[sacw] SACW Dispatch | 27 Sept. 00

Tue, 26 Sep 2000 13:27:13 -0700

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

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#1. Pakistan: Restore Democracy Conference on October 12th
#2. Bangladesh: Is Democracy Simply About Elections ?
#3. India/Pakistan: For God's sake let us talk first !
#4. India: Religion & Fertility In India
#5. India: Sir Syed's spirit lies forgotten in AMU
#6. India: VHP to mobilise public opinion in favour of Narmada dam
#7. India: VHP's Temple is Coming
#8. India: Hindu Marriage Registry Shot Down=20=20=20
#9. India: Courts rescue Christian women

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#1.

RESTORE DEMOCRACY CONFERENCE ON OCTOBER 12TH

An all parties "Restore democracy Conference" will be held on 12th October
2000, the day military took over a year ago in Pakistan, at Lahore Press Cl=
ub
Building.=20

A committee has been established to organise the conference. The 6 members
committee include Asma Jehangir, former chair person Human Rights Commissio=
n
of Pakistan, Abid Saqi, secretary Lahore High Court Bar Association, Rashid
Rehman, convernor Social Democratic Movement of Pakistan, Abdul Majeed kanj=
oo,
president Saraiki National Party, I.A. Rehman, director Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan and Farooq Tariq General Secretary Labour Party
Pakistan.
=20
25 political parties, excluding the religious parties have been invited to
participate in this conference. Most of central leaders of these political
parties have already agreed to participate in this conference. It will take
place on the day, when a year ago, military took power. This is to make it
clear that there is no welcome for the military take over.=20

The political parties will assert pressure on the military regime to return=
to
barracks and announce immediately the general elections. The military regim=
e
has not yet announced any timetable for the general elections but have
insisted to go for the local bodies elections in stages during the end of t=
he
year.

Most of the national trade unions and non government organisations will be
invited to participate in this conference.=20

A two point agenda is been posted to the political parties. It includes
political parties perception for the restoration of democracy and a
perspectives and strategy for future.=20

Please send messages of solidarity for this conference from your party, gro=
up,
NGO, trade union or even individuals. We would like to issue these to the
press and will be printed as part of the broacher of the conference.=20

Please post it to

labour.pakistan@u...

Fraternally,

Farooq Tariq
General secretary
Labour Party Pakistan

_____

#2.

New Internationalist 324
June 2000

BANGLADESH: IS DEMOCRACY SIMPLY ABOUT ELECTIONS ?

4 December 1990. A little girl with a bouquet smiled as she walked in the
street with her dad. She was one of the many celebrating that night. The
dictator =96 General Ershad =96 had been forced to step down. This was the
first time since the 1975 assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the
father of the nation, that the country was free from military rule. The
nation was throbbing with expectation.

Through two largely fair elections, there have since been two
democratically elected governments, but genuine democracy is still a long
way away for Bangladesh. Despite Bengal=92s glorious past, nearly 200 years
of British colonial rule institutionalized serfdom. Military rule in many
of the ensuing years =96 first as part of Pakistan, then since independence
in 1971 =96 has done little to change things. The superficially democratic
process being practised today is still tied to foreign aid and
patron-client relationships, and the behaviour of the ruling class is still
linked to fiefdom and servitude.

The non-governmental organization (NGO) sector forms a virtual parallel
government in Bangladesh. Though sceptics point out the Manhattan-style
skyscrapers that house the largest NGOs in the country and rightly
criticize the large amounts of donor funds spent on =91administrative costs=
=92,
NGOs have played a significant role in primary education and have created
awareness of some basic health issues. However, UNICEF faces a mass law
suit based on the discovery that tubewells sunk by them might be largely to
blame for the plight of some 70 million now believed to be afflicted by
arsenic poisoning.

Photo: TOMAS SENNELL

Lack of development in the villages has led to mass migration to cities,
where tall buildings put further pressure on supply of basic amenities.
Power cuts are common and water is scarce. Corruption, institutionalized by
General Ershad, and rampant during both subsequent governments, is
pervasive and armed goons sponsored by all major political parties
terrorize ordinary citizens. The Government has introduced the
controversial =91Public Safety Act=92 giving it even more sweeping powers.

