SACW | Oct. 3-6, 2007 | American Arms and Influence / Historical Memory without History

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | September 3-6, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2457 - 
Year 10 running

[1] USA - Pakistan: How Not to Win Friends and Influence People (Zia Mian)
[2] M y a n m a r :   I n d i a   m u s t   s u s p e n d  
 m i l i t a r y   s u p p o r t  (M u k u l   S h a r m a )
    + Online Petition to India's Prime Minister re Myanmar
[3] Sri Lanka's war - The northern front : The army thinks it can 
win. It is wrong (The Economist )
[4] India: The psyche of Hindu fascism (Rakesh Shukla)
[5] India: Gujarat: Towards Vibrancy or Abolition of Democracy? (Ram Puniyani)
[6] Muzzling in the Name of Islam (Paul Marshall)
[7] India - Goa: An Invitation to Hate (Jason Keith Fernandes)
[8] India: Historical Memory without History (Romila Thapar)
[9] Announcements:
(i) 'Future fundamentalisms' - Himal Magazine, October-November 2007
(ii) Film Screening of "A Human Question (Washington, 13 October 2007)

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[1]

Foreign Policy In Focus
www.fpif.org
October 3, 2007

HOW NOT TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

by Zia Mian

The United States sells death, destruction, and terror as a 
fundamental instrument of its foreign policy. It sees arms sales as a 
way of making and keeping strategic friends and tying countries more 
directly to U.S. military planning and operations. At its simplest, 
as Lt. Gen. Jeffrey B. Kohler, director of the Defense Security 
Cooperation Agency, told The New York Times in 2006, the United 
States likes arms deals because "it gives us access and influence and 
builds friendships." South Asia has been an important arena for this 
effort, and it teaches some lessons the United States should not 
ignore.

A recent Congressional Research Service report on international arms 
sales records that last year the United States delivered nearly $8 
billion worth of weapons to Third World countries. This was about 40% 
of all such arms transfers. The United States signed agreements to 
sell over $10 billion worth of weapons, one-third of all arms deals 
with Third World countries.

It is easy to put this in perspective: $10 billon a year is the 
estimated cost of meeting the UN Millennium Development Goal for 
water and sanitation, which would reduce by half the proportion of 
people in the world without proper access to drinking water and basic 
sanitation by 2015. Today, about 1.1 billion people do not have 
access to a minimal amount of clean water and about 2.6 billion 
people do not have access to basic sanitation.

The scale of recent U.S. arms sales should not be news. The United 
States sold over $61 billion worth of weapons to Third World 
countries from 1999-2006, making it by far the leading international 
supplier. Russia, the second largest arms dealer, managed to sell 
less than half as much.

Arms vs. Influence in Pakistan

The largest third world buyer of weapons in 2006 was Pakistan. It 
purchased just over $5 billion in arms deals. Almost $3 billion of 
the purchases by Pakistan were new U.S.-made F-16s fighter jets, 
up-grades to the F-16s Pakistan bought in the 1980s, and bombs and 
missiles to arm these planes. A White House Press spokesman explained 
that the sale of the jet fighters "demonstrates our commitment to a 
long-term relationship with Pakistan."

The use of arms sales to show commitment to Pakistan has gone on for 
over 50 years. The United States used military aid to recruit and arm 
Pakistan as an ally in the Cold War. A great fear, as a 1953 State 
Department memorandum pointed out, was "a noticeable increase in the 
activities of the mullahs in Pakistan. There was reason to believe 
that in face of growing doubts as to whether Pakistan had any real 
friends, more and more Pakistanis were turning to the mullahs for 
guidance. Were this trend to continue the present government of 
enlightened and Western-oriented leaders might well be threatened, 
and members of a successive government would probably be far less 
cooperative with the west than the present incumbents." This memo 
could have been written today.

The United States has failed to learn that paying Pakistan's military 
bills demonstrates commitment and friendship only to Pakistan's army. 
It does nothing for Pakistan's people. The US supported General Ayub 
Khan, Pakistan's first military leader, for a decade (1958-1969), at 
great cost. He was brought down by a tide of public protest.

The United States also supported General Zia (who ruled from 1977 to 
1988), once he agreed to help in the U.S. war against the Soviet 
Union occupation in Afghanistan. Washington gave General Zia a $3.2 
billion aid package in 1982 and promised another $4 billion in 1988. 
This generosity bought precious little. Pakistan's government took 
the money and used it buy weapons from the United States, built 
nuclear weapons, and promoted radical Islamists at home and in 
Afghanistan. The consequences are all around us today.

Since September 11, 2001, the United States has given over $10 
billion to Pakistan to buy or reward General Musharraf's support for 
its newest war, the "war on terror." Pakistan has spent over $1.5 
billion of this amount on buying new weapons. To understand the scale 
of this aid, consider Pakistan's total military budget in 2006, 
estimated at about $4.5 billion. The United States is now giving 
Pakistan aid to pay for the new deal for F-16s, bombs, and missiles. 
It is likely to win few friends.

There is little doubt today about how unpopular the United States is 
in Pakistan. A Pew Poll released in September 2006 found that in 
Pakistan, the United States is viewed less favorably even than India 
(with which Pakistan has fought four wars). Just over 25% were 
favorable toward the United States, compared to one-third who felt 
that way toward India.

Attitudes toward the United States have worsened. A 2007 poll found 
that only 15% of Pakistanis had a favorable attitude towards the 
United States. An August 2007 poll found that General Musharraf was 
less popular even than Osama bin Laden; Musharraf had the support of 
38% of Pakistanis, Bin Laden of 46%, and President Bush found favor 
with only 9%. It is hard to imagine a more damning indictment of a 
policy that sought to make friends and build support.

This hostility toward the United States will only get worse as it is 
seen to support General Musharraf's efforts to remain president of 
Pakistan.

Strategic Relationship with India

India, Pakistan's neighbor, historic rival, and often bitter enemy, 
is the second largest buyer of weapons in the Third World. It signed 
up for $3.5 billion worth of weapons in 2006. It is now responsible 
for about 12% all arms purchases in the third world. India has 
traditionally bought Russian weapons, but is now interested in what 
others, especially the United States, has to offer.

India may spend some $40 billion on weapons purchases over the next 
five years. High on the list is a contract for 126 jet fighters, with 
a possible price tag of over $10 billion. A State Department official 
announced the government will try to help win the order for a U.S. 
company. U.S. arms manufacturers are already lining up. Richard G. 
Kirkland, Lockheed Martin's president for South Asia, has claimed 
that "India is our top market" when it come to "potential for 
growth." The President of Raytheon Asia, Walter F. Doran, claims 
India may be "one of our largest, if not our largest, growth partner 
over the next decade or so."

