[sacw] SACW #1 | 16 Feb. 02

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire - Dispatch #1 | 16 February 2002

------------------------------------------

#1. Pakistan: Turning higher education around (Pervez Hoodbhoy)
#2. Pakistan: Thank you, Osama! (Farrukh Saleem)
#3. Kashmir solidarity rally (New Delhi, 21 Feb)
#4. World Peace Day celebrations - Report of Concert for Peace
#5. India: Upcoming meet by peace activists in Ayodhya
on:12th March: Solution to Ayodhya's problem and Communal Harmony.
13th March: Nuclear Disarmament, Pakistan-India friendship and 
the problem of Terrorism
#6. India: My films are about common sense: Anand Patwardhan
#7. India, Pakistan and the Kashmir - The truth about the Lahore 
Summit (A.G. Noorani)
#8. India: Fresh Snow and Stray Missiles in Kashmir
#9. Pakistani research scholar on comparative religions needs help
#10. Book review: Remembering Partition-Violence, Nationalism And 
History In India by Gyanendra Pandey

________________________

#1.

The Friday Times
February 15-21, 2002

Turning higher education around

Pervez Hoodbhoy
says Pakistan's only option to get top science
teachers is to import them from India, which has
the largest reservoir of Ph.D scientists and teachers
in the Third World
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let me put the problem in its baldest and ugliest form -today's 
Pakistan just does not have the people needed to run a system of 
universities. Extreme intellectual poverty is our Issue Number One. 
Sadly, while recently commissioned reports have indeed generated much 
admirable English prose, not a single one has confronted the core 
issue with the seriousness and honesty it deserves
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spring is here. Committees, commissions, task forces, reports and 
recommendations on reforming higher education are back in fashion. 
Pakistan's ministry of science and technology is awash in money - and 
doesn't know how to spend it. Meanwhile, foreign donors jostle each 
other as they seek to pour money into Pakistan's education sectors. 
Recently, Germany has offered to fund a brand new S&T university in 
Raiwind.

Could all this mean that higher education in the natural sciences and 
engineering is set for a turnaround? Can we expect that in about 10 
years there will be real - not sham - universities in the public 
sector? Maybe, but it depends crucially if we have the eyes to see 
where the real problem lies - and the courage to deal with it.

Let me put the problem in its baldest and ugliest form - today's 
Pakistan just does not have the people needed to run a system of 
universities. Extreme intellectual poverty is our Issue Number One. 
Sadly, while recently commissioned reports have indeed generated much 
admirable English prose, not a single one has confronted the core 
issue with the seriousness and honesty it deserves.

In this country of 150 million people, there are perhaps fewer than 
20 computer scientists of sufficient caliber who could possibly get 
tenure-track positions at some moderately good US university. In 
physics, even if one roped in every competent physicist in the 
country, that would be insufficient to staff one single good 
department of physics. As for mathematics: to say that there are even 
5 real mathematicians in Pakistan would be exaggerating their 
numbers. This is for a country with 26 public, and an almost equal 
number of private, universities!

Even official statistics bear witness to a horrific state of affairs. 
In year 2000, Pakistani scientists - in all universities and research 
institutes combined - published a miserable total of 670 scientific 
papers. This is less than the number annually published by the 
faculty of one single medium-sized US university. Much more 
importantly, most Pakistani publications are of little worth and 
never cited. They could just as well have not been written.

It is not just research which is the problem, but teaching as well. 
Most university teachers never consult a textbook, choosing to 
dictate from notes they saved from the time when they were students 
in the same department. Their professional quality, and that of their 
students, is alarmingly evident. Principals of elite private schools 
frequently complain that graduates from Pakistani universities, 
including those with Ph.Ds, are generally unable to solve even "A" 
level questions of the Cambridge or London examination boards. 
Although such questions are designed for 17-18 year olds, they are 
conceptual in nature and therefore pose serious difficulties to those 
who have grown up in a system based upon rote learning.

Where, then, can Pakistani universities - including those yet to be 
established - hope to draw their faculty from?\In the short run - 
meaning until the end of this decade - there is no alternative to 
massive importation. The first choice would be to have overseas 
Pakistanis return to their country. While this must be pursued with 
greater seriousness, it cannot yield any dramatic difference because 
the number of Pakistani-origin science academics on the faculty of 
US, Canadian, and European universities is very small - probably no 
more than one thousand. Even highly favourable terms of employment 
could draw no more than a small percentage of these back to Pakistan.