Critics fear it will be used to quell opposition. Recent findings of oil
and gas promise wealth for the nation but opinion differs as to how these
resources should be used. The US is hell-bent on the country exporting gas
and oil, and the recent visit by Bill Clinton is linked with US interest in
these resources. However, many feel the resources need to be saved for
Bangladesh=92s own use.

Not everything is negative. The Bangabandhu bridge over the River Jamuna
offers new opportunities to the formerly isolated northern regions. After
decades of persecution of minority nationalities in the Chittagong Hill
Tracts the Government recently concluded a peace treaty, even if vested
interests in the military have slowed the process. Removal of all taxation
on computers has aided growth in the IT sector, and the planned removal of
government monopoly on telecommunications will also stimulate the
info-economy. The Government is bending over backwards to promote foreign
investment but investors still feel that the corruption at all levels is
stifling. Many Bangladeshis, on the other hand, feel the perks given to
foreigners are too steep a price to pay; they feel these will help
investors far more than the economy.

For eight years Abul Hossain and his family had lived by the roadside near
the hotel where Clinton was to stay. Without warning, the municipal
corporation smashed their makeshift home days before the US President=92s
visit. The corporation came back three days later, to set fire to the
remainder of their belongings. Until there is a dramatic shift in power
structures and the relationships the =E9lite have with vested interests in
the North, the megabucks that Clinton has promised will do little to change
Abul Hossain=92s life.

Shahidul Alam=20

______

#3.

Kashmir Times
27 September 2000
Opinion

FOR GOD'S SAKE LET US TALK FIRST !

By Brig. NB Grant (Retd.)

"You will not get a pair in Kashmir, but you are sure to get one in India",
was the reply given to me by an optician in Srinagar for the replacement of
a broken pair of Ray-Ban glasses. He was not being rude or even cynical,
but making a statement which is so common and comes so naturally in that
state. Although not intentionally, but subconsiously he was differentiating
Kashmir from India, and it is a well known psychiatric fact that whatever
is in the subconscious is usually the truth. It is therefore, worth
analysing the reasons why an average Kashmiri thinks in this particular way=
.

To begin with, let us face the fact that India was partitioned on a
communal basis to create a separate homeland for Indian Muslims. However,
as far as Kashmir was concerned it was a Hindu maharaja who ruled over a
Mulsim dominated state. He for his personal security, signed the Instrument
of Accession to join the Hindu dominated India. The indian army gave him
security and in that process a watch was kept that his Muslim subjects did
not cross over to neighbouring Muslim Pakistan.

The trouble started later. Right from the word go, we did everything under
the sun to make the whole world believe that Kashmir was not an integral
part of the country to the same extent as the other states were. For
starters, Sheikh Abdullah was installed as its first Prime Minister and not
as a Chief Minister, thus placing him at par with the Prime Minister of the
country. This was followed by a special status granted to the state under
Article 370 of the Constitution to provide for its =91traditions=92 and
=91susceptibilities=92 which were said to be peculiar to the state.

This was not all. We even allowed, and still do, the Srinagar radio station
to identify itself as Radio Kashmir and not as All India Radio, Srinagar,
on the lines of all other radio stations of the country. As if this was not
bad enough, earlier, we even went to the extent of allowing Kashmir to have
a separate Constitution, a separate flag and also a separate anthem! Of
course, the last straw which broke the proverbial camel's back, was, when
we took the case to the UN, to clear our doubts as to whether Kashmir was
really a part of India. Plebiscite was agreed upon then.

The question is if as we now claim and take it for granted that there has
been never any doubt about Kashmir's accession to India then what was the
need to do all this. Didn't we make our credibility suspect before the
entire world? Even at the expense of sounding unpatriotic, the specific
question to be answered is, if after 50 years of keeping Kashmir legally,
constitutionally and more so emotionally separate from the rest of the
country, how can we still keep on harping on the inane and wornout cliche
of Kashmir being an integral part of the Indian culture, ethos and national
life stream.

We keep on blaming Pakistan for many of the troubles of our making. We
accuse our neighbour of organising training camps for terrorists along the
border, a fact that is true, and now is not being denied even by the US and
UK. Well, what has been our track record? Although, the oppression and
genocide of East Pakistanis was Pakistan's internal problem, didn't India
organise the Mukti Bahini and send across our troops to =91liberate=92
Bangladesh? Pakistan is now claiming of =91liberating=92 Kashmir. Even if w=
e
succeed in holding on to Kashmir by the military and the police or by
legislations, unless we can hold it emotionally, we are not holding it at
all. And unfortunately, that emotional bond has ceased to exist two decades
ago.

