SACW | 21 Feb 2005
sacw
aiindex at mnet.fr
Sun Feb 20 18:30:37 CST 2005
South Asia Citizens Wire | 21 Feb., 2005
via: www.sacw.net
[Interruption Notice: Please note there will be
no SACW dispatches between 22-26 February 2005]
[1] Turmoil [in Nepal] (Rita Manchanda)
[2] Musical tribute: Manganiars celebrate Indo-Pak rail link (NDTV report)
[3] Pakistan: [Dr Shazia's Rape] The ultimate violation (Beena Sarwar)
[4] India: Fascism can't really be a joke (Jawed Naqvi)
[5] India: Hindu Fascism and Its Forked Tongue (I.K.Shukla)
[6] India: [The attack on S.A.R. Geelani] Let
Facts Speak (Nirmalangshu Mukherji)
[7] India: No Evenings in Paris (Editorial, The Telegraph)
[8] India: Press Release - Censorship protest at Calcutta film festival
[9] India: Fact Tentative Sheet Related To Large
Scale Slum Demolition In Mumbai
[10] India: Victims of Armed Forces Act dub it a 'black law'
[11] Recent Books:
(i) Book Review of: 'Pakistan's Economic and
Social Development: The Domestic, Regional and
Global Context by S. Akbar Zaidi'
(ii) Hindutva - Treason and Terrorism by I. K. Shukla
[12] Some Upcoming Seminars and Conferences in the UK:
@ SOAS on 22 February 2005
- 'Muslim women and partition: a historiographical silence' Rabia Umar Ali
- 'Rights of Christians in Pakistan' Professor Sarah Safdar
@ University of Sussex on 21-23 March 2005
Reinterpreting Adivasi (Indigenous Peoples) Movements in South Asia conference
--------------
[1]
Magazine Section / The Hindu
TURMOIL [IN NEPAL]
Rita Manchanda documents the constant struggle
between the monarchy and democratic forces in
Nepal.
URL: www.hindu.com/mag/2005/02/20/stories/2005022000440200.htm
______
Objet: News item from NDTV.COM
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 11:45:12 +0530
MUSICAL TRIBUTE: MANGANIARS CELEBRATE INDO-PAK RAIL LINK
URL:
ndtv.com/template/template.asp?template=Indopakfaceoff&callid=8&id=958
______
[2]
The News on Sunday
February 20, 2005
THE ULTIMATE VIOLATION
By Beena Sarwar
"What happened to Shazia should not happen to
anybody. And those who want to suppress the case,
hid the reality, protect the sinners who
committed this act, have they ever thought that
this could happen in their own house too, to
their own daughter or wife... What will they do
then?
"My brother, who is the eldest son, the support
of our old father, today when he talks to me, he
starts crying. And I can do nothing, I cannot
even dry my dear brother's tears. Today my heart
is weeping tears of blood along with his tears.
Dr Shazia was the honour of our family, and
Inshallah, always will be. She is the daughter of
our household, our daughter-in-law. In our eyes,
she is as pure and unsullied as she has ever
been. Her honour has not reduced, nor will it
ever be. But who knows why this educated society
with its educated people armed with big degrees
talk like illiterates, talk of Karo Kari. I ask
them who has given them the right to pronounce
such a sentence on an innocent, responsible
doctor, that she should be killed, that she has
no right to live. Under what law do they make
these statement, where is the Ayat in the Quran
that decrees punishment on the downtrodden?
"...Dr Shazia's condition is deteriorating by the
day. She can't sleep at night. My brother sits up
all night by her side with a light on, she is
afraid of the dark, she screams. What she has
gone through, it is very painful, the horror will
always stay with her deep in her heart. She can't
face anyone, she is unable to meet anyone. A
talented and responsible girl, a professional
doctor, a saviour of human beings, is today
fighting for her own life. She just wants to live
with the same respect she had..."
This is a partial translation of the long,
heartbreaking email that Dr Shazia's
sister-in-law Sameera Shah wrote from Canada to
the Anaa News list, in Roman Urdu, posted out on
January 31. Anaa is the American Asian Network
Against Abuse of Women, set up by some concerned
ex-pat Pakistani doctors based in the USA. They
run an active email list focusing on violence
against women, URL: 4anaa.org/, which has taken
up the Sui rape case with great enthusiasm,
including a signature campaign that they hope to
pressurise the government into action with. They
also initially offered to try and get Dr Shazia
and her husband over to the USA, but appear to
have realised that such a move is beyond their
scope. Now a Canadian organisation of
Pakistani-origin professionals has reportedly
made such arrangements.
The Sui rape is probably Pakistan's most high
profile such case since the prominent politician
Sardar Shaukat Hayat went public with the rape of
his daughter Veena Hyat over a decade ago. Then
too, there was a lot of public outrage,
demonstrations, petitions and what not. In the
end, those arrested were released for 'lack of
evidence', and Veena Hayat eventually moved
abroad. It is not just women who are raped who
find no hope in this society. Those who marry
without their family's permission also often find
themselves unable to live here, particularly if
their case hits the headlines -- Shaista Almani,
and earlier, Riffat Afridi and Saima Waheed
Ropri, have all had to leave the country with
their husbands, for fear of being killed if they
remained in Pakistan.
Obviously, sending threatened women away is no
solution to the problem, but it has become a form
of political asylum. The main reason for this,
and for the increase in violence against women,
as has been pointed out again and again, is the
lack of rule of law, the fact that culprits are
never arrested, tried and punished. The lack,
eventually, of accountability. And without
accountability, we cannot build a just,
democratic society, in which the citizens feel
safe and secure.
