SACW | August 21-22, 2007
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Tue Aug 21 19:10:46 CDT 2007
South Asia Citizens Wire | August 21-22, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2438 - Year 9
[1] Nepal: Draft Truth and Reconciliation Bill risks undermining justice
[2] US-India Nuclear Energy Agreement: A Bad Deal
for Global Security and for Energy Security (IDPD
/ PSR)
[3] Pakistan:
(i) The dark night (Zubeida Mustafa)
(ii) In the howling wilderness (Kishwar Naheed)
[4] Bangladesh-India: Circle of Condescension (Zafar Sobhan)
[5] India: What BJP Rule Meant (Christophe Jaffrelot)
[6] India: The Cause of Jashn e Azadi (Rahul Roy)
[7] The great Indian sex debate (Jyotsna Singh)
+ Sex Education Conundrum (S Anandhi)
[8] India: Qurratulain Hyder (1927-2007) Aini Apa
'Urdu's Marquez', is no more. -- An Appreciation
(C.M. Naim)
[9] India: Social Viciousness (Andre Beteille,
Rajeev Bhargava, Partha Chatterjee, Deepak
Nayyar, Romila Thapar)
[10] Announcements:
(i) Film Screening: "Black Pamphlets" A film by
Nitin K (Delhi, 23 August 2007)
(ii) Law & Society Trust briefing on human rights
violations during January - June 2007 (Colombo,
23 August 2007)
(iii) An Evening with the Author of "Military Inc." (Karachi, 23 August 2007)
(iv) Film Screening: "The Lightning Testimonies"
a film by Amar Kanwar (New Delhi, 27 August 2007)
______
[1]
Amnesty International
Press Release
AI Index: ASA 31/007/2007 (Public)
News Service No: 156
14 August 2007
NEPAL: DRAFT TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION BILL RISKS UNDERMINING JUSTICE
Victims of Nepal's decade-long conflict may be
denied their right to truth, justice and
reparation under current proposals for a Truth
and Reconciliation Commission, warned Amnesty
International today.
In its detailed memorandum on a draft Bill
currently under consideration, Amnesty
International is particularly critical of
provisions that appear to allow the granting of
amnesties to perpetrators of crimes under
international law, including hundreds of cases of
enforced disappearance.
"Without bringing to justice the perpetrators of
gross human rights abuses, there is a real danger
of Nepal's recent tragic history repeating
itself. Anything less would be a gross betrayal
of the hundreds of families still anxiously
awaiting news of their missing relatives and a
recipe for further civilian suffering," said Tim
Parritt, Deputy Director of Amnesty
International's Asia programme.
The memorandum also highlights a number of other
serious deficiencies in the draft Bill, including:
* Absence of any detailed provisions for the
protection of witnesses, despite the concerns of
many families and other potential witnesses that
they could face intimidation if they give
evidence;
* Lack of provisions to guarantee the
independence of the proposed Commission whose
members are to be appointed by the government
from political party nominations with no
independent vetting of candidates and no
involvement of civil society;
* Failure to specify that the Commission's
reports must be made public and be presented to
Nepal's Parliament within a set period.
Amnesty International has issued today's
memorandum as a constructive contribution to
continuing discussions on the Bill by government
officials, parliamentarians, human rights NGOs
and other interested parties in Nepal, as well as
the international community.
The organization fears that the present draft
Bill may not realize the objectives of its own
Preamble, which includes as an aim of the
Commission "to bring impunity to an end by
bringing the persons involved in gross
violation[s] of human rights and crimes against
humanityŠ within the confinements of law and also
to make all aware that such acts would be
punishable in future too".
Amnesty International urges the Government and
Parliament of Nepal to allow sufficient time
before the establishment of the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission in order to complete a
comprehensive process of consultation with all
those concerned, including civil society
organizations, both Nepalese and international,
victims, human rights defenders, persons
belonging to minorities and vulnerable groups,
and others.
For a full copy of the memorandum Nepal:
Reconciliation does not mean impunity, please
see:
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA310062007?open&of=ENG-NPL
______
[2]
US-INDIA NUCLEAR ENERGY AGREEMENT: A BAD DEAL FOR
GLOBAL SECURITY AND FOR ENERGY SECURITY
Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD)
and Physicians for Social Responsibility - USA
(PSR) - the Indian and US affiliates,
respectively, of International Physicians for the
Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) - have grave
concerns about the negotiated accord between US
President George W. Bush and Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh, which, in return for
India's agreement to put its civilian reactors
under international inspections, effectively
removes the ban on the sale of fuel and civilian
nuclear technology to India enacted by the US
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978 and erodes
the bulwark against the further spread of nuclear
weapons established in the 1968 Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Under
the agreement, India will retain its nuclear arms
program and keep a third of its reactors under
military control without international
inspection, including two so-called fast-breeder
reactors that could produce fuel for weapons. The
accord would also allow India to build future
breeder reactors and keep them outside
international inspections.
Whereas the use, testing, production,
transportation and stockpiling of nuclear weapons
constitute a grave danger to human life and
health;
Whereas the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a
grave danger to global security;
Whereas our groups support the prevention of
nuclear war and the elimination of nuclear
weapons;
Whereas the "Section 123" agreement between the
United States and India would further erode the
imperfect but prevailing international legal
standards for peaceful cooperation and control
and security of nuclear materials and nuclear
technology;
Whereas the US-Indian Nuclear Agreement would
weaken the global norm against nuclear weapons
proliferation. The unique exception for India, as
is provided under the deal, would further
aggravate the discriminatory nature of the
nuclear non-proliferation regime and prevent
progress toward fulfillment of US obligations to
negotiate in
good faith toward nuclear disarmament contained
in Article VI of the NPT. By further undermining
the currently unstable non-proliferation order,
this Agreement would encourage additional states
to acquire nuclear weapons and gravely damage the
prospects of global nuclear disarmament. It would
also further worsen the ongoing nuclear arms race
in South Asia by significantly increasing India's
capabilities for fissile material production;
Whereas the radically boosted nuclear power
program in India, following as a consequence from
this Agreement, would throttle investments for
developing environmentally benign renewable
sources of energy including wind, solar, and
others, having grave impacts on the prospects of
long-term energy security. As bodies of
professional doctors working for peace and
disarmament we feel it is our duty to warn about
the use of nuclear energy for power generation.
This is neither safe nor economical and is
fraught with enormous dangers to the health of
people. These dangers were once again made clear
several weeks ago when damage from an earthquake
forced the closing of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa
Nuclear Power Station in Japan. Furthermore, a
study published in July in the European Journal
of Cancer Care (2007, 16, 355-363), concluded
that there is up to 24% rise in leukemia in
children around nuclear facilities in Canada,
France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Spain, and
the US.
Therefore, Indian Doctors for Peace and
Development (IDPD), Physicians for Social
Responsibility - USA (PSR), and the entire IPPNW
federation of national medical associations
committed to the abolition of nuclear weapons:
1) Call upon the Parliament of India and the
United States Congress to reject this agreement
as dangerous to international peace and security;
2) Call upon the members of the Nuclear
Suppliers Group (NSG) to reject this agreement as
contrary to their objectives; and
3) Call upon the United Nations Security
Council to undertake to support NSG guidelines
and the improvement of international legal rules
for the prevention of nuclear proliferation and
the promotion of nuclear disarmament.
Gunnar Westberg, Co-President, IPPNW
Ime John, Co-President, IPPNW
Catherine Thomasson, President, PSR
L. S. Chawla, President, IDPD
August 17, 2007
______
[3] Pakistan:
(i)
Dawn
August 19, 2007
THE DARK NIGHT
by Zubeida Mustafa
As former dictator Gen Ziaul Haq's reign came to
an abrupt end on August 17, 1988, literature and
the literati too began to breathe again. The
following three articles are a tribute to that
restored freedom
WHEN Ziaul Haq imposed pre-censorship on the mass
media, which include newspapers, magazines and
books, in October 1979, this was not exactly a
new experience for Pakistan. Since the country
emerged as an independent entity in 1947, some
form of controls had always been exercised by the
powers that be. These were further tightened by
Zia by requiring newspapers and magazines to
submit their contents to censor officers before
they were sent in for printing. This measure was
said to be necessary because, as the General said
in his speech announcing pre-censorship, the
newspapers were 'working against the interest of
the country' and 'were poisoning the minds of the
people'.
