[sacw] sacw dispatch #2. (26 Nov.99)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch #2.
26 November 1999
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#1. 'Azad' is the way they want to stay
#2. Indian Universities Wake Up To Sexual Harassment
#3. Manto's Essay on Ismat Chugtai
#4. India Pak Arms Race & Militarisation Watch No.1 [new series launched]
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#1.
Times of India
27 November 1999

`AZAD' IS THE WAY THEY WANT TO STAY
By Siddharth Varadarajan

The Times of India News Service

MUZAFFARABAD (Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir): Perched precariously on a series
of escarpments high above the point where the Neelum and Jhelum rivers
meet in frothy fury, the capital of `Azad' Kashmir does not feel like
frontier territory. Though the Line of Control separating Indian and
Pakistani troops is only a few miles away and armed militants slip across
the border with apparent abandon, Muzaffarabad is surprisingly calm and
peaceful, its residents more preoccupied with the vicissitudes of
Pakistani politics than with developments in the Indian state of Jammu and
Kashmir.

A large cardboard and metal model of the Ghauri missile displayed
prominently at the entrance to the town is perhaps the only physical
marker of war the casual visitor encounters; otherwise, the steep, winding
bazaars full of woollens, dry goods, bakeries and skewers of roasting meat
look and smell just like any other hill station.

Unlike the Kashmir on the Indian side, there are no soldiers or
paramilitary troops watching edgily from fortified bunkers, but nor are
there any women visible on the streets. When asked about their absence, a
fruit seller on Katcheri Road said women came in groups to shop but mostly
in the mornings. ``Baqi time to gents ka hi silsila zyada chalta hai (The
rest of the time it is mostly men).''

The `Azad' part of the region's name may be nomenclaturally inexact but
the Pakistani establishment takes care to keep up the fiction of
separateness. The military dismissed all the provincial assemblies of
Pakistan after the October 12 coup but the `Azad' Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)
parliament has not been touched. Barrister Sultan Mahmood, the `prime
minister', remains in place along with his cabinet.

In any case, sentiment for independence runs pretty low in these parts. Of
all the people I spoke to in the bazaars, hardly anyone expressed
enthusiasm for azadi from Pakistan. ``Why do we need independence?'' asked
Mahmood Butt from behind a pile of green Kashmiri tobacco. ``Far from
being kept down, we are better off than the rest of Pakistan. Our literacy
rate is double, prices are low, there are not so many job less.'' And what
about Indian Kashmir? ``You say you are a democracy but why did you force
people to vote?'' he replied as others around him nodded. ``The military
has only now come to power in Pakistan, after ten years. But in Srinagar
there has been virtual army rule for the past decade,'' said a bystander
angrily. ``We Kashmiris will always consider ourselves Pakistanis.''

Of course, the people of Muzaffarabad, like the rest of `Azad' Kashmir,
are not Kashmiri speakers. Their language is pahadi or Hindko, a cognate
of Punjabi, and communication between Indian and Pakistani Kashmiris takes
place in Urdu.

=46or ordinary people here, the Lahore Agreement between India and Pakistan
represented a great betrayal of the Kashmiri cause and Kargil was an
attempt by the army and Mujahideen to redeem the honour of Pakistan.
``Nawaz was very popular in AJK but everyone here felt angered by what
happened in Lahore,'' said a local journalist.

``Your leaders have to understand the fact that ordinary Pakistanis- and
especially the people of `Azad' Kashmir-are not willing to make any
compromise with India over Kashmir. After Lahore, the impression here was
that Nawaz wanted to put Kashmir into deep freeze. People feared that the
idea was to make the LoC into a permanent line of partition and their
perception was that the US also favoured such a plan,'' he added.

When asked about the idea of turning the LoC into an international border,
people at large reject the proposal out of hand. ``The real trouble spot
is the valley of Kashmir,'' said one man. ``You are oppressing people
there,'' he claimed. ``How does making the LoC into a border help them?''

=46or all the emotion that allegations of human rights violations in Indian
Kashmir stirs up, there is little hostility on the streets of Muzaffarabad
towards Indians as a people. Zee TV and Sony are the most frequently
watched channels and everyone I spoke to expressed a marked preference for
Zee News over the rather muted fare served up by PTV at news time. ``Even
during the Kargil war, people here watched Zee News,'' said a shopkeeper.
``It was not all propaganda. Kuch ham log sahi batate, kuch aap log sahi
batate (we would report some things correctly, you would report some
things correctly).''