It is all very well and good that the government
is engaged in the image building of Pakistan. We
all agree that this country is misrepresented in
the West and even in the East, and that there's a
lot more to life in the Land of the Pure than
violent fanatics who would like to criminalise
every little joy in life (much like the Saudis
who banned red roses on Valentine's Day). But
unless we Pakistanis feel safe and secure in our
own land, why would foreign investors be willing
to risk life and limb in this potentially
promising investment climate. It's only a few
crazies more attuned to journalism and/or social
development than investments and finance, like
the Brits George Fulton and Chris Cork, or
Germans Claus Euler and Hans Bremer (all married,
incidentally, to Pakistani women), or the
UK-based American Ethan Casey who will take the
risk of living here for any extended period
(There are a few brave women too).
Pakistan is probably one of the few countries
where violence against women is actually on the
rise. According to official figures cited in the
HRCP Report 2004, an average of a thousand women
die in Pakistan every year as a result of
'honour' killings. Add to this the thousands who
suffer domestic violence, or are burnt with acid
or kerosene, and the picture that emerges is one
of extreme hatred of women (misogyny), violence,
and deep-rooted concepts about women being the
property of men, to do with as they will.
Think of the pain of young Aasiya in Karachi,
just 16, raped by her employer's son and then
burnt when she resisted -- doctors were amazed
that she survived as long as she did, for two
weeks, with 90 percent burns. The police refused
to even register an FIR, until the intervention
of rights organisations. In another recent case,
Ghazala, a young graduate working in the
advertising section of a local newspaper, was
taken to Islamabad and raped by the owner-editor
who photographed her nude in order to blackmail
her into silence... but Ghazala isn't keeping
silent, just as Aasiya refused to. Her family is
standing by her (her father is a retired Steel
Mills worker, and her mother a principal at a
school in Karachi's Lines area); they have
registered an FIR. Dr Shazia isn't keeping silent
either.
The State must support such struggles for women
for justice with more than just words or
(inadequate) bills on 'honour killing'. For
Aasiya and others like her, it is too late. But
there are hundreds if not thousands of other such
cases screaming for justice, accountability, and
the rule of law. Until the government takes steps
to ensure these basics, all attempts at improving
Pakistan's image abroad will remain a superficial
veneer.
______
[3]
Dawn
February 20, 2005
FASCISM CAN'T REALLY BE A JOKE
By Jawed Naqvi
On first thoughts, it should seem like a lot of
fun that two of the most notorious satraps of
Hindutva fascism are exuding farcically opposite
views on cricket ties with Pakistan.
Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, who
would even today never tire of blaming "Mian
Musharraf" for anything going wrong in his state,
is insisting there will be no match anywhere in
India if one is not also played in his home city
of Ahmedabad.
The Pakistani cricket authorities on their part
had expressed reservations about the city where
anti-Muslim pogroms had raged with state
connivance in February-March 2002.
Even as the Pakistan board appeared to
subsequently relax its reservations on Gujarat
after a meeting of the foreign ministers of India
and Pakistan, it offered, quite possibly
impishly, to play a match in Mumbai, hub of Shiv
Sena's Hindutva hoodlums.
Bal Thackeray, the Sena leader, has always
thundered against any truck with Pakistan, be it
a cricket match or any other peace overture. By
offering to play a match in the heartland of Shiv
Sena, the Pakistan board was probably reminding
the Indian government of its impotence and double
standards whereby it sought a match for Ahmedabad
but avoided one in Mumbai.
On the other hand it is a small but perhaps
significant reflection of the crisis within
India's fascist movement that its two main
mascots, Narendra Modi and Bal Thackeray, were
forced to take opposite views on sporting ties
with their common foe, Pakistan.
There is more confusion in their ranks. The
extremely successful strategy of using Hindu
sadhus, or spiritual men, as the spearhead of
religious revivalism has got mired in unseemly
controversy.
The most sacred institution of the Shankarcharya,
projected as an icon of the VHP, which itself is
a militant arm of Hindutva, has been badly
bruised by allegations in a court case over the
mysterious murder of a dissident priest.
Since last week, there has been a spate of
damaging exposes, involving lurid CDs of sadhus
shown in sex acts with devotees in respected
shrines in Gujarat and elsewhere.
The VHP says in self-defence that similar
scandals are known to involve some Muslim
preachers and Christian missionaries too. That
may be so but it provides little justification
for the audio visual exploits of men who were
hitherto regarded by gullible folks as embodiment
of spiritualism that galvanized Hindutva.
If the so-called extremist arm of Hindu
storm-troopers has hit rough weather, the
spuriously liberal face of the fascist doctrine
has not been spared either. Television channels
have been showing excerpts from a CD over the
week in which former prime minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee is seen exhorting kar sewaks, or young
Hindu volunteers, who were to tear down the Babri
mosque in Ayodhya on Decr 6, 1992, not to leave
any messy rubble behind.
This is claimed to be an excerpt from a speech Mr
Vajpayee evidently gave on Dec 5, the day before
the event. The CD thus overturns the commonly
held view that Mr Vajpayee, though a Hindutva
leader, was always opposed to the demolition of
the mosque.
It was hitherto believed by many that Mr Vajpayee
was in fact so grieved by the mosque's subsequent
destruction that he actually shed copious tears
for days after the incident.
Reference to the existence of the CD had been
doing the rounds in the intelligence circuit for
years. Now for some inexplicable reason it has
surfaced. Although its effect on Hindutva fascism
is hard to predict, it cannot be good for Mr
Vajpayee's carefully cultivated image of a
liberal.
