Saswat Blog

Giving into pressure from his promoters, the so-called opposition parties in India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has, as usual, condemned Pakistan for Mumbai blasts, and threatened disruptions to any peace talk with Pakistan. The right-wingers of India are jubilant at this prospect of forthcoming war with Pakistan, in which they hope to wipe out Islam from the world.

The irreparable damage that could not have resulted from the right wing political rhetoric alone, has now been done through their orchestration of Mumbai tensions. Following the blasts, most of even otherwise liberal people of India are now readily supporting the cause of Hindu fanatics in declaring war against Indian Muslims and Pakistan. This is grossly pathetic display of patriotism by any standard, and a sense of ingratitude towards a great, exemplary minority religious community of India that has actively helped save whatever is left of India’s grace.

Hindus who constitute an overwhelming majority in India have an obligation to display a great sense of responsibility at this time of national crisis. Let it be mentioned that Mumbai blasts is an international tragedy caused by global terrorists (we will soon go to who are the people that are the terrorists and who fund them, and for what cause etc). It is definitely not an occasion to play communal political opportunism. ALL words and actions and thoughts and indications, discriminations and prejudices against Muslim population MUST STOP in India. And blame games against Pakistan and Indian Muslims must end and the peace process must resume as scheduled. This is the least we can do to ensure that India has not yet turned a mad militarist (Although the reality is it is. Although since it’s not North Korea and since it is an ally of USA, India was not declared a terrorist country of the world even after its missile tests last week).

Muslim influence in making of modern India is one for great celebration. Indeed, if the British colonialists would not have forced their way to further gaps between the two communities and would not have manipulated their power structure to divide the country into two or three halves, we would have a different history today.

India’s History of Freedom Struggle against Hindu Fanatics:
The history would have been surely different, if Mahatma Gandhi or Netajee Subhas or Bhagat Singh (all three had radically different ways of approach towards freedom struggle, but convincingly similar goals in mind) would have had their ways. All three of them fought tooth and nail against Hindu fanatics and did not tolerate the ideology that was preached in name of Hinduism. Three of them were secular to the core and they believed that the country’s foundation must be built on Hindu-Muslim unity (not separation).

Whereas Bhagat Singh was assassinated by British imperialists, Subhas Bose’s ideals were massacred by homegrown reactionaries like Sardar Patel and Mahatma Gandhi was shot to death by well organized Hindu fanatics of India.

Whereas the freedom fighters wanted secularism at all costs, the reactionaries wanted communal tensions at all costs. Hence, India’s so-called glorious history has been nothing short of a shameful, casteist, communal history of religious hatred, incited, engaged in, and managed by Hindu supremacists.

This is true that Muslim League, despite having some great patriots of the era, was also religious in nature. But its impact waned after formation of Pakistan. But Hindu Mahasabha, despite having no freedom fighter worth a mention, went on ransacking the emotional wealth of the country even after independence from illegal British rulers.

The history of Hindu ransacking in a Hindu India has gone on unabated in India since British were forced to leave. Although the reality is that these fanatics never got any support from mainstream Indian population, (85% of whom are Hindus) despite their claims to be representing the Hindus!

In the early periods of India’s independent history, which can be truly claimed to be the only glorious period in India’s recent times, the country under Nehru emerged as highly respectable nation in the world, with an internationalist outlook, where India played global role in promoting peace, cooperation and non-violence. India was at its secular best, in curbing the forces of Hindu chauvinism and indeed acted heavily against Hindu fanatics to the extent that they had to go underground. Whereas forming the Non-Aligned Movement in order to refrain from entering a nuclear club (which a shamelessly communalist like Vajpayee or the agent of domestic businessmen like Singh marred by their show of inferiorities—-declaration of India as a militarist country…sic!), Nehru stood in solidarity with socialist causes worldwide. India supported the Soviet policies of planning, programming and social welfare. Cooperation, not competition, cooperatives, not private companies, small scale industries, not multinational companies, advancement of scientific rational progressive thoughts, not superstitious religious and fanatic camps…India was the most enviable country as the great role model in the world then.

But just as supremacist Hindus (although a tiny minority, they are so well organized with half pants and lathis and reactionary mechanisms in place) assured the end of Gandhi, they ensured the end of Nehru by fielding Patel against him several times. Both of them had rivalry since few decades before freedom, and even before Nehru could act undemocratically (which was actually the need of the hour, as Netajee had suggested, to educate people about political empowerment), Patel had let the Indian Army loose on Kashmir.

Of course Nehru cannot be forgiven for having tolerated entry of Hindu fanatics in the group already. For example, people like Ambedkar or Aruna Ali were not given the power. Neither Dalits nor Muslims had any primary say in the state of the nation. It was reinstallation of a north Indian Brahmin supremacy in India, that went on playing a different ideology than what Nehru had envisaged (as found in his own writings about the need to curb communal elements in India).

Indian private businesses started to grow after the demise of Nehru and despite valiant efforts by the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, India had inadvertently fallen into the cold war game. As can be seen from Nixon and Kissinger talks about Indira Gandhi, America started having great interest in India (strategically that’s the best bet to defeat China and USSR at the same time). To that end, as was the creation of Taliban or the Iraqi fascists, foreign aids came to Indian insurgents to organize acts of terror.

Who are the terrorists?
In the pre-independence era, when the British condemned Bhagat Singh as a terrorist, he was very clear on his response. He said he was a revolutionary, and not a terrorist.

We need to dwell on the coinage and definition of who is a terrorist. First off, this is a word founded and coined by the ruling class to portray the resisters negatively, which is why it becomes more logical to believe in their description of who fits the phrase.

