SACW | Sept. 19-20, 2007 | Nepal: Peace Hiccup / Bangladesh Cartoon trouble / Citizens Open Letter to Sri Lankan President / India's faith troubled secularism / UK: Faith schools

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | September 19-20, 2007 
| Dispatch No. 2450 - Year 10 running

[1] Nepal:
      (i) Nepal: Peace Hiccup Kunda Dixit
     (ii) Sounding the red alert (SD Muni)
     (iii) Peace without dividend : Donors talk 
the talk but don't yet walk the walk (Binod 
Bhattrai)
     (iv) Gorakhpur's Hindutva circles making trouble in Nepal
     (v) Murder of royalist leads to riots in south Nepal
     (vi) All the king's men want to contest Nepal election
[2] Bangladesh:
     - Cartoonist jailed in Bangladesh (Mark Dummett)
     - Bangladesh: Cartoonist arrested over 
harmless play on name Mohammed (Reporters Without 
Borders)
[3] Sri Lanka: Open Letter to the President: 
Avoid the 'unitary' label and facilitate 
power-sharing in North & East
[4] India: 18 eminent citizens, protest 'contempt 
of Court' to curb freedom of press
[5] India's Hindu right and its RAM (Random 
Access Memory) trick : Hullabaloo over 'Ram Sethu'
       It Is A Matter of Secularism and Not A Matter of Faith (Irfan Engineer)
       + Karnataka: Bus passengers burn in Ram's name
[6] Letters:
    (i) Attacks over Ram setu (Ammu Abraham)
    (ii) A secular government has no business to 
anoint a religious text as holy (Mukul Dube)
[7] Film Review: Through western eyes (Ananya Vajpeyi)
[8] UK: Faith schools should not be tax-funded, and here's why (Zoe Williams)
[9] Announcements:
(i) Lecture: "The Persistence of Partition: The 
Sindhis in India" by Rita Kothari (New Delhi, 20 
September 2007)
(ii) Invitation: Inaugural of Amnesty Caravan on 
Wheels: Kabuliwallah Express (New Delhi, 21 
September 2007)
(iii) Talk: "Role of Military in Pakistan" by 
Ayesha Siddiqa (Santa Monica, 30 September 2007)

______


[1]  NEPAL

(i)

NEPAL: PEACE HICCUP
by Kunda Dixit

SEPTEMBER 2007 (IPS) - After the heady excitement 
of last year's pro-democracy uprising in Nepal 
that forced King Gyanendra to restore parliament, 
Nepal's eight-party coalition has fallen apart, 
with the Maoists quitting government. The move 
did not come as a surprise, since the 
former-guerrillas had been warning of just this 
for months. But it does put the fate of the Nov. 
22 election for the constituent assembly under 
considerable uncertainty, writes Kunda Dixit, 
editor of the Nepali Times newspaper and author 
of "A People War".

Most of the estimated 15,000 ex-guerrillas are 
interned in camps supervised by a United Nations 
monitoring mission in Nepal and their weapons 
under lock and key. The UN expressed concern 
about the Maoists quitting the government, saying 
this would jeopardise the peace process. The hope 
now is that behind-the-scenes negotiations to 
forge a compromise that are going on will agree 
that the first meeting of the constituent 
assembly after elections will declare Nepal a 
republic. It remains to be seen whether the 
Maoist agree to this, and if they do elections 
may still be possible. Otherwise the elections 
may be postponed.

Nepal's peace process is not in jeopardy, and the 
Maoists are not about to go back to war. But it 
is proof of just how difficult it is for a group 
that has pursued armed struggle to transform 
itself into a pluralistic non-violent political 
party.

o o o

(ii)

Hindustan Times
September 19, 2007

SOUNDING THE RED ALERT

by SD Muni

With the Maoists quitting the government, there 
is a real risk of the peace process in Nepal 
going astray. Though the leadership has promised 
to keep the struggle peaceful, the country faces 
a serious crisis

The decision of Nepal's Maoists to quit the 
Eight-Party Alliance government and launch a 
'peaceful' agitation for the establishment of a 
republican Nepal even before the Constituent 
Assembly (CA) elections is, on the face of it, a 
breach of their commitment. In their 
Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of November 
2006, with the G.P. Koirala-led Seven Party 
Alliance (SPA), the Maoists  had agreed to let 
the elected CA decide on the issue of monarchy or 
republic in its first meeting. The Maoists have 
also reversed their earlier decision to opt for 
the elections on the basis of a mixed system of 
direct and proportional voting. Now they want a 
wholly proportional basis for the elections. 
These are the two principal demands in their 
22-point charter that the SPA has refused to 
accept.

The Maoists are driven by three motives. The 
first is that they have genuine concerns over the 
'regressive forces' led by the monarchy that will 
not allow smooth, free or fair elections, only to 
ensure that the republican agenda is thwarted. 
The role of these forces in fuelling the Terai 
violence, instigating the recent blasts in 
Kathmandu and vandalism in the Terai region are 
cited by Maoists to justify their fears. In their 
assessment, the present king and his coterie, 
though politically redundant, have enough 
resources to create mischief. They refer to the 
June 2007 amendment to the interim constitution 
which says that if the king is found to be 
disrupting the peace process, the interim 
parliament may, by a two-third vote, declare 
Nepal a 'republic'. But the Maoists suspect that 
sections of the SPA, as well as countries like 
India and the US, would still prefer a ceremonial 
monarchy over a republic.

Second, the Maoists complain about being shabbily 
treated by the interim government and that they 
were kept out of the key ministries of home, 
finance, foreign and defence. None of the 
important ambassadorial assignments, in India, 
China, US and Britain, were given to them. In 
other critical administrative and political 
appointments, they were not offered adequate 
representation. Their cadres have not been given 
promised facilities. They also allege attempts to 
marginalise them politically. The turning of the 
Madheshi movement against the Maoists that 
seriously dented their political base in Terai is 
pivotal to this impression. The Maoists have a 
real fear that the drive against them will lead 
to a serious slump in their electoral prospects. 
They have, accordingly, been asking for an 
assured share in the winnable seats in the 
elections.

The internal divisions within the Maoist 
organisation have deepened. There has always been 
two viewpoints among the Maoists: those who want 
to get into the democratic mainstream and the 
rest who want to carry on with their 'struggle' 
until all their demands were met.

Prachanda and Bhattarai can ignore the 22-point 
demand charter at the cost of their credibility 
within the organisation. The Maoists, however, 
are conscious that their move will lead to 
sullying their public image and international 
reputation. They were desperately seeking a 
face-saving mechanism to solve their political 
dilemma. They proposed a parliamentary resolution 
to declare Nepal a republic before the elections, 
but subject to final endorsement by the elected 
CA. Prime Minister Koirala refused to concede 
that, as that would have made the elections 
appear to have ben fought on a Maoist agenda, 
giving them huge political mileage.

The Maoists' action has raised serious questions 
on the peace process as a whole. They have 
threatened to withdraw from the CPA as well as 
various understandings worked out with the SPA. 
There is a real possibility of accidental 
violence as well as a possibility that hardliners 
among the Maoists can instigate violence. Though 
the Maoist leadership is committed to keeping the 
struggle peaceful, but there is real risk of 
losing control.

