[sacw] [ACT] sacw dispatch (30 Jan 2000)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch
30 January 2000
___________________________
#1. Give [Indo-Pak] Peace a Chance
#2. Behind Mud Walls: The Village of Karimpur, 1925-1998
#3. Water... fire and brimstone [India's culture police at work]
#4. Quest for identity [on the recent women's studies conference in India]
#5. Battle for the Republic
___________________________

#1.
DAWN
29 January 2000
Mazdak

Give peace a chance
By Irfan Husain

GREECE and Turkey signed four agreements last week. Not being of an
earth-shaking nature, this news item was duly reported on page 8 of this
newspaper.
But one aspect of this report deserved closer attention: the two
countries have long been arch enemies, and their mutual hatred goes back
to the earlier part of the last century when Greece won its freedom from
the Ottoman Empire, and then joined the Allies when they invaded a
prostate Turkey after the First World War. Rightly or wrongly, the Turks
felt betrayed while the Greeks thought they were avenging centuries of
occupation by their neighbour.
Another bitterly divisive element in their rivalry has been Cyprus: the
Greeks view its forcible partition as an aggressive act aimed at
dividing a Greek island while the Turks feel it to be their duty to
protect the Turkish minority from Greek oppression. Finally, both sides
have territorial claims on some of the islands in the Aegean Sea. As
usual in such bitter historical feuds, both think they are right and the
other side is totally wrong.
Given these differences, this dispute was one of the constants in
international relations through most of the 20th century. For decades,
the Greeks thwarted the Turkish bid to enter the European Union, while
the Turks missed no opportunity to block Greek ambitions whenever they
could. The first signs of a thaw came last year when earthquakes hit
both countries and caused enormous damage, particularly in Turkey. The
Greeks immediately sent assistance to their neighbour. When a quake
struck Greece, the Turks were quick to reciprocate.
Against this backdrop of animosity that has coloured relations between
the two nations for generations, it took a genuine act of statesmanship
for their leaders to go against the flow of public opinion and take the
first, tentative step towards peace. The agreements signed recently may
not in themselves be very important, but they signal a change in the
atmospherics in the region. Wisely, they have not tried to tackle the
knotty question of Cyprus and the Aegean islands immediately, preferring
to improve relations through trade and cultural links before embarking
on tough negotiations to resolve the other outstanding issues.
This pragmatic approach could serve as a model for India and Pakistan.
If two bitter foes like Turkey and Greece can begin a process to end
their long-running dispute, surely, the leaders in New Delhi and
Islamabad suffer from a blinkered vision that does not permit them to
see the wider world as they pursue their narrow agenda. Like moles, they
burrow deeper and deeper into the ground without paying attention to the
changes taking place on the surface.
Pakistan is fixated on a 'Kashmir-first-and-last' policy that precludes
discussing any other issue with India, while India is willing to discuss
everything else except Kashmir. In actual fact, India is currently
refusing to discuss anything on account of its reservations about the
'legitimacy' of Pakistan's military government. This is a myopic view,
and one that seeks only to score points. In fact, the reality is that
this is probably the best time to negotiate a settlement of all
outstanding issues.
Traditionally, the Pakistani military has called the shots on Kashmir
and Afghanistan, even when elected governments have been in the saddle.
Neither Nawaz Sharif nor Benazir Bhutto could significantly alter the
official policy in our relations (or lack of them) with India. In her
first stint, there was a narrow window of opportunity for Ms Bhutto in
1989 when she signed an agreement with Rajiv Gandhi in Islamabad to end
hostilities on the Siachen glacier. This was accompanied with a flurry
of other agreements dealing with trade, culture and tourism.
Unfortunately, the Indian government soon went back on this accord, and
the following year a full-fledged uprising broke out in Indian-occupied
Kashmir. The last decade has seen bloodshed on an unprecedented scale as
freedom fighters have escalated their activities, and Indian security
forces have clamped down ruthlessly.
Even if stark economic compulsions have gone unheeded, the nuclear tests
conducted by India and Pakistan in 1998 have lent greater urgency to the
need to resolve this conflict. But the Indian refusal to talk to a
military regime flies in the face of the political realities of
Pakistan. One reason why Benazir Bhutto was sacked in 1990 was the
perception in GHQ that she was "soft" on Kashmir. Nawaz Sharif, too, was
kept on a short leash, despite his avowed desire to make peace with our
neighbour. The battle on the Kargil heights effectively derailed the
nascent peace process begun earlier last year with the famous bus trip
taken by the Indian prime minister from Amritsar to Lahore.
Given the pre-eminence of the army in our dealings with India, it makes
eminent sense for New Delhi to agree to negotiations now. The Indian
leadership is well aware that ultimately, it is the army high command
that will determine the course of any future talks from the Pakistan
side, irrespective of who is occupying the Prime minister's House in
Islamabad. Mr Vajpayee and his colleagues would do well to remember that
it took Richard Nixon, a right-wing Republican president, to
re-establish ties with Communist China after decades of hostility. A
liberal democratic initiative would have been unacceptable to the
American establishment. Similarly, the Pakistan army can deliver on a
deal without the hawks going on the rampage.
Clearly, the Indian government feels that they are in control of the
insurgency in Kashmir, and they are probably right in this assessment.
But the price India pays will not be restricted to the Vale: right or
wrong, the Kashmir dispute will continue to poison relations between the
two countries, as well as preventing any regional grouping to work
effectively in South Asia. As the bigger and more powerful party in the
dispute, it is for India to take the lead and set the pace for a peace
process. Saying that Pakistan has to somehow 're-establish trust'
between the two countries is a clear cop-out as there was very little
trust to begin with.
Peace will only dawn on the subcontinent when the leaders of both
countries begin to comprehend that far more than Kashmir is involved.
Without peace, neither country will reach its potential as each
squanders billions on defence every year. After all, if arch-enemies
like Greece and Turkey can start talking, why can't we?
_____________