Clearly the net will have to be spread much wider. Other Muslim 
countries - also science-poor like Pakistan - have nothing of 
substance to offer. Europeans and Americans could have been important 
but they, even without the Daniel Pearl episode, are reluctant to 
live in Pakistan. Recent efforts to induce westerners using monthly 
salaries as high as Rs 300,000 have failed. On the other hand, 
Chinese, Polish and Russian scientists and teachers are both able and 
more readily available. But, unfortunately for us, their difficulty 
with English rules them out as effective teachers.

This leaves only the science juggernaut on our eastern border.

India today has the largest reservoir of Ph.D scientists and teachers 
in the Third World, numbering in the tens of thousands. Institutions 
such as the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Madras Institute 
for Mathematical Sciences, and the five Indian Institutes for 
Technology, and several others, are simply world-class. They have no 
counterparts in Pakistan.

Given the highly asymmetrical Pakistan-India situation, it will be to 
Pakistan's advantage if high-level manpower is imported from India - 
under strict conditions to be specified by Pakistan - for staffing 
Pakistan's universities, technical colleges, and teacher training 
institutions. There are several compelling reasons for this.

First, the quality of Indian teachers could be high, provided that 
good selection procedures are adhered to on the Pakistani side. 
Second, cultural and linguistic continuity guarantees effective 
communication. And third, given that salaries offered in government 
institutions to teachers and professionals on both sides of the 
border are generally comparable, strong financial incentives for 
Indian teachers to work in Pakistan could be offered at relatively 
little cost.
Shall Pakistan's policy-makers have the courage to pay the political 
price and finally create real universities? One cannot be too hopeful 
- for the government such a U-turn may well be more difficult than 
its recent ones on Afghanistan and Kashmir. But without bold actions, 
Pakistan will have to wait for another few generations to develop a 
viable system of higher education.

The author is professor of nuclear and high-energy physics at 
Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad

______

#2.

Communalism Combat
Jan- Feb 2002
Cover Story

Thank you, Osama! 

"We may in the not too distant future be able to go to our Masajid 
and our Imam-bargaahs without police protection"

BY DR FARRUKH SALEEM

If September 11 had happened ten-years-ago Pakistan would have be 
come a better coun-try by now. Thanks to Osama, we were hauled back 
to senses from the strategic depths of the Taliban. If September 11 
were to happen in the next decade then we would have been even poorer 
by virtue of sending additional billions down the same Afghan hole. 
Thanks to Osama, again, we may in the not too distant future be able 
to go to our Masajid and our Imam-bargaahs without police protection.

The unprecedented crackdown on the extremist elements within our 
society is on. It must be awfully painful. Just ask anyone who had to 
put his favourite Doberman to sleep.

Are we on the verge of breaking the status quo? If PTV is any guide 
then we are not. PTV's propaganda is not conducive to peace at all. 
It's like one arm of the government goes out to shake Vajpayee's hand 
while the other is trying to sabotage the whole effort. If the 
government leads the people to believe that "Kashmir will become 
Pakistan" and then fails to deliver there is bound to be a backlash. 
Ayub learnt the hard way and Tashkent finally brought him down.

My legal eagle tells me that all the people who are being arrested or 
who have been arrested under MPO (Maintenance of Public Order) in the 
on-going crackdown would have to be released. The last time he looked 
at the Pakistan Penal Code, keeping a beard or belonging to a 
madrassa was not against the law. They can be tried under the 
anti-terrorism law but the government of Pakistan would come short on 
evidence, as it always does.

To be certain, the state of Pakistan is fully capable of taking care 
of any non-state actor within its geographical boundaries. In a 
country like ours where the writ of the central government is 
reasonably strong, sustenance of on-state actors is actually more of 
a 'host-parasite' phenomenon.

The host almost always gets sick (read: sectarian killings within 
Pakistan) but there always is an underlying state policy that governs 
most host-parasite interactions. In our case, the long-held policy 
has been to facilitate germ-cell migration through the LoC.