For how long are we going to pour money, resources and men into that
Valley, which brings us nothing but insecurity, frustration, daily loss of
lives and a constant drain on our faltering economy? We have go to solve
this problem not by asking what Pakistan or India wants, as we already know
the answer, but by asking the Kashmiris what they actually want? But then,
it would require a man of the stature of a Gorbachev who can ask this
question even at the risk of losing his post.

The latest scenario appears to be that even the P-5 and G-8 countries are
veering round to the idea that ultimately the Kashmir issue is to be
resolved by the two parties themselves, without any third party mediation.
The only hitch, however in these talks is, whereas Pakistan wants
everything else to discuss later than Kashmir and India the vice-versa.
This brings us to the original issue why are we hedging in discussing this
crisis. Actually for us nothing should be more important than Kashmir.

If Israel and Palastine can talk in spite of bombing and air raids, if
there can be debates and dialogues in the midst of killings in Ireland, why
are we afraid to talk to Pakistan. Why do we raise the cross-border
terrorism as an excuse?

=97(News & Views Alliance)

______

#4.

Economic and Political Weekly=20
August 26-September 2, 2000 3253

RELIGION AND FERTILITY IN INDIA

The recent contribution by Moulasha and Rama Rao (1999) to the debate on
the relationships between religion, fertility and family planning, uses
National Family Health Survey data in misleading ways. By failing to
consider regional patterns in the distribution of Hindus and Muslims they
exaggerate the role of religious group membership in understanding
fertility differences. They give spurious credence to arguments that
suggest that Islam in some way encourages higher fertility, they fail to
consider issues of risk and uncertainty faced by religious minorities, and
they come to unwarranted policy conclusions. In order to understand
inter-religious fertility differences, analyses must be based on the
understanding of specific social, economic and political contexts.

