SACW | June 21-22, 2007
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Fri Jun 22 09:36:24 CDT 2007
South Asia Citizens Wire | June 21-22, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2422 - Year 9
[1] Bangladesh : Justice Fatigue (Nazli Kibria)
[2] Pakistan: The question of press freedom (Tariq Rahman)
+ Pakistan - Expanding Nuclear Programme
(Report by David Albright and Paul Brannan)
[3] Bhutan/India/Nepal: The Right To Return Home (Pamela Philipose)
[4] India: Behind the Veil of Lies (Ram Puniyani)
[5] The Latest Anti Rushdie Hullabaloo: is yet
another sign of 'You can only write, paint, film
or wear what is acceptable to so called guardians
of religion industry'.
(i) What writers some are saying about Salman Rushdie
(ii) In defence of imagination - Honour reflects
contribution to literature (Jo Glanville)
(iii) Unwarranted fury (Editorial, The Hindu)
[6] India: St Stephen's: Murder In The Cathedral? (Ramachandra Guha)
[7] India: Memorandum to the President re - death
penalty (Nandita Haksar and ND Pancholi)
[8] Afghanistan: The Enemies Of Happiness - A film by Eva Mulvad
[9] Announcements:
(i) One Billion Eyes 2007 - Indian Documentary
Film Festival (Chennai, 15 to 20 August 2007)
(ii) Dhanak monthly Vigil starting (New Delhi, 23rd June 2007)
______
[1]
Progressive Bangladesh
29 May 2007
JUSTICE FATIGUE
by Nazli Kibria
I was speaking with a Bangali friend the other
day, a progressive activist whom I greatly admire
for her energy, optimism and dedication to
helping the poor and disenfranchised. We
exchanged ideas about the recent political dramas
of Bangladesh and I spoke with some despair about
the assassination of my father, wondering if we
would ever see justice. In a rare moment of
pessimism and self-indulgence, my friend
mournfully declared, "Justice fatigue, we all
have justice fatigue for Bangladesh."
The long quest
It was two and a half years ago that my father
Shah AMS Kibria was assassinated in a grenade
attack that killed him and four other persons,
include my cousin Manzur Huda. The official 2005
investigation that was conducted under the
BNP-Jamaat regime was deeply, indeed
embarrassingly flawed, refusing as it did to deal
with such basic questions as the source of the
grenades and the source of the orders to carry
out the attack.
Image
The Last Rites. Photo courtesy of SAMS-Kibria.org
In March of this year, the interim government
officially re-opened the investigation, noting
the emergence of new relevant information. Seeing
it as the first sign of hope after two years of
no progress, our family greeted this development
with relief. And indeed we continue to hope that
there will in fact be a new and thorough
investigation, one that provides real answers and
justice. But we are also discouraged by the fact
that three months later, there has been no
apparent progress.
There are of course many reasons these days, for
those who care about Bangladesh, to feel justice
fatigue. If there has been one consistent theme
in our family's efforts over the past two and a
half years, it is that the climate of impunity in
Bangladesh must be challenged through the legal
system. We want a fair and complete investigation
and a fair and complete trial and a fair and
complete conviction. If this seems like a tall
order in the context of Bangladesh today, we also
know that to accept anything less it to concede
defeat.
Part of the struggle for justice is the struggle
against forgetting, against the short memories of
governments and publics, of acts of injustice.
And so we will not give up on our efforts to seek
justice for the brutal grenade attack of January
27th 2005, in Habiganj, Sylhet.
Blue for Peace
Until recently, my mother conducted silent
protest vigils every Thursday (the day of the
week my father was killed) in various locations
in Dhaka and other parts of Bangladesh, calling
for justice for all victims of political
violence. In a campaign she called Blue for Peace
(Shantir Shopkkhe Nilima), she asked everyone to
wear blue on Thursdays and if possible, to come
and stand with her.
Over the past 2 years, I have often been taken
unawares at the unexpected impacts of her
unassuming campaign. There was the rickshaw
driver in Dhaka last summer who, unaware of my
identity, told me that he always wore blue or
displayed a small blue flag on Thursdays. He
muttered repeatedly: "Bichar chai, amra shobay
bichar chai" - we all want justice.
And then there was the Bangali convenience store
clerk with whom I struck up a casual conversation
during a visit to Chicago. It was Thursday and he
wore blue. Not a coincidence, he told me, but his
own small way of feeling connected, of expressing
solidarity with all those who wanted justice.
Since January, there have been no more Blue for
Peace vigils. They are now prohibited under the
laws banning political activity in Bangladesh. My
mother's application for permission to continue
Blue for Peace was denied.
Yet another reason for justice fatigue. But I
fight it off, knowing that justice fatigue is
part of the problem. It is the inaction produced
by justice fatigue, the retreat into complacency,
that will keep us from moving forward.
______
[2]
Dawn
June 19, 2007
THE QUESTION OF PRESS FREEDOM
by Dr Tariq Rahman
JUNE 11, 2007, was a hot day in Karachi. The air
conditioners did not work and power supply played
hide and seek all the time. It was on such a day
that I found myself standing in an auditorium
filled by more than 100 people and ready to
deliver the Hamza Alavi lecture at the invitation
of Rahat Saeed, the man who has kept the
progressive magazine Irtiqa alive for decades.
Zubeida Mustafa, herself a fearless writer, was
the stage secretary and the famous Ardeshir
Cowasjee presided. The family and friends of
Zamir Niazi had gathered there. And there I was -
a man who was not a journalist and who had not
known Zamir Niazi except through his books and
who could not even pretend to have the kind of
courage which Niazi had - daring to speak about
him.
But I had my reasons. I could see a connection
between journalism and the academia and, further,
between our own freedoms as human beings and the
freedom of the word. Aware that academic
connections might not go down well in a gathering
of brave journalists and members of civil society
who wanted to hear more about what was happening
in Pakistan as they sat dripping in perspiration,
I nevertheless took the risk to speak. Here is
the gist of what I said.
Zamir Niazi is the man who wrote a number of
books in English and Urdu on the freedom of the
press in British India and then in Pakistan
beginning from Zia's military rule years onwards.
The trilogy (The Press in Chain, The Press Under
Siege, The Web of Censorship) is a diary of what
the press has been up against since the early
19th century in South Asia.
