[sacw] SACW Dispatch | 8 Sept. 00

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch
8th September 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

#1. Pakistan: 5 killed in Bomb Blast, peoples responce
#2. Pakistan: Decline and revivalism
#3. Kashmir Essay in NYRB
#4. women photographers capture dignity of survival amid suffering in J&K
#5. OUTSIDER AS ENEMY--The Politics of Rewriting History (9th Sept. at
Stanford)
#6. Secular Activists to Protest against Atom Bom Vajpayee in New York City
(8 Sept)
#7. Safron Bias-India Abroad Report
#8. Bangalore Film Society - Migration & Displacement Beyond Borders -
Film Fest
#9. Excerpts: In.D.USArt(ickle)s Fun-DA-Mental Rites Release 9.7
--------------------------------------------

#1.

Dear Comrades,

After having few hours sleep on my return from London, I went to pick my
partner at 5PM. As soon as I entered the area Dharampura I live, Several
people stopped me and told about the bomb blast. One said 10 so for dead. A
bomb blasted at 5.32PM in the busy Dharampura Bazar.

I went to the scene which is few streets away from my house. It was full of
people and every one talking about it and guessing who is responsible for i=
t.
After arguing with the police, I reached the exact place where the bomb had
blasted. It was in front of a vegetable shop, where an old man had left a
scooter few minutes before. The vegetable shop was closed as the owner told=
me
later that it was sheer luck that he did not open his shop. He just did not
want to work today.

There were blood every where. I was then called by Zafar who is an inactive
member of LPP to a shop which was totally destroyed. It was jewlary shop. H=
e
told me that five have been so for dead. His arm was also injured in the
event. He said a big bang and we heard the cries everywhere. The voice of t=
he
bomb was heard few kilometers away as well. A local council van was collect=
ing
the damaged goods. Every one there had a story to tell. Hanif told me that =
his
three sons has been severely injured. That he has lost badly his business a=
nd
his shop is destroyed. I was there for over an hour.

As soon as I came back to my home, Anwar and Naeem, the two most active
members of LPP in the area were waiting for me. ( Anwar lost the last local
bodies election by just 51 votes and came second securing 40% of the votes=
).
They informed me that a dead body has arrived back from the hospital of a
young man of 19 year who was asked by his father to sit for few minutes in =
his
shop and he had to go some where. The poor father was selling ice in a smal=
l
shop.

Dozens of people were there and several roumors are going on. Every one is
talking of RAW. Some one even suggested Nawaz Sharif hand in it. I told to
several if it is RAW, then it is the revenge of ISI who are sending people =
to
Kashmir. many innocent people like this young man have died in India as wel=
l.
We condemned both of these brutal intelligence agencies. No one was there t=
o
counter my arguments.

Pakistan Television told at 9PM national news that government has decided t=
o
award Rupees One Lakh ($1900) for the dead and 50,000 ($950) for the injure=
d
as compensation to the bomb blast effected people. What a shameful
compensation for those innocents who had to pay the price with their lives =
for
those who has no respect for peace in the area.

There are many more like today,s victims of the bomb blast on both sides of
India and Pakistan. Kashmir neither belongs to India nor Pakistan. It is fo=
r
the kashmiries to decide for their future. But the ruling classes of both
countries have lost over $150 billion dollars in last ten years alone on
defense and army. They are engaged in a ruthless proxy war which is costing
heavy on many innocent peoples like todays.

Labour Party Pakistan condemns this brutal killings of the innocent and dem=
and
an immidiete end to the tension between India and Pakistan. It is only
possible when a strong labour movement is build on this peace question.

Comradely,

Farooq Tariq
General Secretary
Labour Party Pakistan

_____

#2.

