[sacw] SACW Dispatch #2 | 24 July 00

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch #2
24 July 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex
[This issue of the dispatch is dedicated to the memory of Danial Latifi one
of India's foremost campaigners for secularism and democracy]

#1. India: Danial Latifi, 1917-2000
#2. Pakistan: Shotgun divorce shows rise of Islamic parties
#3. Pakistan: NGOs vow to counter fanatic elements
#4. Bangladesh: Women push for voting rights
#5. Sri Lanka: Anti War Film Banned
_____________________

#1.

Economic and Political Weekly,
July 1, 2000
Commentary

DANIAL LATIFI, 1917-2000

Danial Latifi, a third generation nationalist, passed away on June 17. He
was 83. He was born on March 15, 1917 at Bombay. His grandfather, the late
Justice Badruddin Tyabji, was the president of the Indian National Congress
in 1887.

In 1935, Latifi joined St John's College, Oxford, to study jurisprudence.
During his stint at Oxford, Latifi participated in the Union debates, where
he even beat Edward Heath who later went on to become prime minister of
England. While in England, Latifi was drawn into revolutionary student
politics and the Indian freedom struggle. He, along with the late Mohan
Kumaramangalam and the late Feroz Gandhi, founded the Federation of Indian
Student Societies in Great Britain and Ireland, which played an important
role in the foundation of the All India Students=92 Federation. On his retur=
n
to India in 1939, he joined the freedom struggle as well as his legal
practice with Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Soon after second world war began,
Latifi was arrested and convicted under the Defence of India Act and was
imprisoned. In 1946, he moved to Bombay and became the general secretary of
the BBCI Railwaymen's Union.

After Independence, Latifi concentrated on his legal career at the Supreme
Court, throughout which he had always been an advocate of civil liberties,
and for his ideological commitments he refused to become a judge in the
Supreme Court in the early 1960s. He had always championed the cause of
trade unions, peasants and workers. Latifi was one of the founder-general
secretaries of the All-India Association of Democratic Lawyers and in
1958-59 he represented India at its bureau meeting.

Latifi was an active member of the Bombay bar, and appeared in a number of
landmark cases, which included the famous Nanavati case.

Subsequently, at the Supreme Court, Danial Latifi=92s first major appearanc=
e
was along with D N Pritt, QC in the case of the Telangana Twelve (1950-51),
where he played a leading role in defending the revolutionary Telengana
peasants of Hyderabad. Latifi also appeared in several cases on the issue
of minority rights, and the interpretation of Article 30 of the
Constitution of India, viz, Aligharh Muslim University Case (1968) and St
Xavier's College case (1975).

During, and following the Emergency, Latifi appeared in several habeas
corpus petitions. In the post-Emergency period, he succeeded in persuading
the High Court of Delhi to intervene in the famous court martial case in
the matter of R S Bhagat. This case spelt out the parameters of judicial
review in such matters.

The Shah Bano case (1985) is Latifi's most significant contribution to
women's empowerment. Shah Bano Begum's husband challenged the high court
order which enhanced the maintenance granted to her from Rs 25 to Rs 179.20
per month. The Supreme Court had to answer the question whether Muslim
personal law imposed an obligation upon the husband to provide for
maintenance to his divorced wife after the period of 'iddat'? Another issue
was whether Muslim personal law prevents a divorced Muslim woman from
approaching a court of law under Section 125 of the Cr PC for maintenance.
Latifi appeared for the respondent, Shah Bano Begum, against her husband.

The appellants contended that as per Muslim personal law, after the period
of 'iddat', the husband had no obligation to maintain his divorced wife.
Latifi strongly opposed this contention and cited several Muslim jurists in
support of his position that the sum provided for maintenance of divorced
woman must in all circumstances be reasonable. The Supreme Court, by a full
bench decision, upheld Latifi=92s contention, and the appeal was dismissed.
Despite the subsequent introduction of the Muslim Women=92s (Protection of
Right's) Act, the Shah Bano case still stands as a milestone on the road to
empowerment of women. Despite his commitment for the cause of women=92s
empowerment and his conviction about the need to reinterpret shariat,
Latifi strongly opposed a uniform civil code without consensus among
Muslims.