Finally, there used to be an implicit support
system for Hindutva from American state
machinery, which could be turning against it. In
May 2003, the US Assistant Secretary of State
Christina Rocca had virtually given a clean chit
to the Modi establishment in Gujarat, telling the
US Congress that the BJP government there was
seriously pursuing legal cases against the
culprits.
It was ironical that the Indian Supreme Court
just around then was so frustrated with the
Gujarat government that it decreed a trial of the
accused Hindutva men by a court in neighbouring
Mumbai.
But now, according to an Indian newspaper report
from Washington on Feb 10, President Bush's
pledge last month to "bring democracy to
oppressed peoples throughout the world" will soon
reach Muslims in Gujarat if the US state
department under its new secretary of state,
Condoleezza Rice, has its way.
"The department's bureau of democracy, human
rights and labour (has) announced its support for
projects in Gujarat aimed at bringing legal
redress to Muslims," The Kolkota-based Telegraph
reported.
Describing Indian Muslims as "marginalized", the
bureau announced support for building civil
society for the minority community nationwide and
for programmes aimed at promoting their
inclusiveness.
It is not as though there is any great reason to
believe that the United States has changed its
way of thinking overnight. The change in the
stance towards Gujarat's Muslims is possibly
prompted by the changed political reality in
India where the federal government is a secular
one, one not terribly enamoured of Hindutva.
It is in this context that we recall that Rahul
Gandhi, scion of the ruling Congress party, had
once called the BJP a joke. Given the comical
sloppiness of some of the Hindutva leaders and
their apparent difficulty in coping with adverse
political circumstances, Mr Rahul's claim may
have a grain of truth.
But experience has shown that BJP is not a party
to be trifled with. Fascism after all is no funny
joke, even if its detractors seem to be having a
bit of fun for the moment.
* * * *
Basant festivities in Lahore have been attracting
Indians, particularly people from the divided
Punjab, in hordes. I remember BJP leader Sushma
Swaraj breaking into an impromptu bhangra on a
crowded Lahore terrace during the festivities a
few days before the Vajpayee-Nawaz summit of Feb
1999.
This year, the Pakistan High Commission issued a
generous number of visas to Indian visitors to
Lahore and we are told all the flights during the
run-up to the day were packed.
Among those seeking nostalgia were two aged Sikh
women, Vicky Zarangez Raikhy and Raji Bains. Ms
Raikhy was born in 1921 and studied at FC College
in Lahore while Ms Bains, born in 1924, studied
at Kinnaird College, where her father, Tajinder
Singh, was principal.
He was killed in the partition riots. "It was
like homecoming to both of us," said Ms Bains.
After 57 years, celebrating Basant with long lost
friends in "our homeland" was an emotional
experience for both.
______
[4]
Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 19:06:17 +0000
HINDU FASCISM AND ITS FORKED TONGUE
I.K.Shukla
The latest revelation by the Hindi weekly
Outlook, Delhi, of duplicity and connivance in
the matter of Babri Mosque's demolition on the
part of Atal Behari Vajpayee, the prime
poetaster, will not be the last in the series of
his and his cohort's perfidies and perjuries,
were the press voluntarily not to feign paralysis
or selective somnolence. He was never a reluctant
mask, as the merchant press misleadingly
proclaimed, in the misdeeds of Rashtra Sanharak
Sangh and its adjuncts and affiliates. He pledged
himself to active volunteerism right when he
swore fealty to RSS, the fascist outfit,
stinkingly notorious throughout the world since
Gandhi's assassination. He never flinched or
veered away from the cultist objectives of the
sinister Sangh: elimination of Muslims,
Christians and communists, and lately the
democrats and secularists. Vajpayee's antipathy
towards and commitment to the liquidation of
minorities forms the core and constant of his
achievements in his political career.
What concerns us here is not his ignoble stoking
of communal fires time and again. That is very
well known and fairly documented. But recently he
made certain statements that reveal the depth of
darkness that fills his mind no less than it
disfigures language. In a lighter mood I would
have suggested that he be placed as a curio piece
in a museum for the delight of sightseers - a
biped with a forked tongue. But since a nation's
tragedy is involved in the matter, no levity is
admissible.
Recently he declared in Bihar that democracy is
incompatible with violence. This is typical
forked-tongue speech particular to and patently
Vajpayee. What did he mean? Is it compatible in
Gujarat but not in Bihar? Or that Bihar, for
having stymied state-sponsored violence against
minorities, unlike Gujarat, is not democratic?
He also recommended President's Rule for Bihar?
Why? Because its government failed to drench
Bihar in blood and forgot to set the minorities
afire alive a la Gujarat? Because Biharis
refused to become savages and affirmed their
common humanity across man-made divides when the
whole of India was rocked, and various parts of
it were charred, by Advani's Rakt Yatra? Because
Bihar asserted its respect for the Indian
Constitution and avowed its faith in the ballot
box, unlike Gujarat? Because Bihar rejected the
inhumanly bloody way to poll victory advocated by
Advanis and foisted on Gujarat by the Bharat
Jalao Party? Because Bihar, under its
Constitutional obligations, discharged its Raj
Dharma of protecting the minorities, its Muslim
citizens, beleaguered everywhere else? Because
Bihar did not allow President Musharraf of
Pakistan to be a candidate in its elections as
against Gujarat where Sancho Panza-like, Modi
flailed his hands and tilted at Musharraf's
apparition in every speech, as if terribly
quaking in his dhoti, frightened and scared with
such a challenger and contestant in the field?