While the Mujahideen leaders in Muzaffarabad refused to meet an Indian
journalist without prior clearance from the Pakistani authorities, it was
possible to glean an understanding of the jehadi groups' stand from
conversations with people who identified themselves as activists of the
Hizbul Mujahideen and the Tehreek-e-Jehad. They acknowledged the presence
of non-Kashmiris in the ranks of the militants but said these were mostly
Punjabis. ``The Arabs went home at least four years ago. And what the
valley people call `Afghanis' are actually Punjabis,'' said one. The Hizb
man, however, insisted that only two per cent of his organisation's
militants were non-Kashmiri.

Asked about the future, one activist said that no Kashmiri would be
willing to take a public stand in favour of a partition of undivided Jammu
and Kashmir. ``But just as valley Kashmiris will never accept India, we
know that Jammu and Ladakh will never accept a merger with Pakistan,'' he
said. ``That's why if you ask the jehadi groups their private views, they
know that partition will eventually be inevitable.'' According to a local
journalist, there are three possible outcomes of the Kashmir problem.
``The first is that status quo and tension will continue. The second,
India and Pakistan partition Jammu and Kashmir along religious lines. And
the third, an independent state.'' The third option was the only way to
prevent partition, he said, but this was the least probable. ``India and
Pakistan will oppose it. In `Azad' Kashmir itself, people are too
integrated into the rest of Pakistan- economically, socially, culturally.
Of course, if independence becomes the only option for solving the
problem, public opinion here could shift.''

Later that night, fatigued from walking up and down the town's steep
lanes, I sought refuge in Muzaffarabad's modest cinema hall. A Lollywood
film, Ek Pagal si Ladki, was playing and a modest crowd of men had turned
up, mainly to watch its heroine, Reema, go through a series of
Bollywood-style gyrations. During the interval, I asked a group of young
men whether they saw any difference between Pakistani and Indian films.
``Nowadays there is no difference,'' said one. ``The dances, the dresses,
they're all the same.'' I told him that in Srinagar the militants had at
one time ordered the closure of cinema halls. Was he afraid the Mujahideen
would one day do such a thing in Muzaffarabad? ``Whatever happens to
Kashmir,'' he said, ``I don't think we are going to stop watching
movies.'' Then, almost as an afterthought, he smiled and added:
``Inshallah.''

-----------------------
#2.
IPS Gender and Human Rights Bulletin
23 November, 1999

RIGHTS-INDIA: UNIVERSITIES WAKE UP TO SEXUAL HARASSMENT
By Laxmi Murthy

NEW DELHI, Nov 18 (IPS) - The concept of sexual harassment has stepped out
of the lexicon of the United Nations and women's organisations to find
acceptance in leading Indian universities. In August this year, India's
Supreme Court treated as a writ petition letters written by women's
organisations to the chief justice regarding a case of sexual harassment.
The case involved a student doing her doctoral thesis in MS University,
Baroda, who was sexually harassed by her supervisor for three years.
Women's groups were disturbed by the lack of action by the university
administration.
Activists are viewing the Supreme Court's move, as extremely positive,
given the gravity of the situation on campuses countrywide. Says historian
Dr Uma Chakravarti of the Delhi University- based, Forum Against Sexual
Harassment (FASH), which is lobbying for acceptance of its Policy against
Sexual Harassment, the university environment breeds the problem.
"The university is a unique work environment, characterised by the
custodial relationship between student and teacher. This is a workspace
where misuse of power in the shape of sexual harassment has a severe
impact," she explains.
Delhi University, a community of some 125,000 people comprising more than
100,000 students spread over 60 colleges, presents a challenge for the
effective implementation of any policy on sexual harassment. The University
authorities, says Jinnie Lokaneeta, lecturer at Kirorimal College, are
trying to push a "watered-down policy" which is "more dangerous than having
no policy at all." (END/IPS/lm/an/99)

-----------------------
#3.
The Hindustan Times Online
Sunday 21 November 1999

[ Ismat: Her Life Her Times
Sukrita Paul Kumar & Sadique
1999, 304pp.
Katha ]

"THE WRETCH TURNED OUT TO BE A WOMAN THROUGH AND THROUGH"
In this essay from Ismat: Her Life, Her Times, Saadat Hasan Manto,
writing in his inimitable style, expresses mixed feelings about Ismat
Chughtai, Urdu literature's other iconoclast with whom he stood trial in
1946 on the charge of obscenity. Exclusive extracts.