Weekly magazines were also affected. But for
journals, especially literary journals, and books
the martial law order made little difference.
They had all along been controlled through
different mechanisms. One was by forcing them to
resort to self-censorship if they wished to
escape the harsh penalties prescribed by
draconian laws. The other was to ban books and
journals after they had been published and were
found to be 'distasteful' by those in power.
There was yet another tool available to keep
authors and poets in line: hounding them or
throwing them into jail. Under Ziaul Haq, all
these instruments of control were freely used.
Since he had brought in an extra factor -
Islamisation - in his state policy, morality and
obscenity also became a pretext to crack the whip
on literary writings.
The worst aspect of this issue was the
self-censorship these practices induced. Writing
in Zamir Niazi's The Web of Censorship, Zohra
Yusuf, the editor of the weekend magazine of Star
in the 1980s, says, "In the final analysis I
found self-censorship to be more insidious and
corrupting than direct censorship by the
government. It gave me the feeling of
collaborating with the official censors, or
trying to appease the internal powers - both of
which are equally dehumanising experiences."
We all know how self censorship destroys the
self-esteem of a writer. We also know of the few
brave souls who refused to submit to the demands
of an authoritarian government calling for
conformism. Who can forget what happened to Faiz,
Josh Malihabadi, Fahmida Riaz, Sibtay Hasan,
Habib Jalib, Shaikh Ayaz and others. Their voices
were either silenced or they had to go into exile
to escape the wrath of the mighty who thought
they could control the pen and the thoughts of
great minds.
Ziaul Haq imposed censorship in its ugliest form.
He introduced religion as a key controlling force
in public life. Describing Islam as a 'complete
way of life', he ensured that anything could be
deleted from the public domain by declaring it to
be anti-Islam. Literature - both prose and poetry
- which encourages creativity and social and
cultural non-conformism has been most badly
affected by this approach in Pakistan.
Thus we were taken five centuries back in time.
Censorship was first introduced in history in the
16th century by the Church in the name of
religion and morals at the time of the
Reformation. Now the job of banning books on
social, political, religious and moral grounds is
exercised by governments. It is interesting to
note that some books that are today considered
great classics were banned in their days. Such
books include James Joyce's Ulysses, Mark Twain's
Huckleberry Finn and Harriet Beecher Stowe's
Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Societies that care for their intellectual
freedom have devised ways and means to counter
censorship. In America some publishers observe
the Banned Books Week every September to remind
Americans not to take their freedom to choose the
book they wish to read or the freedom to express
their opinion for granted.
(ii)
Dawn
Books and Authors
August 19, 2007
IN THE HOWLING WILDERNESS
by Kishwar Naheed
I was the director of publications in the
ministry information in Lahore when martial law
was imposed in 1977. The very next morning I was
that the coffee table book based on the portraits
of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto by the artist Guljee,
which had just arrived from the press, had been
sent to get pulped in the oven. Some journalists
told me that a few copies were being sold in Urdu
Bazaar, I immediately rushed there and found them
being sold for Rs100 each. I bought a copy and
still have it in my library today. The next day
another truck piled high with speeches and books
related to ZAB was sent to the same pulping oven.
Censorship was imposed immediately; all matter
printed in newspapers, books, periodicals and
pamphlets was censored by section officers of the
Punjab information department. Even the verses in
the Quran related to zulm and barbariat were
censored and deleted. The government was
sensitive about poets and writers, especially
Habib Jalib, Abbas Athar, Faiz Ahmed Faiz,
Fehmida Riaz and Ahmad Faraz. Post-publication
censorship and banning of books began in full
force. Ikramullah's novel published almost four
years ago was banned, Abbas Athar's collection of
poetry related all to Bhutto was banned and he
was put in jail. Saleem Shahid's anthology
written on the execution of ZAB was banned and he
too was put in jail. Hasan Abbas Raza's
collection of resistance literature titled
Khyaban was banned and he was jailed. My
translation of Simone de Beauvoir's book The
second sex was not only banned but three cases
were registered against me as the translation was
considered pornographic. Interestingly, the
English version of the book continued to be sold
without impediment.
Newspapers had empty (read censored) spaces even
in the space meant for editorials, at certain
times full pages were censored. Interesting
discussions were held in the ministry of
information both whether women like Madam
Noorjehan should be allowed to wear saris, and if
so should the blouse be with half sleeves or full
sleeves. After a 90 minute discussion it was
decided sleeveless blouses were absolutely
prohibited, while half and full sleeves were
allowed only for singers but not for any one else
appearing on television.
Floggings and long jail sentences were awarded to
journalists, writers and political activists. The
decision and action on it was so swift that when
flogging for any victim was announced, with in
half an hour, the punishment was granted. A
loudspeaker was placed in front of the victim as
that the whole jail population could listen to
his screams and get scared. Almost 40, 000
people, including boys as young as 13, were
flogged. When it was announced that journalists
like Nasir Zaidi and Masoodullah Khan were to be
flogged all writers and journalists protested.
Masoodullah Khan was saved by the argument that
he was more than 45 years old at the time, but
Nasir Zaidi was punished for writing stories
about brutality in jails and speedy trial courts.
The Jamaat-i-Islami aligned itself with the
regime for two years. The minister of information
was Maulana Mehmood Azam Faruqi. The moment he
saw my file he ordered 'send her home'. I was
placed 'on leave' without proper orders. Ejaz
Batalvi filed my case and after two years, when
the Jamaat also washed its hands of the alliance,
I was restored on the job.
From 1977 to 1986, several women executives were
made to sit on the back burner, even women
ambassadors were given secondary positions.
Orders were passed that women working in office
would have to wear a chadar. Most of us resisted
these orders and never wore the chadars. The
orders were not repeated.
Later orders were passed that every head of
department shall lead the ritual prayers in the
office and to ensure this practice a report had
to be sent. Amused, I told my male staff that
they would have to offer prayers under my imamat.
They all asked to be excused: 'we will offer
prayers ourselves and not report against you'.
When Dr Anwar Sajjad was arrested he asked me to
save his documents. Our conversation was recorded
and thereafter I was placed under police
surveillance for three years. Interestingly,
although I was working as director in a
government ministry, a jeep and a motorcycle
followed me everywhere. Many friends excused
themselves from meeting me due to the fear that
their license plate number would be noted. They
said they needed to protect their children. I
laughed because I had told my children the
reasons for my surveillance. Not only my
children, but indeed the whole neighbourhood of
Krishan Nagar expressed their pride in me.
Stories of night-time surveillances during those
days were much more horrible. Policemen would
smell the mouths of all those who came outdoors
after 10 pm. The majority were arrested and taken
to the thana for urine test. Every third day bail
was sought from district courts for Habib Jalib,
Saleem Shahid or Javed Shaheen. The doctors at
the thanas were usually sympathetic to artists
and writers; every time Mehdi Hasan or Munir
Niazi were taken for a urine test, the doctor
would give them water to so that the test showed
clean results.
Early in Zia's era official letter pads were
printed with the headline Bismillah. When
excessive complaints of forgery and bribery on
the same pads were reported, no further
stationary with the inscription was printed. So
many people went into exile. There was a case
against Fehmida Riaz and she was to be sent to
jail for 14 years. She had no money but somehow
managed to leave the country and took refuge in
India. Faraz went to London, Faiz Sahib went to
Lebanon. Shadows of the Zia regime's activities
are reflected in actions of Jamia Hafsa and in
Waziristan. Everyone, it seems, wants to go to
heaven by way of suicide bombings.
_______
[4]
Outlook
August 20, 2007
Special Issue: India At 60
CIRCLE OF CONDESCENSION
Proximity is not reason enough for the big
brother to consider Bangla bhai a member of his
family. The Partition has widened since 1971.
by Zafar Sobhan
Most Indians I know are astounded to learn that
India is generally held in somewhat low regard in
Bangladesh. Thunderstruck, in fact. How can that
possibly be? What about 1971? But, hard though
this may be for Indians to comprehend, this is
the unhappy truth. Kuldip Nayar hit the nail on
the head when he commented resignedly in a column
he wrote some years ago after one of his not
infrequent trips across the border that
"anti-Indian sentiment [in Bangladesh] is so
strong, you can taste it."