Niazi was meticulous in keeping records and he
was brave. Without this he could not have been
the conscience of the press for almost half of
the life of the country. But what is more is that
he was made of heroic stuff. Although under
financial constraints and suffering from ill
health, he actually returned the money that had
been given with the Pride of Performance award
when the government went against the freedom of
the press.
The media constructs our realities which is why
the powerful want to control the media. In our
part of the world it started off as part of a
huge spying network of the king and his
governors. Emperor Akbar (1556-1605) had 'waqai
nigars' and 'waqai navis' who noted the
happenings of the week and sent them to the
emperor through runners ('harkaras'). Then there
were secret intelligence agents, 'khufia navis',
who found out what was happening in the bazaars
and reported this to the king. Questioning or
subversion of power was not part of the project
of these early prototypes of the media.
The media reports on history in the making thus
influencing its course. Academia comments on
concepts and processes which also shape history.
Both are detested by the wielders of power
because they challenge the status quo; they
deconstruct the 'truths' constructed in the
favour of the power-wielders and tend to weaken
the powerful. Under despotic rule, they are
killed, during dictatorships they are jailed; and
in governments swearing by democracy they are
bribed (carrot) and persecuted (stick).
We hear loud talk about the freedom of the media
but Pemra laws swing into action when the
government feels threatened. Channels go off air
and restrictions are imposed. This is because the
reality the press constructs threatens to write
history anew. This is the phenomenon that Zamir
Niazi spent his life to record and condemn.
But how do our freedoms go with these 'western
luxuries' (free press and free universities),
some people may ask. First, because our physical
safety is dependent upon the rule of law and the
notion of the rule of law is protected by the
press. The press not only informs people about
excesses against citizens but tells them what to
do about them. It creates public opinion. More
importantly, it creates and nourishes the notion
that there are rights and that the powerful can
be resisted. This leads to far greater personal
security than is possible in states where the
media is absent or subservient to the
power-wielders.
Second, the press exposes people to ideas of
pluralism, several value systems and various
realities. Our societal norms envisage a certain
code of conduct, a uniformity of sorts with
deviations being the prerogative of the hypocrite
or the powerful. The other contender for
restricting choices is the interpretation of
Islam. The media is a threat to both these forms
of control - tradition and political religion -
and thus the onslaught against it.
Third, the freedom of the media is linked with
what is called a national character. We are not
free to be as we like. There are many forces
acting on us which are creating our beings at all
times. Thus, contrary to the belief that courage
and integrity are personal qualities or choices,
the fact is that they are choices only under
ideal conditions.
Whether they are personal qualities in any
psychological or genetic sense is not for me to
say. However, even if they are intrinsic to some
natures more than to others, it is obvious that
external conditions stifle or nurture them. If a
person is sure that no bodily, psychological or
economic harm will come to him or her for telling
the truth, he or she will be encouraged to be
truthful. If, however, the cost of truth is
great, few people are ready to risk telling it.
Thus, truthful and honest people are not born,
they are created. When the press is no longer
free, citizens are also no longer free to be
honest or truthful, and become dishonest.
Fourth, we think we are free to pursue knowledge
but we are not. Free or almost unrestricted
pursuit of knowledge is a new phenomenon. It is
as old as the rise of the free press and, indeed,
both are inter-related.
In our country, we can test the limits of
academic freedom when there is no scholarly
debate but a lot of mud-slinging against Dr
Ayesha Siddiqa for writing a book giving details
about the military's business. If her data is
wrong the correct data should be given but to
threaten or humiliate her is to curtail academic
freedom in a society which does not have a
research culture anyway.
Lastly, societies with a free press do a number
of things to create conditions for pursuing
pleasure. First, they prevent elites from
becoming too tyrannical. Second, they criticise
rent-seeking economic elites (mostly the same as
the political ones). Thirdly, they provide
alternative voices against the puritanical clergy
or ideologues who condemn all pleasures.
Fourthly, they provide entertainment through
drama, music, discussion, photography, etc.
Fifthly, they give one a sense of participation.
Lastly, they make one feel powerful. We may not
be powerful in the personal sense, but with the
media talking against the powerful, thus
expressing our feelings, we feel we have some
power.
We should not be complacent about these freedoms.
They have come slowly because the British left us
with some sterling ideas: freedom, rule of law,
constitution, democracy. Even military regimes
have not quite done away with this terminology
which creates some space for us. But then, we
should not forget that people have suffered and
paid for these freedoms as the journalists who
are facing the state's power have been doing
since March 9.
Surely some of us have succumbed to pressure or
bribery but then we are only human. Who has put
the pressure? Who has bribed them? The agencies
of the state, of course, who must be condemned
clearly. We must also not forget that as long as
the press is not controlled and owned by media
persons it cannot be really free. Owners have
their money to protect and they are fewer in
number than media men, and are thus more
controllable. We must understand that those in
the media and in the universities stand for the
same ideals of freedom which are currently under
great stress. This is the time to respect the
legacy of Zamir Niazi and to pass it on to the
younger generation.
o o o
PAKISTAN APPEARS TO BE BUILDING A THIRD PLUTONIUM
PRODUCTION REACTOR AT KHUSHAB NUCLEAR SITE
Time for a universal, verified halt to production
of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for
nuclear weapons
by David Albright and Paul Brannan
The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS)
June 21, 2007
Commercial satellite imagery from DigitalGlobe
taken on June 3, 2007 indicates that Pakistan
appears to be building a third plutonium
production reactor at the Khushab nuclear site
On July 24, 2006, ISIS published imagery
revealing the construction of a second heavy
water reactor at Khushab. The second heavy water
reactor, which Pakistan began building between
2000 and 2002, is still under construction in the
June 3, 2007 imagery. When operational, this
reactor could be as large as several hundred
megawatts thermal, notwithstanding claims by
Pakistan of its intended initial power capacity.
The third reactor appears to be a replica of the
second heavy water reactor and is located a few
hundred meters to the north, though construction
is progressing much more quickly than the second.
A GeoEye image of the same area in Khushab taken
in August of 2006 shows only a faint dirt
foundation and no structures (see Figure 2).
Almost all of the third reactor construction
visible in the June 3, 2007 image has taken place
in the last 10 months.
The similarities between the second and third
reactor construction projects indicate that the
power of the third plutonium production reactor
is likely to be similar to that of the second
reactor (see Figures 1, 4, 5 and 6). The first
Khushab reactor went critical in 1998 and looks
significantly different from the second and third
reactors (see Figure 3). The facilities at this
site are not safeguarded by the IAEA and support
Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.
