All rise the Muslims of Dinia

It is a crying shame that the Muslim Communities of Britain's responses to the outrageous crimes of the Indian Government, its goons and supporters has not been wiser, stronger, more vibrant and courageous. It is really disgusting to see so many ignocratic thank-Jinnah-we-aren't-Indian hot takes from the alleged followers of the best of creation on Mark's Zuckerbook.

This poem about the situation, "All will be Remembered" by Aamir Aziz is quite electric.




bismIlla

The violence being meted out to Muslims in India is historic, systemic and varies in its deadliness across its valleys and plains, from Assam on the Bangladesh border,  to Kashmir in the North West and now very vividly, Delhi once a thriving heart of Islamicate civilisation in the region.

As our brother outside the Indian Consular Office in Birmingham reminded us, Modi is the rule not the exception, Nehru presided over horrid ethnic cleansing in Jammu and Gandhi was as bloody minded and uncreative at times.

So solidarity to the families and communities and heros of the situation. May the vulnerable reach situational and structural safety, and may the martyrs be raised in the hearts of green birds in lanterns by the throne of the All Mighty, All Hearing, All Seeing, Avenging and Protecting Friend.

May every physical, intellectual, communicative and nonsecular act of solidarity be made with utmost success.

With ummahtic disasters like this we see eachother's faults features quite clearly. We see self promoting 'anti colonial' ( yet Congress) warrior intellectuals like Shashi Tharoor objecting to Muslim people affirming their existence as Muslims with public pronouncements of the statements that define them as Muslims. Meanwhile up and coming academic Neha Shah started a really crucial community excavation of the British East African Hindus.

What to do is harder, but switching off from a passive mode and into a serious social learning and organising one is beneficial. [ I will expand on these resources with tie iA]

Listening
Listen to unmediated voices from the front, its easier these days. Folks in India be careful with social media practices lest Sanghis trap you. Yes Arundhati Roy writes very well in English, but she's really not a proxy for sisterhood and brotherhood.

The Documentation Of The Oppressed (DOTO) Database is a startlingly awesome and data rich project hosted online here and on Mark's Zuckerbook here.

Violence against religious minorities in India though not new but over the past few these violence has taken an increasingly political and institutional character in the changed socio-political landscape post-2014. DOTO Database is a non-profit documentation center based in Delhi, documenting incidents of hate-crimes since 2014 against religious minorities(Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Parsi, Buddhists and Zoroastrians) in India. 

Most importantly, we seek to entrench community-based reporting and intervention through a common documentation platform for civil society of marginalized groups: DOTO database. A platform that addresses both immediate and long-term issues related to the systemic violation of fundamental rights, erosion of constitutional values and the organization and deployment of ‘hate’.

Alliances
Study, then affect the alliances (loud, quieter and unspoken) that excuse and empower this tyranny,  divest from them, then build ever growing and deepening circles of solidarity.

Petitioning
Petition all kinds of power-holder over the situation, even white ones. There should be more widely organised evidence gathering, calls for immediate deployment of UN Observer force and a freeze on the UK assets and movements of Delhi Police and identified others. There is plenty for those who stick themselves up the arses of the British Establishment to be busy with

Transformation 
Bros in Bamboo Houses under canon fire sharpen each other. It goes without saying and doesn't detract from the intense suffering and fear people are feeling to recognise there is a pressing need to challenge the reflections of this ultra-nationalist crap ( with caste features) in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka.

It is always easier to point out another's crime than one's bosses, but moral authority is gained by tackling one's own demons simultaneously. But there's pragmatic reasons too, a lot of the institutions inflict and benefit from violence in the same ways. Chief of Police and in charge of Dhaka Massacre 2013, Benazir Ahmed was promoted shortly after the massacre and cover up. The US government showered the police force with 'Special Events Training' and Muslim of the House Baroness Warsi did bugger all.  As well as the securocrats though, the media and NGO class of Bangladesh and the West were actively involved in the dehumanisation of the traditional Islamic Bangladeshi schooling network, which was unable to challenge the demonisation at the international level.

On the other hand, what we have come to know from the Delhi case is that Shaheenbagh has had different resources, far wider alliances and different strategies to hand. Muslims in Assam and Kashmir have different immediate actions still. Kashmir being cloaked in state enforced silence, Assam in wider societal ignorance. And decolonial duas to all of them.

...and finally
For goodness sake, concerning India don't let unreconstructed Pakistani nationalism do any of the talking.

When Our Ulama Rocked: Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar at the 1930 London Round Table

In the 30s there were a number of conferences held in London, the grimy heart of the British Empire, to debate the future of India. One of the characters who appears in this discussion is Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar, who counted Deoband, Alighar and Oxford ( Lincoln College - History) as his alma mater.

For the alien, that's code for traditional Islamic seminary movement, modernism Muslim experiment and Imperial western academy. He had also been a leader of the Khilafat Movement that opposed the abolition of said institution and moved Indian Muslims and Hindus to restore it.

The text reproduced below is an excerpt of his contribution at the occasion, the full text may be found here. My favourite bit is the non-concentric circle theory for dual Indian and Muslim identity. Note that Maulana made this speech only 6 weeks before his death in London, after which he was buried in Jerusalem.

The iconic image of him with his Khilafat movement hat (tupi) features on the stamps of India and Pakistan shown above, though notice the difference in where they position the star!  Bangladesh, in its nationalist shame at its Islamic anti-imperialist heritage, has not as yet found the breadth of narrative to include this man, not to mention his equally interesting brothers.

