[sacw] sacw dispatch 5 Jan 2000

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch
5 January 2000
__________________
#1. Partition Memorial At Wagah: Sign-On Statement
#2. Deceit of the Right
#3. Media can change the course of history in the region'
__________________

#1.
MEMORIAL AT WAGAH: Sign-On Statement

Tuesday, 4 January, 2000
DEAR FRIENDS,
On behalf of PPAD I am sending to you a Statement for your support. Kindly
sign your name and send it to me. Please give your complete address and
your professional background and title also.
I hope this move of us helps the peace movement in South Asia to take a new
direction.
Sincerely,
Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed <Ishtiaq.Ahmed@s...
Co-ordinator
Pakistanis for Peace and Alternative Development (PPAD)

MEMORIAL AT WAGAH TO THE VICTIMS OF THE 1947 PARTITION OF INDIA AND PAKISTAN=
=2E
The Partition of British India in 1947, which created the two independent
states of Pakistan and India, was followed by one of the cruellest and
bloody migrations and religious and ethnic cleansing in history and
resulted in the transfer of millions of people between the two countries.
The ensuing religious animosity and communal strife resulted in the deaths
of some two million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs and abduction, rape and
killing of countless women and children. It was indeed one of the most
inhuman manifestation of religious and communal intolerance without any
parallel in history

Those who survived were brutalised and traumatised and still carry the
scars of their suffering which, in so many ways, have continued to dictate
the relations between the two countries for more than half a century. The
pain and suffering of the time have been the subject of many a poignant
work of prose and poetry in South Asian literature and more recently of
some touching and sensitive films.

Members of Pakistanis for Peace and Alternative Development (PPAD)
sincerely feel that ways ought to be found to ensure that the suffering
and humiliation of that period are neither forgotten nor allowed to occur
ever again. Rather than the Partition leaving a legacy of perpetual
animosity and conflict between Pakistan and India and between Hindus,
Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and others, it ought to be assigned a wholly
different meaning and significance. It should instead represent the pain
and agony of common humanity.

We propose therefore that, as a permanent symbol of the common suffering,
an appropriate Memorial is built along the road in the no-man-land between
Pakistan and India at Wagah, with suitable provision for those crossing the
two countries to make a brief stop, and in their own way, honour the dead
and remember the surviving victims of the Partition. We also suggest that a
similar memorial is built at a suitable location along the border between
Bangladesh and India.

It is our sincere wish and hope that these Memorials will help begin a new
chapter in the history of the Sub-continent-one based on a better
understanding of the past and on mutual trust and respect in the future. We
urge all peace-loving people of the Subcontinent to join us in persuading
the governments of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh to acknowledge the
collective responsibility of their recent history and facilitate the
erection of these Memorials to mark the human tragedy of their peoples.
STATEMENT PREPARED BY CORE MEMBERS OF PPAD:

1) Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed <Ishtiaq.Ahmed@s...>
Co-ordinator PPAD
2. Ayyub Malik <malik@y...>
3. Prof. Dr Hassan Gardezi <gardezi@a...>
4. Prof. Dr Bilal Hashmi <Bhashmi@E...>
5. Dr Mohammad.Tanveer <jrc@s...>
6. Prof. Susan Akram <SAkram@g...>
7. Dr Ahmed Shibli <Ahmed@S...>,
8. Prof. Amin Mughal <Aminone@a...>,
9. Ayesha Avawda" <Avawda@w...>
10. Prof. Dr Riffat Hassan <riffat@L...>,
11. Shahbano Aliani <Saliani@P...>,
12. Nadeem Omar Tarar <ntarar@b...>,,
13. Ejaz.Syed <Syedi@H...>,
14. Dr Saghir Shaikh <Saghir@U...>
15. Saeed Ahmed Minhas <s.ahmed@l...>,
16. Dr Ghazala Ansar <baasitah@j...>
17. Amar Mahboob <Amar@S...>
18. Dr Ghazala Anwar <hdisbjj@i...>
19. Dr Babar Mumtaz <Ucftdbm@m...>

STATEMENT SUPPORTED BY:

1.
________________
#2.
Himal
Vol 12 No 12 December 1999

DECEIT OF THE RIGHT
by Vijay Prashad and Biju Mathew

We began our study of the Hindu Right in the United States several years
ago, when word of large funds being transferred to India by sympathetic
organisations started doing the rounds. Of course, the flow of such cash to
the 'mother country' was not a novel occurrence among South Asians, as we
had before us the highly publicised cases of the generosity of some Sri
Lankan Tamils towards the LTTE, as well as of European, Canadian and
American Sikhs towards Khalistani groups in Punjab.