by ROGER JEFFERY, PATRICIA JEFFERY

In a recent paper using National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data to look
at inter-religious differences in fertility, Moulasha and Rama Rao produce
a table that shows that the total fertility rate for Muslim Indians, at
4.41, was above the rate for Hindu Indians of 3.30 in 1987-88 (1999:3049).
Controlling for schooling level of the woman, the table shows that the
differentials range from 1.1 among the illiterate to 0.6 among those who
have completed middle school. The rest of the article consists of a series
of similar tables, the =91independent=92 variable in each case is =91religi=
on=92.
These bald figures give the misleading impression that such relatively
large differences are explicable entirely by the factor of religion.
Discussions of inter-religious differences in fertility have been highly
sensitive in political debate in India at least since the early 1900s
[Appadurai 1993; Cohn 1987; Datta 1993; Jaffrelot 1995]. They have recurred
since 1970, with increasing vigour since 1985, in the propaganda put out by
the Sangh parivar [see, for example, Hendre 1971; Prakash 1979]. Moulasha
and Rama Rao should have considered the full range of discussions of this
topic. Unfortunately, they have not done so, and their paper is
academically flawed and politically un-wise as a result. We shall not be
concerned with the details of the tables that briefly present statistical
data comparing Hindus and Muslims in India on a wide range of indicators,
but we will instead consider the underlying assumptions of the
Moulasha/Rama Rao paper. We shall focus on the fertility indicators, though
much of what we have to say will apply, mutatis mutandis, to the data on
family planning. We shall argue that Moulasha and Rama Rao (a) exaggerate
the size of fertility differentials by failing to disaggregate their data
by region; (b) give undue weight to notions of =91particularised theology=
=92 in
explaining inter-religious fertility differences; (c) fail to consider
adequately the implications of minority group status for Muslims in modern
India; and (d) come to erroneous and partial policy conclusions. In
general, we argue, analysis of demographic regimes needs to be un-dertaken
at a level of social organisation that reflects coherent social groups, not
through using variables that may change their meaning from place to place
and have very little significance in people=92s day-to-day lives. Comparing
Muslim and Hindu fertility (or mortality) is, we would suggest, a form of
essentialism, presuming that Muslims (as a whole) share common features
which set them apart from Hindus (as a whole) and make them appropriate
units for com-parison. Simple observation suggests the fallacy of such an
approach. Caste differ-ences among Hindus are only the most obvious, with
major differences in social indicators for brahmins at one extreme, and
scheduled tribes at the other. Addi-tionally, the categories of =91brahmin=
=92,
=91scheduled tribe=92 or =91scheduled caste encompass wide social variation=
s,
though some aspects of government policy treat them as homogenous.
Class-based, regional and urban-rural differences are also clearly
considerable and highly significant. Such variability is also true for
Muslims: Keralan Muslim traders from Cochi town in south India speak a
different language, have different social expectations, and live in very
different ways from rural Sheikhs of UP one thousand miles to the north.
Locally, caste-like differences among Muslims, while not marked by the same
concerns of purity and pollution as among Hindus, nonetheless reflect
different life-chances and structural positions. A priori it is likely that
variability within the categories =91Hindu=92 and =91Muslim=92 is likely to=
be more
significant than variations between the two categories. Furthermore, in
India, the communali-sation of population discussions is part of the Sangh
parivar=92s political strategy. Failure to note this, and failure to
chal-lenge the grounds chosen by the Sangh parivar is to concede the
plausibility of the claim that =91the philosophical postulates of a
particular religion...constitute the exclu-sive, unchanging organisational
principle for an entire people across all kinds of spaces, times and
historical change=92 [Basu et al 1993:74]. Creating a unitary =91other is a=
way
in which the Sangh parivar strength-ens its claims to represent all those
who regard themselves as Hindus. Demographic data that are interpreted to
argue that Muslim Indians have higher fertility rates than Hindus cannot be
left unchallenged: they imply that particular features of Is-lamic social
thought and doctrine predis-pose Muslims to adopt attitudes towards
fertility and family planning as Muslims =96 a position we reject.
Nonetheless, for the purposes of this paper we will begin by accepting the
assumption that it is mean-ingful to compare Hindu and Muslim fertility
rates, and we start by using reli-gion crudely as an explanatory variable
in understanding demographic change.=20

(The above paper is available via e-mail. Send an e-mail message to
<aiindex@m...> for the full text)

______

#5.

Tehelka.com

SIR SYED'S SPIRIT LIES FORGOTTEN IN AMU

The missing spark in Aligarh Muslim University is the modern and liberal
spirit of its founder - but it's still the gateway to a wider world, says
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr

Aligarh, September 26

Despite the assertiveness, and even the defiance of the teachers and the
staff, there is something missing in today's Aligarh Muslim University
(AMU). The missing spark is the modern and liberal spirit of its founder,
Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. For outside critics as well as insiders, AMU has
become a mere education centre, with no place for intellectual excitement.
AMU has been reduced to a conservative haven in the eyes of the Muslims as
well as its detractors.

But Sir Syed was anything but a conservative. As a matter of fact, he
outraged the conservatives of his day by insisting on Western education for
Muslims. He has also reinterpreted the Koran for the modern age. He argued
that there is no contradiction between the word of God as revealed in the
Koran and the work of God as seen in Nature, which in turn is the subject
of study by science.

Noted Marxist historian Irfan Habib, who had retired six years ago from
AMU, observes that Sir Syed wanted Muslims to understand the Koran in the
light of reason and science. Habib says that, when asked by a friend
whether the Koran should be reinterpreted every time a new discovery is
made in science, once every 20 years, Sir Syed had said, "Twenty years is
too long a time!"

It was indeed the case that Sir Syed was a radical modernist, and he hoped
to infuse the Muslims of India at the end of the 19th century with the
spirit of inquiry. It appears that that has disappeared from AMU, and the
reason for the defensive tone of its teachers and students is mainly due to
the fact that they do not seem to have read or imbibed the ideas of Sir
Syed. Although many of them take modernism for granted in terms of
technology, modernity of mind is absent.

It was indeed the case that Sir Syed was a radical modernist, and he hoped
to infuse the Muslims of India at the end of the 19th century with the
spirit of inquiry. It appears that that has disappeared from AMU

They feel that after the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya in 1992,
the soul of the Muslims has been bruised. Shahid Rizvi of the physics
department says in a passionate tone, "Our ancestors have been buried in
this soil. We say our fateha - the invocatory prayer - here. No one can
dispute our Indianness. This is our land." It is this tone of despondency
that comes as a surprise to anyone who knows about AMU's visionary founder.

