[sacw] SACW Dispatch #1 | 23-24 Oct. 00 [India Special]

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch #1.
23-24 October 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

[India Special]
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#1. India Pakistan Partition: remembrances that spill across time-and borders
#2. India: Urban Space Goes Saffron: Hindutva's New Offensives
#3. India: RSS - Season of bad blood
#4. India: Hindu Right: Confuse Or Calculate? Looking for a new paradigm
#5. Sangh Parivar eyeing Goa
#6. Resolutions from Pakistan India People Forum Conference on Kashmir 

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#1.

Outlook
30 October 2000

PAKISTAN/TRAVELOGUE

The Persistence of Memory

Another country, an ancestral village, and remembrances that spill across
time-and borders

By Kalpana Sahni

Just two days after my arrival in Lahore, I was hurtling along the
Lahore-Islamabad motorway at 5 am with my friend Rasheeda. Our destination
was Bhera, the ancestral town of all the Sahnis, or rather the Khukrain,
which includes nine castes: Sahni, Sethi, Anand, Suri, Kohli, Bhasin,
Chaddha, Sabharwal and Chandhok.

For our post-Partition generation, Khukrain and Bherochis (those from
Bhera) were unusual-sounding words that occasionally cropped up in
conversations of the older generation, including my father Bhisham Sahni
and his brother, Balraj ji (the actor Balraj Sahni).

Signboards of vaguely familiar places flitted past us: Lala Musa,
Gujranwala, Chakwaal. They held no associations for me. And Bhera? What did
I know of this town? I had heard that it once was a flourishing trading
centre on the Jhelum. Some Bherochis claim the battle between Porus and
Sikander was fought near Bhera and that Porus was a Khukrain Sabharwal. A
few others are convinced that Alexander was so impressed by the valour of
the Bherochis that he returned to Greece with five brave Bherochis, whose
successors still live there.

Chetan Anand, the film director, went even further. My father recalls how
he always boasted about his profile: "See, this is the classical Greek
profile". We Bherochis are Greeks! Some others unequivocally state that the
Khukrain originate from Khorasan. A more recent encounter with Bhera was
through my father's historical novel, Mayyadas ki Madi, set in Bhera: the
havelis, the Diwans and the railway line that ended in this town. On this
particular journey I wasn't concerned with sifting facts from fiction for I
had no idea of the borderline. All I knew was we were heading for my
father's ancestral town which was, as my Lahori friends had assured me, a
mere two-hour drive from Lahore.

A board on a red-brick structure announced 'Bhera Restaurant' although
there was no sign of any habitation on either side of the highway. The car
sped on. The landscape changed. Low hills arose in the horizon. We must be
approaching it, I thought. But we were soon told that we had overshot our
destination and had to proceed back to where the restaurant was and take a
detour from there.

Our journey for the next three hours was along a kutcha road. And pretty
soon I was certain the Partition days must have been an exception in
Bhera's history. Nobody could possibly have either visited or exited from
Bhera since Alexander's time. Not along this road, at any rate. I
understood why some Bherochis insist the actual name is Be-rah (without a
road). Another plunge into a pothole rearranged my insides and cleared my
head. I had another revelation. None of my Lahori friends had the foggiest
idea about the whereabouts of Bhera! Their knowledge was confined to the
restaurant they regularly zoomed past on their way to Islamabad.

We finally reached Bhera after a gruelling five-hour journey. Meanwhile,
Rasheeda was unsuccessfully trying to discover the location of the Sahni
Mohalla which was supposed to have existed. We took a side lane that led to
an open area surrounded by two and three-storied havelis with protruding
balconies-all with intricate woodcarvings. The houses stood amidst the
rubble of solitary walls. My father mentioned abandoned homes where only
the doors, with locks hanging, remained. Door after door after door-and all
with big locks. No walls, no roofs, just rubble behind them. Had he
referred to the time when the Jhelum changed its course and the town went
to seed, gradually losing its importance as a trade centre? I was now
beginning to doubt the existence of a Sahni Mohalla. It was then the
miracle occurred.

