scorpio90 Posted March 3, 2014 Posted March 3, 2014 An amalgamation of various sources: http://m.rediff.com/news/column/rajeev-srinivasan-the-time-will-come-when-america-can-dictate-to-india/20140303.htm What is quite obvious from the developments in Ukraine is that west, especially America, seems to have devised newer methods of undermining countries; they are preying on existing fault-lines and propping up anyone who they feel can further their agenda. Once the deed is done, these agent provocateurs will be sidelined with more 'understanding' political leadership. The naive and gullible population is exploited on the strength of their grievances and by using the cry of 'freedom' and 'democracy' and carrot of economic 'benefits' + friendly loans from international donor agencies. We, as a nation, need to watch out for many such fault-lines exist in our case and there is no dearth of willing accomplices and village idiots masquerading as intellectuals...a nation needs strong internal security apparatus, armed forces, economy and political leadership to quell such challenges to nation's integrity and sovereignty. Therefore, it is alarming that a group at the University of California, Berkeley's business school is toiling on a project to 'create a policy and protocol framework for protecting people's rights in situations of internal armed conflict and mass violence' in India. Which is amazing, considering that there is less violence and conflict in India than in any of the countries like In addition to the quasi-revolution in the Ukraine, here are several other countries embroiled in, or at risk of civil war, or caught up in covert or overt violence: Syria, where an actual civil war is going on with horrific human rights violations on either side. Thailand, where the government and the opposition seem to have fought each other to a stalemate. Venezuela, on the verge of a civil war over discredited Chavismo and corruption. South Sudan, the newly created country already heading towards State failure. Afghanistan, the perennial problem child, on the precipice of partition. Egypt, with simmering dissent and a polarised populace. And I am only covering a subset of the world's problems. , and that, anyway, there has been low-level insurgencies in India for decades. This leads me to wonder, does the Berkeley group know something that the rest of us don't? The context, of course, is that there have been persistent rumours that the US has 'assets' high in the Indian government. The long-sustained (but just-lifted) boycott of Narendra Modi (allegedly because a group of leftists and Muslims in the US were upset) is another indication that the US does have an interest in the 2014 Indian election: They do have a dog in this fight. There is also the surprising and widespread white noise in support of the Aam Aadmi Party by such establishment stalwarts as The New York Times and The Economist, among others. It is hard, prima facie, to believe the Americans would genuinely embrace a self-proclaimed anarchist group with far-Left views on almost everything. Nevertheless, there they are, with their front foundations merrily giving away all sorts of awards and money to the AAP. This fits in with an observed tactic on the part of the West to encourage leftist, nihilist dissident groups in other countries. It is rather evident by now that a Narendra Modi-led government would not be particularly easy to bribe or manipulate -- it does appear that he neither forgives nor forgets -- and that it would be, as with Shinzo Abe's administration in Japan, prone to care about the national interest, not America's. This, of course, is anathema to the American world view based on George Kennan's Cold War views on hegemony. Thus, as a first approximation, a plausible American tactic would be to try and prevent the Bharatiya Janata Party and Modi from coming to power by splitting the anti-Congress vote using the AAP, and in case that fails, to follow up with a Plan B to make India ungovernable, to create mass conflict through their agents. This is not theoretical: Almost exactly the same tactic was followed in Kerala in 1959. It is widely believed that the duly elected Communist government of E M S Namboodiripad was overthrown by the CIA and friends making the place essentially ungovernable. Therefore, there is the fear that the Americans have every intent to meddle in a post-Congress scenario by creating chaos. Of course, if that too fails, they have a Plan C, which I doubt if I need to spell out. But we shall let that pass for the moment. Background: American University Prepares for Riots in India The University of California at Berkeley has set up a project to “create a policy and protocol framework for protecting people’s rights in situations of internal armed conflict and mass violence” in India. Their website is http://nonprofit.haas.berkeley.edu/research/acr.html#objectives It is claimed that “The project will avoid taking positions on political questions, focusing instead on human rights and humanitarian concerns”. However, the composition and well-known records of their staff raise some concerns. The stated aim of the “Armed Conflict Resolution And People's Rights Project”, is “creating a policy and protocol framework for protecting people’s rights”. It is set