[sacw] SACW | 23 March 03
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex@mnet.fr
Sat, 22 Mar 2003 23:04:37 +0100
South Asia Citizens Wire | 23 March, 2003
#1. India: Anhad: an initiative for democracy, secularism, justice and peace
#2. India: The Tyson Who Didn't Fight Lewis (Dilip D'Souza)
#3. Curbs imposed in Bangladesh on media over war in Iraq
#4. India: The wrestling-pit of public debate (Ranjit Hoskote)
#5. Foreign direct investment in hatred - Pro-Hindutva organisations
have come to rely on the moral and material support of the Indian
diaspora (Kalpana Wilson)
#6. India: Appeal to support Kumar Saptarshi of the Yuv Kranti Dal
(Communalism Combat)
#7. India: Togadia calls for Hindu Rashtra (J.P. Shukla)
#8. [Book Review of Vishva Hindu Parishad and Indian Politics By
Manjari Katju] The united colours of saffron (Sagarika Ghose)
#9. An evening of Debate & Discussion on Mahatma Gandhi & Veer
Savarkar (28 March Bombay
--------------
#1.
=46rom: anhadinfo@yahoo.co.in
Dear Friends,
We are happy to announce the formation of ANHAD (information pasted below).
Please do let us know if you would like to:
Receive regular information about Anhad=92s activities. If you do then
please send us your full name, complete postal address, telephone,
fax and e-mail id.
1. Contribute to Anhad as a resource person, please indicate the
subject, area of interest;
2. Receive information about activities in your state/ country
(in case of Indian diaspora) ;
3. Contribute / send donations towards Anhad's work (from within
India : individual and institutional donations);
4. Contribute time as a volunteer
Anhad office would start functioning from the first week of April in
New Delhi. We would be able to respond to your queries/ replies after
the first week of April.
In Solidarity
KN Panikkar Shubha Mudgal Harsh Mander
Shabnam Hashmi
E-mail: <mailto:anhadinfo@indiatimes.com> anhadinfo@yahoo.co.in
March 20, 2003
ANHAD
The urgency to intervene in defense of democracy, secularism and
justice has never been more pressing than in the conditions
prevailing in the country today. There is a recognizable change in
the general tenure of public discourse; unlike in the past, it is
informed more by the communal than by secular ethos. The prejudices
against the minorities are widely shared as a result of motivated and
sustained propaganda. Those who claim to be secular are forced on the
back foot; some of them have increasingly become compromising or even
silent. In the face of social mobilization attempted by communal
organizations by invoking religious symbols and sentiments the civil
society has come under a siege. Nevertheless, it is evident from the
large number of secular democratic initiatives by political parties,
voluntary organizations and individuals that the society is seized of
the need for sustained and constructive action for strengthening
secularism and democracy and for realising justice and peace. Their
number and strength are not inconsequential. Yet, the communal
appears to be poised to conquer. It is therefore necessary to
energize the secular forces by a conscious regrouping and
co-operation. ANHAD is intended to be a modest attempt in this
direction.
ANHAD is neither a structured organization nor a movement capable of
large-scale popular mobilisation. It would, however, try to combine
the elements of both by collaborating with existing organizations and
movements and by undertaking local level activities, by instituting
small secular communities. The former would enable ANHAD to develop
creative co-operation with people=92s organizations and social
movements working in different areas of social, cultural and
political concerns, the latter would open up for secular mobilisation
the space hitherto uncolonised by communalism. There will be no
formal membership; all are welcome to participate on a voluntary
basis. The activities of ANHAD would be overseen by a working group
and would be advised by a national committee of eminent citizens.
Like any other voluntary organisation the work of ANHAD would also
evolve with experience. Yet, some areas have been identified for
initial involvement. They are cultural action, social mobilisation,
defense of civil liberties and work in the diaspora. The cultural
action is conceived as intervention in daily life practices through
popular and folk culture, syncretic and tolerance systems of faith
and the building of communities invested in pluralism, while
challenging hatred, obscurantism and superstition.
The social mobilisation would be attempted both through demonstrative
actions like jathas and constructive work organized around youth and
women=92s clubs. The defense of civil liberties would include legal
action for defending the rights of minorities, dalits, tribals and
women. The work with the diaspora, particularly creating secular
consciousness among them, assumes great importance in the light of
the sustained communal propaganda among them. In short ANHAD would
like to undertake grass root level activities, with the support and
collaboration of the existing organizations wherever possible and if
not, by initiating work on its own through volunteers. The emphasis
is on constructive and continuous activity, which would create and
sustain secular and democratic consciousness.
ANHAD would like to bring at least a major part of the country under
its umbrella, which would obviously take quite some time to achieve.