ISIS reported in January 18, 2007 the resumption
of construction of what appears to be a plutonium
separation facility at Chashma, a facility
approximately 80 km west of Khushab. This
reprocessing facility, which would be Pakistan's
second and is also unsafeguarded, is likely
related to the construction of the two additional
reactors at Khushab. When the reactors come on
line, Pakistan's demand for reprocessing capacity
would increase significantly. The expanded
construction at Khushab, and apparent resumption
of activity at the Chashma plutonium separation
plant, all occurring within the last six years,
imply that Pakistan's government has made a
decision to increase significantly its production
of plutonium for nuclear weapons.
Full Text at:
http://www.isis-online.org/publications/pakistan/ThirdKhushabReactor.pdf
______
[3]
Indian Express
June 01, 2007
THE RIGHT TO RETURN HOME
by Pamela Philipose
For over 17 years, the Bhutan refugee crisis has
lingered on. In 1990-91, when 106,000 bonafide
Bhutanese citizens of Nepali extraction, the
Lhotshampas, found themselves rendered stateless
and forced to live in the seven UNHCR-run refugee
camps in southern Nepal, the world chose to
ignore what is one of the largest attempts at
ethnic cleansing in this region. India has
pretended the problem does not exist, but the
untenability of this stand was underlined on
Monday, when Indian security forces had to open
fire to prevent Bhutanese refugees from Nepal
attempting to enter Bhutan. They can only do this
by crossing India.
The process of stripping the Lhotshampas, many of
whom have been living in Bhutan for over two
centuries, of their citizenship rights was
calibrated over a decade. Bhutan has three major
ethnic groups: the Drukpas, the Sharchops and the
Lhotshampas. The Drukpas, although less than a
quarter of the population, have ruled Bhutan
since Ugyen Wanchuk was crowned the 'Druk Gyalpo'
(dragon king) in 1907. The Sharchops are
ethnically related to local hill tribes, while
the Lhotshampas are of Nepali origin.
There is also a religious divide here. The first
two categories are Buddhist, while the
Lhotshampas are largely Hindu. An accurate
estimation of the numbers of these communities is
difficult to get, but a 1980 census put the
Lhotshampas at 53 per cent of the population,
with the Sharchops accounting for 30 per cent and
the ruling Drukpas, 17 per cent. Perhaps it is
their sheer presence that led to the Lhotshampas
being targeted.
First came the Marriage Act of 1980, which
penalised Bhutanese for marrying "non-Bhutanese".
Five years later, a citizenship act stripped many
Lhotshampas of their citizenship rights. In 1989,
the policy of 'One Nation, One People, One
Language, One Dress', came into force. The
Lhotshampas were increasingly subjected to
eviction, and deprived of their assets until many
among them were forced to flee the country.
Today, an estimated one-sixth of Bhutan's
original inhabitants live in refugee camps.
During a visit to Nepal last December, I had an
opportunity to speak to some of them and gained
glimpses into cramped lives denuded of meaning.
Every family is entitled to a hut measuring 14 by
8 feet. Since they are refugees, no one is
entitled to employment. Children are given a
basic education, but have few dreams of the
future. They end up drifting around, much like
their parents. As one man revealed, "Since
refugees cannot work, the able-bodied among us
just hang around cracking our knuckles."
This 17-year impasse remained unbroken. Last
year, the US ambassador to Nepal, James Moriarty,
indicated that America was willing to take 60,000
refugees. But many in the community believe that
such a move will divide them and end forever any
prospect of their repatriation to Bhutan. They
believe that their right of return must be
recognised before they can even consider
resettlement options.
India's studied silence is perplexing. Says Ram
Kumar Shrestha, coordinator of the
Kathmandu-based Friends of Bhutan, "India has the
requisite experience and has played a role in
Bhutan's development. So why has it allowed this
situation to continue? Today, the world looks up
to democratic India. It needs to be more active
on the issue of the Bhutanese refugees, for its
own credibility."
There are other considerations, too. The camps
could become a serious security concern for
India. Apart from this, the current drift means
that India is forced to repulse every attempt by
the refugees to make their way back home, like it
had to do on Monday. This raises the threshold of
anti-India feelings in the region.
Formally, India maintains that this is a matter
for Nepal and Bhutan to sort out, and prefers to
conform to the Treaty of Peace and Friendship
signed with Bhutan in 1949, under which India has
undertaken not to interfere in Bhutan's internal
affairs in return for Bhutan agreeing to remain
guided by India in its foreign policy. But India
may have to revisit this stance given the
untenable situation in the camps and rising
tensions stoked partly by changes within Bhutan.
The latest attempt of Bhutanese refugees to cross
over into Bhutan was provoked by the idea of
participating in a mock election exercise there.
As the refugees have argued, Bhutan's ongoing
exercise in ushering in democracy will make
little sense if one-sixth of its population
remains in the wilderness.
Given its rapport with Bhutan, India holds the
key to resolving one of the most intractable
issues of this region and one that has extracted
a terrible human cost.
______
[4]
Hindustan Times
21 June 2007
BEHIND THE VEIL OF LIES
by Ram Puniyani
Pratibha Patil, the Presidential nominee of UPA,
in her address on the occasion of the birth day
of Maharana Pratap, 17th June 2007, gave a very
laudable advice about abolition of purdah (a veil
which covers the face), with an understanding
that purdah system is keeping the women backward.
At the same time said that this purdah system
came here to protect 'our' girls/women from the
invading Mughals.
This statement of hers is a part of popular
perception and has nothing to do with the truth.
purdah was prevalent much before the Mughals
attacked parts of India. Also it is not prevalent
in all the parts where they ruled. The stories
are prevalent that Mughals were defiling Hindu
women so to protect them the purdah was
introduced. Can this covering of face save one
from the armed soldier or the attacking army? Is
it a mechanism of protection from outsider or did
it serve some other social function?
As such historically in many a societies women
were made to use different types of covering of
head, face and body. Sometimes it was a symbol of
status but most of the times it was a mechanism
of control over the bodies of women in a male
dominated patriarchal society. Even in the Muslim
world, large parts where the process of loosening
up of feudal values has taken place, burqua is no
longer used. Amongst Hindus it is prevalent
mainly in Rajasthan and neighboring states, the
places where the pre modern social values
dominate the social scene.
