[sacw] SACW #2 | 19 Jan. 03

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire #2 | 19 January 2003

__________________________

#1. India: Missionary Blood on their Hands - A Gujarat Model in 
Kerala (Mukundan C. Menon)
#2. Strengthening Indianness (Shashi Tharoor)
#3. Distrust Reopens the Door for Polio in India (Amy Waldman)
#4. USA: In the name of religion (Mukul Devichand)

__________________________

#1.

http://www.indiancurrents.com/ic4/mukundan.htm
Indian Currents
18 January 2003

Missionary Blood on their Hands
A Gujarat Model in Kerala

-- Mukundan C. Menon

I have no ill will or hatred against my attackers. I would be glad to 
invite them for a lunch, instead. Of course, initially I was angry. 
But, later I realized that whatever had happened was according to 
God's will", said Pennsylvania-based U.S. missionary, Bishop Joseph 
W. Cooper (67), while convalescing at Kerala Institute of Medical 
Science (KIMS) hospital in Thiruvananthapuram, a day after he was 
attacked reportedly by RSS activists on January 13 night at Koppam 
near Kilimannor in Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala. He had gone 
there to attend a Gospel Convention at Friends of Bible Church.

His right hand, nearly chopped off, was rejoined in an operation. 
There were other minor injuries and he was still writhing in pain 
when he talked to the stream of people who made a beeline to the 
hospital this past week-end. Among the visitors were top leaders of 
both the ruling United Democratic Front (UDF) and opposition Left 
Democratic Front (LDF). According to KIMS doctors, who operated upon 
him, he was out of danger but may have to remain in hospital for 
another fortnight or so.

There was wide condemnation of the dastardly attack from within and 
outside Kerala and India. All right-thinking people opined in unison 
that this should not have ever happened in Kerala. Not because 45 
percent of the State population belong to the minority Muslim and 
Christian communities. Not because Christian and Muslim parties are 
ruling UDF partners. But because Kerala has a proud and exemplary 
history of communal amity, to where both Christianity and Islam 
reached at the same time it spread respectively in Europe 2000 years 
ago and in Arab peninsula 1,400 years ago. Also, because, Kerala is 
not Orissa, where the Australian missionary Graham Steins and his two 
kids were brutally burnt alive by Hindutva forces three years ago, 
and surely not Gujarat which witnessed the ethnic cleansing of 
Muslims last year under the aegis of ruling Moditva forces. Keralites 
also co-existed with Jews, Arabs, Portuguese, Dutch, and the British, 
which is an unenviable and unparallel history from rest of India. 
Malayalees also maintain the exceptional inborn nature of going 
anywhere in the world and settling there by easily getting mingled 
with the local populace.

Notably, the January 13 attack on Cooper and other missionaries came 
within weeks after President Dr. A. P. J. Kalam inaugurated the 
1950th anniversary of the arrival of St. Thomas to Kerala at massive 
convention of Christians at Kochi last month. The attack took place 
five days before the Kerala Government's prestigious Global 
Investment Meet (GIM) to be held at Kochi on January 18-19, which was 
to be attended by major foreign investor delegates from USA, Europe 
and Middle-East region. It also came a week before the International 
Pentecostal Convention to be held at Kumbanad near Thiruvalla in 
which around 100,000 believers and 3,000 pastors from various 
countries are scheduled to attend. And, more significantly, the Sangh 
Parivar onslaught was carried out when top RSS functionaries like RSS 
Sarsanghchalak, K. S. Sudarshan, and Akhil Bharatiya Vanavasi Kalyan 
Ashram president, Jagadev Ram Orone, was in Kerala making wanton 
statements on conversions and foreign missionaries. The attack took 
place amidst the Sangh Parivar leaders taking strong exceptions to 
President Dr. Kalam accepting the invitation to attend a jubilee 
function of Jesuits to be held at Calcutta soon. The incident, 
therefore, cannot be treated either as a coincidence or isolated 
case, although Chief Minister A. K. Antony wanted the world to 
believe so in an apparent attempt to dilute its seriousness on the 
eve of the GIM.

In the post-Cabinet meet press briefing on January 15, Mr. Antony 
termed the attack as an "isolated incident" and said : "Such 
incidents are very unfortunate and should not take place". He pleaded 
ignorance as to who the attackers were. "I directed the police to 
conduct a thorough investigation of the incident. I am following this 
up and at the moment I have nothing more to say", he added. Antony's 
ignorance should be read along with his holding charge of police 
(Home) portfolio and that the police have already arrested one known 
RSS local leader, Raju, and took into custody four others (Shaji, his 
brother Shan and Shaiju) for questioning. The Kilimanoor police 
registered a case under IPC 307 (attempt to murder) and other counts 
under Explosives Act and Rioting, since the attack took place after 
throwing of bombs. "Although it is known to all that the attack was 
carried out by the RSS, why Antony is scared of uttering these three 
letters", questioned CPI-M State Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. 
According to CPI State Secretary, Veliyam Bhargavan, "the Sangh 
Parivar is trying to repeat in Kerala their agenda of intimidating 
and attacking Christian missionaries in Gujarat and Orissa".

