SACW | Jan.29-30, 2007

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | January 29-30, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2355 - Year 8

[1]  Nepal: RSS's Hindu fanatics fuel the riots - 
Royalists Fish in Terai Trouble (Bharat Bhushan)
[2]  India - Gujarat: Where fascist goons hold sway
  - Non-screening of 'Parzania' in Gujarat is a 
shocking curb on freedom of expression (Soli 
Sorabjee)
  - PUCL condemns the "ban" on film 'Parzania' 
declared by Sangh Parivar's groups
[3]  India: Development as dispossession (Praful Bidwai)
[4]  India: Online Petition 'Presidential 
Clemency For Mohd. Afzal Guru' (deadline extended 
till 7 Feb)
[5]  India: Karnataka - politico - religious row 
over menu of mid-day school meal :
       - The 'Ande Ka Funda' Debate  (M. Radhika)
       -  Eggs become a bone of contention
[6]  India: Alien and imported Gulf version of 
Islam finding a home in India (Borzou Daragahi)
[7]  Upcoming Events: 
   (i) A Convention of the Internally Displaced in 
Gujarat (Ahmedabad, February 1,2007)
   (ii) 1st Walter Sisulu Memorial Lecture by AM 
Kathrada (New Delhi, February 2, 2007)
____


[1]


The Telegraph
January 29, 2007

ROYALISTS FISH IN TERAI TROUBLE
by Bharat Bhushan

Madhesi Janadhikar Forum activists demonstrate in Jaleswor, Mahottari

The April-2006 uprising in Nepal had three 
objectives: a peaceful resolution of the Maoist 
insurgency; an end to the king's autocratic rule; 
and the restructuring of the Nepalese state.While 
the first aim of the popular uprising has 
virtually been achieved, it is the fate of the 
monarchy and the restructuring of the state, 
which continue to pose major political 
challenges. Although in its death throes, the 
Nepalese monarchy is making a last ditch effort 
for survival. There are indications that the 
traditionally marginalized people of the Terai or 
Madhya-desh ("Madhesis") are being used to create 
instability in the country in the hope of 
preventing the constituent assembly elections.

Nepal's Terai is on fire. There have been 
disturbances in Siraha, Saptari, Janakpur, 
Biratnagar, Inaruwa, Birganj, Rautahat, Bara and 
other districts of the Terai adjoining the Indian 
border. Sectarian violence is being fomented all 
over the Terai between the Paharis (inhabitants 
of the hills) and the Madhesis. The statues of 
the democratic movement - B.P. Koirala, Manmohan 
Adhikary and Ganesh Mansingh - are being 
deliberately targeted and damaged. In Rautahat, 
the ancestral house of Madhav Kumar Nepal, 
general secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal 
(United Marxist Leninist), was set on fire. There 
is police firing and dawn-to-dusk curfew in 
several towns. The grievances of the Madhesis are 
genuine. These Maithili, Bhojpuri and 
Awadhi-speaking Nepalese, who look, dress and 
talk like their neighbours in India, are often 
derisively referred to as "Indians". They have 
been systematically excluded from the political 
process and till recently denied Nepalese 
citizenship.

Brahmins and Rajputs (Bahuns and Chhetris) from 
the hills dominate Nepal's state and politics. 
Although the Madhesis officially comprise 35 per 
cent of the population, they are grossly 
under-represented in the political parties. 
Except the avowedly Madhesi Sadbhavana Party, 
with its two factions led by Anandi Devi and 
Badri Mandal, none of the parties have any 
Madhesis as their national office bearers. The 
presence of Madhesis in their central committee 
or national executive is nowhere near adequate. 
Moreover, the national parties have tended to 
field non-Madhesi candidates from the Terai 
constituencies for parliament. Their district 
presidents in the Terai are mostly Paharis. The 
representation of the Terai in parliament is also 
lopsided because of the size of a constituency 
has no relation to the number of voters. In the 
hilly areas, there are constituencies with only 
5,000 voters, while in the Terai, a single 
constituency can have over 5 lakh voters.

The Madhesis are also under-represented in the 
army, the police and in civilian administration. 
In the army, there are hardly any Madhesi 
commissioned officers. There are well-educated 
Madhesi doctors and engineers in Nepal but there 
is not a single Madhesi chief district officer in 
any of the 75 districts of the country. However, 
the Madhesis complain of discrimination not only 
based on past experiences. They also fear that in 
the course of building a new Nepal, they may be 
left out once again, as the Paharis may not want 
to share power with them. This fear may be 
unfounded in the new political environment but 
the Madhesis do not want the constituent assembly 
election to be held till the issue of their 
representation is sorted out.

It is nor surprising, therefore, that there is a 
lot of support among the people of the Terai for 
the struggle for Madhesi rights as well as other 
issues such as a unified Terai, land reforms, 
citizenship, increase in development aid and 
accountability for past discrimination. It is 
unlikely that these agitations will die down 
through police repression, as the issues that are 
being raised are not law and order problems. To 
be fair, it was the Maoists who first organized 
the Madhesis under the Madhesi Rashtriya Mukti 
Morcha. Now, three other groups have come up. The 
Jantantrik Terai Mukti Morcha, led by Jai Krishna 
Goit, first broke away from the Maoists. Then, 
another faction, also called JTMM, and led by 
Jwala Singh, broke away from Goit's group. Both 
were with the Maoists earlier and advocated the 
use of arms to liberate the Terai. Former 
schoolteacher, Upendra Yadav, a former activist 
of CPN (UML), leads the third group called the 
Madhesi Janadhikar Forum.

The two JTMM groups have also used the cover of 
Madhesi rights to indulge in criminal activities, 
including kidnapping, robberies and smuggling 
across the Indo-Nepal border. Now monarchist 
parties, such as the Lok Janshakti Party led by 
the former prime minister, Surya Bahadur Thapa, 
the two factions of the Rashtriya Prajatantrik 
Party, one led by Pashupati Shamshere Jang 
Bahadur Rana and the other by Kamal Thapa and 
Rabindranath Sharma, and the Sadbhavna Party, are 
believed to be stoking the fire in the Terai. 
While Goit and Jwala Singh's groups may be 
amenable to talks with Kathmandu on Madhesi 
rights, Upendra Yadav's group, allegedly fronting 
for the monarchists, has refused to talk.

