[sacw] SACW #2 | 16 June 02

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire Dispatch #2 | 16 June 2002

South Asia Citizens Web:
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

South Asians Against Nukes:
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/NoNukes.html

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#1. Level-headed Pakistanis sorrowed by the prospect of Mr. Abdul 
Kalam becoming the next President of India (M.B. Naqvi)
#2. Kalam a conformist - Letter to the Editor (Kamal Lodaya)
#3. Importance of being Abdul Kalam (J SRI RAMAN)
#4. The dialectics of nationalism (Ishtiaq Ahmed)
#5. Seagull initiative against communalism

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#1.

Level-headed Pakistanis sorrowed by the prospect of Mr. Abdul Kalam 
becoming the next President of India

M.B. Naqvi
Karachi June 15:

It may be odd, even irrational, but many level-headed Pakistanis have 
taken note of and have been sorrowed by the prospect of Mr. Abdul 
Kalam will be the next President of India. B.M. Kutty, a leader of 
the National Workers Party, has expressed disappointment over the 
Congress President Sonia Gandhi's decision to endorse the BJP's 
choice for India's Presidency.

Kutty, who is the Information Secretary of his party, said that Mrs. 
Gandhi 'has in fact twice opted for the BJP line'. He recalled that 
way back in 1996, 'she was instrumental in scuttling the Third Force 
and paving the way for Mr. A.B. Vajpayee forming the government'. 
This time too, she has chosen a BJP nominee over all others. He 
rejected the notion that since Kalam is a Muslim, it will be 
politically correct to elect him President of India.

He and several other NGO intellectuals among them Karamat Ali, Shahid 
Fayaz and Rahat Saeed, said that a non-executive President of a 
democratic Republic is meant to symbolise the nation's ethos and 
ideals; he is chosen for the contribution he has made to the life and 
letters. His accomplishments are honoured and meant to be underlined 
for other's inspiration. In this case, Karamat Ali asked does India 
want to honour and promote militarism by making the maker of Prithivi 
and Agni missiles occupy Chair on which Raja Gopalacharya, Radha 
Krishnan and Zakir Hussain sat.

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#2.

The Deccan Hearld (Bangalore)
16 June 2002
Letter to the Editor

Kalam a conformist

Sir,
Being a scientist myself, I am a bit surprised at the delight with 
which Dr A P J Abdul Kalam's candidature for presidency has been 
greeted. Our politicians should be ashamed at the lack of respect 
that their ilk command in the eyes of the public! As stated by many 
observers, Dr Kalam is a technocrat, a manager of technological 
projects. That the projects on which he has delivered have all been 
of a military nature is rather worrying. Consider what the political 
parties who are supporting Dr Kalam would have to say if Pakistan had 
declared Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan as a candidate for presidentship!
When questioned by reporters, Dr Kalam has said that he will not look 
for an auspicious time to file his nomination. But this does not 
carry much weight, since Dr Kalam has never spoken against the 
astrological degree programmes of the government he has been a 
scientific adviser to. Would the BJP seek out and approve the 
candidature of a senior scientist like Dr Obaid Siddiqui, who has 
publicly voiced his opposition on this issue? Members of Dr Kalam's 
community are understandably thrilled. But they should recall that Dr 
Kalam fits in comfortably with our prime minister's two-Islams 
theory. He is the 'good' Muslim, so good that he has never raised his 
voice against the Gujarat government about the recent carnage there. 
Would the NDA have supported the candidature of someone like Dr 
Asghar Ali Engineer?
I am not against a scientist becoming head of State. But a retiring, 
shy person like Dr Kalam, who goes along with the establishment in 
everything it does, is not my choice for President of India.
Kamal Lodaya,
(Indian Scientists Against Nuclear Weapons),
Chennai

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#3.

