[sacw] SACW | 30 Nov. 00

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire 
30 November 2000 
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex)

[Appologies to all who recieved multiple copies of yesterdays dispatch. This happened due to a bug on the e-mail server; I would like to assure all that the problem will not repeat and that all seems well.]

____________________________

#1. Pakistan: Sindh's Babari Mosque
#2. India / US-China-Pakistan / Bangladesh: The 1971 watershed
#3. India [Hindu Right] : VHP - Dharma Sansad in mind, Sangh parivar looks for new issues
#4. Diaspora: Marina Budhos: about Hindu fundamentalism, ghosts, myths, her books

____________________________

#1.

The Friday Times
20 October 2000

SINDH'S BABRI MASJID

Built during the Emperor Akbar's reign, Sukkur's Masjid Manzilgah has been
the focus of communal tension

Momin Bullo

Situated in Sukkur near the once mighty Indus is a sad, desolate and
crumbling one-room mosque. Masjid Manzilgah stands ignored and abandoned,
hedged in on all sides by encroachers. Once it played a significant role in
the formation of the very nation that has now turned its back on it.

The Masjid was built during the reign of the great Mughal emperor
Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar in the 10th century Hijri by the governor of
Sukkur, Mir Masoom Shah Bukhari. But it was not until 1940 that it almost
overnight became the focal point of Hindu-Muslim conflict. As soon as the
freedom struggle gained momentum, the Muslims of Sukkur began worship at
this mosque, situated as it was in close proximity to the Hindu Teerath
Mandir "Sadhu Belo" in mid-stream of the river Indus.

Though the Muslims were justified in their re-use of the abandoned mosque,
there can be no doubt that their timing was politically motivated. It
worsened the already tense political atmosphere of the region with the
Hindus vociferously clamouring for the building for they claimed it as a
part of the Sadhu Belo temple.

Dr. Moonji, then a veteran Congress stalwart, rushed to Sukkur and chaired
a largely attended meeting of local Hindus. Soon the occupation of the
humble brick-built 8x8 feet mosque became a flaring point. Several meetings
between the local Congress and Muslim League leaders ensued to try to find
an amicable solution of the problem but all was in vain. Quite the opposite
happened. A large-scale crackdown against Muslim League leaders was
initiated by the minority government of chief minister Allah Bakhsh Soomro
(uncle of Illahi Bakhsh Soomro, former Speaker of the National Assembly)
and the disputed site of the mosque was sealed off.

A large Muslim procession led by Agha Ghulam Nabi Pathan started out from
Shikarpur on foot and reached the mosque after a 40 mile trek only to be
dispersed by the police. Mohammad Ayub Khuhro was detained at his village
Aqil in Larkana. G.M. Syed, Qazi Faziullah, Agha Ghulam Nabi Pathan,
Namatullah Qureshi, Dr. Mohammad Yamin, Agha Nazar Ali Khan, Pir Ghulam
Mujadid Sarhandi, Shaikh Wajid Ali and Syed Sadiq Ali Shah, some of the top
cadre of the Muslim League, were all arrested and sent to Hyderabad jail.
Haji Abdoola Haroon, Ali Mohammad Rashdi and several other politicians
fearing arrest fled to Delhi.

The mass arrest of the Muslim leaders changed the mood of the brewing
conflict between the Hindus and Muslims over the disputed mosque and,
hence, a hitherto peaceful but tense agitation abruptly turned into an
armed movement. Sukkur became the centre of unprecedented Hindu-Muslim
rioting in which several hundreds of people were brutally killed.

As rioting continued for over a month, the predominantly Hindu Sindh
Assembly expressed its lack of confidence against the chief minister Allah
Bakhsh Soomro who consequently lost his job. A high level inquiry tribunal
was constituted and finally it was established that the site belonged to
the Muslims for it was judged to be a mosque.

After all this, so as not to tip the precarious and fragile balance, the
disputed mosque was nevertheless sealed off until the partition of 1947.
Rioting between Hindus and Muslim in Sindh on the issue of the mosque gave
new life to the ongoing agitation for a separate Muslim homeland and caused
a mass exodus of Sindhi Hindus to India. It was the late G.M. Syed who in
his autobiography "Janab Guzarium Jin Seen" confessed that he had been
wrong to create and fan the issue of Masjid Manzilgah.

