India ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: L'Inde

By Raja Swamy

Raja Swamy is in the doctoral program in Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is interested in studying the impact of neoliberalism in India with a focus on the political economy of natural disasters. A shorter version of this article appeared on Siliconeer Magazine.

After thirty-four days of relentless aerial bombardment and a ground invasion, Israel's brutal assault on Lebanon's civilian population has come to a halt, at least temporarily. As the dust from the rubble of Lebanon's ruined cities, villages, and infrastructure settles, and as bodies of victims are recovered and buried, and the human losses mourned by the people of Lebanon, serious questions are being raised about India's increasingly cozy relationship with Israel. The Indian government cannot continue to expand military and economic ties with Israel and still expect to be untarnished by this association in the eyes of the world. More than a thousand Lebanese were killed by indiscriminate Israeli bombardment, the vast majority of them civilians. At the height of the Israeli assaults in early August, at least 45% of the dead were children. Approximately a million had been forced to leave their homes from an entire swathe of the country which Israel unilaterally and illegally declared its zone of operations, a virtual free-fire zone.

Waging a brutal and unrestrained war with the aid of U.S.-supplied weapons, Israel rained destruction upon civilians unable to defend themselves or even flee. Israeli bombs destroyed 97 roads, 75 bridges, 4 airports, 7 seaports, 8000 residential dwellings, 5 hospitals, 14 factories, 27 petrol stations, 9 army barracks.1 As each outrage shocked the world, the Israeli government with the overt and tacit support of its U.S. patrons announced further escalations and intensified this all-out war targeting the civilian population. As expected, the U.S. government stalled U.N. efforts towards a ceasefire and hastened the delivery of advanced munitions to Israel -- the undisguised goal was to give Israel "time" to "do the job" of "destroying" Hezbollah, the Lebanese national resistance, a task that has now come to naught, leaving the movement basking in the light of unprecedented popularity throughout the Arab world and beyond. Israel has to date recklessly cultivated a reputation for being immune to international law or humanitarian norms, and its outrages continue to be condoned as "self-defense" under an umbrella of impunity afforded by the protective embrace of the U.S. government. Image 1, a map made available by Samidoun, a Lebanese grassroots coalition, provides a glimpse of the extent of destruction carried out by Israel.2

India, the Israeli Arms Industry's Prized Market

It is commendable that the Indian government, albeit "under pressure from the Left parties," condemned the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon and called for an "immediate and unconditional ceasefire." However, the recent pattern of collaboration between the Indian and Israeli military and political establishments renders such condemnations and calls quite meaningless. Moreover, this official expression of concern came weeks into the bombardment, specifically in response to the brutal massacre of about 60 civilians, a majority of them children and women, in the city of Qana, which only ten years ago was the site of another horrendously similar Israeli atrocity. Statements and official pronunciations aside, what deserves greater public scrutiny is the pattern of relationships developed by India's political elites with the Israeli state and military over the period of the last decade. Business Week reported in 2005 that India became Israel's largest importer of weapons the previous year, accounting for about half of the $3.6 billion worth of weapons exported by that country.3 Not coincidentally, that year also proved to be the second best recorded year for the Israeli weapons industry, making Israel the 5th largest weapons exporter in the world and accounting for about 10 percent of the world's weapons trade. Obviously, the Israeli armaments industry values India as a major new market for its weapons and as such has much to gain from maintaining and deepening the appetite for arms by the Indian state.

Since the 1970s, the Israeli armaments industry has had to adopt an aggressive export-orientation since the country's own military only procures about a third of its output. Israel has a sordid history of supplying weapons and training to notorious dictatorships, including South Africa's apartheid regime, Nicaragua's Somoza, Pinochet in Chile, Marcos in the Philippines, Duvalier in Haiti, Mobutu in Zaire, dictatorships in Guatemala, Argentina, and scores of other African, Asian and South American countries where unpopular regimes utilized Israeli weapons, training and advice to ruthlessly suppress their populations through the 1970s and 80s. Weapons sales also became the "motor driving Israel's foreign policy" during this period, as economic crises required bouts of intensified lobbying by Israeli arms merchants dispatched to dozens of countries to coax and cajole assorted defense ministries into purchasing Israeli weapons. Israeli foreign policy thus has a track record of being closely tied to the interests of its weapons industries, exemplified and facilitated by the interlocking relationships between elites in the highest echelons of the political structure, the military establishment, and arms industries, who together comprise the "security establishment lobby." The close relationship between Israel's foreign policy and the aggressive export-orientation of its arms industry is summed up in the following statement by Aharon Klieman, who wrote: "Arms transfers are a dual-purpose political-security tool, essential for Israel's security position, and an unavoidable critical component of foreign policy. Consequently, Israel's diplomacy of arms exports is a kind of extension of Israel's general approach to foreign affairs."4

By the late 1980s, Israeli weapons exports as a proportion of total industrial output rose to between 30 and 40 percent, from 31 percent in 1975 and 14 percent in 1967.5 Today at least 25 percent of Israel's annual exports are armaments.6 It is in the light of this nexus of weapons export orientation and militaristic foreign policy that the new Indo-Israeli relationship becomes clear at one level. The new relationship developed since 1992 is not immune to the same logic driving Israeli foreign policy dominant since the 1970s -- that of aggressively expanding markets abroad for its armaments industries and maintaining a military-centered approach to international relations consistent with the goals of the ongoing occupation of Palestine, as well as expansionist goals and related forays into Lebanon, and other neighboring countries. On the Indian side, both wings of the ruling class, tethered as they are to dreams of "great power" status, support the expansion of this relationship by subscribing to a hawkish attitude towards resolving international disputes, particularly with Pakistan, a posture that conveniently demands unrestrained military spending. Every visit by a delegation of Israeli officials either preceded or followed the cementing of ties involving the purchase of weapons or the training and/or expansion of cooperation between Israeli armaments interests and their Indian counterparts (see Table 1). There were also reports, in 2003, of the Israeli defense establishment dispatching "scores of agents" to persuade the Indian armed forces into buying weapons.7

Betraying the Anti-colonial Legacy = Betraying the Indian People

Such an unhealthy relationship built on the consumption of Israeli weapons necessitates the alienation and betrayal of broader friendships and historical ties that the people of India share with the people of the Arab world, particularly those in the countries and occupied lands bearing the brunt of aggressive Israeli militarism and allied U.S. aggression. Just as India stood on the right side of history in the case of apartheid South Africa, so should its present leaders take on the historic responsibility of aligning India with the forces of justice, equality, and peace -- in support of the human rights and the right to self-determination of the people of Palestine and Lebanon. In the first three decades after independence, successive governments sought to project India as a country dedicated to decolonization. This posture offered the basis for the principled foreign policy of the Nehruvian state which drew its own legitimacy from the tumultuous anti-colonial struggle that brought about independence for the subcontinent in the late 1940s. Israel was reluctantly recognized as a state only as late as 1950, and no formal ties were established for almost four decades, in tacit recognition of the rights of Palestinians brutally dispersed to facilitate Israel's creation. In 1975, India voted at the United Nations in favor of the resolution equating the ideology of Zionism with racism. India was also the first non-Arab state to recognize the PLO, welcoming a Palestinian embassy in New Delhi by 1988. In early 1992, anticipating the rapidly changing situation following the end of the cold war, and in the context of efforts by some Arab states to renegotiate relations with Israel (at the behest of the U.S.), another Congress government decided to establish formal ties with the state of Israel. In the decade following this normalization of ties, successive governments of both the centrist Congress and the right-wing BJP, irrespective of party ideology, have rapidly forged extensive military, economic, and political relationships.

Significantly, the shift within the Indian ruling classes from the official position of non-alignment and state-centered economic development towards the Washington Consensus8 facilitated and encouraged this changed attitude towards Israel. The Washington Consensus, perhaps best exemplified by India's subscription to the IMF's structural adjustment program of the early 1990s necessitated adherence to a U.S.-centered economic (and hence political) agenda emphasizing privatization of state assets, liberalization of trade, and the globalization of economic activities. Into this new arena of free-market fundamentalism entered the political maelstrom of Hindutva -- which launched an assault on the secular, pluralistic pretensions of the post-independence state and openly advocated the further disenfranchisement and marginalization of India's largely working-class Muslim population. Ideologically, the India's ruling classes' fantasies of "great power," "emerging superpower," etc. justified their growing servility to U.S. designs in the region, and opened the floodgates on unrestrained spending on weapons. Spending on social services and investment in crucial areas like agriculture and industry plummeted, as per the diktat of the neoliberal program. It is in this context of neoliberal restructuring and adherence to the Washington Consensus that the current trends in visibly expanded Indo-Israeli military and political relations emerged through the 1990s and into the first decade of the 21st century.

