[sacw] SACW | 15 March 03

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire   |  15 March,  2003


#1. Sri Lanka: Addressing the psychosocial problems of women in a war 
ravaged society
(Daya Somasundaram)
#2. Pakistan: "Blackened man, blackened woman" ["Karo-kari"] 
(Ardeshir Cowasjee)
#3. Formation of Pakistan Social Forum and Joint Declaration
#4. Homage to Hindu Nationalist Reflects Change in India (John Lancaster)
#5. Myths and Dreams: Hindutva Nationalism and the Indian Diaspora 
(Angana Chatterji)
#6. India: Stand In Solidarity With The Women of Gujarat on 8th March (WLUML=
)
#7. India: A desperate measure (Surendra Mohan)
#8. India: Muslim League to distribute 'panchshool'
#9. India: Justice and Democracy (Mukul Dube)
#10. India: Inventing borders in Gujarat (Harsh mander)
#11. India: Petitions Against Hate Speech in Supreme Court (V. Venkatesan)
#12.India: Invitation for Lucknow Covention( March 29) and Ayodhya 
Programme (March 30, 2003)
(NAPM)


-----------------------------------


#1.

Lines, February 2003

[Sri Lanka] Addressing the psychosocial problems of women in a war 
ravaged society
by  Daya Somasundaram
[People's Forum "Integration of women in the peace process"
University of Jaffna, 8-9th Feb., 2003]

http://www.lines-magazine.org/Art_Feb03/Daya.htm


______


#2.

DAWN, March 9, 2003

"Blackened man, blackened woman" ("Karo-kari")

By Ardeshir Cowasjee

Amidst the chaos, non-functioning, the shouting, unruly and
unparliamentary behaviour of the majority of the elected
representatives, men and women, in the National Assembly, thirty-five
(out of a total of 139) of the more sensible and realistic women
representatives sitting in our provincial assemblies who wish to achieve
something other than disruption met last week at Karachi at an
orientation workshop organized by the Jinnah Institute (London-based)
and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.

=46or most of these women, legislation and representation are a totally
new phase in their lives, unknown ground whereon they have not trodden.
So political orientation is called for if they are to make any mark in
the assemblies. Though it must be said that at the present moment, with
the amazing scenes we are witnessing in parliament, it is doubtful if it
will be possible to even make a point, let alone legislate.

However, the women have never been such a force with which to reckon and
it is now up to them to make their mark. As pointed out so rightly by
the chairperson of the workshop, MNA Sherry Rahman, when it comes to
women's rights, it must be remembered that they are not an issue on
their own but are very much part of the whole that is known as human
rights. Women are not divorced from humanity. And until there is a vast
improvement in the state of human rights in this country, it is highly
doubtful that the status of women can be raised.

Education is a human right. According to the latest statistics, female
literacy in Pakistan stands at a pathetic 28 per cent, way below the
Third World average of 66 per cent. Without literacy what hope have our
women of pulling themselves out of the morass dug for them by the
illiterate male population in thrall to uneducated bigots, the
misinterpretation of religion, and outmoded tribal and feudal customs
and traditions?

We will obviously expect our women legislators to lay stress on the
women factor when fighting for human rights and we will expect the few
who can to enforce legislation for the protection of women, for
compulsory female education, for the repeal of the iniquitous Hadood
Ordinances, and particularly for the eradication of one of the greatest
crimes committed against the women of this country - the condonation of
the feudal custom of karo-kari , literally 'blackened man, blackened
woman', but in the observance of which custom the man generally goes
away scot free while the woman loses her life.

With the population explosion and the concurrent reduction in literacy
rates, the instances of karo-kari are reportedly on the rise. It is a
practice translated into English, erroneously, as 'honour killings' in
which there is no honour involved at all. It is a practice that is also
widely abused and has been known to be used to get rid of women unwanted
for one reason or another, or merely suspected of having committed
adultery, or even of having had an innocent conversation with a member
of the opposite sex. Targets of the practice may include a three-year
old girl or an eighty-five-year old woman.

In 1998, 286 such killings were reported in Punjab alone. In 1999, in a
three-month period in Sindh 132 women were done to death in the name of
honour, and in Punjab in eleven months 266 deaths were reported.