It is ironical that after nearly five decades, an identical conflict arose
in the Indian province of Utter Pardesh where Hindu-Muslim clashes broke
out over the Babri mosque. This mosque too had been built by a Mughal
emperor, albeit this time Naseeruddin Babar, and it was also but a shadow
of its former glory. Also similarly, the Hindus claimed it as their holiest
of holies, the Ram Janambhumi (Ram's birthplace) and claimed that an
ancient temple had been destroyed to build the mosque in the sixteenth
century. This struggle over the site of the mosque not only shook up the
Indian government but ended up causing changes in the political system of
India.

Masjid Manzilgah, therefore, may rightly be called the first "Babri Mosque"
of the subcontinent. Both mosques became the rallying cry of
fundamentalists, both Hindu and Muslim, and the issue although fifty years
apart became a precursor of a violent, communal politics. If the government
sees fit to preserve and conserve Sukkur's Masjid Manzilgah, it will serve
a dual purpose. An old and historic monument will have been saved which
will bear witness to the madness that can come of mixing religion with
politics.

_____

#2.

Frontline (India)
Volume 17 - Issue 24, 
Nov. 25 - Dec. 08, 2000

BOOKS

The 1971 watershed

A. G. NOORANI

>From A Head, Through A Head, To a Head: The Secret Channel between the U.S. and China through Pakistan by F.S. Aijazuddin, Oxford University Press; pages 163, Rs.395.

NOW that Vedic astrology has become an approved subject for academic study in institutions of higher learning, one feels encouraged to reflect on the impact on world affairs of a singularly baleful configuration of the stars in the heavens in 1971. There was "too much turmoil under the heavens", Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai told Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, National Security Adviser to President Richard Nixon, when he arrived in Beijing on July 9, 1971 on a trip that could truly be called historic.

Exactly a month later, on August 9, 1971, the Foreign Ministers of India and the Soviet Union, Swaran Singh and Andrei A. Gromyko, signed the Indo-Soviet Treaty. For two good reasons, it would be wrong to say that it paved the way for the India-Pakistan war. One was that the decision to march into the then East Pakistan was taken by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on April 6, 1971, less than a fortnight after the Pakistan army's brutal crackdown in the province on March 25. P.N. Dhar asserts that "it was o nly after Indira Gandhi visited the refugee camps in West Bengal, Assam and Tripura in the last week of May that she made up her mind on the Indian response to the crisis" (Indira Gandhi, the 'Emergency' and Indian Democracy, OUP; 2000; pag e 156. (emphasis added, throughout).

This is belied by a mass of material cited earlier (vide the writer's article "The Making of Bangladesh", Frontline; January 10, 1997). To wit, the account of Lt. Gen. J.F.R. Jacob, Chief of Staff of the Eastern Command, Calcutta, of a call from t he Chief of the Army Staff, Gen. Sam Manekshaw, about a call in "early April" telling him that "the Government wants the Army to move into Bangladesh", and Manekshaw's repeated claims that he was summoned before the Cabinet soon after the crackdown, and asked whether he could march in. The first such assertion was made by him in Mumbai on November 16, 1977 (vide Surrender at Dacca: Birth of a Nation by Lt. Gen. J.F.R. Jacob; Manohar, 1977; pages 35-36). The Deputy Director of Military Operations at Army Headquarters in New Delhi, Major-Gen. Sukhwant Singh, revealed in his candid work The Liberation of Bangladesh (Vikas, 1980, page 35) that "the Army was asked to take over the guidance of all aspects of guerilla warfare on April 30".

The Central Intelligence Agency came to know of it instantly. Henry A. Brandon of The Sunday Times, who was close to Kissinger, wrote in his book The Retreat of American Power (Doubleday, 1973; page 254) that "the Indian Cabinet on April 28 had secretly decided to prepare for the possibility of war". An omission in my earlier article is being repaired here. A.K. Ray, then Joint Secretary (Pakistan) in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), from December 1969 to May 1971 and Joint Secretar y, MEA Branch Sect. in Calcutta from May 1971 and Joint Secretary, MEA Branch Sect. in Calcutta from May 1971 to February 1972, disclosed in an article: "She had actually made the commitment on April 6" (Indian Express, Dece-mber 19, 1996). The of ficial history of the Bangladesh war, laced reportedly with fable and fiction, has been put in deep freeze. It cries to be leaked.

