Conversations

Amnesty International's Report on Nandigram Violence

2008-01-24T12:56:00.000+05:30

Contacts For quotes / interviews:
Justice S N Bhargava: 94-140-44461
Vrinda Grover: 98-108-06181
Meenakshi Ganguly: 98-200-36032
Mukul Sharma: 98-108-01919

Amnesty International Press Statement
Urgent Inquiry Needed Into Nandigram Violence

SCROLL DOWN FOR THE FULL REPORT

(New Delhi, January 15 2008): The West Bengal state government should immediately create an independent and impartial inquiry into serious acts of violence in Nandigram since early 2007, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said today.
The state government should prosecute those responsible for human rights abuses and examine both the social-political origins of the violence and the failure of state authorities to provide effective protection to the community.
A fact-finding team—comprised of Justice (Retd) S.N. Bhargava, former Chief Justice, High Court of Sikkim; Vrinda Grover, advocate; Meenakshi Ganguly, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch; and Mukul Sharma, director of Amnesty International India —visited Nandigram and Kolkata from 28 to 30 November. The team travelled to affected villages, relief camps, and met with the victims of the violence in Nandigram, as well as government officials and rights activists.
"It was obvious during our visit to Nandigram that state authorities had not acted in an impartial manner," said Meenakshi Ganguly, senior South Asia researcher with Human Rights Watch. "The political nature of this violence, involving the ruling party of West Bengal, means there must be an independent inquiry to prevent impunity for the perpetrators."
Throughout 2007, tensions over control of land in Nandigram led to a series of violent incidents between supporters of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and farmers belonging to the Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee (BUPC). Protesting villagers blockaded the Nandigram area to oppose a government plan to acquire land for industry. Instead of responding appropriately to violations of the law by protesters, the authorities appeared to treat the protest as a challenge to the CPI-M and used excessive force against the protestors. BUPC members were also responsible for acts of violence. At least 25 people were killed, hundreds injured and thousands displaced from their homes.

In November, CPI-M supporters and armed thugs forcibly ended the blockade. In retribution for the protest, they attacked villagers supporting the BUPC, burned down their homes, threatened further violence if villagers went to the authorities, and humiliated them by compelling them to join CPI-M rallies. The state administration removed police posts before CPI-M supporters advanced into the area, strongly suggesting governmental complicity in the abuses.

Villagers in affected areas reported to the fact-finding team that CPI-M supporters frequently subjected women to violent attacks, including rape and beatings, as well as to threats and harassment. There is no evidence that the police have sought to arrest those named in police complaints. Victims, particularly women who risk social censure by reporting rape, remained vulnerable to threats and further attacks from perpetrators who roam free.

"The tragedy of the reported rapes at Nandigram has been compounded by the failure of the police to seriously investigate these cases, keeping the victims at grave risk," said Ganguly.

Based on the team's findings, Amnesty International has produced a report titled, " Urgent need to address large scale human rights abuses during Nandigram "recapture.'" The report concludes that the inaction of the West Bengal state government, including tacit acceptance of the violent operations of the armed supporters of the CPI-M, resulted in serious human rights abuses, including unlawful killings, abductions, sexual assault of women and forced eviction and displacement of thousands of people in 2007.

It is disturbing that the West Bengal authorities failed to prevent the violence at Nandigram and failed to arrest the perpetrators," said Mukul Sharma, director of Amnesty International, India, "Weeks after peace had supposedly been restored, we learned that the perpetrators were still roaming free, celebrating their victory by threatening and beating up local residents."

The impunity enjoyed by those perpetrating abuses in Nandigram since the violence began in early 2007 fuelled the widespread abuses committed later in the year. The Chief Minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, contributed to the violence in November by saying that the protesters had been "paid back in the same coin," a comment which he retracted three weeks later, admitting the events were a "political and administrative failure."

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said that access to justice for the victims of the violence went beyond the successful prosecution of those responsible. The West Bengal government has an obligation to protect the rights of all those displaced by ensuring they can safely return to their homes and places of habitual residence and providing restitution for all damage suffered. Women who suffered abuse must receive proper protection and an effective remedy.

"The authorities must show clear political will to end the climate of violence in Nandigram," Sharma said. "For lasting peace, all those responsible for the violence must be prosecuted and the victims must receive redress."

FULL REPORT

Urgent Need to Address Large Scale Human Rights Abuse During Nandigram “Recapture”

Report

Amnesty International India
AI Index: ASA 20/001/2008

January 15 2008
AMNESTY INTERNATIONALAI Index: ASA 20/001/2008
15 January 2008

Urgent need to address large scale human rights abuses during Nandigram “recapture”

Amnesty International is concerned at reports that a range of serious human rights abuses, including unlawful killings, abductions, sexual assault of women and forced eviction and displacement of thousands of persons, have been carried out at Nandigram in East Medinipore District in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. This report focuses on recent abuses, in the context of violence in late October and November 2007, which were reportedly carried out by armed supporters of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), which leads the ruling Left Front coalition in the state.

The organisation is also concerned that these abuses took place in the face of inaction by or acquiescence of the Government of West Bengal which to date has also failed to order an independent inquiry into the November 2007 violence.

1. Background

Throughout 2007, Nandigram has experienced violence as CPI-M supporters and farmers belonging to the Bhumi Uchched Pratirodh Committee (Anti-displacement front, BUPC) clashed with each other in attempting to gain control over parts of the area.

On 28 December 2006, authorities at the neighbouring port town of Haldia circulated a notice announcing plans to set up a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) at Nandigram under the Government of India’s Petro-Chemical Petroleum Investment Region (PCPIR) scheme.[1] The project, envisaged as a chemical hub, reportedly required at least 4,000 hectares of land for the proposed SEZ, which was to be jointly developed by the state-owned Industrial Development Corporation and the Indonesia-based Salim group of companies. The land is owned by local farmers.

The BUPC had been formed to protest against forced eviction and displacement of local inhabitants, mostly farmers, as a result of this project. It consisted of activists owing allegiance to several political parties including the Trinamool Congress (TMC), Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Congress(I) and former supporters of the CPI-M.

A range of abuses including unlawful killings, forced evictions, excessive use of force by police, widespread violence against women, as well as failure of the authorities to provide protection to the victims, denial of access and information to the media and human rights organisations, harassment of human rights defenders and the continuing denial of justice to the victims have been reported from Nandigram during the year. The scale of such abuses recently intensified when violence broke out towards the end of October between supporters of the ruling CPI-M, and supporters of the BUPC.

In January and March 2007, at least 25 people, mostly local residents, were killed and more than 100 injured and at least 20 women sexually assaulted by armed supporters of the ruling CPI-M, after 1,500 people, mostly CPI-M supporters, were forcibly displaced from their homes as the BUPC set up barricades to prevent access to some of the disputed land. On 14 March, 14 people were reportedly shot dead by police and over 150 injured in violent confrontations between police, supporters of the CPI-M and BUPC supporters protesting against their displacement due to the proposed industrial project. After this, the Government of West Bengal announced that the industrial project would be relocated. However the BUPC continued its blockade as it doubted that the Government of West Bengal would in fact relocate the project.
Protests continued in Nandigram with the demands for justice and compensation to the victims of the 14 March firing being added to the existing demands.

Various Indian activists and human rights organisations have reported that a wide range of human rights abuses occurred during this period.[2] Amnesty International has repeatedly expressed its concerns about the excessive use of force by the police, called for full consultation with those living in the area about the proposed development and called for investigations into the abuses.[3]

During the latest outbreak of violence in Nandigram beginning on 6 November 2007, at least 15 people were reportedly killed, 100 injured and hundreds of people were displaced as groups of armed supporters of the CPI-M commenced an operation to “recapture” the area. Media and human rights organisations reported large scale violence initiated by armed CPI-M supporters, and alleged inaction by the state’s law enforcement agencies who, according to the reports, failed to take steps to protect local inhabitants.
Reports stated that armed CPI-M supporters rode their motorcycles into the area on 6 November, attacking local residents with guns and home-made bombs and fighting with BUPC supporters. On 12 November, two units of the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were deployed in some of the areas in which violence had occurred, reportedly only after CPI-M supporters had stopped blocking their route. Subsequently five more units of the CRPF were deployed. In the meantime, for over five days CPI-M supporters had reportedly established control of the area, forcibly evicting and displacing scores of people and attacking BUPC supporters and other local residents while looting and burning down houses and destroying property. During this period, the media and human rights organisations were excluded from the majority of these areas as CPI-M supporters blocked the main highways.
On 9 November, the Governor of the State, Gopalakrishna Gandhi, described the situation in Nandigram as a “civil war” and stated that the “armed recapture is unlawful and unacceptable.”[4] India’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) sought a report from the Government of West Bengal on the violence and a six-member NHRC investigative team, which visited the area on 15-19 November, is expected to submit a report in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, the NHRC chairperson Justice Rajendra Babu has stated, in a reply to CPI-M members of the Indian parliament that it was incontrovertible that human rights abuses on a mass scale took place at Nandigram.[5]
Reports from survivors, eyewitnesses, and relief workers alleged that months of discussions had taken place in the town of Khejuri between CPI-M supporters on their plans to “recapture” Nandigram. CPI-M supporters, armed with weapons, had reportedly been mobilized from other parts of West Bengal and neighbouring states of Jharkhand and Bihar.[6] Both the state administration and the police reportedly took little action to protect the local communities during the violence, and in some cases were alleged to have participated in attacks. The reports also stated that CPI-M supporters were involved in searching villages, detaining and interrogating persons suspected to be close to the BUPC and seizing weapons.

Amnesty International also learnt that hundreds of residents including women and children who managed to flee the violence were housed in two camps at Nandigram. A week after the violence, media and human rights organisations, which had limited access to these camps, reported that the camps were largely self-managed with very limited official assistance, and those in the camps did not have secure access to even minimum essential levels of food, water, shelter, sanitation, and health services. Relief materials had been provided mainly by human rights and humanitarian organisations. Medical teams from non-governmental organisations were able to reach the camps only after four attempts were blocked by CPI-M supporters.

Following this, during 28-30 November 2007, Amnesty International India took part in a research visit to Nandigram and Kolkata, the delegation comprising also a former high court chief justice, a senior lawyer and a researcher from Human Rights Watch. The delegation travelled to interior villages and relief camps, and met with the victims of the violence, relevant officials and others. This report sets out Amnesty International’s concerns arising out of the findings of the visit

2. Preliminary Findings

a. Failure to protect local communities:

At Bhoota Mar in Gorchakraberia in Nandigram, the delegation members were informed by relatives of CPI-M supporters that, on 28 October 2007, BUPC supporters had vandalized their residences. The police said they had little access to interior villages as blockades had been erected by the BUPC. However, the delegation was informed by officials that there were sufficiently early reports from intelligence officials and local police that armed supporters of the CPI-M were gathering around Nandigram.[7] This was also admitted by the District Superintendent of Police Satya Prakash Panda who informed the delegation that the police had information that “arms and people were being mobilized in the region.”[8] The risk of confrontation between BUPC and CPI-M supporters intensified towards 30 October, but the only remaining police posted at Nandigram were withdrawn without any reasons being given. District Superintendent of Police Satya Prakash Panda told the delegation members that orders to withdraw the remaining police came from his superiors in Kolkata.[9] However, it was not until 12 November 2007 that CRPF personnel were deployed to Nandigram.

The withdrawal of the state police and the delay before CPRF personnel were deployed left a period of two weeks in which the CPI-M and the BUPC engaged in armed confrontations attempting to assert control over the area. There appears to have been a controversy as to the reasons for the delay in deploying the CRPF. On 13 November, the state Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, alleged that it was the Union Government which had caused the delay.[10] He said he had requested their deployment on 27 October but that several days later the Union Government informed him that the CRPF personnel could not be sent to Nandigram at that time as it was necessary to send them to other states where state assembly polls were to be held in December (Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh). On 5 November, the day before the armed CPI-M supporters arrived in Nandigram, the state Home Secretary P R Roy said he was not aware when the CRPF forces would be despatched there.[11] However, the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Sriprakash Jaiswal, said on 16 November that there was no delay in the deployment of CRPF in Nandigram.[12]

The Government of West Bengal had already been excluded from several areas in Nandigram by BUPC barricades and armed CPI-M supporters, and the withdrawal of the state police meant that between the end of October and 11 November there was no significant official security presence in the area. Displaced persons in relief camps and eyewitnesses informed the delegation that during this period CPI-M supporters had closed in on several villages including Sonachura, Adhikaripara, Satengbari and Gokulnagar which had been barricaded by the BUPC. In these villages, residences of BUPC leaders were looted and burnt down by CPI-M supporters. By 11 November, the entire area had been “recaptured” by the CPI-M supporters, resulting in the forced eviction and displacement of hundreds of persons including women and children. During this period, the media (apart from one reporter from the daily Dainik Statesman who chose to stay with the local population) was prevented from entering the villages by CPI-M supporters. On 12 November, a team of social activists from Kolkata was able to start visiting some of the areas in Nandigram. Its report gives a graphic account of the difficulties encountered by that team and the media during the visits.[13]

From the above accounts, it is clear that the recent violence in Nandigram took place against a backdrop of inaction by the Government of West Bengal, including tacit acceptance of the violent operations of the armed supporters of the CPI-M. The state has a responsibility to protect the human rights of everyone within its jurisdiction, and accordingly to uphold law and order. This would include, where necessary, measures by law enforcement agencies such as taking appropriate action to end the blockade by the BUPC. But the manner in which the state authorities have acted, and in particular their failure to take action to prevent abuses by armed supporters of the CPI-M, suggests that they were not acting in an impartial manner. No arrests were carried out prior to the violence despite the flow of intelligence information that arms were being mobilised in the region; no search operations were carried out. No arrests were carried out during the period of the violence, and West Bengal Director-General of Police, Anup Bhushan Vohra has stated that since the police only had access the nearby town of Khejuri, where it was likely that only CPI-M supporters would have been arrested, no arrests had been ordered as “it would have been seen as partisan.”[14]

Many local residents were caught up in the violence and, in the absence of sufficient protection from state law enforcement agencies, had to flee their homes and take refuge with relatives or in relief camps. The delegation found evidence to demonstrate that both the state administration and the police appeared to have taken little action or responsibility to exercise due diligence in preventing, stopping and punishing human rights abuses and to protect the local communities during the violence.

b. Victims of violence:

The numbers as well as the identities of persons killed and missing from Nandigram during this period remain unknown. Officials gave the delegation a list of five persons who died during the violence, but local authorities stated to the delegation that at least 42 people were reported missing from the days of the November 2007 violence, many of whom were presumed to have been killed. BUPC activists informed the delegation that an unknown number of persons, including BUPC supporters, had gone missing; some of whom might have gone into hiding fearing attack by CPI-M supporters. The BUPC stated in addition that complaints made to the police about missing persons had not been properly registered.

On 5 December, a grave with the remains of five half-burnt bodies was discovered at Bamanchok village near Khejuri.[15]. Investigating agencies were trying to establish whether, as claimed by the CPI-M, the five persons were CPI-M supporters, including four from Gokulnagar near Nandigram and one from Belda, 50 km from Nandigram, who were killed in a bomb blast on 28 October.[16] Conflicting information received from local residents by the Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), however, alleged that they had been killed while making bombs at Sherkhan Chak[17].

On 8 December, human remains were recovered from the Talpati canal in Bhangabera near Nandigram.[18] On 12 December, another body with two bullet holes was found in a field at Maheshpur. Shyamali Pramanick, a woman from the area, was reported to have claimed that the deceased was her husband, Harun Pramanik, a BUPC supporter who had been missing since 7 November.[19] On 14 December, two more local women, Sumitra Mirda and Annapurna Mondol, arrived at the Tamluk hospital to lay claim to the body. They said their husbands had been missing since 7 November.[20]

c. Violence against women
The delegation interviewed several women who had been subjected to violence including rape, beating, threats and harassment. In addition, testimony concerning numerous incidents of violence against women has been gathered by several fact-finding teams investigating events that occurred in March as well as November. Anuradha Talwar, an activist who was part of the first fact-finding team which reached Nandigram on 16 November, in a deposition submitted to the delegation, said in Satangabari village alone, local residents informed them that at least seven women had been raped.[21] In one case, a woman said that she was beaten and her four-month-old son was snatched and flung on the floor. Another woman said that though she was pregnant, she was beaten until she bled.[22]

The delegation questioned officials of the Government of West Bengal and the state police about their efforts to investigate and prosecute violence against women. They found that very few incidents had been reported to the police and there were contradictory accounts from the different police forces as to exactly how many complaints of rape had been filed.

CRPF Deputy Inspector-General (DIG) Alok Raj stated that five cases of rape were registered at Nandigram including three after the November violence.[23] As against this, the Officer-in-Charge, Nandigram police station said only two complaints of rape had been filed in the area.[24]

The Chief Secretary of West Bengal told the delegation that the authorities were taking the allegations of rape very seriously: “The accused generally belong to either political party. We have taken the cases of the women away from the local police. These cases are now being enquired by the Criminal Investigation Department of the State Police (CID).”[25]

However, the delegation is concerned that these words have not so far been translated into action. In each of the cases given by the CRPF, some of the perpetrators were named.[26] Yet, none of these names figured among the list of persons arrested so far. A number of local residents informed the delegation that the offenders were operating with impunity, taunting the people, forcing them to shout slogans in support of CPI-M, or attend CPI-M party meetings

Accounts of both officials and villagers relating to violence against women agreed that the victims were either relatives or sympathisers of BUPC, and named the perpetrators as groups of armed supporters of the CPI-M.

The delegation was told that at least seven women from Nandigram have been admitted to the Government Hospital at Tamluk.. Two of them had been shot at, four were beaten and one was raped. Several others were admitted to hospitals closer to Nandigram.

The delegation met two women[27] who both said they had been raped by several persons during the violence in November. Among the rapists were men whom they knew and could recognize. Although they had named these men when they made their complaints, three weeks later, the police had not made any arrests. The women said they were too frightened to return home.

One of them, Akhreja Bibi, was still at the Tamluk hospital. She said that several men burst into her home in the middle of the night on 8 November. “I tried to run away but they caught me and beat me up. They raped my daughters in front of me and then they raped me.” Akhreja Bibi’s daughters, Ansura, 16, and Mansura, 14, are still among those missing from Nandigram. When the delegation asked about them at the Nandigram police station, the Officer-in-Charge said there was news that the girls had joined a circus at Howrah, Kolkata.[28]

The delegation also met Niyoti Patra, a BUPC supporter, who said she was also raped by several persons; she said she could not return home. “I know those men. They came to my house and asked me to join a meeting,” she said. “When I refused they came inside and abused me. Then they raped me. There were three men. They were my neighbours. I am frightened. I have named them in my police report. Now they will punish me again.” She has since been staying at the Nandigram school relief camp.

Roshomoi Das Adhikari, a woman in her 80s and mother of a prominent BUPC leader, Swadesh Das Adhikari, was beaten with rifle butts by three persons she could recognise as “CPI-M people”. She said she was alone at home on 7 November. Her son and most of the villagers had already fled from the area. Three men burst into her house and started throwing things around. “I ran out into the courtyard shouting for help. Two men with big guns were standing there. They started beating and kicking me. They tore at my sari, slapped me, pulled my hair and cursed me. Meanwhile, the others had set fire to my house. As they left they threatened me and told me that they would kill my son. I just lay there bleeding.”[29] She also was able to name the CPI-M supporters.

Another woman, wife of a prominent BUPC member, said her home had been looted and burnt. Living in a relief camp, she said that when she returned to harvest the paddy, CPI-M supporters shouted abuses and threatened sexual violence. She was still in Nandigram school relief camp when the delegation met her, terrified because the district administration wanted to shut the camp and send her home. “I cannot describe the language they used. They told me, ‘The CRPF will leave. Then we will come find you. We will chop off your head and kill your husband’.”[30]

Several women who returned to their homes after the end of this period of violence, said that threats of sexual violence were made against them if they did not support the CPI-M. One woman said that she was forced to attend a party rally on 28 November because she was warned that she would otherwise be stripped in public and then raped along with her daughters.[31] Mahamaya Das Adhikari said that she went back to her village on 26 November but had to return to the camp a day later because her parents were threatened by CPI-M supporters. They were told that either their daughter had to publicly pledge her support to the CPI-M or not bother to return.[32]

Threats of violence have continued even after those who were displaced returned to their villages. CPI-M supporters are in “effective control” of most of the villages in Nandigram, and in some areas, particularly former BUPC strongholds like Satengbari, they have reportedly threatened women saying “We’ll come back at night – light your lamps and wait for us with open doors. Send your men away, we’ll come back to you at night.”[33]

From the above accounts, it appears that there has been a deliberate pattern of gender based violence directed against women residents of Nandigram who were left behind as local male residents fled the advancing CPI-M supporters. The violence was directed against those women who were at the forefront of the protest against forced eviction and were unwilling to give up their homes and lands. Also, the delegation was informed by local residents that many women had refused to file police reports as they were still afraid of the consequences if they filed complaints with the police and were also unwilling to risk social censure associated with rape.

3. Key areas of concern

a. Due diligence:

Immediately after the violence, the Government of West Bengal defended the violence by the armed supporters of the CPI-M, and blamed the BUPC for the blockade and the subsequent violence. In media briefings Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee claimed that the protesters had been “paid back in the same coin” and that his party was both “legally and morally correct” to “recapture” Nandigram,[34] a comment which he apparently retracted three weeks later while admitting that the Nandigram events amounted to a “political and administrative failure.”[35] Later, on 26 December 2007, he visited Nandigram to express regret for the violence, according to reports.[36]

East Medinipore District Magistrate Anoop Kumar Agrawal informed the delegation members that, after the written notification for withdrawal of the SEZ notice was issued to him on 19 March 2007, he had held meetings with the BUPC and the other parties to resolve the issue; however, by this time, the BUPC appeared to have lost confidence in the administration.[37] As a BUPC activist, Sudhin Bijoli, put it “The Chief Minister may have said that he would not force us to leave, but he was saying so many things and there was nothing in writing. How could we trust him?”[38]

West Bengal Chief Secretary Amit Kiran Deb told the delegation that “we could not create an atmosphere of confidence … We failed to persuade the people to allow the police to enter. They saw the police as partisan and against them.”[39]

Amnesty International is concerned by officials’ apparent readiness to accept this lack of confidence in the police and by the failure of the state authorities to take proactive steps to rectify it. The manner in which the Government of West Bengal failed to take positive action to address the issue suggests that the government was acquiescent in the human rights abuses by the armed supporters of the CPI-M during the November violence.

