[sacw] sacw dispatch (21 May 00)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch
21 May 2000
__________________________
#1. India: Hindu Right Monopoly
#2. India: When attackers of Christians came out on bail, guess who
welcomed them
#3. India: VHP yatra delayed over temple model
#4. London: Asian women's Picket to support Biba Sarkaria in Prison
#5. India: Letter to Indian Home Minister by Maitree: a Women's Group
__________________________

#1.

The Telegraph
21 May 2000

PARIVAR MONOPOLY=20
=20
BY MUKUL KESAVAN
=20
=20
What is the best way of making secularism work in India? How should
citizens, political parties and democrats deal with the creeping
majoritarianism that has begun to redefine the common sense of Indian
politics?
One answer has been a political coalition of the relatively oppressed.
This is the political strategy favoured by Yadav & Yadav, which builds
upon the Mandal platform. In this plan, a political coalition unites
religious minorities, plebeian clean castes and Dalits and denies
electoral majorities to coalitions dominated by upper-caste or savarna
parties. The strategy has seen some success in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar
at the expense of the Congress model, which yoked together Brahmins,
Muslims and Dalits. It has also seen much failure because the residual
category of the savarna that it creates is not just economically, but
also numerically powerful and able to coopt plebeian groups: tribals,
Kurmis, other members of the so called backward classes. For example,
Arun Katiyar of the Bajrang Dal is a Kurmi. Kalyan Singh, till recently
the Bharatiya Janata Party's chief minister in Uttar Pradesh, is a
backward class politician.

The southern or Tamil example of a lower caste coalition is similar, but
also fundamentally different. Historically, the Dravida movement's enemy
was not a coalition of upper castes; south Indian society generally
doesn't conform to varna typology. The enemy was one narrowly defined
group - Brahmins. Southern Brahmins were numerically weaker and much
more isolated as compared to the north Indian triumvirate of Brahmin,
Thakur and Bania, and therefore, given the rules of democratic politics,
easier to overcome. Besides, a secular politics wasn't the object of
Dravidian anti-Brahminism, it was a by-product. Dravida Kazhagam
politics was anti-Hindu rather than secular, though this might seem a
patronizing way of describing the deeply felt atheism and rationalism of
the Dravidian project.

At the national level, the Dravidian model is not a good blue-print for
a secular combination because the social context that nourished it
doesn't exist elsewhere. Also, times change and anti-Brahminism isn't
the cause it was once. In Tamil Nadu itself, the success of the
Dravidian project has led to the subversion of the ideology that powered
it. With the Brahmins cut down to size, it is possible for a non-Brahmin
Tamil to be Hindu without discomfort. Today, DMK cadres, ministers even,
participate in Hindu ritual with impunity; this would have been
unthinkable five or ten years ago.

An anti-savarna coalition of the Yadav sort is a likelier political
strategy in the Hindi heartland, but it faces large obstacles on the
road to power. It creates - by the nature of its politics - a large,
powerful enemy. Also rainbow coalitions are hard to manage because their
constituents often represent rival interests in rural society. There is
no natural conjunction of interests between, say, Yadavs and Chamars;
more often, there is a durable history of hostility. Besides, as Eugene
Genovese, the historian of American slavery has pointed out, rainbow
coalitions force the most oppressed (blacks in the United States, Dalits
here) to devalue a uniquely disabling experience of subordination, to
make common cause with other plebeians.

A secular politics can't be built by fudging a common experience of
oppression. The chances of plebeian solidarity building secularism in
this country aren't compelling. As a general rule, secular coalitions
should be as inclusive as possible. Secularism isn't going to be built
by nominating high-caste Hindus as the enemy. Making the savarna Hindu
secularism's hate figure alienates the most literate, powerful and
networked section of the population.

Secularism is not a radical project. Nehru's Fabianism and the
commitment of Indian communist parties and Marxist academics to
secularism has given the idea a pinkness, a vaguely socialist air.
Nothing could be more misleading. Secularism in India has historically
been the keystone of bourgeois politics. Secularism began life before
independence as a way of assembling an inclusive nationalism which could
credibly challenge British imperialism on a subcontinental scale. After
independence, the secularist project became a bourgeois,
liberal-democratic attempt to establish restraining norms that would
allow the state, this leviathan, to work credibly for all its
constituents.

