[sacw] SACW | 2 April 03

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  |  2 April,  2003

#1. Bangladesh: (Dis) Appearing Women in Nationalist Narratives
Interview with Dr. Geoffrey Davis (Bina D'Costa)
#2. Pakistan: A new foreign policy? (M B Naqvi)
#3. India: Interview with Khushwant Singh  (Sachidananda Murthy)
+ Book Extract - The menace of fascism
#4. India: Resisting regimentation : Githa Hariharan re her new book 
In Times of Siege (Anuradha Roy)
#5. India: Hindutva and Dalits (Ram Puniyani)
#6. Symposium at Michigan State University "Hindu Nationalism and the 
=46uture of Indian Polity" - MSU
(April 5, 2003)
#7. Sri Lankan and other South Asian Women Protest  Against War in Iraq

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

#1.

[June 1, 2002]

(Dis) Appearing Women in Nationalist Narratives
Interview with Dr. Geoffrey Davis

Conducted by Bina D'Costa , the Australian National University

Historically the use of rape in war as a genocide strategy that aimed 
at destroying the racial distinctiveness of a community is located in 
many other regional examples, including the Bangladesh case. Women 
(and their bodies) had been occupied as the medium through which men 
concretised the pact of violence, but, because they were not simply 
the things to be looted and plundered, but also subjects, they 
retained the memory of this rape and depredation.  In this sense, the 
meaning of Birangona emerges through a very significant shift (but 
not new) as the object of, as well as the witness to violence. A 
complex combination of religion, culture, identity, manipulation of 
history and memory play a significant part in exploiting the 
powerless, in this instance, marginalised women.  Even with women's 
obvious importance in the national image-making, women's exclusion 
from the official history is apparent.  They also allegorise the 
necessity of a new critical approach within the gendered analysis of 
nation-building discourse. 

With this in mind, I started my interviews, collecting stories: of 
muktijodhya (freedom-fighters), social workers and Birangona (rape 
survivors) themselves.  Documents pointed to a certain physician, Dr. 
Geoffrey Davis who had been working in the war-torn Bangladesh in 
1972.  The following is his interview which I conducted in Sydney 
partly at his residence and later on in a Portuguese restaurant 
nearby on June 1, 2002.  This interview demonstrates the need to 
document micro-narratives, the stories of men and women who had been 
involved in our nation-building project.  While many of us are 
immersed in petty politics our national narrative is being affected 
by the historical amnesia.

The readers should bear in mind that Dr. Davis has been remembering 
with my inquiries what happened almost 32 years ago.  Therefore, in 
some places the responses may seem blurred. 


Dr. Geoffrey Davis, a Medical Graduate from Sydney, NSW, Australia 
worked in Bangladesh from March, for about six months in 1972.  He 
worked under the auspices of International Planned Parenthood, the 
UNFPA and the WHO.  He begins by remembering that no particular 
organization wanted to claim him as one of their own due to the 
extremely sensitive nature of his work. 

Dr. Davis remembers, 'I was trying to save of what have survived of 
the children born during the time that the West Pakistani army had 
Bengali women incarcerated in their commissariats. And all of the 
ones who had not come to term, our brief was to endeavor them to 
abort the fetuses so that they didn't bear children as diseased and 
undernourished as was the case.  And that we succeeded in doing.  The 
numbers of everything in Bangladesh were huge of course but by the 
time we got there a lot of them had been killed or they have been 
repatriated to their families. That horrified everybody. We had to do 
something.  And tried to sort it out. There was one other guy from 
England. I've lost track of him since.  It was grotesque.'

B: Did you volunteer to go?

GD: Yes, I did.

B: What made you interested to volunteer for this service?

GD: I had a technique for terminating advanced pregnancy.  I received 
training mainly from the UK.  However, I usually terminated under 30 
weeks pregnancy.

B: Where in Dhaka did you work?

GD: I worked at the clinic in Dhanmondi. I also worked in most of the 
other towns in what was left of hospitals.  What I was doing 
mainly=8Athe numbers were so huge=8AI set out to train people in those 
towns to do what I was doing and as soon as they got the hang of it, 
I will move on to the next place.

B: For the purpose of the record will you please specify what exactly 
were you doing over there?