Bishop Cooper was attacked along with the local preacher, Pastor 
Benson K. Sam (37), his wife Sali Benson, their two children (Joy and 
Judith), singers Jayakumar and Mercy Christudas, of whom Pastor Sam 
also suffered serious injuries. The colony settlers are "Vedars", a 
Dalit community, with 60-odd houses and around 150 population, who 
follow both Christian and Hindu faiths. With no conversion in recent 
past, some of the Vedars' forefathers had converted into 
Christianity. Although the January 13 attackers belong to nearby area 
and are known Sangh Parivar activists, the area witnessed total 
communal harmony until a bomb exploded in a nearby school three days 
before the attack took place.

Those attended the Bible Convention are still at a loss to grasp as 
to what provoked the RSS men to carry out the attack. Surely there 
was no provocation from us, they said. According to one source, two 
RSS activists, auto-driver Kumar and the owner of upholstery shop at 
Kilimanoor, Shaji, came to the venue of the Convention and asked the 
mike operator whether the public address system belonged to the US 
missionary and left the place. Later two or three unidentified people 
came to the venue, stayed around for some time listening to the Bible 
speeches. Even then there was no hint of the impending attack.

The gruesome incident took place after the convention ended at 9.30 
p.m. and when Bishop Cooper, Benson and others were walking along the 
narrow path to where their vehicles were parked. The vehicle tiers 
were deflated in advance by the attackers to ensure that the 
missionaries won't get away. The Bible hall was situated on a high 
range amid rubber plantation, and the vehicles were parked below on 
the road.

The gang, comprising more than a dozen people and waiting in the 
rubber plantation, suddenly pounced upon the missionaries by throwing 
country bombs to create scare and started attacking with knives and 
swords. While Cooper's right hand was nearly chopped off, Benson had 
a head injury, and his wife and daughter were left unconscious on the 
spot.

The terrified local people did not come forward to rush them to the 
hospital, until the police reached the spot after half-hour. 
According to Pastor Benson, there were no electric lamp posts in the 
area and they were approaching the car, 150 metres away, with the 
help of torch-light when the unexpected attack took place. The main 
target of the attackers was Rev. Cooper. They detained the missionary 
and other preachers for some time before attacking them with swords, 
crowbars and knives.

Pastor Benson told the police that the attack was carried out by 
known RSS activists in the area and named some of them, including the 
auto-driver. Confirming Kilimanoor Circle Inspector D. Rajagopal's 
version that the area had no history of communal discord, He said: 
"There had been no threat whatsoever to the functioning of the church 
in the area so far". According to him and the police, the church was 
constructed in the area three years ago and "Gospel Conventions" were 
held in the past as well.

Pastor Benson further stated: "We were told that the attackers were 
listeners at the Convention and they were all armed. Before the 
attack started, a country-made bomb exploded just inches away from 
me." Lizzy, a colony resident narrated their plight: "Most of us eke 
out our livelihood through manual labour. We are totally neglected by 
the Government and politicians. Being converted Christians, we are 
denied reservation benefits. In this grim situation, we rest our 
hopes only on God and decided to hold the Bible Convention". Despite 
electric lines were taken through the colony to a nearby locality 
four years ago and promise of power connections given to them, the 
"Vedars" colony still has no electricity. Plugs, switches and other 
electric materials that they purchased long ago lie unused. Neither 
do they have pure drinking water in the colony. Following the attack, 
although all the politicians expressed grave concern on the incident 
and showered promises on communal amity, people in the colony no more 
trust their promises on upliftment of socio-economic conditions from 
their own hard and bitter past experience.

A senior police officer said : "This is the first organized attack on 
a foreign missionary in Kerala, whose one-third population are 
Christians". According to Pastor Benson, "it was a silent attack 
since the assailants did not utter a single word even though we 
pleaded them to reveal their motive". ''We could identify most of the 
members of the ten-member gang. All of them are known RSS activists 
in the locality and we have mentioned this in the police complaint,'' 
he added.

Bishop Cooper has been a missionary for the past 25 years and this 
was the first time he has been attacked anywhere in the world. This 
was his 12th visit to Kerala, "which is a great place with fantastic 
people, except what happened to me which is not good for the State's 
reputation."

He was a professional parachute jumper in his young days. He entered 
missionary work in early 1970s as an energetic youth and after 
resigning job from a professional firm. Since then, he has been 
actively involved in evangelization in many countries. He reached 
India for the current tour early this month to attend a series of 
gospel conventions in Kerala, Goa and Andhra Pradesh. He was 
scheduled to leave for Visakhapatnam on Tuesday but, instead, landed 
in the intensive care unit at KIMS. "This is not going to deter my 
spirits and I will certainly be back in Kerala. I am happy that I was 
able to speak to my wife and my close friends who appeared tensed 
after hearing what happened", Rev. Cooper said. He added: "I've 
forgiven my attackers. Now that the case has been registered, I do 
not know if there is a provision by which I can withdraw it. In the 
U.S., one could sue for damages, but I am not going to do any such 
thing."