For many of the resisters however, they would rather be called Revolutionaries. That’s because revolutionaries fight against the system. And terrorists are integral to the system. Hence, the police forces, military forces and the profiteering governments become the terrorists when they cause circumstances where innocent people are massacred.

This is going on right now in India. The Hindu supremacists of India –the biggest blot in India’s secular image—are the ones who spread the venoms in early last decade by demolishing a national treasure called Babri Masjid. The terrorists who stoned the walls of the mosques and destroyed it with active collaboration of police forces (since they are all integral to the terrorizing network) that December 6, went on to incite the Mumbai bomb blasts—the biggest in India’s history. The riots went on unabated with an entirely unapologetic Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackerey calling the shots and giving hateful speeches against the Muslims of India. Shiv Sainiks who were aided by BJP in demolishing the mosque are the neo-nazi elements of India who should have been declared as state terrorists long back.

These were the people who came to power by killing extremely popular labor union leader of Maharashtra Krishna Desai, who was a communist leader of amazing popularity, already a MLA and was poised to rule the state. Desai’s murder was the first act of political murder in independent India. Shiva Sena hacked him to death, whereas the police and administration watched haplessly. The rise of political mafia in India has now surfaced to become the voice of the Hindu nationalists, and there cannot be any sadder development than this in India.

Journalist Praveen Swami of Frontline writes:
“Through the 1970s, Sena gangs repeatedly attacked leading Communist trade union leaders, and in 1973 were responsible for the murder of popular Parel MLA Krishna Desai. It was only in 1984, with the Sena discredited as a criminal mafia and in electoral decline, that Thackeray sought alliances with the Hindu Right, first forming the Hindu Mahasangh, and then allying with the BJP.
Violent riots, starting with the anti-Muslim pogroms in Bhiwandi, Kalyan and Thane, and through similar butchery at Panvel, Nashik, Nanded and Amravati, marked this new direction taken by the Sena.”

Activist Praful Bidwai writes:
“The Sena consciously fomented religious hatred and communalised Maharashtra politics. It manufactured chauvinist prejudice against non-Maharashtrians and instigated or committed hate-crimes. The Sena, with its disgusting demagoguery, represents pure, unadulterated evil, a political force that concentrates much that’s negative and deplorable in Indian society, including hierarchical authoritarianism, repression and addiction to the use of force and bullying.”

Ashok Dhawale writes:
“Many other communal decisions were taken by the SS-BJP regime. These were the abolition of the State Minorities Commission, the Urdu Academy and the Haj Committee; the bringing of a bill banning all forms of cow slaughter, including buffaloes, but which was defeated in the Council; a shrill campaign for the imposition of a uniform civil code; an attempt to drive out so-called Bangladeshi infiltrators, most of whom were bonafide citizens of India hailing from West Bengal but who happened to be Muslim; and so on. The claim that was made by the regime that there were no communal riots under its tenure was also false. Communal riots did take place at Pen in Raigad district, Junnar in Pune district, Khirwad in Jalgaon district, in Aurangabad city and other places. The decrease in intensity was simply because the rioters were themselves in state power!”

The riot-ridden India:
By focusing only on the here and now, we shall be basically imitating television reality shows. What is needed is to introspect with historical clarity about how things have shaped up with people.

The great journalist MJ Akbar writes in his book “Riot after Riot” (Roli 2003) that Ayodhya was developed as a case in communal “dispute” back in 1885. The history of it is interesting to be noted here:

“The Englishman who reported this incident more than 100 years ago, that left 75 Muslims dead over the Babri Masjid said that the police were present but merely looked on, being “under strict orders not to interfere”. However a secular judge Pandit Hari Kishan (echoing the voice of millions of Indians) did not award the rights to Hindu fanatics to construct a temple. “Awarding permission to construct the temple at this juncture is to lay the foundation of riot and murder”. A.F. Millett, the British officiating settlement officer even mentioned, “It is said that upto that time (the riot of 1885) the Hindus and Mohammedans alike used to worship in the mosque/temple. Since British rule a railing has been put up to prevent disputes, within which, in the mosque, the Mohammedans pray, while outside the fence the Hindus have raised a platform on which they can make their offerings.”

Akbar says, then in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the first propagators of modern communalism, the builders of a nation in the name of religion, first came into prominence. These ideologues sent out their missionaries—priests, politicians, novelists, historians—-to color the mind of an emerging nation with blood rather than peace. The growing synthesis among the upper and middle classes and the creation of a common culture among the poor was the target. “Purification” became the key of separation, as the leaders indulged in dreams of Muslim and Hindu states…..

The Global Terrorists. Who are they?
The point is the purifiers are still present in one way or the other. Some times, at the helm of power, and at other times, in collaboration. And at all times, they are inciting violence on common people in name of religion. And these days, the local terrorism by dominant religions has been almost replaced by collaborated terrorism across the globe, which we call today as Global Terrorism.

Unfortunately, the global terrorists are this time enjoying power in big powerful countries. On closer look, one can notice the strategies adopted by Indian right-wingers as very akin to the tactics used by Israeli forces. In name of protecting the defense forces (ha!), in name of maintaining national boundaries, in name of safeguarding national interests, the militarist countries like India and Israel (you may please add United States and France and Germany as well…) stop nowhere in their quest to dominate the marginalized resisters.

But as is their wont, the ruling class uses every means possible to alienate people from the resisting forces. And when people themselves become resistors, they invent an opposition from the air, in order to project their indispensability. This has happened in every ages. In the most devastating period of economic instability that America has faced since the 1930’s, we are told that Saddam Hussein or Bin Laden are terrorists. Whereas this could be true, the reality is that both of them were creations of the American interventions. Taliban indeed is a logical consequence of American policy in Afghanistan in its attempt to enforce religious fundamentalism in that land.

