Born in sin: Chinese occupation of Tibet and CPM's support

Born in sin: Chinese occupation of Tibet

“Born in sin” was the phrase used by the late J.B. Kripalani criticizing the Panchsheel agreement between Nehru and Chou En Lai. Born in sin was the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Free Tibet, NOW. This should be the war-cry of the free world.

Kalyanaraman 1 April 2008

Panchseel, "An Agreement Born in Sin"
Office of Tibet, New York[Saturday, July 03, 2004 19:08]

NEW YORK, July 2 - Panchsheel, an agreement for mutual co-existence between India and China, was Nehru's brain child. It encapsulated the Indian Prime Minister's vision of a united and properous future for the newly-colonized nations of the Third World. Nehru had no inkling that the Chinese vision was something else. Indeed, before a year passed after the signing of this document, described at that time by another Indian leader as an "agreement born in sin", China attacked India and dealt the peace-loving nation a humiliating defeat.

Four decades later, the growing global reach of the US is sleepless nights to the ambitious China. Beijing now needs India more than ever before to counter the US influence. So, with great fanfare, the Pancheel is exhumed from graveyard of the 1962-war.

In this, history seems to be on the side of China. Its communist allies are important partners in the new government of India. With the help of them, the Chinese have been able to build a formidable lobby for themselves in the new government of India.

Bringing India under the umbrella of the Middle Kingdom's Third World advocacy will represent a strategic triumph for China as it will then be able to orchestrate anti-US campaigns more effectively than ever before. But for India, the implications "may not be that wholesome", writes Swapan Dasgupta in "The Telegaph" (July 2), a daily published from Kolkota.

The following is excerpted from Swapan Dasgupta's article:

It is...more than just mystifying that this week witnessed the golden jubilee celebrations in New Delhi and Beijing of the Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between the Tibet region of China and India, a document better known as Panchsheel. For the newly-elected United Progressive Alliance government, which produced a special stamp to mark the event, it was an occasion to proclaim the rehabilitation of the Nehruvian order in foreign policy. For China, the re-discovery of Panch- sheel became a euphemism for some free publicity to the new mantra of heping jueqi or "good neighbourliness and global responsibility".

Yet, no anniversary celebration could be more inappropriate. For a start, June 28 was not the 50th anniversary of Panchsheel. As the India-based China-watcher, Claude Arpi, has pointed out, the agreement was signed by Chang Han-Fu, China's vice-minister of foreign affairs, and the Indian ambassador, N. Raghavan, in Beijing on April 29, 1954, and came into effect on June 3 that year. On April 29, however, the National Democratic Alliance government was still in place, and despite the improvement in Sino-Indian relations, no one really thought it necessary to commemorate an agreement that resulted in India abjuring the Shimla Convention of 1914 and surrendering its special diplomatic status in Tibet.

It is instructive to recall that Panchsheel was not universally welcomed in India. Speaking in the Lok Sabha in 1958, J.B. Kripalani was carping about India's abdication of its role in Tibet: "This great doctrine was born in sin because it was enunciated to put the seal of our approval upon the destruction of an ancient nation which was associated with us spiritually and culturally. It was a nation which wanted to live its own life and it ought to have been allowed to live it." Jawaharlal Nehru answered with a weak pun, "Born in Sindh?"

Unfortunately, Panchsheel proved to be no laughing matter. Regardless of the hype associated with democratic India, embrace of a totalitarian neighbour, Panchsheel was an ephemeral agreement. Initially valid for eight years, until April 1962, the "Hindi-Chini bhai bhai" euphoria was woefully one-sided and ended in tears for both Nehru and India. Within 26 days of Panchsheel coming into effect, the People's Liberation Army began its incursions into India, at Barahoti, north of Badrinath, in Uttaranchal. And by the time the agreement died a natural death, India had suffered a humiliating military debacle, with Nehru's heart going out to the people of Assam.

It speaks volumes for the self-esteem of the UPA government that it re-jigged the calendar of history and glossed over independent India's greatest moment of humiliation to celebrate a Congress prime minister's act of romantic folly. In sheer perversity, the grand tamasha in New Delhi last Monday was akin to the great and the good assembling in London's Guildhall to promote Anglo-German friendship by celebrating Chamberlain's gentlemanly capitulation in Munich in 1938.

It is tempting to dismiss the sudden re-discovery of Panchsheel as an unfortunate example of fawning and diplomatic buffoonery by India's influential band of Sinophiles. Tragically, the blunder is more serious and is symptomatic of the foreign policy regression that is taking place in Delhi.

It is not anyone's case that Sino-Indian relations must be held hostage to human rights in Tibet and the resolution of the border conflict. Since RajivGandhi's landmark visit in 1987, both sides have shown considerable maturity in putting normalization of relations above conflict resolution. It is an approach that Natwar Singh was absolutely right in commending to the Pakistan government last month.

However, there are strong suggestions that the UPA government's desire to establish a special relationship with China goes well beyond the purview of bilateral relations. Implicit in the rekindling of the flawed Panchsheel agreement is a move towards a more profound strategic partnership with Beijing. This includes imbibing China's perceptions of the restructuring of the post-Cold War world order.

The roots of this Sinophilia can be located in a mixture of misplaced nostalgia and plain expediency. Since the Pokhran-II blasts of May 1998, China has combined its traditional relationship with India's communists with a special relationship with the Congress. Never shy of getting involved in domestic policy when necessary, Beijing has crafted a formidable lobby for itself in the present UPA, centred on a wariness of the Curzonian assumptions of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Grafted on to the traditional Third World-ism of those who see themselves as Nehru's disciples, this has involved the direct encouragement to anti-US tendencies within the Indian foreign policy establishment.

Beijing has never underestimated the potential danger of India positioning itself as a rival Asian power. With its open society, vibrant democracy, cultural links and hostility to Islamism, India has always held out an attraction to a West that is deeply suspicious of China's hegemonic designs in Asia. For China, neutralizing India or bringing it under its strategic umbrella would constitute a monumental foreign-policy triumph. In simple terms, it would deny the West the natural alternative in Asia.

For India, however, the implications may not be all that wholesome. Apart from the economic implications of subordinating itself to the main competitor, excessive cosying up to China carries the danger of living with a permanent military handicap and being subjected to the threats of political blackmail, particularly in the North-east. It means abandoning all regional ambitions in favour of a spurious solidarity built on angst.

China and India have been geographical neighbours. This has, however, not been accompanied by either neighbourliness or an understanding of each other. In terms of both cultural assumptions and civil-society links, both countries remain separated by the formidable Himalayas. Regardless of the temporary irritation with the unilateralism of the Bush administration, India's natural gaze is Westwards. We are naturally at ease with the Anglo-Saxon world. The Middle Kingdom is both distant and incomprehensible. Panchsheel was just an early warning.

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=7198&t=1&c=1
BORN IN SIN: THE PANCHSHEEL AGREEMENT
THE SACRIFICE OF TIBET
By Claude Arpi
Mittal Publications

In India, one often hears of ‘Panchsheel’, but few know that it only was an "Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between the Tibet region of China and India” signed by China and India on April 29, 1954.
Since the preamble of this Agreement contained the famous Five Principles, it was dubbed the ‘Panchsheel Agreement’. Though it lapsed in 1962 and was never renewed, it has kept its aura as the ideal solution to conduct foreign relations. But its first result was that Tibet, a 2000-old nation was erased from the map of Asia.
During a debate in the Parliament in 1958, the Socialist leader Acharya Kripalani stated: “This great doctrine was born in sin, because it was enunciated to put the seal of our approval upon the destruction of an ancient nation which was associated with us spiritually and culturally… It was a nation which wanted to live its own life and it sought to have been allowed to live its own life.”
The 1962 Sino-Indian conflict was another consequence of the ‘Panchsheel’ policy.
A hundred years ago a young British Colonel, Francis Younghusband entered the holy city of Lhasa and forced upon the Tibetans their first Agreement with the mighty British Empire. In signing this treaty with the Crown, Tibet was ‘acknowledged’ as a separate nation by the British.
Ten years later, London called for a tripartite Conference in Simla to settle the issue: British India, Tibet and China sat together at a negotiation table for the first time.
The Simla Convention, born out of the Conference was still in force when India became independent in August 1947.
However, an event changed the destiny of the Land of Snows. In October 1950, Mao Zedong’s troops invaded Tibet.
With this background, the present research looks at the genesis of the Panchsheel Agreement between India and China which converted the Land of Snows into merely ‘Tibet’s Region of China’. A natural and cultural buffer zone between India and China disappeared.
The preamble of the Agreement contained the Five Principles which formed the main pillar of India’s foreign policy for the next fifty years. This was the beginning of the Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai slogan and India’s ‘non-aligned’ position.
This policy still haunts an India unable to sort out her border tangle with China. This study concludes with some tentative but constructive proposals to come out of the current impasse.
ISBN: 91-7099-974-X
Year of Publication: August 2004
Price: Rs 495


Mittal Publications
A-110 Mohan Garden
New Delhi 110 059
Tel: 011- 25351493, 25351976 Fax: 25351521
Email: mittalp@ndf.net.in
Website: www.mittalpublications.com
Showroom: 4594/9 Daryaganj
New Delhi 110002
Tel: 23250398
http://www.jaia-bharati.org/livres/ca-panchsheel.htm

Excerpts from the book:

“ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCE OF THE PANCHSHEEL POLICY”

“THE BRAHMAPUTRA DAM AND DIVERSION”

“STRATEGIC LOCATION”.

1. “ Ginsburg, in a study of Communist China and Tibet in the sixties wrote: ‘HE WHO HOLDS TIBET DOMINATES THE HIMALAYAN PIEDMONT; HE WHO DOMINATES THE HIMALAYAN PIEDMONT THREATENS THE INDIAN SUB-CONTINENT; AND HE WHO THREATENS THE INDIAN SUB-CONTINENT MAY WELL HAVE ALL THE SOUTH-EAST ASIA WITHIN HIS REACH, AND ALL OF ASIA.” (1)

2. “Mao, the strategist, knew this well, as did the British who had always succeeded in their maneuvers to keep Tibet an ‘AUTONOMOUS’ buffer zone between their Indian colony and the Chinese and Russian Empires. The Government of India, upon inheriting the past treaties and obligations of British India, should have donned British mantle recognizing its advantages for Indian security and its sense of responsibility vis-à-vis Tibet; unfortunately for fear of looking like a neo-colonist state, without giving any thought to the consequences which would follow, they failed.” (2)

“AN ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCE.”

3. “For India, one of the indirect, THOUGH SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES OF LOSING THIS BUFFER ZONE BETWEEN HER AND CHINA IS THE ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION WHICH HAS OCCURRED IN TIBET DURING THE LAST FOUR DECADES. The responsibility for this lies mainly with Deng Xiaoping and his mantra: ‘TO BECOME RICH IS GLORIOUS’. The frantic race for wealth which ensued became known as ‘SOCIALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTIC’. In fact it was ‘wild capitalism’; THE CHINESE STATE ITSELF BECAME A VORACIOUS DEVELOPER WITH SCANT RESPECT FOR THE ENVIRONMENT.”

4. “The fact that India did not keep the responsibility ‘legally bestowed
on her by the SIMLA CONVENTION’ hastened the end result of the immense damage inflicted by the new occupiers upon the high plateau’s environment. Our case study highlights a ‘PROJECT FOR THE DIVERSION AND THE DAMMING OF THE TSANGPO (BRAHMAPUTRA)’. We shall study the consequences caused by Tibet’s occupation, NOT ONLY ON THE ENVIRONMENT, BUT ALSO ITS SNOWBALLING IMPACT ON THE SUB-CONTINENT’S SECURITY.”

