[sacw] [ACT] sacw diapatch #2 (8 Feb 00)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch #2
8 February 2000
[National Hinduism is out to subvert India!]
Please share the below information with others!
____________________
#1. The Rhetoric of Limited war : A view from Pakistan
#2. Extract from: On the Abyss: forthcoming book of essays by Pakistani writ=
ers
#3. New issue of Akhbar
#4. India: Homophobia - My sexuality is your business
____________________

#1.

DAWN
08 February 2000
Op-Ed.

The rhetoric of limited war
By Tanvir Ahmad Khan

OBSERVERS of inter-state tensions in South Asia have in recent weeks noted
with a sense of alarm that relations between India and Pakistan have
deteriorated to a point where an armed conflict could no longer be ruled
out. In a recent issue The Economist posed the question if the 'ugly
stability' between India and Pakistan was about to degenerate into
something still uglier. After pointing out that in the midst of
sabre-rattling, General Musharraf had been suggesting that India and
Pakistan should at least start talking, above all, about Kashmir, the
esteemed journal concluded that South Asia would be "lucky to keep violence
at its current horrible pitch."

Pessimistic prognostication about the potential of conflict between the
two subcontinental neighbours is only partly attributable to actual events
as nothing on a major scale has happened since the Kargil crisis. It is
more a reflection of the new belligerence in the Indian attitude and the
incessant references to the possibility of war by responsible political and
military leaders of India.

Statements sensitizing the Indian public opinion to a military conflict
that is likely to entail heavy losses are accompanied by institutional
efforts to posit and justify the concept of a limited war. The recent
'international' seminars by New Delhi's government-funded think tanks have
been widely seen as part of an intellectual and emotional mobilization for
a military conflict. The highly astute Indian commentator, General (retd)
V.R.Raghavan has made the following comment on them: "The seminars were
used by the government to make pronouncements about India's willingness to
fight a limited war. The defence minister used the two seminars to declare
a limited war doctrine. The BJP-led government obviously has a doctrinal
penchant."

Foremost amongst the factors cited for the hardening of the Indian
attitude are the continuing bitterness in India about Kargil, the growing
sense of frustration about the failure of its military policy in Kashmir
and the Indian quest for an Indo-US 'alliance' against Pakistan.

The mainspring of hope after the Kargil-Draz clashes was that even as the
two countries drew their respective inferences from them, there might be a
tacit undeclared consensus that this blood-stained event had not solved any
problem. In turn, it should have become an added argument for creating and
sustaining a peace process that may lead to a new era of mutual
accommodation.

When Mr Jaswant Singh dealt with Kargil's negative impact on bilateral
relation on July 20, 1999, he was still willing to affirm that "issues have
to be addressed bilaterally between concerned countries, and in the case of
India and Pakistan, that is what the Lahore process is all about."

Even if it attached preconditions for the revival of negotiations, his
artfully crafted address was still embedded in a long tradition of solemn
commitments by the two countries to resolve all the outstanding disputes
through peaceful negotiations. In a recent discussion amongst some Indians
and Pakistanis who are concerned about the drift in bilateral relations ,
one reminded the participants that the conflict in Kargil did not
invalidate, any more than the earlier wars did, these commitments. Both at
Tashkent and at Simla, there were solemn agreements to settle differences
by peaceful means, including bilateral negotiations. More recently, in the
Lahore Declaration, the prime ministers of India and Pakistan agreed that
"their respective governments shall intensify their efforts to resolve all
issues, including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir."

In a somewhat different context, the UN Security Council Resolution 1172
underlined the same need for negotiations on all outstanding issues,
including Jammu and Kashmir. Echoes of this resolution have been heard in
numerous statements made by other organizations, including the non-aligned
movement, groups of nations and individual states and countless men of
goodwill from all over the world.

The articulation of the latest doctrine - this time of 'limited war' -
indicates that India is no longer guided even by the above-mentioned
analysis of the Kargil episode by Mr. Jaswant Singh. The shift is reflected
in a progressive replacement of even a conditional dialogue by a policy of
preparing the people of India for war.