Likewise, Indian leadership, pathetically criminal in their words and deeds (stealing poor peoples’ thatched roofs to hand them over to industries is one of the recent examples), are detested for rising prices of essential commodities and escalating housing and healthcare costs. In face of real crisis, the country has only its structural governance to blame (BJP or Congress, in the so-called political democracy being run by private businesses, everything is the same after the polls end…). And to avoid these, the creation of external elements as the disrupters is a natural political gameplan. From Hitler to Bush to Singh, everyone has applied this tactic of state control in implicit fashion.

Alright, but who are the terrorists then?
Terrorists are people who cause terror. From our experience, we know that terrors can be imaginary (as in dreams or in political speech) or real (as in price-rise, homelessness, death due to cold wave). So the answer is not very complicated. The real terrorists are the military-industrial complex of politicians who rule through the produces: militia to enforce and money to allure.

But if we need further critical appraisal, here it is: The terrorists make plans. They define territories. They decide on allegiance. They talk of countries and boundaries. They think of their own nationalities, and regionalism. They do not think of world’s working class, they are concerned about domestic business class. They enforce different privileges for citizens and immigrants and aliens. They terrorize people through enforcement of draconian legislations like POTA, TADA or Patriot Act. They use police force and military to perpetrate crime on women and children by declaring war. They use tanks and guns to suppress people who use stones and slogans. They get international support from all terrorists, thus making terrorism not a sectarian act any longer, but a global business.

These terrorists terrorize people by talking sweet and killing their aspirations, or by planting bombs and blaming imaginations. Scolding each other (look how Manmohan Singh scolded Pakistan today for Mumbai blasts!) while failing to apologize and resign because of inability to maintain law and order. In fact they are so involved in creating riots that they make a profession out of it and enjoy allegiance of people.

Today’s India is a result of the Communal Politicians like Bal Thackerey whose party went on rampage merely because of his wife’s statue getting defaced and who has threatened several times to eliminate Pakistan from world map. It is the Communal Politicians like Manmohan Singh who instead of acting on the right wing fanatics are blaming Pakistan for every single law and order disaster in India. New York Times reports Singh saying “I have explained it to the government of Pakistan at the highest level that if the acts of terrorism are not controlled, it is exceedingly difficult for any government to carry forward what may be called a normalization and peace process.”

The same article quotes Tasnim Aslam, the Foreign Office spokeswoman for Pakistan as saying, “In the past two days, India has not given us anything in writing or talked of any evidence.” Sumit Ganguly, a professor of politics at Indiana University in Bloomington says to NYT: It (Mumbai blasts) cannot but help India’s cause in Kashmir.”

Indeed, the goal is to help India’s cause in Kashmir. India’s cause in Kashmir has been one of repression, oppression and violent acquisition of the state’s population. Anyone who resists the Indian Army could be termed as someone backed by Pakistan. Or perhaps some of us might even say backed by America. Things will not change by the proclaimed associations or phrases such as “terrorists”. The power which has been ruling over Kashmir for six decades now need to recognize its need to let the people take back the state. Let there be referendums in Kashmir. Indeed, let there be referendum in India.

Different questions beg different answers. Just like during Mumbai blasts, in recent (as always) Israel attack on Palestine, different questions are being asked too. Some are engaged in finding out who is behind the attacks. I am trying to figure out who benefits in the long run from these attacks.

The people who ask questions like “who will then rule Kashmir” or “who is behind Mumbai blasts” might be asking possibly candid and urgent questions. But my question is altogether different. Mine is “whose interest do these serve”. Occupation of Kashmir or Mumbai blasts serve the political elites of India and Pakistan who are aided in their so-called peace-process (a conversation that takes place entirely without considering the resisting people, who are conveniently always dismissed as “terrorists”) by the US of A. My question then does not seek any answers. Definitely not on this blog. It facilitates further questions.

For example, I am still wondering why the attacks were carried out, why the police without investigations said it was Pakistani backed terrorist groups, why the prime minister before investigations were over, said it was just a few terrorists, why did the Shiv Sainiks go on rampage two days before blasts with its president threatening major repercussions (more violent than the cartoon controversy), why was it that despite its hand in the biggest blast in Mumbai (1993 march) in inciting mass scale murders, and despite right wing roles in genocide in Gujarat—-interestingly the media do not touch these communal violence at all as antecedents—no investigations are being done against the parties which have been involved. Even judicial commissions that find Shiv Sena guilty are dismissed (Srikrishna Commission for example). My question also is why has law and order completely failed to take up responsibilities and although we cannot expect the Army (or Indian military) to come help people in crisis, why is it not at least contemplating over the past so many decades of massacres that have been leading to such escalating tensions.

Someone needs to take responsibility. Surely none of the current crop of leaders can take stands like Lal Bahadur Shastri, but its time media stopped quoting a failed and feeble and ashamed agent of global capitalism called Manmohan Singh, and indeed demanded his resignation for failing to act upon the communal elements.

In conclusion:
Every act of terrorism must be condemned. The more pressing need is to understand who are the terrorists. Only a few months back, when the Naveen PatnaiK Government of Orissa in its zealous bid to sell the land to some profiteers ordered mass murder of tribal people without any provocation or need, that was an act of terrorism, which went unnoticed. The Kalinga Nagar incident escaped attention of world media, because it did not involve Muslims. Or when the American firm United Carbide plant killed more than 20,000 people of Bhopal, it was not considered terrorism because it was not a reaction from Muslims. Or when Gujarat Genocide took place under right wingers of India, it was not global terrorism, because Muslims became the worst sufferers.

