SACW | Dec 16-18, 2008 / Take the Secular Route
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at gmail.com
Wed Dec 17 23:59:52 CST 2008
South Asia Citizens Wire | December 16-18, 2008 | Dispatch No. 2592 -
Year 11 running
From: www.sacw.net
[1] Flawed notions of honour (Naeem Sadiq)
[2] Pakistan Should Have Acted On Its Own (A H Nayyar)
[3] Wisdom of restraint (Praful Bidwai)
[4] In defence of a secular state in Pakistan (Dr Rubina Saigol)
[5] Pakistan: Obama's Nightmare (Immanuel Wallerstein)
[6] Kashmir - Peaceful Protest Gains in Separatist Fight (Yaroslav
Trofimov)
[7] Was 26/11 related to Bombay or India? (Sujata Patel)
[8] The Spectre of Terrorism and Cricketing Fears (Michael Roberts)
New Publications:
[9] The Separatist Conflict in Sri Lanka -Terrorism, Ethnicity,
Political Economy (Asoka Bandarage)
[10] Economic Crisis And Market Turbulence (S. A. Shah)
[11] Event Announcements:
(i) Globalization and Democracy in an Unequal World (Karachi, 19
December 2008)
(ii) Memorial Meeting for VP Singh (New Delhi, December 21, 2008)
(iii) Our Shared Heritage A Lecture Series from Anhad (New Delhi,
22-24 December, 2008)
_____
[1]
Dawn
15 December 2008
FLAWED NOTIONS OF HONOUR
by Naeem Sadiq
NICOLAS Chauvin, a soldier in Napoleon’s army, may be dead and gone,
but the chauvinist attitude named after him has not only survived, it
has also been adopted as a popular pastime to be indulged in by
politicians, military men, TV anchors, op-ed writers and religious
obscurantists.
Not to be left behind, even supposedly rational scientists like Dr
Samar Mubarakmand have joined the jingoistic ranks by calling on the
government to show no flexibility in the face of India’s allegations,
saying that after all it would take Pakistan only 10 minutes to fire
the nuclear missiles.
It may be true that we now have the capability to fire our nuclear
missiles in just 10 minutes. Our highest key performance indicator
(KPI) for excellence seems to be the speed with which we can
annihilate our enemy. Can we also rescue our citizens from a burning
building in 10 minutes? Can we come to the rescue of a woman being
raped within 10 minutes? Can we recover a child who has fallen into a
manhole in 10 minutes? Can we take a sick person to hospital and give
him treatment in 10 minutes? Can we stop the burying alive of
helpless women in 10 minutes, or can we even register an FIR in 10
minutes? If we can do none of these, and can only annihilate our
perceived enemies in 10 minutes, we have a perverted understanding of
honour and need to revisit and revise our KPIs.
It is unsafe to have nuclear neighbours like India and Pakistan whose
politicians, generals and bureaucrats have an obscurantist mindset,
no better than that of feudal villagers who keep family enmities
alive because of a conflict over a piece of land or a murder
committed many generations ago. We have not been able to grow out of
this ancient tribal concept of honour, ego, neechi naak and oonchi
pagri. Our honour sleeps peacefully when the chief justice’s
daughter’s marks are increased illegally. Our honour is not ruffled
when we appoint jirga operators, vani dealers and supporters of women
being buried alive as federal ministers. The examples on the other
side of the border are no less in intensity or number.
The recent attacks in Mumbai were a great opportunity for Pakistan
and India to come together. What if President Zardari had taken off
for New Delhi instead of going all the way to Turkey to join
neighbour Hamid Karzai for dinner? Why was the Joint Anti Terror
Mechanism (JATM), already in place between the two countries, not
immediately made to work? Here was a great opportunity for both
countries to build mutual trust and clean up their respective backyards.
Pakistan has no business to allow any wanted Indian national to take
refuge on its soil. Such persons need to be put on the first
available flight to India. How come those imprisoned in India and
later exchanged as a result of an aircraft hijacking demand were
allowed to roam around as free people in Pakistan? Would Pakistan
like India to protect someone who was a prisoner in a Pakistani jail?
Such persons should either be sent back or made to stand trial in
their own country. If Pakistan were to act in an open manner on these
issues, it would also have strong reason to ask India to stop its
covert support to militants in Pakistan.
It is time for Pakistan to act like a responsible state and take
steps to dismantle the infrastructure operated by non-state militants
on its soil. The world looks at all Pakistanis with suspicion, as if
no Pakistani can consume his breakfast unless he has fired a few
rounds from a rocket launcher. But this perception is not altogether
unfounded. The fact is that there is hardly a day which does not see
terrorist attacks killing dozens of innocent people in one or the
other town or city of Pakistan. Pakistanis feel unsafe in their own
country, and are least interested in seeing their neighbours
annihilated.
Clearly the same would be the feelings of an average Indian. 60 years
of militarisation has made the people of India and Pakistan more
unsafe and more vulnerable. If one’s child is killed, it does not
matter if the bullet has come from another country or from the barrel
of the local terrorist. We have paid a heavy price for our capacity-
building to kill others and doing little to protect our own citizens.
The oxymoronic ‘arms for peace’ pursuit has made people of both
countries poorer in every sense of the term.
From ancient Greece to the present day, notions of honour have had a
critical impact on the causes and conduct of wars. It is dangerous
for modern nations to cling on to feudal and fake concepts of honour.
Ever so often, it pushes us to take refuge in chauvinistic
nationalism. We need to revisit and give up this mediaeval sense of
honour, even if it calls for serious psychiatric interventions for
our leaders. Our honour lies in the well-being of our citizens and in
building peace and security for them as well as for our neighbours.
Most of all, our honour lies in being honourable people — those who
do not tolerate corrupt rulers, PCO judges and militancy in all its
forms.
[This article is also available at: http://www.sacw.net/
article417.html ]
_____
[2]
The Mail Today,
13 Dec. 2008
PAKISTAN SHOULD HAVE ACTED ON ITS OWN
by A H Nayyar
PAKISTAN may be facing the most crucial moment of its existence. Its
back is pushed to the wall, and it seems to have been left with no
choice but to do what it should have done several years ago. It
should have, on its own, abandoned the policy of using proxy warriors
for ill- conceived security objectives, and reined in the religious
warlords who have been repeatedly challenging the writ of the state.
Sadly, the realization has come not from how the jehadi organisations
have lately turned against Pakistan and wreaked havoc in its cities
and tribal areas. It has come from intense international pressures
after the Mumbai carnage. Which means that had the external pressure
not come, Pakistani policies would have continued to be prevailed
upon by those who regarded, and perhaps continue to regard, these
elements essential for the country’s security. Only very recently, a
former chief of ISI (not Hameed Gul) was advocating on a popular TV
channel that Pakistan should surreptitiously support and protect the
Pakistani Taliban to defeat NATO forces and the increasing Indian
presence in Afghanistan. He was also suggesting denying such a
support in public.