Nepalese political observers also point to the 
role being played by Hindu extremist 
organizations from India in fomenting trouble in 
the Terai to save the king. A high-ranking 
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh representative from 
Nagpur is believed to have held a meeting in 
Gorakhpur with several royalists, including 
Upendra Yadav and members of the Sadbhavna Party. 
The role played by the local Indian MP, Mahant 
Avaidhyanath, is also being questioned by some in 
this regard. Whether there is any truth to these 
conspiracies or not is difficult to say. But it 
stands to reason that the king will encourage 
these groups because it suits him to destabilize 
the situation in the hope of carving out some 
space for himself. What seems clear to the 
Madhesis, however, is that if there is going to 
be power-sharing in the new Nepal, then they have 
to be accommodated in the constituent assembly. 
Their chance of making their presence felt in 
Nepal's politics and gain fair representation in 
the administration and the political process is 
staring them in the face.

It makes no sense for the Madhesi leadership to 
now push the royalist agenda. If they fight the 
king's battles, and let this opportunity slip, it 
will be an uphill task to undo the damage. Even 
if they take up arms, no one is going to write 
another interim constitution for them or organize 
another interim parliament. They should ditch the 
royalists, engage in a dialogue with the 
government and help devise new models of 
governance that would make Nepal a strong federal 
and pluralist democracy.

The debate on the kind of federalism that Nepal 
needs is just beginning. Should the Terai be one 
province or three, based on language and ethnic 
differences? Should Nepalese federalism unite the 
Paharis and the Madhesis or divide them? The 
federal model Nepal chooses should unite the 
masses. Those who seek to divide Nepal should 
look at the mess we have made in India and take 
heed.

______


[2]    [ India: Hindutva's assault on freedom of 
expression continues unabated ! ]

(i)

Indian Express
January 30, 2007

The right to offend

NON-SCREENING OF 'PARZANIA' IN GUJARAT IS A 
SHOCKING CURB ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

by Soli Sorabjee

  The film, Parzania, based on the horrific attack 
on Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad in which 39 
people were burnt alive, can be exhibited in any 
place in India except in the state of Gujarat. 
The Gujarat government has not banned its 
exhibition. What is the reason for this strange 
phenomenon?

The Bajrang Dal has issued veiled intimidatory 
warnings to cinema theatre owners who are 
exhorted to keep the interest of the state in 
mind before screening the movie. Theatre owners 
and exhibitors are hard-headed businessmen, not 
passionate champions of freedom of expression. In 
view of practical ground realities they have 
chosen not to ignore Bajrang Dal's ominous 
admonitions and have taken refuge in 
self-censorship. This is deplorable. It is 
reminiscent of the times when freedom of 
expression was severely threatened by militant 
groups in Punjab and J&K who dictated to the 
press what should or should not be printed upon 
pain of bodily harm. A respected editor in Punjab 
was assassinated for expressing views which were 
unpalatable to the militants. We cannot afford 
even the possibility of recurrence of such sordid 
events.

Censorship, legal and extra-legal, is a serious 
inroad on freedom of expression. Censorship is 
highly subjective and essentially mindless. The 
main motivation for censorship is intolerance. 
Conventional wisdom and official ideology cannot 
be allowed to be questioned and criticised and 
must suppressed. Portrayal of historical events 
which depict a government or certain persons or 
groups in an unfavourable light cannot be 
tolerated and should therefore be suppressed by 
recourse to censorship. One of the grounds for 
demanding the non-exhibition of the movie is the 
anticipated likelihood of law and order problems 
owing to the revival of painful memories.

The Supreme Court had to deal with a similar 
issue in connection with the serial, Tamas. A 
writ petition was filed by an advocate in the 
Supreme Court for restraining the serial's 
telecast on the ground that its exhibition which 
depicted communal tension and violence during the 
pre-Partition period could lead to serious law 
and order problems and thus adversely affect 
communal harmony. The Supreme Court rejected the 
plea and held that "Tamas takes us to a 
historical past, unpleasant at times, but 
revealing and instructive". It further ruled: 
"Truth in its proper light indicating the evils 
and the consequences of those evils is 
instructive and that message is there in Tamas - 
and viewed from an average, healthy and common 
sense point of view there cannot be any 
apprehension that Tamas is likely to affect 
public order or incite the commission of any 
offence. On the other hand, it is more likely 
that it will prevent incitement to such offences 
in future by extremists and fundamentalists."

In the case of the film, Ore Oru Gramathile, a 
determined effort was made to ban its exhibition 
by a group of persons who regarded its theme and 
presentation as hostile to the policy of 
reservation of jobs and seats in educational 
institutions in favour of SCs and backward 
classes. Threats were issued by these groups to 
release snakes and burn down the theatres in 
which the movie was screened. The Madras High 
Court revoked the certificate granted to the 
movie by the Censor Board and restrained its 
exhibition. The SC promptly reversed the high 
court judgment. In its landmark judgment, it 
approved the observations of the European Court 
of Human Rights that "freedom of expression 
protects not merely ideas that are accepted but 
those that offend, shock or disturb the State or 
any sector of the population. Such are the 
demands of the pluralism, tolerance and 
broadmindedness without which there is no 
democratic society." The court laid down an 
extremely important principle that "freedom of 
expression cannot be suppressed on account of 
threats of demonstration and processions or 
threats of violence. That would be tantamount to 
negation of the rule of law and surrender to 
blackmail and intimidation. Freedom of expression 
which is legitimate and constitutionally 
protected cannot be held to ransom by an 
intolerant group of people".

These salutary principles cannot be 
over-emphasised in view of the alarming rise of 
intolerance. It is depressing that we have 
reached a stage where even a moderate expression 
of a different point of view is met with 
hostility. Of late there have been vociferous 
demands for bans. The banning itch has become 
infectious. Sikhs are offended by certain words 
in the title of a movie, Christians want the 
movie The Da Vinci Code banned because they find 
it hurtful, the production of Deepa Mehta's Water 
had to be abandoned in India because of 
disruptive protests by some intolerant groups.

The nadir of intolerance was reached when the 
prestigious Bhandarkar Institute at Pune, where 
American author James Laine had done research and 
had written a biography of Shivaji which 
contained some unpalatable references, was 
vandalised by bigots and invaluable manuscripts 
were destroyed. Consider the case of actor Aamir 
Khan. One may disagree with his views or 
criticise him for supporting the Narmada Bachao 
Aandolan movement. However, to burn his posters, 
prohibit the screening of his films and subject 
him in Gujarat to social and economic sanctions 
is terrifying intolerance.

