Cowboys and Indians: Australia reviews its uranium export policy

India is using CHOGM to lobby Australia hard to sell uranium to the growing Asian superpower. According to The Hindu, Vice-President Hamid Ansari has already met Tony Abbott who said he supported selling uranium to India. Ansari is now conducting behind-the-scenes diplomacy with the current government to get Australia — which has the world's largest reserves of uranium — to export the mineral to India. Labor will review the matter at its national conference, with much talk of a possible policy shift to come. A confidential briefing note in February to the Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson (exposed by Wikileaks) said the dialogue "may prove a useful avenue to communicate any policy shifts on the issue."

Writing in the Australian today (behind the firewall so no link), Paul Kelly calls the policy “obsolete and discredited” and it is difficult to argue with his assessment. Currently Labor does not support uranium sales to India because that country is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). India along with Pakistan, Israel and North Korea have never signed the NPT which came into place in 1970. They make the valid argument that because the treaty restricts the legal possession of nuclear weapons to those states that tested before 1967 (US, Russia, UK, France and China) it creates an unfair system of haves and have nots. Nowhere does the treaty explain why this is a valid distinction.

India has been a declared nuclear power since 1974. According to the Indian Department of Atomic Energy, nuclear power has very important short term and long term roles in the country’s energy needs. They said their nuclear power program would sustain resources manage radioactive waste and make an important contribution to minimisation of greenhouse gas emission. The Department said local supplies of uranium are “modest” however an AFP report in July said a new mine in south India could contain the largest reserves of uranium in the world. The Tumalapalli mine in Andhra Pradesh state could provide up to 150,000 tonnes but it is mostly low grade compared to the high grade uranium produced in Australia.

Australia is the world’s third largest producer of uranium after Kazakhstan and Canada with 16% of the world’s market in 2009. Its market share is declining due to lower than expected mined ore grade. But in terms of reserves, Australia is the largest in the world with 23%. With Labor now abandoning its three mines policy, production is expected to pick up beyond the existing mines at Ranger in NT and Olympic Dam and Beverley in South Australia. BHP recently won environmental approval to expand the largest mine at Olympic Dam.

These new and expanded mines will need a market and India is obvious location, particularly with other countries closing down nuclear operations in the wake of the Japanese tsunami disaster at Fukushima. Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said he remains opposed to changing the policy. Rudd avoided mention of the NPT and instead justified his stance on the fact India did not need Australian uranium. "There is no problem in terms of global supply,” Rudd said. "If you hear an argument from an Indian businessperson that the future of the nuclear industry in India depends exclusively on access to uranium, that is simply not sustainable as a proposition.”

Groups such as the Australian Conservation Foundation remain opposed to a change in the current policy which they say is “prudent and sensible”. ACF campaigner Dave Sweeney said the NPT, while imperfect, was a key international legal mechanism in restricting the spread of nuclear weapons technology. Australia, as a significant global uranium supplier, has a responsibility to acknowledge that India is a nuclear-armed state that obtained its weapons capacity in breach of international commitments,” he said. “Adding Australian uranium to the mix would not ease the long standing tensions between India and its nuclear-armed neighbours or improve the effectiveness of the global nuclear safeguards regime.

But the NPT is not just imperfect, it is illogical and unfair. If Labor truly wanted to avoid the spread of nuclear weapons, it would refuse to export uranium to all nuclear weapon states including Russia and China. It would also stop exporting uranium to the US which is Australia’s biggest customer taking 38.4% of local reserves according to 2004 data. Australia says its uranium is explicitly for use in civilian reactors but it has no way of stopping it ending up in weapons programs. It shows up a national hypocrisy about the mineral, particularly when Labor is in power. As Helen Caldicott wrote, Australia was like a heroin dealer, “pushing its immoral raw material upon a world that is hungry for energy."

Silicon Valley alarmed by Hyderabad's Telengana statehood push

A little known feud over the possible creation of a new state in India has American media worried over the ramifications to US interests. Bloomberg has reported India deployed extra police to Hyderabad yesterday “home to offices of Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc” ahead of the release of a parliamentary report (pdf) on recommendations to create a new state. The report is likely to turn down turn statehood leading to possible violence which in turn has US investors worried about high-tech interests in the city. (photo of Hyderabad by McKay Savage)

Hyderabad is currently the capital of Andhra Pradesh, the country’s fourth largest state by area and fifth by population with 76 million people on the eastern seaboard. Hyderabad is also capital of Telengana, one of Andhra Pradesh three provinces. For 50 years or more there has been a large secession movement for Telengana centred in Hyderabad. The movement has been resisted by the other two provinces because Telengana is the richest of the three provinces with the state’s only international city and providing 70 percent of the state’s wealth. Those in favour are using precisely the same reasons to promote the split.

For political expediency, the state-ruling Congress Party initially voted in favour of Telengana but has been speedily backtracking as extremists on both sides have become more violent. The status of Hyderabad is at the heart of the dispute. It has become a Jerusalem, claimed as the capital by both sides. To complicate matters, Andhra Pradesh is a swing state nationally and its 42 members have been instrumental in successive Congress victories in New Delhi in 2004 and 2009.

Telengana has ten of Andhra Pradesh's 23 districts. Britain never administered the region and it was governed instead by as the Nizam’s princely state of Hyderabad from 1719 until the end of the Raj in 1948. The Nizams had their own army, railways, postage and other insignia of independence and were one of just three princely states out of 562 that resisted Indian overtures to join the new union. The Muslim rulers took weapons from Pakistan but India launched a brutal four-day Operation Polo (so called because Hyderabad had more polo grounds than anywhere else in India). Polo crushed the Nizam resistance with many casualties in what was euphemistically called a “police action”.

In 1956, India attempted to re-organise its states on a linguistic basis. Legislators merged the Telegu-speaking parts of Hyderabad with the Telegu-speaking parts of Madras to form Andhra Pradesh with Hyderabad city as capital. From the 1960s onwards opposition movements grew to overturn the merger based on claims of neglect and economy superiority of Madras. Demands grew stronger after India created three new states (Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh) in 2000.

The Economic Times said the Justice Srikrishna Committee is now looking at six options to deal with the Hyderabad problem. Its most favoured option is Number 6: creating a regional council for Telengana within the existing boundary. This one, they say will satisfy the most people. It would also “take care of the uncertainty over the future of Hyderabad as a bustling educational, industrial and IT hub/destination” that so worries Bloomberg.

When released, the full report may trigger further violence from separationist hardheads but Hari Kumar at India First-Hand doubts if secession would make life better for any of Andhra Pradesh’s people. Hari said the people of Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal and Jharkhand were no better off today than they were 10 years ago. “Complaints of neglect and other similar issues are not reasons for creating a new state or country,” Hari said. “The solution to issues like neglect is to make sure that the system is more transparent.”

Indian Ocean tsunami fifth anniversary

Incredibly, five years have now passed since the Indian Ocean tsunami struck on 26 December 2004. The scale of the devastation was immense and it occurred on a hemispherical scale. 230,000 lives were lost in 11 countries, five million people were affected and $5 billion of damage was caused by one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded. (photo by simminch)

The drama of the day started at 7am local time in Indonesia when an earthquake of between 9.1 and 9.3 magnitude struck the sea between the west coast of Sumatra and the small island of Simeule. The event lasted an unprecedented ten minutes tearing a massive rupture 1,600 kms long. Depending on who’s talking it was either the second or third highest magnitude earthquake of the 20th century. Either way it was immense. The shift of mass and the massive release of energy very slightly altered the Earth's rotation. It caused the sea bed to rise several metres displacing billions of tonnes of sea water in the process.

Because of the north-south 1,600km fissure caused by the quake, the greatest waves went east and west. It took about a half hour for the wall of water to reach nearest landfall on the Sumatran Coast. Northern Aceh was worst hit with waves rising 20 metres high and travelling almost a kilometer inland. Some coastal villages were devastated losing up to 70 percent of their inhabitants. In all 167,000 were killed in Indonesia and another 37,000 listed as missing. An estimated 655,000 people were made homeless.