The transfer of saffron dollars to India, of course, had the potential of
being much larger. However, as is the case with the religious right of all
persuasions, accessing information from these secretive organisations was
not very easy. The secrecy has, in fact, increased after there were
protests a few years ago about the dubious use of charity front
organisations to channel funds to India. In 1994, there was even an effort
to raise money through the US charity, United Way, but sustained protests
from secular South Asian groups forced a withdrawal. Since that episode in
particular, fund-raisers for the Hindu Right have been far less generous
with information about their work.

Additionally, the fund-raisers are wary of openly talking about money
because they tend to make extensive use of the illegal hawala network to
transfer cash funds. Since the Hindu Right does not conduct 'terrorist'
activity on North American soil, the US authorities do not pay as much
attention to transfer of saffron dollars as they do to the Khalistani and
LTTE money. The latter two organisations, after all, have conducted
extortion and assassinations in North America, whereas the Hindu Right has
been, if anything, more subtle.

Blocked thus in our search to learn of the way money flows into the
Subcontinent, we turned our investigation to how the religious right raises
money in the US and Canada. To do this, we had to understand the ways of
the Right, notably the means by which it creates moorings for itself among
the overseas South Asian population.

Why have the US (and Canadian) authorities allowed the religious right to
flourish, untrammelled, in North America? 'Multiculturalism' is the answer.
=46aced with massive social unrest among minorities (mainly African
Americans, Native Americans, Latino Americans, as also feminists, gay and
lesbian activists), the US establishment has over the decades evolved a
cultural policy that has ceased to demand that all people assimilate into
the murky soup of homogeneity. Thus, the social protests, going back to the
1950s and 60s, forced government to accept the diverse heritages of people
as the cultural logic of the nation. New curricula came to be written for
schools in the 1970s in the name of multiculturalism.

This politically correct and sensitive incorporation of multiculturalism by
the state in the US and Canada was of immediate support to the Hindu Right
when over the 1980s and 90s it began to flex its muscle and open its
wallet. With tolerance bred from the fact that most Americans perceive
South Asia as a region imbued with religiosity, the religious right of all
persuasions presented itself as the true interpreter of South Asian
culture. Thus, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA) came forward to
represent Hindus, while the Jamaat-e-Islami made to speak for South Asian
Muslims. The diversity of South Asia was thus rendered mute by these
organisations, which liked to define a South Asia as one that was clearly
divided on the lines of faith. The beauty of multiculturalism was quickly
reduced to communalism.

The two Dharma Sansads held by the VHPA (1998 and 1999) offered rules on
how Hindus in America should live their lives, in its arbitrary capacity as
the sole authority over who they now call "Hindu Americans". The Jamaat and
the Sikh organisa-tions hold similar camps and conclaves at which they hand
down absolute cultural orders for the community they claim to represent.
The clamour of these rightist organisations, making full use of the crutch
of multiculturalism, is that they are champions of a neglected, nay
oppressed, religion within the US. Of course, one is asked to forget the
orthodox and reactionary role played by these very organisations in the
homeland of South Asia, as in the diaspora they may portray themselves as
champions of the weak.

These right-wing organisations get vicarious glamour amongst their target
South Asian flock from the very fact that the North American establishment
is in its own rush to be politically correct to kowtow to these groups.
This will certainly act as a draw to migrants and their children, who
routinely face the unpleasant reality of racism. When teachers at school or
college, otherwise ignorant about South Asia, bow sanctimoniously before
faith-clad organisations such as the Hindu Student Council (a wing of the
VHPA) or the Muslim Student Association (an independent network of Muslim
student organisations), a sense of awe at their power is bound to overcome
the South Asian migrant population.