The Pakistani reaction ranges from the atavistic fear that India has not
abandoned its ambition to dismantle the partition of 1947 to a new
apprehension based on the reversal of Indian attitude towards the United
States. The present impasse on the resumption of bilateral negotiations is
attributed to India's need to turn Washington's tilt towards India during
the Kargil crisis into a quasi-permanent anti-Pakistan alliance.

On the basis of their recent exchange of views with important members of
India's political class, many western experts maintain that India is simply
not interested in talks with Pakistan any more and that it is flirting with
the idea of a short but highly destructive war with Pakistan. To quote one
of the best informed from amongst them, India and Pakistan have never been
further away from a required negotiated settlement of their disputes than
today. Indian decision-makers, he says, are tragically succumbing to the
perception that Pakistan is irrepressible, that it would not give up
support for the Kashmiri militants and that India must opt for a policy of
waging an intense war to destroy the Pakistan army which is the main source
of Pakistan's challenge to Indian hegemony. The additional plank of this
policy, according to some analysts, would be to 'accelerate the current
Indian drive to weaken Pakistan internally and ultimately try to dismember
it, leaving behind one more Bangladesh and three Nepals'.

There is a growing resignation in Pakistan to a prolonged suspension of
bilateral negotiations. If it was a simple case of what the Rand
Corporation calls 'ugly stability' in South Asia, it may not be cause for
excessive concern. Behind the stalemate in bilateral contacts lies a grave
situation in Kashmir that can spin out of control if not managed in time.
The banality with which references are being made in India and Pakistan to
a conflict between two nuclear-armed neighbours comes from a deterministic
Hobbesian view of the subcontinent that must be energetically resisted by
all men of goodwill.

The optimists amongst us are not prepared to accept that the two countries
cannot break out of the current situation and address their disputes more
realistically and creatively. The informal India-Pakistan consultations
referred to above were reassuring inasmuch as they indicated that
individuals and groups in both two countries were more than willing to work
for a peaceful settlement.

It is important that people in both the countries step back from the
stereotypes and generate ideas around which alternatives to entrenched
positions on outstanding issues could be crafted. We need
confidence-building measures ( CBMs) that begin with a candid recognition
of competing perceptions. They have to begin, like war, in the minds of
men. Important as they are, the CBMs can hardly be the First Cause of
peace; they must be preceded by a shared commitment to the imperative of
resolving disputes through peaceful negotiations.

It may sound gratuitous but there is merit in reaffirming, through
judicious declarations by statesmen from each side, the belief that there
is no military solution to India-Pakistan problems and that they remain
committed to their peaceful settlement, as pledged by them in earlier
declarations. In situations of potential conflicts elsewhere, such
declaratory statements have helped, particularly when they replace
intimidatory rhetoric. In this regard, the old idea of a No-War Pact may be
looked at again.

India and Pakistan must also signal to each other and to the international
community that they attach greater gravitas to their nuclear weapon
capability and that they are conscious of the need to avoid hair-trigger
confrontation in this context by developing together a suitable nuclear
stability regime. Articulating more transparent command and control
arrangements can do part of this signalling even unilaterally. Such
transparency may, amongst other things, obviate 'the danger of a
pre-emption' by either side.

SAARC was not designed as part of any architecture of peace and security
in South Asia. Nevertheless, the opportunities offered by it for informal
contacts at the highest level have been an asset in understanding the
deeper concerns of the parties concerned. It is time India waived its
reservations about holding the overdue SAARC summit and let the dynamics of
regional cooperation contribute to the lessening of tensions. The smaller
states also have a great stake in regional stability.

Fresh thought must be given to exploring ways and means to discuss
possible solutions of the Jammu and Kashmir issue without prejudice to the
strongly held declaratory positions of the two countries. The narrative
built around the Lahore summit between Prime Ministers Vajpayee and Nawaz
Sharif included some facile optimism about an impending breakthrough on
Kashmir.