One fact says it all. Please brace yourselves for
the following: When India plays Pakistan in
cricket, most Bangladeshis support Pakistan.
The root of the problem lies in the
notion that Bangladeshis ought to be eternally
grateful to India for its Independence.
There, I've said it.
The question that surely needs to be asked within
India at this moment in time is why this is so
and what can be done about it, assuming that we
can all agree this is a regrettable state of
affairs that ought to be put right.
Well, for starters,
the commonly held notion that Bangladeshis ought
to be eternally grateful to India for its role in
our Independence does tend to get things off on
the wrong foot. Unfortunately, such an attitude
is part and parcel of the condescension that
makes up the default attitude of India towards
Bangladesh.
The truth is that since our Independence, India
has loomed far larger in the Bangladeshi national
consciousness than Pakistan. And not in a good
way. Most Bangladeshis, after all, will go
through their lives without ever even meeting a
Pakistani, which may go a long way in explaining
the rehabilitation of that country's reputation
in post-liberation Bangladesh (sorry, I couldn't
resist).
But Bangladeshis are, naturally, much more likely
to bump into Indians in their daily lives: Indian
middle managers and entrepreneurs are everywhere
in Bangladesh, at least in urban and industrial
centres. And then there is the vast swathe of
people who live near the 4,000-plus km border
(India's longest border, incidentally) who have
daily interaction with Indians.
So while Pakistani oppression and obnoxiousness
is relegated to history and there is little in
the present-day relationship to object to, the
closer current connection between India, our
biggest neighbour and principal trading partner,
obviously leads to greater opportunities for
friction and tension.
It's a vicious self-perpetuating cycle. There are
constituencies on both sides of the border who
have made a career out of bad-mouthing the other,
and the hate-mongers on each side are grist for
each other's mills.
In Bangladesh, anti-Indianism has been the
cornerstone of domestic politics for over thirty
years. The kiss of death politically is to be
seen as "pro-Indian"-and successive governments
spare no resources in their efforts to distance
themselves from New Delhi.
This is largely due to a thirty-year campaign
(begun by the BNP in the 1970s and the backbone
of the party's electoral appeal)-but it isn't all
propaganda and politics. There are genuine
grievances, too: India's protectionist trade
policies (fine when protecting your market from
western predators; a bit much, surely, when the
same attitude is extended to us), unequal sharing
of water resources, Indian border forces using
Bangladeshis for target practice, etc. You've
heard it all before.
And, most crucially, the fact that the average
Indian, to the extent that he or she thinks of
Bangladesh at all, looks down on it (come on, you
know it's true!).
Of course, we are far from blameless on our side
of the border. From petulantly denying India
transshipment facilities through Bangladesh to
blithely denying the presence of any Bangladeshi
migrants in India to an aggressive national chip
on the shoulder when dealing with India-it is not
hard to find reasons for Indian antipathy towards
Bangladesh either.
And India is also filled with people who have
built their careers around portraying Bangladesh
as a grave national threat to India due to
uncontrolled "infiltration" into the country from
the "terrorist hot-bed" across the border.
As long as there are prejudices to be appealed to
and votes to be had by demonising Bangladesh,
there will be those who will continue to fuel the
flames of resentment towards Bangladeshis and
continue to poison the atmosphere.
And the worse Indians think of Bangladeshis, the
worse Bangladeshis think of Indians. And the
worse Bangladeshis think of Indians, the worse
Indians think of Bangladeshis. And so it goes.
Like I said, a vicious cycle.
But it is not hopeless. There are glimmers on the
horizon. On the political front, we may finally
be entering an era, both in Dhaka and New Delhi,
where the powers that be have belatedly
recognised that our mutually antagonistic
relationship is both foolish and costly, and that
we both stand to gain far more from cooperation
than from confrontation.
And, at the person-to-person level, there is
reason for cautious optimism. After all, even the
most avid India-haters (cough! Khaleda, cough!)
are addicted to Indian television and movies.
There is a small number of pointy-headed
intellectuals decrying this cultural invasion,
but their timid voices are drowned out by the
roar of approval from the hordes who tune in
nightly to watch Indian Idol, Kajal, and Big Boss.
So, how to improve the sadly frayed
Bangladesh-India relationship? Duty-free access
to the Indian market would be a good start. Not
flooding us every monsoon, nor hogging all the
water in the dry season would help, too. And
having the decency to lose a couple more cricket
matches wouldn't hurt, either (happily, such is
the inconsistency of the current Indian side that
this is a distinct possibility).
But if India really wants to mend fences with
Bangladesh, nothing would be more effective than
sending the likes of Aishwarya Rai and Shahrukh
Khan here on a goodwill trip. The minute they
touch down in Dhaka, all will be forgiven. Trust
me on this one.
______
[5]
The Times of India
21 August 2007
WHAT BJP RULE MEANT
by Christophe Jaffrelot
For the first time in post-independence India,
Hindu nationalists were in a position to rule the
country between 1998 and 2004. The impact of this
unique phase has not been assessed yet. The BJP
had been voted to power to make a change after
decades of Congress rule and two years of the
Third Front. The Vajpayee government did make a
change a few weeks after taking over by deciding
on nuclear tests. Previous Congress governments
had contemplated this move, but no prime minister
after Indira Gandhi had gone ahead with it. This
strategic shift may remain the only irreversible
innovation of the National Democratic Alliance
(NDA).
Certainly the Vajpayee government introduced new
measures but most of them have been undone by the
UPA after 2004. Education is a case in point. M M
Joshi, as HRD minister, tried hard to saffronise
the textbooks and appointed Hindutva-minded
ideologues in key committees. But all this is
history today.
In the economic domain, the real change had
started before, with the Narasimha Rao
government. The NDA simply made the evolution
deeper and quicker, as evident from the
"strategic sales" regarding a few PSUs which
amounted to their privatisation. No significant
reform of the labour laws took place, for
instance. In the realm of diplomacy, the Vajpayee
government accelerated the rapprochement with the
US and Israel, but they were already on the
Congress agenda, as the opening of an Indian
embassy in Tel Aviv and an Israeli one in New
Delhi showed in 1991.
Six years in office, in fact, might have changed
BJP as much as BJP has changed Indian politics.
The party was supposed to be allergic to caste
politics because it divided India (and the
Hindus), but Vajpayee toyed with the reservation
issue the same way as his predecessors did -
granting quotas to the Jats of Rajasthan who
overnight became OBCs and a BJP votebank. The BJP
was also supposed to be clean, but party
president Bangaru Laxman himself - not to speak
of the rest - was caught receiving bribe.
The real gift BJP gave to India was political
stability through the setting up of a coalition
pattern. Between 1989 and 1999, India had had
five general elections and six PMs. Obviously,
the old Congress system had gone, and nothing had
replaced it. The BJP displayed remarkable
flexibility by admitting that it would not be in
a position to govern India alone and that it
would have to dilute its ideology to make
alliances. The creation of the NDA in 1998 will
perhaps turn out to be a real milestone in Indian
politics.
The BJP then made three major concessions by
putting on the back burner Ayodhya, Article 370
and a Uniform Civil Code. As a result, the NDA
was in a position to prepare a common election
manifesto in 1999 and the Vajpayee government
lasted five years, something a non-Congress
government had never achieved so far.
The Congress, though reluctantly, has emulated
this strategy by shaping the United Progressive
Alliance in 2004. Certainly it was not easy for
Congress to admit that its decline was
irreversible - at least in the short run - but
BJP had set a pattern the party had to imitate if
it wanted to compete successfully. The BJP,
therefore, has helped Indian democracy to cope
with the growing fragmentation of the party
system - because of regional, communal and caste
identities - which might have perpetuated
instability at the Centre had not India entered
the era of coalitions. Today, India looks like a
more modern democracy because of a growing
bipolarisation of politics which offers a rather
clear choice to voters.
Each time Hindu nationalist leaders have been in
office at the Centre, the sangh parivar has,
however, been under strain. In 1977-79, 'dual
membership' had been a key reason for the
abortion of the Janata experiment. During
1999-2004, similar issues resurfaced. On one
hand, the BJP was made of swayamsevaks who were
supposed to pay allegiance to the RSS and its
agenda; on the other, they were partners in the
NDA framework who did not share their
Hindutva-based ideology.