About a year and a half ago I received a postcard from Hyderabad. It said
something like this: "Why is it that Ismat Chughtai didn't marry you?
Manto and Ismat - it would have been so good if these two personalities
came together. But alas! Ismat married Shahid and Manto =8A."

There was a conference of Progressive Writers in Hyderabad on at that very
time. I didn't attend it, but I read a report of it in a Hyderabad
newspaper, which said that a number of girls had surrounded Ismat and
asked her. "Why didn't you marry Manto?"

I don't know whether the report was true or false, but when Ismat returned
to Bombay, she told my wife that when a girl asked her whether Manto was a
bachelor, she had replied somewhat sharply, "Indeed, no," whereupon,
according to Ismat, the woman, embarrassed at her faux pas, kept quiet.

Whatever the truth, it is curious that in all of Hindustan, it is only in
Hyderabad that men and women alike have been anxiously concerned about the
marriage of both Ismat and myself.

I didn't think much about it at the time, but now I wonder. If Ismat and I
had in fact become husband and wife, what would have happened? This "if"
is a little like asking if Cleopatra's nose had been an eighteenth of an
inch longer, how would it have affected the history of the Nile Valley?
But Ismat is not Cleopatra, nor Manto, Mark Anthony. It is certain,
though, that if Manto and Ismat had got married, the disaster would have
been catastrophic for the history of contemporary narrative literature.
Incidents would have become fictional stories, stories would have been
twisted and curled into riddles. The milk in the breasts of delicate
diction would have dried into some weird powder or burnt to ashes; and it
is even possible that their signatures on the marriage contract would have
been the last movement of their pens=8A.

In his preface to Chotein (Wounds), Krishan Chandar writes: "In disguising
courage, drowning their readers in astonishment and restlessness, and then
all of a sudden, finally converting this restlessness into happiness,
Ismat and Manto are very close to each other, and in this regard very few
Urdu short-story writers can compete with them."

Had we two thought of getting married to each other, then instead of
immersing others in this astonishment and restlessness, we would have
ourselves drowned in it, and on recovery, as far as I can make out, would
have found the anxiety and surprise changed not into happiness, but into a
kind of a joke - Ismat and Manto, wedding and marriage. What a ludicrous
idea!=8A

Krishan Chandar writer in his preface to Chotein: "As soon as Ismat's name
is mentioned, male short-story writers have fits. They are embarrassed.
They cringe inwardly with shame.The preface is an attempt to wipe out that
sense of shame."

What I am saying about Ismat here is not because I want to wipe out any
sense of shame, I am repaying a debt with a very small interest.

I cannot for the life of me remember which of Ismat's stories I read
first. Before writing this piece, I dug around in my memory, but it was of
no use. It is almost as if I'd read her stories before she put them down
on paper. This is why I never had fits. But I was severely disappointed
when I first saw Ismat=8A.

A month earlier, when I was an employee of All India Radio, Delhi, Ismat's
'Lihaaf' (The Quilt) had been published in Ada-e-Lateef. After reading it,
I remember telling Krishan Chandar: "It's a very good story, but the last
sentence lacks in art. Had I been the editor instead of Ahmad Nadeem
Qasmi, I would have clipped it off."

That is why I met Ismat some time later, I told her: "I liked your story
'Lihaaf' very much. An economical and appropriate use of words is
characteristic of your writing. But I was surprised that you wrote that
pointless sentence at the end of the story: 'Even if I am given a lakh of
rupees I would not tell what I saw when the quilt lifted an inch'."

Ismat said: "What is wrong with that?"

I was about to say something in response when I noticed the same
embarrassed contraction of her face which you see in ordinary domestic
girls when they hear something that is not usually mentioned in polite
society. I was acutely disappointed because I wanted to discuss details of
'Lihaaf' with her. After Ismat left, I told myself, "The wretch turned out
to be a woman through and through."

I remember that the very next day following this meeting I had written a
letter to my wife: "I met Ismat. You'll be surprised that she is just the
sort of woman you are. This meeting left a bad taste in my mouth, but you
will definitely like her. As soon as I mentioned the quilt risen by an
inch, the wretch became embarrassed at the very thought of it."

