SACW | Dec.15-19, 2007 / Post emergency Pakistan / Nepal peace postponed / Sri Lanka rights in times of war /

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | December 15-19, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2477 - 
Year 10 running

[1] Democratic Rights in Post Emergency Pakistan:
   (i) IHI -JAC statement on Police brutality on protest rally in 
Islamabad, 17 December 2007
   (ii) Questions for Musharraf and Bush (John F. Tierney and Aitzaz Ahsan)
   (iii) Pervez Hoodbhoy Interview: Pakistan's voice of reason (Ehsan Masood)
[2] Nepal: Peace Postponed (International Crisis Group)
[3] Sri Lanka: Safeguarding human rights in times of war (Jayadeva Uyangoda)
[4] India: Names in India's Far-Right Games (J. Sri Raman)
[5] India: Narratives of the Underbelly of Democracy (Britta Ohm)
[6] India: Cracking the code (Ramachandra Guha)
[7] India: Professor Patnaik and the Aftermath of Nandigram (Dilip Simeon)
[8] India: Sex Work Is No Crime (Bishaka Datta and Siddharth Dube)
[9] Canada: Faith of Our Mothers - It's no sin to shun the hijab (Tarek Fatah)

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[1]

Democratic Rights in Post Emergency Pakistan:

(i)

STATEMENT STRONGLY CONDEMNS ARRESTS AND POLICE BRUTALITY ON CIVIL 
SOCIETY PROTEST RALLY IN ISLAMABAD, 17 DECEMBER 2007

Islamabad, 17 December 2007: The Insani Huqooq Ittehad (IHI) and 
Joint Action Committee for Citizens' Rights (JAC) strongly condemn 
the large scale arrest, severe lathi charge, tear gas attack and 
unprecedented police brutality on a protest rally of students, civil 
society activists, lawyers and representatives of the media in 
Islamabad on Monday evening.

At the call of Awami Jamhoori Ittehad, a sizeable number turned up at 
Aabpara Chowk, with the intention of marching towards the Judicial 
Colony, to show solidarity with the Honourable Chief Justice of 
Pakistan, Mr. Iftikhar M. Chaudhry, and the other deposed Judges of 
the Supreme Court, as well as the detained lawyers, including Aitzaz 
Ahsan, Ali Ahmad Kurd and J. Tariq Mahmood, amongst others.

They marched past the Islamabad Press Club peacefully, and turned at 
the Geo Chowk towards the Judicial Colony, when the police stopped 
them. The students and other activists demurred and remonstrated at 
this, on the basis that the Emergency had been lifted amidst much 
fanfare, and thus the fundamental Constitutional rights stood 
restored.

In response, the police resorted to firing tear gas shells, baton 
charge and severe brutality, including driving their vehicles into 
the crowd and manhandling both women and men protesters. Scores of 
demonstrators were seriously injured, and some had to be taken to 
nearby hospitals. About 40 protesters were immediately arrested, 
including nine women, and taken to various police stations in 
Islamabad, where they were booked. Friends who subsequently came to 
seek their release were also arrested within the police station 
premises.

Two important points are noteworthy: firstly, that the police 
themselves provoked the incident and then resorted to a heavily 
disproportionate use of force. Secondly, that the much-touted 
"lifting" of the Emergency (or Martial Law by another name) is just 
an eye-wash to please the international community. It fools no one, 
and such incidents only serve to show the ugly face of the 
dictatorship and the complete absence of fundamental human rights 
enshrined in the 1973 Constitution. We strongly condemn it, and call 
for the immediate release of all detainees, whether in jails, police 
stations, or under house arrest, throughout Pakistan.

o o o

(ii)

The Washington Post
December 17, 2007

QUESTIONS FOR MUSHARRAF AND BUSH

by John F. Tierney and Aitzaz Ahsan

One of us chairs a House of Representatives subcommittee tasked with 
oversight of U.S. foreign policy, and one of us languishes under 
house arrest after transfer from a Pakistani jail for the "heinous" 
and "seditious" crime of representing, in legal proceedings, the 
sacked chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court.

As members of the political opposition in our respective countries 
and as lawyers firmly committed to the rule of law, we have a few 
questions for our heads of state:

* How will you address the increasing anti-Americanism in Pakistan in 
light of the growing, and not unjustified, perception among 
Pakistan's democratic moderates that the United States is not willing 
to stand with the people of Pakistan against an increasingly 
authoritarian and anti-democratic government in Islamabad?

* How will you respond to the inevitable international condemnation 
of a parliamentary "election" in which journalists are muzzled; 
political parties are prohibited from campaigning; Pakistani military 
and intelligence services visibly enforce an atmosphere of 
intimidation; and opposition leaders are exiled, jailed or placed 
under house arrest?

* How do you expect to effectively compete against extremist ideology 
when U.S. education funding to Pakistan is one-fifteenth its military 
support and Pakistani funding for public education remains woefully 
inadequate? Thirteen million children ages 5 to 9 -- out of 27 
million total-are not enrolled in school at all, leaving them exposed 
to extremist mentors.

* How do you expect to combat the Taliban and al-Qaeda cancer 
spreading from Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas into 
the Northwest Frontier and Balochistan provinces when the military is 
busy pointing its guns at judges, lawyers, journalists, political 
opponents and human rights advocates?

* How do you expect to muster the political fortitude and legitimacy 
to fight extremist Taliban and al-Qaeda forces when you have 
alienated the center-left and center-right-the more secular 
components of Pakistani society?

The people of Pakistan and the people of the United States deserve 
honest answers to these vexing questions. They are long overdue.

John F. Tierney is a Democratic representative from Massachusetts.

Aitzaz Ahsan, an opposition leader in Pakistan's parliament, has 
represented deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry as well 
as former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto

(iii)

New Scientist
8 December 2007

INTERVIEW: PAKISTAN'S VOICE OF REASON
by Ehsan Masood

Two Pakistani scientists are known throughout the world. Disgraced 
engineer A. Q. Khan helped the country get the bomb. By contrast, 
Pervez Hoodbhoy has spent more than 30 years opposing it. A professor 
of physics at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Hoodbhoy is a 
long-time critic of religious extremism, irrationality and military 
rule. With the regime of President Pervez Musharraf facing an 
uncertain future, Hoodbhoy has emerged as an unlikely pioneer of the 
pro-democracy movement. Ehsan Masood caught up with him during a 
meeting of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World in 
Trieste, Italy

There are daily demonstrations in universities across Pakistan. What 
are the students and faculty members demanding?

