[sacw] SACW Dispatch #2 | 15 Sept. 00

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch #2
15 September 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

#1. Pakistan/Bangladesh: The unfortunate chain of events (Ejaz Haider)
#2. The ghosts of Kargil have been buried (Ashish Nandy)
#3. Kashmir: How Not to Debate Issue of Autonomy (Balraj Puri)
#4. India: ABVP set to document herbal cures
#5. India: AIDWA activists vow to end attacks on 'witches'=20
#6. India: Art For Whose Sake (Suresh Menon)

=20
--------------------------------------------

#1.

The Friday Times
15 September 2000

THE UNFORTUNATE CHAIN OF EVENTS=20

Ejaz Haider questions the wisdom of a policy that purports to exploit the
internal
polarisation in Bangladesh and in the end merely serves to create a sizeabl=
e
anti-Pakistan lobby in that country=20

In a press conference in Dhaka September 12, Bangladesh's Prime
Minister, Sheikh Haseena Wajid, is reported to have said that Pakistan
should apologize for the atrocities committed on the Bengali nation in
1971. She said the Bengalis cannot forget that period because "it is
part of our history". Ms Wajid was also asked about how Bangladesh is
likely to react to the rebuff by Pakistan's Chief Executive General
Pervez Musharraf, who cancelled a scheduled meeting with her following
her speech at the 53rd UN General Assembly session. She said that
state-to-state relations would continue as before irrespective of who
was in power. "I don't see any damage to bilateral ties and I don't know
why General Musharraf was so upset about my comments on military
regimes...".=20

What has happened following Prime Minister Wajid's speech at the
UNGA session raises many important questions. What makes it worse is
that the situation could have been saved. Yet, it has happened, and for
good reasons, too. Let us see how, and why.=20

There are two broad factors here at play. While the first is linked to
history, the second relates to the ideology conflict within Bangladesh
that has sought to shape that country's political and social scene since
Sheikh Mujibur Rehman was killed in a military coup in 1975. The
factor of history dates back to not just 1971, when Bangladesh was
created, but to 1947 when Partition put it on the world map as the
eastern wing of the new state of Pakistan. The fact that Bangladesh has
had to go through an identity crisis twice in the last 53 years was bound
to create an ideological conflict. Moreover, this conflict is woven
around what has been described as "secular" and "sacred" categories,
which provides for a volatile situation. But this conflict is not entirely
internal. There are also external factors at play. This is where Pakistan
again comes into the picture. This is also where history, the umbilical
chord that both separates and joins Bangladesh with Pakistan (West
Pakistan), merges with strategy. Consider the following facts as
background to recent events:=20

The demand for Pakistan was made on the basis of an exclusionary
discourse. Some people chose to call it the two-nation theory or the
ideology of Pakistan which held that the Mussalmans of India were
different from the Hindus. Today there is much confusion (and debate)
about what constitutes that theory. Independent historical and
sociological research, however, has proved that the "two-nation theory"
was essentially an attempt to construct group identity. However, the
discourse employed religion as a marker not only because of the lack of
ethnic homogeneity among Muslim groups in India but also because the
All India Congress itself had resorted to Hindu symbolism for political
purposes. The real factors -- lack of economic opportunities and
political representation -- were pushed in the background and were
brought into play only as dividends the ideology of separateness
promised.=20

The theory served as a good political weapon during the period of the
struggle for independence. However, after Partition it should have been
allowed to fade away. The real issue thence was good governance: rule
of law, political representation, equitable economic opportunities and
the rest of it. It should have been clear to the ruling elites that in the
absence of good governance the ideology/identity discourse would not
hold a disparate people together for long. Unfortunately, that eminently
sensible course of action was eschewed in favour of an ill-conceived
sense of unity and nationalism.=20

This concept of nationalism was necessitated externally by the conflict
with India, and internally, because of the political course on which
Pakistan had embarked after Partition. None among the rulers seemed to
have realised the dangers inherent in creating a national identity on the
basis of an exclusionary ideology that might have served a political
purpose in a different situation but was likely to create fissures within
Pakistan because of factors of geography, demography and ethnicity,
which could be used effectively for creating other exclusionary
identities.=20