Therefore it would begin its activities in four states: Gujarat,
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgardh. During the course of the
year Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Karnataka and
Kashmir would be added. In all these states the endeavour would be to
create a fraternity of secular activists who would through their
interaction with the local people bring into being small secular
communities for ensuring peace and social understanding. Each
locality would have its own peculiarities in cultural practices and
social relations, which would be given particular attention while
organizing the activities of ANHAD.
ANHAD means without limits. We envisage it as an inclusive
institution in which every one who stands for democracy, secularism,
justice and peace can participate.
Become a friend of Anhad, a volunteer worker, a financial
contributor, a resource person. There are a hundred ways of being a
part of Anhad, it is for you to decide your role in this effort. Just
remember one thing-now is the time to act, tomorrow may be too late.
Send e-mail to : <mailto:anhadinfo@yahoo.co.in>anhadinfo@yahoo.co.in
_____
#2.
Rediff.com
March 7, 2003
The Tyson Who Didn't Fight Lewis
by Dilip D'Souza's
=46ebruary 27, a year since the terror of Godhra and the massacres that
followed. On the stroke of 530 pm, the small band of Vishwa Hindu
Parishad faithful arranged themselves on the Churchgate steps, stood
their mike to one side, carefully positioned their loudspeaker,
unfurled saffron flags and a large banner, produced posters and
placards.
"Shri Ram mandir banao, aatankwad mitao" ("Make the Shri Ram temple,
destroy terrorism"), I read on one; "Kasam Ram ki khatein hain,
mandir bhavya banayenge" ("We swear by Ram that we will build a
glorious temple") was another.
They ranged from a youth in his 20s to an old man in his 60s or 70s.
All looked like your typical Churchgate rush-hour commuters, simple
clothes in pale colours, humdrum-to-a-fault Bombayites like everyone
else in view. When they had finished their preparations, a pregnant
moment passed, a sort of pause for a deep breath.
The show began. A 35-ish man -- loose blue shirt, leather chappals
-- stepped to the mike. In a calm, matter-of-fact voice, he began
speaking. Ten minutes later, he was done, and was replaced by an
older man in white shirt and dhoti, glasses and a mark on his
forehead. He spoke for another twenty minutes. Between them, they
listed the litany anyone even mildly familiar with the VHP would know
about: build the temple THERE, hand over the land, why didn't people
adequately condemn the Godhra murders, why were pilgrims on their way
back from a holy spot murdered, what would happen if the same were
done to Haj pilgrims, more in that vein.
An occasional rushing commuter stopped to listen; most didn't. From
the road beyond the pavement, a balding man leaned through the fence
and called:
"But it's your government! Why don't you ask them about all this?"
They ignored him, but his was the sole voiced reaction they got.
Which was not really a reflection of the worth of whatever they were
saying, but instead of the general and perpetual Bombay hurry. This
is the fate of most Churchgate
rush-hour demonstrations. I could have told these guys. On the other
hand, they probably already knew.
Meanwhile, inside the station concourse itself, immediately behind
these guys, a different demonstration was getting underway. As the
crowds swirled around them, a number of women stood around with
placards, held up posters, or handed out leaflets. 'Insaaniyat,' many
of the signs said, not just because the women had gathered under the
loose umbrella of the group that's goes by that name, but also
because they yearned for a return of just that: insaaniyat, or
humanity. Other signs they had said 'No more blood,' 'Peace in
Gujarat' and such like.
The two demonstrations carried on side by side for a while. I
wandered from one to the other, writing down what the signs said. But
of course, the calm was deceptive. It couldn't last. It didn't.
Suddenly, a small knot had formed around one of the women; it grew
quickly into a large crowd filled with noise and gesticulation.
Seeing what was happening in the concourse, the VHP men had closed
up their meeting and moved inside. They found many additional
supporters and began arguing with
the women. For strength, the women gathered in one spot. The men
shouted at them, pointed, swore, harangued, faces soon contorting in
anger. Several reached out and grabbed posters from the women on the
fringes, tore them up and stamped on them. This prompted one of the
women to hold high her
poster. White on black, it proclaimed: 'Violence brings violence;
peace brings peace.' Visible throughout the station.
But these were words which, for reasons unclear, the men did not want
to hear. It got them even more frenzied. The loudest among the VHP
lot -- a big, burly, sweating man in a moustache and pale blue shirt
-- saw it, pointed angrily, shouted some more, shook his finger,
worked his way around the crowd till he was within reach, leaped to
grab it and ripped it to shreds. That wasn't enough. To applause from
his colleagues, he stamped on the pieces. That wasn't enough. To more
applause, he knelt to pound at the fragments on the floor. Fragments
that carried words like 'peace.'
'You are all Christian missionaries!' they were shouting, and 'Bharat
Mata ki Jai!' and 'You have no culture!' ("sanskriti" is the word
they used, over and over) and 'You Christians and Muslims are
destroying this country!' and much more. Never mind the little detail
that most of the women were Hindu.
