SACW | July 08-11, 2007

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | July 08-11, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2430 - Year 9

[1] Pakistan:
   (i) Preventing More Lal Masjids (Pervez Hoodbhoy)
   (ii) Lal Masjid not the only threat (M B Naqvi)
  (iii) Editorial: What next after Lal Masjid? (Daily Times)
  (iv) The story of Dodoland (Khalid Hasan)
[2] No fondness for the Pentagon's politics (Salman Rushdie)
[3] India: Gandhi's Letter - A whole history of 
the making of Gandhi-in-India awaits retrieval 
(Shahid Amin)
[4] Kashmir:
     (i) Resorving Siachen: Not skating on thin ice (AG Noorani)
    (ii) Division of J&K will harm all communities (Balraj Puri)
[5] India: Unsafe Others (Editorial, The Telegraph)
[6] India: Barbarian Face (Editorial, The Times of India)
[7] India: Supreme Court Dismisses Case Against 
NBA On Foreign Funding, Violence, Sedition Charges
[8] India - Gujarat:  Save Autonomy of University Education ()
[9] India:  Statement of Facts by Shabnam Hashmi 
re Sangh attack in Ahmedabad on July 6, 2007
[10] Publication of Note:
Education and Social Change in South Asia by 
Krishna Kumar and Joachim Oesterheld (eds)



______


(i)

PREVENTING MORE LAL MASJIDS
by Pervez Hoodbhoy

Many well-known Pakistani political commentators 
seem bent upon trivializing Lal Masjid. Although 
the mosque's bloody siege has now entered into 
its fifth day, for them the comic sight of the 
bearded Maulana Abdul Aziz fleeing in a burqa is 
proof that this episode was mere puppet theatre. 
They say it was enacted by hidden hands within 
the government, expressly created to distract 
attention away from General Musharraf's mounting 
problems, as well as to prove to his supporters 
in Washington that he remains the last bulwark 
against Islamic extremism. The writers conclude 
that this is a contrived problem, not a real one. 
They are dead wrong.  Lal Masjid underscores the 
danger of runaway religious radicalism in 
Pakistan.  It calls for urgent and wide-ranging 
action.

That the crisis could have been averted is beyond 
doubt. The Lal Masjid militants were given a free 
hand by the government to kidnap and intimidate. 
For months, under the nose of Pakistan's 
super-vigilant intelligence agencies, large 
quantities of arms and fuel were smuggled inside 
to create a fearsome fortress in the heart of the 
nation's capital.

Even after Jamia Hafsa students went on their 
violent rampages in February 2007, no attempt was 
made to cut off the electricity, gas, phone, or 
website - or even to shut down their illegal FM 
radio station.  Operating as a parallel 
government, the mullah duo, Maulana Abdul Rashid 
Ghazi and Maulana Abdul Aziz, ran their own 
Islamic court. They received the Saudi Arabian 
ambassador on the mosque premises, and negotiated 
with the Chinese ambassador for the release of 
his country's kidnapped nationals. But for the 
outrage expressed by China, Pakistan's 
all-weather ally, the status quo would have 
continued.

For a state that has not shied from using even 
artillery and airpower on its citizens, the 
softness on the mullahs was astonishing. Even as 
the writ of the state was being openly defied, 
the chief negotiator appointed by Musharraf, 
Chaudhry Shujaat Husain, described the burqa 
brigade militants as "our daughters" with whom 
negotiations would continue and against whom "no 
operation could be contemplated".

But this still does not prove that the fanatics 
were deliberately set up, or that radicalism and 
extremism is a fringe phenomenon. The Lal Masjid 
mullahs, even as they directed kidnappings and 
vigilante squads, continued to lead thousands 
during Friday prayers. Uncounted thousands of 
other radically charged mullahs daily berate 
captive audiences about immoralities in society 
and dangle promises of heaven for the pious.

What explains the explosive growth of this 
phenomenon? Imperial America's policies in the 
Muslim world are usually held to blame.  But its 
brutalities elsewhere have been far greater. In 
tiny Vietnam, the Americans had killed more than 
one million people.  Nevertheless, the Vietnamese 
did not invest in explosive vests and belts. 
Today if one could wipe America off the map of 
the world with a wet cloth, mullah-led fanaticism 
will not disappear. I have often asked those of 
our students at Quaid-e-Azam University who toe 
the Lal Masjid line why, if they are so concerned 
about the fate of Muslims, they did not join the 
many demonstrations organized by their professors 
in 2003/4 against the immoral US invasion of 
Iraq.  The question leaves them unfazed. For them 
the greater sin is for women to walk around bare 
faced, or the very notion that they could be 
considered the equal of men.

Extremism is often claimed to be the consequence 
of poverty. But deprivation and suffering do not, 
by themselves, lead to radicalism.  People in 
Pakistan's tribal areas, now under the grip of 
the Taliban, have never led more than a 
subsistence existence. Building more roads, 
supplying electricity and making schools - if the 
Taliban allow - is a great idea. But it will have 
little impact upon militancy.

Lack of educational opportunity is also not a 
sufficient cause. It is a shame that less than 
65% of Pakistani children have schools to go to, 
and only 3% of the eligible population goes to 
universities.  But these are improvements over 30 
years ago when terrorism was not an issue. More 
importantly, violent extremism has jumped the 
educational divide. The 911 hijackers and the 
Glasgow airport doctors were highly educated men 
and were supported in spirit by thousands of 
similarly educated Muslims in Pakistan and the 
world at large. It is not clear to me whether 
persons with degrees are relatively more or less 
susceptible to extremist versions of Islam.

The above, as I have argued, are insufficient 
causes although they are significant as 
contributory reasons. There are more compelling 
explanations: the official sponsorship of jihad 
by the Pakistani establishment in earlier times; 
the poison injected into students through their 
textbooks; and the fantastic growth of madrassas 
across Pakistan.

But most of all, it has been the cowardly 
deference of Pakistani leaders to blackmail by 
mullahs. Their instinctive response has been to 
seek appeasement. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had 
suddenly turned Islamic in his final days as he 
made a desperate, but ultimately unsuccessful, 
attempt to save his government and life. A 
fearful Benazir Bhutto made no attempt to 
challenge the horrific Hudood and blasphemy laws 
during her premierships. And Nawaz Sharif went a 
step further by attempting to bring the Shariah 
to Pakistan.

Such slavish kow-towing had powerful 
consequences. The crimes of mullahs, because they 
are committed in the name of Islam, go unpunished 
today. The situation in Pakistan's tribal areas 
is dire and deteriorating. Inspired by the fiery 
rhetoric from mosques, fanatics murder doctors 
and health workers administering polio shots. 
They blow up video shops and girls schools, kill 
barbers who shave beards, stone alleged 
adulterers to death, and destroy billboards with 
women's faces.  No one is caught or punished. 

Pakistan's civil society has chosen to remain 
largely silent, unmoved by this barbarism.
This silence has allowed tribal extremism to 
migrate effortlessly into the cities. Except for 
the posh areas of the largest metropolises, it is 
now increasingly difficult for a woman to walk 
bare-faced through most city bazaars. Reflections 
of Jamia Hafsa can be found in every public 
university of Pakistan. Here, as elsewhere, a 
sustained campaign of proselytizing and 
intimidation is showing results. In fact, it 
would do little harm to rename my university, now 
a city of walking tents, as Jamia Quaid-e-Azam.

On April 12, to terrify the last few hold-outs, 
the Lal Masjid mullahs declared in their FM radio 
broadcast that Quaid-e-Azam University had turned 
into a brothel. They warned that Jamia Hafsa 
girls could throw acid on the faces of those 
female university students who refuse to cover 
their faces. There should have been instant 
outrage. Instead, fear and caution prevailed. The 
university administration was silent, as was the 
university's chancellor, General Musharraf. A 
university-wide meeting of about 200 students and 
teachers, held in the physics department, 
eventually concluded with a condemnation of the 
mullahs threat and a demand for their removal as 
head clerics of a government-funded mosque. But 
student opinion on burqas was split: many felt 
that although the mullahs had gone a tad too far, 
covering of the face was indeed properly Islamic 
and needed enforcement. Twenty years ago this 
would have been a minority opinion.