Without getting lost in the web of words, one must act on the root causes of today’s mishaps. When one does that, it can be unquestionably found that the far-right wing factions of world religions are the perpetrators. And so far at least, in India or America, the Hindus and Christians in their fundamentalist form have been holding power mechanism to their favor to declare war on Islam (American administration has not atoned for its post 9/11 crimes of religious discrimination nature nor is Indian government likely to for its post 7/11 outbursts against Pakistan and Indian Muslims).

The people in Mumbai did not die because they were innocent. They did not die because they were protesting Islam religion. They did not die because they were Hindus. They did not die because they were Mumbaiites.
They were massacred in systematic, organized fashion because the Indian administration failed to arrest the perpetrators even after they had sent clear warnings. And because even after the blasts, the Indian administration failed to carry out investigations into the cause of the blasts. People who planted the bombs could be unemployed, misguided missiles, either Hindus or Muslims. But the ones who used them to further their goals are still in power and they are fighting one religion against another. It is these communal politicians who need to be declared as terrorists. We should not use terrorist word only because the present American president (who has been declared by people as the real International Terrorist on the streets of New York) thinks the war is against Islam.
The war on global terror is actually a war on global poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, a war against war mongers and militarists.

However, terror is not an illusion. The real terrorists are very much present before us. They are the politicians and bureaucrats and blood sucking industrialists who own every means of mental production so much that they make us believe in the unreal terrorism. They do so by generating conditions of violence and then declaring the violence itself as terror, whereas they thrive on the conditions.

We need to ask different questions. Presently, we must force the communal politicians to introspect, if not be forced out by the same people it claims to be “terrorists”. People resisting against the communal politicians actually fight for their own human rights, and I am quoting a great singer from Goa, Remo Fernandes in his album “Politicians Don’t know to Rock ‘n’ Roll”, who represented a profoundly secular majority, thanks due to which the world still is surviving. The minority ruling classes of the world will soon be forced to withdraw from their communal tactics. The world without religions is the one dream…of Lennon to Sahir, and hopefully, to some readers of this blog.

Here’s Remo:

How do you feel?

This song is dedicated
To a species most hated
The curse of the Indian nation
The Communal Politician.

How do you feel? How do you feel?
You who have taught us to kill?
How do you feel? How do you feel?
Are you happy that blood has been spilled?

Do you have sweet dreams at night
Or do the sounds of fright
Come gurgling from your victims
As they feel the knife?
Do you have wet dreams in bed
About the throne you wish you had
Or do you hear the rattling skeletons in your head?

How do you sleep? How do you sleep?
With a dead body lying beside you
How do you sleep? How do you sleep?
Can you smell the rotting heart inside you?

Are you happy inside, or do you try to hide
From the graves you’ve been filling far and wide?
If you can’t have your cake
You’d rather poison the world!

How do you feel? How do you feel?

In a large-scale human tragedy today, a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai has taken lives of more than 150 people. However, these blasts are no aberrations for the financial capital of India. Mumbai—a city governed by Hindu right-wing fanatics of India—has faced such calamities several times in the recent past.

What’s unique about the blasts in the western India –Gujarat and Maharashtra—is their etiology. Invariably all the blasts have been religious in nature, targeted to create heightened communal tension in the region. And today was no different.

So, if communal violences have such a pattern of occurrence and regularity in frequency, how is it that the administrations turn conveniently indifferent towards their recurrence? Who are benefited in the process?

The usual suspects:
“Terrorists” is one-word explanation given as being the perpetrators for every systematic violence these days. Of course, this word has gained coinage and credibility through the usage by the ruling class. What is important to note here is that the more one uses this word, the more one tends to align with the interests of the ruling class.

A violation to the law and order necessarily is handiwork of the people who desire instability. Without going into the logistics regarding needs of instability (which could be desirable for various reasons too), one can assume that the ruling power draws sympathy wave from people by projecting an ‘external’ element to be cause of innocent peoples’ deaths. Interestingly, the structural instability actually happens only with killing of the politicians, whereas their structural “stability” takes place when innocent lives are lost!

Of course, it usually happens during the days when the ruling powers are apparently most unstable themselves. By every account, any war in the world is also caused at times of uncertainty for the ruling powers. Think of any cold war interventions by the US (spread of communism was the factor), or later on Clinton in Yugoslovia (Monica Lewinsky) or Bush in Iraq (September 11 orchestration). Or take for account, India’s own trysts with regional instability resulting in massive operations in Assam, Punjab, and Kashmir.

More often than not, these take shape of communal violence (just as every war has been fought by religious fanatics). In India, bomb blasts in Maharashtra or genocide in Gujarat are cases of Hindu fanatics attacking Muslim minorities in the name of their own misplaced insecurities.

Misplaced Insecurities:
In the past, the allegations by Hindu Mafia of India against the Muslims were based on myths such as: “Muslim population is increasing in rapid pace to overtake Hindu majority”, “Muslims of India are Pakistani loyalists, and since Pakistan is an enemy state, Muslims must be declared so too” etc. Practicing neo-nazi tactics of training Hindu youths to take up violent means to eliminate Muslims from India, the Hindu militant groups have traditionally enjoyed quite a presence. From propagandizing religions in school education (Saraswati Vidya Mandir) to promote Hindu businesses (Swadeshi Jagran Manch), the right-wingers of India have stopped at nothing in overcoming their insecurities.

Clearly all these insecurities of Hindus fundamentalists have led to loss in lives and property of Muslims (Gujarati Muslims are usually attacked more, because of their prosperous business) and fellow Hindus (who clearly in majority reject these fanatics except for once when they elected BJP to a considerable tenure). But of course, these tactics are carried out most surreptitiously, and at times with blatant disregard to actual circumstances.

