[sacw] SACW | 15 Dec. 00

[Harsh Kapoor]

SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WIRE
15 December 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex)

#1. Pakistani militant leader calls for boycott of television
#2. India: EYE-WITNESS: Demolition Day
#3. India's Prime Minister & the Babri Mosque
#4. Book Review: The decline and fall of the indus civilization
#5. India Pakistan Arms Race & Militarisation Watch #28 (15 December 2000)

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#1.

samwonline.com
Thursday, December 14, 2000

Latest News

Pakistani militant leader calls for boycott of television

Thursday, December 14, 2000 1:06:47 AM EST

ISLAMABAD, Dec 14:
Pakistani militant leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed has called on his
followers to boycott television and recorded music to help fight off Jews,
Hindus, Christians and communists, a report said Thursday.
Speaking in a sermon in central Multan Wednesday, the leader of the
Lashkar-i-Taiba militant group also demanded the cash-strapped Pakistani
government shun all sources of credit that charge interest.
He said Muslims were fighting enemies on all fronts and Jews, Hindus,
Christians and communists had =93united=94 against them, the Nation daily
reported.
People should shun television, especially Indian dramas, and music
cassettes to =93devote their time and energies for the cause of Islam,=94 t=
he
report said.
Muslims were being attacked from Kashmir to the Palestinian territories and
had to unite in support of Mujahideen fighters.
The Lashkar-i-Taiba is one of the more hard-line militant groups fighting
against Indian rule in the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir.
Last weekend it threatened to launch fresh attacks against Indian forces,
saying New Delhi's offer of a truce during the ongoing Islamic holy month
of Ramadan was "nothing but a trap."
Other pro-independence Mujahideen groups have rejected the ceasefire,
arguing it is meaningless without tripartite talks between the Kashmiris,
India and Pakistan.
India accuses Pakistan of providing military support to the militants, a
charge Islamabad denies while offering open diplomatic and moral backing to
their "freedom struggle".
More than 30,000 people have died in Indian-controlled Kashmir since the
Muslim rebellion erupted there in 1989. =96 AFP

_____

#2.

The Hindustan Times
14 December 2000
Opinion

EYE-WITNESS: Demolition Day

by Rajiv Bagchi

It's been eight years now, but the images keep crowding the mind. The
initial euphoria giving way to destruction and death. The cries of joy
and sorrow, the chaos, and finally, the huge domed structure coming down
to the ground with a heavy thud. Not a soul present in Ayodhya on that
black Sunday afternoon had any doubt that it was all a craftily-planned
operation designed to bring down the 400-year-old Babri masjid brick by
brick. There was no bomb, no explosion, only the madness of the rampaging
kar sevaks and the sound of the pickaxe chipping away at the mosque.
Mark the sequence of events in the run-up to December 6. Kar sevaks were
packed into Ayodhya and most of them were ignorant of the events that
unfolded. All they knew was what the Sangh parivar had told them: that
the shilanyas of a Ram temple would take place in the foreground of the
Babri masjid.

On December 5, the BJP had organised an elaborate drill in the ground
adjacent to the masjid. Men and women in saffron were paraded in front of
the national and international media. They, reporters were told, would
file past the shilanyas sthal chanting mantras. Piles of bricks, 'Ram'
inscribed on them, were stacked in one corner of the ground. They would
be used to lay the foundation of the Ram temple, local BJP leaders
announced. No harm would be done to the Babri masjid, Sangh parivar
chieftains repeatedly told the media.

At a press briefing later in the evening, Giriraj Kishore, the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad leader, dismissed speculations about any harm meant to the
Babri masjid. It was a religious ceremony that the Sangh had planned,
Kishore kept repeating. But even as this aged Sangh sadhu was preaching
peace, barely 500 metres away, Vinay Katiyar, the Bajrang Dal MP from
Faizabad, was not so sure that the shilanyas would pass off peacefully.
Surrounded by Bajrang Dal members sporting saffron bandanas, Katiyar
pointed to the Babri masjid in front of him. "This is a symbol of
injustice," he said, "and Hindus will set right the wrong." But would
the shilanyas pass off peacefully? Katiyar smiled. He wasn't as sure as
his parivar peers. In fact, he was angry that the shilanyas of the Ram
temple was taking place in the foreground of the masjid. And he did not
hide his emotions. "That's not where we planned the mandir. It should be
on that hill," he said, pointing to the Babri masjid.

