Desicritics Author: Maitreya Buddha Samantaray

Is a Paradigm Shift Underway in Jammu & Kashmir?

Maitreya Buddha Samantaray — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 02:19:35 EDT

Even diehard pessimists can't deny the reality that militancy has been on decline in the state. Thanks to circumstantial compulsions and intensified security measures that the people have started heaving a sigh of relief. But can the euphoria be enduring - that needs to be realistically assessed.

There has been intensification of counter-terrorism operations in the state in view of the forthcoming assembly elections to be held most likely during the period between August and September this year. An alert has also been raised for a possible militant attack targeting Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad. Security apparatus, who has been taking credit of containing militancy in the state, is grappling with n-number of problems. Suicides and fragging have become so frequent in army in the last few years that the people have started accepting these as norms of military life.

During all these years of militancy, there has been gradual increase in crime rate in Kashmir valley, under the garb of militancy. Police investigations into some of the crucial cases have led to conviction of culprits in the border districts of North Kashmir. Recent media report of the declining sex ratio in the state, especially in two districts of Jammu and Kathua, where one out of every seven girls is killed, has been a serious cause of concern. It seems the state is gradually inching towards its neighbour Punjab which has a dubious distinction of abysmal female populace.

Civil society resentment does crop up time and often over various issues ranging from sectarian violence to human rights violation to disturbances in neighboring Pakistan. Sectarian violence erupted in downtown Srinagar on January 19 when two sects of Muslims, Shias and Sunnis clashed on the eve of Muharram after a Shia procession was held in the Sunni-dominated area of Gojwara. One person was killed and at least 40 others were reported injured in the clashes. Additionally, violence against migrant laborers from other states has increased in the recent past. On 24 July 2007, when the J&K police found two non-local laborers involved in the rape and killing of a 14-year old girl in Langate village in Kupwara, separatist leaders in Srinagar and militant group, the Hizbul Mujahideen threatened all non-state labourers to leave from all parts of Kashmir valley within a week. In one of the rare incident of mob violence in the state since the inception of militancy in the state, agitated villagers of Kunnan in Bandipora had severely attacked two personnel of the local Rashtriya Rifle unit last year accused of rape and took out a rally in Bandipora market.

Corruption in the state has started engulfing the very basis of state institutions.
In pursuance of the Kundal Committee recommendations, the state government has taken action against two forest officers of the State Forest Corporation (SFC) who happens to be small fishes in the river of misappropriation. Ironically, action against the kingpin of irregularities as typified in the same report has not been taken by the government. Can the government eliminate vicious circle of corruption in a state where Accountability Commission has no authority and the version of the Right to Information Act (RTI) that is prevalent elsewhere in the country has been diluted in its implementation?

Staff shortage at lower as well as in higher levels of administration has plagued the efficient and smooth government functioning. As a temporary strategy, the state government has recently transferred several affected departments to the Civil Secretariat for effective functioning. Out of estimated 29 secretaries to the government occupying top positions in civil secretariat, 13 are holding charges of three to four other key positions. Unemployment has been a source of huge unrest for the qualified youth of the state

Behind this mess, government's only excuse is paucity of funds at the disposal of the state. But is it not a fact that Jammu and Kashmir is one of the states which receives maximum financial assistance from the centre? Was it the financial stringency that prompted the government not to provide agreed assistance to Param Vir Chakra awardee Captain Bana Singh? Government can even compensate the financial requirement of the state even by rationalising its various extravaganzas. One striking instance is the `Durbar move'- the biannual move of the state secretariat with several ministers, bureaucrats and their staff with the truck loads of official records. It is estimated that durbar move expenses cost the state approximately seven crores annually. Additionally, the move literally paralyses the already moribund administration for over eight weeks every year including the period taken by packing and unpacking the official records. Durbar move can be a necessary evil but there is no reason why something can't be done.

In tune with the states like West Bengal, Orissa, Goa, Gujarat, the issues concerning land acquisition and outside investments have of late started haunting the state as well. State Chief Minister may have rightly clarified doubts pertaining to the sale of lands to outsiders by asserting that the land would be given out on lease to investors from outsiders the state and not directly sold. Even the proposal of leasing out also sparked furore amongst the people in the past when CM intended leasing out land in tourists' paradise Gulmarg last year. Realistically speaking there is no harm in inviting investors from outside but local investors need to be preferred on a priority basis and selection of investors be it from the state or outside the state should be free from political bias.