By now, these uncultured, destructive, missionary women were backed
up against one wall of the concourse. A thin line of policemen and
policewomen > separated them from their enraged abusers. The women
were angry too, and shouted back spiritedly. But no, I didn't see any
of them snatching away VHP posters and tearing them up and stamping
on them and pounding them with infuriated fists.
Without warning, a stocky man pushed past the policemen, punched the
smallest woman in the face, turned and ran. Helped along by the
inspector present, who saw the punch happen a foot from his nose, who
actually had the man in his hands for a moment, but who made no
attempt to hold on to him. Pushed him on his fleeing way. The woman
crumpled to the floor, though luckily she was more stunned than hurt.
The others around her screamed in anger and frustration, pointing
towards where the punching braveheart had disappeared. I made my way
unobtrusively through the crowd for the next several minutes,
searching for this cultured Mike Tyson. No luck. He must have boarded
the first train out and gone.
So much for culture.
After that, I simply stood near the women. Not participating in their
discussions with the police, not listening to the hectoring from the
VHP faithful, just making sure my body stood as an obstacle, even if
a minor one, to any other Tyson who wanted to punch the few women
nearest me. At my shoulder, one of the onlookers whispered: "why are
they so angry about these signs that say 'humanity'"? Another said:
"they must be Shiv Sena supporters, those guys are only good for
shouting and abusing."
How was this going to end? The police had shown no interest in --
gumption for? -- disciplining the undoubted aggressor of the two
sides: the shouting men. Not even when one of them hit a woman. This
unwillingness was something the VHP men clearly knew well, and
counted on: shout enough, be hostile enough, abuse enough, push and
shove enough -- and the police won't stand up to this bullying. Sure
enough, the inspector and his troops spent most of their time facing
the women, urging them to leave. Not something the women wanted to
do; after all, it wasn't them that turned two peaceful meetings into
this vulgar fracas.
Yet in the end they did turn and walk out of the station. To jeers
and applause from the men. So much, again, for culture. Still, the
women had distributed nearly 5,000 leaflets. They had made their
point.
I waited to see that the last one left, then walked out right behind
them. Tap on my shoulder. One of the loudest shouters, a tall man
with a moustache, asked me what I did for a living. When I told him,
he said:
"No, you are lying, you are a Christian missionary." I don't have to
listen to this, I thought to myself, turned and walked off to buy a
paper. Done with that, I found him at my shoulder, haranguing me
again: "You are a Christian missionary!"
=46orty or fifty people quickly surrounded me, many yelling angry
abuse. To my astonishment one on my right even addressed me by name.
How did he know? But there was little time to wonder. The tall man
went on: "What culture were you born in? What culture will you die
in? You people are destroying
India! Do you dare to come meet me and discuss all this?"
"Sure," I said. "You give me your phone number, I'll give you mine,
and let's meet." Several others shouted from the crowd: "Why were you
insulting Hinduism in there?" "Tell me exactly how I did that," I
replied, which got no response. Went back to writing down phone
numbers. Gave mine to the
tall man who turned out to be a VHP secretary. "I'm very willing to
come listen to you, and I will gladly listen," I told him. "But you
have to promise to listen to me in turn."
"Yes, yes!" he said. "Of course!"
I pushed through the crowd and walked out to Marine Drive. Sat on
the wall, nerves on edge. Much later, it struck me: unnerving as the
climax of this whole ugly episode was, hard as it was to stand there
alone, surrounded by irate men accusing me of 'insulting' their
religion and destroying India, at least I seemed to have served as
the lightning rod that allowed the women to go their way without
junior-league Tysons aiming punches at them.
Not that it made me feel any better.
A few days later, I called. The secretary and I plan to meet
_____
#3.
Gulf News, March 22, 2003
Curbs imposed on media over war
Dhaka |From Our Correspondent
The government has imposed restrictions on the state-controlled media
and asked it to "carefully handle" news regarding the war in Iraq.
Quoting highly placed sources, The Daily Star yesterday reported that
the foreign ministry has asked the state-owned television and radio
and the official news agency "not to highlight statements in favour
of Iraq and demonstrations against the U.S".
They have also been advised to broadcast, telecast or transmit
pro-Iraq news items "very mildly" and, if necessary, discuss with
higher authorities before delivery. The restrictions came following
repeated requests from the U.S. embassy in Dhaka, the sources said.
The U.S. Ambassador here, Mary Ann Peters, met earlier this week M.
Morshed Khan, Foreign Minister, Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury, Foreign
Secretary, and others concerned and "requested them not to instigate
public demonstrations against the U.S."
_____
#4.
The Magazine section / The Hindu, Mar 23, 2003
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/stories/2003032300700100.htm
The wrestling-pit of public debate
The Indian mediascape seems to give its subscribers a sense of
collective identity and participation in the public affairs of the
day, but it also reduces the discussion of vital issues to caricature
and sensationalism, leaving us interconnected but dangerously
uninformed, argues RANJIT HOSKOTE.