Welcome to Dr. Musharraf's new chapter on parasite management and 
disease control (the ban on the Lashkar and the Jaish has been 
extended to Azad Kashmir). Identification of the parasites is easy 
and the right vaccine has been in store for long. Unfortunately, the 
state was either unwilling to administer it or our real decision 
makers thought that it was not in their institutional interest to do 
so.

Here are four questions sent in by a long-distance scribe. First, 
Kashmir runs in our blood-a biological analogy - but how can that be 
if Kashmir has never been part of our body? Second, if Pakistan is a 
'Fortress of Islam' then why are there police squads outside each 
mosque? Third, in the age of information superhighways why do we want 
to remain a fortress (something that only has a heritage value and no 
military significance whatsoever)? Fourth, we advocate self- 
determination for seven million Kashmiri Muslims but why do we forget 
140 million Pakistanis?

Moinuddin Haider claims that the vaccine has now been injected 
intravenously. Powell is of the opinion that the doctor should be 
given a chance because the vaccine needs time to work. Deep down, 
Jaswant suspects that the vaccine is actually a placebo.

The other issue is that of the adaptive capability of the parasites. 
Every parasite uses strategies to counteract and ensure survival. The 
only thing that the mullahs want is a war with India just so that 
what they now consider as their internal enemy can be humiliated. How 
equipped are we to fight the parasites? On a scale of 1 to 10, I 
would say, an 8.

In response to the January 12 "historic" address, the Indian print 
media exhibited a lot of political maturity. On January 14, The 
Hindu, in an editorial, said that the "political courage exuded by 
the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, in addressing India's 
concerns raises the vision of a truly promising turn in the 
crisis-ridden bilateral relationship." The Hindustan Times wrote, 
"Now that India will have to wait patiently for Pervez Musharraf to 
turn over a new leaf to begin, hopefully, a new and more moderate 
phase in his career...."

The American media, however, was less forgiving. The Washington Post 
wrote, "There were heroic flourishes in his January 12 declaration. 
But Musharraf's role in creating the disasters that led to the need 
for that speech cannot be simply forgotten or forgiven, or 
compensated."

The divide is getting clearer by the day and the future less cloudy. 
Within Pakistan, one is either with the status quo or against it. All 
that the status quo brought us was misery and illiteracy. "Kashmir 
runs in our blood" represents status quo. Agreeing to resolve Kashmir 
through blood-less means amounts to breaking the status quo.

Have the Dobermen been put to sleep or have they gone into 
hibernation? The answer really depends on whether the defenders of 
the Land of the Pure shall continue to be the defenders of the status 
quo or are they now sincere in breaking away from the status quo. Is 
the crackdown a bid to cool off pressure from all sides or does it 
mean a genuine change in state policy? The settled issue is that what 
we have achieved so far we couldn't have without Osama. 

(Courtesy: The Friday Times, Pakistan. The writer is an 
Islamabad-based freelance columnist.

______

#3.

15th February, 2002

Dear friends,

If you are someone who believes in unity of the people then it is time for
you to stand up for the people of Kashmir who are demanding their right to
decide their own future. We believe people have a right to rebel against
oppression & exploitation. Therefore, in order to express our support for
their right to be free of oppression join us in a solidarity rally 
[in New Delhi] from Red
Fort to ITO on February 21.

Time : Thursday, 21 February at 2 pm
Place : gather in front of Red Fort & march to ITO

Please spread the word.

Sponsors : AIFTU, AIPRF, Bigul Mazdoor Dasta, DSU, IFTU, PSU etc.

Gautam Navlakha
______

#4.

Communalism Combat (Bombay, India)
February 2002

World Peace Day celebrations

LAHOO KA RANG EK HAI
A Concert For Peace
Mumbai.

The inherent power of meaningful poetry and soulful music was at
display. And so was the peoples' desire for a peaceful co-existence 
in the society and in the sub-continent at large.

It was an emotionally surcharged atmosphere that prevailed in Nehru 
Centre auditorium, Mumbai, on 30 January as Seema Anil Sehgal, 
popularly hailed as the singing sensation from Jammu & Kashmir, sang 
the poems for peace and harmony to mark the World Peace Day.

Tears of joy, nostalgia and essential human bonding welled-up in many
eyes as Seema sang the choicest poetry written by some of the 
best-known poets from the sub-continent, in her music concert titled 
Lahoo Ka Rang Ek Hai. The title has been adapted from a poem by 
renowned Pakistani poet Qateel Shifai that is a part of the concert.