It's high time that the government should come out from its pre-occupation with militancy-centric policy measures and seriously monitor the beginning of these destabilising paradigm shifts.

Darjeeling Hills - Development Caught in Politics of Gorkhaland

Maitreya Buddha Samantaray — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:09:24 EST

In pursuant of their demand for separate statehood, leaders of the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) had recently launched a two day cease-work strike in all Central and State government offices in the Darjeeling hill region from 12 February. Nearly 60 activists of GJM have been on hunger strike over nearly a week demanding scrapping of plans to grant Sixth Schedule status to the region and called for the removal of Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) chief Subash Ghisingh from the post of administrator of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC). A constitutional deadlock has been created by DGHC chairman Subash Ghising by reportedly thwarting elections of the council several occasions whose term expired several years ago. Earlier on 6 February, security officials had arrested 22 GJM cadres in Bagdogra airport, prior to their scheduled demonstration against GNLF chief who was scheduled to return that day. Last month, a day long strike organised by the GJM supporters virtually disrupted normal life.

In a significant development, West Bengal government for the first time has decided to initiate a dialogue with the agitated CJM leaders over the issue. Formed nearly four months back, under the leadership of Bimal Gurung, GJM has been demanding a separate Gorkhaland state out of the Darjeeling hills and its adjoining areas. Contrary to it, the GNLF chief ceding its previous demand for separate statehood has been off late insistent on the special status (Sixth Schedule status) for the Darjeeling hills that is waiting for Parliamentary approval. Local leaders of nine parties, including those of the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had earlier in November last year supported Gorkhaland demand in a meeting organized by the GJM.

Even the demand has the support of Naxal outfits. Senior Naxalite leader and the CPI-ML general secretary, Kanu Sanyal has already expressed support for the on going demand for Gorkhaland state. In his opinion, there is absolutely no relevance in pondering over the personality who has recently renewed the already dormant demand of statehood. What really matters is the fulfilment of the genuine demand of Gorkhaland considering the distinctiveness of the region from the rest of the state, not the grant of Sixth Schedule status that would create further ethnic divisions amongst the hill people. However, the state's ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) and GNLF have been opposing the GJM move.

GNLF, which was formed in 1980, is a political party with influence in the northern part of the state. It had led violent demonstrations in the past demanding a separate Gorkha state in the Nepali-speaking northern areas. Subsequently, it gave up its separate statehood demand and compromised with a special package for the region. However, the GNLF has already threatened to revive its earlier demand for separate statehood if the Centre fails to pass the Darjeeling Sixth Schedule Bill in this winter session of Parliament. They are of the view that by signing the tripartite memorandum of settlement in December 2005, the Centre is duty bound to accord Six schedule status to Darjeeling hills.

However, iIt is misleading to say that only Hill Council will be brought under the ambit of the proposed Sixth schedule. As per the article 244 of the Indian Constitution, it is the entire state which will come under the purview of the 6th Schedule including a Hill Council. Hence, once West Bengal comes under the 6th Schedule, all its tribal groups will be governed by it. If the tribal communities of the plain area of North Bengal like that of Koch, Rajbongshi, Boro, who are now in the 5th Schedule, acquire the 6th Schedule status, which they surely would if the concerned Bill is passed, it would breed ethnic enmity as some more groups will be added in the existing list. Demand for a separate Kamtapuri state in northern part of the state, comprising Jalpaiguri, Kochbihar and parts of Dinajpur and Malda districts is yet to get buried. Further, the crisis won't stop there. Voices can be raised from several quarters across the country. Similar kind of demand can also be emanated from Sikkim later as its demographic composition is almost identical with Darjeeling. Will it not create further divisions and social unrest in the form of increasing demand for employment, reservation, etc? That will definitely have a larger bearing on the over all security situation.