There is good reason for U.S. confidence. In 2005, the defense 
secretaries of the United States and India signed the "New Framework 
for the U.S-India Defense Relationship." The Framework "charts a 
course for the U.S.-India defense relationship for the next ten 
years" and "will support, and will be an element of, the broader 
U.S.-India strategic partnership." It includes a commitment to 
"expand two-way defense trade." These arms deals, the Framework 
statement claims, should be seen "not solely as ends in and of 
themselves, but as a means to strengthen our countries' security, 
reinforce our strategic partnership, achieve greater interaction 
between our armed forces, and build greater understanding between our 
defense establishments."
More Arms, Less Influence

As with Pakistan, these arms sales may not buy the United States the 
influence it seeks in India. The U.S.-India nuclear deal offers an 
example of how things may play out. In 2005, the United States and 
India agreed on a deal to exempt India from the 30-year- old U.S. 
laws that prevent states from using commercial imports of nuclear 
technology and fuel to aid their nuclear weapons ambitions. In 2006, 
Congress approved and President Bush signed legislation lifting the 
curbs on nuclear trade with India. The two countries have been 
negotiating a nuclear cooperation agreement over the past year.

The clearest exposition of what the United States wants in exchange 
came in testimony to Congress in support of the U.S.-India nuclear 
deal by Ashton Carter, who served as assistant secretary of defense 
in the Clinton administration, and in a 2006 article "America's New 
Strategic Partner?" in the journal Foreign Affairs. He argued that 
Washington needed India's help against Iranian nukes, in future 
conflicts with Pakistan, and as a counterweight to China. He noted 
there were "more direct benefits", which include "the intensification 
of military-to-military contacts" and "the cooperation of India in 
disaster-relief efforts, humanitarian interventions, peacekeeping 
missions, and post-conflict reconstruction efforts," and "operations 
not mandated by or commanded by the United Nations, operations in 
which India has historically refused to participate."

And finally, Carter offered the real kicker, "U.S. military forces 
may also seek access to strategic locations through Indian territory 
and perhaps basing rights there. Ultimately, India could even provide 
U.S. forces with 'over-the-horizon' bases for contingencies in the 
Middle East."

Carter recognized that there are other interests too, which others 
might put higher on the list. He acknowledged that "on the economic 
front, as India expands its civilian nuclear capacity and modernizes 
its military, the United States stands to gain preferential treatment 
for U.S. industries."

The process of putting pressure on India to deliver has already 
begun. In May 2007, key members of the U.S. Congress wrote a letter 
to the Indian prime minister warning that they were "deeply 
concerned" by India's relationship with Iran, and that if India did 
not address this then there was "the potential to seriously harm 
prospects for the establishment of the global partnership between the 
United States and India." In short, India was being told to choose: 
Iran or the United States and the nuclear deal.

However, the past few weeks have seen a growing crisis in India over 
the nuclear deal and how close India should get to the United States. 
India's Communist Parties, which are part of the Congress Party-led 
coalition government, have demanded a halt to the U.S.-India nuclear 
deal to give the country time to work out its implications for Indian 
foreign policy. Their fear is that the deal will give the U.S. 
influence over Indian decision-making. They have threatened to bring 
down India's government.

India's progressive social movements have also opposed the nuclear 
deal. They worry that "directly or indirectly, the United States will 
also enter the Indian sub-continent, to manage intra-regional, 
inter-country relations." They see it as "not just anti-democratic 
but against peace, and against environmentally sustainable energy 
generation and self-reliant economic development." These basic 
concerns about democracy, peace, sustainability, and independence, 
are what will put India at odds with U.S. policy, no matter how many 
weapons it offers to sell.

Zia Mian is a physicist with the Program on Science and Global 
Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International 
Affairs at Princeton University and a columnist for Foreign Policy In 
Focus (online at www.fpif.org).


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[2]

(i)
The Hindu

M Y A N M A R :   I N D I A   M U S T   S U S P E N D  
 M I L I T A R Y   S U P P O R T 
 
 by M u k u l   S h a r m a 
 
http://www.hindu.com/2007/10/06/stories/2007100653881300.htm

---
(ii)

ONLINE PETITION TO INDIA'S PRIME MINISTER RE BURMA

This petition make the following demands to the Prime Minister of India:
* India immediately denounce the violence on peaceful protestors in Burma
* India join the rest of the international community in condemning 
the violence of the Burmese military junta
* India stops its sale and supply of military hardware to the Burmese junta
* investment in the gas and all projects be ceased until there is a 
democratically elected government in Burma
* immediate release of all the Political Prisoners in Burma including 
Daw Aung San Su Kyi
* unconditional support for a genuine reconciliation and commencement 
of Tripartite Dialogue (as called by UN General Assembly, 1994)

please sign this petition at: www.petitiononline.com/burma123/

______


[3]

The Economist
Oct 4th 2007

  SRI LANKA'S WAR - THE NORTHERN FRONT

Oct 4th 2007 | OMANTHAI AND VAVUNIYA

The army thinks it can win. It is wrong

FROM the line of dusty travellers leaving the Tamil Tigers' heartland 
in northern Sri Lanka, young men are strikingly absent. The people 
trudging out of rebel territory, across a strip of scrubby ground 
dotted with bundles of barbed wire and gun-slung soldiers, say 
securing exit passes from the rebels has become increasingly tough. 
For the young, it is all but impossible. As far as the Tigers are 
concerned, they are potential fighters.

The rebels want to keep the young and fit in their stronghold, a 
mini-state run with thuggish ruthlessness. Since 1983, the Liberation 
Tigers of Tamil Eelam have fought for an independent "homeland" in 
the east and north for the island's Tamil minority. In July the Sri 
Lankan army declared it had cleared the eastern part for the first 
time in 14 years. Now its sights are on the north. In his heavily 
fortified headquarters in the capital Colombo, the army chief, 
General Sarath Fonseka, says he expects to chase the Tigers from the 
north in a year, "maybe less".

This is more than a commander's bravado. After the army's triumph in 
the east, subsequent victories suggest the Tigers' strength is 
diminished. In early September the army cleared an area just south of 
their heartland, capturing a Tiger naval base purportedly used to 
receive smuggled weapons. Days later it sank three ships it said were 
ferrying light aircraft and a bullet-proof car for the Tigers' 
chieftain, Velupillai Prabhakaran. In eastern Sri Lanka some Tamils 
express surprise, and sometimes disenchantment, that the Tigers' roar 
has been more muffled of late.