Of all the threats to our democracy the gravest 
is the rise of intolerance which is utterly 
incompatible with democratic values and must be 
curbed. The state is under an obligation not to 
infringe the fundamental rights of its citizens. 
This obligation is not merely negative in nature. 
It is a well-settled principle of human rights 
jurisprudence that the state also has a positive 
obligation to promote fundamental rights by 
preventing non-state actors, for example, like 
the Bajrang Dal, from de facto violating freedom 
of expression and also to take necessary steps 
against them. The state cannot remain a mute 
spectator and by its non-action permit freedom of 
expression, a cherished fundamental right 
guaranteed by the Constitution, to be held to 
ransom.

The Gujarat government has a good record of clean 
and efficient administration. Its able chief 
minister owes it to himself, to the state and to 
the country to curb onslaughts on the precious 
freedom of expression in the state by a bunch of 
bigots and fanatics.

The writer is a former attorney general for India


o o o o

(ii)

PRESS RELEASE

DATE: 30th JANUARY 2007

PUCL CONDEMNS THE "BAN" ON FILM 'PARZANIA' 
DECLARED BY SANGH PARIVAR'S GROUPS AND THE 
"SUPPORT" OF THE GOVERNMENT OF GUJARAT BY KEEPING 
MUM.

We are also very much disturbed when the 
viewpoints of few groups like Bajrang Dal is 
considered as the viewpoint of 5 crore Gujaratis. 
– People’s Union for Civil Liberties

It is time for sensible people not to be silent 
spectators but to speak out against such fascist 
attitude of groups like Bajrang Dal.

We the common people of Gujarat always get 
disturbed on the issue of violence, whether it is 
domestic violence within the family, caste 
violence, communal violence or violence by State 
and Government on the working class. We are also 
very much disturbed when the viewpoints of few 
groups like Bajrang Dal is considered as the 
viewpoint of 5 crore Gujaratis. It is time for 
sensible people not to be silent spectators but 
speak out against fascist attitudes of groups 
like Bajrang Dal.

On 28th January 2007 an important meeting of PUCL 
discussed in detail regarding the unlawful "ban" 
on film Parzania declared by the Sangh Parivar 
groups. By keeping mum on the issue, the 
Government of Gujarat has endorsed the "ban" 
declared by them. We, the activists of PUCL 
condemn the Sangh Parivar's unlawful "ban" on 
'Parzania'.

Parzania is a film by the Ahmedabad-based 
director Rahul Dholakia, which portrays the 
shocking story of a Parsi family caught in the 
vortex of violence unleashed on innocent people 
of Gujarat in 2002. This is not the first time 
that groups like Bajrang Dal, backed by the BJP, 
have gotten away with such undemocratic and 
unconstitutional actions in Gujarat.

This unlawful "ban" on ‘Parzania’ in Gujarat, is 
a slap on the face of all those who uphold the 
values of free speech and justice. We express our 
compassion and solidarity to Dara Modi and 
family, whose son has been missing since the 
massacre in 2002 and on whose experience the film 
is based, and to the hundreds of other families 
in Gujarat and elsewhere who have suffered 
immensely because of mindless violence and hatred.

We strongly feel that this film needs to be 
screened in Gujarat more than any other State in 
India. The State Government, instead of tacitly 
supporting the unlawful "ban", should encourage 
the screening of this film and ensure total 
protection to cinema owners, distributors and the 
viewers.

We demand that the Government of Gujarat take 
stern legal action against those who have gone on 
record saying that they will not allow this film 
to be screened. Those who oppose the screening 
should be made to realize that they and their 
methods cannot be tolerated in a democracy. The 
litmus test of a democracy is the right to 
dissent. It is easy for majoritarian views to be 
tolerated. Democracy needs the right to differ, 
debate and dissent like we need the air we 
breathe. The rule of law needs to prevail and 
that means respecting differences.

Surely, a State that wants to project itself as a 
place that welcomes free enterprise would not 
want to give the impression of encouraging 
lawlessness and intolerance. Diversity needs to 
be appreciated not merely tolerated. In that lies 
our collective welfare. And safety.

FOR People’s Union for Civil Liberties
Dr. J. S. Bandukwala
Rohit Prajapati
Chinu Srinivasan
Bharati Pramar
Johannes Manjrekar
Dr. Sujat Vali
Raj Kumar Hans
Trupti Shah
Maya Valecha
Mukesh Semwal
Tapan Dasgupta
Naginbhai Patel
Ziya Pathan
Jagdish Patel
Amrish Brahmbhatt
Manzur Saleri,
Yusuf Shaikh
Dhriu Mistry
Shivani Patel

______


[3]