Why Mumbai? Why now?
In continuance with this power ploy, the recent tragedies in Mumbai started since last three days.

First, someone defaced the statue of one woman in Mumbai. But this woman was not BR Ambedkar or for that matter, Mahatma Gandhi. Because in Mumbai, and elsewhere in India, on a regular basis, statues of these two giants of Indian freedom struggle are subjected to desecration.

Ironically, this woman was way more powerful. As the late wife of the Hindu supremacist Bal Thackeray, the figure in statue commanded respect. Hence all political parties instead of looking into maintaining law and order of the state so that no publicly installed statues are defaced, and the ‘actual’ culprits are caught, they came forward to apologize for the shameful incident.

The sainiks, allegedly representing the majority religion of India, decided to react in their traditional manner: in a purely Hindu supremacist way. So none less that the executive president of the party (whose mother’s statue this was) decided to take law into his own hands. He declared proudly: “If derogatory cartoons appearing in a newspaper in far-off Denmark can have repercussions in India, this incident is bound to provoke reactions from Shiv Sainiks.”

What a shame!

First off, no one knows who defaced the statue. In all possibility, it might have been a handiwork by the right wing plotters themselves. The desecration took place in wee hours of early morning. The police in Mumbai say the incident took place when there was no activity on the street. In other words, it was not an organized effort by motivated party. To further incite tensions, an empty tourist bus from Gujarat was burnt down in front of the Hindu bosses’ office. It was also found out that this could have been a result of short-circuit, and not done by any motivated party.

Mumbai Joint Commissioner (Police) Arup Patnaik said, “Video footage suggests that the flames started inside, so we are also probing whether it could have been caused by a short circuit. Our priority is to quell the disturbances and maintain order.” The police said they had no leads on the incident that sparked off the day’s disturbances.

So basically, there was no reason to suspect that any Muslim groups or “terrorists” or Pakistan might have been behind such incidents. On the contrary, going by the way, the statue was chosen (to rouse sentiments), the bus came from Gujarat (Hindu violent prone state) and the location (Shiv Sena office), one could investigate the hands of the Sainiks in these events.

But, even as the state police clearly said they had absolutely “no lead”, the leader of the fanatic party declared a war. Throughout the state, widespread violence was let loose. Thackeray, after visiting the spot, told reporters that there was likely to be “ramifications”.
The dark humor
When the majority religions take stock of the situation, the communal racism just takes over. Because of the sheer majority of people that lead the war, they confidently go on attacking like mad dogs. Such rampage has been going in India since decades now.

Just three days back when on July 9, Thackeray warned the country that severe reactions from Shiv Sainks was inevitable, one was apprehending the attacks. Unfortunately it turned out to be even more serious. Closely on the heels of the attacks in Kashmir, where American interests lie, the attack in Mumbai has been planned in premeditated fashion so as to draw international condemnation: against Islam.

To appease American obsession with anti-Islam movements throughout the world, the Indian group of loyal foot soldiers have indeed given fuel to the fire. There was no international coverage of the violence let loose by Shiv Sainiks which had paralyzed the city of Mumbai since last three days. And to draw further attention, innocent lives had to be sacrificed.

This is an old political trick that has always helped Indian communal leaders. When the government at center has been doing absolutely nothing to agitate Pakistan into a war, the war mongering Hindu fundamentalists had no better excuse than looking towards Kashmir and Mumbai.

What needs to be done?
First and foremost, none of the persons on that local train deserved to die this way. Enemies could be well within the same people who are staging a drama of violent protests. There must be through investigations to that effect. Not biased investigations. The Indian intelligence sources need to be smarter than they are now.

Corporate leaflets pretending to be newspapers, like Times of India have already created headlines regarding the perpetrators even before the investigations have begun! One report already says, “LeT, SIMI hand in Mumbai blasts”. Highest form of irresponsible journalism can only result in such news stories. The report without naming any sources, says in the first paragraph itself that the “terror attack on Mumbai trains was carried out by Lashkar-e-Toiba and local Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) activists and was designed to trigger communal conflagration in the country’s financial capital.”

And in the body, it says, “While still waiting for clues to emerge, top intelligence sources in New Delhi seem pretty sure the blasts on the trains were plotted by Lashkar modules which are increasingly collaborating with activists of SIMI, which boasts of strong pockets of influence across Maharashtra.”

For such serious violence that causes hundreds of valuable lives, the press, the government and the so-called intelligence sources are highly irresponsible, and criminal in their misconducts. Times of India owes a public apology for displaying such highest form of carelessness. It’s entirely lost on me as to how someone can be “pretty sure” of the blasts while “waiting for clues to emerge”! As in the past, this time also, the official propaganda machine of India might prove successful and they may even go and nab some people with Muslim surnames (a recent popular Bollywood cinema “Khakee” (2004) dealt with this tragic issue).

History revisited?
In the past, everytime there have been communal violences in India, the administrations have found easy scapegoats in a) Pakistan, b) Pakistani-funded terrorists. Alas, they have never provided any evidence to support these claims. (while on the contrary, independent findings by filmmakers and judicial bodies have always found the homegrown communal parties to be the root causes). These blame-games are perfectly orchestrated tricks by the Government of India to maintain its supremacy in the subcontinent. And in the process the communal politicians have never cared to think of the lives lost.