Although the Pakistani leadership had been making statements against
these terrorist outfits for a long time, not enough action was ever
taken to eliminate them.
President Musharraf survived at least three direct terrorist attacks.
The former Prime Minister Shoukat Aziz survived one direct attempt.
Benazir Bhutto was not that fortunate.
Now most in the government are convinced that elimination of jehadis
and terrorists has become an urgent need for Pakistan’s survival as a
democratic country.
Whether this change in view would easily get translated into a final
action against terrorists remains to be seen.
THAT India has taken the case of Mumbai terrorist attack to the
United Nations Security Council, and succeeded in getting sanctions
imposed on a few organisations and individuals, has in a way stunned
the Pakistani establishment and analysts. They had been expecting,
and bracing themselves, for some kind of punitive strike from India
on terrorist targets, and a possible reaction from Pakistan. Policy
analysts were speculating that such a strike would get an immediate
military response from Pakistan, which could lead to heightened
tensions, and perhaps a war. But they were comforting themselves that
the nuclear weapons in Pakistan’s arsenal would deter India from
undertaking an all- out war as it had in 2001- 2.
But the Indian move to solidly array international opprobrium against
jehadi outfits in South Asia — read Pakistan — will not necessarily
make them heave a sigh of relief.
The United Nations has placed sanctions against the top leadership of
Lashkar- e- Tayyaba ( also written as Taiba or Toiba), implying that
Pakistan will be obliged to not only seal its offices and arrest the
leadership but will also be required to freeze their assets. The UN
has also required these actions against Jamaat- ud- Dawah ( JD),
which it has rightly pointed out as the front organization of the
LeT. Pakistanis
Pakistanis should fear that if India brings out a convincing link
between the Mumbai terrorists and the ISI, the world will now have no
hesitation in placing sanctions on the ISI. That will come as a very
bitter pill to the Pakistani establishment.
Recall that LeT as an organization actually stands banned in Pakistan
for quite some time. You do not see its open presence anywhere in the
country because it had re- formed itself into JD. Jamaat- ud Dawah
wal Irshad was the original organisation based in Muridke near
Lahore, out of the womb of which the LeT was born.
The leaders of LET/ JD, including the chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed,
were arrested at the time of the ban, but were later released without
any indictment.
Even before India moved the UN Security Council, Pakistan had started
action against JD by arresting a few leaders, and locking up its
offices. The reports of investigation into the Mumbai carnage were
convincing enough to force the Pakistan government to do this. But
Pakistan needs to ban JD as well as such other organisations as
Jaish- e- Mohammad.
Thus the war against terrorism for Pakistan has now a very broad
front. It is against the likes of LeT, JD, JM, etc., on the one hand,
and against the Taliban styled militants in the tribal region at the
Pak- Afghan border on the other. These militants had unleashed a
barrage of suicide bombers against the Pakistani public in the last
three to four years.
T HEY are not letting the Pakistan Army take control of the region,
inflicting heavy casualties on them, and extending their influence
from the tribal areas into some settled districts.
The Pakistan Army is currently actively engaging them in Bajor
Agency, but other areas that are relatively quiet are also far from
being under the military or government control. The Taliban have
established their writ in most areas in which no outsider can enter
without their permission.
It is said that even the presence of the Pakistan Army units in those
areas is not without permission from the local Taliban.
The old tribal power structure has been uprooted. Most maliks (tribal
heads) have either been murdered or have fled the area. In their
place is the rule of the local Taliban without any central leadership.
They are essentially local religious warlords inspired by the Afghan
Taliban.
The local Taliban have established their theocratic rule in their
respective areas of influence with unheard- of brutalities and
barbarity. They seem to have full control of the Swat Valley, and are
ready to take over Peshawar. The NATO supply trucks that had been
plying since 2001 have suddenly come under attack right on the
outskirts of Peshawar. Rumours are that Peshawar’s rich have started
to move out with their valuables. It is not clear to the Pakistani
public if the Pakistani establishment wishes to fight and root out
the Taliban, or is keeping them for Afghanistan under the now-
discredited security paradigm.
The two kinds of terrorists Pakistan now needs to fight are not
necessarily disjointed.
They represent two heads of the same monster. Most people also accept
that the monster is home- grown. It is immaterial that that these
groups were initially nurtured by the United States in its war
against the Soviet Union. What is important is that if Pakistan has
to survive as a modern democratic state, Islamic militancy of all
kinds has to be eliminated, and a writ of the state has to be
established in all nooks and corners of the country.
(The writer is Research Fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy
Institute, Islamabad)
[This article is also available at: http://www.sacw.net/
article426.html ]
_____
[3]
Frontline, December 20, 2008
WISDOM OF RESTRAINT
by Praful Bidwai
Post-Mumbai, India must recognise the fragility of Pakistan and the
global stake in neutralising the extremist groups that have enjoyed
its Army’s backing.
THE Manmohan Singh government has done well to avoid a knee-jerk
response to the Mumbai carnage and choose diplomatic means over
military ones, in effect rejecting the hyperbolic proposition that
the attacks were “India’s 9/11” or “an act of war”. This, coupled
with the United States’ pressure on Pakistan to act against those
involved in the attacks, has already resulted in the reported arrest
of Laskhar-e-Taiba commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and the house
arrest of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Maulana Masood Azhar.
How far President Asif Ali Zardari’s government will go in acting
against other LeT operatives remains unclear as does the Pakistan
Army’s willingness to weaken the group’s military capability. But one
can be cautiously optimistic.
Eventually, the gains could be modest but will probably contrast
favourably with India’s unproductive, expensive – costs estimated at
Rs.7,000 to 10,000 crore – and high-risk response to the Parliament
House attack of December 2001, which led to a 10-month-long eyeball-
to-eyeball confrontation involving one million troops. This took the
two countries to the brink of war at least twice, with the potential
for escalation to the nuclear level.
No easy options
In the present case, India has no easy options. The task of pushing
Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks to justice
must be conducted with the utmost caution – without irreparably
damaging the bilateral dialogue process or allowing a military build-
up on the border or weakening Zardari’s civilian government. Equally,
India must maintain a certain distance from the U.S. and not get
drawn into its plans for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Consider the basic characteristics of the Mumbai attacks. In all
likelihood, they were planned and executed by militants, identified
by Indian police and intelligence agencies as belonging to the LeT,
who received high-level combat and maritime training from
professionals of the kind usually associated with Pakistan’s Inter-
Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and former Army officers.