They want the restoration of the constitution and the rule of law, 
and an end to the state of emergency imposed by General Musharraf on 
3 November. They want the chief justice and members of the supreme 
court to ...

FULL TEXT AT:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19626330.600-interview-pakistans-voice-of-reason.html

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[2]

International Crisis Group
Asia Briefing No 72
18 December 2007

NEPAL: PEACE POSTPONED

Overview

Nepal's progress toward lasting peace is seriously but not yet 
irreparably faltering. A further postponement of constituent assembly 
(CA) elections reflected the weak implementation of the November 2006 
Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and lack of will to follow the 
agreed process. Leaders have now vowed to forge a new consensus and 
agreed to hold the elections by mid-April 2008 but have yet to 
address the problems that led to past postponements. Suspicions among 
the parties - especially between Nepali Congress (NC), which 
dominates the government, and the Maoists, who remain outside - are 
echoed in ebbing public confidence: whatever promises they hear, most 
voters believe the politicians prefer to stay in power rather than 
face the electorate. All parties urgently need to inject new momentum 
into the peace process and take steps to win back trust and earn 
legitimacy. The international community can support them in this but 
must also maintain pressure to keep the polls and peace process on 
track.

The peace process from the outset was based more on a convergence of 
interests than a common vision. The threat of a resurgent monarchy 
prodded mainstream parties and Maoists into alliance, but their major 
remaining shared interest is continuation in power. Even when 
elections seemed to be on track, no party paid more than lip service 
to calls for broader public participation in the constitutional 
process. Popular pressure to move the process ahead is not likely to 
worry political leaders. Civil society is divided, and the public has 
few openings to channel its pressure; the ultimate option of a mass 
movement is, for now, improbable. Constructive proposals have little 
outlet; parliamentary opposition is weak and without constitutional 
standing.

The peace plan was not inherently flawed, but it depended on all 
parties reforming their political behaviour, a process that should 
have been founded on implementing commitments starting from the 
November 2005 agreement between the mainstream parties and the 
Maoists. It also left many crucial issues to be negotiated at an 
unspecified date. The erosion of a common platform is not surprising. 
The consensus on power sharing that existed is foundering on 
partisanship and disputes over patronage. The prospect of impending 
polls has added to manoeuvring and further weakened unity. Although 
all parties are still talking, mutual recrimination has grown.

Other options are now likely to come into focus, although none yet 
appears attractive enough to win critical support. Talk of a new 
"nationalist alliance" - with Maoists and renegade NC leaders 
courting the royalist constituency - may for now be a bargaining 
tactic but underlines the seven-party grouping's fragility. This has 
constitutional ramifications: the interim constitution cannot 
function without seven-party unity. Those in power, as well as the 
palace and the army, might not be disappointed with another deferral 
of elections but prolongation of the current limbo has little to 
offer the nation. It could provide stability in Kathmandu and a new 
lease on life for a modified power-sharing formula but the capital's 
political games increasingly fail to reflect the realities of a 
turbulent country.

Holding an increasingly fractious nation together requires more than 
reapportioning the Kathmandu spoils. It needs action rather than the 
usual quick-fix backroom deals which command less and less 
credibility. The two armed forces have started to exert greater 
influence on the positions of the sides; neither has been defeated, 
and each would like to establish its own red lines. Maoist fighters 
have already left the cantonments in large numbers; on completion of 
the UN verification process, thousands of disqualified personnel will 
be discharged with no realistic plan for how to deal with them. 
Maoist parallel structures, notably the Young Communist League (YCL), 
which is already led by People's Liberation Army (PLA) commanders, 
still hold sway over much of the country. Elsewhere identity-based 
movements have left political calculations in flux and law and order 
in tatters. The resignation of Madhesi parliamentarians, including an 
NC minister, to form a new party suggests the Tarai unrest may 
finally be impinging on national power games.

In this inherently unstable situation, Nepal risks slipping back 
toward renewed conflict even if no party actively seeks it. Two 
intact armies remain ready to fight. This fundamentally adversarial 
structure blocks other confidence-building efforts. A disillusioned 
public will have little appetite to defend parties which have 
betrayed their promises to reform and seek a new mandate. Many fear 
the opportunity for securing peace and institutional change is 
already lost. More militant groups stand to gain. The one hopeful 
sign is growing recognition in all parties that implementation of 
existing agreements is a priority. If this is coupled with the will 
to create conditions for holding elections by mid-April 2008 as 
promised, it could produce a genuine popular endorsement and 
stabilise the country.

The seven parties (government and Maoists) should:

     * preserve unity through a combination of immediate 
confidence-building measures, jointly reaffirming the CPA's shared 
vision, developing consensual decision-making procedures and 
transparently negotiating a durable power-sharing deal to bring the 
Maoists back into government, including if necessary a cabinet 
reshuffle and discussions on the shape of a post-electoral consensus 
government;
     * demonstrate commitment through behaviour - with the Maoists 
halting parallel activities and other abuses of the CPA, and other 
parties setting an example by fulfilling their own commitments in a 
non-partisan fashion;
     * engage with other parties represented in the legislature or 
registered for the elections and with civil society to build broader 
support for the electoral and peace process and avoid charges of 
narrow self-interest, including considering specific mechanisms for 
consensus building;
     * review progress on implementing the CPA and subsequent 
agreements, establish mandated committees (and report to the public 
regularly on their progress) and tackle the gaps in earlier 
negotiations by initiating discussions on such issues as security 
sector reform (SSR);
     *  review the role of the NC-led Ministry of Peace and 
Reconstruction and consider forming an all-party mechanism to oversee 
the peace deal, backed by an independent monitoring body;
     * refocus on the constitutional process, developing mechanisms to 
bring in the public in order to ensure it is meaningful and convince 
Nepalis elections are serious;
     * develop a viable public security plan to rebuild confidence in 
the police, uphold the rule of law and end impunity whether of state 
or non-state actors and reestablish local government based at a 
minimum on seven-party and community consensus; and
     *  increase the focus on political inclusiveness, starting by 
implementing agreements on representation of women, janajatis, 
Madhesis, Dalits and other groups.

International actors should:

     * agree on a common message pressing for a realistic roadmap to 
elections, offering support and reminding all that international 
recognition is conditional upon demonstrated commitment to peace and 
democracy;
     * UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) should continue to clarify its 
role, improving communication with the public to counter criticism 
about lack of transparency; and
     * donors should only support projects with all-party approval and 
demonstrably in line with peace process goals, including 
strengthening local governance to contribute to confidence-building 
and service-delivery to local communities to convey the sense of a 
peace dividend.