The question of questions remains: why did he
forget recommending President's Rule when
rampaging anarchy plunged Gujarat in massive
death and destruction? Or, was it only this Raj
Dharma of connivance and collusion that he had
recommended to his fellow fascist Modi, the
Butcher of Gujarat? Is he unhappy that Hindu
Rashtra could not be seeded in Bihar, as in
Gujarat, "democratically"? Is Vajpayee
theo-terrorist Hindutva's well crafted Rip Van
Winkle, or a victim of senility and its attendant
feebleness of mind?
Another recent discovery he seems to have made,
and again in Bihar, is that the educated youth,
if unemployed, will take to violence. Not even a
year has passed when he was removed from power
after a five-year long stint in New Delhi. Was
this not a fact then? Who denied the youth,
educated or uneducated, any decent job in those
five years when BJP was busy looting and stealing
(hefty bribes and holy scams as guru dakshina)?
The sporadic and sanguinary jobs – raping,
killing, and burning of innocent Muslims - that
it gave to Dalits in Gujarat, may not be the idea
of employment nurtured by or very popular with
the educated unemployed of Bihar or the rest of
India for whom Vajpayee so conveniently chose
this poll time to shed profuse crocodile tears.
Truthfully, Vajpayee should have told his hired
audience, that he is a minion of the privileged
minority that has ruled the country since
historical time began; that he can make pompous
and false promises of employment, but would be
impotent to deliver the goods, for it would not
redound to the Big Business interests, his and
his party's donors and patrons( financiers have
historically subsidized fascists quite
munificently) ; that providing jobs to the
skilled and unskilled, educated or uneducated, is
not on the agenda of Rashtriya Shatru Sangh or
its plenteous litter; that he, and his 'soul
RSS', believe that India needs more and more
temples rather than schools, clinics, clean
drinking water, employment guarantee, and paved
streets and roads; that he-BJP-RSS-VHP are
pledged to wreck and defile Indian Constitution
and shred the nation via communal bloodbaths
towards achieving a rigged majority of votes in
order for them to be hoisted in the seats of
power; that they hate democracy and would spare
no exertion, no trickery to defame and destroy
it; that Bharat of their dreams will be a
theo-terrorist state enslaved and dominated by
the varna system which will mandate only
predators to be lawmakers.
He must be effrontery and egregiousness
incarnate. He and Advanis talking of democracy
must bite their tongues before uttering such
blasphemy. The sworn followers of Mussolini and
Hitler, through Munje-Hedgewar-Golwalkar, all the
notorious and avowed enemies of democracy and
proponents of totalitarian tyranny, Atals and
Lalkishenchands are not known for their passion
for democracy. How could they profess any faith
in it being its demolishers all the while? Atal
is known to have publicly pleaded for elections
to be done away with. But his refuge is dementia
or amnesia. So he can pretend he just joked, or
that he never said so. Deceit and denial prop up
the demagogues. Congenital or habitual, seasoned
liars do not remember. It does not suit them to.
The disjunct between words and their meanings,
the gulf between profession and practice, and
the yawning distance between the motive and the
manifest, as evidenced in the political discourse
of saffronazis, are stunningly brazen, starkly
bold. All political talk may be just blather,
many a lie is uttered to serve an opportune
moment. But what distinguishes the Hindu Taliban
is their mulish persistence in their repetitive
lies, their rhetorical rhodomontade compounded
relentlessly of prejudices and falsehoods,
pathetic ignorance, pathological mental deficit,
and aggressive assertions. These they purvey as
facts and truth by dint of propaganda, publicity,
and pugilistic polemics.
Consider the obscene assertion by their
luminaries that 'there are no minorities in
India', or that 'BJP is secular'. Both these are
lies too big for any mouth, but VedicTaliban
remain unfazed, unrepentant, and unashamed in
spouting and chanting them after Sudarshan and
Lal Kishenchand. They don't wince from such a
hippopotamus-size falsehood. RSS and its
satellites all have been inveterate enemies of
minorities and secularism, denouncing them both
as aliens, and foreign concepts, hence
un-Bharatiya and un-Hindutva.
But forgetting or feigning to obliterate all
that, they continue unflaggingly to make these
claims as if playacting. And, the press starts
yelping in unison its hallelujahs for these
votaries of its kind of "secularism". But it is
not as naïve as it looks. It is a version of the
assertion that HinduTaliban need no lessons in
secularism from abroad, that it is native to the
soil of Bharat. Proof? It is Hindu secularism
that accommodates diverse religions in Bharat.
Without Hindus being secular, minorities could
not have lived here this long. In a twisted way
it validates the ugly version: it is on Hindu
sufferance that minorities have lived here.
Hence, they must subjugate themselves to Hindus!
This line of argument takes care of both
secularism and minorities.
Another gambit that saffronazis take frequent
resort to is "political vendetta" and the non
sequitur "why at this time?" This cunning seeks
to preempt any corrective or remedial measure
against past crimes of NDA-BJP. Thus every
misdemeanor of BJP is sought to be legitimated
and entrenched as fait accompli, immutable and
sovereign. Again, this is a direct assault on
democracy. Any successor government would like to
enact laws that best manifest its goals and its
agenda. But BJP wants to eat the cake and have it
too. It wants its authoritarianism, wangled
through democratic tools, to perpetrate crimes
and subvert the system in perpetuity to its
advantage. But it is loath to concede the same to
other political parties which may rescind and
revoke its anti-people measures. The ruckus it
raised in the matter of governors can be
understood in this light.