Unlike in most cases in the past, there is compelling evidence in the
present instance. This partly comes from the interrogation of the
detained terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Amir Iman alias Kasab, whose arrest
was itself a unique achievement. More important is the circumstantial
evidence, including the attackers’ Global Positioning System and
satellite telephone records, e-mail tracks, ordnance factory markings
on arms, fingerprints on boats and other materials, and Pakistani
labels on their rations and personal effects left behind on MV Kuber,
which they apparently hijacked en route from Karachi. Much of this is
admissible in law.
The fact that the attackers carried out their assigned tasks with
clockwork precision, targeted at least nine sites in Mumbai, and
battled 500 commandos for 60 hours speaks of an extraordinarily high
level of combat training and fanatical dedication.
Indian intelligence and police agencies must painstakingly collect
clinching, incontrovertible evidence and establish the attackers’
identities and their Pakistani connections before making any more
public statements. They must carefully preserve and analyse all
forensic evidence.
A strong case
There have been lapses here, such as allowing the reopening of
Leopold Cafe and the Trident. Too many premature statements have been
issued. Even so, the existence of a strong prima facie case simply
cannot be denied.
Although a high Indian official, who would only be identified as an
“authoritative” source, told journalists in a background briefing on
December 4 that the government had evidence of the ISI’s involvement,
no specific disclosures have been made to substantiate this
allegation. Nor has New Delhi gone public on this.
Going by the available literature on terrorism, including
publications by Pakistani analysts such as Ahmed Rashid, Shuja Nawaz,
Ayesha Siddiqa and Hussain Haqqani, not many groups in Pakistan
barring the LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed have access to such a high level
of military expertise through the ISI or possibly Al Qaeda. Past LeT-
ISI connections are well documented although some analysts believe
that the LeT has “outgrown ISI’s support”. But that some rogue ISI
elements were involved cannot be excluded.
Officials and intelligence experts from the U.S. quoted in The New
York Times say there is no hard evidence to link the ISI to the
Mumbai attacks. “But the ISI has shared intelligence with Lashkar and
provided protection for it.” Some others maintain that the
collaboration “goes beyond information sharing to include some
funding and training…. And these are not rogue ISI elements. What’s
going on is done in a fairly disciplined way.”
If the ISI is indeed involved, it would speak of a degree of
complicity on the part of Pakistan Army officers. This is a hair-
raising possibility, indicating loss of Army control over the agency
and suggesting that the extremist rot has spread deeper and wider
than anyone imagined.
However, even if the ISI or its rogue elements are not directly
involved, Pakistan has a responsibility to act against the terrorists
who were based on its territory and were in all likelihood its
citizens, according to Ajmal’s confession.
Easing pressure on Taliban
A good hypothesis about the attackers’ motives is that they wanted to
provoke India into a military retaliation. This would furnish
Pakistan with an excuse for redeploying the 100,000 Army troops
currently stationed near the Afghanistan border, easing pressure on
Taliban-Al-Qaeda militants and allowing them to regroup before Barack
Obama assumes the U.S. presidency and drafts thousands of more troops
into the Afghanistan war.
Pakistani ministers, including Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi,
and military officials have already spoken of the need for such
redeployment in case tensions mount with India. Taliban commanders
operating near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border have said they are
willing to offer a ceasefire and fight India jointly with the
Pakistan Army.
Such redeployment would probably tilt the strategic balance in
Afghanistan, leading to a possible paralysis of and even withdrawal
by the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) – and
chaos in what has become the world’s most dangerous and volatile
region, on a par with West Asia.
This spells horrifying consequences for the neighbourhood. India will
not be immune from them. A triumphant Taliban and re-energised forces
of jehadi extremism will not stop on the India-Pakistan border. Their
impact will aggravate the Hindutva menace.
That is why India cannot afford to create conditions that will allow
tensions and a military build-up on the Pakistan border, which can
set in motion such a disastrous chain of events. A major, and
possibly early, casualty in the chain will be Pakistan’s fledgling
democracy and civilian government, which already faces an uphill task.
Pakistan’s internal crisis
Pakistan is in serious economic trouble, with inflation running at 25
per cent, its rupee in the doldrums, and a severe balance-of-payments
crisis necessitating huge handouts. Worse, there is a growing
collapse of governance and rising ethnic strife, manifested by the
Mohajir-Pashtun clashes in Karachi, a creeping Taliban takeover of
the North-Western Frontier Province, and an insurgency in Balochistan.
Virtually all institutions of governance have lost their integrity.
The entire system may begin to unravel if a new military crisis
breaks out.
It is plain that India has no realistic military option unless it
wants to catalyse or accelerate the disintegration of Pakistan. All
the irresponsible talk about surgical strikes against LeT camps
misses the simple fact that these are makeshift entities, where no
personnel or equipment is stationed. True, the LeT has a 75-acre
complex at Muridke near Lahore.
But for the most part, it houses madrassas, hospitals and skill-
generation centres. It would be ludicrous to attack these – even
assuming an attack would not be intercepted or invite massive
retaliation.
This, of course, does not mean that India should put all its eggs in
the U.S. basket or rely on it to mediate its relations with Pakistan.
This has always proved a high-risk gamble: the U.S. is guided by its
short-term and parochial interests and plays one side off against the
other, with unpleasant consequences for both.
Even less should India identify with and endorse the ISAF strategy in
Afghanistan. It is therefore disturbing to note that the
“authoritative” source referred to earlier characterised the U.S.-led
war at the Afghanistan border as “also our war”.
India should chart out an independent course. After the five Assembly
elections, which proved that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s hysterical
anti-terrorism, attack-Pakistan plank has few takers, the government
has greater freedom to fashion its own diplomatic strategy vis-a-vis
Pakistan.
The best strategy would be to take the Mumbai case to the United
Nations Security Council under Resolution 1373, which requires all
states to “refrain from providing … support… to entities or persons
involved in terrorist acts…”, give “early warning to other states”
and “deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit
terrorist acts…” all on pain of punitive measures.
This multilateral approach will avert overbearing U.S. influence in
South Asian affairs. Contrary to irrational fears, a 1373 reference
will not revive the Kashmir issue or put India at a disadvantage in
any other way. But adopting this course means thinking independently
of the U.S. and asserting India’s policy autonomy. It is unclear
whether our leaders are prepared to do this.
_____
[4]
The News
December 18, 2008
IN DEFENCE OF A SECULAR STATE
by Dr Rubina Saigol
The mere mention of the word 'secular' immediately creates anxiety in
the minds of many and defensive reactions are induced from the self-
proclaimed defenders of Pakistan's ideology and foundational
theories. The knee-jerk reaction to the term obliterates the
possibility of a creative dialogue on the meanings of secularism that
may not be threatening to the entrenched ideology elite. The term has
therefore seldom been explored in a country where the dearth of
intellectual engagement precludes the potential for debate and
ideological development. Ideologies do not remain static and over
time they do transform and accommodate new realities. Clinging
obdurately to foundational mythologies is a denial of history.