Less known is the second reason why the Treaty did not lead to war. India had sought it to warn China against intervening in the war to come. The Soviets intended to use it to restrain India (Tad Szulc's report in The New York Times, August 10). David Bonavia of The Times (London) reported on the same lines.

Pakistan was not unduly alarmed, as is evident from the minutes of a meeting of its Ambassadors held in Geneva on August 24-25, 1971. The texts were published in Samar Sen's weekly Frontier (October 13, 1971). Sultan Mohammed Khan, the Foreign Secretary, who presided, mentioned a letter which Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin wrote, on August 17, a week after the Treaty was signed, "promising Russia's continued desire to help Pa kistan". Pravda and Izvestia continued to balance reports from New Delhi and Islamabad until Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's visit to Moscow, in late September, when she brought about what Andrei Fontaine of Le Monde called "the Great Switch ". Moscow abandoned the fence (vide the writer's book Brezhnev Plan for Asian Security; Jaico, 1975; Chapter 8 on the Indo-Soviet Treaty and the Brezhnev Plan). Not much revelatory material has appeared in India since. What has appeared elsewhere proves what the discerning understood even then - China had neither the de!
sire nor the capacity to intervene. It did not support Pakistan's policy in East Pakistan. It was caught in the coils of the Cultural Revolution and faced a hostile Soviet Union.

First came Sultan M. Khan's memoirs Memories & Reflections of a Pakistani Diplomat (The London Centre for Pakistan Studies; 1997), a mini-classic on diplomacy. On his return from Beijing, Kissinger told his Pakistani hosts that "the Chinese had sa id that they would intervene with men and arms if India moved against Pakistan". Far from being taken in, the astute diplomat Sultan Khan accurately assessed it to be "a mis-interpretation of the actual language used by Zhou Enlai". All that he ha d said was that "in case India invaded Pakistan, China would not be an idle spectator but would support Pakistan". As he perceptively noted, "support can take many forms... In the context in which Premier Zhou Enlai spoke, there could be no question of s upport taking the form of armed intervention." He had met Zhou in April and records: "China never, during these or subsequent talks, held out any possibility of coming to Pakistan's aid with her armed forces" (pages 307-8).

Kissinger did worse than misinterpret. The disgraceful role he was later to play emerged in The Kissinger Transcripts: The Top Secret Talks with Beijing and Moscow edited by William Burr (The New Press, New York; pages 515, $30). It contained reco rds of Kissinger's talks with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Leonid Brezhnev, Andrei Gromyko and others, thanks to skilful recourse to the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive. It is a public interest research library at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., a Project of the Fund for Peace. It has the largest private collection of declassified national security information outside the government and serves citizens by obtaining and disseminating government records for an info rmed public debate on defence and foreign affairs.

The publisher, The New Press, is a non-profit alternative to the big commercial publishing houses which dominate the book publishing world. It operates in the public interest. William Burr, the editor, is a senior analyst at the archive and the director of its nuclear documentation project. This is a work of scholarship, as the introduction to the book and the introduction to each chapter and the annotations reveal.

Anyone can rummage through the archives and publish a collection of documents with little or no annotation as the Pakistani civil servant Roedad Khan did (The American Papers, Oxford University Press, 1999).

William Burr is a scholar who, having mastered the published record, is able to put the discovered archival material in context with the help of copious notes and incisive analyses. In particular, he nails to the counter the many false claims Kissinger m ade in his memoirs. One memorandum of conversation which he reproduces records Kissinger's talk with China's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Huang Hua, on December 10, 1971, in a CIA safe house in New York, a week after the war had broken out. Kissinger informed him: "We are moving a number of naval ships in the West Pacific towards the Indian Ocean: an aircraft carrier accompanied by four destroyers and a tanker, and a helicopter carrier and two destroyers... They (the Soviet fleet in t he Indian Ocean) are no match for the U.S. ships (showing Ambassador Huang the map)."