According to a February 2003 press release by Madadgaar, an organization
funded by UNICEF: "....during the last year in Sindh 423 cases of
karo-kari were reported; in Punjab 319, in Balochistan 36, while in the
NWFP 45 such cases were reported in the print media. A comparison of
data collected in 2002 and 2001 shows that the trend remains the same
and most of the cases were reported from Sindh. In 2001, the print media
reported 453 cases in Sindh, 204 in Punjab, 69 in Balochistan and 27 in
the NWFP. .... The monitoring of all the reported cases revealed that in
346 cases the perpetrator was the husband; in 183 cases a brother; in 92
cases in-laws; in 46 cases the father; and in 32 cases the perpetrator
was a son."

One honour killing that was highlighted internationally was that of
Samia Sarwar in 1999 whose murder at the hands of a relative was
sanctioned by her mother. It was not until the year 2000 following
persistent protests by women activists that karo-kari was finally
declared by the government to be murder. However, apparently neither the
police nor the judiciary have taken any action against the perpetrators
of this particularly barbaric practice.

Advocate Iqbal Haider, the former Senator, who went out on a limb in
1999 to have the matter discussed and debated in the Senate but whose
attempts were nullified by his fellow Senators and the honourable
chairman of the Senate, Wasim Sajjad, has now come up with a proposed
draft resolution, drafted at the behest of his former fellow partyman,
MPA Nisar Khuhro, for the women parliamentarians to present in their
respective assemblies:

"This house expresses its deep concern over the unchecked and unabated
spate of violence against women and condemns premeditated murder of
women in the name of so-called honour, karo-kari, siyahkari or on any
other pretext. This house calls upon the government:

"(a) To ensure immediate registration of FIR in all incidents of such
murders and arrest of the culprits, failing which the concerned police
officers must be prosecuted for aiding and abetting in such crimes and
must also be dismissed from service;

"(b) To ensure expeditious trial of such murder cases and severe
exemplary punishment of the culprits;

"(c) To ensure that murder of women in the name of so-called honour,
karo-kari, siyahkari, or any other such pretext is made a
non-compoundable offence, so that no pardon or concession is granted to
the culprit through any family settlement.

"(d) To ensure that women are not treated or used as compensation or
fine for payment in all or any transaction, including honour killing
settlement, which amounts to trafficking in human flesh, and an offence
under the Pakistan Penal Code. The culprits involved in any such act
must be arrested, prosecuted and punished in accordance with the law.

"(e) To ensure that all organs of the criminal justice system - police,
prosecutors, district magistrates, judges, medico-legal personnel - be
made aware and be expected to have full knowledge of legislation on
domestic violence and honour killings.

"(f) To ensure that all senior officials in the civil administration and
in the police department at the provincial and district levels take
special notice of all reports of honour killings and that all cases are
properly and thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators brought to
trial. The government should establish an independent body to monitor
handling by the police of honour killing cases as well as cases of
violence against women and the treatment of women who have been victims
of violence.

"(g) To ensure that the ever increasing incidence of all sorts of
violence, including domestic violence, against women are checked and
contained in an effective manner and the culprits in all cases are
arrested promptly and punished expeditiously in accordance with the
laws."

It is now up to the 212 women legislators of the five assemblies and the
17 of the Senate, (a formidable force indeed) to do their utmost to see
that human rights in this country, as guaranteed by the Constitution,
are respected and upheld, and in particular that the plight of women is
relieved, that they are afforded empowerment through education, that
laws are made and enforced to eliminate the endemic violence to which
they too often are subjected.

One of our legislators, MNA Sherry Rahman, has produced a paper on
'Policy Recommendations for Women's Status in Pakistan - A Parliamentary
Charter for 2003' which gives comprehensive coverage to all that needs
to and must be done to usher the women of Pakistan into the 21st
century, free them from discrimination, and allow them to play their due
role in the progress of this country. Presumably, this paper has been
circulated to all our women graduate parliamentarians.

As a document found in Iqbal Haider's archives indicate, there are some
70 organizations in the country pushing the rights of women. What do we
say to you:

"Women of Pakistan unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains". And
do what you have to do while the general is batting. He is on your side.

______


#3.