What role did Mughal invasion play in the
imposition of purdah on women? What has invasion
to do with the purdah? It is true that Mughal
army like most other past and present armies did
atrocities on women. That Mughal armies committed
atrocities is only part of the whole truth. The
whole truth is that most of the armies, most of
the times in the past and present have done and
are doing the same. Cutting across different
religions the marauding armies plundered wealth
and raped women in the territory of 'other' king,
the enemy.
How did this notion of, Mughal are responsible
for our ills, come into being? British Historians
in order to win over the loyalty of the people of
this country had to demonize Muslim kings. They
selectively presented acts of temple destruction,
conversion to Islam, jizia and atrocities on
women as the features of Mughal rule. This
communal historiography on one hand won over
masses of Hindus away from their loyalty to
Muslim Kings and also sowed the seeds of policy
of 'divide and rule' and initiated the 'hate
other' between the two major communities. This
communal historiography was put on its head by
Muslim communal historians. This Muslim communal
historiography in turn formed the base of Muslim
communal politics and the one promoted by British
served well for the goal of Hindu communal
politics.
As such the period of Mughal kings on one side
was a period of battles between the kings, but
not along religious lines. One sees the alliance
of Mansigh, Jaisingh with Akbar and Aurangzeb
respectively. One also knows now that the
administration of Mughal kings had heavy
representation of Hindus, e.g. in the court of
Aurangzeb 33% of his officials were Hindus. Rana
Pratap, on whose anniversary Mrs. Patil was
speaking had a loyal army genenrla with him,
Hakim Khan Sur.
On the other hand it was also a period when the
interaction between two major religious streams
resulted in the mixed culture. This intermixing
in the arena of music, literature, architecture,
food, and clothing led to the advancement of our
culture to higher levels in the subcontinenent.
The highest point of this interaction was in the
arena of religious traditions, where the Bhakti
and Sufi saints presented religion as a moral
force, a spiritual solace to bring the
communities together. They presented the religion
as the uniting force in contrast to the
exclusionism of Olema and Brahmins.
Today extending the logic of communal
historiography the Hindu communal stream has
dumped all the ills of Hindu society on the
Muslim invaders. Be it the caste rigidities, the
purdah system or the female feticide, Muslims are
held responsible for all this. The inner
exclusionism, the hierarchy, the projected
superiority of upper caste to exploit the lower
castes in the name of religion was the root cause
of the ills of Hindu society. Today by holding
Muslims responsible for all these they
successfully externalize the problem, and succeed
in projecting their inner rigidities as the
glorious past. The net result is an attempt to
perpetuate the status quo of caste and gender,
and to create an external enemy for the goal of
political mobilization of a section of Hindus.
One needs to scratch the surface to know the
truth of social phenomenon, something which is
missing in our social discourse, and that's what
forms the base of "Hate other" and the consequent
communal violence.
______
[5] [ The Latest Anti Rushdie Hullabaloo: is
yet another sign of 'You can only write, paint,
film or wear what is acceptable to so called
guardians of religion industry'. Progressives
should speak up before all space is eaten up by
fundamentalist forces]
(i)
http://www.englishpen.org/news/_1632/
WHAT WRITERS ARE SAYING ABOUT SALMAN RUSHDIE
June 21, 2007
The Pakistan National Assembly has called for
Salman Rushdie's knighthood to be revoked. Here,
writers from around the world explain why they
believe Rushdie deserves this honour:
Lisa Appignanesi: 'It is hardly unexpected, yet
nonetheless bizarre, that the Queen's recognition
of Salman Rushdie's achievement by honouring him
with a knighthood should raise such a storm of
controversy. Judged purely in cultural rather
than in political terms, after all, Rushdie is
undeniably amongst the greats of British
literature. He is the Dickens of our times. A
visionary realist, his superbly inventive,
grandly comic stories chart the great social
transitions of our globalising, post-colonial
world, with its migrations, its teeming hybrid
cities, its clash of unlikenesses, its extremes
of love and violence. They do so with a richness
of language and narrative which is unsurpassed.
For Iran's Foreign Ministry to wade into our
honours system and portray the decision to honour
Rushdie as 'an orchestrated act of aggression
directed against Islamic societies' is to repeat
the mistake which began with their Ayatollah
Khomeini's Fatwa. That killing review chose
utterly to misunderstand the place fiction
occupies in the west and subject it to a
fundamentalist jurisdiction which essentially
recognizes only one book, and that one holy. The
journalists, writers and academics who languish
in Iran's prisons are a mark of that regime's
intolerance of any form of dissent. This is
hardly the Islam that most Muslims in Britain
would wish to support.'
Linda Grant: 'We honour Salman Rushdie for his
huge gifts as a writer. Writing gives offence,
that is part of its role. I am enraged by the
campaign to threaten Britain for honouring one of
its greatest writers.'
Hari Kunzru: 'Salman Rushdie's knighthood is a
recognition by Britain of his importance to the
global cultural scene, and the pathways he has
opened, not just for English literature, but the
English language. The idea that it is some kind
of calculated insult is an absurdity. The real
insult - to the intelligence and decency of "the
world's 1.5 billion muslims", for whom people
such as Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, religious affairs
minister of Pakistan, presume to speak - comes
from the ignorance and paranoia of leaders who
feel so threatened by a novelist that they'll
call for him to be killed.'
David Mitchell: 'Salman Rushdie is a major figure
in English literature, and deserves not only this
honour, but also the support of anyone who
believes in the freedoms of speech, religion and
thought.'
Kathy Lette: 'On Saturday Salman Rushdie was
awarded a knighthood. Being Australian, of
course, I'm slightly allergic to royal anointing
of any kind. (Although one reason to accept a
Knighthood would be the fun it would give you
being able to describe all future casual romantic
liaisons as 'a one knight stand.') But I am
definitely in favour of celebrating the
achievements of writers. And I'm particularly in
favour of celebrating the achievements of Salman
Rushdie, who deserves to win every accolade
imaginable for his creative gifts, but also for
his immense bravery.'
o o o
(ii)
http://www.indexonline.org/
BRITAIN: IN DEFENCE OF IMAGINATION
Honour reflects contribution to literature by Jo Glanville
Muslim leaders' complaints should not obscure
Salman Rushdie's true status as a great writer
and chronicler of the modern world, says Jo
Glanville
The response to Salman Rushdie's knighthood has
been predictable, as Muslim leaders and
politicians compete with each other to register
their outrage - if Rushdie gets an honour, it
must be an affront to Islam.