If the army did win the north while holding the east it would 
constitute a huge and unprecedented victory. Its last big push into 
the area, in the late 1990s, ended with hundreds of dead soldiers and 
a humiliating retreat. In the east, which has a mixed population of 
Tamils, Sinhalese and Muslims, the rebels' hold was patchy and the 
army was helped by the defection in 2004 of the Tigers' commander in 
the region, known as Colonel Karuna. The Tigers hold the Tamil north 
in a much tighter grip. And the army has fewer soldiers than it would 
like for its northern campaign, because it is busy securing the east.

Days after the government celebrated its latest victories in the 
eastern port town of Trincomalee last month, suspected Tigers bombed 
a bus in the area, killing the driver and wounding several 
passengers. Though such incidents in the east have decreased, they 
suggest that the Tigers remain a force to be reckoned with. In the 
north, on the margins of their fief, there are areas where it is 
unclear quite who is in control: the army or the rebels.

Even a northern victory, momentous as it would be, would not bring an 
end to Sri Lanka's conflict. That will not come without a political 
solution, giving some measure of autonomy to the island's Tamils who 
have suffered discrimination from the Sinhalese majority more or less 
since independence.

A cross-party group of politicians has made some progress on this 
front, agreeing that the island should be devolved at the provincial 
level-an improvement on an earlier government proposal for 
district-level devolution. But last month the defence minister, 
Gotabhaya Rajapakse (brother of the president, Mahinda Rajapakse), 
made it clear where the government's priorities lay. A political 
solution, he said, would be impossible without first crushing the 
Tigers. This dashed any faint hope that the ceasefire agreement the 
government and the Tigers signed in 2002, and which is still 
notionally in force, might yet be revived.

In the east, meanwhile, the government has an opportunity to show 
Tamils they are better-off under the government than they were under 
the rebels. But its commitment to this goal is questionable. In a 
Trincomalee town hall with views of the glittering Indian Ocean, more 
than 80 families sleep on a concrete floor amid battered cardboard 
boxes of possessions. They have lived here for more than a year, 
since they were shelled out of their homes in nearby Sampur, a former 
Tiger stronghold; thousands more of their fellow townspeople languish 
in camps outside the town. Though few of them seem to know it, they 
are unlikely to return home: Sampur has been turned into a no-go 
high-security zone for the army.

The government faces other challenges if it is to pull off victory in 
the north. People in Colombo, for whom the war is a rather distant 
affair, may not have heard any bombs lately. But they complain about 
rocketing inflation, and political support for President Rajapakse's 
government is ebbing. Dogged by allegations of incompetence and 
corruption, it is expected to be further weakened when it presents 
its budget in November. In last year's, military expenses surged by 
44%. Another big rise will increase pressure to show that all this 
spending is achieving something.


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[4]

Himal
October-November 2007

THE PSYCHE OF HINDU FASCISM

Does the suppression of sexuality make men more open to the promises 
of fascist thinking?

by  Rakesh Shukla

The large-scale massacre of Muslims in February-March 2002 in Gujarat 
was a watershed in the history of independent India. So, too, was 
what followed. While investigating violations in situations of severe 
state repression, from Bastar to Kashmir, human-rights teams in India 
had never before been afraid of the masses. But the hostility of the 
'ordinary people' that met investigators in Gujarat was palpable, 
particularly in villages such as Sanjeli and Anjanwa. These were 
agents of neither the ubiquitous state nor of villainous 
industrialists: these were 'common people', suddenly on the brink of 
attacking human-rights teams perceived as 'minority appeasers'.

Given the collaboration of the state machinery in the killings in 
Gujarat, Muslims fled to areas where they came to make up sizable 
sections of the population. But there proved to be no safety, even in 
numbers. Sanjeli, for instance, in Dahod District, had 500 Muslim 
households, constituting about 40 percent of the population. After 
the 27 February 2002 burning at Godhra railway station of two train 
compartments carrying kar sevaks (volunteers) returning from Ayodhya, 
Sanjeli was attacked by a mob of more than 25,000 people - a horde 
that, for the first time, included the large-scale participation of 
Adivasis. The rallying cries were: Muslims despoil our women! and One 
hundred Bhil women violated in Sanjeli alone!

The massacres of Muslims in residential colonies such as 
Naroda-Patiya and Gulbarg Society in Ahmedabad were undertaken by 
mobs likewise numbering between 20,000 and 25,000, largely with the 
approval of the state's Hindu community. This support likewise 
manifested itself in the subsequent assembly elections, and the 
"peoples' verdict" of returning the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 
government to power. This victory was subsequently used as a 
sledgehammer with which to silence critics. In such a situation, it 
becomes impossible to refuse to see the participation of a sizable 
section of the common people in a fascist agenda.

The agenda is undoubtedly fascist, not merely fundamentalist. Within 
any religion, 'fundamentalism' literally connotes the strict 
maintenance of orthodox beliefs and fundamental doctrines. Christian 
fundamentalism would thus require a literal reading of the Bible, 
including a belief in the 'virgin birth' and the second coming of 
Christ. Islamic fundamentalism would look to a return to the 
principles and practices of early Islam, as patterned on the 
7th-century community established by Mohammad at Medina. Similarly, 
Hindu fundamentalism could be a revitalisation of sorts - through the 
return to an imaginary ram rajya, or a golden age during the reign of 
Lord Ram.

Yet, 'fundamentalism' no longer refers to a mere return to 
fundamentalist doctrines, and has come to represent the aggressive 
promotion of a doctrinaire, rigid and centralised religion, 
increasingly intolerant not only of other faiths, but also of any 
deviant strand within its own. It also denotes an acceptance of the 
use of violent means in pursuit of furthering or protecting the 
faith. The Hindutva ideology represents a dogmatic Hinduism, which 
shows evidence not only of fundamentalism, but also of fascism.

Although there is no coherent body of political doctrine associated 
with fascism, the shared common features of fascist movements have 
been: aggressive and unquestioning nationalism; belief in the 
supremacy of one national, ethnic or religious group over others; 
disrespect for democratic and liberal institutions, which does not 
preclude using them to attain power; a profound hatred for socialism; 
insistence on obedience to a powerful and absolute leader; and a 
strong association with militarism and a demagogic approach, that 
appeals to and whips up the basest emotions in a mob, making it 
suggestible, hasty in judgement, easily swayed and carried away by 
the consciousness of its own force. It is these features of the 
movement, spearheaded by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), that 
urge comparisons with the Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF) founded by 
Benito Mussolini, Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts in Britain, the Iron 
Guard in Romania, the Croix de Feu in France and the Nazi Party in 
Germany.