The conflict with India also created the civil-military imbalance, which
further exacerbated the situation and brought the wheel full circle.
Therefore, the discourse continued to be constructed around the idea of
unity. Since attempts at creating this unity were being made without
regard to the essential categories of good governance, it was inevitable
that someone from within the larger, disparate ethnic groups that made
up Pakistan would throw up an ethnic marker and construct the
discourse around that.=20

East Pakistan was most suited for such an upheaval. As one astute
political analyst remarked, "Among other things, we set about inventing
a new arithmetic where 56 percent population was to be a minority."
The marker was in place much before Mujib came on the scene as the
undisputed leader of the Bengali nation. The shift from Muslim to
Bengali identity should have warned the West Pakistani elites of things
to come, but the signals were not heeded.=20

However, Pakistan's troubles did not end with the 1971 trauma. The
religious right, which had hijacked the two-nation theory rather early in
Pakistan's life, found a great opportunity during General Ziaul Haq's
martial law regime to demand legislation on the basis of religion and
bring religion effectively into the public domain. This was a markedly
different course from the earlier secular elites who, while using the
marker for political purposes, had nevertheless tried to keep religion
away from the public arena. However, because the ideology/identity
discourse ran along religious fault-lines the danger of its sacralisation
was inherent in it. It had created much tension and confusion even
before the eighties - certain policy decisions during Prime Minister
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's period is a case in point - but Ziaul Haq brought
the issue into the public domain. Looking for a locus standi and set to
play a long innings, he needed to create a constituency. Inevitably, he
used the ideology/identity discourse for that purpose. That gave the
religious right the long-sought opportunity the state had denied it even
as the state employed the marker to serve its ends of creating an
identity for greater political control.=20

The Afghan war and the emergence of religious militias compounded the
problem. The struggle helped create Islamist bonds that cut across
national boundaries. The spillover of the Jama'at-i Islami ideology into
Bangladesh acquired much greater impetus in the eighties. Bangladesh
was already grappling with its new identity problem - Bangladeshi
identity vs Bengali identity. During the struggle against West Pakistani
dominance, the Bengali identity had come in handy as a marker. But
after independence it created problems not only because of its nexus
with a much larger group identity that also links up with the Bengali
ethnic group in India's West Bengal but also because of certain
political developments following the 1975 military coup.=20

Islam is another element that has impinged on the political scene in
Bangladesh since General Ziaur Rehman lifted the ban on religious
parties through the 1976 Political Parties Act. The Jama'at had formed
the resistance to Mujib's Bengali nationalism even in the run-up to 1971
and after, but its real onslaught came in the eighties and added to the
polarisation by introducing into the debate the element of the "sacred".

To this confusion was added the element of political polarisation
between Mujib's proponents and opponents. Interstingly, much of that
opposition is linked to the coups in Bangladesh, which helped create
space for elements -- both on the right and left -- to challenge the
Awami League. This also linked up during Ziaur Rehman's period with
increasing tensions with India and consequently more friendly gestures
towards Pakistan.=20

For its part, Pakistan, both at the official and unofficial levels, has
found it expedient to side with Mujib's opponents. It was thought to be
a good strategy because the Jama'at was already doing its own work
and politically aligning itself with Mujib's opponents. Moreover, the
political opposition to Awami League was not averse to Pakistan's policy.
Successive Pakistani governments have therefore found it easy to deal
with political elements opposed to the Awami League and Sheikh
Haseena Wajid not only because she represents the secular, Bengali
identity but also because she is the daughter of the much-hated Mujibur
Rehman.=20

This, then, very briefly, forms the backdrop to the unfortunate chain of
incidents that began with Ms Wajid's speech at the UN. The question is:
Is this good policy?=20

The answer cannot but be in the negative. Ms Wajid should have been
more circumspect in her speech (for the full text of her speech, see()
but General Pervez Musharraf's policy advisors should have prevented
him from taking the decision that he did. It must be realised that if the
Awami League government is considered anti-Pakistan, much of the
blame for it must lie with Islamabad's policy that not only first helped
create that party and led to secession, but has since fallen victim to the
illogic of perpetuating the political and other fault-lines in that
country. In the event, if Ms Wajid is prepared to steal an opportunity
to say things, even if indirectly, that may be perceived to hurt
Pakistan's interests, that should not come as unexpected. What is
worrisome, however, is that Pakistan should persist with reinforcing the
original folly.=20