SACW
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/2002/PSFMarch03.html

March 13, 2003

=46ormation of Pakistan Social Forum and Joint Declaration

Dear Friends

An two-day consultation of more that 50 civil society organizations, 
labor federations and trade-unionists, rights-based people's 
movements, teachers, journalists associations, political and social 
activists (list of the participants attached) was held in Lahore from 
March 12-13, 2003. The meeting discussed the experiences of World 
Social Forum (WSF) and Asia Social Forum (ASF) and initiation of its 
diffusion in Pakistan.

In the two-day deliberations the participants analyzed the 
philosophy, approach and process which led to the formation WSF as a 
forum of progressive, social democrats, socialists and other 
pro-peace and democratic forces from all over the world.

The participants reviewed with great interest, the process of the 
formation of World Social Forum and Asian Social Forum as global 
movement, under the banner of 'Another World is Possible' and so 
powerfully expressed itself at Hyderabad India and Porto Alegre 
Brazil. The participants also felt that the way this global movement 
has expressed itself against neo-liberal agenda needs to be 
understood, consolidates and also continued with redoubled 
commitment. The group decided that instead of taking these major 
global assemblies of progressive and democratic forces as mere events 
we need to understand them as long-term process of engaging forces of 
anti-war and anti-neo-liberalism under one banner. Realizing the need 
to diffuse the process in Pakistan the groups committed itself to a 
continued struggle and efforts to take it further to all corners of 
the country. The group also pledged to continue its struggle to unite 
all progressive, rights-based and democratic forces in Pakistan on 
the these common threats to the world and marginalized groups.

The assembly after careful deliberation drafted a joint declaration 
highlighting its position on current issues especially in wake of 
impending US attack on Iraq, its possible fall-outs on the world 
peace, right-based movements, intensifying regional and local 
military tensions and on world economy,

A coordination committee is formed to take the process further to the 
local levels through public forums, debates, dialogues, bring other 
forces and actors of the civil society in the forum besides engaging 
with World Social Forum and Asian Social Forum. An action plan was 
also formed and the committee is given the task to engage members of 
the forum and other like-minded forces and facilitate the process of 
organizing a Pakistan Social Forum later this year and preparations 
for the next World Social Forum in 2004 in India. The members of the 
first coordination committee are the following:

1.                   I.A. Rehman, HRCP
2.                   Anwar Dogar, Anjuman Mazareen
3.                   Saadia, SPO
4.                   Dr. Zafar Mirza, Network for Consumer Protection
5.                   Dr. A. H Nayyar, SDPI
6.                   Yaqoob Ahmed, Takhleek Foundation Karachi
7.                   Tariq Awan, PILER
8.                   Karamat Ali, PILER
9.                   Mohammad Tahseen, SAP-Pakistan
10.               Ch. Manzoor, MNA of Pakistan People's Party
11.               Shahdia Jabeen, Pakistan People's Party
12.               Marvi Sarmad, Aurat Foundation
13.               Amjad Nazeer, SAP-Pakistan
14.               M.B. Naqvi, Columnist and Pakistan Peace Coalition (PPC)
15.               Rashid Patras, Sanitary Workers Union
16.               Farooq Tariq, Labor Party Pakistan
17.               Gul Rehman, Muttahida Labor Federation
18.               Ch. Yaqoob, Muttahida Labor Federation
19.               Ghaffar Malik, Sindh Development Society Hyderabad
20.               Tariq Shahzad
21.               Shahjahan Panezai, IDSP Quetta
22.               Nasarullah Khan, DAY Quetta
23.               Irfan Mufti, SAP-Pakistan and Secretary to the Committee


o o o o

Statement of the Coordination Committee of the Pakistan Social Forum
Lahore, 13th March 2003
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/2002/PSFMarch03.html

______


#4.

The Washington Post
Thursday, February 27, 2003

Homage to Hindu Nationalist Reflects Change in India

By John Lancaster
Special correspondent Rama Lakshmi contributed to this report.

NEW DELHI, Feb. 26 -- A little more than half a century ago, Vinayak
Savarkar was on trial for his life, accused of conspiring with seven other
men in the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi on Jan. 30, 1948.

The court acquitted Savarkar, citing insufficient evidence, but there was
never much doubt about where his sympathies lay: A hard-line Hindu
nationalist who wrote admiringly of Nazi Germany, he made no secret of his
antipathy toward India's Muslim population or toward Gandhi, whose embrace
of religious tolerance and diversity he saw as a threat to India's
cultural purity.