Amnesty International opposes human rights abuses whoever commits them and regardless of the cause espoused by the perpetrators. States have a responsibility to respect the human rights of all individuals within their jurisdiction – that is, not to commit human rights violations or to permit their officials to do so. They also have a responsibility to exercise due diligence to protect all individuals within their jurisdiction against human rights abuses by non-state actors by ensuring the maintenance of public order and security by state law enforcement agents authorised to do so and acting in compliance with international human rights standards on law enforcement, and by preventing, stopping and punishing human rights abuses by non-state actors.

Amnesty International is concerned that in this instance the state authorities have not fulfilled their responsibility to exercise due diligence to protect human rights. The recent failure to ensure an effective police presence to maintain law and order permitted, or even encouraged organized groups of armed supporters of the ruling party to step in to quell the protests by the BUPC, instead of the state exercising its responsibility to deal with them lawfully by effective, impartial and proportionate law enforcement measures. Amnesty International is also concerned that that state has not taken adequate measures to ensure that the population whose livelihood will be affected by the development of the SEZ is protected against forced eviction, by being ensured their rights to information, adequate consultation, and just and adequate reparation including resettlement in adequate alternative accommodation.

b. Justice for the victims:

In Nandigram, there has been a general failure on the part of the authorities to ensure progress in investigations into earlier violence in January and March 2007. It is to be noted that no departmental or disciplinary action has been initiated against any administrative or police official for despite loss of life and property in the area. The Kolkata High Court, on response appeal filed by the APDR, the Paschimbanga Khet Mazdoor Samity (PBKMS) and other organisations, ordered an investigation by the CBI into the violent confrontations of 14 March when police used excessive force and fired on demonstrators. The CBI’s preliminary report named at least ten CPI-M supporters – who were later released by the state police – as accused persons. The Government of West Bengal obtained a stay on this investigation. However investigations were finally re-instated on 16 November and the CBI commenced its investigations into the 14 March violence on the basis of its preliminary report of 24 March. The CBI, which submitted an interim report to the Kolkata High Court on 17 December, has been directed by the High Court to file its final report by 15 February 2008.[40] As per interim report, the CBI is reported to have filed four new cases against several CPI-M supporters, including a case of sexual assault, bringing the total number of cases against the CPI-M supporters to seven.[41] Even as the CBI was also inquiring into the allegation whether the state police was aware that the CPI-M supporters fired, along with them, on the protestors, the Government of West Bengal has successfully obtained a stay, from the Supreme Court of India, on the filing of charges against state police officials found responsible for the 14 March police firing.[42].

Chief Secretary Amit Kiran Deb informed the delegation that the Government of West Bengal had allocated funds for compensation of the victims of the 14 March violence as per the Kolkata high court order and that this was being distributed. However, the District Magistrate informed the delegation that he had received no formal notification nor had funds been released for disbursement.[43] On 31 December 2007, the compensation amounts were finally paid to 13 of the 14 victims of the 14 March police firing, according to reports.[44]

The Kolkata High Court, in a judgment delivered on 16 November described the police firing on demonstrators on 14 March as unconstitutional and illegal.

Amnesty International believes that the general impunity enjoyed by perpetrators of human rights abuses in Nandigram since January 2007 was a key contributing factor to the widespread abuses committed there since 6 November.

The CRPF was finally deployed on 12 November, and although this brought an end to overt violence, threats and intimidation continued, putting at risk the lives and safety of the local inhabitants. There has been very little sign of effort to arrest perpetrators, who have allegedly been threatening BUPC supporters against filing complaints, demanding their attendance at CPI-M party meetings and suggesting that they admit to looting and burning their own homes.[45]

CRPF DIG Alok Raj expressed to the delegation his view that the state police force personnel did not appear to be interested in arresting the perpetrators and were interfering in the CRPF’s operations. The CRPF was given a list of 180 people against whom there are registered cases of murder. But those arrested by the CRPF have all been released by the state police. Alok Raj said, on 21 November, he had sent an official notice to the Government of West Bengal, stating that a complete list of persons wanted in connection with offences in Nandigram was yet to be submitted by the state police and that if those arrested by the CRPF were subsequently released by the state police, it “will not allow normalcy to return in the area.”[46]

Amnesty International, while noting that the Government of West Bengal has ordered inquiries as a result of the unearthing of bodies at Nandigram this month, points out that the Government has not so far taken any steps to establish the whereabouts of all those who have been missing from Nandigram since 6 November.

The Constitution of India clearly provides, in Article 32, for constitutional remedies when fundamental rights appear to have been violated, as in the case of the abuses committed during the violence in Nandigram.

Under international human rights standards states have a responsibility to take apporopriate legislative, administrative and other measures to prevent violations and, where they occur, to investigate them effectively, promptly, thoroughly and impartially and where appropriate to take action against those alleged to be responsible. They should also ensure that victims have equal and effective access to justice, and provide them with effective remedies, including full and effective reparation. Reparation should include restitution, compensation for economically assessable damage, rehabilitation, satisfaction – including public acknowledgement of the facts and sanctions against those responsible – and guarantees of non-repetition.[47]

In particular, the obligation of states to conduct prompt, thorough, effective and impartial investigations into killings and other human rights abuses is also provided in international human rights law, including Article 2(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by India in 1979. In its General Comment on Article 2 the Human Rights Committee, the expert body charged with overseeing the implementation of this Covenant, has stated, among other things:

“There may be circumstances in which a failure to ensure Covenant rights as required by article 2 would give rise to violations by States Parties of those rights, as a result of States Parties' permitting or failing to take appropriate measures or to exercise due diligence to prevent, punish, investigate or redress the harm caused by such acts by private persons or entities. States are reminded of the interrelationship between the positive obligations imposed under article 2 and the need to provide effective remedies in the event of breach under article 2, paragraph 3.”[48]

Amnesty International urges the West Bengal authorities to ensure that the CBI investigations into the 14 March demonstration are not obstructed any further, and that all incidents of human rights abuses in the context of the violence since early 2007 are thoroughly investigated and the suspected perpetrators brought to justice.

In addition, Amnesty International urges the Government of West Bengal to urgently set up an independent and impartial inquiry into the violence at Nandigram since early 2007 including the violence since 6 November. Such an inquiry should examine broader issues than criminal responsibility, such as systemic factors, procedural deficiences, contextual factors leading to the violence, and accountability of the state authorities for failures to provide effective protection.
Such an inquiry should in particular include an investigation into disappearances of persons, illegal possession of weapons by all non-state actors at Nandigram and an assessment of the impact and extent of violence against women at Nandigram.[49] In view of the fact that the Government of West Bengal and different state agencies have been implicated in responsibility for the abuses due to the manner in which they dealt or failed to deal with the violence at Nandigram, there is a need for the inquiry to be carried out by an independent and impartial body . The activities of law enforcement agencies during the violence should also be one of the objects of the inquiry. If the inquiry obtains information indicating that identified individuals or officials may have been responsible for committing, ordering, encouraging or permitting human rights abuses, that information should be passed to the relevant criminal investigation or prosecution bodies. Provisions of immunity should not be allowed to shield those named as responsible for such acts of omission and commission.

The findings of the inquiry should be promptly made public.

c. Reparation and protection of the rights of all internally displaced people (IDPs):
West Bengal Chief Secretary, Amit Kiran Deb, informed the delegation that humanitarian assistance, including the provision of rice, cash payments and medical care was being provided by the authorities. In addition, Rs. 7 million, as compensation to the victims of the 6 November violence, has been released from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund[50] in order to compensate for the loss of homes and other property in the violence.

At least two relief camps were functioning at Nandigram for those displaced since violence began in January 2007. However, neither of these camps were run by the state nor has the state carried out a survey to establish the extent of damage to property.

One relief camp (shivir) is located at the Brij Mohan Tiwari Siksha Niketan in Nandigram Block-I town, and at its height housed around 3,000 to 4,000 persons. Following the violence since 6 November, a fresh influx of local residents had arrived in the camp. However, by 29 November the number of persons housed in the camp had dwindled to around 250, the reason being that a large number of displaced persons had left the camp to stay with relatives and friends.[51]

The delegation found that the camp was being run on limited resources by the Nandigram Bazaar Committee, Bharat Sevashram, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), and a few other NGOs which had supplied rice, other essential food items and blankets. TMC leaders also contributed relief materials to the camp. Medical services are confined to the voluntary services of local doctors.

The second camp was located at a high school at Khejuri and was run by CPI-M party workers who provide some essential services. Most of the villagers, reportedly numbering 1,500, who supported CPI-M had taken refuge in this camp in the wake of the BUPC blockade in January 2007. Towards the end of December, the camp was reported to be hosting around 750 people. The delegation was able to interview several local residents who returned home from this camp after the November 2007 violence.[52]

Amnesty International is concerned that the Government of West Bengal has not taken the necessary concrete steps to ensure that all persons under its jurisdiction are protected from forced eviction and displacement, and that all those forcibly displaced during the violence are ensured at the very least minimum essential levels of food, shelter, water and sanitation, health care and education, as well as their right to voluntary return or resettlement, and reintegration.

Amnesty International is concerned that not all those displaced have access to essential services such as adequate food, water, shelter, and medical services.

There is a similar need to ensure access to justice and adequate reparations without discrimination for all of those who were forcibly displaced as well as those who suffered other human rights abuses.

The Government of West Bengal is responsible to ensure the protection of all internally displaced persons within its jurisdiction. This duty arises inter alia from India's Constitution, which guarantees to everyone in India the right to the protection of life and personal liberty (Article 21) (which Indian courts have consistently interpreted to include the right to access the minimum essential levels of food, shelter, and other requirements to live with dignity) and the equality of all persons before the law (Article 14).

The duty of the state to protect the rights of all IDPs is reflected in the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (the Guiding Principles)[53] which clearly affirm, in Principle 3(1), that “national authorities have the primary duty and responsibility to provide protection and humanitarian assistance to internally displaced persons within their jurisdiction.” The state also has a duty under its international human rights obligations, including under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to provide essential services to all IDPs without discrimination. This is reflected in article 18(2) of the Guiding Principles, which state that:

“At the minimum, regardless of the circumstances, and without discrimination, competent authorities shall provide internally displaced persons with and ensure safe access to:
(a) Essential food and potable water;
(b) Basic shelter and housing;
(c) Appropriate clothing; and
(d) Essential medical services and sanitation.”

Amnesty International emphasises the right of all IDPs to voluntary return to their homes or places of habitual residence or resettlement, and reintegration and restitution of their homes and other property, and calls upon the Government of West Bengal to ensure a safe and dignified environment for their return. The organization believes that this will not be achieved unless there is a clear political will on the part of the authorities to put an end to the atmosphere of violence in Nandigram. Amnesty International is concerned that displaced persons who wish to return to their homes will be unable or unwilling to return if those responsible for human rights abuses against them during the violence remain at large, sometimes in positions of authority.

Amnesty International urges the Government of West Bengal that all those responsible for human rights abuses are brought promptly to justice, and to ensure full reparations for victims including adequate compensation delivered promptly and on a non-discriminatory basis.

Amnesty International also urges the Government of West Bengal and the Government of India to ensure that those returning home at Nandigram, irrespective of their political affiliation, are able to return to their homes or places of habitual residence or resettlement, voluntarily and in safety and dignity. They should also be guaranteed their right to reintegration and restitution of their homes and other property, and where this is not possible to adequate compensation, In order for this to happen, there should be the continued and effective deployment of adequate CRPF personnel.[54]

4. Recommendations:

Amnesty International urges the Government of West Bengal to:

Ensure that all incidents of human rights abuses in the context of the violence since early 2007 are thoroughly investigated and that the suspected perpetrators, whether or not they are officials and regardless of their political affiliation, are brought promptly to justice:
Establish an independent and impartial inquiry into all the violent incidents at Nandigram this year including the violence since 6 November. Such an inquiry should include an investigation into disappearances of persons, illegal possession of weapons by all non-state actors at Nandigram and an assessment of the impact and extent of violence against women at Nandigram. The findings of the inquiry should be made public.:
Ensure that all those displaced have access, without discrimination, to essential services such as adequate food, water, shelter, and medical assistance:
Put in place a policy of adequate reparation, including restitution, compensation and guarantees of non-repetition.

Amnesty International urges the Government of West Bengal and the Government of India to:

Ensure that those returning to their homes or places of habitual residence in Nandigram, irrespective of their political affiliation, are able to return to their homes or places of habitual residence, voluntarily and in safety and dignity. They should also be guaranteed their right to reintegration and restitution of their homes and other property, and where this is not possible to adequate compensation and resettlement. In order for this to happen, there should be a continued and effective deployment of adequate CRPF personnel:
Ensure that unlawful methods are not used, or allowed to be used, to quell protests against forced eviction or displacement and ensure that the human rights of all those protesting against forced eviction or displacement are fully protected;
Protect the rights of the affected communities to information, consultation, participation, and freedom from forced eviction (which requires ensuring their rights to information, adequate consultation, and just and adequate reparation, including resettlement in adequate alternative accommodation.

[1] Since 2005, India has been promoting SEZs across the country. The policy of acquiring land for such industrial projects in several states has sparked protests from local communities fearing forced displacement and threats to their sustainable livelihood.

[2] Paschimbanga Khet Majoor Samity Report (PBKMS), People’s Uprising against Forced Land Acquisition: All disquiet on the Nandigram front, 22-24 January 2007; Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), PBKMS and Manabidhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), Report of Investigation Into Nandigram Mass Killings, 23 March 2007; Sramajibi Swastha Udyog, People’s Health and Janaswastha Swadikar Mancha, Report of the Medical Team from Nandigram, 5 April 2007; Report of All India Independent Fact-finding Team on Nandigram Massacre, 10 April 2007; All India Citizens’ Initiative, Report of the People’s Tribunal on Nandigram, 26-28 May 2007.
[3] Amnesty International public statements: India: Deaths in West Bengal during protest against new industrial project, AI Index: ASA 20/004/2007, 11 January 2007; India: Deaths in West Bengal due to police firing during protests against new industrial project, AI Index: ASA 20/008/2007, 15 March 2007; Amnesty International public statement: India: Need for effective investigations and prosecutions as political violence continues in West Bengal, AI Index: ASA 20/020/2007, 9 November 2007. .
[4] Press release of West Bengal Governor, Kolkata, 9 November 2007, cited in Time of India, 10 November 2007.
[5] NHRC Chairperson’s reply to Members of the Parliament on Nandigram, 21 November 2007.
[6] Profile of a hooded hunter, The Telegraph, 18 November 2007.
[7] Interview with East Medinipore District Magistrate Anoop Kumar Agrawal, Tamluk, 29 November 2007; Interview with Officer-in-Charge, Nandigram police station, Sub-Inspector Champak Chowdhary, 29 November 2007.
[8] Interview with East Medinipore District Superintendent of Police Satya Prakash Panda, Nandigram, 29 November 2007.
[9] Interview with East Medinipore District Superintendent of Police Satya Prakash Panda, Nandigram, 29 November 2007.
[10] Buddhadeb accuses Centre of delaying CRPF deployment, Times of India, 13 November 2007.
[11] Prime Minister concerned over violence in Nandigram, Daily News and Analysis, 5 November 2007.
[12] Centre did not delay deployment of CRPF in Nandigram, Dailyindia.com, 16 November, 2007.
[13] Report on Nandigram Events, Based on visit by social activists and intellectuals, 8-15 November 2007, p. 2-4.
[14] Interview with West Bengal Director-General of Police Anup Bhushan Vohra, Kolkata, 30 November 2007.
[15] Five half-burnt bodies found near Nandigram, Times of India, 5 December 2007.
[16] CID to probe Nandigram graves, Times of India, 7 December 2007.
[17] Communication received from APDR, Kolkata, 8 November 2007.
[18] More bones found in Nandigram, Daily News and Analysis, 8 December 2007.
[19] Body with bullet holes dug out: Wife of BUPC supporter says shirt belonged to her husband, The Telegraph, 13 December 2007.
[20] More claimants to the body from grave, The Telegraph, 14 December 2007.
[21] Report on Nandigram events based on visit by social activists and intellectuals, 8-15 November 2007, p. 12.
[22] Report on Nandigram Events, Based on visit by social activists and intellectuals, 8-15 November 2007, p. 12.
[23] Interview with CRPF DIG Alok Raj, 29 November 2007.
[24] Interview with Officer-in-Charge, Nandigram police station, Sub-Inspector Champak Chowdhary, 29 November 2007. Of the two victims, one is at the Government Hospital at the District headquarters, Tamluk, while the other is at a relief camp.
[25] Interview with West Bengal Chief Secretary Amit Kiran Deb, 30 November 2007.
[26] The names of perpetrators in the five rape cases given by CRPF DIG Alok Raj:
A. Case No 316/07 dated 22 November 2007 under sections 448/363/361/380/325/354/506
Mir Aahsaan s/o Mir Masi Mir
Mir Barik s/o Abu Bakar
Mir Ilyass s/o Mir Kadir
Mir Kalu s/o Mir Akram
Mir Bachhu s/o Mir Akram
Maha Aditya Das s/o Sadanand Jha
Babun Dass s/o Nishikanta
Arubindo Mandal s/o Rishiesh
B. Case No 192/07/dated 11 November 2007 under IPC 376
Kallu s/o Ahsaan
Barrick s/o Abdul Rafe
Bachhu
C. Case No. 30/07 dated 4 March 2007 under sections 448/376 (2)
Sri Hari Samantra s/o Vijay Kalicharan
D. Case No 260/07 dated 17 November 2007 under sections 376 (2)/506
Kalipara Ganadass s/o Sudarshan
Sagar Das s/o Lal Mohan
E. Case No 47/07/19 March 2007 under sections 147, 148, 149, 448, 323, 326, 376, 511 IPC
Badal Gara Das s/o Netri
Sunil Das s/o Kalachand
Sudarshan Gora Das s/o Netai
Gopal Garu Das s/o Sudarshan
Khorna Rai Das wife of Badal
Chargan Shil s/o of Srini Dash
[27] Except in two cases which were registered by the police and whose names have been widely reported in the Indian media, this report is withholding the identity of rape victims.
[28] Interview with Officer-in-Charge, Nandigram police station, Sub-Inspector Champak Chowdhary, 29 November 2007.
[29] Interview with Roshomoi Das Adhikary of Adhikaripara, Gokulnagar, 29 November 2007.
[30] Interview with a victim in Nandigram, name withheld, 28 November 2007.
[31] Interview with a victim in Nandigram relief camp, name withheld, 28 November 2007.
[32] Interview with Mahamaya Das Adhikary of Adhikaripara, Gokulnagar, at Nandigram relief camp, 28 November 2007.
[33] Interview with a victim at the Government Hospital, Tamluk, 28 November 2007.
[34] Buddhadeb accuses Centre of delaying CRPF deployment, Times of India, 13 November 2007.
[35] “I regret saying rivals paid back on the same coin”: Buddhadeb, Hindustan Times, 4 December 2007.
[36] This time Buddha goes to Nandigram to say sorry, Indian Express, 27 December 2007. Later, according to reports, the Chief Minister announced that the Government of West Bengal has sent a fresh proposal to relocate the project at Nayachar island, also near Haldia and the BUPC has once again opposed it. See: Bengal government sends proposal on PCPIR to Centre, The Hindu, 4 January 2008 & BUPC to oppose chemical hub at Nayachar, Economic Times, 7 January 2008.
[37] Interview with East Medinipore District Magistrate Anoop Kumar Agrawal, Tamluk, 29 November 2007.
[38] Interview with Sudhin Bijoli, Nandigram, 28 November 2007.
[39] Interview with West Bengal Chief Secretary Amit Kiran Deb, Kolkata, 30 November 2007.
[40] Nandigram: court directs CBI to file report by 15 February, The Hindu, 17 December 2007.
[41] Nandigram: CBI files four new cases, Times of India, 19 December 2007.
[42] Nandigram: CBI restrained from filing cases against police, The Hindu, 14 December 2007.
[43] Interview with West Bengal Chief Secretary Amit Kiran Deb, Kolkata, 30 November 2007; Interview with East Medinipore District Magistrate, Anoop Kumar Agrawal, Tamluk, 29 November 2007.
[44] Compensation paid to Nandigram victims, Hindustan Times, 31 December 2007.
[45] Interview with villagers, Adhikari pada, 29 November 2007.
[46] Interview with CRPF DIG Alok Raj, Khejuri, 29 November 2007.
[47] These principles are set out in numerous human rights instruments as well as the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law, adopted by UN General Assembly Resolution 60/147 of 16 December 2005.
[48] Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 31 on Article 2 of the Covenant: The Nature of the General Legal Obligation Imposed on States Parties to the Covenant, UN Doc. CCPR/C/74/CRP.4/Rev.6, 21 April 2004, para. 8.
[49] Amnesty International is aware that a consultation paper regarding the protection of the rights of witnesses was drafted in 2004 by India’s Law Commission and subsequently submitted to the Government of India. Despite this initiative, the Government of India is yet to introduce a witness protection scheme. Amnesty International fears that in absence of a witness protection scheme and against a context in which police are feared to have colluded with CPI -M supporters in attacks against women in Nandigram and where a fear of security and safety remain, that victims and witnesses may refrain from registering First Information Reports or from pursuing cases through the criminal justice system.
[50] This contradicts what the East Medinipore District Magistrate informed the delegation when it met him on 28 November. He had said that no money has been released; only an announcement for it has been made to the media by the Chief Secretary.
[51] Delegation’s visit to Brij Mohan Tiwari Siksha Niketan relief camp in Nandigram, 28 November 2007.
[52] According to reports, West Bengal Home Secretary P. R. Roy has stated that the camps at Nandigram were empty and all the inmates had left them while admitting that some of the inmates might have gone to stay with their relatives. See All Inmates in Nandigram relief camps have left: WB government, Times of India, 3 January 2008.
[53] UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, UN Document E/CN.4/1998/53/Add.2, 11 February 1998.
[54] After the delegation’s visit, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was reported to have informed the state assembly that the Government of West Bengal was looking into complaints received from some CPI-M supporters in Nandigram that they were harassed by the CRPF. See: WB Government looking into CRPF excesses: Buddhadeb, Times of India, 13 December 2007. Earlier, state Home Secretary P. R. Roy stated that the CRPF would remain in Nandigram till 12 February 2008. See: CRPF to stay in Nandigram till February 12: Buddhadeb government, Times of India, 12 December 2007.