"You mean Sahniyan da Mohalla?" asked a man who had materialised out of
nowhere. "I'll show you." We could barely keep pace with this person who
strode confidently through the maze of narrow lanes. Finally he stopped
and, with his stick, pointed towards a house on the crossroads.

"There, Sahniyan da Mohalla begins from that house onwards." With these
words he disappeared just as miraculously as he had appeared.

A partly broken-down double-storeyed house peered over the wall. I was led
into a courtyard where four women of different age groups were busy with
their chores. When they discovered I was a Sahni from India, they engulfed
me with their warmth and love. "Please sit in the shade," said one. "Would
you like some milk or lassi?" asked another.

I waited for a brief pause to slip in my question. "Do you still say
aasaan-jaasaan?" The reply: "Of course. That is how we Bherochis are
recognised wherever we go. We have only to open our mouths to give
ourselves away."

We all laughed. Then, with a perplexed look on her face, the youngest of
the four turned to me and asked, "Do people in Delhi also speak like us?"

"If they are Bherochis, yes. And there too the other Punjabis immediately
recognise who they have in their midst," I said.

None of the women recalled the past for they belonged to the post-Partition
generation. They had bought this house about 30 years ago. It had been a
beautiful house, but the recent flood had destroyed a part of it. I looked
around and couldn't rein in my flights of fancy. Could this be the house my
grandfather grew up in? Was that the balcony from where my father played
pranks on the passers-by on the road?

This locality is still called Sahniyan da Mohalla as is the adjacent,
Sethiyan da. The women couldn't enlighten me on the Sahni families, but
they sent for someone. Mir Mohammad was a gaunt old man in a lungi. Despite
his grey beard and walking stick, his shoulders were not drooping as he
walked up to us with a broad smile and twinkling eyes. He had barely sat
down on the charpai in front of me before he let loose a volley of
questions.

"You've come from India? Really? I don't believe it! From Delhi? And you
are a Bherochi you say? A Sahni? What's your father's name? And your
grandfather's?" And then Mir Mohammad reeled off a string of names of
people he recalled from the Sahni clan: Mohan Lal Sahni, Diwan Ganpath,
Diwan Jaigopal, then Pal and Jiya Sahni. None of the names rang a bell. As
for me, I couldn't go beyond my grandfather's name. The old man tried to
console me. "Numerous families had moved to Rawalpindi," he said. "Did you
know the Sahni clan was the largest and richest one in Bhera? There were a
thousand houses in the Sahniyan da Mohalla."

A thousand houses! All Sahni, and all related to each other! There we were
in India, scattered in different parts of the country, rarely meeting one
another, and here were a thousand houses! I imagined children growing up
with hundreds of cousins, uncles and aunts. Then there must have been the
countless relatives in the neighbouring mohallas of the Anand and the Sethi
families. Didn't all the Khukrains intermarry? "Many people from the Sahni
families went abroad to study," Mir Mohammad continued. Perhaps it was
another of those Bherochi jokes, but it was said the British distinguished
three types of Indians who went there to study: the Hindus, the Muslims and
the Sahnis.

"It could be because the British had opened a school in Bhera? Did you know
that an angrez was invited for the mahoorat of this house?" And Mir
Mohammad proceeded to relate the story.

"This was the grandest house in the Sahniyan da Mohalla. For the mahoorat,
the owners bought bales and bales of red fabric which they spread all the
way from the railway station to the house. They didn't want their chief
guest to soil his shoes on our kutcha road. So, just imagine, this angrez
stepped off the train and straight on to the red cloth. You should have
seen how pleased he was with the reception! He left in a very good mood and
even praised the house."