Since its formation in 1925, it has been the RSS's agenda to 
transform a relatively tolerant and pluralistic Hinduism into an 
aggressive Hindutva, attacking minorities. Christians have also been 
targeted, but special virulence is reserved for Muslims. The Sangh 
has a rigidly hierarchical structure, with leaders appointed rather 
than elected. Though the Sangh is open to married men, the grihastha 
(householder) is considered on a lower footing than the brahmachari, 
the virile but celibate son of Bharat Mata embodied in the pracharak 
(preacher). The Sangh accepts no women members, although a separate 
all-woman Rashtriya Sevika Samiti was founded back in 1936 by K B 
Hedgevar and Lakshmibai Kelkar.

Father-fuehrer-leader
After the Allied victory, the West projected fascism as a national 
characteristic unique to the Germans and Japanese. In reality, 
fascism enjoyed a sizable following in all countries, including the 
United States, during the era preceding World War II. A number of 
industrial houses supported fascism, and were subsequently able to 
prosper both during the war and since.

Unfortunately, the left has offered little insight into the 
phenomenon of the mobilisation of people for a fascist agenda. 
Marxism defines fascism as "the open terrorist dictatorship of the 
most reactionary, most chauvinist and most imperialist elements of 
finance capital". Even the German Communist Party - other than using 
terms such as "fear psychosis", or stating that fascism had 
"corrupted" and "hypnotised" the masses - had little to offer by way 
of explanation as to why the German economic crisis of the 1930s had 
not led the masses to turn to the revolutionary, rather than the 
fascist, forces. The left in India suffers from the same flaw, 
offering little more than rhetoric in the analysis of fascism evident 
in Hindutva. Indeed, the Indian left appears to be in no position to 
devise strategies to counter the menacing shadow of fascism in the 
country.

The biggest lacuna of Marxist thought has been its failure to explore 
the role played by impulses that do not originate in the conscious 
mind. The appeal and growth of fascism cannot be understood without 
dipping into the well of the unconscious. Marx was a sociologist, not 
a psychologist. In any case, scientific psychology did not exist at 
the time, and the so-called subjective factor of history, in Marx's 
sense, remained un-investigated. It was not until a half-century 
later that Freud's articulation of the 'unconscious' - the 
path-breaking postulation that consciousness is only a small part of 
the psychic life; the dissociation of sexuality from procreation; and 
the recognition of repression of childhood sexuality - finally 
created analytical tools with which to explore the irrational in 
human beings.

The success of Joseph Goebbels-like propaganda is not based on appeal 
to the rational mind, the establishment of facts through scientific 
data. There is little factual reality, for instance, behind the 
successful implanting in a sizable section of the Hindu community 
such beliefs as 'Hindus are being persecuted in their own country', 
'Muslims have four wives and 64
children' or 'Hindus will soon be a minority in India'. In the face 
of data (including that officially compiled by the government of 
India), one particular erroneous conviction held by the majority 
Hindus played a crucial role in the post-carnage 2002 Gujarat 
elections: the certainty that, in all prior riots in the state, most 
of the victims had been Hindus. This explains the encomiums - such as 
lauh purush (Iron Man) - that have subsequently been showered on 
Narendra Modi, as the first chief minister to have ensured that, in 
the 2002 riots, more Muslims were killed than Hindus.

Repression and oppression

The work of Wilhelm Reich, based on the experience of the rise of 
fascism in Germany during the 1930s, offers a possible way in which 
to comprehend the appeal of the Hindutva brand of fascism for a 
sizable section of people in India. Taking psychoanalytical tools 
beyond the confines of individual clinical psychology, and building 
upon the sociological groundwork of Marx, Reich explored the 
sociological reasons for the suppression of sexuality by society, and 
the concomitant repression by the individual. He postulated that the 
suppression of sexuality could have a crippling effect on both 
rebellious impulses and critical faculties, and could eventually lead 
to the development of a docile and obedient personality, one that is 
attracted to authoritarian order. Such a theory could provide a 
pointer as to the phenomenon of Hindutva fascism in India.
Along with suppression of sexuality, there is valorisation in Hindu 
society of brahmacharya, which emphasises mental and physical 
restraint, including celibacy. Hindu scriptures are replete with 
aphorisms extolling the virtues of brahmacharya. But the belief that 
a drop of semen is the equivalent of thousands of drops of blood is 
not confined to Hindus alone; rather, it is a deeply embedded 
cultural belief shared by many in the Subcontinent. The sheer number 
of flourishing roadside practitioners of various forms of medicine 
geared to treating weakness in men bears testimony to the widespread 
prevalence of this belief. Allopathic medical practitioners testify 
that, confronted with patients who feel 'weak' after their wedding, 
the only options are either to give a placebo or to advise against 
having sex for an extended period of time.

In general, India's arid education system; worries about employment; 
family pressures to marry, produce children and fulfil duties towards 
parents - all of these together leave little space for the 
development of an autonomous, well-rounded personality. The 
personality of the Indian boy/man is a far cry from the existential 
man of Sartre and Camus, who deals with the world's many complexities 
and ambiguities, makes choices and takes responsibility for his 
actions. The decisions that are considered 'major' and 'individual' 
in the Western worldview - those of job, the times and partners for 
marriage and children - in Indian society are all taken predominantly 
by elders.

The end result is a non-assertive, amorphous personality - one that 
can take the shape of the obedient son, but who can also get pushed 
around in the workplace. This personality also has a converse, 
authoritarian side, most often manifested in the role of the 'strict 
father' and 'master-husband', who keeps his wife and children under 
rigorous control and sees to it that they serve his parents well. 
Fascism enmeshes with and appeals to both aspects of this 
personality. It offers a simple 'good-bad' binary that is well suited 
for this personality. This binary removes the individual from the 
burdens of independent thinking, the usage of critical faculties, the 
formation of personal opinions and the exercise of choices that would 
bring with them responsibilities towards action. Instead of 
anxiety-causing complexity and uncertainty, there is simplicity and 
certainty. Ambiguities are replaced with comforting moral clarities: 
Muslims are bad, Hindus are good or Muslims are good, Hindus are bad 
or Christians are believers, Muslims are infidels. The burden of 
making choices and taking personal responsibility is also lifted, as 
the father-fuehrer-leader offers absolution:
Kill the dirty Muslims/Hindus/Jews. We will take responsibility. The 
authoritarian aspects likewise receive fulfilment in the degradation 
and humiliation of the opposing community.