Kathmandu/Brussels, 18 December 2007


FULL TEXT OF THE BRIEFING IS AVAILABLE AT:
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/getfile.cfm?id=3243&tid=5230&l=1

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[3]

Daily Mirror
December 15, 2007

SAFEGUARDING HUMAN RIGHTS IN TIMES OF WAR

by Jayadeva Uyangoda

The report that the Supreme Court has granted permission to proceed 
with the fundamental rights violation petition filed by the CWC 
against the mass arrest of Tamil citizens in Colombo is a welcome 
development which occurred on the eve of this year's International 
Human Rights Day.

This is a significant development particularly in the context of the 
alarming and seemingly unstoppable breakdown of both the rule of law 
and the systems that checks the balance of actions taken by the 
Executive, in the context of escalating war between the Sri Lankan 
state and the LTTE. It looks like the Defense Ministry has emerged as 
the most powerful agency of the state. Some of the worst features of 
the Presidential system of governance, as Sri Lanka experienced 
throughout the 1980s, have also come back amidst the escalation of 
the undeclared war. The excessive and almost unlimited concentration 
of governmental power in and around the office of the Executive 
President is no longer a secret. Sri Lankan citizens can have some 
hope that at least one branch of the state, the judiciary, has 
democratic resilience by being conscious of its institutional 
responsibility to protect the freedoms and liberties of citizens 
while preventing the erosion of the norms, values and practices of 
democratic governance in these difficult times of war.

National Security

It has been the experience in Sri Lanka ever since the civil war 
began in the early 1970s for contradictions to develop between 
citizens' civil and political liberties and 'national' security. 
Governments have more often than not succumbed to the temptation of 
acquiring authoritarian powers through Emergency Laws and practices 
that are usually outside the framework of democratic governance. The 
war has also led to the periodic emergence of what Political 
Scientists call 'national security regimes.' In national security 
regimes, governments have had cultivated the practice of disregarding 
and even violating the basic rights and freedoms of the citizens on 
the premise of safeguarding national security.

In this national security approach to governance, state security, 
which often comes out as regime security, takes precedence over the 
rights of individual citizens. This approach also holds that the 
regime's right to deny certain rights of the citizens in order to 
ensure state security should not be subjected to dispute. Even 
judicial scrutiny of such executive action is seen as unnecessary 
intervention that endangers national security. The advocates as well 
as the 'hurrah boys' of regimes (I borrow this evocative phrase from 
Tissa Jayatilleka), have in the past developed the habit of calling 
as allies of 'terrorists' and 'enemies of the state' those who would 
remind the rulers that the governments have a primary duty, 
especially in times of internal war, to ensure the rights of its 
citizens and minority communities. One hopes that they will not use 
this epithet to describe the Supreme Court order regarding the 
security check points in the city as well.

In an ethno-political civil war, like in Sri Lanka, there is also the 
proclivity on the part of the state to subject the citizens of 
minority ethnic communities, especially of the community from which 
anti-state insurgency has arisen, to restrictions and denial of 
rights. In such a context, the government faces the complex and 
difficult task of ensuring the security of the state and safety of 
its citizens while safeguarding the rights of the citizens of that 
minority community.  But, as the experience shows, the exigencies of 
counter-insurgency operations take precedence over the rights of the 
citizens. When this happens, it calls for special measures to protect 
human rights. Many of such measures have in fact been developed in 
the international human rights and humanitarian law as well as 
guidelines. They are also available in Sri Lanka. In fact, during the 
Kumaratunga government, many of these measures were introduced to Sri 
Lanka's human rights rules, regulations and practices.

Past Experiences

The record of violations since the present phase of war began early 
last year is not an exceptionally new development. During the 
Jayewardene, Premadasa and Kumaratunga regimes, there were grave 
human rights violations. The Jayewardene regime demonstrated an 
arrogantly callous disregard for human rights and harassed human 
rights advocates. Lalith Athulathmudali, President Jayewardene's 
National Security Minister, derived great pleasure by branding human 
rights advocates, including the Amnesty International, as fronts for 
those he called 'separatist terrorists.'

In fact, Athulathmudali carried forward a tradition initiated by 
Felix Dias Bandaranaike. As the Minister of Justice in the United 
Front regime of 1970, Bandaranaike even branded human rights critics 
of the regime as sympathizers of 'JVP terrorists' and even CIA 
agents. He used the Lake House English newspapers as well as the 
Daily Mirror, then edited by his own hurrah boy Reggie Michael, to 
attack members of the Civil Rights Movement for their advocacy of 
civil and political rights of many thousands of JVP members arrested 
after the 1971 insurgency. Mr. R. K. W. Gunasekara, the then 
Principal of the Colombo Law College, was one of the prime targets 
and victims of these open attacks initiated by Felix Dias. During 
Athulathmudali's time, the late Dr. Neelan Thiruchelvam was similarly 
singled out for vituperative public attacks for defending human 
rights in times of civil war.

During the Premadasa regime of 1989 to 1993, there was a significant 
change in the government's attitude to human rights. In its bloody 
internal war with the JVP, spearheaded by President Premadasa's 
no-nonsense National Security Minister, Ranjan Wijeratne, civil and 
political rights took a severe beating. Arbitrary arrests, 
extra-judicial killings, and disappearances became regular, everyday 
events in 1988 to 1990. The Premadasa regime's success in crushing 
the JVP insurgency was paralleled with one of the worst periods of 
human rights violations in Sri Lanka.

However, Mr. Premadasa did not close the doors to international 
pressure on human rights issues. It was not because the Premadasa 
regime was particularly friendly towards its international critics, 
but because in a context of political and human rights, 
conditionality for economic assistance, the regime had to accept the 
principle of compliance and accountability. Mr. Premadasa also had 
able advisors like Bradman Weerakoon to repair the regime's image 
internationally. It needs to be noted that however much his regime 
came under international scrutiny and pressure on human rights 
issues, Mr. Premadasa did not resort to xenophobic patriotism.

During the Kumaratunga regime, there was some initial tension with 
international human writes groups. In 1996, goons linked to regime 
attacked a group of international and local human rights activists 
who had been holding a meeting in Bentota to discuss the country's 
human rights situation after war broke out in December 1995. A few 
Ministers in that government, notably Mangala Samaraweera and S. B. 
Dissanayake, intervened, to restore the peaceful co-existance between 
the government and human rights groups.