Moreover, Savarkar was personally acquainted with Nathuram Godse, Gandhi's
assassin and one of Savarkar's most devoted followers. Some historians
still believe that Godse would not have committed the murder without a
green light from Savarkar, who died in 1966.

But yesterday's suspect is today's hero. In a ceremony this afternoon,
India's Hindu-nationalist government unveiled a portrait of Savarkar to
hang opposite Gandhi's in the central hall of Parliament, describing him
as a neglected and misunderstood patriot who deserves his place in the
pantheon of India's great leaders.

The ceremony reflected the degree to which hard-line Hindu nationalism has
moved into the mainstream of Indian politics, drowning out debate on other
topics, such as development, and alarming those who see the movement as a
threat to the secular, pluralistic nature of Indian democracy.

"All the political stigma has been cleared today," Savarkar's nephew,
Vikram Savarkar, said after the ceremony, which was organized by the
ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and presided over by President Abdul
Kalam. "He had been kept away from history books. Now his name will be
everywhere."

That prospect is deeply disturbing to guardians of India's secular
democratic traditions, among them leaders of the opposition Congress
party, which boycotted the ceremony. Historians and civil-society groups
joined the Congress party in denouncing the government's decision. Besides
resurrecting questions about Savarkar's role in the Gandhi assassination,
they cast doubt on his patriotism, citing evidence that he had
collaborated with India's British colonial overlords and endorsed
partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan at independence in
1947 -- an outcome still widely seen here as an avoidable tragedy.

"He has been a figure of shame all his life, and now his portrait will go
here in Parliament?" said Vishwa Nath Mathur, 90, who was imprisoned by
the British during the colonial era and appeared at a news conference
Tuesday organized by opponents of the portrait-hanging. "Savarkar was
essentially from the beginning a very weak character."

Spokesmen for the BJP and its parent organization, the National Volunteer
Corps -- known as the RSS, the initials of its name in Hindi -- accused
the Congress party leader, Sonia Gandhi, and other critics of distorting
Savarkar's record for political purposes. On the charge that Savarkar was
involved in Gandhi's assassination, they said the court acquittal speaks
for itself. On the charge that he was unpatriotic, they released a 1980
letter from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi -- Sonia Gandhi's mother-in-law,
but no relation to Mohandas Gandhi -- in which she praised Savarkar as a
"remarkable son of India" who deserved to be celebrated for his "daring
defiance of the British government."

Born in 1883 and a onetime student at London's Inns of Court, Savarkar
spent years in a British penal colony for ordering the assassination of a
British official. Although some later accused him of offering to cooperate
with his jailers in exchange for leniency, he is revered among Hindu
nationalists for his coinage of the term Hindutva -- literally, Hinduness
-- at the center of the campaign by the RSS and its offshoots to shape
India as a culturally homogeneous nation.

In one passage of his 1923 book, "Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu?" Savarkar
seems to question the patriotism of India's minority Muslim and Christian
communities: "[Muslim] or Christian communities possess all the essential
qualifications of Hindutva but one . . . they do not look upon India as
their holy land," he wrote. "Their holy land is far off in Arabia and
Palestine. Consequently their names and their outlook smack of foreign
origin. Their love is divided."

More controversial than Savarkar's writings was his association with the
killers of Gandhi, whose peaceful protest movement is widely credited with
forcing the British to leave India. Savarkar was the leader of a
right-wing political organization, the Hindu Mahasabha, whose acolytes --
including Godse, Gandhi's slayer -- deeply resented what they saw as
Gandhi's "appeasement" of India's Muslims.

Although Godse testified at his trial that Savarkar was not involved in
the assassination, he and an accomplice, Narayan Apte, were regular
visitors to Savarkar's Bombay home in the months leading up to the
killing, according to evidence presented at the trial. Another accomplice,
Digamber Badge, who turned state's evidence, testified that less than two
weeks before the assassination, he had overheard Savarkar bidding Godse
and Apte goodbye with the instruction, "Be successful and return."

Judge Atma Charan ultimately ruled that it would be "unsafe" to convict
Savarkar without corroborating evidence.