Counting Muslim votes in Modi’s Gujarat

2007-12-29T11:23:00.000+05:30

HIMAL/JANUARY 2008

ANALYSIS

Counting Muslim votes in Modi’s Gujarat

Gujarat’s Muslim communities tried to send a strong message to the incumbent administration by organising against Narendra Modi. He swept the state, but will he temper his style? Unlikely.

By V K Shashikumar

Narendra Modi’s triumphant return to power in Gujarat, by a huge margin, is as much a victory of Moditva – the brand of rightwing exclusionary politics espoused by Modi over and above Hindutva – as it is an endorsement of the chief minister himself. With the Bharatiya Janata Party’s tally, at 117 out of 182 seats, being just short of the 127 it won in 2002, the Modi phenomenon surpassed even the upper ceiling of exit polls. This win was partly the result of a well-orchestrated media campaign, funded in large part by Gujaratis abroad, through well-timed newspaper advertisements bearing reminders of the Godhra train-burning. There was also a widespread distribution of masks bearing smiling Modi faces.

Yet Modi masks do not the complete picture make. For those who care to notice, Modi lost out in central Gujarat, one of the areas most severely affected by the 2002 anti-Muslim carnage. As results rolled in, it was clear that in central Gujarat alone, the BJP was down 19 seats from 2002, though he later made up for that deficit elsewhere. Here at least, the law of diminishing returns seemed to have worked, after the emotional appeal to communalism went beyond certain limits. These limits evidently included Modi’s last-minute implication that the Muslims of Gujarat could well meet the same fate as Sohrabuddin Sheikh, the small-time criminal killed in 2005 in a fake encounter. But part of the reason that the chief minister gave up his ‘development plank’ and swung back to his time-tested communal rhetoric was because, in the run-up to the elections, the satta, or illegal betting market, had showed an edge for the Congress party.

Despite the whipping up of communal colour in the last few days of campaigning, the state’s Muslim community, which had been backed into a corner in previous assembly polls, had presented a modicum of opposition to the saffron sweep. And yet, the Modi juggernaut was so overwhelming, Gujarat-wide, that Muslim and other activists who campaigned against Modi can for now do nothing more than recall how they tried to stem the Modi tide from tearing through the state for the third time.

In Godhra, the epicentre of the 2002 carnage, Mohammed Hussain Kalota’s family turned out in full strength to cast their votes on 16 December. For the Kalotas, the act of voting was an act of defiance against what they perceived as injustice perpetrated on them by the country’s law-enforcement agencies. Kalota, the former president of the Godhra Municipality, had been at home when the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express went up in flames on 28 February 2002. Although the truth of the train-burning has yet to be ascertained, the police foisted a case on Kalota, accusing him of being part of the conspiracy. Kalota, like many others accused in the case, is currently in jail, but the court case against him is at a standstill. Despite the fact that the chargesheets filed by the police do not have any conclusive evidence, bail has been denied to all.

Kalota’s family got up early to participate in the December elections. For them, the day held more significance than the mere assertion of their democratic right to vote. This was a day when they wanted their individual votes to count, a day when they wanted to ensure that their home state passed the litmus test of inclusiveness. For the Kalotas, this was a day that they hoped would prove that Gujarat does not stand only for Hindus and their development, but rather could be a state where Hindus could live with Muslims and other minorities without fear, a state where access to development and progress would be equitable across all communities. Modi’s victory does seem to have dashed that hope for now, given the fact that the chief minister has not shown remorse for the 2002 incidents, nor has he reconstructed himself.

deshgujarat.com
A plea for moderation
A short distance away from the Kalota home, in another locality of Godhra, Ahmed Kalota was busy passing out instructions to groups of errand boys. At each of the seven booths that he was monitoring, there were 30 members of the local Muslim community, each carrying lists of the Muslim electorate eligible to vote. More than just monitoring, the idea behind the exercise was to ensure that the community leaders played an important role in convincing the voters to step out and cast their votes. “Fifteen days prior to the polling date, we visited each and every house in all the seven polling booth areas that have been allotted to me, to ensure everyone from the community votes,” says Kalota. “On the polling day, those who were reluctant to step out, we went to their house and convinced them to queue. And the result is showing, because the polling in all the seven booths that I managed was 73 percent.”

The areas in Gujarat with significant Muslim populations went to the polls on 16 December. Days before the polling date, local-level Muslim leaders, backed by the Congress party, met in each constituency and finalised a plan to ensure a healthy turnout during the polling day. “Generally, the very act of casting one’s vote is a celebratory exercise,” says Kalota. “But in these elections, we were voting to protect our freedom. It was as if we were preparing for a sombre ritual to assert our identity, to assure ourselves that we are equal citizens of a democratic and secular country.”

For the Muslim minority in Gujarat, this election was about attempting to protect a multitude of freedoms – from fear of discrimination, from rabid communal hatred and propaganda, from fear of riots and of denial of justice.

Local-level planning by Gujarat’s Muslim communities over the past year went almost completely unreported in the Indian media. Even the Gujarati press has not been able to capture the rigorous groundwork that was undertaken by local anti-BJP political activists and community leaders, with an eye to both the Muslim and Hindu communities. Even given the final results, as announced on 23 December, many say that this work has paid certain dividends. “By coming out in large numbers and ensuring that our vote counts, we have succeeded in sending out a message to Modi,” explains Kalota. “We want to tell Modi: Please become moderate.” Despite Modi’s win, many Muslim community leaders are convinced that the chief minister cannot continue to play the communal card. This was certainly true in Godhra, where Congress candidate C K Raulji was announced the winner.

Few are under any illusions as to what the election results mean, however. “This is not a defeat of the Congress party, but a victory for communalism,” says Saiyyed Ummarji, the son of a Godhra cleric who is currently a prime accused in the train-burning case. “Modi successfully polarised the electorate in Gujarat, even in areas where there was discontent against him. That is why discontent against Modi could not be crystalised into votes for Congress. Where Congress went wrong was that it went soft on Modi, and failed to take him on headlong.”

The outcome notwithstanding, Kalota emphasises that the Muslim community in Gujarat is for looking forward, not backward. “Like the Hindus, we also want peace,” he says. “Like the Hindus, we also want development. Like the Hindus, we also want to leave the traumatic events of the Godhra train fire and the communal riots that followed behind us. And Modi knows that whenever he talks of Godhra, others will talk about the riots, and there will be tension whenever that happens. So … we are certain we will see a new, moderate Modi as the chief minister.”

For the sake of Gujarat’s minorities, many are now certainly hoping that Kalota is right in his prognostication. On the other hand, Chief Minister Modi might well take his victory as a green light to a forward march to the Centre, and the elevation of Moditva to the national stage. In that case, Muslims not just in Gujarat, but throughout India, will need to beware.

Report No Evil

2007-12-05T14:51:00.001+05:30

So finally the political pundits, the intelligent spin masters, the brain-dead politicians and ‘hear no evil, see no evil, report no evil’ kind of journalism have all got it wrong. Godhra, Godly communalism and God-speed politics of cold blooded murder (also jargonized as ‘fake encounters’) have all magically come to the centre-stage of electoral politics in Gujarat. Is this magic realism inspired psephology? Just a month ago we spoke about how the centre of gravity in Gujarat elections was firmly located in Modi’s fantastic development initiatives. But India’s urban-centric press, both vernacular and mainstream English have been swept off its feet by the tantalizing nuanced trivia of Moditva. With the explosion of shopping malls and cineplexes and middle class housing being our rather stupid index of real progress and economic growth, it is idiotically fashionable to talk about the Moditva shopping mall. The Moditva shopping mall has vacuous shelf space occupied by goodies that an aggressive media should have picked up and put out to the consumers of news—the readers and viewers.

Gujarat’s success in agriculture is largely because of a splendid genetically modified Bt cotton output. Since, both the devil and the truth are in the detail, let’s get to that detail. First, if somebody cares to look at the statistics it will be clear that Gujarat’s agriculture success is because of a lop-sided growth in cotton cultivation. So how did Modi achieve it? Simple. He allowed illegal varieties of Bt Cotton seed to flourish in the rural agriculture markets. How does one find this out? Drive the cotton producing outposts in rural Gujarat. Meet the seed merchants. Talk to the farmers. Go their fields. Go to their sheds where they stock cotton seeds and the cotton produce. The truth is out there. Also remember to talk to Monsanto, the huge multinational behemoth that produces and holds the patent for Bt Cotton seeds. Why isn’t anyone finding out how much Monsanto would have lost in revenue because of illegal Bt Cotton seeds?

But most importantly why is the department of bio-technology keeping quiet. There is already such an international furore over genetically modified organisms and even the central government has conceded that genetically modified crops should be grown in under a strict regulatory and supervisory conditions. But these are un-sexy stories and so are not reported in the media. By allowing illegal Bt Cotton seed to flood the Gujarat seed market, has Modi ensured mass genetic contamination of natural cotton variety in Gujarat? What portent does it hold for the future of cotton farming in Gujarat? Again un-sexy stories that TV news channels will never attempt to accomplish.

Right to Information documents (these are official documents of the Gujarat government) clearly admit that 498 farmers committed suicide in Gujarat. And another 6,695 apparently died in “accidents”. Un-sexy story number three. Rakesh Sharma’s new film ‘Khedu Mora Re’ (62 minutes) graphically documents the phenomenon of farmer suicides in Gujarat. The film itself reports 10-12 suicides in Amreli, Surendranagar, Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Bharuch and Surat. The RTI data reveals shocking district-wise figures – Rajkot (63 suicides), Junagad (85), Amreali (34), Mehsana (48), Nadiad (44), Jamnagar (55), Narmada (30) and even in Gandhinagar (13), right under the Chief Minister’s nose!

I know nobody has the time to read and get into the details. The fine-print, again, is so un-sexy. If Sherlock Holmes was alive in this all-glitz-no-substance age he would have mockingly said: “Elementary, my dear jokers!” So here’s a paraphrased excerpt from Rakesh Sharma’s press release on the content of his film ‘Khedu Mora Re’.

“Right to Information data collected and collated by activist Bharat Jhala nails government lies and exposes its attempts to suppress the truly horrifying scale of farmer suicides in Gujarat. Modi claimed in a TV interview to NDTV on March 14, 2007 that no farmer commits suicide in Gujarat. A month later, he admitted to 148 suicides on the floor of the assembly. Official data that we finally got in Oct 10, 2007, 5 months after we filed queries, confirms 498 suicides formally. However, even this list is partial as it does not feature several suicide stories painstakingly documented in the film! As many suicides are passed off as accidents, we also filed RTI queries seeking details of all accidental deaths - of the 6,695 farmers who died in "accidents", over 4000 have not been paid any Kisan Vima Yojana money (we've informally learnt that insurance companies have denied many such "accident" claims as many of these are suicides)! Amazingly, on Oct 10 itself, the day the Gujarat gave us RTI data confirming 498 suicides, an official ad released on ETV categorically stated that there are no suicides in Gujarat and people should not believe false propaganda. The ad itself seems to be done in response to the coverage in end Sept and October to our press conferences and the film excerpts we showed!"

Here’s un-sexy story number 4. Again something that we journalists should documented much long ago. ‘Khedu Mora Re’ exposes the much hyped Sujalam Sufalam scheme that Modi has been going to town with. The film probes the Sujalam Sufalam scheme at “at ground level, especially during the recent floods in Saurashtra -where farmers squarely blame this scheme for their misfortune. Says a farmer in the film, "Till a couple of years ago, there was never a flood in Gokharwada (distt Surendranagar) but ever since this sujalam sufalam, our village and lands get submerged every year due to these new check dams, with faulty planning and construction. Modi keeps announcing packages worth hundreds of crores, but the reality is that people are yet to receive even 5 rupees out of the post-flood package announced for 2005! And now this flood in 2007 – it has destroyed us totally."

Dalits and Tribals were mobilized by the loony and lumpen Hindutva brigade to carry out the Gujarat genocidal killings. Indians have a perfect sense of caste, specially the Hindutva variety of Hindus. Modi elevates picking up other people’s shit to high spiritualism. Yes, he said that the lower caste untouchables who pick up other people’s shit in Gujarat from dry latrines, the Valmikis, also called manual scavengers, are doing God’s work. Beautifully put. Upper castes Hindus leave their crap behind for lower caste Hindus to pick up and throw away. This is what Valmikis do for a living. And we talk of a prosperous Gujarat. By the way manual scavenging is prohibited under Indian laws. Anybody forcing anyone to do this horrific work, even in the name of God, can be imprisoned. Yet, in a Hindu resurgent Gujarat, the Chief Minister, the protector of Hindus, the Vanquisher of Muslims, the great reformer, the brilliant political science student, the lithe swimmer, the harbinger of economic development---Mr. Narendra Modi—says its fine for some Hindus to pick up shit for a living.

Little wonder then that Upper Caste Hindus mobilized Lower Caste Hindus and programmed them to take part in riots. If some newspaper or magazine or TV news channel had the foresight to send reporters to the interior tribal areas of Gujarat and spoken to the Dalit and Tribal community leaders, we would have know how remorseful they are for having led their community members in participating in the 2002 genocide against Muslims. Again, civil society must be indebted to Rakesh Sharma for bringing this reality out.

“The back cover of the CD itself contextualizes the film – the saffronisation of the Dalit-OBC population and its consequent plight! The film looks specifically at the patterns of arrests and litigation since 2002. A majority of those charged with rioting, arson, murder etc are either tribals or Dalits and OBCs. An analysis of those arrested from 32 police stations in Ahmedabad suggests that of the 1577 detainees, only 30-odd were upper caste! Are these foot soldiers victims too? Cynically recruited, then discarded, left to rot in jails, what do the 'perpetrators of the violence feel today about the VHP and the BJP?

The film has several personal portraits and conversations. Among the points that emerge:

*6-8 families of S-6 passengers who died speak of how they were told people were going for a picnic tour, certainly not any karseva, that the VHP-BJP exploited their tragedy for electoral gains in 2002, how ever since then no one has come to help, how monies raised in their name never reached them...and how some of them who spoke in public about it have been threatened by the VHP!

*VHP made tall promises to help the detained and the injured Hindutva cadre, but barring some rations and monetary help in the first month or two, not much came. The VHP/BJP combine simply vanished. A telling story is Kanti and Deepak's account from Gomtipur - both shot by the police, both appealed to the BJP for help (incl the CM) but got nothing. When they went to Togadia's own Dhanvantri hospital for operations/ treatment, they were turned away, asked to bring a deposit of Rs 50,000 first!”

Time now for un-sexy story number 5. Fake encounters in Gujarat. 23…yes, twenty three innocent Muslims were killed and labeled as terrorists. One was a Hindu who converted to Islam to marry the woman he loved. All of them were designated as Lashkar or Jaish terrorists. All that newspapers, magazines and TV news channels had to do was read the absolutely ridiculous and preposterous police charge sheets and the submissions made by the government lawyers in the trial courts. That’s all. Again the truth is out there waiting to be reported. Think about it. Modi has never been attacked. Not evenly remotely in terrorist strike. But the people who were allegedly killed for planning to kill him were killed when they were “conspiring” to kill him. Twenty Three people were shot dead for conspiring to kill Modi. No arrests. No detention. No investigation.

Think about it. If you are in Gujarat pay Rs 50 at the local courts where the trial of the fake encounters are going on and get the police charge sheet. Get also the submissions made by the public prosecutor. Listen to the court proceedings, See the court proceedings, Speak about everything you have heard and seen after you have read the documents. But we still continue to See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Speak No Evil.

So We Report No Evil.

That journalism is failing to do what it is supposed to do is a no-brainer. It’s an indisputable fact. Thankfully, journalists, newspapers, magazines and TV news channels are not the only ones who are interested in practicing journalism. So, an array of activists is contributing to independent journalism and that is a relief. A honcho of an entertainment channel recently said in response to allegations of rigging following the announcement of the winner of a reality show: “Our show is more real than the news that one sees on news television.” Nobody could have dared to make such a derogatory remark on the practice of journalism a decade ago. If citizen journalists can report and put their stories on air, why can’t activist film-makers?

The idiot box has really come of age. It has acquired a mind of its own. It is showing our idiocy.

Post-Script: What about the Godhra train burning accused? What about the Muslims who supposedly burnt the S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express? Yes, what about them? Do we know them? What’s the truth?

Narendrabhai Modi is really a bhai who does bhaigiri and saffron dadagiri. But, unfortunately, he has many, many things to hide. And now he no place to run and hide because the TRUTH is catching up with him.

2007-11-28T00:36:00.001+05:30

Why We Do Journalism

2007-11-24T12:44:00.000+05:30

Whatever you might say about journalists and journalism, your views do not mean anything to me at this point in time. Whatever you think of our self belief, we do not really care at this point in time. Whether you really want to make us the punching bag, it doesn't matter to us at this point in time. In the final analysis we were in the spot, right in the middle of stone pelting and arson, right in the midst of a hostile environment, doing our best to inform the nation of what was happening in a particular locality of Kolkata. Wherever we would set up an OB location for a live link there would be hooligans inciting others to attack us. We stood our ground, tackled their anger, got the views of others out to the nation without judging them, we gave the news that you could consume. We informed you. We did our job. Without a chip on our shoulders. We braved the stones and the abuses so that you could know. We do this for a living. We live our lives thinking that sometime in our career we should be in the right place at the right time so that we can do our bit to inform you....our esteemed viewers.

That's what journalism is all about. To capture contemporary history without distilling it. And when everything is over to distill it with perspective. We are your ringside whisperers. We could have been managers. We could have been corporate honchos. We could have put a tie and gelled our hairs. The shaved look. The suave 21st century global go-getters. But we prefer to be out there on the streets relaying those visuals with the help some outstandingly courageous professionals. We all learnt in our biology classes about stimuli. That when a stone is thrown at you, you duck. But our camerapersons actually stand up to record that visuals. One of our camera persons got beaten up. Roughed up. Only because he was committed to gathering news so that you could watch it while having dinner. Such is our lives. And we love every moment of it. The adrenalin rush is simply unending in journalism. We know of no other profession where we could be what we are.

Yes, of course we are a pretencious lot. We tend to think, often, that by merely knowing a whole of lot of people in power gives us access to that power. That is an aberration. We are the chronicler of the change within and without. We are story-tellers. We tell you what is happening around you. What might affect your life in positive ways. The things that might come in your way. We are also your conscience keeper. We raise our voice when you sit in your drawing room and criticize everything around you. When you become the arm chair critic, we give you the ammunition for an intelligent debate. We are what you are. We become your thoughts, we voice your thoughts, and we connect your thoughts to the larger world that you face every single day. We try to bring you right in the middle of things happening in your nation. We give a ringside view. We get into the ring as well.

While schools and offices were closing down. When you were rushing to the safety of your homes, we were rushing in the opposite direction. Unarmed. We are not the police, the army, you know. We are pretty ordinary mortals like you. Just convinced that we have a job to do. We are the much maligned journalists. And guess what we are doing right now, while you are sleeping. We are walking the streets of Kolkata. So that when you wake up tomorrow morning and switch on the TV to grab the news while having breakfast, we would be in a position to tell you what could expect in your city. We are working to inform you. That's our job. We are paid to do just that. To inform you so that you can make your discerning conclusions. There is whole lot of us doing the same. So many news channels and newspapers. Each with their own perspectives and slants. But again in the end you get form your opinion. That's what journalism is all about.

And guess what. While I am writing this blog, the music from the movie Metro is blaring in the office. My colleagues are working the phones by the minute seeking details from various police stations. And all of this while we all of us really having fun listening to 'Alvida'

Alvida.

'It's time India took on terror by the horn'

2007-11-12T16:17:00.000+05:30

Are our intelligence agencies failing to get the better of these subversive elements? VK Shashikumar, Editor of Special Investigations, CNN-IBN, addressed these issues in a live chat on IBNLive.com on October 15.

Here we reproduce the full text of the chat:-

Varun Bharat: How can a normal individual contribute to stopping terror?

V K Shashikumar: By being vigilant and reporting suspicious activity to local police authorities. In the Ajmer blast, a blue bag containing explosives was found. The terrorists could not set that off, otherwise the casualties might have been higher. This bag was left behind by someone. So if citizens are vigilant, somebody would have spotted the terrorist leaving the bag behind. We have to be alert citizens and help law enforcement authorities by coming forward and reporting suspicious activity.

B Jayahander Rao: Dear V K Shashikumar, The terrorist attacks are becoming routine now-a-days. The governament and the investigating agencies are not doing much to prevent these acts of terror. If these acts increase in number and spread across India, how do you think this will impact the Indian economy and especially the stock market?

V K Shashikumar: Terror attacks are, indeed, becoming routine. This is because unlike the earlier phase of stand alone terrorist attacks, terrorist groups, militant organisations, insurgent groups, sub-national overground movements and terror financiers, including big criminal underworld groups, have all fused in network-centric operations.

So, if earlier the LeT or JeM carried out stand alone attacks using their own capabilities, now they depend on each other, optimise the use of their resources, "outsource" terror functions to other groups and carry out terror strikes with a high degree of coordination.

So, on the ground this means that the recce of a terror operation location is carried out by someone, the financing of that operation comes from somewhere else, the plan is formulated in some other place, it is communicated to someone else and finally executed by another group. In most cases it is carried out with the help of some local elements. Local elements also provide shelter and, therefore, anonymity.

Terror groups across Pakistan, India and Bangladesh have networked. They in turn have networked with subversive and anti-national groups located in India, who believe in the path of violence.