“TIBET: ASIA’S WATER TANK”.

5. “The Tibetan plateau is the ‘PRINCIPAL ASIAN WATERSHED’ and the ‘SOURCE OF TEN MAJOR RIVERS’. TIBET’S WATERS FLOW DOWN TO ELEVEN COUNTRIES AND ARE SAID TO BRING FRESH WATER TO OVER 85% OF ASIA’S POPULATION, APPROXIMATELY 50% OF THE WORLD’S POPULATION.”

6. “THREE OF THE WORLD’S TEN MAJOR RIVERS, THE BRAHMAPUTRA, THE YANGTZE AND THE MEKONG HAVE THEIR HEADWATERS ON THE TIBETAN PLATEAU. THE OTHER MAJOR RIVERS WHICH ORIGINATE FROM TIBET ARE THE HUANG HO (OR YELLOW RIVER), THE SALWEEN, THE ARUN, THE KARNALI, THE SUTLEJ AND THE INDUS.”

7. “SOUTH ASIA IS MAINLY CONCERNED WITH THE
BRAHMAPUTRA, THE INDUS, THE SUTLEJ, THE ARUN AND THE KARNALI WHOSE WATERS GIVE LIFE TO MORE THAN ONE BILLION PEOPLE LIVING DOWNSTREAM.”

8. “IT IS ROUGHLY ESTIMATED THAT 10-20% OF THE HIMALAYAN REGION IS COVERED BY GLACIAL ICE WHILE AN ADDITIONAL AREA RANGING FROM 30-40% HAS SEASONAL SNOW COVER. HIMALAYAN GLACIERS COVER AROUND 100,000 SQ. KMS. AND STORE ABOUT 12,000 CUBIC KMS OF FRESH WATER: ‘THE MOST INCREDIBLE WATER TANK ONE CAN IMAGINE’.”

9. “ The perennial run of the rivers, originating from these glaciers, also result in a stable flow of water to regions which are dominated by monsoon rainfalls.”

“SOUTH-NORTH WATER DIVERSION”.

10. “China is facing a VERY SERIOUS WATER SHORTAGE. This problem is sought to be solved by DIVERTING LARGE QUANTITIES OF WATER FROM THE WET SOUTH TO THE DRY NORTH. The engineers in Beijing have conceived a SOUTH-NORTH WATER DIVERSION.”

11. “In September 2001 (3), Associated Press commented about the Western segment of the SOUTH-NORTH water diversion: ‘THE SHEER SCALE HARKENS BACK TO THE MEGAPROJECTS OF IMPERIAL CHINA AND THE HEYDAY OF COMMUNIST CENTRAL PLANNING. BUT EVEN IN THE HOME OF THE 1,500-MILE GREAT WALL, THE SCHEME IS RAISING EYEBROWS. SOME QUESTION IF SUCH A GARGANTUAN PROJECT IS NEEDED-OR EVEN WISE.”

12. “BUT THIS IS NOT ENOUGH TO SAVE NORTHERN CHINA. THE PLANNERS IN BEIJING HAVE LOGICALLY TURNED THEIR SIGHTS TOWARDS THE TIBETAN HIGH PLATEAU.”

REFERENCES:

(1) GINSBURG&MATHOS, ‘COMMUNIST CHINA AND TIBET’ (THE HAGUE:MARTINUF NIJHOFF, 1964)

(2) THE STRATEGIC POSITION OF TIBET BECAME EVEN MORE VISIBLE WHEN CHINA JOINED THE RESTRICTED CIRCLE OF NUCLEAR NATIONS. IS THERE A MORE IDEAL PLACE THAN THE TIBETAN HIGH PLATEAU TO POSITION ICBMs WITH NUCLEAR WARHEADS POINTED TOWARDS INDIA AND RUSSIA?

(3) ASSOCIATED PRESS (10 SEPTEMBER 2001), ‘CHINA PLANS TO REROUTE PART OF RIVER.
“THE CASE OF THE YARLUNG TSANGPO”

13. “The Yarlung Tsangpo (or Brahmaputra as it is known in India), has an immense bearing on the lives of hundreds of millions in the sub-continent.”

14. “It is the largest river on the Tibetan plateau, originating from a glacier near Mt. Kailash. It is considered to be the highest river on earth with an average altitude of 4,000 meters. It runs 2,057 kilometers in Tibet before flowing into India, where it becomes the Brahmaputra. One of its interesting characteristics is the ‘SHARP U-TURN’ it takes at the proximity of Mt. Namcha Barwa (7,782 meters) near the Indian border.”

15. “Like the Nile in Egypt, the Yarlung Tsangpo has nurtured the Tibetan civilization which flourished along its valleys, particularly in Central Tibet.”

16. “Near Shigatse region, the Yarlung valley is 20-30 kms wide. This area with its sand dunes and lakes is the cradle of the two thousand year-old civilization.”

17. “The Yarlung Tsangpo enters India in Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh. The Brahmaputra has always been considered the very soul of the State by Assamese poets and ordinary people alike. Entering Bangladesh, the river unites with the Ganga and is known as the Padma, before becoming the Meghna-Brahmaputra after merging with the river Meghna. Finally it divides into hundreds of channels to form a vast delta which flows into the Bay of Bengal.”

“THE GRAND CANYON”

18. “But let us return to the Tibetan plateau. When the Tsangpo reaches its Easternmost point in Tibet, it takes a sharp ‘U-TURN’ known as the ‘GREAT BEND’. Only recently it has been found that the Yarlung Tsangpo gorge ‘FORMS THE LONGEST AND DEEPEST CANYON IN THE WORLD’. In May 1994, XINHUA NEWS AGENCY reported: ‘CHINESE GEOLOGISTS CLAIM THAT A REMOTE TIBETAN CANYON IS THE WORLD’S LARGEST, BIGGER AND DEEPER THAN THE GRAND CANYON. THE YARLUNG ZANGBO CANYON, IN THE VAST HIMALAYAN RANGE THAT ENCIRCLES CHINA, AVERAGES 3.1 MILES (5 KMS) IN DEPTH AND EXTENDS 198 MILES (317 KMS) IN LENGTH. THE GRAND CANYON IN THE SOUTHWESTERN U.S. STATE OF ARIZONA IS, BY COMPARISON, A MERE 1 MILE (1.6 KMS) DEEP BUT 217 MILES (347 KMS) LONG WITH A WIDTH OF BETWEEN 4 AND 12 MILES. SCIENTISTS FOUND THAT THE CANYON, LOCATED IN THE HIMALAYAN RANGE, AVERAGES 5,000 METERS IN DEPTH, WITH THE DEEPEST SECTION REACHING 5,382 METERS.” (4)

19. “IT IS IN THE ‘GREAT BEND’ THAT CHINA IS PLANNING ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANR COMPONENTS OF THE ‘WESTERN ROUTE DIVERSION SCHEME’. THIS PHARONIC PROJECT IS PERHAPS THE MOST MIND-BOGGLING PART OF ‘THE NATIONAL STRATEGY TO DIVERT WATER FROM RIVERS IN THE SOUTH AND WEST TO ROUGHT-STRICKEN NORTHERN AREAS.”

“THE PROJECT”.

20. “The Tsangpo Project will have two components: ‘ONE WILL BE THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST HYDRO-ELECTRIC PLANT THAT WOULD GENERATE TWICE THE ELECTRICITY PRODUCED BY THE THREE GORGES DAM. TODAY, THE BIGGEST POWER STATION IN THE WORLD IS LOCATED IN ITAIPU IN BRAZIL: IT HAS A TOTAL INSTALLED CAPACITY OF 12,600 MEGAWATTS. THE THREE GORGES DAM ON THE YANGTZE RIVER(STILL INCOMPLETED) WILL HAVE A 18,200 MEGAWATTS CAPACITY. THE HYDROELECTRIC PLANT ON THE ‘GREAT BEND OF THE YARLUNG TSANGPO’ WILL DWARF ALL THESE PROJECTS WITH A PLANNED CAPACITY OF 40,000 MEGAWATTS.”

21. “The second component of the Project will be the diversion of the waters of the Tsangpo which will be pumped Northward across hundreds of kilometers of mountainous regions to China’s Northwestern provinces of Xinjiang and Gansu.”

22. “For the Chinese leaders, it is enough to know that the Tsangpo river tumbles down over 3,000 meters in less than 200 kms. This gives the gorge one of the greatest hydropower potentials available in the world. This is the stuff which makes Beijing leaders dream.”

23. “For the Tibetans, it is one of the most pristine regions of their country. They consider the area around the ‘BEND’ as the home of the GODDESS DORJEE PAGMO, (5), Tibet’s ‘PROTECTING DEITY’. Many believe that this place, locally known as Pemako is the sacred realm often referred to in their scriptures: THE LAST HIDDEN SHANGRILA.”

24. “FOR SOUTH ASIA AND MORE PARTICULARLY FOR INDIA, THE ENORMITY OF THE SCHEME WITH ITS PROXIMITY TO THE INDIAN BORDER CANNOT BE IGNORED. IT IS NOT ONLY THE SHEER SIZE OF THE PROJECT WHICH HAS TO BE CONSIDERED, BUT THE FACT THAT IF ACCOMPLISHED, IT WILL HAVE OMINOUS CONSEQUENCES FOR MILLIONS OF PEOPLE DOWNSTREAM. THEIR BASIC NEED FOR WATER AND THEIR VERY SURVIVAL WOULD BE ENDANGERED.”

REFERENCES

(4) TIBET WORLD NEWS (4 MAY 1994), CHINA CLAIMS TIBETAN CANYON IS LARGEST.

(4) IN ENGLISH: THE DIAMOND SOW.
“HISTORY OF THE PROJECT”

25. “The Project was reported in the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN in June 1996. This Article gave credence to the Chinese plans. The journal wrote: ‘RECENTLY SOME CHINESE ENGINEERS PROPOSED DIVERTING WATERS INTO THIS ARID AREA (GOBI) DESERT FROM THE MIGHTY BRAHMAPUTRA RIVER, WHICH SKIRTS CHINA’S SOUTHERN BORDER BEFORE DIPPING INTO INDIA AND BANGLADESH. SUCH A FEAT WOULD BE ‘IMPOSSIBLE’ WITH ‘CONVENTIONAL METHODS’, ENGINEERS STATED AT A MEETING HELD LAST DECEMBER AT THE CHINESE ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING PHYSICS IN BEIJING’. But they added that ‘WE CAN CERTAINLY ACCOMPLISH THIS PROJECT WITH NUCLEAR EXPLOSIVES’.”

26. “ The journal continued: ‘THIS STATEMENT IS JUST ONE OF THE MANY LATELY IN WHICH CHINESE TECHNOLOGISTS AND OFFICIALS HAVE TOUTED THE POTENTIAL OF NUCLEAR BLASTS FOR CARRYING OUT NON-MILITARY GOALS’.”

27. “It is said that one of the reasons for China’s refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was because of their desire to keep the possibility of experimenting with what is called PNE (PEACEFUL NUCLEAR EXPLOSION). The Chinese argument was: ‘WHY SHOULD PROMISING AND POTENTIALLY USEFUL TECHNOLOGY BE ABANDONED’.”(6)

28. “In the following months, more publicity was given to the dam as well as the diversion proposals. In September 1997, AGENCE FRANCE PRESS in Beijing (7) reported: ‘THREE EXPERTS PROPOSE CONSTRUCTION OF GIANT DAM IN TIBET.’ It stated: ‘AFTER A LONG EXPERIENCE OF EXPLORATION ON THE SITE, WE BELIEVE THAT THE PROJECT COULD BEGIN TO BE INCLUDED IN THE AGENDA OF THE CONCERNED DEPARTMENT’.”