Ideological transformation does not automatically lead to existential
crises and possible annihilation as feared by those who argue that
our ideology provides our reason for being. Change itself is often a
form of preservation.
I would like to make the following points in defence of revisiting
our dominant ideologies and establishing a secular state within
Pakistan as one of several possible resolutions to its myriad
problems: 1) It may diminish the possibility of sectarian strife; 2)
It is likely to engender equality among all citizens irrespective of
religion; 3) It has the potential to reduce discrimination against
women; 4) It may generate greater tolerance of difference and reduce
religious extremism; 5) It has the potential to counter state and non-
state terror.
Before explaining each of these points, it might be useful to take a
detour and reflect a little on the meaning of secularism as it is a
much-maligned word in our context. Secularism is often regarded in a
simplistic way as the expulsion of religion from life. This
interpretation of the construct of secularism is misleading. There
are many views of what the word connotes in varying contexts and each
of these needs some explication.
Firstly, secularism is seen in the European context as the separation
of Church and State, with the former being responsible for the soul
and the latter taking care of the body. This version of secularism is
rooted in European history and conflicts, as well in the European
philosophical tradition of the separation of mind and body, body and
soul and mind and matter. Another version of secularism is
discernible primarily in the American context where religion is
banished from the public sphere and relegated entirely to the private
one. The state is conceived as an entity that it neutral in terms of
religion and every citizen, irrespective of religion, has to be
treated as equal before law. The state, as the repository of the
collective will, may not make any law that is either in line with or
against any religion. A third version of a secular state appears in
India where again religion is banished to the private sphere and the
state maintains equidistance from each religion in the interest of
citizenship equality. Yet another version existed in the former
Soviet Union where religion, perceived as the 'opiate of the masses',
was actively discouraged by the state in both the public and private
spheres. It must be remembered though that neither of these versions,
whether in Britain and France or the US and India, exist in their
ideal forms. They are aspirations reflected in the constitutions of
these countries, but societies in each of these countries have
exhibited deeply religious attitudes.
With the intensification of communal and religious conflicts in
India, some theorists like Rajeev Bhargava have suggested that the
state, instead of maintaining equidistance from all religions, must
intervene more in one religion than another. Since those of the
dominant majority religion may exert greater social, economic and
political power, the state needs to intervene in the interest of
equal citizenship, a prerequisite of democracy. This would not
violate the principle of equidistance; rather it would establish that
the state would not allow the followers of the majority religion to
ride roughshod over those of the less powerful minority one. Equal
treatment to members of all religions would be ensured precisely
through an unequal level of intervention in so far as the
interference is undertaken for the sake of equality of citizenship
rights. However, complete non-interference by the state in religion
would not be upheld as it would likely to lead to the hegemony of the
dominant religious group. The overriding principle would be equality
of citizenship and the intervention or non-intervention of the state
would be determined by this principle.
This proposed version of secularism not only recognizes the
importance of religion in people's lives, it also underlines the
responsibility of the state to protect the members of each religion
from persecution by the majority. At the same time it keeps state law
and policy free from the imposition of any one religion in a multi-
religious state. This view of secularism can potentially protect
religious minorities against systemic discrimination in a democratic
state.
Another benefit that can be achieved from a state that is not defined
by any particular religion is that sectarian strife is likely to
lessen. When a state is religiously defined there is an attempt by
various conflicting sects to try to capture state power in order to
establish their own sectarian worldview. Sectarian rivalry can tear
society apart leading to bloodshed, violence and terror as is
demonstrable in Pakistan. When state power is not at stake, and no
single sectarian version is reflected in state law and policy, the
need to capture state part by fighting one's rivals would diminish.
Since citizenship equality is a fundamental prerequisite of
democracy, it cannot be attained as long as discriminatory
legislation against women exists. When laws and policies cease to be
derived from any particular religion and are, instead, based on the
recognition of equality of all citizens, specific laws targeting the
status of women have a lesser chance of being passed. Laws can then
be tailored to the needs and rights of women rather than their status
within a religion.
When the state ceases to either valorize or denigrate any religion
and only intervenes in support of citizenship rights otherwise
remaining equidistant, the opportunity to develop religious tolerance
and values of mutual co-existence is greater. The state's laws,
media, education, textbooks and policies at all levels can then all
be used to promote the value of 'live and let live'. This approach in
the long run can potentially reduce the high level of intolerance,
extremism and violence emanating from purely religious sources.
A secular state, based on the principle of citizenship equality and
equidistance as regards religious difference, can address the issue
of terrorism more effectively. The policies of a state defined by
religion are much more likely to generate non-state terrorism as a
response to state terrorism, or in alignment with the latter, than
the policies that can be pursued by a secular state. A secular state
may have greater capacity to disseminate values of peace and mutual
tolerance among citizens than one defined by religion.
A secular state is certainly not a panacea for all that afflicts a
society. Conflicts around ethnicity, class, resource distribution as
well as religion do not vanish automatically with the rise of a
secular state. This is clearly evident from one look at India or the
US, both deeply religious societies with strong fundamentalist
tendencies. Furthermore, terrorism is also historically the product
of imperial policies across centuries. The only point one wishes to
make is that a secular constitution is a starting point – a mere
first step in the direction of resolving the thorny issues of
inequality, discrimination and extremism. Fixing Pakistan's myriad
problems will require much more than the removal of Article 2-A or
the Second, Eighth and Seventeenth amendments from the constitution.
However, the establishment of a single secular legal system in place
of the multiple ones that now characterize our society, would release
us from the stranglehold of systemic prejudices deeply entrenched in
our legal structure.
_____
[5]
Commentary No. 247,
December 15, 2008
PAKISTAN: OBAMA'S NIGHTMARE
by Immanuel Wallerstein
On the evening of Nov. 26, 2008, a small group of 10 persons attacked
two luxury hotels and other sites in central Mumbai (India) and, over
several days, managed both to kill and hurt a very large number of
persons and to create massive material destruction in the city. It
took several days before the slaughter was brought to an end. It is
widely believed that the attacks were the work of a Pakistani group
called Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), a group thought to be similar in
motivation to al-Qaeda, perhaps directly linked to it. The world
press immediately called the Mumbai massacres the 9/11 of India, a
repetition of the attacks al-Qaeda launched against the United States
in 2001.
The motivations and strategy of al-Qaeda in 2001 were largely
misunderstood in 2001, both by the U.S. government and by analysts.
