Gobind Thukral

ON June 15 2004  four persons— a young college girl Ishrat, Javed Ghulam Sheikh alias Pranesh Kumar Pillai, Amjad Ali alias Rajkumar Akbar Ali Rana and Jisan Johar Abdul Gani killed in an encounter on the outskirts of Ahemadbad. This was announced by a trigger happy Gujarat police as a big triumph. The Union Home Ministry always rushing to make claims about such encounters put its seal, claiming all these four were  linked with the Pakistan based terror outfit, Lashker—e—Toiba.
Ishrat’s mother, Shamima Kausar did not accept this version and for five long years with the help of human right activists waged a relentless battle to expose the police. In her petitions to the state high court and Supreme Court, she demanded an independent enquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Now Ahmedabad Metropolitan magistrate S. P. Tamang has held that the police officers and their subordinates shot down the victims in “cold blood using their service revolver”. It said the encounter was “planned” and executed “mercilessly” by shooting the victims from “close range”. Even the autopsy report said the death of the four were due to bullet injuries. The magistrate alleged that police officers including the then city police commissioner K. R. Kaushik, then JCP (Crime Branch) P. P. Pande, suspended DIG D G Vanzara, then ACP G L Singhal, and ACP N K Amin had planned this encounter for their selfish motives. DIG Vanzara who is already facing trial for another fake encounter, the killing of Soharabuddin Sheikh and his wife.

Ishrat’s family, however, strongly objected to these claims and kept fighting in the court to reopen the investigations and an impartial probe by the CBI into the killings. Nasharat Jahan, younger sister of Ishrat Jahan says, “From 2004 we are trying to prove that it was a fake encounter. My sister was not a terrorist. But we are happy now that the court itself proves that it was a fake encounter. Those who carried out this heinous act should be punished severely.  All the lawyers, who fought the case, are Hindus. So it’s a victory of secularism.
 
The magistrate said the motive for senior police officers was to get promotion, to secure their positions, to falsely show their work as the best, to impress the chief minister and receive his praise. The report further refused to subscribe to the theory of the police by offering counter-points.  Not a single cop was hurt in spite of police’s claim that the alleged ‘terrorists’ fired multiple rounds at them. Not even a single tree or vehicle in the vicinity of the encounter was hit by a bullet. The alleged terrorists’ pistol found at the spot was rusted and looked like it had not been used for a while.

Remember those countless fake encounters in Punjab where people are still seeking justice.
Now as our political class gets into an overdrive to make political capital, this is not the only case of bloodletting by the BJP ruled Gujarat state. The 2002 Gujarat violence describes a series of communal riots against Muslims that were organised between February and May 2002 continue to haunt India.  The Supreme Court and the Gujarat high court have passed severe strictures and indicted Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his government, but he stays put. Nay, he in fact, wants to be the prime minister of this country.

There was worldwide criticism and then prime minister Atal Biharii Vajpayee nearly sought the resignation of Modi but he was protected by leaders like Lal Krishan Advani. Incidentally Modi is now darling of the industrialists who have immensely befitted from him. The Indian government earned bad name for failure to address the resulting humanitarian condition of people, "overwhelming majority of them Muslim," who fled their homes for relief camps in the aftermath of the events. Many of the investigations and prosecution of those accused of violence during the riots have been opened for reinvestigation and prosecution. According to an official estimate, 1044 people were killed in the violence - 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus including those killed in the Godhra train fire. Another 223 people were reported missing, 2,548 injured, 919 women widowed and 606 children orphaned. About 100,000 Muslims and 40,000 Hindus took shelter in the relief camps.

The large-scale, collective violence generally has been described as riots or inter-communal clashes. The perpetrators of the violence as well as RSS and the Gujarat government maintain that the violence was a spontaneous, uncontrollable reaction to the Godhra train burning. Going by the numbers, several people have termed it a massacre and an attempted pogrom or genocide of the Muslim population, emphasizing that the violence was largely directed against defenceless people, indiscriminate with regard to age or sex and alleging that it was pre-planned, organised and aided by the local authorities and political leaders.

While the Gujarat government, the BJP and the RSS have mainlined that they were not at fault, there had been countrywide outrage. The courts and the commissions of enquiry where the battle had raged since 2002 had by and large accepted the charges against the Modi government. In any civilized country he would have been consigned to the dustbins of history.