The Lal Masjid crisis is a direct consequence of 
the ambivalence of General Musharraf's regime 
towards Islamic militancy. In part it comes from 
fear and follows the tradition of appeasement. 
Another part comes from the confusion of whether 
to cultivate the Taliban - who can help keep 
Indian influence out of Afghanistan - or whether 
to fight them. One grieves for the officers and 
jawans killed in the on-going battle with 
fanatics. It must feel especially terrible to be 
killed by one's former friends and allies.

What should the government do after the guns stop 
firing and the hostages are out, whether dead or 
alive? At least two immediate actions are needed.

First, those who publicly preach hatred in 
mosques and call for violence against the 
citizens of Pakistan should be denied the 
opportunity to do so. The government should 
announce that any citizen who hears such sermons 
should record them, and lodge a charge in the 
nearest designated complaint office. The guilty 
should be dealt with severely under the law. In 
the tribal areas, using force if necessary, the 
dozens of currently operating illegal FM radio 
stations should be closed down. Run by mullahs 
bitterly hostile to each other on doctrinal or 
personal grounds, they incite bitter tribal and 
sectarian wars.

Second, one must not minimize the danger posed by 
madrassas. It is not just their gun-toting 
militants, but the climate of intolerance they 
create in society. Where and when necessary, and 
after sufficient warning, they must be shut down. 
Establishment of new madrassas must be strictly 
limited. Apologists say that only 5-10 percent of 
madrassas breed militancy, and thus dismiss this 
as a fringe phenomenon. But if the number of 
Pakistani madrassas is 20,000 (give or take a few 
thousand; nobody knows for sure) this amounts to 
1000-2000. Although all are not equally lethal, 
this is surely a lot of dangerous fringe.

The government's madrassa reform program has 
fallen flat on its face, and future efforts will 
do no better. It was absurd to have assumed that 
introducing computers or teaching English could 
have transformed the character of madrassa 
education away from brain-washing and rote 
memorization towards logical behaviour and 
critical thinking. Did the adeptness with which 
Lal Masjid managed its website really bring it 
into the 21'st century? Madrassas are religious 
institutions; they cannot be changed into normal 
schools.  It is time to give up wasting money and 
effort in attempting to reform them and, instead, 
to radically improve the public education system 
and make it a viable alternative.

The Lal Masjid battle is part of the wider civil 
war within the Islamic world waged by 
totalitarian forces that seek redemption through 
violence.

Their cancerous radicalism pits Muslims against 
Muslims, and the world at large. It is only 
peripherally directed against the excesses of the 
corrupt ruling establishment, or inspired by 
issues of justice and equity.

Note that the Lal Masjid ideologues - and others 
of their ilk - do not rouse their followers to 
action on matters of poverty, unemployment, poor 
access to justice, lack of educational 
opportunities, corruption within the army and 
bureaucracy, or the sufferings of peasants and 
workers.

Instead their actions are concentrated entirely 
on improving morality, where morality is 
interpreted almost exclusively in relation to 
women and perceived Western cultural invasion. 
They do not consider as immoral such things as 
exploiting workers, cheating customers, bribing 
officials, beating their wives, not paying taxes, 
or breaking traffic rules. Their interpretation 
of religion leads to bizarre failures in logic, 
moral reasoning, and appreciation of human life.

The author is chairman and professor at the 
Department of Physics, Quaid-e-Azam University in 
Islamabad. This article will be published in The 
Friday Times, 13-07-2007.

o o o

(ii)

The News
July 11, 2007

LAL MASJID NOT THE ONLY THREAT

by M B Naqvi

The Lal Masjid drama goes on after six months. 
One regrets the loss of valuable lives 
irrespective of the exact numbers; numbers vary 
and a possible final impends. There is little 
that the state will prevail because of its 
obvious military superiority. How long this will 
go on looks suspiciously uncertain. But the event 
has to be seen in perspective.

What do the Islamic extremists inside Lal Masjid 
stand for? They stand for enforcing an Islamic 
shariah of their own conception immediately. It 
is literalist Deobandi interpretation of Islamic 
tenets. It rejects modernist interpretations of 
Islam. They are bereft of modern education, 
indeed they reject the knowledge of pure and 
applied sciences and modern thought on social 
subjects. They want to take Pakistan back to 
early years of Islam. For that reason they are a 
big and growing challenge to most Muslim 
countries.

They are not concerned with people's day-to-day 
social and economic problems; they happily accept 
today's economy being conservatives and thrive on 
the social, economic and political backwardness 
of Muslim masses. These Islamists have no 
programme of ameliorating the poor people's 
living conditions but want power in the 
unreconstructed societies -- power for its own 
sake. They are not committed to any enlightened 
and egalitarian social reconstruction. That makes 
them generic fascists.

Then, there are Lal Masjid leaders' links with 
the Pakistan Army. A wide swathe of intelligent 
opinion believes that they have served Pakistan's 
intelligence services well during the 1980s jihad 
in Afghanistan. As for America's covert war 
against the Soviets carried on by paid 
Mujahideen, it and its friends pumped in 
something like $ 40 to $50 billion in a decade in 
a socially backward and economically poor area. 
Plus some European agents taught the natives the 
art of heroin-making and marketing. The 
Americans, British, Germans and of course Saudis 
and other conservative Arab regimes actively 
favoured the reactionary Islamic extremism of 
largely, but not exclusively, Pukhtoon jihadists.

This kind of Islam was reinforced in the 1990s by 
introducing a new group of Islamic extremists 
(Taliban) who quickly acquired the state of 
Afghanistan minus its ethnically-different 
northern region that was ruled by equally 
intolerant and conservative Islamic leaders, 
supported by India, Iran and successors of the 
Soviets. Lal Masjid is commonly believed to have 
played a role in both the Afghan jihad and later 
the Kashmir one. No outsider can know the precise 
limits of that collaboration by the Lal Masjid 
leadership with the army and possibly other 
agencies.

Then, there is the question of the state's 
behaviour towards it. Contrast the army's 
behaviour towards Baloch nationalists or other 
(Al-Qaeda) Islamic extremists in FATA and NWFP. A 
sharp distinction would emerge. Is this drama so 
long-drawn-out because of the army's surviving 
affection for old collaborators? Or does it hope 
to utilize this standoff for terrifying the 
Americans and also for diverting public attention 
from various domestic Crises, particularly the 
judicial one?

While one opposes Islamic extremism or militancy 
because of its social conservatism and its 
pre-medieval outlook, one's condemnation has to 
be tempered with the understanding of what 
motivates their uncontrolled anger and, in part, 
extremism. After centuries of western domination 
over the Islamic world, Muslims are now becoming 
dimly conscious of how and why they could be 
colonized, exploited, kept poor and backward. 
This nascent awareness, albeit hazy, has some 
validity. This is a partially positive fact.

Don't forget these militant schools and groups 
have no rational and workable social, political 
or economic reforms. They want to go back to the 
seventh century AD and replicate what was the 
political structure of the state of Medina and 
the subsequent four Islamic caliphates. They do 
not want to replicate the latter periods. The 
gaze is fixed only on the four right-guided 
caliphs and their moral and religious ideas. That 
makes their thinking antediluvian.

Pakistanis have to decide whether they want to 
live in the modern world or go back to the 
medieval ages accepting its structures and mores 
or whether they must industrialise their 
economies and reform politics to ensure economic 
progress while enjoying fundamental human rights. 
Social, political and intellectual stasis of a 
bygone age cannot serve today's needs. Scientific 
knowledge, wherever found, must be acquired. 
Societies must be scientifically studied.