This was probably not justified. But we should find out if there were
seminal ideas at the time that are still valid and relevant. The present
situation on the Line of Control does not advance the interests of either
country. Procedures exist for calming it down and should be invoked without
any further delay. The calculation that clashes across the LoC sensitize
the people to accept the logic of a limited conventional conflict is
dangerous as it wilfully factors out unintended consequences of a
provocative policy.

India's position on outside mediation is well known. But external
assistance in establishing a peace process is amenable to a great deal of
calibration and India should find the shade of grey that does not conflict
with its declared rejection of such assistance. Even a limited role, such
as conveying messages faithfully, may help identify steps that de-escalate
the explosive situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

The atmosphere is also greatly vitiated by allegations and
counter-allegations of cross-border subversion and acts of terrorism from
which no part of India and Pakistan seems to be immune. Track Two diplomacy
can play an effective role in reducing misperceptions in this regard.
Terrorism is not only morally abhorrent but also counterproductive as very
often it only strengthens the resolve of the victim to frustrate the
planned objectives of the practitioner of terror.

Pakistan must not allow itself to be enticed by fallacious doctrines of
'limited war'. If the strategic choice is peace, the contingent policies
should not deviate from it. One productive response to provocative things
emanating from New Delhi would be to mobilize domestic and international
forces in defence of peace and negotiated solutions.

_______

#2.

Outlook
Issue Dated February 14, 2000

Book Review | On the Abyss: forthcoming Harper Collins book of essays by
Pakistani writers

Extract: PAKISTAN

Dreaming the Pax-Talibana Nightmare
As chaos rules post-coup Pakistan, Tariq Ali
revives the call for a South Asia confederation

It was during Zia's regime (1977-89) that a network of madrassas (religious
schools) was established throughout the country. Initially, most of these
were funded by foreign aid from a variety of sources. These schools became
the training ground for a new religious 'scholar'.

The forthcoming Harper Collins book of essays by Pakistani writers

Since boarding and lodging were free, it was not only the children of poor
Afghan refugees who flocked to receive this privileged and unique
instruction. Poor peasant families were only too happy to donate a son to
the madrassas. They thought it would be a mouth less to feed at home and
the boy would be educated and might find a job in the city or, if he was
really lucky, in one of the Gulf states.

Together with verses from the Koran (to be learnt by rote) and the
necessity to lead a devout life, these children were taught to banish all
doubts. The only truth was divine truth and the only code of conduct was
that written in the Koran and the Hadiths. Virtue lay in unthinking
obedience. Anyone who rebels against the imam rebels against Allah. The aim
was clear. These madrassas had a single function. They were nurseries
designed to produce fanatics. The primers, for example, stated that the
Urdu letter jeem stood for jihad; tay for tope (cannon); kaaf for
Kalashnikov and khay for khoon (blood).

It's no secret that the fundamentalists have penetrated the army on every
level. And unlike the old-style religious groups, they want to seize state
power.

As they grew older they were instructed in the use of sophisticated hand
weapons and taught how to make and plant bombs. ISI agents provided
training and supervision. They could also observe the development of the
more promising students or the Taliban, who were later picked out and sent
for more specialised training at secret army camps, the better to fight the
'holy war' against the unbelievers in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's oldest Islamic party, the Jamaat-i-Islami, had grown in
influence during the Zia years. Its leaders assumed that they would run the
schools. The party has always prided itself on its cadre organisation built
on the underground 'Leninist model' of small cells. It shunned mass
membership, but this may have been because it, in turn, was shunned by the
masses. Its leaders now thought their time had come. They saw the students
as potential recruits. They were to be disappointed. New problems arose.
Since dollars were freely available, different Islamic factions emerged and
began to compete with each other for mastery in these schools and a
division of the spoils. The ISI became the arbiter of intra-religious
disputes and favoured some groups against others.