THE television image, disseminated across millions of screens,
redeems us from our sense of personal insignificance and involves us
in a global festival. The televised debate, more shouting match than
discussion, allows us to leap into the ring as agitated
contact-sportspeople rather than a distant audience. The televisual
survey, suggesting real-life interactivity with its e-mail and caller
inputs, gives us the invigorating feeling of having taken direct part
in the process of expressing the popular will. And yet, even as we,
the Great Indian Public, derive a sense of interconnectedness through
our subscription to the electronic media, our capacity to engage with
the disturbing ground realities of political and cultural life seems
correspondingly to have diminished. The mediascape is where the
desires of failed nations and schismatic societies are fulfilled, the
domain on which we project our consoling fictions of power and
wholeness; the mediascape has the power to transform existential
conflicts into spectacular games, to displace the substantive with
the symbolic. This situation has been dramatised in a sequence of
events that have captured the public imagination during the last few
weeks: the India-Pakistan match in the current World Cup series; the
renewed demand for a ban on cow slaughter; the debate over the
unveiling of the Savarkar portrait in Parliament House; and the
outcome of the archaeological investigation at the Babri Masjid
precinct in Ayodhya.
The India-Pakistan match took place in an atmosphere of volatile and
exaggerated patriotic fervour, which repressed the realisation that
the pitch is the only arena where the two subcontinental powers can
confront each other without triggering off a catastrophe. In
actuality, the political relationship between India and Pakistan has
plummeted to the lowest possible level this year. The fans with the
tricolour faces, celebrating India's victory, may well have been
compensating for the fact that such a victory is no longer possible
for India on the battlefield. After the disastrous foolishness of
Pokhran II, we have lost our conventional military advantage over
Pakistan; our freedom of action is sharply curtailed by the threat of
a nuclear counter-strike. Sport, packaged as entertainment, takes the
place of war; but it also takes away the need to reflect on the need
for peace, if necessary, through negotiation.
The resurgence of the cow slaughter issue was a study in irony, since
it provided the sadhus of the Hindu Right with another pretext to
occupy airtime and virtual space, although the controversy was
provoked by their opponent, the Congress Chief Minister of Madhya
Pradesh, in an ill-judged attempt to claim their agenda. The debate
was conducted through a sloganeering invocation of primordial
religious beliefs; the voice of reason was drowned out, even as it
pointed out that India has the world's largest cattle population,
brutally treated while in the yoke and often abandoned at the end of
their productive lives. Rarely were the opponents of cow slaughter
forced to respond to the criticism that such appalling treatment is
surely not sanctioned by Hindu custom. Nor could anyone remark, in
the charged communal environment, that this country's vast population
of decommissioned cattle is matched only by its vast population of
ascetics with time on their hands; and that, therefore, the ideal
solution to India's cattle problem, which threatens to take human
lives with every successive riot conducted in its name, would be to
involve India's agitating sadhus in an adopt-a-cow scheme.
The ascendancy of the slogan was evident, again, in the controversy
around the Union government's decision to install a portrait, in the
Central Hall of Parliament, of V.D. Savarkar - one of the founding
fathers, not of the secular and inclusive Indian nation, but of the
aggressive and exclusionary Hindu-majoritarian nation that the
present ruling party dreams of establishing. After having been
imprisoned by the British for his youthful involvement with the
violent wing of the Indian liberation struggle, Savarkar is known -
on the unassailable testimony of his own letters and writings - to
have repeatedly capitulated before the authorities to secure his
personal freedom. It is, no doubt, in this sense that he is loosely
described as a "freedom-fighter". Unfortunately, the public debate,
especially as mobilised through television, descended to a mere
trading of insults between pro- and anti-Savarkarites. Anyone opposed
to the portrait was declared to be anti-Hindutva, therefore
anti-Hindu, and therefore anti-national, by the ideologues of the
Right. A few isolated voices in the print media, reflecting on
Savarkar's intellectual development, reminded us that his lack of
personal heroism, while damaging to his adherents, is relatively
unimportant; and that the real danger lies in Savarkar as model. For
this was a man who had committed himself, from childhood onwards, to
the annihilation of India's Muslims in the Hindu rashtra of the
future: a spiritual ancestor, in other words, of the Hindutva
storm-troopers of Gujarat. If only we would read him to find out.
