Karnataka's Hindu Right Targets Churches in response to Attacks on Indians in Australia

Staff Correspondent. The Hindu
MANGALORE, January 24, 2010

A cross at St. Lourdes Catholic Church at Mundalli village in Bhatkal taluk of Uttara Kannada was desecrated on Friday, allegedly by activists of the local unit of Sri Rama Sene.

The church is 5 km from Bhatkal.

The accused were purportedly trying to pull down the cross, which is a few metres from the church.

But some custodians of the church saw them and raised an alarm, forcing the culprits to flee.

Needle of suspicion

The needle of suspicion turned towards the Sri Rama Sena activists as only a few days ago the local unit had threatened such an action in a memorandum addressed to the President and submitted to the Assistant Commissioner, after a protest.

The memorandum submitted on January 19 stated that “Christians in India are part of a conspiracy to target Indian Hindus in Australia.”

Memorandum

The memorandum, signed by convener of the Bhatkal unit of Sri Rama Sene Shankar Naik, said that if the President did not initiate action to prevent the attacks on “Indian Hindus” in Australia in two days (January 20 and 21), the sene would “ensure that there is not a single church in Bhatkal”.

Additional Superintendent of Police V.B. Gaonkar told The Hindu that Shankar Naik, his brother Keshav Naik and Shankar Moger of the sene were among those arrested in connection with the attack.

‘Habitual offenders’

All the three were “habitual offenders” and had several cases pending against them, he said.

Sources from Bhatkal said that the situation in the areas around the church was tense, but peaceful. Mr. Gaonkar said that additional forces had been deployed in the area to prevent any untoward incident.

Produced in court

Karwar Correspondent reports:

The police said that eight sene activists had been arrested in connection with the incident and they had been produced in court.

The five others arrested have been identified as Nitesh Mahale, Eshwar Naik, Mahadev Naik, Shekhar Kharvi and Devendra Naik

Shivaraj Ambari, president of the Uttara Kannada unit of the sene, denied that his organisation had any role in the incident and blamed some Christian organisations for it.

He said the sene was blamed for a similar incident at Humnabad in Bidar district a few months ago.

After investigation, a former pastor of the church was arrested in connection with the case, he said.

A.B.V.P. attack on 'Janchetna' Book Exhibition Van in Delhi University

Nearly 25 members of Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the R.S.S., attacked the 'Janchetna' Book Exhibition Van which has been displaying books inside the premises of Arts Faculty, Delhi University, with the permission of the University authorities. They broke the windscreen and glasses of the exhibition van and injured three activists Kunal, Sanjay and Naveen who were present at the exhibition. As is well known, 'Janchetna' is a cultural campaign propagating democratic and progressive ideas in the society through the writings and literature of the likes of Premchand, Bhagat Singh, Sharatchandra, Gorky, Tolstoy, Hemingway, Rahul Sankrityayan, Radhamohan Gokulji etc. This is not the first attack by the Sangh Parivar on 'Janchetna' book exhibition van. 'Janchetna' has been targeted by the sang parivar outfits even before. Last year too, A.B.V.P. had attacked the exhibition van in the Delhi University. Earlier, the ABVP, VHP and Bajrang Dal had attacked the exhibition van at Mathura, Meerut, Moradabad, Agra, Jaipur, Kota and several other places.

Today, the A.B.V.P. goondas were equipped with rods, hockeys etc. They had come with the aim of damaging the exhibition van and they were openly declaring that the 'Janchetna' van will not be allowed to propagate these ideas inside the campus. When the activists of 'Janchetna' tried to argue with them they attacked the activists and broke the windscreen and display glasses of the van. They threw away books by Bhagat Singh and other writers and also threatened to put the van on fire. Before the news of this attack could reach the volunteers and wellwishers of 'Janchetna', the goons had left the scene. Soon after the students affiliated with Disha Students Organisation, AISA and SFI came to express solidarity with 'Janchetna'. The entire democratic and progressive community of Delhi University is organizing of protest demonstration in the Arts Faculty Against this Fascist attack tomorrow.

The activists of 'Janchetna' have registered a complaint in the Proctor's Office and also lodged FIR in the Maurice Nagar Police Station. Sanjay, one of the activists present at the van during the attack, said that if the hooligans of A.B.V.P. believe that they can terrorise us through these kinds of acts, then they are grossly mistaken. The 'Janchetna' van will continue its work in the Arts Faculty and we will give a 'tit for tat' answer in case of any future attack. The security of the van is the duty of the University administration as they have granted the permission to hold exhibition in the Arts Faculty, and that of the Police administration. If they fail to provide protection, then we will be left with no other choice but to defend ourselves.