Seema herself selected, composed and snag the poems of some of the 
most renowned poets from the sub-continent, like Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ali 
Sardar Jafri, Sahir Ludhianvi, Qateel Shifai, Nida Fazli, Ahmed 
Faraz, Anwar Ehsan Siddiqui, Abdul Ahad Saaz, Ismail Mansoor, Yash 
Sharma, and Atal Behari Vajpayee. The selected poems underline the 
futility of a nuclear war and express strong desire of the peoples of 
India and Pakistan to live in peace

There was perfect rapport between the singer and the audience. "I have
not heard such melodious and inspiring concert in Mumbai for the past
four decades", enthuses senior journalist and writer Feroze Ashraf who
has been associated with the scripting of highly popular television
programme Surabhi that is dedicated to the arts and crafts of India, since
its inception over a decade ago.
"Seema's singing is so inspiring and soulful that it simply enters your
soul, leave alone your heart. Here is a singer who easily and
convincingly conveys the message that hatred and violence have no
place in a civilised society. All the state governments should invite her
to sing in their important cities and towns and spread her message of
peace and harmony amongst the masses", opines Feroze, a reputed
writer of long standing.

The jam-packed audience cheeringly adopted a resolution to reaffirm
their aspirations of a peaceful world order. So charged was the
atmosphere in the auditorium that they waited for over thirty minutes
after the performance was over to append their signatures and
addresses to he resolution. And this happened in a city where audiences
do not wait even to listen to the customary thanksgiving by the hosts
and rush out of the auditorium to resume their long journeys to their
homes, once the performance is over!

The programme was conceived and presented by Jammu-born Squadron
Leader Anil Sehgal who earlier produced Sarhad, the first and the only
music album dedicated to Indo-Pak amity. He, along with Seema, the
singer and composer, and Jnanpith Award winner Ali Sardar Jafri, the
poet of the album was invited by the prestigious Harvard University,
Boston, USA, for a felicitation.

Anil and Seema have plans to travel with this meaningful and most
topical concert to about a dozen Indian cities including Jammu, Srinagar,
Poonch and Doda, in Jammu & Kashmir. The couple is looking-out for a 
corporate sponsorship of their Peace Concert to spread the message of 
peace and communal harmony.

" The importance of communal harmony and peaceful co-existence that
our music concert drills home needs to be an integral part of the
educational make-up of our people.

" Charity must begin at home. Therefore, I have written to the Chief
Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah who heads the Jammu & Kashmir Academy
of Arts, Culture and Languages, to sponsor the concerts for the people
of his State", informs the former Indian Air force officer. Seema and 
Anil hail from the State of Jammu & Kashmir.

Following is the text of the resolution passed on the World Peace day:

We the peace loving citizens of India hereby express and register our 
concern against prevalence of violence and hatred in society and urge 
the leadership to channelise human and natural resources towards 
establishment of a peaceful world.

______

#5.

Dear friends,

This is a preliminary message to you so that you keep 12th-13th 
March, 2002 free to participate in a meeting to be organized in 
Ayodhya by Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) and 
National Alliance of People's Movement (NAPM), U.P. The agenda of the 
meeting will be roughly as follows:

12th March: Solution to Ayodhya's problem and Communal Harmony.

13th March: Nuclear Disarmament, Pakistan-India friendship and the 
problem of Terrorism.

Other details are being finalized. The venue of the 
programme will be announced soon. Nirmala Deshpandeji is also 
organizing a programme around the same time in Ayodhya. We may try to 
combine the two programmes. In that case the dates are also likely to 
change. But tentatively be ready to come to Ayodhya around this time. 
The secular forces must come together to raise a voice of concern 
against the communal elements which are adamant on creating trouble 
in Ayodhya and thereby disturbing peace in the entire country.

Please let me know whether you would like to speak on 
any of the above mentioned subjects and also whether your 
organization would endorse this event.

Sandeep Pandey <ashain@s...>

On behalf of CNDP and NAPM

______

#6.

The Times of India
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2002

My films are about common sense: Anand Patwardhan
MEENAKSHI SHEDDE
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2002 12:45:26 AM ]
UMBAI: Documentary film-maker Anand Patwardhan's War and Peace (Jang 
aur Aman) won the Best Festival Film Award, as well as the 
International Jury Award at the Mumbai International Film Festival. 
The film traces the anti-nuclear movement, following the Pokhran 
tests.