The Maoists may realise that it will be 
impossible for them to achieve their political 
goals through an armed struggle particularly 
under an internationally supported democratic 
government. The regressive forces and all those 
who have stakes in disrupting peace and stability 
in Nepal may also exploit the opportunity 
provided by the Maoist agitation. This can only 
serve to worsen the suffering in the poorly 
governed mountain nation. A further loss of 
credibility of the democratic experiment will 
only frustrate the aspirations of the Jan 
Andolan-II of April 2006.

All those who have stakes in a stable and 
democratic Nepal, particularly India, need to 
ensure that the narrow political space still 
available to resolve the crisis is harnessed 
constructively.


o o o

(iii)

Nepali Times
14 September 07 - 20 September 07

PEACE WITHOUT DIVIDEND : DONORS TALK THE TALK BUT DON'T YET WALK THE WALK

by Binod Bhattrai

Having defanged an autocratic monarch and 
convinced the Maoists to rest their weapons, 
Nepal had hoped for an aid windfall. This has not 
happened. Election day is 69 days away and aid is 
unlikely to increase before then - or immediately 
after.

Nepal needs extra cash but it is unlikely to come 
for two reasons. The donors remain divided on how 
to 'do' aid, and the government - as always - is 
factitious and divisive.

True, donors have forked out about Rs1.3 billion 
($20 million) for the Nepal Peace Trust Fund 
(where the government put Rs1 billion) and its 
twin, the UN Peace Trust Fund. And they have 
spent several billion rupees on weapon stores, 
vehicles, tents, ballot boxes and computers, as 
well as funding peace seminars and organising 
'get to meet a real Maoist' visits to European 
capitals. But such aid means very little where it 
matters most - in the lives of ordinary Nepalis.

"We have not seen a real peace dividend yet," 
said Jagadish Chandra Pokharel, vice-chairman of 
the National Planning Commission (NPC). "Some 
donors have added a few million dollars to their 
existing commitments but that cannot be called a 
peace dividend." The NPC's three-year interim 
plan for carrying out reconstruction and 
development has a tab of Rs162.5 billion ($2.5 
billion).

Not all donors are satisfied with the outcome. 
"Donors need to understand the urgency of 
stepping up the support to the peace process and 
the peace dividend," said Bella Bird, head of 
DFID Nepal, the British government's development 
agency. DFID increased aid to $79 million (Rs 5.2 
billion) in 2006/07 from $60.7 million (Rs 3.9 
billion), and expects a rise to $95.2 million (Rs 
6.2 billion) in 2007/08. Some top DFID officials 
are visiting Kathmandu next week, which could be 
a good opportunity for the government to better 
acquaint them with national priorities.

Donors have issued a torrent of statements 
supporting political developments in Nepal since 
April 2006, but government data indicate that 
bilateral aid actually declined in the first 
eight months of fiscal year 2006/07. Multilateral 
aid tripled in the same period, but this largely 
reflected old spending commitments rather than 
fresh grants and loans.

The situation is unlikely to change soon, 
especially as individual Nepali ministries 
continue to function as mini-governments and a 
unified Nepali voice on development priorities is 
still missing.

Most conspicuous among those reluctant to pay out 
is the European Union, whose member countries are 
divided between those who believe peace itself is 
the priority and those who see development as a 
way to encourage the peace.

An eerily similar donor divide paralysed king 
Gyanendra when he took direct control in February 
2005. Then the European bilateral donors wanted 
democracy first while the multilaterals and the 
United States advocated keeping development aid 
flowing.

Recent top-level personnel changes at major 
funding agencies like the World Bank and Asian 
Development Bank are also a problem.

"It is like having a new minister coming to a 
ministry, when everything from the past tends to 
be pushed aside and new ideas are put on the 
table," said a donor source. "It's a situation 
where those coming in want to try out something 
new that has their signature."

In early 2006 the World Bank tried to steer the 
development process by asking government and 
civil society to agree on what they wanted for 
Nepal. No one talks about this anymore.

Donors now have the 'Peace and Development 
Framework' (PDF), which they proposed to the 
government some months ago, hoping it could guide 
the implementation of the three-year interim 
plan. The framework represents recognition - 
finally - among more than two dozen of Nepal's 
'development partners' that peace and development 
are not mutually exclusive and that basic 
services must reach the villages in order to 
enhance peace.

But they are still waiting for the government to 
set out the detailed costs of the peace process 
and the implementation arrangements. And some, 
nervous of giving too much to a government which 
includes a former rebel force, have preferred to 
fall back on a traditional project-funding 
approach. This week, German development agency 
GTZ put $7 million into its own peace-building 
project rather than into the government fund.

"The weak government is a part of the problem," 
said Sudhindra Sharma, an aid analyst who feels 
the government should get firm with donors. "The 
next step should be telling donors what Nepal 
wants, and not taking what they want to give."

That, however, is unlikely to happen before a new 
constitution is approved. For Nepal, where the 
process to elect the constituent assembly still 
looks shaky, that's looking far into the future.

o o o

(iv)

The Gorakhpur connection between Hindutva circles in India and Nepal
http://tinyurl.com/2j4g6f

o o o

(v)

Murder of royalist leads to riots in south Nepal
http://tinyurl.com/365pvo

o o o

(v)

All the king's men want to contest Nepal election
http://tinyurl.com/3yhjrr

_____


[2]

BBC News
19 September 2007

CARTOONIST JAILED IN BANGLADESH
by Mark Dummett
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7003514.stm

o o o

Reporters Without Borders
19 September 2007

BANGLADESH: CARTOONIST ARRESTED OVER HARMLESS PLAY ON NAME MOHAMMED

Reporters Without Borders calls for the 
immediately release of Arifur Rahman, a 
cartoonist with Aalpin, the daily newspaper 
Prothom Alo's weekly satirical supplement. He was 
arrested at his Dhaka home on 17 September over a 
cartoon that was a play on the name Mohammed. The 
government's press department said the cartoon 
"hurt religious sentiments." All copies of the 
supplement were seized. Prothom Alo apologised 
and fired the supplement's deputy editor.

"The play on words had no intention of attacking 
the Prophet," Reporters Without Borders said "It 
was a joke about a cultural custom. The 
government should not yield to pressure from 
extremist leaders who are trying to politicise 
the case. Rahman should not be made a scapegoat. 
He must be freed."

The cartoon appeared on page 6 of the 17 
September issue. Entitled "Name," it made 
harmless fun of the custom in Muslim countries of 
putting the name Mohammed in front of one's given 
name. The drawing was accompanied by this 
dialogue:

-  Boy, what's your name?
-  My name is Babu.
-  It is customary to put Mohammed in front of the name.
-  What is your father's name?
-  Mohammed Abu.
-  What is that on your lap?
-  Mohammed cat.

Religious leaders have called for the cartoonist 
to be severely punished and for Prothom Alo, one 
of the country's leading dailies, to be closed. 
Copies of the newspaper have been burned outside 
one of the capital's mosques.