PRESS RELEASE
Satyam
For, Janchetna
Phone: Abhinav 9999379381 / Satyam 9910262009 

In Memory of Jyoti Babu!

The news came in the early afternoon. A friend had rung up. My TV is out of operation for quite a while. In the evening, another friend rung up to talk of.

It was a long and no doubt a distinguished career in the conventional sense of the term. He was by far the longest-serving Chief Minister in India. Only Gegong Apang of Arunnachal Pradesh has a somewhat comparable record. But then, Arunachal is not counted amongst the major states of India. In 1996, his name was proposed as the Indian Prime Minister by the combined anti-Congress - anti-BJP opposition and forcefully pursued. To the horror of many - just not the foes, but also friends. In fact, after an intense tussle, the Party, of which he was the Polit Buro (the highest rung of leadership) member rejected the proposal, despite the spirited bid by the then General Secretary of the Party and also Basu himself being clearly in favour. As a disciplined party soldier, he abided by the decision. But that could not stop him from publicly calling it a "historic blunder". Only a Jyoti Babu, not Comrade Basu, could go unpunished after chiding the party in public.

No other leader from the Left came anywhere remotely close to that. Only Tridib Chaudhuri, of the Revolutionary Socialist Party - a far smaller leftwing outfit, had been the combined opposition’s Presidential candidate against the ruling Congress in the year 1974. But that was for all intent and purpose a symbolic fight. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed would win hands down.

Not that he was loved by all, no human is that fortunate. But he definitely commanded widespread respect and also elicited some degree of awe. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, so to say, grew up to become a Communist. While in Britain in late thirties - the colonial ruler of India in those days, studying to become a Barrister. As is the case with his many illustrious senior and junior comrades did. Not too uncommon in those days. The famous advocate Snehangshu Kanta Acharya, who would later become the Advocate general of West Bengal, was understandably very close to him, sharing a broadly similar aristocratic family roots and personal inclinations, in those days and also for long years thereafter. Not too many would remember him now though.. Basu, to be sure, had also intimately engaged with the labour movement, at least during his initial years. Was just not confined to parliamentary politics. And led historic popular agitations like the campaign against Bengal-Bihar merger, against one paisa tram fare rise etc.. (Not too many would remember now though.)

Jyoti Babu, as he was widely known - not Jyoti Da by any stretch nor even Comrade Basu - had his own distinctive air of aloof dignity tinged with evident haughtiness. That came with his aristocratic family roots, privileged foreign education, communist (presumably some superior) ideology, and of course Benglainess.

That was perhaps during the second United Front regime in West Bengal, which had assumed power in West Bengal. Those were the days of turmoil - both in the agrarian sector, and also in the cities. Physical bloody fights among the partners of the ruling coalition led by Ajoy Mukhopadhyay of the Bangla Congress was the norm of the day. The CPIM was the second most important constituent and Jyoti Basu was the Home Minister and the Dy. Chief Minister. Bloody clashes between the cadres of the two parties in the countryside were too frequent. And also verbal duel between the leaders. As the things turned particularly sour, Jyoti Babu held a press conference to narrate an alleged incident of atrocities perpetrated by the Bangla Congess men. He’d normally not get involved in such murky business. In this particular event a widow was reportedly assaulted and tortured, to which Basu did refer. A journalist, with mischief on mind, asked him to "elaborate" the "torture" bit. Basu was visibly disgusted. He retorted back that he has already that a widow has been assaulted and tortured. The persistent journalist refusing to give up explained that the other day Sushil Dhara, the second senior most leader of the Bangla Congress, and the Industries Minister (if my memory serves me right), had given an elaborate description of the torture inflicted by the CPM cadres on some women. the quintessential Jyoti Babu with unconcealed contempt shot back: I cannot go down to the level of Sushil Dhara!

A comparable example that comes to my mind would take place about a decade later.

In 1977, after the Janata Party government came to power, at the end of the Emergency, it dismissed the state governments run by the Congress. In the process, in West Bengal the Left Front led by the CPIM came to power. Dr. Ashok Mitra, at that time a close friend of Basu, now the Chief Minister, became the Finance Minister. The Sunday was quite a popular magazine in those days, edited by M J Akbar. Sometime later, on its last page, it carried an interview of Dr. Mitra, an eminent economist in his own right. The interviewer, at one point, asked him whether the economic philosophy of Morarji Desai, the Prime Minister, known for his conservative vies, is somewhat akin to that of Milton Friedman. Dr. Mitra curtly replied (I imagine I still remember): Why bother about Friedman? He has never heard of his name. (Just think of it! Morarji Bhai is the Prime Minister of the country, and Dr. Mitra is the Finance Minister of a constituent state!) That demonstrative intellectual arrogance (permeated with moral courage), I guess, would not be too commonplace elsewhere.