What he proceeded to add was unknown until the publication of Burr's work: "The President wants you to know that... if the People's Republic were to consider the situation on the Indian sub-continent a threat to its security, and if it took measures to p rotect its security, the U.S. would oppose efforts of others to interfere with the People's Republic." Shorn of diplomatic jargon, he offered that if China decided to intervene militarily, the U.S. would take care of any attack by "others" (read: the Sov iet Union) on China. This was said fairly early in a talk which lasted an hour and 50 minutes. Towards the end, Kissinger discarded diplomatic language: "When I asked for this meeting, I did so to suggest Chinese military help, to be quite honest. That's what I had in mind, not to discuss with you how to defeat Pakistan. I didn't want to find a way out of it, but I did it in an indirect way" (pages 52-55).

AIJAZUDDIN is a chartered accountant by profession and a successful businessman. He has written extensively on painting and aspects of Lahore's history. Ali Yahya Khan gave him access to the file his father, President A.M. Yahya Khan, had maintained on he secret contacts the U.S. made with China since 1969 with Pakistan as the intermediary. Those exchanges prepared the ground for Kissinger's visit in July 1971. "The core of this book consists of forty-nine secret documents from a file marked 'The Chine se Connection' assembled and maintained personally by the late President Yahya Khan of Pakistan. The documents cover the period 15 October 1969 to 7 August 1971, and include the messages sent by President Nixon and Dr. Henry Kissinger to Premier Zhou Enl ai through President Yahya, and vice versa."

Aijazuddin provides competent annotations. He has read widely and laboured hard. As well as the Yahya Papers, he has drawn on four documents from the National Security Archive - memorandums of conversations of Nixon and Kissinger's talks in Beijing, on F ebruary 22, 23, 24 and 28, 1972, and Kissinger's Report to Nixon on July 17, 1971 on his first visit to Beijing. This volume adds significantly to the literature on that crucial phase of history.

However, in order to make his resume interesting, Aijazuddin lapses into trivia. Worse, he misses significant bits of the document he has read; in the memorandums of conversations of December 10, 1971 for instance. He does not quote the excerpts, quoted above, in which Kissinger egged on China to attack India.

For Pakistan it was no small diplomatic achievement. "The first formal contact initiated by President Nixon, it will be recalled, occurred during his meeting with President Yahya Khan in August 1969 at Lahore, Pakistan. The first document in Yahya Khan's file is a message three months later, dated 10 October 1969, sent to President Yahya Khan by Major-General Sher Ali Khan Pataudi, then his Minister for Information and Broadcasting." It served as courier for nearly two years without breach of secrecy. O n one occasion, which Aijazuddin omits to mention, China's patience snapped. It threatened to break off the exchange if Kissinger was so coy about an open visit. Sultan Khan did not transmit that message. Instead, he mollified the Chinese Ambassador.

Aijazuddin renders a service by reproducing the texts of the messages exchanged. During Kissinger's second visit to Beijing in October 1971, "Chou surely recognised from my presentation that we have too great stakes in India to allow us to gang up on eit her side. Nevertheless he did not attempt in any way to contrast their stand with ours as demonstrating greater support for our common friend, Pakistan." Kissinger himself did not wish to intervene militarily, either. "In turn I made it clear that while we were under no illusions about Indian machinations and were giving Pakistan extensive assistance, we could not line up on either side of the dispute."

Pakistan was keenly aware of the dividends its efforts would yield. Its Ambassador to the U.S., Agha Hilaly, wrote to Yahya Khan on April 28, 1971: "So far as we are concerned, we will be placing Nixon under an obligation to us at this particularly delic ate moment in our national life when he is (the) highest dignitary in this country insisting on pressure not (repeat, not) being put on (the) Yahya regime in regard to (the) East Pakistan situation."

In his memoirs Kissinger claims that he told Indira Gandhi in New Delhi on July 7, 1971: "We would continue to oppose unprovoked military pressure by any nuclear power, as enunciated in the Nixon Doctrine." Aijazuddin reveals what he told his friends in Pakistan thereafter. "His views were summarised, probably by Sultan Khan, in a handwritten note on paper headed 'Govern-ment House, Nathia Gali', initialled and dated (9/7 July): Dr. Kissinger has stated that in Delhi he found a mood of bitterness, hosti lity and hawkishness, and he came away with an impression that India was likely to start a war against Pakistan. United States has conveyed a strong warning to India against starting hostilities but she may not pay heed, thinking that present hostile att itude of press and Senate against Pakistan offers her a good opportunity."