Let's get one thing straight. This is not about
Islam - it's a recognition of the achievements of
one of Britain's finest writers, a writer who led
a solitary, persecuted life for many years
because of death threats against him. No novelist
sets out on their career aiming for a knighthood.
It is in fact ironic that Rushdie - an iconoclast
and outsider as most artists are - should be
embraced by the establishment. But Rushdie is one
of the greatest and most influential contemporary
writers working today. The Satanic Verses is just
one of his novels (and perhaps not even his
finest) - Rushdie's more striking achievement is
to have created an original, post-colonial
narrative in which East and West meet - an
imaginative interpretation of the modern world we
live in, shaped by migration. It is an
interpretation that defies the boundaries of
religion and culture - and it is the kind of
artistic vision that can make sense of the world
and promote understanding across the divide. The
forces that decry and denounce Rushdie are in
fact driving a wedge between East and West,
between Muslim and non-Muslim, and between the
literal and the imagination. They do more harm to
Islam and Muslim culture than Rushdie ever has.
Yet somehow it has become a badge of credibility
among certain Muslim leaders, politicians and
organisations - whether Lord Ahmed or the Muslim
Council of Britain or Mohammed Ijaz ul Haq,
Pakistan's religious affairs minister - to be the
one who shouts the loudest whenever there's a
perceived slight to Islam. The spectacle of this
self-regarding outrage has become wearingly
familiar as Islam's self-appointed defenders seek
to silence and intimidate critical or challenging
voices. Rushdie, through no desire of his own,
has been elevated beyond his literary output to
become a symbol. He is, first and foremost, a
novelist and it's clearly important to reiterate
that no art can flourish without the licence of
free expression.
This level of intimidation against writers and
intellectuals who wish to explore, criticise or
pass comment on Islam is anathema to free speech.
As a knee-jerk response which seeks nothing but
political gain it only brings discredit to its
advocates.
20.06.2007
o o o
(iii)
The Hindu
Jun 21, 2007
Editorial
UNWARRANTED FURY
There is an air of unreality about the protests
that have consumed some countries against
Britain's decision to confer a knighthood on
Salman Rushdie. In countries such as Pakistan and
Iran, the matter has gone beyond street-level
demonstrations and assumed the dimensions of a
full-fledged diplomatic row. Iran's foreign
ministry, which described the decision to knight
Rushdie as "insulting, suspicious and improper",
summoned the British envoy in Teh eran to condemn
the "provocative" act. Pakistan has gone even
further with the country's National Assembly
demanding that Britain "take back the title of
Sir given to Rushdie." To top this, in an
outrageous reaction, Pakistan's Religious Affairs
Minister Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq said that honouring
Rushdie would justify suicide attacks. Later, in
an unconvincing clarification, he suggested what
he really meant was that honouring Rushdie -
whose 1988 novel The Satanic Verses had angered
Muslims around the world - will give suicide
bombers a handle to justify their acts. As one
might expect in this over-heated atmosphere,
extremists and religious fundamentalists have
rushed in to fan the flames. In Iran, a
self-styled NGO has raised the $100,000 bounty
the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had offered
for Rushdie's head by an additional $ 50,000;
back home, in Kashmir, sundry organisations have
called for strikes and State-wide agitations.
It is apparent that extremist forces in different
parts of the Muslim world are striving hard to
rekindle the frenzy that followed the publication
of The Satanic Verses. This novel is but one of
nine written by the Booker Prize winn er, who has
also published four works of non-fiction. To
suggest that the knighthood has been conferred
for one 'anti-Islamic' novel is to be blinkered
and to close one's eyes to the entire body of his
work - in terms of political substance as well as
literary quality. There has been a considerable
amount of speculation about why the Tony Blair
government conferred a knighthood on Rushdie. As
atonement for the unhelpful official attitude
during the writer's days of suffering following
Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa? A reward for the
positions he adopted on Anglo-American foreign
policy issues post-9/11? Whatever the truth, it
is ludicrous to suggest - as those hell-bent on
creating a furore have - that knighting Rushdie
was an Islamophobic act, calculated to denigrate
the religion and those who follow it. The British
honours system, even as it symbolises state
recognition of a person's contribution, is a
relic from a feudal and colonial past. A system
with knights, dames, and other archaic
decorations deserves to evoke nothing more than a
wry smile. It is not worthy of such bitterness
and fury.
______
[6]
Outlook
June 25, 2007
ST STEPHEN'S: MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL?
Narrow religiosity is contorting the grand ethos of a capital college ......
Ramachandra Guha
Somewhere in India, there is a virtual graveyard
of once great educational institutions destroyed
by the petty vanities of men. The corpses it
contains come from all over the country, and bear
identities that are secular as well as
denominational. Among the residents of this
kabristan are the Isabella Thoburn College,
Lucknow; Elphinstone College, Mumbai; Queen
Mary's College, Chennai; Presidency College,
Calcutta; Patna College; the Aligarh Muslim
University; and the Banaras Hindu University.
This is St Stephen's College, Delhi. That
the applicant has been ailing has been known for
some time. Hope lingered that its illness might
be reversed. However, news has just come in that
the college authorities plan to inject a poison
that would, in effect, kill off the patient.
When that happens, the corpse would command the
largest tombstone in what is already a
well-populated graveyard.
St Stephen's College was founded in 1881 by a
band of priests from Cambridge. For the first few
decades of its existence, it was not much more
than a mofussil college. Then, in 1911, the
British decided to shift the capital of India to
Delhi. Now the influence of the college grew, and
grew. In the years after Independence, it came to
be primus inter pares among the colleges of the
University of Delhi, itself India's first truly
national university.
I speak as a Stephanian, but even the
unprejudiced historian can make the case that
this college has contributed as much as any other
to the making of independent India. From its
ranks have come many of our finest public
servants, academics, writers and artists. From a
list that can run into the hundreds, a few
contemporary names must suffice: Shiv Shankar
Menon, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Barkha Dutt,
Kaushik Basu, Ketan Mehta, I. Allan Sealy and
Amitav Ghosh.