So, Maoists are reportedly joining hands with fundamentalist groups, the insurgent groups in the north-east are linking up with terror groups because by networking every member of the networked group gets greater outreach and by extension greater power.

Kasturi Ray: Each time we hear of terrorism, it's an intelligence failure. In reality, how does protect such a widespead and diverse country? Don't you think we need to have a special corp in the police whose only responsibility would be to provide additional support to the team on the ground, in areas that are susceptible?

V K Shashikumar: Intelligence sources tell us that in the last six months around 11 terror strikes were foiled. This means many innocent lives were saved. Within the limited resources available to our intelligence agencies, it would be reasonably fair to say that some good work is being carried out in counter terror operations.

However, your point is valid. In a large, diverse country like ours, bedevilled with complex problems, a lot more has to be done to strengthen counter-terror methods.

For instance, the intelligence bureau has around 20,000 staff strength. Internal security and active counter terror operations form a big part of IB's mandate. But it needs better trained personnel to put in place in active counter terror operations, which includes giving them a 21st century technical platform for effective intelligence gathering, so that more and more sleeper terror modules are busted.

In fact, our forces develop the ability to squash a terror module the moment it is set up that would bring us up to the level of other countries fighting terrorism.

Yes, a federal agency dealing with terror related operations which has the ability to react quickly and effectively is very much required to enhance India's counter terror operations. There has to be a unified response to the terror threats and it cannot be left to the police forces of the states to fight out this menace. The police forces will also have to retrain, re-equip and re-orient themselves to becoming crime and terror fighting forces instead of merely being a law and order force. But we have a long long way to go in achieving all these objectives

Manoj K: Do we require better intelligence coordination today than in the past?

V K Shashikumar: Yes, better intelligence coordination is a necessary condition to fight terrorism. There has been some effort to set up an intelligence coordination mechanism with the nerve centre located with the Intelligence Bureau HQ in Delhi. And it appears that this mechanism is already delivering success. However, this is just the first step. Fusing external and internal intelligence and building coherent and comprehensive scenarios and actionable intelligence is a very complex affair.

Nandini: Why was POTA dropped by the UPA?

V K Shashikumar: Laws legislated to fight terrorism have often been used "politically" and have hardly been used by law enforcement authorities to fight terrorism. Instead, POTA, for instance, was used to detained hundreds of people on fairly ordinary charges and in many cases without a shred of evidence against them. There are already laws in place for combating terrorism and a new law will hardly solve the problem.

According to me, the Central Government must enunciate and put in place a national policy on terrorism, a policy that will not only enable our security forces to fight terrorism on the ground, but also enable retraining and reorienting our police forces to fight terrorism, enable a 21st century technical platform to gather intelligence, enable an effective intelligence coordination mechanism between states and centre, set up a federal agency to fight internal security threats and put heavy emphasis on education and on programmes that wean the youth away from fundamentalist ideologies.

This would necessarily mean creating an expanding job and entrepreneurship opportunities market. A mix of strategic, economic, educational policies are required to enable the government to challenge and defeat network centric terrorism.

In short, just as terrorists are fusing their capabilities for greater reach and impact, so must the government respond by networking its response strategies.

Dilbert: What exactly do you constitute as terror? The final act of violence is just a culmination of the whole process by which people feel isolated, get recruited and participate in the actual event. Where do you think societies would come in? Is there a fool proof way by which the sense of alienation could be removed?

V K Shashikumar: There can certainly be a fool proof method in ensuring that the youth is not pushed into the cesspool of violence, where every act of violence is seen as a legitimate instrument to overturn a perceived or imagined or real wrong.

If the government were to put in place effective education cover for all and in turn ensure that the education so received would find professional expression in the marketplace it would build a seamless continuum that would suck up youth in India's growing economy, instead of throwing them into the society as rejects and, thereby, making fundamentalists ideologies and violence more meaningful for them.

What is pushing young people to support extremist ideologies? This is a question that has to be addressed more meaningfully and thought more purposefully.

Cash For Editorials

2007-09-18T19:10:00.000+05:30

http://penpricks.blogspot.com/2007/09/big-one-cash-for-editorials.html

Go to the above link for the "Cash For Editorials" Investigation.

Finally somebody at least made a beginning by exposing corruption in media.

Here is an excerpt:

"The purpose of this story is not to defame any particular individual or institution. Penpricks’ motive is to expose a shameful practice in the media, which has been going on for a while, albeit behind closed doors. During the 2007 assembly elections, journalism in Goa hit a new low with the Herald, and the other Goan English daily The Navhind Times, consistently publishing political advertisements under the garb of news reports. Such stray cases of journalistic impropriety have occurred before. But, never has a newspaper so unabashedly systemised such unethical trends. This outrage in fact, became the cornerstone of this investigative story. And to trace the extent of journalistic degeneration in a newspaper, became our only motivation. But there was still one brook we had to wade through, before plunging into this torrent. How do we define the extent of this degradation?

After some deliberation, Penpricks arrived at this conclusion. (We are putting down our thought-process on paper, so that our readers know the logic behind this investigation) An editorial was and continues to be the soul of a newspaper. In the age of commercial conquest of news-space, the free-flowing column on the extreme left of the editorial page still continues to be the sanctum sanctorum of a newspaper. It is still that organ in a ravaged journalistic carcass that’s shudders sometimes, to let folk know it’s still alive. An editorial today, still lends a saddened reader, a shoulder, a harried reader, hope and at times cracks a whip at outrage. Would any newspaper mortgage/sell an editorial to an advertiser? Is the soul still sacred, or is it already on the advertisers shelf? This is what we found out…"

For more go to:

http://penpricks.blogspot.com/2007/09/big-one-cash-for-editorials.html

'Media shows efficacy by exposing shocking crimes'

2007-09-03T23:11:00.000+05:30

LIVE CHAT: V K Shashikumar answered questions on whether media is more efficient in maintaining a vigil on social evils.

http://www.ibnlive.com/printpage.php?id=47978§ion_id=3

They say Sting Operations are in bad taste. But time and again the media have shown their efficacy by exposing shocking crimes and the dirty underbellies of society which would, otherwise, have never probably been noticed by the law-enforcing agencies. Are media more efficient in maintaining a vigil on social evils? V K Shashikumar, Editor Special Investigations, CNN-IBN, discussed this issue with IBNLive readers in a live chat in our chatroom on Monday. Excerpts from the interaction:-

Shekhar: Why doesn't media (when they caught culprits on tape) pursue the matter until the justice has been done to the victims/witnesses? Take any type of media, be it a television or newspaper, take up the issue with great enthusiasm in the beginning but suddenly stops, even discussing the issue after a little while. Why don't the media pursue the matter until the end until the culprit has been punished (so that the public's trust on the media increase)?

V K Shashikumar: The investigative story that we did yesterday was pursued to its logical conclusion. The baby was reunited with the mother and is under the care of the CWC. The traffickers have been arrested by the Delhi police and a case has been registered. Likewise there are many stories that are pursued to their logical conclusion.

Nagarajan: Sting Operations by media without indepth investigation may lead only to violent reactions as it happened in Delhi. Regional channels go for such sting operations to increase their TRP. What's the use of Sting operations if it cannot be taken to its logical end of punishing the guilty and helping the society.

V K Shashikumar: Basically all journalism is investigative. It springs from the need to answer basic questions: why, when, where and how. A sting operation is also a part of investigative journalism. But it should be carried out within ethical parameters and should be determined solely by asking one simple question. Is this sting operation in the public interest? There should be straightforward public interest associated with the reasons that justify the use of a hidden camera as an investigative tool to unearth evidence of wrongdoing.

Reza: What has so far been your most challenging sting? With regards to the background preparation needed and the overall risks involved? Also in a nutshell how do u sum up the key points needed to be kept in mind while investigating?

V K Shashikumar: In CNN-IBN we have a very severe protocol that determines the decision making with regard to a sting operation. First the CNN-IBN Special Investigation team generates evidence. Nine out of 10 times the evidence is gathered through a rigorous exercise of digging up official documentary evidence. In some cases, we go on a recce and find out what’s going wrong. In some cases we get tipped off from very very credible sources. We follow those tips through research and on ground verification. Once the first level of evidence gathering is done we shift gears and plan its execution. Most of our investigations are field based and based on classical and conventional investigative journalists where evidence is gathered from the field. Increasingly we are using instruments like the Right to Information to gather evidence. When we come to a stage where the story needs exposing a wrong doing that cannot be done by conventional methods, but yet we have enough evidence to back it up, then at this stage we begin strategising a plan to operationalise a sting operation. But 9 out of 10 times if we happened to be newspaper reporters we would already have the story ready to written and printed. But since TV is an audio visual medium we sometimes have to go that extra length to back the documentary evidence we have generated with audio-visuals. So first we try the regular route. But when that seems unlikely, that’s when a sting operation is planned. I hope this answers all the queries with regard to how and what determines a sting operation in CNN-IBN. Also, apart from all the processes mentioned above, a sting is only authorised if there is a clear and prescient and straightforward public interest involved in the expose.

Nnnn: Dear Shashi, congrats on your daring and intelligent work. My question is regarding corporate crime. Michael Moore in one of his earlier documentaries, talks about how the media, despite its endeavor to highlight crime in society, doesn't always successfully cover the large area of corporate crime. Examples abound in India too and the simple mention of Non-performing assets is evidence enough of corporate cronyism and crime being rampant in our country. Have you designed a way of exposing this? How, for e.g. would you expose a Hawala scandal or a Ketan Mehta type of crime?

V K Shashikumar: The Indian media does not have a good track record in exposing corporate crimes. This is a yawning gap and a huge area of public interest journalism is waiting to be tapped. To be very honest, no, we dont have a plan as of now to expose corporate crimes. At the moment corporate crimes fall in the media blindspot. CNN-IBN SIT has done some exposes like the one of overbooking and cheating by Air Deccan or recently the story of the world's largest cement manufacturer. La Farge, violating environment norms in Meghalaya and mortgaging a part of Indian land to banks in Bangladesh. We have done quite investigations on corporate crimes.

nisha82: Indeed media can play an important role in keeping a vigil on social evils and by doing so it can help in reducing crimes. For this it is important for media industry to focus more on these issues. One or two investigative stories in months can't solve the purpose. For this we need great will power and determination. At the same time media can also make people aware of their responsibilities and its their duty to realise them that its the common us (common man) who can make a difference. But vigil should be for social causes not for gathering gossip material.

V K Shashikumar: Media is a favourite punching bag for arm chair critics. The failure of India's criminal justice system to deliver, the massive corruption in the bureaucracy and the general sense of system collapse has pitchforked media into the spotlight...as if it is responsible for the mess and also for cleaning it up. The media's job is to inform and throw up issues for public debate. And by doing so inspire policy and mindset changes. Media is a change agent. It is not and should not be construed as an agent of change.

Shahin Arora: I congratulate you and your whole team four this sting operation. These types of stings are really helpful to change the face of India. Sir, I have some of the stories full of corruption in our town Ferozepur.

V K Shashikumar: If you or anyone participating in the chat has tip offs or story ideas do write in to editor@ibnlive.com.

Nishim: Do you think the attempt to illeagalise Sting operation by government was justified.

V K Shashikumar: There is no way that any government in this country will ever be able to clamp down on the media. We won't be gagged.

Vishal: I have a question why only administration in big cities targeted for sting operations , why not target small municipal corporations which award bogus contracts and use sub standard material in maintaining cities like that of Faridabad and also the high handedness of the police in these cities where you have to shell out money even to file an FIR.

V K Shashikumar: If you have information on small municipal corporations or bureaucrats giving away bogus contracts feel free to tip us off at editor@ibnlive.com the media is not a law enforcement agency. It is the fourth pillar of democracy. It is a watch dog and watch dogs need public support to be successful. We depend on pubic spirited citizens to give us leads and clues. Almost always we generate our own leads because we have a wide variety of contacts across various sectors of public life and those who are public spirited who empower us with information, leads and documentary evidence. You too can be whistleblower and help us to do our job. If you have any evidence or information of corruption or misuse of public money just write in to editor@ibnlive.com and we will investigate the matter.

Hans: Sir, I agree with you that the investigative story on the child has come to it's logical conclusion. Was there any real impact of the story you did called Citizen X? If it is so easy for a person to get a passport for a few thousand rupees. It's been more than three years since my wife submitted her application and is still waiting in line. I wonder if that story has had any real impact?

V K Shashikumar: In many investigations the logical conclusions are not communicated through the channel. In the case of Citizen X investigation, we submitted all the documents we generated including the passport to senior officials of the intelligence bureau, a day after it was aired. The Government (Ministry of External Affairs) ordered an enquiry and we deposed before it. We submitted all the raw footage, documents, phone numbers and every scrap of information we had to the enquiry committee. The vigilance department of MEA has already finished the enquiry and submitted its reports. The touts at Bikaji Cama Place (Delhi's passport office) have disappeared. I am in direct contact with a senior official of the MEA with regard to the follow up action and so if your wife has not got her passport, do send all the details to editor@ibnlive.com and I shall forward it to the concerned official for necessary action. So many times there are follow up actions but it is not reflected in the channel. But i agree with you that in the Citizen X investigation we did not follow up to the extent that we should have. Evidence coming from the investigation into the Hyderabad Blasts reveal that those who were involved had also created fake identities.

Busa:When you do a sting operation , you will definitely come across people who are honest , why you don’t highlight that aspect ?

V K Shashikumar: By definition a sting operation is an operation to unearth a racket, a corrupt practice or corruption or a wrong doing. Sting operations were first conducted by intelligence agencies to catch law-breakers in the act so to say. Now readily available modern technology helps journalists to go up close to these kind of people and expose them. So by definition sting operations do not come across good and honest people and if at all it does then the parameters under which such an operation was undertaken, obviously, are immediately proven to misleading and wrong.

Namita: Delhi's sex racket is far too widespread than what you can see. Try and expose some big shots, I will salute you.

V K Shashikumar: We can only do as much as we can. if you have any insights on the involvement of 'big shots' do tip us off.

Malla: Unscrupulous builders in Mumbai are taking their customers for a joy-ride. They do not deliver what they promise. Also, delivery is not made on time. They arm-twist salaried class/middle-income group customers. Flat buyers have to buy parking too, failing which possession of the flat is not given. Despite clear legal guidelines that parking space should not be sold, builders do not bother. There is no respite for flat buyers who pay through their nose (first to the builder and then to the bank). Can you please as a responsible media look into the woes of flat buyers in the country? Can the builders be exposed? Builder - registrar nexus has reached new heights. Customers are made to pay about Rs.2000 and more in the form of cash, to register their properties, failing which the customer is made to run around pillar to post for some document or the other. Can you do something about it?

V K Shashikumar: : Of course they can be exposed. this is a good investigative idea to follow up. Do write in editor@ibnlive.com with whatever information you have. We will try and build on that into a full scale investigation.

Rakhi: There are hundreds of cases where youths from Punjab and Haryana have got young girls from the Northeast in the name of marriage and then forced them into sex trade. Why doesn't CNN-IBN probe this?

V K Shashikumar: Again a good investigative lead for us to follow. Thank you. If you have further details feel free to write to editor@ibnlive.com and we will certainly follow it up. This is the kind of interaction we want with our viewers and readers. Public interest journalism survives and is sustained by public spirited citizens like you.

Podimala: Can tightening the screws of law alone solve the problem? Isn’t poverty the real culprit is such nasty industries like selling wombs, body parts, prostitution and so on?

V K Shashikumar: Nothing justifies crime and corruption.

Vikas Menghwani: Media has done wonderful jobs in surfacing what is bad and invisible, agreed, it has driven the whole country towards better and scientific destinations but does that mean that the media can never be questionable, do you think there are areas in which media has not performed the way it should? What are the things you think media "does" but it should not "do"?

V K Shashikumar: Of course, media should always be questioned and scrutinised. It is a fact that there is an unsavoury shadow on unethical practices and questionable integrity in the conduct of journalists and the way they go about doing their job. And since media is in the business of education, informing and entertaining and must do so with unimpeachable integrity, it is of utmost importance that there are strong internal mechanisms within every channel to check, control and weed out undesirable elements and stories done with questionable intent and integrity.

Chandrashekhar: Dear Sir, Even though the BMW Expose was not done by CNN-IBN and was by NDTV, I am asking you this question on the media perspective. The BMW expose has been so clear that those business man is clearly involved in the incident (they even showed the top criminal lawyers of our country bribing and asking for money in the camera shown). My questions are as follows sir and i really appreciate if you can reply to them. 1. Only the NDTV at that time has exposed that sting and no other media even highlighted that incident. 2. All of a sudden, the BMW Expose which made waves on the media screen, suddenly disappeared from the camera. Most of the people are not aware of what happened to those 2 criminal lawyers who are involved and the case in a whole. How can any media let it happen?

They say Sting Operations are in bad taste. But time and again the media have shown their efficacy by exposing shocking crimes and the dirty underbellies of society which would, otherwise, have never probably been noticed by the law-enforcing agencies. Are media more efficient in maintaining a vigil on social evils? V K Shashikumar, Editor Special Investigations, CNN-IBN, discussed this issue with IBNLive readers in a live chat in our chatroom on Monday.

V K Shashikumar: The BMW case was followed by extensively by the media. The lawyers have had to present themselves before the courts. The case is being heard. On the contrary, this was one instance of a story that was followed up by the media.

Thank you all for joining me in this discussion. It was wonderful, as always, interacting with you all. And at the end of it, I would once again say the same thing: public interest journalism survives and is sustained by public-spirited citizens like you. At CNN-IBN, we believe in and practise participatory journalism. When you feel strongly about an issue, do write in to editor@IBNlive.com. See you again sometime soon.

Order, Order, Order!!

2007-08-03T11:54:00.000+05:30

If I was Vijay Shekhar I would prefer to go to jail than apologise to the Supreme Court for a purely journalistic work that was carried out with utmost honesty. Shekhar, a senior journalist and currently Bureau Chief of Zee Business in Mumbai did the "Warrants For Sale" story which has very obviously rubbed the respectable judges of the Supreme Court the wrong way. One of CNN-IBN's journalist, Jency Jacob, whose reportage on the immediate aftermath of Mumbai 7/11 brought the terrorist inflicted carnage of that day into millions of living room across the world, was associated with the "Warrants For Sale" Investigation. Jency sent an email to me describing how the "Warrants For Sale" investigation was conceived and executed. Here's the email in verbatim. "It all started in 2004 when a man named Manohar Geelani staying in Ulhasnagar approached me and Vijay Shekhar with his sad story. He works with Central bank of India and was fighting some goons in Ulhasnagar who were harassing him for the last ten years. This guy and his mother had some dispute with a local politician there. The dispute became so dangerous that fake warrants were issued against Manohar's name by magistrates from Gujarat and other states under fictitious charges like dacoity, rape, attempt to murder just to name a few. Manohar was a strong willed man and fought all the cases but it took a toll on his life and career. He was in hiding for six years and also lost his job with central bank(which he got back later on through court cases and after his case was highlighted on Zee news)." "To cut the story short, Vijay went to Meghani Nagar in Gujarat, near Ahmedabad. The modus operandi is very simple. There are agents and lawyers who sit outside these lower courts. You have to approach them and tell them that you need warrants against so and so persons under these charges. Money is charged on the basis of seriousness of charges. These lawyers then make all the papers and also bring witnesses (either fake or real) to testify. Vijay gave four names: Former President of India Abdul Kalam Former Chief justice of India V N Khare Supreme Court Judge R K Jain Supreme Court Judge BP Singh He paid 40,000 rupees for all these four warrants. Though we could not reach till the magistrate or his subordinates due to the ineffectiveness of the hidden cam, the lawyers went inside and got the warrants in no time. That means the above mentioned four persons could be hounded by the police since a warrant was issued on their names." Clearly, the Supreme Court is setting a bad precedent by muzzling the press and grievously damaging the independence of journalists in exposing the failures of India's judicial system. Is the Supreme Court trying to convey the idea that the judiciary in India is free of corruption? The Supreme Court has graciously given brownie points to the concerned magistrate and given him a clean chit. But could warrants be issued without his assent? What is really important and something that the Supreme Court justices have conveniently forgotten to take note of is the fact that the news story did not name the magistrate. The moot point of the investigation was to highlight how the system was corrupt and that warrants could and were being issued against any person residing in India on fake charges for a price. It is quite ridiculous that just on the basis of Gujarat state CID's clean chit to the magistrate, the Supreme Court has decided to forcefully drag an honourable and honest journalist to the Court to tender an apology. The Supreme Court of India is attacking one of the fundamentals of a progressive and liberal democracy, a free and independent press. And there is neither any justification nor any reason to do so. By forcing a journalist to apologise the highest court in the country is sending out a signal to journalists to stay away exposing the judiciary. But this is really about barking up the wrong the tree. If the honourable judges think that journalists are going to stay away from exposing miscarriage of justice such as in the case of Jessica Lal and Priyadarshani Mattoo, then they are hugely mistaken. If the honourable judges are trying hard to convince fellow Indians that there is absolutely no corruption in the Indian judicial system, then its best joke to start the week with. The honourable Supreme Court justices must be aware that the public confidence in the Judiciary is already shaken. A Transparency International report released in May 207 said that 77 per cent of respondents in a survey in India believe the judiciary is corrupt. It used to be said that the Indian Military and the Indian Judiciary were the only institutions that could proudly show off the corruption free tag. Not anymore. Both institutions have fallen from grace. The armed forces have quickly moved in to rein in corruption in the services and arms acquisitions, but the Indian judiciary instead of looking within is busy hounding journalists. Over the last two decades the Judiciary has been in the news starting with Justice V. Ramaswamy's impeachment brouhaha in the early 1990s. The controversies and allegations of corruptions are many. Here are some: The Bombay Pay-Off Scandal Allegation of the Bombay High Court Chief Justice Bhattarcharjee being the recipient of foreign royalties in 1995 Corruption allegations over Justices Punchi and Anand, both former Chief Justices of India In Rajasthan and Karnataka there have allegations of Judges compromising their integrity over sexual favours. In fact, CNN IBN Special Investigation Team had come close to breaking a story on a judge who was willing to settle a case in return for sexual favours. One of the team members posing as a litigant had got hours of lascivious conversation of judge on tape as he offered to settle her case favourably if she agreed to providing her sexual favours. Of course, we closed the investigation because there was just no way that this investigation could have been completed. But we watched very closely one instance of judicial corruption. We watched how touts, criminals and the staff of the court complex were so closely involved with the judge. In fact, the person who would call up my team member was a person who was a tout in that court complex. When he called the team member and said he was fixing up a getaway for the judge, that's when we realized this investigation just cannot be sustained and we decided to call it off. Corruption in Judiciary is commonly talked about in every chai shop in every court complex in the country in routine conversations. So what is offensive about a sting operation that exposed some black holes in India's judicial system? Have the Supreme Court judges forgotten Justice Bharucha's famous declaration that 20 per cent of judges are corrupt? Here's what Transparency International's Global Corruption Report says about India's justice system: "The degree of delays and corruption has led to cynicism about the justice system. People seek short cuts through bribery and favours, leading to more unlawful behaviour. A prime example is the unauthorized buildings in Indian cities. Construction laws are flouted in connivance with persons in authority." When the report was released two months ago this is what senior advocate KTS Tulsi was quoted as having said in media reports: "There is obviously some corruption in the judiciary and we need to put it down with a heavy hand. The ostrich like approach will not serve the purpose anymore." Tulsi went on to question how many judges had been prosecuted despite the overwhelming common understanding that corruption in the judiciary had grown in gargantuan proportions. "Corrupt judges must be given extreme punishment," he was quoted as having said in newspaper reports. And read what Congress leader and senior advocate Salman Khursheed was quoted as having said in his reaction to the Transparency International Report: "I am glad it is only 77 per cent of the people who believe so. Otherwise, it looks like the last bastion of people's hope is crumbling." A quick research on Google will reveal a dime a dozen quotes on the corrupt judicial system in India. E.S. Venktaramaih, the former Chief Justice of India in an interview to the revered and influential journalist, Kuldeep Nayar, said the following on record: "The judiciary in India has deteriorated in its standards because such Judges are appointed, as are willing to be "influenced" by lavish parties and whisky bottles." (The interview was held on December 17, 1989). Eighteen years ago the man who occupied Justice KG Balakrishnan's position as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court lambasted the judiciary and judges in a no-holds barred interview just on the eve of his retirement and let his fellow countrymen know that it was time to restore the credibility of the Indian judicial system. Otherwise as Justice P.B. Sawant had warned "face law will continue to prevail over case law." Sadly, that has already happened. That's why one can't understand why Justice Balakrishnan is so angry that he wants to punish a sincere journalist, instead of ordering a clean up act within. That's what this country needs. A full-scale, comprehensive weeding out of corruption from the Indian judicial system and by doing so restore the Indian citizen's faith in the Judiciary. Honourable Judges, Please don't muzzle the press. We will go after corruption wherever it occurs. PERIOD. And if the Indian Judiciary is so scared that it threatens journalists with punitive action, then I am sure many journalists in this country would prefer to go to jail than succumb to such unreasonable judicial dictates. You can be sure that I will be one of them. You can also be sure that I will do my best to expose corruption in the judiciary. Vijay Shekhar....you did your job as a professional journalist. Be strong. Keep the faith in India's resilient democracy. Do not apologise.