As the story goes in the Ramayana, Mareecha the magician acting at the
behest of Ravana turns himself into a golden deer to lure Ram and Lakshman
away from Sita. The activities of the Hindu Right in North America can be
likened to that golden deer of Chitrakoot forest, offering simple and
attractive answers to worldly problems, but its simplicity a magical cover
for more devious intentions. In their desperate search for 'identity', the
migrants of the diaspora commit themselves to the religious right with
little thought given to its deeper agenda, which is guided in large part by
the need to channel funds to the homeland.

Since the diaspora is as yet seeking nothing more than an identity prop,
the religious right is having a free ride for the moment. It is able to
provide minimal service while garnering political clout from its
membership, and harvesting dollars to boot. Indeed, the religious right
provides little or no solace to so many among the diaspora, and offers few
answers to the grave social problems that beset the first and second
generation migrants in North America. Here there are genuine problems of
racism, of sexism, of excessive pressure to succeed, all of which deserve
compassion and struggle.

Instead, all that the religious right seems willing to offer is a withering
critique of lifestyle, coupled with a demand for any surplus income, as
ways to salve the conscience (for doing 'better' than relatives back home).
Yet, almost everyone is willing to defer to them as the authentic
representatives of South Asian 'culture', and there are very few who would
come forward to expose the deeply conservative culture preached by them.

Having thus gained legitimacy amongst both the host country authorities as
well as the diasporic 'flock', the organisations of the religious right are
ready to cash in and go after their primary agenda=97finance activity in the
homeland. To uncover this aspect of their work, as amateur sleuths we
decided to "follow the money".

In the case of the LTTE and the Khalistani militants, the money trail is
easy to follow as much is already available in US and Canadian government
documents. The LTTE operates in Canada as the World Tamil Movement, an
ethnic designation that is acceptable to multiculturalists. Sikh
separatists also adopted such ethnic language to evade the radar of the
US-Canadian authorities until the 1985 attacks initiated by the Khalistanis
in Canada. This was followed by Canada=92s crackdown on the LTTE, and the
same year, the FBI sent a special team to Canada to discuss the problem of
the LTTE and the issue of extortion of funds.

Unlike such open scrutiny by the authorities, the religious right has a
much better multicultural cover and their activities harder to track. The
lack of attention by authorities is mainly because the VHPA and the Jamaat
do not appear to be a threat to the US or Canadian establishments. Take the
case of the Hindu Right. Sewa International is an offshoot of the Hindu
Swayamsevak Sangh (the US version of the ultra-rightist Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh/RSS) and it claims to "educate and propagate the
principles enunciated in Hindu Dharma with particular reference to serving
the poor, sick, needy and weak". Its stated mission is thus twofold=97offer
charity and provide ideology to its following.

To use their money effectively, the VHPA and its kin organisations claim to
offer help to those who are the most socially and financially desperate,
raising funds for orphans (through its Support-A-Child programme, begun in
1985) and tribals or 'adivasis' (through its Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra
network). The organisations all claim to be "non-political" charities,
which evidence shows to be not true.

In Bhopal, for example, the US-based Indian Development and Relief Fund
(IDRF) provides funds to Sewa Bharati which tries to "protect the tribal
people from subversion, and integrate them into the mainstream". In
reality, what this means is that the money is used to bring the adivasis
into the =91Hindutva=92 stream as propagated by the ruling Bharatiya Janata
Party. In Hyderabad, the IDRF funds Keshava Seva Samithi where destitute
children are housed to "mould them into an ideal citizenry through
education/vocational training". As it happens, Keshava Seva Samiti shares
the same address as the RSS headquarters in the city.

The amounts raised by the US orga-nisations are by no means trivial. Since
the early 1990s, the IDRF (set up in 1978) has raised over USD 2 million.
Another organisation, the Hindu Heritage Endowment (HHE) has collected USD
2.6 million in contributions and pledges since its establishment in 1994.
These dollars enter a part of Indian society that is starved of funds. Each
dollar is not only converted into so many rupees, but each of those many
rupees functions with far more power among the oppressed adivasis than
among the moneyed elite of, say, Bombay.