But AMU is still the gateway to the wider world. Says Maqsud Agha of the
department of biochemistry, "For most Muslims students from the small towns
of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, AMU is a liberating institution. It offers them
modern amenities and opens up their minds to the world of knowledge." They
may not be as modern as Sir Syed would have liked them to be, but they get
to know the modern world in very many ways.

It is surprising, then, that outsiders consider AMU to be some sort of
religious seminary, like the one at Deoband or at Lucknow. The AMU concept
of education does not have a place for the madrasah, the traditional
Islamic school, with its emphasis on religious learning. Sir Syed set up
the Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875, which grew into the Aligarh
Muslim University in 1920, because he was aware that the madrasah has
outlived its utility. And that there was need for modern education. The
hostile critics of the university seem to think that AMU is only a larger
version of the madrasah!

On September 23, a delegation of the AMU Lawyer's Forum came to the
university to inquire about the situation. One of them, a young Delhi High
Court lawyer, narrated a typical argument about AMU he had had with a Hindu
friend. He was asked as to why AMU was a trouble spot, and why its students
were extremists. And he retorted by saying, "Yes, AMU produces extremists.
And I am one of them."

The man who asked the question was both ignorant and prejudiced about AMU.
And the lawyer from the university reacted with predictable irritation.
There is a need to correct the picture. And the AMU students and staff will
have to put their modern foot forward and declare to the whole world what
Sir Syed's vision - AMU - is all about.

Instead of adopting an aggressive or a defensive tone in response to the
tirades of the Hindutva brigade, AMU's teachers and students should be able
to bring back the liberal and moderate tone that Sir Syed used to answer
his critics. He refuted the false charges that his detractors - and there
were too many Muslims who were up in arms against him - with passion, but
never with bitterness. It may not be possible to be like the great man that
Sir Syed was, but he should serve as the touchstone of Muslim response to
critics.

______

#6.

[Recieved from Fred. Noronha]

VHP TO MOBILISE PUBLIC OPINION IN FAVOUR OF NARMADA DAM

by Abhijit Bhatt, India Abroad News Service

Ahmedabad, Sep 26 - The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a right-wing Hindu
organisation, is planning a major campaign to turn public opinion in favour
of the Narmada dam project.

"Everyone knows that had the dam been built, Gujarat would not have
experienced water scarcity. In the coming days, 'sants' (ascetics) from all
over the state will come out and fight for the Narmada project to save
Gujarat," top VHP leader Acharya Dharmendra told reporters here.

He castigated the state and Central governments for being lethargic on the
project. "I will meet sants within the next few days and we will launch a
massive programme against the Central and state governments," he said.

The water scarcity in the state has also taken a toll of cows and their
owners, he said. "Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel never thinks of cows and
their owners. The state is facing drought for the third year in a row but
the government has not taken any concrete steps," Acharya Dharmendra said.

The VHP leader was critical of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP)
performance at the Centre too, where it leads the ruling coalition. "In its
efforts to form the government, the party has given the goby to the Hindu
agenda," Acharya Dharmendra said.

He criticised BJP president Bangaru Laxman for wooing Muslims. "The people
of India voted for the BJP so that it could protect the Hindus' interests
but unfortunately the Union government has failed to protect them," he said=
,
referring to the killing of 35 pilgrims in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Narmada project envisages a 128-metre high concrete gravity dam on the
Narmada river. The work on the dam has come to a standstill following a cas=
e
in the Supreme Court. The dam's height at the moment stands at 85.3 metres.
The project was to cost Rs. 64.08 billion when work started in the late
1980s. Today the cost has swelled to Rs. 370 billion.

_____

#7.