Military Political

1996


* Israeli President Ezer Weizman's visit to India at the head of a 24-member business delegation.9

1998


* Indian Army Chief-of-Staff Gen V N Malik's visit to Israel.10

1999


* Ordnance and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) supplied to aid India in the Kargil war with Pakistan

* Suspicions of secret nuclear cooperation

* Indian Deputy PM and Home Minister L.K. Advani's visit to Israel

* Indian President Abdul Kalam visited to Israel 18 months prior to Pokhran nuclear tests.

2000


* Jane's Defense Weekly reported in June that Israeli security officers regularly visited Kashmir.

* Israeli submarines test-fired nuclear-capable missiles off the coast of Sri Lanka (see Footnote 5)

* Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh visited to Israel11

2001


* Joint defense cooperation group established. The JWG meets every year alternately in New Delhi and Tel Aviv to solidify defense deals, military ties, and coordination of security and intelligence relationships.

* Deal for purchase of Israeli Phalcon (Airborne Early Warning and Control Systems) cleared after years of being stalled.

* Deals to upgrade artillery with Israeli firm Soltan

* August 14, 2001: "Israeli intelligence agencies have been intensifying their relations with India security apparatus and are now understood to be heavily involved in helping New Delhi combat Islamic militants in the disputed province of Kashmir." -- Jane's Terrorism and Security Monitor, August 14, 2001

* "It was an ironic coincidence that Brajesh Mishra was closeted in his office in New Delhi on September 11, 2001 with his Israeli counterpart Major General Uzi Dayan and engaged in what was dubbed a "joint security strategy dialogue" when the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon occurred."12

2002


* Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres's visit to India. Peres had visited India "three times in the past twelve months."13

* Indian Minister of Communication & Parliamentary Affairs Pramod Mahajan visited to Israel

2003


* $20 million agreement with Israeli Military Industries for assault rifles, sniper rifles, night vision equipment, laser range finding and targeting equipment.

* Israel to train four new special forces battalions in "irregular warfare" in Kashmir.

* Israeli defense industry has dispatched "scores of agents" to pursue sales to the Indian armed forces.

* September: Israeli PM Ariel Sharon's visit to India, hosted by the BJP led NDA government. At the height of a brutal Israeli suppression of the Palestinian population, with Sharon's international reputation as a ruthless enemy of Palestinians, this cynical display of Indo-Israeli bonhomie by the NDA government was intended to help rehabilitate him and to settle defense deals.

* Israeli Minister of Science & Technology Eliezer Sandberg's visit to India, signing of an MoU with ISRO

2004


* $1.1 billion deal on Phalcon concluded.

* Ehud Olmert (now Israeli PM)'s visit to India, first as Industry, Trade and Employment Minister, then as Deputy Prime Minister.14, 15

* Indian Minister of Commerce & Industry Mr. Arun Jaitly's visit to Israel as head of the Indian delegation to the Joint Economic Committee.

2005


* 50 Heron Drones (spy UAVs) to be sold to India by Israel Aircraft Industries

* Visits to Israel by Kumari Sejla (Minister of State for Rural Development), Kapil Sibal (Minister of State for Science and Technology), Kamal Nath (Minister of State for Commerce and Industries), Sharad Pawar (Union Minister for Agriculture).

2006


* National Security Advisor of Israel, Maj.Gen.(Retd.) Giora Eiland visits India to hold talks with his counterpart Mr. M.K. Narayanan under the framework of the "Indo-Israel National Security Council dialogue."16

Congress-BJP: Same Love Affair with Israel

As opposition party in 2003, the Congress Party had vociferously protested when the BJP's L.K. Advani and National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra proclaimed an emerging "strategic relationship" between the India and Israel. Jaipal Reddy, spokesperson for the Congress, was reported to have said: "Obsession with Israel on the part of the coalition government is strange and perverse . . . when Israel is facing international isolation. It shows the intellectual insolvency of the government."17 Noting that the relationship between India and Israel "qualitatively differed" from that between India and the U.S., Reddy asserted that the two countries were separated by "ideological dissonance" as the Congress Party position towards the Palestinians was diametrically opposed to that of the Israelis. "There has to be a minimum ideological similarity for a strategic partnership."

Barely a year after assuming office, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government led by the Congress Party agreed to continue expanding collaboration with Israel's military industries after the third "Joint Working Group" meetings between defense and security bigwigs from both countries concluded in 2004.18 On the table were expanded purchases of Israeli armaments by India, including 50 Heron spy drones (UAVs), and an agreement to hold joint air-force exercises involving U.S.-built Israeli F 16s and Russian-built Indian Sukhoi Su-30Mk1s. These deals were signed with much fanfare by the UPA government led by the very same Congress Party that once invoked its commitments to Palestinian rights, to Indo-Arab relations, and to its supposed adherence to principled foreign policy. If the past NDA government led by the Hindu right BJP ratcheted up relations with Israel on account of its perceptions of an "anti-terror" (read anti-Muslim) axis between India, Israel, and the U.S., the Congress-led UPA government has maintained a steady intensification of ties between India and Israel while incredibly claiming that its commitment to all things principled in foreign policy remain untouched.

Notably, Indo-Israeli ties have expanded under the UPA to include a host of non-military economic relations as well. By 2002 Israel's non-military trade with India had grown to more than 6 times what it used to be in 1992 (1.27 billion as compared to $202 million).19 A host of Indian cabinet ministers visited Israel in 2004, including the minister for Rural Development, Commerce & Industry, Agriculture, and Science & Technology. It is noteworthy that in a country reeling under the impact of a decade of neoliberal prescriptions, with millions of agricultural producers facing starvation and thousands taking their own lives, our leaders refuse to recognize the "intellectual insolvency" of collaboration with an Israeli state built upon the doctrine of racial exclusion, unending war, and expansionist aggression. Regardless of how much non-military ties have expanded between the two countries, Israel is India's second largest seller of armaments after Russia. It is a disturbing truth today that India's dominant political elites, with little variance across party-lines, display an unswerving dedication to developing India as a market for Israeli armaments industries.

Indo-Israeli Ties as Part of the Wider Anti-people Policies Pursued by the Indian Ruling Class

Supporters of this relationship argue that the current Indo-Israeli bonhomie is mutually beneficial and that ethical questions ought to be subordinate to the demands of pragmatism in international affairs since India's security needs they argue, demand reliable sources of advanced armaments. The pragmatism argument fails the test of reason if subjected to scrutiny: is it pragmatic to aid and abet the destruction of much of the third world through the development of close military relations with an expansionist state that serves as the surrogate of the U.S. imperial power? Is it pragmatic to alienate the vast majority of humanity in the process of feeding the arms dealers of a renegade country and sucking up to its imperial patron? It has been argued that India's emerging relationship with Israel is intimately tied to its increasingly subservient relationship with the U.S. Meanwhile, Israel's close relationship to the U.S. imperial power and its hold on U.S. foreign policy in West Asia has often raised questions about the tail wagging the dog. Despite the obviously Orwellian implications of the claim that this relationship between India, Israel, and the U.S. can be seen as an "alliance of democracies," it is not far-fetched to assume that the Indian ruling elites see their country increasingly as a regional surrogate for a U.S.-led agenda. In this view, the role of Israel as a "friend" supplying arms serves the purpose of cementing such an assumed alliance.

Great power illusions aside, the obvious material interests at play in this process ought to render all such assumptions nothing more than fantasies of delusional elites. Or in a perhaps more insidious sense, such assumptions merely represent the rhetorical language used to justify the diversion of resources away from the real needs of the Indian people, into the deep pockets of arms-sellers feeding off fear, insecurity, and increasingly, bouts of high-tech savagery against populations. And what about security? What are the security-needs of India's people? Weapons purchases do not even begin to address the urgent issues of security from hunger, deprivation, disease, disasters, rampant inequality, oppressive traditions, unemployment, and the like. And why should India's so-called "security" needs, divorced as they are from the real needs of India's people, be sought at the cost of the human rights of Palestinian, Lebanese, or other populations brutalized and oppressed by our new "friends?" Wrenching the term "security" from its use in the one-dimensional sense of military security (and its linear logic of buying more advanced weapons) can help rescue the issue of real human security from the paranoiac pronouncements of professional fear-mongers in the elite establishment and their assorted mouthpieces in the media.