There remains the feeling that this is an elitist
college. The impression persists because St
Stephen's has also produced hundreds of snobs and
bores, who flaunt the fact that they once studied
there. However, the tag of elitism can be
repudiated by the names of the remarkable social
workers who have passed through the college.
Among the Stephanians who have lived their lives
for and with the poor of India are (the late)
Jugnu Ramaswamy, Mihir Shah, Rukmini (Rinki)
Banerji and Sanjit (Bunker) Roy.
We know what these Stephanians have given the
nation, but what did St Stephen's give them?
Khushwant Singh, who studied in the college in
the 1930s, says he learnt there that "parts of
the Bible were great literature". He adds that
"another thing that St Stephen's gave me was a
consciousness of what is right and what is
wrong". This didn't "come through sermons on
morality, it was there in the atmosphere that
pervaded the campus: you imbibed it, like
inhaling fresh air".
When I studied in St Stephen's 40 years later,
the air one inhaled was still fresh. The nicest
thing about the college was that family
background did not matter a whit. Here your
father's profession or income was completely
irrelevant; so also was your religion or mother
tongue. What counted was how good you were at
what counted: whether bowling a leg-break,
delivering a speech, playing the guitar or
mimicking a film star. Since these virtues spread
themselves out over the population, and since
each had its own special constituency, there were
few Stephanians who felt left out.
An attractive feature of St Stephen's was that it
was genuinely all-Indian. It had large
contingents from Bihar and Rajasthan, who
unselfconsciously spoke Hindi among themselves
and to the rest of us. There were many students
from the Northeast, and numerous South Indians.
The staff was similarly diverse: my own teachers
included a Bengali, a Tamil, a Haryanvi Jat and a
Delhi Kayastha. I studied economics; meanwhile,
the history department was run by three stalwarts
named Mohammad Amin, David Baker and Prem Sagar
Dwivedi. This capacious catholicism marked out
the college from its rivals: after all,
Presidency College in Calcutta was basically for
Bengalis, the Madras Christian College basically
for Madrasis and, at a pinch, Malayalis.
This was, in theory, a Christian institution, but
in practice its Christianity was understated. The
two men who made St Stephen's what it was were
the first Indian principal, S.K. Rudra, and his
English associate, C.F. Andrews. Both were close
friends of Mahatma Gandhi. Their tolerant and
broad-minded version of Christianity seemed to
blur into the benign Hindu traditions of bhakti.
Love, service, charity, understanding-- these
were the guiding principles of the faith of the
two, and of the men who followed them.
Stephanian Christianity, if such a term can be
coined, was a moral universe in which the
specificities of one particular religion were
rendered irrelevant. As with Gandhi's own
ecumenical philosophy, this was a creed that,
among its very many diverse followers, attracted
an entirely voluntary adherence.
Faith and ethnic origin were irrelevant to being
a Stephanian. That was its peculiar charm, and
also its greatest asset. The 'morality' that
Khushwant Singh and others imbibed at St
Stephen's taught them to treat every human being
as unique, as an individual to be dealt with on
his or her terms. This, in a country so divided
by the politics of identity, was hard to preach
and harder to practise. That a measure of success
was achieved is tribute to the visionaries who
nurtured the college.
For most of its history, the governing ethos of
St Stephen's was liberal, plural, cosmopolitan--
in a word, Indian. However, in the early 1990s,
the Supreme Court permitted 'minority'
institutions to allot up to 50 per cent of their
seats on the basis of faith. Immediately, the
pressure grew on St Stephen's to increase the
number of Christian students. Slowly, the
Christian intake began to grow.
Although the college keeps these figures secret,
it is estimated that at present some 25 per cent
of the student body is Christian. These students
enter the college with a poorer school-leaving
record than their peers. (The gap varies from
course to course?it is higher in prized subjects
like economics, and lower in subjects with fewer
takers, such as chemistry.) Last week, it was
announced that the creeping Christianisation of
St Stephen's will be made a galloping one. Forty
per cent of all seats are to be reserved for
Christians; another 20 per cent for other special
categories, such as sportsmen, the handicapped,
and Scheduled Castes. To this shall be added the
seats in the gift of the principal, ranking
members of the Church, and (this being Delhi)
senior bureaucrats and ministers. If the proposal
goes through, three seats out of four will be
filled on strictly 'non-academic' grounds.
The principal reason behind this move is the
defeat of Christian ecumenism by Christian
evangelism. Those who run the Church of North
India today are far removed from the faith of the
founders of St Stephen's. These new Christians
seek not understanding and truth, but political
mileage and economic gain. In the real sense of
the word, they aren't 'Christian' at all-- in the
same way as Narendra Modi is not 'Hindu' and
Osama bin Laden not 'Muslim'. St Stephen's has
stood for a catholic and truly Indian
Christianity. Now, the college is in danger of
being captured by a group of Christians who are
insular and narrow-minded.
These power-brokers seek to usurp a highly valued
brand, a brand deepened and developed by other
people using altogether different (and more
noble) methods. Once the student body has been
made the property of a particular religion,
pressures to remake the faculty in the same image
will follow. At risk then would be St Stephen's
reputation for intellectual excellence as well as
its cosmopolitan character. Mediocrity and its
even uglier cousin, parochialism, will rule.
It is important to note here that while St
Stephen's was founded by Christians, it is funded
by the state. According to the Union ministry of
education, fully 95 per cent of the expenses of
the college are met by the University Grants
Commission. Why should a college that draws so
heavily on the public exchequer be allowed to
choose 40 per cent of its students from 2 per
cent of the country's population? The new
policies are claimed by their proponents to be
'legal', but they are surely unethical. They are
also profoundly unhistorical, based on a wilful
ignorance of the traditions and legacy of St
Stephen's College.
Great institutions are difficult to conceive of
and even more difficult to build. But they are
comparatively easy to destroy. The affection and
admiration that St Stephen's now commands is the
product of decades of patient, selfless work by
hundreds of teachers and students: Christian and
non-Christian, rich, poor and middle class, North
Indian and South Indian and East Indian. And yet,
the cumulative labours of these very many people
over very many years can be undone by the
shortsightedness of a few men, and within a
day--that is, in the time it takes to formulate a
new admission policy and get it passed. If its
present administrators have their way, St
Stephen's will soon become a corrupt Christian
version of a Hindu shakha or a Muslim madrassa.
(Ramachandra Guha is the author of India After
Gandhi. He was a student at St Stephen's from
1974 to 1979.)