The Kumaratunga regime developed a somewhat enlightened approach to 
managing human rights violations during the execution of its war 
against the LTTE. The government accepted the possibility of military 
and police excesses during the war and admitted the occurrence of 
excesses and then worked with the armed forces and the NGOs to 
minimize violations. There were training programmes for armed forces 
personnel in human rights and humanitarian laws and standards. 
Inquiries were immediately held when grave violations were reported. 
There was no willful strategy to cover up excesses, or to intimidate 
those who report excesses. On the rather complex issue of arrest and 
detention of suspects under the PTA, orders and guidelines formulated 
in line with international standards were sent out to defense and 
security authorities from the President's office. The Human Rights 
Commission functioned for some time as a reasonably effective 
watchdog of the rights of citizens under conditions of war. Its 
branches in Vavuniya, Jaffna, Trincomalee and Batticaloa were 
particularly active, with no undue pressure from the government

Tendencies

This backdrop is useful for us to appreciate the role of the 
judiciary and other oversight institutions in protecting the rights 
of the citizens in general and minority communities in particular in 
times of intensified ethnic war. As Sri Lanka's own experience during 
the past two-to-three decades tell us, there are some tendencies that 
emerge during war which needs to be acknowledged and then arrested 
through proper institutional mechanisms. The first among them is the 
privileging of the security of the state and the 'nation' at the 
expense of the civil and political rights of individuals and the 
right of minority communities to equal treatment. The governments 
engaged in war have routinely argued that the security of the state, 
its officials and the government leaders should receive primacy over 
human rights.

The second is the tendency on the part of the government to curtail 
the democratic space on the premise that a little bit of 
authoritarianism is necessary to counter threats to the state. 
Advocates of this approach would even go to the extent of saying that 
curtailing democracy to some degree is necessary even for democracy 
to survive in a secured state. The third is to deny and justify 
excesses and then claim the right to impunity on behalf of the state 
and its defense and security institutions. In the late 1980s, the 
Jayewardene regime even introduced impunity legislation to protect 
the armed forces and police personnel from prosecution.

It is unfortunate that all these tendencies are present with some 
vigour in Sri Lanka today. The government, ignoring the lessons of 
the past governments, has gone back to the days of the early and 
mid-1980s when the Jayewardene government responded with disdain the 
arguments made by local and international rights groups for the 
protection of human rights while prosecuting the war. The attitude 
and the behavior of the present government to issues of human rights 
and democracy is sadly an outright denial of the advances that the 
Sri Lankan society, the state and the people achieved during the past 
two decades in those vital areas of state-society relations.

Xenophobia and Communalism

It seems that attacking UN agencies and local as well as 
international human rights groups, is a part of the government's 
strategy to draw the public attention away from the actual human 
rights consequences of the on-going war. As a strategy, this is 
self-defeating, because it gives the government and its officials a 
false sense of safety and impunity. The xenophobic patriotism that 
the government encourages can actually promote further rights 
violations because the state functionaries might feel emboldened to 
continue to engage in actions that actually need to be stopped, if 
the government is at least worried about its own image and reputation 
abroad. The recent mass arrest of Tamil citizens in Colombo is just a 
case in point.

It seems that there is also a new spirit of communalism and racism 
introduced to Sri Lanka defense and security institutions. Otherwise, 
the security authorities would not have initiated such a blatant and 
indefensible 'security' measure as the mass arrests of Tamil citizens 
last week. Probably, some influential sections of the government 
think that Tamil citizens deserve some collective punishment for the 
crimes of the LTTE. This is where the civil war also has the 
potential to push the Sri Lankan state back into a phase which the 
citizens of this country would have thought as a thing in the past.

Judiciary

Now, back to the role of the judiciary in times of war. As Sri Lanka 
has repeatedly experienced since the early 1970s, in times of war, 
the executive, and the legislature, which is controlled by the 
executive, possess a manifest tendency towards restricting the 
democratic space as well as the scope of rights that the citizens are 
entitled to under normal conditions. Thus, in times of war, the 
judiciary is the only institution of the state that the aggrieved 
citizens, communities and of course the dissidents can turn to for 
redress from infringements by both the executive and the legislature. 
That is why it is extremely important in times of war for an 
independent judiciary to be robust and assertive in protecting 
individual rights as well as the civil and political rights of the 
citizens and the rights of the members of ethnic and other minorities.

In Sri Lanka, the anti-terrorism thing is going awry. Let us hope Sri 
Lanka's judiciary will stay firmly committed to protecting democratic 
governance, the rights of the citizens as well as vulnerable 
communities when all other defenses available to citizens are under 
attack.

______


[4]

truthout.org
18 December 2007

NAMES IN INDIA'S FAR-RIGHT GAMES

by J. Sri Raman

     Names, as our mentors taught us all in the media, make news. What 
kind of news does Lal Krishna Advani make when India's far right 
names him as its candidate for the office of prime minister?

     The answer, perhaps, lies in another name, currently being much 
more widely mentioned in the country's political discourse: Narendra 
Modi, who needs no introduction to readers of these columns. The 
chief minister of India's State of Gujarat, who presided over the 
grisly anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002, is finding far more frequent 
mention in the foreign media, too, these days.

     When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced Advani as its 
nominee for the most powerful office in this Westminster-style 
parliamentary democracy, what struck observers most was the political 
context. The BJP, the political front of the "parivar" (as the 
far-right "family" calls itself), made the announcement right in the 
middle of a State-level Assembly election in Modi's Gujarat.

     The intriguing move elicited a flurry of interpretations. Most of 
these have seen in the timing a clear attempt by the party's 
national-level leadership to tame Modi. The announcement has been 
seen as an answer to Modi's fans projecting him as a prime minister 
in the making. It has also been seen as a rebuff to sections in the 
"parivar" that want the party's reins to be placed in the hands of 
someone like Modi, who has never seen any need to restrain fascist 
rampages in Gujarat or elsewhere. Modi has been a favorite of the 
farthest of India's far right ever since the carnage of five years 
ago.

     His admirers say he has combined the propaganda of religious 
chauvinism with the politics of "development." Much more real and 
remarkable, however, has been the way he has combined anti-minority 
violence with electoral "democracy." He and his administration not 
only connived at the carnage, with his police in particular 
conducting it by proxy for the "parivar," but also made political and 
electoral capital of it. Even while the fires were raging, he asked 
his party to prepare for an advanced Assembly election. The 
polarization of the people on religious lines paid him rich dividends 
and brought him a two-thirds majority in the Assembly.