In one corner of the room where Katiyar was sitting talking to the media,
lay a pile of pickaxes, ropes and shovels. What were they meant for?
Katiyar pleaded ignorance. "I really don't know. All I can say is that
they have been brought here by my followers. There's more in the room
next to this. Maybe they would be used for the shilanyas, to remove the
mud. But I can't say what's going to happen tomorrow. You see, we have
more than a lakh devotees coming in." The meeting over, as reporters
walked out of the room, many caught sight of heftily-built kar sevaks
working with ropes and shovels in the small ground adjacent to Katiyar's
home. There was this nagging suspicion that something was amiss,
something was being planned away from the public eye. The first signs
of trouble came around 10 a.m. on December 6. After brief speeches by BJP
leaders L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharati, kar sevaks
started filing past the shilanyas sthal.

Suddenly, a group of people started pelting stones at the Babri masjid.
The small group of policemen around the masjid took the brunt of the
attack, but beat a hasty retreat after the stones rained on them.
Initially, most of the kar sevaks were taken by surprise and started
fleeing the area. But a group of young men sporting Bajrang Dal badges
stopped them, asking them to scale the barricade around the masjid. The
barbed wire fencing soon gave way and a wave of kar sevaks stormed the
Babri masjid. Behind them came the demolition squads of the Sangh
parivar, armed with pickaxes, ropes, shovels and iron rods. And even
while there was complete chaos all around, the prayer hall of the masjid
packed with thousands of people, the demolition squads went about their
job of bringing down the structure with professional expertise.

They went for the pillars first, while another group climbed on top of
the huge domes, loosening the mortar with their axes and bringing down
brick after brick with makeshift pulleys made out of ropes. Outside the
masjid, youths sporting saffron bands kept people away. Photographers who
had rushed near the masjid to take shots were beaten up and warned not to
click. Journalists too were beaten up.

It was obviously all a well-planned operation. It took roughly four hours
to raze the Babri masjid. The inside of the masjid was cleared of all
people and the base pillars on which the structure was resting were
brought down one after another. Only a team trained in demolishing
buildings could have done the job so competently and in so short a time.
The task of razing the structure over, it was time for the temple to come
up. Bamboos, tarpaulin sheets and the idols surfaced as if from nowhere.
And within the next two hours, even as politicians were debating on the
future course of action, the Ram Lalla temple was there on the site where
once stood the Babri masjid.
_____

#3.

The Hindu
15 December 2000

Vajpayee and the Babri Masjid

By Rajeev Dhavan

MR. VAJPAYEE has a party political memory. It is not the memory of a Prim=
e
Minister. Mr. Vajpayee seems to have forgotten that he represents all the
people of
the most varied multi-cultural and multi-religious nation in the world.
Between the
Himalayas and the Indian Ocean lies a veritable civilisation composed of
measureless
diversity. It is not a question of numbers. But, the numbers themselves
are daunting.
India is the third largest Muslim country in the world after Indonesia an=
d
Bangladesh. It houses more Christians then the population of Australia.
Buddhism
and Jainism are practicing faiths in India. Hinduism, itself, is a
compendium faith of
many varied, breathtaking and, often, inconsistent interpretations. All
this is known.
It is all too easily forgotten. It has to be repeated again and again to
remind Mr.
Vajpayee that he must behave like a statesman. He cannot continually walk
back to
his Jana Sangh origins. He must look forward. He is the Prime Minister of
India. He
has forgotten that he represents 100 million Muslims and people of
innumerable
persuasions. Unfortunately, this too, needs to be said.

The Babri Masjid was destroyed on December 6, 1992. It was a wanton act o=
f
constitutional sacrilege. If India is to survive as one nation and one
civilisation, such
a sacrilege is simply impermissible. This is not simply because the
Constitution and
the law do not permit it. Or, because the Supreme Court has declared
`secularism' to
be part of the basic structure of the Constitution. Without secularism,
there can be no
India as we know it. To lose the gift of secular tolerance, religious
equality and
benign neutrality to all peoples and faiths is to lose the entire
enrichment of India's
unparalleled but turbulent history. There is little point in going back
to the
`sacrileges' of the past. Many did occur. No one defends the `sacrileges'
of India's
ancient medieval or pre-Independence past. The new post- independence com=
pact
between all communities' peoples and faiths in India unequivocally looks
to the
future and decries any future sacrilege as an act of faith of all
Indians. This is
relevant for the near future and the more distant coming together of the
subcontinent
as a whole.

See complete article at:
http://www.the-hindu.com/stories/05152523.htm

_____

#4.

The Telegraph
14 December 2000

BOOK REVIEW / ANCIENT CARGO=20
=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20
=
=20
BY MAHESH RANGARAJAN
=
=20
=
=20
The decline and fall of the indus civilization
Edited by Nayanjot Lahiri,
Permanent Black, Rs 650

The discovery of the ruins of the ancient cities of Harappa and Mohenjodaro
in the Indus basin in the Twenties was not only an exciting event that
"restored three missing millennia to South Asia's past". It also set off
debates about the causality of the collapse of this remarkable
civilization, its character and its relation to subsequent epochs that
have not died down to this day. Politics is never far from history: at
times it even uses it as propaganda. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan spoke
of 5,000 years of his country's history in a bid to tap its pre-Islamic
heritage. At present, saffron apologists wish to annex the entire period
to Vedic cultures that, for them, signify what is truly Indian about
India. Their antagonists argue in fav-our of a different frame of
reference, even while moving beyond a crude Aryan invasion theory.