The same thing risks happening now. Al-Qaeda in 2001 was of course
seeking to humiliate the United States. But this was, from a
strategic point of view, only a secondary motivation. Al-Qaeda has
always made clear that its primary objective is the re-creation of
the Islamic caliphate. And, as a matter of political strategy, it has
considered that the necessary first step is the collapse of the
governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Al-Qaeda considers that
these two governments have been the essential political supports of
Western (primarily U.S.) political dominance in the greater Middle
East, and therefore the biggest obstacles to the re-creation of the
caliphate, whose initial geographic base would of course be in this
region.
The attack of September 11 can be seen as an attempt to get the U.S.
government to engage in political activities that would put pressures
on the Saudi and Pakistani governments of a kind that would undermine
their political viability. The primary actions of the U.S. government
in the region since 2001 - the invasion first of Afghanistan and then
of Iraq - certainly met the expectations of al-Qaeda. What has been
the result?
The Saudi government has reacted with great political astuteness,
fending off U.S. pressures that would have weakened it internally,
and has been able thus far to minimize al-Qaeda political success in
Saudi Arabia. The Pakistani government has been far less successful.
The regime in Islamabad is far weaker in 2008 than its predecessor
regime was in 2001, while the political strength of al-Qaeda-type
elements has been on a steady rise. The Mumbai attacks seem to have
been an effort to weaken the Pakistani state still further. Of
course, LET wished to hurt India and those seen as its allies - the
United States, Great Britain, and Israel - but this was a secondary
objective. The primary objective was to bring down the Pakistani
government.
In Pakistan, as in every country of the world, the political elites
are nationalist and seek to further the geopolitical interests of
their country. This objective is fundamentally different from that of
al-Qaeda-like groups, for whom the only legitimate function of a
state is to further the re-creation of the caliphate. The persistent
refusal of the Western world to understand this distinction has been
a major source of al-Qaeda's continuing strength. It is what will
turn Pakistan into Obama's nightmare.
What are Pakistan's geopolitical interests? Before anything else, it
worries about its principal neighbors, India and Afghanistan. These
concerns have fashioned its geopolitical strategy for the last sixty
years. Pakistan sought powerful allies against India. It found two
historically, the United States and China. Both the United States and
China supported Pakistan for one simple reason, to keep India in
check. India was seen by both as too close geopolitically to the
Soviet Union, with whom both the United States and China were in
conflict.
In the 1990s, with the end of the Cold War and the momentary
geopolitical weakness of Russia, both the United States and China
sought tentatively to obtain closer relations with India. India was
geopolitically a more important prize than Pakistan, and Pakistan
knew this. One of the ways Pakistan reacted was to expand its role in
(and control over) Afghanistan, by supporting the eventually
successful Taliban takeover of the country.
What happened after 2001? The United States invaded Afghanistan,
ousted the Taliban, and installed a government which had elements
friendly to the United States, to Russia, even to Iran, but not at
all to Pakistan. At the same time, the United States and India got
still cozier, with the new arrangements on nuclear energy. So, the
Pakistani government turned a blind eye to the renewal of Taliban
strength in the northwest tribal regions bordering Afghanistan. The
Taliban elements there, supported by al-Qaeda elements, renewed
military operations in Afghanistan - and with considerable success,
it should be noted.
The United States became quite upset, pressed the Pakistani army to
act militarily against these Taliban/al-Qaeda elements, and itself
engaged in direct (albeit covert) military action in this region. The
Pakistani government found itself between a rock and a hard place. It
had never had much capacity to control matters in the tribal regions.
And the attempts it made as a result of U.S. government pressure
weakened it still further. But its inefficacy pushed the U.S.
military to act even more directly, which led to severe anti-American
sentiment even among the most historically pro-American elites.
What can Obama do? Send in troops? Against whom? The Pakistani
government itself? It is said that the U.S. government is
particularly concerned with the nuclear stockpile that Pakistan has.
Would the United States try to seize this stockpile? Any action along
these lines - and Obama recklessly hinted at such actions during the
electoral campaign - would make the Iraqi fiasco seem like a minor
event. It would certainly doom Obama's domestic objectives.
There will be no shortage of people who will counsel him that doing
nothing is unacceptable weakness. Is that Obama's only alternative?
It seems clear that pursuing his agenda, as he himself has defined
it, requires getting out from under the unending and geopolitically
fruitless U.S. activities in the Middle East. Iraq will be easy,
since the Iraqis will insist on U.S. withdrawal. Afghanistan will be
harder, but a political deal is not impossible. Iran can be
negotiated. The Israel/Palestine conflict is for the moment
unresolvable, and Obama may be able to do little else than let the
situation fester still longer.
But Pakistan requires a decision. If a Pakistani government is to
survive, it will have to be one that can show it holds its own
geopolitically. This will not be at all easy, given the internal
situation, and an angry Indian public opinion. If there is anywhere
where Obama can act intelligently, this is the place.
[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by Agence Global. ]
_____
[6]
The Wall Street Journal
December 15, 2008
A NEW TACK IN KASHMIR
Peaceful Protest Gains in Separatist Fight
by Yaroslav Trofimov
SRINAGAR, India -- Lashkar-e-Taiba, the presumed perpetrator of last
month's Mumbai attacks, sprang up from the bloody insurgency against
Indian rule in predominantly Muslim Kashmir. While the plight of
Kashmir has galvanized Islamic radicalism across South Asia, the
decades-long armed struggle is waning in the disputed region itself.
India now largely faces a different, and potentially more challenging
foe here: peaceful campaigners for self-determination, who borrow
from Mahatma Gandhi's rule book of non-violent resistance.
"India is not scared of the guns here in Kashmir -- it has a thousand
times more guns. What it is scared of is people coming out in the
streets, people seeing the power of nonviolent struggle," says the
Muslim Kashmiris' spiritual leader, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a key
organizer of the civil disobedience campaign that began earlier this
year. The number of armed attacks in the valley, meanwhile, has
dropped to its lowest since the insurgency began in 1989, Indian
officials say.
The former princely state known as Jammu and Kashmir was divided
between India and Pakistan since 1947, and has been claimed in its
entirety by both ever since. It has long been the main axis of
discord between the two neighbors, now both nuclear-armed.
Since the early 1990s, Pakistan's intelligence services trained and
financed Kashmiri militant groups such as Lashkar, helping fuel a
conflict that has cost 60,000 lives. Mr. Farooq's father was gunned
down by suspected jihadi militants in 1990 for seeming too
accommodating to India.
Mr. Farooq, who heads the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference, an
umbrella group of Kashmiri parties that want independence or merger
with Pakistan, has been kept under house arrest. Kashmir's Grand
Mosque in Srinagar, where Mr. Farooq usually delivers the weekly
sermon, has stood empty for several Fridays, its gates ringed by
barbed wire and its perimeter patrolled by troops.