Simulated Encounters, Real Murder

2007-07-04T12:29:00.000+05:30

HIMAL/July 2007

http://www.himalmag.com/2007/july/fake_encounter.htm

Simulated encounters, real murder

The recent spate of reports on fabricated ‘encounter killings’ by the paramilitary and police in India points to a systemic rot. Fortunately, a tenuous check on this impunity is coming from within the ranks themselves.

By : V K Shashikumar

Reports of the cold-blooded killing of civilians by security forces in Jammu & Kashmir, the Northeast and Chhattisgarh, in the name of combat operations against insurgents or Maoist guerrillas, grabbed headlines in India during the first half of this year. Despite the public hubbub, the top brass in the Indian Army, police and paramilitary forces have kept quiet about the allegations, and seem to be in favour of standing behind their men whatever their crimes may be.

In January this year, the infamous Ganderbal killings, in which the murder of three civilians was covered up and attributed to an ‘encounter’, came to light after a probe by a special investigations team (SIT) headed by the deputy inspector-general (DIG) of the J & K police. The victims were villagers ‘disappeared’ from south Kashmir: carpenter Abdul Rehman Padroo and street vendors Nazir Ahmad Deka and Ghulam Nabi Wani.

The investigations in Ganderbal uncovered yet another case of police complicity – in the killing of Maulvi Shaukat Ahmad Kataria of Banihal in Doda District, who ‘disappeared’ last October from the local mosque where he was the imam. A SIT found that the photograph of a “slain Pakistani militant’’ – identified by the Ganderbal police as Abu Hafiz, of Karachi – was actually a picture of the missing imam. In line with the prevalent police practice, weapons had been placed on the body to implicate the deceased. In this instance, the weapons were found to have come from a cache of arms seized from militants in genuine operations, which the police had kept out of the records with the intention of using them to provide clinching ‘evidence’ in simulated encounters.

Bringing the guilty to book in the Kashmir encounters case has been particularly difficult due to the conflicting interests of the security agencies involved. In early May, the army filed an application in a lower court in Srinagar, challenging the SIT’s chargesheet – which names, in addition to five policemen, five personnel of the paramilitary Rashtriya Rifles, including a colonel and a major, implicated in the killing of Maulvi Shaukat. The army claimed that the J & K police should have sought permission from the Home Ministry before filing the chargesheet, because security forces deployed in J & K were protected under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the AFSPA. The J & K police, however, maintained that the army personnel were not “acting in the line of duty”, and therefore should not enjoy impunity under the AFSPA.

In April, the public uproar regarding the Ganderbal killings led the J & K government to set up a commission of inquiry, which is expected to submit a report by the end of July. The attention being given to these fake encounters has also enabled whistleblowers from within the ranks of the security forces themselves to gather the courage to reopen older cases of disappeared persons. What is revealed is a sordid saga of murder and high-level cover-ups.

BSF cover-up
A case in point is linked to the incident that occurred on the night of 7 September 2003, in the J & K district of Pulwama. That evening, a Border Security Force (BSF) commander with the 42nd Battalion, Narender Singh Dangawas, claimed to have killed Ismail Bhai, supposedly a Jaish-e-Mohammad militant from Karachi, during a counter-insurgency operation. But Ghulam Nabi, the stationhouse officer at the Rajpura police station, where the body was brought for identification, told this writer that the body had never been positively identified. The implication was that the report was falsified.

Despite the dubious nature of the Pulwama operation, Dangawas was recommended for a President’s Police Medal. Before he could be awarded, though, an insider blew the whistle. Constable Subhash Rathod testified against his commanding officer, telling BSF authorities that an officer of the intelligence wing of the BSF had handed over an innocent Kashmiri to Dangawas, who later killed him and faked the encounter. Yet, Dangawas continues to be shielded by the BSF: all of the five inquiries that the BSF has conducted of the matter over the past four years have exonerated the commander.

The J & K police remain suspicious, and an investigation into Dangawas’s actions remains open. But investigations have stalled, supposedly because no one has come forward to identify the victim’s body. Evidence unearthed by this writer, however, suggests an elaborate cover-up. For instance, while Dangawas claimed that 66 of his soldiers had taken part in the encounter, 47 of them have subsequently testified for an internal, confidential BSF enquiry that they had not in fact been involved. Similarly, the situation report prepared by Dangawas claims that Constable Bashir Ahmed fired 68 rounds during the encounter, but Bashir himself says that he was nowhere near the scene.

A BSF informant who wishes to remain anonymous clandestinely recorded phone conversations with 16 BSF personnel supposedly associated with the fake encounter of December 2005. The recordings were made between December 2005 and February 2006, with the aim of bypassing the formal process by which internal reports continue to remain confidential. They were subsequently submitted to the Delhi High Court in 2006 as evidence that the BSF was indeed covering up a fake encounter. Below are some excerpts from the tapes.

Paresh Sahu, Constable, 42nd Battalion, BSF
Sahu: I have made it absolutely clear in all enquiries that I was not part of the operation.
Informant: When the encounter was on, what were you doing?
Sahu: I was on patrol duty.

Shashi Jogi, Constable, 42nd Battalion, BSF
Informant: That means Narender Singh Dangawas fraudulently included your name in the list of those who were part of the operation.

Jogi: Yes, that’s what he did. So when I was called in for the deposition, I told the senior BSF officers conducting the enquiry that I was just not part of the operation, and so I could not have been part of the team that carried out the fake encounter.

A BSF deputy inspector general, K C Padhi, conducted the first inquiry on the alleged encounter in 2004. In phone conversations recorded by the BSF informant, Padhi admitted that Dangawas played foul.

Informant: But sir, you are aware that many names have been fraudulently added to the roster of those who took part in the operation?
Padhi: I have mentioned it [in my report].

Yet Padhi later cleared Dangawas of all charges. This procedure was repeated with Deputy Inspector General V R Bahl, who sat on yet another inquiry commission. Bahl confirmed to the informant that the evidence against Dangawas was damning, but he nevertheless gave him a clean chit.

There is hardly any tangible evidence to back up Dangawas’s version of events. For instance, all Indian security units engaged in counter-insurgency operations make it a point to keep photographs of their operations, but in the case of the Pulwama encounter, Dangawas claimed that all photos had gone missing. His colleagues, however, are more forthcoming. “Commandant Dangawas deleted all the photos from the hard disk of the computers in our unit,” alleges Vinay Gehlote, an inspector with the 42nd Battalion, in a taped conversation with the BSF informant.

The process of cover-up, however, required extensive in-house collusion. In Dangawas’s first report to his superiors, he claimed to have killed a Bangladeshi Jaish-e-Mohammed militant. But in a subsequent FIR report, the man’s nationality had changed and he was said to be with the Pakistani Jaish-e-Mohammed. Then, in 2004, BSF chief J B Negi, replying to an internal enquiry letter, wrote an order giving permission for a Summary Court of Inquiry against Dangawas. In this order, Negi described the victim as a “Bangladeshi terrorist”.

Either way, according to official records, a Pakistani Jaish-e-Mohammed militant named Ismail Bhai is now buried adjacent to the Kellar police station in Pulwama District. But is he really a Pakistani, or even a militant? The Delhi High Court is now hearing Constable Subhash Rathod’s petition, but Dangawas remains a free man, shielded by the BSF on the basis of a diluted chargesheet. The General Security Force Court that dismissed the charges against Dangawas this past February had only heard evidence against the defendant for the following three charges: first, for an act prejudicial to good order and discipline, in which he was accused of confiscating a civilian’s car; second, for ill-treating a subordinate; and third, for committing a civil offence by wrongful confinement and harassment of civilians.

Triple murder in Gujarat
The situation surrounding Dangawas and the Pulwama encounter would have passed undetected if it had not been for the anguished conscience of a member of the BSF’s 42nd Battalion. Subhash Rathod’s courage in pursuing a court case against his superior seems nothing short of extraordinary, but the collapse of institutional mechanisms of accountability – whereby illegal acts are covered up with impunity – merits closer examination. With five internal BSF inquiries having exonerated Dangawas despite the fact that his superiors knew the encounter in question was dubious, it is clear that internal structures of accountability alone are not enough to ensure justice. This is a particularly crucial disconnect in situations in which human rights come a distant second to concerns of ‘national security’.

Even as the public was trying to come to terms with the unfolding situation in Kashmir this spring, events in Gujarat underlined the precarious position of whistleblowers in the system, further raising questions on their effectiveness in exposing internal rot – particularly when up against collusion at the highest levels. The case in question was the killing of a man named Sohrabuddin Sheikh.

Starting in late 2005, a man by the name of Rubabuddin Sheikh began appealing to the Gujarat authorities to initiate a CBI inquiry into the death of his brother, Sohrabuddin, and to produce his missing sister-in-law, Kauserbi. He finally approached the Supreme Court, which ordered that an investigation be conducted by the state’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID). The case was then handled by an agent named Geetha Johri. Her team’s first report, released in September 2006, presented evidence to attribute three separate murders to the Gujarat state police’s Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS). Johri had also stumbled upon an elaborate nexus of corruption that furthered a political-communal agenda. The investigation stunned India, particularly because it detailed how the police forces from three different states – Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh – had all colluded in the operation and cover-up. For her pains, however, Johri was removed from the investigation in early 2007. It was only after the Supreme Court intervened in March that the officer was reinstated and allowed to continue the investigation.

According to the ATS’s internal records, at about five in the morning of 26 November 2005, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, a team comprised of members of the squad and a few Rajasthani policemen saw the headlight of an approaching motorbike. As the bike came closer, the policemen claimed they recognised Sohrabuddin Sheikh, a gangster alleged to have links to Pakistani militant groups. They claim that they leapt to stop the bike, that the biker lost control and that he fired a gun as he fell. The policemen then returned fire, killing the suspect. The story as given was full of holes. To begin with, how could the policemen have recognised Sohrabuddin in the darkness of a November morning against the headlight of the oncoming motorcycle?

Geetha Johri’s investigation provides a picture of how the preparations for the ‘encounter’ had proceeded. The CID team traced Sohrabuddin, his wife and a third person to a bus traveling from Hyderabad to Sangli, in Maharashtra. At around one in the morning on 23 November, a team consisting of ATS personnel, assisted by the Andhra Pradesh police, halted the bus in Karnataka, and dragged the three people out of the vehicle.

It was more than a thousand kilometres away and three days later that Sohrabuddin was shot dead. But the police were not yet finished. On 27 November 2005, the day after Sohrabuddin was killed, his wife, Kauserbi, was brought to a bungalow in Koba, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. There, she is said to have become hysterical upon being told that her husband was dead. The ATS’s original plan had evidently not included Kauserbi’s murder, but when she vowed to expose her husband’s killing, she was poisoned by a police doctor. According to the CID report, her body was carried away in a police jeep and burned.

Even Kauserbi’s murder was not the end of the Sohrabuddin cover-up, however. Along with his team, then-ATS chief D G Vanzara (now a deputy inspector general) launched another operation, targeting Tulsiram Prajapati, an associate of Sohrabuddin. As one of the last people to see Sohrabuddin and Kauserbi alive on 24 November, Prajapati was a key witness in the fake-encounter case, and Vanzara did not want him spilling the beans. So, Prajapati was arrested in November 2005 for the 2004 murder of gangster Hamid Lala, a rival of Sohrabuddin’s. Fearing for his life, Prajapati wrote to the local court in Udaipur, warning that “the police say they will kill me and spread the story that I escaped from police custody.” A year later, in December 2006, his fears turned out to be well-founded. According to the FIR registered in Ahmedabad, Prajapati purportedly escaped from police custody on 27 December. A day later, Vanzara’s team was said to have located him at Ambaji, on the Rajasthan-Gujarat border, and shot him dead. Just 10 days earlier, the Gujarat CID had listed Prajapati as a witness in the Sohrabuddin case.

The marble dole
Why did this triple murder take place? Who was Sohrabuddin, and who wanted him dead? To uncover the story, this writer tracked the last decade of Sohrabuddin’s life from Rajasthan to Madhya Pradesh. Thirty-three years old when he was killed, Sohrabuddin began his working life as a truck driver. He gradually took to crime, and eventually became the main accused in a high-level arms-transport case in 1995. Sohrabuddin’s mentor at the time was Abid Khan, better known as Chhota Dawood, the local front man for Bombay’s notorious underworld don, Dawood Ibrahim, who is purported to have links to Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence. It was this connection that, a decade later, allowed Indian police to label Sohrabuddin a ‘terrorist’.

Sohrabuddin rose quickly in the underworld, his criminal activities eventually spanning four states. According to the Rajasthan police, Sohrabuddin began extorting traders in Rajasthan’s lucrative marble industry, which had an annual turnover of INR 50 billion. The marble traders eventually approached M N Dinesh, the Udaipur police superintendent, who it is presumed contacted then-ATS chief Vanzara. The last straw came in 2005, when Sohrabuddin is said to have made an extortion demand to Rajasthan’s biggest marble trader (who, with the CID investigation ongoing, needs to remain anonymous). According to the Gujarat CID, Vanzara’s phone records showed that, immediately before and after Sohrabuddin’s death, he had been in regular contact with this trader’s family.

Questions regarding Sohrabuddin’s killing cropped up almost immediately after the alleged encounter. Although any incident including an encounter is supposed to be investigated by the local police station, in Sohrabuddin’s case Vanzara’s team acted as defendant, judge and jury by investigating its own encounter. Vanzara and two other officers of the Indian Police Service have since been suspended and arrested for murder, and several additional policemen face prosecution in the Sohrabuddin case, but the question of impunity remains.

Hit-men in khaki
The term encounter killing has now become synonymous with murder, often involving high-profile cops who are generally assured of future impunity. Veteran police officers blame the rise in encounter killings on a failing justice system. They suggest that policemen frustrated with the slow pace of adjudication and acquittals, evidently due to lack of sufficient evidence, take the law into their own hands. Yet despite the increase in simulated encounters, there are no organised, updated or accurate statistics on encounter or extrajudicial killings, and those involved are forced to rely on their own experience. “The criminal-justice system has to come back on the rails,” says Julio Ribeiro, a well-regarded former police commissioner of Bombay. “Twenty-five years ago, this number of encounters was not taking place. It is coming up now more and more. You must understand why the judicial system has become so weak: it is because of corruption. Corruption is the main cause of all this.”

In the case of Gujarat, at least, this corruption goes all the way to the pinnacles of the police and political establishments. Three years ago, the Gujarat police evolved a plan of action for a state that had, in their assessment, “become a haven for terrorists”. Top police sources who served in the state at the time of the Godhra incident and the riots that followed confirm that there was a clear political directive to eliminate some Muslim criminals, in order to send a message to any who may be planning attacks in retaliation for the 2002 communal riots.

The connection between organised crime and the hit-men in khaki has subsequently come to wield a vice-like grip over many police forces, particularly in Gujarat. “I was asked by high-level bureaucrats to plan the elimination of people,” recalled R B Sreekumar, former Additional Director General of Police in Gujarat. “I said it is illegal.” At the moment, the justice system of India is heavily dependent on the consciences of people such as Sreekumar, as well as those who led to the breakthroughs in the cases of the Kashmir and Gujarat fake encounters. The health of the system overall, however, is far too important to continue placing it in the hands of a few high-minded individuals.

The recent exposés of extrajudicial killings in India, coupled with the inability of the country’s criminal-justice system to address a spate of fake encounters, have brought the spotlight squarely onto India’s archaic Police Act of 1861. One solution could be found in a legislative proposal currently being vetted by the Ministry of Home Affairs for a Model Police Act (Himal December 2006, “Reforming Indian policing”). The Supreme Court in September 2006 directed the state and Centre to implement the Act, which aims to ensure transparency in police functioning – including through the creation of state security councils, which would take on the responsibility from the state governments for overseeing the police forces. Several states have refused to accept the new legislation, however. The Gujarat government, for one, has publicly stated that it does not want to let go of control over the state police.

The question therefore remains: Is there enough political will to put in place the reforms directed by the Supreme Court? Former police commissioner Ribeiro says that regardless of the current political climate, the necessary momentum will eventually build up. He notes, “It is not the job of the police to kill people. It is not the job of the police to be judge and executioner.”

CAESAR, POLO and ESAU

2007-06-28T17:47:00.000+05:30

On June 26th, 2007 the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released two sets of previously classified historical documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

The documents are available online at www.foia.cia.gov

The declassified documents “CAESAR”, “POLO”, and “ESAU” are analytical research papers of “Cold War Era Hard Target Analysis of Soviet and Chinese Policy and Decision Making, 1953-1973.”

According to the CIA “the collection of CAESAR-POLO-ESAU papers, consists of 147 documents and 11,000 pages of analysis from 1953 to 1973. The CAESAR and POLO papers studied Soviet and Chinese leadership hierarchies, respectively, and the ESAU papers were developed by analysts to inform CIA assessments on Sino-Soviet relations.”

The stuffy Indian bureaucracy and the unnecessarily secretive Indian intelligence agencies might finally take a leaf out of CIA's book. Any takers? Anyway here’s how the CIA explained the release of declassified information: “The CIA fully understands that it has an obligation to protect the nation’s secrets, but it also has a responsibility to be as open as possible,” said CIA Director Michael V. Hayden. “I’ve often spoken about our social contract with the American people, and the declassification of historical documents is an important part of that effort.”

After the Mitrokhin archives delighted the “foreign hand” buffs, read more; of particular interest to the Indian readers are these parts of the POLO papers:

The Sino-Indian Border Dispute Section 1: 1950-59 2-Mar-63

The Sino-Indian Border Dispute Section 2: 1959-61 19-Aug-63

The Sino-Indian Border Dispute Section 3: 1961-62 5-May-64

And from the ESAU papers, read:

“The Communist Party of India and the Sino-Soviet Dispute”

Indian Media Blanks Out the Success of United Nation's First All-Female Unit of Peacekeepers

2007-06-23T13:40:00.000+05:30

All girl UN squad a success
By Shabnam Grewal
Producer, This World: UN Girl Squad

The UN mission in Liberia has cost around $750m (£325m) this year
The world's first all-female unit of United Nations peacekeepers has
been deemed a success, and has had its mission extended for another
six months.
A 105-strong paramilitary police unit of women from India has been
based in Liberia since January, working to help keep the peace in a
country which is still recovering from 14 years of civil war.

Initially deployed for six months as a trial by the UN, no-one knew if
they would be up to the job.

But a UN spokesman said they were impressed by the unit: "They are
very committed, disciplined and well trained."

Instead of returning to India in June, the women will now remain in
Liberia until the end of the year.

Missing home

Commander Seema Dhundia, the women's leader, says the unit knew that
they were good at their jobs, but were surprised when their mission
was extended.

"Initially we were not mentally prepared to stay, but now it's settled
and we are happy to do what our orders say to the best of our
ability."

But it is still hard being thousands of miles away from their families.

Many of the women have left behind children, some as young four years old.

Seema, who has a ten-year-old daughter, Stuti, and a 15-year-old son,
Ripu, uses a laptop to keep in touch with her children.