Secularism is to the state and politics what the Monopoly and
Restrictive Trade Practices Act is to companies and commerce. It is a
set of fair play norms that prevents any one religious group, regardless
of its size or competence or power, from monopolizing the culture and
politics of a nation and its institutions. In an ideal world, deviation
from secular practice by the government, public sector undertakings,
industry and educational institutions would be monitored by a statutory
watchdog body, in exactly the same way as the Environmental Protection
Agency in the US monitors compliance with rules designed to protect the
environment.

Think of a contemporary analogy. The department of justice is trying to
restrain Microsoft from monopolizing computer operation. Windows users
are to desktops what Hindus are to India. They dominate the computer
environment, most software is directed at them. This in itself is not a
bad or culpable thing; natural majorities can't help themselves. Things
become problematic only when Microsoft begins to parley this numerical
strength into an oppressive dominance by using its control of the
operating system to rig the market against other software companies,
thus stifling competition and innovation and denying users choice.

The fact that Hindus are an overwhelming majority in India is not a
problem. Nor is it their fault that advertisers, TV programming,
magazines, greetings cards manufacturers, shopkeepers, movie makers tend
to take their sensibilities into account more than those of Muslims,
Christians or Sikhs. How many Hindi film heroes have you seen who wear
turbans and beards? The market looks at volumes; that's why Hindi movies
are likely to stage a Hindu wedding more often than a Muslim nikah
(though there was a movie by that name that did moderately well).

It needs to be said, though, that the business generated by a religious
occasion isn't always limited by the size of the community that
celebrates it. Christmas drums up more business than Indian Christians
alone could account for. But even if the market were always to tend
towards the presumed tastes of the Hindu majority, secularists would
have no cause for complaint, no beef.

But if a company like the Sangh Parivar Pvt. Ltd. was to use its
hypothetical control of Hindus and its real control of the state to
insist that no one distributed Bibles or sold beef, that would be
rigging the market. It would be unfair, it would be unjust and some
department of justice would be right to intervene. =20

________

#2.

Indian Express
21 May 2000

WHEN ATTACKERS OF CHRISTIANS CAME OUT ON BAIL, GUESS WHO WELCOMED THEM

by RAKSHIT SONAWANE

NASHIK MAY 20: Christian organisations in Nashik today called for the
ouster of the minister of state for Dairy Development, Arjun Tulshiram
Pawar, from the ministry for ``welcoming'' the 33 youth allegedly
involved in the recent attack on Christians at Abhona when they were
released on bail on Wednesday from the Nashik jail.

Pawar, who was elected to the state assembly on an NCP ticket from the
Kalwan (ST) constituency -- which includes Abhona -- was at the head of
a reception committee comprising activists of the BJP, RSS and VHP. As
the accused emerged out of the jail, the sangh members gave them a
rousing reception by applying tilak and garlanding them amidst slogans
of jai Shree Ram. Pawar, who was present right through the celebrations,
spoke to the accused at length before departing.

Expectedly, Pawar's presence has annoyed Christians organisations which
took out a morcha today to the Nashik collectorate to demand his ouster
from the government headed by Vilasrao Deshmukh of the Congress.

The youths were charged with attacking a Christian gathering at Abhona
on May 9 and injuring two Christian tribals. They had allegedly burnt
down the screen on which a film on Jesus Christ was being shown, set
fire to three vehicles and ransacked a bus carrying religious
literature.

After the incident, the president of the Maharashtra unit of the NCP
Babanrao Pachpute and minister of state for social welfare Laxmanrao
Dhobale visited Abhona on May 11. They had assured action against the
accused. Pawar, too, had visited Abhona the same day but all three
ministers were cold-shouldered by the villagers, who claimed that their
teenage sons were innocent and had been framed -- perhaps prompting
Pawar to make amends by joining the welcome party at the jail.

But Pawar's tightrope walk between Hindus and Christians of his
constituency did not work. The local units of the Republican Party of
India (Athawale faction) and the Congress also participated in the
morcha taken out by the Christian Love In Action (a charitable
organisation), the Evangelical Alliance Christian Church and several
other Christian organisations to the Nashik collectorate. In a
memorandum submitted to the collector, the protestors demanded the
ouster of Pawar and the arrest of BJP leader Gopinath Munde for publicly
congratulating the accused youth.