The buzz at the festival was that Anand Patwardhan had made a 
Lagaan__his film is three hours long. ``It even has songs,'' the 
director says wryly.

Excerpts from the film: Raja Ramanna, father of India's first 
nuclear test, on the 1974 explosion: ``We were about to press the 
button, but there were too many cows about. If even one of them 
tripped on the cables, it could have spoiled the experiment. But we 
worship cows, and it jumped beautifully over the cables.'' (And, in 
trademark Patwardhan juxtaposition, as he plays melodious Western 
classical music on the piano, the camera pans the devastation in the 
blast-ripped village).

Pramod Mahajan, now the telecom minister, after the 1998 nuclear 
test: ``Now no Indian will have to show his passport. Everybody knows 
where India is.''

Excitable Hindutva supporter: ``That scientist, what's his name__ 
Nutramus __(sic. Nostradamus) said that one day Hindus will rule the 
world''.

Another BJP supporter: ``Are you not proud of our scientists? After 
the tests we got good rain. Bombs are good for us.''

One shot that stays with you is of an anti-nuclear protester, one of 
a ragtag group on a peace march. In the face of police and angry BJP 
supporters taunting, ``Traitors, go back to Pakistan,'' he gently 
sings, ``We'll awaken the love dormant in the earth and turn the 
desert to heaven.'' He has a vulnerability, an innocence and an 
idealism that is touching. It puts you in mind of the lone protester 
facing the army tanks in the Tiananmen Square not so long ago.

The two-part War and Peace (Non-violence to Nuclear Nationalism and 
The Legacy, each 90 minutes), is on the Rotterdam, Berlin and Hong 
Kong festival circuit, and has already won the Grand Prize at the 
Earth Vision environmental festival in Japan. ``I was horrified at 
the euphoria in India and Pakistan after the tests for weapons of 
mass destruction,'' Mr Patwardhan says. ``Those questioning weapons 
of mass destruction are considered traitors and those promoting 
weapons are patriots. This misuse of patriotism troubles me.''

The film features Patwardhan regulars, including Bal Thackeray and 
Sadhvi Rithambhara, and highlights solid facts__two-thirds of our 
research budget goes for nuclear science, space and defence and less 
than 0.1 per cent for alternative energy. Mr Patwardhan travels to 
various parts of India and Pakistan, visits hibakusha (atom bomb 
survivors) in Japan and historians in Washington. A historian reveals 
that President Harry Truman knew that Japan was about to surrender 
and possibly there was no need for the A-bomb, but this information 
was strenuously suppressed.

With Mr Patwardhan, Rule No 1 is to avoid the O-word: if he hears the 
word objectivity, he has a tendency to go off like Pokhran. ``One 
man's truth is another man's propaganda,'' he is fond of saying. 
``Unless you toe the line, you are bound to be controversial. Of 
course, there is bias__there's no choice. I have been involved with 
various movements and the films have followed my involvement. But my 
films are about common sense, so it's ridiculous that they're 
controversial.''

He created a furor on another continent last week, when the American 
Museum of Natural History in New York postponed screening two of his 
films after protests from Hindu groups. Laura Kendall, a museum 
official, said in e-mail to a secular South Asian group that the 
showing had been moved back because of threats of violence.

No one doubts Mr Patwardhan's motivation. However, in using the media 
to put forth a self-confessed biased point of view, is he, in 
principle, any different from those he reviles?

``I present facts as I see them,'' he says. ``What the state says is 
propaganda. It deliberately distorts facts. When Vajpayee claims that 
Hindutva forces fought for independence, it is a distortion of 
history. They supported the British.''

With the erosion of the popular base of the Left and a passive middle 
class, coupled with the rise of hugely popular jingoistic mainstream 
films like Gadar, does he feel the need to adapt his narrative 
techniques to the changing situation? ``No. The audience response I 
get is terrific..And when my films are attacked, it only makes them 
better known. Perhaps the state awards may stop, because I use them 
to go to court.''

