SACW | April 21, 2007
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Fri Apr 20 22:10:15 CDT 2007
South Asia Citizens Wire | April 21, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2392 - Year 9
[1] Nepal: Keep Promise, Condemn Abduction Based
on Sexual Orientation (Letter by Human Rights
Watch)
[2] Rahul Gandhi insults a nation and its people
(Jahed Ahmed and Mehul Kamdar)
[3] Uganda forest protest sparks racial violence (Xan Rice)
+ In defense of a forest (Elizabeth Kameo)
[4] India: Caste Classification and Affirmative
Action - the recent controversy
(i) Target practice (Dipankar Gupta)
(ii) Get under society's skin (Gail Omvedt)
[5] India: The Shilpa sequel (J Sri Raman)
[6] Book Review: Midnight's citizens Amit
Chaudhuri reviews - India After Gandhi by
Ramachandra Guha
[7] Announcements:
(i) Anhad's Youth Convention (Ahmedabad, 22-23 April 2007)
(ii) Upcoming on TV: Presented by Ziauddin
Sardar 'The Military and the Mullahs' (Channel 4
- 8pm, 23 April, 2007)
____
[1]
Human Rights Watch
NEPAL: KEEP PROMISE, CONDEMN ABDUCTION BASED ON SEXUAL ORIENTATION
April 16, 2007
Minister Khadga Bahadur Biswokarma
Ministry of Women, Children & Social Welfare
Facsimile: +977-1-4241728; +977-1-4241516
Dear Minister,
Human Rights Watch is gravely concerned by
anti-gay rhetoric and violence targeting people
because of their presumed sexual orientation or
the exercise of their sexual autonomy on the part
of the Communist Party of Nepal - Maoist. The
most recent example of attacks by Maoists was the
abductions in Sunsari of a woman and a teenage
girl accused of having a sexual relationship with
one another, accompanied by Maoist efforts to
force them to become soldiers. These actions took
place at amidst mixed messages from the Maoists,
both recent castigation of homosexuals by senior
officials and a recently announced policy "not to
punish homosexuals." As a part of the new
Nepalese government, we urge you to affirm the
protections of full equality for all and
intervene to ensure that the woman and the girl
are protected from further arbitrary detention or
harm by party members or their own families;
prevent the recruitment of child soldiers; permit
organizations working on sexual rights to work
free from interference; investigate the
allegations of abductions and fully punish those
held responsible; and protect all people of Nepal
from campaigns which target them for abuse on the
basis of their sexual orientation or gender
identity.
In the most recent incident, Maoists detained a
16-year-old girl and a woman, Sarita C., age 20,
on suspicion of being involved in a sexual
relationship with one another. The two were on
their way to a celebration of the annual Hindu
Holi festival in Pankali village in Sunsari
district organized by the Human Welfare Society
(HWS), a Nepali non-governmental organization
working on issues of HIV/AIDS and human rights.
According to the Blue Diamond Society, another
Nepali group working in the field of sexual
rights, health, and HIV prevention, the two were
held for a total of eight hours at the Maoist
camp in Singiya village Sunsari. They were
intensively interrogated about whether they were
homosexuals, and informed by a Maoist cadre that
they would have to "undergo a blood test to check
if they were lesbians." The Human Welfare Society
was also summoned to the Maoist camp and
subjected to part of the interrogation.
The girl and woman had been previously abducted
and held in the Maoist camp at Lochani village in
Morang District in late 2006. Prior to that, the
girl's family had used violence on several
occasions against the couple and had demanded
that the Maoists take action against them. At the
camp, the Maoists called the couple derogatory
names for homosexuals including "chakka" and
"hijara." and ordered them to join the Maoists as
soldiers because it would lead them to the
"straight life." When they refused to carry
weapons, they were deprived of food and beaten
almost daily. After one month, they managed to
escape.
These attacks stand in stark contrast with recent
commitments made by Hisila Yami, the Minister for
Infrastructure of Nepal's interim government and
Maoist member of parliament. In January 2007, at
a program organized by the Blue Diamond Society,
Minister Yami stated that the party had recently
adopted a policy "not to encourage homosexual
behavior but not punish homosexuals either."
However, we are concerned that other statements
by Maoist leaders give encouragement to assaults
on the human rights and on the physical integrity
of lesbians, gays, and metis (biological men who
identify as women) in Nepal. In December 2006,
Maoist senior leader and Minister of Local
Development Dev Gurung told members of the Blue
Diamond Society that, "Under Soviet rule and when
China was still very much a communist state,
there were no homosexuals in the Soviet Union or
China. Š Homosexuality is a production of
capitalism. Under socialism this kind of problem
doesn't exist."
Furthermore, as part of a newly-launched Maoist
campaign against so-called "social pollutants,"
Maoist cadres have targeted suspected
homosexuals. In December 2006, Maoists in
Kathmandu, ordered house owners not to rent rooms
to lesbians and gays. The former Maoist commander
of Kathmandu Valley, known as Sagar, stated "We
don't want to evict anyone. So we have asked
house owners to allow tenants. However, we are
against any aberrant activity that could have a
negative and vitiating effect on society."
Reinforcing the message, Amrita Thapa, general
secretary of the Maoist women's association, told
participants at a national conference in March
2006 that homosexuals were unnatural and were
"polluting" society.
All persons, including children, are entitled to
protection from violence and arbitrary detention
and enjoy the rights right to freedom of
association, assembly and expression. Human
Rights Watch has recently condemned the CPN-M's
practice of recruiting child soldiers (see
"Children in the Ranks: The Maoists' Use of Child
Soldiers in Nepal," a Human Rights Watch report,
February 2007). The International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which
Nepal acceded in 1991, bars arbitrary arrest and
detention, and prohibits torture and other cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In
the 1994 case of Toonen v Australia, the U.N.
Human Rights Committee, the UN body charged with
monitoring states' compliance with the ICCPR,
held that sexual orientation should be understood
as a status protected against discrimination by
the treaty's equality provisions. Under the
Convention on the Elimination of All forms of
Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which Nepal
ratified in 1991, gender-based violence in both
public and private may be considered a form of
gender-based discrimination that CEDAW prohibits.
Furthermore, the Convention on the Rights of the
Child, which Nepal ratified in 1990, obliges
states to protect children from all forms of
discrimination, arbitrary or unlawful
interference with his or her privacy, all forms
of physical or mental violence, and against
torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment.
Likewise, restricting the work of the Human
Welfare Society represents an affront to the
principles of freedom of association, assembly,
and expression enshrined in the ICCPR.
Justice Edwin Cameron of the South African
Supreme Court of Appeals visited Nepal in January
2007 for a conference on non-discrimination and
Nepal's new constitution. He shared lessons from
South Africa's legacy of apartheid as guidance
for Nepal's national renewal:
"A commitment to justice and equality is not
measured by the easy cases, but by hard casesŠA
society that aspires to respect human rights
cannot disrespect people because of sexual
orientation. It is easy to endorse rights like
free speech and dignity and socioeconomic
benefits in the abstract: more difficult is to
actualize equality and dignity by according
marginalized groups like gays and lesbians the
full protection and benefit of the law. And if a
society fails that test, it fails the test of
elementary human rights protection."
The abduction of the girl and woman in this case
is only one of numerous documented cases of
arrests, rapes, and beatings of lesbians, gays,
and metis in Nepal over the past several years.