The RSS acknowledged what came to be known as the
compulsions of coalition politics - so long as
the organisation found reasons to rejoice in some
of the decisions of Vajpayee's government like
the nuclear tests and the education policy.
Things changed when some of the reforms
contradicted the programme of RSS and of some of
its other offshoots. Economic liberalisation, for
instance, was harshly criticised by staunch
advocates of swadeshi.
More importantly, the VHP never understood that
no progress could be made regarding its plan to
build a Ram temple in Ayodhya though its friends
were in office. Gradually, the idea took shape
that BJP had used the organisation to mobilise
voters, but once in office, it was not willing to
pay its debt. The relations between BJP and RSS -
as well as VHP - turned really sour after the
2004 defeat that the latter attributed to the
dilution of the party's ideology.
Such tensions need not be overemphasised though.
The sangh parivar survived similar drama in the
late 1970s-early 1980s. It proved then that it
was truly resilient and it is showing the same
kind of quality today. However, the tenure of the
Vajpayee government reconfirmed the deeply
ambivalent nature of this movement: it cannot win
power alone, but it refuses to share power either.
The writer is director of CERI, Paris.
______
[6]
[The below article first appeared in a Bombay edition of the Hindustan Times]
THE CAUSE OF JASHN E AZADI
by Rahul Roy
The recent stoppage by a proactive Mumbai police
of the screening of Sanjay Kak's documentary on
Kashmir, and the blustering move by the Ministry
of Information and Broadcasting to push through a
draconian Broadcasting Regulation Bill prove once
more the dictum: that if censorship laws want to
prevent freedom of expression, the result is
precisely the opposite. In the first case the
stoppage led to a spate of news paper reports
critical of the Mumbai police, and in the latter,
TV news channels are making Priya Ranjan Das
Munshi look like a centre back who has lost it
even before the football match has begun.
What Mr Das Munshi and the Mumbai Police
Commissioner don't realise is that censorship
creates a cause, and there is no cause without a
set of believers, and resistance. Ironically,
this is what Kak's film brings out so powerfully
about Kashmir; that denial of freedom makes the
idea of freedom itself into a mysterious and
mystical force; and oppression wipes out the
possibilities of analysing progressive or
retrogressive politics, because then all shades
of politics are reduced to sacrifice and
martyrdom.
By stopping the screening of Kak's film, the
Mumbai police have created a cause. By making it
forbidden, an opportunity has now been created
for the film to be seen by many more than the
seventy odd invited people who were present at
the venue. Even as I write, the film has offers
pouring in for screenings in Mumbai and
elsewhere. Some clandestine, some not so, and
some, where Kak has discussed the film with the
audience through a web cam from Delhi!
Just as democracy is a political idea that is
constantly being made, free speech too is in a
perpetual state of threat and resurgence. While
democracy creates the notion of freedom, free
speech defends the notion of democracy. However,
like all political ideas, the democratic nation
state too suffers from the disease of
authoritarianism and deems to protect itself by a
regular cleansing of all ideas and expressions
that it holds dangerous. It either creates
intricate systems of censor organisationally, or
invests in groups of people with the power to
erase words, images and voices. This censoring
operates either through state inscribed rules and
regulations, or can simply take the route of
extra legal means - as in the case of mob
violence, with or non state groups practicing
their own forms of censorship.
Censorship is an official attempt at adjudicating
the legitimacy (or illegitimacy) of words and
images. It is not about truth per se, but about
the impact of truth/s on power establishments,
and their fear of what it can reveal if allowed
to flow unchecked. It is an attempt at defining
truth in the singular and preventing the
democratic possibility of multiple voices
emerging. It is about insisting that the earth is
flat and at the centre of the universe.
Films are unique in the sense that they are the
only art form that suffers the ignominy of
pre-censorship. The Indian Cinematograph Act
provides the sanction for a few randomly selected
individuals, chosen mostly because of their
political connections, to sit as judges on what
the rest of the nation can - or cannot -see. The
Central Board of Film Certification under whose
aegis the task of censoring takes place is
probably the most unprofessional body of its kind
amongst nations that have a democratic polity.
The CBFC is run not by media professionals, as is
the case in many other countries, but by
government officials. It does no media or viewer
ship research. It has no idea of film theory or
about how films are read or about the kind of
work that is happening globally on issues like
spectatorship. So, between a set of bureaucrats
who are shunted around various ministries, and a
bunch of arbitrarily appointed members from the
public, the CBFC goes around smugly performing
the task of the moral guardians of the nation.
The complete farce that goes on within its
corridors was witnessed a few years back when
Rakesh Sharma's film Final Solution was first
refused a certification, and then within a few
months as a result of a sustained campaign,
passed without a cut. How could the same Board
take two opposing positions on the same film in a
matter of a few months? How could the same film
be a threat to law and order in one instance and
cleared without a single cut in another?
The Cinematograph Act needs to be overhauled and
the Central Board of Film Certification made into
a more professional body that should concern
itself with certifying films for appropriate age
viewer ship, rather than act as the moral police
or gatekeepers for the political party in power.
While the Cinematograph Act should be concerned
with only the public space, in reality it is
empowered to bulldoze its way into our homes,
offices and educational institutions. It is this
provision that was utilised by the Mumbai Police
to stop the screening of Jashn-e-Azadi to an
invited, private screening. In times when TV
channels are broadcasting live images across the
length and breadth of the country even as events
are unfolding, the Government wants to prevent us
from switching on a DVD player and watching a
documentary in our homes, or with friends and
colleagues in a private space.
Censorship is an ideological weapon to control a
free flow of images, words and voices. The
defence of censorship is almost always rooted in
political control, and consolidated through
regular calls of moral panics. In a democracy,
people must have the right to choose what they
want -and don't want-to see, what they want to
read or not read. Censorship takes away that
right from them and hands it over to a group of
people who then decide what is best for the
citizens of the entire nation. It is indeed
ironic that a democratic country that trusts its
citizens to choose its leaders and governments
does not trust the same people to decide what
they want to see or read.
The police action against Jashn-e-Azadi has met
with stiff resistance from the Press and civil
society. This and the proposed Broadcasting
Regulation Bill are creating afresh a strong anti
censorship mood in the country. Ultimately, anti
censorship movements are about strengthening
democratic traditions, which are under constant
threat by authoritarian institutions with
entrenched political or economic interests. It is
not so much about breaking silences but
discovering innovative and combative ways for the
circulation of words and images that are arguably
the real custodians of social democracy. And that
is precisely what is happening with Sanjay Kak's
film.
Rahul Roy is an independent documentary filmmaker based in New Delhi
______
[7]
BBC News
20 August 2007
THE GREAT INDIAN SEX DEBATE
The Indian government's recent attempt to
introduce sex education for school children has
provoked a vigorous debate. In the first of two
articles, the BBC's Jyotsna Singh considers the
case in favour of a more open discussion of sex
in schools.
Khajuraho temple
Many say sex has been an integral part of Indian culture
"Who says discussing sex is against Indian
culture? I don't think this is a point worth
debating any more," Naina Kapoor, Director of the
NGO, Sakshi, told the BBC.
"We are simply in denial when we say things like
it is against our culture," she says.
Sakshi is a leading Delhi-based NGO, trying to
create sexuality awareness in India.
Needless to say their job has not been easy.
"Parents, teachers, students none of them are
comfortable talking about the subject initially,"
says Smita Bhartia, a programme co-ordinator at
Sakshi.
"But we don't just barge in and start talking
about the subject. We organise seminars,
workshops to try and get people talking about it."
Taboo
India is world famous for its ancient manual on
sex - the Kamasutra - and temples with erotic
structures in Khajuraho in central India.
So, many ask, how come sex has become a taboo subject in modern India?
Aids activists insist that India must launch an
awareness campaign about the disease on a war
footing.
They say that young children must be made an
integral part of this information campaign.
"We have evaluated the need for sex education in
schools. It is most essential. The only thing is
how you do it when some people have cultural
issues," Sujatha Rao, the director of the
National Aids Control Organisation (Naco) says.
The decision to impart sex education to pupils in
the age group of 14-18 is part of the
government's Adolescence Education Programme
(AEP).