The manifestation of the good-bad binary can also be seen in the 
goddess-whore paradigm, which retains a strong grip on the Indian 
psyche. The Sati Savitris are always in sharp contrast to 
Surpanakhas, the sister of Ravan who sought to entice Lakshman (and 
therefore deserved to get her nose chopped off), or the ubiquitous 
non-Hindu 'Lily' and 'Mona' vamps of Indian cinema, who likewise get 
their comeuppance in the end. This deeply embedded binary construct 
plays a crucial role in mobilisation for a fascist agenda.

'Saving' women

Conservative Indian society, whether in the Hindi heartland, 
peninsular India or elsewhere, offers little space for any expression 
of sexuality, or for interaction between boys and girls. At the same 
time, the reverence for brahmacharya among males, along with beliefs 
about loss of semen leading to weakness of the body, mind and spirit, 
acts as a block to healthy masturbation. Even when 'indulged' in, the 
act comes ridden with anxiety and fears about the consequences. 
Sexual fantasies, half-remembered dreams, nebulous near-incestuous 
memories involving the 'pure' mother and 'virgin' sister engender 
feelings of guilt and perversion. Such anxiety-provoking feelings are 
also inevitably suppressed from the consciousness, leading to further 
repression in the psyche. In turn, such frustrations can more easily 
be projected onto the 'other', who becomes the repository of all that 
is 'impure', 'sexual' and 'evil'. Under the right circumstances, this 
projection will become violent.

It is no coincidence that riding the Hindutva chariot is primarily a 
male phenomenon, barring a couple of notable Sadhvis. This machismo 
seems to tap directly into the large masses of sexually deprived and 
repressed young men - their energies, it would seem, effectively 
channelled towards the larger Hindutva project. The connection 
between repressed sexuality and the whipping-up of violent reaction 
against other communities was never more apparent than in the spring 
of 2002 in Gujarat. Long before any killing began, symbolism over 
women's bodies was being used to polarise the Hindu and Muslim 
communities. Muslim men were demonised as 'marauding aliens' lusting 
over Hindu women. Leaders of the Hindutva brigade in Gujarat would 
systematically stir fears about Muslim men carrying away Hindu women 
to add to their harems. Over the past decade, public meetings, 
speeches, pamphlets, schools, cultural groups, ashrams, philanthropic 
institutions, babas, sants and maharajs have all been used by the 
Sangh Parivar to spread venom against Muslims. This tendency was 
ratcheted up to a fever pitch following the Godhra train burning, 
with rumours about Hindu women being abducted, raped and mutilated 
playing a crucial role in the subsequent mobilisation.

Between 28 February and 1 March, leading Gujarati dailies such as 
Sandesh and Gujarat Samachar carried incendiary and fabricated news 
such as: "10-15 Hindu women were dragged away by a fanatic mob from 
the railway compartment", "Wicked villains of this mob kidnapped some 
ten behno [sisters] whose whereabouts are not yet known", "Helpless 
women were struggling to escape from the grip of saitans [devils]", 
"Out of kidnapped young ladies from Sabarmati Express, dead bodies of 
two women recovered - breasts of women were cut off". As they were 
meant to do, such headlines inevitably inflamed communal tensions, 
feeding into righteous indignation and moral outrage, and providing 
an apparent justification for the massacre of Muslims that followed.

As with the construction of the black male in white-supremacist 
discourse, in the Hindutva agenda the Muslim male is projected as an 
over-sexed, beast-like creature, lusting after (and, thus, 
threatening) Hindu women. The stereotyping of individual women into 
the categories of 'whore ' and 'goddess' likewise contributes to 
women of other communities (Muslim and Christian) being considered 
amoral - enjoying sex, unlike 'dutiful' Hindu women. Sexual violence 
against Muslim girls and women thus becomes a righteous moral act to 
save the 'honour' of 'our' mothers and sisters; at the same time, it 
also emasculates the rapacious Muslim males, 'dishonouring' the 
entire community.

Not that women have not been actively utilised by Hindutva militancy, 
but overt participation of women in riots and killings is still a 
relatively new phenomenon. Maya Kodnani, a female MLA in the Gujarat 
Assembly, played a leading role in the 2002 massacres in Ahmedabad. 
There were several instances of rapists being supported or even 
actively instigated by women in the carnage against Muslims in 
Gujarat. Growing evidence points out that militant Hindu nationalism 
often offers greater independence and autonomy for women than is 
permissible in the general model of domestic femininity. Hinduism's 
many references to non-demure goddesses slaying enemies provides 
space for training in armed combat, as well as travelling across the 
country in the cause of the Hindu nation - ultimately presenting a 
life significantly less controlled by family and society.

Motherland lust

As the goddess-whore binary alludes, Hindutva fascism does not focus 
on women's sexuality alone. The idea of 'woman as mother' also plays 
a crucial role in the shaping of the male psyche, and fits snugly 
into fascist ideology. Given the particularly intense and intimate 
mother-son relationship in India, the impact of the mother may be 
even more significant than in other societies. It also contributes to 
evoking particularly strong feelings with respect to perceived 
threats to the mother.

The emotional core of the feelings towards both the mother and the 
motherland has been used to great effect in the mobilisation for the 
Hindutva agenda. The existence of Babri Masjid as a phallic symbol - 
which colonises Mother India and emasculates the virile sons who 
failed to protect her - was forcefully played upon by BJP leader L K 
Advani in order to spread hate during the Ramjanmabhoomi Rath Yatra. 
The speeches by various leaders throughout the yatra, as well as at 
Ayodhya, went along the following lines: the Invader Babar the Cruel 
raped our mothers and sisters, and destroyed the original Ram temple; 
the Babri Masjid baitha (a sexually charged 'astride') Bharat Mata is 
an insult and humiliation to Hindu virility and manhood. In the 
vernacular, these words and phrases sounded even cruder, and likewise 
had an even greater emotional impact.

Starting the yatra from Somnath on the Gujarat coast, invoking the 
plunder of the temple (the looting and destruction of which had 
nothing to do with Indian Muslims), and ending it at Babri Masjid, 
was a masterful exercise in invoking past traumas as though they were 
occurring in the immediate present. RSS leaders repeatedly emphasised 
to their cadre that the existence of the standing, 'erect' Babri 
Masjid proclaimed to the world the defiling of Hindu women by Muslims 
and the rape of the 'motherland' by Babar - and that the demolition 
of the mosque would restore both Hindu male virility and symbolic 
Hindu feminine purity. The conflation of contemporary stories with 
those of historical Muslim rulers (Taimur, Genghis Khan, Babar) 
invading Mother India and violating 'pure' Hindu girls and women 
inevitably led to an intensification of anti-Muslim anger - as 
attested to by the killings of Muslims in towns and cities along the 
yatra's route.