Now pressure on Modi is again mounting.  Senior Congress leader and Union Law Minister, M. Veerappa Moily, said "more skeletons may tumble," if "more investigations" were held, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), called for Modi’s resignation. Mr. Moily said the Gujarat Chief Minister would have been in “some other place” if the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter had taken place in a foreign country. He told reporters that Mr. Modi could be headed for bigger trouble as “there are many such cases which are coming up now. The CPI (M) Polit Bureau said. ”The targeted killings of persons belonging to the minority community by the State police reveal the state of affairs under the Narendra Modi government.”  It wanted exemplary punishment has to be meted out in this case as the crime has been committed by those entrusted with upholding the law. Given the spate of illegal encounter killings which took place under the encouragement of the State government, Modi should take moral responsibility and quit office.

But the Gujarat government, for its part, has rejected the report.  The State government's spokesman, Jay Narayan Vyas, said Magistrate Tamang prepared the report in a “hurry”, without giving the Gujarat government a chance to express its views.  “Why should Modi take a call? Do you think anything that happens in any State, the Chief Minister is responsible? If anything happens in the national capital, is the Prime Minister responsible?” senior BJP leader, M. Venkaiah Naidu, said.

But the BJP and its outfits including the RSS shall have to answer the charges .The large-scale, collective violence has been generally been described as riots or inter-communal clashes. The violence was  not  spontaneous or an  uncontrollable reaction to the Godhra train burning. Going by the numbers, several people have termed it a massacre and an attempted pogrom or genocide of the Muslim population. Violence was largely directed against defenceless people, indiscriminate with regard to age or sex and was pre-planned,  aided by the local authorities and political leaders.

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Stormy times as U.S. withdraws

Helena Cobban

POLITICAL violence in Iraq killed 456 Iraqis in August, the highest monthly death toll since July 2008. And with the U.S. showing no sign it plans to reverse the troop withdrawal that is now well underway, numerous struggles for power are shaping up inside Iraq. They involve both competing factions within the country and also, perhaps more ominously, several neighbouring countries.

These levels of violence are deeply entwined, as was shown by the aftershocks of the most deadly of August's acts of violence: on Aug. 19, unknown parties, suspected to be disgruntled Sunnis, detonated large vehicle bombs outside three Iraqi ministries, killing 95 people and injuring more than 600.

Shortly afterward, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused Syria of giving safe haven to the men who masterminded the bombings, whom he identified as followers of Iraq's former Baathist rulers. (Close observers of the Iraqi scene are divided on the authenticity of the televised "confessions" on which he based this charge.)

As the heat of Maliki's accusations rose, he withdrew his ambassador from Syria. That decision was all the more notable since just days earlier he had made a very friendly state visit to Damascus, where he and his hosts signed several important agreements.

In preceding months, Syrian officials had repeatedly stressed that they saw a strong interest in Maliki's government successfully stabilising its rule throughout Iraq. (Syria also started to work semi-quietly with U.S. military planners to help achieve this.)

But as Maliki escalated his accusations against Syria, the previously burgeoning cooperation between the two governments lay in ruins. Syria, which had been one of the earliest Arab states to recognise Maliki's government, also withdrew its ambassador from Baghdad.

The Aug. 19 bombings were timed, perhaps deliberately, to be carried out on the anniversary of the massive truck bomb that in 2003 wrecked the U.N. mission in Baghdad, killing its head and many of his staff members.

That earlier bombing marked a turning point in Iraqi affairs. Before it, many non-Iraqis and even many Iraqis hoped that somehow, with the U.N.'s help, Iraq could emerge fairly peacefully from the devastation that the U.S. military had inflicted in its assault and invasion of the country just five months earlier.

After the August 2003 bomb, that hope lay in tatters - and the U.N. greatly downgraded its engagement in Iraqi affairs.

After the Aug. 19 bombings of this year, the hope that Iraq might emerge fairly peacefully from the six-year-long U.S. occupation has been similarly seriously dented.

The three ministries targeted were each known to fall more thoroughly under the sway of Iraq's big ethnosectarian factions than under Maliki's direct control. (That was one result of the system of "apportionment" of state positions and patronage among Iraq's sects and ethnicities that was introduced by the U.S. occupation.)

So it is plausible that strong Iraqi nationalists, whether Baathists or others, who have been very disturbed by the emergence of these factions may have been behind the bombings.

Another possibility, mentioned by more than a few Iraqis, is that forces near to Maliki himself may have had a hand in them, in an attempt to cut down the factions' power.