Daily Times (Lahore)
Sunday, June 16, 2002

Importance of being Abdul Kalam

J SRI RAMAN
Kalam quotes the Bhagvad Gita and other Hindu scriptures, too, on all 
conceivable occasions. That makes him even more of a model Muslim. On 
a visit to Bhuj in Gujarat in the wake of the terrible earthquake, he 
compared the power of compassion behind the relief efforts to "the 
energy of thousands of nuclear bombs in the virat swarup (cosmic 
form) of God" as revealed in the Gita
What would have been the reaction in India, if Dr Abdul Qadir Khan 
had been nominated for the post of Pakistan's president?" asked an 
anti-nuclear-weapons scientist, who serves a government-funded 
establishment and so cannot be named. He was re-wording the main 
question about the nomination of A. P. J. Abdul Kalam as the 
candidate of India's ruling coalition for the post of the country's 
President. A question that few, even among opponents of the 
coalition's choice, ask for fear of being tagged "anti-national".
The question is: is not Kalam's candidature a calculated provocation 
in the current regional context? What signals does it send out amidst 
tensions created by the threat of a full-scale war between the 
nuke-rattling neighbours? A rhetorical question, if there was one. He 
is the coalition's choice for India's highest constitutional office 
because he (like Qadir Khan in Pakistan) is a symbol of India's 
nuclear might and militarism.
Whether Kalam is the Bomb Man or the Missile Man is not the question 
as some media sophists make it out to be. The point is that he was 
not the "eminent scientist" he is extolled as now before the Pokharan 
nuclear-weapon tests of 1998. And since then every Indian missile 
(with a potential nuclear tip) that has been test-fired has enhanced 
his stature further. He has been picked up and promoted as a symbol 
of the ruling militarism, particularly because he is a Muslim.
He has not been a mere scientist carrying out his masters' orders. 
Participating in Pokharan under the codename of General Prithvi Raj, 
he attempted an Oppenheimer-like greeting of the explosion that 
"shook the earth". Speaking at numerous Rotary Club meetings since 
then Kalam has recalled his pride of the hour - that "we could do it" 
and that India could now "stand up to the world". And, in a very 
un-bureaucratic manner, the then Adviser to the Prime Minister asked 
the anti-bomb activists to go agitate in London and Washington.
He has been not just any bomb man, but one of the Bharatiya Janata 
Party-variety. With his militarism goes a world outlook that the 
worst morons of the Sangh Parivar, the extended family of India's far 
Right, can identify with. He has repeatedly gone on record that India 
has "never invaded...(or) conquered anyone", that it has "never 
grabbed their land, their culture.". Just the kind of history that 
the BJP would like school kids to be taught. The kind, for example, 
that would rewrite the history of Sri Lanka and South-East Asia 
(repeatedly invaded by Indian rulers), besides inventing an ancient 
and medieval India where kings did not conquer each other's land.
The Bomb Man quotes the Bhagvad Gita and other Hindu scriptures, too, 
on all conceivable occasions. That makes him even more of a model 
Muslim. Sample his speech, on a visit to Bhuj in Gujarat in the wake 
of the terrible earthquake last year. Here, he compared the power of 
compassion behind the relief efforts there to "the energy of 
thousands of nuclear bombs in the virat swarup (cosmic form) of God" 
as revealed in the Gita.
Likely, there's trouble with his 'Hindutva' hosts' translation, but you
get the general idea. It may be notable that Kalam has not deemed it 
necessary to visit Gujarat during or after the recent communal riots.
Little wonder, Tarun Vijay in the RSS mouthpiece Panchajanya, says: 
"Indianism is Hindutva. This does not mean that Muslims should 
convert to Hinduism. What it does mean is that you can be what you 
like but must share the vision of Dr Abdul Kalam." Little wonder, 
Praveen Togadia of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad says the BJP's choice 
shows that the party is not against "a Muslim who is a diehard 
nationalist" (implying that it may be against one of any less staunch 
patriotism).
Kalam is a model Muslim not only in relation to internal issues but 
in his international outlook as well. An illustrative quote that also 
puts mediapersons like this columnist in their place: "I was in Tel 
Aviv once and I was reading an Israeli newspaper. It was the day 
after a lot of attacks, bombardments and deaths. The Hamas had 
struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a 
Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed this desert land 
into an orchard and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that 
everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings were inside the 
newspaper. In India, we only read about deaths, sickness, terrorism, 
crimes."
I shudder to think of Kalam's reaction to the predictable front page 
of any of our newspapers on the morning after a nuclear war in South 
Asia.
The writer is a journalist based in Chennai, India. A peace activist, 
he has contributed the main essay to "The Media Bomb," a study of 
Indian media responses to India's nuclear-weapon tests of 1998. He is 
also the author of a sheaf of poems under the title 'At Gunpoint'