     "Repeat Gujarat in the rest of India" - that has been the refrain 
of the pro-Modi "parivar" ever since then. The slogan lost some of 
its sheen after it failed to win elections elsewhere. But the 
divide-and-rule formula of the fascist variety has had too many 
faithful subscribers for it to be abandoned. They are hoping Modi 
will work his magic once again and revive the mantra.

     Modi's pogrom, it must be remembered, represented a menace not to 
the "rest of India" alone. He tried and succeeded in giving it an 
anti-Pakistan thrust as well. In rally after strident rally, at the 
peak of the pogrom, the "strongman" of Gujarat reviled the victims of 
brutal violence as the fifth column of the Islamic foe.

     The pogrom, it must also be remembered, coincided with the 
massing of about a million Indian and Pakistani soldiers on the 
border, especially in Kashmir, in an "eyeball-to-eyeball" 
confrontation. The prospect of the confrontation degenerating into a 
nuclear conflict did not deter the hawks on either side - including, 
of course, Modi, whose flock chose this time to raise barbed-wire 
barriers between the Hindu and Muslim sections in Gujarat's towns and 
cities.

     The massacre may be a memory today, though a searing one still 
for millions, but Modi's anti-minority offensive has never been 
suspended in the years since then. He has continued his campaign by 
denying justice to the victims and preventing a dignified return of 
those who fled the fascist hordes. He also extended the campaign to 
include an increasing number of what the media euphemistically calls 
"fake encounter killings" - or illegal executions of suspected 
"terrorists." In one of his recent election rallies, he has actually 
sought to defend one such execution as a patriotic duty performed 
very well indeed by his police.

     Eighty-year-old Advani has not exactly been a model of moderate 
politics either, even by the fairly unexacting standards of the far 
right. For most of the past 17 years, in fact, he has reveled in the 
role and image of a warrior of a "Hindu right," the holy name given 
by the fascists to their political philosophy and camp. He acquired 
this image through a religious-chauvinist and revanchist movement 
that culminated in the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992, and 
led to a bloodbath across the country. The BJP took electoral 
advantage of that bloodbath, too, growing from a two-seat party in 
the Lok Sabha (the Lower House of India's Parliament) to the size and 
status of the main national opposition.

     Advani played the same role in the BJP's ride to power in New 
Delhi in the late nineties. He rose to become the deputy prime 
minister by the time of the Gujarat carnage, and he used his powerful 
office to defend Modi to the utmost. That, however, was the highest 
he could rise. And it was his attempt to break through the political 
equivalent of a sound barrier that led to a disastrous move for image 
makeover.

     Pundits agreed Advani's prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, of 
the BJP, had made it to the top post because of a more balanced 
image. Even within his party, he was known as "the mask", which 
concealed or disguised the BJP's real face and made it more 
acceptable to power-sharing partners. Vajpayee's image survived the 
nuclear weapon tests of 1998 and the fratricide in Gujarat four years 
later, both of which took place under his prime ministership; and a 
wistful Advani made a belated effort to emulate the example. He did 
so on a visit to Pakistan last year, when he paid a tribute to 
Mohammed Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan. The statement failed to 
make a Vajpayee of Advani but only made him wilier than ever before. 
Matters were made worse for him when he returned home to a volley of 
protests against his alleged perfidy from within his party and the 
"parivar."

     Ever since, Advani's main effort has been to reassure his 
political camp and constituency his heart continues to be in the 
far-right place. He has missed no opportunity or occasion to reassert 
his persisting loyalty to the fundamental and fascist principles of 
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the patriarch of the 
"parivar," which he joined at the age of 15. Despite the announcement 
of his name as the BJP's shadow prime minister, he has also been 
among the most ardent and outspoken supporters of Modi within the 
party and the "parivar."

     By making Advani and Modi the names of its future, India's far 
right has only announced its intention to move farther right.

     A freelance journalist and a peace activist in India, J. Sri 
Raman is the author of "Flashpoint" (Common Courage Press, USA). He 
is a regular contributor to Truthout.

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[5]

The Economic and Political Weekly
December 8, 2007

NARRATIVES OF THE UNDERBELLY OF DEMOCRACY
by Britta Ohm

http://www.epw.org.in/uploads/articles/11298.pdf

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[6]

Hindustan Times
December 13, 2007

CRACKING THE CODE

by Ramachandra Guha

Article 44 of the Constitution of India reads: "The State shall 
endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout 
the territory of India."

The first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the first 
Law Minister, BR Ambedkar, were both modernists who wished to reform 
archaic personal laws and bring them in line with progressive notions 
of gender justice. They were both committed, in theory, to a Uniform 
Civil Code. However, faced with the bitter opposition of Muslim 
members in the Constituent Assembly, they decided to begin with the 
reform of the personal laws of the Hindus, a community whose liberal 
wing was both influential and articulate. All the same, it took them 
all of eight years to pass the laws that finally made caste 
irrelevant in marriage, allowed Hindu women the right to choose or 
divorce their marriage partners, abolished bigamy and polygamy among 
Hindus and granted Hindu daughters and wives rights in the property 
of their fathers and husbands.

The opposition to the reform of Hindu personal laws was led by the 
Jana Sangh (forerunner of today's BJP) and the RSS. The RSS held 
hundreds of meetings throughout India, where the proposals to outlaw 
bigamy and to give women property rights were denounced in the 
strongest language. The Hindu Right claimed that, as one born in a 
low-caste home, Ambedkar had no business or authority to interpret or 
override the Hindu shastras. The laws being drafted to allow personal 
choice in marriage and inheritance rights to daughters were denounced 
as "an Atom Bomb on Hindu society".

On the other side, the socialists and Communists chastised the 
government for not reforming the personal laws of all communities. In 
the Lok Sabha, a Communist member named BC Das called the new laws 
for Hindus "a mild, moderate attempt at social reform with all the 
hesitancy and timidity characteristic of all social measures 
sponsored by this government". The great socialist parliamentarian, 
J.B. Kripalani, told the government that "you must bring it [the new 
laws] also for the Muslim community. Take it from me that the Muslim 
community is prepared to have it but you are not brave [enough] to do 
it".