The rest of Srinagar, Kashmir's tense capital city, has been under
curfew for days. Fearful of mass demonstrations against Indian rule
and controversial elections, troops blocked the roads. Every few
hours, small clashes broke out with stone-hurling teenagers.
Fading Attacks
Earlier this year, unarmed protests organized by Mr. Farooq and other
separatist campaigners rocked Kashmir, causing the downfall of the
state government as demonstrators thronged the roads waving green
banners of Islam and chanting "Azadi" -- "Freedom."
Militant attacks, once a daily occurrence that drove out 300,000
Kashmiri Hindus, have become much less frequent. Indian officials say
as few as 600 armed insurgents remain in Jammu and Kashmir.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a key organizer of a Kashmiri civil-disobedience
campaign that began earlier this year, is now kept under house arrest
by Indian troops. Here he leads a 2007 protest in front of his
ancestral home.
Kashmir
The changing nature of the separatist struggle makes it increasingly
difficult for India to portray the conflict over Kashmir as a clear-
cut fight between the world's largest democracy and murderous
terrorists. Unlike Lashkar's jihadis, unarmed protesters in Kashmir
can muster sympathy from sections of Western, and Indian, public
opinion.
"It's justified when you kill a militant, but it's not justified when
you kill a demonstrator," says Kashmir's leading pro-Indian
politician Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, India's home minister at the peak
of the Kashmiri insurgency and Kashmir's chief minister in 2002-2005.
Many among the new generation of Kashmiri protesters say they are
happy that the insurgents no longer prowl the streets, demanding
shelter and food from civilians, enforcing rigid Islamic observance
-- and attracting army reprisals. "It's good that the militants are
gone. What we need is to fight for our freedom in a peaceful
environment," says 22-year-old farmer Tanha Gul from the town of
Pulwama south of Srinagar, who says he has participated in every
demonstration in his area.
Indian officials acknowledge the change in popular attitudes. "People
want peace. Nobody wants to be disturbed in the evening - not by the
militants, and not by the forces," says Kashmir's chief of police, B.
Srinivas.
Still, responding to recent demonstrations, Indian troops often
resorted to lethal force, killing more than 50 Kashmiri civilians.
Scores of protesters and separatist politicians have been thrown
behind bars or placed under house arrest. Indian officials say these
detentions are necessary to preserve public peace, and that the
troops have to use force to maintain law and order.
Some half a million Indian soldiers and policemen remain deployed in
the Indian-administered part of Jammu and Kashmir, home to 10 million
people. (About 5 million people live in Pakistani-held Kashmir.)
Indian laws grant troops in Kashmir almost total immunity from
prosecution, including in cases of civilian deaths. Srinagar, once
India's prime tourist destination, is dotted by checkpoints, its
indoor stadium, cinemas and hotels surrounded by sandbags and
converted into military camps. Broadcast media are censored.
New restrictions have been added in recent months, such as an order
to disable mobile-phone text messaging -- a key method of mobilizing
protesters -- on cellphone networks that operate in Kashmir.
The event that sparked these protests, bringing Kashmiri civilians
into the streets, was a decision last May by the state government to
transfer land near the Amarnath to a Hindu religious organization.
This land near the shrine -- a cave in which an ice stalagmite forms
every winter -- has been used for years to shelter pilgrims. But
large tracts of the region already are requisitioned for army and
police use, and the formal transfer stoked fears of a widespread land
grab.
Snowballing Protests
In June, snowballing Kashmiri protests over the issue prompted Mr.
Mufti Muhammad's People's Democratic Party to withdraw from the state
government. The following month the collapsing state government
revoked the land transfer decision. As federal rule was imposed,
fresh riots broke out in Jammu, the predominantly Hindu part of the
state.
While the plight of Kashmir has galvanized Islamic radicalism across
South Asia, the armed struggle is waning in the disputed region.
At the peak of Kashmir's peach and pear season, Hindu protesters in
Jammu blocked the only highway linking the valley with the rest of
India. With the fruit harvest -- the valley's key export -- rotting
away, Kashmir's fruit growers' union called for opening an
alternative trade route -- through Pakistani-held Kashmir. Defying
curfew orders, on Aug. 10 thousands of fruit growers and separatist
activists marched towards the cease-fire line. The protest column was
met with gunfire from Indian forces. Fifteen marchers were shot dead,
including a prominent separatist.
As Kashmir descended into chaos after these killings, India responded
with increasingly severe curfews and lockdowns that continue. Often
they come without prior warning or formal announcement, as in
Srinagar over the past weekend.
"Common people like me are made to suffer continually," says Ghulam
Rasool Sailani, a milk merchant who has been sitting at home in
Srinagar, unable to trade, over the past three days. "It's hard. Our
losses are huge because our incomes are so low."
One of Mr. Sailani's regular clients was Mohammad Yacoub Jaan, a 35-
year-old father of three. On Aug. 24, as he carried home a metallic
milk container, Mr. Jaan encountered three policemen a few yards from
his doorstep. As they beat Mr. Jaan with bamboo sticks for violating
the curfew, the milk spilled from the container and soiled the
officers' uniforms, according to Mr. Jaan and neighbors who say they
witnessed the incident. They say an enraged officer opened fire with
his assault rifle, shooting Mr. Jaan through the throat and the side.
Hearing the shooting, Mr. Jaan's relatives rushed outdoors. As Mr.
Jaan's 65-year-old father Ghulam Qadir tried to plead with policemen
to stop beating his son, they shot at him too, the witnesses said. He
was instantly killed. "After that, everyone just scattered away,
their caps falling into the drains," recalls Mr. Jaan's wife, Asmat.
Mr. Jaan, who remains paralyzed, says no representative of the
authorities has contacted him since the shootings.
Mr. Srinivas, the Kashmir chief of police, says that curfews and
other restrictions are needed to prevent greater violence. "I don't
want the peace-loving people of Srinagar to be disturbed by rogue
elements," he says in an interview. As for allegations of abuse, he
adds, investigations are under way.
Anger Over Disparity
Some pro-Indian Kashmiri politicians have been angered by the
disparity they say security forces have shown when dealing with Hindu
protests in Jammu and the Muslim demonstrations in Kashmir. "Lives
are cheap in Kashmir," says Omar Abdullah, president of the National
Conference party and India's former federal minister of state for
external affairs. "I'm still struggling to understand how the same
chain of command had two completely different approaches to crowd
control."
Kashmir's information secretary, K.B. Jandial, says there was no
disparity, and that every individual incident has to be considered
separately.
Mr. Abdullah's party, the biggest in the previous legislature, is
currently battling for the right to form the next state government in
elections that began last month and end on Dec. 24. Even though
separatist parties have called for a boycott, the turnout so far is
among the highest on record. Indian officials view such high
participation as a rebuke to Pakistan and Pakistani-backed separatists.