_____

The Daily Times (Lahore)
Sunday, June 16, 2002

Op-ed: The dialectics of nationalism

Ishtiaq Ahmed
Nationalism is both the manifestation of a rational and universal 
principle originating in the emancipatory spirit of the European 
Enlightenment as well as a particularistic cut-off point in political 
organisation. This dialectic tension inheres in all forms of 
nationalisms
No other modern political idea has gained greater universal reception 
in politics than nationalism. It has been the reigning supra-ideology 
upon which the international political system of territorial states 
is based.
Each state is supposed to represent a distinct nation whose language, 
religion or sense of historical continuity is sufficiently different 
from that of other nations so as to justify the maintenance of 
impassable borders guarded by men, armed to the teeth, to prevent 
outsiders from gaining entry into the exclusive domain of the 
so-called nation-state.
This is of course regardless of whether the hegemonic state-ideology 
is liberal, Marxist, fascist or fundamentalist. Citizens in all cases 
are supposed to render habitual loyalty to their states. Political 
parties are also required to subordinate their ideological interests 
to the supreme interest of the nation. Thus when the nation-state 
gives the call, its citizens must be willing to lay down their lives 
for it; most of the time it has been able to elicit such devotion. 
Such is the mystique surrounding nationalism! It is the concomitant 
creed of all states.
Yet, a dialectical tension inheres in all forms of nationalism, and 
its unqualified celebration needs to be put into perspective. On the 
one hand, it is the manifestation of a rational and universal 
principle originating in the emancipatory spirit of the European 
Enlightenment: if individuals have a right to autonomy, as liberalism 
axiomatically holds, than by analogy nations and peoples have the 
right to self-rule. This was a novel idea born at the time of the 
French Revolution. Previously, the king commanded absolute obedience 
and extracted a range of compulsory services and levies from his 
lesser subjects, particularly the artisans and peasant. The French 
Revolution abolished such privileges and instead created a free 
citizen entitled to various rights and freedoms. In the case of 
pre-colonial Indian subcontinent, the ruling classes, whether Hindu 
or Muslim, had absolutely no regard of the rights of the ordinary 
people.
On the other hand, nationalism has always served as a particularistic 
cut-off point in political organisation and thus helped draw sharp 
lines between people on the basis of some cultural, ethnic or 
linguistic distinction. It is upon such bases that the claim -- the 
exclusive or superior right of self-determination over a specific 
territory -- rests; something, which adversely affects those not 
counted as insiders. In the case of the German variant of 
nationalism, the nation was understood as a compact organic group 
rather than a collection of free individual citizens. For various 
historical reasons, it later emerged as a veritable doctrine of 
expansion and aggression and twice in the last century competing 
nationalist claims and ambitions drove European powers to world wars 
in which millions of human beings were mercilessly slaughtered.
It is therefore important that concerned Indians and Pakistanis take 
stock of the nationalist projects that underlie the current politics 
in their countries. One can note that Nehru and Jinnah presented 
strikingly similar visions of nation-building and nationalism. Both 
wanted equal rights for all their citizens irrespective of caste, 
creed or colour. While the former lived long enough to see some of 
his ideas translated into institutional practices, the early 
departure of the latter saw that vision virtually forgotten by his 
successors. In both states gradually the champions of the German type 
of cultural nationalism began to expand their constituencies. It is 
typified by an adulation of a golden age before colonialism, which 
any responsible historian will tell you never existed.
Today, these reactionary Hindus and Muslims are well entrenched in 
governments on both sides, and in state machineries at all levels in 
India and Pakistan. They preach war and annihilation of the enemy. 
Consequently, the spectre of a nuclear war looms large over South 
Asia. Is there no way of returning to the emancipatory nationalist 
visions of the founders of India and Pakistan?
I think there is. But it will have to be combined with a regional 
vision that transcends the territorial boundaries of India and 
Pakistan and seeks to bring all South Asians within a common cultural 
framework. This can easily be done within the existing framework of 
states, which can remain as they are but without those negative 
consequences that nationalism carries. After all there is nothing 
natural about a nation or any other community of people. All such 
entities are social constructs. It is nationalism which creates the 
nation and not the other way round.
However, this would require the creation of other social identities 
to effect ties of cooperation and solidarity beyond the 
nation-states. In Europe, the Catholic-Protestant distinction was 
once the basis of senseless killings. The same type of thinking 
permeated the aggressive nationalisms of 20th century Europe. Today, 
that Europe has decided to bury the hatchet and begin a new chapter 
based on the twin-level identity of the state as well as the European 
Union (EU). No doubt many of its enthusiastic supporters believe that 
the EU can only succeed as an economic and political project if it is 
also a peace project.
The way forward for South Asia cannot be very different. The 
cultural-nationalist projects that currently prevail in India and 
Pakistan, as well as in the other neighbouring states in the region, 
are a recipe for disaster. They stand condemned for anti-minority 
politics and policies within the domestic sphere, and in the case of 
India and Pakistan, also for chauvinism and jingoism against each 
other. No sane observer of current South Asian politics would deny 
that something has gone very wrong with the way we handled our 
freedom from colonial domination. It is not surprising that many from 
the older generation regret that the British left. Unfortunately, 
even those who took part in the various anti-colonial movements 
sometimes express such a view.
Surely this is the most telling indictment of post-independence 
politics. I think we need to do two things. We have to delve into our 
rich South Asian cultural traditions for examples and models of 
inter-communal accommodation. We are likely to find them in the work 
of sufis, gurus and sages. We need also to connect with the 
cosmopolitan worldview that sees all humanity as one indivisible 
family. We have to begin with the understanding that peace, security 
and prosperity are the inalienable rights of all citizens. They 
should not be treated with cynicism and hypocrisy.