Those who have excelled in modern sciences must 
be honoured and those who bring to bear new 
scientific and technological knowledge on 
domestic political and economic spheres must be 
encouraged. The greatest threat to any society's 
progress is the closed mind. So long as minds are 
open, and people are ready to argue rationally, 
new ideas about reforms, about the rights of the 
people, about how to maximize wealth and how 
distribute it better will be factors of progress.

The people must decide the purpose of public 
policy to be the maximization of good for the 
maximum number of people while also giving them 
maximum freedoms. The inequality in society has 
to be reduced and equally promoted. This is what 
Islamic extremists deliberately ignore. They push 
for an ambiguous (current) social and economic 
system superimposed by an extra austere sexual 
morality alone. They accept the unequal 
quasi-feudal system that concedes few human 
rights to the common people.

The dictatorship of General Ziaul Haq had 
promoted a fake religiosity to be superimposed on 
a highly unequal economic system with no 
political rights under his martial law. An 
equally fake Islamic extremism is now flourishing 
that has to be eschewed. The country is 
threatened by extremism over large areas in NWFP, 
FATA and PATA areas. Indeed, it is now seeping 
into Pakistan's other settled areas. An idea of 
what to do about it is to let all people speak 
their truths honestly with equal access to the 
media. The media must project the ideas of the 
largest number of groups. Let ideas contend with 
ideas rationally and freely. Let the people 
freely choose. That is the way out.

Lal Masjid's history is relevant. Its leaders 
appear to have become too big for their boots and 
have started out on a course of trying to acquire 
power by imposing a medieval morality that is 
threatened by music, dance, video cassettes, CDs, 
DVDs etc. People and the media must ensure that 
the Lal Masjid affair does not divert public 
attention from other and major crises.

Tail piece: Now that the SC has taken a suo moto 
notice of the Lal Masjid standoff, there should 
be hope that many hitherto unanswered questions 
would now find answers, especially those about 
the links between the masjid's administration and 
the government's undercover agencies. The SC is 
sure to ask the secret agencies what they were 
doing while Maulana Aziz's men were amassing so 
many guns and so much ammo.

(The article was written before the events of July 10)

The writer is a veteran journalist and freelance columnist.

o o o

(iii)

Daily Times
July 07, 2007

EDITORIAL: WHAT NEXT AFTER LAL MASJID?

There is relief in the international community at 
the decision finally made in Islamabad to 
confront the clerics of Lal Masjid and hold them 
accountable under the law for their offences 
against the innocent citizens of the capital 
city. China and the UK, both threatened by mullah 
power in Pakistan in different ways, were the 
first to congratulate President General Pervez 
Musharraf for grasping the nettle before it could 
lead to more clerical rebellion. Significantly, 
the Indian prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, 
said that forward movement on the bilateral 
Indo-Pak peace process was hampered by Pakistan's 
"internal trouble", an indirect way of saying 
that if you sort out the jihadis and mullahs then 
we can be in business again.

As the decision-making process in Islamabad 
ground on slowly at the outset of the crisis, 
some parts of Pakistan ruled by the clergy began 
to show signs of agitation. Lahore's Jamia 
Ashrafiya took out its myriad acolytes and 
blocked the roads and inflicted some vandalism on 
public property as a way of showing their loyalty 
to the Aziz-Rashid duo of Lal Masjid. In Karachi, 
many Deobandi seminaries took similar action, 
including the mother of all seminaries, the Jamia 
Banuria, where the founder of Lal Masjid, Maulana 
Abdullah had been educated. Mr Abdullah, as well 
as the head of Banuria, Mufti Shamzai, were 
killed because of their involvement in the 
sectarian war in Pakistan.

The third seminary - which is actually a small 
movement now - that took action was the Tehreek 
Nifaz Shariat Muhammadi (TNSM) of Malakand-Swat. 
Led by a relative of Sufi Muhammad - in jail 
because of his local Taliban mobilisation against 
the Americans in Afghanistan - the movement is 
virtually in control of a chunk of the 
Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA). 
The leader Maulana Fazlullah has money and 
ammunition to confront the state. But he too has 
been ignored long enough - somewhat like the 
Aziz-Rashid brothers of Islamabad - to enable him 
consolidate his rule in the Malakand-Swat-Dir 
region in the NWFP. The latest crisis in the 
entire province came when he used his illegal FM 
radio network to tell his listeners that the 
polio vaccination drive in the province was "a 
conspiracy of the Jews and Christians to stunt 
the population growth of Muslims". He accused the 
polio vaccinators of attempting to "un-sex" the 
population of Pakistan through disabling 
hormones. Since the local people know no other 
authority but his, they boycotted the vaccination 
drive.

There are other areas that have also "broken 
free" of Pakistan. In the Khyber Agency, warlords 
and mullahs collect revenue and hand down 
punishments like stoning to death and fining for 
not keeping beards. But it is Maulana Fazlullah 
who should be carefully observed. He began by 
destroying the music shops after "compensating" 
them with money accumulated through donations of 
jewellery from the women of Peshawar under MMA 
rule. His "collection" - quoted at $2 million - 
was so big that he now plans to build a grand 
seminary to dwarf Lal Masjid.

General Musharraf must also take a close look at 
what various governments in the past have allowed 
to happen to the capital city. Today, there are 
88 seminaries imparting religious education to 
more than 16,000 students. It is not for nothing 
that every third male in Islamabad keeps a jihadi 
beard and looks scary to foreigners. Research has 
revealed that the number of students of the 
Deobandi seminaries, including the Jamia Hafsa 
and the Jamia Faridia, doubled during last year. 
The students to these seminaries - many of them 
residential - have flocked from all parts of the 
NWFP and the tribal areas. The breakdown is as 
follows: Deobandi (5,400 students); Barelvi 
(3,000 students in 46 seminaries), Ahle-Hadith 
(200 students in two seminaries); Shia (700 
students in eight seminaries) and 
Jamaat-e-Islami-led Rabitaul Madaris (1,500 
students in 18 seminaries).

According to a newspaper investigative report, 
"the present number of 10,700 seminarians in 
Islamabad alone is almost equal to the combined 
strength of the seminary students from 
Balochistan (6,374 students) and Azad Jammu and 
Kashmir (2,835 students)". Who has tried to 
change the character of Islamabad through a 
proliferation of extremist seminaries? One could 
quickly claim that President Musharraf could not 
have been involved in this proliferation because 
of his exhortations against extremism. But that 
would be incorrect: During the rule of General 
Zia-ul-Haq (from July 1977 to August 1988), 7 new 
seminaries were established in the federal 
capital; under President Musharraf, the number 
went up to 14!

The main political parties in Pakistan are hardly 
aware of the danger these seminaries on the 
fringes of law pose to their rule when they come 
to the helm of governance in the future. Many 
politicians actually have their sons trained in 
these seminaries as a token of their devotion. 
But they are mistaken if they think the 
seminaries will relent in their fundamental 
mission of "insulation, indoctrination and 
rejection" to let then govern under democracy. 
Unless General Musharraf fashions a solid policy 
to reverse this tide decisively, it is only a 
matter of time before the next big "Islamic" 
crisis occurs to challenge the "writ of the 
state" and poses a bigger threat than Jamia Hafsa 
ever did. *

o o o

(iv)

Kashmir Times
July 7, 2007

THE STORY OF DODOLAND
by Khalid Hasan

Nobody had ever taken the Dodo Party very 
seriously. That was the reason it managed to take 
over the country one dull Friday morning when 
half the men were out shopping and half the women 
were busy cursing their house help. Those not out 
shopping or cursing the house help were parked in 
front of their televisions watching the latest 
episode of the runaway hit The Mystery Maidens of 
Lal Masjid.