It also forms one part of a larger pattern of
abuses of the rights of children by the Maoists.
We are encouraged by the Maoist's recent
commitment not to harass lesbians, gays and
metis; it is a step in the right direction, but
it is not enough. We urge the government to
affirm human rights for all people in word and in
action. We also urge you to work for the
inclusion of sexual orientation and gender
identity as statuses protected from
discrimination in Nepal's new constitution, as
part of an overall commitment to ending egregious
rights abuses and assuring equality for all.
Sincerely,
Scott Long
Director
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program
CC:
Minister Dev Prasad Gurung
Ministry of Local Development
Facsimile: +977-1-5522045
Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara
Ministry of Information and Communication
Facsimile: +977-1-4221729
Minister Gopal Rai
Ministry of Forest Soil Conservation
Facsimile: +977-1-224892
______
[2]
New Age
21 April 2007
RAHUL GANDHI INSULTS A NATION AND ITS PEOPLE
by Jahed Ahmed and Mehul Kamdar
Lately an important piece of news has gone
unnoticed by most of the mainstream news media of
Bangladesh. In a recent political campaign, Rahul
Gandhi, a member of the Indian parliament and son
of a former Indian prime minister, the late Rajiv
Gandhi, has solely credited his family for the
division of Pakistan in 1971, which led to the
independence of Bangladesh. While campaigning for
a candidate in the state of Uttar Pradesh,
considered India's heartland, Mr Gandhi managed
to say, 'Once my family decides on something, it
doesn't go back. Whether it's about India's
freedom, dividing Pakistan or taking India to the
21st century.' The remark clearly implied that it
was a family vendetta against Pakistan that drove
the division of the erstwhile East Pakistan and
led to the creation of Bangladesh. It ignored the
systematic genocide of three million Bengalis by
the Pakistani army, the rape and humiliation of
hundreds of thousands of Bengali women and the
cascade of events preceding 1971 such as the
language movement of 1952, six-point based
agitation of 1966 and the Bengali people's revolt
in 1969 against Ayub Khan.
While the incident did not merit any attention
within Bangladesh for reasons that are completely
unknown, condemnation both within India and from
Pakistan was immediate and vociferous. The only
public protest from a Bangladeshi voice was that
of the exiled author Dr Taslima Nasrin who spoke
at a press conference in Bhopal and listed the
1952 killings of Bangladeshis for asking that
Bangla be made a state language and of the mass
movement that began against the country's
Pakistani rulers in 1969. While she did not
condemn the casual callousness with which these
remarks were issued, she could not, because she
is a resident of India and hopes to get Indian
citizenship someday, it was clear that she did
not approve of the cynical attempt by Mr Gandhi
to suggest that the sacrifices of the Bangladeshi
people did not mean anything, that it was his
grandmother's anti-Pakistan vendetta that
actually split the country up.
In the meantime, the exiled Pakistani doctor
and humanist, Dr M Younus Sheikh, who lives in
Switzerland, released an open letter to members
of the Indian parliament, condemning the 'foolish
and immature' remarks that Mr Gandhi had issued.
Dr Sheikh has authored articles on the repression
in Bangladesh under Pakistani rule, was one of
the first Pakistanis to protest what he clearly
called 'genocide' against Bengalis by the
Pakistani army, and for this as well as several
other reasons he was jailed and sentenced to
death under completely trumped up charges in
Pakistan until international pressure forced the
government to release him from prison and exile
him to Switzerland where he lives today.
Curiously, the response from Dhaka has been
muted, to say the least. The Bangladesh high
commissioner to India would only remark that he
was grateful to India for its support in the
struggle for independence and there was no
statement at all from Dhaka until the writing of
this article. Indeed, in comparison to the angry
voices both within India as well as from Pakistan
(albeit for completely different reasons, because
the Pakistani government now claims that it now
has evidence that the whole struggle in
Bangladesh was merely an Indian inspired
secessionist plot) the silence from Dhaka has
been deafening. Few countries are as proud of
their language and, therefore, of their struggle
to form a nation based on the suppression of
their language as Bangladesh, and yet, the
attempt by Mr Gandhi to suggest that the now
well-documented horrors of the struggle for
independence were little more than a task that
his grandmother had decided to take up to gain
personal revenge against Pakistan did not receive
a single note of protest in response.
One must not mix up the issue of acknowledging
India's generous role and humanitarian effort
during 1971 by Bangladesh with the condemnation
of Rahul Gandhi's infantile remarks. While
Bangladesh, as a nation, does not have any valid
reasons to forget India's help during our
liberation struggle in 1971; welcoming Rahul
Gandhi's comments by the Bangladesh government -
as it was reported in some Indian newspapers -
would not only be just self-degrading, it will
also be a dishonour to the memory of three
million martyrs of 1971.
Perhaps, it is because of the current
political situation within Bangladesh that this
silence continues, more than two days after the
remarks attracted the flak that they did in the
rest of South Asia. Perhaps, at a time when
relations between the three major nations of
South Asia have been visibly improving, no one in
Dhaka would like to rock the boat. The fact,
though, is that neither the spokespeople in
Pakistan nor the segment of the Indian political
and media establishment that criticised these
remarks believes that criticizing Rahul Gandhi's
ridiculous claims is likely to set the process of
rapprochement back. Criticising a callous
statement that demeans the struggle of an entire
nation and its people to emerge from severe
political repression and hardship to enjoy their
independence as a people does not amount to a
declaration of war. It is unfortunate that no
voice has been raised in Dhaka about these
remarks yet. The silence speaks as poorly about
those who choose not to speak about the remarks
as it does about Rahul Gandhi's personal
callousness.
Jahed Ahmed, based in New York, and Mehul
Kamdar, originally from Tamilnadu, India and now
settled in Chicago, are co-moderators of
mukto-mona.com, an online network of South Asian
humanists.
______
[3]
The Guardian
April 13, 2007
UGANDA FOREST PROTEST SPARKS RACIAL VIOLENCE
· Three killed, 100 flee as anti-Asian anger erupts
· Scenes revive memories of '72 Amin hate campaign
Xan Rice, East Africa correspondent
Uganda's capital, Kampala, erupted into racial
violence yesterday, with three people killed
during a protest against government plans to
allow Ugandan-Asian industrialists to grow sugar
cane on protected forest land.
In scenes described as reminiscent of 1972, when
Idi Amin led a hate campaign against south Asian
merchants, demonstrators attacked businesses and
a Hindu temple, where police had to rescue more
than 100 people seeking sanctuary.
An Asian man was reported to have been stoned to
death after being pulled off his motorbike.
Several other motorists were beaten and a sugar
truck was set on fire. Demonstrators shouting
anti-Indian slogans hurled rocks at troops who
set up roadblocks to stop the protests spreading.
Soldiers retaliated with live ammunition, killing
two black Ugandans.
The march, which was authorised by police and
began peacefully, was arranged by
environmentalists, opposition leaders and
religious groups angered by a government proposal
to allow the Mehta Group to clear a quarter of
the Mabira forest reserve to grow sugar. The
30,000-hectare (7,400-acre) reserve, east of
Kampala, contains some of the last patches of
virgin forest in Uganda and serves as an
important water catchment area.