Maulana came from a wealthy and well educated family, and was an experienced multilingual journalist and publisher who drew on the quick witted combat poetical tradition of char bait. He was made of steely stuff too.

His grand daughter recounts that when the British imprisoned him, they used the failing health of his two young daughters as blackmail to force him to apologise for his political views. Hearing this, his mother, a mighty Begum (mother of warriors), wrote to him with the advise that if he were to take the offer she would throttle him with her last remaining strength.  His daughters passed on, and he was unable to attend their funerals.

At a time when Muslims sell out very cheaply, to white supremacy if not its coproduced criminal gangsters, even when they have nothing substantial to sell, the example of Muhammad Ali Jauhar is an inspiring one.

Jumma Mubarak!


****



[[8]] The real problem which is upsetting us all the time has been the third problem--this Hindu-Muslim problem; but that is no problem at all. The fact is that the Hindu-Muslim difficulty, like the Army difficulty, is of your own creation. But not altogether. It is the old maxim of "divide and rule." But there is a division of labour here. We divide and you rule. The moment we decide not to divide you will not be able to rule as you are doing today. With this determination not to be divided, we have come here. Let me assure every British man and woman who thinks of shaping our destinies that the only quarrel between the Hindus and the Muslims today is [the] quarrel that the Muslim is afraid of Hindu domination and the Hindu, I suppose, is afraid of Muslim domination. (Dr. Moonje: No, the Hindu is never afraid.) Well I am very glad to hear that. In my country the she-buffalo attacks only when she is afraid; and whatever the reverence of the Hindu for the cow, I am glad he has never the fear of the she-buffalo. I want to get rid of that fear. The very fact that Hindus and Muslims are quarrelling today shows that they will not stand British domination either for one single minute. That is the point to grasp.

British domination is doomed over India. Is our friendship doomed also? My brother took service under the Government and served it for 17 years, but he did one thing for me. He sent me to Oxford. He was always taunting me in the non- co-operation days by saying: "You have a soft corner in your heart for that place called Oxford." I must admit that I had. I spent four years there, and I always carry with me the most pleasant recollections of that time, and I want to keep that feeling. I do have a very soft corner in my heart for my Alma Mater. But I can taunt my brother, too. When he was being tried at Karachi­-when the jury let us off, and there was a British juryman among them, they voted for our release because we were such a sporting lot--my big brother said: "Even if it becomes my duty to kill the first Englishman I come across, if he happens to have blue eyes, my knife will not work; because I shall think of the eyes of Theodore Beck, my late Principal at my old College, Aligarh." There are several Aligarh Old Boys here, and they can bear witness to the fact that we who were brought up at Aligarh by Beck could never be without a soft corner in our hearts for Engl:shmen. Therefore, even if British domination is doomed--and it must be killed here--do not let us kill British friendship. We have a soft corner in our hearts for Great Britain. Let us retain it, I beseech you.

[[9]] One word as to the Muslim position, with which I shall deal at length on some other occasion. Many people in England ask us why this question of Hindu and Muslim comes into politics and what it has to do with these things. I reply, "It is a wrong conception of religion that you have, if you exclude politics from it. It is not dogma; it is not ritual! Religion, to my mind means the interpretation of life." I have a culture, a polity, an outlook on life--a complete synthesis which is Islam. Where God commands I am a Muslim first, a Muslim second, and a Muslim last, and nothing but a Muslim. If you ask me to enter into your Empire or into your Nation by leaving that synhesis, that polity, that culture, that ethics, I will not do it. My first duty is to my Maker, not to H. M. the King, nor to my companion, Dr. Moonje; my first duty is to my maker, and that is the case with Dr. Moonje also. He must be a Hindu first, and I must be a Muslim first, so far as that duty is concerned. But where India is concerned, where India's freedom is concerned, I am an Indian first, an Indian second, an Indian last, and nothing but an Indian.

I belong to two circles of equal size, but which are not concentric. One is India, and the other is the Muslim world. When I came to England in 1920 at the head of the Khilafat Delegation, my friends said: "You must have some sort of a crest for your stationery." I decided to have it with two circles on it. In one circle was the word "India"; in the other circle was Islam, wiih the word "Khilafat." We as Indian Muslims came in both circles. We belong to these two circles, each of more than 300 millions, and we can leave neither. We are not nationalists but supernationalists, and I as a Muslim say that "God made man and the Devil made the nation." Nationalism divides; our religion binds. No religious wars,  no crusades, have seen such holocausts and have been so cruel as your last war, and that was a war of your nationalism, and not my Jehad.

But where our country is concerned, where the question of taxation is concerned, where our crops are concerned, where the weather is concerned, where all associations in those thousands of matters of ordinary life are concerned, which are for the welfare of India, how can I say "I am a Muslim and he is a Hindu"? Make no mistake about the quarrels between Hindu and Muslim; they are founded only on the fear of domination. If there is one other sin with which I charge Great Britain, in addition to the sin of emasculating India, it is the sin of making wrong histories about India and teaching them to us in our schools, with the result that our school boys have learnt wrong Indian history. The quarrels which are sometimes visible in our streets on certain holidays, or quarrels the motives of which have been instilled into the hearts of our so-called intelligentsia--I call it unintelligentsia--by the wrong history taught us in our schools for political purposes. If that feeling, which writes "Revenge" so large over the politics of certain people in India, existed as it does, and if it existed to the extent which it does today, and the Muslims were everywhere in a minority of 25 per cent and the Hindus were everywhere in a majority of 66 per cent, I could see no ray of hape today; but thanks to the gerrymandering of our saints and our soldiers, if there are Provinces like that of my friend Dr. Moonje, in which I am only 4 per cent, there are other provinces where I am 93 percent, as in the Province of my friend Nawab Sir Abdul Qaiyum, for which we demand equal freedom. There is the old Province of Sind, where the Muslims first landed, where they are 73 per cent; in the Punjab they are 56 per cent, and in Bengal 55 per cent. That gives us our safeguard, for we demand hostages as we have willingly given hostages to Hindus in the other Provinces where they form huge majorities.

