[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 2 (Wednesday, January 8, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E45-E46]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         HATE SUCCEEDS IN INDIA

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. DAN BURTON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, January 8, 2003

  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, there was an interesting article 
in the Washington Post on December 11. It shows that hate can be a 
winning platform in India.
  The article focuses on Jeetubhai Waghela, a candidate of the ruling 
BJP in the recent elections. He was involved in the killings in Gujarat 
last year, according to Muslims there. Now he runs as a protector of 
Hindus and this platform of hatred gains votes for him.
  The Indian government has oppressed minorities for many years. In 
1984, almost 20 years ago, it invaded the Golden Temple in Amritsar, 
the most sacred of Sikh shrines. Since then, over 250,000 Sikhs have 
been murdered by the government, according to figures from the Punjab 
State Magistracy. 52,268 Sikhs are being held as political prisoners, 
according to a study from the Movement Against State Repression. These 
political prisoners should be released immediately.
  The government was directly involved in the murders in Gujarat last 
year, according to published reports in India. It has killed over 
85,000 Kashmiri Muslims as well as Muslims throughout the country. Over 
200,000 Christians have been killed in Nagaland. Since Christmas 1998, 
priests have been murdered, nuns have been raped, churches have been 
burned, and Christian schools and prayer halls have been attacked. 
Missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons were burned to death 
while they slept in their Jeep. Police broke up a religious festival 
with gunfire. These acts have been carried out by government forces or 
by their Hindu nationalist allies with government connivance. Is this a 
democracy?
  We can help stop hate in the subcontinent. We must cut off our aid to 
India and we must come out for a free and fair plebiscite on 
independence in Kashmir, as India promised in 1948, as well as in 
Khalistan, in Nagaland, and the other countries seeking their freedom 
from India. Self-determination is the right of all peoples and nations, 
Mr. Speaker. That was the principle on which America is founded. It 
must be the principle that we promote around the world.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to place the Washington Post article I 
referred to into the Record at this time.

               [From the Washington Post, Dec. 11, 2002]

              In Indian Election, Hate Is Part of Platform

                           (By Rama Lakshmi)

       Ahmedabad, India--The candidate marched down the slum's 
     narrow lanes, followed by men dancing to the sound of loud 
     drums and

[[Page E46]]