______



[3]

Open Letter to President Mahinda Rajapakse

Dear Mr. President,

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM: AVOID THE 'UNITARY' LABEL 
AND FACILITATE POWER-SHARING CONSENSUS IN NORTH & 
EAST

The deliberations of the All Party Representative 
Committee to create a new constitutional 
framework are stuck in controversy over two key 
matters:
(1) whether or not Sri Lanka's Constitution 
should be explicitly labelled as 'unitary';
(2) and (2) whether or not the Northern and 
Eastern Provinces should be remerged. 

As members of Sri Lanka's minority communities, 
we ask of you, as President, to (1) avoid 
labelling the constitution either as 'Unitary' or 
as 'Federal,' and (2) facilitate reaching 
consensus over power-sharing units for Tamils and 
Muslims in the Northern and Eastern Provinces 
instead of isolating them from one another.   

Mr. President, you have stated in a recent 
interview that you will uphold the unitary 
character of Sri Lanka's Constitution because you 
are constrained to act primarily on behalf of the 
sections of the Sinhala community who voted for 
you in the 2005 Presidential election. We are 
both disappointed and disturbed by this assertion.

We are disappointed because your assertion shuts 
out the opinions of large numbers of Sinhalese 
voters who have consistently voted for 
constitutional change involving devolution of 
powers in every election since 1994, including 
the 2005 Presidential election and the Local 
Government elections thereafter.
And we are disturbed because your assertion is 
also a rejection of your responsibility to serve 
all Sri Lankans and not just those who voted for 
you. More important, the assertion alienates the 
minority communities who want to abide by a Sri 
Lanka that politically and constitutionally 
includes them as equal citizens despite their 
lesser numbers.     

The unitary label that was first inserted in the 
1972 Constitution has since produced the biggest 
threat ever to the island's unity. Even if that 
threat were to be defeated militarily, persisting 
with the unitary label will leave the cancer of 
alienation, which has grown since 1956, forever 
active among the minority communities.

The All Party Representative Committee, that you 
established, is the culmination of a process that 
began in 1994 under an SLFP-led Government to 
restructure the Sri Lankan State as an 
indissoluble Union that will include the minority 
communities as equals and enable power-sharing by 
all communities. This is your true and primary 
legacy.

We, the signatories to this letter, plead with 
you to honour this legacy, show leadership, and 
create a Constitution without labels, one that 
will make all the communities of Sri Lanka feel 
equal participants in working towards peace and 
prosperity.

Thank you. 

Signatories, 

Prof. Kumar David, Sri Lanka
Prof. M.A. Nuhman, Sri Lanka
Fr. Paul Casperz, Sri Lanka
Mr. Santasilan Kadirgamar, Sri Lanka
Dr. S.H. Hasbullah, Sri Lanka
Mr. M. Nithiyanandan, UK
Fr. Oswald Firth OMI, Italy
Mr. P. Rajanayagam, UK
Ms. Faizun Zackariya, Sri Lanka
Mr. David B. S. Jeyaraj, Canada
Dr. S. Narapalasingam, UK
Dr. Rohini Hensman, India
Mr. Najah Mohamed, UK
Mr. Rajan Philips, Canada
Prof. Vijaya Kumar, Sri Lanka
Ms. Nirmala Rajasingam, UK
Rev. Dev Anandarajan, Australia
Dr. Fara Haniffa, Sri Lanka
Dr. Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, Sri Lanka
Sister Immaculate de Alwis, Sri Lanka
Dr. S.V. Kasynathan, Australia
Prof. S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole, Sri Lanka
Prof. N. Shanmugaratnam, Norway
Mr. Mirak Raheem, Sri Lanka
Rev. Saminathan Dominic, Sri Lanka
Dr. Sumathy Sivamohan, Sri Lanka
Mr. Kumaraswamy Pararajasingam, Germany
Prof. Qadri Ismail, USA
Mr. C.R. Hensman, UK
Dr. Vasuki Nesiah, USA
Mr. B. Skanthakumar, Sri Lanka
Ms. Shreen Saroor, Sri Lanka
Dr. Rajan Hoole, Sri Lanka
Mr. B. Balasooriyan, Netherlands
Ms. Leah Marikkar, UK
Prof. Amali Philips, Canada
Ms. Narmada Thiranagama, UK
Ms. Farah Mihlar, UK
Dr. Sharika Thiranagama, Netherlands
Dr. Kumariah Balasubramaniam, Sri Lanka
Mr. Rengan Devarajan, UK
Mr. R. Pathmanaba Iyer, UK
Dr. A.R.M. Imtiyaz, USA
Ms. Rathini Selvanayagam, Sri Lanka
Dr. S. Nanthikesan, USA
Mr. Dayapala Thiranagama, UK
Ms. Sumangala Kailasapathy, USA
Ms. Vanathy Peter, Canada
Ms. Minna Thaheer, Sri Lanka
Mr. V. Sivalingam, UK
Mr. Anwar Salaam, Sri Lanka
Ms. Savitri Hensman, UK
Ms. Krishna Vellupillai, India
Ms. Mallika Pararajasingam, Germany
Mr. Leo Peter, Canada
Mr. Ganesh Ratnam, Canada
Dr. S. Jayahanthan, Australia
Ms. Anupama Ranawana, Sri Lanka
Mr. P.M. Mujeeb-ur-Rahman, Sri Lanka
Mr. Luther Uthayakumaran, Australia
Ms. Nimanthi E. R. Rajasingham, USA
Mr. M. Keeran, UK
Mr. Manoharan C. Philipupillai, Canada
Mr. Asan Saleem, Sri Lanka
Ms. Vasuki Rajasingham, Sri Lanka
Dr. S.J. Emmanuel, Germany
Mr. Ahilan Kadirgamar, USA
Mr. M. Fauzer, UK
Mr. K. Kathirkamanathan, Canada
Mr. Kamalakkannan Arunasalam, Sri Lanka
Mr. R.J. Bala, UK
Mr. Namu Ponnambalam, Canada


This Open Letter to President Mahinda Rajapakse 
has so far been signed by over seventy activists, 
academics, writers and clergy from mainly the 
minority communities.  The purpose of the letter 
is to express the concerns of Sri Lankan Muslims, 
Tamils and other minorities about the President's 
reported insistence that any constitutional 
reform recommended by the APRC should be within 
the framework of a unitary constitution. The 
letter is still in circulation for signatures and 
will be sent to the President with copies to 
other political leaders.

19th September 2007 


______


[3]

Outlook
September 19, 2007


PROTEST
'WE ARE EQUALLY GUILTY..''...OF SUPPORTING THE 
FREEDOM OF PRESS WHICH THE COURT HAS PUNISHED,' 
SAY 18 EMINENT PERSONALITIES, PROTESTING THE 
DELHI HIGH COURT HOLDING THE EDITORS, PUBLISHER 
AND CARTOONIST OF MID DAY GUILTY OF CONTEMPT OF 
COURT. ............

