So we already saw how Angana Chatterji’s anthropological heart bleeds for every atrocity, brutality, and massacre committed in the name of liberating people and fighting against neo-imperialism. The fact that she finds America, not Saudi Arabia or Pakistan a very conducive place to pontificate on the liberating virtues of terrorism says a lot: use their money, their infrastructure, their media, and their government to help those who’ve sworn to destroy the US.
Which brings us to the mountain of hate-filled literature she has written on Kashmir. Much of her fame as a crusader-activist rests on the foundation of mountain. Of course, she decks up all this in the garb of academic and heartwarming phrases such as “gender & identity issues,” “self-determination,” “liberation,” “human-rights causes,” and “against militarized governance” in Kashmir. The only problem is that this Kashmir she talks about is an integral territory under Indian sovereignty and thus the logical conclusion of her own line of reasoning implies that she’s fighting against the Indian state. Which is eminently true.
Like most committed ideological terrorists, Angana Chatterji, on a fine day, went uninvited and unwelcome and wantonly declared herself as the saviour of the Kashmiri people who she thought were suffering everyday trauma inflicted by the Indian military. To be more precise, her deadly Kashmir circus began in great earnest and with deeper involvement around 2006. The circus has multiple tricks woven exactly around one theme: to “liberate” Kashmir from India. Common tricks include blaming the Indian army for committing atrocities against Kashmiris, blaming the Indian government for allowing this to happen, and to generally repeat the lie a billion times.
So why does an Anthropology Professor based in the United States feel the need to involve herself in an issue that’s so politically sensitive? The answer takes us back to a few years prior to 2006.
In 2003, a certain eminence named Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai from the Kashmiri American Council spoke at a discussion forum on the Kashmir situation at San Francisco. Angana Chatterji was one of the prominent people adorning the forum. Guess what he spoke about at that forum as well as on hundreds of other occasions? That’s right: he spoke on the same circus theme, did new tricks, etc. On July 19, 2011, the FBI arrested Fai on charges of being an ISI agent. More specifically:
- His stay in the US was to carry out a “decades-long scheme with one purpose — to hide Pakistan’s involvement behind his efforts to influence the U.S. government’s position on Kashmir”
- His handlers in the ISI “funneled millions through the Kashmir Center to contribute to U.S. elected officials, fund high-profile conferences and pay for other efforts that promoted the Kashmiri cause to decision-makers in Washington.”
- The final goal was to “to persuade the United States government that it was in its interest to push India to allow a vote in Kashmir to decide its future.”
Oh and no prizes for guessing what the ISI’s “line” on Kashmir is. Pakistan’s lust for Kashmir dates back to the time of India’s independence. That Pakistan is using a multi-pronged strategy to ensure that it wrests Kashmir from India is clear. Back in India, it regularly sends terrorists trained to “persuade” India by massacring swathes of innocent Indians. This project was so successful that about 4 million Kashmiri Pandits were ethnically cleansed and large numbers fled out of the state. News of these persuaders—armed, trained, and supported by Pakistan—going on a shooting spree is still commonplace in India even as we speak.
And so there we have it: the ISI agent Ghulam Nabi Fai who parrots His Master’s Line and Angana Chatterji also known as “Mary,” his associate/friend/co-activist, who takes the exact same line. But let’s hear it from the horse’s mouth: the FBI charge sheet mentions a certain Mary who “would be testifying in front of a United Nations working group. Mary is a human rights activist; Major General Mumtaz Ahmad Bajwa had requested that Fai introduce him to Mary in July 2009.” Major General Bajwa was the head of ISI’s Security Directorate, which was responsible for nurturing and helping Kashmiri terrorist groups.
With such strong evidence that nail Angana Chatterji’s credentials as a willing stooge of the ISI, it’s unsurprising that she has consistently hushed up and/or whitewashed Pakistan-backed terrorism in Kashmir and has repeatedly taken an anti-India line, a chilling echo of the ISI’s words, and guns and bombs set off by the terrorists it backs. What’s worse is the fact that her claims about India’s alleged human rights abuse in Kashmir are based on gross fabrications.