Expressing shock and concern over the attack, a US embassy 
spokesperson in New Delhi said : "This is a very serious matter. You 
cannot just go on attacking anybody. Naturally we are deeply 
concerned". The United States condemned the attack and a State 
Department official in Washington said that authorities were in touch 
with the consulate in Chennai. US consulate officials from Chennai 
are reaching Kerala to ascertain the facts relating to the attack. 
They already had a telephonic discussion with Cooper on Jan. 17 night.

Expressing deep concern and pain on the attack, Cardinal Varkey 
Vithayathil, Major Archbishop of Syro-Malabar Church, said it was 
ominous to see certain groups resorting to violence to settle any 
difference of opinion in a democratic country. "Unfortunately these 
violent elements have been emboldened by the rhetoric of certain 
fundamentalist leaders of Hindutva, who spread hatred against 
minorities. Fundamentalism was consistently destroying the religious 
and democratic foundations of this country. The attack is a sad 
betrayal of the country's heritage of welcoming a guest as God 
himself into our midst", Vithayathil, who is also the Chairman of 
Kerala Catholic Bishops Council, said.

Meanwhile, the Kerala State Human Rights Commission, which took suo 
motto cognizance of the issue, sought a report from 
Thiruvananthapuram (Rural) Superintendent of Police to be submitted 
within 15 days.

RSS operation cover-up

No sooner the widely condemned dastardly act took place, the entire 
lobby of Sangh Parivar plunged into action with their customary 
leveling of baseless accusations, wild allegations, and 
unsubstantiated charges against Rev. Cooper and the evangelist 
missionaries. Panic and fear prevailed in and around Kilimanoor after 
the Sangh Parivar undertook a procession within 24 hours of the 
attack accusing the police of harassing "innocents" by conducting 
raids and arrests. RSS Malayalam organ, "Janmabhoomi", said that two 
of the evangelists were earlier involved in a sex racket, and that a 
woman resisted their sexual advances which led the "local people" to 
"protest against the missionaries" on January 13 at the Bible 
Convention!

In the first statement, the RSS "Vibhagh Sahakaryavah", K. 
Rajasekharan, alleged that Sangh workers were "falsely implicated" in 
the case and termed the incident as "shrouded in mystery". He fired 
the first salvo against Rev. Cooper: "It was unlawful on the part of 
Cooper, who was on a visiting visa, to preach religion in India. 
There should be an inquiry into the circumstances under which the 
U.S. citizen on a visiting visa was allowed to speak at a Gospel 
Convention." Sangh Parivar leaders also alleged that Rev. Cooper and 
other preachers at the Convention made "inflammatory and insulting 
speeches" against Hindus, which was stoutly denied by all those who 
attended the convention, including Pastor Benson.

On January 27, VHP Kerala unit demanded the "arrest and prosecution" 
of Rev. Cooper for alleged violation of Foreigners' Act. The VHP 
State Organising Secretary, Kummanam Rajasekharan, asked the State 
Government to initiate prosecution proceedings against Rev. Cooper 
for "carrying out religious propaganda after coming to the country on 
a visiting visa". He claimed that "as per the Foreigners Act of 1956, 
foreigners visiting the country should not engage themselves in 
religious preaching and are only supposed to do sight-seeing and 
visit relatives". Besides, Rev.Cooper and his team of evangelists 
"slandered" the Hindu "dharma" and traditions and sought to convert 
the residents of a Scheduled Caste colony by allurement and 
compulsory means, the VHP leader alleged. The Kilimanoor incident, 
according to the VHPleader, "underlined the need for a code of 
conduct for missionary activities".

While Sangh Parivar is taking the opportunity to demand introduction 
of an Act banning "forcible conversion", they are left without 
answers as to how people like Mata Amrithanandamayi are frequently 
visiting Western countries for preaching religion and how her 
"Ashram" at Vallikavu, near Kollam, has a large number of Western 
devotees. In fact, a French lady in the Ashram died under mysterious 
circumstances in August last year. "What will be their reaction in 
India if any such attack took place on Amrithanandamayi abroad", 
reacted an evangelist in his reaction given to a Malayalam TV channel.

Notably, inflammatory statements, if any, in Kerala had come from 
people like RSS chief Sudarshan before and after the attack on Rev. 
Cooper. On the day of the attack, Akhil Bharatiya Vanavasi Kalyan 
Ashram president, Jagdevram Oraon, told a press conference at 
Kozhicode: "West-promoted conversions into Christianity were causing 
divisiveness among the people in the country. Countries like the 
United States and Britain were creating their own pockets through 
missionaries. Issues like 'Nagas', causing divisions in the country, 
are a consequence of this. The foreign churches through conversions 
made the tribals isolated from the mainstream of the society".

The day after the attack on Rev. Cooper, the RSS chief, while 
inaugurating the Akhila Kerala Vanavasi Sangamam, at Wayanad said : 
"Even Mahatmaji had cautioned against weaning Hindus. The British had 
invented many theories like the Aryan invasion to divide the Hindus. 
Though the theory has logical validity, it was used to create schism 
within the community. The Arya-Dravida, Brahmin-non-Brahmin, North 
India-South India divisions are the by-products of the theory."