The Delhi High Court has held the editors, 
publisher and cartoonist of Mid Day guilty of 
contempt of Court. What was their crime? That 
they carried investigative reports about how the 
former Chief Justice of India, Justice Y.K. 
Sabharwal passed orders for sealing lakhs of 
commercial establishments operating from 
residential areas, while his sons had got into 
partnerships with Shopping Mall and commercial 
complex developers who stood to benefit from his 
sealing orders.

The stories were based essentially on documents 
obtained from the website of the department of 
Company affairs. The matter was thereafter 
investigated by eminent members of the Campaign 
for Judicial Accountability and reforms who 
issued a very serious and damaging Press Release 
about the judicial misconduct involved in Justice 
Sabharwal dealing with the sealing cases (where 
he had a conflict of interest) and on the need to 
investigate the aspect of his having conspired 
with the Mall and Commercial complex developers 
to pass the sealing orders, particularly in the 
context of the manner in which Justice Sabharwal 
came to deal with the sealing case, the timing of 
his orders, and the cementing of partnerships 
between his sons and the commercial complex 
developers.

Though Justice Sabharwal has responded to the 
charges, the Campaign for Judicial Accountablity 
has issued a rejoinder [see the bottom of this 
page] which shows that the matter needs to be 
thoroughly investigated. Eminent judges like 
Justices V.R. Krishna Iyer and J.S. Verma have 
endorsed the need to have a thorough 
investigation into the charges.

The Delhi High Court has held the Mid Day staff 
guilty of Contempt without disputing the factual 
accuracy of the their reports, only on the basis 
that such reports about a former Chief Justice 
functioning in his judicial capacity, where he 
was also sitting with other judges, brings the 
entire judiciary into disrepute and therefore 
amounts to Contempt. This view if accepted, would 
make the amendment in the Contempt of Courts Act, 
making truth a defence, irrelevant, and more 
importantly, make it impossible to ever bring 
judicial corruption to public view. We are firmly 
of the view that preventing exposure of Judicial 
corruption by using the threat of contempt will 
only bring the judiciary to greater contempt and 
disrepute in the eyes of the common people.

We believe that Mid Day was only doing its duty, 
namely reporting on the facts of an important 
case which is a part of freedom of expression and 
which is crucial for the healthy functioning of 
democracy anywhere in the world.

We therefore urge the Court to immediately recall 
the orders against Mid Day. We believe since a 
prima facie case has been established against 
Justice Sabharwal, there needs to be a thorough 
investigation, and further follow up action as 
required. Only that will restore public 
confidence in the judiciary. This is a great 
moment for the judiciary to establish its 
credentials as being impartial and show to the 
public that it stands apart from the other 
institutions of society that are under a cloud of 
corruption and declining credibility in the eyes 
of the public.

Punishing the staff of Mid Day who performed a 
valuable public service by investigating and 
exposing the matter, will not only be unjust, but 
will send an improper signal to the media and the 
citizens in general that the judiciary is aiding 
in covering up wrong doing within its ranks.If 
that be the ultimate decision of the High Court 
in this matter, then we the signatories of this 
statement by supporting the action of Mid Day in 
publishing the report are equally guilty of 
supporting the Freedom of Press which the Court 
has punished.

We also appeal to the public at large and members 
of the judicial fraternity in particular to come 
out in support of the Freedom of Press and an 
immediate stop to the misuse of contempt of court 
proceedings to curtail such freedom.

Signed by:

Admiral R.H. Tahiliani (former Naval Chief and 
Chairman of Transparency International, India)
S.P. Shukla (Former Finance Secretary, and Member 
Planning Commission, Govt of India)
Ramaswamy Iyer (former Water Resources Secretary, Govt of India)
Romilla Thapar (Historian)
Aruna Roy (Founder MKSS and former Member, N.A.C.)
Medha Patkar (Founder Narmada Bachao Andolan)
Arundhati Roy (Writer)
Vandana Shiva (Environmental campaigner, founder Navdanya)
Swami Agnivesh (Social reformer)
Rajendra Singh (Water Campaigner, Magsaysay awardee)
Tarun Tejpal (Editor, Tehelka)
Madhu Bhaduri (IFS, Former Ambassador of India)
Amit Bhaduri (Former Professor of Economics, JNU)
Arun Kumar (Professor Economics, JNU)
Praful Bidwai (Journalist)
Shailesh Gandhi (Convenor, National Campaign for People's Right to Info)
Nikhil De (Social Activist and RTI Campaigner)
Arvind Kejriwal (RTI Campaigner, Magsaysay awardee)

______


[4]

IT IS A MATTER OF SECULARISM AND NOT A MATTER OF FAITH

by Irfan Engineer

In a developing country like India, if faith is 
pitted against secularism, it proves advantageous 
politically to the rightist political parties. It 
amounts to playing on their home turf. Sangh 
Parivar has always derided secularism as a 
western concept. The BJP, and to some extend 
media commentators and columnists also, have been 
seeing the issue of affidavit filed by the 
Archeological Survey of India in the Supreme 
Court in reply to a petition challenging 
Ramasethu Samudram Project in this light. The 
Petition before the Supreme Court challenges the 
Project on the ground of faith stating that 
pursuing the project would mean damaging a 
historical bridge that was built by the monkey 
army of Lord Ram from the eastern coast of India 
to Sri Lanka. The Archeological Survey of India 
under the pressure and threats from BJP has 
sought permission of the Supreme Court to 
withdraw its earlier affidavit wherein it took 
the stand that there was no proof that Lord Ram 
existed. Constituent Parties of UPA, including 
the Congress took a stand that no evidence was 
required to prove existence of Lord Ram, though 
they maintain that there is no man made structure 
and Adam's Bridge that exists is a natural 
formation of sand and corals. Media commentators 
and columnists have criticized the Govt. arguing 
that it should not have questioned the existence 
of Lord Ram, which amounts to questioning 
something that is a matter of faith. They further 
argue that secularism, as we practice in India, 
doesn't mean that state will be intolerant of 
religion, but that the State will maintain 
equidistance from all religions.

The ASI's affidavit nowhere questioned the 
existence of Lord Ram. It was neither competent 
nor called upon to comment on existence or 
otherwise of Lord Ram. That is indeed a matter of 
faith and left to individuals according to 
Article 25 of the Constitution. When called upon 
to file a reply to a petition claiming that there 
was a Ram Setu which was built by Lord Ram's 
monkey army, as an expert body it stated that if 
there was no evidence of existence of Lord Ram, 
it could not be scientifically accepted that 
there was any Ram Setu constructed by his monkey 
army. ASI is an expert body which studies and 
maintains historical structures and cultural 
heritage of India. ASI was required file its 
reply to the issue of Ram Setu and it did so. 
Sangh Parivar smelt an opportunity there and 
misled the people of the country stating that the 
Government headed by Manmohan Singh under the 
direction of UPA Chairperson questioned the faith 
of millions of Hindus. Distinction should be made 
between opinion and evidence of existence of Lord 
Ram. All those who have opinion that Lord Ram 
exists, may not have evidence. This is true of 
all the believers who might be called upon to 
prove their respective Gods in whom they believe. 
One would expect an expert body like ASI to give 
its opinion on the evidence that the Adam's 
Bridge was built by monkey army of Lord Ram. It 
is a perfect legal counter that there was no 
evidence of existence of Lord Ram himself, let 
alone about his monkey army constructing Adam's 
Bridge. Any counsel representing ASI in a court 
of law and opposing the petition would be tempted 
to take that legal defence.