Such were the alignments in the 1950s; how different are the 
alignments now! For the last two decades, the BJP and the RSS have 
insisted that since the Hindu laws were reformed, the Muslims should 
also follow suit. The demand gathered pace after the Shah Bano 
controversy, and has figured heavily in the BJP's oral rhetoric and 
printed publications through the 1990s and beyond. On the other side, 
those professedly secular parties, the Congress and the Communists, 
are now bitterly opposed to the framing of a Uniform Civil Code.

The debates of the 1990s and beyond have thus placed the major 
political parties in exactly the opposite positions as they had found 
themselves in the 1950s. Then, the Jana Sangh and the RSS had opposed 
the granting of equal rights to Hindu women; now, they say that they 
stand for equal rights for Muslim women. Then, the Congress and the 
Left had supported, and indeed had passed, personal laws in favour of 
the majority of Indian women; now, they say they are not in favour of 
a further extension to Muslim women.

It is difficult to credit the BJP with being seriously committed to 
ensuring justice to Muslim women. In its six years in office, it did 
not make the slightest attempt to introduce legislation in Parliament 
that would, for example, have abolished polygamy, enhanced the rights 
of widows and divorced women or mandated gender-neutral property and 
inheritance laws. This may well have been because to resolve the 
issue would have been to render it impotent as an electoral gambit. 
So long as the Muslims had their separate laws, it was easy to 
portray the community itself as separate, and hence not worthy of 
trust.

As for the Congress, in opposing a common civil code, it is deeply 
oblivious of its own history. The drafting and passing of a 
gender-sensitive civil code for all Indians would, in fact, only be a 
fulfilment of the Congress's and constitutional legacy. Sadly, the 
two women who have led the Congress party for long periods (Indira 
Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi) have not - at least in this respect - moved 
an inch to enhance the rights of their fellow women citizens. Even 
more culpable in this regard was Rajiv Gandhi. The Supreme Court 
judgment in the Shah Bano case presented the government of the day 
with a marvellous opportunity to push through progressive legislation 
on behalf of all Indian women. Rajiv Gandhi had 400 MPs at his 
command; what he did not have was an understanding or appreciation of 
his own grandfather's legacy.

The reform of family law has thus become deeply politicised, subject 
to the pressures of party politics rather than governed by the 
principles of gender justice or the ideals of the Indian 
Constitution. But, as Shabana Azmi has pointed out, "For far too long 
women have been victimised and justice has been denied to them under 
the pretence of personal law." This is true of formal Muslim law but 
also of customary Hindu law, as in the still-powerful caste councils 
that ostracise women who dare marry outside their community. There is 
thus "an urgent need to cull out the just and equitable laws of all 
religions and form a blueprint for a uniform civil code based on 
gender justice".

Azmi's formulation allows us to alleviate the fear that any new, 
all-India law would be modelled on Hindu law alone. Jurists can work 
from first principles, in designing personal laws that do not 
discriminate by caste or gender or religion. To be modern, and 
Indian, we need surely to honour and uphold the essential principle 
of a modern democracy, which is also the guiding spirit of our 
Constitution, namely, 'equality before the law'.

The first woman Chief Justice, Leila Seth, has persuasively argued 
that a common civil code "will help break down those customary 
practices harmful to women and give women individual identity as 
independent citizens of India". To the fear that such a code would 
imperil religious freedom, she has this answer: "A uniform civil code 
will not take away the right to perform religious ceremonies and 
rituals; but would any woman object to a code that gives her equal 
property rights, protection from polygamy and arbitrary divorce, and 
the right to adopt and the right to inheritance even if her father or 
husband converts to another religion?"

These voices of independent feminists and liberal jurists have, 
however, been drowned out in the din of partisan politics. The BJP 
will speak of a Uniform Civil Code simply to spite the Muslims, but 
shall make no move to implement it, preferring to have the issue hang 
as a threatening Damocles Sword instead. The Congress and its allies 
will oppose a common civil code for reasons that are equally perverse 
- because the BJP claims to support it, and because they can then be 
seen as standing alongside the Muslim minority or, rather, with the 
priestly orthodoxy which professes to speak in its name.

The writer is the author of India after Gandhi: The History of the 
World's Largest Democracy


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[7]  www.sacw.net | 18 december 2007
http://www.sacw.net/free/DilipSimeon18%20December2007.html

PROFESSOR PATNAIK AND THE AFTERMATH OF NANDIGRAM

Professor Prabhat Patnaik's criticism 
(<http://www.pragoti.org>http://www.pragoti.org) of the opponents of 
the Left Front's policies and actions in Nandigram is instructive. In 
my view, the following points deserve especial notice:

1/ The title of his article is The Left and its "Intellectual" 
Detractors. Although many critics of the CPI (M) may not call 
themselves intellectuals, there are undoubtedly some scholars among 
them. Patnaik places their intellect within inverted commas. This 
grammatical sneer conveys the impression that the CPM's detractors 
are mindless nullities. Patnaik's contemptuous title suggests a 
mental annihilation of criticism.

2/ In Patnaik's view, genuine politics consists in being able to 
distinguish between "alternative constellations of political forces" 
that represent the 'camp of the people' and the camp of those hostile 
to 'the people'. Since the Left for him is by definition the CPM and 
its allies, it follows that the correct delineation of these camps 
may only be made by his party. Many of his comments on political 
correctness deal with the struggle against communal-fascist forces. 
This is significant. On the one hand we have before us the recent 
spectacle of the author Taslima Nasreen being hounded out of Kolkata 
by a contingent of these very forces. On the other, as late as 1989 
his party was in an electoral alliance (euphemistically named 
'seat-adjustment') with the BJP that assisted its political growth. 
It is clear that the 'camp of the people' undergoes frequent changes. 
In 1989 it included the front organisations of the RSS. Given his 
assumption of partisan infallibility, it follows that Patnaik's party 
made the correct analysis 18 years ago, and has made yet another 
correct analysis today, when presumably the camp of the people 
includes corporate interest groups and real-estate developers. If 
this is the level of discernment that determines the CPM's political 
decisions, surely we may ask  whether the political emptiness to 
which Patnaik refers has not entered the portals of his own party, 
and whether the retention of political power has not become an end in 
itself.