Policies are meant to be part of a well thought-out strategy. And
strategies should evidently be worked out in the short- to medium- to
long-term interests of the country. Therefore, a policy must advance
the objectives of a strategy. So, where is the value-added in this one?
What this strategy has "achieved" is to create a lobby that at best
would always be more amenable to India and at worst would always be
anti-Pakistan. The question is: Is it worth creating a permanent
anti-Pakistan lobby in Bangladesh even if the other half of that
country's population is perceived to be pro-Pakistan? Moreover, what
end is such a policy likely to serve?=20

Supposing Bangladesh was a contiguous area that had seceded from
Pakistan. Could one argue that by creating a pro-Pakistan lobby and the
consequent internal fissures, Pakistan could hope to get the area back
one day or at least increase its influence. History provides bitter
evidence against such a policy. How then can anyone in their right mind
consider that a plausible, or even desirable scenario, given the factor of
geography, if not history? This policy could not have served Pakistan's
interests even if Bangladesh were contiguous to it. Just like it did not
serve India's interests in East Pakistan and Sri Lanka and is not serving
Pakistan's interests in Afghanistan. By creating, or at least exploiting
polarisation in a country, the perpetrator state stands to gain nothing,
but lose much. Afghanistan is a prime example of the comprehensive
failure of such a strategy. However, clearly, a sensible course of action
would first require that Pakistan deal with itself.=20

We need a policy that reaches out to Bangladesh rather than certain
groups and political elements in that country because that would always
keep us on the wrong side of history. The need of the hour is to let the
poison run out of our system and if that requires an apology, let an
inverted sense of pride not stand in the way of national interest.=20

______

#2.

Time Asia
Features

WEB-ONLY EXCLUSIVE=20

DISTANT MEMORIES
THE GHOSTS OF KARGIL HAVE BEEN BURIED, SAYS INDIAN
SOCIOLOGIST ASHISH NANDY
=20
By APARISIM GHOSH=20

Professor Ashish Nandy is a political psychologist, sociologist and
director of Delhi's Center for the Study of Developing Societies. He's also
a versatile author, having written books on post-colonialism, alternative
sciences, psychology and cricket. He recently spoke with TIME Asia
associate editor Aparisim Ghosh. Excerpts of their conversation:

TIME: Dr. Nandy, it has been a year since Kargil, and the jingoism that we
saw during the conflict has died down somewhat. Has there been any inquiry
into the lasting impact of Kargil on the Indian psyche? Nandy: No. First of
all, the jingoism that you saw was primarily that of the middle class. And
this was reflected in the newspapers and the media. I am sure other Indians
were patriotic, but their voices were not frequently heard. In any case,
Kargil was one of the many problems for them. They have other problems--of
surviving. So as a result, the Kargil episode did not leave that much of an
imprint on the way people voted, or the positions they took on political
issues close to their heart. When the regime itself did not gain as much
benefit, as much political mileage, as it thought it would from conflict,
naturally the interest gradually declined. The politicians were less
inclined to stoke chauvinism and the media also became less enthusiastic
about projecting an issue on which there seemed to be at least a full
consensus in the middle class. So I guess that the tremendous hoo-ha that
was generated in the wake of the conflict has now become a somewhat distant
memory.

TIME: And yet we see traces here and there. There are still advertising
campaigns that seem to hint at war. Some recent movies explore the theme of
war. Nandy: They always do. It does not mean that all these movies will
succeed at the box office. And when they succeed the formula is such, the
styling is such, that often it has very interesting results. For example, a
movie based on the 1971 war became very popular a few years ago. It was
called Border and it aroused hostility in some quarters in England, where
video stores often distribute Indian films. Some young Pakistanis objected,
saying it humiliated Pakistan and showed its defeat. But in Pakistan
itself, the songs in the movie were a great hit. I do not think that they
were bothered about it. The audience does not look at these films the way
they look at a Hollywood war film.