It is incumbent upon all peace-loving people in the world, particularly Indians and people of Indian origin, to demand that the Indian state's leaders reassess the deepening relationship with Israel. India is Israel's second-largest trading partner in Asia after China. This means Israeli industries are dependant upon India's markets. India's dependence on Israeli markets, however, is negligible: exports to Israel from India topped $800 million in 2002, while Indian exports to the UAE rose to $ 3 billion in the same year. Leveraging this power to rein in the rampaging policies of the Israeli state would be a sign of maturity and goodwill by a country that traces its own heritage to the anti-colonial struggles of the twentieth century. However, this cannot happen while the projection of India as an open market for Israeli armaments continues to be the reigning priority of India's political elites. Defense ties with Israel must be cut immediately or at the very least curtailed drastically in order to send a strong signal to the Israeli state that it cannot continue massacres of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians without costs to its long-term economic well-being.

Moreover, it is about time the Indian state re-evaluated its priorities: there is much more of a need for state spending on dealing with the dangerously underestimated agrarian crisis, related rural investment, urban and rural healthcare, primary and secondary education, disaster preparedness and management, among a host of other pressing needs that cannot be met so long as huge portions of the state coffer is funneled to international weapons dealers. Every rupee spent on Phalcons, Herons, and Baraks will not only increase the militarization of the subcontinent, thereby endangering the entire population, but also continue to be siphoned away from generating jobs, providing food, medicines, schools, and sustaining livelihoods for millions of India's people. What is happening under the present dispensation is that farmers are being told they have to fend for themselves as subsidies are cut and cheap imports flood the markets rendering producers vulnerable enough to increasingly resort to suicide in the face of deprivation, while Israeli arms merchants are being told that they have free access to the largesse of the Indian state since presumably billions of dollars spent on bombs and guns are more important for the Indian people! The choice really is between Israeli weapons and Indian livelihoods as much as it is between Israeli bombs and Arab lives.

Additionally, the collaboration with Israel on the so-called issue of "terrorism" ought to be carefully scrutinized. What Israel is doing in occupied Palestine and currently in Lebanon is collective punishment, proscribed by the Geneva Convention and grossly in violation against international laws governing the inter-state system after 1945. Israel's leaders perceive every Palestinian man, woman, and child as a legitimate target for physical liquidation, if not subjugation, through the force of arms. In the current aggression against Lebanon, Israeli leaders have repeatedly referred to Lebanese civilians as indistinguishable from Hezbollah and have carried out indiscriminate attacks against civilians under the pretext of fighting "terrorists." Why should India continue participation in any "Joint Working Group" with Israel on the issue of "terrorism" when this term is used openly by the leadership of that country as a code word to refer to every Palestinian and Lebanese individual? There are already historical and contemporary precedents for such official attitudes in the bloody excesses by the armed state, including paramilitaries and police forces in Kashmir, Punjab, Assam, Manipur, and Andhra Pradesh, where critics and opponents of the government's policies ended up labeled as "terrorists" and were frequently targeted for physical violence. Since the advent of Hindutva's grip on the Indian elite imagination, Muslims have been frequently targeted and collectively impugned as "terrorists" even as genocidal state-sponsored violence against Muslims in Gujarat has not resulted in any punitive actions against responsible Hindutva organizations. Has the Indian state already begun emulating its new friend in more ways than it would like to admit? It would be a stretch to suggest that India has learned all these awful things from Israel, but it does not inspire much confidence to know that India's leaders are busy building a regime of collaboration on "terrorism" with Israel, a state that so blatantly uses the term to justify its militaristic brutality against civilians in Palestine and Lebanon. Such collaboration helps expand the reach of undemocratic regimes of impunity enjoyed by the ruling interests in the Indian state, and works against the general interests of the people, particularly those already rendered vulnerable by existing inequalities in access to physical security, legal rights and protections under the law.

In conclusion, it would be in India's best interests to sever military ties with Israel immediately -- on ethical and political grounds, but also pragmatic and security grounds. India should not have anything to do with an openly expansionist state that has relegated the very meaning of the term democracy to irrelevance by its adherence to the ideology and practice of racism, state terrorism, and unrelenting brute force against the peoples of the lands it covets. India should not seek to purchase weapons of destruction from such a state, especially when these purchases are made at the expense of the needs of its own population, and when the increasing stockpiles of such weapons increase the collective vulnerability and insecurity of the entire population. India should cease collaborating with a state that relegates, with impunity, entire populations to the category of expendable human beings to be subjugated, their lands and resources stolen from them and in case of the slightest forms of resistance their bodies destroyed by advanced weapons. No country calling itself a democracy can continue to do so if its leaders see it fit to embrace a state like Israel even while the cries of human beings crushed by that aggressive expansionist state tear at the collective conscience of our humanity. Alienating the rest of the world in the pursuit of some sense of power, however real or illusory that may be, is not pragmatic, if pragmatism is to be seen as the means by which the best interests of the people of India are to be served. It is time for India to wrench itself free from Israel's deadly embrace. Perhaps when Israel abandons its current trajectory, the issue of friendship can and ought to be revisited in earnest, but until then the Indian government ought to bid the Israeli government and its armed establishment a sincere goodbye.

1 July 2006 War on Lebanon Blog -- figures compiled from Lebanese media. The blog provides daily updates by volunteers working with refugees and victims of the war. Updates on the lives of refugee children coming to terms with trauma and loss are particularly notable and have been featured on the Guardian's website.

2 Samidoun: "SAMIDOUN is a grassroots coalition that aims to work in a democratic and participatory atmosphere. The coalition is multi-confessional and diverse in terms of nationality. The coalition is also diverse in its composition in terms of supporting organizations, from student groups, to the gay and lesbian center, to arts and film production collectives, to small political parties, to environmental groups. But the bulk of the work is through young volunteers from all over the country, some of whom are refugees themselves" (Samidoun, "Who We Are").

3 "A Banner Year for Israeli Arms Exports," Business Week, 7 March 2005.

4 Aharon Klieman, A Double-Edged Sword. Israeli Defence Exports in the 1990's, qtd. in Oren Persico, "Arms unto the Nations," Globes Online (an Israeli business daily), 5 May 2003.

5 Jane Hunter, "Israeli Foreign Policy: Weapons Manufacturing Industry," Israeli Foreign Policy, South End Press, 1987.

6 Persico, op. cit.

7 Rahul Bedi, "Moving Closer to Israel," Frontline 20.4, 15 - 28 February 2003. See, also, P.R. Kumaraswamy, "Indo-Israeli Ties: The Post-Arafat Shift," Power and Interest News Report, 9 March 2005.

8 The Washington Consensus refers to the minimum range of economic policies aggressively advocated by the U.S. through Washington-based institutions like the IMF and the World Bank. The "consensus" sought to enforce neoliberal prescriptions on countries of the third world in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and centered on privatization of state assets, liberalization of trade, deregulation of markets, and the withdrawal of the state from its social responsibilities manifest most obviously in the enforcement of drastic budget cuts in social spending advocated by supporters of this "consensus." The "consensus" essentially sought to force countries of the third world to reorient and subordinate their economic activities under the umbrella of U.S. led global capitalist interests. See "Unraveling the Washington Consensus, An Interview with Joseph Stiglitz," Multinational Monitor 21.4, April 2000.

9 Subhash Kapila, "India-Israel Relations: The Imperatives for Enhanced Strategic Cooperation," South Asia Analysis Group, Paper No 131, 1 August 2000.

10 Dominic Coldwell, "Still in the Closet, Barely," Al Ahram Weekly Online 449, 30 September - 6 October 1999.

11 "Jaswant's Israel Visit to Focus on Terrorism," The Times of India, 1 November 2000.

12 Ninan Koshy, "US Plays Matchmaker to India, Israel," Asia Times Online, 10 June 2003.

13 "High-level Visits," Frontline 19.2, 19 January - 1 February 2002.

14 "India Congratulates Olmert As Israel PM," Israel News Agency, 13 May 2006.

15 "Ehud Positive on Indo-Israel Ties," The Tribune, 28 November 2004.

16 "Bilateral Relations: Historical Overview," Israel Diplomatic Network, Embassy of Israel, New Delhi, July 2006.

17 Sultan Shahin, "India's Startling Change of Axis," Asia Times Online, 13 May 2003.

18 "India and Israel to Further Strengthen Military Ties: Report," Outlook India, 19 January 2005. See, also, "Israel to Sell 50 Heron UAV's to India," India Defence, 11 August 2005.