Kashmir Times
29 January 2007

From Singur to Nandigram and beyond
DEVELOPMENT AS DISPOSSESSION

by Praful Bidwai

If and when ordinary mortals like you and me buy 
land, we search high and low for an affordable 
piece, hire brokers, make several trips to 
different sites, and borrow bank loans, which we 
must repay through our nose over 10 or 15 years. 
Besides these high transaction costs in time and 
money, we also pay stamp duty to the government, 
which is usually a good eight percent of the 
land's value.
None of this applies to India's biggest business 
house (and one of its oldest industrial 
families), namely, the Tatas-at least as far as 
the Singur car project is concerned. The Tatas 
are no ordinary mortals. In fact so special are 
they that West Bengal's Left Front woos them with 
the choice of six different sites, besides the 
Uttarakhand and Orissa governments. They choose 
one at Singur, next to an expressway, in one of 
Bengal's most fertile tracts, just 45 km from 
Kolkata. But they do so after stipulating a 
series of conditions.
 The government must procure the land for them. 
This will cost it Rs 140 crores. But the Tatas 
will pay only Rs 20 crores, after five years.
 They will pay no stamp duty.
 They must have a contiguous plot of 997 acres 
(almost 400 hectares, or 40 lakh square metres). 
No Indian car factory has anything approaching 
this area. (Even Tata Motors's giant Pune factory 
has only 188 acres, including housing for 
employees.)
 The factory proper, say the Tatas, will have a 
built-up area of only 1.5 lakh sq m, or under 4 
percent of the land acquired.
 The land must be fenced off and protests 
suppressed. The Tatas mendaciously accused their 
"competitors" of fomenting the protests, but 
couldn't name them when challenged.
That's not all. The Tatas demanded "compensation" 
for "sacrificing" the 16 percent excise duty 
exemption offered by Uttarakhand for locating the 
car factory. This means "upfront infrastructural 
assistance" worth Rs 160 crore on a Rs 
1,000-crore project. Besides, the hyped-up "Rs 1 
lakh car" will probably cost a fair bit more. It 
be must be "cross-subsidised."
So, says The Statesman, the Left Front government 
has gifted 50 acres of prime land to the Tatas in 
Rajarhat New Town and another 200 acres in the 
Bhangar-Rajarhat Area Development Authority for 
building IT and residential townships.
This is an obnoxious "sweetheart deal". The Left 
Front government isn't promoting healthy 
development or even straightforward risk-taking 
capitalism. It's the most detestable form of 
risk-free investment which dispossesses people to 
generate super-profits.
The Tatas claim the project will directly 
generate 2,000 jobs and indirectly, 8,000. But 
noted economist Amit Bhaduri estimates it will 
produce just about 300, besides indirect 
employment for 1,000. In the process, Singur's 
flourishing economy, where two-thirds of land is 
multi-cropped with vegetables and paddy, will be 
devastated, along with the livelihoods-of 
landowners, sharecroppers (bargadars), but of 
landless workers and rural artisans.
Singur will witness counter-reform, a reversal of 
the most successful land reform ever undertaken 
in West Bengal. Even the bargadars' share in the 
land (75 percent, against the absentee landlord's 
25 percent) will be reversed in the land 
compensation formula. No wonder, the West Bengal 
government had to resort to repression, including 
mass arrests, Sec 144 and physical attacks, to 
enforce the "sweetheart deal".
Singur's injustice was soon compounded by the 
government's ham-handed attempt to take over an 
even larger 10,000 acres at Nandigram for a 
Special Economic Zone for Indonesia's unsavoury 
Selim Group. Here, the resistance was even more 
fierce. It came not from the Trinamool Congress, 
but from the Left, including the Communist Party 
of India, the Revolutionary Socialist Party and 
the Far Left. Nandigram, at the heart of the 
Tebhaga movement of the 1940s, is a CPI 
stronghold.
Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee had to 
admit that Nandigram was a mistake. But he blamed 
the Haldia Development Authority for it: for 
issuing the land acquisition notification without 
"authorisation". This won't wash. The involvement 
of Communist Party (Marxist) cadres, the police, 
and the very composition of the Authority, 
militate against the explanation.
Nandigram is part of the larger SEZ syndrome 
which afflicts India. SEZs have become the main 
instrument of dispossession of peasant farmers. 
They are a despicable combination of private 
greed and state collusion. SEZs, as this Column 
argued in mid-September, are costly ways of 
promoting enclave-style elitist export-oriented 
industrialisation. They'll grant wholly 
undeserved tax cuts to promoters and inflict a 
loss upon the exchequer, estimated by the Finance 
Ministry, at a horrifying Rs 160,000 crores.
Yet, the government has approved 237 SEZs with 
34,509 hectares and notified 63 of them. Another 
165 SEZs have been approved in principle, for 
which another 148,663 hectares is to be acquired. 
Applications for another 300 are pending.
SEZs have not proved a success in most countries, 
including China. In fact, Shenzhen, China's 
best-known SEZ, has turned out a nightmare for 
workers. The mere loss of an identity card can 
turn them into destitute overnight. Above all, 
SEZs are a gigantic real estate scam. Most are 
meant to grab land close to the big cities and 
extract monopoly profits.
SEZs also put the cart before the horse: 
displacement without prior rehabilitation, with 
potentially disastrous social, cultural and 
political consequences. Prime Minister Manmohan 
Singh has himself acknowledged this by calling 
for a "humane" approach to resettlement. The 
government is now redrafting the National Policy 
for Resettlement and Rehabilitation.
Its Group of Ministers has temporarily put the 
SEZ land acquisition process on hold. It knows 
pushing acquisition could cost the United 
Progressive Alliance dearly in the coming 
elections. The Congress party has made an 
internal assessment of SEZs in a 16-page document 
prepared by Mr N Veerappa Moily. This says that 
SEZs will create conflict due to "dispossession 
and displacement", including urban conflicts 
through infrastructure bottlenecks. "They (SEZs) 
have the potential to cause embarrassment to the 
government of the day."
The publication of a story quoting this 
assessment has certainly embarrassed the UPA! 
Although Mr Moily has publicly dissociated 
himself from it, the judgment is basically sound. 
But the UPA is fighting shy of radically revising 
its SEZ policy. It has only called for a cap on 
the number of SEZs. What is needed is the 
scrapping of SEZs altogether because they are 
economically irrational, socially divisive, and 
thoroughly inequitable.
This is not to argue against industrial projects 
per se. We must vigorously promote industry, but 
with a balanced, reasoned approach. We must make 
it mandatory for the government to consult the 
people likely to be affected in advance, and 
establish institutional norms for compensation, 
resettlement and rehabilitation. Equally crucial 
is thorough socio-economic examination of the 
consequences of industrial projects and strict 
environment regulation.
It won't do to commandeer land first and then 
look for ways of compensating the affected 
people. It's especially inadvisable to offer them 
equity shares in companies related to the 
projects that take away their land. This will, in 
most cases, transfer risks to vulnerable groups 
who are least capable of making decisions about 
stocks and shares. The number of shareholders in 
India is a minuscule 30 million; most people 
don't understand share markets.
Offering shares could be an option in rare cases, 
where organised cooperatives exist, which are run 
by financially literate volunteers accountable to 
the gram sabha, and who have a proven commitment 
to collective welfare. That concept includes not 
just landowners, but also the landless and other 
economic actors, from the sanitation worker to 
the mechanic, and from the ironsmith to the 
barber, whose livelihood depends on the rural 
economy.
However, supporters of 
industrialisation-at-any-cost, including Mr 
Bhattacharjee, contend that very little fallow 
land is available in India (in West Bengal, only 
one percent of the total), and hence cultivable 
land must be "sacrificed" to industry. 
Historically, they say, industrialisation has 
never been painless. It has always extracted a 
price from peasants-even in the USSR and China. 
India follow that model of expropriation.
This argument is profoundly mistaken-not only 
because it imposes pain disproportionately on the 
weak. Industrialisation in much of the West did 
expropriate the peasantry through "enclosures", 
systematic impoverishment, and mass-scale human 
rights violations. The same happened in the 
Soviet Union under Stalin. But we should not 
imitate and repeat the blunders of a period when 
democracy was non-existent and human rights 
unknown.
In India, we have launched a Grand 
Endeavour-based on the aspiration to modernise 
society and develop the economy in balanced, 
equitable ways within a robustly democratic and 
inclusive framework which respects human rights 
and social justice. We have a unique opportunity 
to create a shining example of inclusive 
industrialisation for the world. We must not turn 
our face against the Grand Endeavour.