TIME: Going by the responses on Timeasia.com's "Subcontinental Drift"
bulletin board, it seems the diaspora tend to have much stronger opinions,
whether they are Indians or Pakistanis, about subcontinental issues than
people in the subcontinent itself. You might say that they are more
nationalistic than the families back home. Nandy: Yes of course, because
these people do not really have the kind of roots they would like to have
in India or in Pakistan. They don't have community ties of the kind they
would like to have. So they have to hold on to this image they have of
India and Pakistan and their own sense of commitment to these two
countries--nationalist commitment. It's almost like an obsession. And this
is not only true of Indians and Pakistanis, this is true of all uprooted
communities. The American-Irish continue to support the IRA, more than the
Irish themselves probably do. [Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat has said
he finds it easier to live with Israel than with the Jewish community of
the United States.

TIME: Immediately after Kargil there was an upsurge in the interest in the
military. The Indian army before that seemed to have been tucked away in
some corner of the public consciousness. People were sort of vaguely aware
that the military existed and didn't have any real interaction with
soldiers. But now there seems to be a special place for the military in the
minds of Indians. Is that how you read the situation? Nandy: Not fully,
because I have seen similar respect for the army during the 1971 war. There
was more this time, perhaps because of the media, but I do not think that
the quality was much different. In fact, the appeal of the Indian army is
that most Indians only need the army once in a few years in the
battlefield. Except in some small areas, like the northeast and Kashmir,
Indian people do not generally come across the army. The army is seen as a
less corrupt, apolitical entity which, within limits, is better than other
institutions in India. So there is some natural respect. And that respect
is endorsed by the fact that the army does not take any direct interest in
Indian public life. And if you think that the Indian concept of the army
has changed, in this respect I would not agree.

TIME: Let's talk about Kashmir. Before Kargil, most Indians were not really
engaged in Kashmir. It was in the newspapers but people didn't really pay
that much attention. Kargil brought everything into sharp focus. Has that
changed? A year on, has the Kashmir issue, too, been sent off into the
distant vaults of memory? Nandy: I wouldn't say so, though to some extent
this is true. Kashmir has never been a center to Indian consciousness, not
even to the consciousness of Indian Muslims, particularly if they happen to
be from the South or the East. Nor did I see the Kashmiri Muslims that
concerned about Kargil. There was a distance of some kind, which is, I
guess, a pity. At this point in time, Kashmir is in the public
consciousness in the way Punjab was a few years ago because of the
militancy there. But I'm afraid there is no clear image of Kashmir on which
you can build a more meaningful dialogue with the Kashmiris or the
Pakistanis. Nor is there any serious concern about the bloodletting in
Kashmir. It is all seen as the doing of the ISI [Inter-Services
Intelligence] and the terrorists, as the Indians would say. This is a pity.

TIME: You have contacts with your counterparts in Pakistan and your center
has links with similar organizations there. What is your reading on the
impact of Kargil on the psychology of Pakistan? Nandy: I think there are
two ambivalent strands. I may be wrong because I have not been to Pakistan
since Kargil, and have not done any systematic survey. I am guessing on the
basis of the Pakistani media and my friends. And my guess would be that
there are two identifiable strands within Pakistani public consciousness.
One strand of consciousness believes that Kargil was essentially a mistake,
in the sense that they got nothing out of it. They don't believe that
Pakistan was defeated by India. They believe that the U.S. and the
international community forced Pakistan back from a winning position. But
they also believe that the Pakistani regime was not sagacious enough to
plan a strategy in such a way that these factors could be taken into
account and bypassed. So in some sense Pakistan has messed up things for
themselves, despite being on a winning wicket. The other strand of
consciousness believes that Kargil was a success to the extent that it
again put Kashmir on the international agenda. It made the issue
conspicuous, made the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir a central issue,
or at least one of the major issues of the global community, and that is a
gain because without Kargil India would have just sat tight in Kashmir and
done nothing about it.

TIME: On the visit of President Clinton to the subcontinent, there was much
said and written about his public-relations success there. Was that also
fleeting? Has that left any lasting impact on the way Indians perceive
America, American companies and American interests? Nandy: I think Indians
never had any deep hostility towards the United States even when the
relationship between these two countries was tense. Ordinary Indians have
warm feelings towards Americans. Most Indians want to be born as an
American in their next birth. Things are not really different in Pakistan,
or in the case of the majority of the world. Only Americans don't want to
be born as Americans--they want to be born as something else. However, what
the Clinton visit did was to kind of endorse this popular view of America
as a kind of El Dorado where you can make your fortunes, or your children
can make their fortunes. In some sense there was this artificial gap
between what the intelligentsia felt and what the public felt. I mean one
can even venture the hypothesis that intellectuals also had two selves,
even those intellectuals constantly attacking the U.S. for the obscenities
of capitalism, while sending their children to the U.S. for their
education. The situation is healthier today=8ASo perhaps the Clinton visit
has reduced the Indo-American relationship to a more normal bilateral
relationship.