And while the divide between the Hindu and Muslim communities, so
severely accentuated by the pogrom launched by Savarkar's inheritors
in Gujarat last year, has yet to be bridged, the public imagination
has been seized by the archaeological investigation of the Babri
Masjid-Ramjanambhoomi site in Ayodhya, ordered by the Lucknow bench
of the Allahabad High Court. The detective-serial overtones of this
event, as presented in the media, may well seduce us into overlooking
the moral dimensions of the search. Even if evidence of pre-Islamic
structures is found (after all, Ayodhya is a site rich in Jaina,
Buddhist and Hindu sacred architecture), it cannot conclusively be
established, except through unverifiable faith, that these putative
remains belong to a hypothetical "Ram Mandir". Indeed, the
eye-witness account of an itinerant priest from Maharashtra,
Vishnupant Godse, who visited Ayodhya in that other great year of
unrest, 1857, records a celebration at Rama's birthplace: the site he
describes is not the Babri Masjid. The court's decision sets a
disquieting precedent: will each shrine on the Vishwa Hindu
Parishad's lengthy list of sites to be reclaimed be vulnerable to
archaeological testing? How far shall we dig into the past, and how
many mosques shall we uproot, before Hindutva honour is satisfied?
Just as crucially, must we not insist that the relentless remembering
of history be balanced with the therapeutic forgetting of compassion?
In each of these cases, the public debate conducted across the
mediascape has been distinguished by its akhara techniques,
buttressed by a culture in which opinion is shaped by rumour, lazy
half-truth and deliberate misinformation; we place a low premium on
archives and records, the repositories to which we may seek recourse
when public memory proves to be a ductile substance. The
loudest-voice-wins debate shows on TV, the first-face-in-the-street
polls run by afternoon papers, and the click-in-your-vote surveys
create a sense of effective, if transient, collectivity. It is
through these methods that the mainstream media constructs and floats
various conceptions of the public or even the nation; but they are
not the best methods of guaranteeing democratic representation. Their
emphasis on the emotive, the visceral, the sensational and the
caricatural creates a discursive space that is not controlled by
specialist referees, and therefore, supposedly, popular.
Unfortunately, this also means that the new, popular discursive space
of the media is bereft of the vital depth provided by contexts and
frameworks: the opinion that emerges from it is, in consequence,
uninformed, and imbued with that dangerous commonsensical naivete
which sustains fascisms of every kind.
_____
#5.
The Magazine Section / The Hindu
Mar 23, 2003
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/stories/2003032300050200.htm
=46oreign direct investment in hatred
Pro-Hindutva organisations have come to rely on the moral and
material support of the Indian diaspora. The key to this is the
fostering of strong idealogical roots in these communities,
especially in the U.K., and favourable State multi-cultural policies
there, says KALPANA WILSON.
ON a bitterly cold and rapidly darkening evening in central London, a
crowd has gathered for a candlelight vigil to "Remember Gujarat". The
banners and placards of the protestors, mainly Indians from different
communities, read "2,000 murdered ... 200,000 dispossessed, still no
justice! And "Gujarat genocide - never again". But the vigil, which
is taking place outside the head offices of Britain's Charity
Commission, the body which monitors the activities of all registered
charities in this country, is also demanding action against the
pro-Hindutva organisations whose fund-raising activities in the
United Kingdom finance the "foreign direct investment" in communal
hatred. Because, ironically, it is the Sangh Parivar, with its
constant evocation of a (fabricated) Indian "tradition", which
constitutes the most globalised political force India has yet seen.
Today, the Sangh Parivar has come to rely on the moral - and more
importantly, material - support of the Indian diaspora which, as has
been well-documented, runs into millions of dollars.
Some of the most direct routes by which donations in Britain reach
the hands of killer gangs in Gujarat were exposed on a Channel 4 News
Report broadcast here on December 12, 2002. The programme revealed
how one organisation funded by British charity Sewa International -
the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram in Gujarat - is directly implicated in the
=46ebruary-March 2002 pogrom. Forensic evidence implicates a leading
member, currently absconding, as "leading a mob of 2,000 tribal
people" in an attack on Muslim minorities.
The programme also reported that a Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram leader
"threatened the villagers saying that if they didn't join in
provoking the Muslims and burning them, they would also be treated
like Muslims and burnt", while another activist told the reporter:
"the Christians have made a church in our village. We have thought
several times of destroying it. One day we will definitely break it
down". But while the British Charity Commissioners have been
investigating the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's (RSS) international
wing, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh or HSS (a registered charity in
Britain and the founders of Sewa International), since last
September, there are little signs of action. The commissioners
privately admit that nothing will be done to stem the flow of funds
without the go-ahead of the Foreign Office.
So where does this money come from? While the Gujarat earthquake
provided an opportunity for Sewa International and other Sangh
Parivar groups to fundraise on a massive scale from the general
public, (with Sewa International winning the praise of Prince Charles
and other prominent figures), the major long-term source of funding
is Britain's Gujarati communities. Many people, particularly women,
are unwittingly, drawn into the Sangh Parivar networks through the
latter's "social work" activities, and via temples. But the Sangh
Parivar has also succeeded in putting down strong ideological roots
in these communities in Britain.