President Yoweri Museveni last year ordered a
study into whether to allow Scoul, a local sugar
firm owned by Mehta, to use 7,100 hectares of the
forest. The state has a 30% share in Mehta.
Though conservationists said the move would ruin
an area containing hundreds of species, the
government pushed ahead with its plans for the
reserve, which has been protected since 1932.
Critics say President Museveni is moving ahead at
the expense of the environment. A decision to
allow a rainforest to be cleared for a private
palm plantation on the Ssesse Islands in Lake
Victoria caused a storm of protest last year.
Olav Bjella, a Norwegian environmentalist who
headed Uganda's National Forestry Authority quit
in protest, saying it was against his conscience
to implement the order.
The Mehta Group took out newspaper advertisements
that branded the opponents of the Mabira forest
scheme as "anti-development" and dismissed
concerns about the environmental impact. Analysts
say that the company's aggressive stance, coupled
with the government's intransigence, amplified
and charged the debate.
Angelo Izama, a commentator at the Daily Monitor
newspaper in Kampala, said: "What happened today
was less about the environment than resentment by
the oppressed Ugandan economic class towards the
Asian commercial class."
Some of the 500 protesters chanted slogans
praising Amin, who expelled south Asians from
Uganda in 1972 - including the wealthy Mehta
family who fled to Britain and India - and
confiscated their property. One of the placards
read: "Mehta, do you want another Amin?"
In the 1990s the Mehta family was among thousands
of Asian-Ugandans who returned to reclaim their
properties, under a campaign to encourage foreign
investment. Many have flourished, particularly in
the manufacturing, banking and hotel sector.
Their success has led to resentment by some black
Ugandans, who say the government is not doing
enough for them.
o o o
[Uganda Weblog]
IN DEFENSE OF A FOREST
18 April 2007, by Elizabeth Kameo.
I woke up to news headlines all over the city
bill copies announcing that an Asian businessman
who wants to destroy Mabira Forest Uganda's
biggest Tropical Rainforest is come up with
demands if he is to leave our forest alone. Just
how much more can Ugandans take from investors
who are hell bent on destroying whatever little
is left of the country in terms of natural
resources and its beauty. Now here was a man who
made a "deal" with President Yoweri Museveni that
got him 7,100 hectares of lands making demands in
a country that is not his if the owners of the
country do not want him to destroy their natural
resources. And for US$200 million, Mahendra Mehta
said he would steer clear of our forest and not
destroy it. One wonders where he even got the
nerve to stand up and start making demands from a
people of a country who are set at saving
whatever little of forest cover is left in the
country that has lost so many natural resources
in the name of investment.
This year as the world marked the Forest Day in
March, there was nothing to celebrate in Uganda
thanks to recent developments in the country's
forest sector. What started as a simple protest
against President Museveni's giving away 7,100
hectares of Mabira Forest to Sugar Corporation of
Uganda Limited for conversion into a sugarcane
plantation has turned into a nightmare. And fast
forward April, a demonstration against the
giveaway turned nasty and racial with Ugandans
attacking Asians living in the city and killing
one and injuring lots more. Sugar Corporation of
Uganda Limited is owned by Asian business tycoon
Mahendra Mehta.
"Save Mabira Forest", reads a petition on the
internet calling upon Ugandan to sign a petition
that will perhaps save the country's biggest
Tropical Rain Forest from being destroyed to pave
way for sugarcane plantations.
It is not the first petition; every Ugandan with
a mobile phone has in the past received a text
message or two and even more urging them to save
the forest by signing the petition and not buying
sugar produced by the company which is set to
replace the forest with sugarcane plantations. It
seems like it will not be the last but on whether
it will produce results that remains to be seen
because for once, Ugandans are speaking as one,
petitioning as one and demonstrating against the
giveaway of their natural forest as one.
"We, the undersigned, ..., do not believe that
Mabira Forest should be degazetted by the
Government of Uganda in order to plant sugar
cane. Mabira Forest is part of our heritage and
our children's future. Mabira Forest is a
tropical hardwood forest which is proposed to be
cut down for the production of sugar in Uganda.
The forest is one of the most biodiverse forests
remaining in Africa. It also has added value for
the communities that inhabit it and surround it.
The value of the forest to Uganda and her people
is beyond the values of the trees, but it is also
a frequented tourism site for bird watching,
forest walks, and other activities; it has
cultural and historical values; it significantly
impacts the environment as a natural water
filtration system and a natural regulator of
global climate. We are asking the private
investor to withdraw their request and take
others up on their offers of land in Uganda to
develop their sugar cane fields in other arable
land," reads the petition. By the second week of
April, over 9116 people had signed the petition
put up by Ugandans who refer to themselves as
"Save Mabira Forest".
Over the past few weeks, seven civil society
organisations have sued the government over the
planned giveaway and degradation of the forest.
Ugandans are yet to see if their move will bring
about any change. But in a country where the
government has little respect for whatever
decisions judiciary makes, not much can be
expected to result from this petition. The
petitioners include; Advocates Coalition for
Development and Environment (Acode), Green Watch,
Environmental Alert, Environmental Action
Network, Nature Uganda, National Association of
Professional Environmentalists (Nape) and the
Anti Corruption Coalition Uganda. Interestingly
the National Environment Management Authority is
not part of the petitioners and seems to have
kept out of this even if they claim to be a the
forefront of protecting Uganda's natural
resources.
Mabira is not the first forest reserve to be
given away to Museveni's investors whom he holds
in high esteem. Butamira Forest was already given
away to Kakira Sugar also for conversion into a
sugarcane plantation and before that government
gave away Bugala Islands Forest Reserve located
to Bidco Oil Refineries and its subsidiaries.
And now it is just more than protesting the
destruction of the forest. On April 12, what was
supposed to be a peaceful demonstration in a bid
by Ugandans to save the forest turned into a
nightmare with crowds targeting Asians living in
Kampala, attacking them and killing one Asian. It
is clearly more than just the destruction of a
forest by an Asian businessman as demonstrators
held placards with messages that read, "Asians
should go", "For one tree cut, Five Asians dead".
Clearly the plan by President Museveni to give
away part of the forest to an Asian Investor has
sparked more controversy than he probably thought
it ever would.
While I may not agree with the way the
demonstration turned out, there is no doubt that
like any Ugandan I am against the destruction of
Mabira Forest. I cannot imagine driving to Jinja
and where once there was a forest with trees,
hundreds and hundreds of years old, there stands
pathetic looking sugarcane plantations. And are
we going to have to change our history books just
because a rich Asian who wants to grow sugarcane
wants a part of our heritage? Let's look at the
facts, Mabira Forest reserve is not just a
forest. It is home to 312 species of tree, 287
species of bird and 199 species of butterfly.
Recent Exploratory Inventories carried out in
Mabira (for both the production and buffer zones)
show that there are close to 2.5 million trees in
every hectare. Mabira has wild Robusta coffee,
dioscoria tubers, yams and other plants whose
value is unknown." And being the only large
forest in the bio-geographical zone of the Lake
Victoria Crescent, it provides the only watershed
for this already water stressed area. Mabira
Forest Reserve is listed by BirdLife
International as an Important Bird Area (IBA).
The forest contains over 300 species of bird,
including the Endangered Nahan's Francolin
Francolinus nahani.