In 1994, on behalf of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Research and Education
=46oundation, Sikandrabad (UP), Latifi moved an application intervening in a
case related to the distribution of property according to the 'shariat' and
requested the Supreme Court to declare the 'triple-talaq' in one sitting
illegal and un-Islamic since the Holy Quran does not approve this widely
prevailing practice among Muslims. The Supreme Court accepted the plea and
referred the case to the constitutional bench where it is still pending.

During the last two years, he dedicated all his activities very
successfully to the cause of preservation and promotion of Urdu language.
He not only intervened in a pending appeal in the Supreme Court in a case
regarding the legality of second official language status in different
states. He also organised two symposia on January 16 and April 16, 1999 in
support of Urdu where he successfully mobilised the Urdu masses in a very
large number and luminaries of our national life and the Judiciary
addressed both the symposia. He led a delegation to the Congress president
Sonia Gandhi, and in a long meeting with her convinced her of the
importance of making Urdu the second official language of Delhi. His
endeavours bore fruit and paved the way for recognition of Urdu language,
along with Punjabi, as the second official language of the state of Delhi.
Most important in this regard was Latifi's demand for inclusion of a
provision for Urdu education in the proposed bill. But, in an act of sheer
hypocrisy, the Congress Party introduced a lame Urdu bill without any
provision for Urdu education. The officially-sponsored Urdu intelligentsia
did not come forward to support Latifi=92s stand and his protest against the
toothless bill.

______

#2.

South China Morning Post
24 July 2000
SOUTH ASIA TODAY

SHOTGUN DIVORCE SHOWS RISE OF ISLAMIC PARTIES

PAKISTAN by TASGOLA KARLA Bruner in Islamabad
The case of an 18-year-old woman who was forced to divorce
her husband because she, not her family, chose him has human rights groups
worried about the Government's failure to rein in reactionary religious
groups.

In addition to criticising the Government's failure to stop the forced
divorce, which they say is illegal, human rights advocates said they had
other reasons to be concerned.

They criticised two of the Government's recent decisions: backtracking on
a change to a law that would have made it more difficult to accuse someone
of blasphemy and reiterating, through an amendment, that Islamic
injunctions are part of the provisional constitutional order set up after
the military's October 12 coup when Pakistan's constitution was put in
abeyance.

The 18-year-old married in a court ceremony in Sindh province last week.
When she was called to Sanghar, about 250km north of Karachi, to give a
court statement to attest she had married of her own free will, an
estimated 1,000 armed protesters gathered in a stadium to denounce her. The
woman did not give the statement. Her husband agreed to sign the divorce
papers after he was assured by her family that she would not be harmed
after returning to them.

Human rights groups say hundreds of women have been killed in Pakistan
over the past few years by relatives for choosing their own husbands or
because they were suspected of engaging in premarital sex. They fear that
despite the family's assurances, the 18-year-old woman's life is in danger.

Mehnaz Rehman, co-ordinator for the Aurat (Women) Foundation in Karachi,
said that while the practice of so-called "honour killings" is not
supported by Islamic teachings, there are religious groups that make that
interpretation.

"Islam gives all people freedom to choose a partner, but in the
subcontinent religion is interpreted differently," she said. "Religious
lobbies have their own vested interest. Mullahs are uneducated."

She said the Government of General Pervez Musharraf was coming under the
same pressure as previous civilian governments to meet the demands of these
groups.

"Governments don't dare touch religion, so religious groups take advantage
of that," she said. "Look what [General Musharraf] tried to do with the
blasphemy law - the religious groups came on with a vengeance."

Zaman Khan, a lawyer for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in
Lahore, called the forced divorce "barbaric" and said the Government's
backtracking on blasphemy law and the reaffirmation of the Islamic
injunctions showed the weakness of the Government. "The religious parties
are a minority in Pakistan," he said. "They've never won an election, but
they always put pressure and governments succumb to it."

But Mehmood Ahmed Ghazi, religious affairs adviser on the Government's
National Security Council, rejected this argument. "Everybody is making
demands - the traders, religious groups, politicians, journalists," he
said. "Now it's up to the Government to make decisions on these demands. If
it happens that a decision favours one group, it doesn't mean that the
Government is giving in."

______

#3.

