03-22-2008, 09:17 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Fork-tongued Marxists</b>
Balbir Punj - Pioneer
They are eager to take up issues of human rights 'violation' in Palestine and Iraq and rush to Iran's support. But when it comes to violence by CPM cadre in Kannur and Nandigram, they are stunningly silent
One must admire Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee's eagerness to uphold national pride. A few days back when the US Administration came out with a report on human rights violation in which the events at Nandigram got prominent mention, the Speaker told the House to treat the report "with the contempt it deserves". In chorus, the Marxists condemned it as "interference in the internal affairs of this country" and even advised the Bush Administration to mind its own human rights violations in Iraq, Palestine and elsewhere.
With due respect to the Speaker, any observer is entitled to ask: Where was this national pride when the same US Administration denied Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi a visa to visit that country to attend a function organised by Gujaratis. The visa was supposedly denied on the basis of the reports about the post-Godhra violence in 2002. The Communists, along with other self-styled secularists, hailed that decision.
Applauding the US Administration when it insults a Chief Minister of this country while deriding it when it flays human rights violation in another State is ridiculous. More so, if one remembers that the Nandigram mayhem was condemned by one and all - the Governor of the State, the CBI, the Calcutta High Court, the Opposition and even by some of the members of the Left Front Government.
The Nandigram incidents were followed by the Kannur violence in Kerala, another Marxist-ruled State. The newspapers have been full of the bloody regime the Marxist cadre have established, with only the RSS to challenge their violence. Demand for Central forces in Kannur found an echo even in the Kerala High Court the other day. Much like what happened in the Calcutta High Court in the Nandigram case.
Against this backdrop, the Chinese oppression of Tibetan culture and ethnic identity and the surging protest by Tibetans across the world have been a known phenomenon. Communist China has gone to the extent of building software firewalls in Tibet to prevent any news about the suppression of Tibetans coming out. Yet, taking enormous risks, some Tibetans keep the world informed about these events and even manage to smuggle photographs across to the world media.
In India, the Government has protected the tribals from exploitation from outsiders through various laws that prevent land alienation, disallowed all attempts to change the demographic advantage of the adivasis, etc. It is the other way round in Tibet. To disable the Tibetans from protecting their culture and ethnicity as well as religious beliefs, Chinese immigrants have been encouraged to set up home in Tibet.
Reports from Tibet say that even the name of the Dalai Lama is kept out of Tibetan literature and textbooks. Worse, Tibetan language is discouraged. No wonder Tibetans are second-grade citizens in their own country. Not many will, therefore, disagree with the Dalai Lama's charge that China is committing "cultural genocide" in Tibet.
Despite suffering half-a-century of exile from his beloved land, the Dalai Lama has been patient and moderate. He is ready to accept Tibet as an autonomous region and not as an independent entity. The position of Tibet as an autonomous region of China is what India and China had agreed to in 1958, but which Beijing has often violated with impunity.
The recent surge of protests reminds us of the student demonstration at Tiananmen Square in the 1980s, when Chinese students demanded true democracy and liberty in their country. This wave of protest was crushed by the Army using tanks, resulting in the death of hundreds. China is getting world's admiration for its double-digit growth and huge export-led economy. Global companies are all there to benefit by the market economy. Beijing considers the Olympics an acknowledgement by the world of its superior power. However, no one is forgetting that its strength is built over the corpse of democracy and freedom.
It isn't that the Tibetans alone are protesting against the Communist regime. The Chinese countryside is beginning to wake up, according to several reports from China. The peasants are becoming conscious of the widening gap between them and the urban people. Time magazine recently gave a graphic report on seething anger in China's countryside.
In Communist China, peasants do not own the land; land is state property and farmers have only tenant-like right of cultivation. These peasants are now demanding ownership of the land that once belonged to them. China's rural areas near burgeoning urban conglomerations are witnessing confiscation of farmland for industrial purposes. This reminds us of Nandigram.
Marxists, who never hesitate in asking the Government of India to emulate China, should at least tell their followers whether peasants are allowed to own the land they till in China. They are only too eager to take up issues of human rights violation in Palestine and Iraq and rush to Iran's support despite the presence of a radical Islamist regime in that country. But why are these Marxists silent on Tibet?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->American hypocrisy (Pioneer letter)
This is with reference to the article, âIndia paying for Chinaâs hubrisâ (March 21), by Kanwal Sibal. The writer has hit the nail on the head when he writes, âThe West has also long spurned the cause of the Tibetan people. Even when the Chinese were considered a Communist threat, the West had ignored Tibetâs plight. Now that the West has manifold interests locked up in a country set to be the worldâs second power, it would have even less reason to actively promote the Tibetan dossier and derail existing relations.â To earn the right to host this summerâs Olympics, China promised to improve its human rights record. However, if its behaviour in Tibet is anything to go by, Beijing does not seem to have taken that commitment seriously. It was impossible not to notice that the Bush Administration removed China from its list of top-10 human rights violators just as the biggest anti-China protests in 20 years erupted in Tibet. In its annual human rights report on 190 countries, the US State Department has conceded that Chinaâs overall performance remains pathetic. But in what looks like a political payoff to a Government whose help the US desperately needs on various issues, the department has dropped China from its list of 10 worst violators. This is classic American hypocrisy.