Several anthropologists and historians are of the view that the original inhabitants of the people of Darjeeling are the Bhutias and Lepchas who has been off late reduced to numerical minority owing to influx of Nepali Hindus and Buddhists over the last century. Going a step forward, right wing intellectuals are of the view that Nepali, especially Gorkhas who migrated from Nepal has started outnumbering the original locals in the region. Gorkhas used to be a martial Kshatriya caste and were the backbone of the army that brought the present royal dynasty of Nepal to power in Kathmandu in the late 18th century and helped British army as well.

Opponents of Subash Ghising or Bimal Gurung have been persistently appealing authorities not to succumb to their blackmailing. Let’s discuss the issue for the sake of argument. If granting of special status is the precondition of Subhash Ghising to defer election in Hills, then let there be no election. Political leaders should be worried about the likely security vulnerability on a wider perspective and work for national interest, not the lone parliamentary seat that Ghising is having its control. Can the creation of separate state or special status per se will be a panacea of all the malaise that has affected the Hill regions? Is it not the fact that prolonged agitation in the region to some extent has shattered the economy of the "Queen of Hills"? Only way to make the region prosperous is the ample utilization of its own natural resources and linking the output with Indian and global markets. Investments in tourism, hydro power, tea industry, firming, forestry etc will surely fetch high revenues. Surely, creation of hassle-free and secure environment is the precondition for outside investments in the region.

Unmasking Islamic Terror in Hyderabad

Maitreya Buddha Samantaray — Wed, 6 Feb 2008 13:06:36 EST

Nearly five months after Hyderabad was ripped apart by the twin blasts and many crude bombs found later, the city police had released a documentary entitled Meri Jaan Hyderabad last week to sensitize people about public safety. This film is planned to be screened in crowded places around the city including that of bus stands, railway stations, malls etc and intend to lessen the gulf between the police and civilians. The film will enable people about the procedures to contact the nearest police personnel in case of coming across any suspicious activity. However, the intriguing factor is that do our security forces, especially that of police capable enough to take firmness in decision and promptness in action considering its poor infrastructure. Earlier on January 2nd, a crude bomb kept inside a Tiffin box, was found near NTR Garden closer to Lumbini Park which was rocked by terror bombings in August last year.

Security alerts for the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, were issued after two near simultaneous blasts in Hyderabad on August 25 that had killed 40 people and injured 70 others. The first blast had occurred in an open-air theatre in Lumbini Amusement Park, located near the State Secretariat, while the second bomb was detonated approximately 15 minutes later at the Gokul Chat Shop in Kothi in the old city. Casualties would have been much more, if police had not defused 19 more bombs placed at several crowded locations in the city. It is said that had all the detected bombs exploded, the death toll would have exceeded the multiple bombings in Mumbai that had killed approximately 186 people. As the Hyderabad explosion coincided with the Hindu festival on August 26, analysts observe that the blast was intended to create communal tensions amongst Hindus and Muslims in the area.

Twin blasts occurred just three months after a bomb was detonated in a historic mosque, the Mecca Masjid, on May 18, killing 13 people and wounding several others. Authorities suspect that the twin blasts were carried out by a Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jihad-i-Islami (HUJI), also allegedly involved in the Mecca Masjid blast. Prior to this, in October 12, 2005, a suicide bomber detonated a pressure-activated bomb carried in a backpack at an office of the Hyderabad police.

Over the years, there has been a shift in the operational strategy of the foreign militant outfits from the restive Jammu and Kashmir in northern India to the commercial hubs of southern India. Hyderabad city which is the residence of estimated 6.5 million people has a distinction of housing one of the biggest Muslim populations of any Indian city. The Northern part of the city is close to Secunderabad town which has of late started merging with Hyderabad. The western part of the city houses India’s mighty software empire, popularly known as ‘Cyberabad’. There has been rising concern among the people over the threat of Islamic militants on the city’s large information technology industry because of its broader economic significance. As the city has of late become home to several foreign companies, particularly in its IT zone, the terrorists’ possible subversive activities in the Information Technology (IT) hub can not be ruled out.

Interestingly, in the terror incidents, media focus was primarily centred on the rising security concern amongst the city dwellers and over engrossed with the imaginary external perpetrators such as ISI, LeT, Hizbul, Jaish or HUJI. But can we say with certainty that they are the real culprits? Is it not premature to jump into the conclusion without investigating the involvement of those who are within? Whether it is the Hyderabad blasts or others elsewhere in India in the recent past, enemies in most cases are local radical Islamic elements with an aim to create an Islamic Indian state and pan-Islamic fraternity in the world.