This writer would like to share with the readers a memorandum of conversation between Kissinger, on the one hand, and P.N. Haksar, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister and Vikram A. Sarabhai, Chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission, on the othe r. No one else, from either the MEA or the U.S. Embassy, was present. The memorandum was meticulously prepared by Winston Lord, a member of the National Security Council staff. It was an informal discussion for an hour and 40 minutes over luncheon at the Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi, on July 7, 1971. The writer is indebted to the National Security Archive for a copy of this document.

Kissinger disclosed: "We are just at the beginning of a meaningful dialogue with the Chinese... Over the coming months the U.S. might be able to make some significant starts in its relations with the Chinese, although we had no illusions about our differ ences." Short of telling his hosts that he would be in Beijing two days later, Kissinger revealed enough for New Delhi not to be too surprised when that historic trip was made known to the wide world on July 15.

In this context, what Kissinger said on India merits quotation in extenso: "Dr. Kissinger said that under any conceivable circumstances the U.S. would back India against any Chinese pressures. In any dialogue with China, we would, of course, no t encourage her against India. The U.S. knew that foreign domination of India would be a disaster. It was for a strong, independent India which would make for stability in the region. From what we knew, this was the Soviet aim as well, and we did not believe that the U.S. and Soviets had any conflicting interests in India. India was a potential world power. Our priorities would reflect these facts."

He added: "The U.S. hoped to use its influence with Pakistan, rather than cutting off all influence, and move it toward the type of political evolution in East Pakistan that we believe India wanted also."

Shortly after his return from Beijing, on July 16 Kissinger summoned India's Ambassador L.K. Jha to San Clemente to say that the assurance he gave in New Delhi would not apply in the event of China's intervention in an India-Pakistan war. During the war, he encouraged China to do just that.

Nor was Haksar any the more candid, when, agreeing with Kissinger, he said it was in India's interests to see Pakistan stronger. Winston Lord was quick to ask whether that covered both its wings: "Mr. Haksar confirmed that he meant East Pakistan a s well as West Pakistan." He knew, of course, that the Prime Minister had decided on war in April. It is about time India began publishing the records of 1971, if only to educate the astrologers, now in high favour, that the events of that year owed more to human folly and worse than to the stars.

Copyrights © 2000, Frontline & indiaserver.com, Inc.

_____

#3.

The Week (India)

VHP
SEARCHING FOR NEW AYODHYAS
WITH DHARMA SANSAD IN MIND, SANGH PARIVAR LOOKS FOR NEW ISSUES

Kanhaiah Bhelari/Sasaram,
Palash Kumar/Delhi and
Frederick Noronha/Goa

Jawahar Prasad is a man of action. And words. So it is only natural that he courts controversy. The former legislator from Sasaram in Bihar is the rallying point of Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists who have sworn to finish the construction of the marriage and prayer halls over a temple in the premises of the tomb of 16th century emperor Sher Shah Suri, in Sasaram.

He has the might of the district administration behind him and is confident of achieving his target. But the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is determined to stop Prasad, and has succeeded in getting the construction stopped. ASI officers, however, apprehend that Prasad will have the last laugh.

"I have asked the district administration to take a decision by December 5," said a confident Prasad. "After that, I will restart the work." The BJP leader claimed that 2,500 virgin girls were awaiting his signal to start the kar seva.

Prasad accused ASI Superintendent K.K. Mohammed of fomenting communal discord by stopping the work. "Nobody objected when the construction of the temple started in 1970," he said. "The then district magistrate used to come to the temple to take Goddess Kali's blessings. Mohammed should have first met the local people before stopping construction."

The temple, completed in 1977, is on a one-acre disputed plot just 200 metres from the tomb. The 52 acres on which the temple, tomb and a few mosques are situated is under the ASI's control. According to a local journalist, members of a particular community have built houses on five acres and cases regarding the encroachment are pending in court.

"In 1977, we had asked the Rohtas district magistrate to remove the illegal construction," said Mohammed. "We even sent 15 reminders but the administration took no action. The construction of the halls was stopped after I wrote to Chief Secretary V.S. Dubey in October."