After another hour, the waves hit southern Thailand and its west coast islands. The waves swept locals and tourists off the beaches. 8,000 people died in Phuket, Phi Phi and elsewhere and a similar number were injured. At the same time the westerly-heading waves slammed 10m high into the east coast of Sri Lanka killing another 35,000 people and it made over a million and a half people homeless. A further 68 people died in Malaysia. By another half hour, it was taking severe casualties in India’s Tamil Nadu and Burma. The waves demolished railways, bridges, telecommunications facilities and harbours. The salt water contaminated large tracts of rich arable land.

And still it kept coming. After another 90 minutes, the tsunami engulfed the low-lying Maldives killing 100 people and displacing another 20,000. And two and half hours later still – some six hours after the original quake – the mammoth waves made landfall in Somalia. 300 people died there with 50,000 made homeless and many more livelihoods lost as 2,500 boats were destroyed. Most of the deaths were caused by asphyxiation from the silt and sand within the “black water” of the tsunami.

A massive worldwide relief operation began almost immediately. The biggest ever peacetime launch of military relief effort arrived in Aceh led by emergency teams from Australia, India, Japan and the US. Apart from immediate medical needs, the biggest threat was secondary death from famine and disease. One of the most important early tasks in Sumatra was to provide purification plants and potable water. This was difficult in a region where the Indonesian army was hauling over a thousand bodies a day from the rivers. Forensic scientists were stretched to the limit to identify the deceased. The process was complicated by sweltering heat, inconsistencies in data collection procedures used in various countries, and jurisdictional challenges. Port, road and transport facilities also needed to be restored.

Undermining the recovery effort was the influx of aid workers and media personnel who consumed scarce resources, making the cost of living soar. There were at least 500 journalists and news crews in the affected zone. And the sensationalism of much of the reporting added to the trauma of the survivors. Aceh did eventually recover and the tsunami had one unintended benefit; it brought an end to the long running war between the Indonesian military and Acehnese separatists.

Dealing with earthquakes will always be one of the perils of living in geologically active Sumatra. As recently as October, over 500 people were killed and thousands trapped under rubble when a 7.6 magnitude quake struck West Sumatra. But it will never forget the events of 26 December, 2004. The psychological trauma of confronting 20 metre waves is too deep. As one 10 year old girl told AFP "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't forget. It's the same for my friends who survived.”

Chemical Hiroshima – 25 years since Union Carbide disaster at Bhopal

Next month is the 25th anniversary of the world’s worst industrial disaster at the Union Carbide pesticide plant near the Madhya Pradesh city of Bhopal in central India. It is a tale of corporate greed and failure of American law that is mostly ignored in the west. While the American setting of 9/11 ensured it would became the mythological event of the millennial generation, about 800 more people died in the 3 December 1984 Bhopal disaster than were killed by the four planes 17 years later on 11 September 2001. And unlike 9/11, the Bhopal death toll kept rising after the first day. Three times more died in the next 72 hours and in the end Indian authorities estimate 17,000 Indians were killed as a result of the Bhopal gas leak. And while Americans argue over what should be done with their Ground Zero, Bhopal residents contend with the effects of their Chemical Hiroshima a generation on, including death, health problems and contaminated groundwater. (photo from Wikimedia commons)

The killer was 42 tonnes of Methyl isocyanate (MIC). MIC is highly flammable and highly toxic chemical used to make rubber. It is so toxic in small measures that scientists recommend it not be more than 2 parts to a million of any solution. 42 tonnes is a large amount. MIC was a crucial interim stage for the plant's eventual output: an insecticide called carbaryl. At Bhopal over half a million people were exposed to this filthy compound.

The nightshift on 2nd of December 1984 was blissfully unaware of the silent disaster that was unfolding around them. But it was only a matter of time. The pesticide plant three 3kms out of town was old and creaking. The pipes were corroded and Union Carbide cutbacks meant the crews were too overstretched to notice deadly gas had started leaking from an overloaded storage tank. A worker first noticed a problem an hour before midnight and he reported it to management. Nothing else was done about it. As the problem worsened over the next two hours a frightened worker raised the alarm. People were starting to cough and vomit, there were irritated eyes and many felt suffocated. The panicked management team shut the alarm down quickly and sat on the problem for yet another hour before finally sounding the siren to evacuate.

By 2am the vapours had being doing their deadly work for at least three hours. The poison spread rapidly keeping low to the ground. Many died on the spot as they came in contact with the poison. Hundreds more were trampled to death in the rush to flee the contaminated plant. The final death toll is disputed, it is still going on and some say it may be as high as 20,000 people. Another 2,000 animals also perished. Timothy White in Bhopal Express says that half a million citizens would be maimed by the noxious breezes of their Chemical Hiroshima.

Union Carbide did an “investigation” to find out how the gas escaped. They put it down to bad luck or sabotage. Union Carbide blamed its Indian subsidiary for falsifying safety reports and someone had either “inadvertently or deliberately" pumped 600 litres of water into one of the three liquid MIC tanks. The water trigged a heat generating chemical reaction. Chloroform decomposed releasing chloride ions which corroded the stainless steel tank. The tank eventually collapsed under high temperature and pressure, releasing the deadly methyl isocyanate.

Even the company’s admission there were critical violations of safety procedure managed to make the local operation look bad without any sense of responsibility falling on head office. India was predictably outraged with Union Carbide’s whitewashed report. They retaliated by denying Union Carbide investigators access to important documents. India claims workers put only a small amount of excess water into the tanks and some other reason caused the chain reaction. It was the American-design safety system that was flawed.

The result is that Bhopal plant employees still do not know what actually happened to this day. The city is still an environmental disaster area and people are still getting sick. It was Jackson B. Browning, Union Carbide’s vice president for health and environmental affairs who made the truest company statement in the entire disaster. "Now, we can confidently say,” he said smugly after the investigation, “it can't happen here." By “here” Browning meant America not India. In the end it was only the fears of the local audience that mattered.

In any case, Browning was probably lying. If the Indian investigators are closer to the truth than Union Carbide then no-one still knows how it happened exactly, and therefore it couldn’t happen “here”. Connecticut-based Union Carbide decided the interests of its shareholders were more important than the people of India when they used the little known common law legal doctrine of forum non conveniens to avoid being sued in the more lucrative American market. The doctrine balances foreign and local factors to determine the right country to host the litigation. The Chief Justice of India said the US was the only hope the victims have, but New York District Court Steve Keenan disagreed and said India was where the witnesses and evidence were and it should host the trial.

Back in India the government lodged a $3.3 billion claim against Union Carbide. But by 1989, Union Carbide had wheedled the Indian lawsuit down to just $470 million. The figure was based on the subsequently discredited figure that only 3,000 died and 100,000 were affect. The settlement discharged the company of all future responsibilities. It was small compensation for the lives of 17,000 Indian coolies in the service of western capitalism and with over a half million claimants, it amounted to just $550 to each survivor. There have been delays in getting even this pittance distributed with over 80 percent still in the fund in 2006. By that time Union Carbide was under new management. Dow Chemical bought the company for $10 billion in 2001

Anger is still palpable in northern India. Now every 3 December they march through the streets of Bhopal burning an effigy of Warren Anderson. Anderson was Union Carbide’s CEO in 1984. He flew to Bhopal after the accident. Indian authorities detained him and then released him on $2,000 bail. Anderson fled the country never to return. In 1991 a Bhopal judge reinstated criminal charges against him but twelve years later (under G.W. Bush), the U.S. State Department formally denied India's request for his extradition. Anderson continues to play retirement golf in the Hamptons while India says is an absconder from justice.

But there is an even greater failure of law than Anderson’s lack of punishment. The forum non conveniens doctrine means that American firms will never be held to account when things go wrong overseas. In practice what this means is the problems are buried under the carpet. The practice also means that American firms have a vested interest in moving operations abroad where regulations are lax and they can avoid US tort liability. Dow Chemical probably see no irony in relying on Asia to reverse sliding revenues. Chair and CEO Andrew Liveris says “we remain tightly focused on those factors we can control." Presumably that means continuing to avoid all legal, ethical and moral responsibility to the horrendous legacy of Bhopal.

Norman Borlaug: forgotten benefactor of humanity is dead

The father of the green revolution, Norman Borlaug, has died in Texas. He died at his home in Dallas on Saturday due to cancer complications. He was 95. Borlaug was an agricultural scientist who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in combating world hunger and saving hundreds of millions of lives. Thanks to the green revolution, world food production more than doubled between 1960 and 1990 and his work was feted in a 2006 book entitled The Man Who Fed the World.