In the same period the Aug. 19 bombs were being planned, all the other Shiite factions that in 2006 had helped boost Maliki to power formed a new coalition - but without him, or his Daawa Party. Indeed, Maliki's party and its non-Shiite allies did much better in last January's provincial election than any of the other Shiite parties with which it was previously aligned.

"Right now, Maliki seems much happier hanging out with people from the Sunni party he's allied with than with his previous allies in the Shiite parties," veteran Iraqi-American political scientist Adeed Dawisha told IPS.

There are further wrinkles in the story. Maliki is very close to the Iranians and receives strong backing from them - but so do just about all the other factional leaders who he is now opposing.

Iran has been a powerful player inside Iraqi politics ever since the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein. Now, as the U.S. military footprint in the country contracts, Iran's power there is growing very visibly.

This has greatly concerned all Iraq's Arab neighbours - including Syria, despite the Damascus government's lengthy de-facto alliance with Tehran.

So one possible explanation for the vehemence with which Maliki accused Syria may be the Iranians urged it on him, in an attempt to deny the Syrians any potential influence over the Baghdad regime.

One notable aspect of the political tempests now swirling around Iraq is that neither in Iraq nor in the U.S. has there been any significant movement calling for the U.S. to delay or reverse its continuing pullout.

In the U.S., much more attention is now being paid to the military's deeply troubled engagement in Afghanistan.

Under the Withdrawal Agreement that Pres. George W. Bush concluded with the Maliki government last November, all U.S. troops should be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. But significant voices inside and outside the Pentagon are now urging speeding up that timetable, to free up additional troops for Afghanistan.

When U.S. commentators refer to the ongoing violence amongst Iraqis, which is not often, they express some mild regret. But none go on to urge that the U.S. military there should do something active to bolster Iraqi security.

"There really is nothing the U.S. can do in the security sector, at this point," said Dawisha, whose latest book is "Iraq: A political history from independence to occupation".

He also judged there is very little the U.S. - or any other outside powers - can do to intervene at the political level, to help Iraq's 30 million people meet the many other political challenges that lie ahead.

The only outside power Dawisha saw as potentially able to make a small difference for the better was Turkey. He was very dismissive of the idea that the U.N. could do anything useful.

Right now, two major issues top the country's political agenda. One is the still-simmering contest between ethnic Kurds and ethnic Arabs over Kirkuk, an oil-rich region long coveted by the Kurds. The other is the next round of national elections, scheduled for January 2010.

Dawisha noted that not all the news from inside Iraq is bad.

He pointed in particular to signs that new cross-sectarian and cross-ethnic alliances are now emerging. "One of the most interesting is the 'Hadba' alliance that's being built around the list of that name that did very well in the provincial elections in the northern city of Mosul," he said. "And now, they're making plans to field candidates in a number of other provinces, too, in the January elections."

But the situation remains precarious. "The reconstituted Iraqi security forces have the numbers they need now, and much of the training," Dawisha said. "But there is still a real risk they could implode if the internal politics can't be stabilised."

[Helena Cobban is a veteran Middle East analyst and author. She blogs at www.JustWorldNews.org. Courtesy IPS]

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Drought hits hard India’s largest state

Vinod Anand

DROUGHTS are caused by lack of rain over a long period of time. If rain does occur it usually isn't enough for the ground to absorb before it is evaporated again. Plants and animals need water to survive, so if there is not enough water they will eventually die from thirst and dehydration. In some parts of India, the failure of the monsoons result in water shortages, resulting in below-average crop yields.

Drought occurs mainly due to failure of south-west monsoon (June – September). Climate change is accelerating drought attacks In fact, drought and floods in India are a perennial phenomenon, recurring with regular consistency every few years. True these are natural disasters, yet it is also known that man has the capability to conquer and tame nature. The political system or government's ideology has a major role to play in these issues. 

Droughts are, in fact, of three categories:

• Meteorological drought: This happens when the actual rainfall in an area is significantly less than the climatological mean of that area. The country as a whole may have a normal monsoon, but different meteorological districts and sub-divisions can have below normal rainfall. The rainfall categories for smaller areas are defined by their deviation from a meteorological area's normal rainfall -
  Excess: 20 per cent or more above normal
  Normal: 19 per cent above normal - 19 per cent below normal
  Deficient: 20 per cent below normal - 59 per cent below normal
  Scanty: 60 per cent or more below normal
• Hydrological drought: A marked depletion of surface water causing very low stream flow and drying of lakes, rivers and reservoirs
• Agricultural drought: Inadequate soil moisture resulting in acute crop stress and fall in agricultural productivity

India experienced 18 droughts during 1871–1990, of which 10 were severe and 5 were phenomenal. While the periods 1901–20 and 1961–80 had the highest frequency of drought. There were six droughts between 1900 and 1950 and 12 in the following 50 years. We have already faced three droughts between 2000 and 2009. There were six between 1900 and 1950 and 12 in the following 50 years. We have already faced three droughts between 2000 and 2009. During the drought of 2000-2001, a total of eight states have fallen foul of the rain gods. These included Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tehri Garhwal districts in Uttarakhand. Some states were in their second or third consecutive year of drought.