Officials say the programme aims to integrate sex
education in the school curriculum and is
designed and developed to reflect the concerns of
parents and adolescents.
Banned
The sex education package for teachers was
developed by the Ministry of Education and Naco
in consultation with the Unicef .
State governments are allowed to modify and
devise their own teaching aid in keeping with
local sentiments.
But several states have recently banned the
introduction of sex education altogether in their
schools.
JL Pandey, the government's coordinator for the
Adolescent Education Programme, AEP says: "There
is resistance to the programme because of its
newness."
"There cannot be a universally accepted formula
to give sex education. It is bound to vary," he
says .
Many parents and students are supportive of the government efforts.
"I would feel more comfortable learning about
such things from a teacher, they are like our
friends," Manya, a class ten student in Delhi
told the BBC.
Manya says her biology teacher helped her have
general awareness about the subject when she was
12.
She says she found the information quite useful.
"It was pretty detailed. The teacher did warn us
about what precautions to take," she says.
Helping parents too
Rekha Sen Gupta, a parent in Madhya Pradesh, shared Manya's sentiments.
"I would be very pleased if my children get this kind of education in school."
"Otherwise, they might try to lay their hands on
undesirable material such as pornography. It is
better to get scientific knowledge from an
expert," she says.
Some parents even say they have themselves
benefited from the information being given to
their children in schools.
"I grew up knowing nothing about these things,"
says another parent Anuja Shankar.
"Even after my marriage there were so many things
that I was really unsure about. I would like my
daughter to be more aware of these things."
Federal government officials say they are aware
of the sensitivities and significance of the
issue.
"We have just held a workshop with various state
government officials where we exchanged ideas
about the differences that exist on the issue,"
Mr JL Pandey said.
"Varied perceptions on an issue like this are
normal, but that does not mean the programme
itself should be discontinued."
Meanwhile, an alarmed federal health minister has
issued a grim warning to the states opposed to
the move.
"They will be the losers if awareness is not
created at the right age," Anbumani Ramadoss said.
"In our country, we do sex. But we don't want to
talk about it and that is why we have a billion
population," he said.
o o o
Economic and Political Weekly
August 18, 2007
SEX EDUCATION CONUNDRUM
Both the opponents and the proponents of the
Adolescence Education Programme (sex education)
share the same ideological premise of sexual
restraint as a national virtue.
by S Anandhi
The unionministry of human resource development
(MHRD), in collaboration with National AIDS
Control Organisation (NACO), has recently
introduced the Adolescence Education Programme
(AEP) or sex education for secondary and senior
secondary school students in all state and
central government- run schools across the
country. The main aim of the AEP is to impart
knowledge about HIV/AIDS to the senior students
in classes IX-XI and to promote awareness about
safe-sex practices and sexually transmitted
diseases.
As the MHRD has claimed, the objective of AEP is
"to empower the adolescent population to make
informed choices and develop life skills for
addressing psycho- logical, social and health
concerns". In 2006, the AEP was introduced as a
co-curricular subject to be taught for 16 hours
per year in schools affiliated to the Central
Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). In June
2007, it was made compulsory for all schools
across the country. The AEP curriculum or the
modules on sex education, jointly developed by
the department of education, National Aids
Control Organisation, the United Nations
Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the National Council
of Educational Research and Training (NCERT),
include basic information about the body and the
physiological changes that are experienced by the
adolescent, and information about conception,
contraception and sexually transmitted diseases.
Preserving 'Indian Values'
The AEP has invited strong criticism and
opposition from various state govern-ments,
including the Communist Party of India
(Marxist)-led government in Kerala, even as the
women's wing of the party, the All India
Democratic Women's Asso- ciation has strongly
welcomed the move to introduce sex education in
schools. Many of them have banned sex education
in schools on the ground that it corrupts the
youth and is antithetical to so-called Indian
cultural values. For instance, the chief minister
of Karnataka has banned the AEP in schools
claiming that "sex education may be necessary in
western countries but not in India, which has
rich culture".
The government of Maharashtra has decided to ban
sex education not only in state-run schools but
also in schools that come under the CBSE. The ban
was because sex education offends "Indian
values". The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)- led
Madhya Pradesh government has gone a step further
by ordering replacement of sex education in
schools with yoga classes and teaching of "Indian
traditions" and "values".
Not surprisingly, the ban against sex education
in schools in various states is the result of
agitations or threats ofagitation by various
fundamentalists groups of diffe- rent ideological
hues. The issue has para- doxically provoked
organisations espou- sing Hindutva such as the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS) and the BJP,
Islamic organisations like the Students Islamic
Organisation (SIO) and left-wing organisations
like the All India Demo- cratic Students'
Organisation (AIDSO), affliated to the Socialist
Unity Centre of India, to speak the same
language. Launch- ing a series of protests
against the intro- duction of sex education in
Orissa, an AIDSOleader has claimed, "Adolescent
sex education will simply cause innocent children
to be curious about sexual mattersand it will
affect their morale." The views of Dinanath
Batra, secretary of the RSS-affiliated Shiksha
Bachao Andolan Samiti, was not different. Writ-
ing in the RSS mouthpiece, the Organiser, he
reasoned, "[t]he concept of educating youngsters
about the graphic details of sexual intercourse
is nothing short of corrupting impressionable
young minds. The lurid details contained in the
curricu- lum of sex education are absolutely
vulgar and shocking and promote liberal sexual
behaviour before marriage and adulthood among
students."
The Hindu fundamentalists have bol- stered their
claim to nationalism by argu- ing that sex
education in schools not only stands against
"Indian culture and moral values" but also
promotes western values. While opposing the
efforts of the Tamil Nadu government to introduce
sex educa- tion in state-run schools, L Ganesan,
presi- dent of the Tamil Nadu unit of the BJP,
warned the government that it would harmthe
country's culture and described it as "a
conspiracy of the US to bring indegraded values
under the guise of AIDSawareness". Similarly,
Murali Manohar Joshi of theBJP argues that the
attempt to impart sex education is a ploy of the
multinational companies that are keen on
promoting the sale of condoms and other sex
devices.
In a country where Valentine's Day celebrations
and vibrating condoms are viewed as capable of
unsettling the nation, there is no novelty in
these arguments. One is only too familiar with
them. But their efficacy in stalling sex
education in schools in several states is a
matter for worry.
Restraining Sexuality
The proponents of sex education have advanced an
array of arguments in defence of introducing AEP
in schools. Expressing deep concern about the
incidence of HIV/ AIDS victims in India, rise in
child sexual abuse, the increasing rate of
pregnancy among adolescents, and the possibility
of victims of sexual abuse becoming perpe-
trators due to lack of information or mis-
information about sexual health among the
adolescents, they argue that sex education can
counter these problems. Many of these arguments
are indeed valid. But the overall approach of the
state in introducing sex education in schools is
not without its share of problems.
First of all, sex education in schools is
primarily linked to HIV/AIDS control. The NACO
which is collaborating with the government in
introducing sex education in schools, has claimed
that one-third ofthe HIV/AIDS virus carriers in
India are youth whose abundant sexual
permissiveness and over all attitudes to sex
needed urgent reform. Similarly, making a
connection between sex education and prevention
of HIV/AIDS among adolescents, theminister of
state for women and child development, Renuka
Chaudhary, has claimed, "sex education is no less
than insurance for your child."
A similarity between the earlier popu- lation
control programmes and AEP is hard to miss. The
population control programmes represented the
bodies of the poor as oversexed, limitlessly
procreative, and hence a national problem. We
find this line of argument emanating in the sex
manuals written in the 1930s and 1940s by Indians
like N S Phadke, A P Pillay, and M N Ganesha Iyer
and articulated in the National Health Policy of
the government of India (1978) and the
NationalPopulation Education Project (1980). In
other words, the discourse of population control
con- structs national health as contingent upon
the sexual reform of the poor. In AEP,
adolescents have been substituted in the place of
the poor in the name of HIV/AIDS control. Their
bodies are marked, in the new discourse, by
reckless permissive sexual abundance. To preserve
andenhance the nation's health, their bodies have
to be disciplined.