#2.

The Asian Studies WWW Monitor: early Jan 2000, Vol. 7, No. 104
17 Jan 2000

Behind Mud Walls: The Village of Karimpur, 1925-1998

Syracuse University, USA

Self-description: "Based on a slide production by Don and Jean Johnson, New
York University, with narrative by Charlotte Wiser. With an update by Susan
S. Wadley, Syracuse University: The Village in the 1990s"

Contents: The Wisers' Experience in Karimpur; Courtyard Life; Castes; Villag=
e
Activities; Karimpur in the 1990s; Bibliography of Writings on Karimpur.

[Site under construction - ed.]
URL http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/southasiacenter/karimpur/
_____________

#3.

The Hindu
Sunday 30 January 2000
Opinion

Water... fire and brimstone

The self-appointed guardians of morality and culture have decided that
Ms. Deepa Mehta must be opposed. NEENA VYAS on the troubles the
filmmaker is facing in shooting ``Water''.

OVER THE years, the RSS and its offshoots, including its political arm,
the Bharatiya Janata Party, have arrogated to themselves the right to
determine what constitutes Indian culture, and more importantly, what
offends the Indian cultural ethos and should therefore be opposed,
demolished, burnt and thrown out.

Hindutva was defined by Mr. L. K. Advani as ``cultural nationalism'',
giving an indication of the importance of culture, or rather culture as
the RSS chooses to define it. Although Mr. Advani and RSS leaders have
often talked about the ``Indian culture that is essentially Hindu''
because of the predomination of Hindus in the population of this
country, in practise the RSS and the BJP have been intolerant of the
non-Hindu streams that make up Indian culture and have very little
understanding of what culture, Indian or any other, is all about.

If this were not the case, would the BJP have approved of the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad plan to raze to the ground the Babri Masjid which was
perhaps the only known monument going back to the days of the first
Mughal Emperor?