=46or a time the Afghan war consumed their energies. After the first war was
over, the Pakistani state refused to accept a coalition government in
Afghanistan. It was Benazir Bhutto's government that unleashed the Taliban,
backed by Pakistan army commando units, in an attempt to take Kabul. The
US, fearful of Iranian influence in the region, had backed this decision.
"Pakistan was the condom the US needed to enter Afghanistan. We've served
our purpose and=8Acan be just flushed down the toilet," says a retired
general.

The dragon seeds sown in 2,500 madrassas produced a crop of 225,000
fanatics ready to kill and ready to die for their faith when ordered to do
so by their religious leaders. Gen Naseerullah Babar, Benazir's minister
for the interior, confided to friends that since the Taliban were becoming
a menace inside Pakistan, he had decided that the only solution to the
problem lay in giving the extremists their own country. This argument was
disingenuous at the time, but in the light of what has happened over the
last two years, Babar deserves to be tried as a war-criminal.

An EU-style South Asian confederation of republics should make it
perfectly possible for both India and Pakistan to guarantee an autonomous
Kashmir. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cold War came to an
end, leaving behind orphan-states on every continent. The effect in
Pakistan was catastrophic. The fundamentalist groups had served their
purpose and, unsurprisingly, the US no longer felt the need to supply them
with funds and weaponry. Overnight, the latter became violently
anti-American and began to dream of revenge. Pakistan=92s political and
military leaders, who had served the US loyally and continuously from 1951
onwards, felt humiliated by Washington's indifference. A retired General
summed it up succinctly for my benefit: "Pakistan was the condom the
Americans needed to enter Afghanistan. We=92ve served our purpose and they
think we can be just flushed down the toilet."

The Pakistan army-one of the Pentagon's spoilt brats in Asia-refused to be
relegated to the status of Kuwait. In order to gain attention it threw a
nuclear tantrum. The explosion has had the desired effect. Pakistan is back
on the 'B list' of countries in the US state department. On 29 November
1998, the then foreign minister, Sartaj Aziz, attempted to soothe Western
opinion: "I see no possibility of an accidental nuclear war between
Pakistan and India. Pakistan has an effective control and command system".
This is pure nonsense on a scientific level, but even if one were to accept
the statement, a political question is immediately posed. What if reality
began to imitate our nightmares and the Taliban took over the Pakistani
Army? Every political leader in Pakistan is aware of the danger. Nawaz
Sharif attempted to pre-empt political Islam by stealing some of its
clothes, but this is a tactic that rarely works and is usually a mark of
desperation.

The irony of the present situation is that religion in the Punjab always
was a relaxed affair. The old tradition of Sufi mysticism, with its
emphasis on individual communion with the Creator and its hostility to
preachers, had found deep roots in the countryside. The tombs of the old
Sufi saints, for centuries the site of annual festivals during which the
participants sang, danced, drank, inhaled bhang and fornicated to their
heart's content, were placed under martial law by General Zia. The people
were to be denied simple pleasures.

THE peculiarly non-Punjabi form of religious extremism did not arrive in
Pakistan from nowhere. It was approved by Washington, funded by Saudi
petrodollars and carefully nourished by Zia. The result was the birth of
madness. The twisted and self-destructive character of the groups that have
been mushrooming over the last five years is hardly in doubt. Ninety per
cent of Pakistan=92s Muslims are Sunnis. The rest are mainly Shias. The
Sunnis themselves are divided into two major schools of thought. The
Deobandis represent orthodoxy. The Barelvis believe in a more synthetic
Islam, defined and changed by local conditions. For many years these were
literary disputes, often debated in public by mullahs and religious
scholars. No longer. Every faction now lays claim to Islam, a moral and
political claim. Disputes are no longer settled through discussion, but are
resolved by machine-guns and massacres.

Some Deobandi factions want the Shias to be declared as heretics and,
preferably, physically exterminated. A sectarian civil war has been raging
for nearly three years. The Sunni group Sipah-e-Sahaba (Soldiers of the
=46irst Four Caliphs) has attacked Shia mosques in the heart of Lahore and
massacred the Shia faithful at prayer. The Shias have responded in kind.
They formed the Sipah-e-Mohammed (Soldiers of Mohammed), got Iranian
backing and began to exact a gruesome revenge. Several hundred people have
died in these intra-Muslim massacres, mainly Shias.