Borlaug was no great fan of the phrase Green Revolution which he described as a “miserable term” but his high-yielding crops saved many parts of the world from famine in the 1960s. Kenneth Quinn, President of the World Food Prize, said the world had lost a great hero. “Dr. Borlaug’s tireless commitment to ending hunger had an enormous impact on the course of history,” he said. “He will be remembered with love and appreciation around the globe.”

Norman Ernest Borlaug was born in Saude, Iowa in 1914 to parents of Norwegian stock. Borlaug left the family farm to study at the University of Minnesota where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in 1937 and gained some fame as a champion wrestler. Borlaug continued studying and got a PhD in plant pathology and genetics in 1942. During the war, Borlaug worked at a military lab where he helped develop a glue that stopped food containers rotting in saltwater.

In 1944 he went to Mexico to work for an agricultural development program run by the Mexican government with support from Washington and the Rockefeller Foundation. He would spend the next 40 years of his life on this project. Borlaug looked at the problem of cultivating wheat which was susceptible to the parasitic fungus known as rust. He experimented with double wheat seasons and dwarf plants which were disease resistant and gave higher yield. By 1963 nearly all of Mexico’s wheat came from Borlaug varieties. The harvest had grown sixfold in two decades and Mexico was now a net exporter of wheat.

Borlaug’s success attracted interest in the sub-continent. At the time India and Pakistan were at war with each other and both were close to widescale famine. India was importing huge quantities of food grains from the US. In 1965 Mexico exported a large quantity of wheat to both countries with almost immediate effect. Pakistan’s wheat yield doubled in five years and India became self-sufficient in ten. He then took those varieties, and improved strains of rice and corn, to Asia, the Middle East, South America and Africa.

For his work, his ancestral nation of Norway awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. Accepting the honour, he said the destiny of world civilization depended upon providing a decent standard of living for all. He said "green revolution” was too broad in scope and only wheat, rice, and maize yields had increased. He compared the forgetfulness of the West and its abundance with the underprivileged billions in the Third World for whom “hunger has been a constant companion, and starvation has all too often lurked in the nearby shadows.”

With his reputation safely established, Borlaug continued to press for improvements across the developing world, especially Africa. He helped found the Sasakawa Africa Association in the early 1980s to improve African food production. With the help of local researchers he concluded that the existing products and information could greatly expand the African food production, but the improved technologies were not reaching the smallholders who produced most of Africa's food, and the extension systems were failing to link research to farmers.

But while his work was greatly respected in Africa and Asia, he remained almost unknown in his homeland. Writing in 1997 in The Atlantic Online, Gregg Easterbrook said that the US had three living Peace Prize winners of which two were household names (Elie Wiesel and Henry Kissinger) and the other was Borlaug. Easterbrook suggested that one reason for Borlaug’s anonymity was the fact that his life and work were done in developing nations far from the media spotlight. But he added a second more sinister reason: “More food sustains human population growth, which [critics] see as antithetical to the natural world.” Most of the criticism of Borlaug’s work has been around environmental concerns not humanitarian. These relate to large-scale factory farming which is biased towards agribusinesses as well as issues with inorganic fertilisers and controlled irrigation causing environmental stress. Borlaug never resiled from these arguments and said high-yield farming actually helps preserve natural habitats.

Borlaug remained active in his older years. In 2006 he was awarded America’s highest civilian honour, the Congressional Gold Medal. His long-time colleague and friend Professor M.S. Swaminathan called him one of the greatest Americans and humanists of all times. In his acceptance speech, Borlaug stressed the importance of continuing the fight against hunger. "We need better and more technology, for hunger and poverty and misery are very fertile soils into which to plant all kinds of 'isms,' including terrorism," he said.

Krishna's birthday festival in Brisbane

Musicians providing the entertainment at Krishna Birthday festival (Photo by GWP Studio - used with permission from Taraka Sticha).

The celebration lawn at Brisbane’s Roma Street Parklands was transformed into a riot of colour and sound on Sunday as thousands gathered to celebrate Krishna’s birthday festival.

The festival is the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere and celebrates India's rich cultural contribution to Australia.

The tent for the main stage was the place to be on an unseasonal scorching hot winter’s day.

There the audience was treated to a mix of music, dancing and drama while many others were tempted by the free yoga classes and the rich aromas from the wide variety of food stalls nearby.

The festival was organised by the local Hare Krishna movement.

Event co-ordinator Taracha Sticha said Krishna's birthday has been celebrated for almost 40 years in Brisbane dating back to 1971.

"We’ve always celebrated it at our Graceville temple but this is the first time we’ve moved it to the centre of Brisbane”, she said.

Ms Sticha said there were 40,000 Indian-born residents in Queensland, 85 per cent of whom lived in the south-east.

Councillor David Hinchliffe attended on behalf of Brisbane city council and Ms Sticha said he was impressed by what he saw.

“Mr Hinchliffe advised us to apply for grants and we did a lot of fundraising ourselves,” Ms Sticha said.

The festival celebrates the birthday of Krishna Janmashtami which is an avatar of the Hindu deity Vishnu.

In India, Krishna’s birthday is a public holiday which is always held between mid August and mid September.

Ms Sticha said she was pleased with the turn-out at Brisbane’s celebration and hopes to repeat it at Roma Street Parklands again next year.

“I just hope it’s not too hot!” she said.

More photos I took on the day:

Indian students in Australia asked to stop protests against racial violence

Indian community leaders in Australia have asked students protesting against the racial attacks to put an end to their street rallies, saying they have served their purpose. Yadu Singh, coordinator of the Indian Consul General's community committee on Indian students' issues, said all parties have agreed to stop the rallies which have been going for three days in Sydney’s Harris Park. “They are disrupting the normal life of the people in the suburbs,” he said.

The protests began in Melbourne when Indian students were incensed by a wave of violence including a screwdriver stabbing which left one man in hospital. Attacks on Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney have dominated Indian media headlines for almost three weeks. Though exact current figures are hard to come by, at least 11 Indians have been attacked or mugged in the past month. Some say the problem has been growing for several years. Bloomberg reports that violent crime against Indian students has risen by a third in the past year in the state of Victoria with 1,447 assaults in the 12 months to June 2008.

The problem has been brewing for several months. On 1 December 28 year old Sukhraj Singh was attacked and brutally beaten up at a Sunshine Indian grocery store where he was about to buy naan bread for a party. Singh was left in a coma for three weeks. He still suffers from dizziness, a lack of balance and anxiety. Five men of varying ethnic background have been charged with his beating and three have pleaded guilty. Singh says he still has no idea if the attack was racially motivated. Western districts police Commander Trevor Carter told The Herald-Sun violence was almost never racially related to race, but with the intention of stealing phones and wallets.

Carter’s statement is supported by the rationale offered by another Indian student who is the friend of a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Adelaide. The sociologist blamed the increasing casualisation of the workforce in Australia and decreases in housing affordability. Jobs are less stable and people spend more time commuting between work and home. Overseas students on low-paying casual work are among the worst affected forced to travel longer distances, alone and late at night, all increasing their vulnerability to attack.

But another Melbourne victim, Sourabh Sharma, has no doubts racism is the underlying cause. Sourabh was coming home by train from a workshift at KFC when six young men boarded at Aircraft station, between Laverton and Hoppers Crossing. They attacked him, took his phone and bag and kicked him in the head and face and ribs, while laughing and dishing out racial abuse. The attackers got off at the next station. Sourabh was left unconscious and bleeding, with broken teeth and a fractured cheekbone.

The role of the Indian media has been crucial in stoking up reaction with its emotive and racially inspired descriptions of "curry bashing". Australian High Commissioner to India John McCarthy said their constant coverage of the issue had done inestimable damage to Indian-Australian relations. "India's voracious 24-hour cable news channels helped stoke the wave of fear and outrage among Indians in both countries,” he said. McCarthy said that although the news cycle was now coming to an end, negative perceptions of Australia would linger. “You can't have three weeks of that sort of television without the perception of Australia among Indians being damaged."

Australia stands to lose considerable income from the education industry if South Asians vote with their feet. 97,000 Indians are currently studying in Australia contributing $16 billion to the local economy. They make up 18 percent of the total student population second only to China. Almost half of these are in Victoria. The federal Government's $3.5 million campaign to attract more Indian students as a recession busting measure is now in serious jeopardy.