GD: The women's rehabilitation organization had just been formed 
before I was there and Justice Sobhan was in charge of that.  They 
were endeavoring to keep all the pregnant women together somewhere 
safe and all those who were feasible we were to abort and the others 
who had delivered we were to get their children to International 
Social Services (ISS)=8A

B: Do you remember the others who worked with you at that time?

GD: Justice Sobhan headed the War Rehabilitation Organization and the 
main active person was Von Schuck=8AI can't remember his first name. I 
think his wife's name was Mary. They helped with finances.  The names 
of the Bengali officials I don't remember=8Abesides, nobody wanted to 
know about this history=8A

B: What makes you say that?

GD: Oh, because it involved abortion and adoption of babies.  And one 
aspect was that West Pakistan was a commonwealth country and all the 
officers were trained in England.  It was hideously embarrassing for 
the British government.  The West Pakistani officials didn't get why 
there was so much fuss about that.  I interviewed a lot of them. 
They were in a prison in Comilla and in pretty miserable 
circumstances (laughter=8Awhich served them right).  And they were 
saying, 'What are they going on about? What were we supposed to have 
done? It was a war!'

B: How did they justify raping the women?

GD: Urghh! They had orders of a kind or instruction from Tikka Khan 
to the effect that a good Muslim will fight anybody except his 
father.  So what they had to do was to impregnate as many Bengali 
women as they could.  That was the theory behind it.

B: Why did they have to impregnate the women? Did they tell you?

GD: Yes, so there would be a whole generation of children in East 
Pakistan that would be born with the blood from the West.  That's 
what they said.

B: Numerous documents from Pakistan still suggest that the numbers of 
rapes had been grossly exaggerated.  Do you think that's true?

GD: No, no=8Athey did. Probably the numbers are very conservative 
compared with what they did. The descriptions of how they captured 
towns were very interesting. They'd keep the infantry back and put 
artillery ahead and they would shell the hospitals and the schools. 
And that caused absolute chaos in the town.  And then the infantry 
would go in and begin to segregate the women. Apart from little 
children, all those were sexually matured would be segregated while 
the rest of the infantry tied=8A the rest of the town, which would 
involve shooting everybody who was involved with the East Pakistani 
government or the Awami League.  And then the women would be put in 
the compound under guard and made available to the troops.  It was 
most hideous.  I know of no precedent anywhere in the world ever. 
Nonetheless, that's how it had happened.

B: Did you have any conversation with the men and women or the social 
workers at the Clinic about their experiences of the war? Especially 
to the women about rape camps in particular?

GD: Yes, we used to hear about it all the time. Some of the stories 
they told us were appalling.  Being raped again and again and again. 
By large Pathan soldiers.  You couldn't believe that anybody would do 
that.
All the rich and pretty ones were kept for the officers and all the 
other ones were distributed among the other ranks.  And the women had 
it really rough. They didn't get enough to eat.  When they got sick, 
they got no treatment.  Lot of them died in those camps. There was an 
air of disbelief about the whole thing. That no body could credit 
that it really happened! But the evidence clearly showed that it did 
happen. 

B: Yes, I see what you mean.  Because you know I myself over the last 
four years have tried to locate the women.  The numbers were huge and 
one would expect to find a lot of them.  But I myself could only find 
a very limited number of women.

GD: Yes, there had been lot of denial.  And they just blocked it out. 
That happens.

B: Was it different at that time, immediately after the war? Did 
anyone share their experiences?

GD: No, no body wanted to talk about it.  You could ask questions and 
get an answer.  Quite often it would be that they couldn't remember. 
And the men didn't want to talk about it at all! Because according to 
them the women had been defiled (my emphasis). And women's status in 
Bangladesh was pretty low anyway.  If they had been defiled they had 
no status at all.  They might as well be dead.  And men killed them. 
I couldn't believe it. That is so alien to a western society! It's so 
alien!

B: You couldn't obviously speak Bengali.  Was it difficult to communicate?

GD: No, I had an interpreter.  A man. They got fairly organized very 
quickly.  They provided me with a Landrover, a driver and a field 
officer who was also my interpreter.  The driver was Mumtaz. But I 
can't remember the FO's name... a government official. An amazing 
number of them speak English. I didn't have any difficulty that I 
faced in Tunisia (Dr. Davis also worked extensively with the Tunisian 
population policy program).

B: In your opinion, why do you think the women remained silent?

GD: Horror, you see. They all had nightmares. You never get over it! 
A lot of them had tremendous anxiety. Because we were foreign and 
they didn't trust anybody who was foreign. They didn't know what we 
were going to do to them=8A


B: Did you visit any areas where the rape camps were situated?