     spraying the streets with marigold petals. Hindu women paused 
     from their chores of peeling garlic and doing laundry to 
     offer garlands and blessings.
       The cheerful scene, part of Jeetubhai Waghela's campaign 
     for a seat in the state legislature, played out beneath a 
     cloth banner that revealed a more ominous aspect of the 
     coming election here in India's western state of Gujarat. The 
     banner vows to avenge the killing of 58 Hindus during an 
     attack on a train by Muslims last February, and as the 
     supporters of Waghela, a member of the Hindu-nationalist 
     Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), pressed forward and choked the 
     alleys, Muslim residents quickly hurried indoors.
       ``Here comes the lion,'' roared Waghela's men.
       Nine months ago, as Gujarat was being riven by religious 
     violence that followed the killing of the Hindus, Waghela 
     stormed the same streets with a mob of Hindu men wearing 
     orange bandanas and armed with swords, sticks and gasoline, 
     according to witnesses and police records. Shouting angry 
     slogans at Muslim residents, Waghela allegedly ordered the 
     mob to loot and destroy their homes, leaving them homeless 
     for months.
       ``For three days, Waghela and his men looted and burnt our 
     homes. For eight months, we lived in relief camps because of 
     him,'' said Nasir Khan, a complainant. ``Now he tells Hindus 
     he is their protector against us. Where do we run for cover 
     if he gets elected?''
       After a Muslim mob in the town of Godhra killed 58 Hindu 
     train passengers in February, more than 1,000 people died, 
     most of them Muslim, in weeks of arson and killing throughout 
     Gujarat. Human rights groups have accused the BJP--the ruling 
     party in Gujarat as well as in India's national government--
     of essentially ignoring the killings by its Hindu extremist 
     allies.
       As Gujarat prepares to elect a new state legislature on 
     Thursday, many analysts are describing the vote as an 
     important test of the secular foundations of India's 
     religiously and ethnically diverse democracy.
       In a state where only 9 percent of the population of 50 
     million is Muslim, the BJP is counting on sectarian passions 
     to consolidate the Hindu vote. Throughout the state, BJP 
     leaders have delivered fiery speeches against Muslims 
     involved in the Feb. 27 attack and against Pakistan-aided 
     Islamic militants killing Hindus in the revolt-wracked 
     province of Jammu and Kashmir.
       One such party stalwart is Waghela, who was arrested in 
     connection with this year's riots on four charges, including 
     murder and rioting. Jailed for 108 days and now free on bail, 
     Waghela, 31, is back here in Gomtipur, a mixed working-class 
     neighborhood in Ahmedabad, with folded hands, asking for 
     votes for the BJP. He denies playing a role in the riots and 
     insists he was framed.
       Campaigning on a recent morning, Waghela identified a new 
     target of hate for his Hindu voters. Climbing on a platform, 
     he told them that a fancy new high-rise for Muslims is being 
     planned adjacent to their homes, on the site of a closed 
     textile mill. He warned them that they would not be safe any 
     longer.
       ``You will be surrounded from all sides by Muslims,'' said 
     Waghela, breathlessly flicking back his hair from his 
     forehead. ``Don't let them gain power over you. Vote for me 
     and I will stop that building plan.''
       ``Do you want the building here?'' he said.
       ``No!'' the crowd shouted back.
       This election is critical to the political destiny of the 
     BJP, which has suffered defeats in several state elections in 
     the past two years. Gujarat is the last major state in which 
     the party holds power, and critics fear that it could use a 
     victory here as an endorsement of strident Hindu politics. 
     The national coalition that the BJP leads in New Delhi under 
     Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will face the polls in 
     2004.
       ``In this election, the BJP is seeking a legitimization of 
     violence that its members indulged in against the Muslims,'' 
     said Achyut Yagnik, a political analyst and social worker in 
     Gujarat. ``The results in Gujarat will determine whether they 
     take this appeal of Hindutva [Hindu chauvinism] beyond 
     Gujarat.''
       The BJP's main challenger in Gujarat--and at the national 
     level--is the Congress party, which attacks the BJP's Hindu 
     fundamentalism for endangering the lives and rights of 
     India's religious minorities. As a result, Gujarat's Muslims 
     and Christians have rallied behind Congress, while many Hindu 
     voters in Gujarat feel that Congress, headed at the national 
     level by the Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, has an anti-Hindu 
     slant and defends only the religious minorities.
       Opinion polls show that it is likely to be a close contest 
     between the BJP and Congress. Some secular analysts said that 
     although Hindu voters may find the demagoguery of the BJP 
     attractive, the social divisions inherent in the caste system 
     may prevent Hindus from voting as a bloc.
       The Muslims of Gujarat, on the other hand, appear to have 
     decided to vote en masse for Congress. Yet many complained 
     that Congress took their support for granted and often forgot 
     them when attaining power. They will vote for Congress, they 
     say, simply because they have no other choice.
       Nowhere is this frustration felt more sharply than in 
     Godhra, the epicenter of Gujarat's religious strife.
       The BJP's candidate in Godhra, Haresh Bhatt, campaigns 
     under banners of the burning train, distributes pictures of 
     the dead Hindu passengers and describes the election as a 
     ``religious war.'' But the Congress candidate there, Rajendra 
     Singh Patel, many Muslims said, was involved in burning the 
     shops and homes of Muslims in March.
       ``We made two appeals to the Congress last month not to 
     field Patel in the elections, but they still made him the 
     candidate,'' said Mohammad Yusaf, 56, a clerk in the city 
     government. ``But we are caught between a ditch and a well. 
     To defeat the BJP, we will have to vote for Patel. But our 
     heart is not in it.''

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