In contrast to the situation in the United States, Gujaratis in
Britain are still predominantly working class or petty bourgeois. In
the 1970s, factory workers from these communities, particularly women
workers, waged some of the most militant industrial actions including
the well-known Grunwick's strike led by Jayaben Desai, in the process
forcing the racist trade union establishment to take up the demands
of Asian and other black workers. However in the 1990s, with most
such factories closed down, and many Gujaratis entering family-run
small businesses (mainly shops), the Sangh Parivar has established a
strong presence, channelising experiences of racism and alienation
into virulent Hindu chauvinism.
The fact that Gujarati Hindu communities are dominated by those who
migrated to Britain from East Africa has also been an important
factor in this process. First, this community's role as "middlemen"
under British colonial rule in East Africa gave it a particular
susceptibility to fascist ideology. At the same time, there is a
strong sense of Gujarati pride - and Gujarat is invariably conflated
with India (in fact, in Britain, Indian has become synonymous with
Gujarati in many areas). Second, the community has from the outset
been organised along caste lines, with migration to Britain itself
taking place through caste linkages. There is, therefore, an
established pattern of people in Britain donating money to be sent
back to Gujarat for welfare purposes, via caste associations. But
during the last decade, the Sangh Parivar groups have usefully
incorporated many of these caste organisations into their own
networks and effectively taken control of this flow of funds.
The ideas of Hindutva have also slotted in comfortably with the
repackaging of Indian culture for NRIs as something globalised and
"modern" in terms of consumption patterns, and "traditional",
patriarchal and implicitly communal in terms of values. Bollywood
hits like "Hum Aapke Hain Kaun" and "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham'' not
only epitomise this repackaging and commoditisation of culture, but
are also notable for their targeting of British and North American
NRIs as both subject matter - whose perceived lifestyles are
glamourised and simultaneously ridiculed - and an important potential
audience. And when British Asian primary school girls in West London
are taught dance routines from "Kabhi Khushi Gham" in school as an
example of Indian culture (and in the name of multicultural
education), this process appears to have come full circle.
But the British State's multicultural policies have also played a
more direct role in the rise of the Sangh Parivar in this country. A
number of Sangh Parivar organisations across the country receive
large grants from local government, ostensibly for their "community
work" activities. The funding of pro-Hindutva groups by the
government is a direct result of New Labour's approach towards
"ethnic minorities". This has its roots in the attempts of the
British state to undermine the anti-racist struggles of its black
population which began in the 1970s - State funding for community
organisations was used to successively divide these communities
firstly between those of Asian and African-Caribbean origin, then
according to linguistic group (Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, etc) and
finally, since the late 1990s, according to religion or what New
Labour terms "faith communities". This promotion by the British
government of the notion of "faith communities" has strengthened a
variety of right-wing religious forces, giving them legitimacy as
self-styled "community leaders". In the case of Hindutva, it has
meant that by setting up local groups, claiming to represent Hindu
"faith communities", the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and HSS have
direct access to British government funding for their activities.
At the same time, since the end of the 1980s we have seen Islam come
to be identified as the primary enemy of the U.S. and its allies. The
demonisation of Islam in the discourse of America's global strategy
fed into existing images of "ethnic minority communities" in Britain
to generate a specifically anti-Muslim racism, promoted and
intensified by the state and the media. Key events in this process
were the Rushdie Affair, and the Gulf War in 1991. The construction
of the "Muslim" as fanatical, fundamentalist, violent, and,
crucially, owing allegiance to political forces external - and
hostile - to Europe has thus come to the forefront of racist imagery.
Today state racism and its anti-Muslim aspect have gained new
legitimacy in the context of September 11 and the "war on terror".
One effect of this is to further deepen the divisions among South
Asian communities, as the discourses of the state, the media and the
Sangh Parivar "community leaders" intersect. In Bradford for example,
where Asian youth, mainly of Pakistani and Kashmiri origin, fought
pitched battles with the police in riots caused by years of poverty,
unemployment and racism, a recognised "leader" of the "Hindu
community", Hasmukh Shah, is also a VHP leader. Early on, Shah
attempted to project the disturbances as having a communal character,
while he later actually aligned himself with the white supremacist
British National Party.
On a day-to-day level too, communal divisions have intensified. As
ever, these divisions are sought to be reinforced by controlling and
policing the behaviour of women. A group of Indian schoolgirls in
North London explained that their fathers' rule about boys they
associated with, was "No BMWs - No blacks, Muslims or Whites - but a
Muslim would probably be the worst". Meanwhile, Indian boys in their
(state) school attended HSS shakha meeting which were held regularly
and rent-free in the school premises. As in India, the Sangh
Parivar's youth organisations, which include a network of student
groups, the National Hindu Students Federation, have focused on
"protecting" Hindu women from relationships with Muslim men.