DAWN Magazine
3 September, 2000

Decline and revivalism

By Mubarak Ali

THE Dictionary of Concepts of History defines the notion of decline as a
loss of cohesion in a society, leading to potential public disorder,
(diminishment) of political power, loss of economic wealth, and social
disintegration. Keeping in view this definition, we find that Pakistan
is a perfect example of a society that has declined, a society that has
lost all its energy to improve its economy, political system and moral
values.
It appears that Pakistani society is generally in agreement that its
fate is to be humiliated, insulted, and abused internally as well as
externally. Sometimes it surprises one as to why people at large become
so apathetic and fail to react in spite of mass-scale sufferings and
miseries. What are the factors that are responsible to make society so
pliable as to endure all hardships without even a protest?
The phenomenon of rise and fall of civilisations is not new in history.
It occurs again and again. There are civilisations that touched their
maturity and then disappeared. The Assyrian, the Egyptian, and the Greek
civilisations have gone, but their nations are living in their debris,
symbolizing the decline and fall of these civilisations.
Nations that emerge experiencing decline tend to have a cyclic rather
than a linear view of history. They mostly look back to have a feel of
the past glory rather than ahead, to have a bright future. The reason
for this backward-looking attitude is that the past remains very much
alive in the collective memory of societies, with the belief that the
restoration of the past would solve all their problems.
The belief in revivalism is appealing to nations because it entails no
need to create anything new; just reconstructing the old, renewing the
former institutions sounds enough to the revivalists. Mind you, repair
and renovation can be done by even unskilled workers, while to create
something new requires not only skill but creativity and innovation as
well.
Therefore, exhausted societies burdened with a heavy. glorifying past,
find the revivalism option more appealing than having to build something
new. Moreover, in the backward-looking attitude there is no place for
any change, while in case of a progressive attitude, change becomes
essential in order to adjust to the new circumstances and to respond to
the new challenges.
The Indian Muslim society has remained on the decline since the fall of
the Mughal Empire. It tried to find some solace in the greatness of the
Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, but the eventual disintegration of
it left it in a state of helplessness.
The concept of having a separate homeland in the subcontinent gave it
some hopes of avoiding further decline, but what happened to the new
home soon disillusioned the masses. Finding no solution for its present
ills, society has continued to insist on the validity of its past values
and traditions. It looks to the past to counter their present condition.
Under these circumstances, popular history has reconstructed a variety
of pasts in which society has taken refuge.
In view of its geographical location in the subcontinent, our society
continues to feel pride in the fact that Muslims once ruled the land for
nearly thousand years. It does not feel much bothered by the question of
cultural achievements of the Sultans of Delhi and the Mughals, as Hindus
were very much part of it. Taking a diversion, it is charmed by the
stories of the Abbasid Empire and its civilisational achievements, but
there is no popular feeling to revive it. It is only a source of
pleasure, not taken as a serious role model.
Basically, revivalist movements in Pakistan aim at reviving the early
Muslim society that is considered to be perfect because of its religious
purity. These movements generally deny all developments and cultural
achievements after the period of the four Guided Caliphs as deviation
from true religion, and, hence, not related to Islam. The denial of the
Ummayid, the Abbasids, the Muslim rule in Andulus, the Safavids, the
Mughals and the Ottomans is an act that has deprived the Muslims of
their past glory. Their argument is that all these political empires
"polluted" Islam and served only their political ambitions, therefore,
they are not a part of Islamic history.
Following the process of deconstruction, the revivalists reach the early
period and reconstruct those institutions which existed at that time.
Their belief is that as in the early period, religion transformed
society, making it an energetic and vigorous entity, and the religion
can play a similar role once again.
Generally speaking, we have two types of pasts: one is the past of
political and cultural achievements which we would like to use to
express our pride; and the past of the religious purity which we would
like to implement as a panacea for our problems. In both cases, we adopt
a cyclic view of history, believing that history can be repeated. We
avoid the linear view of progress and make no effort to change ourselves
in accordance with the needs of the time.
The main characteristic of the revivalist movement is to oppose change
and to prevent any experiment to introduce fresh institutions and lay
down new traditions. They insist on re-using the old ones. The other
characteristic is to adopt power as a means to revive the purity of
religious life and to implement religious teachings. The best model of
this approach is the Taliban, who have implemented their version of
religion by using power, terror and harassment. The revivalist movements
in Pakistan take inspiration from the experiences of Iran and
Afghanistan, and want to adopt the same methods here.
History shows us that once a civilisation begins to decline, it cannot
be revived. The repeated failures of revivalist movements make society
disillusioned, giving it a tired, exhausted look. In the end it looses
all hopes, and leaves itself at the mercy of the circumstances. The only
way for such a society is to get rid of the burden of its past, and
adopt fresh ideas to make a new beginning. "Lest the graves of
institutions rob the living of light, and narrow their habitations,"
said the German philosopher, Herder. But do we care?

______

#3.

The New York Review of Books
Sept. 21, 2000
Feature

http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWfeatdisplay.cgi?20000921036F

Death in Kashmir
By Pankaj Mishra

PANKAJ MISHRA is a writer based in New Delhi and Simla. His novel The
Romantics was published earlier this year.