Another variant of the above is "why now" (Hindi
Outlook outing the CD of Vajpayee saying "I don't
know what will happen tomorrow in Ayodhya"; and
Gujarat Holocaust CDs appearing in Bihar). It is
like a criminal asking the police or the court
"why now?" No time ever would be deemed
propitious or auspicious by the criminal for his
trial and conviction. Despite the Electoral
Commission's jarring interference and jumping its
remit, in the public domain, one party will
always cry horror when its misconduct is made an
issue. Which issues and when to raise them is not
for the EC to determine.
As to the deformity of the political culture,
things could not have been so obnoxious as at
present: BJP and Congress demanding President's
Rule in Bihar and UP. This is devil's axis. It
recalls the painful past of the 50s when Indira
Congress went along with the CIA in having Kerala
wrested from the Communist party. The feat was
repeated, foreign-policy-wise too, in the case of
Tibet. Cynicism and opportunistic tailism will
continue making asses of them all.
19 Feb. 05
o o o
[SEE ALSO THE FOLLOWING RELATED MATERIAL]
I wanted to go to Ayodhya butŠ : Vajpayee
Expressindia.com, India - Feb 17, 2005
New Delhi, February 17: "I don't know what will
happen there tomorrow", former Prime Minister
Atal Behari Vajpayee is quoted as having said in
Lucknow on ...
URL: www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=42082
'Babri Masjid demolition planned 10 months in advance'
Indian Express, India - Jan 30, 2005
... 30: In a claim that tears apart the stand of
Sangh Parivar, a book authored by a former top
Intelligence Bureau (IB) official says that Babri
Masjid demolition ...
URL: www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=41375
____
[6]
20 Feb 2005 12:58:18 +0530
From: Nirmalangshu Mukherji
Subject: mystery deepens?
LET FACTS SPEAK
Nirmalangshu Mukherji
(Department of Philosophy, Delhi University)
In continuation of Arundhati Roy's perceptive
piece ("who pulled the trigger...didn't we all?",
SACW, Feb 20), it is important to be clear that,
scattered individual opinion notwithstanding,
those who have officially demanded that the
inquiry into the attack on SAR Geelani be handed
over to an agency other than the Delhi Police
HAVE NOT "accused the Delhi Police of carrying
out the attack".
To keep the record straight, I will cite from two
statements to show what exactly was said. On 9
February, that is within a few hours of the
attack, a large number of academicians, social
activists, writers including Ms. Roy, artists and
others gathered before the police headquarters.
An open letter to the Home Minister was prepared
and signed by hundreds of those gathered. In the
letter, it was clearly stated: "ALTHOUGH WE DO
NOT WISH TO PRE-JUDGE ANY SPECIFIC COMPLICITY IN
THE ATTACK ON PROF. GEELANI AT THIS STAGE, we
strongly feel that the involvement of the Delhi
Police itself, especially its Special Branch, in
the crime can not be ruled out" (emphasis added).
The letter then went on to describe the treatment
meted out to Geelani and the other accused in the
Parliament attack case; it also detailed
Geelani's refusal to submit to police pressures
despite torture. Further, it described how "after
his acquittal, Prof. Geelani has been a prominent
voice in defence of democracy and human rights.
Following his own bitter experience, he has drawn
attention of the country to the abject violation
of the rights of prisoners, especially Kashmiri
muslims, in the Tihar jail." Thus, the letter
suggested, "No wonder his presence has been a
thorn in the flesh of cynical power enjoyed by
the Special Branch with the undisguised blessings
of the erstwhile NDA government in the name of
anti-terrorist operations."
Then, on 14 February, Delhi University Teachers
in defence of SAR Geelani, submitted a petition
to the National Human Rights Commission. This
document was also signed by a large number of
academicians, human rights and social activists.
After repeating the charges as above, the
petition stated: "The needle of suspicion is thus
directed at the Delhi Police UNTIL THEY ARE ABLE
TO EXONERATE THEMSELVES WITH TRUTHFUL
INVESTIGATION."
As Ms. Roy has described the investigations
carried out so far, it is hard to credit the
Delhi Police with "truthful investigation" two
weeks into the attack. As the petition to NHRC
stated after a careful review of these
"investigations", "these actions not only show
the failure of the police to launch a serious
investigation into this massive crime, there is
an attempt to personalize what is clearly an
enormous political crime. Who are the police
trying to shield with these diversionary tactics?"
Apart from the scandalous disinformation campaign
reported by Ms. Roy and the NHRC petition, by now
Geelani's lawyer and her husband, Geelani's
brother, and most of Geelani's academic friends
have been repeatedly interviewed by the police,
as if the "clue" to Geelani's assassin is somehow
hidden there.
But there is no report as to whether the police
have interrogated their own brethren in the
special branch, the hoodlums that ransacked Ram
Jethmalani's office when he decided to defend
Geelani in the High Court, and the right-wing
forces that burst crackers in front of the
Special Court when Geelani was sentenced to
death. In other words, people with demonstrated
enmity towards Geelani have been systematically
spared. At the same time, there is a constant
attempt to implicate shadowy terrorist groups,
persons lodged in prison, and even Geelani
himself for "crafting" this attack.
Are we then too far off the mark in thinking that
the police is trying desperately to keep the real
issues away from sight and just buying time to
await (or may be even prepare) for some "dramatic
development", perhaps involving international
terrorism, that will be projected as a
"breakthrough" in the "mystery"?