South Asian women's groups in Britain have always organised along
secular lines bringing together women from different communities in
campaigns against violence and oppression in the home, the community
and in wider British society. Today more than ever, their struggles
against patriarchy involve confronting communalism within their own
communities. This year's International Women's Day on March 8 saw the
first national South Asian women's conference to be held in Britain.
Along with domestic violence, State racism and the impending war, the
participants discussed ways forward in an ongoing battle against
communalism - including an increasingly globalised Hindutva.
The writer is a research fellow in the Department of Development
Studies at SOAS, University of London.
_____
#6.
APPEAL
Dear friends,
Many of you might be familiar with the name of Pune-based Dr Kumar
Saptarshi of the Yuv Kranti Dal which is active in several districts
of western
Maharashtra. In the last two years or so, the Yuv Kranti Dal has been
particularly active on the anti-communal front through its programme
of forming Shanti Dal's among youth and Ekta Parishad among the
general public.
Last month, on the very day that Savarkar's portrait was installed in
Parliament, his home in Pune was ransacked by a gang of four goondas
who barged into the house in burqas to conceal their identities. This
happened while Kumar was travelling to Mumbai on some work. As the
sangh goondas were armed with knives, his wife and son were compelled
to be mute witness as they went about destroying the furniture and
smashing all breakable items like glass panes and crockery.
Kumar was targeted because as part of their anti-communal campaign,
he and his co-workers have repeatedly stated through public platforms
that the choice between Indians today is between Gandhi's idea of
nationalism vs. the two-nation theory of Jinnah and Savarkar. This
has particularly outraged the sangh parivar wallahs as the YKD has
been attracting a lot of youth to their programme.
In all, Kumar estimates a total loss of between Rs. 50,000-60,000.
=46or Kumar and his family this is a large sum of money as both,
despite being professional doctors, devote all their time to
organisational work. In the circumstances we believe it will be a
good solidarity gesture, if others involved in social movements could
contribute small sums of money to help the Saptarshi's make good the
losses.
We believe that particularly in the times that we live in today, such
mutual solidarity gestures are essential to keep our collective
morale up. Two years ago, when Asghar Ali Engineer was attacked, we
had initiated a similar move and quite a few
individuals/organisations had responded.
We have discreetly spoken to Kumar regarding this and he has said he
would appreciate such help.
Please treat this note as an appeal in this regard. You could send
your cheques/drafts/money orders directly to Kumar Saptarshi or route
them through us if you so prefer.
Cheques and drafts should favour: 'Kumar Saptarshi"
Thanking You.
In solidarity,
Javed
Anand =
Teesta Setalvad
Kumar's address: Dr. Kumar Saptarshi,Editor, Urmila
Satyagrahi Vichar Dhara,1468, Sadashiv Peth
Opposite S.P. College, Pune - 411030
(Phone: Off: 4461409 Res: 5431729)
Our address: Nirant, Juhu Tara Road, Juhu, Mumbai - 400 049.
_____
#7.
The Hindu, Mar 23, 2003
Togadia calls for Hindu Rashtra
By J.P. Shukla
http://www.hinduonnet.com/stories/2003032304300800.htm
_____
#8.
http://www.newindpress.com
March 23, 2003
Books & Literature
The united colours of saffron
Sagarika Ghose
Vishva Hindu Parishad and Indian Politics
By Manjari Katju
Orient Longman
Rs 350
Over the last decade, the organised Left has ceded the protest space
in Indian politics. Where it is the traditional duty of Left-leaning
parties to lead marches and continually sound dissenting voices
against the establishment, today it is the saffron forces led by
groups such as the Vishva Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal that
have taken on the mantle of a protest movement in their crusade to
Hinduise democracy and society. Whether in protests against films,
the visit of the Pope, social practices and economic policies, VHP
cadres are in the forefront of these agitations, colouring them,
sadly, with religious fervour and often obscuring the real point.
Protests against pornography or against globalisation, for example,
when they get co-opted by the VHP, lose their effectiveness and
become simply campaigns to advance a narrow Hindu cause.
Yet, given its significance, the VHP movement has not been studied as
thoroughly as it needed to be, not only for the transformative power
it has had over a diverse section of Hindu thought but also for the
manner in which it has, many are agreed, successfully altered the
Nehruvian definition of secularism. Vishva Hindu Parishad and Indian
Politics is a slim book, and a lucid, straightforward narrative of
the manner in which the VHP transformed itself from a loose,
low-profile group formed to basically aid the RSS in preserving Hindu
dharma in the diaspora as well as check Christian proselytisation
among tribals to its present avatar as a trenchant protester against
the entire edifice of the Indian Constitution.
Katju tries to keep her voice as non-ideological as possible.