(this is the first of three articles on Kashmir)

All Interested in obtaining the full text of the above can write to:
aiindex@m...
______

#4.

Outlook,
September 11 2000

Reason in the Time of Pain

A team of intrepid women photographers capture the dignity of survival amid
suffering in J&K
http://www.outlookindia.com/20000911/affairs2.htm
______

#5.

COMMUNALISM AND THE REWRITING OF INDIAN HISTORY

How do politics of today color the lenses through which we examine the
past? Are the dominant communal forces in India rewriting the country's
history to create new 'enemies'? Or are they merely correcting errors of
previous historians?

Please join us in a discussion with the eminent historian
Prof. K.N. PANIKKAR
Centre for Historical Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Topic: OUTSIDER AS ENEMY--The Politics of Rewriting History
(http://www.stanford.edu/group/sia/Events/Panikkar.html)

When: Sept 9th, Saturday 6:00 p.m.
Where: Gates Info Sciences Bldg, Rm 104
Stanford University

Prof.Panikkar will address the relationship of history to issues of power,
politics and censorship in the context of the recent controversy involving
the withdrawal of two volumes on modern history by the Indian Council of
Historical Research (ICHR).

*** Please scroll down for more info. on Prof.Panikkar, directions to and
Parking at Stanford ***

Directions: http://www.stanford.edu/home/map/stanford_zoom_map.html?193,199
Parking: Free on weekends, Across the road from the bldg
Sponsors: Stanford India Association
(http://www.stanford.edu/group/sia/main.html)
Association for India's Development (Bay Area Chapter)
(http://www.aidindia.org)
Graduate Student Council, Stanford University
(http://gsc.stanford.edu/index.htm)
Asia/ Pacific Research Center
(http://aparc.stanford.edu)
Contact: For more information, please visit the website
http://www.stanford.edu/group/sia/Events/Panikkar.html

About the Speaker:

Prof. K. N. Panikkar teaches at the Centre for Historical Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is the Chairman of the Archives on
Contemporary History and formerly the Dean of the School of Social
Sciences, JNU. He is associated with several universities and institutions
in India and abroad. He has been the President of the Modern History
Section of the Indian History Congress and a member of the Indian Council
for Social Science Research and the Indian Council for Historical
Research. He has also been a member of several academic and research
organisations and a visiting professor to universities abroad.

Prof. Panikkar's main area of current research is intellectual-cultural
history of modern Indian on which he has written extensively. His
publications include, Culture, Ideology and Hegemony--Intellectuals and
Social Consciousness in Colonial India; Culture and Consciousness in
Modern India; Against Lord and State--Religion and Peasant Uprisings in
Malabar; Communal Threat, Secular Challenge and British Diplomacy in
North India. Among the books he has edited the latest is "The Concerned
Indian's Guide to Communalism."

_____

#6.

A protest is on against Vajpayee/BJP led govt. Please come out
in full force, as multiple issues are being focused on in the protest.
Details are as follows:
---------------------------------------------------------------
Time/Date: Sept 8, Friday at 4 PM
Where: Between 46 and 47 Streets on 1st Avenue (outside the UN)
---------------------------------------------------------------

Issues that have been identifed this far are of course the anti-minority
violence in India and Narmada/Maheshwar dams [...]

COME OUT AND PROTEST AGAINST THE GROWINGG FASCISM IN INDIA. BRING A FRIEND
AND MAKE IT A LARGE AND NOISY PROTEST. CIRCULATE THIS ANNOUNCEMENT TO ALL
LISTS AND FRIENDS YOU CAN THINK OF

For more information send email to info@f... or call (212) 781-2673.

_____

#7.

SAFRON BIAS-INDIA ABROAD REPORT

From
K.N. Panikkar
Professor of History
Centre for Historical Studies
School of Social Sciences
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi 110067
India

September 04, 2000

To
The Editor,
India Abroad
43 West 24 Street
New York, NY 10010

[For Favour of Publication]

Sir,
This is with reference to the report entitled, 'Anti-BJP leaflet
disrupts Canada meet', appearing in India Abroad on 29 August on the
Round Table on ' The Rewriting of History: Intellectual Freedom and
Contemporary Politics in South Asia' held as a part of the ICANAS
conference at Montreal. I am surprised by the highly biased and
factually inaccurate nature of the report in a publication otherwise
known for its objectivity. Your correspondent, Mr. Ajit Jain, appears to
lend credence to the attempt of a group of delegates who are apparently
either the activists or supporters of the Sangh Parivar to malign and
defame me and the organisers of the Round Table. It is highly
regrettable that your correspondent did not think it necessary to
contact Dr. Dolores Chew, the organiser, or me before filing his report
which, to say the least, is malicious and defamatory. In fact, he sought
my reaction only after the publication of his report!