At today's ceremony, lawmakers from the BJP and other parties in India's
coalition government greeted the unveiling with shouts of "Long Live
Savarkar," and "Long Live Mother India." Then they formed a line and took
turns throwing rose petals on the portrait, bowing before they moved on.

"Today the picture is there -- the ideology will follow," said Vikram
Savarkar. "This is just the beginning."

______


#5.

Op-ed, Asian Age, New Delhi, March 09, 2003.

Myths and Dreams: Hindutva Nationalism and the Indian Diaspora
By Angana Chatterji

The mobilisation of Hindutva across the United States has damaging 
effects on the business community, academy, and society at large. It 
impacts how culture is shaped and community built in diaspora. It 
affects how decisions connected to India are made, collapsing Indian 
issues into Hindu issues. It influences how funding is allocated at 
universities, curriculum developed, temple organisation undertaken, 
development aid disbursed, and hate campaigns mounted against 
minority and progressive groups.

In the United States, funding for Hindu extremism is lavish and 
contentious. Amidst the recent exposure of the India Development and 
Relief Fund's collection of hate money for harmful development in 
India, the Indian community is divided on the issue of supporting 
development through Hindutva affiliated organisations. Development is 
increasingly a vehicle through which the conscription for Hindu 
rightwing extremism takes place. The actions of Ekal Vidyalaya, 
Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad, Vivekananda Kendra, Sewa Bharati and other 
groups offer incriminating evidence of this. As Hindu nationalism 
infects the grassroots across India, Indians in the United States are 
questioning the consequences of financing Hindutva.

As we watch, L. K. Advani, Praveen Togadia and Narendra Modi continue 
their outrageous crusade, building support for an authoritarian Hindu 
nationalist movement. Intent on demonstrating the incompatibility of 
according minorities equal citizenship in India, the Sangh Parivar is 
popularising the contemptible idea of India as a Hindu nation that 
'tolerates minorities even better' than democratically challenged 
Pakistan or Bangladesh. In the nightmare of India's present, 
secularism is fast becoming a commitment that the nation is willing 
to betray. It is prevalent to claim India as a Hindu nation, at least 
a nation of 'soft Hindutva'. Hindutva, soft Hindutva, moderate 
Hindutva - ideologies soft on genocide. India is a secular republic, 
inclusive of diverse faith and non-faith groups. How can an India no 
longer committed to secularism remain committed to democracy?

The acceptability of a Hindu nation is predicated on the infidelity 
of non-Hindus, and assumptions of Muslim and Christian betrayal are 
imperative to legitimating Hindutva. The Sangh is assembling the 
political, social and economic conditions in which to be non-Hindu in 
India is no longer tenable, offering genocide as a 'rational' 
response to the untruth of betrayal. What does loyalty look like when 
you are disempowered, afraid, discriminated against? Have we asked 
ourselves that as a nation?

Diaspora Indians must acknowledge the ascent of authoritarianism and 
tyranny in India and stop Sangh apologists in the United States from 
justifying hatred in the name of cultural nationalism. Organisations 
in the United States supporting India's development must recognise 
the necessity of secularising development, and be vigilantly critical 
of development administered by sectarian organisations. Development 
implemented by institutions affiliated with the Sangh Parivar only 
lays the groundwork for hate and civil polarisation. It fundamentally 
violates the terms on which disenfranchised communities wish to 
determine their right to life and livelihood. Dalits, adivasis, 
Christians, Hindus and Muslims across India speak of how their 
villages and watersheds intertwine, how crops are dependent on the 
run-off water from each other's lands, and how they cannot afford to 
hate each other. In the guise of implementing development, Hindutva 
promotes malignant fictions that Christian missionary activity is 
placing Hinduism at risk, that Muslims are reproducing at a rate that 
threatens the Hindu majority of India.

Among adivasi communities, such 'development' inflicts their forcible 
incorporation into Hinduism. This is unacceptable even if adivasis 
materially benefit from development because it facilitates cultural 
genocide. Adivasi self-determination movements have been struggling 
to rewrite the history of assimilation to which they have been 
subjected. The interpretation that they are an 'underclass' of 
Hindus, who, with 'necessary evolution', may return to the fold is 
blatant ethnocentrism. Hinduisation is a ruinous process of 
colonisation. Such practice is unethical regardless of who undertakes 
it and how much economic development results.