Would the RSS have opposed M. F. Husain's depiction of Saraswati and
even threatened to burn his paintings when the temples of Puri,
Khajuraho, the Gomateshwar and the Ajanta frescoes are testimony to the
fact that nudity and eroticism were very much a part of Indian cultural
history? In fact, it would seem that our RSS guardians of culture are
more influenced by Christianity and its emphasis on virginity.

Emboldened by a BJP-led Government at the Centre, RSS affiliates have
increasingly taken upon themselves the task of ``cleansing'' the Indian
cultural scene of whatever they think does not represent ``true Indian
culture''. When Ms. Deepa Mehta dared to explore the theme of love
between two women, it immediately drew the ire of RSS and the Shiv Sena.
Both had arrogated to themselves the job of guardians of public
morality.

The theatres where her first film to be set in India, ``Fire'', was
shown about two years ago were attacked in Mumbai and Delhi, virtually
forcing cinema hall owners to stop the screening. And now, when she
plans to shoot another film, ``Water'', the self- appointed guardians of
morality and culture have decided that Ms. Mehta is a bad one, and must
be opposed.

Ms. Mehta's problems began when she landed in Varanasi earlier this
month all set to begin the shooting of ``Water'' after getting the
necessary clearances from the authorities concerned. But suddenly, the
district authorities denied her permission and also added that they
could not ensure the safety of her crew - apparently at the behest of
two Uttar Pradesh Ministers who felt she was too controversial.

This coincided nicely with the protests against the film by RSS
affiliates in Varanasi, making it clear that the BJP was agreeable to
playing duet with the RSS on this subject. All this naturally upset Ms.
Mehta's plans for a 45-day shooting schedule taking her through the last
few days of January and through February.

After some desperate efforts, Ms. Mehta managed to get an assurance from
the Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary, Mr. Yogendra Narain, who has now
reportedly directed the Varanasi district authorities to provide Ms.
Mehta's team full security and allow her to proceed with the shooting of
the film.

But the problem may have only begun, as indicated by Sanskar Bharati, an
offspring of the RSS, which is not going to be guided by the district
authorities. The plan seems to be to ``organise'' so-called public
protests. Law and order could then provide the district authorities with
the excuse to clamp down once again on Ms. Mehta.

Sanskar Bharati has already geared up its machinery in Varanasi where
Ms. Mehta's crew is shooting the new film. Even before the first shot
for the new film was taken, the organisation decided that Ms. Mehta must
be opposed.

The reasons given were specious. An RSS pracharak, Mr. Chandra Mohan,
when contacted in Varanasi, said that ``the sacred Ganges cannot be
simply described as water''. His allegation was that Ms. Mehta was up to
no good, and that her film would dwell on the dirt and squalor of Kashi,
on the pitiable condition of the widows who eke out their lives around
the ghats, and that ``this hurts our religious sentiments for Varanasi
is the holiest city for Hindus''.

A top functionary in Sanskar Bharati based in Agra identified as
``Bankeyji'' said reports had come that Ms. Mehta's script dwells on the
condition of ``the widows from Bengal'' and that ``we would not have
protested if she had chosen to show a rounded picture of what Varanasi
is and what it means to Hindus''. He pointed out that the organisation
did not yet have any formal action plan to protest against the shooting,
but ``yes, not only Sanskar Bharati but many other organisations will
join in if she persists''.

The secretary of Sanskar Bharati in Varanasi, Mr. Pramod, said that to
begin with they would sit on dharna wherever Ms. Mehta went to shoot her
film. And he added that the main objection was to the film depicting
young widows being forced into prostitution.