A long time later, I thought seriously about my extraordinary initial
reaction and learnt the tough lesson that for the sustenance of one's art,
it is necessary to stay within the limits of one's nature=8A.

I have been friends with Ismat for five or six years. Considering how
fiery and explosive we both are, we should have quarrelled hundreds of
times, but surprisingly, in all this time, there has been only one
argument and that too a mild one=8A.

Ismat's looks are not captivating, but she is the sort of person who
settles into the heart. The impression of what she looked like when I
first met her lies secure in my heart and mind. She was dressed very
simply. A white cotton sari with a narrow border, a well-fitting blouse
with plain black stripes on a white background, a small purse in her hand,
her feet in brown slippers without heels, small but sharp and inquisitive
eyes behind spectacles with thick lenses, short but curly hair, side
parting. The slightest of a smile brought dimples on her cheeks=8A.

Ismat and I used to seldom talk to each other for fear of clashing. If a
story of mine were ever published, she'd read it and praise it. She was
unusually enthusiastic in her appreciation of 'Neelam'. "Truly, what is
this rubbish about adopting a woman as a sister=8A you are absolutely right=
=2E
It's an insult to a woman to be called a 'sister'."=8A

Many articles have been written about Ismat's work. Less for, more
against. Some are extremely hostile=8A.

There is some Aziz Ahmad saheb, who, commenting in Naya Daur on Ismat's
Terhi Lakeer, writes: "Ismat has only one way of examining the body and
that is through sexual contact. Consequently, from Rasheed to Taylor, the
several men who appear in this novel are judged by their physical or
mental sexual activity. Most often the emotion of sexuality is passive. In
Ismat's writing, sexuality alone can reckon men, human beings, life,
creation itself. Through clouds of quilts Abbas's hands strike like
lighting and tiny shivers leap and scatter amongst the group of girls.
Rasool Fatima's mouse-like hands are an aspect of an obscure, dark
sexuality. A half-obscure version of it is the revulsion and love felt by
the Matron. She is surprised that the girls do not imagine the eyes of
those hoodlums crawling over their thighs=8A."

The view of Aziz Ahmad saheb, that the only way of examining the self in
Ismat is through naked sexual contact, is wrong. First of all, it is wrong
to call it sexual contact=8A. Ismat is an extremely sensitive writer for
whom the slightest touch is enough. In Ismat's writing other physical
senses, too, are seen to be active=8A.

Aziz Ahmad saheb says that sex permeates Ismat's work like a disease. That
may be true for him, but let him not prescribe cures for the disease. Come
to think of it, writing itself is a disease. On the whole, a healthy man,
whose temperature remains at 98.5, will sit all his life holding the cold
slate of his existence in his hands.

Aziz Ahmad saheb writes: "The biggest tragedy of an Ismat heroine is that
she has not been desired by the heart of any man, nor has she ever desired
a man with her heart. Love bears the same relation to the body as
electricity bears to a wire. But press the switch and this love lights up
with the intensity of a thousand candles. It turns the wheels of life's
intricate machines with the strength of thousands of demons and sometimes
it caresses the hair and irons the clothes. Ismat Chughtai is not a writer
who is acquainted with this sort of love=8A."

A lot has been said about Ismat and will continue to be said. Some will
like her, others won't, but more important than people liking or disliking
her is Ismat's creative power. Bad, good, naked, covered, whatever she is,
she should continue unshaken in that vein. Literature has no geography. As
far as possible, it should be protected against being pigeonholed in maps
and categories.
-----------------------
#4.
SACW & South Asians Against Nukes launches new occasional series !

INDIA PAK ARMS RACE & MILITARISATION WATCH No.1
[information & news for peace activists on Arms sales to the region,
defence budget figures, acquisitions & updgrades of weapons systems,
development and deployment of new weapons, implications of militarisation;
the developments on the Nuclearisation front and the doings of the
'intelligence' community. Bringing this information to wide public
knowledge is our goal here. No to secretive & exclusive control of this
information by technocrats, planners who plot national security hidden from
public scrutiny.
Please help us in the information gathering work for wide public
dissemination in South Asia.
Send Information via e-mail for IPARMW series to: aiindex@m... for
inclusion in the Emailings]

[I]
Jane's Defence Upgrades
1 - 15 December 1999

More upgrades for Pakistani Type 59 MBTs Outside China, Pakistan is the
largest user of the China North Industries Corporation (NORINCO) Type Main
Battle Tank (MBT), with an estimated 1,200 vehicles in service. Even with
the more modern NORINCO Type 69-II and Type 85 MBTs in service, a
significant part of Pakistan's Type 59 MBT fleet is being upgraded in three
phases by the Heavy Industries Taxila facility, the first phase having been
started back in 1993. Phase III vehicle prototypes are now complete to
which standard an undisclosed number of Type 59 MBTs will now be converted.

