Briefings

Qatl-e-Aam

Gurcharan Singh Babbar

Qaumi Patrika Press

Rs 350; Pages: 248

Following the uproar over the reprieve to Sajjan Kumar in the 1984 riots case,a record of the carnage in Delhi which hasnt been seen recently has been reissued. Sarkari Qatl-e-Aam was compiled by Gurcharan Singh Babbar from interviews and anecdotes,supported by clippings from Delhi newspapers and copies of correspondence,including affidavits of riot victims. It was banned in 1998 on a private plea though the NDA,which had just taken office,should have welcomed a book which embarrasses the Congress,naming and shaming at will.

However,that is also a problem. The narrative would ring true to readers who witnessed the riots but publishing lists of guilty people,headlines critical of the judiciary,and charts of the present postings of police officers who were in Delhi at the time,does open the book to legal action. Thanks to the resulting ban,this became one of the first contemporary books to be published on the internet,and is available in English,Hindi,Punjabi and Urdu. Thirty years on,public memory of the Delhi killings is hazy. We depend on the uproar of TV debate to make sense of it. Now,this reissue is an aid to memory. Ignore the politics and the claims,but the bald facts that remain the accounts,the lists,the pictures from newspapers,convince that justice has not been done.

Rooting for the young

The Ocean in a Drop

Inside-out Youth Leadership

Ashraf Patel,Meenu Venkateswaran,Kamini Parekh,Arjun Shekhar

Sage; Rs 375; Pages: 185

When it comes to India and demographics the fact most commonly bandied about is that 50 per cent of the country is aged between 25-40 years. That we are a young country led by old men is an undeniable fact. And a group of intrepid youngsters have decided to go ahead and do something about this. The Ocean in a Drop has been written by the founding members of Pravah,a New Delhi-based youth collective,which works to make young people more socially active and engaged. It is an interesting compilation targeted at the amorphous youth,urging them to look beyond the immediate needs of the self and into the welfare of the community.

A rights struggle

The Naga Story

First Armed Struggle in India

Harish Chandola

Chicken Neck

Rs 850

Pages: 427

The longest-running secessionist battle in India is also probably the least understood these days. Nagaland is too far from Delhi for mainland India to be bothered about it till there is noise about sovereignty. This book by veteran journalist Harish Chandola,is an attempt to retell the story of the violent struggle,mostly through firsthand accounts of someone who was intricately involved,formally and informally,in the peace process in the 60s and 70s.

The author,who was asked by Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1964 to assist the peace talks,has sympathetically analysed the Naga movement,and bemoans the insensitivity of the bureaucracy and the political leadership. Whoever came to negotiate with the Nagas said… accept the Indian Constitution. Nobody tried to explain what it contained. The implementation of the Indian Constitution in Nagaland had been very brutal,leading to raids on villages,searches,arrests,interrogations,forced labour,disappearances,and killings8230;What the Nagas had seen of Indian rule was repulsive, he writes.

Elsewhere,Chandola accuses the Indian government of trying to hammer a wedge into Naga society to weaken the independence movement. He writes that Naga leaders accept the geographical togetherness of their land and India. And their demand for a separate Constitution is not entirely incompatible with Indias sovereignty over Nagaland. Kashmir has a constitution of its own,which has been incorporated in the Indian Constitution, he says.

Chandola believes that the main obstacle in the way of lasting peace would be the integration of Naga inhabited areas,some of which lie in Manipur,Assam and a few other states.