Belatedly, authorities have begun to act. In May Victoria launched a helpline to assist Indian attack victims. Last week Victorian Premier John Brumby announced new measures to improve safety at railway stations with a record of violent behaviour. The measures include additional patrols by uniform police, transit members, the dog squad, mounted branch and air-wing, as well as traffic operations and booze buses targeting trouble sports in and around Sunshine, St Albans, Thomastown and the Clayton and Dandenong areas.

This is a good start, but is it enough? Writing for The Times of India, Sarina Singh says perception appears to be the fundamental stumbling block. Singh is an Australian of Indian descent who says the federal government has acted too late to stop the rot. She agrees with Indian student groups who have requested a more multicultural police force. “As someone who has specialised in travel writing about the sub-continent,” she was "aware of the damage that can be done by inadvertent cultural misunderstanding.”

But this is not high on Australia’s priorities. Multiculturalism has been marginalised by federal governments for over a decade. As David Ingram wrote in New Matilda Australia has “dropped the ball on multiculturalism. He said the media and ethnic groups had become complacent because they thought the battle had been won. Then the antagonistic Howard Government removed the phrase from the national discourse replacing it with the more strident “new nationalism”.

Michael Clyne says the Rudd government has followed this “by a discourse of covert exclusion through invisibility.” Clyne says the Prime Minister is not on public record using the term multiculturalism or any synonym such as "cultural diversity" when referring to Australian society. Nor is there a minister for multicultural affairs. “Social inclusion ought to empower all sections of Australian society to fulfil their potential and to make their contribution to the nation from their background and experience,” says Clyne. We have some way to go to get there but multi-million dollar losses may concentrate the minds wonderfully.

Exit polls give Congress a narrow lead in Indian elections

India’s massive month-long election has finally closed with exit polls suggesting the country is headed for a hung parliament and coalition government. The fifth and final phase ended yesterday and all six polls give the ruling alliance led by the Congress party a slight lead over the main opposition bloc headed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However these polls should be treated with caution as they proved badly wrong in the last election in 2005. Nevertheless, it looks certain that when the final result is announced on Saturday neither grouping will have anywhere near the 272 seats required to command a parliamentary majority in the Lok Sabha (lower house).

The marathon election began on 16 April with 107.8 million registered voters deciding the fate of 1,432 candidates across seven states and two federally administered territories. The swing southern state of Tamil Nadu was among the last to vote yesterday but will be crucial as it has backed the winner in the last five elections. However the fight for its 39 seats has been complicated by the plight of fellow Tamils in the conflict in neighbouring Sri Lanka. Regional political parties say New Delhi have not done enough to stop the bloodshed and have vowed to protect the interests of ethnic Tamils if voted into power.

According to India’s constitution the new parliament must be in place by 2 June. As a result party dealmakers have arrived in New Delhi to start intensive negotiations with the host of small regional parties that are likely to take seats. There is plenty of cloak and dagger horse-trading such as when the head of the Janata Dal regional party, H.D. Kumaraswamy drove to Congress president Sonia Gandhi's home with his face covered and then left by a different exit. Kumaraswamy had previously indicated he was supporting the Third Front.

Kumaraswamy’s defection will be a major blow to the Third Front which is an umbrella movement of leftist and regional parties. The unwieldy alliance set up in March includes the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India, the Revolutionary Socialist Party, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham, the Forward Bloc, the Janata Dal (Secular), the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, and the Telugu Desam Party. The Front’s core objective is to present an alternative to alliances led by India's two national-level parties. However despite the opportunities presented by a hung parliament it is unlikely the Third Front will have a chance of forming government. And even if it did, The Economist says it would be “fatally weakened by internecine bickering, policy dissension and leadership clashes.”

So who will Indian president call to form government? Traditionally the largest party is given the first opportunity, BJP president Rajnath Singh remains confident his party will be the largest despite the exit polls. “The BJP will emerge as the single largest party. The BJP-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) will get a majority or will fall short by a small margin in which case I am confident that other political parties will support us,” Singh said. Singh refused to name which parties would support him if NDA falls short of a majority. “This is a part of our strategy. I will not say anything at all on this issue,” he added.

The results make it more likely that whatever coalition is formed, it is likely to be weak and the government would not last a full term. This feeling was noted by the Mumbai stock exchange with the BSE Sensex trading down 1.3 per cent today amid concerns of a weak coalition having to deal with India’s economic problems. The financial services firm Goldman Sachs noted that India's fiscal deficit ranked among the highest in the world and was likely to exceed 10 per cent of GDP in the current fiscal year.

The Times of India says neither major party have articulated a coherent strategy to dealing with the problem. “Contracting growth and diminishing revenues mean that public expenditure will come under strain,” said the Times. “Neither the Congress nor the BJP have alluded to this inevitability.”

ASEAN ignores Burmese Rohingya refugee crisis

There seems little likelihood that the plight of Burmese Rohingya refugees will be discussed at the ASEAN leaders Summit this week. Rohingyas are victims of racial discrimination in their own country and their plight came to international attention after Thailand admit they had towed a thousand refugees out to sea. Vitavas Srivihok, Thai director of ASEAN Affairs Department, said talks about Rohingya would at best be marginalised to the “sidelines” of the conference and even then expects little by way of concrete outcomes. The conference’s contempt for Rohingya shows yet again ASEAN’s disinterest in human rights issues.

The Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim community, with a long history, inhabiting Arakan province of Burma. Their ethnicity and religion has made them a target of oppression by Burmese military rulers. In a move reminiscent of Nazi discrimination against Jews, a Burmese 1982 law stripped them of their right to citizenship. Rohingya also endure restrictions affecting their movement, education, and freedom to marry. They are often forced into slavery, have their land confiscated and suffer arbitrary arrests, torture, and extra-judicial killings. Today the Rohingya have become increasingly landless and jobless forcing many to flee the country.

The Rohingya refugee issue is now an international problem affecting Burma, India, Bangladesh, Thailand and Indonesia. One thousand of them set off for Bangladesh in December and were detained and beaten when they landed in Thailand. But Thailand decided to export the problem. The refugees were forced back to sea in boats without engines or food. Hundreds died but hundreds more were rescued in Indian and Indonesian waters after several weeks at sea. On 7 January, 198 of them were found by Indonesian fishermen adrift at sea off Aceh, in northern Sumatra. Indonesian authorities say they have now rescued about 400 Rohingya migrants while Indian authorities at Andaman Islands have said they have also rescued hundreds of refugees. India plans to deport them back to Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, Thailand initially denied claims that its security forces abused the refugees. However in an interview with CNN last week, Thai PM Abhisit Vejjajiva admitted Thai security forces towed away the boats. Vejjajiva gave the unconvincing answer that he could not pinpoint which government official approved the practice, but claimed he was working on fixing the problem. "All the authorities say it's not their policy, but I have reason to believe some instances of this happened, said the PM. “If I can have the evidence as to who exactly did this I will certainly bring them to account."

But while the world should rightly judge Thailand harshly for its conduct in this shameful affair, Burma’s role should not be forgotten. Ye Myint Aung, the Burmese Consul-General at the Hong Kong consulate exposed what authorities really think of their minority in an extraordinary letter (pdf) addressed to the peninsula’s consular corps and media. In it, Aung denied Rohingya were Burmese. The Burmese, said Aung were good looking with “fair and soft” complexion. Rohingyas, by contrast had “dark brown” skin and were “ugly as ogres.”

Unfortunately, as New Mandala points out, the racism Ye Myint Aung shows against Rohingya is not unusual in Burma. New Mandala blames academics for stoking up “institutionalised chauvinism and historical memories built around communal conflicts from the last century”. Spurious research questioning their heritage gives people an excuse to distrust Rohingyas even though most have never met one.

But there are still groups around who are working to improve the Rohingya's lot. The Arakan Rohingya National Organisation wrote an open letter to the heads of ASEAN on the weekend which said that Burmese persecution of Rohingya people was a violation of the ASEAN Charter to respect human rights and international law. They called on the leaders to address the root cause of the Rohingya refugee problem and boatpeople crisis, pressurise Burma’s rulers to end human rights abuses and also urged Thailand to pay compensation to the families of Rohingya boatpeople who drowned.