[[10]] I want you to realise that for the first time you are introducing a big revolution into India;for the first time majority rule is to be introduced into India. In the days of Lord Rama there was no majority rule, or he would not have been exiled. The old Pandu and Kuru rulers, who gambled their kingdoms away, did not have majority rule; Mahmud of Ghazni and Akbar and Aurangzeb did not have majority rule, nor did Shivaji; when Ranjit Singh ruled in the Punjab, he too did not have majority rule; when Warren Hastings and Clive ruled india, they did not have majority rule; and even in the days of Lord Irwin there is no majority rule. For the first time in India, we are going to introduce majority rule, and I, belonging to a minority community, accept that majority rule, although I know very well that if 51 people say that 2 and 2 make 5, and 49 people say that 2 and 2 make 4, the fact that 51 say that 2 and 2 make 5 does not cause them to make 5. Still I am prepared to submit to majority rule. Luckily, hewever, there are Muslim majorities in certain Provinces, and with the federal form of government which is suited to India, not only for the solution of the Hindu-Muslim problem, but is essential for the sake of the Princes also, this is in our favour. The centrifugal and centripetal tendencies are so well balanced in India that we are bound to have a federal system of government there, not as a distant ideal, as the Government of India says, but today, now this minute. We shall leave this conference only with federation established in India, with new treaties made with the Princes, with the consent of the crown and the Princes.

The continuing disaster of the poisoning of Bhopal and its people

This night thirty years ago was the last, and the beginning of the end for 25 000 people in the central Indian town of Bhopal. The Union Carbide pesticide factory leaked poisonous gas into its nearby environment, immediately killing thousands. To this date the land has not been remediated and people still suffer from birth defects. The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal states that 150 000 battle chronic illnesses. The build up and aftermath of the disaster provide a vivid example of how things can go so wrong, and stay wrong, and how difficult it is to hold corporate entities to account.

The factory had been established in 1970 and is typical Green Revolution fare. It was located in the middle of India with help from the Indian government and no little diplomatic grease. Near its ultimate end, the factory was undergoing cost cutting, which affected health and safety.

Indians farmers were not so interested in buying its pesticides at the time, Indira Gandhi had been assassinated and Anti-Sikh pogroms (8 000 +) had ravaged the country just a month earlier. Her assassination was in response to the terrible (and SAS supported) Operation Bluestar mounted against the Sikh's Golden Temple in Amritsar, which left up to 5000 people dead. Not to mention the Nellie Massacre of Muslims in Assam (2000-5000) that had unfolded the year before.

Corporate propaganda.

Warren Anderson, CEO of Union Carbide died this autumn, escaping justice in this life. He was more wanted figure in India than Osama Bin Laden for the USA. Makes you wonder what kinds of justice there are for situations like this.

Corporations continue to enjoy more-than-human rights.

I got to watch Ravi Kumar's Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain at #ReframingDisaster last weekend, and found it to be beautifully written, complex and saddening/maddening.

Dow Chemicals, who were involved in the manufacture of nuclear weapons, Agent Orange and Napalm aquired Union Carbide in 2001. Dow is a huge commercial concern, with 50k+ employees and $50billion + annual revenue. It is a pity that Fight Club is not real.

On another note, there is an ummahtic connection from the UK to the town, via its first purpose built mosque. Bhopal used to be ruled by Queens called Begums (Beg-Om: Mothers of Warriors)

The 1860 Pearl Mosque at the heart of Bhopal, built by Begum Sikander Jahan.

Woking Mosque in the 1930s, the first purpose built mosque in the United Kingdom (1889).
It was financed largely by Begum Shah Jehan, who it bears the name of to this day

Resources

Bhopal Medical Appeal
Good background info and campaign materials

Raj Keswani, 
Bhopal based journalist and Union Carbide whistle blower reflects on the tragedy (Hindi)

The Yes Men Sting Operation
Claiming to be Dow Chemicals, the social justice activists fooled the BBC into believing Dow, who had 3 years earlier acquired Union Carbide, was taking responsibility.

Bhopal: Facing 30
A photography project, that honours surviving families with regal portraits.

Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain (Trailer)

Martin Sheen interview, he plays Union Carbides CEO

When Sheikh Hasina ordered anti-Hindu Riots and Looting

Recently the propaganda from the illegitimategovernment of Bangladesh, and its supporters is that their opposition, especially Jamaat e Islami is attacking Hindus, "just like in 1971". Yes, its the communal violence card folks played by your friendly native neighbourhood defenders of secular values. 

Although evidence has been mounting for more than a year that Bangladesh's self-styled secularists are no protectors of minorities, the government and its allies, for example the head of the donor dependant Human Rights NGO Ain o Salish Kendra Sultana Kamal, believe that they can mislead the public on this one.

For their part what's left of Jamaat, the accused, have repeatedly condemned attacks on minorities and vowed that any member of theirs truly found to be involved in communal attacks prompt expulsion and punishment.