29. “The Project was also mentioned in news briefs in the CHINA DAILY BUSINESS WEEKLY- 21 SEPTEMBER 1997- and the INTERNATIONAL WATER POWER & DAM CONSTRUCTION MONTHLY – NOVEMBER 1997.”

30. “In January 1998, the German T.V. Channel ZDF presented a feature on the Yarlung Tsangpo Project, in a programme entitled ‘DIE WELT’ (THE WORLD). The Chief Planner, Professor Chen Chuanyu was interviewed. HE DESCRIBED THE PLAN TO DRILL A 15 KMS (9.3 MILES) TUNNEL THROUGH THE HIMALAYAS TO DIVERT THE WATER BEFORE THE ‘U-TURN’ AND DIRECT IT TO THE OTHER END OF THE BEND. THIS WOULD SHORTEN THE DISTANCE OF APPROXIMATELY 3,000 METERS ALTITUDE DROP FROM 200 KMS TO JUST 15 KMS. HE EXPLAINED THAT THE HYDROPOWER POTENTIAL OF 40,000 MEGAWATTS COULD BE USED TO PUMP WATER TO NORTHWEST CHINA OVER 800 KMS AWAY.”

31. “In recent years, the Chinese have been more discreet about the Project, although a few reports have continued to come in. The correspondent of THE TELEGRAPH in Beijing wrote in October 2000: ‘CHINESE LEADERS ARE DRAWING UP PLANS TO USE NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS, IN BREACH OF THE INTERNATIONAL TEST-BAN TREATY, TO BLAST A TUNNEL THROUGH THE HIMALAYAS FOR THE WORLD’S BIGGEST HYDROELECTRIC PLANT’.”

32. “According to the London paper, THE COST OF DRILLING THE TUNNEL THROUGH MT. NAMCHA BARWA APPEARS LIKELY TO SURPASS (POUND STERLING) 10 BILLION. The Article gives further details: ‘AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TUNNEL, THE WATER WILL FLOW INTO A NEW RESERVOIR AND THEN BE DIVERTED ALONG MORE THAN 500 MILES OF THE TIBETAN PLATEAU TO THE VAST, ARID AREAS OF XINJIANG REGION AND THE GANSU PROVINCE. BEIJING WANTS TO USE LARGE QUANTITIES OF THE PLENTIFUL WATERS OF THE SOUTH-WEST TO TOP UP THE YELLOW RIVER BASIN AND ASSUAGE MOUNTING DISCONTENT OVER WATER SHORTAGES IN 600 CITIES IN NORTHERN CHINA’.”(8)

33. “However, it seems that the proposal has drawn flak from several Chinese scientists. Yang Yong, a geologist who had explored the river, stated that the dam could become an embarrassing white elephant amid growing signs that the volume of water flowing in the Yarlung Tsangpo could shrink over the years.”

34. “But in 2000, before becoming Premier Wen Jiabao had declared: ‘IN THE 21ST CENTURY, THE CONSTRUCTION OF LARGE DAMS WILL PLAY A KEY ROLE IN EXPLOITING CHINA’S WATER RESOURCES, CONTROLLING FLOODS AND DROUGHTS, AND PUSHING THE NATIONAL ECONOMY AND THE COUNTRY’S MODERNIZING FORWARD.”(9)

“THE SECOND COMPONENT”

35. “The second component of the plan is a massive diversion of the river to China’s North West. THIS WOULD HAVE EVEN MORE DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES. NORTH INDIA AND BANGLADESH WOULD BE STARVED OF THEIR LIFE-LINE. NUTRIENT-RICH SEDIMENTS THAT ENRICH THE SOILS OF THESE REGIONS WOULD BE HELD BACK IN THE RESERVOIR. WITH NO MORE WATER REACHING THE RIVER’S DELTA, MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WOULD BE AFFECTED. ‘A WATER WAR COULD ENSUE’.”

36. “Last and perhaps most serious: ‘THE GREAT BEND IS LOCATED IN A HIGHLY EARTHQUAKE PRONE AREA. A HUGE RESERVOIR AND A FEW NEPs COULD PROVOKE NEW EARTHQUAKES EVEN MORE SERIOUS THAN THE ONE IN AUGUST 1950. ‘WILL MEN BE WISE TO LEARN FROM THE PAST AND STUDY NATURE’S LIMITS AND REACTIONS BEFORE WANTING TO ALTER HER’?”

REFERENCES

(6) CHINA FINALLY SIGNED THE CTBT IN SEPTEMBER 1996 BUT NEVER RATIFIED THE TREATY WHICH MEANS THAT BEIJING IS STILL KEEPING A DOOR OPEN FOR USING PNEs.

(7) TIBET 2000- ‘ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT ISSUES. (DHARAMSALA, DIIR, 2000)

(8) ‘THE TELEGRAPH’, LONDON (22 OCTOBER 2000). ‘CHINA PLANNING NUCLEAR BLASTS TO BUILD GIANT HYDRO PROJECT, by DAMIEN McELROY in BEIJING.

(9) ibid.
“THE ARUNACHAL FLOODS”.

37. An event which occurred in June 2000 could be an illustration at a ‘VERY REDUCED SCALE’ OF WHAT COULD HAPPEN IF THE TSANGPO PROJECT IS ONE DAY COMPLETED. ‘AT THAT TIME, THE BREACH OF A NATURAL DAM IN TIBET LED TO SEVERE FLOODS AND LEFT OVER A HUNDRED PEOPLE DEAD OR MISSING IN ARUNACHAL PRADESH. IT IS NOT DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND THAT AREAS DOWNSTREAM IN ARUNACHAL OR ASSAM ARE EXTREMELY VULNERABLE TO WHAT TAKES PLACE UPSTREAM IN TIBET. At the time of the incident Rediff.com reported: ‘ALTHOUGH NEWS OF FLOODS IN DISTANT NORTH-EAST MAY NOT BE HOT FOR DELHI, THE FLASH FLOODS THAT HIT THE BORDER STATE OF ARUNACHAL PRADESH IN JUNE HAS MADE OFFICIALS AT THE CENTRAL WATER COMMISSION AND THE MWR (10) SIT UP AND TAKE NOTICE. AS OFFICIALS POUR OVER THE TECHNICAL DATA, A NEW DIMENSION THAT THE CHINESE ARMY IN TIBET, AS PART OF AN EXPERIMENT, MAY HAVE DELIBERATELY BLASTED THE DAM HAS BEEN ADDED TO THE ALREADY HAZY PICTURE’.”

38. “According to Nabam Rebia, Member of Parliament from Arunachal Pradesh, puzzled by the nature of the floods and the equally mysterious response of China, the Government of India’s remote sensing agency hired a Canadian satellite to take a close look at the scene of the breach. Top officials who confirmed this said: ‘ALL THE TECHNICAL DETAILS AND PICTURES FROM THE AREA ARE WITH US NOW AND CONFIRM THAT A BREACH HAD TAKEN PLACE ON A DAM ON THE RIVER TSANGPO LEADING TO FLASH FLOODS IN THE NORTH-EASTERN REGION. ACCORDING TO THE OFFICIAL, WHO HAD SEEN THE TECHNICAL DATA, THE FLASH FLOOD OCCURRED BECAUSE OF A BREACH IN A DAM LOCATED IN AN AREA PINPOINTED AS LATITUDE 30.15 DEGREES NORTH BY 94.50 DEGREES EAST, WHICH FALLS IN CHINA CONTROLLED TIBET’.”

39. “A few weeks later, a similar mishap took place on the other end of the Himalayas. ‘THE TRIBUNE’ in Chandigarh reported this strange event (11): ‘EVEN THREE DAYS AFTER THE DISASTER, THE MYSTERY FLASH FLOODS IN THE SUTLEJ, WHICH WRECKED HAVOC ALONG IYS 200 KMS LENGTH IN THE STATE, REMAINS UNRESOLVED’. It added: ‘EXPERTS ARE AT A LOSS TO UNDERSTAND WHERE THE HUGE MASS OF WATER CAME FROM’.”

40. “A detailed study carried out a few months later by ISRO scientists confirmed that the release of excess water accumulated in the Sutlej and the Siang river (THE TSANGPO) basins in Tibet had led to flooding. Nearly a year later, the weekly INDIA TODAY commented (12): ‘WHILE THE SATELLITE IMAGES REMAIN CLASSIFIED, OFFICIALS OF THE MINISTRY OF WATER RESOURCES INDICATE THAT THESE PICTURES SHOW THE PRESENCE OF HUGE WATER BODIES OR LAKES UPSTREAM IN SUTLEJ AND SIANG RIVER BASINS BEFORE THE FLASH FLOODS TOOK PLACE. HOWEVER, THESE LAKES DISAPPEARED SOON AFTER THE DISASTER STRUCK INDIAN TERRITORY. THIS PROBABLY MEANS THAT THE CHINESE HAD BREACHED THESE WATER BODIES AS A RESULT OF WHICH LAKHS OF CUSECS OF WATER WERE RELEASED INTO THE SUTLEJ AND SIANG RIVER BASINS’.”

REFERENCES

(10) MINISTRY OF WATER RESOURCES.

(11) ‘THE TRIBUNE’- ‘FLOOD STARTED IN TIBET?’, 04 AUGUST 2000.

(12) ‘INDIA TODAY’, ‘MADE IN CHINA’, 25 JUNE 2001
“THE IMPLICATIONS”.

41. “The construction of the multi-billion dollar project is tentatively scheduled to begin in 2009, the year the THREE GORGES DAM is supposed to be completed.”

“FOR TIBET AND THE SURROUNDING AREAS”

42. “A reservoir of a 40,000 MEGAWATTS capacity dam would create a ‘HUGE ARTIFICIAL LAKE’ inundating vast areas of virgin forest within the canyon and beyond. The reservoir would stretch hundreds of kilometers upstream from the Yarlung Tsangpo into the Kongpo region. Rare species of flora and fauna will be lost for scientific study. The Chinese authorities themselves admit that the canyon is home to more than 60% of the biological resources on the Tibatan plateau.”

43. “Although the population in the canyon is rather small, the indigenous people would suffer great hardship and be forced to leave their ancestral lands. It may not be a problem for Beijing which has ‘resettled’ more than one million Chinese Hans since the beginning of the construction of the THREE GORGES DAM, but for the Tibetans, it would mean the loss of a last sacred place and the home of their PROTECTING DEITY. Furthermore, Tibetans would not benefit in any way from the power produced by the hydroelectric plant, as it would be sold to China’s southern neighbours or used to send the water upstream to Northwestern China.”

44. “Additionally, the water diversion scheme is likely to be a highly inefficient and wasteful exercise with billions of cubic meters of water being lost to evaporation, leakage, percolation etc., through the 800 KMS-long canala and aqueducts.”

45. “If the project comes to fruition, Tibet and the world would have lost this virgin region and its canyon, A GREAT BOTANICAL TREASURE HERITAGE.”

46. “The potential use of nuclear devices to create tunnels for the project raises further serious concerns about the environmental impacts of such a project for the region and those living downstream. There will also be a great danger of ‘SENDING CONTAMINATED WATERS’ to Northwestern China. THIS IS PERHAPS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT SIDE-EFFECTS, NOT YET ADDRESSED BY THE CHINESE SCIENTISTS.”

“FOR SOUTH ASIA.”