We will make a big mistake if we see the issue of 
Adam's Bridge versus Ram Setu through the prism 
of faith versus secularism. The issue must be 
seen in the light of faith versus law of the 
land. If the government of the day in public 
interest has taken a decision to dredge a canal 
after taking all the relevant factors into 
account with due process, can the decision be 
challenged in a court of law on the ground of 
faith? That is what the petition was doing. The 
answer to the question is a clear no, as our 
Constitution is secular. The defence to such a 
petition then, is perfectly tempting for any 
counsel as was initially taken by the ASI. The 
decision of the Govt. can be challenged in a 
court of law on other grounds, Viz. that it is 
not in public interest, that it violates 
fundamental rights or wednesbury principle that 
Govt. has not followed due process of law in 
making its decision, taking all the relevant 
factors (like environment) into account and not 
that it has not based its decision on any 
extraneous factors which it should not have taken 
into account.

The Sangh Parivar on the other hand wants the 
Govt. to decide all policy decisions on the 
extraneous factor of faith of Hindus. Such an 
attempt is insidious effort to create legal 
regime privileging Hindu faith over others, as in 
Pakistan, Kingdom of Nepal (Hindu faith was 
privileged) and theocratic states. During its 
agitation on the issue of Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri 
Masjid issue, the Sangh Parivar could not come 
with any evidence to prove that birthplace of 
Lord Ram was on the precise spot where Babri 
Masjid existed. Therefore the Sangh Parivar 
through its extensive propaganda made vulnerable 
people believe that the location of Babri Masjid 
was on the place where Lord Ram was born, and 
then claimed that no proof of birth of Lord Ram 
on a particular location was necessary as it was 
a matter of faith for Hindus. The Sangh Parivar 
was not willing to accept the decision of any 
court by placing any evidence, let alone cogent 
evidence of Lord Ram's birth on the location 
where Babri Masjid then stood. The Sangh 
Parivar's demand during the Ramjanmabhoomi 
agitation was that there should be legislation to 
hand over the premises of Babri Masjid to a Hindu 
trust for construction of Ramjanmabhoomi Mandir 
based not on evidence but on faith of Hindus. 
Even if we accept that Hindus have faith that 
Lord Ram was born in the Ayodhya where Babri 
Masjid once stood, the issue before the courts of 
law cannot be whether Lord Ram was born on the 
location or even whether there was a 
Ramjanmabhoomi temple on the location. The only 
issue which the secular courts established under 
the Constitution can be called upon to decide is 
dispute of ownership of the premises of Babri 
Masjid and undisputedly from the year 1526 till 
1949 the ownership of the premises of Babri 
Masjid was recorded in the name of Muslim trust 
and they were in occupation. After 1949 orders of 
Collector, and later Courts, restrained the 
Muslims from offering namaz. The law of adverse 
possession states that if a person not having 
title to an immovable property is in possession 
for more than 12 years, and the rightful owner 
did not take any remedial measures, the title of 
the property passes onto the party having adverse 
possession. The Sangh Parivar was not confident 
that Courts of law would be able to hand over the 
possession of the Babri Masjid premises to Hindu 
litigants on the basis of existing laws and 
therefore wanted a new legislation based on faith 
of Hindus. Any state where laws of land are based 
on the faith of one particular community is 
anything but a secular state. Of course, such a 
law would be open to challenge for violation of 
Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution, which 
give all persons freedom of conscience and lay 
foundation of secularism.

This time round, the Sangh Parivar is making 
another effort by threatening to mobilize popular 
support privileging faith over law and judiciary. 
Hindus are at liberty to have their faith in 
existence of Lord Ram as are Muslims, Christians 
and others to have faith in their own 
mythologies. The issue in the Ramsethu Samudram 
project therefore is not whether Hindus can have 
faith in existence of Lord Ram but whether the 
execution of project should be subject to faith 
of one particular community. If the Indian 
Courts, legislatures and executive do gradually 
accept this premise on whatever grounds, it will 
not only be end of secularism in the country, but 
beginning of continuous communal conflicts in 
plural India.


o o o


The Telegraph
September 20, 2007

Bus passengers burn in Ram's name
CM shrugs off attacks
OUR BUREAU
Police guard the house of Karunanidhi's daughter 
Selvi on Wednesday. (Bangalore News Photos)

Sept. 19: The row over Ram spilt blood last night 
with two persons being burnt alive in a Bangalore 
bus, but M. Karunanidhi said he had no regrets 
about questioning the existence of the exiled 
prince.

A mob of 50-60 people, allegedly angered by the 
Tamil Nadu chief minister's remarks on who Ram 
was, flagged down the Chennai-bound bus, ordered 
some 26 passengers out and hurled petrol bombs at 
it.

As the bus went up in flames at Bomanahalli on 
Bangalore's outskirts, two persons possibly 
asleep inside got charred. The miscreants left in 
the mini-truck they came in, leaving shocked 
onlookers to call police.

The attack on the bus came two hours after the 
7.45pm strike on the Bangalore home of 
Karunanidhi's daughter Selvi. Some youths threw 
stones and petrol bombs at the house, damaging 
the gate, front door and windowpanes.

Selvi and her husband Murasoli Selvam, who heads 
Sun TV's regional channel Udaya TV, were away in 
Chennai. A domestic help and a security guard 
locked themselves in.

The watchman said the youths, between 20 and 30 
years, raised anti-Karunanidhi slogans. The 
police said a letter lashing out at the chief 
minister's comments had been found in the porch 
of the house.

Karunanidhi, who puts up at Selvi's place on his 
annual visits to Bangalore, said he did not rue 
his words and reiterated what he had said about 
Ram on Sunday.

"There is no historical evidence of the existence 
of Ram or that he had any engineering expertise 
to be able to build a bridge and this is what I 
had said," he said in Chennai.

Karunanidhi had initially made the remarks in the 
context of the "Ram setu" row stirred by the 
government affidavit that said no 
"incontrovertible" proof exists about Ram's 
existence. The affidavit has been withdrawn.

"Is there anything wrong in what I said? In fact, 
Valmiki has written a lot more things about Ram 
which we have not spoken about."

Taking a jab at protests by Hindutva groups 
without naming any, he continued: "There is a 
crowd that badly underrates that people can have 
different views."

Karunanidhi said he was not surprised by the 
attack on Selvi's house but expressed sympathy 
for the families of the two victims of the bus 
attack.

"Ram bhakts have shown through such incidents 
what their culture is. But I am not the type to 
be cowed by violence unleashed against my family."

He said some people were making a "mountain out 
of a molehill" and scouting for the littlest of 
reasons to stall the Sethusamudram ship canal 
project. He would press the UPA government to go 
ahead with it, he added.

Over 22 people have been taken into custody in 
connection with the bus attack. The police 
suspect that fringe groups of the Sangh parivar 
are behind the attack.