A Key into the Mind of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League: The Rentu Memoirs

Reliable reporting of the real nature of this kind of violence in Bangladesh remains elusive, and its worth knowing just who we are dealing with here. Amar Fashi Chai (They want my Hanging) is a fascinating book by late Matiur Rahman Rentu, a Bangladesh war veteran, Mujib loyalist and close aide of Sheikh Hasina for about 16 years. The memoir was banned when first published towards the close of the last Awami League government. I am told that bootlegs were widely circulated and that it had a noticeable impact. I am unaware of any equivalent book that chronicles the leader of the BNP.

I first became acquainted with the English translation during the rise of Bengali Fascism in early 2013.  For Bangladesh watchers, it provides an eye-on-the-wall portrait of the psychopath at the helm of Bangladesh. Indeed Rentu could have added some spice to things, to exoneration himself from wrong doing (though not in this case) or other reasons. At times it reads like a BNPwallah's wet dream. Yet he did the brave thing and published it while Hasina was still in power, not when she had left.  Having spent time in desh and consulted widely amongst different people, my view is that Amar Fashi Chai is like a time machine filled with treasure, as close to a Wikileaks cable as we are likely to get for a while.

Amar Fashi Chai takes us from Hasina's arrival in Dhaka from exile just before the assassination of Gen Zia in 1981,  through to 1997 with Hasina as Prime Minister and the author falling into her cross-hairs. We learn a lot about her as a wife, mother and aunt also, as Rentu clearly had access to these realms.

1992: A Pact, a Pogrom and the Politics of Anti Hindu Attacks in Bangladesh

There are many gems in this book, which beg for further investigation; for example the Awami League-Jamaat Pact of ~1992 which is a crucial moment for present day younger generation Islamists to get their heads around whilst they are trying to avoid getting killed, maimed and detained.

It is a  necessary head fuck because before Shahbag there was the Nirmul Committee, and the Nirmul Committee was energised by the decision makers of Jamaat deciding that it would be a good idea to have Ghulam Azam as their leader. It is alleged that Ghulam Azam met with Hasina and agreed to shift support from the BNP to the Awami League with Hasina agreeing to derail the Nirmul Committee (p36). The demonology of the Nirmul Committee lies at the heart of Bengali Fascism these days.

Later on in 1992, in the north Indian heartlands of Uttar Pradesh, Hindutva activists destroyed the Babri Masjid, in a symbolic planed act followed by communal violence across indian cities which claimed the lives of 2000 and fed the politics of the BJP. Anand Patwardhan's rather excellent documentary Ram ke Naam  (In the Name of God) explores this episode.

Some darling has uploaded it to youtube.



Fascism is just a template that anybody can use to achieve a political objective.


"Good boy, you can deliver the goods. That’s why I need you so much." 

It is into this regional context that Rentu's account of the Sheikh Hasina ordering anti-Hindu riots throughout Bangladesh plays out on pages 36 to 38. In 1992 the purpose was to kill two birds with one stone: prevent the visit of the Indian Prime Minister to embarrass Khaleda Zia, and to distract attention away from the Nirmul committee. Today's political calculus is worth investigating.

It was the first week of December, 1992. The Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Khaleda Zia was the current chairperson of the South Asian Agreement for co-operation (SAARC). The summit meeting of the seven SAARC member countries had been scheduled to be held in Dhaka. The date, time and place of the summit had all been slated. Begum Khaleda Zia as the chairperson was to inaugurate the conference. Quite a few Heads of Governments had already started arriving Dhaka. The Indian Prime Minister was expected any time. In the meantime, however, there was a serious outbreak of communal riots in India following the demolition of Babri Mosque. The leader of the opposition, Sheikh Hasina promptly summoned the rider of the motor-cycle’ (i.e. the author) to her official residence at 29 Minto Road.

On reaching there, he learnt that Sheikh Hasina had left a message asking him to meet her at Bangabandhu Bhaban at Dhanmnondi. The author was taken to the library room of the Bhaban. The conversation that took place between Sheikh Hasina and the author is as follows:

Sheikh Hasina: Organize Hindu-Muslim riots throughout the country.

Author: (Surprised) No, this is not proper.

Sheikh Hasina: Don’t think about what is right and what is wrong. I am asking you to organize the riot. Do it.

Author: I have gone to different areas of the city and asked the youth to be watchful and prevent any attack on the Hindus. Now you are asking me to organize communal riots’?

Sheikh Hasina: Yes.

Author: No my leader. It is unethical.

Sheikh Hasina: (Angry). Hell with your principles. I am your leader. Do what I ask you to do.

Author: I deeply respect your command. However, if there are attacks on the Hindus, they will certainly leave this country. Remember, they always vote for

Sheikh Hasina: The Hindus here have no place to go. You just do your job.

Author: (Unconvinced) If the Hindus leave for India. (following a large scale riot all over), there will be an influx of Muslims from India. They may be inclined to vote for BNP. Have you considered this point?

Sheikh Hasina: You fool. Don’t you understand that a situation has to be created that will make the holding of SAARC conference impossible. The conference will be chaired by Khaleda Zia. The Indian Prime Minister, Narhsima Rao has not yet arrived. This is the time for starting a communal riot. (This will create a situation that will make the arrival of the Indian Prime Minister inopportune. The absence of the Indian Prime Minister will abort the SAARC Conference).
Besides, Jahanara Imam is getting popular and many of the Hindus are now behind her. She is increasingly becoming a threat to my leadership. She has to be cut down to size. The riot will kill two birds with one stone-SAARC aborted and Jahanara Imam cut to size.