In this connection, it is important to reflect
upon the interesting story just released under
the auspieces of the Special Cell of the Delhi
Police ("Hurriyat leader arrested in Delhi",
Hindu, Feb 19). Apparently, the Cell had arrested
a person called "Aziz", "the 53 year old chairman
of the Jammu and Kashmir People's League", which
is a member of the Hurriyat Conference. Aziz was
caught red-handed from the posh Chanakyapuri area
with fake Indian currency and UAE dirhams
apparently "obtained" from the Pakistan High
Commission. Interestingly, Aziz was also a
"Supreme Commander" of an "extremist branch"
known as "Al-jehad"; prior to that, he "underwent
a six-week training in handling of arms and
ammunitions (in PoK) after which he returned with
an AK-series assault rifle". He had been
frequently arrested by the Indian security
forces, most recently in September 2001, and was
released only in 2004. (The Cell did not forget
to mention that another character with a similar
profile - but a woman this time - was also
arrested two years ago; that woman happened to be
a "socio-human rights activist" as well.)
It will be interesting to know why this
well-known shady character happened to roam the
streets of Delhi with large sums of counterfeit
money obtained from Pakistan High Commission in
these charged days after the attack on Geelani.
The promising thing about this arrest is the
convergence at the right place and time of the
following: Kashmir and Hurriyat, "jehad",
training in PoK, Pakistan High Commission, fake
currency, and possibly "human rights" via the
suggested montage - the works. It is reported
that the Cell plans to arrest and interrogate
"his other accomplices". We await their
revelations.
______
[7]
The Telegraph - February 19, 2005
Editorial
NO EVENINGS IN PARIS
It is difficult to imagine Ms Sharmila Tagore as
a puritan - An Evening in Paris or, in a very
different way, Days and Nights in the Forest,
comes in the way. This is why when Ms Tagore
became chairperson of the censor board, most
sensible adults in India sighed with relief. But
detoxification could become a double-edged weapon
in the hands of the confused. And if Ms Tagore
wants to be more than just a figurehead, she will
have to do some clear and grown-up thinking, and
persuade her co-censors to do the same. Leaving
aside, for the moment, the usual democratic
arguments against censorship, it is surely not
difficult to notice the bizarre contradictions in
forcing television channels to "self-regulate"
their content with regard to sex and violence,
and do so by invoking "democracy" of all things.
This is not a bigoted government but a "liberal"
one that believes in freedom of expression. So
these channels are not being subjected to
censorship, and are only being made to censor
themselves.
The police, the information and broadcasting
ministry and the censor board have therefore got
together to promote liberal values by encouraging
"self-regulation" among the private channels,
helped along by the Cable Television Networks
(Regulation) Act. A recent workshop in the
capital, attended by Ms Tagore and the I&B
minister, even thought of a "quasi-judicial" body
of venerables from various disciplines that would
oversee this process of self-regulation.
This is absurd and hypocritical. The good thing
about the previous government, and about people
like Ms Sushma Swaraj and Mr Murli Manohar Joshi,
was that their puritanism was unabashed. It could
be recognized from miles away, and did not feel
the need to call itself by any other name. It was
pure bigotry. But this government's liberal
confusion of values - practising censorship and
calling it self-regulation - is perhaps a sorrier
way to be. It stunts the maturing of democracy
quite as harmfully, and panders to Indian
society's worst pathologies and double standards.
To complain to the police in order to make sure
that the whole family might sit together and
watch television - as many seem to have done in
Mumbai - is to reduce civil society to a
classroom of monitors and tattletales.
There are saner ways of dealing with choice:
adults can switch channels, and regulate their
children's television-watching. This is not to
say that the vulgar and the obscene are entirely
inapplicable categories when it comes to private
judgments. But private judgment is precisely what
is at stake here - the ability to form one's own
judgments, act on them, and help young people
form their own. To leave the definition and
regulation of these categories to the state, the
police and the censor board (whoever its
chairperson) is to compromise not only a basic
principle of democracy but also the most
rudimentary notions of adult responsibility,
discrimination and choice.
______
[8]
Campaign Against Censorship protest at Calcutta film festival:
18 February 2005
PRESS RELEASE
Campaign Against Censorship protest at Calcutta film festival:
12 films of 'Vikalp' package withdrawn by film-makers
In a major setback to the event, a package of a dozen documentary films was
today withdrawn in protest from the forthcoming 4th International Conference
of Social Communication Cinema organized by Roopkala Kendro, Kolkata
(18th-23rd Feb 2005). The films were part of a package of films put together
last year under the banner of "Vikalp - Films for Freedom" by documentary
film-makers from across the country, as a protest against the arbitrary and
capricious censorship of films by the Government of India. Over the past
year the Vikalp package has been screened all over the country by Films For
Freedom as an intrinsic part of its national Campaign against Censorship.
Roopkala Kendro is an autonomous organisation "under" the Department of
Information and Cultural Affairs, Govt. of West Bengal. Set up with the
intention of producing films for "the social disadvantaged and vulnerable
population groups", the Conference of Social Communication Cinema is meant
to "highlight issues of existence/survival of common people, violence
against vulnerable groups like women and children, human rights,
environment, etc".Roop Kala Kendro had approached Films For Freedom to show
the Vikalp package during its Conference. However after selecting, and
obtaining the films from film-makers, Roopkala Kendro wrote in at the last
moment, quoting a "recent ruling of the Law Ministry" and Ministry of
Information & Broadcasting officials, and asking for censor-certificates to
be submitted before the films could be screened.