The international peak political body for Burmese ethnic groups is also calling on the Australian government to push for the case for democracy in Burma. The Ethnic Nationalities Council represents seven ethnic Burmese groups Burma comprising 40 percent of the population. The Council's vice chair, Dr Lian Sakhong, told Foreign Affairs and Immigration officials that Australia should call for multi-party talks on Burma “to put pressure on the military regime so that we can have a dialogue.”

Sakhing said the talks should lead to a negotiated settlement to return Burma to democratic rule and also end ethnic oppression of Rohingyas and other groups affected by the 1982 citizenship laws. "We need to review the constitutions that are adopted by the military, so that we can have a compromise,” he told ABC’s Connect Asia. “If we don't do that, then the result will be another 50 years of civil war.”

Indian premier league: Slumdog Millionaire

It seems difficult to believe, but a plot twist involving Rickie Ponting is the favourite to scoop this year’s Academy awards. Slumdog Millionaire is a hyper-energetic rags-to-riches tale from Danny Boyle which deserves to pick up every Oscar it can lay its hands on. This Britsh-Indian co-production that out-Hollywoods Hollywood (not to mention beating Bollywood) is already scooping awards. This week A R Rahman made history by becoming the first Indian to win a Golden Globe for his score and the film also took out Globes in the fields of best director (Boyle), best screenplay (Simon Beaufoy) and best drama. Drama is the operative word for Slumdog - its shamelessly romantic tale is an old-fashioned heartwarmer that Frank Capra would have been proud of.

Except not many Capra films featured concepts of torture, rape, murder, ethnic violence, gang culture or media exploitation. And Americans would never have filmed a story about the phenomenal growth of Mumbai, slum life and the contradictions and regeneration of India, among other things. The fact is that Slumdog is just too difficult to categorise. Yet it has universal appeal. In Danny Boyle’s capable hands it is a simple film in the best tradition of boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl and boy, does he pull out the stops to find her again.

The premise of the story is that the hero, Jamal (played by the British actor Dev Patel who appeared in the Bristol teen drama “Skins”) goes on to the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire in order to win his girl back. Inadvertently, he gets all the answers right. The authorities are suspicious of a “slumdog” winning the millions and interrogate him to get at the “truth”. The story of how he knows all the answers is told in a series of energetic flashbacks that explain much of Jamal’s eventful life. The plot arc sent movie reviewers scurrying back to Dickens for contrast and comparison. For Roger Ebert, Jamal was Oliver Twist; for James Berardinelli he was David Copperfield.

But this is an ancient story which is dressed up in modern clothes. There is a real life Indian version of Millionaire called “Kaun Banega Crorepati” (which translates as who wants to be a “ten millionaire” according to the inflated value of the rupee). The joke here is that the show’s host is Amitabh Bachchan, the 1970s Indian film star who is the answer to the first of the questions that lead Jamal to his magic millions. The clever script is by Simon Beaufoy (who also wrote The Full Monty) and is based on "Q&A" a novel by Vikas Swarup. Swarup is a level-headed Indian diplomat who doubles as a writer of fiction. But even he has been overwhelmed by the reception of the film treatment of his book having done 30 interviews in the last two days.

The Slumdog phenomenon has even affected the normally starchy Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw who admitted he was forced to enjoy the film. “Despite being overpraised” he said, “this is still very effective entertainment.” However in typical Guardian fashion the spoilsport Bradshaw notes out the film is co-produced by Celador Films who own the rights to the original TV show “and so it functions as a feature-length product placement for the programme.” Yet as Bradshaw himself admits, it would be churlish to deny the film’s wonderful entertainment value. Like Jamal, Slumdog Millionaire is a winner: it is written.

The Curse of Kosi: Bihar floods affects millions

Two weeks after Bihar’s flooded Kosi River washed away much of the state, hundreds of thousands of people are finally giving up hope the waters will soon recede. More than a million people have been left homeless and scores killed in Bihar, one of the poorest regions in India. The Indian government has already rescued half a million people and another million still need to get out. Half the state is now under water. The worst hit areas are Supaul, Araria, Madhepura and Saharsa districts while more areas were becoming inundated while many other embankments were in danger of being breached.

The problem began after the monsoon rains when the Kosi River which flows from Nepal into India, burst its banks two weeks ago. The river changed course and flooded surrounding areas. Flood waters began flowing into Bihar when a barrage located on the Nepali side of the Kosi burst on 18 August. An employee at the crumbling 40 year old barrage says the collapse was inevitable due to negligence and the state of disrepair of the facility. “The officials came here in February like every year,” said the employee. “We told them things are bad. They didn't do anything about it.”

The Kosi is known as Bihar's Sorrow for its frequent deadly floods. The Kosi is one of the world’s most destructive waterways on account of its heavy silt deposits caused by its mountainous course in Tibet and Nepal and simultaneous rapid average water speed. Its fury has been renowned through the centuries as the Kosi curse. The curse was believed to be finally tamed by an embankment at the border. But with recurring problems at the barrage, locals now believe that the Kosi curse has returned. Most recently, floods in 2004 claimed 700 lives.

Another thousand or so have died this time round. The rising river has crumpled embankments, swamped farmlands and destroyed homes. Some locals have cashed in on the troubles of others. There are reports of people with boats and tractors were charging flood victims large amounts of money to carry them to safety. One rescuer apparently demanded a man’s ox in payment for a boat ride to safety.

The federal government in New Delhi has also been heavily criticised for its lack of basic disaster planning. NGOs say there seems to be no overall coordination for rescue operations and for the sheltering, feeding and medical care for the hundreds of thousands of those who fled from the floods. The anti-poverty charity ActionAid said "lessons from the past disasters should be kept in mind - a long-term comprehensive response is necessary to deal with relief, recovery and disaster preparedness".

Many refugees have arrived in New Delhi telling their grim stories of death and survival. Umesh Kumar from Madhepur district escaped with his mother, wife and three small children. The family hasn't eaten for two days and arrived with only a bag of clothes. They lost everything else in the floods. Kumar said he lost everything. “My kirana shop, 8 bighas of farming land - all now submerged in water. My children and mother are sick and I could not get them medical treatment.” He said. “The makeshift refugee camps set up by the state are not enough as many people are still trapped.” Another survivor said "Thousands are still trapped in outlying villages and the government is painfully slow in getting its act together”.

The government has reacted angrily to these criticisms. They claim with some justice that hardly anyone could have imagined a cataclysm on such a scale and point to the large-scale army rescues already in progress. Last week Prime Minister Manmohan Singh undertook an aerial survey of the flood-affected areas in Bihar. He called the flood a “national calamity” and announced a $200m relief package to the state. Locals are phlegmatic about the Curse of Khosi. “We fear our locked house will be burgled,” said one Bihar resident, “but jaan hai to jahan hai (You have the world only if you have the life)”.

British curry houses face major skills shortage

Last month, Indian restaurant owners in the UK warned they may have to close because Bangladeshi immigrants who do the cooking are banned from entering Britain under new rules requiring them to speak English. Business Secretary John Denham stepped in saying he wanted a thousand British curry chefs trained as soon as possible and has provided emergency funding to the catering industry emergency to set up courses in ethnic food.

Curry is a $6 billion industry in Britain. Of the countries 8,000 or so Indian restaurants, the great majority are run by Bangladeshis. A staggering 90 percent of these come from the seaman’s zone in the small district of Syhlet. Until 1947 Syhlet was a part of the Assam province in British India. After the partition, it was partitioned from Assam and included as a part of East Pakistan and now is a part of Bangladesh. During the Raj it was strategically important due to the series of waterways which linked the Assam tea plantations with the port of Calcutta. When the British introduced steamships, the Syhleti boatmen became employed as sailors in the engine rooms.

Many moved to Calcutta for work. There they joined the huge contingent of lascars who found employment on ocean-going steamships. Because the Syhletis could not speak English, they remained confined to the noisy engine rooms stoking the huge boilers with coal. Many died of heatstroke or the occasional explosion. With conditions so poor, they jumped ship whenever they could. Many ended up in London’s East End where they lived in a network of grotty boarding houses full of sly grog, gambling and opium smokers.

But by the outbreak of World War II, many landlords had cleaned up their act and a number of cafes emerged to cater for the tastes of the lascars. All along areas such as Sandy Row, Brick Lane, New Road and Commercial Road, boarding houses for Syhleti seamen were accompanied by nearby cafes which doubled as community centres. These seamen’s cafes would become the root of Britain’s Indian restaurant industry.

