South Asia Citizens Web

They say justice delayed is justice denied. In Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, justice is not just delayed and denied, it’s eliminated. Nearly a decade after the worst state-sanctioned massacre of Muslims since Independence in full view of the world, the mockery of justice continues unabated.

Jayalalitha has submitted a memo to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that lists demands from post-conflict Sri Lanka. She has said that the Sri Lankan regime should be held accountable for war crimes during the last days of the fratricidal war with the LTTE, where thousands of civilians were killed, hundreds of thousands became refuges, Tamil areas of the North were reduced to rubble, and humanitarian assistance to Tamils denied. Jayalalitha has asked that the Government of Sri Lanka to immediately transfer adequate powers to the Sri Lankan North and East so the Tamils can have autonomy of governance, a long standing demand of Tamils. Ms. Jayalalitha has insisted that India should impose economic sanctions against Sri Lanka if they do not comply. In effect India should change its policy to Sri Lanka.

Indians would argue that there is indeed a unique spiritual side to India, and as evidence they would present the many gurus here who find a ready market. But the fact is that many of these gurus are charlatans, like the man who convinced his female followers that his blessing was bestowed by massaging their breasts. These exotic gurus emerge because Hinduism is not a structured faith with a central authority or a chain of command. So there is more room for spiritual freelancers.

Culture of impunity in Kashmir, with security forces and police always kept above the board and not held accountable for their gross acts of torture, it has always been known, is a systemic pattern that is patronised and encouraged from the top. But a recent news story on the Jaleel Andrabi murder case, ’Avtar Singh: The man who knows too much’ (published in Open magazine and also reproduced by Kashmir Times) unravels the far more dark secrets behind this culture of impunity while confirming our beliefs about the systematic mechanism of protecting the men in uniform for all their acts of repression from any kind of punishment, of earning promotions and other benefits for snuffing lives out of those they were supposed to protect.

We, the delegates from all countries of South Asia representing various political ideologies, mass organizations, trade unions, civil societies, NGOs, academia, youths and people’s movements representing women, Dalit, indigenous peoples and other groups of people met together to deliberate on the challenges and way forward for democracy and peace in South Asia on 01-02 July 2011 in Kathmandu.