His films Bombay Our City, In Memory of Friends, In the Name of God 
and Father, Son and Holy War are all national award-winning 
documentaries. Fighting doggedly in the courts to get Doordarshan to 
telecast each of them, is par for the course for him. As he sums up, 
``Only an idealist can change the world.''

______

#7.
Frontline
Volume 19 - Issue 04, Feb. 16 - Mar. 1, 2002
ANALYSIS

The truth about the Lahore Summit

When Atal Behari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif went as far as discussing 
the need to go beyond stated positions and devise a solution that 
would take the interests of India, Pakistan and the Kashmiri people 
into consideration.
A.G. NOORANI
http://www.flonnet.com/fl1904/19040850.htm

______

#8.

Space Daily

Fresh Snow and Stray Missiles

PHOTO Caption: great views just not very friendly
Srinagar (AFP) Feb 10, 2002
A heavy fall of fresh powder snow, blue skies, steep, pine covered 
slopes and all for 10 dollars-a-day -- Gulmarg, Indian Kashmir's only 
winter sports resort, is a skier's heaven.

Unfortunately Gulmarg, which is located unnervingly close to one of 
the world's most violently contested frontiers and experiences the 
occasional stray missile, also sounds like most people's idea of hell.

Nevertheless, having experienced its first significant snowfall in 
four years, the Himalayan resort is beginning to tempt skiers back 
onto the piste as determined downhillers enjoy a rare break from 
Kashmir's escalating tensions.

"This resort is alive again after four years," Farooq Ahmed, managing 
director of the Cable Car Corp., which operates the run-down 
facilities, told AFP.

Gulmarg, which first witnessed skiing under British colonial rule, 
was opened as a resort in 1973, attracting adventurous skiers in 
search of some of the world's highest runs.

An enduring popularity, which has weathered decades of political 
turbulence, led to a major tourism drive in the 1990s when investment 
in a French-built gondola cable car looked set to guarantee Gulmarg's 
position on the international ski map.

But a resurgence of militant activity in the region, which is divided 
between India and Pakistan and claimed by both, soon put paid to 
these plans, with most skiers preferring less perilous pistes.

Gulmarg is around 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the Line of Control 
(LoC), the highly militarised de facto border dividing the state.

The LoC has recently become the focus of heightened tensions 
following an attack last December on the Indian parliament, which New 
Delhi blamed on Pakistan-backed Kashmiri militants.

An increase in military exchanges across the LoC were reported in the 
wake of the attack as the leaders of both nuclear-armed countries 
traded an increasingly hostile war of words.

Although exchanges are not common on the section of the frontier near 
Gulmarg, which is also home to the Indian army's high altitude 
warfare school, several shells fired from Pakistan last year were 
reported to have landed within the resort.

GoSki.com, an online guide to the world's best slopes, somewhat 
laconically sums up Gulmarg's attractions and downfalls.

"The resort maintains the standards, naturally friendly service and 
ludicrously cheap prices for which India is famed. The only real 
drawback is the possibility of being kidnapped and executed by 
Kashmiri separatists."

Now, however, transformed into a peaceful winter wonderland by the 
fresh snowfall, Gulmarg currently seems a far cry from a potential 
danger zone.

After years of lying dormant, the new cable car has cranked back into 
life as on the slopes below, groups of Indian schoolchildren learn to 
schuss, snowplough and slalom through the glistening powder.

What remains to be seen is if Gulmarg, which also boasts one of the 
world's highest grass golf courses, can pull in skiers from further 
afield.

As Mohammad Ashraf, head of the Kashmir Tourism Department says, the 
offer is very tempting.

"At 500 rupees (10.6 dollars) per day, a skier is provided with 
everything from equipment to food and accommodation."

_____

#9.

Dear Peace Friends,

I am a Pakistani research scholar on comparative
religions and I have just prepared my fresh 'peace
creation', which is in fact a gift of love and
humanity for the people of the subcontinent. The Urdu
book 'Agahi' (Wisdom) highlights the real teachings of
Religion that demand merely the acts of love and
kindness from the followers. This book not only gives
the introduction of the major religions but also
highlights the common beauties of the world religions.
I seek the services of the human rights activists in
Lahore to go through the script and to point out
anything unsuitable to be evaded from the script.
Regards,

F. U. Rehman
Research Fellow on Religious Peace
Lahore-Pakistan

e-mail: peacefinder2002@y...

_____

#10.