Indians in America working for India's development must prioritise 
the self-determination of local communities, and struggle against the 
institutionalised inequities of caste, religion, tribe, class and 
gender. They cannot base their aspirations for India's future on the 
absurdly unsustainable development modelled by the United States or 
support the frameworks of cultural annihilation through which 
development is imagined and modernisation attempted by the Sangh. It 
is not a matter of building wells or developing roads, it is also a 
matter of deciding how needs and priorities are determined, access 
and decision making is enabled, how cultural difference is affirmed 
and identity politics supported. Development is the construction of 
political will toward rethinking inequitable relations of power. It 
is a mechanism expected to produce equity and ensure the human rights 
of the poor. This is possible only if we work with local movements to 
develop secular frameworks for change.

Those affiliated with Hindutva in the United States must be contested 
as they fashion an India of their imagination. The intensity and 
power of becoming in this new world, amidst vast differences, racism, 
assimilation, forces of homogenisation, is compounded by a hollow 
disconnection from what is most meaningful -- culture, home, 
identity, history. The greater the alienation, the greater the desire 
to grasp at fiction. In this abyss of diaspora, myths originate of an 
India that never was or should be. These myths nurture dreams where 
the Hindu prabashi (ex-patriot) can return to purge the motherland 
from impurities, to cleanse what is polluted, to restore honour and 
claim victory.

In the United States, the fervour of long distance Hindutva 
nationalism is intense. Dangerous stories circulate. Muslims are 
polygamous terrorists whose deliberate identification and massacre in 
Gujarat is justifiable, even necessary. The campaign for trifurcation 
of Jammu and Kashmir is logical. Ayodhya is a defensible expression 
of cultural pride. In this unreflective chasm of proxy nationalism, a 
substantial community is supportive of Hindutva or unconcerned with 
its wretchedness. Others misrepresent that support for a Hindu India 
is not support for Hindutva, only pride in the glory of India's past, 
so from it one might craft India's future. To rail, as so many do, 
against the persistence of structural inequities, of the horrors of 
history, of the politics of caste and cows in the present, is only to 
bear incriminating evidence of one's own bastardisation, loss of 
purity, lack of faith and pride in 'Indianness'. What is this 
Indianness? Indic culture, chaste, beautiful, Hindu, despoiled by 
conquest and colonisation. How is it manifest, fortified? A return to 
its origins, a proclamation of its sanctity. What is left out? The 
reality of India.


Angana Chatterji is a professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology 
at the California Institute of Integral Studies.


______


#6.

URGENT CALL FOR ACTION

INDIA: STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE WOMEN OF GUJARAT ON 8TH MARCH
25 February 2003: WLUML strongly urges you to refocus international 
attention, protests and solidarity on the ongoing genocidal process 
taking place in the Indian state of Gujarat since late February 2002.
http://www.wluml.org/english/alerts/2003/1-anniv-gujarat.htm

______


#7.

The Hindu, Mar 15, 2003
Opinion - Leader Page Articles

A desperate measure
By Surendra Mohan

The Jamait-ul-Ulema-i-Hind and other Muslim organisations must ponder 
whether the creation of a separate political party exclusively for 
the community will really help.
http://www.hindu.com/stories/2003031500341000.htm

______


#8.

The Hindu, Mar 14, 2003

Muslim League to distribute 'panchshool'
The Muslim League will distribute millions of "panchshool" throughout 
the country to "enable the youth to defend themselves, the country 
and religion," according to Abdul Hamid Shail, president of the 
party's Mumbai unit.
Mr. Shail said today at a press conference that the possession of the 
sharp weapon, resembling a trident and called the `punjatan pak', did 
not violate the Arms Act since its blades were shorter than nine 
inches.
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/2003/03/14/stories/2003031406251100.htm

_____


#9.