_______

#2.

The Hindu
Sunday, Jan 19, 2003
Magazine

Strengthening Indianness

by Shashi Tharoor

`In building an Indian nation that takes account of the country's 
true Hindu heritage, we have to return to the pluralism of the 
national movement.'

IN my last column I argued the case for a tolerant Hinduism, as 
opposed to an intolerant Hindutva, in contributing to the 
strengthening of Indianness. Quoting Swami Vivekananda, I deplored 
the anti-Hinduism of the bigots who are perverting its doctrines in 
the name of all Hindus. I would like to develop this theme further 
today.

The misuse of Hinduism for sectarian minority-bashing is especially 
sad since Hinduism provides the basis for a shared sense of common 
culture within India that has little to do with religion. Hindu 
festivals, from Holi to Deepavali, have already gone beyond their 
religious origins to unite Indians of all faiths as a shared 
experience (the revelry of Holi and the lights, firecrackers, mithais 
and social gambling of Deepavali have made both into secular 
occasions). Festivals, melas, lilas, all "Hindu" in origin, have 
become occasions for the mingling of ordinary Indians of all 
backgrounds; indeed, for generations now, Muslim artisans in the 
Hindu holy city of Varanasi have made the traditional masks for the 
annual Ram Lila. Religion lies at the heart of Indian culture, but 
not necessarily as a source of division; religious myths like the 
Ramayana and the Mahabharata provide a common idiom, a shared matrix 
of reference, to all Indians, and it was not surprising that when 
Doordarshan broadcast a 52-episode serialisation of the Mahabharata, 
the script was written by a Muslim, Dr Rahi Masoom Raza. Hinduism and 
Islam are intertwined in India; both religions, after all, have 
shared the same history in the same space, and theirs is a 
cohabitation of necessity as well as fact.

Both Hindus and Muslims throng the tombs and dargahs of Sufi Muslim 
saints. Hindu devotional songs are magnificently sung by the Muslim 
Dagar brothers. Muslim sociologists and anthropologists have argued 
that Islam in rural India is more Indian than Islamic, in the sense 
that the faith as practised by the ordinary Muslim villagers reflects 
the considerable degree of cultural assimilation that has occurred 
between Hindus and Muslims in their daily lives. The Muslim reformist 
scholar Asghar Ali Engineer has written that "rural Islam ... (is) 
almost indistinguishable from Hinduism except in the form of worship 
.... The degree may vary from one area to another; but cultural 
integration between the Hindus and Muslims is a fact which no one, 
except victims of misinformation, can deny."

To some degree, India's other minorities have found it comfortable to 
take on elements of Hindu culture as proof of their own integration 
into the national mainstream. The tennis-playing brothers Anand, 
Vijay and Ashok Amritraj all bear Hindu names, but they are 
Christian, the sons of Robert and Maggie Amritraj, and they played 
with prominent crosses dangling from their necks, which they were 
fond of kissing in supplication or gratitude at tense moments on 
court. But giving their children Hindu names must have seemed, to 
Robert and Maggie, more nationalist in these post-colonial times, and 
quite unrelated to which God they were brought up to worship. I would 
not wish to make too much of this, because Muslim Indians still feel 
obliged to adopt Arab names in deference to the roots of their faith, 
but the Amritraj case (repeated in many other Christian families I 
know) is merely an example of Hinduism serving as a framework for the 
voluntary cultural assimilation of minority groups, without either 
compulsion or conversion becoming an issue.

It is possible to a great extent to speak of Hinduism as culture 
rather than as religion (a distinction the votaries of Hindutva 
reject or blur). The inauguration of a public project, the laying of 
a foundation stone or the launching of a ship usually start with the 
ritual smashing of a coconut, an auspicious practice in Hinduism but 
one which most Indians of other faiths cheerfully accept in much the 
same spirit as a teetotaller acknowledges the role of champagne in a 
Western celebration. Interestingly, similar Hindu customs have 
survived in now-Muslim Java and now-Buddhist Thailand. Islamic 
Indonesians still cherish the Ramayana legend, now shorn (for them) 
of its religious associations. Javanese Muslims bear Sanskrit names. 
Hindu culture can easily be embraced by non-Hindus if it is separated 
from religious faith and treated as a heritage to which all may lay 
claim.

The economist Amartya Sen made a related point in regretting the 
neglect by the votaries of Hindutva of the great achievements of 
Hindu civilization in favour of its more dubious features. As Sen 
wrote: "Not for them the sophistication of the Upanishads or Gita, or 
of Brahmagupta or Sankara, or of Kalidasa or Sudraka; they prefer the 
adoration of Rama's idol and Hanuman's image. Their nationalism also 
ignores the rationalist traditions of India, a country in which some 
of the earliest steps in algebra, geometry, and astronomy were taken, 
where the decimal system emerged, where early philosophy - secular as 
well as religious - achieved exceptional sophistication, where people 
invented games like chess, pioneered sex education, and began the 
first systematic study of political economy. The Hindu militant 
chooses instead to present India - explicitly or implicitly - as a 
country of unquestioning idolaters, delirious fanatics, belligerent 
devotees, and religious murderers."