News International
24 July 2000

NGOS VOW TO COUNTER FANATIC ELEMENTS

LAHORE: At least 50 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) across
the country on Sunday pledged to counter fanatic religious elements
and urged the government to evolve a code of conduct for a tolerant
society.

Addressing a news conference at the Lahore Press Club, the NGOs
representatives, including Kishwar Naheed, Khawar Mumtaz and Nigar
Ahmad, said the 50 NGOs at a meeting had condemned the negative
attitude of fanatic religious elements, especially of those in Dir,
Malakand, where NGOs women are being forced for 'Nikah'.

The NGOs representatives from Hazara, Balochistan and Sindh said
the situation is worse than written as the anti-NGOs environment
are hampering their activities with the secret agencies
harassing them.

Irfan Mufti from Punjab said the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and
Military Intelligence officials had been found harassing their
workers. To a question that federal ministers Zubeda Jalal and
Javed Jabbar had never voiced such excesses, they said, Zubeda
worked in a progressive area near border with Iran. They also asked
the religious people to comprehend the NGOs fighting for the
people's rights.

______

#4.

South China Morning Post
Monday, July 24, 2000
SOUTH ASIA TODAY

WOMEN PUSH FOR VOTING RIGHTS

BANGLADESH by ARSHAD MAHMUD in Dhaka
Tradition and the law are at odds in the remote Bangladeshi
village of Berubari, where women have been excluded from voting for decades
even though three women traditionally sit on the village council.

For nearly 30 years, women in the remote village in Kurigram, near
Rangpur, have not voted. Although 4,000 appear on the voters' list
published last week, they will not be able to cast ballots in village
elections or in the national poll due next year.

The reason is a so-called cultural ban, imposed nearly three decades ago,
which stops them not only from voting but from even visiting a polling
station.

Election Commission officials said they were not aware of any official ban
and insisted all citizens were allowed to vote.

Berubari is not even a conservative village, and the women are not forced
to wear purdahs (veils), which Muslim radicals insist upon. The women not
only can be seen without a veil, many of them work alongside their menfolk
in the fields.

According to a report in the Janakantha newspaper, nearly 30 years ago
three influential village elders decreed that the women should not go to
polling stations. In those days the candidates in all elections were men.
Because of this, the elders argued, it was unnecessary for women to cast
their votes for male candidates.

At the same time, they ruled that women should always support the views of
their husbands. Even if they could vote, they should make the same choices
as their spouses.

Saima Khatun, Jahanara Begum and Hamida Begum were elected to the village
council last year to three seats reserved for women but did not receive a
single vote from the 3,858 women voters in the village. Ms Saima Khatun was
elected with 365 male votes.

"This is untenable in this age," she said, suggesting that the Election
Commission should intervene immediately to stop the decades-old practice.
She had decided to speak out on the issue although she could pay a price
for doing so.

Opposition to the tradition is growing louder and gaining momentum. Last
year, a group of educated younger people backed by many women questioned
the village elders' wisdom and demanded the ban be lifted.

The elders agreed to seriously consider the issue.

"That they've agreed to look into the matter is a victory for us," said
Asia Begum, a 30-year-old woman. "We don't want to meet the same fate as
our mothers and grandmothers. We want to vote."

______

#5.

Khaleej Times
23 July 2000

ANTI-WAR FILM BANNED IN LANKA

COLOMBO - The Sri Lankan government on Friday banned an anti-war Sinhalese
feature film saying its screening was inappropriate as the country was
placed on a war-footing since May, following the massive counter-offensive
by the LTTE to recapture the Northern Jaffna peninsula.

The National Film Corporation of Sri Lanka (NFCS) said it was compelled to
suspend the screening of "Purahanda Kaluwara' (Death on full moon Day),
planned for July 25, on the instructions of Sarath Amanugama, Minister for
Rehabilitation, Reconstruction and Development of the northern region, an
NFCS press release said.

The film was banned in Sri Lanka as it depicted the horrors of war and
discouraged youth from joining the army.

However, the minister said the film could be permitted to be screened after
the security situation improved in Lanka. Directed by Prasanna Vithanage,
the film has won many international awards including the best actor award
at the Singapore Film Festival and the grand prix at Ameins festival in
=46rance. Made with financial assistance provided by NHK Television of Japan=
,
the film has been shown in many major cities around the world. - PTI

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