A group of four delegates led by Mr. B.R. Grover, the present Chairman
of the Indian Council for Historical Research (Jain surprisingly and
perhaps deliberately does not mention his name) made a desperate attempt
to prevent the Round Table. First by petitioning the President of the
Conference alleging that I and my 'camp followers' in Montreal are
indulging in a vilification campaign against the government of India and
the ICHR. That the Chairman of a national body stooped so low to lend
his name to a defamatory letter is very unfortunate, particularly
because it has lowered the prestige of the country in the eyes of the
international community of scholars. Secondly, when the President
rightly rejected their plea as the Round Table was intended to be a
strictly academic exercise to analyse the politics behind the ongoing
rewriting of history in South Asia these gentlemen tried to disrupt the
proceedings. They did not want a national issue to be discussed before
an international audience, as it was likely to expose the present
attempt of the ICHR to curtail the intellectual freedom and academic
rights of historians in India.

Since neither Mr. Grover nor his supporters could counter the arguments
and facts in my presentation which was mainly about the mythification of
history in the new genre of historical writing in India- I did not
recount how the Towards Freedom volumes were withdrawn by the ICHR, as
Jain contends- they accused the moderator Prof. Keith Meadowcroft of
partiality, who had done nothing but introduce the subject of
discussion. However, Jain, blindly following the partisan group of
delegates, asserts that the moderator ' himself launched a 40 minute
attack on the BJP and the fraternity of Hindu nationalist groups'.

The most objectionable part of Jain's report is that he attributes to me
the authorship of a flier the organisers had brought out, setting out
the general context of the Round Table. I was an invitee to the Round
Table and not its organiser. By quoting the statements in the flier as
authored by me Jain has misrepresented the nature of my participation in
the conference and has insinuated an unintended role to me.

Jain was obviously not present in the conference and it appears he
allowed himself to be led by a politically motivated group of delegates.
It is regrettable that such a tendentious, inaccurate and I suspect
deliberate report found a place in your esteemed paper.

K. N.Panikkar
Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi.

-------------------------------------

Fri. 1 Sept. 2000
Mr. Ajit Jain,
Your request for information regarding the round-table at ICANAS was
forwarded to me by Feroz Mehdi of CERAS. I only wish you had contacted me,
as the organizer of the round-table on "The Re-writing of History:
intellectual freedom and contemporary politics in South Asia" before you

wrote your report and posted it on the IA News Service.

Re. the points of information you require, the International Congress of

Asian and North African Studies was held around the theme of globalization
and governance. Over 1500 scholars from all over the world attended from

places like Uzbekistan, Germany, Canada, etc. . The panels and round-tables
ranged from topics of classical study to contemporary political issues,
environmental concerns, linguistics, etc.

Now about your article. I read it and found it full of factual errors. In
addition the manner of presentation of material and the selection of quotes
resulted in a piece that was heavily slanted in favour of supporters of the
BJP government in India. There doesn't appear to be any attempt at
objectivity. I will systematically go through it and point these out to you=
.

1) The round-table was organized by myself, a historian and professor in

Montreal at Marianopolis College.

2) The flyer announcing and describing the round-table WAS NOT authored by
Prof. Panikkar. Prof. Panikkar was a speaker who I invited to be part of

the round-table as he was one of the two historians whose edited
collections of documents for the "Towards Freedom" project had been pulled
from publication by Oxford Univ. Press by the Indian Council for Historical
Research. As such we are very fortunate he was able to attend

and present factual information to the delegates. Repeatedly in your
article you impute authorship of the flyer to Prof. Panikkar. E.g. "The

event saw a leaflet by K.N. Panikkar of JNU being circulated=8A".

"The pamphlet circulated by Panikkar and his supporters 'is a malicious
propaganda against India'," Dwivedi said." This second attribution is
especially pernicious because not only does it misrepresent facts (Prof.