At times, facts of life are too obvious to be missed. One of them tells me about the complete absence of deaths of lives of the politicians who are ‘protesting’ the most. It’s always usually the innocent commoners who lay down their lives. The people who are responsible for maintaining law and order (the politicians themselves) fail to own up to their responsibilities (barring perhaps Lal Bahadur Shastri in case of a rail accident). They never seem to resign from their powerful positions for not having been able to provide their people any sense of security. On the contrary, while adamantly glued to their seats of power (or of opposition power in the parliaments), they keep blaming some or the other external factors, so that in times like this, they can scare enough people to get united for their own sake.

This time, it should be enough.
Well, this time….
No more reasons to call mayhem
Not one more life in your name
Not another death to uphold your religion
No more such violent catch 22 situation
Not to secure your mother’s dormant statues
Nor to pay back for your father’s power abuse
No more thought controls by government bureaucrats
Not once more will we believe in your tactics of attacks
No time to agitate, its time to step down from power
No press conferences, no indomitable statues or tower
In such times, politicians of the world must unite
You have everything to lose, including your might
For once, walk with the people, feel their agonies
Set examples of selves, write accords for peace
Stop the blame-games with Pakistan and Muslims
Or against one’s poor, the backward, and their miseries
Now is the time to act, to promise just one thing:
Stop playing communal, ‘tis just one life for rejoicing.
(Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples’ Poet, 2006)

The “liberal-bias” of the media has again come to light. In the recent Los Angeles Times report “Doubts About Taking On Tehran”, the bias is evident. Clearly it’s a headline that works for the liberals. The headline exhumes that “About half those polled support military action if Iran continues its nuclear activity but don’t trust President Bush to make the call.”

Throughout the widely circulated article, the substantiated assumption is that half of Americans doubt President Bush’s decision making potential and sense of good judgment when it comes to Iran.

For all the findings, please click the larger story here.

The article clearly posits a sense of comfort among the liberals that the President does not have support of even more than a half of people in this country. Good for the Democrats and other opposition blocs, if any. And in my view, bad for the world.

Media are the agents of sustainable interpretations in any western democratic regime. By that I mean, they play the role of the necessary critic. The necessary criticism of the existing political power is a necessary ingredient to promote the existing system; and media houses (which are essentially big corporate ventures) are the best bets.

Just as in a majoritarian democratic model, everything appears to be ruled by the “freely” elected representatives, their fourth estate, the Press, also make it appear that the news selection, placement and interpretations are done almost as democratically. Hence the press, just like the government, never hesitate to proclaim that they provide the whole truth in an objective fashion, because they know what’s good for the society to know (just as the state knows what’s good for the society to be governed by).

And so all that we know about how we are being governed is conveniently decided by the governors of our lives (the government) by letting the knowledge providers (the media) be the disseminators.

The only catch here, is that unlike in an “authoritarian”/peoples’ regime, where the press has the sole role of working as the official agent for dissemination of governmental news (and hence people are aware of the role already and make up their minds accordingly regarding the news source as clear “party propaganda”—and rise up against it in case it disbelieves in anything), in western democratic model, the press plays the subverted role of a propagator. To the extent, that the government in such democracies refuse to have their own propaganda Media. Because only then, the power structure cannot be challenged upfront. It needs to be challenged only through a comfortable space it has created between it and the people: the press. And this press, in return creates an illusion that it is actually with the people, not with the government. So it acts as a platform for “buffer opposition”.

LA Times provides no surprise through such articles. And the modern-day press system in any democratic regimes also knows how to eliminate any doubt factor that may creep in when it comes to evaluate their strategies. So the smart way is to involve some of the people to validate what they have been trying to say. So the press then go ahead and involve some people’s voices! In this article, there were 1,357 people who were polled! So by interviewing less than 1500 people “nationwide”, the paper has come to a conclusion that half of the people do not trust Bush.

Serious Issues:
1. The method of deriving at such finding is notoriously wrong. The sample needs to be way bigger. At least 50% people need to be asked the questions about “Iran War”, before coming to a conclusion. Secondly, if a national newspaper has branches all over, they need to interview people from all the centers, representing people from all geographical regions and specify the details. Clearly a person in the east-coast is more liberal than the person from the rural America, simply because of the quality of interaction people have with multicultural environment. The Republican states are thus ignorant because of the phobia of Muslims they live by. The liberal state residents are more enlightened because of the reality of Muslim friendships they preserve. These reflect on the findings. We need to be told about the disparities and of the suggested remedies. Thirdly, telephone polls are always tricky. With all the collaborations with polling agencies, they need to hire more interviewers who can go door to door in diverse areas (white, black and immigrant settings) and “talk with” people—conduct in-depth interviews if needed, and not merely quiz them.

2. The investigations into how much one knew about a topic before answering on the topic needs also to be taken into account. There are people in this country who still think Canada is a smaller neighborhood country, let alone knowing where Iran actually is on the map. One of these people on a chat with me once asked me where I was from. I said Maryland. She says, “You sound so funny. Where exactly are you from?” Because she refused to believe there was a place called “Mary”land. In such an environment, it will help to “know”, if not to explain (that education cannot happen without a propagandist tool, you see!), how much the people knew about Iran before responding. After all, we don’t waste time asking a 5-year child about effectiveness of Durex condoms and publish a finding. Why to ask people who don’t know anything about why Shah of Iran fled in 1979 despite American support, regarding why American needs to bomb the country today?