TIME: Did the fact that President Clinton go to Pakistan and chide the
government satisfy Indians? Nandy: I think primarily it was the media which
went to town with that. I suspect that outside the 20-25% of Indians that
constitute the main clientele of the media, most other Indians were not
interested in that part of the story. They couldn't care less. In Pakistan,
the regime tried to gloss over the whole episode and tried to make it look
like, not a chastisement, but a frank exchange of views. Some commentators
did try to say that Pakistan was on the losing side, but I doubt very much
that this view went very far=8A

TIME: If we can come back to Kargil, another summer is upon us and there
are rumblings that another event of that nature might take place. Are
Indians better prepared, psychologically, to deal with another small war?
Nandy: I doubt whether Indians are prepared, or, for that matter, whether
the Pakistanis are prepared. I think both countries are to some extent
tired. They might talk of war, might still use jingoism, but it is very
difficult to sustain the momentum of xenophobia in this part of the world.
People have gone on to other things. The regimes must wait at least 4 to 5
years for the public to be willing to accept another encounter of this kind=
.

______

#3.

Economic & Political Weekly
August 19-25, 2000
Commentary

KASHMIR: HOW NOT TO DEBATE ISSUE OF AUTONOMY

Balraj Puri

Whatever be the prospects of talks between the government of India and the
Hizbul Mujahideen, the debate on the issue of the autonomy of J and K state
that chief minister Farooq Abdullah had initiated not only with the centre
but with the national leaders all over the country may remain relevant.
For, an internal consensus may help in conducting negotiations with those
who demand change in the external status of the state. More relevant, in
both cases, are the negotiating skill, the degree of maturity and
intelligence in dealing with those with a different viewpoint, the ability
to find an area of agreement and graceful agreement to disagree. In this
sense the autonomy debate hardly does credit to either side.

The reaction in the country to the demand of autonomy ranged from its
straight rejection by a specially convened meeting of the union cabinet to
the near hysteria over threat to the integrity of the country and its
possible balkanisation that some people perceived in the demand. The media
hype over the issue so polarised opinions in a for and against form that
all moderate voices were eliminated. The incapacity to debate the issue in
a mature and rational manner has exposed certain weaknesses in Indian
politics, Indian democracy, Indian federalism and Indian media. Farooq
Abdullah can certainly be faulted for a number of acts of omission and
commission. But they do not add up to an iota of evidence to brand him an
ISI agent or an anti-national; for which he should have been dismissed or
arrested, as demanded in some quarters. Likewise there are a number of
flaws in the resolution on the greater autonomy of the state that the J and
K assembly has passed. But to spell autonomy as azadi is to betray
political illiteracy.

In a democratic country, nobody has a right to claim monopoly of patriotism
and demand proof of patriotism from others. Further most of the critique of
the autonomy demand is premised on the unproven assumption that the
interests of Kashmir and the rest of India are necessarily exclusive and
contradictory and that the authors of the demand are solely motivated by
the interests of the former. Perhaps Farooq Abdullah would have served the
interest of the country better if he was not over-burdened with the anxiety
to prove his loyalty. He never missed an opportunity to proclaim his
loyalty not only to the country but also to every party that came to power
at the centre. He had been shifting his allegiance from the Congress to the
Janata Dal and to the BJP as they succeeded one after another as the ruling
party in New Delhi. In fact anticipating the victory of the NDA in the 1999
Lok Sabha poll, he joined its leaders, uninvited, when they released its
manifesto, in the drafting of which he had no hand and which he and his
partymen had not even read.