Sen is right to stress that Hinduism is not simply the Hindutva of 
Ayodhya or Gujarat; it has left all Indians a religious, 
philosophical, spiritual and historical legacy that gives meaning to 
the civilizational content of secular Indian nationalism. In building 
an Indian nation that takes account of the country's true Hindu 
heritage, we have to return to the pluralism of the national 
movement. This must involve turning away from the strident calls for 
Hindutva that would privilege a doctrinaire view of Hinduism at the 
expense of the minorities, because such calls are a denial of the 
essence of the Hinduism of Vivekananda. I say this not as a godless 
secularist, but as a proud Hindu who is mortified at what his own 
faith is being reduced to in the hands of bigots - petty men who know 
little about the traditions in whose defence they claim to act.

(Concluded)

The first part of this article appeared on January 5, 2003.

_____

#3.

New York Times
January 19, 2003

Distrust Reopens the Door for Polio in India

By AMY WALDMAN

RAMPUR, India - The little girl sat somberly, eyes large and sad, 
mouth an unmoving bow, legs as lifeless as a marionette's. Her face 
contorted in pain and frustration. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
She clutched at her mother, who berated herself for her child's 
agony. In trying to do what she thought was right for her daughter, 
Tehazib Jahan had done something irrevocably wrong.
Last year, Mrs. Jahan had heard the story circulating through her 
Muslim neighborhood that the polio vaccine would make her child 
sterile. She believed it. So even though her daughter, Uzma, still 
needed two doses of the vaccine, Mrs. Jahan would not take her to the 
immunization booth. When the vaccinators came to her house, she 
demurred.

Three months ago, Uzma came down with a fever. Then the paralysis, 
polio's calling card, set in. Today the once playful 4-year-old 
cannot stand without help.
"We are illiterate, not very intelligent," Mrs. Jahan said. "We were 
influenced."

Borne along by rumor and fear as much as any biological route of 
transmission, the polio virus - almost vanquished worldwide thanks to 
a cheap and widely available vaccine - has made a defiant comeback in 
India.
In 2001, after years of aggressive mass immunizations, there were 239 
new cases in the country - down from about 200,000 in the early 
1980's. Officials were confident that India could eliminate the 
disease, as so many countries have, by the end of 2002.

Instead, India had 1,509 newly diagnosed cases last year - a vast 
majority, 1,197, in Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous state, 
and one of its poorest. Uttar Pradesh accounted for 68 percent of the 
polio cases worldwide.
The reason, according to government officials and community leaders, 
seems to be largely a rumor that the oral vaccine, given as drops, 
was part of a government population control scheme. No one knows how 
it started, but its effects are now clear.
On a recent day, another mother, Shamina, 30, initially refused doses 
for her three children, ages 1, 3 and 5, when the vaccinators came to 
her door. Her husband had told her to do so, she said.

"We have heard some things about these medicines," she said as 
chickens pecked at her feet. "That when these children become adults 
- they will be useless."
The resurgence of polio here has alarmed international health 
experts, who had aimed for the global eradication of polio by last 
year. Last year, polio was found in seven countries and increased 
only in two: Nigeria and India.
"There's a real risk of people thinking if we fail we're going to 
have 1,000 cases a year," said Dr. Bruce Aylward, coordinator of the 
World Health Organization's global polio eradication initiative. 
"We're not. We're going to have hundreds of thousands of cases of 
kids being paralyzed by a disease that was an inch away from 
disappearing forever."

Dr. Sobhan Sarkar, the Indian government's deputy commissioner of 
child health and coordinator of the national antipolio campaign, said 
what worried him was the spread of polio to areas where it was not 
previously found. The virus is spilling from Uttar Pradesh into other 
states.
The polio outbreak has also exposed a religious, or communal, health 
divide. Only 17 percent of Uttar Pradesh's population is Muslim, but 
59 percent of its polio cases last year were among Muslims, like 
Uzma. Although the rumor was repeated in Hindu communities too, 
health officials say it gained greatest currency among Muslims, who 
in Uttar Pradesh tend to be landless laborers with lower literacy 
rates and a greater mistrust of the Hindu-dominated government.

Many Indians have feared forced sterilization since it was carried 
out during the authoritarian period of the late Prime Minister Indira 
Gandhi's state of emergency in 1975. Since then, government health 
initiatives have often been viewed warily.
That has been especially true among Muslims, not least because most 
government health workers are Hindu.
Some health officials said they had known for years that they were 
having a harder time reaching Muslim households. But Naseem Ahmad, 
vice chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh, 
said the divide between Muslims and Hindus widened when the Hindu 
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party rose to power in the state five 
years ago. It is now part of a coalition government.