Films For Freedom believes that film festivals are spaces for an unfettered
ex-pression of film makers ideas and should be free of censorship, as is the
international norm. In keeping with our committment to protect festival
spaces, film makers have decided to withdraw their films from the
festival/conference being organised by Roop Kala Kendro.
The films withdrawn are:
Amakaar / Dir: Surbhi Sharma
Bakkarwals / Dir: Rajesh Kaul
Kitte Mil Ve Mahi / Dir: Ajay Bharadwaj
Ladies Special / Dir: Nidhi Tuli
Manjuben Truckdriver / Dir: Sherna Dastur
River Taming Mantras / Dir: Sanjay Barnela & Vasant Sabrewal
Sitas Family / Dir: Saba Dewan
The Bitter Drink / Dir: P. Baburaj & Saratchandran
Unlimited Girls / Dir: Paromita Vohra
Water Business is good Business / Dir: Sanjay Barnela & Vasant Sabrewal
Words on Water / Dir: Sanjay Kak
______
[9]
FACT TENTATIVE SHEET RELATED TO LARGE SCALE SLUM DEMOLITION IN MUMBAI
by National Alliance or People's Alliance and Shahar Vikas Manch
http://dupb.blogspot.com/2005/02/fact-tentative-sheet-related-to-large.html
______
[10]
The Hindu
February 21, 2005
http://www.hindu.com/2005/02/21/stories/2005022106031000.htm
VICTIMS OF ARMED FORCES ACT DUB IT A 'BLACK LAW'
By Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI, FEB. 20. Several persons, appearing
before the "People's Tribunal'' have expressed
grave concern over misuse of the Armed Forces
Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in the North-East,
describing it as a "black law.''
People from Manipur who deposed before the
"People's Tribunal'', organised by the Human
Rights Law Network, here on Saturday narrated
their tales of suffering at the hands of security
forces and police. Among those who had been
"victims" of the AFSPA were 22-year-old T. Nanao
Singh, and another young woman, Jano Devi, whose
husband was picked up from their home in Manipur
in June last on mere "suspicion'' and was later
found dead. Similarly, Mangileima Devi was shot
at by the Army personnel on March 11, 1999 as she
had invited their ire by asking them to issue an
arrest memo against a boy they had picked up.
Justice Rajinder Sachar, former Delhi High Court
Chief Justice, lauded the courage of the people
in speaking out about "their suffering."He said
if the Centre had agreed to withdraw the AFSPA,
the situation would have improved in Manipur.
`Anti-people'
Speakers at the sitting of the Tribunal stressed
the need for scrapping what they called an
"anti-people and anti-national'' act. Kamal Mitra
Chenoy, a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru
University, said that the AFSPA attacked the very
basis of Indian democracy. Lt. General V.K.
Nayar, former Manipur Governor, said the AFSPA
should have been lifted when insurgency was under
control in the 1980s.
The tribunal was organised in association with
the Manipur Students Association, Delhi, the
People's Union for Civil Liberties, the All India
Students Association and the Forum for Democratic
Initiative, according to a release by the Human
Rights Law Network.
_______
[11]
(i)
Dawn - 20 February 2005
[BOOK] REVIEW: Will the turnaround be sustained?
Reviewed by Mahmood Hasan Khan
In this monograph, the author's purpose "is to
illustrate, document and analyze the directions
of Pakistan's development since 1947, with a
greater focus on the period since the 1980s, and
especially on the last few years". It contains
material that the author presented to audiences
at a seminar in India organized by the Observer
Research Foundation last year. The monograph is
divided into nine chapters of uneven length and
quality.
In the first chapter, the author offers valid
arguments that Pakistan is not a feudal society.
Nor is Pakistan an agricultural country. In this
he is well supported by historical research and
contemporary evidence. In the next chapter, he
reviews the growth experience of Pakistan from
1947 to the present with comments on policies
pursued by five different regimes. This is
followed by a brief examination of some of the
major social indicators and Pakistan's poor
record compared to other countries in the region
and with a similar state of development. The
author raises two interesting questions.
First, how could Pakistan achieve reasonably high
rates of economic growth without building human
capital of quality? Second, can it sustain a high
growth rate without substantial improvements in
education and health? While he doesn't address
the first question, his answer to the second
question is in the negative.
Poverty is the theme of the fifth chapter. Here
the author introduces a maze of evidence on
poverty and income distribution, but leaves the
reader to solve the puzzles. In the next chapter,
he describes briefly some of the major structural
reform policies followed by successive
governments since the 1980s; and discusses at
some length the likely effects of recent changes
in the international trade regime on Pakistan's
textile industry. He is pessimistic about them
for good reason. Next we get a taste of what can
be achieved by Pakistan's expanded trade with
India. The potential economic benefits from this
trade underline the urgency to resolve the
festering political dispute between the two
countries.
In the penultimate (and the longest) chapter, the
author reviews changes in the macroeconomic
profile of the country from about the end of the
1980s to 2004. The lacklustre performance of the
economy during the decade to fiscal 1998-99 was
due mainly to policies implemented at the behest
of the IMF and World Bank: he labels the
experience as one of "under-developing" Pakistan.
He admits that frequent changes in governments -
eleven governments in as many years - played an
important role as well. The economic scene turned
bleaker after the nuclear tests in 1998 because
of economic sanctions en masse by the
international institutions and bilateral donors.
The government's ill-advised action of freezing
the foreign currency accounts exacerbated the
economic malaise.