19 Harsh V. Pant, "India-Israel Partnership: Convergence and Constraints," The Middle East Review of International Affairs 8.4, December 2004. See, also, "India-Israel Economic and Commercial Relations," Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.


http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/swamy300806.html

By Praful Bidwai, June 8, 2006, Nav Hind Times

The Chhattisgarh government is about to launch a massive military operation against the Naxalites with more than a dozen Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) battalions under the command of the so-called ‘supercop’ and former Punjab director-general of police, Mr K P S Gill. The operation has been called the ‘ultimate’ blow or ‘knockout’ punch against ‘the Red Menace’ and will reportedly involve the use of helicopters. The CRPF will be assisted by special commandos from Mizoram, who have been trained in counter-insurgency operations by United States troops at Vairangte for more than a decade.

Mr Gill’s strategy, whose blueprint is with the Union home ministry, involves gathering reliable intelligence on the Maoists’ hideouts and movements, and hitting them hard, “In a sudden and well-coordinated attack”. According to a leak to the media, “The thrust of the Gill [strategy] is to launch a swift offensive, giving little time to [the] Maoist guerrillas to regroup and retaliate”. The plan also involves evacuation of a large number of people from the forests of southern Bastar and clearing them of mature trees.

It’s a safe bet that this operation will further brutalise the civilian population without being particularly effective against the Naxalites. The Union and state governments should call off the operation at once.

The operation is a sequel to a ‘people’s campaign’ called Salwa Judum (peace hunt or movement) launched a year ago by the state government, which has all but triggered a civil war in parts of Chhattisgarh. Salwa Judum (SJ) targets the Naxalites for violent attacks. Its members generally comprise the local elite, including wealthy Adivasis, traders and contractors. Formally, SJ is the creation of Congress legislature party chief, Mr Mahendra Karma, politically known as ‘the 60th member of BJP CM, Mr Raman Singh’s cabinet’. In truth, the SJ idea was conceived by the former Bharatiya Janata Party home minister, Mr Brij Mohan Aggarwal.

A group called Independent Citizens’ Initiative (ICI), recently released a fact-finding report on SJ which makes disturbing reading. It shows that SJ is not the ‘people’s spontaneous resistance or uprising’ against the Naxalites as claimed but a government-sponsored and funded organisation which has an armed wing consisting of 3,200 Special Police Officers (SPO).

In essence, says ICI, the Chhattisgarh government has ‘outsourced’ its law-and-order functions to an ‘unaccountable, undisciplined and amorphous group’ not trained to use firearms properly. SJ has been forcing tribals to take up arms against the Naxalites-on pain of being beaten up, illegally fined, or have their homes burnt down. SPOs are meant to work under the authority of the state police, but in Chhattisgarh’s Naxalite-affected districts, the regular police has ceded all power to them.

SJ’s violent operations have turned the tribal belt of Bastar into a virtual war-zone, in which Adivasis are pitted against Adivasis and forced to fight the Maoists to whose retaliation they become vulnerable. Scores of villages have been evacuated. The Adivasis’ social life has been destroyed. Officially, as many as 46,000 people have been compelled to move into so-called relief camps near highways. According to interviews conducted by ICI with local people, officials, journalists and foresters, the number of displaced people is as high as 70,000.

ICI found “evidence of killings, the burning of homes, and attacks on women, including gang-rape.” There are arbitrary arrests and “several people seem to be missing. The press is tightly controlled and intimidated...”

SJ is guilty of recruiting even minors as SPOs-a breach of the Geneva Convention and of several covenants on child rights to which the government is a signatory. Equally disturbingly, an attempt is under way to break up tribal communities into the equivalent of “Strategic Hamlets” which the United States (US) created in the 1960s in Vietnam in its brutal. Just last fortnight, two officials of the US embassy met the Chhattisgarh chief secretary (home), Mr B K S Ray to offer the state assistance in fighting the threat. Although the government has not accepted the offer, it’s clearly following the same militaristic approach that the US favours to deal with insurgents and guerrillas.

Ostensibly, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government advocates a “two-pronged” strategy: deal sternly with Naxalite violence; but simultaneously address the socio-economic sources of discontent underlying it through development programmes. In March, Union Home Minister, Mr Shivraj Patil tabled a status paper on the issue in which he spelt out a 14-point policy based on such a dual approach. In reality, the government has concentrated much of its effort on ‘modernisation’ of state police forces, long-term deployment of paramilitary troops, and use of modern lethal weaponry.

The bulk of the financial assistance of Rs 2,475 crore committed to the 55 worst Naxalite-affected districts is earmarked for police-paramilitary operations.

The government has concentrated only one thing: force. This approach springs from a ‘thanedar mentality’ or that coercion is the most effective way of dealing with social discontent. This approach fails to understand that Naxalite activity has spread to some 160 of India’s 600 districts because of rising agrarian distress, destruction of forests by the timber mafia, uprooting of Adivasis due to predatory mining, irrigation and metallurgical projects, and rapidly growing income and regional disparities. It’s not a coincidence that more than two-thirds of the 55 most severely Naxalite-affected districts lie in the tribal belt. In state after tribal state, the Adivasi economy has been squeezed and marginalised to a point where millions of Adivasis have ceased being an agricultural people.

More generally, Naxalite activity has grown-year after every single year-because of India’s jobless and destructive growth which benefits only a tenth or so of the population. It’s hard to defend the violent justice that many Naxalite groups readily hand out to their enemies. Some have even developed a stake in extortion.

However, the problem this poses cannot be resolved, even mitigated, by coercion, especially the lawless use of force without accountability. That’s precisely what SJ has practised. This cannot but further alienate Chhattisgarh’s Adivasis and throw even the more neutral of them into the Naxalites arms. Social discontent typically takes a violent turn when all peaceful avenues are closed.

Mr Gill is a dogmatic votary of the coercive approach. One of the greatest myths created about him is that he effectively, yet lawfully, crushed the Punjab insurgency. The National Human Rights Commission has just authenticated the judicial finding that almost 2,000 people were cremated without identification in a single year in Punjab. It has ordered compensation to the victims’ relatives. The Centre must radically revise its Naxalite strategy and open a dialogue with Maoist groups.If the Manmohan Singh government can hold round after round of talks with separatists from Jammu and Kashmir and with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, there is no reason why it cannot talk to non-secessionist groups which voice the grievances of the people.

by Siddharth Varadarajan


03 June 2006


If television and newspaper coverage of the anti-reservation agitation was indulgent and one-sided, the lack of diversity in the newsroom is surely a major culprit.

MY FIRST brush with caste prejudice in higher education came in 1999, when a group of Dalit students from the University College of Medical Sciences (UCMS) came to see me at my office in another English newspaper where I worked at the time as an editorial writer.

The students were residents of the hostel and had silently borne the brunt of casteist abuse and discrimination for some time. Whether by happenstance or design, the Scheduled Caste students were confined to two floors and not assigned rooms elsewhere in the building. In the dining hall, they were forced by the forward caste majority to sit together at one end. If a Dalit student sat somewhere else, he would be abused. "Bloody shaddu," one of them was told when he sat amidst others by mistake, "you cannot eat with us."

The Dalits put up with this harassment and humiliation because, as one of their parents told them, "you have to become a doctor at any cost." But the abuse eventually turned to violence and when one of the students was badly beaten and another had his room ransacked, they decided to go on a dharna. This is also when they ended up in my office.

After hearing them out, I requested the head of the Metro section to send someone to UCMS to cover the story. I was promised a reporter would be sent soon. Several days went by but nothing appeared. It turned out no reporter was assigned. I tried again, this time going one notch higher in the editorial chain-of-command. Again there was no response. Eventually, I decided to do the story myself. I spent half-a-day at the college, interviewed the college authorities, the students on dharna as well as the general category students. One of them admitted reluctantly to using the slur `shaddu' for the Scheduled Caste students but only as a `pet name'.

I filed the story but it did not appear the next day or the day after. Nobody ever said the story was not interesting or not up to scratch but for some reason space could never be found. The story finally appeared, in a cut and mutilated form, a full month after the Dalit students began their dharna. Needless to say, the travails of the Dalit students at UCMS were not considered newsworthy enough by other newspapers or by any of the news channels.