One of these seamen was Nawab Ali who jumped ship in Cardiff during the war. Like the majority of his fellow Syhletis, Ali got a job in catering; in his case cleaning, washing up and peeling potatoes in an Egyptian coffee shop. He moved on to Veeraswamy’s, Britain’s oldest Indian restaurant, which was visited by Gandhi and Nehru among others. At the time, Veeraswamy’s was one of just a handful of Indian restaurants in London. It served Anglo-Indian curries to rich Londoners and retired civil servants nostalgic for their colonial home.

After the war, there were plenty of bombed out cafés in need of restoration. Syhleti seamen used their savings to buy them as well as many decrepit fish-and-chip shops. Fish and chips was originally seen as slum food, but by the 1950s was gradually taken up by working class families as a change to the monotony of meat-and-three-veg. Nawab Ali was one of the many Syhletis who spruced up an old fish and chip shop and in addition sold tea, coffee, rice and curry to his predominantly white customers. The Syhleti owners also kept up the old custom of keeping their shops open after 11pm to catch the trade as the pubs were closing.

Gradually the white customers became more adventurous and began trying out the curry side of the menu. In particular the after pub crowd found that a spicy vindaloo went down exceedingly well on stomach full of beer. Thus began the tradition of a curry after a night in the pub. As the customers became more fond of the curries, the cafes simply dropped the fish and chips from the menu and became out-and-out Indian restaurants and take-aways.

New ventures in the 1950s began to choose Indian names for the restaurants and an entirely Indian menu. The close bond between the Syhletis in the community centres meant they began to dominate the trade. While they became Pakistanis in 1947 and then Bangladeshis in 1971, London-based Syhletis were mostly happy to be described as “Indians” in order to conjure up romantic images of the Raj in their clientele. The décor also projected this idea with pictures of elephants and maharajas. Most copied the menu of Veeraswamy’s and other early Indian restaurants who served the Mughlai and Punjabi vindaloo, biryani and rogan josh curries favoured by Anglo-Indians.

When Bangladeshis were allowed to apply for British passports in 1956, established immigrants brought their families over. A growing Asian immigrant community stimulated the growth of a little India around Drummond St near London’s Euston Station. Asian grocers supplied Bangladeshi spices to the restaurant trade. This was accompanied by a revolution in British eating habits in the 1960s. Syhletis responded by opening new restaurants and expanding their cuisine. By 1970, there were two thousand Indian restaurants which were part of the landscape of every British town and curry was part of the national diet.

More than any other ethnic food, curry is now a quintessential part of British culture. Britons spend $4 billion a year eating out in curry houses. Supermarkets no longer put curry paste in the ethnic foods category but define them as “mainstream British flavours”. However Lizzy Collingham, in her delightful book, “Curry – A Biography” says that despite eating large amounts of curry, the British are not always welcoming to the Asians who make it for them. She says the prevalence of curry in the British diet is not a sign of a new multicultural sensitivity, but rather is symptomatic of British insularity.

Their tastes may be cosmopolitan but their food habits remain thoroughly British. These matters clash with the mandatory English language immigration rule introduced in 2006. As the Financial Times points out, “it will count for naught that a would-be immigrant can mix a mean masala. He will need fluent English and a high-level cooking certificate too.”

India blames Pakistan’s ISI for Kabul embassy blast

Last week National Security Advisor MK Narayanan said the Indian government has good evidence linking Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI to the 7 July embassy bomb in Kabul that killed 56 people. Narayanan refused to elaborate on the nature of the evidence but said “the ISI needs to be destroyed”. Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani earlier denied his country's intelligence service had any involvement in the bombing. 'Why should Pakistan destabilize Afghanistan?” he said. “It is in our interest to have a stable Afghanistan.”

But whether or not the ISI was directly involved in the Kabul bombing, there is little doubt they have played an active role in Afghan affairs. ISI stands for the directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence. Very little happens in Pakistan or its proxy state Afghanistan without the knowledge of this powerful but shadowy group. The ISI has been crucial in maintaining order and sustaining military rule in an otherwise semi-anarchic state.

Critics now say the ISI is out of control answering to neither the president nor the Prime Minister. Mariane Pearl, writing about the murder of her husband Danny, described the ISI as a “kingdom within a state”. Many in the organisation are ideologically sympathetic to jihadi organisations. The Pearls were both journalists working in Karachi in 2002 when one Jihadi group kidnapped Danny and executed him. Mariane’s account of the incident reached a wider audience with Michael Winterbottom's film version of A Mighty Heart (starring Angelina Jolie). The Pearls had gotten an inkling of official Pakistani views when they interviewed Hamid Gul who accused the “Jews and Mossad” of carrying out the 9/11 attacks.

Hamid Gul was no ordinary conspiracy theorist. He was the director of the ISI from 1987 to 1989 and was considered the architect of the Afghan jihad. Gul masterminded the mujahideen war against the Soviets, financed by the CIA. In the nineties Gul was called “the Godfather of the Taliban”. Gul fell out of power but remains an important background voice. After the US invasion of Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, he told Robert Fisk he was not a Muslim extremist "but I support the implementation of Shari'a and we must be governed by the rules of Allah."

After the Afghan mujahideen war, Pakistan terrorists turned their attention to the “liberation” of Kashmir. By 1995, the ISI engaged the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeM) to raise a Taliban-type force of young Pakistani students to fight Indian forces in Kashmir. But now the Jihadi monster it created has gotten out of control. In 2003, JeM suicide bombers attempted to assassinate President Musharraf. A year earlier Pearl was killed by Sheikh Omar Saeed, a double agent of the ISI and JeM.

The ISI did not like journalists getting too close to their operations. As well as Pearl, they persecuted two Pakistani journalists who dared write about their activities. Ghulam Hasnain, whose work was syndicated to Time and CNN, was investigating Indian fugitive and smuggler Dawood Ebrahim when was arrested by the ISI a day before Pearl disappeared. He was so traumatised when released 36 hours later, he has refused to speak of it to anyone since. They also physically threatened Shaheen Sehbai, the editor of Islamabad’s The News, in a vain attempt to stop him from linking Pearl’s assassin, Sheik Omar Saeed, with the ISI.

Other leading Pakistani journalists such as Kamran Khan have struck a Faustian pact with the ISI in order to continually report freely. In order to maintain a relationship with them he writes as much to please them as about them. Khan freely admits the ISI have funded madrassas which have harboured Al Qaeda operatives. But he said that some of the Islamists are actually double-agents. He explained how it works to PBS Frontline: “the bottom line here is that, ‘Look. Whatever you are doing, whatever you do, we understand. But mind you, we cannot afford to harbour Arabs here. We cannot afford to harbour non-Pakistanis here. So please, please cooperate with us on that count.’ There is a very deep connection between the religious madrassas, and the key religious scholars, and the establishment.”

Given their power, Mariane Pearl could never understand why the ISI took an active interest in her husband’s disappearance. While the investigating police told Pearl that the ISI had been to her house on the day after the kidnap, she was unaware of their presence except the two occasions they sent a sullen, unhelpful and unsympathetic man who gave his name and rank, in possible homage to Catch-22, as “Major Major”. But if Major played dumb, others in the ISI definitely knew more about the killing than they were letting on.

When the Pakistani police finally tracked down Omar, they found he had already turned himself in to the custody of the home secretary of the Punjab state. Brigadier Ejaz Shah gave Omar sanctuary and kept his detention secret a week. Shah was a powerful figure behind the scenes. In the 1990s, he worked for the ISI and was the official “handler” for Bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Musharraf appointed him to the Punjab role on taking power in 1999. It is likely the ISI interrogated Omar during that week.

The Pakistanis weren’t the only people interested in Omar. In 2001, the FBI were tracing a link between Omar and 9/11 leader Mohammad Atta. Omar wired $100,000 to Atta in the month before the US attacks and the FBI wanted to know who authorised him to make the money transfer. It seemed the order had come from Omar’s boss: ISI head Lieutenant General Mahmood Ahmed. But while this might have shocked the FBI, it would have been no surprise to another well-known American agency. Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Former Pakistan High Commissioner to UK, told the South Asia Tribune in 2004 it has long been established, “the ISI has acted as go-between in intelligence operations on behalf of the CIA”. Yet this unpalatable truth remains hidden in a patchwork of Byzantine alliances. And as the Indian embassy bombing showed, it remains out of control.