But many voters who lined up at the polls Saturday in south Kashmir,
for example, also turned out at anti-Indian protest marches weeks
earlier. In the town of Tral, 20-year-old student Manzur Ahmad said
that he was voting for an incumbent candidate because, in recent
years, the lawmaker had managed to curb the harassment of local
youths by government forces. "We vote because this makes our lives
easier - but this doesn't mean we don't want freedom," he said.
In the village of Samboora, residents said that Indian Army troops
went from house to house on Saturday morning, rounding up families
and taking them to a polling station. As a reporter drove into the
village Saturday afternoon, an army vehicle with several soldiers
stopped by the walled compound of Ghulam Mohammad, pulling the 59-
year-old retiree onto the road. Seeing a foreign reporter, the
soldiers jumped into their vehicle and quickly drove off. "They asked
me why I'm not voting, and I said that's because I don't like any of
the candidates," Mr. Mohammad said moments later. "They said, if I
don't vote, I'll be sorry later."
In another south Kashmiri village, Koeil, a similar police effort to
round up voters degenerated into clashes with stone-throwing youths.
As a reporter arrived on the scene, dozens of police officers charged
along the main street, firing tear-gas volleys. Many policemen also
picked up rocks and hurled them into villagers' homes, breaking windows.
"My boys are irritated. They just want to let them know we're here,
to scare them," the district senior superintendent of police who
oversaw the operation, Ali Mohammad Bhatt, said when asked about the
window-breaking. "Ultimately, if you restrain your force and don't
kill anybody, your job is done," Mr. Bhatt added.
Half an hour later, Indian forces in the village opened fire at the
protesters, killing a 20-year-old student and seriously injuring
three others, including a 14-year-old boy whose arm and intestines
were pierced by high-velocity Kalashnikov bullets. "Once you take the
law into your hands, the forces or police have to take action," the
Jammu and Kashmir information secretary, Mr. Jandial, said when asked
about the shootings.
As for allegations of voter coercion, he said he wasn't aware of any:
"If ever there is a coercion, it's on the part of people pressing for
a boycott."
Continuing bloodshed may end up reversing Kashmir's recent shift
towards unarmed campaigning. Sitting on the porch of a shuttered
store near Srinagar's Grand Mosque, two former insurgents bristled
with anger this weekend. Then, one of them, Iqbal Sheikh, spat on the
ground and said: "When the small kids who throw stones are met with
bullets, many people want to take up guns again."
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov at wsj.com
_____
[7] sacw.net - 15 December 2008
WAS 26/11 RELATED TO BOMBAY OR INDIA?
by Sujata Patel (Department of Sociology, Univeristy of Pune)
http://www.sacw.net/article414.html
_____
[8]
THE SPECTRE OF TERRORISM AND CRICKETING FEARS
(Groundviews, December 12, 2008)
by Michael Roberts (Dept of Anthropology, University of Adelaide)
http://tinyurl.com/57lz7l
_____
[9] [Publication announcement]
THE SEPARATIST CONFLICT IN SRI LANKA
Terrorism, Ethnicity, Political Economy
by Asoka Bandarage
The book provides a detailed historically-based analysis of the
origin, evolution and potential resolution of the civil conflict in
Sri Lanka over the struggle to establish a separate state in its
Northern and Eastern provinces. This conflict between the Sri Lankan
government and the secessionist LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam) is one of the world’s most intractable contemporary armed
struggles. The internationally banned LTTE is considered the
prototype of modern terrorism. It is known to have introduced suicide
bombing to the world, and recently became the first terrorist
organization ever to acquire an air force.
The ‘iron law of ethnicity’ – the assumption that cultural difference
inevitably leads to conflict – has been reinforced by the 9/11
attacks and conflicts like the one in Sri Lanka. However, the
connections among ethnic difference, conflict, and terrorism are not
automatic. This book broadens the discourse on the separatist
conflict in Sri Lanka by moving beyond the familiar bipolar Sinhala
versus Tamil ethnic antagonism to show how the form and content of
ethnicity are shaped by historical social forces. It develops a
multipolar analysis which takes into account diverse ethnic groups,
intra-ethnic, social class, caste and other variables at the local,
regional and international levels. Overall, this book presents a
conceptual framework useful for comparative global conflict analysis
and resolution, shedding light on a host of complex issues such as
terrorism, civil society, diasporas, international intervention and
secessionism.
CONTENTS:
Introduction
1. Conceptual Frameworks
2. Prelude: British Colonial Period and Early Years of Independence
3. From Class Struggle to Ethnic Separatism, 1971-1977
4. Globalization, Authoritarianism and Communal Violence, 1977-1983
5. Internationalization of the Secessionist Struggle, 1983-1987
6. Indian Intervention, Indo-Lanka Accord, and Intensification of
Violence, 1987-1994
7. A Peace ‘Package’, War and the International Community, 1994-2002
8. Norwegian Facilitated Peace Initiative, 2002-2008
9. Separatism or Pluralism?
http://www.routledgeasianstudies.com/books/The-Separatist-Conflict-in-
Sri-Lanka-
isbn 9780415776783
_____
[10]
Announcement!
from Azad Reading Room
Re: New Publication In January 2009
ECONOMIC CRISIS AND MARKET TURBULENCE
by
S. A. SHAH
The above publication is in the WATAN O DESH booklet series.
PRICE: Rs.10/- for a single copy; postage extra
BULK DISCOUNT - 20% for 3 copies OR more; postage extra
Place your orders at: azadreadingroom@ yahoo.com
OR
umbi56 at yahoo.com
PLEASE NOTE the above prices are ONLY for purchasers in India.
Overseas prices can be given on request.
Thanks.
In solidarity.
Cheers!
_____
[11] Event Announcements:
(i)
Globalization and Democracy in an Unequal World: Prospects and
Challenges for Muslim-West Relations
Date: 19th December 2008 | Time: 7:00 pm
Join us at T2F for a talk on why democracy holds the key to the
future of the so-called "West" and the "Muslim World". Dr. Adil Najam
will explore what democracy should mean in concept, as well as what
it has come to mean in practice. The talk will focus on democracy in
the US and in Pakistan, as a test case not just for West-Muslim
relations, but for the future of democracy itself.