I narrate this story because of how it contrasts with the extraordinary indulgence the national media showed the nearly month-long anti-reservation agitation of doctors and medical students at AIIMS and other colleges. Despite the 24x7 presence of TV cameras, the daily protests in favour of reservation by AIIMS doctors and staff under the banner of `Medicos Forum for Equal Opportunities' were virtually blacked out. One channel showed the counter-protest last Sunday only when a `citizen journalist' presented it with footage he had shot. Often, it was impossible to separate the breathless TV reporters from the anti-reservation doctors they were reporting about. The insensitive and casteist forms of protest some of them adopted — the `symbolic' sweeping of streets, the shining of shoes, the singing of songs warning OBCs and others to `remember their place' (`apni aukat mein rahio') — were put on air without comment by the channels. Nobody asked what kind of doctors these `meritorious' students were likely to become if they had such contempt towards more than half the population of India. And in a media discourse which routinely reports the protests of the underprivileged only as "traffic jams" and other disruptions to the "normal" life of the city, the suffering of poor patients as a result of the AIIMS strike figured largely as a footnote to the "heroic" struggle the medical students and junior doctors were waging.

Amidst the hysteria induced by the media coverage, no one cared to point out how indulgent the AIIMS authorities themselves were being towards the anti-reservation strike. Earlier this year, when a section of doctors concerned about higher user fees being imposed on poor patients sought to protest, they were warned of dire consequences. Under the terms of a High Court order, no protest or demonstration is permitted within the AIIMS campus. Yet nobody demurred when the anti-reservation students occupied the lawns, put up shamianas and coolers and received the "solidarity" of traders, event managers, and IT employees (whose employers usually ban their own staff from ever striking work.)

While there were honourable exceptions — Outlook, The Hindu , and Frontline among them, as well as individual reporters in some newspapers and channels — would the media's coverage have been more balanced had there been a greater degree of caste diversity in the newsroom and editorial boards of our newspapers and channels? Put another way, in egging the forward caste students on to oppose any extension of reservation, were forward caste editors and reporters reflecting their own personal impatience with the idea of affirmative action? Was the media coverage, then, a display of trade unionism by the privileged?

There are no official or industry statistics but every journalist is aware of the extent to which forward castes dominate the media. When B.N. Uniyal surveyed the scene in 1996, he found not a single Dalit accredited journalist in Delhi. Today, the position is unlikely to be much better. At a recent meeting of Journalists for Democracy, it was reported that an informal survey had found that the number of accredited North Indian OBC journalists in Delhi was under 10. I myself have counted the number of Muslims with accreditation to the Press Information Bureau and they barely cross the three per cent mark. In Chhattisgarh, a recent attempt to send Tribal journalists on a training programme had to be dropped because there was none.

One is not saying the absence of Dalit or OBC journalists is the product of conscious discrimination though that factor cannot be ruled out. But the reality of their absence is something the media must have the courage to acknowledge.

In an ideal world where professionalism is paramount, the caste or religious affiliation of a journalist should not matter. But journalism that has little or no space for the majority of citizens is bound to end up missing out on the complexity of the society it seeks to cover. Story ideas will not be taken up, or if taken up then covered only from a particular perspective. To be sure, many of the negative trends so evident in Indian journalism — the shrinkage of space, the lack of coverage of rural India or of the problems of poor Indians, the episodic, frenetic nature of news, the cult of the Sensex, the preoccupation with trivia and sensationalism — will not be cured by newspapers and TV channels hiring more Dalit, OBC, and Muslim journalists. But greater workplace diversity will certainly infuse a greater degree of vitality in the newsroom as wider varieties of lived experience intrude upon and clash with the largely urban, rich, forward caste Hindu certitudes of the overwhelming majority of journalists.

Far from seeing affirmative action as a threat, India's media houses should look upon the entry of Dalit, Tribal, OBC, and Muslim journalists as an opportunity to broadbase their journalism and make it more professional and authentic. Last year, Ankur and Sarai-CSDS provided teenagers in the now-demolished slum cluster of Nangla Machi with computers. The daily diaries and fly-sheets they produced even as their homes were being brought down by bulldozers is journalism of as high a quality as anyone can find in India today (Interested readers should visit http://www.sarai.net/nm.htm). Certainly their writings tell us more about the reality of "slum clearance" than any of our TV channels, and in prose that is better than what one normally gets to read in our newspapers.

As the OBC and SC-ST youths who want to become doctors and engineers are saying, merit is not simply a score that can be bought by parents who have the money to invest in the most expensive education for their children. It is also about the talent that all children have within them regardless of their caste or socio-economic background. A society — or an industry like the media — which does not find a way to tap that talent will only end up impoverishing itself. Specifically, media houses must seriously think about starting internships and training programmes for Dalit, Tribal, Muslim, and OBC students interested in becoming journalists.

Reservation, affirmative action, targeted expenditure, and investment are all means of society helping people unlock their inherent talent. As pro-reservation scholars such as Yogendra Yadav, Satish Deshpande, Purshottam Aggarwal, and others have argued, the United Progressive Alliance Government's current approach is not necessarily the best one. But by conducting a shrill campaign and encouraging forward caste students to launch an ill-conceived agitation, the media themselves foreclosed the possibility of a rational debate on what the best way of building an inclusive education system really is. When the dust settles, the media should introspect and ask what they can do to make society as a whole more inclusive. Encouraging conversation and not hectoring is one way. But another is surely to diversify the newsroom by consciously bringing in those sections of society who have hitherto been excluded. There are a million stories out there waiting to be told. If only we allow the storytellers to do the telling.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

02 August 2005

You will never fail until you abandon your endeavours…
-Abraham Lincoln

2001, December 13: Vinod K Jose, a reporter with The Indian Express Delhi, was assigned to cover the farmers’ agitation in front of the Parliament. Since Vinod was a Keralite, the Delhi editor thought it fit to assign him for covering the agitation by the Kerala farmers. After covering the rally, when Vinod was having tea at a nearby shop he heard the shrill sirens of police vans along with loud shouts of “Athankavadi”. He heard people talking animatedly that the Parliament was being attacked by terrorists.

When he contacted his office, the editor directed Vinod to reach the spot immediately and interview as many MPs as possible. Vinod, who was just few meters away from the Parliament, was one among the very few journalists to reach the Parliament House while the firing was still on. After interviewing around 80 MPs, Vinod came to his office and explained to the editor some of the doubts that he had stumbled upon during his assignment. Incidentally, the ‘attack’ came at a time when the Parliament was in turmoil over issues like the coffin case, the passing of POTA Bill, etc. More importantly and rather curiously, even as the House was being ‘attacked’, the ruling BJP MPs were rejoicing and celebrating inside the Parliament. Even Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan stood unshaken by the events. Also, the police had initially said the attack was carried out by six terrorists. But they could only produce five dead bodies. Where is the sixth one?

After listening to Vinod, the editor nonchalantly asked him to file instead a report on the "traffic problems and the difficulties faced by the office-goers in the city after the attack”. Vinod was thus forced to throw his findings acquired diligently during that eight-hour stint, into the dustbin. The next day lead was the Delhi police chief Ajay Raj Sharma’s press briefings. Vinod’s report on the traffic diversions was also published with prominence.

In a way, he was learning new practical lessons about the social commitment of journalists and the moral values of the Fourth Estate.

The four pillars of knowledge that help journalism are: lies, blunders, money-making and moral irresponsibility
-Marlene Brando

In early 2002, Vinod took charge as a reporter in South Asia for the New York-based Radio Pacifica. Pacifica newscast was started by a group of journalists who resigned from different media houses after they refused to report in favor of the US government’s decision to join the Second World War.

“Just how September 11 is important to the US government, December 13 is an important date in the Bush’s calendar of terrorism. So don’t miss the court proceedings in your reportage” Aaron Glantz, the producer of newscast, told Vinod. This was an opportunity for him to follow the story closer.

“The Parliament attack case is a landmark in my life. More than as a journalist, I view it from a humane perspective. The developments that occurred in the country after December 13 corroborated my earlier doubts regarding the attack which I stumbled upon on the first day. I had made up my mind to divulge the real story behind December 13. The case’s files that run into tens of thousands of pages tell you more stories and sub-stories which the police find embarrassing--like the first accused bringing the main attacker from an army camp in Srinagar etc.”