Gujjars seek to downgrade their caste status

The Rajastani capital of Jaipur remains tense today as thousands of members of one of India’s lowest caste fight a seemingly bizarre battle to have their status lowered still. But the traditionally nomadic Gujjar people are taking this battle very seriously with a deathtoll that has reached 39 in fighting with authorities in the last seven days. In the Byzantine world of the Indian caste system, the Gujjars are fighting to be downgraded. The mostly Muslim Gujjars are considered as Other Backward Classes (OBC) which entitles them to access to 27 per cent of government jobs and university places but they want Scheduled Tribe (ST) status which would open the door to even further grants and positive discrimination entitlements. The protests began after the state government refused calls for their re-classification.

The violence began when Gujjar protesters lynched a policeman and police responded by opening fire on the demonstrators, killing 38 of them. Since then, the Government and the Gujjar community have been using the bodies of the slain protesters as bargaining chips in the dispute. At least 37 bodies are awaiting cremation, with the Gujjars holding 18 bodies at Bayana and Sikandara, while the state holds another 19 bodies inside morgues in Jaipur and Bharatpur. The government say the Gujjars have not permitted autopsies on the Bayana and Sikandara bodies. They are now hesitant to release the morgues bodies because they might be used as bargaining chips in the agitation for ST status. One man said he has been waiting for five days to collect his cousin's body. “Nobody is telling me anything and the condition of others at our home is really pathetic,” he said. “This is absolute cruelty as they first shot our brothers dead and are now refusing to even give back their bodies.”

The violence has spread to New Delhi where 500 people squatted on a major road in a seventh day of agitation associated with Gujjar demands. The state government has been forced to deploy 35,000 police and invoke the National Security Act as railway services were cancelled and major roads blocked in and out of the capital. The government of Rajasthan has told the Gujjars to take the appeal to the federal Government in Delhi but the federal coalition Government, led by the Congress Party has been trying to wash its hands of the matter saying it should be handled by the authorities in Rajasthan.

However, the problem is exacerbated by the fact that Gujjars are treated differently from state to state. The only states where the two million Gujjars are recognised as having ST status are Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Gujjars form a significant part of the populations of Rajasthan and Delhi where they are still considered OBCs. State governments there say that although Gujjars were originally nomadic, they have since become more settled on the land and more involved in agriculture and therefore not as deserving of special consideration.

Scheduled Tribes are recognised by the Indian constitution. It refers to indigenous groups living in forests and hills whose status is enshrined by national legislation. These groups are explicitly recognised as requiring support to overcome entrenched discrimination. The constitution provides three means of supporting STs. They are protective arrangements (laws which ban discrimination and enforce equality), compensatory discrimination (affirmative action to allocate job and higher education quotas to STs) and development (resources and monetary benefits).

But even ST status does not help prevent the oppression of Gujjar women. In the border province of Jammu and Kashmir, a study found that 89 percent of all Gujjar women are illiterate. The researcher, Dr Javid Rahi said early marriage, illiteracy, extreme poverty and nomadic way of life were all casting dark shadows over the future of hundreds of thousands of nomadic Gujjar women in the region. The women (who make up 10 percent of the state’s population) were being exploited and became the victim of superstitions. Because of early marriage and social status, only 12 per cent of Gujjar girls were admitted to primary school and most of these leave early. Rahi said there was not a single Gujjar woman officer in the civil service, parliament, banks, universities or in journalism. Scheduled or not, life remains a grind for the tribes of Gujjar women.

Between Hell and Himalaya: the story of Kashmir

(Picture credit: snowsphere.com)

Kashmir is one of the most beautiful places on Earth and also one of the most dangerous. Located in the shadows of Himalaya where three nuclear powers meet, parts of the ancient kingdom of Kashmir are claimed by all three. The provincial war of control between India and Pakistan erupted again this week. India’s Economic Times reporting that six members of the Islamabad-backed Jaish-e-Muhammad in a gun battle it described as between “terrorists” and “security forces”. Earlier this week. Pakistan’s Dawn also reported deaths in gun battles between the Indian military and “suspected Muslim militants” infiltrating the Line of Control that separates the two nations.

Violence in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is nothing new; it has long been this way. Writing about Kashmir in 2002, Pakistani-born writer Tariq Ali describes the area as “trapped in [a] Neither-Nor predicament”. Home of the Nila Naga (the earliest Kashmiris) and ruled in turn by Shahs, Moghuls, Afghan and Sikhs it was acquired by the British East India company and was sold at profit to corrupt local warlords. It was split between India and Pakistan in 1947 and remains an open sore for both countries today. According to the Nilamata Purana, (the Nila Naga Myth of the Indigo Goddess) the name Kashmir is a corruption of words that mean ‘ a land desiccated from water’. But Kashmir has truly been desiccated more by blood than water.

Islam first arrived in Kashmir in the eight century. But the prophet’s armies that had carried all before them for the last hundred years were defeated here finding it impossible to penetrate the great mountains’ southern slopes. It would take another 500 years to establish Muslim rule. It occurred fortuitously; a Buddhist chief named Rinchana from a neighbouring area fell under the influence of a Sufi teacher and began to practice Islam. The Kashmir rulers’ Turkish missionary army gladly switched sides to their new co-religionist and then took over themselves when Rinchana died. The army’s leader Shah Mir established a dynasty that lasted to the twentieth century.

Though Shah Mir and his descendants did not entirely suppress the Indian religions, they did practice forced conversions. Slowly the population embraced Islam. By the time Zain-al-Abidin became Sultan of Kashmir in the late fifteenth century the population ratio of Muslims to non-Muslims was 85 to 15. It remains roughly that ratio in modern times. Zain-al-Abidin takes a lot of credit for this stabilisation. It was he who ended the practice of forced conversion and who rebuilt Hindu temples his father had destroyed. He visited Iran and Central Asia and brought back the arts of book-binding, wood-carving and the making of carpets and shawls. The word ‘shawl’ is Persian in origin but the costume would soon become the uniform of Kashmiri men.

Kashmiri fortunes declined after Zain-al-Abidin died. A succession of weak rulers hobbled by court intrigue meant that the kingdom was ripe for conquest. In 1583, Moghul emperor Akbar dispatched his favourite general to annex Kashmir. He took the province without bloodshed. The Moghuls were greeted with relief by a suffering populace unhappy with their own weak and corrupt government. The Kashmiri Shah struck a deal with the Moghuls handing over effective power but retaining the monarchy and the symbolic right to strike coins in his own image.

Angered Kashmiri nobles replaced the Shah with his son. Akbar was forced to send a large expeditionary force to crush Kashmiri resistance and take direct control. The Moghuls were enchanted by the physical beauty of their new conquest. Akbar’s son Jehangir wrote of Kashmir: “if on Earth there be a paradise of bliss, it is this”. Despite, or perhaps because of, this bliss, the Moghul empire went into decline, like all those before it. Kashmir fell under Afghan rule in 1752. Kabul held the reins of power until Sikh hero Maharaja Ranjit Singh extended his military triumphs from the Punjab by capturing the Kashmiri capital Srinagar.

Singh’s empire was secular and he abolished capital punishment. He is one of those rare figures of history revered in both India and Pakistan. But Kashmiri historians say his 27 year reign was disastrous. He closed the Srinagar mosques and imposed a hefty tax burden on the people. Mass poverty led to mass emigration. A Kashmiri Diaspora fled to the cities of the Punjab where they still live. Meanwhile new and stranger colonists were coming to claim Kashmir.

These new interlopers were businessmen. Britain followed the Dutch model and granted the East India Company semi-sovereign powers to look after imperial interests in the sub-continent. Based in Calcutta, they expanded rapidly and gained the whole of Bengal after the Battle of Plassey in 1757. British rule in India is conventionally described as having started with Plassey. The Company gradually wheedled and bribed their way through a succession of Indian rulers and rajahs. Ranjit Singh’s death in 1839 saw his kingdom plunge into disorder. The Company increased its military strength and broke diplomatic relations with the Sikhs. In 1846, the so-called first Anglo-Sikh war resulted in a decisive defeat for Singh’s descendents.