The implication of such an argument is not
difficult to unravel. Like the critiques of the
sex education in schools, the state too, while
promoting sex education, treats restrained
sexuality as necessary for a healthy nation. Thus
both the critiques and defenders of the AEP seem
to share the same ideological premise of sexual
restraint as a national virtue. As the AEP states
its objective, it aims at "scientific instruction
to enable the learners (here the school attending
adolescents) to grasp the physiological facts
that would eventually takecare of problems of
sexual desire and fantasy, etc, wrongly triggered
by media 'misinformation'."
Second, the AEP conceptualises sex and sexuality
as bounded by physiological facts and human
biology. Its claim to "scientific instruction"
based on informa- tion about the human body and
the physio- logical changes experienced by the
ado- lescent, conception, contraception and
sexually transmitted diseases, places is- sues of
sexuality outside the realm of the social. Within
this discourse of "scientific sexuality" that
assimilates issues of sexu- ality to sexual
"hygiene", there is very little room for
educating adolescents about sex, sexuality and
sexual health as embedded in relations of power.
Given this, it is debatable how far the AEP will
help in combating child sexual abuse and related
problems.
______
[8]
Outlook
August 21, 2007
APPRECIATION
AINI APA -- QURRATULAIN HYDER (1927-2007)
Last week, our jury chose Jnanpith winner,
'Urdu's Marquez', Qurratulain Hyder as one of the
60 heroes of independent India. And now the news
that one of the world's major writers is no more.
...
C.M. Naim on Qurratulain Hyder
A SEASON OF BETRAYALS: A SHORT STORY AND TWO NOVELLAS
by Qurratulain Hyder, Translated and introduced by C.M.Naim
Zubaan Books
293 Pages, Rs 200
Only a few days back, to mark the 60 years of
Independence, when we asked an eminent jury to
pick out 60 Great Indians in 60 years of our
Republic, the name of Qurratulain Hyder was
introduced prominently as Urdu's Marquez."Through
her novels and short stories, this prolific
writer gave Urdu fiction a brave and endlessly
inventive new voice," we wrote, and quoted the
London Times: "Her magnum opus, Aag Ka Darya
(River of Fire), is to Urdu fiction what A
Hundred Years of Solitude is to Hispanic
literature.
[She is] one of the world's major living writers."
But, alas, no more.
For, Qurratulain Hyder breathed her last in a
Noida hospital after a prolonged illness at 2:30
a.m this morning. She was awarded the Jnanpith in
1989 for her novel Aakhir-e-Shab ke Hamsafar
(Travellers Unto the Night), the Sahitya Akademi
award in 1967, the Soviet Land Nehru Award in
1969 and Ghalib Award in 1985, and had been
honoured with the Padma Shri, and, recently, the
Padma Bhushan in 2005.
Indeed, when talking about Independence, it is
inevitable to think of Partition -- and she was
perhaps the most profound, literary explorer of
that tumultuous event. She did not write about
the physical violence of Partition, as did so
many others (foremost among them Manto). In fact,
in her most famous novel Aag Ka Darya (River of
Fire), a historical tale that moves from the
fourth century to the modern India and Pakistan,
the moment of Independence, is marked with a
blank page that simply says "August 1947". Her
interest lay in the wounds that bled inside, the
festering wounds that people carried silently for
ever. Some of these aspects of her writings were
explored by C.M. Naim in the introduction to his
translation of one of her short stories and two
novellas that we reproduce below as an
appreciation.
***
The days and months that preceded and followed
August 1947-when the Indian subcontinent became
free of colonial bonds-were filled with most
horrific acts of physical violence. The mass
killings, rapes, plunder and arson that occurred
at the time moved the great Urdu poet Faiz Ahmad
Faiz to call that 'Freedom's Dawn' "a pock-marked
and night-bitten morning," and his words became
the mantra for a whole generation of Urdu writers
on both sides of the new international borders.
It was also a time of other, equally rampant
'violences' that were not any less scarring for
not being patently physical. These were
violations of trust; they wounded and maimed the
psyches of their victims, leaving the bodies
intact. And their time-that season of
betrayals-lasted longer than just several months.
These betrayals were of many kinds. In the arena
of public life, for example, there was the
abandonment by the Muslim League leaders,
particularly of U.P. and Bihar, of the very
people whom they had vociferously claimed to
represent, as they rushed off to gain for
themselves positions of power in Pakistan. Then
there was the abandonment of their avowed
ideals-not to say their Mahatama's wishes-by the
stalwarts of the Indian National Congress when
they accepted-some would say, with ungainly
haste-the division of the country in order to
pursue their own vision of a highly centralized
polity. Instead of leading to any devolution of
power to the common man-the individual
citizen-the emergent polity in Pakistan soon
turned into a nightmare military dictatorship.
While in India, where the abolition of princely
states and zamindari briefly created the effect
of a radical change, there eventually developed a
feeling of increasing disillusionment as the
'consensual' politics of the Indian National
Congress quickly showed their true face as
shameless manipulations of caste and religion.
At the level of personal lives too, there were many betrayals.
One may rightly say, of course, that the physical
violence let loose during those 'communal riots'
was nothing but an extreme violation of the trust
that had existed-or should have existed-between
human beings. But even otherwise, too, there were
innumerable incidents that occurred between
neighbors, between friends, even between members
of the same family, that were betrayals of
established ties and expectations, as masses of
people moved from one country to the other-a
person suddenly found his neighbor gone even
though there had been no fear of violence, or a
friend was shocked to discover that his boon
companion had emigrated overnight to some distant
place. And who can say that those who went away
did not at some time or another feel a twinge of
guilt for what they had done to the trust that
others had placed in them?
From the specific perspective of the Muslims of
Bihar, U.P., Rajasthan, Central India and
Hyderabad, such sudden, large-scale and
continuing emigration had never occurred before.
Its consequences in terms of a permanent severing
of familial ties-along with what the latter
entailed as rights and responsibilities-were
unprecedented. Perhaps the worst sufferers in
that regard were the women of middle-class Muslim
families. House-bound and ill-educated, they had
mostly been raised to wait for their male elders
to find them husbands, for whom they could then
continue to perform their traditionally
designated tasks. But now male elders and
prospective grooms dribbled away to Pakistan,
while the two nations steadily used legislative
controls to make their return impossible. It must
be difficult today to imagine how it was in the
Fifties for countless Muslim girls and their
parents, particularly in the so-called sharif
families of North India that had fallen on bad
days after the abolition of zamindari and the
enforcement of the Evacuee Property Act. Ismat
Chughtai's memorable short story Chauthi ka Jora
("The Wedding Dress")-partly incorporated in her
script for the film Garm Hawa-perhaps best
communicates that particular nightmare.
At the time, most major Urdu writers-they were
almost all men-wrote about the horrors and
brutalities that some human beings could
deliberately inflict upon others in the name of
religion. Sa'adat Hasan Manto, Krishna Chandra,
Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Qudratullah Shihab and
numerous other male writers produced a powerful
'literature of the riots'. But to the extent that
these and other male writers remained focused on
just the physical violence, their
fiction-particularly of the less talented, though
not any less sincere, among them-often read like
a list of horrors. (Usually these horrors were
ascribed to the two communities or nations in a
carefully calibrated equal measure.) Only later
did some of them-Rajinder Singh Bedi, for
one-turn their attention to the other, less
overtly bloody tragedies: what had happened and
continued to happen to individuals and families
at those human sites where there had been no
'riot' and yet there were any number of victims.
Women writers, on the other hand, focused their
attention from the beginning on the non-physical
and less tangible tragedies of divided families,
abandoned parents and siblings, and shattered
loves and trusts. Perhaps because these were
their own felt experiences. Prominent among the
latter was Qurratulain Hyder, who may also have
been unique among all writers-women or men-for
having experienced and written about such
tectonic upheavals on all sides of the emergent
borders-in India, and in both West and East
Pakistan. Interestingly, she first responded in
the form of novels, as if the magnitude of the
events demanded a larger canvas, and only later
turned to shorter genres.
In some sense, however, she never stopped
examining the consequences of those events, as is
evident even in her most recent works.
The present collection-two novellas and a short
story-contains three of Hyder's best-known
shorter fictions about that particular time of
trials and betrayals. The first novella, "Sita
Betrayed" (Sita Haran), is dated 1960 and was
published in Naya Daur (Karachi); the second
novella, "The Housing Society" (Housing Society),
is dated 1963; it too first appeared in Naya
Daur; the short story, "The Sound of Falling
Leaves" (Patjhar Ki Avaz) dates from around the
same time and was the title story of the
collection that came out in 1967 and won the
Sahitya Akademi award in 1968. The three, besides
being some of my own favourites, also form, to my
mind, a fair representation of Hyder's thematic
concerns and stylistic predilections, as will
become clear below.