Although she notes the fascist tendency of the VHP in its subversion
of the principles of Indian democracy by insisting that Hindus form
the "permanent majority" and by centering Indian history on the life
of "the Hindu", she also notes the manner in which it calibrates its
speeches by appealing to different constituencies on different
platforms. While the aggressive Ram rhetoric is used in North India,
in the Northeast she finds the message is much more activist and
welfarist. She emphasises the fact that the VHP is born not only from
communal politics but also from the large sections who find
themselves left out of the prosperity of middle-class India and the
successful green revolution farmers.
The book is mercifully free of the numbing academic speak with which
scholarly inquiries into Indian politics have become associated.
Instead the simple linear tale moving from the foundation in 1964,
the pre-Hindutva phase, the radicalisation wrought by the
Meenaskshipuran conversions of 1981 to the demolition of the Babri
Masjid is fluently written, although in certain parts, reads
something like a newspaper report.
The hate-filled ideology and violent actions of the VHP as well as
the Bajrang Dal are interpreted as part of the RSS plan to
consolidate the Hindu community for the sake of electoral benefit. In
this context, Rithambhara's technological extremism appears as a
master performance to seek a mass constituency rather than a stance
born from personal conviction. The book neglects the individual
biographies of the chief actors in the VHP drama yet provides
examples of their immense talents in pulling crowds. Notwithstanding
mobilisation, however, Katju concludes that that the VHP's abiding
legacy to India will be schism, division and communal polarisation
and the overall agenda of Hindu rashtra will never bear fruit because
of the diffuse jelly-like nature of Hindu society.
This is perhaps the first straight look at the VHP's politics without
casting it as a lab rat in larger studies on "communalism". The VHP
emerges as a socio-economic as much as a political movement whose
anti-Christian and anti-Muslim identity is powerful in the short
term, yet limiting in a longer term.
_____
#9.
Gallerie Publishers, Pukar & Crossword Bookstore
present
An Evening of
Debate & Discussion on
Mahatma Gandhi & Veer Savarkar
At Crossword, Mahalaxmi Chambers [Bombay]
Friday March 28, 2003 at 6pm
Gallerie engages urban youth in a stimulating interaction at the release
of its 11th issue 'Forward to Basics'. The focus? Mahatma Gandhi and
Veer Savarkar and their validity in today=EDs context.
Three college students, Sanjay Bhangar of St. Xavier=EDs, Lucana Alvarez
of Wilson and Behrooz Avari of Elphinstone will share their views with
an interactive audience. The discussion will be moderated by Ganesh
Nochur of Green Peace.
About Gallerie Vol 5 Issue 2: While the ruling party installs Veer
Savarkar=EDs portrait in Parliament, a magazine quietly remembers Mahatma
Gandhi. The 11th issue of the award-winning magazine, it is now on the
bookstands.
At a time when idealism is at its lowest ebb, when each new generation
is being weaned on war, violence and consumerism, Gallerie believes it=EDs
time to take a pause and review our world. Bina Sarkar Ellias, Editor of
Gallerie does just that with the theme =EBForward to Basics=ED. She looks
for sanity in the chaos of this millennium. A search that prompted her
to re-visit Gandhi, not among those who lived and breathed his thoughts,
but among the young who had inherited the dichotomies of Partition,
religious and communal prejudices, an upsurge in consumerism and a
downslide in nurturing basic human values.
Photographer Raghu Rai contributes his powerful documentation of the
Bhopal gas tragedy, a corporate crime that is still defying retribution.
Medha Patkar, indomitable leader of the Narmada Bachao Andolan is
essayed by Ganesh Nochur. Aruna Roy, founder of a grassroots=ED farmers
community, urges us to combat the divisive forces eroding our nation.
Glimpses of Gandhi are found in oases of calm: an uncluttered mind with
a clarity of vision, in the meditative works of A. Balasubramaniam; and
in Manisha Parekh, whose economy of expression evokes almost a parallel
trajectory. Baiju Parthan reflects on Haku Shah=EDs art and rediscovers
the Gandhi of his schoolbooks, while Japanese textile artist Atsuko
Yamamoto tells us how the concept of khadi is woven into her works.
Pakistani artists, Talha Rathore and Noorjehan Bilgrami interpret their
concerns for humanity through their work, while Manisha Parekh offers us
a miniature that reflects the textures of an India united by diversity.
Writer Suketu Mehta discovers Gandhi in the garb of Thoreau in a Mumbai
slum, while Rafeeq Ellias travels in the footsteps of Gandhi and finds
him =EBalive and spinning=ED in Wardha, Maharashtra.
These are not mere Gandhians in form, but in spirit. They revive faith
in humankind and inspire. They remind us it=EDs time to shift gears and
move forward to basics.
Do keep yourself free for a very stimulating evening.
Gallerie Issue No: 11 (Vol 5 No 2): Rs. 250/-
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
SACW is an informal, independent & non-profit citizens wire service run by
South Asia Citizens Web (www.mnet.fr/aiindex).
DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
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