3. The News factor: I remember in my journalism school, how I was also taught about the news factor. When a “dog bites man”, its no news, the professor used to say. When the “man bites dog”, it’s the news. I always wonder why it needs to be so. Why should we look for sensations/exceptions and portray them as news, all the while ignoring the everyday life journeys. Mundane as they are, issues like poverty, ignorance and helplessness of people in democratic regimes are not considered news, as they are not sensational. What sells for corporate media are the shock value, and they will go any extent to even produce some of them. The current news in my view, SHOULD HAVE BEEN, that Majority of those polled Americans actually are war-mongers, shameful chapters in the world history. Come to think of it, half of Americans actually want war! Wow…I think that’s news in every sense. The headline should have read: “We interviewed sick warmongers who want to kill innocent civilians through airstrikes”. Yes, one question asked if people would support military action, if Iran continued to produce materials that could be used to develop nuclear weapons. 48% said, yes they would want military action, and only 40% opposed it. That’s news for me. Because hey, we all know India has even tested nuclear. And all western European countries have the same material resources. Canada is vast. France is winner. America leads. Now the common excuse even does not work. That the elite countries don’t use the materials for weapons is also false. And that nuclear energy can be used constructively is also a reality. To assume that western countries are the responsible carriers of energy (considering the bombing of Japan, and history of interventions of conventional warfare nature—ALL initiated by these countries, and also considering the hoax excuse called WMD to wipe out Iraqi civilization), and the rest of the world are irresponsible, amounts to blatant racism. Yet, the news of the LA Times indicates the good, (that Americans doubt Bush), but omits the bad (that Americans want the war).

4. Fact checking and priority of news: I think news is in the question when it’s asked: “Suppose George W. Bush decides to order military action against Iran, which action would you support”? And the choices were a) Airstrikes/no ground troops, b) Combination of airstrikes and ground troops, c) Ground troops, d) No military action and e) Don’t know. The responses. Only 20% say “No military action”. 44% want to see action in the air! 19% want both ground and air strikes. Sick and more sick. Come to think of it: 80% of people did not want a peaceful dialogue, a change in stance, a removal of bias—all these are facts…The American media clearly choose to ignore these.

What’s important is not if people trust Bush. Clearly it’s a misnomer. Because it hardly matters. He cannot contest another time anyway. His tenure will be done with. So, will they trust someone else with the weapons. Of course yes. Because what’s at stake should not be which political party should come to power in order to annihilate Iran, the question ought to be: should we allow such a draconic thought even to pass our mind. The question is why the poll didn’t ask some vital questions as they come to mind..: Do you love to kill fellow human beings whose flesh you cannot eat? Or do you love to kill humans who have never damaged your life in any way (Iranians don’t impose taxes, they don’t even impose health insurances). If the answer is NO (which is the most logical answer), then the next questions should be: Do you then need to support the idea of a war as a solution? Do you want your tax money to be spent on killing innocent civilians in a foreign country? Do you want to lay down your children’s lives fighting for an ideal they have no idea about? Do you want to live lives in misery in memories of your children who died while killing someone else’s children on the front of the war? Do you believe that war is natural and human beings are natural murderers? Do you know if only way less than one percent of population in the world has ever committed murder in order to be called naturally violent and on many occasions they have killed for a personal reason? Do you have a personal reason in murdering any Iranian citizen? If not, then go have a good meal and we will spread the good word on your behalf: love others.

Its not that we don’t know the answers…its just that we need to know the right questions. It’s high time we asked the questions that matter to us, not respond to questions that help the power structure continue to use our responses to further its ends.

Did CIA create Osama bin Laden & fostered fanaticism? For those who never knew it already, Chomsky says, yes.

“A sensible person would try to ascertain Bin Laden’s views, and the sentiments of the large reservoir of supporters he has throughout the region. Bin Laden became a militant Islamic leader in the war to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan. He was one of the many religious fundamentalist extremists recruited, armed, and financed by the CIA and their allies in Pakistani intelligence to cause maximal harm to the Russians-quite possibly delaying their withdrawal-though whether he personally happened to have direct contact with the CIA is unclear, and not particularly important. Not surprisingly, the CIA preferred the most fanatic and cruel fighters they could mobilize. The end result was to “destroy a moderate regime and create a fanatical one, from groups recklessly financed by the Americans” (according to London Times correspondent Simon Jenkins).

Well, of course there are huge amount of apparent human beings just so opposed to everything Chomsky says! And equally sad, the way the secret operatives have been normalized, instead of being questioned.

So, I thought in the age of Fox TV and all accompanying television shortcuts, let’s watch this short video of the secretive CIA.

Do you believe President Bush talked about bombing the HQ of Arabic-language TV network al-Jazeera?
CNN asks this question in its Quickvote online survey.
Total of 127645 online readers vote. Overwhelming majority of 70% of all voters (88372 votes) say yes they believe that President Bush talked about bombing the al-Jazeera network.

Wanted to find out what did Fox readers have to say. Unfortunately, Fox is asking questions to its readers if they would buy a product if a celebrity endorses it (some journalists will never change..they will always remain public relations professionals!)

The surveys are some of the most unscientific tools ever devised. But how scientific are the claims of White House that the bomb story is ‘outlandish’? At least such a huge majority of centrist people don’t think much of White House assertions. Add to that the working class population of America who don’t come online because they can’t afford to (who darn well have an opinion nevertheless), and you got the country’s verdict on this matter. At times, one has to use the master’s tools to break the master’s house. I mean, use mainstream media to understand popular conscience!