The protestors further demanded a ban on ``communal'' organisations and
protection for Christiansn and their shrines. They also demanded that
the church demolished by `communal forces'' at Sadadpada village in Peth
tehsil of Nashik district be rebuilt and the local Shiv Sena leader
Bhaskar Gavit be arrested for masterminding the attack.

The issue had figured in the state-level convention of the BJP in Nashik
and the party leader Pramod Mahajan had told party workers that though
every citizen had the right to profess and propagate any religion,
conversions through forcible means or through allurements should be
opposed and in doing so a conflict was inevitable and justified.

Let govt decide if it's illegal:

Arjun Tulsiram Pawar, confirmed he was present to welcome the accused.
He said just as he had visited Abhona to appeal for peace when the
Christians were attacked, he was there at the jail to receive them
because they were ``my voters''. ``I have not committed any crime,'' he
argued and said it was for the government and to court to decide if it
was legal or illegal.

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

#3.

Asian Age
21 May 2000

VHP YATRA DELAYED OVER TEMPLE MODEL

By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi, May 20
The proposed shobha yatra of the Ram temple model, which the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad was sheduled to organise around this time from Jaipur to
Ayodhya, has been shelved till a later date because the model is not
"road worthy" as yet.

According to Acharya Giriraj Kishore, the VHP secretary-general, since
the model is to travel all the way from Jaipur to Ayodhya by road, it
has to be made sturdy enough to withstand the arduous road journey. VHP
sources disclosed that some "technical details" of the model, which had
been left out, were being taken care of, causing the delay.

VHP leaders said the model will be ready in July, only then the date for
the yatra will be announced. The VHP had announced in April that the Ram
temple model will be presented by artisans to VHP leaders in Jaipur on
May 18. This model was then to be taken to Ayodhya in a shobha yatra for
being installed for darshan at Karsevakpuram.

Acharya Kishore had told The Asian Age that the model, being built at a
workshop in Jaipur, will be 14 feet long, 11 feet wide and seven feet
high. "This model is an exact replica of the grand Ram temple that will
be built in Ayodhya," he had said.

Political observers see a deliberate design in the VHP's plans though.
They say the yatra has been deliberately delayed in order to gradually
build up the tempo for the temple movement to coincide with the assembly
elections in Uttar Pradesh which are due early next year.

The VHP has also said the programme for the temple construction will be
announced next January during the Kumbh mela in Allahabad as it is an
auspicious time. It is believed that the shobha yatra has been
deliberately delayed to coincide with the Kumbh mela.
_________

#4.

21 May 2000

SUPPORT BIBA SARKARIA
JUSTICE FOR BLACK WOMEN IN PRISON

Come to the PICKET outside THE HOME OFFICE
50 Queen Anne's Gate, London, Nearest Tube: St James Park
12.00 - 3.00pm on Thursday 25th May 2000

Biba Sarkaria, an Asian woman prisoner at Cookhamwood has for years fought
for equal rights for Asian women. Biba has kept in touch with many of the
Asian women prisoners when they have left Cookhamwood and with other Asian
women prisoners in other prisons. She has challenged the prison officers
over a series of racist incidents and human rights abuses. She has given
moral and practical support to many women inside and outside prison.
According to Patricia Powell a prisoner at Cookhamwood: 'Biba knows her
rights more than any of us and she fights for them not just for herself but
for all of us.'

Biba Sarkaria has ten weeks of her sentence left and is now fighting to get
hospital treatment without handcuffs for a heart condition that has left her
right arm numb. She is also wants her right to home leave which has been
denied to her four times (since October 1996) and recently she was told that
the authorities are still assessing her 'risk to security'. And she demands
that she be rehabilitated now that there are ten weeks left before she is
released.

Biba Sarkaria=EDs condition is rapidly deteriorating and there needs to be
some urgent action. After a mild attack on the 17th April, when the
fibulator in her heart failed, and another one on the 25th and 28th doctors
have diagnosed a blood clot in her arm which poses a serious risk to her
life as it could affect her heart or lungs at any moment. Biba urgently
needs medical treatment. Biba says: 'I will not go to hospital handcuffed
anymore because I feel that this is my right. They should be rehabilitating
me now due to my excellent behaviour inside. I feel I am being discriminated
against because I am an Asian and a sikh. I refuse to be treated as a second
class citizen. Other women prisoners I have known who have served long
sentences have all left here with preparation for release. I am not being
given anything, nothing, no free phone calls to contact my family, no visits
to the shops, no home leave to get used to living outside, and now they
won=EDt even allow me medical treatment without handcuffs. It is the governo=
rs
responsibility to provide me these rights.'