The forest also supports nine species of primate,
a recently identified new mangabey subspecies in
Uganda, Lophocebus albigena johnstoni and a new
species of Short-tailed Fruit Bat. Studies have
shown that the potential revenue from tourism
alone at Mabira was in excess of the costs of
managing the Reserve.
Mabira Forest Reserve is located within 50 km
from Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, and is
surrounded by four major towns used by tourists.
Other economic losses involved in 'giving-away'
Uganda's forests are thought to include lost
revenue from selective logging, a local impact on
livelihoods and possibly from changing climate;
the forests help maintain central Uganda's wet
climate - removing them could bring about drier
weather negatively impacting on crop yields,
conservationists have argued.
Mabira is 29,974 hectares. For whoever destroys
part of that forest, there is so much more to
gain from the timber form trees that have been
standing for hundreds of years. In fact I am
beginning to believe the gossip going around that
the President gave the forest away to Mehta with
the understanding that he takes the land to grow
sugarcane and harvested timber will belong to the
President. After all you can imagine how much one
stands to gain from cutting down 7,100 hectares
of forest.
Destroying Mabira is the worst that could happen
in Uganda today seeing that the country's forest
loss in the highest in Africa with an annual
forest loss of 2 percent. Forest cover went down
from 4.9million hectares to 3.6 million between
1990 and 2005. The country's annual deforestation
rate has climbed 21 percent since the end of the
1990s. 100 years ago forest cover in the country
Winston Churchill described as "the Pearl of
Africa" was 70 percent, today it is a mere 24
percent and more forests are still being cleared.
In comparison, neigboruing Kenya loses less than
0.5 percent of forest cover yearly.
While it is reported that the leaders in Africa
are realising the significance of protecting
forests, President Museveni is doing the
opposite. Even threatening those who dare protest
against his short sightedness as far as forest
reserves go. In fact hilariously, he claims that
he is thinking of the future when giving away the
forests. And it is clearly a future without trees
and one where deserts will rule.
Many Ugandans view the clearing of one of the few
remaining tracts of primary forest for sugar
cane, a low value commodity product, as a poor
use of a resource that could attract ecotourists
and supply valuable ecological services. In fact
for many Ugandans, they would rather have the
forest and no sugar.
The destruction of Mabira forest will threaten
some of the highest concentrations of
biodiversity in Africa: Uganda is home to more
than 5,000 plant species, 345 species of mammals,
and types of 1,015 birds.
It has been said that the damage of cutting away
part of Mabira Forest in terms of carbon credit
is estimated at $316m. The value of the land is
estimated at about $5m and the value of the wood
at another $568m.
That means the Ugandan public stands to lose
almost $890m (about 1.5 trillion shillings) as a
result of the Government's plan to degazette part
of the forest.
This was calculated by the experts of the
Environmental Alert, one of four environmental
groups that have launched a massive campaign to
stop the proposed give-away.
"The biomass of Mabira, the total weight of all
trees, shrubs and grasses, is estimated at 300
tonnes per hectare," explains Dorothy Kaggwa of
the Environmental Alert. "That is an equivalent
of 550 tonnes of carbondioxide absorbed per
hectare per year."
Carbondioxide emissions from factories, cars and
planes trap the heat from escaping from the
earth, leading to global warming. The Kyoto
Protocol and the UN Convention on Climate Change,
to both of which Uganda is a signatory, oblige
countries to stay within certain carbondioxide
limits. Manufacturers who exceed those limits can
choose between installing costly remedy
mechanisms or compensate by paying for planting
trees or maintaining existing forests elsewhere,
the so-called carbon credit.
Mabira forest receives more than 62% of all
tourists visiting forest reserves in the country.
Eco-tourism is the second largest foreign
exchange earner and the potential for Mabira
forest as tourist destination cannot be
over-emphasised. There is already an ecotourism
programme being run by the local within Mabira
and an Ecolodge owned by Zahid Alam is yet to be
completed. Interestingly since time immemorial,
the foundation of Uganda has been its beauty, its
nature known throughout the world it had
Churchill marvel and immediately call this
country to Pearl of Africa. That Pearl
unfortunately is no more and if things continue
the way they are, Uganda will soon be a shadow of
its former self. It is hard to understand why a
leader who only a year or two ago paid millions
of US dollars to have Uganda feature on CNN and
help us revive the tourism sector is the same one
destroying the very bloodline that would see
tourism boom. And it is the same President who
gave his son-in-law's company the go ahead to
carry out a programme dubbed "Gifted by Nature"
to sell Uganda and its beauty to the rest of the
world.
______
[4] India: Caste Classification and
Affirmative Action - the recent controversy
Hindustan Times
March 29, 2007
TARGET PRACTICE
by Dipankar Gupta
The Supreme Court has not just stayed the central
law, which ordains 27 per cent reservation for
Other Backward Classes (OBCs), it has also
severely admonished the government for indulging
in "vote-bank politics". The significance of this
remark should be seen in the context of the
Supreme Court's astonishment that while the
government is advocating 27 per cent reservation,
it has done so without the necessary homework. It
neither has a clear idea of the basis on which
these classes have been identified, nor the
number of OBCs in the country.
It was earlier decreed by the courts that OBCs
cannot simply be identified on the basis of caste
as this goes against the spirit of the
Constitution. While the Constitution allowed for
Scheduled Castes (SCs) to be identified purely
on the basis of caste and their attachment with
the ugly prejudice of untouchability, OBCs need
something more than just caste identification.
Hence, the Mandal Commission came up with three
criteria, viz., social, educational and economic,
to determine backwardness. These criteria were
flawed from the start for excessive weights were
given to markers of social backwardness, which
were unverifiable, and fewer points were given to
economic backwardness, for which there were
tangible indices. Clearly, the framers of the
Mandal Commission set out to provide a charter
for the upwardly mobile, well-to-do agrarian
classes in the garb of 'backwardness'.
Sneaking in privileges for certain castes in this
fashion surely does harm to the democratic nature
and content of our polity and the Supreme Court
is correct when it observed that reservations for
OBCs were not only yielding to "vote-bank
politics" but also dividing society on the lines
of caste and birth.
All of this is relevant especially when one keeps
in mind that by the government's reckoning, even
Yadavs and Jats are among the backwards. Things
have come to such a pass with the caste-obsessed
vote-bank politics that successive governments
have indulged in, that few know that the OBCs was
devised to specifically to keep castes out of the
picture. This fact has now become completely
obscured in popular political discourse.
The apex court's query as to how many can be
counted as belonging to the OBCs is a perfectly
logical one, especially as the government is
enforcing quotas in higher education. This job
should have preceded the enactment of the
government Bill. If there are to be quotas, then
we need the numbers, which were nowhere in sight.
Had it been a question of 'affirmative action',
then perhaps numbers are not that necessary, but
a different set of legislations are required and
one that unambiguously steers clear of any quota,
or quota-like consideration.
In terms of figures, we have a host of issues.
The first, which should not be undermined and has
already been mentioned, is the set of criteria to
be employed in denoting backwardness and it just
cannot be my favourite castes. Economic
backwardness has to play a dominant role,
followed by educational backwardness. The
criteria social backwardness as it stands is
highly dubious, made worse by the fact that
communities get rewarded if their boys and girls
get married before the legally permissible age.
Now that can hardly be allowed!