"Because of the political setup at the moment, with the B.J.P. in 
power," he said, "the impression from the illiterate and semiliterate 
is that anything from the present government would be to their 
detriment."
This is not the first fear to foil a health campaign in India. Last 
year, rumors that vitamin A - dispensed to reduced the incidence of 
diarrhea and measles and to help prevent blindness - had caused the 
death of dozens of children halted a public health drive in the state 
of Assam.

Mrs. Jahan, who is 26, is totally unschooled. She was married at 16 
or 17. Her husband rolls cigarettes for a living, and the family 
earns about 2,400 rupees, or $50, a month. She lives under the purdah 
system and so she rarely leaves the house. When she does, it is in a 
burka, the head-to-toe, face-covering veil. She said she did not know 
how the rumor got started. "We are women, confined to the household," 
she said. "We work and we eat."
Uzma is unusual, in that most of the polio cases here have been 
diagnosed among children under 2. But almost all of them have come in 
places where significant percentages of children - 6 percent or more 
- did not complete the full course of the vaccine, which involves at 
least four doses.

Health officials say they hope that in the wake of the current 
epidemic the number of new cases will taper off this year, at least 
in Uttar Pradesh, with many children who are not immunized by the 
government developing natural immunity through mild exposure.
Dr. Aylward agreed that that could happen, but warned against a false 
sense of security. "It's going to plummet, and buy you a bit of 
time," he said, "then it's going to come roaring back." Mass 
immunization, he said, remains necessary, and that effort is under 
way.

The government and the World Health Organization, in partnership with 
Unicef and Rotary International, which has given more than $500 
million to fight polio, started a drive this month to immunize 150 
million Indian children, many of them in Uttar Pradesh.
Where possible, the government has tried to add health workers of the 
same religion and social caste as the people where the vaccinations 
are scheduled. But officials say they have struggled to find enough 
Muslim women with some education and without purdah strictures to 
join them. Nongovernment organizations have helped fill the gaps.

With 166 million people, Uttar Pradesh is more populous than all but 
five of the world's countries. It has long been troubled by poor 
governance. Federal health officials say the repeated transfers of 
state bureaucrats have made it difficult to mount sustained campaigns.
Health workers and those with aid organizations said that in a state 
where so little seemed to work, the very efficiency of the 
eradication drive added to people's suspicions.

"People say, `We do not have food, we do not have jobs, we do not 
have electricity. Why are you only after these drops? Why again and 
again these drops?' " said Nikhat Parvin, a Muslim volunteer with the 
nonprofit Adventist Development and Relief Agency. On this morning, 
she accompanied a vaccination team through the lanes of Ger Hassanha, 
a Muslim neighborhood in this bedraggled city of 300,000 people.

Rampur district had 36 polio cases last year. Of those, 29 were among 
Muslims, although the district's two million residents are about 
equally split between Hindus and Muslims. All the cases, the 
district's chief medical officer, Dr. Vijay Singh said, were among 
the poor, those with inadequate food, unclean water and poor 
sanitation. In many localities, he said, human waste was simply 
dumped in the open, making fecal-oral transmission of the virus 
"very, very easy."

The team went house to house, checking to see whether the drops had 
been administered, giving them if they had not, and then chalking the 
status upon wooden doors.
By 11 a.m., two mothers, both Muslims, had refused. One of them was 
Shamina, who said she was illiterate. But she allowed the three women 
with the team into her courtyard to make their pitch.
"Your children are not only your children, they are like my 
children," said Byant Kaur, 55, a state health worker since 1969, and 
a Hindu. "Why would I hurt my children?"

Hamida Khan, a Unicef community mobilizer who is Muslim, joined in. 
"If the population decreases, who will the government rule?" she 
asked, as Ms. Parvin nodded.
Ms. Kaur continued, "If anything happens, you can get hold of my neck."
The mother relented, and Ms. Kaur quickly dropped in the oral vaccine.
But across the narrow lane, her neighbor, who the team knew had a 
3-year-old, refused even to open the door.
Instead, she shouted through it. "You are dishonest! I don't have 
time! I have so many other things to do!"
Then she added: "My children are already grown!"

Dr. Singh said many parents, knowing they might face pressure from 
the government - or even the police - if they refused the drops, were 
now simply lying about whether they had children younger than 5.

>From behind the door came the last word: "I will not give the 
medicine to my child!"
To counter the creeping rumors, the government has begun a 
pro-immunization media campaign featuring India's most popular actor, 
Amitabh Bachchan.
But as Mrs. Jahan herself observed, there may be no more effective 
advertisement than her little Uzma. Now that people can see from her 
daughter's crippled limbs that polio is real, "they do not believe 
the rumor," Mrs. Jahan said, almost proudly. "They see the logic in 
getting the drops."

_____

#4.

Al-Ahram Weekly
9 - 15 January 2003
Issue No. 620

In the name of religion
Over a year after the "War on Terror" began, Mukul Devichand attended 
a neighbourhood meeting in New York, where South Asians were uniting 
to protest government policy and fight against hate crimes

Shah Wazir is worried about his future, and he is not alone.