3/ Patnaik states that the failure to distinguish between types of 
violence, to condemn all violence with equal abhorrence, to place all 
perpetrators of violence on an equal footing, "amounts in fact to a 
condemnation of nothing. To say that all are equally bad is not even 
morally meaningful." He condemns this "messianic moralism", and 
scorns those who adopt such positions as apolitical "Olympian 
moralists" who have removed themselves from "the messy world of 
politics". Interestingly, Patnaik's observations in (elliptical) 
defence of certain forms of violence, could be made by any left or 
right-wing extremist. Violence has a tendency to blur political 
distinctions. Such arguments are in fact raised by many political 
partisans who practice the tactical deployment of force to achieve 
their ends, and who believe that their own good intentions are the 
touchstone for converting murder and goondaism into virtuous acts. If 
there is messianism at work here, it is evident in the actions of 
those who believe themselves to be beyond good and evil, because all 
their actions are already certified by History. If political damage 
has been incurred by the Left Front, surely it is more on account of 
the images of masked men on motor-cycles carrying out armed actions 
in the name of the CPM, rather than because of irritating articles 
written by its detractors?

There is an established tradition of non-violent resistance in India. 
Gandhi was no Olympian moralist, if by this phrase Patnaik wants to 
denote a distaste for politics. Nor did Gandhi say that all violent 
protagonists were equally bad. What he did say made sense to ordinary 
people and spoke to everyday experience. He said, "What difference 
does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the 
mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the 
holy name of liberty or democracy?" His commitment to non-violence 
was arguably his way of ensuring the evolution of a democratic public 
sphere. So close was Gandhi to the messiness of everyday life that in 
August 1947 he managed to touch the hearts of the people and thus 
prevent a repetition of the terrible events known as the Great 
Calcutta Killing of 1946, an achievement for which even his severest 
critics gave him credit.

4/ Criticisms of abstract moralism apart, Patnaik ignores a central 
concern of the CPM's 'detractors'. This is the sheer fact of the use 
of a political para-military in Nandigram. Granted that criminal acts 
were being committed by political groups interested in exploiting 
popular grievances in Nandigram, a sustained non-violent campaign 
could have been undertaken to re-establish the rights of those driven 
away by force. Such a course would have enhanced his party's 
prestige. Along with that, the state government was always entitled 
to use legitimate force. However in March 2007, it sent in irregulars 
along with the police, and in November, it sent in hundreds of 
vigilantes after neutralising the police. (Patnaik refers to this as 
"re-occupation"). The Home Secretary of the state used the phrase 
"war-like situation" to describe the state of affairs. The deliberate 
disablement of the police by the political executive in order to 
enable the violent activities of paramilitary gangs, can only be 
described as state-terror. If this is an example of the centrality 
(to use Patnaiks' phrase) that the CPM accords to politics, we are in 
a dangerous situation indeed. It was precisely this action that 
reminded the LF's critics of Gujarat in 2002, notwithstanding the 
crucial difference that the Nandigram action was not a communally 
inspired massacre. West Bengal's government violated its oath of 
office by depriving its political opponents of constitutionally 
guaranteed protections and subjecting them to blatantly partisan 
violence. This was illegal, politically inept and ethically 
indefensible. No amount of polemical scorn vented on critics can 
erase this fact. This is not an abstract question, nor will it go 
away. The Chief Minister has apologised for his words, but not for 
his deeds. Patnaik could have addressed this issue, but did not.

5/ It is good that Patnaik has raised the issue of the contemporary 
vaporisation of politics. One symptom of this phenomenon is the 
impossibility of rational conversation, because of the rapid 
degeneration of debate into personal attacks, ad hominem remarks, 
scorn and derision of the kind reflected in his own use of polemic to 
deal with what is a serious crisis of legitimacy for leftism. 
Undoubtedly, many sectors of the democratic polity and not just the 
CPM, indulge in such destructive forms of speech. But surely it is to 
the advantage of the CPM that reasoned discussion and a willingness 
to deal with inconvenient truths not be completely overtaken by blind 
loyalty and disregard for facts? Should political debate be reduced 
to a form of religious propaganda? (Our opponents wrong-doings are 
crimes, but we only commit 'mistakes'). If no one will allow argument 
and dialogue to change their minds, why will anyone join the Left? If 
all our parties are always right, are we not living in a subjectivist 
universe, where the truth has been politically abolished and 
judgement replaced by whim? Intellectual shut-mindedness and physical 
intimidation are two sides of the same absolutist coin. They might 
bring satisfaction for awhile, but have always been the harbingers of 
disintegration. Patnaik should cast his critical gaze inwards - it 
might yet yield beneficial results.

Dilip Simeon


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[8]

[Labour Notes South Asia
Year 7, Dispatch No. 824, December 12, 2007 ]

o o o

The Times of India
12 Dec 2007

Sex Work Is No Crime
by Bishaka Datta and Siddharth Dube

For the last year and a half, sex workers' organisations from Kolkata 
to Kerala have been protesting the proposed amendments to the Immoral 
Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA), 1956, which will leave them worse off 
than they already are. But who's listening?

On March 8, 2006, even before the amendments had been introduced in 
Parliament, more than 4,000 sex workers marched the streets of Delhi 
to draw political and public attention to the fact the amendments 
would deny them their already meagre livelihoods. Two months later, 
the department of women and child development introduced exactly the 
same set of amendments in Parliament.

What are these amendments and why are sex workers against them? To 
begin with, all customers and clients would be treated as criminals. 
This may satisfy those who see making money from sex as a crime or a 
form of coercion. And it will help put more hush money in the hands 
of conniving cops. But it makes little or no sense to sex workers or 
to those who recognise adult sex work as commerce rather than 
coercion, consensual rather than criminal.

At a conceptual level, the issue is this: why should any consensual 
sexual activity between adults - heterosexual, same sex, in exchange 
for money, within marriage or outside of it - be viewed within a 
criminal framework at all? The keywords here are 'consent' and 
'adult'. If these two conditions are met, there is no crime being 
committed. Unfortunately, that is not the view of prevailing wisdom.

As ITPA stands today, prostitution is not a crime per se. The law 
regulating it is ambiguous. When introduced in 1956 as SITA (the 
Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act), lawmakers did not want to 
penalise women engaging in prostitution, whom they saw as victims. 
Instead, they decided to punish those who profited from or exploited 
these women. Hence, prostitution did not get defined as a crime. But 
many conditions surrounding it got defined as crimes: soliciting, 
running a brothel and pimping. This legal framework was retained when 
the SITA was amended into the current ITPA in 1986.