The Dodo Party takeover was most peaceful. Its 
strike force, made up of school dropouts and a 
bunch of cricketers who had failed to make the 
Pakistan team because they had refused to grow 
beards, did not even have to jump over the 
wrought iron gates of the Pakistan Television 
Corporation in Islamabad because the gates were 
already open. Other television channels were busy 
playing videos or showing soap operas where the 
heroine is prevented from marrying the love of 
her life until the final episode. The first 
announcement that something was up came on PTV 
from a ten year old. "My dad has asked me, in 
return for a new bike that I have long wanted, to 
go on the air and say that the Dodo Party has 
taken over and that is that. He wants everyone to 
relax and go back to whatever they were doing. 
And now I will go and get the bike I was 
promised."

The first thing the Dodo Party did was to change 
the name of the country to Dodoland. The 
Constitution was abrogated - yes one more time - 
and replaced with something called The Dodo 
Doctrine. Dodo, it turned out, was the name of 
the new leader, and since he had no intention of 
taking off whatever clothes he was wearing next 
to his skin, he felt it was only logical that he 
rename the country. Dodo also scrapped every 
existing law on the books, which was no great 
loss because as far as anybody could remember 
they were dead laws anyway. The nation was given 
a new slogan in place of "Unity, Faith, 
Discipline," which was "Do it Dodo way." What 
exactly that meant nobody was sure, but nobody 
was much bothered either on that count. All 
anti-Dodo activities, including thinking bad 
thoughts about Dodo, were banned. A Dodo Thought 
Police was formed. The existing police force was 
sent to the salt mines of Khewra and ordered 
never to surface again. This step was greeted by 
the people who were seen dancing in the streets. 
The crime rate fell to zero and everybody knew 
why.

One of the first proclamations of the Dodo Party 
was a ban on the import, local manufacture and 
possession of razor blades. All barber shops were 
sealed and barricaded. The public was given just 
24 hours to surrender every implement that could 
possibly be employed to remove facial hair. In 
every city great bonfires were lit to dispose of 
the surrendered stocks. A supplementary 
proclamation said, "All male children should wear 
false beards. Any male child found without one 
will be deprived of his kites, marbles and any 
sports equipment he might possess." False beard 
factories were set up in every city, since the 
majority of Dodoland's population was well below 
the shaving age.

All television stations were set on fire, and 
every store selling electronic goods, music 
videos and DVDs was ordered closed. Protesting 
store-owners were pushed into the few rivers that 
still had water. However, so shallow were the 
waters that none of them drowned. The programme 
was declared a great success. All cinemas were 
turned into gymnasiums and weightlifting was 
declared the national support. The Pakistan 
Cricket Board was bombed from the air and Dr 
Nasim Ashraf put on a plane bound for Arizona. 
Women were ordered to stay indoors. Those who 
made the mistake of stepping out were taken to 
the Torkhum border and pushed into Afghanistan. 
Every sign, every hoarding that showed a female 
face or figure was brought down overnight and 
destroyed. It became illegal to circulate any 
material containing any pictorial or verbal 
reference to women. Madam Nur Jehan was tried in 
absentia although she had long been dead. Asma 
Jahangir, who was abroad at the time, was told 
never to return.

A National Book Commission was formed and 
assigned to rewrite every book in line with the 
Dodo Doctrine. Since it was not explained what 
the Doctrine was, the rewritten books had nothing 
but blank pages. The few public libraries that 
existed were shut down and their collections sold 
as garbage. All bookshops were also closed. The 
import of foreign magazines and books was banned. 
Female animals were removed from zoos. Every pet 
dog and cat was required to wear a collar that 
declared its sex to be certifiably male. Interest 
was banned which led to the closure of all banks 
and insurance companies. That also took care of 
Dodoland's foreign trade. However, trade with 
like-minded countries was permitted but since no 
country met that description, all foreign trade 
came to an end. Diplomatic relations were severed 
with all states since none of them followed the 
Dodo Doctrine or knew what it was. Every embassy 
and mission maintained abroad was closed down. 
Dodoland also pulled out of the United Nations.

All foreigners were ordered to leave the country. 
A new Ministry of Ethical Deconstruction was set 
up and special Thought Police that came to be 
known as Sixth Sensers were posted outside every 
family home. A ban was placed on foreign 
languages. A national commission was established 
to design a new language called Dodospeak. Before 
long, the world forgot about Pakistan, renamed 
Dodoland. 20 years passed. That was when a new 
and curious UNESCO director general decided to 
send a team of investigators to the region to 
find out what had happened to Dodoland, once 
known as Pakistan. The team came back a month 
later to report that all it had seen was a vast 
desert swarming with khaki-coloured squirrels 
with beards.
*(Khalid Hasan is a senior Pakistani 
journalist-columnist hailing from Jammu and 
Kashmir based in Washington).
-(Courtesy: The Friday Times)

______


[2]


The Guardian
July 9, 2007

  Letters

NO FONDNESS FOR THE PENTAGON'S POLITICS

In the past weeks I have had to endure an 
astonishing quantity of vitriolic attacks. It has 
been quite like old times. I find myself quite 
unable to respond to the many attacks on my 
character, my integrity, the quality of my 
writing, my courage or lack of it, my alleged 
weaknesses as a husband and even my choice of 
home address. I have learned the hard way that 
public opinion, once formed, simply exists, and 
even if it is utterly detached from the truth it 
acquires, by repetition and credulity, a truth of 
its own. So be it. I am grateful to those who 
have spoken up on my behalf, at a time when I 
have felt too shocked and hurt to do so myself.

But allow me, rashly, perhaps, to take issue with 
Terry Eagleton's description of me as someone who 
has been "cheering on [the west's] criminal 
adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan" (Comment, 
July 7). As to Afghanistan, it is true that I, in 
common with many others, not all of them on the 
right, and many of them in the Muslim world, 
believed that the hold of al-Qaida and the 
Taliban over Afghanistan needed to be broken. 
Eagleton may be the kind of "radical" who would 
prefer those fascist, terrorist gangsters to have 
retained their hold over a nation state, but that 
is his problem, not mine.

As to Iraq, it is true that I wrote, before the 
beginning of the Iraq war, that there was a case 
to be made for the removal of Saddam Hussain. In 
the same article, however, I also wrote that the 
American plans for regime change, unsupported as 
they were by a broad international coalition, 
were not justifiable.

Since that time, anyone with the slightest 
knowledge of my activities in the US must know 
that, as president of PEN American Center, I led 
that organisation in a number of campaigns 
against the Bush administration's policies, that 
I participated in any number of anti-war events 
and that in my public lectures all over America I 
have for years been a vocal critic of the Iraq 
war. It is bizarre and untruthful to say that I 
have a "fondness for the Pentagon's politics".
Salman Rushdie
London


______


[3]

The Telegraph
July 8, 2007

GANDHI'S LETTER
- A whole history of the making of Gandhi-in-India awaits retrieval
by Shahid Amin

The successful exertion by the government of 
India to stymie the auction in London of a letter 
written by Mahatma Gandhi has created quite a 
stir. The facts of the case are of great 
intrinsic interest: the letter was written by 
Gandhi - in the pre-dawn hours as was his wont - 
just two weeks before his assassination. As with 
much else that he did in the last months of his 
life, this letter was apiece with his strenuous 
efforts to maintain sanity in the capital city, 
witnessing a haemorrhaging of its Muslim 
population by death and flight; it was 
simultaneously a plea for linguistic and 
orthographic tolerance - a faint voice, but 
rising above the din, against "the malice and 
intoleranceŠof the opponents of the Urdu script".

The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi reproduce a 
full paraphrase, but not an actual translation of 
the letter. Six hours later, at 11.30 am on 
January 18, 1948, a motley delegation led by the 
president of the Congress, and comprising the 
representatives of the Hindu Mahasabha, the 
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Jamiat-ul-Ulema, 
prominent Muslims of Delhi along with the city's 
adminstrative officers, and the high commissioner 
of Pakistan, read out a seven-point declaration, 
written in Urdu and Devanagari scripts "at 
Gandhiji's insistence", to the fasting Mahatma at 
Birla House. "Muslims will be able to move about 
in Subzimandi, Karol Bagh, Paharganj and other 
localities just as they could in the past," the 
signatories averred, bloodying the contours of 
the mohallas I drive through en route my son's 
school. "We shall not object to the return to 
Delhi of Muslims who have migrated from here," 
the pledge-takers solemnly affirmed, ending with 
an artless plea to "Mahatmaji to believe us and 
to give up his fast." Gandhi believed them and 
accepted a glass of juice from Maulana Azad: he 
was so weak that what he told this small 
delegation had to be repeated aloud by Pyrelal 
and Sushila Nayyar.