Jyoti Babu, despite being the best known leader of the CPIM towards which the Bengali upper middle class had a distinct animus, came to get identified with Bengali subnationalism and, even if somewhat strangely, struck a chord with the Bengali middle class. Though not exactly comparable, even then somewhat resembling Subhas Bose, a much taller figure and having a strong pan-national appeal cutting across regional divides. Basu is obviously far more parochial in terms of his appeal as compared to Bose. The only other two political figures whose names, in this context, come to mind are C R Das, a mentor of Bose, and subsequently Dr. B C Roy, the Chief Minister of West Bengal in its early independent years. He reportedly had a special soft corner for Basu despite political rivalries.

Ninety-five years is no short span. So Basu could do a lot and saw a lot. If the CPIM in West Bengal had peaked under the (somewhat tension ridden) joint stewardship of his and significantly lesser known, but perhaps even more powerful, Pramod Dasgupta (or PDG); he lived long enough to see the beginning of the dramatic decline of the party that he had nurtured for far too long.

Sukla Sen

17 01 10

Kerala Social Critic and Malayalam Writer Sacaria Heckled as He Spoke Against Moral Policing

Kerala is in focus again, for its characteristic mofussil politics preoccupied with die-hard defending of the 'Left'. A literary seminar and book release was organized by December Books yesterday before at Payyanur which had been participated by many important writers and attended by an enlightened audience together with activists of the Purogamana Kala Sahitya Sangham(Forum for Progessive Art and Lierature). Pu.Ka .Sa is an all Kerala Organization patronized by the CPI(M).
Sacaria, the well known social critic and writer while releasing a book by Madhu Nair referred to the deplorable state of the society in which a man and a woman found in circumstances of having extra marital sex or even suspected of doing such thing, would be hounded by the moral brigade. He might be referring to the 'anaasasyam' case recently clamped on Rajmohan Unnithan at Manjeri, Malalappuram district in which a local mob led by DYFI and PDP activists surrounded a house and got the police to arrest Rajmohan (a Congress leader) under sections of an Act that prevent trafficking on women.
According to today's news paper reports, a group from the audience heckled Sacaria and threw filthy abuses at him. Later, while he was about to leave the town, a small group of DYFI men accosted him and keys of the car were forcibly snatched from the driver. The group of about half a dozen men comprising the son of a former MP reportedly told Sacaria that he would not be allowed to get away in good shape, with this kind of speeches made(against the movement and party!) at Payyanur. They threatened to smash his head and teeth. Sacaria reportedly replied that he would then be happy to have a taste of the DYFI culture of Payyanur. Irritated by this,the group persisted on giving threats and continued to pour abuses on Sacaria. The organizers of the event who too were CPM sympathizers finally succeeded in dissuading the small mob . Sensible intervention by writers like C V Balakrishnan also helped to diffuse the tension.
Along with this incident, someone within or outside Payyanur likes to recall many an expression of authoritarian 'Leftism' in the past. Beneath the superficial layer of 'Left' one might sometimes see unabashedly expressed casteism and misogyny as betrayed in the case of burning an autorikshaw owned and driven by a dalit woman in Dec 2005.
A benign SMS message which was already already in circulation that had been sportively forwarded by a young teacher in a parallel college to his female student some time in 2006 had led to his being expelled from job at the behest of SFI /DYFI enthusiasts and finally to his committing suicide. Sending this kind of 'controversial' SMS to a girl student by a male teacher was judged as giving disrepute to both the institution and the girl (who will marry her then?).Jagadeesh, the teacher had been badly roughed up in public and in broad day light by the die-hard 'Leftists'. But again, the poor teacher also had a back history of 'antagonizing' the Party just by keeping aloof from it, in spite of his residing in a Parrish largely under the diktat of the Party. Speakers in a meeting organized by the colleagues of Jagadeesh and a few human rights activists in the small town of Payyanur also had been threatened by a gang of 'Lleftists' in ways similar to the Sacaria episode.
Lot of reported and unreported incidents like this do occur, but the party leadership unfailingly find reasons to justify such acts of vandalism.
(Please check today's Deshabhimani, preferably Kannur edition to see how the party answers; sorry, I haven't seen it yet)
When even bigwigs of the literary world, like Sacaria are not spared of such attacks, the small scale human rights fighters of Payyanur can definitely be proud of bearing the brunt of such attacks on many occasions in the past. But pitiable indeed, is the plight of those organizing progressive events under the auspices of organizations like Pu.Ka. Sa (Forum for Progressive Art and Literature), who have to be contented with a second class status meekly witnessing these acts of vandalism and yet not being able to speak out for the fear of ostracizing and harassment by the big people who really manage their shows.