Apparently, Sanskar Bharati is now trying to encourage ``the people'' to
oppose Ms. Mehta's venture. ``We plan to set up another front called the
`Kashi Sanskriti Raksha Manch','' Mr. Jitendra, an office-bearer of the
Sanskar Bharati's Varanasi unit, told TheHindu.He said that ``it is the
people who are opposed to her film. And if the people protest, certainly
several organisations including the Sanskar Bharati would join them to
oppose and prevent the shooting of `Water''.

The idea apparently is that the RSS or its affiliates should not be
singled out as the culprits to save the Government embarrassment, for no
doubt that with the success of two films to her credit Ms. Mehta has
become a celebrity. The Government is expected to try and keep its hands
clean, but no doubt the RSS is planning to fan a ``public agitation''
against Ms. Mehta and her crew.

The methods employed are always the same. It was the anger of 80 per
cent Hindus in this country which demolished the Babri Masjid in
Ayodhya, it was the ``people'' who expressed their resentment against
Husain for daring to offend their religious sentiments, it was the
``people'' who were horrified by Ms. Mehta's ``Fire'', and now again it
is the ``people'' who apprehend she will offend their sensibilities with
her new venture, ``Water''.
_____________

#4.

The Hindu
30 January 2000
=46eatures

Quest for identity

The ninth national conference on women's studies held in Hyderabad
earlier this month focussed on the tribal woman's struggle for
recognition. KALPANA SHARMA highlights the myths and realities that
surround tribal society.

WOMEN'S studies has now become so mainstream and established that
sometimes it produces a yawn. Can a meeting of the women's studies
association yield anything new? Hyderabad, the venue for the ninth
National Conference on Women's Studies held early this month, proved
that as long as women's studies keeps its dynamic link with the
contemporary women's movement, it will remain an area of inquiry which
is alive and relevant.

In some ways, the very location helped to give the discussions a special
meaning as the women's movement in Andhra Pradesh has always been
intensely political. It has been known for its active and questioning
attitude towards accepted paradigms even within the women's movement. It
has produced some outstanding works of scholarship. The opening of the
conference saw a dramatisation of one of these works, "We were making
history", the story of the women in the Telangana armed struggle. These
stories would have been lost to history if some women had not made the
effort to record them and reproduce them. The dramatisation was a
reminder that the gender dimension can never be overlooked in any
struggle.

The women who reasserted this reality were those closely associated with
contemporary struggles for self-determination in tribal areas as far
apart as Arunachal Pradesh and Jharkhand. The exact nature and content
of these struggles might vary but the fate of all so-called "tribal"
people in this country is linked by the uniform and uninformed attitude
of the state towards them.

Jarjum Ite, general secretary of the Arunachal Women's Welfare Society,
brought this out by recounting the experience of women in her state.
"There is a myth", she said, "that tribal societies are very egalitarian
because we (tribal women) are visible and mobile." But the reality was
otherwise. Women in her state cannot inherit ancestral property, for
instance. There is child marriage and polygamy which women are opposing.
And although some states in the north-east have a high level of
literacy, in Arunachal the literacy rate amongst women is only 29 per
cent and the sex ratio is 861 women to 1000 men.

As a result, even if the government creates programmes to help women,
such as offering them credit, women cannot access it because they do not
possess immovable property. Similarly, the government's attempt to
"help" tribals by upgrading technology by introducing shuttle looms, for
instance, to replace the traditional pit looms, has forced women to give
up weaving altogether as they were not comfortable with the change.
=46urthermore, the education system does not give any space for women to
pass on their traditional skills to their children. As a result, many
crafts are dying out.

Other policies, such as promoting IMFL (Indian Made Foreign Liquor) in
places like Arunachal have "eaten into the resources of the family
because men are hooked to it and women are forced to take on more
responsibility", she said. Traditionally, the local rice-based liquor
was brewed by women.

There is an assumption, she said, that the demand for more rights
necessarily means preserving all cultural norms. The RSS and the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad, for instance, have been campaigning in Arunachal Pradesh
for preservation of tribal culture because they see this as a way to
prevent people from turning to Christianity. But all traditional norms
do not benefit women. For instance, apart from being denied inheritance
rights, women in Arunachal also want an end to practices like child
marriage.