Justice and Democracy

Mukul Dube

[ March 10, 2003]

The Babari Masjid was demolished in 1992 and criminal cases were 
registered against some people. It is now more than ten years since 
the event, but no one can say when the cases will finally be tried. 
They have been shunted from court to court and some of those charged 
have only grown in prominence. The Deputy Prime Minister, Lal Krishna 
Advani, is the best known of these eminences, though the Minister for 
Human Resources Development, Murli Manohar Joshi, and Uma Bharti, 
until recently also a minister, are also much in the public eye. 
Along with the growth in their prominence will have come a growth in 
their power to influence the very course of justice. It does not 
redound to India's credit that this is thought natural, inevitable.
     Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, has slapped cases under 
the Prevention of Terrorism Act on all the 131 persons - all Muslims 
- charged with the Godhra railway carriage burning. In the course of 
a few months last year, Gujarat saw communal violence that left at 
least two thousand persons - nearly all of them Muslims - dead. 
Killings were preceded by sadism. The particularly heinous crime of 
rape was committed on many Muslim women and girls. The property of 
Muslims was systematically destroyed; and no effort was spared to 
deny Muslims the very means of livelihood. All this happened not just 
under the gaze of the State but with the State's connivance and 
active assistance. There no dearth of evidence that those who ran 
Gujarat, planned and orchestrated the violence against Gujarat's 
Muslims.
     Crimes such as these - and they are the worst crimes under the 
law of the land, the laws of the civilised world - do not descend 
from heaven: they are committed by men and women. In Gujarat, the men 
and women - yes, women too - who committed them have been identified 
by the hundred. Has Narendra Modi's administration, so thorough in 
dealing with the purported perpetrators of Godhra, even begun to 
prepare for taking action under the law against these eminent 
butchers, rapists and arsonists, all Hindus and many of them known to 
be associated with declaredly Hindu organisations? Of course not. 
Nearly no FIRs have been allowed to be registered. The hoodlums 
continue to preen and swagger and parade before their victims. Some 
of them have been recently re-elected law-makers. And their victims 
are told that they may return to their own homes only if they accept 
a series of humiliating conditions.
     None should be surprised if India's Muslims feel that the scales 
of justice are tilted wildly against them, if they have lost faith in 
Indian democracy, such as it was before the watershed of Gujarat 
2002. Even Muslims in West Bengal, who cannot be said to be victims, 
look disbelieving when people speak of justice and democracy. Muslims 
in Andhra Pradesh, who are relatively safe from the depredations of 
rampant Sangh Hindutva, are at the very least confused that their 
Chief Minister, who ever proclaims himself to be secular, yet sides 
in Delhi with the political wing of the Parivar of Butchers.
     The writing on the wall is clear from the relief efforts 
undertaken in Gujarat. The State did not run these efforts as it was 
duty bound to do. Most observers say that it only grudgingly 
permitted them. Several point to instances where it actually 
obstructed them. In a sane society, victims receive sympathy. In 
Gujarat they were harassed, herded and spat upon. Correction: they 
are being harassed, herded and spat upon.
     The enormous but still pitifully inadequate relief efforts in 
Gujarat were the work almost exclusively of Muslim organisations and 
individuals. Hindus did not come forward to help, though the victims 
were their victims. Should India's Muslims be blamed for concluding 
that they cannot count on anyone else for any kind of help or 
justice? That Indian democracy under Sangh Hindutva is but a cruel 
farce?
     Should I, an Indian, go on making a virtue of my impotence? 
Should I not spit on myself? History will, for sure.

_____


#10.

=46rontline, March 15 - 28, 2003

Inventing borders in Gujarat

HARSH MANDER

Hostilities unleashed by the post-Godhra violence a year ago have 
hardened into boundaries between communities in rural Gujarat.
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2006/stories/20030328002309100.htm

_____


#11.

=46rontline, March 15 - 28, 2003

A test case in Supreme Court

V. VENKATESAN
in New Delhi

The Supreme Court is set to hear three petitions seeking its 
intervention to prosecute `hate' speakers and render justice to the 
victims of communalism in Gujarat.
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2006/stories/20030328002704100.htm

_____


#12.

NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF PEOPLES=92 MOVEMENTS (NAPM)

National Office: C/O Chemical Mazdoor Sabha, Haji Habib Bldg., =91A=92 
Wing, First Floor, Naigaon Cross Road, DADAR (East), Mumbai 400 
014.Tel nos.: (O)- 022-415 0529, (R)- 022-536 9724, e mail: 
<mailto:sansahil@vsnl.net>sansahil@vsnl.net

March 7, 2003

  INVITATION FOR LUCKNOW COVENTION( March 29)
AND AYODHYA PROGRAMME (March 30, 2003)

Dear Friends,

We are all aware that the poor, toiling masses in India are living in 
a siege-like situation. On one hand the national-multinational 
corporatesare fast encroaching upon the natural resources in the 
hands of the communities, leading to their increasing displacement 
and destitution. On the other hand the pseudo-religious groups have 
been stoking the fires of hatred, suspicion and violence the 
Mandir-Masjid issue in Ayodhya. It is not incidental that the State 
is conniving with both of them.

In such a situation, the common people will have to raise their voice 
against these challenges, as the mainstream political parties seem to 
unable to take any clear stance due to the vote-bank politics. It is 
to raise this people's voice and power that the National Alliance of 
People's Movements (NAPM) has launched a Desh Bachao-Desh Banao (save 
the nation-make the nation) campaign from January 26, 2003. It 
started from Plachimad in Palakkad district in Kerala by protesting 
against the Coca-Cola factory and now the campaign has traversed 
through almost all parts of India and is progressing towards Ayodhya. 
The campaign has been receiving excellent and rousing response from 
all, particulalry those who have been victims of the communalism and 
the onslaught of the capital =96 the adivasis, dalits, labourers, 
farmers, women, youth and the unemployed.

The present phase of Desh Bachao-Desh Banao campaign will be 
concluded at Ayodhya on March 30, 2003. The people of Ayodhya are 
wearied and upset of their town being kept hostage by these outside 
fundamentalist forces, spreading hatred and violence for long. In 
Ayodhya itself has been a tranquil place for all these years and 
there has been history of communal animus or violence, neither people 
support such things. For them, Ayodhya has been a symbol of communal 
amity and harmony. The people are wary that their town is being 
earning infamy due to these uncivilized and unruly fundamentalists. 
And now they wish to get rid of these fellows indulging in communal 
politics.

So, along with extending our solidarity to the brave people of 
Ayodhya, we will be announcing next phase of national movement, on 
March 30 at Ayodhya, in which the peace, harmony and livelihood 
issues will be central place. A day before the conclusion of the 
present campaign, we will be holding a day-long conference in Lucknow 
on March 29, 2003. We will be discussing the experiences and out come 
of the Desh Bachao-Desh Banao campaign and would discuss and plan the 
future strategy regarding a national movement of struggle and 
nav-nirman (alternative) on these basic issues of peace, livelihood 
and sustainable development.

We hereby invite you and all the organizations and individuals 
believing in a democratic, peaceful, secular India, devoted for a 
just and sustainable development to participate in this convention. 
The convention will be more meaningful if you can come with the 
resolutions and issues agreed upon by the organizations and 
individuals about the objectives, programme, structure and process 
future course of action.

Lucknow Convention :

March 29, 2003, 9 a.m. to evening. Conclusion with a public meeting

Venue : Baradari, Kaisarbaug, Lucknow. (You will get a =91Vikram=92 tempo 
from Lucknow Rly. Station).

Contacts : Arundhati Dhuru. Ph. 0522-234 7365. Mobile : 9415022772

We have to proceed towards Ayodhya on March 30, after the Lucknow 
convention. So please come to Lucknow keeping in mind that programme. 
We will have a large convention, =91towards the New Independence=92=85

The Ayodhya programme will be historic one. We call unto all the 
organizations, groups, political activists and leaders, struggling 
for secular and castless polity, to participate - yourself or your 
representatives and comrades in large numbers in this programme.

Ayodhya Convention =96 March 30, 2003, Sunday, from 11 a.m.

Venue =96 Bhagavatachrya Smarak sadan, neat Sabzi Mandi, Ayodhya.

Contacts =96 Gopalkrishna Verma (Ph. 05278- 223636); Gourav Tiwari 
(05278- 232814).

In Solidarity,

Medha Patkar, Kishen Patnaik, Siddharaj Dhadda, Amarnath Bhai, Thomas 
Kocherry, Aruna Roy, Surendra Mohan, Kuldip Nayar, Swami Agnivesh, 
Yogendra Yadav, U.R. Ananthmurthy, B.D. Sharma, Sandeep, Arundhati 
Dhuru

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