There is then a heightened poignancy to 
everything that Gandhi said or wrote in the last 
month of his life, which seems to have been lost 
in laying claim to each and every piece of 
memorabilia associated with the Father of the 
Nation. Interesting facts have come to light: 
that Gandhi's typist walked away with a box-full 
of his last-days' letters, that this trove was 
spirited out of India, and some of the effects 
reclaimed by diligent diplomats in the recent 
past. Extracts from the letter have appeared in 
the press, with the news of its expected 
auction-price dwarfing the significance of its 
contents. Its newsworthiness seems to lie in the 
successful diplomatic pressure exerted by our 
high commission in London, and the willingness of 
the ministry of culture to rewrite the rules 
about government making bids at auctions, in the 
interest of national self-esteem: a reminder, 
that we have not forgotten Mahatma Gandhi - the 
greatest brand-ambassador for India (in the 
admen's language) "that ever walked this earth", 
in the words of Albert Einstein. The point, 
however, is not that we have forgotten "the 
greatest Indian teacher of all times", as 
Professor Mohammad Habib called him in his 
presidential address to the Indian History 
Congress a month before the tees janvari 
assassination. It is that we no longer routinely 
commemorate him, as we did in the past.

For India's midnight children, those born in a 
freshly-partitioned and free Hindustan, Gandhi 
and Nehru represented the two facets of 
adolescent, post-colonial pride. We knew from our 
text books that the young Gandhi had refused to 
cheat at school as his teacher had 
nudged-and-winked him to copy the correct 
spelling of 'kettle', so as to present the 
visiting inspector with a class of word-perfect 
spellers. We could almost hear the goat which kid 
Mohandas had consumed with a friend (to be like 
"the mighty Englishman/ŠBecause being a 
meat-eater/ He is five cubits tall"), bleating 
normatively inside young Gandhi. We awaited with 
solemn, juvenile eagerness the two minute break 
from all scholarly activity at 11 am on Martyr's 
Day - 30th January, when Gandhi was gunned down 
that evening at Tees-Janvari Marg in Lutyen's 
Delhi.

But every subsequent national commemoration of 
the Father of the Nation rightly required that we 
remembered the Mahatma outside the disaggregated 
space of families huddled over an evening cup of 
tea. It must have been Nehru's idea, that even if 
mildly anachronistic, individual Indians stand up 
in non-familial groups, wherever they were - at 
offices, schools, colleges, factories, not at 
5.17 pm but at 11 am - in silent tribute to 
Mahatma Gandhi. A siren used to go off in the 
city to mark the duration of that two-minute 
commemoration, the only time that our individual 
watches were overtaken by the national time that 
the assassinated Bapu had forged into being. This 
routinized memorialization seems to have fallen 
through the empty time of our recent past: 
perhaps there is a file, signed by a relevant 
joint secretary, authorizing this lapse (with 
appropriate reasoning), but unlikely, as with so 
much of official paper, to be made available to a 
future historian.

Which brings me to the question of the updating 
of the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, the 
CWMG as it is known to historians in the trade. 
The 100 volumes of the Collected Works, published 
between 1956 and 1994, are a mammoth product of 
post-independence historical scholarship. Between 
1998 and 2001, unknown editors recast the 
original volumes, deleting a whole lot of 
speeches, even letters, "which did not seem to be 
authentic"; a new set and a CD were hurriedly 
pushed through by the National Democratic 
Alliance government. The gratuitous violence of 
this exercise by anonymous vandal-editors was 
highlighted by scholars like Tridip Suhrud, and 
it appears that the original set of volumes is 
being reprinted.

But that still calls for additions to the corpus 
of newly-discovered material, mostly in the shape 
of Gandhi's speeches delivered in small towns, or 
at railway stations, specially during his 
triumphant tour in the winter of 1920-21. These 
were reported either in local newspapers, or 
scribbled in CID scrapbooks and printed in police 
reports. By what touchstone of authenticity are 
we going to exclude forever Gandhi's speeches 
delivered in end-1920-early 1921 at centres of a 
powerful peasant movement in central Uttar 
Pradesh, or at the Chauri Chaura railway station, 
a year before that violent confrontation of 
February 4, 1922?

And would it not make sense for the State to 
spend some of the 150 crores of rupees earmarked 
for official commemoration of the 'Freedom 
Struggle', on publishing the 4000-odd depositions 
made by peasants to Gandhi's lieutenants, 
including Babu Rajendra Prasad, detailing the 
oppression suffered in the dehats of indigo 
planters in Champaran district of north Bihar? 
For just as his deftly defiant letters to the 
Champaran officials allow us to study up close 
the very making of Gandhi-in-India, it is the 
peasants' eagerness in deposing before his 
unofficial inquiry that went into the making of 
both that famous satyagraha and of Mahatma Gandhi 
himself.

In this gala year of anniversaries, the peasants 
of 1917 North Bihar need not remain forever "the 
anonymous masses" who also ran for Our Freedom. 
True, their humble petitions, were these to reach 
Christie's, would not create an auctioner's stir, 
as did recently that letter of Gandhi. But 
Champaran, April 1917 and Delhi, January 1948 are 
not that far apart in space and time, as the 
auction market in London may suggest at first 
sight.
The author is professor of history, University of Delhi



______


[4]   KASHMIR:

(i)

Hindustan Times
July 03, 2007

NOT SKATING ON THIN ICE

by AG Noorani

Barbara Crossette of  The New York Times met 
Rajiv Gandhi hours before his tragic 
assassination on May 21, 1991. She misunderstood 
his remarks in her report: "We were close to 
finalising an agreement on Kashmir. We had the 
maps and everything ready to sign. And then he 
(Zia-ul-Haq) was killed in 1988." To the Foreign 
Correspondents Association, however, he revealed 
on April 27, 1991, that he had "almost signed a 
treaty on Siachen with Zia. The only reason it 
was not signed was that he died". What has since 
emerged on impeccable authority is that in 1989, 
he had come close to a deal on Siachen with 
Benazir Bhutto. It was not clinched, but the 
formula he offered then can serve as a basis for 
an accord now.

Rajiv Gandhi and Zia-ul-Haq agreed in Delhi on 
December 17, 1985, to begin talks on Siachen at 
the level of defence secretaries. At the fifth 
round of these talks, in Islamabad on June 17, 
1989, a joint statement was issued, which stated: 
"There was agreement by both sides to work 
towards a comprehensive settlement, based on 
redeployment of forces to reduce the chances of 
conflict, avoidance of use of force and 
determination of future positions on the ground 
so as to conform with the Simla agreement and to 
ensure durable peace in the Siachen area. The 
army authorities of both sides will determine 
these positions."

The fact of an 'agreement' was explicitly 
mentioned. It was on "determination of future 
positions", not existing positions. The army 
authorities were to "determine" these positions, 
i.e. future positions to which they would 
withdraw ("redeploy"). The Indian army chief, 
General B.C. Joshi, insisted in the talks held a 
month later in New Delhi, on July 9 and 10, 1989, 
on identifying existing positions. This still 
remains our position. An agreement was, however, 
reached in the sixth round, in New Delhi on 
November 2 to November 4, 1992, on where the two 
armies would redeploy. But Prime Minister 
Narasimha Rao refused to clinch the deal.

However, India gave a Non-Paper to Pakistan on 
January 24, 1994, which asserted that in the 1992 
talks, "a broad understanding had been reached on 
disengagement and redeployment, monitoring, 
maintenance of peace and implementation 
schedule". There was agreement on a "zone of 
complete disengagement", resulting from the 
withdrawals, as also the points to which both 
sides would withdraw - India to Dzingrulma and 
Pakistan to Goma. But a snag remained in this 
formulation: "The two sides shall disengage from 
the authenticated position they are presently 
occupying."