up by the Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership at the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley, near San Francisco. The Center is one of two under the Institute for Business and Social Impact under the Haas School. The Center lists 15 faculty. The Center Director is Dr. Nora Silver, listed as an Adjunct Professor at the Haas School. Her own project under the Center deals with Multi-Sector Leadership and Non-Profit Networks. The Co-Chairs of the Armed Conflict Resolution project are Dr. Shashi Buluswar and Dr. Angana Chatterji. Dr. Buluswar is a Senior Fellow in International Development at the Haas School. He is prominent in the ASHANGO which raises funds for projects in India. He also holds a position as Executive Director of the Lawrence Berkeley Institute for Globally Transformative Technologies. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is operated under a Department of Energy contract by the University of California. Dr. Buluswar’s research area at the Haas School of Business is listed as “Armed Conflict in India”. Dr. Chatterji is not on the School’s list of 278 “faculty and executive leadership”. The project lists a Working Group including Rajvinder Singh Bains, Lawyer, Punjab High Court and Haryana High Court, Mihir Desai, Lawyer, Mumbai High Court and Supreme Court of India, Meenakshi Ganguly, Human Rights Policy Expert and South Asia Director, Human Rights Watch, Parvez Imroz, Lawyer, Jammu & Kashmir High Court and President, Jammu & Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, Srinagar, Harsh Mander, Director, Center for Equity Studies, Delhi, Jaykumar Menon, Legal Expert and Professor of Practice, McGill University, Binalakshmi Nepram, Founder, Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network, Delhi and Manipur, Sudhir Pattnaik, Human Rights Expert and Editor of Samadrusti, a human rights news magazine, Bhubaneswar, Teesta Setalvad, Secretary, Citizens for Justice and Peace, Mumbai. Partner institutions include the Institute for the Study of Human Rights; Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability, Columbia University, Asian Legal Resource Center, Hong Kong (holding general consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, United Nations), Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong, Center for Equity Studies, Delhi, Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network, Prashant Center for Human Rights, Justice, and Peace, Gujarat, Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, Jammu & Kashmir, Khalra Mission Organization, Punjab, Indian American Muslim Council, Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances, Philippines. Scholar-Affiliates are Paramjit Kaur Khalra, Khalra Mission Organization, Punjab, and Robert Nickelsberg, Photojournalist, New York. The Project’s Advisory Group includes Amitava Kumar, Vassar College, Homi K. Bhabha, Harvard University, Jyoti Puri, Professor of Sociology, Simmons College, Khurram Parvez, Program Coordinator, Jammu & Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, Srinagar, Vinay Lal, Associate Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles.Quoting the project website: The Working Group plans to “engage with affected communities, and periodically engage with members of the Government of India and the Parliament of India” ….Opportunities for Students: The project is engaging exceptional graduate students and select undergraduate students from UC Berkeley, Stanford University, other institutions, and from impacted communities in India and the Indian Diaspora in the U.S. The project will engage age-appropriate youth from affected communities in the work of creating archives, experimenting with photography and videography, and documenting remembrance.” A Few Issues 1. The project list reads like a “Who’s Who” of the Forum of Indian/Inquilabi Leftists (FOIL), and the “Coalition Against Genocide” (CAG), a loose coalition of groups including the FOIL and IAMC. Members of this Coalition have been associated with the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence Agency, and other suspected connections to international organizations as well as political parties, particularly the Indian National Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist/Leninist/Maoist) and to Evangelist Christian organizations and their activist arms such as the Christian Aid group. There are some suspected links to foreign terrorist organizations such as the Khalistan groups, the SIMI, through the Indian Muslim Council, the Maoists in India, to secessionist groups active in Jammu-Kashmir, and to interests in Odisha and Chattisgarh. The FOIL and CAG have been studied in articles in the early 2000s, in the book titled “NGOs and Foreign Funding: Anti-National Industry” edited by Kishan Kak and Radha Rajanand a recent report by the Hindu American Foundation. In 1997-2002, Ms. Teesta Setalwad’s “Sabrang” organization channeled funds to the FOIL to develop a “5-year comprehensive research report” that attacked the India Development and Relief Fund. Dr. Angana Chatterji was a primary author of that report. Dr. Vinay Lal was the spokesman for the FOIL. The attack was proven to be baseless. The thorough debunking of that report was published in the book “IDRF: Let the Facts Speak”. Since then, the FOIL has reorganized on several occasions to launch campaigns, generally against India and particularly against the government of Gujarat. 