About the Speaker
Dr. Adil Najam holds the Frederick S. Pardee Chair in Global Public
Policy at Boston University. He also serves as the Director of the
Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and a
Professor of International Relations and of Geography and
Environment. He served as a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); work for which the IPCC was awarded
the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore. Prof. Najam has also
taught at MIT, University of Massachusetts and at the Fletcher School
of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts Univeristy. He has written over 100
scholarly papers and book chapters, he serves on the editorial boards
of many scholarly journals, and his recent books include: Pakistanis
in America: Portrait of a Giving Community (2006); Trade and
Environment Negotiations: A Resource Book (2006); Envisioning a
Sustainable Development Agenda for Trade and Environment (2006);
Environment, Development and Human Security: Perspectives from South
Asia (2003); and Civic Entrepreneurship (2002). He is a past winner
of MIT's Goodwin Medal for Effective Teaching, the Fletcher School
Paddock Teaching Award, and the Stein Rokan Award of the
International Political Science Association, the ARNOVA Emerging
Scholar Award, and the Pakistan Television Medal for Outstanding
Achievement. He is a frequent commentator on global policy issues in
the international media and is the founder of the blog Pakistaniat.com.
Date: Friday, 19th December 2008
Time: 7:00 pm
Minimum Donation: Rs. 100
Venue: The Second Floor (T2F)
6-C, Prime Point Building, Phase 7, Khayaban-e-Ittehad, DHA, Karachi
538-9273 | 0300-823-0276 | info at t2f.biz
Map: http://www.t2f.biz/location
- -
(ii)
Memorial Meeting for VP Singh
December 21, 2008
10.30am-1.30pm
Teen Murti House, Auditorium [New Delhi]
Dear Friends,
This is in the nature of a collective call to a wide fraternity of
friends and supporters of various movements to come together to pay
our respects to Shri V P Singh. In his passing away in Delhi on 27th
November 2008, the country has lost an ethical statesman, the
movements have lost a friend and a comrade, and the poor have lost a
champion of their cause. His passing away remained largely
unacknowledged and uncommented in the media, due to the terror attack
in Mumbai.
Though some of us have already held memorial meetings, we felt that
there is a need for those associated with people's movements to get
together in Delhi to not only acknowledge his significant and
committed contribution to a range of struggles of the poor and
marginalized, but also in working to establish a true legacy of
alternative politics. We therefore hope to bring together those who
knew Shri V P Singh, in various capacities- as a political leader, as
a Prime Minister, as an activist, as a poet and artist, and as a
human being who showed how important it is to live a public life of
compassion and ethics, to make people's lives meaningful. Even those
who disagreed with some of his positions acknowledge his simplicity
of lifestyle and courage of conviction- both very rare qualities in
the mainstream political life of our times.
The meeting will be held in the auditorium of the Nehru Memorial
Museum and Library, Teen Murti House, New Delhi on Sunday, 21st
December 2008 from
10.30am to 1.30 p.m.
We write to invite you to come, and also to pass the word around to
all those who should want to come. This letter is to request you to
also act on our collective behalf, and reach this message to all the
places we are unable to reach because of the limitations of our
networks , time and resources.
Since there may not be enough time to express ourselves, there is a
suggestion that those who want to, may also bring a written script
which could later be published as a part of a document to celebrate
his life.
In solidarity,
Aruna Roy, Ajit Bhattacharjea, Annie Raja, Bharat Dogra, Dunu Roy,
Kamla Bhasin, Medha Patkar, Nikhil Dey, Prabhash Joshi, Prashant
Bhushan, Shekhar Singh, Vijay Pratap, Swamy Agnivesh, Yogendra Yadav,
and many others
All those who wish may bring flowers and candles.
Aruna Roy
Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS)
Village Devdungri, Post Barar
District Rajsamand 313341
Rajasthan
Telephone : +91 9413204488
01463-288247
- - -
(ii) Our Shared Heritage A Lecture Series from Anhad
December 22-24, 2008
Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Conference Room, Teen Murti House,
New Delhi
Prior Registration Required for Attending the Programme Due to
Limited Space
(Registration on first come first serve basis- e-mail:
anhad.delhi at gmail.com 23070722/ 23070740)
The most prominent element of the Heritage of a nation is its
culture. The culture of a nation finds expression in two ways: the
visible elements are dresses worn by the people, the food they eat,
music, dance and architecture. The invisible elements are the way
people think, the values they hold dear and their ideas and beliefs.
Culture is not some thing that has been there from time immemorial,
it is also not something that is frozen in time, culture is in fact
something that is dynamic and constantly changing, it absorbs new
influences, and modifies them to suit local requirements it
constantly appropriates from other traditions and also gives to them
in equal measure. It has always been so and it will continue to be
like this as long human beings live.
Almost everything that we see, taste, hear, smell and touch, the
buildings we have built, the tools we use, the clothes we wear, the
languages we speak and even the ideas that we have are products of
processes, discoveries, inventions and developments that occurred at
places far and near in times in the distant and not so distant past
and have reached us through very complex and roundabout routes.
Cultures, civilizations grow and develop because they constantly take
from each other. Civilizations borrow from others and give to others.
And it is in this process of give and take that each civilization,
each country, each nation constantly reinvents itself. It defines and
redefines itself.
The idea is not to purge what we consider alien but to recognize that
it is impossible to say what is ours and what is not. What we need to
do is to see what is relevant, living and robust in our culture as it
exists today, to accept what will enrich our lives and help us to
improve as human beings and to reject and discard all that is likely
to sustain prejudice and malice towards other human beings.
Anhad feels that the best way to fight prejudices is to take to the
people the richness of our cultural heritage. We are organizing eight
lectures on various aspects of our cultural heritage. These will be
recorded and later edited into video lectures.
SCHEDULE LECTURE SERIES
December 22, 2008
11am-1pm Music
Shubha Mudgal and Aneesh Pradhan
1pm-2pm LUNCH
2pm-4pm
Architecture Romi Khosla
4pm-5pm TEA BREAK
5pm-7pm
Food Sohail Hashmi
December 23, 2008
11am-1pm
Dance Pratibha Prahlad
1pm-2pm LUNCH
2pm-4pm
Had-Anhad
A Documentary by Shabnam Virmani
4pm-5pm TEA BREAK
5-7pm
Cinema Javed Akhtar
December 24, 2008
11am-1pm
Religious Spaces Yogi Sikand
1pm-2pm LUNCH
2pm-4pm
People's Movements Prof Mridula Mukherjee
4pm-5pm TEA BREAK
5PM-7PM
Literature K Satchidanandan
- - -
(iii)
14th ALL India Children's Educational Audio Video Festival
(AICEAVF-2009)
AICEAVF, one of the major children's educational programme Festival
of India is organised by Central Institute of Educational Technology
(CIET) to an excellent opportunity to creative producers of
educational audio and video programmes targeted at children and
teachers. Originally started to showcase audio and video programmes
produced by the Central Institute of Educational Technology(CIET) and
State Institutes of Educational Technology(SIETs).It has blossomed as
india's major educational programme festival. It invites entries from
all those creative producers who contribute significantly to the
process of broadening of horizon of children and teachers through
audio and video programmes.
The 14th edition of the festival will be held in Delhi during march
4-6,2009
http://www.ncert.nic.in/html/fest/14allindia.html
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
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