47. “India and Bangladesh WOULD BE AT THE MERCY OF CHINA BOTH FOR ADEQUATE RELEASE OF WATER DURING THE DRY SEASON, AS WELL AS FOR PROTECTION FROM FLOODS DURING THE RAINY SEASON. INDIA KNOWS FROM ITS OWN INTERNAL PROBLEMS HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO SOLVE A WATER DISPUTE. WHEN IT COMES TO A TRANS-BOUNDARY QUESTION (WHERE THE FRONTIER IS NOT EVEN AGREED UPON), IT SEEMS PRACTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND A WORKABLE UNDERSTANDING.”

48. “Precipitation in North India (particularly Assam) and Bangladesh is very high (80%) during the four monsoon months (between June to September), and low (20%) during the remaining eight months. China seeing her own interests, could withhold water for power generation and irrigation during the dry season and release water during the flood season with catastrophic consequences for Eastern South Asia.”
“THE SITUATION TODAY”.

49. “In June 2003, the Indian Prime Minister spent 6 days in China. On his return, everyone clapped. It would seem that at last the past could be left behind and a new era begun for the two Asian giants. Analysts thought that the old dream of Nehru, ‘A TRUE HINDI-CHINI BHAI BHAI’, could finally manifest. The ancient ideologues of the ‘LONG MARCH’ were dead and gone; a Fourth Generation of young, pragmatic and dynamic leaders had taken over. One could finally speak business.”

50. “The Prime Minister was only just back, WHEN THE NEWS OF CHINESE INTRUSIONS ON INDIAN SOIL WAS FLASHED BY THE INDIAN PRESS. Such an embarrassment for the MEA’s officers who had worked for months to draft a ‘PANCHSHEEL’ type of declaration! Once again, LIKE 45 YEARS AGO, THE FIVE PRINCIPLES HAD BEEN VIOLATED.”

51. “Everything couls still have passed off without too much fuss. The MEA could have handled the situation ‘diplomatically’. But the unfortunate happened: the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman declared: ‘CHINA DOES NOT RECOGNIZE THE SO-CALLED ARUNACHAL PRADESH MENTIONED BY THE INDIAN NEWSPAPER REPORT’.”

52. “A weak Indian External Affairs Ministry could only feebly respond that the GOI was aware of the ‘transgression’ of the LAC by a Chinese patrol.”

53. “Perhaps the ‘Arunachal’ annoncement was a diplomatic diversion to hide a far more serious matter for India: THE TSANGPO PROJECT. On 17 JULY 2003, the ‘PEOPLE’S DAILY’ had published a small item, ‘CHINA TO CONDUCT FEASIBILITY STUDY ON HYDROPOWER PROJECT IN TIBET’. It ran thus: ‘CHINA PLANS TO CONDUCT A FEASIBILITY STUDY IN OCTOBER ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MAJOR HYDROPOWER PROJECT ON THE YARLUNG TSANGPO RIVER, IN THE TIBET AUTONOMOUS REGION- - -, AN EXPERT TEAM WAS SENT TO THE AREA FOR PRELIMENARY WORK BETWEEN LATE JUNE AND EARLY JULY. THE CHINESE SECTION OF THE RIVER, 2,057 KMS LONG, BOASTS A WATER ENERGY RESERVE OF ABOUT 100 MILLION KILOWATTS, OR ONE SIXTH OF THE COUNTRY’S TOTAL, RANKING SECOND BEHIND THE YANGTZE RIVER. THE LOCATION FOR THE POSSIBLE HYDROPOWER PLANT IS THE ‘U-SHAPED TURN’ OF THE RIVER IN THE SOUTHEASTERN PART OF TIBET. THE RIVER DROPS BY 2,755 METERS IN THE 500 KILOMETER-LONG ‘U-SECTION’.”

54. “THE CAT IS OUT OF THE BAG, THOUGH VERY FEW PEOPLE HAVE NOTICED IT.”

“CONCLUSIONS.”

55. “Today, it is clear that these questions do not pertain to environment alone, but also to international security. If BEIJING WAS TO GO AHEAD WITH THE TSANGPO PROJECT, IT WOULD MEAN PRACTICALLY A DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST SOUTH ASIA.”

56. “The only solution seems to lie in bringing the matter to the negotiating table. If a river-water Treaty could be signed between India and Pakistan in the early sixties, can a similar agreement not be made between China, India and Bangladesh, in order to assure a decent life for all in the region?”

57. “BUT DO BUREAUCRATS AND POLITICIANS WHO HAVE NO LONG-TERM VIEW EVEN WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE PROBLEM? THAT IS THE BILLION DOLLAR QUESTION.”

(CONCLUDED)

POSTSCRIPT by Capt. Balakrishnan (1 April 2008).

With respect to Para 51 above, one would do well to bear in mind what the famous historian, Dr. R.C.Majumdar had to write about the Chinese: “THERE IS, HOWEVER ONE ASPECT OF CHINESE CULTURE THAT IS LITTLE KNOWN OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE OF PROFESSIONAL HISTORIANS. IT IS THE AGGRESSIVE IMPERIALISM THAT CHARACTERISED THE POLITICS OF CHINA THROUGOUT THE COURSE OF HER HISTORY, AT LEAST DURING THE PART OF WHICH IS WELL KNOWN TO US. THANKS TO THE SYSTEMATIC RECORDING OF HISTORICAL FACTS BY CHINESE THEMSELVES, AN ALMOST UNIQUE ACHEIVEMENT IN ORIENTAL COUNTRIES- - - WE (HISTORIANS) ARE IN POSITION TO FOLLOW THE IMPERIAL AND AGGRESSIVE POLICY OF CHINA FROM THE THIRD CENTURY B.C. TO THE PRESENT DAY, A PERIOD OF MORE THAN TWENTY-TWO HUNDRED YEARS- - -. IT IS CHARACTERISTIC OF CHINA THAT IF A REGION ONCE ACKNOWLEDGED HER NOMINAL SUZERAINTY EVEN FOR A SHORT PERIOD, SHE SHOULD REGARD IT AS A PART OF HER EMPIRE FOR EVER AND WOULD AUTOMATICALLY REVIVE HER CLAIM OVER IT EVEN AFTER A THOUSAND YEARS WHENEVER THERE WAS A CHANCE OF ENFORCING IT.”

AND OF COURSE, THE STUDENTS WING OF OUR ‘RED COMRADES’- THE STUDENTS FEDERATION OF INDIA (SFI)- AT THE J.N.U. VOTED FOR THE CHINESE STATEMENT AT PARA 51 ABOVE IN DECEMBER 2004!!!

Cadres desert CPM. It is time now to destroy CPM.

CPM admits it's plagued by desertion
1 Apr 2008, 0307 hrs IST,Akshaya Mukul,TNN

ANIL BISWAS NAGAR (COIMBATORE): CPM's two-part political organization report is a clear admission that despite its rising clout, the party is plagued by increasing dropouts, especially in Kerala, erosion of traditional communist value system and problems in getting whole-timers.

The newly-introduced section on the experience of Left-ruled states, for the first time, spells out two different principles of governance for West Bengal and Kerala. Though the document criticizes handling of Nandigram by the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government, it still approves of industrialization in the state but with a cautious approach on land acquisition and incentives to business houses. Also, it wants the state government to tell the people that such investments would not solve the basic problem. However, the party suggests that Kerala should stress on agriculture and strengthen public sector enterprises.

The comprehensive report, accessed by TOI, also admits that party membership among minorities has come down by 10.22%. In West Bengal, there is a marginal decline in membership from 14.9% in 2005 to 14.6%. Membership of women is 11.93% but the report asks state committees of eight states — UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, J&K, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh — with less than 10% women members to take appropriate action to increase their presence in the party. For instance, Bihar has only 3.65% women members, Chhattisgarh 7.66% and UP 8.88%.

The document seeks to enforce stricter guidelines for whole-timers and a more stringent method of giving out memberships. "It is the quality of party members that reflected in Nandigram. Lately, the quality of members has come down. There is no point increasing the membership tally without ensuring quality," a senior leader from West Bengal said.

The document also deals with growing factionalism in the party, especially in Kerala, and attributes it to reasons like inability of cadres and senior leadership to settle grievances within established party forums. The tendency to speak to media out of turn has been criticized.

The party congress is likely to reinforce a well-laid principle of discipline for cadre in general and senior leadership in particular. Nandigram has become a reference point in the document, as the party admits what happened there has become a "weapon in anti-CPM propaganda".

Therefore, the document says the state government should take into consideration all concerns and then adopt a suitable policy.

In an indirect way, the document admits that taking two different lines in Delhi and Kolkata would not help. Instead, the state government should be conscious that its policy could have an impact on the party line throughout the country.

When it comes to specifics, the document says largescale land acquisition should not be resorted to and again refers to the Nandigram experience and "political and administrative mistakes" made by the state government. Also, it says private investors should not be loaded with too many concessions.

On dropouts, the document says the national average is 7.5% in case of whole-timers. Interestingly, in West Bengal, the dropout rate is merely 3.5% but in Kerala, where there is a five-yearly cycle of Congress and Left rule, more than 10% dropout has been noticed. Tamil Nadu has a dropout rate of more than 16%. In states where the party has meagre presence, the drop-out rate is shocking.

"Kerala should learn from West Bengal. Despite more than 30 years in power, Bengal comrades have never made a public display of their grievances. High dropout rate means largescale factionalism, like what we are facing in Kerala," a senior leader said.

But the document is clear that there will be no dilution in norms for whole-timers.

akshaya.mukul@timesgroup.com

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/CPM_admits_its_plagued_by_desertion/articleshow/2915560.cms

One reason why China should be forced out of Tibet: China's evil designs on Brahmaputra

One reason why China should be forced out of Tibet: China's evil designs on Brahmaputra waters

If China touches Brahmaputra waters, India should declare all-out war on the imperialist China. Now, people should know why China annexed Free Tibet in 1950. Let us hope that there are patriotic Indians who will not countenance another stab in the back after Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai. It is shocking that CPM should be supporting China in the ongoing genocide in Tibet, couched as 'people's war'. Who are the people at war?

kalyan
Brahmaputra jitters from China project
OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT (Kolkata, Telegraph, 31 March 2008)

New Delhi, March 30: Hints have emerged from China that it may be gearing for a project on the Brahmaputra that threatens drought in India’s Northeast, environment experts and Indian officials claim.

Delhi, however, has decided to ignore the developments and instead volunteered to pay Beijing for help in avoiding floods in the region, government sources here said.

China, despite official disclaimers, has long been suspected of planning to divert the waters of the Brahmaputra — which originates in southwest Tibet as the Yarlung Zangbo or Tsangpo —to its thirsty northwest.

Experts have warned that such a project could trigger an ecological disaster in India’s Northeast and Bangladesh.

In recent weeks, a flood of technical articles has appeared in China backing the diversion plan, indicating Beijing is setting the stage for the project, Indian officials said. They said the Chinese government had also built an airstrip on the river’s banks close to a potential diversion point where a dam could come up.

Himanshu Thakkar of South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People, an NGO, said the Chinese project could divert 200 billion cubic metres of water annually to the Yellow River, leaving Assam dry during the lean season.

However, the Union water resources ministry secretary, Umesh Narayan Panjiar, said: “There are no concrete developments. We are watching.”

Other government sources said from all indications, Delhi had no plans to respond till detailed project reports came out in China. “Then it could be too late,” an official said.

The Centre has not carried out any study on the possible magnitude of the impact of a Chinese diversion project, or worked out a contingency plan for Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, the states that would be hit the worst.