The tribal women participating in the Jharkhand movement have
experiences not dissimilar to those of their counterparts in Arunachal
Pradesh. The fiery young journalist and activist from Ranchi, Vasavi,
made this very clear when she expressed her anger that no women could be
seen in the leadership of the Jharkhand movement despite their active
participation. Vasavi reminded the audience that she was speaking on the
centenary of the Birsa Munda uprising in Bihar when 300 tribals were
killed for daring to fight against the British. "We are still fighting
for recognition and also for the liberation of women", she said.

But the liberation of women in tribal societies has failed to find any
support from men. For instance, the Supreme Court judgment which granted
tribal women the right to inheritance, otherwise denied to them under
customary law, was greeted with hostility by the male leadership of the
movement who saw it as a plot by non-tribals and "westernised feminists"
to attack tribal customary rights. "None of the men is prepared to
discuss the issue of inheritance rights," she said.

Vasavi pointed out that in traditional tribal societies, there is no
concept of ownership or property. But today, because of widespread
displacement of people to make way for projects like the Koel Karo hydel
project, or the Netrahat firing range, tribal people are acquiring land
"pattas". Yet, when women have demanded that the wife's name should
appear alongside the husband's name on the "patta", the men have
refused.

Vasavi's and Jarjum's interventions illustrate the new dimensions of the
question that need to be addressed. This is the question of identities.
What is women's primary identity, as women, or as members of a social
group? The question becomes important when tribal groups, or dalits,
fight for rights that relate to their specific status in society. Thus
women in these groups carry a double burden, of being twice oppressed.
But by asserting their separate identity as women, they risk being
accused of being divisive. So the decision to speak out on women's
rights, even as they participate in larger political struggles, is not
an easy one.

Susie Tharu from the group Anveshi, for instance, questioned the very
validity of terms like "tribe" which she said was an invention for
administrative purposes. "Just as mainstream India has been
characterised as advanced, tribal society is characterised as
primitive," she said. But she said the very notion of being called
"primitive" was actually a contemporary and modern notion and comes
about as part of being reorganised in a nation state. Many of these
concepts were vigorously debated outside the formal meetings.

The identity issue is a tricky one. It could deepen the understanding
and articulation of the women's movement by bringing in the many layers
within which women have to survive in Indian society. But it could also
divide the movement if it works on the assumption that only those born
into a social group can understand, and therefore articulate questions
relating to women's rights in that particular group and that there are
no "non-negotiable" rights that apply to all women, irrespective of
class, caste or community.

Although this was just one of several important issues discussed at the
women's studies conference, it is bound to be one of the key areas of
inquiry in women's studies in the coming years.
___________

#5.
The Hindu
30 January 2000
=46eatures

Battle for the Republic

The 50th year of the Republic is a point in history when there is need
to recapitulate its achievements and failures. KAMAL MITRA CHENOY sounds
a word of caution.

THE 50th year of the republic has been eventful, but not cheery. The
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) regime that was basking in the Kargil
victory bungled in Kandahar. The workers are on the streets fighting
privatisation and the profligate sale of long hoarded public sector
assets. Though the port strike and the power strike in Uttar Pradesh are
over, more dissent appears in the offing. In the prevailing neo-liberal
orthodoxy, the republic's past has been largely negative: a bureaucratic
socialist order which stifled individual initiative and led to a
high-cost, low efficiency economy. Even the once lauded Constitution has
come in for flak in this revisionist reading of the republic's history.
Thus the NDA's demand for its thorough review.

Now it is time to recall Ambedkar's prophetic warning on the eve of the
finalisation of the Constitution. That notwithstanding, the guarantee of
political equality, social and economic inequalities which were not
addressed could lead to the underprivileged blowing up the laboriously
wrought constitutional edifice. Contrary to his apprehensions, the
threat to the Constitution comes not from the poor but from the
affluent. It is not the working poor, but the privileged rich who want
to secede from the old republic; to build up a brave new world based on
the "Washington consensus".