He is of many concerned South Asians from across New York who have 
attended a special series of meetings in Midwood, Brooklyn and 
Jackson Heights, Queens, held late in 2002. Both areas have big South 
Asian communities with sizable Muslim populations. The clue to the 
subject matter of the meetings is given away by their title: "One 
Year Later: How Do We get Our Rights Back?"

Although much press attention has focussed on the plight of 
Arab-Americans after 11 September, South Asian-Americans (from India, 
Pakistan and Bangladesh) have also felt the social effects of the 
"War on Terror". South Asians, both Muslim and non-Muslim, often have 
the beards, veils and Eastern clothing that make up American 
stereotypes of "Taliban" and "Islam". Over the past year, several 
Sikhs have been attacked and some killed, because their long beards 
resemble that of Osama Bin Laden. The meetings were held to address 
such feelings of victimisation.

Wazir, for example, has been personally affected. Just before 1am on 
3 September this year, the 46-year old Pakistani immigrant was 
driving his taxi home to Midwood after another long shift. As he 
slowed for traffic lights on Manhattan's 2nd Avenue, at the junction 
with 54th Street, he caught a quick glimpse of two men and a woman 
coming towards the car. He said that before he fully realised what 
was going on, they had pulled the door open and started to physically 
attack him.

"I have no doubt it was because I'm a Muslim," Wazir said in Urdu, 
Pakistan's lingua franca, almost a week later. He is a thin man with 
a large beard, who usually wears a long salwar kameez (tunic and 
pants) leaving no doubt as to his ethnicity. He was struck several 
times. A large bruise still showed under his right eye, despite an 
overnight hospital stay. "As they hit me, they shouted 'Do you like 
Bin Laden?'," he said.

The three suspects -- a white American and two Chinese-Americans -- 
were arrested and now face trial. But Wazir feels his attack was part 
of a worrying trend. "First the FBI detained so many in the 
community, and now this," he said. "It makes me feel I have to do 
something." At the Midwood meeting on 8 September, many people 
expressed similar concerns.

The gathering was held at the offices of the Council of Pakistan 
Organization, or COPO, a local Midwood group that emerged after a 
spate of government detentions of Muslims after 11 September 
Volunteers from COPO and others from the Manhattan-based 
Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) wanted a 
forum to meet locals and re-appraise the feelings of others in the 
South Asian community.

Much of the concern centered on government detentions. "They just 
come and take us away," lamented Mohamed Tariq, 44, a Pakistani limo 
driver from Brooklyn. "If you argue, they are more likely to take 
you. It's just because we're Muslim."

"Why us?" added Zaid Khan, 31, a Pashtun from Pakistan who works as a 
stockbroker. "We have done nothing wrong. So the real problem is to 
find out who is reporting us to the FBI."

Since the 11 September attacks, the government has detained over 
1,200 people nationwide, according to State Department figures. Most 
have been held on immigration violations or as "material witnesses". 
Since it is the executive branch that oversees immigration, the 
government can avoid the courts and detain suspects in secret 
locations, not releasing their names, and without trial.

Several liberal judges are rebelling against the policy in federal 
courts, most recently in a Federal District Court in Washington DC, 
in August. A Supreme Court judgment is pending. But in the meantime, 
the effects of the policy have been severe in many South Asian 
communities.

According to Ahmad Razvi of COPO, many Pakistanis from Midwood 
practically "disappeared" overnight, often after "tip-offs" to the 
FBI from neighbours who interpret Muslim looks and religious 
conversation as terrorist. The State Department claims all but 81 of 
the immigration violators have now been released or deported, but 
COPO and AALDEF say the detentions are ongoing.

At the meeting, people felt the real enemy was not the US government, 
but ignorance. "The police don't really know who we are," said Tariq. 
"They need to understand that we're just ordinary people."

Nor was there any support for terrorists. "Of course they should take 
wrongdoers," Khan asserted at the meeting. "That's OK. But they 
shouldn't be taking anyone else."

"This isn't about protecting criminals or fraudsters," added Siddiq 
Malik, 44, a store owner who had made the journey from the Bronx, at 
the other side of New York. "It's about protecting innocents."

Another purpose of the meeting was for AALDEF and COPO to spread the 
word about free legal advice they give to South Asians and others at 
monthly legal clinics in Brooklyn and Queens. Those sessions have 
been well attended, according to Saurav Sarkar, a volunteer at AALDEF.

Ammad Razvi, a 28-year old Pakistani from Midwood, helped found COPO. 
He said that people who felt victimised now had a place to come. "You 
can come here, to trained lawyers who can help," he said at the 
meeting.

A vivid example of the type of work advocacy groups like COPO and 
AALDEF do occurred in August after Mizanor Rahman, a 37-year-old 
father of one from Bangladesh was attacked and murdered by two men in 
East New York on 11 August. On 28 August, the local 75th Police 
precinct's Inspector James Secreto told Bangladeshi community leaders 
that he did not feel the attack was racially motivated. Local 
Bangladeshis disagreed, and together with AALDEF held vigils and 
forums with the local Dominican community, the other big immigrant 
community in the area.