______


[5]  Letters

(i)

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 16:05:32 +0530

Subject: ATTACKS OVER RAM SETU

I condemn the (what appears to be) Hindutva 
terrorist attack on the house of the daughter of 
M. Karunanidhi, the Chief Minister of the state 
of Tamil Nadu.  Her house in Bangalore, in the 
state of Karnataka has been stoned heavily and 
smashed partly.There was also an attempt at 
arson. Pamphlets left at the site apparently 
called for the hanging of the Chief Minister, his 
daughter and T.R. Balu, a central minister from 
the D.M.K., the ruling party in Tamil Nadu. This 
is asked as punishment for the 'crime' of 
questioning the existence of Hindutva's favourite 
god, (though after some application of whitening 
agents), Shree Ram.

The vandalists saluted 'Bharat Maata' before 
leaving their message in stones, fire and hate 
pamphlets. The head of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad 
Mr Pravin Togadia has just been in Paalakkaad in 
North Kerala, trying to provoke the ire of 
Malayaalee Hindus over Tamil Nadu's Ram Sethu 
project of deepening the sea between itself and 
Sri Lanka. On 17th, the action has shifted to the 
nearest Southern State, Karnataka. Part of the 
media has attributed the stoning and arson to the 
RSS, though the Bangalore police seem more 
non-committal and has even made statements that 
they might be being 'misled'. 

Misled as to? By whom? Not too difficult to 
guess. We have been hearing about how Muslim 
terrorists are responsible for attacks on temples 
and Muslim terrorists are behind also the attacks 
on mosques. Can the Muslim Hand be absent behind 
attack on Karunanidhi's daughter? But we have 
just seen the VHP's block-the-traffic agitations 
on the same issue, in relation to the affidavit 
of the Archeological Survey of India for the 
Central govt., stating that they have no 
historical evidence at all about the existence of 
Shri Ram and therefore cannot asssert before the 
Supreme Court of India that the Ram Setu was 
built by Shri Ram and/or his supporters.

So, the identity of the vandals naturally appears 
to be the VHP & brother organizations.

Chief Minsiter Karunanidhi has openly expressed 
his 'belief' that the epic Ramayana depicts an 
ancient, historic struggle between the Dravidians 
in the South of India and the 'Aryans' coming 
from or through the North and the North West of 
India. Rather than deny the 'existence' of Ram, 
he has revived the critique of his predecessors 
in the Dravidian movement, of the Ramayan as the 
'demonization' of the Dravidians in the South.

Mr Karunanidhi has denied the divinity of King 
Ram. But is that not the birthright of every 
human being & every Indian? Atheism was itself a 
strong trend in the Dravidian movement. Just as 
the Constitution of India grants the right to 
concience to everyone in religious matters & from 
that derives the right to religious conversion, 
it also implies the right not to believe, to 
atheism & agnosticism. To attack people for the 
expression of that right is to profoundly damage 
the secular nature of the Indian Union and her 
Constitution.

Of course this does not mean that one settles the 
issue of whether to deepen the sea at the Palk 
straits or to let things be on the basis of 
religion or atheism; that should be settled on 
consideration of what the alleged financial gains 
are and who stands to make that gain and whether 
it is cost effective when ecological price and 
cultural & livelihood loss of fishing communities 
is taken into account. All scientific evidence so 
far has said that this collection of stones and 
sand is the result of oceanic currents and that 
should be further explicated and then accepted.

Ammu Abraham

o o o

(ii)

Letter to News papers

18 September 2007

The Central Government told the Supreme Court 
that it is "alive [to] and conscious of religious 
sensibilities, including the unique and holy text 
Ramayana."

An ostensibly secular government has no business 
to anoint a religious text as holy: but if it 
does that, it follows that other texts -- for 
example, the Constitution of India -- fall in the 
category "unholy".


Mukul Dube
D-504 Purvasha Anand Lok .. Mayur Vihar 1 .. Delhi 110091


______


[7]


New Statesman
13 September 2007

THROUGH WESTERN EYES

by Ananya Vajpeyi

A new feature film fails to do justice to Daniel 
Pearl, writes Ananya Vajpeyi, who met him before 
his tragic death

After more than four years of conflict in Iraq, 
Hollywood films are finally reflecting the fact 
that America really is a nation at war. One of a 
string of terror-related films coming out over 
the next few months is Michael Winterbottom's A 
Mighty Heart, which tells the story of the 
kidnapping of the American journalist Daniel 
Pearl in Karachi in January 2002. It follows 
Pearl's wife, Mariane (who was pregnant at the 
time), during the terrible month between his 
disappearance and the news of his death by 
decapitation. The crime was eventually traced to 
Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was found guilty and 
sentenced to death in Pakistan (he has since 
challenged this sentence), and to Khalid Sheikh 
Mohammed, who is under US custody at Guantanamo 
Bay.

I met Daniel and Mariane Pearl in 2001 in 
Bangalore and Mumbai. They were a charming 
couple: energetic at work, enthusiastic about 
south Asia, well travelled, and visibly in love 
with one another. I remember thinking that 
Danny's posting as the Wall Street Journal's 
bureau chief in Mumbai had turned into an 
extended honeymoon for the newly-weds. This was 
how all foreign correspondents should be; clearly 
they had figured out how to intertwine their 
personal and professional lives to maximum 
advantage, and I admired their obvious enjoyment 
of everything they did together as partners at 
work and at home.

I was relieved to find that A Mighty Heart does 
not depict Danny's captivity or the ghastly way 
in which he was killed, even though the 
kidnappers themselves released a video of their 
dreadful act that was subsequently circulated 
widely using the internet. Winterbottom conveys 
the unspeakable nature of what happened to Danny 
without visualising it in any way, and one cannot 
be sufficiently grateful to him for showing such 
restraint when graphic and gratuitous scenes of 
torture have become routine in mainstream cinema.

What I found shocking about this film, however, 
was its vision of Karachi. The city is depicted 
as a frightening and incomprehensible palimpsest 
of urban chaos, poverty and Islamic terrorism, 
teeming with Muslim men who are scarily numerous, 
devoutly religious and horrendously violent. Even 
the sympathetic "Captain" Javed Habib, chief of 
the Pakistani CID's counter-terrorism unit 
(played impeccably by Irffan Khan), who is 
sensitive to Mariane's agonising circumstances, 
tortures a man almost to death and then, directly 
afterwards, proceeds to the mosque for morning 
prayers. It seems we can expect nothing but 
cruelty in this hellish, baffling place.

Winterbottom is too politically discerning a 
film-maker to portray Karachi or Pakistan with 
the outright Islamophobia that makes 
Bernard-Henri Lévy's book Who Killed Daniel 
Pearl? (2003) almost unreadable. Winterbottom 
shows us Mariane Pearl saying publicly only days 
after her husband's abduction that ordinary 
Pakistanis suffered as much from acts of terror 
as did westerners like her. But while Mariane 
desists from blaming others indiscriminately, 
Winterbottom shows Karachi to be nightmarish in a 
way that is subtly connected to its cultural 
essence. It is identified as an overpopulated, 
poor, lawless and radicalised megalopolis, 
located in an underdeveloped Muslim country, an 
evil place that civilised, trusting and competent 
Americans and Europeans enter at their own peril 
and where they probably end up dead.