* * *
The chief protagonists of the three works are
women: Sita Mirchandani, a Hindu refugee in India
from Sindh; Salma ('Chhoti Bitiya') and Surayya,
Muslim girls from very different social classes
in U.P., who are forced to move to Pakistan; and
Tanvir Fatima, another Muslim born in U.P. but
narrating her story in Lahore and not quite sure
why she is there. In fact, this uncertainty and
not quite knowing what happened to them and why,
is a feature common to these and several other
female characters in Hyder's fiction. Not that
they are befuddled, unintelligent, or inert;
rather, they seem un-moored, though not unnerved,
by the cataclysmic events around them. It is
important to note that despite the crumbling away
of the social and economic certainties of their
childhoods and adolescent days, these women do
not fail to shore up new lives for themselves.
They are not benumbed into total inaction.
However, there does remain a deep hole at the
centre of their lives which they repeatedly-and
vainly-seek to fill through new human contacts.
One reason is that the cataclysms have not
dislodged men from their essential position of
authority and control. In fact, the changed times
seem to provide the men with ever-new channels
for exercising dominance.
[. . . ]
* * *
Qurratulain Hyder was born in 1927 to two highly
creative, original, and earnest individuals. [3]
Her father, Sajjad Hyder, a product of the M.A.O.
College, Aligarh, was an enlightened man who
expounded his liberal views on the education and
welfare of women in essays and stories, and also
through various organizations. Besides being a
pioneer short story-writer in Urdu, he also
translated short stories and novellas from
Turkish, which he had learned from Haji Isma'il
Khan, a friend of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan. Haji
Isma'il Khan started a magazine called Ma'arif
from Aligarh in 1896 on the lines of
Sarwat-o-Funoon, a forward-looking Turkish
magazine. Sajjad Hyder, still an undergraduate,
worked as its Assistant Editor and transcreated
considerable Turkish short fiction into Urdu for
it. From 1904 to 1907, he worked as dragoman for
the British Consul at Baghdad and came in close
contact with the Young Turks. Later he visited
Turkey several times. An avowed Turcophile-he
adopted the Turkish word Yildirim ("thunderbolt")
as his pen-name-Sajjad Hyder saw in the rise of
the Kemalist movement a glorious future for all
Muslim societies.
Qurratulain Hyder was first photographed by
Prashant Panjiar in what was a coup of sorts,
everyone talked of how elusive and difficult she
could be. When I met her last week to persuade
her, she said, 'Tell the magazine I'm a difficult
woman.' I told her that was her reputation
anyway. For the first time that afternoon she
cracked a grin. She seemed flattered.-- Gauri Gill
Qurratulain Hyder's mother, Nazar Sajjad, was an
equally liberal and socially concerned person.
She too wrote fiction, both novels and short
stories. These were particularly popular with the
emergent female readership in Urdu. She was also
very active in promoting educational and social
reforms among Muslim women.
Hyder has memorably celebrated the lives of these
two immensely creative individuals in her
two-volume Kar-i Jahan Daraz Hai, which is itself
a unique book in Urdu, being a novelised account
of her family that goes back to the time when her
ancestors first arrived in India from Central
Asia, and comes forward to her own days (till
1978).
Hyder was educated mostly in Lucknow, first at
the famous Isabella Thoburn College, then at the
University of Lucknow, where she obtained a
Master's degree in English literature. She also
studied painting and music, and has always been
avidly interested in various other arts.
Hyder's father passed away in 1943. She and her
mother were in Dehra Dun in 1947 when India
became free and communal riots broke out at many
places, including Dehra Dun. The mother and
daughter were able to escape to Lucknow, and in
December 1947 left for Karachi, where Hyder's
only brother had preceded them. In Pakistan,
Hyder worked for the Department of Advertising,
Films, and Publications, working on
documentaries, particularly in what was then
called East Pakistan. Subsequently she moved to
England, where she worked at the BBC. In 1961,
she returned to India and lived in Bombay, first
as the managing editor of Imprint, then as the
Assistant Editor at the Illustrated Weekly of
India. Since 1984, she has lived in Delhi and has
held various positions, including visiting
professorships at the Aligarh Muslim University
and the Jamia Millia Islamia. Her writings have
brought her several major awards, including the
Sahitya Akademi award in 1968, the Soviet Land
award in 1969, the Ghalib Modi award in 1985, the
Iqbal Samman in 1987, and India's most
prestigious Jnanpith award in 1991. The
Government of India honored her with a Padmashri
in 1984, and the Sahitya Akademi chose her as one
of its permanent Fellows in 1994.
Hyder's literary career began at a very early age
when she started contributing to some of the
celebrated magazines of the time that specially
catered to women and children. But soon her short
stories began to appear in the best literary
magazines of Urdu, and the first collection came
out in 1947. Her first novel, Mere bhi
Sanam-Khane ("My Idol-houses too"), followed soon
after. Set at the time of the Partition, it
movingly displayed the tearing apart of the lives
of ordinary individuals as they got caught in the
vortex of events that they understood only dimly
if at all, and the destruction of that syncretic
Ganga-Jamni (Indo-Muslim) culture that was once
the primary defining element for much of the
elite society in the towns and cities of the
Gangetic plain. The novel's title (borrowed from
a couplet by Iqbal: "You have your idol-houses; I
too have mine. // My idols are perishable, and
your idols are too") aptly described the young
author's view of those calamitous days: a
disillusionment of immense magnitude, a tragic
falling from grace of many gods. Notably, she did
not write like an outsider writing about other
'victims' and thus feeling a need to point a
finger at someone 'guilty'. Instead, her voice
was that of a victim who chooses not to accuse
anyone, for who is there to accuse but another
victim.
Since then she has published three volumes of
short stories, six novels, several novellas, the
two-volume family saga mentioned earlier, and
several translations, including Henry James'
Portrait of a Lady, Truman Capote's Breakfast at
Tiffany's, and T. S. Eliot's Murder in the
Cathedral. She has also published English
translations of her own works, including a novel,
Fireflies in the Night, and a collection of short
stories, The Sound of Falling Leaves.
Another such publication is The Nautch Girl, her
English translation of a nineteenth-century Urdu
version of what was perhaps the first piece of
'modern' fiction written in Persian (ca. 1790),
and possibly also the first Indian novel.
During her literary career, Hyder has had her
share of controversy too. In the early Fifties
when the so-called Progressives had the dominant
voice in Urdu literary circles, Hyder was accused
of being a bourgeois and a reactionary, given to
morbid nostalgia and employing a literary style
that, to the Progressives, seemed slight or
brittle if not outright flippant. Ismat Chughtai
even wrote a parody of her fiction, entitled "Pom
Pom Darling." Hyder's real crime, in fact, was
that she preferred to write exclusively about
what she knew best. She wrote mostly about
upper-crust people and did not denounce them in
the manner expected by the votaries of Socialist
Realism. But her detractors were utterly wrong to
think that she wished for a return of the good
old days. They demanded of her a kind of crude
class-consciousness, but themselves showed no
understanding of the immense pain-private as well
as public-that she felt as the life around her
changed. Hyder was never oblivious of the
economic ties that existed between people as well
as between classes of people, she was simply more
concerned with the human bonds of trust, loyalty
and empathy-values that are often not quite
defensible through cold logic. Later in Pakistan,
some literary critics, pointing to her apparent
affection for that Ganga-Jamni culture of the
past, faulted her writings for being
'anti-Pakistan'. Understandably, her readers in
Pakistan, as in India, showed better judgment
than the critics.
In almost all her writings Hyder has been
concerned with Time, that faceless presence which
transforms all appearances and which we ignore
only at our own peril. Though this inevitability
of a change is our only permanent reality. [4]
Hyder persistently urges us to recognize that it
has one face of gain and another of loss. A
linearly progressing time brings about changes.
Should we then take sides? Should we say that
change is progress? Or should we say it is
decline? Either, according to Hyder, would be
simplistic and perilous, for such issues are not
settled by a reference to the material world
alone. What counts, for her, is the human spirit
and the relationships it generates and nurtures.