Delhi, however, is happy that Beijing has agreed to add two more monitoring stations to its array of three on the Tsangpo/Brahmaputra to forewarn against floods. India has decided to fund the maintenance of the two new stations. China shares weather forecast data from its three existing stations with India.

“They have not asked for money, but at least one of the stations is in a very remote area, so we don’t mind paying for maintenance. It’s a goodwill gesture,” an official said.

Some like the Asom Gana Parishad MP from Assam’s Lakhimpur, Arun Sarma, feel that the government knows something about the Chinese plans but has been “covering it up”. He had asked water resources minister Saifuddin Soz for a clarification but the answer did not satisfy him.

In his reply on December 17, 2007, Soz had quoted a Chinese spokesperson telling a PTI correspondent that Beijing had no plans to divert the Brahmaputra’s waters.

http://telegraphindia.com/1080331/jsp/frontpage/story_9076974.jsp

CPM backs China on Tibet; slams BJP/NDA

Krishnakumar P in Coimbatore | March 31, 2008 | 19:03 IST


Backing the United Progressive Alliance government over its stand on Tibet, the Communist Party of India-Marxist on Monday said the Bharatiya Janata Party is trying to spoil India-China relations by criticising the government's stand.


"Not just now, for a long time, India has had the position that Tibet is an integral part of China. India has never recognised it as a separate country," CPM general secretary Prakash Karat said on Monday, the third day of the party's ongoing 19th Congress in Coimbatore.


"These are moves - not only regarding China - by the Western powers, who believe that national sovereignty can be amended or abridged using the framework of human rights and ethnicity," Karat said, stressing that the CPM is against separatism in any part of the world. "Those who play into the hands of such powers will be doing a disservice to our own nation, which too faces a lot of separatist claims," he said.


The BJP had said the UPA government was kowtowing to the Chinese government by keeping quiet on the Tibet issue. 'It is shameful that the government, instead of expressing concern over the use of force by the Chinese government, is adopting a policy of blatant appeasement towards China with scant regard to the country's national honour and foreign policy independence,' the BJP had said.


NDA convenor George Fernandes had also called China potential enemy no. 1. Saying that the BJP was bent on using the Tibet issue for anti-China propaganda, Karat said Tibet is an internal issue of China, which will have to be solved by discussions within the agreed framework of that country.


Asked about the manner in which the Indian ambassador to China was summoned by the Chinese government to voice its concern about Tibet, Karat said it was a diplomatic issue and that the Indian government can very well express regret to the manner in which its ambassador was treated through proper diplomatic channels.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
URL for this article:
http://www.rediff.com///news/2008/mar/31tibetrow3.htm

Just 58% in CPM-ruled state can vote

http://in.news.yahoo.com/indianexpress/20080327/r_t_ie_nl_general/tnl-just-58-pc-in-bengal-can-vote-aaaedd4_1.html?printer=1




Just 58 pc in Bengal can vote
Express news serviceThu, Mar 27 04:13 AM

If the Election Commission's figures are to be believed, just 58 per cent of West Bengal's population has voting rights, nine per cent below the national average of 67 per cent.

Chief Electoral Officer Debasis Sen said: "In fact, the EC cannot interpret this data. I have asked local authorities to check if the computation has gone wrong anywhere." EC sources said their men were trying to single out booths where there could be discrepancies.

An official of the State Election Commission said nearly 48 lakh eligible people in West Bengal had no voting rights. He said, "The total figure will rise to 5.52 crore if the electoral rolls are properly revised."

The Opposition has for long alleged that CPI(M) cadres had forcibly kept away those supporting other parties from the electoral rolls. "We have said this before. If the electoral rolls had presented a true picture of the state's voters, then election results would have been different," claimed Leader of the Opposition Partha Chatterjee.

Another reason for the low voter strength could be the fact that it has become tougher for Bangladeshi infiltrators to enroll themselves.

On the Opposition's allegations, Sen said, "I have provided you with hard data. Now it is up to you to interpret it. I can only revise the list."

Internally haemorrhaging CPM

http://www.newsinsight.net/archivedebates/nat2.asp?recno=1659

C O M M E N T A R Y

Red peril - 1

[As strong as the CPI-M appears, it is internally haemorrhaging, says D.N.Ray. Part 1.]

20 March 2008: Scaring the Manmohan Singh government from signing the Indo-US nuclear deal, and fresh from an election victory in Tripura, the Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPI-M) would appear never to have been stronger. But beset by leadership struggles, pulled apart by regional differences, and ideologically confused and moribund, the CPI-M, in fact, faces a bleak future. While Prakash Karat, the CPI-M’s general secretary, controls the party, he is not necessarily leading it.

In opposing the nuclear deal more stridently than his chief rival in the party, Sitaram Yechury, and such detractors as Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the West Bengal chief minister, and Jyoti Basu, Karat has won support of the hard-line majority in the CPI-M. But on economic issues, that form the base in Marx’s theoretical superstructure, Karat has compromised, although his supporters blame Yechury, who has an economics degree and handles the party’s economic affairs.

Speaking in Cuba in 1997 on the future of Socialism, Karat called for “flexibility in the management of the economy and multiplicity of the forms of ownership of property at different stages”. He sought “a fresh look at Marxist theoretical work on economic development. This requires giving up the entrenched notion of public ownership being equated with only State ownership”. He said that “Central Planning as a singular/ centralised model must give way to plans at different levels and the vital element of popular participation.”

Karat was perhaps plagiarizing from Euro-Communists, crushed by the demise of Soviet Russia. But when Karat succeeded Harkishen Singh Surjeet as general secretary in April 2005, the minimum concessions on economic policy he had advocated in Cuba unstoppably maximized, for which Yechury, Buddhadeb and Co have been blamed, and unfairly perhaps.

Although a majority in the CPI-M’s central committee was thought to have opposed the UPA government’s SEZ policy, the party still supported its passage in Parliament. At stake was the West Bengal government’s planned chemical hub in Nandigram, to which only the present Kerala chief minister, V.S.Achutanandan, was ideologically opposed.

When local resistance to the Nandigram SEZ lead to a carnage by police and CPI-M workers, the blame passed solely to Yechury, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Biman Bose, the West Bengal party chief, and Manik Sarkar. The majority in the central committee that had resisted the SEZ policy but not resisted it enough felt that the state violence in Nandigram had blotched the CPI-M’s image. But they should have shown courage to reject the Nandigram SEZ project right in the beginning. On the other hand, Karat has emerged from Nandigram almost blameless, his stand on SEZs unknown, although, as the party chief, he should have taken the rap.

Karat and the CPI-M have been Janus-faced on SEZs, the patents’ issue, and even to an extent on the Indo-US nuclear deal. While enabling the SEZ Act in Parliament and pushing for Nandigram, the CPI-M also kept up pretence of opposing aspects of the policy once SEZs became contentious among farming communities all over the country and politically controversial.

The UPA government only accepted the CPI-M’s demand for a cap on SEZ size, but at the higher end of five thousand hectares, and has retained the tax holiday and concessions to SEZ promoters for ten years. As CPI-M watchers have remarked, the entire opposition of the CPI-M to SEZs seems proforma, procedural rather than substantive, and the party must feel wrenched that strong arm tactics didn’t retrieve Nandigram.

And then, a month before Prakash Karat became general secretary, the CPI-M – not so astonishingly – supported the UPA government to amend the Indian Patents Act for the third time. The amendment permits a drug company to extend a patent to a previously uncovered disorder. When an ordinance was first brought for the amendment in December 2004, The New York Times, usually supportive of drug multinationals, said that it would adversely impact the health of “hundreds of millions of people in India and worldwide…These rules have little to do with free trade and more to do with the lobbying power of the American and European pharmaceutical industries.”

Yet, neither in December, nor months later, Karat blocked the amendment. This was the man who, in 1998, using his clout in the party, obstructed Jyoti Basu from being prime minister, who called this a “historical blunder”. Party leaders say Karat has ceded economic policy decision-making to Sitaram Yechury, which, if true, constitutes a serious demerit in a general secretary, who cannot do his own economics. On the other hand, there are those who say Karat is hoping for Yechury to make mistakes to finish him. Either way, it calls attention to the serious ideological/ personality clashes in the CPI-M that could undermine its politics.

Indeed, such is the “libertinism” in the CPI-M that Jyoti Basu, a veteran of the party’s politburo since 1964, its first politburo, spoke in defence of capitalism. Party insiders say that Basu embarrassed the CPI-M leadership, but it is not clear if it was more embarrassed by ideological opponents like the BJP seizing on his statement and ridiculing the party. Prakash Karat’s attempt to control the damage made Basu look worse and did nothing to redeem the party.

“Com. Jyoti Basu,” said Karat, “has explained (the nature of capitalist development) in West Bengal and the role of the Left Front government on the basis of the perspective of the CPI-M…The CPI (M) knows fully well that in the states where the Left is in government they cannot build socialism, but undertake some alternative policies within the capitalist system….”

http://www.newsinsight.net/archivedebates/nat2.asp?recno=1660

C O M M E N T A R Y

Red peril - 2

[ Anti-Americanism turns the CPI-M against the Indo-US nuclear deal, says D.N.Ray. Part 2.]

22 March 2008: Either of two things can be said about Karat’s defence of Jyoti Basu. One is that this is the party line, and it meshes with what Karat spoke in Cuba in 1997 on the future of Socialism. In which case, Karat is in sync with Yechury and Co on everything or most everything from patents to SEZs to reaching an accommodation with capitalism. Or, Karat finds himself limited on economics, or has deep differences with Yechury et al’s economic policies, but either to preserve party unity, or since he finds himself infirm, lets them prevail. That would mean Karat is not a powerful general secretary, as sometimes portrayed, or, the party is divided on economic policy, and that Karat is provisionally managing the contradictions. In that course, a split in the CPI-M cannot be ruled out, with the liberal Right and conservative Left sections pulling apart.

Part of the reason for Prakash Karat’s hard-nosed opposition to the Indo-US nuclear deal is that it keeps a party divided on economics someway together on politics, or, at any rate, a strategic issue. It also serves the CPI-M’s political objective of wooing the Muslim minority by demonstrating that it alone prevents the Congress-led UPA government from operationalizing the nuclear deal with the United States. This way, in the competition to woo Muslim votes, the CPI-M attempts to trump the Congress. And simultaneously, it adheres to its often declared objective of keeping the UPA in power to shut out the BJP.

But even as the CPI-M rejects the Indo-US nuclear deal, it has, on principle, no quarrel with the central American objective of seeing India stripped of its strategic weapons. The CPI-M did not support the Indian nuclear test of May 1998. It holds that India’s unilateral moratorium on testing is a step in the right direction. “The CPI-M believes,” said a party insider, “that developing a nuclear arsenal is a futile exercise. It believes that the nuclear race in the sub-continent has given the US scope to intervene much more effectively than ever.”

With the US in decline in an increasingly multipolar world, its need for India outweighs any advantage to be got by playing Pakistan against it. Also, in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, Mrs Indira Gandhi reached the exact opposite of the CPI-M’s conviction, that a nuclear deterrent alone would prevent US excesses against India. It is this conviction that spurred Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and presently propels Al-Khamenei’s Iran to seek nuclear weapons. Besides, India faces the greatest strategic threat from China, which claims Indian territories and provoked a war in 1962, and that threat can only be met with nuclear weapons. The CPI-M has never been able to tell why it is okay for China (or, for that matter, the other great powers) to possess nuclear weapons but not India.