“Parliament attack case was country’s first POTA case. This is an indication as to why this draconian law was created. Every day I used to go to the POTA trial court and learn the details of the case, though that was not very necessary for my coverage. I learned Abdurahman Geelani, Professor at the Delhi University, was not even remotely connected with the attack. But the media portrayed him as a terrorist. The image of a handcuffed Geelani standing in the dock disturbed me. Every day this man’s innocent face haunted me. I didn’t know Geelani before that. It became clear that if Geelani was not allowed for a fair trial he would be hanged. Democratic India shall not convict innocent people. I decided to join Nandita Haksar and two of Geelani’s friends, Kumar Sanjay Singh and Rona, who were beginning to do something. The “All India Defence Committee for Syed Abdurahman Geelani” was also formed in order to launch a media campaign to resist the media trial on Geelani. From signature campaign, media releases, lobbying with democratic organizations, public meetings, post card campaign... It was also a three-year long practical lesson on Indian democracy for me, recounts Vinod.

Even though the case was such a sensational item for the Indian media, when the trial was on at the Special POTA court, only three journalists were regularly attending the proceedings. Apart from Vinod, there was Basharat Peer from rediff.com and Anjali Modi from The Hindu. The rest of the media folks were absolutely absent in the court and satisfied with the Delhi police briefings.

“The aim of the media campaign was to make the journalists in the language press aware about the true story and provide them enough materials. The worst response was from Kerala. The media in Kerala refused to give any space for Geelani case, and the campaign in defence of him. The editors from the ‘informed Kerala’ denied publishing anything about Geelani in the name of national interest. An average Keralite holds a skewed knowledge about nationalism. What is censured in the name of nationalism is truth. The notions that Malayali possesses about North-East, Kashmir or Punjab is so shameful to their claim of a ‘well-informed’ Kerala. Then I thought that there has to be a publication for Malayali’s political literacy, to resist the mounting disinformation, and to do investigative stories” he explains the beginning of the Free Press venture. Many individuals came forward with support.

Within a matter of two issues of the magazine, threats and attacks emerged from different corners. The RSS workers destroyed the newsstand copies of Free Press in Mayur Vihar area in Delhi. Even those people who couldn’t read Malayalam were disturbed at a magazine cover picture that showed the smiling face of Geelani holding a cup of tea. The vendors were warned against selling Free Press. Delhi distributors backed off. In Delhi they had to distribute magazines through the Diaspora chips and bakery-items distributors who had access to all the south Indian provision shops.

Free Press saw the print orders steadily increasing after every month. Apart from Kerala and other Indian metros they managed to find newsstands in cities like Chandigarh, Jammu, Kanpur, Tezpur, Gwalior, Ahmedabad, Pune et al. It reached in the Gulf countries as well which has a strong population of Malayali Diaspora.

In their February issue, Free Press carried a series of well documented case regarding the twisted and deceitful ways in which the Ambanis had built the Reliance industrial empire. It was also the story of black economy in India. It revealed how politicians cutting across party affiliations had given (and continues to give) covert and overt support to the corrupt ways that helped create one of the largest business empires in the world, Reliance. The magazine carried investigative reports on why a book on Reliance, written by an Australian journalist Hamish McDonald, ‘is not available’ in India for the last 10 years. Titled Polyester Prince, this book throws light on the shady affairs of Reliance Industries. They also carried a list of 200 and odd shell companies owned by the family.

The Reliance issue of Free Press sold like hot cakes with a sale of over one lakh copies. The issue had to be reprinted after copies were sold out. The series of reports, which no other media in the country had dared to publish, raised the hackles of the powers-that-be. Even before the publication of the shocking details on the death attempt against Geelani, the witch-hunt against this magazine had started.

The surveillance on Free Press was mounting. The readers’ letters to Free Press were being monitored and blocked. An attempt on Vinod’s life took place mid October, last year. When Vinod was going back to his office on his bike an Ambassador car with its number plate covered followed him and tried to ram him from behind. The supply of the magazine was disrupted with many subscribers failing to get the magazine. A Free Press sub-editor, V H Nishad, was dubbed a “Muslim terrorist” and the building manager asked him to leave the place. When the magazine’s special correspondent, V M Shaijith, wrote a report on the fake encounter killings of Delhi police, the police started hounding him. When Vinod was at his home in Kerala’s Wayanad district, the Kerala police went there and advised him not to go back to Delhi. They also told the locals that Vinod was involved in “subversive activities” in Delhi.

When we refused to heed those threatening words to stop the publication of Free Press, they started to disrupt the printing of the magazine. We were struggling to find stability in printing. Presses in the capital gave us a tough time. For printing the latest issue we had to go all the way from Delhi to Meerut, says Vinod.

On March 31, police officers from the Inter State Cell came to Free Press office and tore away the covers of the magazine placed on the notice boards. They barged into the editor’s room and took away an unopened courier addressed to V H Nishad. The reason? The courier was addressed to a Muslim!

After two days, the head of the Inter State Cell called up Vinod: “Vinod, you are a friend of Geelani and you know him better. You can help in Geelani’s murder attempt case. You will have something to say about those who are targeting Geelani. So come to our office for a 15-minute discussion on this.”

During the course of the conversation, Vinod raised doubts about the assassination attempt against Geelani. He also raised doubts about the Delhi Special Cell Commissioner Rajbir Singh’s role in this regard. Rajbir Singh, who has the dubious distinction of killing 26 persons in fake encounters, had tried hard to entrap Geelani in the case.

The “15-minute discussion” turned into a five-hour grilling. “All through the questioning, the police wanted to know why I had started this magazine and why I did these ‘problematic reports’. They also asked about the cover story on Reliance Industries,” says Vinod.

Now the police made it clear that they will not allow the printing of Free Press in any of the presses in the capital. The presses have given up on the magazine as frequent raids and harassment by the police is not good for their business.

“Until alternative arrangements are made for printing the magazine, we have decided to stop the publication for the time being. As Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal said during the inaugural function of Free Press, only the money of those people with morality should be used to run a magazine. We are not ready to plead before NGOs or corporate giants. Journalists working in various media organizations who are supportive of the ideals of Free Press have promised to contribute a portion of their salary for the revival of the magazine,” says the Free Press editor.

The fate of this magazine reminds us that honest journalism is indeed injurious to health! (Richard Keebil’s quote, Journalism is Injurious to Health was the poster caption of Free Press magazine). But Vinod reiterates that this alternative voice will never die down whatever be the hurdles on its way. He is committed to uphold the magazine’s motto: “Prathibadhatha jangalotu mathram~ accountability, only to people”. This courage of dissidence is bound to surpass all kinds of obstacles. And all those who believe in journalism’s true values ought to wholeheartedly support these young journalists and their fight for the cause of Free Press.

by Vishakha Dey,

02 October 2003

INTRODUCTION

Crisis can be defined as a disruption, real or perceived, of social order. It is a condition of instability, as in social, economic, political or international affairs, leading to a decisive change.

The labeling of a situation as a ‘crisis’ or not, and the structuring and presentation of it in the public sphere has become an important function of the mass media. The role of media varies according to the nature of the crisis and the society concerned 1.

Presentational techniques such as packaging of news, the context, space and importance allocated, omissions and highlighting of elements, related facts and other media convention influences a conflict. News coverage can influence the way people relate to a situation.

This paper tries to understand how the social actors having control over the means of communication can influence the minds of the audience. It looks into how the provoking of a crisis can lead to a form of empowerment or social control, through the utilisation of the media. It studies the communication policies followed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to generate public support for its empowerment.

CONTEXT

The Indian crisis as it exists today is a multi-dimensional one with various aspects such as social inequality, communal conflict, exploitation of the downtrodden etc. In the political sphere the Congress party has been the dominant player since the post-independent era. It has occupied a pivotal position of India's single-party dominant system. During the 70s, under Indira Gandhi's regime, the Congress realised that it no longer commanded a social consensus, and began to resort to coercive force to maintain its dominance.

This had generated a situation of instability and flux in the multi-party democratic system of India. A political force like the Congress when faced with challenge from other up-coming political parties faced a 'crisis of hegemony'. Also the failure on the part of Congress in terms of effectiveness, as per the expectations of the people fostered a 'crisis of legitimacy'. It is this crisis that provided the context for the Hindutva movement 2.

Hindutva, which is the quintessence of the 'Hindu culture', acquired a religio-politic undertone following the BJP's adoption of it as an emotive political slogan. BJP activists insist that it is a non-religious assertion of India's cultural cohesion.

The BJP emerged as the single largest opposition party in the 1991 elections. It emerged as the largest party in Parliament following the 1996 elections and was in power for 13 days. After the February 1998 elections the BJP is back in power heading a 20-party coalition.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) emerged as an organisation articulating Hindu revivalism in 1925 under Keshav Baliram Hedgewar. It has sought to consolidate the Hindu community from within. The Bajrang Dal, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) are the most prominent among the 80 plus affiliates of the RSS in various fields working to change the 'attitudes' of the people.