______



[4]


[ Please, endorse the petition to the President 
of India ; Sign on petition open for signature at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/CMAG/petition.html

THE 31 JANUARY 2007 DEADLINE FOR SIGNATURES HAS 
BEEN EXTENDED BY ONE WEEK, TILL 7 FEBRUARY 2007  ]

o o o

PRESIDENTIAL CLEMENCY FOR MOHD. AFZAL GURU

19 January 2007

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
President of India
Rashtrapati Bhavan
New Delhi

Dear Dr. Abdul Kalam,

When the then President of India rejected the 
mercy petition of Kehar Singh, sentenced to death 
in the Indira Gandhi assassination case, the 
statement of the government was this: "The 
President is of the opinion that he cannot go 
into the merits of a case finally decided by the 
Highest Court of the Land."

This was challenged by Kehar Singh, and a 
five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court (AIR 1989 
SC 653) held that the opinion formed by the then 
President was wrong because a decision of the 
Supreme Court can also be wrong.

The President, the Supreme Court held, can 
determine whether or not a convict is guilty--the 
findings of the courts, including the Supreme 
Court, notwithstanding.

Here are a few excerpts from the full-bench judgment:

"... To any civilized society, there can be no 
attributes more important than the life and 
personal liberty of its members. That is evident 
from the paramount position given by the courts 
to Article 21 of the Constitution. These twin 
attributes enjoy a fundamental ascendancy over 
all other attributes of the political and social 
order and consequently, the Legislature, the 
Executive and the Judiciary are more sensitive to 
them than to the other attributes of daily 
existence. The deprivation of personal liberty 
and the threat of deprivation of life by the 
action of the State is in most civilized 
societies regarded seriously and recourse, either 
under express constitutional provision or through 
legislative enactment, is provided to the 
judicial organ. But, fallibility of human 
judgement being undeniable even in the most 
trained mind, ... it has been considered 
appropriate that in the matter of life and 
personal liberty, the protection should be 
extended by entrusting power further to some high 
authority to scrutinize the validity of the 
threatened denial of life or the threatened or 
continued denial of personal liberty. The power 
so entrusted is a power belonging to the people 
and reposed in the highest dignitary of the state.

"... It is open to the President in the exercise 
of the power vested in him by Article 72 of the 
Constitution to scrutinize the evidence on the 
record of the criminal case and come to a 
different conclusion from that recorded by the 
court in regard to the guilt of, and sentence 
imposed on, the accused.

"... It is apparent that the power under Article 
72 entitles the President to examine the record 
of evidence of the criminal case and to determine 
for himself whether the case is one deserving the 
grant of relief falling within that power. The 
President is entitled to go into the merits of 
the case notwithstanding that it has been 
judicially concluded by the consideration given 
to it by the Supreme Court."

You will be aware, Sir, that the Supreme Court 
has without explanation rejected the curative 
petition filed by Mohd.  Afzal Guru, sentenced to 
death in the Parliament attack case. That 
petition was the last option available to him 
through the courts. Now his only hope of living 
is the mercy petition which is with you.

As we have seen, the Supreme Court itself has 
said, in a full-bench judgment, that it is in the 
nature of things that it can be wrong. We know 
that Mohd. Afzal Guru was convicted on the basis 
of circumstantial evidence and that from the 
start he had no effective legal defence. We know 
also that he was the victim of a shrill media 
campaign.

The President has the power to re-examine the 
evidence and come to a conclusion different even 
from that of the Supreme Court. While a court is 
limited to examining the material placed before 
it, the President can take into account a wide 
range of considerations, including political, 
social and moral ones.

The Supreme Court has referred only to the 
President's power under Article 72 of the 
Constitution. We wish to go further and say that 
it is the President's moral responsibility to 
ensure that injustice is not done to a citizen by 
depriving him of life or personal liberty.

We urge you, Sir, to exercise your constitutional 
power in the matter of Mohd. Afzal Guru's mercy 
petition keeping in mind your moral 
responsibility and also the fact that your power 
was entrusted to you by us, your fellow citizens.


Yours truly,

Mukul Dube, N. D. Pancholi and Harsh Kapoor

______


[5]


Tehelka
February 03 , 2007

KARNATAKA : THE ANDE KA FUNDA DEBATE

Eggs or bananas or milk? The Janata Dal (Secular) 
and the BJP are at loggerheads over what to 
include in the mid-day meal scheme

M. Radhika
Bangalore

Ever thought eggs and bananas can trigger a 
clash? If you are still wondering, they have - in 
Karnataka. The humble egg has suddenly become the 
symbol of casteist purity following a controversy 
over supplying eggs to school children as part of 
the government-sponsored mid-day meal scheme.

The controversy began recently when Chief 
Minister HD Kumaraswamy announced that eggs would 
be made a weekly item under the scheme for its 
nutrient value. Deputy Chief Minister BS 
Yediyurappa, a Lingayat leader, strongly opposed 
the move. The Lingayats are professedly 
vegetarian and the community pontiffs, who 
command a strong base in the northern districts 
of Karnataka, are spearheading the anti-egg 
campaign. They have formed a coalition with 
Jains, Buddhists and also Sikhs to oppose the 
'non-vegetarian move'. Others have supported the 
idea of giving away bananas instead of eggs. The 
state's dalits, on the other hand, are demanding 
that eggs be introduced as proposed. As a result 
of the egg-banana uproar, the mid-day meal 
scheme's implementation has been put on hold.

By January 20, Chief Minister Kumaraswamy buckled 
under the pressure and opted for another option - 
milk. That too, "in the interest of farmers who 
depended on cows for livelihood."
Karnataka is one of the most successful states in 
implementing the mid-day meal scheme that was 
introduced by the SM Krishna regime in 2002, for 
school children in Classes i to v in seven 
districts. It was extended to all the districts 
and children from Classes vi and vii were also 
made eligible for it. Currently, the scheme 
covers 55 lakh children and is funded by the 
Centre and the state government with the Centre 
contributing Re 1 per child per day and the state 
pitching in with Rs 2.02 per child per day. The 
scheme costs Rs 354 crore with the Central 
exchequer bearing Rs 65 crore of it. Also, 58 
ngos help the state government implement the 
programme, the most prominent of them being the 
International Society for Krishna Consciousness 
(iskcon). When the Centre increased its 
contribution from Re 1 to Rs 1.50 per child last 
year, the state government decided to distribute 
eggs.

There were no protests when the state government 
announced it in October 2006. Over the past few 
weeks however, religious institutions, many of 
which support the BJP, as also ngos backed by 
religious bodies, threatened an agitation unless 
the government withdrew its egg order.