This couldn't be further from my own experience 
of the city. In spring 2006 I went to Karachi, 
partly to attend the World Social Forum and 
partly in an attempt to come to terms with the 
scene of Danny's demise: to see for myself how I 
would react to the city where he died. I was 
there seven days, during which I slept for about 
seven hours in total. I could not stop taking it 
in. During that intense period I tried to make 
sense of a city that was so similar to those of 
India, my home country. I understood at least 
three of Karachi's languages - Urdu, Punjabi and 
English - all of its food, its clothing, its 
politeness and rudeness, its transparency and its 
impenetrability. If I wore the right clothes, no 
one on the street would guess that I was Indian 
and not Pakistani. But that's not the point; when 
I was recognised as Indian and not Pakistani, it 
earned me a warmer reception, not a hostile one.

Complete strangers took me home, fed me, plied me 
with stories about their forefathers who had come 
from India during Partition, questioned me at 
great length about various aspects of Indian 
politics, society and (inevitably) Bollywood. 
People brought me to their houses, to the beach, 
to the Sufi shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi, to the 
bazaars, to quarters of the city I might never 
have found on my own, to bookshops, museums, DVD 
shops, clubs, restaurants and even Hindu temples. 
I met NGO activists, businessmen, politicians, 
academics, poets, film-makers, publishers, 
writers, housewives, teenagers, farmers, 
shopkeepers, reporters, economists, taxi drivers 
- people of every age, income group and ethnic 
background. I thought I had been irrevocably 
alienated by the murder of my friend Danny Pearl 
in this place, yet when I got there I felt not 
only a sense of belonging, but also a sense of 
kinship.

So, I do not recognise the Karachi that 
Winterbottom shows us. To me, the traffic was not 
insane, the slums were not menacing, the 
alleyways were not dark, the markets were not 
dirty, and the people were not out to kill each 
other or to kill me. I did not feel deafened by 
the periodic calls of the muezzin, nor did the 
religiosity of the citizens of Karachi strike me 
as particularly noticeable. In my corner of the 
world, you are always among others. Others are 
not your enemies; they are your environment. The 
big south Asian cities account for a sizeable 
percentage of the world's population, but only 
those suffering from western hubris would see 
them as threatening, disgusting, or plain 
incomprehensible. It is not a vision that 
corresponds with the outlook of Pearl himself.

The Danny Pearl I met was a superb journalist and 
a cosmopolitan man. He was an American Jew 
married to a French Buddhist (Mariane is actually 
part Afro-Latina Cuban and part Dutch, with some 
Chinese ancestry thrown in for good measure). 
Danny lived in Mumbai, and he loved south Asia. 
He went to Karachi, his beloved Mumbai's sister 
city, to follow a story, like any reporter worth 
his salt. I am certain that he did not perceive 
Karachi, Pakistan or Muslims with the racism that 
scars the work of Lévy, and even so fine a film 
as A Mighty Heart.

"A Mighty Heart" is released on 24 September (certificate 15)"


______


[8]

The Guardian
September 19, 2007

FAITH SCHOOLS SHOULD NOT BE TAX-FUNDED, AND HERE'S WHY

If the Catholic church is prepared to ban Amnesty 
because of its stance on abortion, what other 
rights might it censure?

by Zoe Williams

The Catholic church in Northern Ireland has 
started a new policy of advising schools to 
disband their Amnesty International groups. So 
far, only one grammar school in Belfast has 
actually acted on this advice, having expressly 
sought it; but Irish bishops are planning to meet 
next month to discuss rolling out the policy to 
all schools under the church's umbrella. The 
reason, predictably enough, is Amnesty's 
pro-abortion stance.

As happy as I am to defend the right to abortion 
to all women everywhere at any time, this is not 
the right moment to start tub-thumping about 
Catholics with regard to western women and their 
choices. This debate, conducted in the UK, where 
we have free access to abortion under law, 
usually turns into a statement of intent, or type 
- that is, I am the type of person who will think 
this type of thing. While I would fight to the 
death to defend our abortion laws and to attack 
any attempt made to shame or inconvenience the 
women who use them, I know it won't come to that. 
I admit this, I can afford to get aerated about 
it, about time limit debates and Ann sodding 
Widdecombe, because I don't believe the right 
seriously to be in jeopardy, so it's almost like 
a fire drill - all the thrill of a battle without 
actually getting shot in the leg.

Even in Ireland, where the situation is of course 
a hundred times worse and there are terrible 
injustices perpetrated against women, those 
injustices are not what Amnesty International is 
really talking about. The charity, to its 
discredit in my view - but this is a miniature 
criticism against a mountain of admiration - is 
rather softly-softly about this controversy. It 
certainly would not seek out points of 
disagreement with the Catholic church, especially 
given the two organisations' history of delicate 
cooperation punctuated by abortion-related 
flashpoints. But Amnesty has not gone looking for 
a fight. It says explicitly that its abortion 
policy is really aimed at the victims of rape and 
incest, and was developed with reference to the 
mass violations in war zones such as Darfur and 
Congo.

The figures on this are almost too outrageous to 
set down on paper. Where abortion is legal, the 
maternal mortality rate is 0.2 per 100,000. In 
countries where it is illegal, the rate is 330 
per 100,000. With an estimated 20 million 
abortions induced, worldwide, every year, that 
number of women dying - for stupid, pointless 
reasons, for reasons which boil down to 
unregulated, unsanitary conditions as often as 
not - is just suffocatingly unjust.

As is the way with these things, young women 
suffer most: 4.4 million women having abortions 
each year are between 15 and 19; the World Health 
Organisation says "it is believed that the 
majority of abortions for adolescents are carried 
out by unskilled staff in unsafe conditions". And 
these are global estimates, including developed 
countries where abortions are legal and gang 
rapes are not commonplace.

Broken down into region: in sub-Saharan Africa 
70% of women who end up in hospital after an 
unsafe abortion are under 20; a study in Uganda 
showed that teenagers made up 60% of deaths from 
backstreet terminations. In short, while we are 
worrying about whether 15-year-olds should be 
allowed on catwalks, their peers in the 
developing world are trying to survive what 
amounts to a cull.

This is what Amnesty International is talking 
about, with a pro-abortion position - not 
bishop-baiting for the hell of it, but the 
unnecessary deaths of thousands upon thousands of 
vulnerable and usually very young women. This is 
what Northern Irish Catholics are saying, when 
they decide to wash their hands of involvement 
with the group. They're not turning their noses 
up at the whims and mores of the metropolitan 
faithless, they are saying: "Not only do we agree 
with this holocaust of teenage girls, we think 
these women are dying for a good reason. And 
furthermore, we think they're dying for such a 
good reason that we're prepared to halt this 
charity's activities even on behalf of vulnerable 
men, just to make a point." What do you say to an 
institution like that?