Panikkar had nothing to do with the pamphlet being circulated), by quoting
Dwivedi in this manner you lead a casual reader to think that the flyer WAS
"malicious propaganda". However, for the more discerning reader you have

cleverly covered your tracks by including this comment as a quote and
sheltered behind another person's view. You, the reporter can safely appear
unbiased, merely quoting sources and opinions. Let the reader judge. But

YOU have in effect made the judgment in terms of what to put in and what to
leave out!

Again, "However, Panikkar contended, 'The tentacles of interference with

the search for truth and academic freedom have been extended overseas and
in Canada as well'." Again this is from the flyer which Panikkar DID NOT

author!

As a reporter it was your duty to report on the entire proceedings. You
never covered my presentation on the Wadhwa Commission Report.

When you ostensibly report on what participants said about moderator Keith
Meadowcroft's opening comments you say that he "launched a 40-minute attack
on the BJP and the fraternity of Hindu nationalist groups."

Mr. Jain, where were you? Were you in Room 406-B of the Palais des Congres
in Montreal or just listening to hearsay accounts and misrepresentation of
facts. In fact this is what the round-table was all about. I demand that as
a journalist you put matters right with your reading public. That you run
another article on the proceedings and that you permit voices whose views
you may not agree with be heard. At the moment all I can say about your
article is that it reflect sloppy, lazy and biased journalism.

Sincerely,

Dolores Chew
_____

#8.

From: Bangalore Film Society

Dear Members, CineMillennium
THIRD SEGMENT
Migration & Displacement
Beyond Borders
from 6th to 17th September 2000
at cubbon park, Balbhavan, Bangalore - 560 001
at
6.00 p.m. Date Day=20=20=20=20
Film Director =
=20
Nationality
6th Wed. Pelle the Conqueror Bille
August Denmark
7th Thur. Vasthuhara G.
Aravindan India (Malayalam)
8th Fri. Journey of Hope =
=20
Xavier Koller Switzerland / Turkey
9th Sat. Do Bigha Zameen Bimal
Roy I India (Hindi)
10th Sun. Dying to go Home George
Sluizer, Netherlands / Portugal
Carlos
da Silva
13th Wed. Mammo Shyam
Benegal India (Hindi)
14th Thur. The Grapes of Wrath John
Ford U.S.A
15th Fri. The Boat is full Markus
Imhoof Switzerland
16th Sat. Tamas Part I Govind Nihalani=20=20=20=20
India (Hindi)
17th Sun Tamas Part II Govind
Nihalani India
(Hindi) Please leave your e-mail address in the e-mail Box. Synopsys of
the film will be available at the venue. Screening of these films are
subject to changes.
Looking forward to your support and co-operation.
Good Wishes.=20=20
Georgekutty A.L
Secretary.

_____

#9.

From: In.D.USArt(ickle)s Fun-DA-Mental Rites Release 9.7
Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 11:25:22 EDT

HAPPY PAKISTAN-INDIA PARTITION NITE, YA'LL!
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
"POST-COLONIAL Rites of Revolution are less successfully festered by rote
adherence to economic and political theories,
than by fixing the Socio-psychological coordinates of humanity's current
pathology,
determining Socratically the absent factors that would induce change,
accepting the gentle Massaging of scholarly hands in the marketplace of
ideas,
thimbling the manipulative middle fingers of the mavens of Dreck,
routinely proferring all cultural baggage for Inspection of Customs,
Ratcheting, with state subsidies, all Activists to their ightful Role in th=
e
shaping of Society, &
Putting all Status quonscious to a publicly sanctioned Supreme Test."

Source: "SURVIVOR: The Final Episode Couched Musings of Arun
Aguiar" Appendix 3, page XIV (Harper & Semi-Collins, $17.95)
Reproduced
with permission

[Caveat Emptor: If you didn't understand the above, that's o.k. ----- we
don't understand most postcolonial writing either.]

**********************************************************************
SCENE & HERD: THE RIGHT TO REUNIFICATION

It will not be reported anywhere else, so it needs to be recorded here.

Aug 15, 2000 at Central Park, in front of an audience of 8,000 people
assembled for an evening of music, an Indian person you know took all our
breaths away by wishing all the Indians and Pakistanis present a Happy
Independence Day in the same breath, with a follow-on Jai Hind! and Pakista=
n
Paiindabad! right after.

No one seemed to mind.
In fact, many, south asians and others, responded enthusiastically,
or at
least looked cheerful.

I was there.
I'm glad I was there.
Wish you were there, too, yaar
It was so c-o-o-l.

Rupali

______________________________
South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch (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
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[Disclaimer : Opinions carried in the dispatches
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