The author was entrusted with the task of organizing communal riots in Dhaka. It was decided that telephones at 29 Minto Road and at Bangabandhu Bhaban would not be used for the purpose. Instead the telephone of Sheikh Hafizur Rabman, a cousin of Sheikh Hasina and the Secretary General of Bangabandhu Trust would be used to communicate instructions to outlying districts for organizing Hindu-Muslim riots. This was measure to prevent possible leakages of the plan. The government of Khaleda Zia should not get any scent of the plan thus hatched.

A number of thugs, goons and terrorists of the city were organized according to the plan of Shiekh Hasina and given Taka Five lacs in cash. They were assembled near Shivbari Temple east of Jagannath Hall in the University area. After distributing 100 Taka notes among them, they were told, “Muslims are being butchered in India, women violated, their property looted. Should we the Muslims of Bangladesh watch it in silence? Go, start your work,”

The thugs and looters immediately began to plunder the property of Shivbari Temple with great enthusiasm. The next targets were Dhakeshwari temple and Ramkrishna Mission. Both cash rewards and inflammatory speeches had their effects on the looters. The looting soon spread to Tantibazar, Shakharipatti, Banglabazar. Millharrack, Goshaibari. Narinda, and Islampur areas of the old city. Hindu shops were the main targets in the old city. Since the local agent provocateurs were known faces, inflammatory speeches could reveal the link between Awami League and the organization or the riot. Currency notes, rather than provocative speeches w~te more extensively used in the old city.

As the looting continued, Sheikh Hasina was contacted at 32 Dhanmondi after three to four hours of its commencement. She was informed of the successful execution of her plan. Jubilant Hasina praised the work of the author in the following words, "Good boy, you can deliver the goods. That’s why I need you so much. I will have you elected as the member of the Parliament from Moksedpur-Kashiani constituency of Gopalgonj at the next election.”

The riot spread to fresh areas. Narshima Rao did not arrive. SAARC summit was effectively sabotaged. 

[Article] Kite flying by RAW? by Mumtaz Iqbal

The ever interesting Mumtaz Iqbal in the Weekly Holiday responded to that fruity RAW flavoured article in the Time of India

Kite flying by RAW?

Mumtaz Iqbal
Every country’s intelligence agency employs journalists and newspapers on its payroll, remunerating them in cash (retainership or bribes) or in kind (access to inside or privileged information), as its surrogates to propagate motivated points of view. India’s RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) is no exception.
One such RAW journalist appears to be Subir Bhowmik, East India Correspondent of the BBC World Service for the last 15 years and described in the Sage website as an eminent—a term of endearment widely employed in South Asia!--journalist and academic researcher.

The newspaper is the distinguished Times of India (TOI) whose 3.2 million circulation makes it the world’s one of the largest selling English-language dailies. Based in Delhi where RAW and various organs of India’s national security establishment (South Block, ISDA, ICWA et al) are located, the TOI is often used as a sounding board and echo chamber of official thinking.

The roots for this observation stems from an 860-word 11 para article published in the TOI on 1 November 2013 by Bhowmik dateline Dhaka titled: Bangladesh is in a violent phase and India must do all it can to see a friendly regime return to power (underlining supplied) (timesofindia.com click archive click 2013 November click 1 accessed 10 November 2013) The article is an odd even quixotic mishmash of alarmist epithets; biased presentation; blatant meddling in our domestic politics; tiresome bogeyman clichés about Islamic fundos; and an open call for Indian military intervention.

Alarmist epithets 
The heading says it all. “Bangladesh...in a violent phase.” This can’t be denied. Bangladesh politics invariably generate more heat than light. The violence has been steadily building up for months.

While some of the blame for this unsavoury situation lies with our domestic leaders, it would have reflected objective reality had the article touched upon, even in passing, RAW’s role in creating this imbroglio. Bangladesh is RAW’s biggest overseas station employing directly and indirectly thousands of agents, sympathisers and associates.

Besides, its worth recalling that RAW money helped the AL come to power. There is a fair amount of evidence—none more telling than the TOI article—to suggest that RAW’s hoping to repeat this performance in 2014. This is made manifest for all to see in the second part of the headline: “and India must do all it can to see a friendly regime return to power.”

The undisguised arrogance inherent and implied in this statement is astonishing. Dhaka is considered no more nor less than the cat’s paw of Delhi, which alone can decide who and what is a “friendly” regime. The people of Bangladesh don’t matter at all!

The article’s first Para states: “Bangladesh... political crisis... might impact Asia’s regional balance.” Really? To what balance is Bhowmik referring? Is Bangladesh of such pivotal importance? “Utter rubbish” as our honourable Finance Minister would say with forceful clarity (MA English Dhaka University 1955). And for once he would be right!

Biased presentation 
We are enlightened in Para one that “...Indian diplomats in Dhaka were desperately trying to get...Hasina...and Khaleda to speak to each other and start a dialogue.” Well, their efforts were successful, in one sense. The two Begums did talk. But in another sense it wasn’t. The dialogue was a miserable failure. Perhaps the South Block diplomats should have coached their star player a bit better. Or maybe the dialogue was meant to fail.

This would conveniently open the way for the next step in the AL’s mysterious and mystifying but largely self-defeating election strategy of going it alone after bludgeoning the opposition into submission. If so, we may see history repeating itself a la Marx, the first (1996) as tragedy, the second (2014) as farce (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon). Indo-AL relationship may be as close as lip to teeth but this fosters the unpalatable image of a client-patron relationship.