BJP, the only political front of the RSS, has appointed itself the advocate of, what it regards as, the right of the Hindu majority. It denounces what it claims to have been the systematic "pampering" of religious minorities by the Indian National Congress and other parties, in return of votes.

During the early 1980s this spirit became focussed on a campaign for the 'moving' of the Babri Masjid, and the construction of a temple at this site at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. In 1990, Mr. Lal Krishna Advani went on a nationwide Rath Yatra, which culminated halfway, when he was arrested and placed under house arrest. This resulted in a confrontation between the BJP activists and the security forces resulting in many a loss of life. After the 1991 elections, the BJP renewed its campaign to build the Ram Mandir at the disputed site of Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid. A series of incidents finally culminated with the demolition of the mosque by the kar sewaks on December 6, 1992. This lead to communal riots in many cities all over India, which claimed the lives of a large number of people, particularly those belonging to the Muslim community.

OWNERSHIP PATTERNS

Media systems control our access to production, distribution, and consumption of information. Therefore to understand the media it is important to understand who owns these means of communication. In India, a few business houses own chains of daily newspapers in English and also in the vernacular languages and corner a substantial portion of the total circulation. In 1991, as many as 21,610 different newspapers were published by 2,445 individuals in the country 3. Another shift in the concentration of ownership and control in newspapers is the forming of joint stock companies and conglomeration of companies.

If we further look at it from community point of view, it is the Marwari business houses, which have assumed major control over the newspapers. The Times of India group of Sahu Jain is the largest publishing corporate house. The Goenka industrial house owns the Indian Express group, and its dailies are published from as many as nine main urban areas. The house of the Birlas, are the owners of the Anand Bazar group.

Out of the 300 English newspapers published in India, only one, Mid-Day of Bombay, belongs to a Muslim family, and furthermore it is more a tabloid than a mainstream newspaper 4. Of the hundreds of weekly and monthly papers very few of significance belong to Muslims.

Saiyid Hamid's fortnightly, Nation has been a heroic venture but it is still struggling to survive. Shahabuddin's monthly Muslim India has managed for more than two decades but sill faces many problems and is shunned by many 5.

The national dailies, particularly the ones in English have generally refrained from overplaying communal issues. However, the Hindi and regional language newspapers tend to adopt an anti-Muslim bias in reporting communal events, and the Urdu press adopts a 'defensive' communalist and sectarian stance.

PRODUCTION OF PROPAGANDA

The democratic postulate is that the media are independent and committed for the quest of truth, however the fact is that the media reflect the world, the way it is crafted by a powerful few.

In this connection, the findings of a Journalism Alumni Survey conducted in Delhi in 1988 shows the various factors, which contribute to making up the news. The survey was conducted on media professionals employed in various institutions in Delhi. Of the 72 respondents, 88.9% journalists were not 'absolutely free to report as per their conscience'. Among the sources of pressure and interference they identified, proprietors (85.9%) and government (82.2%) were at the top, followed by editors (70.3%), political parties (60.9%), advertisers (48.4%) and trade unions (26.6%).(Epan and Thakur, 1989) 6

A recent example of this is the series of articles carried by the Times of India, regarding human rights violation, by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). It was almost a sustained campaign carried against the ED. It is interesting to note that the ED was probing an alleged FERA violation case against Ashok Jain.

Therefore we see that owners of media influence the content and form of messages, by their decisions. Also advertising being a major revenue source for the media, the media systems are linked to the market. The institution of media is very much involved with the state.

The media are the channels for the transmission of political information and debate. They are important players in the government's policies, regulation and decisions, and governments have always sought to control the press and the airways and have regulated the media. The state media are often directly financed by the government and consequently follow its dictates. Accordingly the news in Doordarshan primarily focuses on government related activities, some of which are daily trivial issues of ministers at functions, and the criticism of the ruling party is usually ruled out.

BJP AND THE MEDIA

The BJP holds the idea that India is inherently a 'Hindu' state, and has been trying to equate this identity with being an Indian at an overall national level. The RSS, BJP, VHP, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena have been attempting to form a majority 'consensus' on various issues. This involves the structuring of Indian society based on Hindu values.

Doordarshan has also primarily been a representation of a Hindu India. Television serials, Mahabharata and Ramayana were two principal serials, which reinforced the Hindu-centricity of Doordarshan. These two programmes have propagated the Hindu religion as the national image. The circulation of the Hindu heroes into the domesticity of nearly 90 per cent of Indian homes has re-emphasised the 'Hinduness' of India and consequently, the 'unIndianness' of non-Hindus. Currently there are a variety of programmes projecting Hindu mythology like Om Nama Shivaya, Jai Hanuman, Shri Krishna, etc., running on the national network at prime-time slots.

Various social groups in the sub-continent have dealt with Ramayana, or the narrative of Rama, in a variety of ways in the past. According to Indo-Anglian writer K.R. Sreenivasa Iyengar, the number of versions of the Ramayana may range anywhere from 3,000 to 30,000. But today it is virtually seen only as a single religious concept, the concept that Doordarshan has explained to us. In the popular television serial Mahabharata, India has been re-defined as the Bharat of Mahabharata.

The extent to which this has been used to achieve political gains can be understood from the following report describing the campaign strategy of BJP candidate, Deepika Chikhalia, the actress who played the role of Sita in Ramayana.

'Jai Sri Ram, Bharat Mata Ki Jai' is how she begins her campaign speech, a clenched fist raised to illustrate her new ideology. Deepika gets away with language problem with: 'I will address you in the language you hear me speaking on television'. In Padra, a non-Hindi speaking region of Gujarat, a 15,000 strong crowd braved the scorching May heat for hours just for a real-life darshan of the tele-goddess 7. The actor who played the role of Lord Krishna in Mahabharata, Nitish Bharadwaj is now a sitting BJP MP.

For the present BJP-dominated government in power, establishing their hegemony over the media has been an important objective. The centre has shown their preferences of a state-controlled radio and television, rather than open its doors to the market forces. Decisions such as withdrawal of permission for private FM radio and attempts to halt Star TV is a reflection of this.

The RSS has been involved with the media over a number of decades. In the early years it engaged in the establishment of newspapers and periodicals through its bodies and other front organisations. This included the English newspaper the Organiser, which was establised in 1947, a Hindi weekly Panchjanya and a Marathi weekly Rashtrasakthi. By the mid-fifties, the RSS had established print-based media in 12 languages, which was of course used as a primary instrument to put forward the RSS message and ideology.

It is also interesting to note that RSS was a major player in the establishment of the first vernacular press agency, the Hindustan Samachar. The Samachar served 41 RSS-affiliated newspapers and periodicals and a number of non-RSS-related media institutions. This agency was an important element in the communication network of the RSS. 8

The party has also extensively used the 'little media' to reach out to the people. During Advani's rath yatra there was door-to-door campaigning to mobilise the people. Videocassettes, slide displays, distribution of audiocassettes, were used to popularise the cause of Ramjanmabhoomi.

In 1997, the all-India publicity in charge of the RSS, Srikant Joshi, discussed the predominance of the Left ideology in the print media and commenced on a plan of making journalists into RSS sympathisers. As Purushottam Aggarwal, Hindi Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), insists: "The RSS recognises the fact that if you don't hegemonise the centres of opinion-making and dissemination of information, you can't influence the thought process. Therefore they capture the media and academics." 9

The link between media and politics is now a well-established fact. Today everyone seems to be adopting the trend of marketing and Public Relations policy. Governments have begun to use carefully crafted communication and strategies to ensure that their messages reach out to the people the way they want it.

In the last general elections the BJP had a seven crore budget for the press - which is handled in-house. A 70-second film, 'Neta Bas Ek Atal Ho', which projects Vajpayee as a seasoned parliamentarian and a viable candidate for prime ministership was beamed in 1000 movie theatres all over India and local cable networks. Today the BJP also has its own website on the Internet, www.bjp.org that is visited by people all over including US based journalists 10. Incidentally, the BJP was the first political party in India to have its own web-site.

Until a few years back, there was a channel called the Jain television, which primarily telecast Hindu mythological serials. The Jain studio also produced a video called, Ayodhya, 6 December 1992, Kyon Huva? Kisna Kiya? Kyon Kiya? We shall try to analyse a few things to see how they justify their conduct through this video.