But Mate Mahadevi, who heads a Lingayat 
institution in Bidar, denies any political motive 
behind the protests. "We are apolitical. We have 
an ideology to fight for, unlike political 
parties. Lingayats constitute one-third of the 
state's population and are vegetarians. No 
attempt should be made to hurt their traditional 
values," she told Tehelka.

Her institution has formed the Federation of 
Vegetarian Communities and Organisations with 
other religious bodies to whip the egg in the 
mid-day meal. "If the state government implements 
the scheme, we will carry out a statewide 
agitation," said Mahadevi, even as she was 
awaiting news from a Cabinet meeting to discuss 
the issue. The federation has succeeded for a 
while, at least.

Education department officials are miffed and 
blame it all on politics. "Why else did they not 
protest last October when the scheme was 
announced," asks an official requesting anonymity.
The political twist to the controversy cannot be 
ignored. After losing face in the Chamundeshwari 
bypoll where former party leader Siddaramaiah 
defeated the official Janata Dal (Secular) 
candidate, it is ally BJP's turn to dominate the 
coalition.

If not dramatically, differences have markedly 
increased between the ruling allies. The ruckus 
about the egg then boils down to a conflict 
between the egg-favouring Vokkaliga 
(Kumaraswamy's caste) and the Lingayat 
Yediyurappa.

The reason for opting for the egg against milk, 
bananas or other pulses is logistics, says 
Commissioner of Public Instruction Madan Gopal, 
as cooking, transporting and storing eggs is far 
easier than having to deal with thousands of 
litres of milk. "It is not as if we are forcing 
eggs on children who do not want them. The school 
development and management committees that 
constitute parents are part of the process and 
only those children who want eggs will be given 
them. Many of them want eggs,'' says Madan Gopal.

Nutritionists vouch for eggs among children. 
"There is no food that can equal eggs for 
protein. May be milk, dal and pulses put 
together, to an extent, but not as much,'' says 
Diet counsellor and consultant Lisa Sarah John.

The problem, is that even religious institutions 
are divided on the egg issue - depending on which 
caste they belong to. Dalit organisations oppose 
the religious argument against eggs. "Egg is not 
about caste, as these religious bodies are trying 
to bring about. It's a wrong conception. Why 
should there be rules to eat eggs? In fact, I 
know many Lingayats who have eggs," says Bahujan 
Samajwadi Party state general secretary Vaijanath 
Suryavanshi. Mate Mahadavi disagrees. She insists 
that like school uniforms, food should be uniform 
too.

With the number of egg supporters growing 
considerably, it is unlikely that Kumaraswamy can 
rid himself of the controversy easily.

Basavaraj of the Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samithi at 
the Indian Institute of Science, that takes up 
the cause of science for the people, blames 
politicians for opposing the egg move. "We cannot 
understand why people oppose it when eggs are 
already being supplied to children at some 
schools" he notes, adding, "it is political 
forces that want to benefit from this."

A voice shriller than the rest is of 
Kumaraswamy's brother HD Revanna who attacked the 
government over eggs. "If you give eggs, 
attendants will love to gobble them up before the 
students. If you give milk, teachers will drink 
it," Revanna told the media. Revanna, is eyeing 
the deputy chief minister's post once the BJP's 
term to rule comes about as per the arrangement. 
Currently, he sounds more like the Opposition. 
Eggs are only an excuse for political posturing 
therefore

o o o

The Hindu - Jan 26, 2007

Karnataka  - Bangalore
EGG HAS BECOME A BONE OF CONTENTION

Staff Reporter

Two groups stage protests in Bangalore justifying their stand

# `State's plan on egg is in the best interests of children'
# Religious heads favour milk, fruit

DIVIDED: Members of the Federation of Indian 
Vegetarian Communities and Organisations staging 
a protest against the plan to include egg in the 
midday meal scheme, at Nehru Park ground in 
Bangalore on Thursday. (Right) Members of the 
Joint Action Foru m of Child Rights Alliances 
holding a demonstration in front of Town Hall in 
support of egg. - Photos: K. Gopinathan

BANGALORE: A day before the State Government was 
expected to decide on including egg in midday 
meal scheme, groups holding divergent views on 
the issue staged separate demonstrations in 
Bangalore.

The Joint Action Forum of Child Rights Alliances 
Karnataka held a protest in front of Town Hall in 
support of the Government's plan to provide egg 
to those who are willing to have it and milk or 
fruits to the other children. Hailing the 
Government's plan, the forum said it was in the 
best interests of children.

Addressing the gathering, U.R. Ananthamurthy, 
writer, said, "Politics and religion should not 
be mixed and the Chief Minister should not yield 
to pressure. Egg should be given to those who 
would like to have it and undiluted milk to those 
who did not wish to have eggs."

`Violation of rights'

V.P. Niranjanaradhya of the School Development 
and Monitoring Committee Coordination Forum, 
said, "Development issues should not be mixed 
with politics and religion. Denying egg would be 
a violation of child rights."

In fact, he pointed out, a survey conducted by 
the Department of Education had revealed that 84 
per cent of the children wanted egg in the midday 
meal scheme.

Chairman of PUCL Hasan Mansoor, Amrose Pinto, writer, and others spoke.

Another protest

Heads of several religious institutions also 
staged a demonstration at Nehru Park Ground in 
Seshadripuram seeking a Government Order against 
providing egg permanently in midday meal scheme.

They pointed out that milk should be given instead of egg.

The demonstration organised by the Akhila 
Karnataka Prani Daya Sangha and Federation of 
Indian Vegetarian Communities and Organisations 
was attended by religious leaders, including 
Mathe Mahadevi of Basava Dharma Peetha.

Justifying the role of religious leaders in the 
no-egg campaign, Mathe Mahadevi said, "Writers 
and intellectuals should not have a 
uni-dimensional approach to the problem. 
Religious heads have the responsibility of 
guiding society in religious and spiritual 
matters. Politicians should not involve 
themselves in religious matters."

Mathe Mahadevi said several communities had 
restricted the use of egg in their dietary 
practices, and members of many communities had 
become vegetarians voluntarily.

Stating that a communal colour was being given to 
the struggle, she said, opposition to providing 
egg in midday meal scheme was not based on any 
religion.

She said, "Milk and fruits can be given to 
children whose religious beliefs do not allow 
consumption of egg."

______


[6]


Los Angeles Times
January 28, 2007

AUSTERE VERSION OF ISLAM FINDING A HOME IN INDIA
Migrants returning from the Persian Gulf with 
stricter views are altering the melting pot in an 
Indian province.