Payyanur and its people are always taken for granted by the CPI(M) .
Each election is a cake walk for 'Left'.
The opposition parties on the other hand, are neither too ambitious to challenge the 'Leftists' on the electoral arena nor do they feel any such need . Because they are content with many things they already share with the 'Left'- for example, the development activities, the feudal moral and cultural fabric woven with a unique mix of caste and gender, and so on.
End result : Everybody may fell happy there in Payyanur, with the 'Left' taking care of the cultural /moral concerns of all, though a few (outcastes?) will continue to make noises here and there. Again, thank them for not showing any sympathy to the RSS unlike at least the few who might be disillusioned with the Left in the Party villages elsewhere in Kannur district!

MF Hussain purged from Himachal Textbook

Students in Himachal Pradesh need know only about artists who've lived and worked there. So, M.F. Husain should be banished from school books.
At least, that's what the BJP government thinks.
For the session starting March, the state's school board will replace a chapter on Husain in the Class XI Hindi textbooks by one on painters Sobha Singh and Nicholas Roerich.
"Husain has nothing to inspire students in Himachal," said board chairman Chaman Lal Gupta. "But these painters had a great association with Himachal.
They could ignite minds."
Artist-activist Ram Rahman said: "Husain's work is above petty politics and will outlast intolerable ideology."
Husain, who lives abroad because of threats from Hindutva elements for his portrayal of Hindu goddesses in the nude, could not be reached for comments. reached for comments.
INPUTS FROM NEW DELHI

Hindustan Times

08/01/2010 

PUCL Press Statement on Detention of Himanshu in Chhattisgarh

The PUCL condemns the detention of Himanshu of Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA), Dantewada and PUCL State Executive member of the Chhattisgarh at Kanker Police Station today 3rd January, 2010. This detention has been made on the eve of the Public Hearing that was being organised by VCA on the atrocities being committed by police and security forces in that area. According to the VCA the detention of Himanshu at this stage is to clearly sabotage the hearing.

Himanshu’s detention follows a series of harassment that he and his organisation have been subjected to which include

• Demolition of his ashram outside Dantewda,
• Arrest of Sukhnath on 1st August, ’09 and of Kopa Kunjam on 10th December, ’09, both senior activists of VCA , under chhattisgharh Special Public Security Act, 2005, who were trying to implement the SC orders of implementing the Internally displaced people.
• Preventing Himanshu from taking out a padyatra through the villages of Dantewada district, in December, ‘09
• Intimidation by the police and salwa judum activists to harass women’s groups who were prevented from reaching Dantewada on 15 December, ’09.
• Illegal Detention and intimidation of the 5 women who were fighting their own cases of rape by salwa judum members. They were forcibly made to sign papers by SPOs and Police when they were illegally detained after 15 December, ’09 for 5 days at Dronpal Police Station, that they were not wanting to pursue their cases
• Intimidation by the administration of the landlord who rented the house to Himanshu following which he is being forced to vacate the premises.
• Preventing Himanshu and VCa from even booking rooms at the local Dharmashala including forcing one owner to return the money of rooms he had booked for VCA.

Today too he was trying to escort Shambhu to Raipur, a victim of operation green hunt who sustained bullet injuries in her leg and had to get to Delhi for treatment. She was prevented by the Police from undertaking the travel so Himanshu with others boarded the vehicle and were detained at Kanker, Jagdalpur. PUCL demands that the Chhattisgarh State Government release Himanshu and Kopa and Sukhnath immediately along with ending all harassment of Himanshu Kumar and other members of the VCA who have a right to exercise their democratic rights.

PUCL demands that the State Government implement the SC orders of rehabilitation of internally displaced people which was the main work of Himanshu and the VCA which the local administration and the Government did not like. PUCL also demands Stopping of all operations like green hunt and others that are responsible for human rights violations and letting activists and media to freely move in the areas.

Prabhakar Sinha (President)

Pushkar Raj (General Secretary)
—  Office: 270A, Patpar Ganj, , Mayur Vihar I, Delhi-110091
 ph. 22750014
 098106-56100
 www.pucl.org

Why S M Mushrif’s book “Who Killed Karkare?” not discussed in media?