In January this year, an armed Taliban faction seized a whole group of
villages in the Hangu district of Pakistan=92s North West Frontier Province.
They declared the area to be under 'Islamic laws' and promptly proceeded to
organise the public destruction of TV sets and dish antennae in the village
of Zargari. This was followed by the burning of 3,000 'obscene' video and
audio cassettes in the small square in Lukki.

There is something slightly comical in this hostility to television and it
reminds one of a situationist spectacle in the sixties, but humour, alas,
is not something associated with the Taliban. A leader of the movement,
Hussain Jalali, wants to extend the Afghan experience to Pakistan. After
the television burning, he declared: "The hands and feet of thieves will be
chopped off and all criminals brought to justice in accordance with Islamic
laws."

"What can we do?" a supporter of the Sharif brothers had asked me, wringing
his hands in despair. "These bastards are all armed!" I pointed out that
some of the bastards were being armed by the government to create mayhem in
neighbouring Kashmir, but that Pakistan's bloated army was also armed. Why
weren=92t they asked to disarm these groups? Here the conversation ended. Fo=
r
it is no secret that the fundamentalists have penetrated the army on every
level. What distinguishes them from the old-style religious groups is that
they want to seize state power and for that they need the army.

In fact one of the most virulent of the groups, the Lashkar-e-Toiba, is a
creation of the ISI. Its political wing, Ahle-Hadis, wants the Saudi model
implanted in Pakistan, but without the monarchy. They have supporters and
mosques throughout the world, including Britain and the US, whose aim is to
supply cadres and money for the worldwide jehad. The Ahle-Hadis is the most
orthodox of the Sunni sects and is in a minority except that it has
powerful supporters-government ministers grace its meetings. Their
sub-office is at 5 Chamberlaine Road in Lahore. I was tempted to go and
interview them, but the sight of thirty heavily-armed guards persuaded me
against the venture.

The group's armed wing, Lashkar-e-Toiba (Soldiers of Medina), couldn=92t
exist without the patronage of the army. It has a membership of 50,000
militants and is the leading group in the jehad to 'liberate' Indian
Kashmir. They are trained by the army at eight special camps in Azad
(Pakistani-controlled) Kashmir and are funded by Saudi Arabia and the
government of Pakistan. They recruit teenagers from poor families for the
holy war. They have lost several hundred members in Kashmir. The government
pays them fifty thousand rupees for each corpse returned from Kashmir.
While fifteen thousand rupees are paid to the family of the 'martyr', the
rest helps to fund the organisation.

The Harkat-ul-Ansar (Volunteers Movement), once funded by the US and backed
by the ISI, was declared a terrorist organisation by the state department
last year. It promptly changed its name to Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. Its
fighters were amongst the most dedicated Taliban and it has shifted its
training camps from the Punjab to Afghanistan. The Saudi terrorist, Osama
Bin Laden, continues to maintain close contacts with the ISI and his
supporters have warned the government that any attempt to abduct him or ban
his organisation would lead to an immediate civil war in Pakistan. They
boast that the army will never agree to be used against them. Why? Because
there has been a symbiosis of sorts. There are too many of their supporters
in the army and on every level.

Both these groups want to take over Pakistan. They dream of an Islamic
=46ederation which will impose a Pax-Talibana stretching from Lahore to
Samarkand, but avoiding the 'Heretic Republic of Iran'. For all their
incoherence and senseless rage, their message is attractive to those layers
of the population who yearn for some order in their lives. If the fanatics
promise to feed them and educate their children, they are prepared to
forego the delights of CNN and BBC World. It is this prospect that is truly
frightening.