But Bhowmik’s second Para takes the cake in selective narrative that shows up the AL as a spotless knights in shining armour. First, Bhowmik offers the comically novel comment: “Hasina finally broke the ice and offered all-party interim cabinet...” Really? Bhowmik must think us daft if we believe this airy fairy story.

Bhowmik then outdoes himself by breathlessly proclaiming that Hasina “...quickly followed it up by speaking to Khaleda over telephone and inviting her for dinner.” Well, we all know how that delicious dialogue ended.
As evidence of his pronounced partiality, Bhowmik observes in the next sentence: “Khaleda refused the invitation...instead decided to go ahead with a 60-hour...strike.” Note the word “instead.” It suggests cavalier unreasonableness on Khaleda’s part to Hasina’s sweet reasonableness.
Well, Bhowmik should know, or be informed, that that’s not the way things happened. The history of reciprocal scorn between the two Begums goes back a long way, into the mists of time!

In addition to bias, Bhowmik is partial to amnesia. For example, he makes no reference to poll after poll showing that 70-90% of the Bangladesh public want an election under a caretaker government. And that Hasina’s insistence that “...this was not possible after the fifteenth amendment” (Para 3) is an exercise by Bhowmik in creative sophistry and apologia that leaves out a crucial condition of the Supreme Court’s judgment.

That an eminent journalist like Bhowmik—a BBC correspondent to boot—can make such a doctored and one-sided presentation of AL’s innocence and virtue beggars belief! This makes sense only if Bhowmik is a paid advocate propagating his master’s voice.

Blatant meddling 
In what Bhowmik terms a sideshow but occupies three (27%) out of the article’s 11 paras are the protestations of Indian diplomats in Dhaka—Bhowmik’s source material—about US Ambassador Dan Mozeena’s activities.
In Para 5, Bhowmik mentions that these diplomats told journalists—read Bhowmik—that Mozeena was behaving “...like a standing committee member of the BNP.” The obvious riposte is: why not? This is what a superpower does, however disagreeable it may be. And yet, Indian diplomats are coy regarding the pro-consular role they play in the deliberations of the AL Presidium. What is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. One detects a note of wistful envy in the Indian diplomats’ complaint.

But the most disquieting feature of Bhowmik’s observation is the blithe notion that the fortunes of Bangladesh are to be carved up by external forces without any input by Bangladeshis except as passive tools of their diktats! This is a sad commentary on how little esteem the Bangladesh authorities are held by the sole superpower and regional hegemon.

But while these two forces are locked in surreal “combat,” Bhowmik quotes an unnamed Indian diplomat describing the Chinese stand as “constructive.” Surprise, surprise. Is this harking back to the good old days of Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai? No way.

What is at play is crass commercialism. The ostensible reason for this effusive praise is that if PRC were to build the Sonadia deep-water port of Chittagong—one of PRCs so-called string of pearls—the economic spin-off would benefit India’s north-east. Money obviously talks tantalisingly enough for an Indian diplomat to see virtue in the commercial venture of a historic rival. So Chinese “meddling”, in contrast to Mozeena’s intercession, is “good.”

Tiresome bogeyman clichés 
A main motivation for Bhowmik’s article is provided in paras 6 and 7 where he lets the cat out of the bag: “For Delhi, the real worry is Jamaat-e-Islami and Hefazat-e-Islam...US overlooking revival of Islamic radicalism ... when Khaleda was last in power...thus weakening the focus of the war on terror.” This commentary obviously reflects Indian security views.

Islamic fundamentalism and the war on terror are of course convenient whipping boys but they have become a bit blasé and dated, especially after Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. Even the US has abandoned the term “war on terror.” But is Bhowmik’s assessment valid?

Religious orthodoxy and conservatism in Bangladesh predates JI and HI. The strivings of the Muslim Bengali peasant for a place in the sun against the exploitative Hindu zamindars goes back to at least 1905, if not earlier. To that extent, therefore, there will always be “Islamic” parties in Bangladesh purely because the majority of its peoples are Muslim who traditionally have protested and fought an unjust economic system, even when perpetrated by fellow Muslims (Pakistanis).

Our situation is not unique. There are political parties in India extolling Hindu fundamentalism and revivalism. One of them is the BJP which, in contrast to JI, has held power nationally in Delhi. The BJP threatens to do so in the next Indian national elections under a prospective leader (Narendra Modi) who’s credited with masterminding a hideous pogrom against Muslims and who the US government has banned from entering America. No Bangladeshi leader comes anywhere close to the dubious distinction Modi enjoys.

In electoral terms, the JI has never won many seats in parliament in Bangladesh or, for that matter, in Pakistan. But it, like the AL and BNP, has a sizeable vote bank that could play a crucial swing role in credible elections. But both the JI and HI have been badly battered by the AL. To expect them to acquiesce meekly in their own annihilation and reduction to irrelevance is perhaps to expect too much.

But it’s also too much to expect that the JI (and HI) can translate the piety of Bangladeshis and their own many followers into a parliamentary sweep, taking account of JI’s past performance and the Bangladesh public’s prudent reluctance hitherto to vote in large numbers for religious candidates. This profile is unlikely to change. But the JI and HI could throw their weight behind the BNP and help it to a “comfortable” win.

Espousing military intervention
This prospect brings us to the crux of Bhowmik’s article in Para 10. He intriguingly and baldly asserts that “It (India) cannot afford a hostile government in Dhaka.” Why? Because “India appears nervous over the future of its east and northeast...afflicted by violent statehood movements and insurgencies.”