It's worthwhile to stop for a minute, here, and 
consider all this in the context of faith 
schooling. We all - all we feminists, I mean - 
have the odd qualm here and there about Islamic 
schools, and whether they invest proper rigour in 
the propagation of gender equality, but 
Christians, we think ... now they're different. 
They provide a sound education, they don't 
discriminate on the basis of class, they're not 
exclusive, they've been doing this for years. 
They can have as much taxpayer money as they want.

It's balderdash. For a start, they are 
cherrypicking middle-class children (the 
Institute of Education at London University just 
produced this finding, after the most extensive 
research yet undertaken) and, much more 
important, in many cases they are prosecuting an 
agenda that is repugnant. Are we really happy to 
sit back and pay for this?

______


[9] ANNOUNCEMENTS:

(i)

Partition Lecture Series

Continuing with our year-long programme of 
lectures, dialogues, and readings from India, 
Pakistan and Bangladesh under the Partition 
Lecture Series, Zubaan, the Heinrich Boll 
Foundation, Max Mueller Bhavan, and the India 
Habitat Centre have invited Dr Rita Kothari, 
Associate Professor, Mudra Institute of 
Communications, Ahmedabad, to present a lecture on

"THE PERSISTENCE OF PARTITION: THE SINDHIS IN INDIA"
on September 20, at 6:30 pm, Gulmohar, India Habitat Centre

Sixty years, and two generations after Partition, 
it is worth asking if as a historical event, or 
metaphor, Partition persists in the lives of the 
Sindhis. Is Partition a shared referential trope 
for the translocal Sindhi who does business in 
three continents, or the one who lives in an 
urban Indian city and runs a cloth shop, or the 
one who continues to live in what-were-once 
refugee camps, and waits for more gentrified (and 
therefore non-Sindhi) location? Kothari’s work on 
the Partition experience and resettlement of the 
Sindhis defies some of the oft-made 
generalizations about Partition. The focus shifts 
from the history to sociology of Partition, from 
the day of departure to the trauma of arrival, 
from collective memory to collective forgetting. 
The narrative is not plotted in terms of 
adversaries/friends from different religions, 
because the ‘other’ is absent from oral 
testimonies of the Sindhis. The ‘others’ had to 
be created, and believed as part of citizenship 
in the new nation-state, and boundaries of 
religion and culture had to be redrawn for 
membership in majoritarian circles.

The narrative of the Sindhis is shot through with 
irony: they emerge as winners by having escaped 
brutal violence, by rising spectacularly well out 
of the ashes of Partition and by putting behind 
the memory of pre-Partition lives. And yet, as 
Kothari illustrates through Gujarat, they paid 
some of the heaviest prices, and made losses 
which remain unacknowledged by everyone, 
including the Sindhis themselves.

No passes or invitations are required for attending the event.


_____


(ii)

Amnesty International India

INVITATION: INAUGURAL OF AMNESTY CARAVAN ON WHEELS: KABULIWALLAH EXPRESS
21st September 2007


Amnesty International India invites you to the 
inaugural of the International Week of Justice 
Caravan – the Kabuliwallah Express that starts 
its journey from the Rendezvous Festival at 
Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi on 21st 
September 2007. The International Week of Justice 
Festival  is being organized in January 2008 
(13-19) to mark the 60th Anniversary of the 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 
Festival has as its main theme Voices of Dignity.

From September to December 2007, the 
International Week of Justice Caravan,   themed 
as Kabuliwallah Express  will roam all campuses 
and key public sites in Delhi carrying Kahani 
Kabuliwalleh Ki  which comprises Theatre, 
Exhibition, Films, Talks, Signature Campaigns, 
Competitions on Music, Theatre, Screenwriting, 
Short Film, Photography, Painting, Posters and 
Caricatures.

The Caravan begins from the Rendezvous Festival 
at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi on 21st 
September and will be in the Campus till 23rd 
September.

We feel honored to invite you to the Inaugural 
Ceremony of the Caravan. We hope you will 
encourage this endeavour of Amnesty International 
India to link youth from various disciplinary and 
professional background to both cultural, 
creative forms and human rights ideals of right 
to life and right to dignity enshrined in the 
UDHR by your presence. Your role as an 
artist-activist will be inspirational and 
invaluable in helping to deliver a powerful 
message on the occasion of the Inaugural of the 
Caravan. Artists know what it means to be 
persecuted. They know why it is critical to 
defend human rights. We rely on this sensibility 
and look forward to your support and kind 
confirmation.  

Contact: Sana Das . Amnesty International India
<mailto:sana at amnesty.org.in>sana at amnesty.org.in , 
<mailto:carafest at amnetsy.org.in>carafest at amnetsy.org.in
Amnesty International India,    C-1/22, First 
Floor ,   Safdarjung Development Area. New 
Delhi-16.  INDIA. Tel - 011-41642501 , 26854763 
(Ext 20). Fax: 011-26510202.  Website: 
 <http://www.amnesty.org/>www.amnesty.org , 
<http://www.amnesty.org.in/>www.amnesty.org.in                             

FLAG OFF SCHEDULE FOR INTERNATIONAL WEEK OF JUSTICE CARAVAN

Date: September 21, 2007
Venue: Indian Institute of Technology , New Delhi
Textile Block Rendezvous Festival
Time: 4.00 pm – 7.00 pm

Inaugural Ceremony of the Kabuliwallah Express : 4.00 pm -4.5.00 pm
Caravan Activities/Play, Exhibition and Signature Campaign: 5.00 - 7.00 pm

22nd & 23rd September/ Exhibition continues : 3.00 - 6.00 pm

28th September: Panel Discussion
Topic: Human Rights and the Professions : Making 
Human Rights Everybody's Business
Venue: Seminar Hall
Time: 5.00-7.00pm
_____


(iii)

South Asia Forum - Los Angeles
Presents
A thought provoking analysis on current issues

MILITARY ROLE in PAKISTAN
A Talk
By
Ayesha Siddiqa
Author of MILITARY, INC.

Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa's recent book Military Inc. 
came out at a time when the military regime in 
Pakistan led by General Pervez Musharaf is facing 
serious trouble both at home and abroad. Do not 
miss this opportunity to know how the military 
institution has influenced Pakistan's civil 
society and the democratic process. Can US 
continue to support Pakistan's military rule and 
its role in war on terror? Ayesha book is an eye 
opener. She has also written extensively on 
weapons proliferation, problems of governance and 
India-Pakistan relations. She has previously been 
the Director of Naval Research with the Pakistan 
Navy. She has also held fellowships at the 
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 
Washington, DC, and the Sustainable Development 
Policy Institute, Islamabad, Pakistan.

Sunday September 30, 2007
2:00 PM Sharp

Church In Ocean Park
235 Hill Street
Santa Monica, Ca 90405

Sponsored by South Asia Forum-Los Angeles California

For info call 714 313 2703 - 714 702 4148

Co Sponsored by FOSA Friends of South Asia- Bay 
Area- 
<http://www.friendsofsouthasis.org/>www.friendsofsouthasis.org

Please Be On Time

We Have to End by 5:30 PM


Church In Ocean Park
235 Hill Street Santa Monica, CA 90405
(714 ) 313-2703 or (714) 702-4148
(310 ) 399-1631 Fax: (310) 399-5823



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Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
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