It is no coincidence that Hindutva is currently being propagated as 
"cultural nationalism", a not-too-distant cousin of the National 
Socialism of the Nazi Party. The attempts to demonise the Muslim 
community sound astoundingly similar to Goebbels's propaganda against 
the Jews: "If someone cracks a whip across your mother's face, would 
you say to him, 'Thank you! He is a man too!' One who does such a 
thing is not a man - he is a brute! How many worse things has the Jew 
inflicted upon our mother Germany, and still inflicts upon her! He 
has debauched our race, sapped our energy, undermined our customs and 
broken our strength!"

Almost a century after the rise of the right in Europe, the left the 
world over remains closed to the discipline of psychoanalysis, 
looking at it solely as a bourgeois pseudo-science. It is equally 
unfortunate that psychoanalysis remains largely confined to the 
individual psyche and the therapist-patient paradigm. Perhaps it is 
time to pull down the walls, take psychoanalysis out of the closet, 
and recognise that the irrational in the human psyche influences not 
only individual behaviour, but also impacts mass psychology and the 
broader canvas of events. It is a little-known but curious fact that 
Mohandas Gandhi, in his anguished search for a resolution to the 
vexed Hindu-Muslim problem, attended the 1925 meeting of the Indian 
Psychoanalytical Society in Calcutta.

bilash rai

Most of us have the anxieties, insecurities, feelings of rage and 
anger that are part of human existence. At the other end of the 
spectrum, however, remain positive feelings: those of belonging to a 
community, of love for the earth and for fellow human beings. It is 
the interface of politics and psychoanalysis that can unravel the 
processes through which both negative and positive feelings in the 
psyche become mobilised for a fascist agenda.

______


[5]


GUJARAT: TOWARDS VIBRANCY OR ABOLITION OF DEMOCRACY?

by Ram Puniyani [October 1, 2007]

There is a widespread impression amongst different sections of 
society and media that Narendra Modi is leading Gujarat towards the 
path of development. Also a section of patidras are happy with his 
policies which are giving them a fertile ground for social and 
economic enhancement.  Another section of Hindus eulogize him for 
being the emperor of Hindu hearts, Hindu Hridaya Samrat, in the 
aftermath Gujarat anti Muslim pogrom, which took place when he was 
the Chief Minster. He had called this shameful carnage as the Gaurav 
(honor) of Hindus. Where do matters stand today?

Gujarat has been under the uninterrupted rule of BJP Government from 
over a decade. It was certified as an ideal Hindu state by the 
patriarch of Hindutva organizations, the RSS. Now it is a common 
sight in different places in the state to see the boards declaring a 
different type of nationalism bypassing Indian nationalism. The 
hoardings at the entrance of villages/cities read, welcome to the so 
and so place of Hindu Rastra. The other characteristics of this 
Rashtra are easily visible once one spends a couple of days in any of 
the places. The most striking observation is the relegation of 
minorities to the second class status in the state. The post carnage 
victims have been suffering due to the lack of rehabilitation 
measures by the state, and boycott by the local people. The 
ghettoisation of the minorities is increasing by the day. Many 
partitions, separate Muslim localities in the aftermath of the 
insecure atmosphere created by the state apparatus and communal 
forces cannot be missed even by the observer with average 
investigation skills.

Those displaced due to carnage are rotting in the refugee camps with 
no civic facilities reaching them. The banks and telephone companies 
are shunning these areas and children's education is one of the major 
problems for the victims. Divisive politics is ruling the roost under 
the supervision of Modi. The state of affairs has been described as 
mini emergency by members of dissidents of his party. The state of 
justice has degenerated to the extent that one can hardly expect 
justice if one belongs to the 'wrong religion' in the language of 
social common sense prevalent in Gujarat. The social festivals and 
religiosity is increasing exponentially. Recently while visiting one 
of the cities close to Ahmadabad, one was struck by the semi clothed, 
starving groups carrying saffron flags and making their beeline for 
the trip to Ambaji. Ganesh, Navaratri and Vsant panchami occupy most 
of the time in the yearly calendar of the state. Either one is busy 
preparing for them or recuperating having celebrated the same. Life 
revolves around Ambaji and festivals. To en-cash on Ambaji phenomenon 
for the electoral account, Modi is already visible beaming from 
hoardings, hands folded in prayer, saying Jay Ambe.

At the same time the team sent by Modi to find the tenability of 
floating 'Vibrant Gujarat' as the election plank, found that there is 
a deep dissatisfaction amongst people about the state of economic 
development. The team of leaders send by the CM was to assess the 
projects undertaken during the period. This visit was called as 
Vanthumbi Yatra and the team comprised mostly of his loyal ministers. 
In what will appear to be a paradox, in this supposedly 'super rich' 
state of India, Dangs has been declared as the poorest district in 
India. It is the same Dangs where the Government spent crores of 
rupees to promote Shabri as the Adivasi deity through supporting the 
organization of Shabri Kumbh. In parts of Saurashtra the team of 
ministers was met by the angry crowd asking the questions related to 
incomplete roads, and other social amenities. In most of the villages 
visited by them they could not see much development. The people are 
not impressed by the so called development and ministers team 
reported back to their boss that the 'Vibrant Gujarat' slogan may 
flounder as the one of Shining India at all India level during the 
parliament elections.

Probably to offset this, a combined package of Rs 38000, crores has 
been announced 15000 crores for Adivisis, 13000 crores from urban 
slums and 10000 for fisherman. It is a clear electoral ploy as there 
is no such provision in the state budget of 43000 crores, and this 
whole promise is to be rolled out over next five years.

While the indices of development and investment may show the high 
figures, the chunk of population comprising of Adivasis, dalits and 
minorities can see the increase in their all round suffering. There 
is a feeling amongst these sections that the crime rate is rising, 
the atrocities on women are increasing and the economic plight is 
worsening rapidly.

What works best for consolidating the communal forces is the violence 
in the name of religion and that's what seems to have been unleashed 
lately. There were reports of communal violence in villages near 
Surat and Vadodara. There is no dearth of issues around which 
violence can be instigated, cow protection by now is major ploy in 
the hands of these elements and the current one's (September 2007) 
have been around Ganesh visarjan and cow slaughter. Setu Samudram is 
also being floated as the bridge on which Modi may try to ride to the 
victory.