Mir Mohammad laboured in the fields of Malik Suraj Kaul for a salary of
nine rupees. And again he amazed me with his memory for names. He recalled
every member of the family: the sons-Jagmohan, Manmohan, Susheel and
Minnoo; the daughters: Phallaan and Kamla Rani. All of a sudden, the old
man broke off and turned to me. "Meeting you has brought back all the
Hindus of Bhera before my eyes."

He was silent, his head bent. Then he picked up his thread of
reminiscences. The family he worked for had adopted him. Mir Mohammed
affectionately recalled his Hindu teacher. "But I will never forgive them
for one thing. Two months before Partition the Suraj Kaul family went to
Murree. They never returned. I couldn't so much as hug them before their
departure." Tears welled up in his eyes. "Please try and locate them. I
have failed. Someone said that they are in Ghaziabad."

After another pause, he continued, "Life's never been the same since the
Hindus left. We always used to celebrate each other's festivals. There was
a sense of camaraderie amongst all the Bherochis, regardless of whether
they were Hindus or Muslims. I remember how my father once took me to a
mela. What is the name of that festival when giants are constructed and
then burnt?"

"Dussehra."

"Yes, yes, Dussehra. See, I've even begun to forget the names. We went up
to the halwai's stall. The halwai, a good friend of my father's, gave me a
stern look and said, 'I don't give mithai to Mussalman children.'

'Which Mussalman kid do you see out here? This fellow?' my father retorted.
'Are you referring to him? He is no Mussalman. His name is Ashok.'

'Oh, is that so? In that case there's no problem,' and with a

wink and a grin the shopkeeper handed me a fistful of jalebis. My father
and the halwai were laughing as they watched me gobble up the jalebis."

Once again Mir Mohammed's eyes brimmed with unshed tears. "We used to laugh
and joke with each other. Together we celebrated each birth and together
mourned every death." Mir Mohammed accompanied us on a walking tour of the
Sahniyan da Mohalla. The railway station was just beyond the town wall, on
the other side of the mohalla. Like many of the British-made railway
stations, this one also seemed frozen in time. A train had just left. Men
were carrying out crates of merchandise. I wandered to the end of the
platform and sat down on a deserted bench. Not far from it was the yellow
board with its black lettering in bold letters: Bhera. It was supposed to
have been the last town along the railway line. The old rail tracks were
overgrown with grass. Were they the ones on which the British officer's
train arrived?

I looked around in search of the hillock from where the Bherochis watched
the approaching trains. The landscape was flat-no sign of even a mound. Yet
another of my father's fantasies had floated and merged with my Bhera
experiences. But the station and the platform were a reality, weren't they?
I was overpowered by conflicting emotions-a sense of belonging and a sense
of loss. Happiness intermingled with nostalgia and grief. I sat alone on
the bench, crying.

When I returned to Delhi, my father told me that apart from a month during
his elder sister's wedding, he had never lived in Bhera for any length of
time. My cousin hurled the choicest abuses when she heard of my trip. Why
hadn't I told her? Why

hadn't I re-read my uncle's travelogue to Pakistan? She had photographs of
our house, which my uncle had visited in 1962. Moreover, he had met a
cousin in Sargodha.

I have to return to Bhera. But before that, I must locate the family of
Malik Suraj Kaul.

(By arrangement with Friday Corporation)

(Kalpana Sahni is a professor of Russian literature at jnu, New Delhi. She
is the daughter of Bhisham Sahni and niece of Balraj Sahni.)

It was the house (above) where the Sahniyan da Mohalla began, a family
street, a thousand houses, and all Sahni!

All of a sudden Mir Mohammad broke his story: "Meeting you has brought back
all of Bhera's Hindus before my eyes."

In the end, it was a coalescence of experience and fantasy, intense
belonging and loss. The grief of a lost home.

______

#2.