______
[7]
Dear friend,
Nirmala Deshpande, Nandita Haksar and the under
signed (ND Pancholi) met President Kalam
on Monday the 18th June,07 and urged upon him
to accept the clemency petitions of all the
prisoners on death row before he vacates his
office.President listened and said that the issue
of death penalty has not been properly studied.
He stressed for the need of a national debate on
death penalty. The following representation in
this connection was also submitted to him.
He assured that he would consider it.
REPRESENTATION TO THE PRESIDENT : -
163 Vasant Enclave
New Delhi-110 057
# 011 26152680
June 18, 2007
His Excellency President of India
Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
Rashtrapati Bhawan
New Delhi-110011
Your Excellency,
Re: Memorandum on question of death penalty
We are writing to you in our capacity as human
rights lawyers and as citizens of our country. We
would like to say that we, along with hundreds
and thousands of fellow citizens regret deeply
that you will soon no longer be our President. We
believe that you have endeared yourself to lakhs
of Indian citizens because somehow you were able
to bridge the gap between Rashtrapati Bhawan and
the ordinary citizen. We had begun to feel we
could reach you, our President, personally, and
somehow you would hear our grievances.
We belong to the human rights community and we
were very excited and inspired when you took a
public stand against death penalty. As lawyers
who have been dealing with people in jails for
more than three decades we feel a special concern
for those locked behind high walls and who have
no way to being heard.
India has committed itself to abolishing the
death penalty in accordance with her obligations
under international human rights law. We have
reached a point in history when death penalty has
been abolished even in cases of genocide and
crimes against humanity. As you know that the
Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals had provision for
death penalty but the International Criminal
Court (1998) and the International Criminal
tribunal for Rwanda and Former Yugoslavia (1993)
do not provide for capital punishment. As human
rights lawyers and activists we long for the day
when India will abolish this brutal, cruel and
barbaric practice.
In a situation where there is provision for death
penalty principles of natural justice require
that the courts should apply the highest
standards of impartiality, competence and
objectivity and independence when sentencing
anyone to death. However, in our country’s
experience also we have seen that the “rarest of
rare” doctrine has not led to fewer death
sentences, in fact through the years the number
of laws which provide for death penalty has
increased and the sentencing shows that the
standard is arbitrary and flexible.
Your Excellency, you have yourself observed that
a disproportionate number of poor and uneducated
get the death sentence. And today more than 90
per cent of the cases pending before you from
Bihar, Jharkhand and Kashmir are people who are
poor and who have not been able to defend
themselves because they could not afford to
engage a competent lawyer.
Your Excellency, as human rights lawyers we see
gross violation of human rights every day. But we
continue to struggle because despite all the odds
there is still democratic space within which
people like us can fight for the rights of poor
and oppressed. But when we see people who are
condemned to death without a fair trial, or no
trial at all we feel both outraged and absolutely
helpless. It is this outrage and feeling of
helplessness that has prompted to write to you.
We realize the fight to abolish death penalty is
not easy. However, the fact that you have taken a
public stand on the issue has kindled a new hope
not only in the hearts of the human rights
community but those waiting in death row, their
families and friends.
Your Excellency, we have published Muhammad Afzal
Guru’s petition to you. We have done this so that
the facts of his trial are put in the public
domain. We are a enclosing a copy of the book,
entitled, The Afzal Petition: A Quest for
Justice. We are also enclosing Nandita Haksar’s
book, Framing Geelani, Hanging Afzal: Patriotism
in Time of Terror. The book motivated many people
of South Asian origin to join the campaign to
save Afzal Guru from the gallows.
Your Excellency, we do not know for certain what
stand the Government of India has taken with
regard to Afzal Guru or the other unfortunate
poor people in death row in Bihar and Jharkhand.
But we fear that the Government would have
advised that they all be hanged. Our conscience
is outraged by the fact that more than a million
farmers have committed suicide even as those
fighting for the right to minimum wages are
being condemned to death in democratic India .
The decision in the Parliament attack case has
sent shock waves throughout the world. Already 28
British MPs have signed an Early Day Motion
asking that Afzal be pardoned because the verdict
lacked legitimacy. They have been shocked that
the Supreme Court could have sentenced a man to
death on the grounds that it would satisfy the
collective conscience of our society.
Your Excellency, we ardently appeal to you to
exercise your prerogative powers under the
Proviso to Article 74 of the Indian Constitution
and ask the Government to reconsider their
decision. We ask this of you on behalf of all
those millions of Indian citizens who believe in
the values and cherish the noble ideals of India
’s epic struggle against British colonial rule.
We believe that the abolishment of the death
penalty on the 150th anniversary of India ’s
First War of Independence would be a wonderful
way to remember the martyrs and celebrate Indian
democracy’s ability to survive and grow deeper
even in the midst of the most difficult of times.
Please accept our best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Nandita Haksar N D Pancholi
______
[8]
THE ENEMIES OF HAPPINESS
A film by Eva Mulvad
This film is about personal courage - courage to
change the world and the courage to stand in the
forefront of this battle.
Malalai Joya is a 28 year-old woman from
Afghanistan. This film follows her parliamentary
campaign to her election as a delegate in Wolesi
Jirga, or National Assembly. It is the first
democratic parliament election in Afghanistan in
over 30 years. Surrounded by security, Malalai
Joya spreads her political beliefs despite
several death threats. There have been 4 attempts
against her life.
Malalai Joya is famous and infamous. It all began
in 2003, when the Afghanistan politicians met to
lay the foundation for a democracy in "new"
Afghanistan. At this meeting, Malalai Joya
challenged former Mujahidin leaders (Warlords),
who according to her, attempt to maintain power
through the new system. "Many of you here in this
hall have blood on your hands and you should be
tried in the world court." Her comments ignited
outrage among the hard-liners who demanded that
she be immediately removed from the sessions.
It is her courage and conviction which has made
her into a folk hero. But since that fateful day,
her life has been in danger. She has been
threatened by the very same warlords she
challenges. Her campaign becomes a
life-threatening project. She is forced to live
in hiding and when she is in public, she must be
protected by armed guards.
In the Desert
Malalai Joya conducts her parliamentary campaign
in the remote desert province of Farah, the heart
of poverty in Afghanistan. To be a politician
means that one's office must function as a social
security office and even a hospital. She is the
advocate of her people. They come to her with an
assortment of problems. Women who wear black
crowd the corriders. The dust settles heavily in
the sunlight. It is here where she negotiates
with clan leaders and opium kings. Adolescent
girls cry because they must marry with the old
men.