The only other alternative is to mend the breach with India. The 1998 visit
of the Indian prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, to Lahore was welcomed
by business interests and an otherwise critical print media. There is a
great deal of talk of a new permanent settlement. An EU-style arrangement
that incorporates India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. An opening of
the frontiers and a no-war pact between India and Pakistan. It is
undoubtedly the most rational solution on offer, but it would necessitate
the disarming of, at least, the Lashkar-e-Toiba. During his visit, the
Indian prime minister had demanded this as a gesture of goodwill.

When a leader of the group was informed of this request by a Pakistani
official, he replied: "Try and disarm us, if you can. If you do, we will
have to do now what we were planning to do in two years=92 time. It=92s up t=
o
you." It is this desire for a head-on clash, this urge towards an explosive
encounter, even if they turn out to be the victims of such an encounter,
that marks the new wave of Islamic militants in Pakistan. Mercifully, they
still constitute a minority in the country, but all that could change if
nothing else changes.

Has anything really changed with the coup of October 12, 1999? Most of the
liberal intelligentsia, disillusioned with traditional political

alternatives and too exhausted to act themselves, were hopeful that
Musharraf would modernise the structure, but the underlying problems refuse
to go away. Good intentions alone cannot change Pakistan. The problem posed
by the existence of armed fundamentalist organisations cannot be solved by
adopting an ostrich pose.

The army is no longer a unified institution. Well-organised groups of
Islamic zealots have penetrated its core. Unlike the older and more
traditional religious parties, the Sipah-e-Sahaba, the Sipah-e-Mohammed,
the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen are all hungry for power.
Their preferred model is that of the Taliban. If such a faction were ever
to take over the Pakistani army-and the possibility is not as remote as it
seemed a few years ago-the possession of nuclear weapons would acquire a
frightening new significance.

That, too, will achieve little, for the only serious and rational
alternative to domestic chaos is a long-term Treaty of Friendship and Trade
with India, a new permanent settlement which could form the basis of a
larger EU-style confederation of South Asian Republics. Within such a
framework the Kashmir question, too, could be amicably resolved. After all,
it should be perfectly possible for both India and Pakistan to guarantee an
autonomous Kashmir within such a confederation. In fact, Kashmir could
become a haven of peace, symbolising a new peaceful co-existence. If the
political will existed in Delhi and ghq in Rawalpindi, what I am suggesting
is perfectly achievable.

=46or over fifty years, Pakistan has turned its back on India, imagining it
could replace its giant neighbour by cultivating links with the Gulf states
and Saudi Arabia. (The only exception was in 1961 when Ayub Khan, under US
influence, offered a joint defence pact to India. Nehru retorted: "Joint
defence against whom?" The answer came a year later on the Sino-Indian
border. Interestingly enough, the joint defence proposal aroused very
little protest in Pakistan itself!) The strategy has been a political and
economic failure, leaving the country denuded of a skilled labour-force and
incapable of meeting its own basic needs. In recent years, there were a few
signs that politicians of the main secular parties were beginning to
explore a new economic deal with India. Pressure from the fundamentalists
and the army sent their heads quickly back into the sand. And yet this
remains the only rational solution in the medium term. All other options
are bleak beyond belief.

The ISI-armed fundamentalists are waiting in the wings. The hijacking of an
Indian Airlines plane and the release of a fundamentalist leader was merely
a symptom of the dangers that lurk underneath the surface of Pakistan's
social fabric. Previous civilian governments could not guarantee law and
order outside a few cities. If the army too fails in this respect the
future could be unpredictable and chaotic. If they decide to split the army
it would unleash a bloody civil war, with devastating consequences for the
entire region. If the politicians of the subcontinent fail to devise a way
of living together, they might end up dying together. India, as the largest
and most powerful of South Asian states, needs to take a serious peace
initiative in the region and to make offers to its neighbours which are
difficult to reject.
_______

#3.