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s e a g u l l i n i t i a t i v e a g a i n s 
t c o m m u n a l i s m

seagull initiative against communalism the carnage in gujarat 
has brought home just how
imperative it is for all democratic minded citizens of india to 
work towards reaffirming the
fundamental values of our constitution, which guarantees basic 
human rights to every citizen,
regardless of religion or caste or creed. we at the seagull 
foundation for the arts invite you to join
in the following initiatives:

1. POSTCARDS TO THE PRESIDENT
o spearheaded by activist-writer mahasweta
devi and tushar talukdar (ex-police
commissioner, calcutta)
o 3000 postcards printed, stamped and
distributed by seagull for signatures by
concerned individuals.
o cut, stamp and post if you agree with
this appeal (see inside back cover)
o the all india muslim student's
federation has already reprinted
3000 more such postcards as part
of the same effort.
o anybody wishing to take forward
this campaign may use the above
text or contact the seagull foundation
for the arts for the complete bengali text.

2. SEAGULL THEATRE QUARTERLY
o special issue planned as a response
against the communalization of culture.
the aim of the issue is to alert theatre
activists to this danger and build a
network of activists all over the country.
o to be guest edited by sudhanva
deshpande,street theatre activist with 
janam and editor, leftword books.
o the contents include the texts of talks
given at a janam sponsored national
theatre activist meet by aijaz ahmed,
malini bhattacharya, brinda karat;
interviews with habib tanvir,
g. p. deshpande, h. s. shiva-prakash, 
a play by sisir kumar das, andinterviews 
with street theatre activists from all over
the country.
o for copies of this issue please contact the
seagull foundation for the arts.

3. EXHIBITION (April 8-16, 2002)
at the Seagull Arts and Media Resource
Centre organized in collaboration with The
Little Magazine and The Pradeep Bhatia
Memorial Trust

o Pradeep-The Photographic Travel
Exhibition-showcasing the work of Pradeep
Bhatia, the gifted photojournalist killed
in a Srinagar terrorist attack.

o For those wishing to contact the Pradeep
Bhatia Memorial Trust, write to134 D Pocket B,
Mayur Vihar, Phase II, New Delhi 110 091
(telephone: 011 278 8333;
email: supernab@h...).

4. GIVE PEACE A CHANCE (April 13, 2002)
at the Seagull Arts and Media Resource
Centre
o A meeting with writers, poets, artists
including Ashok Mitra, Nabaneeta Dev Sen,
Joy Goswami, Tarapada Ray, Anita
Aghnihotri, Samik Bandyopadhyay, Daud
Haider, Suvaprasanna to discuss the need
for peace.
o In collaboration with the Little Magazine
and the Pradeep Bhatia Memorial Trust

5. SEEDS OF PEACE INITIATIVE, CALCUTTA
o a network of concerned individuals and
institutions committed to developing a
programme for teachers, students and their
families to inculcate positive values of mutual
respect for all faiths.
o in conjunction with the teachers centre and
teachers and volunteers from various
institutions.
o those interested in joining this network
as individual volunteers or as institutions,
please contact seagull foundation for the arts
or the teachers centre (229 7092)

6. FILMS AVAILABLE
o the following films are available for screening
on request either at the seagull arts and media
resource centre or at other institutions
including schools and colleges:
o (i) gopal menon's hey ram!!! genocide in the
land of gandhi
(ii) anand patwardhan's in the name of god
(ram ke naam) and
(iii) father, son and holy war (pitu, putr aur
dharamyudh) for any queries or more details
on the above please contact:
o seagull foundation for the arts
ph: 240 3636/7942,
seagull@g...

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