No doubt outfits like ISI, LeT or HUJI are providing logistical and training support, but the trigger has been pulled by the local elements in most cases. The city youth Ziayuddin Nasir who was recently nabbed from Davangere of Karnataka on vehicle theft charge is accused of his involvement in several blasts in Hyderabad. Investigators of the twin blasts case suspect that Nasir either had knowledge of the blasts or indirectly played some role in carrying them out. Foreign terror outfits use of the local support can also be ascertained from another instance of the involvement of a Hyderabad youth Bilal, along with his accomplice Rasool in the assassination of former Gujarat Minister Haren Pandya in 2003.

There have been reports that as a large number of Hyderabad Muslims work in several Islamic countries, radical Islamic organisations find it easier to indoctrinate them for subversive activities against India. After returning to the state, these people allegedly start mobilising the locals in their neighbourhood. Police authorities claim that most of the local terror suspects are indoctrinated expatriates and radical elements especially in Pakistan and Bangladesh perform the role of trainer and resource provider. If we realistically observe the nature of several explosions in Hyderabad, then we will find that the bombs that were used in the blasts were of local made and planted by traitors with –in with the active support of elements from outside.

It is high time that the nationalist Muslims must openly come out against such miniscule local anti-national elements amongst the peace loving silent majority. Let not the secular fabric of our Nation is destroyed by few misguided men. It is pity that nobody thinks it a shame that such dastardly acts are repeatedly happening in the country. Instead of facilitating speedy inquiries and bringing the real culprits to book, those in power have been busy in neighbour-bashing. So in this atmosphere, it is imperative that the fact should be presented truthfully and the situation should be analyzed objectively and honestly. Media has to be investigative rather than inventive.

The Chechen War in Russian Print Media

Maitreya Buddha Samantaray — Sun, 3 Feb 2008 04:24:25 EST

With the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, a number of regions managed to break away and gain independence. The Chechen leadership- under former Soviet air force General Dzokhar Dudaev declared their republic independent. The history of the Chechen people is one of repeated conflict with Russian state. Recognized as a distinct people since the 17th century, Chechens, predominantly Sunni Muslims were active opponents of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus during the period 1818-1917. After the 1917 Russian Revolution, a declaration of independence by the Chechens was met with occupation from the Bolsheviks who later established the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Region in 1924. In the mid-1930s, it became an autonomous republic. Even when firmly part of the Soviet Union, Stalin felt that the Chechens were not to be trusted at the end of the Second World War, and so organised the brutal forced displacement of the entire Chechen people to Central Asia. It was not until the 1950s that the Chechens returned to their homeland.

The newly elected Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, while actively encouraging the union republics, including his own to secede from the Soviet Union , was determined that Russia itself would not break up. He declared a state of emergency in Chechnya and insisted that it remain within Russia.Tensions between the Russian government and that of Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudayev escalated into warfare in late 1994. When Russia invaded Chechnya, a bloody war ensued killing approximately 80 thousand mostly Chechen civilians and devastated Grozny. Burning his finger, Russia made to withdraw from the region in 1996.

In August 1999, Shamil Basayev began an unsuccessful incursion into the neighbouring Russian republic of Dagestan . In September the following year a series of apartment bombings took place in several Russian cities, including Moscow. In response, after a prolonged air campaign of retaliatory strikes against the Ichkerian regime (who was officially seen as the culprit of both the bombings and the incursion) a ground offensive began in October 1999. Much better organised and planned than the first Chechen War, the Russian Federal forces were able to quickly re-establish control over most regions and installed a pro-Moscow Chechen regime in 2000 by eliminating the most prominent separatist leaders including former President Aslan Maskhadov and terrorist leader Shamil Basayev.

In the post-Soviet era, the media have played a central role in forming public opinion toward critical national concerns, including the Chechnya conflict. In the environment of freewheeling expression of opinion, public figures such as Boris Yeltsin and government actions such as the Chechnya campaign have received ruthless criticism. However, the national and local governments have exerted heavy pressure on the print media to alter coverage of certain issues. Because most media enterprises continue to depend on government support, such pressure often has been effective. During the Chechnya crisis - the Russian media looked far more robust. It was unable to impose a total news blackout and was constantly confronted by journalists who refused to accept the official version of events. So it can be said that the Chechen crisis became the "first real test of journalists' freedoms" since the end of the Soviet Union.