New battlefield: The tomb of Sher Shah Suri opposite the controversial temple in Sasaram

The ASI has filed cases against Prasad and the priest Baba Doman Ram in connection with the illegal construction. The police, who had on earlier occasions ignored the ASI's complaints, reluctantly cooperated this time round.

Last year, Prasad allegedly assaulted the ASI's conservation assistant Sarwan Kumar and threw him down the temple's roof. Fortunately, Sarwan landed safely into the waiting hands of some employees.

Prasad, who was a tractor driver before he entered politics in 1990, denied having assaulted Kumar, though he admitted having more than 100 criminal cases against him. "All the cases are false," he said. "I have not killed even an ant."

What gives Prasad confidence must be the fact that no political leader would dare demolish the illegally-built temple. "Though the construction of the temple inside the premises of the tomb is wrong, the town would face communal riots if it is removed," said Bihar's Agriculture Minister Chedi Paswan, who hails from Sasaram.

Prasad reportedly has the blessings of opposition leader Sushil Kumar Modi of the BJP. The VHP is planning a demonstration at the tomb, where a plaque reportedly announces that it was built after destroying temples.

If there is one person who remains unaffected by all this hullabaloo, it is Baba Doman Ram. Unaware of the FIR filed against him, he still asks devotees to donate money for the construction work.

Elsewhere in the country, too, the VHP is on a confrontation path. It needs to boost the sagging morale of its cadre before the Dharma Sansad in January. After Ayodhya, the Sangh parivar has been bereft of issues and the recent demonstration at the Quwwat-Ul-Islam mosque near the Qutub Minar, was not an isolated incident.
I have asked the district authorities to take decision by december 5
Jawahar Prasad

The provocation for the demonstration was a plaque at the mosque which stated that the mosque was built after destroying 27 temples of the 12th century. "When Muslims can pray at the mosque, why can't we install idols where the temples existed," asked VHP's Delhi unit chief Rajendra Gupta, who led the agitation.

About 100 demonstrators held a Devmukhi yagya in front of the mosque and started a bhajan-kirtan, squatting on the road, before the police arrested 70 of them. Gupta claimed that statues belonging to the 12th century Hindu and Jain temples exist near the site. "The statues should be re-installed and we should be allowed to pray," he demanded. "The plaque should also be removed." His views are echoed by Acharya Giriraj Kishore, the VHP's senior vice-president. (See interview.)

Historian Akhilesh Mithal, while accepting the fact that temples were destroyed to build the mosque, argued that they might well belong to the Buddhist era. "All the old sites of that period are primarily Buddhist sites," he said. "It could well be a Buddhist temple. How far back can you go?"

In Goa, where RSS man Manohar Parrikar is chief minister, the parivar is moving cautiously. Even though the VHP has been raising disputes about some churches built by the Portuguese, including the one on Diwar island off the Goa coast, the saffron brigade is unlikely to raise the issue as long as Parrikar is at the helm.

One thing emerges clear amid all these claims and counter-claims. The VHP, after running a virulent campaign against the Christians, is once again gunning for its favourite target, the Muslims.

INTERVIEW/ACHARYA GIRIRAJ KISHORE, VHP SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT

Muslims must apologise if they want peace

What was the provocation for the recent demonstration at the Qutub Minar?

There is an inscription in the mosque that says, thanks to the powers of Islam, 100 temples have been destroyed to build it. Such inscriptions should be withdrawn. If Hindus have done it anywhere, we will withdraw it. Muslims should not insult Hindus.

What did you achieve by demonstrating?

The entire area belongs to the Archaeological Survey of India but Muslims have been allowed to pray at the mosque. That is why the Delhi unit of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad performed a yagya at that spot. It was an effort to create an atmosphere of communal harmony.

Communal harmony by holding a yagya inside a mosque?

No, not inside, outside.

But it was inside the compound of a historically recognised Islamic structure.
There is no logic in that. I can also ask why they [Muslims] asked for Partition. It is eight years since Ayodhya and the structure is still being called Babri Masjid.

So what do you want?

Muslims must apologise if they think they are the descendants of those who demolished our temples. They must apologise if they want peace.
Palash Kumar

_____

#4.