That is where the linearity of time seems to
curve into a spiral, urging us to recognize a
past that never quite disappears. This, of
course, may have a depressing side too: the more
things change, the more they remain the same.
What, then, is our choice as individuals? Here it
may be worthwhile to recall the
characteristically modest, even self-mocking,
remarks that Hyder made in 1991 in her acceptance
speech at the Jnanpith Award function: "My
concern for civililzational values about which I
continue writing may sound naive, wooly-headed
and simplistic. But then, perhaps, I am like that
little bird which foolishly puts up its claws,
hoping that it will stop the sky from falling."
I may be stretching the point but it seems to me
that what Hyder tacitly offers us is nothing but
that wise Candidean response: even in the best of
all possible worlds, it is best not to neglect to
tend our garden. Certainly, through the several
thousand pages of her writings, she has shown
herself to be an eloquent witness to that truth.
Also See: The review of Kaa-e-JahaaN Daraaz Hai by C.M. Naim
1. Qurratulain Hyder, A Season of Betrayals: A
Short Story and Two Novellas, translated with an
introduction by C.M. Naim (New Delhi: Kali for
Women, 1999), pp vii-xx.
2. This existential attitude is most effectively
expressed in an extraordinary couplet by the
sixteenth century Persian poet, 'Urfi, who died
in India:
Don't be proud if you were not deceived by the mirage;
Instead, fault yourself for not being thirsty enough.
Iqbal, the most influential Urdu poet of this
century, admiringly quotes this couplet in his
lectures on the reconstruction of religious
thought in Islam.
3. Her maternal uncle Mir Afzal Ali named her
after the remarkable Persian poet, Qurratulain
Tahira. A Baha'i martyr-she was executed in
1852-Tahira was nevertheless admired as a heroic
figure by many Muslim intellectuals at the time,
including Iqbal. Mir Afzal Ali's mother, Akbari
Begum, was the author of the famous novel Gudri
Ka Lal (1907).
4. Iqbal: sabat ek taghayyur ko hai zamane men.
"Only change has permanence in Time."
______
[9]
Economic and Political Weekly
August 18, 2007
Letters
SOCIAL VICIOUSNESS
Many of us have been scandalised by recent events
in Hyderabad. The physical assault on Taslima
Nasreen was entirely uncalled for. The increase
in the number of violent incidents of this
kindindicates that the rule of law is ceasing to
exist in this country. Any group of people, of
whatever affiliation, can take the lawinto their
own hands, and brutally assault those whose
opinions they do not agree with and get away with
the assault. Threats from groups such as the
Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Majlis-e-Ittehadul
Muslimeen, and there is little to choose between
them in terms of their tactics, have pulverised
Indian society into accepting violence as a way
of countering contrary opinion. We are equally
scandalised that those who are supposedly the
protectors of the rule of law seem to be more
partial to the perpetrators of violence than to
its victims. Are we to assume that this is now
the new definition of protecting the rule of law
and of dispensing justice? Perhaps we need to
turn our attention away from the daily chorus of
our improving rate of growth and pay more
attention to what constitutes the quality of our
citizenship, a quality that seems to be rapidly
eroding. The deafening silence on these physical
assaults from those who are the arbiters of
citizenship points in only one direction - that
the values that we had associated with Indian
citizenship are being shamelessly subordinated to
the arithmetic of electoral politics. This can
only portend the worst form of social viciousness
that will come to govern Indian society.
Andre Beteille, Rajeev Bhargava,
Partha Chatterjee, Deepak Nayyar,
Romila Thapar
______
[10] ANNOUNCEMENTS:
(i)
Delhi Film Archive and Ramjas College present a season of documentaries.
Every third thursday of the month, a film that opens a new world.
We start this regular screening programme with a film from close home.
"Black Pamphlets"
Duration: 84 minutes
A film By Nitin K
23 August 2007, 1:15pm, at Seminar Room, Ramjas College, Delhi University
Black Pamphlets takes you into the heart of the
Delhi University Students Union Election process.
The film is an insiders view of the candidates,
strategies, resources and the politics that goes
into the making of probably the biggest student
election of the country. But beyond that the
film through its images of the everyday in the
university becomes an opportunity for students
from diverse backgrounds to share with the film
maker their own understanding of democratic
practices, their futures and their today.
:
o o o
(ii)
Dear All,
The Human Rights in Conflict Programme of the Law
& Society Trust (LST) is pleased to invite you to
a briefing on a joint project in documentation of
human rights violations during the period January
to June 2007. With project partners, LST has
compiled and analysed several lists of persons
disappeared and killed throughout the island. A
public version of this document will be available
to those who attend the briefing.
The full confidential document, listing all names
and available information on individual cases,
will be submitted to the Presidential Commission
of Inquiry and relevant members of Government
prior to this briefing.
Date: Thursday 23rd August 2007
Time: 5pm
Location: 3 Kynsey Terrace, Colombo 8.
Apologies for the late notice.We would be
grateful if you could confirm your attendance by
3pm on Wednesday, 22nd August.
Thank you.
CONTACT: Dulani Kulasinghe or Shehani Nayagam, 2691228 / 2684845
o o o
(iii)
THE SECOND FLOOR: AN EVENING WITH THE AUTHOR OF MILITARY INC.
The Pakistan Democracy Foundation, Oxford
University Press, and The Second Floor (T2F)
invite you to an evening with Ayesha Siddiqa, the
author of Military Inc.
Ayesha Siddiqa's controversial book takes a hard
look inside Pakistan's military economy, and
shows how the power of the military has
transformed Pakistani society. This is a unique
opportunity to interact with a brave woman who
dared to take on the establishment. Our panelists
include Asad Umar, Nazim Haji and Asad Sayeed.
The interactive Q/A session will be moderated by
Ayesha Tammy Haq.
Military Inc. can be purchased from the T2F
bookshop and the author, Ayesha Siddiqa, will be
available after the discussion to sign copies.
Date: Saturday, 25th August 2007
Time: 5:30 pm
IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT ENTRY: We ONLY have
seats for 50 and floor seating for 15. To
guarantee yourself a seat, or space on the floor,
please collect your free pass from The Second
Floor, any time between noon and midnight. There
will be some standing room space available as
well so take your chances and swing by. If
there's room, you're most welcome to join us. One
pass admits one person.
Venue: The Second Floor
6-C, Prime Point Building, Phase 7, Khayaban-e-Ittehad, DHA, Karachi
Phone: 538-9273 | 0300-823-0276 | info at t2f.biz
Map: http://www.t2f.biz/location
o o o
(iii)
Dear Friends,
This is to invite you for the first screening of my new film -
THE LIGHTNING TESTIMONIES
on the 27th of August 2007 at 6.30 p.m. at the
India International Center Auditorium , New Delhi
.
Please do come and invite others who may be interested.
regards
amar
FILM SYNOPSIS
THE LIGHTNING TESTIMONIES
a film by Amar Kanwar
Why is one image different from the other? Why
does an image seem to contain many secrets? What
can release them so as to suddenly connect with
many unknown lives.
The Lightning Testimonies reflects upon a history
of conflict in the Indian subcontinent through
experiences of sexual violence. As the film
explores this violence, there emerge multiple
submerged narratives, sometimes in people, images
and memories, and at other times in objects from
nature and everyday life that stand as silent but
surviving witnesses. In all narratives the body
becomes central - as a site for honour, hatred
and humiliation and also for dignity and protest.
As the stories unfold, women from different times
and regions come forward. The film speaks to them
directly, trying to understand how such violence
is resisted, remembered and recorded by
individuals and communities. Narratives hidden
within a blue window or the weave of a cloth
appear, disappear and are then reborn in another
vocabulary at another time. Using a range of
visual vocabularies the film moves beyond
suffering into a space of quiet contemplation,
where resilience creates a potential for
transformation.
Duration - 1 hour 56 minutes, 2007, English and Hindi versions.
Direction - Amar Kanwar
Editing - Sameera Jain
Camera - Ranjan Palit
Sound - Suresh Rajamani
Assistant Director - Sandhya Kumar
Graphic Design - Sherna Dastur
--
AMAR KANWAR
New Delhi
India
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
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