The Daily Star
Editorial Page
Volume 3 Number 413 
Mon. October 23, 2000

URBAN SPACE GOES SAFFRON: HINDUTVA'S NEW OFFENSIVES

Praful Bidwai writes from New Delhi

Calendar-art recreations of Hindu mythology all along the Yamuna in Delhi?
That's Mr Jagmohan's latest brainwave. Charged by the archaeologically
unsound "theory" that Indraprastha existed somewhere near Purana Qila, he
wants a Disneyland dedicated to a Pandava "theme village".

Each Pandava's pavilion will have a unique design. For instance, Bhima's
will be an akhara. The project will span hundreds of hectares.

These pavilions are meant to inculcate samskaras. The minister is allotting
Rs. 5 crore for a feasibility study alone. The project cost would be
hundreds of times higher.

This spells Delhi's further architectural transformation. Already, the
Yamuna's left bank is dotted with temples. The "theme village" will convert
a "neutral" or "secular" public space accessible to all into a sectarian
entity relevant only to some. Perhaps no other society has seen such
retrograde landscape re-engineering barring perhaps ultra-conservative
"Islamic" Saudi Arabia.

Like the British Empire which created Delhi's Eighth City, Mr Jagmohan
wants to establish the NinthHindu Delhi, an amalgam of myth and modern
technology, petty prejudice and power-driven ambition, money and
mumbo-jumbo.

This is an assault on anything approaching a civilised, urbane, not to
speak of secular, sensibility. We'll soon be hoist with monuments to the
BJP's sectarian prejudices which could prove hard to dismantlelike the
makeshift Ayodhya "temple".

Mr Jagmohan's ill-conceived plan is as unbalanced as his "demolition"
activity, which ends up bulldozing homes of the poor, while "regularising"
the illegal, gross, mansions of the affluent. His latest achievement is the
"demolition" of shanties of people with amputated limbs.

The Yamuna plan puts Mr Jagmohan in the same league as Mr K.S. Sudarshan
with his "swadeshi Church" demand. The demand is doubly offensive. First,
he is poking his nose into the affairs of another religious community.

Worse, he casts aspersions upon the integrity of millions of citizens
because they are, to him, lesser Indians, being non-Hindu. Such hate speech
is morally and politically obnoxious. Free expression doesn't mean you
scream "fire" in a crowded cinema-hall without cause. Even less does it
mean you question people's citizenship.

Hindus aren't more "Indian" because of their religion's origins.
Christianity and Islam are as indigenous to India, indeed older here, than
varna-based Hinduism. But even if someone's religious identity cannot be
traced to ancient India, that is no reason for politically negating their
democratic rights as citizens.

This is precisely the kind of anti-Jewish hate speech that Germany's
"indigenists" and Aryan nationalists perfected before Hitler's rise to
power. This corroded the intelligentsia's sensibilities.

Senior BJP leaders like Messrs L.K. Advani, Jana Krishnamurthy, J.P. Mathur
and Narendra Modi have endorsed Mr Sudarshan's "swadeshi Church" statement.
Mr Bangaru Laxman hasn't, but going by his October 11 talk with U.S.
ambassador Celeste, he too opposes conversion.

So the BJP is taking us back to the rhetoric of all non-Hindus being
suspect. What unites the BJP-VHP-RSS and their front organisations is
precisely this malign majoritarianism. They all lay claim to a superior
"Hindu" identity by falsely rooting Aryans in Harappan civilisation, or
grossly exaggerating the cultural achievements of Vedic Indians.

This "superiority" claim is used to demand privileges for a particular
group. Its numerical strength is cited to invoke "democracy". But
majoritarianism is the opposite of democracy. Democracy is based not on a
permanent majority defined by ethnicity or religion, but on political
majorities, which change.

Hindutva ideologues invent spurious archeological-historical theories to
support their prejudices. The latest is "vedic" archaeology. Two eminent
U.S.-based Indologists have thoroughly exposed this in Frontline and
demolished the communal work of N.S. Rajaram. This claims to "prove" that
the Harappans were pastoral Aryans on the basis of some Harappan seals.