"I'm missing my kids. Stuti is a very emotional kid of girl. She
speaks from her heart, whatever she feels she says it. So is my son
but he is a bit shy. I do miss them and get emotional, but it's not
good for police to get emotional is it?"

The women had been expecting to return home this month, but instead
have 21 days leave to visit their families before they return to
Liberia for another six months.

Seema said initially her family did not react well to the news. Her
husband is also a soldier and has been looking after the children.

"They didn't feel very good about it but now they have got used to it."

Fragile peace

The women are part of India's Central Reserve Police Force, and were
hand picked from across the country for this mission.

They are experts in crowd control and veterans of many conflicts in
India, including Kashmir and fighting in the north-east of India.

For most of the women, the peacekeeping mission took them outside of
their "motherland" for the first time.

The 105-strong paramilitary police unit patrols the streets of Monrovia
For the last six months, the unit has patrolled the capital, Monrovia,
24 hours a day. They have kept guard at public buildings such as the
foreign ministry and protected the unarmed, recently-trained Liberian
National Police officers as they gained "on the job" experience.

According to the Indian women, there is little interaction between
themselves and the Liberians. Part of the reason is a difference in
culture, part a deliberate strategy.

"They try hard to be friends with us, but we don't want to. We just do
what the job requires, that's all," one of the peacekeepers said.

When out of uniform the women keep to themselves. Except for going to
church or the temple, they are not allowed off the base.

Tanushree, one of the peacekeepers, says they do not mind.

The Indian paramilitaries specialise in crowd and riot control
"For us, the way we live together is like a family, it's a very good
relationship. It's like a family where there are mother, father,
sister, brother. It is just not possible that at some point I would be
bored with them, absolutely not."

But Tanushree likes being out on patrol.

"We really like it here, because everything is a lot like India, the
trees and plants and the food even, we can get Indian fruits."

Sexual exploitation

The UN is experimenting with all female units because female soldiers
are seen as less threatening and more approachable in post-conflict
situations, where populations are recovering from years of violence
and fear.

In Liberia this is of particular importance because the country has
experienced an epidemic of sexual violence against women.

Lucia Williams, a midwife who works at a free medical centre with
Medecines Sans Frontiers in Monrovia, says rape is on the increase and
"has become a sport."

As part of the ongoing campaign to end sexual violence, it is hoped
the visible presence of female soldiers will empower local Liberian
women and encourage them to join the police force.

The Indian women have also given talks to Liberia's female police
cadets. Poonam Gupta, the contingent's second-in-command, says it
seems to make a difference.

"There has been a significant boost in the police, so I think this
could be one of the defining moments for the ladies. Once they try
their hands at things and are successful, they will become role models
for the other women."

Not afraid

But the Indian women are not just good at the softer, more people
orientated work; they have also been on drugs raids and supported law
enforcement officers responding to crimes.

"Men can have more distractions, liquor, women, all sorts of things.
But women, I find them more disciplined, more task-oriented and more
dedicated," said Poonam, who has commanded both men and women.

So far the women have mostly worked in Monrovia but the UN could send
them anywhere in the country, including the east and the borders with
Guinea and Cote D'Ivoire.

There things are much more volatile than Monrovia, but these
well-trained, fully-armed women are unafraid.

"Casualties can happen any time. If something has to happen it has to
happen. I could have got killed say, two years back. I'm alive today
because God wants me to be alive" said Poonam, a practising Hindu. "We
are ready to die, we are soldiers."

This World: "UN Girl Squad" will be broadcast on Thursday 21 June 2007
at 1900 BST on BBC Two.

Investigative Journalism

2007-06-18T00:43:00.000+05:30

Sting operation and investigative journalism were the topics of discussion on the IBNLive chatroom on Friday, June 1, when VK Shashikumar, Editor, Special Investigations of CNN-IBN, fielded readers' queries.

Deepak: With the latest sting operation covering judiciary, don't you think the system will come with a law, making it illegal to conduct sting operations or at least requiring permission from the court before telecasting such things?

VK Shashikumar: There is no way that the press will ever allow itself to get muzzled. We live in a democracy.

Srini: Does the fact that India doesn't have a witness protection system hamper the results of your investigative journalism? Increasingly, the rate of scams being unearthed has not changed the number of those convicted.

V K Shashikumar: India urgently needs a witness protection programme.

Peerzada Ashiq: Your Goa story was brilliant? Goa has always been your baby. I remember your paedophile story two years back. Hope you remember my name.

V K Shashikumar: Of course, Peerzada, hope you are doing fine.

Kaartz: Hi Shashi, do you think that these sting operations will be effective in fighting against corruption? Can you tell me any one incident that corruption is eradicated because of a sting operation.

V K Shashikumar: Have given many such instances. Just scroll down to read my earlier responses.

Veritas: Dear Shashi, congratulations on some of your stupendous stories. Have you considered doing stings on either journalists who use their power to indulge in political blackmailing like --- etc or on corruption in corporate houses, which is a holy cow and till date no one has dared to go near it due to the advertising implications involved?

VK Shashikumar: Hey...I responded to a similar question much earlier. It’s been widely speculated that there is corruption in the media and the day is not far off when this too will be exposed.

DJ: But why don’t news channels cover positive stories. There are quite a few nice ministers in my state of Rajasthan, who are working towards the development of the state and have a great reputation. But never ever has anyone covered them?

V K Shashikumar: Who? Look at the caste conflict spreading in your state and the government’s utter failure to intervene and stop it.

Rajju: Your urban-oriented journalism is commendable, but don’t you think you have left 95 per cent of India uncovered/unreported, thereby confining yourselves to urban elite issue-based newsmaking limitations? Please broaden your mindset and expand your 'covering' area. Go and do some home (rural) oriented work!

VK Shashikumar: Yes. If you begin a channel that does that you can be sure that I will come to you for a job. And for your information, we have done superb investigations and exposes in rural areas. Haven't you seen our investigation, A question of land out of Orissa or our investigative series on child labour. Media is a favourite punching bag for armchair critics.

DJ: Hi, I have a weird question for you. It’s nice that you all cover sting operations etc and catch all corrupt politicians and officers, but how about giving the devil his due? There sure are many honest and educated politicians, why not show them on news? It sure will motivate others, won’t it?

VK Shashikumar: Yes, it’s always a good idea to do positive stories as well.

Tufail Shaikh: Sir, is it true that most of the sting operations are politically motivated?

V K Shashikumar: No, as far as CNN-IBN is concerned. I can't vouch for other channels.

Vicky: Narco-analysis and video sting operation are both questionable in the court of law? Courts say in narco-analysis, a person is drugged to reveal the truth, hence not enough strong evidence. On your stings, lawyers say the video is morphed? What is the other way to get the actual facts?

VK Shashikumar: Scientific evidence gathering. Most crimes in the West are solved by superb forensics.

Kumar: In your investigation, ‘Red Corridor’ when you guys can walk up to the jungle and talk to the Naxals scot-free. Why don’t you guys help our police and facilitate the police in finding the hideouts and bringing them to justice.

VK Shashikumar: We are a mirror that reflects the reality on the ground. We aren’t a substitute for the official law-and-order machinery.

A: OK up to some extent if I agree with you, then tell me what about legal laws. Because in recent days, we have seen that courts say that they don't believe on those evidences which are publicly known. Then what's the point of making all evidences weaker. I’m not against sting operations. I'm just saying that you people present these operation CDs directly to the honourable court, so that they can take fast decisions and after the decision you can claim that this proof was shown by so and so channel. What do u think?

VK Shashikumar: Media investigations are not admissible in the court as evidence. On the basis of the content generated by a media investigation, the court can order an enquiry.

Priya: Don't you think that overdose of sting operations among all media today is making people forget what good old real investigations were all about?

VK Shashikumar: Could be. But we live in extraordinary times. These are times of rampant corruption, where every citizen-government interface has been corrupted beyond repair. And so these are perhaps not the best times for good old investigative journalism. A whole lot of that still happens. But in extraordinary times, extraordinary methods must be employed to ensure the media continues to be the voice of the people.

Seshadri: It is true that sting operation is the best way to expose the so-called social activists or true politicians. Why do you limit yourself to the northern part of India and the southern side of our country. There is so much sting operation required in Tamil Nadu to expose the so-called rationalist and dirty politicians. Are you afraid of South politicians? .

VK Shashikumar: Our investigations will travel to South as well.

Sunny: What was investigative journalism in days when there was no hidden camera?

VK Shashikumar: There was superb investigative journalism in the days when there was no hidden camera and the tradition still continues.

Vishal K:Hello Shashi, nowadays media is somehow stuck to breaking news and some hot investigations, but whenever media has exposed something, after that it’s become an issue only for the two or three days. After that the media itself start ignoring the issue and later on it goes to the dustbin. Is expose the only duty of media? Why don’t you follow up all such things?

VK Shashikumar: Sometimes followup happens and sometimes they don’t. That’s one area that we are trying to improve upon.

Deepak Manoor: Is investigative journalism all about sting operations? Are there any other facets to it?

VK Shashikumar: Sting is only one minor facet. We do a range of investigations. And I have written about them in details earlier.

Peerzada Ashiq: Shashi, don't you think the sting operation which exposes personal life/sex life of a person should be avoided. That ways, every individual on earth has a story and a “bad back ground”? Do you agree?

V K Shashikumar: I don’t support stings on anybody’s personal life.

Rasa: Why did you not make sure that there are results out of sting operations? Still people go scot-free after sting operations. What has been done by your team to make sure that the purpose of the sting operation is achieved?

VK Shashikumar: Have answered this earlier. In some cases, we have achieved spectacular success in terms of impact. In some cases, we have been influential in changing policy. For instance, the withdrawal of subsidy to the tobacco industry in the Northeast in this year’s Budget was the result of our investigation, which was then filed as a PIL by Consumer Voice and the Delhi High Court gave a verdict striking down this policy.

A: What do you think about NDTV’s recent sting operation?I am asking you today in India everyone knows that our legal system is corrupt. So don't you think instead of applying your power on sting operations, you guys should help the victims by generating awareness in public?

VK Shashikumar: It was a fantastic investigation and will go a long way in keeping the spotlight on the need to clean up the criminal justice system.

Irshad: After the expose, nobody is punished. What’s the point?

VK Shashikumar: Stop being cynical.

Karthik: Like the one report in our open water along the Bay of Bengal wherein you guys exposed the way the waterfront is left unprotected and how boats used by the Navy are so outdated. But the true value of your investigation is only rewarded when you can take this to a logical conclusion.

VK Shashikumar: Of course. It went to the logical conclusion. It shows you have not read newspapers for a year. Operation Water led to the following: 1. Creation of a coastal police system on the West and East coasts 2. Sanctioning of more fast patrol boats for the Coast Guard and many other small and large impact. A report prepared by me was submitted to a few select National Security Council members and it was discussed by the NSC. A presentation was also made at the Coast Guard Headquarters.

Peerzada Ashiq: Why many sting operations are conducted just before polls or elections? To what extent is your sting operation politically motivated? Is it so?

VK Shashikumar: There is no political motivation. Good journalism is about setting the agenda.

Paritosh: Is it possible to carry out sting operations at PM's residence and Rashtrapati Bhawan given the strict security restrictions?

V K Shashikumar: You must be joking. I am sure it’s time for your evening walk!

Vicky: Hi Shashi, Why don't you undertake a sting operation on the Hurriyat guys in Kashmir and see their real motives. What they actually want, freedom/ or to form government in Kashmir or Pakistan? This will be best in the interest of all Kashmiri Muslims/

V K Shashikumar: :)

Mani: Why the TV channels do not telecast unedited version of sting video? Do they moderate the video to lessen the implications or do they do it to add masala to the tape?

VK Shashikumar: Why don't you watch unedited version of a movie? Why don't you watch the rushes of a movie (raw footage) instead of watching the movie? Lot of people have this misperception that 'editing' refers to choosing what is convenient and deleting what is not. It’s like saying I will read an author's original typed manuscript rather than a well-produced book.

Naveen: Which is the most challenging job till date you have under taken?

V K Shashikumar: Covering the Taliban Vs Northern Alliance War and covering the Iraq War as a non-embedded reporter.

Hitesh Nayyar: There are certain journalists who use their pen as a tool to help their masters for their personal gains. How can we stop such people from misusing ‘sting operations’?

VK Shashikumar: As I said in an earlier post, viewers or readers will increasingly chose to stay away from media platforms that appear to be one-sided and unethical.

Hmmmm: Hello VK Shashikumar, the media investigation carried out are good, but how far they are good, God knows. Is it not a fact that you guys cook up stories just to get the TRP ratings up and get good revenue? Is it somewhere killing the truth somewhere? Don't you feel you guys glamourise news? What’s your take on these things?

V K Shashikumar: Your views are cynical

Mani: Do TV channels carry out sting operation with the objective of exposing corrupt public servants/politicians or they carry out such operation to improve the TRP rating?

V K Shashikumar: To do both.

Mrugan Majmudar: Where do you draw a line for these investigations? Don’t you think that somewhere down the line, it becomes too much for the viewers to digest? I mean, somethings are better kept under the proximity of who needs the information rather than to the national public out of which more than half of them just watch rather than understand what’s behind it and half knowledge is an evil which is better kept away. What do you think?

VK Shashikumar: Who decides who should watch what?

Mossad: What happens when a whistleblower passes a story to you which is authentic and someone within the confines of the media reports this to the affected party? Do you think there should be a law to protect the interests of the whistleblower who is dealing with the media?

V K Shashikumar: Yes, the whistleblower must be protected by a legislation.

Vicky: NDTV claims to have a video recording of BMW case which policemen recorded after the accident and the same was submitted to the court after 4 years. Is that still valid in the court of law?

VK Shashikumar: You will have to ask a lawyer. If a police video was submitted to the court 4 years ago, why wouldn't it be valid. The evidentiary value of the evidence has no relevance to the years gone by.

Hemender S: Are sting operations being used as a tool to blackmail. The BMW sting that exposed the prosecution-defence nexus was what? Was it not unleashed only after the required money could not be extracted? What else was the reason behind changing statements? What happens to investigative journalism without stings?

V K Shashikumar: I don't know anything about this. However, we do hear that there are some practices indulged in by some journalists that are not desirable. Stings are just one element of investigative journalism. Operation Water Rat, broadcast last year, was a solid example of conventional investigative journalism. If you have seen our environment and wildlife investigations, then they too are classic examples of conventional investigative journalism. CNN-IBN SIT has also done huge field investigations, like the Red Corridor (on naxals) and Hidden Wars (on the insurgent groups in north east India).

Raj: What’s the main qualities of a investigative reporter? Is it different from other reporting our beat?

V K Shashikumar: Yes. Beat reporting is vastly different from investigative reporting. A beat reporter covers an issue as it happens. Investigations either uncover (go behind the story) issues as it happens or brings multi-dimensional insights and uncovers the issue in depth.

NT: Hi Shashi, just tell us the approximate percentage of people who were caught during sting operations doing a wrong act and were convicted/sentenced by the law? The answer will not be more than 10 to 15%. As long as you have a poor judicial/legal system (weak laws), no sting can be deterrent. Your sting operations are opening a can of worms which is shaking a common man's belief in our system (the recent NDTV expose as example).

V K Shashikumar: Couldn't agree with you more.

Piyush Bhargava: Hi Mr Shashikumar, I am a student of IIT Bombay. I want to ask is investigative journalism legal? No doubt it is looking beneficial to improve the present corrupt system, but at times a small thief is being charged with big litigation. So is it correct to do such sting operations without informing any legal authority?

V K Shashikumar: Depending on the kind of investigations, we do inform the authorities well in advance. We have shared information with the police, CBI and the intelligence agencies whenever our investigations have unearthed evidence that are required to be shared.

Murali: Do you think that these investigations will completely erase corruption in our country?

V K Shashikumar: No, investigative journalism only challenges the system. It is a change agent. But it cannot bring change by itself.

Dhiren: What are the basic books, which one should go through to become an IJ?

V K Shashikumar: I don't know of any book that can teach or train anybody to become an investigative journalist. You must have the fire in your belly to go after issues that concern the citizenry.

Jeetender: Do you appreciate stings like the ones on Shakti Kapoor, Aman Verma?

V K Shashikumar: No.

Ajit Kanwar: Is it correct to sting an unsuspecting victim with a hidden camera? Do courts accept sting as evidence?

V K Shashikumar: Have replied to this question earlier in response to a similar query.

Jyotsna: Is sting journalism an Indian phenomena? Do CNN, BBC do stings?

V K Shashikumar: Yes.

Murali: Hello Mr Sashikumar, I agree with investigative journalism, but some of the channels to increase their TRP's show sleaze and also enter the bedrooms of the people in the name of the sting operation, how is that justified? There should be a media watch by group of eminent journalists not controlled by government.

V K Shashikumar: I do not support sleazy sting journalism. I strongly object to the use of hidden cameras within the confines of somebody's privacy or private moments. Investigative journalism is only concerned with public interest issues.

Vineet Menon: Hi Sashikumar, congrats for all the accolades you have got. Coming back to my question, I would like your opinion on the cold war in Sri Lanka and do you think that LTTE is justified with their demand?

V K Shashikumar: There are two sides to the conflict and both are powerful. At the same time it’s not easy for either of them to get past each other. So, both parties must find a way of ending their differences and the journey towards a federal arrangement within an unified Sri Lanka seems to be the most feasible way out.

Rohit: Do you think the common man needs to get worried about being exposed to the dangers of letting the cat out of the bag through the media which is approached to expose the scam.

V K Shashikumar: Civil society gets strengthened only when whistleblowers let the cat out of the bag. It gives more power to the people.

Seshadri: Are you planning any big level sting operation.

V K Shashikumar: :)

Sundar: Sir don’t you think today news channel are just concerned about the TRP?

V K Shashikumar: Yes they are. But what’s wrong with that? At the moment TRP determines viewership and every channel wants to increase its viewership. And viewers view a channel to increase the viewership. So don’t watch channels that show you trash.

Sukhdeep Singh: Don’t you think sometimes media people take too much advantage of the freedom?

V K Shashikumar: In a democracy nobody can take too much advantage of anything including freedom. Freedom is like fresh air and it can't be caged.

Irshad: Everytime the media does some expose, the politicians say that it’s a conspiracy by the opposition and no action is taken. Do u think that it can change and does this ever demotivate you to do sting operations?

V K Shashikumar: Yes, the usual suspects. The politicians do squeal when caught. No, it does not demotivate us.

Nish: How valid are the evidences that come out of a sting operation by a TV channel when it comes to the table of a judge?

V K Shashikumar: The documentary evidence and the footage of the sting operation are not admissible in court. But the court can call for it and ask the government to investigate its contents. For instance, evidence generated by CNN-IBN's investigation 'Baby Snatchers' was used to file a PIL in the Bombay High Court and the Court asked the CBI to undertake an investigation. The case continues to be heard in the High Court.

Abhi: Don’t you think people in India have a habit to overdo everything? Same for sting operations. They are not taken very seriously now. Morality and truth are so scarce nowadays that even the morality and motives of TV news channels are not beyond doubt. What do you think?

V K Shashikumar: Yes, ethics of sting operations have been diluted by many TV news channels. And yes, there is corruption in media as well. And it’s not too far down the line when this would also get exposed.

KudosMedia: The most powerful cabal in the administrative setup are the bureaucrats. They are the brains behind scandal and scams happening in this country. However, by highlighting the ministers too much these obscure yet powerful people escape the dragnet. Do you keep in mind the need to expose the ‘real brain’ when you do sting operations?

V K Shashikumar: Yes, we are not doing enough of that. We have to focus more on exposing the real brains behind the corruption. You are right. If you have any leads email us at ibnsit@tv18online.com.

Anupam Chakraborty: I really admire the sting operation of NDTV ,What you feel about it.

V K Shashikumar: It’s a fantastic investigation and squarely brings the spotlight on the dangerous degradation of India's criminal justice system.

Mani: Can carrying out sting operation be taken as breach of trust?

V K Shashikumar: No, a sting operation is not carried out to expose an 'individual' in his 'individual capacity'. A sting operation is carried out in the public interest where the 'individual' concerned performs a 'public' function or is vested with the protection of public interest. So, a lawyer helping the mafia to grab land is a legitimate subject for a sting. Because we are exposing an aspect about him that is detrimental to the community. But I completely detest stings that invade an individual's privacy.

Siva: Sir, do you thing that media is stronger than newspaper that will reach people as quickly about the things that are happening around the world?

V K Shashikumar: Incidentally, latest circulation figures for newspapers show that India is the only country in the world that has seen a huge rise in readership and circulation figures, whereas in most other countries it is on the decline. However, having said this let me also stress the fact that newspapers are not going to go out of fashion. And yes, wherever newspapers have declined it is because of the proliferation of TV news channels.

Saji: Hi, sometime we see that news that deserve minimal coverage is given prime spot importance. Example the Bajran Dal foolishness during Valentine’s Day which should be ignored all together. The media coverage they get encourages them further.

V K Shashikumar: I completely agree with you and in my own way do not support such editorial decisions. I feel that media organisations should desist from covering Bajrang Dal vandalism. In my personal capacity I also feel that it emboldens them and many stage protests to get visibility. And on TV even a handful can look like a mob.

KudosMedia: What is the long term impact of sting operations apart from immediate impact of raising the lid on issues? Is there any instance where a sting operation can be credited with behavioral changes on part of those exposed?

V K Shashikumar: Of course, the Tehelka defence expose brought in a slew of reforms in the procurement of defence equipment. Again the same organisation's expose of paedophilia in Goa resulted in fine-tuning of child protection policies in the state. It also made the civil society more aware and ever since apart from one, not a single case of paedophilia has been reported.

CNN-IBN SIT investigations have led to an array of responses and won the channel four awards in recognition of the significant impact these investigations have had. But yes, there is an area that needs huge improvement and that is the area of follow-ups. You hit the bulls eye on the issue of follow ups. More often than not we raise the lid and then forget to lead a sustained campaign to clean up the mess. But that raises another debate. Is it the journalist's job to lead a campaign to clean up the mess or isn't a journalist just supposed to uncover the truth?