Getting almost no information from the official sources, State media that had voluntarily supported Yeltsin, "the reformer" found it very difficult to ignore the real events and their alternative coverage. Newspapers like Izvestia, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Argumenty I Fakty, Moskovsky Komsomolets changed their loyal attitude to the president to one of sharp opposition. However, what the media did is only to turn public opinion against the State, but they could not make the State to take this opinion into consideration in its decisions. The Russian media began to receive international attention when during the first war in Chechnya (1994-1996) it provided unbiased reports that covered both sides of the fighting and thus played a major role in bringing the Russian public to favour an end to the Russian military campaign.

In order to prevent correspondents from gathering and reporting information that contradicted official statements about the Chechen crisis, the authorities tightly controlled movement of journalists in Chechnya and imposed special accreditation requirements. The ordeal of the Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitskii in early 2000 discouraged journalists from seeking to evade those restrictions. Babitskii was kidnapped in January 2000 and was later exchanged for Russian prisoners held captive by Chechen fighters, but in fact Russian officials handed him over to pro Moscow Chechen fighters. He was freed in neighbouring Dagestan in February 2000, only to be arrested on charges of carrying a forged passport. In a similar fashion a Novaya gazeta correspondent Anna Politkovskaya, was detained by Russian officers in February 2001 while trying to cover the impact the impact of the war on the civilian's population. They accused her of using falsified accreditation documents and expelled her from Chechnya. As she later recounted, journalists could avoid trouble with military officers only by reporting exclusively on the lives of the Russian soldiers serving in Chechnya. Sadly Politkovskaya was found shot dead in the elevator of her apartment block in central Moscow on October 7th 2006.

Having failed to shape the news agenda during the first war in Chechnya, the Russian authorities managed to minimize criticism of the second military campaign of the breakaway republic. As a result of which, a comprehensive system was introduced to limit the access of journalists to Chechnya and shape their coverage. Most Russian journalists were favorably disposed toward the 'anti terrorist operation' when fighting resumed in1999, because numerous kidnappings of journalists in Chechnya during the late 1990s almost entirely destroyed sympathy for the Chechen cause. Additionally, in order to prevent correspondents from gathering and reporting information that contradicted official statements about the fighting, the authorities tightly controlled journalist's movements in Chechnya and imposed special accreditation requirements.

From late 1996 when the fighting finally stopped, Chechnya was no longer covered on a daily basis. Though it was never completely silenced, the reports were occasional and scattered; they did not provide a big picture of the situation. Most information about events between the wars appeared in the media not earlier than 1999.

The Chechen war the emergence of critical representations that marked the coming of age of the independent and privately owned Russian mass media. The Chechen conflict was a powerful catalyst that allowed Russian media to develop its own .post-Cold War habits, definitively shattering the sealed and carefully controlled informational space of the Soviet Union, in which the prestige of the state and of the armed forces was assumed to be paramount and identical to those of the nation as a whole.

Journalists brought the brutalities of the war into most Russian households, and a clear divergence between official reports and other representations of the war was soon perceived. This ideological pluralism, seen most strikingly in the evident contrast between the often clumsily conceived disinformation circulated by the Russian government and the open pacifism professed by much of the Russian press and echoed to a large extent by opinion polls, can be seen as a watershed in the evolution of a post-Soviet civil society.

The Chechen conflict also accelerated the approximation of the Russian media to global patterns of news coverage. To the West, the new candour of the Russian press, however negatively it reflected on the government, provided some paradoxical reassurance of Russia's place in the globalizing world economy, in which Chechen independence, and even the final rout of the Russian military, mattered less than the continuing marketization of Russia's resources, including the media.

To the Chechens, the war's media visibility compensated for its geographical remoteness, allowing them to make their case to a national and global audience at a time when their military triumph was by no means assured. To Russians, the spectacle of the war confirmed the disarray of the government and the military, even as it confirmed an iconography of Russian victim hood that separated the Russian people from the actions of the state.

-Bishal Das & Maitreya Buddha Samantaray