 From the point of view of women in prostitution, it makes no sense to 
not be able to solicit. It's like not being able to advertise your 
business. Studies have shown that despite the noble intentions of 
Indian lawmakers, the implementers of the very same law - the police 
- have used every means possible to harass sex workers on charges of 
soliciting and enrich themselves by taking petty bribes in lieu of 
dropping criminal charges. Jean D'Cunha's study in Mumbai between 
1980 and 1987 clearly showed that the worst victims of ITPA were 
prostitutes. The number of women rounded up for soliciting under the 
Bombay Police Act and ITPA far exceeded the numbers of brothel 
keepers or pimps arrested under the same laws.

Even today, sex workers all over India are routinely arrested even 
when not soliciting. AIDS activists and peer educators are harassed 
by police while distributing condoms and educating sex workers about 
HIV prevention. The proposed ITPA amendments would lift the ban on 
soliciting. This is a welcome move. But what is the point of removing 
penalties against soliciting, if the police can continue to harass 
sex workers under the provision that criminalises clients? The 
proposed amendments only replace one set of ambiguities with another.

If there is one thing that the proposed amendments to the ITPA 
reflect, it is confusion. Trafficking is confused with prostitution, 
the result being the legislative framework does justice to neither. 
Although those who advocate the abolition of prostitution have always 
insisted that trafficking and prostitution are one and the same, the 
experiences of prostitutes show that they are not. Sure, trafficking 
and prostitution are linked but while some areas might overlap, large 
areas do not. It is true that girls and women in India are tricked, 
forced and sold into prostitution, just as they are trafficked for 
domestic work and coerced into marriage against their will. But large 
numbers of Indian women don't become prostitutes only through 
trafficking. Usually, many enter the trade to earn a living in the 
absence of other opportunities for employment, a result of being 
socially, economically and politically disadvantaged.

Both ITPA and the proposed amendments reflect a fundamental confusion 
about the role of law. What is the role of criminal law in 
contemporary society? Is it to regulate crime? Or is it to regulate 
public morality? How does law constitute itself or get made in a 
democratic society?

It does not get made from above, by the ruling class who decide how 
the masses should be regulated. It is a result of processes that hear 
the voices of and account for the concerns of those who are most 
affected by the laws being made.

For more than a year now, women in prostitution and sex workers' 
rights groups have actively lobbied members of the parliamentary 
standing committee set up to consider this matter. Earlier this year, 
the proposed amendments were referred back to the health ministry. 
Only recently, in a landmark decision, the ministry recommended that 
the amendment to criminalise clients and sex work be dropped. It's 
high time we listened to sex workers before actively destroying their 
livelihoods.

The writers have authored books on issues concerning sex work.

o o o


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[9]

The Globe and Mail
December 17, 2007

FAITH OF OUR MOTHERS

It's no sin to shun the hijab

by Tarek Fatah

In Khaled Hosseini's novel about life in Afghanistan, A Thousand 
Splendid Suns, the character Nana, a poor unwed mother, tells her 
five-year-old daughter, Mariam: "Learn this now and learn it well, my 
daughter: Like a compass needle that points north, a man's accusing 
finger always finds a woman. Always."

In 25 words, the author sums up the way too many men govern the lives 
of women in the world of Islam. Like the daughter, Mariam, millions 
of Muslim girls are told very early in life by their mothers that 
their place in society is one of submission; submission, not to God, 
but to Man.

One such girl was 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez, or Axa as she spelled her 
name. Axa sought to defy the medieval misogyny that novelist Hosseini 
alludes to in his bestseller. She paid the ultimate price for her 
love of life: death.

Axa's body had not yet received a decent burial when the mandarins of 
Canada's mosque establishment appeared before the media on Thursday.

They had come to do damage control, to ensure the publicity 
surrounding the young girl's death, allegedly at the cruel hands of 
her own father, did not trigger a negative image about them and their 
sermons. However, in their clumsy attempt, they managed to do exactly 
what they had come to avert.

They talked about the price a Muslim must be prepared to "pay" if she 
strays away from their prescribed path of Islam. Imam Alaa El-Sayyed 
of Mississauga's Islamic Society of North America mosque told the 
press conference: "We cannot let culture supersede religion. If we 
stay away from the teachings of Islam, we will pay for it."

We don't know how many times this warning was given to the late Axa 
Parvez before she had to pay for her transgressions. If these cold 
steely words were not enough, Imam El-Sayyed went a step further and 
talked about the higher status of women who cover their heads. "Women 
who wear hijabs occupy higher positions in Islam, according to 
religious teachings," he said. Axa, he would say, had a lower place 
in Islam because she had refused to wear the hijab.

Axa's death hangs like a pall of gloom over the Muslim communities of 
Canada. One of our daughters has been killed but the religious 
leaders of the community seem more interested in damage control to 
their reputations than the enormity of the crime. Axa Parvez is now 
being portrayed as somehow having invited her fate.

While repeatedly denying that Islamic teachings or tradition had any 
role to play in the murder, the imams at the press conference 
betrayed their true feelings when grilled by reporters. Imam Iqbal 
Nadvi of Oakville's Al-Falah Islamic Centre mosque said that "parents 
fail and bring shame upon themselves if a child chooses to abandon 
holy writings and not wear the hijab. It is their duty to convince 
their kids that this is part of their culture."

One would have hoped Islamic leaders would urge parents to spare the 
rod and treat their daughters with compassion and love. One would 
have hoped that these imams would finally admit that the Koran does 
not mandate the wearing of the hijab, so parents need not force it on 
their daughters. Instead, journalists heard a cold-hearted diatribe 
that bordered on blaming Axa Parvez for her death. Imam Iqbal Nadvi 
told the press conference, "This girl, she refused to stay at home. 
There were feelings that she is going in the wrong direction ... 
going with some other boy or some other thing."

The imams were not alone. Some young Muslim men on the Internet 
social site, Facebook, referred to the dead girl as a "slut," while 
others e-mailed me suggesting she was pushing drugs; one panicked 
caller asked me, "Mr. Fatah, is it true the girl was pregnant when 
she died?" I was left speechless at the callous attitude of so many 
people.

There is something seriously dysfunctional in how the traditional 
Muslim leadership has reacted to the murder of Axa. Instead of 
outrage at the accused murderer, the attention was focused on the 
"image of the Muslim community."

We cannot get back Axa Parvez, but we can show her some respect and 
make public our disgust at men who slander her behind her back. Imams 
owe it to their congregations to tell them the hijab does not elevate 
Muslim girls to some superior level in the eyes of God. They need to 
assure young Muslim women who choose not to wear the head cover that 
they are not committing a sin.
--------------------------------
Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, is author of 
"Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State," to be 
published in March.



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[7]


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[8] Announcements:

(i)




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

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
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