The author takes the position that, had the
events of September 11, 2001 not unfolded as they
did, Pakistan's economy would not have recovered
from the mess in the aftermath of the 1998
nuclear tests and the coup d'etat in 1999. He
offers several reasonable arguments that the
apparent macroeconomic stability in the last four
to five years has been achieved by significant
increases in the inflow of foreign aid and
remittances and greatly reduced burden of foreign
debt, perhaps a one-time windfall for Pakistan's
role in the "war on terror". While the author
hesitates to question the official claims that
the economy has experienced a "turnaround", he is
highly sceptical about the sustainability of this
apparent turnaround. His argument is that there
are structural weaknesses in the economy and
political uncertainty continues to remain high
given the role of the man on horseback.
The author is a keen scholar and astute observer
of Pakistan's political economy. I am, however,
left with a bit of unsatisfied thirst after
reading this monograph. A basic reason perhaps is
that the book has no unifying theme and the
reader's expectations raised in the introduction
are not as well served by the contents. The
author is trying to grapple with many complex
issues and problems in limited space without a
central focus. The result is that some of his
major arguments sound like assertions since they
are not well thought out or developed. Similarly,
it seems to me that the author, in his zeal to
make a point, is not always careful in
interpreting the data and evidence. I still think
that the author has raised important questions
that need serious exploration and research. I
look forward to reading with great interest the
second edition of Issues in Pakistan's Economy to
find his answers to these and related questions.
Pakistan's Economic and Social Development: The
Domestic, Regional and Global Context
By S. Akbar Zaidi
Observer Research Foundation and Rupa & Co.,
7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110 002
ISBN 81-291-0575-6
108pp. Indian Rs295
o o o o
(ii)
I. K. SHUKLA's new book is just published by Pharos Media, New Delhi.
Title: HINDUTVA - Treason and Terrorism
184 pages p/b
ISBN 81-7221-026-4
Price including postage: Rs 130; foreign by airmail: Euro 10 / US$ 15
Payment accepted by M.O./ Cheque/ draft payable to
PHAROS MEDIA & PUBLISHING (P) LTD at Delhi.
Add Rs 35 to cheques if your bank is outside
Delhi; add to your cheques/drafts Euro 3 / US$ 4
if your bank is outside India. Rs 20 extra
charged for VPP orders.
Publishers: PHAROS MEDIA & PUBLISHING (P) LTD
D-84, Abul Fazl Enclave -I, Jamia Nagar, New Delhi - 110025 India
Tel.: (++91-11) 2692 7483
Email: info at pharosmedia.com
______
[12] [Upcoming Events]
(i)
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
London
Department of History, South Asia history seminar
'Muslim women and partition: a historiographical
silence' Rabia Umar Ali, Quaid-1 Azam University
22 February 2005 | 5.00pm Venue: Room G59
Centre for Ethnic Minority Studies, Seminar
'Rights of Christians in Pakistan' Professor Sarah Safdar
22 February 2005 | 6.00pm Venue: Room B111
o o o o
(ii)
Reinterpreting Adivasi (Indigenous Peoples) Movements in South Asia conference
Venue: Graduate Centre in the School of
Humanities, and Graduate Centre in the School of
Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, at the
University of Sussex [UK]
Dates: 21-23 March 2005
Conference Aims
The conference, entitled 'Reinterpreting Adivasi
Movements in South Asia', aims to allow an
international reassessment of the role of tribal
movements in the histories of colonial and
postcolonial South Asia. It will also enable
close examination of the construction of
indigeneity in many discourses, ranging from
development to anthropology, from the
nation-state to its historiography, and from
Hindutva to sub-nationalist politics. South Asia
is home to over 100 million 'indigenous people',
whose political identity and cultural and
ecological world-views are continually
challenged. In light of both the inauguration of
the new State of Jharkhand (2000), and the recent
misappropriation of adivasi (aboriginal)
identities as vanavasi ('forest-dwellers') by the
ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the political and
discursive predicaments of the Scheduled Tribes
in India require urgent rethinking.
The Centre for World Environmental History, at
the University of Sussex, proposes to stimulate
discussion on theoretical and practical concerns
to coincide with the 'Santal Hul 150: An
International Forum Marking the 150th Anniversary
of the Santal Rebellion in 2005'. Recognising the
historical legacy of the Santal Rebellion of
1855, in terms of recent intellectual and
political movements, the conference encourages
participants to generate new ideas on both social
transformations led by adivasis and the political
and cultural aspects of wider movements in which
adivasis participated. Contributions are invited
for a range of interrelated panels, which
reinterpret adivasi mobilisations in the broad
context of South Asian which is not confined only
to the region of Jharkhand.
This conference will also provide research
students at the Graduate Schools of Humanities
and Social Sciences and Cultural Studies,
University of Sussex with an excellent
opportunity to become affiliated to international
academic and reconciliation networks. The theme
of the conference is intended to help scholars
and researchers locate themselves within a range
of intellectual forums that are closely engaged
with emerging critiques of oppressive forms of
globalisation, neo-imperialism, internal
colonialism and religious nationalism. The
conference with allow a sharing of knowledge,
understanding, expertise and insight between
established networks, notably the Santal Hul 150
Forum, the Pathways to Reconciliation Network,
the Indian Confederation of Indigenous and Tribal
Peoples, and the South Asia Forum for Human
Rights.
Another aim of the conference is to produce an
edited book or a special volume for a cultural
studies journal. The cultural dynamics that
inform social and political transformations
amongst indigenous peoples in South Asia are
crucial topics for academic and public
discussion, and the University of Sussex
endeavours to fulfill its commitment to promoting
understandings of these aspects of social and
political life.
Please contact <adivasi at sussex.ac.uk> for more
information relating to the conference.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
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