Source: Tehelka.com

"I GREW UP WITH GHOST STORIES"

Marina Budhos knows what it is to be twice displaced. A migrant of Indian origin from Guyana, she now lives in New York. In a deeply thought out interview, she talks to Ashley Tellis about Hindu fundamentalism, ghosts, myths, her books - especially Professor of Light - and the confusing, complex but ultimately enriching world of immigrants anywhere in the world.

Are you aware as you write that your writing is being perceived as a certain category within which you have to fit?

Not particularly. I don't think I have to fit into any category. I'm aware that since I began writing that publishing has opened up in the U.S. to a broadly multicultural literature. When I was first writing, in the mid-eighties this simply wasn't true. In the U.S. it was the heyday of minimalism and everyone, my peers were writing tight stories about disaffected white people in trailers or children of divorce in the suburbs. They wrote as if mainstream American and background was a given. You didn't see many people of other backgrounds in contemporary fiction. Then there was this explosion of immigrant and multicultural literature and the possibilities of both form and content seemed to open up. Publishers became much more aware of these voices. And I began to feel that I could experiment and play around in ways I didn't see out there before. I began to feel as if I could bring the more complicated strands of my background into my fiction.

However, I will add that I am aware that I am one of the few writers writing about an earlier Indian diaspora, which began in the 19th century. That's actually a writing that has no category, as it's rather invisible on the radar screen of many people and the publishing world.

Do you think that the immigrant writer gets nostalgic and essentialist about the 'culture of origin'?
I think the immigrant gets nostalgic-that's a natural part of the immigrant experience. But you have to separate the immigrant and his or her community from the writer, because there is a difference.

The older generation of immigrants often "freeze" in the time they immigrated, or perhaps they might harken back to a nostalgic time that didn't even exist for them. Partly that's a response to the assault of change, the blows they experience in immigrating, and the fears they see in raising children who are so utterly different, so alien to them. The children, on the other hand, exist in simultaneous realities: the past of their parents, and the contemporary reality of the country they are growing up in.

I have an extra complication: a double displacement on one side, India to Guyana to the U.S. and England, and Jewish immigration on the other. Thus, for me the idea of a fixed "homeland"
is a funny idea.

Obviously this can have some very serious political implications; it's common knowledge that immigrant groups are often very conservative, particularly in relation to their homeland. It's as if the immigrant wants their homeland to stay put as a way of assuaging the pain of displacement, perhaps even the guilt. In England, for instance, we've seen this in a turn to fundamentalism partly as a way of dealing with British racism. And there's a long history of what might be thought of as sentimental art-theater and literature that plays to these sentimental and romantic notions of the past.

But that's very different from what the serious writer is doing. Of course the writer is putting down some of this yearning, the force of memory, the palpable sense of loss. They are forging a literary voice that captures, on the page, both the weight of the past and the encounters of the present. However, a writer is writing out of a sense of distance and exploration, not just mere ethnic celebration; they are making broader sense of the experience of migration and in so doing, make use of many different literary techniques and styles. I'm thinking of writers from Henry Roth in the 1920s to more contemporary authors such as Maxine Hong Kingston, Shyam Selvadurai, and Junot Diaz who are hardly being sentimental or what you might call "essentialist."

Why do Guyana and India interest you at all? I mean, you are now US American and that's a complicated enough identity, as you have examined in Remix?

Complicated is exactly the right word. To be an American from an immigrant background is to be made up of many different strands. One doesn't grow up divorced from those realities or that past. Too, I have an extra complication: a double displacement on one side, India to Guyana to the U.S. and England, and Jewish immigration on the other. Thus, for me the idea of a fixed "homeland" is a funny idea, since I have diasporas on both sides of my background.
Though everyone is now talking about the "Indian diaspora," not many people have written about or understand the experience of twice-displaced Indians who went abroad in the 19th century. That leavetaking was a profound rupture. It also was a marvelous shattering and "remixing" out of which they held on to a sense of identity but also creolized. Then, two generations later, the politics of racial division in Guyana uprooted them again. In my own case, my father sustained a connection to India because he worked for the Indian Consulate here in the U.S.

______________________________________________
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/
////////////////////////////////////