In fact, Rajaram's computer "enhancement" of a unicorn seal into a horse is
pure forgery. It is of such stuffvoodoo archaeology, distortion and
manipulationthat Hindutva's claims to national greatness are made.

The saffron agenda is gathering particular momentum in education. Under the
guise of morality, the National Council of Educational Research and
Training is making "value education" mandatory for schoolchildren. It lists
83 "values"a confused, contradictory compendium.

This will promote false pride in a glorified past and teach the child that
if there is anything commendable in any civilisation or culture, it must be
Indian, or rather, Hindu.

Universities too will have compulsory "value education". IIT Delhi will act
as the "value" centre for all engineering colleges. The course is likely to
include the teachings not just of Vivekananda and Chinmayananda, but also
of the controversial Sri Sathya Sai Baba, even Brahmakumaris.

At this rate, education will collapse into religious instruction.
Creationism will replace Darwin.

The vague term "values" includes "spirituality, meditation, yoga and ways
to manage the self". Now, one can understand the "value" of being truthful
or diligent. But yoga and meditation aren't "values".

Such half-digested notions will produce incoherent syllabi bound only by a
fiercely arrogant nationalism, and by emphasis on Hinduness and "family
values". This last is the favoured lexicon of the Hard Right in America's
Bible Belt. It is now being imported wholesale into India.

"Family values" may sound innocuous, like mother's milk. But this is a
disciplinarian notion which emphasises hierarchy and authority, and
restricts freedom and individuality, while perpetuating patriarchy.

It is on such illiberal foundations that European fascism's ideological
edifice was erected. The sangh parivar is building those very foundations.
The BJP may not last long in power. But its poison will stay with us for a
long timeunless we stop it now.

Postscript: After Mr Advani's emphasis on the RSS as the "guiding force" of
his government, and his description of the RSS-BJP link as unbreakable
(Oct. 17), it should be plain that the NDA is lurching dangerously
Rightwards. As this column has been saying, Mr Advani seems set to succeed
Mr Vajpayee. This makes Hindutva's menace even worse.

______

#3.

Outlook
30 October 2000

RSS

SEASON OF BAD BLOOD

The RSS' minority-baiting is a double-edged sword-coerce minorities and
blackmail the BJP

By Rajesh Joshi in Agra with A.S. Panneerselvan, Nitin A. Gokhale, Sujata
Anandan and Venu Menon

Their (Christians') activities are not merely irreligious, they are also
anti-national.... So long as the Christians here indulge in such activities
and consider themselves as agents of the international movement for the
spread of Christianity, and refuse to offer their first loyalty to the land
of their birth..., they will remain here as hostiles (sic) and will have to
be treated as such.

- M.S. Golwalkar in Bunch of Thoughts

What was a piece of polemical indulgence on Sangh ideological honcho
Golwalkar's part is the RSS' gospel today. When he had spelt it out, in an
atmosphere thick with the Nehruvian gung-ho, his views were largely
ignored. But when the fifth RSS chief, K.S. Sudarshan, expounded, at the
75th anniversary meet at Agra last fortnight, on the need for
"swadeshikaran" (indigenisation) of the Church and "Indianisation of Islam"
it, predictably enough, stirred a hornet's nest.

Sudarshan's suggestion to both Christians and Muslims to "Indianise" their
respective faiths was roundly criticised. But it was not read with his
rather loaded definition of non-violence. Addressing the mahashivir,
Sudarshan called upon the swayamsevaks to possess the "power of violence"
if they wanted to be truly non-violent. "If we don't have himsa ki shakti
(power of violence), we can't be non-violent. If we have violent power and
we don't use it, then it's non-violence".

This accent on violence within a non-violent framework has sent jitters,
particularly through the Christians, who take the RSS' statements
seriously. Says All India United Christian Forum leader John Dayal: "I take
the RSS seriously for two reasons. First, these statements come from a
political group which controls the political party which controls the
government. Secondly, it's got to do with the RSS' dubious track
record-hate and violence against all minorities and a declared distrust of
the Constitution."