We live in not only uncertain times but also dangerous ones. And the democracy is full of, as Chomsky would say, “necessary illusions”.
Reinforcing one sustained illusion, almost half of all Americans think the federal government should limit the civil rights of Muslims as part of the nation’s fight against terrorism, according to a survey released by Cornell University today.
Shocking? read more by clicking here

“...We only wish we had more cameras to show the world their true defeat….” The Iraqi Resistance speech videotaped on December 13 2004 has been released, titled Title: Communiqué Number 6. I do not know how many of you saw the video or read the transcript, but I am certain that the knowledge of it will help.
The dangers of not acknowledging that things as terrible as inflicted by American administration on Iraq can also happen to American people, is one of no less magnitude. Comfortable psychological numbness has its temporary relief. But not to pay heed to the Resistance Speech may result only in the great disbelief. I wonder why the mainstream press would not publish the transcript in detail. And when the press here talk about the resistance movement in Iraq, why the interpretation is to the effect that ‘we’ are now under a threat of terrorism and hence we need to deploy more forces.
Elsewhere I had brought up the news of sending more troops. I will talk about the perils in another piece. But for now, every American and the world citizen has a right to know what the resistance speech contains.
The perception that certain speech can cause problems for the American people is like claiming that certain television shows are the cause behind all the crimes. Quite the contrary I believe the average American has to be sensitized enough by the knowledge that the plot is thickening now and hence will be either more prepared to send the children to warfront or resist the war itself.
In doing the resistance, the speech here may not inspire, but for sure inform that there is a need here to stop the ongoing war for good.
We need to panic more. The proud administrators who claim that there has not been an attack on America after 9/11, obviously do not believe that the thousands of deaths of young Americans on Iraqi soil is not the staging of the video games, but a reality that the attack on Americans is going on. Only this time, we know for sure who has ordered the attack. You are right, not Iraq.

Here is excerpts from the speech…(so that we all panic a bit more. and put a stop to this madness called war. And yes, war will not end war like it almost used to. Because unlike ever before in history this time, we-the United States at least, have the weapons of mass destruction—And mass weapon knows no nationalities. The illusion is that some children–not our children, or at least not us (sic!)–are dying to make us safe in our land. But the reality is the struggle going on in that far away land to declare otherwise. Excerpts from what Islamic Jihad Army claims:

“It is our duty, as well as our right, to fight back the occupying forces, which their nations will be held morally and economically responsible; for what their elected governments have destroyed and stolen from our land.
We have not crossed the oceans and seas to occupy Britain or the U.S. nor are we responsible for 9/11. These are only a few of the lies that these criminals present to cover their true plans for the control of the energy resources of the world, in face of a growing China and a strong unified Europe . It is Ironic that the Iraqi’s are to bear the full face of this large and growing conflict on behalf of the rest of this sleeping world.
We do not require arms or fighters, for we have plenty.
XXX
We ask you to form a world wide front against war and sanctions. A front that is governed by the wise and knowing. A front that will bring reform and order. New institutions that would replace the now corrupt.
Stop using the U.S. dollar, use the Euro or a basket of currencies. Reduce or halt your consumption of British and U.S. products. Put an end to Zionism before it ends the world. Educate those in doubt of the true nature of this conflict and do not believe their media for their casualties are far higher than they admit.
XXX
The enemy is on the run. They are in fear of a resistance movement they can not see nor predict.
We, now choose when, where, and how to strike. And as our ancestors drew the first sparks of civilization, we will redefine the word “conquest.“
This conflict is no longer considered a localized war. Nor can the world remain hostage to the never-ending and regenerated fear that the American people suffer from in general.
We will pin them here in Iraq to drain their resources, manpower, and their will to fight. We will make them spend as much as they steal, if not more
And to the American soldiers we say, you can also choose to fight tyranny with us. Lay down your weapons, and seek refuge in our mosques, churches and homes. We will protect you. And we will get you out of Iraq , as we have done with a few others before you.
XXX
Go back to your homes, families, and loved ones. This is not your war. Nor are you fighting for a true cause in Iraq .
And to George W. Bush, we say, “You have asked us to ‘Bring it on’, and so have we. Like never expected. Have you another challenge?” XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

If this does not make people conscious of the perils of war in general, nothing ever will. Its time to take a stand. And the stand cannot be for indifference. We cannot be indifferent any more, as I have discussed,the numbness will not help.

Fox 5 news commentary:
“After much criticism of the US Government for not sending enough troops to Iraq, the President has finally increased the troops number. From 138,000 now, the number will increase to 150,000 coming week.”
Now, who criticized the US for not sending troops?
Just a pointer home: to make sure that the protests around the country to “bring the troops back home” continues: the statistics shows that 150,000 is more than 148,000–number of soldiers who were sent to Iraq at the peak of invasion in May 2003.

Here is another news one can use.

Brenda Norrell (Southwest Staff Reporter/Indian Country Today) writes on how U.S. tortures elicit painful memories in Indian country.

American Indians said apologies would not erase the tortures in Iraq and President Bush should be held responsible for leading America into a groundless war.

“It seems like white people are the worst savages,” said Bessie Taylor, Navajo from Ch’ooshgai Mountain on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico.

After viewing the photograph of a female soldier holding a leash tied around the throat of a naked Iraqi, Taylor said the female soldier should be dragged in the same manner. “She probably doesn’t know what it feels like to be tortured.”

After Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld apologized for the abuses in Iraq, Taylor said, “An apology is nothing. What does an apology do for you – nothing.”

Taylor said Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld should be held responsible for the tortures in Iraq. “They were so eager for this war, now look what has happened. President Bush is responsible for leading America into this war. He is responsible for this. This war was about oil and making Bush’s friends rich.”
(more…)

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Can a library display irk a section of people so much that they file a case against assumed ‘pedophilia’? Well, sure like hell.
Some folks are so angry at the injustices in the world that they have done just that, because four cases at the second floor of Sacramento’s main library show old gay and lesbian paperback books from a private collection.
What a shame that people’s resentments are directed only at the unproductive directions!
To study more of what happened in this objective marketplace of ideas, click here.