2. It may be useful to remember the past. In October 2001, while the world was in upheaval after the 9/11 attacks in the USA, and Pakistani terrorism was spiking in Kashmir, the Oberlin College Trust in Ohio announced a conference to be held in April 2002, titled: “Siting Secularism in India”. The Oberlin Foundation, a Christian missionary organization, has excellent relations with the Shanxi University in China, with specific approval from the government of the PRC. (see History for a recently sanitized version). Around that time, the FOIL seemed to have received a sudden influx of funding, and started an active campaign. They hurriedly revived their dormant publication, “Ghadar” citing the urgent need to get organized and conduct a media campaign, since they expected “a loud noise that will be heard around the world” or words to that effect. In January they held a meeting in Maryland, USA. The Siting Secularism in India conference occurred just a few weeks after the events of late February 2002, with many visitors from the US, India, UK and France, most of them with Communist/Islamist leanings. The only business at that conference for which any record can be found, is an Oberlin Resolution condemning the government of India for alleged genocide against minorities. Those who remember this, find the parallels with the present Project to be chilling. We wonder what “loud noise” is anticipated this time. Note that we have no evidence to link any of these entities directly to any violence, and are not claiming any. However, their apparent foresight and timing seem remarkable. 3. Dr. Angana Chatterji’s activities and visits in India have perhaps coincidentally, preceded violence in the parts where she focused her activities. Examples are Gujarat, Chattisgarh, Odisha, and Jammu-Kashmir. 4. Circa 2010, Dr. Chatterji and her US citizen husband Dr. Richard Shapiro, were asked to terminate their visit to Jammu-Kashmir. Shapiro was asked to leave India, and later denied a visa to enter India. 5. On July 19, 2011, Ghulam Nabi Fai, Kashmir activist in the USA, was indicted in US Federal Court for being an agent of the Pakistani ISI. The indictment listed his contacts with/ funding of a woman code-named “Mary” for making a presentation before a UN panel, presenting the Pakistani point of view on Jammu-Kashmir. In May 2011, Dr. Chatterji made a presentation to a UN Panel to raise Kashmir issues. On July 19, 2011, the California Institute for Integral Studies suspended Drs. Chatterji and Shapiro, tenured full professors (he was Department Head), citing financial and other irregularities. Both were later dismissed after faculty hearings. CIIS denied any link to their outside activities. 6. Although the project claims to develop policies and protocols for nations around the world, there is no indication of any activities directed at any nation other than India. 7. The project claims interest in various troubled parts of India, including Jammu-Kashmir, Odisha, Chattisgarh, the Northeast, and Punjab. The inclusion of Teesta Setalwad and Harsh Mander suggest that the main interest is in Gujarat. Ms. Setalwad has several allegations filed against her in India and has sought anticipatory bail again. Mr. Mander, during and after his tenure as IAS officer, has a history of association with the British NGO Action Aid, which shares origins and close synergy with Christian Aid, which is active in conversions in the tribal regions of Gujarat and elsewhere in India. 8. The Lok Sabha elections in India are only two and a half months away. Some Questions 1. Who is sponsoring this project? 2. Who are the Members of the Indian Parliament and other lawmakers in India that this project intends to “engage” or co-opt? Have they already been approached and have they agreed? Are they also sponsoring it? (Presence not surprising when scores of MP's took the pain to sponsor an appeal against Modi to US Adm.) 3. Given the background of Ms. Teesta Setalwad’s fundraising and past activities, is the Congress Party funding this enterprise as well? 4. Why are such Protocols and Policies for India, the largest sovereign democracy in the world, being developed in America, and by a group that has a clearly one-sided political bias and record? 5. Why is a person whose primary employment is with a US Federal Laboratory focused on bringing science to public welfare, engaged in such a project which has clear overtones and undertones of interfering in the politics/public policy dealing with internal armed conflict of a friendly foreign nation? 6. Why is this project within Dr. Buluswar’s or the LBNL’s mandate? 7. Why is this project dealing with making protocols for armed conflict, sited within a Business School? 8. Why is the staffing of such a project done exclusively with people who have such a colored record, with no effort to strike a balance between law enforcement interests and secessionist/subversive interests? 9. Is the University of California, Berkeley, aware of Dr. Angana Chatterji’s prior activities involving Kashmir and the United Nations, among others?
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