While the IDRF is openly political, organisations like the Hindu Heritage
Endowment (HHE) remain in the shadows of religiosity. The IDRF supports
"exemplary, grassroots non-governmental organisations in India". The term
"grassroots" is used to attract money from donors in the US presently
besotted with the idea of micro-credit and micro-development=97those who
might otherwise put their funds into something like the Grameen Bank. And
just as the Grameen Bank wields immense power in under-funded sectors in
Bangladesh, so does the well-funded right throw its fiscal weight about
amongst orphans and adivasis.

If dollar funds dharma in India, the dollars for zakat raised by the
Islamic Orthodoxy are not very different. The Jamaat has lately begun using
tactics perfected by the VHPA. It is, however, less diffident about its
political ambitions, as evident in the intervention made (from Florida) by
the Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islam chief, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, during prime
minister Nawaz Sharif's meeting with Bill Clinton last July.

Like the Hindu Right, the Jamaat is eager to enter into the lives of young
"Muslim Americans". Thus far, organisations like the Bangladeshi Youth
=46ederation have inserted themselves into this space at the expense of the
Islamic orthodoxy, and the religious right would dearly like to change this
situation.

The crucial difference between the Dollar Dharma and the Islamic Orthodoxy
is that the latter has, as of now, not tried to raise vast funds within
North America. J.I. Khan of the Kashmir People's Democratic Forum (a
leftist Kashmiri organisation in the US) has pointed to the Islamic Right's
reliance upon "the drug mafia, the ISI and the Saudi government" for its
funds. As he told us, "If these are your benefactors, you do not need
Muslims in the US or Canada to be the principal funders." But if the funds
from Saudi Arabia and the drug mafia dry up, Khan recognises, it is likely
that the Islamic Orthodoxy may turn with its collection tray to North
American Muslims.

The 'problem' faced by Islamic Orthodoxy, however, is that many of its
orga-nisations are staffed by both Indian and Pakistani Muslims, which
makes it difficult for it to take strong and populist positions on
subcontinental politics=97something available to the India-leaning Hindu
Right. To leverage money for Pakistani politics or to foment trouble in
Kashmir will not appeal to many Indian American Muslims. Meanwhile, without
its access to outside money, the Bangladeshi Jamaat has already turned to
the diaspora for funds, a reason for its rapid growth across North America.

Despite the lack of importance given to zakat (obligatory annual payment
for charitable and religious purposes under Islamic law) among most Muslims
in North America, Khan and others argue that the Pakistani American
community is no less a hive of right-wing sentiment. As evidence, they
point to the rapid growth of Islamic centres across North America and to
the popularity of leaders such as Tahir Ul Qadri of the Tafheen-e-Quran. As
Rizwan Raja, a Pakistani New Yorker, says, "From early childhood in
Pakistan we have been socialised to give more precedence to Islam than even
Pakistan. If you add to this the sense of alienation we immigrants feel,
and the sense of attack that many Muslims experience in the West, it is not
surprising that many of us are easy targets for right-wing propaganda."

The politicisation of the Pakistani dias-pora was evident in the days
following Nawaz Sharif=92s ouster, when there was a wave of support for the
military action and for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (the Taliban of Pakistan), that
old friend of many in the Pakistani armed forces.

One cannot remain immune from the currents that one promotes. The support
of communal politics in South Asia, in the final analysis, ends up
communalising the =91donors=92 as well. The implications in the subcontinent=
al
diaspora of this support of communalisation are legion. For one, the drive
to raise money enters one=92s most cherished celebrations. As one brochure
has it, if you are "celebrating a birthday or wedding anniversary, enjoying
a graduation party, solemnising a pooja, rejoicing a festival or
commemorating your beloved ones, IDRF is at your service. It offers you a
unique opportunity for serving God through selfless, humanitarian service,
and thus enhancing your inner joy!"