Second, we have to get the numbers right. The
apex court is right that there has been no census
enumeration on caste grounds since 1931, so where
have these figures come from? The 1931 census is
not only over 75 years old, but the criteria that
was used then have long become defunct.
Additionally, it must be borne in mind that the
understanding of 'forward' and 'backward' has
changed over time. In 1911, for example, there
was a furore as certain castes resented their
placement down the hierarchy. Today, they would
fight if they figured as high castes. How
political calculations have changed.
But keeping this reality in mind, it has to be
admitted that even in 1931, the figures for
'backwards' could be spurious, and had to be
adjusted on a number of counts, not least of all
because of political and status motivations.
Further, certain castes that existed in 1931 have
either disappeared or have morphed themselves or
have become part of other caste clusters. The
arrival of caste associations from the late 19th
century onwards, and with greater rapidity after
1920, has also led to significant changes in
caste nomenclatures and relative positioning.
The Supreme Court's consternation is further
compounded by the fact that the National Sample
Survey (NSS) puts the proportion of OBCs to
approximately 32.1 per cent of the population
while the National Family Health Survey pitches
the figure at 29.8 per cent. These figures
contrast starkly with Mandal Commission's data,
according to which 52 per cent of the population
should be counted as OBCs. Surely, not all three
can be right and, therefore, the court is
perfectly justified in asking for authentic
figures.
Further, it needs to be remembered that by
Mandal's own admission, reproduced in the Mandal
Commission report, state governments did not come
up with the required information on educational
and social profile of backward classes. He admits
that the exercise done by the commission was not
scientific or academic and would certainly not
pass stringent criteria. If all this be true, how
can the government calmly proceed with the
Central Educational Institution Reservation in
Admission Act in 2006 and reserve seats on a
quota basis for OBCs. The 'C' now clearly stands
for 'Castes'.
It might be recalled that following the Indra
Sawhney case in 1992, the Supreme Court ordered
the setting up of a committee headed by Justice
R.P. Prasad to look into the matter of the
'creamy layer' so as to exclude such people from
benefiting from OBC reservations. It must be made
clear that the creamy layer does not apply to SCs
or STs. The Prasad Committee made a series of
recommendations as to who the benefits cannot be
extended to, regardless of their caste status. It
kept in mind economic factors, position in the
services categories as well as land owned. It is
interesting that the government has overruled any
consideration of the 'creamy layer' when it comes
to OBC reservations. In other words, it does not
matter for the UPA-led government how well-off or
powerful a person or family may be as long as the
caste is right. This is vote-bank politics with a
vengeance.
Caste is used as a resource in perpetuity by the
advocates of OBC reservation. The Ambedkar-led
reservation policy for SCs and STs was motivated
with the aim of rooting caste out of all public
considerations in the county. In Mandal-type
reservations, the aim is not to eliminate caste
but to represent caste. This makes a great
difference to how democracy is practised. It is,
therefore, in the fitness of things that the
Supreme Court raised the red flag of OBC quotas
and the exacerbation of social differences.
Finally, let us ask the all-important question:
why did the founders of the Constitution not
favour the identification of OBCs with caste. The
reason simply was that such straight correlations
were not possible on a national scale. Some
castes are powerful in villages but not in
cities, some in one province and not in another.
In addition, the fact that other than SCs, no
other caste faced discrimination in terms of
temple entry or drawing water from the village
well or going to school, surely must have added
as a disincentive for those framing our
Constitution in looking beyond the SCs for fixing
reservation-based quotas.
The truth is that OBCs, such as they are listed
today, have never faced historical disprivileges.
If they must be given reservations, then
injustices and discriminatory practices against
them have to be established. Failing this test,
the rationale for OBC reservation crumbles and
degenerates to a species of vote-bank politics.
Dipankar Gupta is Professor, Social Sciences, at
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
o o o
Hindustan Times
April 19, 2007
GET UNDER SOCIETY'S SKIN
by Gail Omvedt
The Supreme Court's recent decision and
reiteration to stay the order regarding OBC
admissions until accurate data is available has
brought forth the expected reactions. Defenders
of 'equality' won by ignoring caste are hailing
it; proponents of reservations are trying to put
on a brave face. But in one way, the decision is
helpful: the Supreme Court has given cogent
arguments for the need for information to
underlay policy. However, what many of the
opponents of reservations may not appreciate is
that this brings up squarely, once again, the
argument for a caste-based census.
The demand for this is now rising, and the
Congress has issued a statement rejecting such an
option. Why it has done so is hard to understand.
If getting information about caste is 'divisive',
then so is trying to remedy the situation. How do
we remedy it without really good information?
There is no adequate answer to this question.
Many Indians opposed to a caste-based census have
for years argued the issue in terms of
divisiveness. Some have even made wild
projections of chaos, violence and fragmentation.
Yet, for decades, the United States has had not
only fairly far-reaching programmes of
affirmative action, but also a race-based census:
people are asked their race, and do not consider
this an insult. The policy has not led to chaos
and violence, but rather has provided the
foundation for efforts to remedy the situation.
In the 1960s, the US did have a certain amount of
violence, with ghetto rebellions, fights with the
police and uprisings of angry young Black men and
women. The situation was too extreme to ignore;
instead, policy decisions were made. Now Blacks
have penetrated more fields than ever before, and
race riots are a thing of the past, even if
racism itself has not been entirely overcome.
Recognising the existence of race, like caste, is
not the road to ruin, but is a necessary
prerequisite for dealing with, and resolving, the
issue.
Those who argue for 'merit' ignore the fact that
merit is not linked to caste. Here, biological
inheritance and social conditioning have to be
carefully differentiated. The reason that people
of 'higher' caste origin perform better lies in
their environmental advantages, which range from
the fields of education, socialisation to
economic well-being.
The same, of course, has been true for race.
Only, in the US, the arguments for and against,
'nature' versus 'nurture', have been made
endlessly. One of the seemingly solidly
documented books arguing for the reality of
racial differences, Richard Hernstein and Charles
Murray's The Bell Curve, spent hundreds of pages
arguing that IQ tests, in fact, reflected the
existence of real intelligence - and since Blacks
performed on the average significantly lower than
the White average, they claimed that this
reflected their actual capacities. Yet, the book
let slip one important fact about IQ tests - that
average scores have risen over the last few
decades, by about the same amount as the
'difference' between average White and Black
scores.
In other words, IQ tests reflect a degree of
environmental advantage and socialisation, even
'learning' about taking IQ tests. Even at an
early age, this environmental difference is
there. In many European countries, the average
scores had risen because the scores of the lowest
deciles rose faster: in other words, the spread
of mass education had made a difference.
In India, there has been no such extensive
academic and general intellectual debate about
test scores, heredity and environment; only a
good deal of frantic and self-justifying
outpourings. But the examinations here, as well
as interviews, are much less objective, much more
culture-bound than IQ tests. Education is much
more unequally distributed. Denial of caste
inequalities has been less reasonable, more
ingrained, more emotional.
In comparison with race, though, it is
superficially easy to avoid dealing with caste:
it is not so easily visible as race is, though
both are equally social and not biological
factors. There is a good deal of social
interaction directed at understanding the other's
caste, but these are less obvious and visible. As
a result, a superficial 'passing' is much easier,
particularly for employment, if not for more
personal issues such as marriage. Yet the scars
of caste remain, of this there is no doubt. What
is needed is more informed discussion and debate,
not a closing of eyes, ears and mouths to mimic
the monkey reaction to reality.