By Mohd Ziyallah Khan,

To tell a truth in front of a tyrant ruler is the biggest crusade in the sight of Lord. And perhaps, this saying sounds so true to Mr. S M Mushrif (retired IPS officer – former IGP Maharashtra) when he wrote his book ‘Who killed Karkare?’ published a couple of months back. Ironically, despite all the truth he has managed to jot down in his daring work, he couldn’t get the kind of coverage or response in the Media.

The sort of debate or discussion it should spark off in the market sounds missing though, the reasons are obvious, which he himself disclosed in his recent visit to Nagpur on 2nd and 3rd January 2010 in a conference organised by Bahujan Sangarsh Samiti Nagpur Chapter.

He said that 20-25 different journalists from the various big and small media houses – both the print and electronic – which interviewed him on 28th October 2009 at his Pune residence, but nothing really appeared the following day, except in small time newspapers of the city. His work was totally kept under the carpet; nobody really cared to debate or discuss it in public domain, thanks to the kind of pressure the Saffron brigade has created on the media industry. So one can imagine the fear in which they dwell these days. To this point Mushrif added a humor saying, “the saffron elements happen to be the real terrorist, but with my book they seems to be terrorized, so in this way I now call myself a more bigger terrorist than them”.

The most interesting speech in the two-day program of Bahujan Sangarsh Samiti, was in the symposium on ‘Hindu Nation and Bahujan Society’ (Bahujan Society is referred to the non-Brahmin communities, including Muslims, Christians, Sikh, Dalits, OBC’s etc). In his speech, Mr Mushrif said that the real trouble before the anti-national elements (saffron groups) were the true nationalist people like Karkare, Salaskar, Kamte etc, who managed to find the real culprit behind the series of bomb blasts executed in various places including, Malegaon, Nanded and Parbhani etc. The two laptops recovered by Karkare after Sadhvi Pragya’s arrest disclosed, how the Hindu terror network was responsible for the series of bomb blasts carried out, making Muslim innocent youths responsible for the same.

The laptop recovered had ample of information about how the Hindu terror group materialized this anti-national activities using people and groups of different expertise and resource. These groups of men included some high profile industrialists, politicians, media professionals, historians, academicians and so on. This new nexus coming into light was well exposed by our real hero, the ATS Chief, Hemant Karkare. This man made a promise to himself that he will leave no stone unturned to let the world know the truth. However, before he could do this, he was knocked out of this mortal world in a very mysterious fashion during the 26/11 Mumbai attack.

According to Mushrif, the elimination of Karkare was nothing but an innovative way of getting rid of a person who was likely to expose the anti-national elements which is nothing but the saffron brigade. This innovative way is – certainly killing people like Karkare under the shadow of some operation like 26/11, so it was a good team work between the so called Lashkar men and the saffron elements.

According to Mushrif, the IB was well informed about the LeT men hatching a plan to attack the Taj, they had been knowing this fact since 18th November 2008, but unfortunately, they never passed on this information to the Navy or to the Mumbai police, rather they preferred to give it to the coast guard which has nothing to do with the internal security. So it was nothing but efforts done too little too late, failing thus to avert this attack. The IB despite being informed about the movement of the boat carrying the men with lethal weapons remained tongue tied. Earlier the IB was provided with 35 different suspicious cell no’s by the RAW, the same numbers used during those 72 hours of terror in Mumbai, including many ISD calls and only one call made in Mumbai, just before the death of Karkare. In this way Hemant Karkare was killed by the men as per the directions of the saffron elements, while the message went to the masses was, ‘LeT men killed him’.

According to Mushrif, he had found 11 stark contrasting elements in two operations. The Taj-Oberoy-Trident was completely different from the one at Cama and Rangbhavan lanes. How can same people be at two different places at the same time? Also, he came across so many loopholes, in the 26/11 investigation. Sr. IAS officer Rangari told Times of India, Mumbai edition that during the attack at CST, out of 35 CCTV cameras, 16 were shut down at that particular day for no valid reason. The SIM recovered at CST station of the terrorist belonged to a person based at Satara (a city in Maharashtra), the police investigation was intervened in the midst of the due process, and this owner of the SIM was never brought to books. The lady beside the coastal area identified these men who came from boat, and was the eyewitness to the massacre perpetrated at Taj in the broad daylight, but was soon forced to leave for US.

The interesting remark made by Mr. Mushrif at the end of his speech was, that the IB in India is worst than any RSS Shakha, and that if these men who happen to be custodians of our security and who remain hand in glove with the enemies of our society, then its time to stand up for a new revolution.

(The writer is a freelancer and media activist based in Nagpur, can be contacted at writeziya@gmail.com)

Link: http://whokilledkarkare.com/