This then is a point in our history when we must protect our republic's
notable, indeed exceptional past, despite its spectacular failures, from
a facile and motivated revisionism. Nowhere in the world has such a
republic survived half a century to such a democratic present. Neither
the once-touted Brazilian miracle nor the Asian Tigers have delivered
such resilent democracy or economic stability. Neither has so empowered
the poor, nor given rise to such a burgeoning middle class. But
paradoxically, the same middle class produced by the Nehruvian mixed
economy and secular politics is now seduced by Fund-Bank nostrums and
the siren song of Hindutva. Strident upper caste rhetoric against
casteism glosses over the 1,000-year-old Manuvadi oppression of the
Backward Classes and the republic's unparalleled, though still
incomplete, record of affirmative action, as Other Backward Class
patriarchs sabotage the Women's Reservation Bill in the name of social
justice.

People, including intellectuals, prompted by a neo-liberal media have
forgotten how a flood of reports including the Hazari Report,
Mahalanobis Committee, Monopolies Inquiry Commission, Industrial
Licensing Policy Inquiry Committee and Sachar Committee documented the
exponential growth of both Indian and foreign big business as a
consequence of the license-permit-quota raj. Contrary to current
mainstream criticism, large entrepreneurs actually flourished. Prominent
economists have showed how growth rates in the Nehruvian period were
much more stable and impressive than those consequent on the
liberalisation of the 1980s onwards. In the earlier period, the enclave
nature of the industrialisation of the colonial period was superseded
and a heavy industrial sector built, massive infrastructural investments
made, zamindari abolished and a vigorous universal suffrage-based
democracy established. A still unparalleled record for any Third World
country.

What must also be remembered and lauded is the relative success of the
secular experiment, after the horrendous communal conflagration of the
Partition and the assassination of the Mahatma by Hindutva zealots. The
most multi-lingual country moved both towards linguistic States and
linguistic federalism with constant but substantial accretions to the
list of official languages in the Eighth Schedule. But this secular,
multi- cultural fabric is now under sustained assault. The continuing
attacks on the tiny Christian community as well as the Hindu
Kabirpanthis in Jammu, coupled with strident Hindutva rhetoric along
with the sustained infiltration of Sangh Parivar activists into State
institutions, especially in the educational and media sectors, threaten
the republic and its future. The NDA regime sponsored attempt to rewrite
both Indian history and the Constitution is part of the same communal
project to convert the republic into an authoritarian, upper caste
neo-Brahminical Hindutva state.

The current battles, therefore, between the divided secularists and the
consolidated Hindutva parivar - the Sangh Parivar, Shiv Sena, Ananda
Marg combine, constitute a battle for the soul of the republic. Thus the
need to recapitulate the republic's real history and major successes
that both Hindutva and neo-liberal ideologues seek to suppress and
distort. Central to this task is the defence of the Constitution.
Despite near 80 amendments, the basic structure of this unique framework
has guaranteed and protected the most robust and largest democracy in
the world. The degeneration of political parties, the criminalisation of
politics and the venality of the ruling elites, have nothing at all to
do with the Constitution as it has evolved. And evolved it has through
successive and major amendments, reflecting the socio-political demands
of the time. Thus the Vajpayee regime's claim, dutifully parroted by
some publicists, that the Constitution is dated willfully ignores this
reality in order to subserve an authoritarian communal agenda.

A country that loses its historical memory loses both its democracy and
sovereignty. Thus the assaults by a Hindutva-led regime which has
abjectly surrendered its sovereignty to the World Trade Organisation,
must be resolutely rebuffed if the republic is to survive.

The author is Associate Professor of Political Science at JNU, New
Delhi.
__________________________________________
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.