The video opens with a montage of lotus, Om, trishul and other Hindu symbols. It then begins with the words 'Satyameva Jayate', which means - the truth shall prevail. Among the first few visuals shown is the Indian Army taking part in a parade, immediately after which we see a platoon of the RSS volunteers marching forward, thereby directly equating their role to that of nation builders.

Throughout the film it is time and again explained that the RSS volunteers were actively involved in trying to check the roaring crowd, who were involved in violating the law and order. But repeated requests by the leaders failed to have an effect on the Ram bhakts.

The act of bringing down the mosque was later explained to be "an expression of pent-up anger, an outburst of accumulated anger against the injustice". It proclaimed 'apmaan ka aag is prakaar ubhar padtha hain' (this is how the burning fire of humiliation faced over the years explodes). The chief minister Kalyan Singh, belonging to the BJP, is portrayed as being a man of great moral character. When informed that efforts at persuading the kar sevaks to desist from demolishing the structure had failed, and that saving the structure had become impossible without resorting to firing, he forthwith resigned. Kalyan Singh's role is appreciated repeatedly stressing that firing would have resulted in the re-enactment of the Jallianwala Bagh. The chief minister is portrayed as a national hero who gave up his seat of power by taking the entire blame of the incident on himself.

The act of the kar sevaks is justified by stating that the government, which stood in their way of building the temple, had humiliated them. They felt that the temple construction was being thwarted and that an attempt was being made to erode their credibility in the eyes of the society.

The film also says that the last phase of the demolition and the installation of the Ram Lalla idols, and erection of a temporary temple happened after the Centre had taken over the administration from the state government. This is explained by saying that "Kendriya Sarkar bhi ram bhakto ko rokne me saksham na ho saki". The sound track comprises of patriotic songs, Ram bhakti vandanas and slogans of 'Jai Shri Ram'.

It is further said that various Hindu artifacts belonging to the "original Ram Mandir" were found from the debris, and this is justified by an interview with an archeological expert. Also there are various interviews of people who had come to Ayodhya from all over the country. The ones who lost their lives were addressed as parakrami vir and balidaniyon meaning valiant heroes and martyrs respectively. Ironically, this film begins and ends with the words, Sarvapanthasamabhava (equality towards all religions).

The film is essentially a one-sided picture of the entire event. From the very start it is taken as an established fact that a mandir existed in the place, and all that occurred was a natural consequence of the Hindu sentiments being played with. The film essentially proves that 'the camera does lie' cause it sees only what it chooses to. The other side of the picture is kept totally out of frame in the documentary.

We now further look at the BJP's use of the print media by studying examples from the magazine Organiser, which is the mouthpiece of the RSS.

The December 5, 1993 issue carried an editorial with the headline 'The golden sunrise of December 6', which says, "The Ramjanmabhoomi movement rejuvenated the almost morbid Hindu society… a whole new generation of Hindus woke to a new realisation. No longer was it a matter of shame to be born a Hindu. A section of the awakened Hindu society, proud of being Hindu, converged on the banks of the Sarayu, which was harnessed, ridiculed, bullied and riddled by bullets. The furious rebound corrected a historical wrong on December 6."

The editorial further says that, there is a lesson for all political parties in the December 6 episode. "Ram is the embodiment of all that is good and noble in this land. Babur was an aggressor. Ramjanmabhoomi is sacred to all Hindus. While there can be no place for a majority-minority syndrome in Indian politics, the natural aspirations of the nation represented by the Hindus cannot be overlooked" 11. This statement itself is contradictory in character because on one hand it says that there is no place for differentiation between the majority and minority, whereas on the other hand it makes an assertion of safeguarding the aspirations of the Hindus.

The role of the RSS according to the Organiser is, "to put society back on the tracks whenever it strays from the path of dharma, by people who by their devotion and sacrifice could rise above political leadership" 12.

Rajjubhayya in an interview says that the Ramjanmabhoomi movement is a step in the right direction being a movement to forge a strong, united country which is held together by a common cultural heritage. He further states that Ayodhya has brought people of different sects, faiths and different regions together, and the movement would unite Hindus and Muslims together if everyone sees it in the larger perspective of national resurgence" 13.

In an article 'Why Kar sevaks were angry', Dr. S. V. Sesnagiri goes on to explain that the Ayodhya movement should not be viewed from the simplistic angle of building a temple. It was a revolt against 'pseudo-secularism and against deliberate suppression' of the Hindu identity of Independent India 14.

CONCLUSION

The above few extracts are used here to bring to light how the RSS utilises the Organiser to propagate its ideology and beliefs. The Organiser essentially talks of the greatness of the Hindu culture, its depletion in the present day context, the danger from the Muslims, and of course the proposed Ram mandir at Ayodhya. It presents archeological evidences to prove that a mandir did exist at the disputed site, comparison charts of Hindu-Muslim population figures, atrocities against Hindus, statistics of temples demolished, and of course articles propagating Hindutva - the ideal way of living.

In today's television age, politicians have perfected the art of getting across to the audience. A total of 122 hours was allotted to each political party during the last general elections 15, which churned out a breed of politicians, savvy and tuned to give in their best on the screen.

Among the various political parties, the BJP has mastered the art of using the media to the fullest extent 16. It was this party that evoked heartfelt hostility in vast sections of the press, and yet has managed to project itself as a reasonable group of individuals. The oratory skills of most of its leaders, such as Vajpayee's sense of timing of pauses and gaps during his speeches, help project a certain commitment and conviction on the part of the party.

From the different examples stated in this paper, we see that the ownership of the media does affect the representation. This proves that the media has a very close relation with crisis and that the social players by means of media propagate their views and influence the minds of the people.

FOOTNOTES ^

01. Raboy Marc and Dagenais Bernard; Media, Crisis and Democracy, "Media and the Politics of Crisis", Sage, 1995
02. Bose Sumantra; "Hindu Nationalism and the Crisis of the Indian State", Nationalism, Democracy and Development-State and Politics in India, Delhi, Oxford University Press,1997
03. Wadwani Manohar R; Introduction to Mass Communication and Mass Media, "Press Ownership, and Censorship and Magazines"; Seth Publishers, 1998 pg 148
04. Zakaria Rafiq; The Widening Divide, "The role of the media" Vinking New Delhi pg 269
05. Zakaria Rafiq; The Widening Divide, "The role of the media" Vinking New Delhi pg 269
06. "Freedom, responsibility and ethics in Indian Journalism" in Yadav K.P (Ed.) of Encylopaedia of Mass Communication Vol 3, Sarup and Sons, New Delhi, 1998, pg 95
07. India Today May 15 1991
08. Thomas Pradip N: "Media and politics of revivalism in India", Media Development, Vol XXXIX, 3/92, (pg 29)
09. "Inside the RSS" Outlook Volume IV, No 16,April 27, 1998 (pg 22)
10. India Today Vol XXIII, No 5, February 2, 1998 "Hardselling the Parties"
11. Organiser, Vol. XLV, no. December 5, 1993 (pg 2)
12. Organiser, Vol XLIV, No. 33, March 21, 1993
13. Organiser vol XLIV No 33 March 21 93
14. Organiser vol XLIV 33, March 21, 93
15. India Today Vol XXIII No 5, February 2, 1998, "Hardselling the Parties"
16. Seminar Issue No 454, June 1997, "The camera has two faces" Barkha W ^

BIBLIOGRAPHY

* The communication of Politics-Ralph Negrine, SAGE Publication, New Delhi, 1996
* The Hindu Nationalist Movemrnt in India- Christophe Jaffrelot, VINKING, N Delhi,1996
* Politics of Communalism- ZENAB Banu, Bombay Popular Prakashan, Bombay,1989
* The Concept of Hindu Nation-Abhas Chatterjee, Voice of India, New Delhi,1995
* Media Power in Politics-Doris A Graber, Macmillan India Ltd., New Delhi, 1994
* Nationalism, Democracy and Development: State and Politics in India- Edited by Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1997
* Encylopaedia of Mass Communication Vol. 3-Edited by k.p. Yadav, Sarup and Sons,New Delhi, 1998
* Media Development VolXXXIX,3/1992,Editor Michael Traber and Philip Lee
* The 5 Hours and After, Vigil, 1993
* The Secular Emperor Babar: A victim of Indian Partition-Surinder Kaur and Sher Singh, Geninune Publication, 1992
* Organiser Magazine
* Media Development Vol XLIII, 4/1996

http://www.indianmagique.com/research_papers/vishakha_med...