By Borzou Daragahi
Times Staff Writer

Vengara, India - The change came several years 
ago for Maryam Arrakal. Her husband brought a 
black, all-covering abaya back to this steamy, 
subtropical town from the desert sands of Saudi 
Arabia.

It contrasted starkly with the pastel saris she normally wore.

But in the 12 years that her husband, Kunchava, 
had been running a Saudi fabric shop, he had 
become detached from this melting pot of Muslims, 
Hindus and Christians, and more drawn to the 
Saudis' strict version of Islam.

"I used to dress much more colorfully," said 
Arrakal, standing amid diesel fumes and frenetic 
auto-rickshaw drivers in Vengara's one-street 
downtown, a 7-month-old baby in her arms and a 
black cloak shrouding her figure. "But my husband 
brought this for me and prefers me to wear it."

The migration to oil-rich Persian Gulf monarchies 
of as many as one in five men from India's Kerala 
province has brought an influx of money that pays 
for food, shelter and education. It also funds 
dowries for their daughters and gifts for their 
wives.

But like many of the world's millions of economic 
migrants, the men bring back more than money.

In this case, they brim with provocative ideas 
about the proper way to worship. And they pay for 
plain green mosques with minarets and Arabic 
writing that are far different than the ornate 
and bulbous temples where Muslims have long 
worshiped here.

In Kerala, where Muslims are traditionally the 
poorest residents, those returning from the 
Persian Gulf say they are building pride in their 
community and connecting its members to the 
broader Islamic world. But others see the growth 
of sectarian politics and scattered religious 
violence as warning signs.

"Kerala was a place in India known for communal 
harmony," said Hameed Chennamangloor, a writer 
and former professor of English at the Government 
Arts and Science College in Calicut, the main 
city in the province's heavily Muslim north.

Historically, when rioting between Hindus and 
Muslims swept through India, Kerala remained calm.

Now, Chennamangloor said, "There has been a rise 
in fundamentalist tendencies among a certain 
segment of Muslims."

>From 40 days to 4 hours
Trade winds across the Arabian Sea have carried 
merchants between the Persian Gulf and southern 
India since antiquity.

When they arrived after 40 days at sea, Arab 
traders would stow their ships within Kerala's 
network of inland waterways.

As the ships were loaded, the traders introduced 
local people to new ideas, melding the teachings 
of the Koran with local practices.

Over the centuries, Kerala developed a relaxed 
mix of cultures and religions. The old mosques 
where Muslims worshiped were indistinguishable 
from Hindu temples. Muslims, Hindus and 
Christians attended one another's ceremonies and 
festivals. The region's colorful Sufi-influenced 
Islam includes such customs as visits to jungle 
shrines and reverence for local saints.

But the weak economy forced many men to leave to 
find work. Filmmaker Abbas Pannakal said his late 
father boarded a rickety ship in 1970 for a 
journey to the United Arab Emirates that took two 
months and cost the lives of 17 passengers.

"At first only Muslims went," said Pannakal, who 
is making a documentary about Indian-Arab 
relations. "They were willing to risk everything 
because they had so little to lose."

As successive oil booms caused the Persian Gulf 
economy to soar, South Asians started migrating 
in droves. Air connections expanded. A trip to 
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar or the 
United Arab Emirates was whittled to four hours.

Scholars and government officials in India 
estimate that expatriate workers send back at 
least $20 billion a year. About 50% of Persian 
Gulf migrants from India come from Kerala.

Transforming faith
From the moment they arrive, migrants from Kerala 
are introduced to attitudes unknown at home. Some 
housing is for Hindus only; some employers openly 
prefer Muslims over Hindus or Christians.

Some migrant workers are invigorated by living in 
a country with a Muslim majority. Others less 
enthusiastic about their new home cling to their 
faith out of loneliness and a sense of isolation. 
But they find a different interpretation of Islam.

Arrakal's husband, Kunchava, 49, had little to do 
in his free time in Saudi Arabia but attend 
prayers and read the Koran. He gradually changed 
his views about life and faith, including how his 
wife dressed.

"In traditional Indian garb, the woman's stomach 
is bare," he said. "Islamic dress covers up all 
the body parts."

In study groups and at prayer gatherings 
throughout the Persian Gulf region, men such as 
Abdul Rahman Mohammed Peetee hammer away at 
Kerala's traditions. For them, paying homage to 
local saints or anyone other than God is 
sacrilege: The Koran and the sayings of the 
prophet Muhammad contain all that any Muslim 
needs.

"You must study the Arab culture," Peetee, a 
Kerala native, told a gathering on the sixth 
floor of an office tower in Dubai, United Arab 
Emirates.

The men howled in protest.

"Some Arabs behave worse than us!" one cried. 
"Why should we study them? We have our own 
practices and culture."

Peetee, a stout man with a collarless shirt 
buttoned to his neck, was relentless.

"These practices are established by society," he said. "Not by the Koran."

Religious foundations and wealthy individuals in 
countries such as Saudi Arabia also promote a 
more rigid version of Islam. Qatar and Saudi 
Arabia have government agencies devoted to the 
religious lives of Asian expatriates, often 
administered by preachers from their own 
communities.

The Persian Gulf version of Islam fits the 
expatriate lifestyle: They can practice their 
faith in drab dormitories and on breaks during 
long work shifts. And it sanctifies their 
newfound riches. The wealth obtained by South 
Asian Muslims in the Persian Gulf is interpreted 
by many as a reward for service to God.

"Being in the gulf you can see the miracles of 
God," said Mohammed Ismayli Olshery Kalathingal, 
a Kerala computer specialist at a Dubai bank. 
"You can see all the things here that you can't 
see in Kerala."

Back home
When it started out 28 years ago, the Markaz 
Sunni Cultural Center just east of Calicut was a 
tiny orphanage supporting 21 children. It has 
grown into an empire, with a complex of religious 
schools and colleges educating 10,000 students. 
Its orphanage is home to 1,700 children.

Indian law requires that the white-clad students 
take classes in math, science and religion. But 
after school, they fan out across Calicut 
proselytizing in favor of an austere version of 
Islam.

Though a charity, Markaz has real estate 
holdings, including shopping centers and hotels. 
Each year it sends 1,000 of its most devout 
students to the Persian Gulf region, mostly to 
work in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.

Increasingly, new mosques are led by clerics who 
trained in the Persian Gulf, though most are 
graduates of Indian seminaries.

More wealth has meant that more Kerala Muslims 
have the time to pray five times a day and more 
can afford a religious education for their 
children. The new mosques enforce strict 
separation of the sexes.