Be that as it may, the CPI-M opposes the nuclear deal guided by its anti-Americanism, which, in turn, is fuelled by its desperation to adhere to some political ideology, having sold out on economic policy. While the CPI-M has compromised much under Prakash Karat, anti-imperialism remains his last hope for himself and for the party.

In February when he visited China, the prime minister, Manmohan Singh’s advisors told him that in case the Chinese supported the nuclear deal, the CPI-M would surely fall in line. The Chinese did no such thing. But even if they had, the CPI-M would not have played along. While the Communist Party of India split two years after the 1962 Chinese aggression and a pro-China CPI-M emerged, its principal leaders, E.M.S.Namboodiripad, Jyoti Basu and Harkishen Singh Surjeet, were not hard line pro-Chinese. Then, within a few years, the Chinese Communists served a deathly blow to the CPI-M by supporting its splinter group, the Naxalites.

In consequence, the CPI-M became equidistant from both the Soviet Union and China. But the demise of the Soviet Union prompted anxieties about the US as the sole superpower. The CPI-M sees China as a counter to the US, which is why it seeks a level playground for Chinese investments in India. If not China, it certainly wants India in the company of the BRIC states, that is Brazil, Russia and China. On the other hand, if China supports the nuclear deal with the US, that would be akin to two enemies coming together, and it would doubtlessly repel away the CPI-M. “What have we to do with China?” Prakash Karat asked this writer. “We will not support the deal even if China supports it.”

Manmohan Singh’s problem is that he has not understood the desperation of Prakash Karat and the CPI-M’s anti-Americanism. But Manmohan Singh is a time server. After the 2009 elections, he will be forgotten, if he is not selected a second time as PM. Prakash Karat, on the other hand, is battling a crisis in the CPI-M that he won’t admit of. His laudable opposition to the nuclear deal for all the wrong reasons symbolizes not strength but the growing evisceration of the CPI-M.

[ D.N.Ray is a veteran CPI-M watcher.]

CPM reign of terror

CPM reign of terror

V SUNDARAM | Mon, 17 Mar, 2008 , 03:15 PM
.
All the battered, shattered and terrorised Hindus of India should rally behind Mohan Bhagwat Ji who has heroically spoken against Communist State-sponsored, State-directed, State-controlled, State-supervised and State-coordinated Hindu Genocide in Kannur district and many other parts of Kerala today.

According to RSS estimates, 125 of its members have lost their lives and more than 800 have been badly injured by CPI (M) cadre in the past few years. He has made it clear to the CPI (M) cadres in Kerala that the RSS would not remain quiet and silent when RSS Swayamsevaks and other Hindu volunteers get slaughtered or killed or maimed on a day today basis in Kannur District in Kerala.

http://newstodaynet.com/images/stories/columns/sharpshot/2008-images/1703-1.gif (Editor’s note: This photo, along with several others that of the killings in Kerala that we have in our possession, are gory. Despite its potential to create a macabre sense of revulsion, we carry this sample photo to drive home the state of violence in Kerala today).

Justice V Ramkumar of the Kerala High Court covered himself with everlasting glory when he observed recently during the course of his judicial review in the High Court: ‘The only solution to end the violence in Kannur district seems to be a timely intervention by the Union government by deploying sufficient forces that will not yield to the political or plutocratic clout by those in powers and out of power’.I hope there would be a gubernatorial move to apprise the Central government of the urgent need for a permanent prophylactic action to curb further bloodshed and killings in Kannur district where manslaughter is a competing sport.

Justice V Ramkumar made these observations while ordering an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the murder of Muhammed Fasal, a National Development Front (NDF) worker in Thalassery. The petitioner, Mariyu, alleged that her husband was murdered by Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) activists because he had defected to the NDF from the party.

The Kerala High Court said that there had not been any intelligent investigation into the case. The court observed that ‘all-party peace missions are nothing but a hoax to hoodwink the fickle-minded public.’ Past lessons only showed that restoration of peace and harmony was only ‘an evanescent episode invariably followed by a history of repeated violence and vindictive vandalism.’ No serious concern appears to have been shown to this man-made holocaust in which the breadwinners of several families had been ‘slain to death, driving the widows and children literally to the streets. Kannur district, particularly Thalassery, has, over the years, become the hotbed of political violence and carnage of the worst order. All political parties there seem to freely indulge in the cult of violence.’

It is a fact that the large- scale killing of Hindu office-bearers and members belonging to the BJP, RSS, Vishuva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and other Hindu outfits in Kerala is being carefully directed by the CPI (M) politburo in New Delhi. The political murderers from the CPI (M) ideologically behind the Hindu genocide in Kerala can be named in this order - Chief Minister Achudhanandam, Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, Kerala CPI (M) secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, Prakash Karat, Yechury, Brinda Karat. All of them seem to think that they can put Stalin’s record of planned purges in Russia in the 1920s, 1930s and above all Mao Tse Tung’s massive programme of guided genocide in China in the 1950s and 1960s to everlasting shame.

President of the Janata Party, former Union Minister of Law and Commerce and fighter for several worthy public causes Dr. Subramanian Swamy told me during the course of my recent interview with him: ‘Let the anti-Hindu forces from Sonia Congress and CPI (M) know that the time has come when they can no longer take for granted that the RSS, VHP and other cadres belonging to Hindu outfits and Hindu organisations will remain mute and peacefully silent allowing themselves to be killed like helpless cows and goats in an abattoir.’.

When RSS and Hindu volunteers get killed on a daily basis in Kannur District in Kerala, our Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil continues to remain in a state of self-chosen, if not Sonia-driven, pseudo-secular coma. In a shameless manner, he said: ‘Criminal cases will be registered against attackers’.

He did not have the political decency or official rectitude of a Union Home Minister to instruct the government of Kerala that immediate action must be taken against those CPI (M) men who are letting loose a programme of Hindu genocide in Kerala today.

L K Advani, Leader of the Opposition, Lok Sabha, has sought immediate intervention by the Centre to put an end to the unabated violence unleashed by CPM stormtroopers against the BJP / RSS workers in Kerala. Advani has taken up the issue with the Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil.

Five BJP /RSS workers have been hacked to death by the CPM goons since the afternoon of 5 March, 2008. M P Sumesh, a respected RSS worker, was attacked when he emerged out of a hotel in Tellicherry town after having lunch. He has suffered multiple injuries on his legs, hands, face and head. He is in the Intensive Care Unit of Medical College Hospital, Calicut. The following day two more workers Nikhil, a lorry cleaner, and Satyan, a construction worker, were killed in separate incidents. Nikhil was pulled out off his lorry and killed on the spot. Satyan was abducted from his work site and later his body was found with his head severed on a few kilometers away. It appears that CPM has trained its killer squads to kill political opponents in the most barbarous manner so that those differing from CPI (M) are terrified and put to death. In two separate incidents two more workers, Vinayan and Shri Ranjit were attacked and are admitted in Medical College Hospital, Calicut.

There is a continuing reign (Marxist rain!) of terror in Kannur District in Kerala where the CPI (M) cadres are running riot with murder and much worse.
I am giving below some recent instances of violence by CPI (M) cadres.
• 3rd Nov., 2007 – Sherin was attacked at Tellicherry. Suffered grievous injuries on his hands and legs.
• 4th Nov. 2007 – Biju and Jithu were attacked at Tellicherry. Biju has become partially invalid as his legs have become immobile. Due to the injury on his head he is still in hospital. His three fingures of the hand and one of the leg was cut off.
• 5th Nov. 2007 – Shaji, a three wheeler driver was attacked. He has lost his capacity to speak.
• 15th Dec 2007 – Lajeesh, a Mandal Karyvah was attacked and injured in Tellicherry
• 15th Feb 2008 – Ramesh Babu was attacked in Tellicherry. He has injuries on his neck.
• 29th Feb 2008 – Shijith and Satish were attacked in Tellicherry
Such violent incidents have taken place in some other parts of Kerala State as well. On 14 Feb 2008, the house of Sivan, in Alleppey was set fire at midnight with the aim of burning the entire family alive. On 28 Feb 2008, Shri Sanoop, ABVP worker and College Union Chairman of SriKrishna College, Guruvayur was attacked in the college when he was attending the examination. He lost his eye in the attack. Incidentally, this is a College where the SFI doesn’t allow anybody else to file nomination. This year only one candidate filed the nomination and he was elected!

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) at the highest level, after carefully deliberating upon the attack that is being let loose by CPI (M) in Kannur District in Kerala, has condemned the Kerala Government for its failure to protect the lives and property of Hindus in Kerala.

Mohanrao Bhagwat, Sarkaryavah of the RSS, has issued the following statement on the ongoing violence in Kannur District in Kerala:

‘Five RSS activists have been killed and scores grievously injured in renewed attacks by the CPM cadres since 5 March 2008 in the North Kerala district of Kannur. Houses of more than 40 Swayamsevaks have been destroyed in this violence.

‘It is claimed that the Communist Party of Kerala was formed in Pinarayi in Kannur district and the Party considers this district as its bastion. The RSS work was started in 1943 in this district and continued peacefully for more than 25 years. Many CPM workers were attracted to the RSS work and joined in large numbers. However, unable to tolerate its growing strength the CPM resorted to murder politics since 1969. Sri Ramakrishnan, a daily wage earner and the Mukhyashikshak of Thalassery (Vadikkal) who faced the Communist terrorism courageously and started several Shakas in and around Thalassery, became their first victim and was brutally killed in 1969. Mr. Pinarayi Vijayan, present State Secretary of CPM who hails from this District, was one of the main accused in that murder case. The present Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, who also hails from this District, was an accused in the murder of another Swayamsevak Sri Karimbil Satheesan.

‘So far more than 60 Swayamsevaks have been killed by the CPM in this district alone. Even aged women were also not spared. On May 22, 2002 Smt. Ammu Amma (72 years) was killed in a bomb attack by CPI (M) workers while she was returning in a jeep after attending the funeral of a Swayamsevak Sri Uthaman, who was killed in the CPI (M) attack the previous day.
Peace Efforts
‘The RSS had all along welcomed and supported all peace efforts. In order to avoid further violence, the founder of the BMS, Sri Dattopant Thengidi and Sri P. Parameswaran, the Director of Deendayal Research Institute, Delhi had discussions with Communist stalwarts like EMS Namboodripad and Ramamurthy in Delhi. The leaders of the RSS and the CPM had similar discussions in Kerala too. But before the ink on the peace declaration dried up, there were unprovoked attacks on RSS cadres. Committed to maintaining peace the RSS had agreed to sit with the CPI (M) leaders again and sign a document for peace in 1999 at the initiative of the highly respected Justice V R Krishna Iyer and the then Chief Minister E K Nayanar. However, just two days after this initiative, the CPI (M) cadres attacked the State Vice President of BJYM Sri Jayakrishnan Master and murdered him in a most gruesome manner in front of small children in his class room. Peace conferences became totally ineffective with no positive result whatsoever.

‘But for several years, despite serious provocation the RSS stuck to its commitment of maintaining peace and never retaliated. However it resulted in losing a number of good activists only while the CPI (M) became more brutal. Whenever they are in power in the State, their brutality crosses all limits with the help of obliging Government machinery.

‘The latest killing spree that started in March claimed the lives of 5 Swayamsevaks so far. On March 5 (Sivarathri day) Sri Sumesh, Thalassery Taluk Sharirik Shikshan Pramukh was attacked near Thalassery town. He lost his left hand and is still in Intensive Care Unit. Sri Sumesh always used to represent Sangh in the peace conferences. On the same day a Swayamsevak Nikhil (22), a lorry driver and the sole bread winner of a poor family was killed. Another Swayamsevak, Sri Sathyan, a mason, was virtually dragged away from his work place and beheaded. His headless body was thrown by the wayside near his house. On the very next day i.e. on March 6, 2008 Sri Mahesh of Kuthuparamba was hacked to death. His head was also severed off. Again on the next day i.e. March 7, 2008 Sri Suresh Babu of Kodiyeri and Sri K.V.Surendran (65) of Illathuthazha were brutally assassinated. Thus within 3 days 5 young lives belonging to the working class were taken away. More than a dozen youths have been maimed and become handicapped.