Further, to prove his bona fides, he specially flew to Mumbai to attend the
birthday celebrations of the then Shiv Sena leader and the Maharashtra
chief minister Manohar Joshi. He received an Amity award at an
RSS-sponsored function last year where he spoke of its patriotic virtues.
This strategy might have helped Farooq to remain in power but it has been
the major cause of alienation of the people for the last decade and a half.
The constitutional autonomy would only increase their subjugation if
elections remain as unfree as they have mostly been and if the government
they elect remains as subservient to the political party that comes to
power at the centre. The first pre-condition of a meaningful autonomy from
the point of the people of the state, therefore, is that a freely elected
government should have at least as much political autonomy in its relations
with the centre as is the case elsewhere in the country. One of the
recommendations of the state autonomy committee report, approved by the
assembly, is that jurisdiction of the Union Election Commission over the
state should be withdrawn. How will that ensure less unfree elections? And
if the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the auditor general is also
withdrawn, as demanded, the checks on the arbitrary powers of the state
executive will be enhanced. The second pre-condition for making autonomy of
the state useful for its people is that checks of the federal autonomous
institutions like Supreme Court, the auditor general and the Election
Commission should be retained. Thus it is wrong to debate the issue of
autonomy as Kashmir versus the nation.

Again, a state governed under a unitary form of constitution with
centralised power is least entitled to use federal arguments in its
relations with the centre. Having scuttled the original report of the
Regional Autonomy Committee (headed by the present author) and instead
proposed division of Jammu and Ladakh on religious lines without offering
them any share in political and economic power, the National Conference
government proposes to further centralise and regiment the political set-up
of the state. The panchayats simply do not exist in the state. The district
boards are headed by the ministers and are entirely nominated. A third
pre-condition of the state autonomy should, therefore, be regional
autonomy, as provided in the Delhi Agreement of 1952 between Nehru and
Abdullah, and further devolution of power to districts, blocks and
panchayats; so that power is shared by the people at every level and is not
monopolised and abused by the rulers at the state level. It should also try
to allay the legitimate fears and anxieties of various groups about their
fate if the power of the state government is further enlarged through
proposed greater autonomy.

In the absence of either of the three pre-conditions mentioned above, the
demand for the greater autonomy of the state did not inspire its people.
But as the debate assumed the form of Kashmir versus the rest of India and
as the demand was condemned for being synonymous with azadi, it did
generate some popular interest. It tended to articulate accumulated
discontent against the centre. As Farooq Abdullah who was trying to court
the RSS and the Shiv Sena to prove his patriotism was dubbed as
anti-national, the message the Kashmiri Muslims got was that none of them
would ever be trusted by the Hindus of India.

The debate on autonomy did succeed in polarising opinion on communal lines
helping both the National Conference and the BJP to rehabilitate themselves
with the Muslim and Hindu communities, respectively. It may or may not have
been a jointly intended objective but it may pave the way for a communal
division of the state. It has created a favourable ground for the state
government to go ahead with the implementation of the official version of
the regional autonomy report which proposes to divide Jammu and Ladakh
regions on communal basis for which it does not need the sanction of the
union government. If there is no prior understanding between the central
and state governments over the eventual division of the state, the former
should use its good offices to dissuade the latter from this course, which,
apart from threatening all secular ethnic and regional identities of the
state, is bound to have repercussion in the rest of the country as well.

This discussion on autonomy for J and K has been done mainly from the angle
of its possible impact on the people of the state. Those who have
criticised it from the point of view of the national interest, too, may
have genuine concern. But an informed interest in the legitimate
aspirations of the people of the state may evoke similar interest among the
people for the wider national concern. A resumed debate between the central
and state governments on the subject could start with a discussion on these
pre- conditions to which those of national concern may be added before
actual contents of the autonomy report are considered. Both could first try
to understand the diverse aspirations of the three regions and try to
reconcile them; so that a harmonious personality of the state is evolved.
Only such a state can aspire to have a stable status and only such a state
would be capable of carrying on worthwhile negotiations on its status.

______

#4.

Asian Age
15 September 2000

ABVP SET TO DOCUMENT HERBAL CURES=20

By Pamela D=92Mello
Panaji, Sept. 14=20

Students in Goa are being set up to steal some of the thunder
of those waiting to patent the herbal cures that have survived generations
in this region.

A forum of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarti Parishad is launching an attempt to
compile and collect information on plants in Goa, and their traditional,
medical, occupational and religious uses.

=93We are interested in publicising this information on the Internet and
elsewhere, to prevent it from being patented,=94 says Praveen Phaldesai of
the ABVP=92s Students for Development. A competition for students called
Aaranyak (study of forestry) is being conducted to encourage students to
learn about the plant life in the Western Ghats=92 region.