K Manoj: Great job for exposing corrupt people, why don't you guys target top bureaucrats?

V K Shashikumar: Yes, we do expose bureaucrats and police officials. Like we recently did in our investigation of why witnesses in the Professor Sabharwal case had turned hostile. In many of our environment and wildlife investigations we have not shied away from holding the bureaucracy responsible. And if you have any leads on corrupt bureaucrats do share them with us at ibnsit@tv18online.com

Divyanshi: Hello sir, I surely appreciate the findings that come by way of these sting operations, but surely the line between interference and finding out a wrong deed is very thin. Is there a way to ensure that this line is not crossed and also, in spite of these discoveries the things stay in media for sometime and then vanish away, most of the time without any effect on the activity so exposed, so is the usability justified?

V K Shashikumar: Sting operations have come to stay in India. It has been around in US and Europe for quite some time now. It is a legitimate way to unearth the truth. However, you are absolutely right when you say that there is a thin line between the pursuit of truth and the pursuit of trash. CNN-IBN Special Investigation Team has a protocol that guides our sting operations. First the issue must necessarily be of public interest. And second there should be enough documentation or substantiation to justify the sting.

Moronic Media

2007-04-17T15:08:00.000+05:30

This week news channels that claim to have national reach will showcase how Indian news television can plumb the depths of depravity and idiocy. We the people working in TV news channels have made a superb opening on Monday with the Richard Gere-Shilpa Shetty kissing controversy. According to most news channels this is the most serious issue that the country should be debating this week. And so like the conscientious pimp an array of news channels in India are dressing up a 'not-worth-a-second-look' subject into an ecstatic TRP stimulating exercise. Truly an inspiring moment for the news television industry on a day when the media was bludgeoned into realizing the crucial role it plays as the watchdog in setting the agenda for rising India.
Most channels fill up airtime based on a series of assumptions that some smart management cookie dishes out to gullible television programmers, producers and editors. Fact is there is just no credible benchmark in this country to evaluate either viewer choices or opinions. Second, there is no accurate data of profiles of people who regularly switch to news television everyday. Third, there is complete absence of any reliable and authentic study of viewer expectations from news television channels. Fourth, there is just no research of what the opportunity costs in the television industry are. For instance, will a corporate executive or a BPO employee ever watch news television when there is an opportunity to catch some sport action or a movie?
And, yet, studied editorial decisions are made on a variety of news programming related issues. To be honest, more often than not, in such situations it is sometimes better to forget what we do and what we stand for. In fact, to keep away from the danger of being mind-****ed, nine out of ten times we should forget who we are and what we are responsible for.
We argue that we are news broadcasters to people who think and converse in English. We address the opinion makers. We claim to be the voice of the builders of the New Progressive India and its New Economy. English Channels are communication continuums of urban India. Come on, I am running out of the marketing glib talk! And then we hit rock bottom with Gere planting 12 wet kisses on Shilpa's Big Brother cheeks. Yes, some news channels counted the kisses as well. Is this what news honchos in India call intelligent television? It is nothing but stupid and double-faced news voyeurism.
At times like this I wonder what kind of audiences editors who call the shots think they are addressing? So whom did the editors have in mind when across the channels they decided to play the Gere-Shilpa kissing story big? The community television sets in obscure Jat villages? Family viewers in Asansol and Vizag? Beer drinking louts in some dark dingy bar? Sex starved men switching channels and then suddenly transfixed by the kissing bonanza from unexpected quarters? Who do we think is/are the audience when we decide to make a huge story out of nothing at all?
On one-hand editors, flushed reporters, angry media commentators were haranguing the vandalism of Hindu fundamentalist thugs on the premises of Star News, saying it's an "attack on press freedom". And on the other hand news channels were incessantly serving loop after loop of Gere planting kisses on Shilpa.
The point I am making is simply this. News is not trivia. News is not trivial. But News channels have made it their business to be both trivia-communicators and trivial-titillates. Also a large section of the media in this country has taken to crass commercialisation to justify its editorial policies. Most editorial questions are answered with 'will it sell'? Or 'Will it bring in the TRPs'?
By degrading content, by excessively dumbing down, by becoming hostage to easy market economics, by failing to realize the truism of content being king and the market being its courtier, the media in India has erased the credibility of the pursuit of journalism. More often than not it is seen as taking sides, it is seen as a tool of political expediency and easy money. The 1990s has been the decade in which the media has fallen from its hallowed glory. And in the 2000s instead of arresting its slide, the media has further slipped from the Imagination of India, into some other kind of disconnectedness. So we have shows on superstitions and haunted houses on news television in 21st Century India. We have stories of snake marrying each other. We have a seductress on a crime show. No wonder media is seen as a crass tool by a crass citizenry. Use it when required and beat the hell out of it when not. No wonder lathis and hathodas were used by college student turned goondas to protest against a Star News broadcast of the marriage between a Hindu and Muslim.
Isn't intolerance modern 21st century India greatest shame? And a large part of it is because the media in this country has become pliant and soft.
And so while we look within and protest loudly against the attack on the press and so on, can we also look at what we have done to the business of news itself? Fact is that media MUST be commercial because it exists, breathes and lives within the market economy. But since its commercial qualities are completely and wholly dependent on an extremely hypersensitive quality-CREDIBILITY-products in news genres, like newspapers, magazines and TV news channels, are not like any other product. There are rules of the game. And these rules have an ethical resonance. So while toothpastes are required to clearly mention its chemical composition and so on, a news product has to be responsible, factual and ethical. But news television is hardly any of these nowadays. And so we have to be reminded by Shilpa Shetty: Why can't you focus on AIDS awareness instead?
So the drama continues. This week channels will hammer down Abhishek-Aishwariya down the throats of its viewers. Sham TRP ratings will prove that YES this kind of news television works. It brings in money. Another myth will be created.
Even as I wind up my blog, here's an after-thought. When Colonel Rajyavardhan Rathore won an Olympic medal, the instrumental version of the national anthem was played as athletes and spectators from across the world stood up in respect. It has happened in the Asian Games. National Games. At every Ministry of Defence function I have attended during my days as defence correspondent, I can only recollect the instrumental version of the national anthem. In a country where more than half its people still cant read and write, what is this fuss about singing the national anthem? Yet, we had angry debates on what some of us in the media thought was a silly transgression made by the Infosys don, Narayana Murthy. How much more stupid can the idiot box be? He was bang on target. The President was there. Everyone stood up when the instrumental version of the anthem was played. The President sang. So did many others in the audience. Many did not. So? How many people lie on the bed and watch the Republic Day function and slurp tea, as the national flag is unfurled? As a roving foreign affairs correspondent for World Report, Worldview India and Third Eye TV I have chanced upon many Independence Day and Republic Day functions at Indian Embassies and High Commissions in many parts of the world. How do you think we celebrate these official functions with foreign guests? Yes, the instrumental version of the national anthem is played as all the foreign guests, Indian staffers and visitors rise in respect. So why did TV news give so much space to those morons who unnecessarily attacked Narayan Murthy for being unpatriotic?
Media, especially, news television is focusing on the trivia. It is stressing more on information and not on being informative. It has no grand purpose in India. It simply meanders in mediocrity. It is voyeuristic and simply oriented to commerce. It is not oriented as an ethical, profit making enterprise that is in the business of being on the top of the information chain and cutting edge news delivery.
Every single day hundreds of journalists across the country from low-paid-barely-surviving media entities to the well paid-huge networks go out into the world in which they live in the pursuit of truth. Risking their lives and putting themselves in harm's way to inform the nation, hold political leaders, bureaucracy, police and the captains of industry accountable to the citizens of this country. Nothing can be more invigorating than being a participant in a functioning democracy. Yet, editors, the guardians of the Fourth Pillar, fail to live up to expectations of either the viewers or their professional compatriots. Therefore, it is the proprietors and editors of media organizations who are responsible for the manner in which journalists and media organizations are being targetted systematically. No wonder Hindu fundamentalist goons with saffron flags can walk in and smash a news channel's office in Bombay. Tomorrow it will be some other kind of thugs in some other city.
In Nandigram local news channels and some national channels were denied entry into the area and some of the news crews physically intimidated because people felt these channels had become mouthpieces of the ruling Left Front. In Srinagar when bodies were of fake encounter victims were being exhumed, locals pelted journalists and camerapersons with stones because they felt the media was only carrying the propaganda of the security forces and the government. Many media organizations blatantly carried a plant by the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh that Himanshu Sabharwal, son of Professor Sabhawal who was killed by ABVP hooligans, was 'blackmailing' the state government.
Media is increasingly losing its adversarial position. It is no longer the harbinger of progressive and democratic values. It is no longer a defender of the rights of the citizenry It is no longer a staunch advocate of the underdog and a champion of everyday heroes. Across media organizations it is time for the real editors to stand up and be counted. It is time for them to stare down a story and say NO. The market and the citizens who make that market function will be very unforgiving. That market is expanding and so is the appetite for engaging news, views and information. The challenge is not only about delivery, but also of effective, quality delivery. This is the reason why the news television space continues to be competitive despite a plethora of news channels because the market (of which a large constituency is that of more than 500 million young Indians) is waiting for a QUALITY, CREDIBLE, PASSIONATE, ENERGETIC channel that engages with a rising, impatient, discerning and young India. And, therefore, those who take their TRP ordained places for granted may just wake up to a new reality.

9,503 primary schools across India have no teacher

2007-04-17T15:04:00.000+05:30

As many as 9,503 primary schools across India have no teacher and another 1,22,355 have only one teacher each, according to a newly-published Report Card on schools.

UNI Report/April 17, 2007

Data put together by National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) also showed that on an average a primary school in India has 4.19 teachers. The Report Card did not indicate how the schools manage without any teacher or with just one teacher to look after
five classes.

Although the Report Card has been published year after year about the past four years, no steps appear to have been taken to remedy or rationalise the situation. Releasing the District Report Card: 2005-06 yesterday, NUEPA, vice chancellor Ved Prakash said it was based on primary-level data collected by District Information System of Education.

He said the Education and Planning Department in collaboration with the Human Resource Development Ministry was compiling data for Secondary schools. The publications update more than 400 variables for 604 districts across 35 states and union territories on all aspects
of universalisation of education.

They are the product of a joint effort by the Ministry, NUEPA and the United Nations Children's Fund to strengthen India's education database. The system annually covers 1.12 million schools imparting elementary education with September 30 as the date of reference. Here are some more findings:

The number of schools covered grew from 8,53,601 in 2002-03
to 11,24,033 in 2005-06
Nearly 87.23 per cent schools were in rural areas
Uttar Pradesh with 70 districts has the highest number of
schools-- 1,61,869
West Bengal reported one Upper Primary school for every
five Primary schools and
About 83.14 per cent of schools were government-run
Prof Prakash said that it has been made mandatory for states
to check the data for authenticity.
He said an Education Development Index has been developed for
Primary and Upper Primary levels and states have been ranked as
per their standing.

The latest hotbed for terrorism: the online game

2007-03-08T14:34:00.000+05:30

SOURCE:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2007/03/07/the_latest_hotbed_for_terrorism_the_online_game.html#more

The latest hotbed for terrorism: the online game

By Aleks Krotoski

GamePolitics throws out an issue I've been thinking about for a few years now, but have been loath to blog about - could the humble MMO be harbouring nefarious groups hell-bent on doing Evil to Western Civilisation? Could a terrorist actually be the person behind my so-called friend the Furry? Is s/he/it trying to draw me over to the dark side? What about all those cabals I'm not friendly with in my online games? Could they actually be groups of terrorists plotting against all that is Great and Good?

Quoting GamePolitics' quote from Counterterrorism Blog (that's a catchy name):

Streaming video can be uploaded into Second Life and a scenario can easily be constructed whereby an experienced terrorist bomb-maker could demonstrate how to assemble bombs using his avatar to answer questions as he plays the video... Just as Real Life companies such as Toyota test their products in Second Life so could terrorists construct virtual representations of targets they wish to attack...

As one commentator says, if gangs are recruiting through MySpace why shouldn't it happen in MMOs?

Terra Nova, of course, takes another angle. Ren Reynolds posits (in 2005) that we may learn something about terrorism from observing griefing practices in virtual worlds.

Certainly if one reads what analysis say about al-Qaeda rather than what the politicians tell us it seems that rather than being a structured organisation lead by a shadowy figure it is individuals or small groups that happen to share a similar set of dislikes i.e. their perception of western or more specifically US imperialism; and a similar set of techniques i.e. certain types attacks on civilian populations. Which behaviourally and structurally really might be like griefers in some respects, and the lack of moral equivalence (i.e. no I'm not saying griefers are terrorists and I'm not saying terrorist are game players) should not mask any potential behavioural lesions we could draw.

A touchy subject. TN guest author and blog master of 3pointD Mark Wallace attracted a good chunk of ire to his suggestion that meta-guild W-Hat, who have presences in many MMO spaces, is exactly the type of group that should be observed:

Members and past members of the W-Hat groups there have been responsible for some of the most outrageous builds in all the virtual world -- including satirizations of the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the assassination attempt on the pope.

Where is the line drawn? W-Hat is arguably one of the most creative presences in Second Life and succeeds in pushing the boundaries in all of the other worlds they are in. When do its members' attacks graduate from dark satire/irritating griefing to "terrorism"? When their activities move into the so-called real world? The ever outspoken Second Life resident Prokofy Neva has been harangued by W-Hat members offline (read his viewpoint in Mark's post) ; are they now part of a terrorist group?

Now that the initial curiosity about virtual worlds has died down, I'm looking forward to some proper, well-thought out discussion at mass-media levels about the implications these spaces have for freedom of communication. I anticipate much more on this subject throughout the year.

A LOK SABHA MP WHO IS NOT AN INDIAN!

2007-03-07T14:36:00.000+05:30

CNN-IBN EXCLUSIVE: A LOK SABHA MP WHO IS NOT AN INDIAN!

CNN-IBN Special Investigation Team reveals…

Moni Kumar Subba, Congress MP from Tezpur, Assam has lied under oath to the Indian Parliament
Moni Kumar Subba gave 3 different dates and places of birth in official records
Moni Kumar Subba lied about his education
Moni Kumar Subba is an escaped murder convict from Nepal

Friends and relatives of Moni Kumar Subba, the lottery baron of the Northeast, confirmed to CNN-IBN that Subba is a Nepali national.

A sting operation caught Moni Kumar Subba admitting that he lied in his election nomination affidavit about his age.

Subba’s Business partner Bal Chand Sarda says, “the CBI enquiry was manipulated”

New Delhi, March 6, 2007:
Moni Kumar Subba is a suspected Nepali National, but that did not stop him from becoming a Congress Member of Parliament twice from Tezpur, Assam. Subba has to prove his Indian nationality before the Supreme Court by April 20th. A CNN IBN Special Investigation dug up explosive evidence to show that Subba has much to hide. A series of exclusive reports by CNN IBN Special Investigation Team will be aired from Tuesday, 6th March 2007 to Friday, 9th March 2007.

Moni Kumar Subba, Congress MP from Tezpur, is accused of being a Nepali national. A murder convict, imprisoned in Nepal from 1971 to 1973, he escaped to India, set up a successful gambling and lottery business, systematically erasing his Nepali past.

In Lok Sabha records, Subba is perhaps the only MP to have two different places of birth. In the 12th Lok Sabha his place of birth is given as Tezpur, Assam and his date of birth - 16th March 1951. But the current 14th Lok Sabha records his place of birth as Dabgram, in Darjeeling, West Bengal and date as 16th March 1958. Subba’s third wife, Karma Kanu says, “I’ve never heard of Dabgram. If he belonged there, he would have had some relations there!”

And in an interview published in a Nepali Magazine, RATO GHAM, in November 1997, Subba claims to be born in Mongolpuri, Delhi, in 1946. On being confronted, Subba himself says, “Who remembers what was written what was not? I didn’t write it myself!”

CNN-IBN Special Investigation Team travelled to Assam, Sikkim and Nepal to dig out documents that seem to suggest Subba was born thrice – in 1946, 1951 and 1958.

In his 2004 Lok Sabha Nomination Papers M K Subba claims to be 54 years old. But in 2005, in a counter affidavit in the Supreme Court in a case challenging his nationality, he claimed to be 47 years old.

Further, his Lok Sabha Nomination Papers of 2004 say, he passed class 8 from Gandhi Vidyalaya in Bordubbi, in Tinsukia district, Assam in 1972. In fact according to the same document Subba was 22 years old then! In Tinsukia, CNN IBN Special Investigation team learnt that the said school did not exist in 1972.

In 1985, the Sikkim Chief Electoral Officer and present Finance Secretary TT Dorji rejected Subba’s application for inclusion of his name in the state electoral rolls. His order says:
“I have examined the detailed investigation reports submitted by the Special Branch and the Vigilance Police Force of the Sikkim Police. These reports certify that Shri MK Subba,son of Dhan Bahadur Subba, is a foreign national from Nepal… Shri MK Subba does not fulfil the criteria for enumeration as a voter…”

However, Subba not only managed to get listed as a voter in Assam, but was also elected as Congress MLA from Nowbasia in 1991, creating history by becoming the first foreign national to win an election in India.

CNN-IBN Special Investigation has Home Ministry letters that take serious note of the allegations against Subba. In fact, since 2000, the CBI has filed 3 reports on Subba’s nationality, only to conclude:

“In absence of any evidence regarding the original birthplace or exact year of birth of M K Subba, no final view could be taken about his nationality”…

While there is no documentary evidence of his birth in India, CNN-IBN found a huge pile of documents from Nepal to suggest that he is actually Moni Raj Limbo from Nepal who had been convicted for murder. Subba’s third Wife, Karma Kanu says, “he’s not an Indian. Just by coming to India, a Nepali does not become Indian!” An INTERPOL report confirms the existence of a Moni Raj Limbo, alias Moni Kumar Subba, son of Late Dhan Bahadur Subba who was a resident of ward No.8, Sangsabu, Taplejung, Nepal. The documents are now with the Supreme Court.

The escaped Nepali convict Moni Raj Limbo had a father named Dhan Bahadur Subba and a brother named Sanjay Raj Subba. Moni Kumar Subba’s father and brother also have the same name. That Moni Raj Limbo and Moni Kumar Subba are still NOT the same man is getting increasingly hard to believe.

QUOTES ON CAMERA:

MONI KUMAR SUBBA
CNN-IBN: “So you lied in court?”
Subba: “It’s not about lying…”
CNN-IBN: “It’s in front of you, it’s on the affidavit! See, it’s your paper, your signature…
(Subba takes document in his hand) Here it is 47 years in 1997…if the voter list is wrong, then it means you’re lying?”
Subba: “I’ll have to go by whatever is in the voter list!”

CNN-IBN: “In your election nomination papers you wrote you were born in Tezpur and here it is written Dabgram…”
Subba: “Leave all that…who remembers what was written what was not? I didn’t write it myself!”

Subba: Do you have any brains? You are doubting the citizenship of an MP? Are you a citizen yourself? You are a common citizen…we are supreme! I have been an MLA from Assam twice and then an MP and you’re talking of citizenship! Where have you come from? Don’t you have any brains?

KARMA KANU, SUBBA’S THIRD WIFE
“I’ve heard this name for the first time…I’ve never heard of Dabgram before. If he is from Dabgram, he should have some relatives there!”

“He’s not an Indian. Just by coming to India, a Nepali does not become Indian…he’s still a Nepali!”

BAL CHAND SARDA, SUBBA’S BUSINESS PARTNER
“He is from Nepal, no doubt about it!”
CNN-IBN: “How can you be so sure?”
Sarda: “That everybody knows”
CNN-IBN: “He says he was born in Darjeeling?”
Sarda: “No no…he was not born in Darjeeling. If he was born in Darjeeling…he must prove…even his language is typically that of Nepal!”

CNN-IBN: “So how come you did not tell the truth to the CBI?”
Sarda: “The DSP is a friend of Moni Kumar’s…Moni Kumar told me this DSP is coming to you, before the DSP came to me”
CNN-IBN: “So that means the CBI enquiry was Monipulated?”
Sarda: “Yes and if this time the court does not give a good verdict, people will laugh at the court!”

The Siege Within

2007-03-06T13:46:00.000+05:30

Red Terror: India under siege from within

VK Shashikumar
CNN-IBN

Bastar (Chhattisgarh): The Maoist insurgents in India have intensified their armed movement in what they call the Compact Revolutionary Zone or the Red Corridor. Inside this Red Corridor, set up in the tribal forest lands of Central India and stretching from Nepal to Andhra Pradesh, the Maoists run a parallel government called the Janatana Sarkar.

The Janatana Sarkar runs in the so-called Dandakaranya Liberated Zone - a region which is completely under Maoist control. CNN-IBN Special Investigation Team went to this region for a spot-check on how the Indian government has lost its control over an area almost twice as big as the state of Kerala. The Janatana Sarkar runs its writ in this belt. The Maoists have propaganda films, showing well-armed rebels of People's Guerilla Army on the march to fight the Indian security forces.

Powered by the Maoists, the tribals of Dandakaranya now have a voice - the voice of their guns. If the naxals call for a public meeting, hundreds of tribals would respond to it. They would trek kilometres through the forest, complete with food and other provisions. Deep inside Chhattisgarh, the CNN-IBN team attended one such meeting, where local leaders of the Maoist Janatana Sarkar addressed a gathering. On the ground, tribal leaders like Sannu are the face of the parallel Maoist government. He paints the Janatana Sarkar on a red cloth, even as local Adivasis help and watch. The Maoist government, says Sannu, now controls every aspect their lives. "Our 'sarkar' gets people to work in cooperatives, to dig wells and irrigation tanks. Things like ploughing the land, sowing seeds and harvesting are also done by cooperatives. All this will liberate the area from the Indian Government," claims Sannu, president of the Revolutionary People's Committee of Dandakaranya.

The Janatana Sarkar today controls a vast tract of land, stretching from Gadchiroli in Maharashthra to the Abuz Mad and Bastar districts in Chhattisgarh. The Maoist writ runs over an area of 92,000-sq kilometre, an area twice the size of Kerala. Ganesh Uyike, one of the five division secretaries in the so-called Dandakaranya Special Zone, was instrumental in the setting up of this special zone. "It is not yet a liberated zone. But we will achieve it. Just 25 of us came here. But now, there are thousands in our ranks. We ended the exploitation of forest officials, patwaris and other government forces. We are working towards a People’s Government," claims Ganesh.