‘Honest Police officers were never tolerated. On Jan 12, 2008, one CPM worker Sri Dhanesh was killed by some unknown miscreants. The CPI (M) accused the RSS, but the Deputy Superintendent of Police in charge of the investigation Sri Habeeb Rahman categorically stated that RSS was not at all involved in this murder. Immediately afterwards that upright officer was transferred from the District. On January 26, 2008, one notorious criminal Jijesh was killed. His nickname ‘Veerappan’ itself reveals his nature. Again CPM blamed Sangh. In both the cases the RSS District leadership had promptly rebutted the charges in press conferences. Deputy Superintendent of Police Sri Manoj Abraham after investigation stated that NDF (a Muslim extremist organization) was involved in it and RSS was innocent. Again that no-nonsense officer was also transferred summarily.

‘There is a virtual ban on Sangh shakhas by the CPI (M) in the areas of their dominance in Kannur. The basic right to conduct organization work is being denied not only to the RSS but to all other political parties including Congress and CPI. Examples are so many.

‘The shakha at Engayilpeedika at Kodiyeri, the home-town of State Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, was attacked and disallowed to function by Kodiyeri Balakrishnan’s nephew and his henchmen 8 years ago. Since then repeated attempts to restart the shakha there have been foiled by the CPI (M) cadres. The CPI (M) is also enforcing a code- a kind of Section 144 - applicable to Swayamsevaks in that village. If they want to live there they should not meet or even sit together. They should walk around or travel alone. They should not be seen in public when the Home Minister visits the area. The fate of the shakha at Kodiyeri is not an isolated one. There are up to 50 places in Kannur where the Sangh is not allowed to hold shakhas. Any attempt to ‘violate’ this ban would be met with brutal force.

‘Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee President Ramesh Chennitahla during the last elections had brought out a report in which he cited that in 265 booths in Kannur District no party agent except that of the CPI (M) was allowed to sit.

‘It is noteworthy that the judiciary has, on several occasions, reprimanded the State Police for not preventing such human rights abuses by the CPI (M) cadres in Kannur. Particularly scathing were the observations of the High Court a couple of days ago, which openly said that only the presence of Central Forces can restore normalcy in the region.

‘It is to highlight these acts of Stalinism and fascism of the CPI (M) that some members of the RSS and other organisations including a large number of women spontaneously marched in a peaceful manner to the CPI (M) Head Quarters in Delhi. Betraying their Nandigram-style intolerance the CPI (M) cadres repeated what they have been doing in Kannur – attacked the peaceful demonstrators with brickbats and chairs – resulting in unfortunate violence on the Delhi streets.

‘I appeal to all the right-thinking and peace-loving citizens of the country to raise their voice against this fascist and Stalinist face of the CPI (M) in the larger interest of our democracy and freedom. I call upon the RSS Swayamsevaks allover the country to stand by our Swayamsevak brethren who have become victims of the brutalities of the CPI (M) and expose the true nature and face of it which has no place in a country with such a hoary tradition of tolerance and pluralistic ethic.

‘As far as the RSS in Kerala is concerned, it would zealously guard its Constitutional right of freedom of expression, association and propagation.
’
I am of the view that the ambushed Hindus of Kerala have to learn to unite in order to wage a political war against the monstrous tyranny of CPI (M), never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of known Communist Crimes.
Thu, 20 Mar, 2008 , 03:33 PM
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Statistics clearly indicate that Kerala is witnessing an un precedented rise in the rate of crime and violence during the last three or four years. We have a Home Minister in Kerala Kodiyeri Balakrishnan who was once charged with the murder of a Swayamsevak from the RSS.

Likewise Kerala CPI- (M) general secretary Pinarayi Vijayan has a similar record of political crimes let loose against the RSS, VHP and other Hindu outfits. There is no doubt whatsoever that these two political partymen are in collusion with terrorists in Kerala in general and Kannur district in particular.

Anyone can see that there is a steadily rising upward trend in crimes like rape, armed dacoity, robbery, aggravated assault, larceny, homicide, kidnapping, drug trafficking and contract murders.

What is most disturbing to note is that there is an increasing incidence of politically motivated murder, violent crime and terrorist bombing. Another important point to be noted is that the actual incidence of crime against women and children is higher than the number of recorded crimes reported to the police.

Further there is continued and extended political patronage to black money launderers, illegal drug traffickers, flesh traders and explosive marketers. Drunken and often violent hooliganism has become a standard feature of night life in most towns and cities.

Dr Babu Suseelan rightly concludes: ‘There is a standard black market in Kerala for illegal drugs, illicit liquor, explosives and counterfeit money. Criminal gangs and loan sharks prowl the streets and they settle disputes with violence, kidnapping and murder.’

What has brought about this massive, ugly, and ever-expanding phenomenon of increasing criminalisation? The ruthless process of uncontrolled forces let loose by the domain of globalisation has fundamentally altered and transformed the context in which criminal organisations operate.

Anyone can see that organised criminal gangs fully backed and financed by Pakistan ISI and smugglers from the Middle-East, illicit money launderers and Jihadis have multiplied their wealth and power in Kerala under the political hegemony and open patronage of the ruling CPI (M).

What is even most disturbing is that more and more Hindu activists belonging to the RSS and the VHP are getting killed by CPI (M) activists almost everyday operating in continuous criminal collusion with fanatics belonging to different political outfits, particularly in Kannur district. Murdering and beheading of several innocent Hindus and Hindu activists has become a daily feature during the last two months.

A few years ago, the government of Kerala ordered a judicial enquiry by Justice Thomas P Joseph, District and Sessions Judge in Calicut to enquire into the acts of terrorism in Malapuram district. Much to the discomfiture of major political parties in the State, the Joseph Commission, which was set up to inquire into the circumstances that led to the second Marad killings in May 2003, turned the spotlight on the facts and circumstances of the 2002 killings.

The report emphasised what political Kerala already knew very well but had tried to ignore the fact that the Marad killings in January 2002 were the result of continued alliance of political interests and other vested interests.

The Joseph Commission concluded that the delay in filing charge-sheets in that case was subsequently utilised by ‘fundamentalists, terrorists and other forces’ to capitalise on the grievance of relatives of three killed and to use it as a cause for vengeance against Hindus of Marad as a whole. Justice Thomas P Joseph said, ‘The inquiry by the State Crime Branch CID (CB-CID) into the May 2003 incident had failed to unravel the ‘larger conspiracy’ and the sources of the large cache of arms and ammunition unearthed subsequently in the area and of the sizable funds used in the planning and execution of the murders.’

The Commission’s main recommendation, was a further inquiry, involving the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) into the ‘larger conspiracy’ involving fundamentalist and other forces, and into the source of the explosives and funds that the CB-CID ‘failed or refused’ to investigate an act that the commission described as ‘quite suspicious and disturbing.’ Finally the Commission said ’There is an urgent and imperative public need to inquire into the involvement of Inter-State terrorist groups and the involvement of foreign terrorist agencies like the ISI.’

To summarise in the words of Dr Babu Suseelan once again: ‘This increased criminal activity in Kerala is based on a continuing symbiotic relationship between criminal gangs, government agencies and politicians. Their ability to bribe and corrupt political leaders, law enforcement agencies and media persons is enormous. Crime syndicates operating in Kerala have established safe havens in Dubai and Karachi where the governments are hostile to the Indian democratic State.’

Against this background, let me now get back to the current ongoing reign of terror in Kannur district. The RSS leaders in Kerala have sent a detailed memorandum to Kerala Governor giving details about the rule of terror and requested him to intervene immediately to ensure the impartial enforcement of law and order which has been completely derailed on account of the completely biased, prejudiced and partial functioning of Kerala Home Minister.

I would like to refer to another interesting aside in this context: The inaugural session of the State CPI (M) conference at TK Ramakrishnan Nagar (Maman Mappila Memorial Hall) in Kottayam, central Kerala, was attended by over 500 delegates. At this venue, having failed in his recent attempts to discipline his warring comrades, CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat for the first time got mobile jammers installed at the venue of the party’s 19th State conference to prevent rival factions from leaking out the deliberations to the outside world.

Karat who addressed the closed-door meeting at the outset warned fellow comrades of ‘dire consequences’ if anyone leaked the deliberations, sources said. His 110-minute speech in English was translated by Education Minister M Baby. Hindus of India should unite against this planned pogrom against them.

As a practising Hindu, I am shocked beyond words to note that the Marxist government in Kerala has made a recommendation to the Supreme Court of India to permanently alter the Sabarimala Temple’s traditional practices, women’s dress code and temple rituals.

These concepts and policies are straight out of the communist manifesto wrapped in the rhetoric of women’s rights and equality and freedom. Couched under the phrases ‘for the common good’, ‘feminist empowerment’ and ‘freedom for women’, Marxists are trying to erase our spiritual practices, ethics and family values by persuading women in the name of liberty and empowerment to abandon traditional culture.

To quote the brilliant words of Babu Suseelan in this context: ‘Marxists and their cohorts are relatively clear what they want to achieve in India. They want the destruction of Hindu civilisation and establishment of a proletariat Marxist State. For the last 75 years, Marxists are working hard to realise their misguided and dangerous goals through positive sounding slogans such as ‘inclusion’, ‘human rights’, ‘feminist empowerment’, ‘classless society’, and ‘women’s rights’.

With these positive sounding words, Marxists call for the destruction, in every possible way to deconstruct Hindu thoughts and to bring down the Hindu culture.
I have not doubt that the Hindus of India will unite and teach a lasting lesson to persons like Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, Pinarayi Vijayan, Prakash Karat and Yechuri.

http://newstodaynet.com/printer.php?id=6022

CPM's tabloig: Peoples' Daily of Chennai

When a newspaper is no longer a newspaper
March 19, 2008
THEJAS H.K. writes from Madras: There was a time not too long ago when I used to walk a couple of miles to get a copy of The Hindu in Mysore. Here, in the City of its birth, it is delivered to my room at 6 am, but over the last few years, a strange feeling of unease, even disgust, makes me run away from a newspaper I used to pursue.

Today, when the paper lands at my doorstep, I wonder if it is the same publication that professors used to goad us to read for its English; if it is the same publication that parliamentarians used to cut and quote; if it is the same publication that our parents used to say was the last word in correctness and credibility.

The unease, the disgust, has been building up for a while now.

Contributing factor number one has been the ridiculous reverence of all things communist: The one-sided coverage of the killings in Nandigram, which even the readers’ editor K. Narayanan noticed; the exaggerated coverage of the affairs of the CPI(M) and AIDWA despite the magnitude of their influence in society; the flip-flop on the nuclear deal.

Contributing facgtor number two has been reverence of all things DMK: M. Karunanidhi is called “a statesman of our time”; the distribution of free colour TV sets is hailed as a giant leap forward in terms of establishing social equality; the violence of M.K. Azhagiri, the splurge of money on the huge banners and cut-outs of M.K. Stalin go unquestioned.

And when the Cauvery tribunal hands out its award, the daily forgets that it is not just a Madras newspaper but a South Indian paper also published from Bangalore, and rejoices, hailing the decision of the tribunal to ask Karnataka to release double the amount of water it can keep for itself. Its sister publication, Frontline, runs it as a cover story.