Such a campaign appeal is directed at those South Asians who, it is hoped,
will begin to organise themselves along religious rather than secular
lines. Dinesh Agarwal, a well-known elder of the Hindu Right, posted this
note on the Hindu Students Council on-line forum in 1995: "There is a new
trend developing in the youth of Indian origin. When they marry, they
contribute all their cash and other gifts to Seva (Service) projects in
India. Recently, sister of Shri Satish Tamboli of Washington (an active
worker of RSS and IDRF) got married. She contributed all her cash gifts for
buying a medical van for Seva Bharati Project in India. Shri Sanjay, son of
Shri Vinod Prakash of Washington, followed the same example. He also
contributed all his cash gifts for Seva projects in India. May this
volunteer service spirit grow and more and more of our youths follow their
examples." The rhythm of a chain letter stands out in this note, but so too
does the strategy of using the idea of 'service' and 'culture' to draw
funds not only from the first-generation migrant, but more importantly from
their children.

The VHPA also routinely raises money from corporate matching gift
programmes (in which corporations, in the hope of appearing benevolent, ask
their employees to donate money to charity organisations, with the
corporation itself making a pledge to match the amount donated). Routinely,
the religious right has counselled its members to take advantage of this
policy and nominate its charity organisations. In the early 1990s,
employees at AT&T attempted to do this, but when a campaign revealed the
VHP=92s role at Ayodhya, the corporation felt uneasy about any further
controversy. To keep track of this use of funds is difficult, and for sure,
large amounts of funds find their way to South Asia=92s religious right
through this channel of corporate-supported giving.

Meanwhile, in the political forests of South Asia, the Dollars convert into
Rupees and multiply madness. The only conversion that has not been
condemned is that from the Dollar. That conversion is used to strike terror
in the heart of all those who refuse to convert to bigotry, or whose
cultural forms are deemed dangerous.
_____________
#3.
The News International
2 January 2000
The News on Sunday

MEDIA CAN CHANGE THE COURSE OF HISTORY IN THE REGION'

Amjad Bhatti: How do you contribute to the civil society debate that has
recently become a 'dominant discourse' among the intellectual elite of the
region?

Kunda Dixit: Civil society has a colonial hangover in pursuing the
political agenda of the West. Civil society is now owned, run and regulated
by the elite of this region. Grassroots movements are very few, and even
fewer of them are trying to empower communities in the real sense of the
term.

Elite-driven NGOs are here to sideline the possibility of a revolution that
may endanger their hierarchical privileges. They talk about slow change.
However, there are also examples where civil society is quite effective and
that is where the movement is not elite-driven.

By the time the donors' priorities change, the role and direction of such
NGOs also undergoes an operational metamorphosis. Donors' priority shift
has a corrupt influence on the NGO movement. However, there is some space
for maneouvrability to put your own opinionated pursuits forward while
making strategic alliances with donor world selectively.

In the case of cultural violence against gender, for example, if somewhere
a donor's agenda coincides with ours, I wouldn't mind being a partner.
Despite a widespread growth of fly-by-night NGOs, by and large, civil
society is able to produce alternatives for the governments of South Asia.
Civil society has to muster courage to the point where it can compress
respective governments to take more people-centered initiatives on policy
level.

AM: How do you define civil society in the context of South Asian power
dynamics?

KD: To me, civil society is constituted of the institutions and
organisations which reflect a counterbalance against the heavy presence of
the state. Media is an important component.

AM: But in South Asia, where individuals are more potent than the
organisation and institutions, how can we place them in the civil society
discourse?

KD: Yes, locally speaking, the Sadhu has been the effective individual part
of civil society. I agree that the present structure of the growing civil
society in South Asia is quite western in its nature. Civil society groups
have been turned into virtual personality cults. Same kind of
un-transparent feudal family system is reflected in the NGO hierarchy in
our societies.

I doubt that we can reduce the whole lot of civil society into NGOs alone.
I think we need a genuine Gandhi style of activism to avoid the legitimacy
crisis that the NGOs now face. Gandhi went to the extreme, but suggested
that others could at least reach the minimum possible level. So, NGOs are
rightly called dollar-harvesting organisations.

AM: How do you trace the historical evolution of civil society movement in
South Asia?