Para 4 of this Non-Paper is still relevant now in 
2007. It bound both sides in three respects: (a) 
not to "reoccupy the positions vacated by them or 
to occupy the positions vacated by either side"; 
(b) not to undertake any activity in the zone of 
disengagement; and, what is most relevant now, 
(c) "that if either side violates the commitment 
in (a) and (b) above, the other side shall be 
free to respond through any means, including 
military".

This takes care of the question, how do we trust 
Pakistan not to reoccupy the areas it vacated? 
Worst case scenarios always prevent accord on any 
dispute. How, then, do we settle Kashmir, let 
alone Sir Creek and Siachen? In these days of 
satellite surveillance, the distrust is 
groundless. Siachen is not flat land that anyone 
can cross by stealth. There was accord on joint 
surveillance by helicopters in the November 1992 
talks. Pakistan would invite reprisal from a 
militarily superior India and incur odium 
internationally, as it did on Kargil in 1999. A 
good model is the Indo-Pak accord on February 4, 
1987, on "the pullout of troops deployed on the 
border by both sides", sectorwise, after Exercise 
Brasstacks. "Both sides agreed not to attack each 
other." It was based on trust and realism.

On Siachen, both sides agreed also that "the 
delineation of the LoC beyond NJ 9842 (its 
present terminus) shall be examined by a Joint 
Commission letter", a task doomed to failure. 
Pakistan wants the LoC to stretch eastwards to 
the Karakoram Pass; India, to extend it to Indira 
Col in the west of its existing position. Neither 
side can possibly accept the other's stand.

The talks have thus been bogged down on the twin 
issues of authentication of existing positions 
and definition of the LoC to be drawn thereafter.

"Redeployment of forces" was to be but a first 
step in a "comprehensive settlement" whose end 
result would be "determination of future 
positions on the ground". This would fill the gap 
left by the Karachi agreement on July 27, 1949, 
defining the cease-fire line, as well as the 
Suchetgarh Agreement of December 11, 1972, which 
defined the present LoC in J&K.

But there is a difference between the two 
agreements on the terminus of the line. The 1972 
agreement says simply "thence along the boundary 
to NJ 980420" and ends there. However, the 1949 
agreement had gone further. It mentioned the last 
two points ("Chalunke, Khor") and ended thus: 
"thence north to the glaciers. This portion of 
the CFL shall be demarcated in detail on the 
basis of the factual position as on July 27, 
1949, by the local commanders, assisted by UN 
military observers".

The next para provided that the CFL shall be 
drawn on a map and verified on the ground by the 
local commanders "so as to eliminate any no-man's 
land". But no line was drawn from Chalunke, Khor 
"north to the glaciers". The gap can now be 
filled by drawing a line north to the glaciers.

A high Indian source told this writer in the 
early 1990s that in 1989, the PM's able envoy, 
Ronen Sen, offered Pakistan precisely such a 
line. His counterpart, Iqbal Akhund, confirmed 
this in 2000 in his memoirs Trial and Error. "It 
should run due north, that is, up to the Chinese 
border in a ruler-straight line". Ronen Sen said 
at Belgrade during the NAM Summit inter alia that 
"some principles must be established for 
extending the line of control beyond No. 9842". 
It is unlikely that the parties would agree on 
anything but "a ruler-straight line" to the north 
as the 1949 agreement envisaged.

India's vital interest is to ensure Pakistan's 
disavowal of a claim to the Karakoram Pass. The 
up-turned Triangle Indira Col in the West, the 
Karakoram Pass in the East and NJ 9842 below both 
is almost evenly split. The entire area can be 
demilitarised.

The issues of authentication of existing and 
future positions are bypassed. A clear line will 
be laid down, called the Actual Ground Position 
Line to allay fears of a complete partition of 
J&K. It would not shorten the Sino-Pak boundary 
as some in Pakistan fear. On the contrary, 
Pakistan regains much of it, but we keep it well 
away from the Karakoram Pass.

o o o

(ii)

The Tribune
July 7, 2007

DIVISION OF J&K WILL HARM ALL COMMUNITIES
by Balraj Puri

People's Conference leader Sajjad Lone's proposal 
for division of J&K state is neither the first 
nor the only proposal on the subject. However, 
his latest exposition of it, while addressing a 
rally on the martyrdom day of his father, Abdul 
Ghani Lone, on May 22, specially described the 
resultant state, after its division, as a Muslim 
state. It would include the Kashmir valley and 
Muslim majority parts of Jammu and Ladakh regions.

Sajjad Lone also complained, in a press 
conference later, that though the Muslims were 
the worst sufferers, development work was 
concentrated in Jammu. The majority population 
was denied its share in recruitment to government 
jobs, he said.

Still, he may not have been entirely motivated by 
sentiments of Muslim communalism. For, in the 
same press conference, he declared Kashmir 
Pandits to be an integral part of Kashmiri 
identity. Like other Kashmiri nationalists, he is 
seeking some sort of azadi for Kashmir. Being 
convinced that Hindus and Buddhists of Jammu and 
Ladakh respectively would not reconcile to any 
arrangement which keeps them outside India and 
within Azad Kashmir, he gives them an option to 
opt out of the state.

As far as non-Kashmiri speaking Muslims are 
concerned, they have hardly any option and 
therefore do not matter, he must have thought. In 
a newspaper article, he maintains, "assume for a 
moment, that the 'opt-out' option is actually 
communal. Who cares as long as it benefits the 
Kashmiri nation?"

But will it really benefit Kashmiri nation? Can 
the resultant state be called a Kashmiri Nation? 
When ethnically non-Kashmiri people of Doda, 
Bhaderwah, Bani, Gool, Arnas, Poonch, Rajouri and 
Kargil are merged with the Kashmir valley, it 
will crush them and threaten their unique 5000 
years old civilisational heritage.

Some lessons from pre-and post 1947 politics of 
the state will bring out the complications that 
were added to it by exclusive concern of Kashmiri 
leaders with the demands and urges of the 
Kashmiris of the valley. Sheikh Abdullah, the 
tallest leader of Kashmir, hardly had any 
following among either the Muslims or Hindus of 
Jammu.

The same is the case with the separatist outfits 
today who do not have any Muslim representation 
in them from Jammu. The limitations of 
exclusively religion-based identities have become 
evident not only in the state but also in 
Pakistan. The way Gujjar and Pahari identities 
are, for instance, asserting themselves in the 
state underlines the point. It would not be 
proper for any Kashmiri speaking leader to take 
them for granted in the name of Muslim unity.

As far as Kargil - the Muslim majority district 
of Ladakh which Sajad Lone wants to include in 
the divided state - is concerned, a strong 
reaction against division was expressed by youth 
of the district who in a joint statement 
expressed their fears about the threat to their 
identity and inter alia asked "what will be the 
fate of Buddhisst in Kargil, Muslims in Leh and 
Pandits in Kashmir?"

The larger question of the impact of division of 
the state on religious lines on the secular 
fabric of India and communal relations within the 
state, too, cannot be lost sight of. There are no 
exclusive Hindu and Muslim parts of Jammu. The 
sense of insecurity that the proposed division of 
the region would cause to minorities in its two 
parts can easily be visualised.

Moreover it would split ethnic and cultural 
identities which to many are more important than 
religions identities. During the last assembly 
election, for instance, 95 per cent of the Muslim 
population of Darhal constituency voted for a 
Hindu candidate as he championed the cause of the 
Pahari community living there.

The demand of for division of the state into five 
regions, including that of Jammu and Ladakh, is 
particularly ominous after General Pervez 
Musharraf has, in his latest four-point formula, 
recognised only three regions on the Indian side 
- Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh. It would amount to 
fighting against India as well as Pakistan.