In Midwood, COPO also envision a community-building agenda as well as 
advocacy work. Razvi runs regular basketball sessions where young 
people from Midwood's large Jewish and Muslim communities are 
encouraged to play together.

Inter-community dialogue, and a united voice against government 
detentions and hate crimes, is still a new phenomenon with New York's 
South Asians. Still, the meeting showed that the "War on Terror" has 
certainly provoked a reaction among a community that has 
traditionally been divided by national origin and religion. "We 
should be united among ourselves," declared Malik. "We all look the 
same to them, so let's unite as one."

_____

#4.

The Statesman
January 19,2003 

C A V E A T/ C R IRANI

A Plague, A Plague!

Hindutva is in the air! Although what it is all about is anybody's 
guess! There are interpretations and no one is sure which is the 
right one; it seems to depend on the purpose in view. Narendra Modi, 
before the elections he won easily, had a definition, which he put 
into outrageous practice and which provoked Prime Minister Atal 
Behari Vajpayee to rap him sharply over the knuckles. After the 
elections, Vajpayee offers a definition, which lessens his distance 
from Modi, while Modi confounds everybody by declaring that the Prime 
Minister's definition was something shared by all in the BJP. Other 
leading lights in the party suggest that Modi, not Vajpayee, has it 
right. I have always maintained that, however grotesque, the pogrom 
unleashed upon a whole community in the aftermath of Godhra was 
crafted with an eye on elections. Modi confirmed it by calling early 
elections before the poison could be washed away or covered by time. 
He was frustrated by the Election Commission and the Supreme Court 
but the opportunity to rectify electoral rolls was not utilised 
properly, given the reluctance of the Congress party to risk losing 
the Hindu vote. Having said that, it is also true that the scale of 
the BJP victory and the spread of their influence cannot be explained 
by this factor alone. More recently on 30th December to be exact, 
Modi admits as much when he asks that the poison of electioneering 
should be forgotten!
I have no wish to recount the horrors of the pogrom; it is documented 
in reports, editorials and Caveats, but I must add that the newly 
renewed chief minister cannot expect it all to be forgotten simply 
because it is inconvenient to him that it should be remembered. Nor 
does it help for him to blandly assure everyone that both the Godhra 
incident and the post-Godhra violence will be dealt with in 
accordance with law. I call to witness the excellent and highly 
credible report of the Concerned Citizens Tribunal - 2002, comprising 
eight eminent citizens led by the redoubtable former judge of the 
Supreme Court, Mr Justice VK Krishna Iyer for the proposition, in 
context, that the primary law enforcement agency - the police force - 
often led the murderous mobs. Modi now wants people to believe that 
having achieved his objective and won the election, he can be relied 
upon to provide good government. With appropriate fanfare, he 
announces that he has pardoned one, Razak Nazir Kasim, an IT 
professional, for sending him a threatening e-mail from Mumbai and 
which he says would have involved a prison term of five years plus a 
Rs 1 lakh fine. I did not know that after Lord Macaulay drafted the 
Indian Penal Code, Narendra Modi was given the task of rewriting it! 
Nothing short of this would produce the jail term and the fine 
claimed. Modi adds that it is time to forget the past and think about 
the future. Having arranged the past to make sure of the future, Modi 
thinks he can ignore the present! He will have to work at it. And 
while he works, it is sensible that he keeps his mouth shut.
Modi made his statements on 30th December in the course of a padyatra 
through riot-affected areas, his first visit since the horrors he 
engineered some months ago. I am driven to the conclusion that his 
efforts are insincere and beneath contempt. I am not saying that Modi 
is incapable of making amends; but I do say that I have seen no 
evidence of it yet. I am looking for evidence on the ground; not 
words that cost him nothing. To prove my point, Pravin Togadia, the 
same day, spits venom in the style to which he is accustomed.
Hindutva is being exported to Rajasthan and it is announced that the 
RSS chief is camping in West Bengal for a week from 21st January. He 
is not here on a rest cure! To be fair to him the West Bengal 
government have shown no sign of following up on Buddhadeb 
Bhattacharjee's honest statement of 19th January 2002, that in the 
wake of the change of government in Dhaka, a whole crop of madrasas 
have sprung up along the border funded by Gulf money. Clearly this 
should be investigated. The West Bengal Board of Madrasa Education 
Act is a scandal. The state government spends Rs 115 crore annually 
on registered madrasas and contrary to Article 30 of the 
Constitution, it controls the syllabus and has not allowed any other 
subject to be taught except Arabic language, Arab history and the 
Koran. This is how mindless vote banks are created. Even Musharraf 
intends to introduce subjects like science and technology, giving 
Modi the excuse for a justified barb that he will follow Mia 
Musharraf's example!
Someone who should know better, says on television that Hindutva is 
another name for Hindu. The short answer is a question - where is the 
need for a synonym? If Hindutva is the answer to Islamic 
fundamentalism, then I say - a plague on both your houses!
http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=1&theme=&usrsess=1&id=9794

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