Let us now talk of the recent scenario in this context in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Uttar Pradesh has 71 districts.  Scanty rainfall in almost the entire state except some districts has created drought-like situation. Out of the 71 districts 20 districts have recently been announced as drought-hit; These are: Deoria,  Ambedkar Nagar, Jaunpur, Mau, Unnao,  Ballia,  Sant Kabir Nagar, Basti, Hardoi,  Sultanpur,  Fatehpur,  Rae Bareli, Kannauj, Farukhabad, Bareilly, Kanpur Dehat, and  Kanshiram Nagar. A few days later another 27 districts have also been declared drought-hit. These are:  Agra, Shahjahanpur, Saharanpur, Faizabad, Meerut, Mahoba, Aligarh, Jyotika Phule Nagar, Balrampur, Etah, Rampur, Ghaziabad, Gautam Budha Nagar, Banda, Mathura, Allahabad, Auraiyya, Jalaun, Kanpur City, Varanasi, Chandauli, Moradabad, Azamgarh, Sidharahnagar, Budaun, Sitapur, and Firozabad.

Thus, 47 districts have been declared drought-hit, but there are still many more districts where there has been little rainfall. According to a press release ‘according to the Government, districts where there was less than 40 per cent  rain and sowing was less than  75 per cent or rain was between 40 to 60 per cent and sowing was less than 50 per cent had been declared as drought affected.’

One wonders how exactly this criterion has been chosen and what is its rationale? One also wonders why only the above-listed districts have been declared drought-hit and that too in two phases  when the whole state has only scanty rainfall, and the farmers, especially marginal farmers, are in a difficult situation. Large numbers of agricultural areas in the state severely lack any irrigational facilities. There is another important question that arises. How exactly the selection of the drought-hit districts has been done? Is it based on sample surveys (random or purposive), or it is on the basis of whole universe (state)? I think the Government should be fully transparent on these issues!!

If one thinks deeply, the reasons are very clear. Once a given district is declared drought-hit, the enormous funding is provided to the state by the Centre to help the poor farmers in various ways who have been adversely affected by the given situation. Chief Minister has already demanded that Prime Minister should announce special packages for the backward regions, especially Bundelkhand and Eastern UP.

In the first phase, most of the districts are those where the Members of Parliament belong to the ruling party, and the state Government has deliberately left the districts of many MPs of other parties. In the second phase there are a few districts where the Member of Parliament belongs to other parties too. Allahabad district is a good example of this. The second phase has been, in fact, announced as a political gimmick to show that the state Government does not have any selfish motives behind the announcements. But the fact is that through this funding the ruling party wishes to enhance its voting power.

Uttar Pradesh has 80 representatives in the Lok Sabha. The maximum strength of the Lok Sabha envisaged by the Constitution is 552, up to 530 members to represent the States, up to 20 members to represent the Union Territories and not more than two members of the Anglo-Indian Community to be nominated by the President, if,  in his opinion, that community is not adequately represented in the House. The total elective membership is distributed among the States in such a way that the ratio between the number of seats allotted to each State and the population of the State is, so far as practicable, the same for all States. The number is divided among the 28 States and the 7 Union Territories as follows.

Let us wish that the enormous funding that will come to the state Government trickles down to the farmers, and is not used unnecessarily by the non-friendly barriers for ‘rent-seeking’ and ‘directly unproductive profit seeking activities’. Let us also wish that the remedial measures are honestly implemented for the welfare of the farmers. This could be done by actively  affecting improvements in agriculture and in rural economy,  initiating suitable insurance schemes, generating confidence amongst the affected people and making adequate financial provision to render relief effectively and quickly to drought-hit communities. The funds that the centre will be allocating must be rightfully spent and should filter down to those for whom they are meant. There should be a strict monitoring mechanism to safeguard this.

[The writer is a well a known economist and a former professor of economics, Allhabad University]

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