The alternative is not status quo. For regional 
tensions are growing rather fast. Earlier, Jammu 
and Ladakh had a perennial grievance against what 
they called Kashmiri domination. For the last two 
years, since a Jammu leader became the Chief 
Minister for the first time in sixty years, 
similar grievances are being raised by Kashmiri 
leaders.

The PDP president Mehbooba Mufti publicly 
demanded that the chief minister should 
invariably belong to the Kashmir valley. If 
Kashmiri Muslims cannot tolerate a Jammu Muslim 
as chief minister, how does Sajad expect that the 
Muslims of Jammu will feel at home in a Muslim 
state dominated by Kashmiris?

He, however got an ally in his game plan in the 
BJP which has revived the demand of a separate 
Jammu state. As BJP's support is confined to 
Hindus of the region, its demand exactly 
supplements Sajad's proposal.

It has by now been widely recognised that any 
attempt to homogenise a nation and make it 
uniform stifles its growth and invariably leads 
to authoritarianism, as Hitler had demonstrated. 
Diversity is therefore becoming the most 
celebrated value inmodern times to ensure freedom 
and democracy. It is the greatest asset with 
which J&K state is bestowed with, provided the 
urges of its diverse communities are reconciled .

It is the centralised and unitary set up of a 
state which is the root cause of most of its 
troubles. In fact, federal and decentralised 
systems became the universal trend after the 
second world war in all democracies. It may be 
worth while to recall such proposals mooted in 
J&K state from the early fifties which were 
killed by ignorant and narrow minded religious or 
regional bigots.

When the Delhi Agreement on autonomy was being 
discussed, I, for instance, pleaded for extension 
of the idea to state-region relations. Nehru and 
Abdullah both agreed with my demand, and 
announced at a joint press conference on 24 July 
1952 that the constitution of the state would 
provide for regional autonomies. The Praja 
Parishad, an affiliate of the Bhartiya Jana 
Sangh, agreed to withdrawn its agitation for what 
it called full accession of the state on this 
assurance, which it directly got from Nehru, 
almost a year later. But meanwhile much damage to 
the cause of Jammu and India had been done. Many 
factors local and international intervened to 
sabotage this agreement.

In 1968, Sheikh Abdullah convened the J&K State 
People's Conference to discuss the future of the 
state, which was attended by the entire spectrum 
of the valley's political leadership including 
Mirwaiz Maulvi Farooq, G M Karra's pro-Pak 
Political Conference, Jamat-e-Islami and National 
Conference. But I was the lone representative 
from Jammu and had agreed to attend it provided 
the future of the region was also discussed.

The Sheikh agreed with the suggestion and I was 
asked to draft an internal constitution of the 
state. The draft provided for a five tier set up 
with political, legislative and administrative 
powers to the elected regional councils on the 
subjects delegated to the regions and further 
devolution of powers to the districts, blocks and 
panchayats. It was unanimously accepted by all 
the 300 participants of the Convention.

Sheikh Abdullah reiterated his commitment for 
regional autonomy at a conference of 
representatives of Jammu and Ladakh that he 
convened in 1974 before returning to power. The 
idea was also included in the National Conference 
manifesto 'Naya Kashmir' when it was raised in 
1975, of which I was the author.

The idea was further refined in the report that I 
submitted to the state government as working 
chairman of the Regional Autonomy Committee in 
1999. It provided a framework for political, 
cultural and financial safeguards at every level 
of the elected administration.

In sum, the importance of regional identities and 
recognition of all ethnic entities needs to be 
realised for maintaining the secular and 
harmonious character of the state. Let thinking 
people of all the three regions and all ethnic 
identities give a serious thought to a parallel 
attempt at building a powerful, democratic and 
secular state.

The writer is Director, Institute of Jammu and Kashmir affairs, Jammu.


______


[5]

The Telegraph
July 11, 2007

Editorial

UNSAFE OTHERS

Like most offensive pieces of writing, the 
booklet on "security tips" issued by West Delhi 
police for students and "visitors" from the 
Northeast is bizarrely, inanely funny. That its 
nasty mix of racism and sexism is motivated by a 
'well-meaning' desire to make people, especially 
women, feel safe and nationally integrated is an 
indication of how far the police, and national 
integration, have to go before either can be 
trusted or taken seriously. But the darker 
implication of the booklet lies in how certain 
ways of talking about and dealing with social, 
cultural and physiognomic difference have become 
inextricable from notions of security, which, in 
turn, have become inextricable from ideas of 
nationhood.

People from the Northeast eat strange, smelly 
food and make a lot of noise. The typical young 
woman from those parts - "revealing dressed up 
parties lass (sic)" - is given to dressing 
scantily and going on dubious dates. And it is up 
to these visitors to adapt, integrate and not 
stand out. Their reward for this would be safety 
or protection from "outrage". Such are the 
assumptions behind the practical wisdom of this 
booklet, expressed with a candour, and even 
quaintness, which most civilized, modern 
societies used to be capable of about half a 
century ago. The fact that the booklet is written 
by an IPS officer - a deputy commissioner - from 
the Northeast gives the whole thing a perverse 
edge. But those who remember the other booklet 
issued by Delhi police about women's safety on 
the streets would perhaps be less shocked by this 
one. It had advised women to scream when 
attacked, always carry mobile phones (even when 
going out of their houses to relieve themselves), 
and when attacked in lonely bus-stops in the 
evening, to run into the nearest house, but not 
before checking that the house is properly lit. 
The rationale behind these publications is that 
if people - women, visitors from the Northeast - 
do not follow the advice given in them, then it 
is no fault of the police if they come to harm in 
the capital.

______


[6]

Times of India
EDITORIAL: Barbarian Face
4 Jul 2007

Cold-blooded murder? Worse, the murderers had the 
backing of an entire village and the act was 
sanctioned by a 'caste panchayat', comprising 
village elders. The victims of this honour 
killing were young Manoj and Babli of Karnal, 
Haryana. They were punished by their community 
for daring to violate an old taboo of not 
marrying into the same clan or gotra. The 
stricture might have made sense in ancient times 
when the size of clans was small, and marrying 
within the family, so to speak, might have posed 
physiological risks for the offspring.

Today, when clans have so expanded in numbers and 
have surely merged considerably over the 
centuries, the gotra stricture makes little 
sense. Claiming ancestorship to a dozen or more 
rishis and who lived thousands of years ago, 
matching gotras before a marriage is to engage in 
a defunct and irrelevant exercise. Yet, honour 
killings in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh - 
supposedly to protect family face - continue to 
terrorise young men and women who might want to 
exercise choice in selecting life partners. This 
is to say nothing of the punishments meted out in 
large parts of the region to women, including 
rape victims, who are often killed to salvage 
family honour.

The Supreme Court in a July 2006 ruling on a writ 
petition filed by a partner in an inter-caste 
marriage, termed honour killing an act of 
barbarism. It ordered the police across the 
country to take stern action against those 
resorting to violence against men and women who 
decide to go in for inter-caste or 
inter-religious marriages. The court went on to 
say that such acts of violence or threats or 
harassment were wholly illegal and those who 
commit them must be severely punished.

In a democracy, individuals have the right to 
choose. It is the duty of the government, through 
its law-enforcing agencies, to step in wherever 
and whenever citizens' rights are violated. 
However, deep-rooted superstitions, prejudices, 
and bias steeped in tradition - taken out of 
context and quite defunct - propel ignorant 
community leaders and relatives to mete out 
punishment to 'offenders'.

An effective way to counter the spread of such 
barbarism is to urgently create widespread public 
awareness through education and entertainment. 
Schools for children and adults and compulsory 
enrolment, along with interactive street theatre 
and radio jingles with social messages, could 
help bring about a transformation. Above all, 
women have to be dramatically lifted from their 
current status as almost expendable persons in 
the cultural and economic structures of society 
in large swathes of the subcontinent.