[II]
Indian defence minister has sought a raise in India's defence budget from
2.5 % of GDP to 3%

[III]
Asian Age
27 Nov. 1999

India to buy superweapon from Russia
By Vinay Shukla

Moscow: In the post-Kargil scenario, India is seriously thinking of
acquiring Russia's "wonder weapon" Smerch (tornado) to enhance the
country's fire power.
Designed by Splav state enterprise Tula, Smerch is a new generation
multiple rocket launcher system capable of destroying various enemy
targets over the territory of 67 hectares in one volley of its 12
barrels capable of firing smart weapons between the range of 20-90 kms.
Two Indian military delegations have already visited Tula in July and
September this year to evaluate the system and have already shortlisted
four types of rockets from the wide range of weapons offered by Russia,
Indian military sources told PTI here.
[...]

[IV]
26 November 1999
=46riday Times

Will the [Pakistan] Army reform the ISI
by Khaled Ahmed

The government of Chief Executive and COAS General Pervez Musharraf has
taken the ex-ISI chief General Khwaja Ziauddin into custody and has
announced that he would be tried by a court martial under the Army Act.
He is accused of conspiring to hijack the PIA plane in which General
Musharraf was travelling on October 12. There is no doubt that during
his court martial new revelations will be made by the military
prosecution about the functioning of the Inter Services Intelligence
(ISI) over the past years. It is quite possible that after the GHQ is
seized of new facts, it may feel compelled to reform or disband the
organisation in the light of the seriousness of its misdeeds. Two ex-ISI
officers, Brigadier Imtiaz and Major Amir are also under custody at the
time of writing. Subsequently, ex-MNA Nawaz Khokhar, of Islamabad's real
estate mafia and Major Amir's companion, has also been arrested.

That all was not well with the ISI had been known to the people of
Pakistan. Some politicians like Air Marshal (Retd) Asghar Khan had
periodically appealed for its dissolution. In fact, a case filed by
Asghar Khan at the Supreme Court involves, among others, the ISI, in the
embezzlement Rs 14 crore of Habib Bank, now grown to Rs 40 crore with
interest. In fact, in 1993, after a change in the ISI high command, it
was discovered that the former ISI chief had kept his organisation's
dollar account in the dubious Mehran Bank responsible for the loss of
crores of rupees of account-holders. The funds mentioned in Asghar
Khan's writ were distributed illegally among several politicians whom
the ISI wanted to win the 1990 elections.

The dubious legal status: The ISI is a civilian organisation directly
under the prime minister of Pakistan although serving army officers can
be employed in it. There is thus a legal ambiguity about the
organisation which some judges have not been able to resolve. At least
in one case a judge of the High Court ruled that anyone arrested by the
ISI could not avail of his habeas corpus rights because the ISI was
manned by army officers exempted by the Constitution from the
requirement of habeas corpus. Secrecy allows a lot of civilian
intelligence organisations like the Intelligence Bureau, the FIA and the
Special Branch offices in the provinces to commit excesses without being
held to account. The ISI seems to have the double advantage of secrecy
plus exemption from habeas corpus.

The arrest of the ISI chief General Khwaja Ziauddin has opened the
possibility of inquiring into the past of the organisation. This past is
not at all clean, even on the basis of the information supplied by at
least two retired ISI officers in their books. In addition, the manner
of removal of the various ISI officers from their jobs in the past ten
years points to its unauthorised involvement in politics in the name of
national security. Newspapers and books published in this period openly
declare that the IJI alliance of Nawaz Sharif which won the 1990
elections was actually put together by the then ISI chief. The said
chief, now politically active, has never convincingly denied this
allegation.
[...]
__________________________________________
SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WEB DISPATCH is an informal, independent &
non-profit citizens wire service run by South Asia Citizens Web
(http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex) since1996.