Students are expected to list plants and their uses and send entries to the
organisation which will judge them for the most unique plants mentioned.
=93Every village in Goa has a vaidya who has remedies for common as well as
other ailments like jaundice etc, made from plants available nearby=94 says
the SFD=92s convenor.

Through the competition, SFD hopes students will tap this knowledge from
their elders at home or in the village and thus retain some of it, before
it is lost forever. Eighty per cent of modern medicinal formulae has been
arrived at from plant extracts used by tribals worldwide, and from the
knowledge of local people.

The SFD notes that although these remedies are now being patented, this
knowledge was earlier free and passed on through the family, Patenting
increases the prices of these medicines by 300 per cent says the SFD
angered by the recent Western patents on Basmati rice and neem, SFD says it
will send its compilation to anti-patents campaigner Vandana Shiva.

SFD is also concerned that while learning modern sciences, languages, and
maths, students remain ignorant about biodiversity, and look down on the
traditional knowledge systems of adivasis and tribals.

_____

#5.=20

Khaleej Times
15 September 2000

ACTIVISTS VOW TO END ATTACKS ON 'WITCHES'=20

GUWAHATI - Women activists yesterday pledged to end the rising number of
attacks on vulnerable women suspected of practising witchcraft in Assam.

The All India Democratic Womens Association (AIDWA), a leading womens'
rights group, has started mobilising public opinion in the state where
incidents of tribal women being killed or ostracised for alleged sorcery
have been steadily rising.

"It is shocking to find incidents of tribal women in Assam being killed on
charges of practicing witchcraft," Brinda Karat, president of the AIDWA and
a leading feminist, said.

"Tribal women in the state are not safe with the law enforcement agencies
unable to provide security.

"We are mobilising public support to fight the evils prevailing in
society," Mrs Karat said.

Subadhra Basumatary, a 45-year-old tribal woman who escaped death after
being set upon by a mob, told reporters here that her troubles started with
a rumour and culminated with 150 male villagers trying to bury her alive.

"The local quack doctor in the village told some people that I was a
practising witch and hence many of the villagers who had fallen sick were
not getting cured," Basumatary, a mother of six, said.

"After that some 100-odd men from the village dragged me out of my house
around 10 at night and started beating and torturing me at a public place
before deciding to bury me alive as punishment."

She, however, managed to escape after some village elders intervened, but
received numerous injuries, including a fractured hand, broken ribs, and
genital damage.

More than 50 people have been killed in Assam's remote Kokrajhar and
Sonitpur districts during the past year for allegedly practising sorcery
and witchcraft.

The majority of Bodos - tribal people only found in Assam - practise an
indigenous religion called Bathow, a mix of black magic and superstition
which is used in curing ailments or casting evil spells on adversaries. - A=
FP

_____

#6.

Indian Express
Friday, September 15, 2000
=20
ART FOR WHOSE SAKE
=20
The art bureaucracy recently objected to the display of a painting at a
national exhibition. They felt it offended patriotic sensibilities. Suresh
Menon writes on the moral police who offend artisitic sensibilities.

It is no exaggeration to say that in India, there is more politics in art
than vice versa. That is why when the Preservers of Culture and Arbiters of
What the Public are Allowed To See, Read or Hear usually recommend that a
book or a play or a painting be banned, they also seem to be saying at the
same time: ``Personally, I have nothing against this work; but the public
lacks the education to appreciate it. In fact, I am doing all this for the
national good, because if I were to be incautious, there would be riots.''
That, roughly, was Khushwant Singh's reaction when he first read Salman
Rushdie's `Satanic Verses' -- he decided that the country could ill afford
the riots that would follow if the book were not banned. Rushdie is a major
writer, one whose talents are so phenomenal he tends to be, as one writer
put it, a captive to his gifts. Yet, the Verses is not his best work;
sadly, it might be the one he is remembered for. And people like Khushwant
Singh had a role to play in that. Some years ago, whenMichael Jackson was
first invited to perform in India, the Keepers of the Moral Code decided
that a rock star from the US had it in him to destroy a five thousand year
old culture by merely dancing on a stage and singing in a high-pitched
voice. Jackson came and went (and even used the toilet at the residence of
one of the Keepers of the Code) but India did not collapse in a heap of
indignation.