KD: In the first place, I don't equate civil society with NGOs. We had a
strong civil society movement even before the West gave it a particular
name. Religious collectives, Buddhism, locally emerged reformist movements
are some of the historical expressions of our activist epics. The West has
only given a name to what already existed here. Buddhism was the civil
society insubordination against the Brahman control of Hindu hierarchical
religion. It was a popular movement, but never needed to be registered with
the state, unlike now, in the case of modern civil society activism.

AM: What about the power play that underscores democracy in poverty-ridden
countries of our region?

KD: In South Asia, the present democratic institutions do not represent the
masses, but they are better than totalitarian regimes. Elections in our
countries has been reduced to a mere shuffling of cards among the elite. It
favours the rich and privileged. Our goal should be to re-define democracy
and to make it more representative. I strongly believe that the answer to
democracy is more democracy. Military rule is not the right answer to bad
democracy. Why not use democracy itself to clean democracy?

AM: Can we make democracy work without questioning the prevalent power
structures?

KD: Changes in the power structure will come slowly. Now you see,
traditional power structures are crumbling and new power dynamics are
taking their place. New power centres are emerging by replacing the old and
traditional ones. For instance the region is emerging as a new centre of
power, replacing national powers. This implies that a new leadership
corresponding to this new reality may emerge and reflect the aspirations of
the people.

Democracy at least gives half a chance to people to change their leaders.
Corrupt leaders can be replaced by the force of ballot. When you open up a
society, you get a more plausible chance to change it. Proverbially
speaking, modern society has four legs- parliament, judiciary, executive
and media. Three of these four are already crumbling. What we can do is to
save at least one leg- the media.

AM: As a South Asian, how do you respond to the cultural imperialism bred
by globalisation?

KDM: I think we as South Asians should be open. This region cannot afford
to be closed now. We should assimilate all that is happening in the rest of
the world to make our culture more vibrant, for instance, like the Japanese
and Thais. There are McDonalds restaurants in almost every corner of Japan
but no one goes there. We should not react to globalisation with narrow and
extreme mindedness; the need is to take advantage of globalisation.

Actually, I fear globalisation is too big a word, we have to break it down.
Globalisation may have many constituents. Hollywood movies are a cultural
aspect of globalisation. I often say that the trash content of Hollywood
movies has entered our bedrooms, but what is our media doing in this
regard? They are simply following suit. If eastern media also contributes
to vulgarisation then don't blame globalisation. We also use cable networks
as a medium now. We can produce the alternative, using the same cable,
which unfortunately we are not doing.

Nepal TV telecasts a quality comedy programme every week. Nepalis switch
off their satellite channels on this day and stick to the local TV channel.
So we can establish the popular archetype by applying more communicative
and quality content.

AM: How do you visualise the future of this region?

KD: Despite the frightening statistics on South Asia, I am not dismayed. We
should publicise hope also. National governments in the region have been
failing in the past, so we cannot rely more on the state. The state
created, maintained and perpetuated the mistrust, hatred and alienation
among the masses of South Asia. Now people of the region should be
encouraged to put political pressure on their states and leaders.

Intra-region trade should be opened. We have seen how, historically, trade
always precedes peace. All borders should be made open and free for the
intra-regional movement of citizens

AM: What about SAARC=8A

KM: It is pathetic. Governments of SAARC countries abuse this forum by
carrying through their own narrow national interests. The people of SAARC
countries should come forward and take things in their hands, may be
through Track II diplomacy.

AM: What role can the media play to ease tensions in the region?

KM: At present the media in South Asia is reinforcing the social biases and
hatred. During the Kargil issue, media in both India and Pakistan played a
very insensitive and irresponsible role. Even the role of private media was
not regional in its character. Zee channel in those days gave only the
Indian view. I suggest regional media should take the lead and try to
counter governments' excessive nationalism.

Media should tell the people how they will benefit if there were a free
trade in the region. While the recent character of media is contrary to
what it professionally should be. Media on both sides in India and Pakistan
whip up passions of enemy-oriented sociology. It helps governments to keep
the tension level high.

New tools of communication technology were supposed to make things better
between India and Pakistan but at present, this modern technology is being
used to exaggerate the state-concocted differences. Media is a potent hope
that can change the course of history in the South Asian countries.

__________________________________________
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.