This film gives a unique insight into the
conditions the people of Afghanistan must live.
It is a society destroyed by war and run by a
tradition. But despite this, there is also a
strong longing to change. But how can democracy
be implemented in a land where the people are
illiterate? In a land where votes can be bought
and where women do not have the luxury to leave
their children so that they can vote? It is a
film that reminds us that democracy can not be
implemented merely by the presence of western
diplomats and soldiers.
Front Figure
Malalai Joya is no diplomat. She is a
controversial front figure for a people who have
been promised peace and prosperity, but who
continue to dogged by war and poverty. Her
uncompromising stance creates hope among a people
who demand amends from history's greatest
perpertrators.
But even heroes have their critics: there are
those who accuse her for creating even more
discord in a land that is already rife with
conflict.
The Enemy of Happiness follows a radical freedom
fighter and a land that is changing. But more
importantly it is a film on personal courage and
the belief that the ordinary person not only can,
but will make a difference.
Contact:
BASTARD FILM A/S
Øster Farimagsgade 16B
2100 KBH Ø
+45 35 25 00 25
Press Contact
Josephine Michau
Mail: josephine [at] bastardfilm [dot] dk
World Sales
www.tv2world.dk
US distributor
www.wmm.com
Distribution
www.dfi.dk
______
[9] ANNOUNCEMENTS:
(i)
One Billion Eyes 2007
Indian Documentary Film Festival
The Prakriti Foundation, Chennai
Caste
One Billion Eyes, the annual Indian documentary
film festival organised by the Prakriti
Foundation, Chennai, is in its third year. This
year's theme is Caste. The theme for 2005 was
'Arts, Activism, Animals', and for 2006 it was
'Our Cities: the Real and the Imagined'.
In India, caste consumes everyone. From the
brahmin priests of the Chidambaram temple who
continue to practice child marriage, to McDonalds
substituting panneer for beef in their Indian
burgers, to the dalits of Khairlanje who get
lynched for asserting their humanity. But such
has been the conditioning of mainstream,
contemporary, urban sensibilities that to talk
caste has meant to talk of reservation, dalits,
OBCs, government/sarkari brahmins, atrocities
against dalits, Mandal, Mayawati, gurjjars,
meritocracy, state policy. Suddenly, it appears
that caste is not a system of domination,
discrimination and exploitation, but just a
classificatory category. It appears as if
brahmins, kayasths, banias and other privileged
castes do not have anything to do with caste. It
appears that matrimonial advertisements that
demand a 'wheatish complexion Iyer Vadama
non-Koundinya gotra 25-28 girl' for a
caste-compatible IIT-IIM-educated brahmin based
in Connecticut, or ads that explicitly seek to
rent houses 'only for vegetarians' do not encode
caste. In fact, the anti-reservation brigade
recently managed to project itself in the media
as anti-caste. Does the world of documentary
films in India exhibit similar anxieties and
stereotypes? While so many films get made about
dalits and around dalit themes, do dalits get to
make their/our films? What is the existing filmic
discourse on caste? Have makers of short films
sought to rethink caste?
This festival-juxtaposing screenings with
literary readings, panel discussions and
interventions from the audience-will seek to
broaden the contours of the discourse on caste.
Besides filmmakers and their films, it will
feature poets, activists, students, victims,
agent provocateurs, academicians, and of course a
panel of judicious and judgmental but jolly
judges who will decide on the best film for a
prize of Rs 25,000.
We hope to have a wide range of caste subjects to
choose from for this festival. And if this note
makes you think afresh on caste, there's time to
make a quick short and submit it by 15 July.
Broad areas/themes where submissions are
encouraged vis-à-vis caste are:
Advertisements, Apartheid, Atrocities, Arts,
Bureaucracy, Class, Communalism, Cinema, Culture,
Education, Environment, Fashion, Food, Gender,
Geography, Healthcare, Labour, Media,
Nationalism, Natural Disasters, Occupation, Race,
Religion, Reservation, Science & Technology,
Sports, Touchability, Untouchability, Violence,
Xenophobia.
The entry form is available on our website
<http://www.abillioneyes.in/>www.abillioneyes.in
Key Dates:
Last date for entries: 15 July 2007.
Festival dates: 15 to 20 August 2007.
Selected list of films and detailed programme
list will be circulated by 25 July.
Preferred entry format: DVDs/ VCDs
For further details contact
<mailto:abillioneyes at gmail.com>abillioneyes at gmail.com
or
<mailto:anand.navayana at gmail.com>anand.navayana at gmail.com
o o o
(ii)
Dear All,
We at Dhanak are working towards building a
culture of peace and harmony to counter the
culture of fear and violence in the name of
religion and caste.
Dhanak is organizing its first monthly Vigil on
the 23rd June 2007 to reach out to the masses and
to showcase the strength of people who believe
Dhanak’s ideology of coexistence, universal peace
& harmony. Such vigils will be organized on the
3rd Saturday of each month. The dates for the
vigil are 23rd June, 21st July, 18th August, 15th
September, and 20th October. November is proposed
for a National Level Solidarity Meet.
The duration of each vigil will be of 1 hour
only. Plays/theatre, songs, paintings, photo
exhibition, poem recitation, discussions,
distribution of hand bills etc. will be part of
the vigils. Media will be informed through press
releases and personal contacts.
Details about the 1st Vigil:
Venue : Indraprastha or Millennium Park.
(Adjacent to Sarai Kale Khan Bus Terminal, on outer ring
road)
Date : 23rd June’ 2007
Time : 7 to 8 p.m.
Assembly point : In front of Gate No. – 3
Please follow the following route:
While coming from Ashram or Maharani Bagh: Sarai
Kale Khan bus terminal will come on your left
side. The park starts immediately after the bus
terminal on the same side.
If you are coming from ITO or Pragati Maidan: The
park will come on your right side. Take a 'U'
turn from Sarai Kale Khan Bus terminal to find
the park entrance.
Note: There are 3 entrance gates to the park
opening to the ring road. The gates are in series
starting from gate no. 1. Gate no.3 is the last
gate. Parking is available at all 3 gates.
We invite you to join the vigil with your friends or acquaintances.
With best wishes,
Asif (09868563055)
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
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Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
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