Outlook Magazine | Feb 18, 2002 

REVIEW
Violence: A Break-Up
A traverse beyond Partition unearths resources of violence within communities
PARTHO DATTA

REMEMBERING PARTITION-VIOLENCE, NATIONALISM AND HISTORY IN INDIA
by Gyanendra Pandey
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
RS595,PAGES:218

Gyanendra Pandey's book signals the coming of age of a new way of 
assessing the event of India's Partition. For some time now many 
historians, including Pandey himself, have been arguing that the 
consensus on seeing 1947 as the emblematic year that brought to a 
close the triumphant career of Indian nationalism needs to be 
challenged. It is only by pushing research to the years following 
Partition that the true meaning of this traumatic event can begin to 
be unravelled.

If Pandey is taking sides here, then he is unabashedly speaking up 
for the "subalterns" in this story, that is, the victims on whom, in 
the name of religion and nation, wide-scale violence was perpetrated.

The nation has indeed been receiving some hard knocks of late in 
Indian history writing. The mantle of nationhood, as sensitive 
historians have pointed out time and again, can be hugely repressive. 
This is not just the physical coercion of the nation-state, but the 
stifling discipline of new norms which in the name of the nation-the 
moral community of free citizens-sweeps under the carpet the 
struggles and aspirations of religious minorities, women and Dalits. 
Digging up their suppressed histories has been a major enterprise of 
Partition historians in recent years. A pioneering range of very 
powerful and unsettling essays by among others Urvashi Butalia, Ritu 
Menon, Kamala Bhasin and anthropologist Veena Das, have shown how 
both India and Pakistan in their efforts to recover abducted women 
had little concern for their sufferings. Instead, their recovery 
became a point of honour for the proud young nation-states. Thus the 
surviving women, some of whom had found new homes with their 
abductors, had to face violence a second time around-this time from 
the state-as they were forcibly repatriated to countries they did not 
necessarily want to come back to. At the heart of this argument was a 
concern to refocus on the nature of violence. Violence, these 
historians have argued, was not an undifferentiated phenomenon but 
was deeply gendered. But it was not only the state that was 
patriarchal, so was the family. In Punjab, many Sikh families killed 
their women fearing attack by mobs. In most of the cases the men 
survived the attacks and went on to build new lives afterwards.

Pandey too is principally concerned with the nature of violence and 
he traverses some of the same ground covered by the early historians. 
In the first four chapters of the book, which is a long extended 
argument with professional historians and the conventional nature of 
history writing, Pandey seems to be making a plea for moving out of 
the closed world of archives, on to the street where the constantly 
shifting ground of memory throws up new challenges. It is in this 
arena that the violence inherent in the face-to-face communities in 
the countryside and in the cities becomes more palpable. Pandey's own 
conclusions are that violence, both real and symbolic, go a long way 
in making and remaking communities. That it is possible to read a 
pattern in insensate violence if we closely investigate the way 
communities fashion themselves. In his extended field work among men 
and women who lived through the events in the late 1940s in Delhi, 
Punjab and in Garhmukhteshwar (Uttar Pradesh), Pandey tries to 
grapple with ways in which communities drew a veil over violent 
events, invoking selective amnesia to present a kind of unity to the 
outside world. A peculiar kind of denial is also at work when 
cataclysmic violence is unleashed by the community on others. Such is 
the force of this assertion that all violence is attributed to forces 
"outside" the immediate boundaries of the community. In a more 
utopian vein, Pandey argues that the resources for such violence 
within the community need to be recognised if only to make possible 
more open-ended and tolerant communities in the future.

Pandey's book is passionately written and very accessible. Especially 
in its introductory chapters it is by turns indulgently 
self-reflective, provocative and combative. It is also intensely 
political. Pandey is one of India's most distinguished historians. 
The focus on community, perhaps, is an attempt to answer his critics 
who said of his earlier work on communalism that it had too 
exclusively focused on the imperatives of colonial governance. One 
cannot help noting that the cover of the book reproduces a painting 
by Bhupen Khakar. In this graphic portrayal of violence, an 
androgynous figure is seen with the dismembered limbs of another 
human being. Pandey's last book too had a striking painting on a 
similar theme by Vivan Sundaram. It just goes to show that it is not 
only historians who are concerned about communal violence in India 
today.

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