No one told the artist M.F. Husain, ``Stop, thus far and no further'' when
he experimented with religious figures in the nude. What is morally
unacceptable is still aesthetically right, but that is a concept too subtle
for our politicians for whom artists with strong convictions, great talent
and offbeat works are as manna from heaven. Husain's house was sacked by
the Keepers of the Public Morality who wouldn't know the difference between
a canvas and a loaf of bread. To his credit, Husain continues to display an
individual streak and a healthy lack of respect for his tormentors -- but
lesser artists do not have his staying power.

The latest, Surendran Nair had the ignominy (or honour, depending on your
point of view) of having his work removed from an exhibition at the
National Gallery of Modern Art. The Director of the Gallery saw the canvas
(a nude Icarus preparing to take flight from the top of an Asoka pillar) as
being ``disrespectful to the national emblem.'' Doubtless, if she were more
familiar with the Icarus legend, the worthy might have equally objected to
the work as being ``disrespectful to those wonderful men from Greece in
their flying machines.'' Nair's work sold for one lakh, so, in real terms,
there are only winners here: including the bureaucrats who earned their 15
minutes of fame while displaying their patriotism. The Culture Secretary's
doublespeak -- if the work had been in a private gallery, there would have
been no problem, he said -- was of a piece with the official reaction. The
joint secretary, culture, has been quoted as saying, ``Why should a Greek
god, and that too naked, stand atop the nationalemblem?''

I am not sure that Icarus qualifies as a Greek god, but the point seems to
be that Nair's work would somehow be enhanced if it had a fully-clothed
mythical figure who jumped off the top of a tree. But even then the kind of
tree might lend itself to political interpretation. If it were a coconut
tree, for example, an argument could be made that it was an insult to the
coastal people of India for whom the coconut tree provides a living. There
is nothing, repeat, nothing that a clever politician or bureaucrat cannot
twist to his advantage.

This does not mean, of course that there is no good art and bad art. The
NGMA Director reacted `squeamishly' to one of the works while the
exhibition was being put up, while in another instance she wanted a
sculpture shifted because little children might trip on it. If the artist
has the right to put up his work on public display, the public equally has
the right to show its displeasure by reacting squeamishly.

We thus come to the two sides of the argument -- on the one hand, all art
is right (the cliche is art for art's sake); on the other there are limits
to what may be art, these limits being prescribed by either the curator's
or the public's understanding of what constitutes decency. This is the art
vs morality question that has never been satisfactorily resolved, because
as George Orwell said, ``People are too frightened either of seeming to be
shocked, or of seeming not to be shocked , to be able to define the
relationship between art and morals.'' In Surendran Nair's case, he and his
fellow-artists are up in arms against the establishment; their question
being:``Who is the culture secretary (or anybody else) to decide on the
merits of an artist's work?'' It is as if artists must be allowed some
amount of irresponsibility because they work outside the system to hold up
a mirror to it.

What throws a bridge across the two extremes is the public's reaction. No
one is forced to like a work of art, and the public has every right to
ignore what it doesn't like. Often it is the media which tell the public
what it should or shouldn't like, and in that sense the media are
indistinguishable from the bureaucrats mentioned above. Elephant dung used
as art material is news, and it is even bigger news when the mayor of New
York objects to it, as happened last year. That is all the publicity needed
to draw in the crowds. What constitutes obscenity in one generation is
often seen as normal in another. Lady Chatterley's Lover might have earned
D H Lawrence notoriety when it was first published, but today it is
impossible to read some portions of it as anything but pure farce.

The bureaucrats who objected to Nair's works were acting beyond the call
of duty, and deserve our pity. There are sensible laws to prevent artists
from becoming public nuisances. You cannot, for instance, chop up visitors
as they walk into a gallery and pass that off as art. The new craze,
`Installation art' will not be tolerated if it gives off poisonous gases at
regular intervals as visitors approach it. Only the insecure are affected
by parodies. If, as a nation, we are unable to laugh at those who poke fun
at us, there is a deeper problem here than harm done to national emblems.
Surrealism, by definition, goes beyond reality. Unfortunately, official
reaction to it continues to be real, all too real.

Copyright =A9 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.=20

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