Currently the violence can be triggered off, even on the smallest of 
pretexts mainly because the social thinking has been heavily 
communalized. The voices of sanity have been suppressed, be it the 
issue of the arts student Chandra Mohan from the Vadodara or the 
'banning' of films like Perzania, the suppression of democratic norms 
has been stepped up over a period of time. It is at this time that 
the voices of the likes of Aditi Mangaldas and Astad Deboo refusing 
the Gaurav Puruskar from this repressive state, should act as a 
barometer reflecting the state of democracy in Gujarat. And of course 
the poorest district being in the same state tells the whole story of 
what Hindu Rashtra will mean to the democratic norms on one side and 
the condition of the poor and marginalized on the other. The question 
is can we stop the erosion-abolition of democracy in this state?

______


[6]

MUZZLING IN THE NAME OF ISLAM

by Paul Marshall
Special to washingtonpost.com's Think Tank Town
Saturday, September 29, 2007; 12:00 AM

Some of the world's most repressive governments are attempting to use 
a controversy over a Swedish cartoon to provide legitimacy for their 
suppression of their critics in the name of respect for Islam. In 
particular, the Organization of the Islamic Conference is seeking to 
rewrite international human rights standards to curtail any freedom 
of expression that threatens their more authoritarian members.

In August, Swedish artist Lars Vilks drew a cartoon with Mohammed's 
head on a dog's body. He is now in hiding after Al Qaeda in Iraq 
placed a bounty of $100,000 on his head (with a $50,000 bonus if his 
throat is slit) and police told him he was no longer safe at home. As 
with the 2005 Danish Jyllands-Posten cartoons, and the knighting of 
Salman Rushdie, Muslim ambassadors and the OIC have not only demanded 
an apology from the Swedes, but are also pushing Western countries to 
restrict press freedom in the name of preventing "insults" to Islam.

Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other 
inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. 
Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by 
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content that you post.

The Iranian foreign ministry protested to Sweden, while Iranian 
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asserted that "Zionists," "an organized 
minority who have infiltrated the world," were behind the affair. 
Pakistan complained and said that "the right to freedom of 
expression" is inconsistent with "defamation of religions and 
prophets." The Turkish Ministry of Religious Affairs called for rules 
specifying new limits of press freedom.

These calls were renewed in September when a U.N. report said that 
Articles 18, 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and 
Political Rights should be reinterpreted by "adopting complementary 
standards on the interrelations between freedom of expression, 
freedom of religion and non-discrimination." Speaking for the OIC, 
Pakistani diplomat Marghoob Saleem Butt then criticized "unrestricted 
and disrespectful enjoyment of freedom of expression."

The issues here go beyond the right of cartoonists to offend people. 
They go to the heart of repression in much of the Muslim world. 
Islamists and authoritarian governments now routinely use accusations 
of blasphemy to repress writers, journalists, political dissidents 
and, perhaps politically most important, religious reformers.

On Sept. 22, three political dissidents in Iran, Ehsan Mansouri, 
Majid Tavakoli and Ahmad Ghassaban, were put on trial for writing 
articles against "Islamic holy values." Iran's most prominent 
dissident, Akbar Ganji, was himself imprisoned on charges including 
"spreading propaganda against the Islamic system." In August, Taslima 
Nasreen, who had to flee Bangladesh for her life because her feminist 
writings were accused of being "against Islam," was investigated in 
India for hurting Muslims' "religious sentiments."
ad_icon

Egypt has been unusually active of late in imprisoning its critics in 
the name of Islam. On Aug. 8, it arrested Adel Fawzy Faltas and Peter 
Ezzat, who work for the Canada-based Middle East Christian 
Association, on the grounds that, in seeking to defend human rights, 
they had "insulted Islam." Egyptian State Security has also 
intensified its interrogation of Quranist Muslims, whose view of 
Islam stresses political freedom. One of them, Amr Tharwat, had 
coordinated the monitoring of Egypt's June Shura Council elections on 
behalf of the pro-democracy Ibn Khaldun Center, headed by prominent 
Egyptian democracy activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim. Prominent Egyptian 
'blogger' Abdel Kareem Soliman was sentenced earlier this year to 
three years for "insulting Islam."

Saudi Arabian democracy activists Ali al-Demaini, Abdullah al-Hamed, 
and Matruk al-Faleh were originally imprisoned on charges of using 
"unIslamic terminology," such as 'democracy' and 'human rights,' when 
they called for a written constitution. Saudi teacher Mohammad 
al-Harbi was sentenced to 40 months in jail and 750 lashes for 
"mocking religion" after discussing the Bible in class and saying 
that the Jews were right. He was released only after an international 
outcry led King Abdullah to pardon him. The Indonesian Ulema Council, 
considered the country's highest Islamic authority, issued a fatwa 
banning the Liberal Islamic Network, which teaches an open 
interpretation of the Koran. Then the radical Islam Defenders Front 
has threatened Ulil Abshar Abdulla, the network's founder.

Of course, these are not the only threats in repressive states' 
arsenals. In Egypt activists and critics have been imprisoned for 
forgery and damaging Egypt's image abroad. Saudi Arabia and Iran use 
a host of restrictive measures. But blasphemy charges are a potent 
weapon and are used systematically to silence and destroy religious 
minorities, authors and journalists and democracy activists. As the 
late Naguib Mahfouz, the only Arab winner of the Nobel Prize in 
literature, and whose novel Children of Gebelawi was banned in Egypt 
for blasphemy, put it: "no blasphemy harms Islam and Muslims so much 
as the call for murdering a writer."

Repressive laws, supplemented and reinforced by terrorists, 
vigilantes and mob violence, are a fundamental barrier to open 
discussion and dissent, and so to democracy and free societies, 
within the Muslim world. When politics and religion are intertwined, 
there can be no political freedom without religious freedom, 
including the right to criticize religious ideas. Hence, removing 
legal bans on blasphemy and 'insulting Islam' is vital to protecting 
an open debate that could lead to other reforms.

If, in the name of false toleration and religious sensitivity, free 
nations do not firmly condemn and resist these totalitarian 
strictures, we will abet the isolation of reformist Muslims, and 
condemn them to silence behind what Sen. Joseph Lieberman has aptly 
termed a "theological iron curtain."

Paul Marshall, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute's Center for 
Religious Freedom, is writing a book on blasphemy.