Impressed by the power of education, many 
returnees urge their daughters and sons to attend 
high school and college. But to placate their 
parents, women raised in conservative families 
often must abide by strict Islamic dress codes.

By the 1990s, Kerala clothiers began 
mass-producing cheap Persian Gulf-style religious 
coverings for women. Now they are worn even at 
universities.

"What the women wear depends on the trend in the 
gulf," said Fazel Kizhekkedath, a 24-year-old 
salesman at the Hoorulyn clothing wholesaler. 
"Now the trend is the abaya. Black is the new 
fashion now."

Men also are being told by religious groups what 
to wear. One Islamic organization recently 
demanded that Muslim youths stop watching soccer 
and wearing T-shirts with team logos.

N.G.S. Narayan, author of the foremost book on 
Calicut history, said he came face-to-face with 
the new attitude when he tried to conduct 
research at an old mosque. Thirty years ago he 
was welcome to restore and decipher ancient 
tablets. Recently he was turned away; non-Muslims 
were no longer allowed.

Once Hindus used to head Muslim organizations and 
vice versa. Now Muslim groups urge followers to 
keep their children away from Hindu ceremonies.

Muslim Indian scholars of the Deobandi school 
have preached similar ideas. But critics say the 
latest wave, fueled by Persian Gulf money, 
represents an Arab colonization of Kerala.

"I am scared," said one moderate Muslim newspaper 
editor, who asked that his name not be published 
because it could harm his community standing. 
"The liberal Muslims, the moderate Muslims, are 
scared."

Identity politics
The religious awakening also has given rise to a new political assertiveness.

Critics say Muslim organizations have set up de 
facto political machines, forcing parties on the 
left and right to woo extreme Islamic groups 
funded by Persian Gulf riches.

Although it denies any active political 
involvement, Markaz and its leader, Kanthapuram 
Abu Bakr Musaliar, have become major players in 
southern India.

"Now he's a kingmaker," Chennamangloor said. "He's got a vote bank."

Kerala's elders often boasted that Hindus, 
Muslims, Christians and a smattering of smaller 
religious groups were Indians first. Religious 
identity took a back seat to class interests. The 
Communist Party and the conservative Indian 
National Congress dominated elections.

During recent ballots in a Muslim enclave near 
Calicut, both the Communist Party and 
conservatives plastered walls with pictures of 
Saddam Hussein. Even before the controversy over 
his execution, Hussein's trial had become a cause 
celebre among Muslims, largely because of the 
region's connection to the Persian Gulf.

"Social life has been politicized," Narayan said. 
"Muslim community organizations found that they 
could corner all the Muslim votes."

Many worry that the status quo has begun to unravel.

In January 2002 and May 2003, 14 people were 
killed in riots between Muslims and Hindus in 
Calicut. And in February 2005, suspected Hindu 
nationalists attacked a mosque in the town of 
Vallikunnam at the end of evening prayers, 
killing one and injuring two.

"Muslims themselves are worried by the rise of 
the militant Islamic organizations," said Ajai 
Mangat, Calicut correspondent for the Malayalam 
Manorama, the province's largest daily newspaper. 
"If they become more powerful, the Hindu 
nationalists become more powerful."

______


[7]  UPCOMING EVENTS:

(i)

The Uprooted: Caught between Existence and Denial

A CONVENTION OF THE INTERNALLY DISPLACED IN GUJARAT

February 1,2007

Heerak Mahotsav Hall
Gujarat Vidyapeeth
Ahmedabad, Gujarat


Nearly five years to the carnage in Gujarat in 
2002, the wounds refuse to heal. And the battle 
against collective, national amnesia must 
continue. It bears repeating that this was a 
massacre unprecedented in independent India. For 
it was a massacre openly led by the State against 
its own citizens, which left over 2000 dead and 
lakhs displaced, terrorized, and scarred. At a 
conservative estimate, well over 300 women were 
sexually brutalized in horrific ways, raped and 
killed in full public view. This was an attempt 
to annihilate Hindutva's 'constructed enemy', the 
Muslim, physically and symbolically, as person, 
citizen and community. The constitutional promise 
of India lay in tatters. And so long as justice 
eludes the survivors, so long as their scars 
remain unacknowledged, and the State does not 
come forward with reparations for harms inflicted 
on scores of innocents, that constitutional 
promise remains violated.

Even as people's struggle seeking justice for the 
death of loved ones occasionally enters public 
consciousness, what has remained hidden from view 
for five years, is the slow death inflicted upon 
the scores of internally displaced Muslims - 
people who fled their homes, villages and towns 
at the height of the violence in 2002 and have 
never been able to return.

Some families returned to their original places 
of residence, many condemned to a life of 
permanent compromise and second-class 
citizenship. Numerous cases were reported of 
Muslims being "allowed" to return only if they 
withdrew legal cases, stopped using loudspeakers 
for the azaan, quietly moved out of certain 
businesses, and basically learned to live with 
downcast eyes. Many of these compromises were 
brokered by public officials carrying out the 
State's mandate of forcing 'normalcy' and 
creating an illusion of public order.

Many families, however, were never able to 
return. Today these internally displaced families 
number approximately 5000. Even as the nation 
appears to have moved on in these five years, and 
public imagination is apparently occupied with 
other pressing matters, these people are still 
surviving in no-man's land, caught between 
existence and denial. They live in makeshift 
colonies hastily constructed by NGOs and 
community organization, on the outskirts of towns 
and villages, both literally and symbolically, on 
the margins of society. Their futures are 
uncertain.

Thousands of these families are gathering in 
Ahmedabad on February 1, 2007 to ask for 
acknowledgment as internally displaced people, to 
tell the world that they exist and to demand 
recognition, reparation and rehabilitation from 
the Indian State. 

In the space of a few months( December 
2006-january 2007), several colonies that house 
survivors have formed committees of the 
internally displaced (Antarik Visthapit Samitis). 
Each district has formed a coordination committee 
and a State coordination forum has been formed.


o o o

(ii)

Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution
Jamia Millia Islamia,
New Delhi-110025.
(INDIA)

cordially invites you to the

FIRST WALTER SISULU MEMORIAL LECTURE
to be delivered by A.M. Kathrada

on February 2, 2007 at 11 am

Venue:
at the Edward Said Hall,
Administrative Block, Jamia Milia Islamia
New Delhi

Professor Mushirul Hasan will preside

For more information contact:
Prof. Radha Kumar
Director
Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution
Phone: 269 854 73 / 269 817 17 Exten: 4361


_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
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