As one travels through this Naxal heartland, it is impossible to miss the sickle and hammer. This flag that flutters in the Dandakaranya Special Zone is the official Maoist banner, not the Indian tricolour. While the absence of the 'tricoloor' is symbolic, the fact is, the writ of the Government of India does not run in the Dandakaranya Special Zone. So much so that the Maoists have a constitutional roadmap called the 'Janatana Sarkar Policy Programme', with which they intend to replace the Government of India in Dandakaranya. The Maoist strategy starts with children. Tribal children are encouraged to imitate Maoist guerilla tactics even in their games.

Police-Maoist encounter is a popular game among the children here. One set of children walk into a 'Maoist territory' posing as police patrol, and another group attacks them. And as the surprised policemen stumble and fall, they are shot ruthlessly. When their Maoist role models come visiting, the children line up to shake hands with the squad leader.

Not surprisingly, the upper age limit to join the People’s Guerilla Army is just 16 years. And children, like Laxman, are willing to join their ranks. "I will join the PGA, and fight against the police," says Laxman. While the Maoists say that they have stepped in to fill a vacuum of governance, tribal Congress leader Mahendra Karma argues that the Maoists systematically destroyed the government institutions using terror, and then imposed themselves on the tribals.
"They had also built their pressure. And in areas where government control was not strong enough, they occupied such areas and crippled the development efforts of the government. They make the socio-economic setup collapse and set up a parallel network of their own," explains Mahendra Karma, an Adivasi leader of the Congress party.

But the Maoists disagree. They say guerilla warfare was not needed to establish their rule in Dandakaranya. "The aim is to make Dandakaranya a liberated zone. Given the uneven development in India, we have identified areas that we want to liberate. So, Dandakaranya is part of that plan," says Ganesh Uyike, a division secretary of the Dandakaranya Special Zone. One of the steps taken by the Maoists was to stop the exploitation of the tribals by petty government and village officials. "Forest rangers and patwaries used to harass us. They used to impose fines for everything - for cutting firewood, for grazing the livestock, everything. They used to collect Rs 2 for cows and Re 1 for oxen. They even fined us if we brought twigs from the forest to fence our plantations," says tribal.

"We have fought the government for our rights over the forest. So, we also take the responsibility to protect it. Whoever wants to cut trees for agriculture or firewood or to make a house must take permission from the jungle committee," says Sannu, president of the Revolutionary People's Committee of Dandakaranya. The Maoists have mobilised the tribals around a range of grievances - real and invented. And the idea of a Janatana Sarkar or the people’s government is central to this strategy. The strategy works like this: First they would exploit the complete absence of the government, and then they would convince the Adivasis through the Janatana Sarkar that the Indian State is not concerned about their welfare.

Amid the claims and counter-claims, what is clear is the fact that the Maoist-run Janatana Sarkar has definitely added a new dimension to the violent image of the Naxal movement in the country. From Bihar to Andhra Pradesh, the Naxals or the Maoists are one party. They have an armed force, which is lethal as seen in Jehanabad. And the Maoists organised under the Janatana Sarkar have shown that they can govern as well. Now, what remains to be seen is how the Government of India responds to this challenge posed by the Maoists.

Radiance

2007-02-14T16:06:00.000+05:30

Radiance - by Shibab M. Ghanem

And when you return to me...despite distances..
I feel that radiance lighting my face again
And I her the sounds of sticks in the wheels of my
life crackling - under the radiance,
Under the stars that twinkle in my eyes -
LIke thin twigs
I kiss your eyelids...while seas and mountains
hold us apart
And from the sea I seek inspiration
I read it in every shape a philosophy.
I learn to probe the secrets of serenity
And to realise the turbulence of wrath
And on the dancing waves I witness a new charm
of the full moon
As it breaks into glittering fragments.
Thence I understand restlessness...
And how sleeplessness enhances the beauty of
your dropping lids.
I kiss your eyelids...
But the seas and mountains remain
And every mountain touched by my gaze inspires
me with the meaning of loftiness,
And the philosophy of patience and endurance,
And when the arms encircle you
After the yearning...
When time yields, but place does not....And I hug my longing into my chest
And wonder how within my arms the two incompatibles unite
The hearts of violence...and extreme tenderness -
And thence I do not feel the length of distance...
...The seas...
...The waves.
...The night...
..Or the mountain heights...
I only feel the radiance invading my soul
And the exuberance of beauty

*Priyanca emailed this beauty from Tampere, Finland

Through Our Own Eyes

2007-02-07T16:02:00.000+05:30

The Latin Americans are leaving the imprint of their worldview in their part of the world with the motto, 'Another Television is Possible'. Telesur broadcasting to countries in South America and elsewhere has finally broken free of heavy reliance on Western news networks on developments in the region. Al Jazeera similarly energized news coverage in West Asia by looking at international affairs through the lens of Arab perspective. Now the English version of the Arab news channel has the definite first mover advantage in covering news not only from a West Asian perspective, but from a larger Asian perspective, that is non-BBC and non-CNN.

Telesur and Al Jazeera have signed a content sharing agreement early this year to counter the dominance of Western news networks. Even the French are making their presence felt by launching a news channel, France 24. Interestingly in the 21st Century governments across the world have felt the need to compete with monolithic, western news sources at a global level to transmit alternate worldviews. France 24 is funded by the private sector, but wholly backed by the French government. Al Jazeera's Chairman is Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer al-Thani, a distant cousin of Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. The Venezuelan government holds a 51 percent stake in Telesur, with Argentina owning 20 percent, Cuba 14 percent, Uruguay 10 percent and Bolivia 5 percent. Here's Telesur's rationale: "To watch us is to know us; to recognise us is to respect us; to respect is to learn to care for each other. These are the first steps towards regional integration. If integration is the end, Telesur is the means."

Currently, Indian news channels obsession with trivia makes it impossible to imagine that any news channel in this country could even begin to think of a South Asia focus. Will any Indian news channel have the guts to over-step boundaries to tap and forge people-centric sentiments of regional integration and cover news at a sub-continental scale? It would be foolhardy to even imagine when in India traditional news hierarchies dominate both print and television news media. When we continue to ignore northeast affairs, when we continue to ignore issues of a India that is non-urban and non-corporate, when we continue to ignore minorities, when we continue to continue with news tailor made for distinct consumer segments, it is just unthinkable that Indian media outlets can even believe in taking that leap of faith.

The airwaves are a level playing field and the technology to rule the airwaves is easily available. The desperate intent to leave the imprint of a distinctive worldview post 9/11 and Iraq War has inspired the setting up new global news channels. No wonder despite the US bombing of Al Jazeera's office in Iraq and in spite of the considerable US diplomatic pressure on Qatar, the US government just could not stop the Arab news channel from broadcasting the other side of gruesome and horrific realities of the war in Iraq and its continuing aftermath. This is unprecedented and ironic. The world capital of freedom and democracy wanting to throttle the voice and views of an independent Arab news channel.

Where is India placed in the global news race? The largest democracy in the world, the beacon of hope for people in the developing world who harbour democratic aspirations is yet to get its act right. For some years now there has been some talk of a government backed, but autonomous Indian channel looking at the world through the Indian prism, reflecting India's view of international affairs. Indian news channels do not even cover its neighbourhood, so crucial to its security and economic growth. What's happening in Bangladesh and Pakistan? In Sri Lanka and Nepal?

Indian news channel just do not show inclination to cover events that are shaping the Indian-subcontinent. And what about the extended neighbourhood, which has always been in the radar of Indian civilizational influences-Southeast Asia and West Asia? What's happening in Afghanistan where there is a significant Indian presence? It is strange that a country that is being watched by the world as its shakes off the somnolence the 20th Century and makes the 21st count, its mass media is just not interested in covering its neighbourhood which is steeped in centuries of Indian cross-cultural influences. Isn't it strange that millions of television news viewers in India have to depend on non-Indian news sources for regional and global events reshaping their world?

The manic urge to broadcast other worldviews appeared in the last decade of the 20th century. It took the form of alternate news websites and bloggers challenging the theocracy of established newspapers, magazines and 24-hour networks. And within the first decade of the 21st Century, from You Tube to the mint fresh global news channels, the imagination of the world as seen by the West have begun to be reshaped by alternative news sources. The demands of 21st Century news will be significantly influenced by the assertiveness of readers and viewers ensuring their access to citizenship rights. How the free press responds to issues of access to the broad spectrum of citizenship rights will determine which particular media outlet is preferred with the exclusion of similar choices. News is already available on multiple platforms from mobile to Internet to 24-hour networks to newspapers. The multi-modal delivery of news will continue to evolve with cutting edge communications technology.

Soon 'he said, she said' journalism will be meaningless and irrelevant. So will traditional news formats like what a political party says and what the other doesn't. Merely announcing government policies and recording events of the day will also become a miniscule part of a successful TV news channel's menu. All of this will be available in varied platforms through varied delivery systems. The two drivers, so to say, of national news channels will be on-the spot coverage as news breaks. The breaking news phenomena will become bigger and, hopefully, better. But at the end of the day it will be cutting edge editorial content relevant to the life of nation, relevant to lives of its readers and viewers that will make a TV news channel preferred over others. On top of this news channels that make a leap of faith to reach out to the country's civilizational links will have the last laugh.

Finding Manipur's Hidden War

2007-02-07T14:44:00.000+05:30

My Report in Himal, January 2007
http://www.himalmag.com/2007/january/special_report2.htm

Finding Manipur’s hidden war

Faced with New Delhi’s alternating intransigence and incompetence, militant groups in Manipur are threatening to take their battles to the streets.

by V K Shashikumar

Armed ethnic groups have parcelled Manipur into tribal fiefdoms, and are now holding the state’s economy for ransom. Two groups – the Meitei-dominated United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and a faction of Naga insurgents, the National Socialist Council for Nagalim-Isak Muivah group (NSCN-IM) – are at constant loggerheads, jeopardising the state’s growth potential. “There are many armed groups in Manipur because arms are easily available. If you have two pistols, you can form a group and start collecting money from the people, from the state government departments,” explains R K Meghen, alias Sanayaima, the reclusive 65-year old leader of the UNLF.

National Highway 39 passes through Senapati District of Manipur, an area that particularly illustrates the complexities of a region where tribal hostilities have assumed layer upon layer of competing influences. Rival histories, competitive jostling for identity and geographic location, and other such dynamics have combined to make the hidden war in this area almost intractable. Senapati District is a stronghold of the NSCN-IM, and the Naga underground elements here virtually run a parallel administration. “I have to collect tax, and you will have to give it to me voluntarily,” says Brigadier Phunthing of the NSCN-IM.

In addition to the Senapati and Ukhrul hill districts in Manipur, the NSCN-IM also lays claim to the state’s southern hill districts of Tamenglong, Churchandapur and Chandel. The group is demanding the integration of these districts to form a state called Greater Nagaland. But this goal is in direct competition with the UNLF’s agenda of an Independent Manipur. Caught in the crossfire is the Kuki tribe, which hope to claim the hill districts for a separate Kuki state. “In Manipur there are three communities: Kukis, Nagas and Meiteis. So you can’t have a solution for one and ignore the others, if you want the entire region to be in a situation where there is peace, stability and tranquillity,” says Seilen Haokip, a spokesperson for the Kuki National Organisation.

The Kukis, primarily hill tribals, say the British divided their traditional lands of Zale’n-gam, between India and Burma. Modern Zale’n-gam runs from the Sagaing Division in Burma in the east, to the Nantalit River in the north, to the Burmese Chin state in the south. The Kuki National Organisation (KNO) agitates for statehood for Kuki-dominated areas in Manipur within the Indian Constitution. “If India wants us to be part of the Indian union, we are happy to do that. Then recognise our territory by way of statehood,” says Haokip. “The KNO’s objective is to find solutions within the framework of the Indian Constitution. We firmly believe in being Indian.”

Divided by the Indo-Burmese border, the Kuki community wants New Delhi to constitute the state of Kukiland, culled from the Manipuri hill districts. They also claim to have petitioned Rangoon to delineate a similar state in Burma. This writer recently visited the jungle camps of the Kuki National Army in southeast Manipur, and saw armed Kukis training close to the India-Burma border, near Moreh. The Kukis have eight armed factions, which are all united under the KNO. Currently the Kukis are maintaining a ceasefire with the Indian Army in accordance with an agreement signed in August 2005. The pro-India stance of the Kuki National Army (KNA) allows them to carry arms and keep training despite the ceasefire.

The KNA is tiny but tough. Recruits who fall out of line invite harsh punishment. The medical facilities at KNA camps are basic, and simple infections can claim lives. This tough existence is rationalised by the language and spirituality left behind by American Baptist missionaries, who worked to convert the Kuki and Naga tribes to Christianity during the first half of the 20th century. Visitors to Kuki camps can still hear the English refrains of gospel songs:
He gives me love and happiness, To give me comfort while I am on earth.There is nobody else besides Christ who can make me happy…

KNA recruits are young, many just 15 years old. To motivate them, a strong sense of faith is crucial. At all KNA camps, the Bible and the gun lay side-by-side. Similar sights can be seen at NSCN-IM camps in Nagaland. The Kuki children’s army prays, then loudly takes an oath. “Hallelujah, I have finished all sins. I am done with my past life, I am going to reach for the everlasting life. In everything you do rejoice in God. Thank You.” Their small chests bulge outwards. “I will always work for my God and my nation. For the sake of my nation I will undergo every suffering. For the sake of my nation I will stick to my path. For the sake of my nation I will wage war.” Ironically, Nagas and Kukis are adherents of the same faith, yet they continue to engage in a brutal ethnic clash, including with each other.

Manipur IntifadaThe NSCN-IM claimed nearly 900 Kuki lives during the ethnic cleansing of the 1990s. The Kuki militia does what the army cannot – it protects Kuki villages from both the UNLF and the NSCN-IM. Its force is 1500 men strong, and is armed with an array of weapons. “At present, we use AK-47s, M16s, DC and 60mm mortars,” says Major D J Haokip of the Kuki National Army. Like the Nagas, the Kukis are deeply suspicious of the Meiteis. “When the NSCN-IM aggressed on us, and from 1992 to 1997 slaughtered us, where was the UNLF?” asks spokesman Seilen Haokip. “Did they ever prevent the NSCN-IM from killing Kukis? Were they able to protect them if they did? 900 would not have died – 350 villages were uprooted, more than 50,000 have been displaced.”

Ten years ago, Ngamkholien was a victim of the Naga-Kuki conflict. He is now a committed Kuki militant. “I love my land and my nation. And I cannot tolerate it being oppressed and violated. That’s why I have sacrificed my life to take up arms,” he says. But UNLF leader Sanayaima says that the Indian Army’s ceasefire with the KNO’s armed wing is nothing but a strategy by New Delhi to keep the ethnic cauldron simmering. “India is very much trying to keep us divided on ethnic lines, pitching one ethnic group against another – the same old divide-and-rule policy. The colonial game still going on,” he says.

The failure of India’s quasi-federal constitutional arrangement to accommodate regional aspirations and assertions of ethnic identity is evident in Manipur’s restive existence. The UNLF’s secessionist agenda is to spark an Utop Lan, a Manipuri Uprising, and the inspiration is the Maoist movement in Nepal. “The Nepal experience is very inspiring,” Sanayaima said during an interview at the India-Burma border. “We’ll come to see some sort of Intifada … That is part of the strategy, and part of the strategy is to tell the world that something is happening here, and you are morally obliged to come to our help. India should not be allowed to simply massacre our people.”

The UNLF’s rebellion has been ongoing against the Indian state since 1964. Now it plans to take the war out of the jungles and into the streets of Manipur, by sparking civil unrest. “One of the biggest factors in our strategy is that we’re fighting with the people, not just the armed cadres. We’re fighting along with our people,” Sanayaima said. “Take our population into consideration, and then take India’s deployment – about fifty to fifty-five thousand. Pitted against two million people, 55,000 is nothing.”

Sanayaima, who happens to be a descendent of Manipur’s royal family, plans to mobilise the state’s citizens by proposing a solution that he knows Delhi will not accept. “We’ve made a four-point proposal,” he explains. “Number one is to hold a plebiscite under the UN. Number two, that UN peacekeeping forces are deployed in Manipur. Number three, UNLF will deposit all its arms to the UN authority on a date fixed by the UN prior to the date of the plebiscite. And India should also reciprocate by withdrawing all its forces from Manipur. Number four, the UN is to hand over power according to the result of the plebiscite.”

In order to earn the goodwill of the Manipuris, Sanayaima says that the UNLF has flagged off development projects in rural areas. “If you go to rural areas you’ll find many projects being implemented by us – irrigation systems, water-supply streams, even roads in interior areas,” he notes. “Otherwise, these would have gone to the pockets of the authorities.” Local politicians and officials are also ‘persuaded’ to allot funds to the UNLF’s projects, using threats if needed. “We ask MLAs, ministers, bureaucrats to do what is beneficial for the people. We want to tell them that one day they will have to join the people when the people rise up. Otherwise, they don’t have any future.”

For 26 years, Manipur has been ostensibly run by the Indian Army under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Human-rights violations fuel the secessionist fire, one of the most recent and notorious being the 2004 rape and murder of activist Manorama Devi, allegedly by soldiers from the Assam Rifles. For Meitei insurgents, this tragic incident was not an accident. Rather, they see it as an inevitable product of the conflict. “It is this conflict situation that will push the people forward, to rise up against the system that represses them. And ultimately, they will rise up,” said Sanayaima.

The rebel chief is particularly sure of this last point. For more than 10 years, the UNLF’s armed force, the Manipur People’s Army, has fought a hidden, protracted war against the Indian Army. Now it wants to take this war aboveground, in the form of a popular uprising such as the Palestinian Intifada. Doing so just might take the Indian government by surprise.

Unwilling annexationFrom the last Indian Army post at Hengshi, this writer trekked for five days along the Indo-Burmese border of southeast Manipur, to reach the operational headquarters of the 293rd battalion of the Manipur People’s Army, the MPA. It was a long, difficult trek through densely forested hills and bamboo jungles, escorted the whole way by MPA cadres.

The Manipur People’s Army is a well-oiled guerrilla force. Wireless radios, intimate familiarity with the terrain, and local intelligence have helped them to successfully take on the Indian Army over the past decade. The force’s cadres walk the mountains with practiced ease, even though most of them are not hill people, but rather Meiteis from the Imphal Valley. For these rebels, war with the Indian Army is all about fighting for their “freedom”. The UNLF contends that the Merger Agreement, signed in 1949 between Maharaja Bodh Chandra Singh and then-Home Secretary V P Menon, was flawed. It soon became the bone of contention between the Meitei secessionists and the Indian government. According to the UNLF, from 1947 to 15 October 1949, the day Manipur officially merged with India, Manipur was in fact an independent country. Manipuri secessionists say that any accession was actually the annexation of an unwilling people, and herein lies the genesis of the Manipur-India conflict.

What is worrying is that the conflict shows no signs of letting up. Instead, it continues to draw youngsters such as Chinjacha, a national sports champion, into a bloody battle with the Indian Army. “I was a good martial-arts player,” Chinjacha recalled. “I was a kickboxer, and I won three or four medals at the state level, and also at the national level.” Alienation is what drives these young guerrillas. The Manipur People’s Army does not pay its fighters, but it has high morale and could fight on for years.

Clearly, the root of the conflict is political; there can be no military solution to the hidden wars of Manipur. Indeed, Sanayaima, the man who leads Manipur’s violent secessionist movement, was once a student of international relations and political science at Calcutta’s Jadavpur University. Sanayaima says that when very young, he did believe in the idea of ‘India’. “I grew up and I thought that I’m an Indian. When I was in school, I thought of myself in that environment. But when I began to grow and reach the level of college, I gradually realised that India is something different from what we are.”

Nonetheless, without a creative political and administrative strategy in place, the central government is preparing for a new phase of military operations. In fact, India has begun transferring military equipment to Rangoon in advance of a major joint military operation against Indian separatists based in the Burmese frontier. Reports suggest that New Delhi has given Burma an unspecified number of T-55 tanks, armoured personnel carriers, 105mm light artillery pieces and mortars. The India-Burma joint military action is intended to search and destroy camps of insurgent groups such as the National Socialist Council of Nagalim-Khaplang faction (NSCN-K), the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and the UNLF.

The NSCN-K, located just across the India-Burma border, says that about 3500 Burmese soldiers have been deployed to Burma’s northern Sagaing Division. But the Manipur People’s Army says it is equipped and ready for an extended guerrilla war. The MPA told this writer that its plan is to hit the Indian Army and political institutions in a series of strategic manoeuvres, which Sanayaima says is aimed at sparking a mass uprising against the government. “We’ll always try to give a surprise to the Indian forces. Even Pranab Mukherjee, India’s [then-] Defence Minister, admitted in Parliament that it was difficult to get to our base areas,” the UNLF leader said.

He also indicated that the MPA’s 2000 fighters are prepared for an urban guerrilla war. “We have always avoided direct confrontation, and that is part of our strategy. We fight when we want. We fight when we can.”

Conflicting ethnic aspirations have brought tribal formations in Manipur to the edge of all-out civil war. And the troubled Northeast continues to hamper New Delhi’s broader vision of plugging into the economies of its eastern neighbours. The current reality is that India’s much-discussed integration with Southeast Asia actually comes to a sudden halt on the Indian side of the Moreh bridge in Manipur, at the main link between Burma and India. This bridge, painted yellow in Burma and white in India, stands witness to Manipur’s deepening ethnic conflicts, and to opportunities that continue to be lost for this region in a fast-globalising world. The Moreh bridge is actually the entry point of the much-ballyhooed Asian highway project, for which the Indian Border Roads Organisation has already built the first 100 km in Burma. Yet New Delhi continues to fail to tap the potential of this highway, either to reduce ethnic tensions or to enable the growth of trade – to the detriment of many, in and out of Manipur and the rest of the Northeast.