On Friday 5th May Biba was given a cell search and prison authorities
confiscated papers which contained details of prisoners' rights. The
authorities claimed that these documents were 'unautharised articles' and
Biba must explain why she had them. This is despite the fact that these same
documents (which are available to anyone on request) had passed through the
prison scrutiny before arriving with Biba. On Sunday 7th May Biba was told
that there is nothing wrong with her health and that she was well enough to
be summoned before Governor Dingwall to explain how she acquired these
documents. The prison doctor, Mr Piya Dasa, after a cursory examination
where he poked Biba's arm and claimed she was fit enough despite earlier
warnings by the nurse and Dr Frame that Biba should not be put under undue
stress. Biba says 'I would rather die a dignified death than be treated like
a dog on a lead.'

Last year in April, Biba Sarkaria went on hunger strike against prison
racism. She continues to raise her voice against the brutal repression,
sexism, and racism of the prison regime.

Organised by Asian women in prison support group and Asian Women Unite
C/o londecInstrument House, 205-217 Kings Cross Rd WC1X 9DB, U.K.
Tel: 020 -7713-7907

_________

#5.

May 21, 2000

To,Shri L.K. Advani,
Minister of Home Affairs,
Government of India,
New Delhi, India.
Dear Shri Advani,
This is to bring to your notice that the National Security Act (NSA) has
been invoked against four workers of Sahayog, an NGO based in Almora, U.P.
In September, 1999, Sahayog published a pamphlet entitled AIDS AUR HUM.
Suddenly in April, 2000, several people broke into the offices of Sahayog
and attacked its workers. The police and administration did little to
protect Sahayog. In fact, 11 staff members of Sahayog were arrested. A
situation of such terror was created that even the Almora Bar Association
announced that no one should represent the accused and verbally attacked
the four lawyers who agreed to take up the case. An apology and withdrawal
of the pamphlet by Sahayog on April, 26, was of no avail. On May 1, the
application of bail for the Sahayog workers was rejected. On May 4, the
men and women in judicial custody were paraded through the market and the
men had to bear the additional humiliation of being handcuffed.
In the meanwhile, we have reports that the Union Minister of Human Resource
Development, Shri Murli Manohar Joshi spoke publicly and angrily against
Sahayog and asked for strong measures to be taken
against them. During the following week the NSA was invoked on Jashodhara
Dasgupta (Secretary) , Abhijit Das (Coordinator), Sunita Shahi ( Programme
Officer ) and Surendra Dhapola ( Programme Officer ) of Sahayog.
We, the members of Maitree, a womens network of NGOs , womens groups and
individual activists in West Bengal unequivocally condemn the denial of
human rights and imposition of censorship on the Sahayog activists.
The invocation of NSA is the utmost violation of democratic rights of a
citizen. We feel that such acts that erode the constitutional rights of
individuals should under no condition be invoked in a democracy.
The handcuffing and the denial of bail in this case is totally unjustified.
In 1980, Mr. Justice Krishna Iyer, in a Supreme Court judgement prohibited
hand cuffing unless there was a clear and present danger of violence or
escape. The Supreme Court also decrees that bail can be denied only in
extraordinary circumstances. None of these conditions exist.
Even if we were to accept without reading that the pamphlet was obscene,
the breach of peace that came seven months later was caused by attacks on
Sahayog and not by Sahayog. This is a classic case of convicting the
victim.
The action of the Bar Association is also a violation of the rights of the
individual. Every citizen accused of a crime has the right to defence.
We are deeply concerned that censorship is imposed on citizens groups in
the name of local sentiments. Maitree demands that the NSA be revoked and
the activists released immediately.
Yours truly,Jharna Maityon behalf of MAITREE.

MAITREEContact office :Jeevika Development SocietyFlat 1/ A , South End
View Building ,P. O. Joka , Dist . South 24 Parganas ,West Bengal
743512.Email : jeevika@c...

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