There is possibly little change since the 1931
census, which gave extensive information about
caste. However, there is need for investigation:
have some OBCs really become 'affluent'? Aside
from a few of their members, this is doubtful.
The very fact that these are mostly rural-based
groups, and the rural economy is in recognised
crisis, should indicate that the average has
improved. There is no point, however, in
endlessly arguing. We need the data.
How does one handle a caste-based census? There
has been, again, a lot of talk about the
complications of the matter. The solution is
simple: let everyone self-identify his or her
caste. Those who want can say 'no caste' (in
fact, this itself would be an important data from
the census). Those who are out of mixed marriages
or confused about their caste in anyway can also
say this. A panel of experts at the State level
can then make broad classifications out of the
responses. There is, in other words, no great
dilemma about how to do it. It only takes social
will.
Gail Omvedt is a social scientist and author of
Dalit Visions: The Anticaste Movement and Indian
Cultural Identity and Growing Up Untouchable: A
Dalit Autobiography Among Others
______
[5]
Daily Times
April 19, 2007
THE SHILPA SEQUEL
by J Sri Raman
Shilpa had evolved for a section of Indian
viewers from a mere victim of Western racism into
a symbol of Indian Womanhood. The Shilpa-Gere
show was a cruel letdown for the 'cultural
nationalists'
It was two and a half months ago that we talked
in these columns of Bollywood belle Shilpa Shetty
and her battle in the Celebrity Big Brother
programme of Britain's Channel 4 ('The Shilpa
effect', February 2). The svelte, tall star
stages a comeback now, though the context could
not have been more different.
We talked then of the contest Shilpa won offering
"a striking contrast to the world competitions
where would-be divas of the Indian big screen had
worsted their rivals". Equally striking is the
contrast the current controversy over Shilpa
offers to her earlier racism-to-riches story.
She had then endured crudely ethnic and racist
taunts from a competitor to emerge the winner at
the end of the ordeal. What most Indians abroad
and at home then admired was the fact that she
coped with the situation and stayed the course,
without running away from relentless abuse. To
them, this exemplified the manner in which modern
India must break into the big, bad West-dominated
world, playing by its rules. Her victory then was
a metaphor for globalisation.
What Shilpa is now undergoing illustrates another
aspect of the same globalisation that India's
middle class desires so devoutly but yet dreads
secretly. She is now facing the full-blast fury
of far-right groups, led by the Shiv Sena, with
an obscene ideology that holds apparently
inexplicable sway in the country's most
industrialised state of Maharashtra for letting
Hollywood actor Richard Gere peck her on the
cheek in public. We won't pause to wonder whether
this rings a bell for the Pakistani reader.
The point is that the devout Buddhist Gere was
not being racism driven, when, to the delight of
his audience at a New Delhi rally to promote HIV
awareness, he mimicked the hero of a typical
Bollywood romance. He struck a dancing posture
with Shilpa who had figured in dozens of such
film scenes without provoking mob fury, and
planted a series of what Hollywood would have
considered brotherly pecks.
No angry reaction had greeted Geoffrey Boycott's
admiring if un-brotherlike response to attractive
Shilpa. Veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah, had, in
fact, made a public gift of a Shilpa portrait to
Boycott, amidst the laughter of a television
studio audience. Cricket, perhaps, covered the
multitude of sins that the far-right sees in the
fun scene Gere was trying to enact. If his action
is now condemned as an assault on Indian culture,
it was possibly because of two reasons.
In the first place, at some point during the Big
Brother battle, Shilpa had evolved for a section
of Indian viewers from a mere victim of Western
racism into a symbol of Indian Womanhood. Without
having done anything through her entire career to
earn such a halo, she came to symbolise the
'ideal Indian woman' expected at all times and at
all places to bear the burden of 'Indian
culture'. It was not for no reason that, soon
after the contest, she received an invitation
from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to join it.
The Shilpa-Gere show was a cruel letdown for the
'cultural nationalists'.
The second reason why the far-right has pounced
on the issue is that it has been presented to
them in the midst of a fresh campaign of
'cultural nationalism'. Just as the Shiv Sena
hordes were indulging in violence at a film
shooting venue, they were also vandalising a
major television channel's Mumbai premises to
protest its support for a young Hindu-Muslim
couple that had eloped to flee their enraged
clans.
Both the incidents followed in the wake of the
controversy over the famous compact disc (CD) of
the BJP, issued as a propaganda material in the
ongoing assembly elections in India's most
populous State of Uttar Pradesh.
The CD carried dramatised illustrations of the
alleged villainy of the minority Muslims, against
which the Hindu majority had to be vigilant and
act by voting for the BJP. One of the episodes in
the CD tells the heart-rending tale of a Muslim
pretending to a false faith and seducing away a
Hindu girl, only to force her into marriage with
an over-aged crony of his community.
In all these cases, the feared attack on Indian
culture takes the form of an attempted sexual
assault on the Indian woman, the Indian
Womanhood. Nothing else can rouse the machismo of
the far-right middle class, which seeks to go
'phoren' and stay fervently nationalist at the
same time.
With the insecurities of globalisation, perceived
as an inevitable as well as an irresistibly
enticing prospect, such incidents can only be
expected to increase. And the threats to the
indigenous 'culture' from foreigners as well as
aliens within will also be countered increasingly
with attempts to curtail the freedom of the
Indian female.
______
[6]
The Guardian
April 21, 2007
Midnight's citizens
Amit Chaudhuri is impressed by Ramachandra Guha's
shrewd survey of India since the second world
war, India After Gandhi
India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy
by Ramachandra Guha
688pp, Macmillan, £25
It's in the nature of nations to be addicted to
their own histories. Older, pre- national
communities, one imagines, occupied themselves
with mythology. The secular nation, agog,
rehearses its history, the very reasons and
outcomes of its existence, to itself. What's
common to both activities is the endless
familiarity of the subject-matter to the
audience. It's safe to assume that very few
people in a group of devotees listening to, say,
the Indian epic Ramayana being read out would not
have heard it before. It's equally prudent to
assume that almost all the Indian readers of
Ramachandra Guha's capacious history of
democratic India would be familiar with a great
deal of the story. What is it, then, that gives
myths and national histories their appeal?
Article continues
In mythic retelling, it is repetition itself,
accompanied by improvisatory flourishes, that
transfixes the audience by returning it to known
terrain. Historical narrative, too, depends on
familiarity enlivened by interpretative freshness
and the surprise of new archival research; but
there's also, at times, something else. Guha
reminds us, more than once, that it's the
historian's job to tell us what happened, and not
spend too much time speculating on what might
have. Yet it is precisely the possibility of what
might have happened but didn't that gives an
immediate but inexhaustible magic to some of the
20th century's most triumphal historical
narratives. Both the American film-maker
embarking on the new second world war movie and
the Englishwoman wearing a poppy are thinking,
yet again, of events that took place many years
ago, but also, in some hidden but urgent way, of
the world that might have come into existence had
the other side won.