The resulting Treaty of Lahore signed away Kashmir to the British company. But the Brits immediately did a deal to sell most of the land to Gulab Singh for 75 lakh rupees (lakh is the Indian word for a 100,000). Gulab Singh was the Dogra ruler of neighbouring Jammu. The Dogras did as all previous rulers had done and squeezed every last rupee of tax out of Kashmir to make back the money they gave to the British. Meanwhile the Company rule was ended by the Indian Mutiny of 1857 bringing in direct rule. London did not directly interfere with Dogra rule of Kashmir and Jammu but a “British Resident” was the real power.

The twentieth century was late in arriving to the Himalayan valleys. Not until the 1920s did young Kashmiris educated abroad bring in the new ideas of nationalism, anti-colonialism and socialism. In 1924 Kashmir had its first strike; workers in a state-owned silk factory demanded a pay rise and the dismissal of a corrupt clerk. When the union leaders were arrested, the workers resisted and the Dogra Army put down the strike with the support of Britain. Sullen resistance to Dogra rule continued through the decade. Police stirred up a hornet’s nest by stopping Friday prayers in a Jammu mosque claiming the imam was preaching sedition. It triggered a wave of protests in Srinagar and elsewhere. A speaker described the Dogra as “a dynasty of blood-suckers” and was promptly arrested. His trial attracted thousands of protesters demanding to attend proceedings. Police retaliated killing 21 people. They also arrested several leading Kashmiri citizens including a man named Sheik Abdullah.

Abdullah's arrest would prove to be the founding moment of Kashmiri nationalism. After he was released, Abdullah set about creating a political movement. The All-Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference was founded in Srinagar in 1932. Despite the name, the AJK MC was open to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Although the Hindus were a minority, Abdullah knew it would be stupid to offend the Pandits, upper class Brahmins whom Britain used to administrate the province.

To demonstrate his secular credentials, Abdullah invited the nationalist Indian leader Nehru to Kashmir. Nehru brought with him Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the man known as “the Frontier Gandhi”. Khan was an eloquent Muslim equivalent of Gandhi. Together, the three men formed a potent partnership. Abdullah promised liberation from the hated Dogra. Nehru preached the struggle against the British Empire and Khan spoke of the need to throw fear to the wind. “You who live in the valley”, he told his audience, “must learn to scale the highest peaks”.

The bond between the Nehru and Abdullah would prove crucial during the independence struggle. In any case, few politicians in the 1930s believed the subcontinent would be divided along religious lines. Even the most ardent Muslim separatist would have been happy with regional autonomy along federal lines. But old certainties were shattered by World War II. The British Empire including India was suddenly at war with Germany. Nehru was furious he was not consulted in the decision. His Congress party split with Nehru and Gandhi reluctantly supporting Britain while hardliners such as Subhas Chandra Bose argued for an alliance with Japan. The fall of Singapore in 1942 left Indians convinced the Japanese would take their country via Bengal. Congress threatened to switch sides.

A desperate Britain offered a carrot of a “blank cheque” to Nehru not desert the cause. Gandhi wondered aloud “what is the point of a blank cheque from a bank that is already failing?” As a result the Congress launched the Quit India movement. As a result of the civil disobedience its entire leadership including Gandhi and Nehru were thrown in jail. Meanwhile Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s Muslim League backed the war effort. Uneasy with Gandhi’s use of Hindu imagery, Jinnah left the Congress in the 1930s to set up his own Muslim organisation. Pakistan was his reward for war loyalty.

As the war ended in 1945, Nehru and Khan revisited Abdullah to find the Muslim-Hindu divide had started to stoke up in Kashmir. Just as in the divided provinces of Punjab and Bengal, violence erupted between rival factions. In the NWFP, Muslim League forces defeated Khan’s anti-partition troops. Khan lived until the 1980s but would spend most of his remaining days in a Pakistani prison. Khan’s defeat rocked Abdullah whose power in Kashmir grew as the British began to withdraw. Nonetheless the Dogra still held official power. In constitutional terms Kashmir was a “princely state” whose maharaja held the ultimate right to choose either to confederate with India or Pakistan.

Other Muslim ruled princely states such as Hyderabad and Junagadh chose India. But they both had Hindu majority populations. Kashmir was different. Jinnah negotiated directly with the Dogra maharaja to join Pakistan. Abdullah was outraged he was not involved. The maharajah baulked and Kashmir’s status remained unresolved when midnight struck on 14 August 1947 creating the new states of Pakistan and India. A line of control in Kashmir was established between the two countries. Both sides held armies commanded by British officers. Last British Viceroy Mountbatten made it clear to Jinnah that he would not tolerate a violent take-over of Kashmir.

Nevertheless Jinnah secretly plotted to take over the disputed Muslim province. Meanwhile Kashmir’s maharaja was now secretly plotting with the Congress Party. Once the British found out about Pakistan’s invasion plans they told Nehru who pressurised the maharaja to join India using the invasion as a pretext. Mountbatten ordered Indian army units to prepare to airlift to Srinagar. Once Pakistan invaded, the maharaja’s regime quickly collapsed. The undisciplined Pakistani army raped, looted and pillaged along the way assaulting Muslims and Hindus alike. Indian troops landed outside Srinagar where they waited for reinforcements. The Pakistanis invaded the city and pillaged shops and bazaars but overlooked the airport which was occupied by the Indian Army. The exiled maharaja signed the accession papers to India and demanded help to repel the invasion.

Matters were at a stand-off; it would all now depend on which side Sheik Abdullah supported. He regarded Jinnah’s Muslim League as a reactionary organisation who would prevent the needed social and political reforms in Kashmir. In 1947 he attended another rally with Nehru at his side. Abdullah publicly backed the Indian presence provided Kashmiris were allowed to determine their own future. What Abdullah wanted was an independent Kashmir but the 1947 wars ended that hope.

According to article 370 of the constitution, India recognised Kashmir’s “special status” but nothing more. In 1948 a realistic Abdullah backed “provisional accession” keeping Kashmir autonomous leaving India responsible for defence, foreign affairs and communications. Hardline Indian nationalists baulked at this special status. Eventually Nehru authorised a coup in 1953 to dismiss his old friend Abdullah. The unrest that followed made Kashmiris suspicious of Indian rule. Abdullah remained a thorn in India’s side.

After being released from prison, he flew to the Pakistani controlled side of Kashmir where a large crowd cheered him. He was arrested again after meeting with Chinese Premier Zhou En Lai. Meanwhile China launched its own assault on northern Kashmir resulting in a new administration of the region called Aksai Chin, which survives today. Encouraged by the disturbances Pakistan launched another assault on Kashmir in 1965 hoping to spark an uprising. India responded by attacking Lahore. Eventually Washington asked Moscow to put pressure on India to end the war.

Devastated by defeat in Bangladesh new Pakistani Prime Minister Ali Bhutto sued for peace with India. In 1972 he agreed to the status quo in Kashmir and got back 90,000 POWs captured after the fall of Dhaka in what had been East Pakistan. Abdullah made his peace with Delhi and was appointed Chief Minister of Kashmir by Indira Gandhi in 1977. When Bhutto was executed two years later, Pakistan’s last hope of peacefully taking Kashmir disappeared. Abdullah died in 1983, a tired and broken man resigned to Kashmir’s fate. The end of the cold war escalated the war between the two sides as the US and USSR lost interest in this Himalayan pawn.

The border and the Line of Control separating Indian and Pakistani Kashmir passes through some of the planet’s most difficult terrain. The continual low-level sniping between the two sides has led to a significant loss of human rights in Kashmir. A Medecins Sans Frontieres study in 2005 found that Kashmiri women are among the worst sufferers of sexual violence in the world. Since the violence escalated in 1989, sexual violence has been routinely perpetrated on Kashmiri women, with over one in ten respondents saying they were victims of sexual abuse.

Many people now see independence as the only way out of Kashmir’s nightmare. In 2001 the former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court Justice Rajinder Sachar said restoring pre-1953 special status to Jammu and Kashmir was the only solution to the problem. Sachar called both Indian and Pakistani governments hypocrites and said armed conflicts could not solve this complex issue and only political dialogue could reach a solution. ``When France and Germany which have a bitter history of conflicts can become good friends and work towards better future, “ he said, “then the same is possible in case of India and Pakistan."