That she got away with such dangerous subversive activities points a finger at the climate in the United States. The extent of Ghulam Nabi Fai’s lobbying success is evident when Congressman Joseph “Joe” Pitts from Pennsylvania “introduced a resolution in 2004 calling for peace between Pakistan and India in the disputed territory of Kashmir – just days after he had received a $2,000 campaign contribution from Zaheer Ahmad, one of two men charged with distributing Pakistani money to U.S. politicians.” Pitts has donated that money to charity since Fai was discovered to be an ISI agent but the question remains: didn’t he do due diligence before accepting said $2000? If the answer is yes, and he still took the money, serious doubts arise regarding Pitts: is he implementing some sinister agenda? If the answer is no, it says a lot about Pitts’ capabilities as a man who represents the people of Pennsylvania’s 16th congressional district. The same applies in equal measure to Indiana Congressman Dan Burton, who took $10,000 from Fai. Dan Burton already carries the tag of being too pro-Pakistan on the exact same Kashmir issue.
If Fai was able to buy such powerful support using terror money, Angana Chatterji was able to drum up political support in her own way. She has a pretty strong supporter in Congressman Trent Franks of Arizona 2nd District who shot off a peeved press release in support of Angana with such phraseology as “on November 1st, 2010, Professor Richard Shapiro, Chair and Associate Professor of the Department of Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco, was denied entry indefinitely by the Immigration Authorities in New Delhi. Professor Shapiro’s wife, Angana Chatterji, who is the Co-convener of the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir (IPTK) and also Professor of Anthropology at CIIS, has reportedly experienced repeated harassment in India for her work on human rights.” I really hope he didn’t expect that India would roll out the red carpet to the duo for spreading hate-filled messages in favour of Pakistan’s terrorism and against India’s sovereign right over Kashmir. Incidentally, it’d be nice if somebody investigated the role of an American citizen, Richard Shapiro visiting India on a tourist visa but actually indulging in political activism against India.
But that’s not all there is to Franks. He’s associated with the Dalit Freedom Network, a group that claims to work for the Dalits of India but is engaged in rather shady activities. It’s actually a group run by White people and everything about it starting from its address is fake. A few years ago, when a subpoena was served on them and the person serving the subpoena went to the address, he found that it was actually a Church! One wonders why an organization that claims to be a human-rights NGO needs to indulge in this kind of falsification.
In May 2007, Trent Franks introduced a resolution on untouchability as an unacceptable practice, a move aimed at furthering the cause of the Dalits. Except that this selfsame resolution was pasted verbatim on a website that talks about the prowess of Pakistan’s defence establishment! The reach of Congressman Trent Franks is as truly amazing as it is mysterious.
The picture that emerges of Trent Franks is gravely disturbing: a Republican Congressman who is associated with a shady “human-rights” outfit, who supports a Communist professor (and her husband/life-partner), who is herself the stooge of ISI, which has nurtured Al Qaeda, the group responsible for 9/11. Even more disturbing is the fact that Trent Franks sits on the Committee on Armed Services, and Committee on the Judiciary in the House of Representatives. It’s not too farfetched to conclude that the American people who reposed trust in Trent Franks were unaware that the Jihad-mongers in ISI were skillfully manipulating the actions of Franks.
Which brings us back to Angana Chatterji who along with Shapiro, currently faces termination from employment at CIIS. It’s hard to know the real reason but it’s likely that she has seriously alarmed the US administration what with her sordid record of support for subversive activism. Consider this: the FBI filed its affidavit against Fai on July 18, 2011. Angana Chatterji was suspended from CIIS on July 19, 2011. News reports of her suspension indicate a “gag order” that restrained CIIS from giving out any details, and restrained Angana from talking about it. And the news report of Oct 25 2011 states that the CIIS Academic VP has recommended her termination.
While it will certainly be interesting to watch how this saga will unfold, terminating Angana Chatterji is a good first step in the right direction. Given her credentials as a committed Communist and Islamist terror-sympathizer, it’s best to relegate her to a position from where she can inflict no further harm to both the US and India. For the sake of preserving democratic values and freedom.