The volume is more than a compendium of the debates: it is also a guide to
the issues at the heart of them. For one, the editor extends our field of
vision well beyond the Indus valley itself. Originating around 2600 BC in
Kutch and Bahawalpur, the latter now in Pakistani Punjab, the civilization
went through several phases and stages. Even its end was staggered in time
over nearly four centuries. Further, she draws attention to the diversity
of production systems that coexisted at the same time. Simply focussing on
the great cities can distort one's sense of perspective. Chanda and Gordon
Childe marked out the Aryan invaders as external invaders who triggered
collapse through conquest. But the former changed tack, once he reexamined
the evidence. Neither the scale of the influx, nor the remains from the
cities, backs up the invader theory, which seemed attractive to scholars
in the imperial age. The Indus valley was brought into the rubric of Aryan
Vedic history from the Fifties. Again, this was a deeply political
enterprise.

Little evidence of separate races exists, and it was always possible to
dig out Sanskrit references to argue that the Harappans were Vedic. If the
British read too much into the invader theory, their nationalist
successors saw more than met the eye in Vedic glory. Few serious students
line up in either camp today. It is a pity that outmoded ideas exercise
such sway on the public mind, even after they have been torn to shreds in
the smaller communities of academics.

Most interestingly, the whole issue of the collapse of the great urban
settlements by the year 1800 BC has now attracted attention from an
ecological point of view. Put differently, did the peoples of these cities
actually impose such a strain on their surroundings that nature took
revenge? Pollen analyses bring the issue of climate change into the
picture, pointing to the possibility that nature had its own cycles of
change, with people sometimes on its wrong side. Careful readings of the
evidence suggest the whole drama of growth and collapse may well have
taken place during an arid phase.

Still, the amulets and seals show animals like the rhinoceros that one
would not imagine anywhere in the vicinity of the Indus system today.
Given the extensive spread of the Harappan settlements eastward into
Saharanpur, there were probably different clocks ticking away at various
paces in the myriad sites. Mohenjodaro appears to have been subject to
slow and steady decay, a consequence of the changes in the river system.
Elsewhere, decline was swift.

The meticulous detail involved in the argument is itself a tribute to the
ways in which scholars of ancient India have assimilated present day
ecological concerns. In this, they have much in common with those who have
studied other ancient cultures. Salination is a candidate in debates on
Sumerian decline and deforestation in the downfall of Greece. The Romans
are charged with denuding north Africa of its fauna and timber forests.
Even when such hypotheses do not stand up to careful scrutiny, the fact
that they are at all considered shows a closer engagement with history in
terms of human relations with the natural world.

Geography and ecology, the soils and climate are not just a stage on which
the drama is played out, but become an integral, sometimes vital, part of
the narrative. Of particular interest is the shift in river systems. Far
from being a fixed feature of the landscape, rivers do change course. The
Ghaggar was a major cluster of settlements in the mature Harappan phase,
but it dried up around 2100 BC. This shift probably doomed the city of
Kalibangan.

Lahiri brings to bear unique insights due to her longstanding association
with the field. She also has a formidable expertise with archaeology, but
wears it lightly. The volume introduces us to a slew of opinions, pointing
at times to how individual scholars changed their positions as their
knowledge grew. One goes beyond labels to the substance, from polemics
that mark public posturing to the debates that shape our views of the
past. The volume, the first in a series on history from the new house of
Permanent Black, sets high standards that will be tough to equal. Its
appearance is timely given the new claims about deciphering the Indus
script by N.S. Rajaram, the favourite, if self-styled, "historian" of the
RSS's mouthpiece, Organiser.

Yet, its net effect is to make one beware of those who reduce the past to
a pamphlet or a broadsheet. As we move towards the second century of Indus
studies, what is clear is that there is so much more to find out about the
decay of the remarkable civilization. Even as old queries find answers,
new ones rise in their place. Lahiri's selection whets the appetite, as it
illumines a complex set of debates in a manner accessible to both the
specialist and the lay person.

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#5.

INDIA PAKISTAN ARMS RACE AND MILITARISATION WATCH #28
(15 December 2000) is now available:

The latest issue of IPARMW & its complete archive is available at:
http://www.egroups.com/group/IPARMW

______________________________________________
SACW is an informal, independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run by South Asia Citizens Web
(http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex) since 1996.
Dispatch archive from 1998 can be accessed
at http://www.egroups.com/messages/act/
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Disclaimer: opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily correspond to views of SACW compilers.