The Statesman
27 September 2000
Editorial and Perspective

TEMPLE IS COMING

The Government cannot be complacent THE language in which the VHP is
presenting its case on the temple suggests it is a National Wish: =93We wil=
l
rake up the issue in such a big way, says Onkar Bhave of that organisation,
that a situation is created where the Government will be compelled to allow
the construction of the temple in Ayodhya.=94 Another VHP man says, rather
mysteriously, that all governments are =93their governments=94, meaning per=
haps
there is something irresistible about their agenda. Praveen Togadia seems
to strike a discordant note when he talks about waiting for the
Government=92s reaction to the January conclave of holy men in Allahabad
where directions will be given for construction to begin, but he obviously
expects pressure from inside to tell on the BJP. Work on the temple has
continued apace in workshops in Rajasthan and in Ayodhya, in spite of the
Supreme Court=92s injunctions. The VHP has made it amply clear that, for
them, the temple is not a law and order issue, the law, in fact, should
have nothing to say on matters central to the Hindu faith. Even so, some in
the VHP, Togadia for instance, have expressed the wish that the legal
hurdle can be overcome by the passing of a parliamentary resolution. That a
parliamentary resolution does not have the force of law is too refined an
argument for the likes of the VHP. The Government says that it will
intervene forcefully if the construction of the temple creates a law and
order situation, but says nothing of the Supreme Court order which
prohibits it. It is argued that the site is no longer =93disputed=94, becau=
se
there is no corresponding claim being made on whatever remains on behalf of
the Muslims. The proposition is on a par with the hypothesis that if your
premises are invaded and no trace of it remains, the land on which it stood
is yours by right of violence and vulgarity. The question for determination
is whether a temple existed on the site before the Babari Masjid was
constructed; a sufficiently ridiculous proposition in itself. The Babari
Masjid has been demolished and, even though the Shahi Imam did talk about
rebuilding it, no Muslim organisation has made any moves in that direction.
All that is likely to happen is that the whole thing will be heavily
politicised at the national and the UP levels and there will be a communal
fallout as well. And if the temple issue is politicised, the elements
within the BJP which are sympathetic to the VHP will not remain silent
either. That will effectively blow the BJP=92s alibi that it has nothing to
do with the VHP or its agenda, to the utter delight of the combined
opposition. So, for purely political reasons, the Government would be
well-advised to do something to stop the VHP in its tracks, because the
ensuing mess is sure to create tensions within the NDA, threaten its
stability and even its survival. The build up to all this is to begin next
month when a model of the temple will taken in procession from a workshop
in Jaipur to Ayodhya. The time for speaking up is now.
_____

#8.

(Recieved from Sukla Sen, Bombay)

The Telegraph

HINDU MARRIAGE REGISTRY SHOT DOWN=20=20=20
=20=20=20=20=20
FROM R. VENKATARAMAN=20
=20
New Delhi, Sept. 25:=20=20
The Centre has made it clear that registration of Hindu marriages will not
be made compulsory, either by amending the Hindu law or bringing in new
legislation.

The Centre rejected a suggestion of the National Human Rights Commission
recommending mandatory registration of a Hindu marriage. An official source
said the Centre =93found it difficult to interfere in the personal law of a=
ny
community=94 and left it to the states to bring in necessary amendments in
legislation or enact a new law for the purpose. A communication to this
effect has been sent to the NHRC, sources said.

The NHRC in its recommendation said making registration of Hindu marriages
mandatory would help reduce child marriage. It=92s observation came after i=
ts
preliminary study on child marriages, especially in states like Uttar
Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan.

The Centre pointed out that states like Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat
had already passed laws making registration of a marriage compulsory and it
would be appropriate for other states to enact a law, rather than the
Centre interfering in personal law mandating registration.

The NHRC said the existing law, the Child Marriages Restraint Act, 1929,
has not been effective in curbing the social menace. The NHRC, already
flooded with complaints of child marriages, suggests that an amendment or
enactment of a new law mandating registration of marriages would at least
reduce instances of child marriage.

The Centre has pointed out that the existing Hindu Marriages Act has a
provision for registration of marriages. But it is not made compulsory and
it is optional for the parties to register the marriage either at the time
of ceremony conducted in accordance with Hindu religious and Vedic
prescriptions or after the performance of the ceremony.

The Centre had also not been able to amend the law relating to Christian
marriages, the Indian Marriage and Divorce Act, after resistance to the
proposed amendments from certain quarters of the community.

Former law minister Ram Jethmalani brought in the proposed amendments and
held two rounds of discussions with about 20 major Christian organisations,
including all Christian MPs cutting across party lines. His successor Arun
Jaitley has put the issue on the back-burner and no effort has been made to
revive the process of discussion.