The new issue of Akhbar, your window on South Asia is online. You can visit
it at http://members.xoom.com/southasia/

The new material includes the following:

Wages of Neglect: South Asia at the turn of the Millennium

Special: Capitalism in Asia at the End of the Millennium by Prabhat Patnaik

=46eature: Jeremy Seabrook on the women workers of Dhaka

Culture and History: KN Panikkar on the right wing cultural project

Media: Ashok Nehru on the role of media in the selling of the fascist
ideology of Hindu Right in India

Review: Kalindi Deshpande reviews the joint convention of six women's
organisations held in New Delhi to work out a national charter of demands

_______

#5.

Indian Express
8 February 2000
Op-Ed.

My sexuality is your business
by Nishit Saran

Of course, it is completely fine if you are gay. What you do in your
bedroomis none of my business. But why do you need to talk about your
sexuality?Why do you need to make a public issue of such a private
matter? Not a daypasses without someone or the other asking me this
question, and it angersme to no end. However innocent it might be on the
surface, there lurksbehind it a mo-st disturbing sort of ignorance about
the living reality ofgay persons. Which is all the more disturbing when
the question comes fromeducated people who claim, with great
sophistication, that they are coolwith my being gay.

What I do in my bedroom has to be your business, my sophisticated
friends.For you made my sexuality a public matter even before I was
born. Have youheard about Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code? Section
377 is ourridiculously archaic law against "unnatural" offences. It
states: "Whoevervoluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of
nature with any man,woman or animal shall be punished with imprisonment
for life". Section 377officially sanctions the public disgust and hatred
of homosexuals in thiscountry. It makes me, in the eyes of the law, a
criminal subject toimprisonment for life. It effects a whole gamut of
civil and criminal lawsthat deny gay persons the rights that
heterosexuals take for granted everyday. And you say that my sexuality
is a private matter!

Section 377 might be yet another anachronism in the Indian legal
system.But, unlike other archaic laws, this particular Section continues
to have adevastating effect on the daily lives of an estimated 50
million Indiancitizens. It stands in sharp variance with international
law and withcovenants to which India is a signatory (such as the
Universal Declarationof Human Rights and the International Covenant on
Civil and PoliticalRights). More crucially, it is likely
unconstitutional. Section 377 violatesArticles 14 and 15 of our
Constitution since it arbitrarily and oppressivelydiscriminates against
persons on the basis of their sexual identity. It alsoviolates the right
to life and liberty under Article 21, which has come toinclude the right
to privacy. Section 377 was a gift from our wonderfulcolonial masters
who, it must be noted, repealed the law themselves in 1967.

In 1860, as part of the colonising effort, the British introduced a
standardIndian Penal Code which replaced, among other things, a rather
tolerantIndian attitude towards sexuality with a highly moralistic and
hostileJudaeo-Christian one.

No surprise, then, that the concept of "unnatural" offences is an
obsolete,Victorian one suspicious at best of sexuality and no longer in
anyaccordance with living realities. Look at the law again: the "order
ofnature" in the statute refers, of course, to sexual acts that are
intendedfor procreation. The idea that sex is only meant for making
babies isridiculously outdated.

Section 377, by the way, makes the entire government effort of
=46amilyPlanning illegal, since this encourages acts against the order of
nature aswell! Should we now ban the use of condoms and outlaw the
Ministry of Healthand Family Welfare? Section 377 does not differentiate
between consensualand non-consensual acts. It also does not
differentiate between adults andminors. It, therefore, puts
homosexuality on the same criminal footing as,say, child molestation. Is
there no difference between the violent rape of aseven-year-old child
and the loving and completely voluntary decision of twoadults to sleep
with each other?

Most people do not even know that this law exists. And one could just
let itbe if the law was not enforced in the particular way it is. Many
studieshave shown that Section 377 is used most often for blackmail and
extortion,but more importantly, the law is preventing crucial work in
HIV preventionin a country with the largest number of HIV-infected
people in the world.

Let us start talking about 377 now, and let us scrap it before it is
toolate. After all, we are not talking only about a ridiculous law on
paper. Weare also talking about the lives of millions of real people and
theircollective fear and pain.

The writer is a filmmaker

Copyright =A9 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.

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