To push the Indianisation point, Sudarshan quoted extensively from an
article purportedly written in 1968 by Mar Athanasius Joel S. Williams,
archbishop of the relatively less-known Indian National Church. The article
reads: "...it is extremely necessary today to put an immediate end to the
affairs of the foreign-controlled, foreign-financed churches and endowments
in India."

But Christian leaders view Sudarshan's thesis with suspicion. Father Donald
de Souza, deputy secretary-general of the Catholic Bishops Conference of
India (CBCI), sees a larger political motive behind the idea of the
swadeshi church. Says he: "The idea of swadeshi church is aimed at hitting
at the very roots of democracy and the Constitution. Nobody can regulate
faith. The Pope is the guarantor of the unity of faith, he does not tell me
about my political choices. The thing is that an enemy is being created (by
the RSS) where there is none." Bishop Karam Masih, Church of North India,
seems to agree: "When such sentiments are aroused, there is, clearly, some
political motive."

ARCHBISHOP Oswald Gracias of the Catholic Bishops Conference also questions
Sudarshan's charge that Indian Christians are not patriotic.

The reaction of Northeast church leaders has been equally sharp. George
Plathottam of Don Bosco Communications in Guwahati has rejected the RSS
chief's accusation that Christian missionaries in India indulge not only in
conversions but also foment secessionist movements. Says Plathottam: "The
army chief has said that Christian missionaries are not involved in
militancy. Was he lying?"

But by reviving Golwalkar, Sudarshan is trying to energise his
disillusioned cadre. However, almost every negative comment made by him was
followed by a seemingly benevolent advice to both communities. The stakes,
therefore, are clearly electoral-try to give the BJP's sagging fortunes a
boost vis-a-vis the impending UP assembly polls.

Many feel that the soft words were to save the BJP-led government, wooing
the minorities, from embarrassment. The RSS chief distinguished common
Christians and Muslims "who feel for the country" from their
"anti-national" clergy. Said Sudarshan: "Christians and Muslims changed
their method of worship but they've links with our ancestors. Even our
Indian Muslim brothers didn't come from outside....so why can't we create a
new form of Islam?" He also said how the Baptist Church had described
Diwali as the festival of darkness.

Richard Howell, general secretary of Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI),
admits that "some of the churches have borrowed offensive worldly terms".
Indeed, the National Consultation of the Theological Commissions of the EFI
on mission language and biblical metaphor met recently in Bangalore to
decide on doing away with offending terminology. Words like "darkness",
"heathen" and "pagan" are, in Howell's view, "unloving and
counter-productive".

Church leaders, however, say that they have no illusion that such changes
in their vocabulary will be convincing enough for the saffron brigade to
roll back their campaign against the Christians. Going by the parameters
set by the founder-fathers of the RSS, whose ultimate dream was to
establish Hinduism's superiority over other faiths, they feel there will be
no end to the RSS crusade.
<http://www.outlookindia.com/20001030/affairs1a.htm>RSS dumping the BJP:
"It's for the future to tell"
In an exclusive interview to Outlook at the Agra mahashivir, RSS joint
general secretary Madan Das Devi

<http://www.outlookindia.com/20001030/affairs1b.htm>Lord, Pardon them
OPINION Seshadri Chari

______

#4.