Obviously Bhowmik, reflecting the views of his RAW patrons, is making it clear in no uncertain terms that any government other than the AL would be considered hostile by Delhi. This Olympian view has some fairly large holes.
The first hole is that the Seven Sisters insurgencies predate Bangladesh’s independence. It goes back to 14 August 1947 when the Naga National Council led by A.Z. Phizo declared Naga independence on 14th August 1947 and informed the UN headquarters in New York by cable.

Since then India through using undiluted force and large dollops of cash has maintained an equilibrium in the north-east that, while queasy at times and has not won the tribals’ hearts and minds, has never seriously challenged or endangered Delhi’s rule.

Considering that Indian diplomats have said more than once that India is not wedded to any party in Bangladesh but to its people, can Bhowmik’s assertion be taken with a grain of salt? Hardly. To do so would be unwise.

That is because Bhowmik immediately goes on to make the following scathingly scandalous, highly inflammatory and entirely fanciful statement: “This, in a way, revives the pre-1971 scenario where a similar situation forced India to back the Bengali insurrection and militarily intervene in East Pakistan, braving threat of a US naval intervention.”

First, note Bhowmik’s reference to “Bengali insurrection” rather than the accepted term of “liberation movement.” This is insidious, inaccurate, insulting, demeaning and belittling. Bhowmik owes us an apology for this deliberate semantic slander.

Second, to equate 2013 as reviving the “pre-1971 scenario” is delusional. In 1971, our fight for our fair share of the national pie which we had been deprived since 1947 was peaking. Needless to say, RAW and its predecessor IB fished efficaciously in those waters.

Is it recreating March ’71?
The 2013 confrontation is over the constitutional question of how to hold elections. To say that a “similar situation” prevailed suggests that Bhowmik is engaged in deliberate disinformation and is off his rocker, to put it mildly
What’s really chilling is the reference to “militarily intervene.” Is Bhowmik suggesting that the India Army emulate the Warsaw Pact’s takeover of Czechoslovakia of 20-21 August 1968, recreate 25 March 1971 and then hunt down (commit genocide?) Muslim fundos like the Pakistan Army hunted Hindus in that year?

Or is the 1965 Indonesian model to be followed, when the Armed Forces (ABRI) led by Suharto killed an estimated 0.5 million PKI members and sympathisers with names supplied by CIA. Arrests and purges continued for ten more years throughout the archipelago at CIA’s behest and supervision.

Direct military intervention Warsaw Pact style would cost India more than what it would get in benefits. So this option, while technically feasible, is politically a non-starter.

The second option is the more feasible and likely, with RAW like the CIA supplying intelligence, logistics and support. Assuming that RAW does not have access to the equivalent of ABRI in Bangladesh, the most likely executing agencies—pun intended—would be a cocktail comprising AL and Chhatra League musclemen, official Para military units, infiltrators from across the border (Paschim Banga civilian Black Cats!) and local collaborators modelled on the Al-Shams and Al-Badr stereotype.

One wonders whether the RAB-BGB action of May 2013 against the HI was a dress rehearsal of things to come.?

The reference to braving the US naval intervention is irrelevant whistling in the dark. The nuclear aircraft carrier USS Enterprise steamed into the Bay of Bengal to mark Nixon’s displeasure with Indira Gandhi. However, neither DC nor Delhi expected to get involved in a shooting war, much as Pakistan would have liked this to happen. America was up to its neck in Vietnam and Nixon had no intention of engaging in any naval combat (The Blood Telegram—India’s Secret War in East Pakistan, page 314).

Epilogue 
Are the tenor and tone of Bhowmik’s article the harbinger of a potent threat or some serious kite flying designed to spread panic and fear amongst the Bangladesh political opposition specifically and the public generally? Difficult to answer. Probably a bit of both, to illustrate Delhi’s capacity and capability for energetic arm-twisting.

But what is undoubtedly revealing about the article is its timing, coming as it does in the wake of the collapse of the dialogue and launching of a crackdown against BNP. This could backfire, stiffening rather softening Khaleda’s spine. She has precious little to lose and much to gain by being wronged.

But the more devastating drawback is that it will prove beyond doubt that the incumbent AL is an offspring sired by India and that Delhi will protect and promote it pretty well at any cost. This would of course destroy whatever little of the much-reduced credibility and legitimacy the AL still enjoys.

We have to thank Bhowmik and the TOI for their candid insight and revelation into the mind of a section of the hawks that grace Indian intelligence. Without doubt, the journalist and newspaper are sincere friends of Bangladesh.

[Documentary] Final Solution, exploring Hindutva's ultraviolence in Gujarat 2002

This film was obstructed by Censors in India. It is an interview-based documentary. 150 mi ns.



The Court Judgement for the Naroda Patiya massacre, a sub atrocity for which a female MP amongst others were brought to book, though not severely enough for some.

Non Aligned Movement Summit kicks of in Tehran, far more significant than the Olympics.

Most of the countries of the world imagine and work towards freedom and autonomy from the deathgrip of superpowers. At some level anyway. We do not see it more often because they are afraid.

The Non Aligned Movement (NAM) convenes in Tehran this week is what promises to be a gathering pregnant with decolonial possibilities. Held every 3 years, to mark the rotation of the organisation leadership, its fascinating that Iran are carrying the baton from that very different Egypt which held it's NAM summit in 2009, and will hand it over the Venezuela in 2015.