Some of those actions can be traced to ideological kinks (”avoiding the traps of anti-left campaign journalism that various other newspapers and television channels”, as editor-in-chief N. Ram put it in response to the criticism of the Nandigram coverage), and to keep its core constituency—Tamils—happy.

But it is the national paper’s coverage of matters concerning China—be it its claim over Arunachal Pradesh or the uprising of Tibetans in Lhasa last week—that is deeply troubling, and has well and truly turned me off.

Exhibit A: When the Chinese foreign minister asserted during a visit to India that Arunachal Pradesh belonged to India, the paper ignored the report, but carried a mysterious editorial suggesting that the border row can be solved by adopting a “give and take policy”. India should give and China should take?

Exhibit B: The uprising of Tibetans in Lhasa has seen The Hindu go overboard, censoring, blacking out, polishing and giving a spin to everything, as if it is China’s National Newspaper, not India’s. And this after a recent piece on the Dalai Lama resulted in a Tibetan protest in front of the head office of the paper.

Just one example will suffice. On the day, the Dalai Lama was talking of “cultural genocide“, on the day The Times of India was saying that “Tibet unrest spreads beyond Lhasa“, The Hindu was saying, “Lhasa returns to normality“.

Result: “The Mahavishnu of Mount Road” is collecting labels by the lorryload. B. Raman calls the paper the “People’s Daily of China“. Nitin Pai calls the paper “Beijing’s Mouthpiece“.

Which is all so surprising.

When N. Ravi and Malini Parthasarathy were removed as editor and executive editor of the paper in an overnight bloodless coup in 2003, and replaced with N. Ram, joint managing director N. Murali (elder brother of Ram and Ravi) was quoted as saying this: “It is true that our readers have been complaining that some of our reports are partial and lack objectivity.”

The Hindu is open to precisely the same charges of partiality and lack of objectivity now. In fact, if anything, things have only gotten far worse. And this when Deccan Chronicle is around and this when The Times of India is slated for launch soon. Yet there is not a whisper at what this motivated and slanted coverage is doing to the core strengths of a great newspaper, built over 125 years by the sweat and toil of scores of journalists and non-journalists.

A newspaper is entitled to its views, of course, but when it starts twisting and distorting the news to suit the ideological inclinations of those at the helm, and his ideological blood-brothers, we have a problem on hand.

As it is, some newspapers now sell their editorial space to the highest bidder, there are wheels within wheels in advertising, and so on. If a newspaper, revered and trusted by hundreds of thousands of South Indians, joins the ranks, we have Big Trouble in Little China indeed.

Either we could be seeing a great institution being dismantled, brick by red brick, or we could be seeing the end of a free, fair, unbiased, vibrant media. Or both.

http://wearethebest.wordpress.com/2008/03/19/when-a-newspaper-is-no-longer-a-newspaper/

China's life or death struggle in Tibet

China warns of 'life or death struggle' in Tibet
March 19, 2008
Brahma Chellaney
March 18, 2008
First Published: 21:36 IST(18/3/2008)
Last Updated: 21:46 IST(18/3/2008


When Burma’s junta last September killed at least 31 people during monk-led protests in Rangoon, it triggered international outrage and a new wave of US-led sanctions. Now the junta’s closest associate, the world’s largest autocracy in Beijing, has cracked down on monks, nuns and others in Tibet, with an indeterminate number of people killed. The muted global response thus far raises the question whether China has accumulated such power as to escape international censure over highly repressive actions.
For India, the Chinese crackdown on monk-led pro-independence protests in Tibet — the biggest in almost two decades — is an opportunity to highlight a festering issue that is at the heart of the India-China divide. That divide cannot be bridged unless Beijing begins a process of reconciliation and healing in Tibet by coming to terms with the reality that nearly 60 years of oppression have failed to crush the grassroots Tibetan resistance. By laying claim to Indian territories on the basis of alleged Tibetan ecclesiastical or tutelary links to them, Beijing itself underlines the centrality of the Tibet issue.
While China unabashedly plays the Tibet card against India, such as by staking a claim not just to Tawang but to the whole of Arunachal Pradesh — a state nearly thrice the size of Taiwan — New Delhi fights shy to even shine a spotlight on the Tibet issue. Worse, India has unwittingly strengthened China’s Tibet-linked claims to Indian territories, including occupied Aksai Chin, by recognising Tibet as part of the People’s Republic. Even when the Dalai Lama backs the Indian position on Arunachal, New Delhi is too coy to translate such support into diplomatic advantage.
It is a testament to India’s pusillanimity that, even as Chinese security forces arbitrarily arrest and publicly parade young Tibetans, New Delhi has received fulsome praise from Premier Wen Jiabao, who, while calling the Tibet issue a “very sensitive one in our relations with India”, said, “We appreciate the position and the steps taken by the Indian government in handling Tibetan independence activities masterminded by the Dalai clique.” The orchestrated attacks on the Dalai Lama are a reminder that a line of moderation vis-à-vis Beijing is counterproductive. Two decades after he changed the Tibetan struggle for liberation from Chinese rule to a struggle for autonomy within the People’s Republic, the Dalai Lama has little to show for his ‘middle way’, other than having made himself a growing target of Chinese vilification.
It is past time India reclaimed leverage by subtly changing its stance on Tibet. It can do that without provocation. Indian policy has been held hostage for long by a legion of panda-huggers, who bring discredit to our democracy and comfort to our adversary. These Sinophiles believe the only alternative to continued appeasement is confrontation. They cannot grasp the simple fact that between appeasement and confrontation lie a hundred different options. A false choice — pay obeisance to Beijing or brace up for confrontation — has been used to block any legitimate debate on policy options. Today, several developments are underscoring the need for a more nuanced approach on Tibet that adds elasticity and leverage to Indian diplomacy. These include China’s frenetic build-up of military and transport capabilities on the vast Himalayan plateau; its refusal to clarify the frontline with India; and its latent threat to fashion water as a weapon.
Tibet’s vast glaciers and high altitude have endowed it with the world’s greatest river systems. With global warming likely to aggravate water woes, China’s control over the riverhead of Asia’s waters carries major security implications for lower-riparian States like India. As World Bank Vice-President Ismail Serageldin warned in 1995, “If the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water.”
Tibet’s forcible absorption not only helped China to expand its landmass by one-third, but also has given it a contiguous border, for the first time in history, with India, Bhutan and Nepal, and an entryway to Pakistan and Burma. By subsequently annexing Aksai Chin, China was able to link Tibet with another vast, restive region, Xinjiang, home to Turkic-speaking Muslim ethnic groups and seat of a short-lived independent East Turkestan Republic up to 1949. Today, China is recklessly extracting Tibet’s immense mineral deposits, unmindful that such activities and its new hydro and railway projects are playing havoc with Tibet’s fragile ecosystem — critical to the climate security of India and other regional states.
Tibet’s security and autonomy are tied to India’s own well-being. If the ‘Roof of the World’ is on fire, India can hardly be safe. Tibet indeed symbolises that a sustainable regional order has to be built on a balance among the market, culture and nature. Tibet is likely to determine whether we will see a more cooperative or a more competitive Asia — a stable, peaceful Asia that expands its economic and cultural renaissance, or an Asia riven by Great Power rivalries and the continued suppression of conquered nationalities.
Against this background, India needs to do at least three things. First, softly put the focus on the core issue, Tibet, including on China’s denial of autonomy to that region, in breach of the ‘17-Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet’ imposed on the Tibetans in 1951. New Delhi could sugar-coat this by saying China’s own security would be advanced if it reached out to Tibetans and concluded a deal that helped bring back the Dalai Lama from his long exile in India. The onus should be placed squarely on Beijing to ensure that Tibet, having ceased to be a political buffer, now becomes a political bridge between India and China.
The choice before India is to either stay stuck in a defensive, unviable negotiating position, where it has to fend off Chinese territorial demands, or to take the Chinese bull by the horns and question the very legitimacy of Beijing’s right to make territorial claims ecclesiastically on behalf of Tibetan Buddhism when it still has to make peace with Tibetans.
Second, if Tibet is to be the means by which India coops up the bull in its own China shop, it has to treat the Dalai Lama as its most powerful ally. As long as the Dalai Lama is based at Dharamsala, he will remain India’s biggest strategic asset against China. The Tibetans in Tibet will neither acquiesce to Chinese rule, as their latest defiance shows, nor side with China against India. If after the death of the present incumbent, the institution of the Dalai Lama gets captured by Beijing (the way it has anointed its own Panchen Lama), India will be poorer by several army divisions against China. To foil China’s scheme, India should be ready with a plan.
Third, India has to stop gratuitously referring to Tibet as part of China. From Nehru to Vajpayee, no Indian PM returned from a Beijing visit without referring to Tibet, in some formulation or the other, as part of China. Last January, Manmohan Singh became the first PM to return from Beijing without making any unwarranted reference to Tibet to please his hosts. The ‘T’ word is conspicuously missing from the joint communiqué — a key point the media failed to catch. If this is not to be a one-shot aberration, Indian policy has to reflect this, however unobtrusively.
Brahma Chellaney is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=3f44c623-a1cb-43ee-8b50-e421ec3d3bff

CPM and Taslima, who hits out at ‘state terrorism’, seeks escape from animal farm, death chamber

CPM and Taslima, who hits out at ‘state terrorism’, seeks escape from animal farm, death chamber

Taslima hits out at ‘state terrorism’

Arindam Sarkar, Hindustan Times
Email Author
Kolkata, March 19, 2008
First Published: 00:41 IST(19/3/2008)
Last Updated: 03:59 IST(19/3/2008)

Before leaving India on Tuesday, exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin said the treatment meted out to her by the Government of India was nothing less than “cold-blooded state terrorism to drive her out of the country.

Taslima said she is planning a lecture tour where she would speak about her days inside a room with no view and also how she was “treated like an animal”. In a no-holds barred interview, Taslima said that the rulers were as crude as those who are despised because of their religious fundamentalism. She said she was deprived of human rights and tortured by the Centre.

“And to expose the mask of this government, which was out to kill me, I will paste all that I experienced on my website,” said Taslima.

Relieved that her “house arrest in a free country” was ending, Taslima said that she would write and tell the world about her harrowing experience in the State of the World Forum, where she has been invited to speak by the former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Amnesty International and International Human Rights Organisation have also approached her to narrate her nightmarish experience in India, she said. Taslima said she is planning a lecture tour where she would speak about her days inside a room with no view and also how she was “treated like an animal”.

“Fundamentalists do not torture you to death. They just finish you off. But the Indian Government slowly pushed me towards death. My terrible experience has shattered all notions about a secular and democratic India,” Taslima Nasrin told the Hindustan Times.

“For 20 years, I have been hitting out against fundamentalism. There has been no physical attack on me. But India, when it failed to break me psychologically, destroyed me physically by denying treatment to an ill person,” added Taslima.

She pointed out that her own country Bangladesh had driven her out in 1994 but did not inflict psychological or physical trauma that could lead to the heart and eye diseases. For that matter, Taslima said in Kolkata too, the state government did not impose a ban on her movement.

Talking about her dilemma and frustrations, she said she would very soon write in international dailies on how a handful of hooligans made the Centre to toe its line and punish an author. The political parties of India are so secular that they were scared to defend a person who is anti-Islam, she said.

Taslima’s six-month residential permit in India is expiring in August.

She said that before its expiry she plans to return here. “Just to check whether I can stay in Kolkata. If denied I will pack up and leave India for good.”

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