The Statesman
23 Oct.2000

Editorial and Perspective

CONFUSE OR CALCULATE? Looking for a new paradigm

Available insights into the state of mind of the RSS are baffling. For instance,the fact that Cardinal Ratzinger’s speech in New York refusing to put Christianity on par with other religions and which does not bother anyone in this country, apparently put the bee in the RSS sarsanghchalak’s bonnet to the extent that he called for the “Indianisation” of the Church: he was being either confused or calculating. Sudershan would appear to have other bees in his bonnet: for example, the receipt of money from abroad — VHP sympathisers send vast sums into this country but this is of course all right as this is swadeshi. But there is a cultural dimension too: Christianity is suddenly seen as a threat to the affirmation of Hindu identity. It is doubtful whether anyone outside the RSS’s inner circle sees any problem or at least in the same way and this only goes to underline the complete anachrony of its concerns. What is happening in the North-East has nothing to do with Christianity: t!
he Nagas are revolting as Nagas, their religion is just another marker setting them apart, not from Hindus, as Sudershan would have us believe but from all Indians. Had the neighbourhood been full of Christians, the Naga problem would have been just as acute.
Problems peculiar to the RSS remain. The fact is that attendance at shakhas is dwindling while front organisations devoted to political action are flourishing. This may be a direct consequence of the growth of the BJP. Also, the RSS has an idiom problem. Sudershan now speaks of farmers, something the RSS rarely did earlier. It means that the core Hindutva ideology is made to cater to an increasingly literate, possibly culturally disaffected, peasantry besieged by television and metropolitan values. It may also be another consequence of the growth of the BJP as a ruling party: Hindutva needs redefinition and the quest of Hindu identity reformulated in a rural context. The original flare-up, over the BJP’s declared move to woo the Muslim electorate, should be seen from this strategic perspective. Sudershan tells them that they have “the blood of Rama and Krishna in their veins’’. In other words, Muslims are either foreigners or Hindus, they cannot be Muslims. Which takes everybo!
dy well over the brink of sanity.

______

#5.

Rediff.com

SANGH PARIVAR EYEING GOA

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panjim

Why is the Sangh Parivar concentrating on Goa, a tiny peaceful state on the western coast of India, where hardly 1.5 million population lives in perfect harmony?

It is a bit difficult to rule it out as mere coincidence that various parivar organisations have been organising national-level summits in Goa only after the anti-church movement started dominating its agenda.

Close on the heels of a crucial national executive meeting in April last year was the Dharm Jagaran Yatra, which began from Goa on October 20, to hit the national capital on the eve of a visit by Pope John Paul II to India.

The just-concluded two-day <http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/oct/19vhp.htm>meeting of the Kendirya Margadarshak Mandal of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad is the third major event in 15 months, which has raised the controversial issue of the Ram temple construction once again, besides alleged conversions.

"We have no special interest in Goa. It was just a long-pending invitation from the local VHP unit," says Ashok Singhal, working president.

Though they deny having any other place than Kashi, Mathura and Ayodhya on the agenda, VHP leaders have been consistently making statements about Goa's history that several churches standing here today had temples in their place before the Portuguese conquered the coastal state in 1510.

"We have no intention of raising the controversy over these churches, except the three holy sites," clarified Ashok Chowgule, president of the VHP's Maharashtra and Goa units. Being a leading industrialist locally, he has succeeded in roping in two other leading mine owners - Dempo and Salgaoncar - into their camp of sympathisers.

The two-day VHP meet also released a six-page brochure on Konkan Kashi, narrating the history of how Goa was a major pilgrimage centre of Hindus in western India before the Portuguese rebuilt it as a pilgrim centre for Roman Catholics.

"Goa, even four decades after liberation, is misguidedly projected as the Rome of the East, particularly in tourism - by government and non-government agencies. But Goa is the Kashi of the west coast India... The Portuguese are not the makers but destroyers of Golden Goa," stated the brochure.

Though the Christian population of the tourist state is diminishing from 35 per cent in 1961 due to the influx of non-locals (mainly Hindus), it continues to be projected as a Christian state since all the four coastal talukas among 11 are Christian-dominated.

"We stress on Goa because we want to smash the image that this it is a Christian land," quipped Singhal. Dr Peter de Souza, head of department of political science at Goa University, however pointed out that this image was being projected by commercial interests and not by any particular religion.

"Even Christians here are equally hurt due to this projection. But it is a clash between locals and tourists, not Hindus and Christians," he pointed out, recalling how Goans belonging to all religious communities faced Portuguese bullets to liberate the colony.