PS Prakash
Lucknow<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Balbir Punj - Pioneer
They are eager to take up issues of human rights 'violation' in Palestine and Iraq and rush to Iran's support. But when it comes to violence by CPM cadre in Kannur and Nandigram, they are stunningly silent
One must admire Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee's eagerness to uphold national pride. A few days back when the US Administration came out with a report on human rights violation in which the events at Nandigram got prominent mention, the Speaker told the House to treat the report "with the contempt it deserves". In chorus, the Marxists condemned it as "interference in the internal affairs of this country" and even advised the Bush Administration to mind its own human rights violations in Iraq, Palestine and elsewhere.
With due respect to the Speaker, any observer is entitled to ask: Where was this national pride when the same US Administration denied Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi a visa to visit that country to attend a function organised by Gujaratis. The visa was supposedly denied on the basis of the reports about the post-Godhra violence in 2002. The Communists, along with other self-styled secularists, hailed that decision.
Applauding the US Administration when it insults a Chief Minister of this country while deriding it when it flays human rights violation in another State is ridiculous. More so, if one remembers that the Nandigram mayhem was condemned by one and all - the Governor of the State, the CBI, the Calcutta High Court, the Opposition and even by some of the members of the Left Front Government.
The Nandigram incidents were followed by the Kannur violence in Kerala, another Marxist-ruled State. The newspapers have been full of the bloody regime the Marxist cadre have established, with only the RSS to challenge their violence. Demand for Central forces in Kannur found an echo even in the Kerala High Court the other day. Much like what happened in the Calcutta High Court in the Nandigram case.
Against this backdrop, the Chinese oppression of Tibetan culture and ethnic identity and the surging protest by Tibetans across the world have been a known phenomenon. Communist China has gone to the extent of building software firewalls in Tibet to prevent any news about the suppression of Tibetans coming out. Yet, taking enormous risks, some Tibetans keep the world informed about these events and even manage to smuggle photographs across to the world media.
In India, the Government has protected the tribals from exploitation from outsiders through various laws that prevent land alienation, disallowed all attempts to change the demographic advantage of the adivasis, etc. It is the other way round in Tibet. To disable the Tibetans from protecting their culture and ethnicity as well as religious beliefs, Chinese immigrants have been encouraged to set up home in Tibet.
Reports from Tibet say that even the name of the Dalai Lama is kept out of Tibetan literature and textbooks. Worse, Tibetan language is discouraged. No wonder Tibetans are second-grade citizens in their own country. Not many will, therefore, disagree with the Dalai Lama's charge that China is committing "cultural genocide" in Tibet.
Despite suffering half-a-century of exile from his beloved land, the Dalai Lama has been patient and moderate. He is ready to accept Tibet as an autonomous region and not as an independent entity. The position of Tibet as an autonomous region of China is what India and China had agreed to in 1958, but which Beijing has often violated with impunity.
The recent surge of protests reminds us of the student demonstration at Tiananmen Square in the 1980s, when Chinese students demanded true democracy and liberty in their country. This wave of protest was crushed by the Army using tanks, resulting in the death of hundreds. China is getting world's admiration for its double-digit growth and huge export-led economy. Global companies are all there to benefit by the market economy. Beijing considers the Olympics an acknowledgement by the world of its superior power. However, no one is forgetting that its strength is built over the corpse of democracy and freedom.
It isn't that the Tibetans alone are protesting against the Communist regime. The Chinese countryside is beginning to wake up, according to several reports from China. The peasants are becoming conscious of the widening gap between them and the urban people. Time magazine recently gave a graphic report on seething anger in China's countryside.
In Communist China, peasants do not own the land; land is state property and farmers have only tenant-like right of cultivation. These peasants are now demanding ownership of the land that once belonged to them. China's rural areas near burgeoning urban conglomerations are witnessing confiscation of farmland for industrial purposes. This reminds us of Nandigram.
Marxists, who never hesitate in asking the Government of India to emulate China, should at least tell their followers whether peasants are allowed to own the land they till in China. They are only too eager to take up issues of human rights violation in Palestine and Iraq and rush to Iran's support despite the presence of a radical Islamist regime in that country. But why are these Marxists silent on Tibet?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->American hypocrisy (Pioneer letter)
This is with reference to the article, âIndia paying for Chinaâs hubrisâ (March 21), by Kanwal Sibal. The writer has hit the nail on the head when he writes, âThe West has also long spurned the cause of the Tibetan people. Even when the Chinese were considered a Communist threat, the West had ignored Tibetâs plight. Now that the West has manifold interests locked up in a country set to be the worldâs second power, it would have even less reason to actively promote the Tibetan dossier and derail existing relations.â To earn the right to host this summerâs Olympics, China promised to improve its human rights record. However, if its behaviour in Tibet is anything to go by, Beijing does not seem to have taken that commitment seriously. It was impossible not to notice that the Bush Administration removed China from its list of top-10 human rights violators just as the biggest anti-China protests in 20 years erupted in Tibet. In its annual human rights report on 190 countries, the US State Department has conceded that Chinaâs overall performance remains pathetic. But in what looks like a political payoff to a Government whose help the US desperately needs on various issues, the department has dropped China from its list of 10 worst violators. This is classic American hypocrisy.
PS Prakash
Lucknow<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->