The next week will see a great deal of activity that we should follow carefully, and I wish I could be there. As PressTV was shunted of the UK airwaves a few months ago, and the western stance is hostile, insulting and disregarding decolonial actors, geeks and dreamers will have to try a little bit harder to know whats going on.  The NAM News Network have provided the following link for the latest news from the summit. The clip below features opening remarks from the Foreign Secretary of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi and a practical account of the relevance of the NAM space today from the Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh Mohammed Quayes. 

Formed in 1961 as an international institution to enable countries of the world to resist falling into the US-Soviet polarity, NAM holds relevance today as a way of creating unity between countries at the bum end of the United Nation's (in)security Council, resisting neoliberal western (NATO) hegemony and a space to simply be and develop positions outside the bullying US-Euro-Zionist political nexus.

Imagine that formative meeting in Belgrade, with Tito (Yugoslavia), Nasser (Egypt), Nkrumah (Ghana), Nehru (India) and Sukarno (Indonesia). What have we (un)learnt since?



It is reported that 150 countries will have representation at the summit, from top tier leaderships, to foreign ministers to less senior/serious delegations. It is worth watching the short video interview with author of The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World Vijay Prashad, where he mulls over the significance of the event simply taking place.

Egypt's President Mursi is due to attend, unlike Turkey who despite recent awesomnesses on the international front are having a frosty time with Iran given their involvement in Syria and maybe even something to do with NATO. We hope that they do find a way to get there. Even the Saudis are sending a deputy Foreign Minister.

Hasina and Zardari, PMs of Bangladesh and Pakistan respectively will attend too, along with UN Sec Gen Ban Ki Moon. Tunisia is sending its foreign minister, as is North Korea. The Palestinians are disunited ( appears that Abbas has won over Haniyeh). And of course the ALBA countries will be in there too.

The summit is awkward and intriguing depending on your politics. Unsurprisingly, Israel and its allies (ally?) have been acting to delegitimise the event and prevent UN attendance. And Iran itself is not feild of cornflowers.  Prof Hamid Dabashi, author of Brown Skin White Masks, has an interesting analysis of this summit's interaction with Iranian politics, from Mosadegh to Mousavi.

The symbolic power of the concept still rings loud, with Non-Alignment 2.0 currently doing the rounds of Indian foreign/security policy circles. (yikes)

To temporarily conclude, its heartening that more and more country groups are demonstrating disobedience to the terrorism and intimidation of the western powers. Decolonial Duas for this gathering, and its outcomes, tangible or otherwise. For updates, intrigues and explorations, you can follow the summit on the NAM News Network's pages.

Yasmin Saikia's work on oral histories of 1971 times

Prof Yasmin Saikia hails from Assam and is chair of Peace Studies at the University of Arizona USA. I found her to have a strong grip on the possibilities of sense-making and justice-making that we might achieve around the events of 1971. Naration and recruitment of intepretations and reconstructions of these events continue to lobotomise our polity.  A video from her recent talk to Brick Lane Circle will be posted up soon. Congratulations to the group for making the space to hear about these matters, beyond the poisoned, shrill and hopeless treatment meted out by the Liberation Industry.

She's interviewed hundreds of people, victims and participants and was quite disturbed at what is going on in the name of national justice-making. That she studied at undergraduate and masters level in Alighar Muslim University adds a greater expectation of her epistemystique, to which she delivers in sack loads.

Exploring ideas of insaniyyat (humanity), huquq al insan (rights of humankind), tauba (forgiveness) and restorative justice from the South Asian Islamic universe adds depth and spirit to any analysis of the wrongs wrought on the people, by Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Indians at the time. She mused on the concept of neighbours and strangers in Quran, and how these transform under nationalism. She sees 1971 as an ongoing narrative and quite rightly resists the national narratives around it. 

The state of publicly countenances debate on the crown jewels of 1971 is abysmal. On the Internet check Genocide Bangadesh, ICSF and Mukto Mona. In real(er) life check out the Ghatak Nirmul Commission, the Sector Commanders Associations and the Awami League in general. It is disgraceful epistemicidal projection that must be superseded, but will be difficult to.

A few years ago Shah Abdul Hannan, a prominent Islamic social figure in Bangladesh was subject to tremendous abuse from the Liberation Industry for talking publicly about 1971 as a civil war.  there is a not of ignorance manufactured by people  who believe themselves to be acting pro-Liberation. Prof Mushtaq Khan says there are elements of civil, liberation and independence in the war as a device to build a future narrative that integrates the three running already. 

Saikia penetrates a few dimensions deeper into the lived experience:

1. A Civil War of East versus West Pakistan
2. A, International War of India vs Pakistan
3. An Ethnic War Bengali vs Bihari, and
4. A Gender War Man against Woman

I have her 2011 book on 1971 on order and recommend her work generally, she's already established, so this cannot be accused of being an attention seeking ploy by angry Liberation Industrialists. Now that our collective stupidity and cruelty is on national display through the International War Crimes Tribunals, people at home, diaspora and abroad might be interested in understanding things with some humanity.

This is one of the few means.

Here's a video of one of her talks on remembering to be human.

If you want to get to the meat, a 2004 paper can be found on line: 'Beyond the Archives of Silence: Narratives of Silence of the 1971 Liberation War in Bangladesh.'  I challenge you to read it and not choke and be moved.http://fugstar.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/new-word-epistemystique.html#!/2012/02/new-word-epistemystique.html

[New Word] Cricketique

Moving beyond the colonial game, to embody the orders of things to come.