Christians opposed the amendment that Churches cannot conduct a marriage
between a Christian and a non-Christian. Such marriages were proposed to be
registered in courts directly.

=93The BJP at this juncture may not want to stir one more controversy by
amending the Hindu Marriages Act or by bringing in new legislation
mandating registration of Hindu marriages,=94 a political source said.

NHRC chairman Justice J.S. Verma had already stated that the commission has
not been =93armed=94 properly to make its decisions binding on anybody. Sin=
ce
the commission=92s role on such matters is only recommendatory, it cannot
compel the government to abide by its suggestions.=20=20
=20
_____

#9.

Indian Express
27 September 2000

Courts rescue Christian women

by Flavia Agnes

The Christian divorce law is the most antiquated statute in the country.
Women trapped in violent marriages are subjected to extreme degradation by
denial of the right of divorce. Perhaps the time has come to raise the
uncomfortable question: who is responsible for this deplorable state of
affairs?

The Roman Catholic Church has been the strongest supporter of this archaic
law enacted by the Protestant rulers of British India, as it fitted in well
with the dogma of indissolubility of marriages. But the antiquated dogma
had to be tailored to the ground reality. Confronted with violent spouses,
bigamous marriages and illegitimate children, a way out had to be found.
So, while consistently objecting to statutory divorce, the church became
liberal in granting annulments. The subtle difference between divorce and
annulment may escape a lay person's perceptions but it helped to keep the
dogma intact.While the church dissolved the sacramental bond, women were
left to fend for themselves in the realm of the mundane -- children's
custody, maintenance, the right to matrimonial home and property. With the
declaration by the Supreme Court that church annulments were devoid of
legal sanction, the antiquated Indian Divorce Act remained the only portal
through which Christians could obtain the right of remarriage.

This complex legal maze prompted Christian women to initiate a process of
reform from within, but their efforts were subverted at every step by both
the church and the state. Without a consensus from the community leaders
(read, the religious hierarchy), the state would not budge. Law reform for
minority communities is a tricky issue in any case and the state was quite
content to vacillate and procrastinate, while women were left to die in
theirmiserable plight. After two decades of negotiations, when a Bill was
finally ready, the church raised a controversy.

At the centre of it was the official stipulation that a valid Christian
marriage could be performed only between parties both of whom were
Christians. The church claimed its existing prerogative to perform
marriages in church between a Christian and a non-Christian. While raising
the controversy, the church turned a blind eye to the increasing number of
Christians in intra-religious marriages, who were resorting to the Special
Marriage Act in times of dispute, in order to circumvent the tyrannical
clauses of the Indian Divorce Act. The church also conveniently glossed
over the fact that a registration under the Special Marriage Act, does not
bar a church ceremony. Even at this late hour, the concern of the church
seems to be more towards expanding its own power base rather than the
welfare of its womenfolk. One of its demands is legal recognition to church
annulments. Given the conservative posture of the church in matters of
divorce, women's rights, family planning, etc and considering that the
judges of thechurch tribunal are invariably men, the grant of the demand
will only be a subversion of women's rights.

Fortunately, the law lives, not in the musty corridors of the legislature
nor in the antiquated pinnacles of clerical authority, but in courtrooms
where it is constantly applied, interpreted and tested. So while the church
and the state dragged their feet, the courts rose to the defence of women.
During the initial years, the judiciary appealed to the legislature to
bring in the necessary reforms. But, when the legislature failed to
respond, the courts were compelled to act.

During the last five years, the high courts of Kerala, Bombay and Andhra
Pradesh have granted Christian women the right of divorce on independent
grounds of cruelty, desertion and adultery. Armed with these rulings, it is
now possible for the Christian woman in any other state to file for divorce
on these grounds. Recently, the Bombay High Court stuck down yet another
antiquated provision -- the requirement of decree nisi (provisional decree)
and decree absolute (final decree), a procedural tyranny that Christian
couples were subjected to. The court held that divorces granted by the
family courts would be deemed as final decrees. The Karnataka High Court
has also given a similar ruling. It appears that the legislature has
relinquished its law-making power to the courts.

The writer is a lawyer and activist on women's issues

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