"We definitely quarrel but never fight with each other," observes Dr de Souza. Describing the attempts of the Sangh Parivar as the hegemony of north Indian Hindus, he feared it may destroy the amity here, where even Hindu festivals have Christian participation.

Sitaram Tengse, a veteran journalist, however dismissed this fear, stating that no Goan Hindu would prefer going very close to the Sangh Parivar considering the social fabric of the state. "The BJP can't even win a simple municipal elections here without the support of Christians and Muslims," he stated, pointing to recent municipal poll results.

The BJP made a debut in the Goa Assembly only in 1994, with four legislators in the 40-member House, raising it to 10 now, while forming a coalition government with the Francisco Sardinha-led Congress splinter group. Interestingly, the local Church played a major role in helping the BJP win both Lok Sabha seats last year.

But while raising the slogan of a <http://www.rediff.com/news/2000/oct/07rss.htm>swadeshi church, the VHP appears to have been using religious conversions that took place here in the 16th century, linking it to the alleged conversions in India today. Goa, thus, has a new projection now - saffron style!

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#6.

[Letter from Pakistan India Peoples Forum For Peace and Democracy - India Chapter]

Dear Friends,

The first ever two day civil society meet in Delhi on the Kashmir problem, October 14 and 15 concluded with two resolutions which are attached.

More than 130 persons attended the conference on the two days. Much more remarkably eighteen activists of the J&K Federation of Civil Society organisation participated. This included Parveena Ahangar of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), Lawyer activist, Parvez Imroz, Rashid Hanjoora of the Yateem Trust, Ved Bhasin, editor of Kashmir Times, Sajjad Husain of Hussaini Relief Committee, Balraj Puri among others participated and spoke.

The conference focused on the political as well as the humanitarian dimension of the Kashmir problem. It looked at the regime of impunity and unaccountability and addressed the issue of human rights violations and its impact on the civilians. And followed this with a discussion on the issue of regions and minorities over which there was much debate. Finally the Kashmir problem was looked at from different vantage points, the prospects and possibilities of a peaceful solution and the likely course for civil society activists to pursue. A distilled outcome of our deliberations are embodied in the resolution.

Please take note of the decision to organise a solidarity rally in defense of "Right to Life and Freedom," in Srinagar timed with the memorial the APDP is building for all those who disappeared. It is likely to be around February-March but dates will be confirmed by the APDP.

We are working on the report and will be sent soon. Entire proceedings were recorded and transcripts are being prepared.

Yours sincerely,

Secretariat of PIPFPD

RESOLUTION I

Convinced that there can be no military solution to the Kashmir problem and that only a solution which meets with the wishes and aspirations of the people of J&K can be durable and just. A civil society meeting in New Delhi held on October 14th & 15, 2000 calls for the following:
1.We demand an immediate dialogue between Government of India and Government of Pakistan at the highest level without any preconditions.
2.We want all forms of terrorism both state and non state to cease immediately.
3.In order to create a suitable climate for the resumption of dialogue at the highest level we also :(a) call upon the Government of India to set up special courts to hold day to day trials facilitating early prosecution and delivering judgment on all cases of custodial deaths, disappearances, extra judicial executions, torture, cruel and degrading treatment.(b) Call upon all armed opposition groups and non-state groups to abide by optional protocol I and II of the Geneva Convention and respect all tenets of international human rights and humanitarian law.
(4)We urge an immediately cease-fire from all parties and all forces, state and non-state in the erstwhile of J&K.
(5)We call upon the Government of Pakistan to exercise its influence and control over various groups engaged in violent and militant activity in the erstwhile state of J&K.

IIRESOLUTION:

In defense of people's right to life and freedom and as an act of solidarity with the Association of the Parents of the Disappeared (APDP) which is building a memorial for the Disappeared, we resolve to be present in Srinagar on the inauguration of the memorial. We call upon the Forum to organise this solidarity action

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