Similarly, a "What if?" animates Guha's
reconstruction of the past 60 years of Indian
history. Since 1947, the possibility of disaster
has taken the form of certain questions and
crises: "What if India were to disintegrate; or
to become a totalitarian society; or a military
dictatorship; or a Hindu state?" All these are
scenarios that appeared plausible, at one time or
another, to both the Indian and foreign observer.
Guha tells us what happened elegantly, sometimes
doggedly: but it's by constantly implying what
might have, while disavowing it with the
professional historian's gesture, that he brings
his copious material to life. Guha's book reminds
us of what some other recent studies of India
have been getting at, but without this civilised
single-mindedness: that it's not just the story
of independence that's worthy of being counted as
one of the great triumphal stories of
20th-century world history; that the survival and
perhaps the flourishing of free India counts
legitimately as another. Once this fact is
acknowledged, its political and cultural
consequences, I'm sure Guha will agree, need to
be viewed with suspicion.
Guha begins at the beginning, sketching the
indeterminate setting for the project, with
Nehru's poetic ruminations on India's "tryst with
destiny" on the stroke of midnight. (Has any
modern politician's speech, except Churchill's
wartime orations, had as much currency?) Quickly,
the demons of which the Indian psyche has still
not exorcised itself appear: the irony of a
secular Muslim gentleman, the pork-eating
spoilsport Jinnah, being responsible for creating
Pakistan. Then Partition, the original sin of our
creation-myth, for which blame is apportioned to
a variety of people - Jinnah, the British, Nehru,
Gandhi - but more commonly to the ordinary Muslim
citizen. There's the nightmare of Kashmir, a
continual challenge to the moral high ground that
India, with its public posture of post-colonial
certitude and humanitarian dignity, has tried to
occupy since independence. Guha also brings back
to us, as he must, the border dispute with China,
which led to a small war that India lost, with
deep repercussions for the self-esteem of a
generation of Indians.
And yet, despite Kashmir, and various forms of
governmental wrongdoing and blunders, the Indian
middle class and intelligentsia, unlike their
counterparts in Japan, England or Pakistan, have
never really known what it means to inhabit a
morally uneasy position. There's a mysterious
surplus to being Indian, a feelgood element
comparable only to the sense of self that
Americans possessed until Vietnam. Visitors
wonder at how happy the poor are in India,
putting it down to ancient reserves of
spirituality; equally wondrous is how impervious
the Indian secular middle class is, despite all
sorts of setbacks, to the sense of guilt, of
being morally compromised. This has less to do
with spirituality than with the unassailable
constitutional promise of what it means to be an
Indian. The absence of moral ambiguity means that
there sometimes seems to be very little critical
thinking in India, only one kind of debate, a
nationalism in various forms, repeated
infinitely. With a few exceptions, Indians don't
know how to fashion eloquence out of a sense of
being wrong or having wronged, at least not
without the unmistakable timbre of
self-congratulation.
There are reasons for that tenacious feelgood
experience. Guha delineates them effectively: the
establishment of the machinery and the miracle of
the elections (there's an excellently
orchestrated chapter on how the first one
happened); the creation of provinces along
linguistic lines (which should have led to
conflict) by forgotten historical figures; the
survival of democracy and free speech in spite of
poverty, corruption, sectarian strife, Indira
Gandhi and, more recently, the waning of power at
the centre and the rise of an opportunistic
federalism. Every dubious development has a
positive outcome; it's a story of incorrigible
resilience and charm. The first two-thirds of the
book, where Guha is describing the consolidation
of the shaky state, are, notwithstanding the
deluge of facts, surprisingly absorbing; by
quoting frequently and shrewdly, Guha allows us
to eavesdrop on the multiplicity and richness of
the conversation - between politicians, writers,
civil servants, well-wishers, detractors - within
which change took place.
One thing the book lacks, despite its
comprehensiveness, is a sense of interiority.
It's hardly alone among recent Indian histories
in this regard. Guha's understanding of the
secular basis for Indian democracy is a
constitutional one; that is, the "secular" is a
product, in India, of ideals, laws and
institutions articulated and validated by the
constitution. But the "secular" in India is not
only a political construct; it is a cultural
space. The domain of culture was inhabited and
produced by writers and artists and their
audience from the early 19th century onwards;
it's a domain that comprises the interior life of
Indian secularism. In this sense, independence
and the Nehruvian era that followed are not
really the beginning of a history, but the last
phase in the story of Indian humanism. From the
1980s onwards, the secular middle class and its
culture is completely redefined; the parameters
for a new free-market understanding of
"Indianness" are put in place. As it happens, the
single chapter Guha devotes to culture, or
"entertainment", as he calls it, is the weakest
one in the book, with Wikipedia-like accounts of
cultural achievements; it attempts to place
culture in the constitutional idea of secularism
- as providing instances of pluralism and
fellow-feeling - but doesn't locate the
constitutional in the interior life that culture
represents.
The epilogue, "Why India Survives" (echoing RK
Narayan's unflappable assurance to Naipaul in the
60s: "India will go on"), is a strangely moving
coda, and clarifies the country's peculiar
appeal. At one point, Guha mentions he's
"speaking as a historian rather than as citizen";
but allowing the historian to be in commerce with
citizenship is what provides the book with
impetus, and gives it its most palpable strength.
Guha, as a citizen, has been "exasperated" by
India, but, in the light of historical evidence,
has been won over by it. This mixture of distance
and surrender is fairly emblematic of why many
middle-class Indians continue to invest
themselves, emotionally, in the country; it's
quite distinct from patriotism. To suggest the
ambiguity of his own relationship with the
country of his birth, and also his utter
investment in it, Guha has often in the past used
some oddball Englishman of distinction who's
lived in India or thought about it as a metaphor:
Verrier Elwin, EP Thompson. In his epilogue, Guha
invokes the biologist JBS Haldane, who, moved by
the "wonderful experiment" India had embarked on,
decided to become an "Indian citizen". Guha's
book reminds us that the citizenly pride that
permeates it is not incompatible with judgment,
hindsight, intelligence and distance; that
citizenship is not a natural thing, but that it
is, in some cases, inevitable.
______
[6] ANNOUNCEMENTS
(i)
Dear Friends,
I am attaching below the details of the Youth
Convention being organised on April 22-23, 2007 (
Sunday and Monday) at the ATIRA auditorium, near
Gujarat University, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad.
Activists, civil society members over 25 years of
age can play the role of only listening to the
young voices. I hope you will spare sometime to
come and attend the youth convention.
Sincerely
Shabnam Hashmi
ANHAD
1914 Karanjwala Building
Near Khanpur Darwaza, Khanpur
Ahmedabad- 380001
Telephone- 25500844
April 20. 2007
Youth Convention SCHEDULE
April 22-23, 2007
ATIRA auditorium, Near Gujarat University, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad
Over 400 young delegates are gathering in
Ahmadabad to discuss issues around democracy,
freedom of expression, economy, unemployment,
education, governance, law and order, status of
the marginalized section and many other issues
that bother the young minds.
Young delegates all under 25 years of age are
coming from Sabarkantha, Banaskantha, Panchmahal,
Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Modasa, Patan, Mehsana,
Surendranagar, Dangs, Anand, Narmada, Kutch,
Jamnagar and many other
districts. They represent various sections of the
society, some are from the rural background and
some from the urban.
Young delegates will debate and discuss in an
open atmosphere their concerns and aspirations.
