Hindus objected and a clash followed, finally resulting in twenty Dalit huts being torched and over a hundred dwellings of Dalits being damaged (Dalits in Dravidian Land, page 99). On Independence day 2003, the Dalit panchayat president of a village in one of the southern districts of Tamil Nadu was "assaulted and humiliated in public because he `dared' to unfurl the national flag at the panchayat's official function (Dalits in Dravidian Land, page 279).
The Melavalavu murders of 1997, which created a lot of sensation in the State and which both Viswanathan and Gorringe record was also a clear case of Dalit progress inviting retaliation by higher castes. The presidentship of the panchayat of Melavalavu village, close to Madurai, was reserved for Dalits. Members of the Thevar caste, a backward caste but above the Dalits, tried their best to prevent it by disrupting the election process. Finally, under police protection, the election was conducted and Murugesan, a Dalit, was elected president. Members of the higher caste made it difficult for him to operate from the panchayat office. Murugesan went to Madurai to make a representation to the District Collector. On his way back, a mob stopped the bus he was travelling in, dragged him out and murdered him and six of his followers. (One account says