______



[7]


Gomantak Times, Panjim,
2 October 2007

AN INVITATION TO HATE

by Jason Keith Fernandes

This weekend I had the misfortune of visiting the most obnoxious 
exhibition. Set up by the Hindu Janajagruthi Samiti, the object of 
the exhibition was to 'educate' the average Hindu about the violence 
by Muslims on the Hindus of Kashmir and Bangladesh. I say 'educate' 
the Hindu, since every display of violence was followed by a caption 
addressed to the viewer indicating that if they were Hindu, then 
these visuals should make their blood boil, and tomorrow this 
violence could possibly be visited on them. If they were not moved, 
they were not fit to be - and hence not - Hindu. The theme of the 
exhibition purported to be the violence occurring in Kashmir, and 
yet, addressing the plight of the Kashmiri whether Hindu or Muslim 
was not its concern. On the contrary, the attempt through the 
exhibition was to ensure that local Hindus see the local Muslim as 
the natural and necessary enemy. What this exhibition is, therefore, 
is a very clear and deliberate attempt to create communal divisions 
in Goa.

Now I am not surprised by this display of anti-Muslim hatred, since 
one has gotten used to seeing this daily violence perpetuated for not 
being a certain kind of Hindu. For the Hindu right wing, it is not 
enough to hate only the minorities. Not being brahmanised upper-caste 
and minority hating is just as bad in their book. What is surprising 
is that this very blatant organizing of Hindus against Muslims (and 
by logical conclusion against the Catholics in Goa) is that it is 
taking place in the premises of the Kala Academy. Why the premier 
cultural institution of a secular state is allowing violent 
activities on its premises is a question that the authorities of the 
Kala Academy must immediately answer. The authorities can reprieve 
themselves of this abuse of authority only by withdrawing permission 
for this exhibition immediately. Worse, this is not just an 
exhibition; there was also a screening of inflammatory documentaries, 
followed by similar discussion sessions which were nothing short of 
unnerving.

Walking through the exhibition, the organizing women clamoring quite 
literally for the blood of local Muslims, was extremely unnerving. I 
fancy myself as a reasonably rational individual not given to acts of 
passion. And yet in this environment, I was strangely drawn toward 
pulling down the posters, destroying the projector and disrupting the 
meeting that was being conducted, knocking a few heads while I was at 
it. It was when placed in this environment that I finally realized 
what it must be like to be a persecuted minority, and especially a 
Muslim in this country. Every apparently innocuous saffron flag is in 
fact a threat, telling you that your time is coming and you had 
better be careful.  If then I, as an individual who is not being 
directly threatened here, who has an escape route out of the country 
in terms of livelihood options, should respond irrationally and 
violently to such stimuli, how would a Muslim, already on the 
economic fringes of society, and subject to no less that 60 years of 
harassment respond to this
threat? The object of the exhibition then, is twofold. It is first to 
tell the individual that you are Hindu (or not Hindu) first, and that 
every Muslim is your presumed enemy and you should 'get' them before 
they get you. The objective: The creation of a communal divide, and 
an invitation to violence. It exceeds this-one sided mobilization 
however, and also operates as a provocation to local Muslim groups. 
Of course, once the Muslims have been hounded enough to retaliate, 
all of society will turn around, refuse to see the provocation and 
shrug, saying "It is true, these Muslims are violent by nature." A 
minimum of 60 years of such violence has produced nervous and 
insecure Muslim groups in India.

60 and more years of Hindutva aggression has created the communal 
bloodbaths of this country, and the current exhibition is a fantastic 
example of who and what is responsible for it. This particular 
exhibition has been touring Goa for some months now and it is a sign 
of the power and arrogance of these groups that they dare to take 
over the Kala Academy, the space of the secular and sophisticated in 
our capital. This is nothing less than a final flexing of muscle 
before they act out their fiendish agenda. While we must guard 
ourselves from this venom, they must first be cast out from the Kala 
Academy and the Academy asked to explain how they got there in the 
first place.


______


[8]

Economic and Political Weekly
September 29 - October 05, 2007

HISTORICAL MEMORY WITHOUT HISTORY

by Romila Thapar

Questions of identifying location and chronology do bother 
archaeologists and historians, but they need not be of consequence to 
those whose concern is only with faith, and the distinction has to be 
reiterated. What is at issue in the Setusamudram project, however, is 
not whether Rama existed or not, or whether the underwater formation 
was originally a bridge constructed at his behest, but a different 
and crucial set of questions relating to the environmental and 
economic impact of the project that require neither faith nor 
archaeology. They require far greater discussion if we are to 
understand what the project might achieve and what it might destroy.

Full Article at
http://www.epw.org.in/uploads/articles/11073.pdf

______



[9] ANNOUNCEMENTS:

(i)

Himal
October-November 2007

FUTURE FUNDAMENTALISMS

There is an array of nuances and complexities involved in the rise of 
Southasia's fundamentalisms, either in the form of marginal groups or 
as a part of mainstream national politics. In this special issue, 
Himal ropes in essays, reports and analyses tracking fundamentalism 
trends. We hear impassioned pleas for humane leftwing politics, for a 
change in US policies as they impact on Southasia's peoples, and for 
introspection on the part of Muslims as Islamist extremism takes 
root. We analyse terror alignments within the Indian Hindu right, and 
bring forth its relationship with Nepal's king. We explore the 
connection between the repression of sexuality and the psyche of 
fascism; and analyse the lure of extremist ideology for women, 
whether Muslim or Hindu. We uncover Buddhist certitude in Sri Lanka, 
and trace extremist visions lapping on Maldivian shores. Most 
importantly, the articles in this issue survey the links between 
nationalism and extremism of all hues.

Our cover photograph is by Dhaka-based photojournalist Tanvir Murad 
Topu, part of a look at madrassas in Bangladesh that is also included 
as a photo feature in this issue. We present Topu's work on our cover 
in order to juxtapose the political radicalisation of religious 
fundamentalism with the crucial facet common to all faiths: one that 
is magnanimous, tolerant, empathetic towards others, and soothing for 
the practitioner.

http://www.himalmag.com/

---

(ii)

  Dakshina's Fourth Annual Fall Festival of Indian Arts

*Saturday October 13 at 7:00 pm*
Film Screening of "A Human Question" in support of SANGAMA, an AIDS service
organization based in Bangalore, India. Free, RSVP by emailing
RSVP at dakshina.org. www.dakshina.org. At 1824 R Street NW, The Artist 
Inn (In Washington DC)
Residence.

Tracing the story of the global struggle to make HIV/AIDS drugs more 
affordable and available, A Human Question raises key questions of 
whether private ownership of knowledge can be at the cost of human 
life? The film explores the complex world of Patents and HIV/AIDS 
medicines by connecting and contrasting personal narratives with 
those of international lobbyists and activists. The human questions 
raised in the film will force us to rethink the relationship between 
Intellectual Property and Human rights.

T. Jayashree has produced, directed and written for Television, Radio 
and Independent films. Her previous documentary credits include- 
Annapurna (BITV-1995), A woman's Place (1998) and Many people Many 
desires.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

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

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.