______



[7]

NARMADA BACHAO ANDOLAN
62 Gandhi Marg, Badwani, M.P.  Ph. 07290-222464 nba.badwani at gmail.com
Maitri Niwas, Tembewadi, Dhadgaon, Nandurbar, Maharashtra. Ph: 02595-220620
C/o B-13, Shivam Flats, Ellora Park, Vadodara 
-390023 Ph: 0265-2282232 nba.baroda at gmail.com

Press Release 
				          
10 July 2007 

-	SUPREME COURT DISMISSES CASE AGAINST NBA 
ON FOREIGN FUNDING, VIOLENCE, SEDITION CHARGES

-	TELLING BLOW TO THE ATTEMPTS AT DEFAMING 
AND DEMORALISING PEOPLEíS MOVEMENTS WITH FALSE 
AND BASELESS ALLEGATIONS

-	VICTORY OF TRUTH, NON-VIOLENCE AND MORAL 
STRENGTH OF PEOPLEíS MOVEMENT AGAINST 
VILIFICATION CAMPAIGNS

The Supreme Court of India today dismissed a case 
filed by National Council of Civil Liberties, an 
Ahmedabad based NGO, against Narmada Bachao 
Andolan for being vague and baseless. The bench 
of Justice C.K. Thakker and Altamas Kabir, in 
their judgement, ruled that there is no case for 
CBI enquiry against NBA and ordered the 
petitioner organization to pay Rs- 5000/- as a 
symbolic cost for the expense on the case, to NBA.

This is a great moral victory and triumph of 
truth that is an apt reply to the vilification 
campaign against NBA. NCCL had issued many 
advertisements and statements defaming NBA all 
over the country before filing this case. The 
allegation in the case included that of illegal 
foreign funding, violence and sedition, an 
activity obstructing development. Adv. Indira 
Jaisingh and Adv. Sanjay Parikh pleaded with all 
strength and commitment. The court, through this 
judgement, has upheld democratic values as also 
the citizenís, the affected peopleís right to 
agitate against injustice imposed in the name of 
development. Attempts to defame and demoralise 
peopleís movements with false and baseless 
allegations should now be put to rest. The UPA 
government too had supported NBA through its 
affidavit in the case. They submitted to the 
court a letter written in 2003 by the then Home 
Minister for State to Narendra Modi, declaring 
that no illegal financial deal was found in the 
enquiry against NBA and its supporters.

We all are glad that the apex court has dismissed 
this case for having no case made for a CBI 
enquiry on NBA activities. The petitioner had 
earlier tried to spread news, which distortedly 
indicated to the nation that enquiry was demanded 
and ordered.

NBA has to continue its agitations and movements 
for human rights and democratic privileges due 
for common people - dalit, adivasis, farmers, 
labourers and all citizens, in the context of 
prevented vision and undemocratic planning of 
development, with unjustifiable social, 
environmental impact on the displaced and on our 
natural wealth.

OUR SATYAGRAHA IN THE NARMADA VALLEY, PROTESTING 
AGAINST DISPLACEMENT AND SUBMERGENCE WITHOUT 
REHABILITATION, WOULD BEGIN IN BADWANI, MADHYA 
PRADESH FROM TOMORROW, 11TH OF JULY AND IN 
VILLAGE CHIMALKHEDI (ON THE RIVER BANK), 
NANDURBAR DISTRICT, MAHARASHTRA, FROM JULY 17TH.

The Dharna of Omkareshwar- Indira Sagar 
dam-affected people and the 35 days long fast by 
leading activists Chittaroopa Palit and Bhagwan 
Mukati, continue in Bhopal till date.

Medha Patkar	Ashish Mandloi 	Chetan Salve	Kamla Yadav 

______


[8]


SAVE AUTONOMY OF THE UNIVERSITY EDUCATION

Girish Patel,Prakash N.Shah, Prof.Shivji 
Panikker,Prof. Suryakant Shah, Prof. Dhaval 
Meheta and others call for a united struggle of 
teachers, students and concerned citizens

IN THE STATE LEVEL CONVENTION OF SAVE UNIVERITY EDUCATION CONVENTION


Da-8-7-07 Ahmedabad

Today, a state level convention was held under 
the banner of University Shikshan Bachao 
Samiti(Save University Education Committee) 
against various problems prevailing in all 
universities of the state like attacks on the 
autonomy of the University, misuse of power, 
favouring, corruptions, nepotism, anarchy in 
admissions and results, fee-hike, problem of 
appointment of teaching-non-teaching staff, 
commercialization of education, etc.The 
Convention expressed full solidarity with the 
struggle of Fine Arts of M.S.University. 
Students, teachers, activists, educationists and 
citizens from all walks of life from Gujarat 
University, M.S.University, Baroda, Veer Narmad 
South Gujarat University,Surat, Bhavnagar 
University, Sardar Patel University Vidhyanagar, 
Saurashtra University Rajkot,,NorthGujarat 
University , concerned citizens of the 
state,students from different parts state joined 
the convention participated in large number.
The Convention was held in Gajjar Hall The 
convention was presided over by Dr. B.A. Parikh, 
former Vice-Chancellor, Veer Narmad South Gujarat 
University.
Shri Prakash N. Shah, Editor, Nireekshak, felt 
the spirit of the period from 1968-74. He 
stressed on the student-teacher-citizens 
solidarity as was witnessed during NavNirman 
Movement. Prof. Yashvant Waghela of SC/ST 
Teachers' Association elaborated the problems of 
Gujarat University and the fight against that. 
Mukesh Semval, President, All India D.S.O., 
Baroda pointed out that all the policies now 
pursued by the University Authorities are 
attempts to bring the policies of Common 
University Act from backdoor after it has to be 
freezed owing to state wide protest against it. 
Among the other speakers were Dr. Bharat Mehta, 
Reader, M.S.University and Member, All India Save 
Education Committee, Shri Hasmukh Patel of INSAF, 
Prof. Ilaben Pathak of AWAG, Prof. Dhawal Mehta, 
former President, BUTA and GUTA, Shri Manishi 
Jani, veteran of Navnirman, Shri Umakant Mankad, 
well-known Advocate Shri Girishbhai Patel, Shri 
Indukumar Jani, Editor, Naya Marg, Shri Suryakant 
Shah, former President, Gujarat Universties 
Teachers' Association, etc. Students of Fine Arts 
Faculty of M.S. University presented a song to 
put up the spirit. Parvez Kabir of MS University 
Fine arts delivered a spirited speech

Dr. Shivaji Panikkar, who faced an attack from 
hooligans just one day before here in Ahmedabad 
joined the convention and spoke at length on the 
University autonomy, freedom of expression, and 
the present struggle against the University 
authority .He called upon all to join to fight 
against all out saffronisation of education.
A resolution was placed by Shri Gautam Thacker, 
Convenor, University Shikshan Bachao Samiti. It 
was passed unanimously. In the end three future 
programme were announced which are as follows:

- Meetings will be organised at all central 
places where universities are there and memoranda 
will be submitted to the respective Collectors
- On 17th July, the memorial day of Shri Indulal 
Yagnik, a human chain will be formed near his 
statue in Ahmedabad
- On 19th July, when Assembly Session will be 
called, a delegation will meet Governor of 
Gujarat in Person and submit memorandum
- A Fact-Finding Committee headed by Dr. B.A. 
Parikh and Comprising of Shri Ilaben Pathak, Shri 
Digant Oza, Shri Digant Joshi and Dr. Bharat 
Mehta as its members.
News by

Bhaveek Raja
On behalf of
Gautam Thakker,Convenor
UniversitySikshan Bachao Samit

______



[9]

  STATEMENT OF FACTS BY SHABNAM HASHMI RE SANGH 
ATTACK IN AHMEDABAD ON JULY 6, 2007
http://snipurl.com/1o56i

______

[10]  Publication of Note:

EDUCATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN SOUTH ASIA
by Krishna Kumar and Joachim Oesterheld (eds);
Orient Longman, New Delhi;
pp 513, Rs 795.

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

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