They will discuss the impact of 'vibrancy' and
'development' on their lives, on the lives of the
marginalized sections of the society. They will
do a critical analysis of the law and order
situation and the 'good governance'.
The two-day reflection by the young people on a
vast number of issues will result in a
resolution, which will be adopted by the Youth
Convention and an action plan for the future.
Along with these discussions and open sessions
there will be a number of documentaries and
feature films that will be screened. Vidya Shah a
well known singer from Delhi will sing Sufi and
Bhakti songs on the 22nd evening.
A poster exhibition made by school and college
children along with the Anhad exhibition: In
Defense of Democracy will be displayed at the
venue. Anhad, a voluntary organization, which
works on issues concerning communalism and
democracy, is organizing the Convention.
In each session 5-6 young people under the age of
25 will make presentations, the facilitators
weaving together the presentations will add to
the debate on each topic and then each session
will have open discussion sessions.
This is probably the first time a platform like
this is being provided to young people at a State
level convention where only young people under
the age of 25 years are allowed to speak. Young
scholars most under 35 are will be facilitating
the sessions.
Two young activists, Manan Trivedi and Shruti
Upadhyaya will coordinate the whole convention.
Nimisha Shivpuria, Ayesha Khan, Prakash Parmar,
Kabir Thakore, Avinash Kumar, Sanjay Bhave,
Mahesh Pandya, Nayan Patel and Jhanvi Andaria
will facilitate different sessions.
Mallika Sarabhai, well known artist, actor and a
symbol of resistance in Gujarat, will inaugurate
the Youth Convention.
---------------------------------------------------------
YOUTH CONVENTION SCHEDULE
9.00-9.30- INAUGURATION by Mallika Sarabhai
SESSION I
9.30-10.30
STATUS OF WOMEN IN GUJARAT - Facilitated by Nimisha Shivpuria
SESSION II
10.30- 11.30
Screening of Documentary : Xeno- 8 minutes
STATUS OF MINORITIES IN GUJARAT- Facilitated by Ayesha Khan
11.30- 12.00- TEA BREAK
SESSION III
12.00-1.30
STATUS OF TRIBALS AND DALITS IN GUJARAT - Facilitated by Prakash Parmar
1.30- 2.15 - LUNCH BREAK
SESSION IV
2.15-3.30
Screening of Documentary Film: Khadda- 9 minutes
STATE OF ECONOMY AND GOVERNANCE - Facilitated by Avinash Kumar
SESSION V
3.30-4.30
STATE OF EDUCATION- Facilitated by Sanjay Bhave
4.30-5.00- TEA BREAK
5.00-7.00- FILM Lage Raho Munna Bhai
7.00-8.00- DINNER
8.00-9.00- VIDYA SHAH SINGS SUFI BHAKTI MUSIC
DAY II
8.30-9.30- BREAKFAST
9.30-11.00- SESSION VI
Screening of Documentary: Words in Stone- 20 minutes
SYNCRETIC TRADITION, ASSAULT ON CULTURAL HERITAGE- Facilitated by Kabir Thakore
11.00-11.30- TEA BREAK
11.30-1.30- SESSION VII
Screening of Documentary: Safdar- 30 minutes
YOUTH , DEMOCRACY AND POLITICS - Facilitated by Mahesh Pandya
1.30-2.30- LUNCH
2.30-4.30- SESSION VIII
YOUTH AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY- Nayan Patel and Jhanvi Andharia
4.30-5.00- tea break
5.00-7.30- Film followed by discussion
_____
(ii)
www.asiansinmedia.org/
20th April, 2007
PAKISTAN - BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
A special Dispatches programme on Channel 4 next
week will "take stock of the nation" 60 years
after its independence and examine whether the
'war on terror' is driving the country to
meltdown or helping it on a path to recovery.
Presented by the writer and broadcaster Ziauddin
Sardar, the hour-long programme will explore how
Pakistan has become engulfed in a bitter conflict
between the two dominant forces in the country:
the military and the mullahs. He told AIM
magazine that he was "shocked" by the
militarisation of the country but expressed hope
for the future.
The first overwhelmingly Muslim country to
develop nuclear weapons, Pakistan has been ruled
by the military for two-thirds of its existence.
In recent times it has become a become a key
player in America's 'war on terror'.
The military and religious forces co-existed and
even cooperated in the past especially during the
Afghan war against the Soviet Union. But
President Musharraf's political alliances have
drawn violent dissent from its powerful religious
clerics.
With elections looming and the General's position
at its most precarious, Dispatches will examine
whether the nation is likely to become further
destabilised - the consequences of which could
reverberate across the world.
"I think it is necessary to take the stock of the
nation after 60 years of independence. I went to
Pakistan with a totally open mind; and was
shocked at what I discovered. I did not expect
the Jihadis to have taken over large parts of the
country," Ziauddin Sardar told AIM magazine.
For the documentary he examines the impact of
General Musharraf's political decisions and how
it has ignited an internal feud threatening to
tear the country apart.
His journey begins at the notorious North West
Frontier Province (NWFP), near the Afghanistan
border, a no-go area for journalists and a haven
for the jihadi groups. He discovers that the
Pakistani military have suffered major casualties
in the region and have had to allow Islamic
hardliners known as the "Pakistani Taliban" to
control and run this turbulent province.
The problem for Pakistan, he said, was "a deeply
entrenched military that now controls almost
every aspect of Pakistan's political and economic
life".
He added: "And the Mullahs, who are hell bent on
imposing their own pathological brand of Islam on
everyone. Pakistan's future depends on containing
these two, undemocratic, militant forces."
For the documentary Sardar travels across the
country to show how this conflict is unfolding on
the streets of Pakistan.
In the month Sardar he was in the country, there
were five suicide attacks. 15 people died, 25
were injured and 12 people arrested as suspected
suicide bombers. He is seen accompanying the
anti-terror police as they embark on a raid to
arrest suspect terrorists.
He speaks to those accused and tries to gain an
understanding of their mindset. He visits a
renowned madrassah, reputed to have taught most
of the Taliban leadership, and speaks to a cleric
about the role of the mullahs in religious
schools and the intense scrutiny they face.
It is hard to predict which direction the country
will take and how its destiny will be shaped. But
it is more likely that the impact will be felt
across the world.
In the programme Sardar looks at the future for
democracy in Pakistan. He meets secular
politicians from mainstream political parties and
speaks to people who accuse politicians of
corruption.
In which direction did he see the country going
in? Can there be hope? "I think there is always
hope. Most of the people of Pakistan are very
resilient; and it is astonishing how much they
have achieved despite all the odds," he said.
"I was full of hope with the work the Edhi
Foundation does in providing emergency support. I
met numerous young volunteers, some as young as
17, running the switchboards, organising
ambulances and other essential support services."
He added: "I was equally impressed at the work of
Citizen's Foundation, which provides free
schooling for the most deprived. I visited one of
its schools in Karachi's Mosquito Colony and
found the pupils to be articulate, very
intelligent, and full of high aspirations for
Pakistan. When you see such endeavours, hope
emerges almost naturally."
The BBC too is broadcasting a programme later
this year to mark the country's 60 years of
independence.
The Military and the Mullahs will be aired at 8pm
on Monday 23rd April at 8pm on Channel 4
Producer / director: Faris Kermani
Executive producer: Tommy Nagra
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), 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/
SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/
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