GD: Rape camps had been disbanded and the Rehabilitation Organization 
was trying to get the women back to their village or town.  But what 
was happening in a lot of instances was that they'd get a wife back 
to the husband and he would kill her. Because she had been defiled. 
And in some cases they didn't want to know about what happened.  And 
there were bodies in Jamuna right up to the distant parts of the 
country. And it was that what got people excited in Europe in what 
was going on.

B: Do you remember the women? How many you were performing abortion on?

GD: It's hard to recall the exact statistics.  But about hundred a day.

B: In Dhaka or in other parts of Bangladesh?

GD: It is difficult to put a figure in it.  About 100 a day in Dhaka 
and in variable numbers in lot of other towns.  And some would go to 
Calcutta=8A

B: Do you recall the percentage? For example, class wise, religion 
wise how many women you saw?

GD: It was right across the classes.  We didn't care what they were 
religion-wise=8Awe had to get them out of the trouble.
In general, of course the rich ones were able to leave the country as 
soon as there was an armistice and go to Calcutta to get abortion and 
they did that=8A

B: Were the women asked if they wanted to have abortion?  Were they 
given the choice?

GD: Yes. Certainly.  All the women we received wanted to have 
abortions.  Anybody who didn't want to have it we didn't see.  On the 
other hand, the women, who had delivered, handed the newborn babies 
over to the rehabilitation organization. And that's how they got to 
the ISS and other countries. How many, I have no idea.

B: I apologize for probing further into this.  But I am really 
interested in the choice or consent involved in the rehabilitation 
program.  Do you recall women crying or being visibly upset during 
the abortion procedure?

GD: No, none of them cried. They were very impressive. They didn't 
cry at all. They just stayed very quiet. Oh, thank God! That made it 
easier for us!

B: You mentioned that you only provided treatment to the women who 
chose to abort their babies. I just want to return to that point. 
Who did the women give their consent to: the involved doctors, nurses 
or social workers about terminating their pregnancies?

GD: Oh, Yes.

B: Did they have to sign a paper?

GD: I think they had to sign a document of consent.  I am not sure 
though. The government indirectly organized that. It was organized 
largely by the Rehabilitation Organization. And the women who were 
helping with that.  No body got near the clinic who haven't agreed to 
have an abortion, that's for sure.  So, that was not an issue.

B: Did you perform abortion till the very end? Wouldn't that be at a 
stage of advanced pregnancy?

GD: Yes, I terminated pregnancy for all six months I had been there. 
They had such a degree of malnutrition that a term fetus of forty 
weeks was about the same size as 18 weeks anywhere else.

B: Do you recollect the women or the children receiving any kind of counseli=
ng?

GD: Counseling, yes with the rehabilitation organization.  There were 
women social workers who talked to them. I don't think it helped 
them.  Because they were all malnourished, had horrible deficiency 
diseases=8Aand they all had venereal diseases of one kind or another. 
It was pretty dreadful.  The country had very little resources, 
medicines and facilities to deal with this problem. And the limited 
resources were kept for the war veterans, etc.  There was not much 
left for the women. We had to bring our own stuff in.

B: Where did you get your supplies? Was it enough?

GD: From England. I was told to bring my own supply. I also took two 
sets of instruments and the antibiotics. 

B: Have you used only these two sets of instruments for six months to 
terminate pregnancy?

GD: Yes.  The instruments in the local hospitals were destroyed and 
there wasn't much. And medicinal stuff was only for the wounded men.

B: Was it medically safe?

GD: Yes. It was lot less dangerous then going into term with all 
those diseases, particularly the younger ones.

B: So you were involved in both the abortion program and the adoption?

GD: Yes.  But with regard to the adoption program, only in handing 
the babies over to the ISS.  Any little ones, even up to toddlers=8A 
That was all a bit much.  But the numbers involved having abortion or 
newborns were huge. The compound where the women had been kept during 
the war must have been enormous.  But they all had been disbanded by 
the time I got there.

B: What about outside of Dhaka city, in the areas where you had been? 
What kinds of facilities were made available?

GD: Hospitals and the Rehabilitation organization=8AI can't remember 
what it was called! The Bangladesh National Women's Rehabilitation 
Organization or something like that. That was operating in most of 
the large centers. And the numbers being done prior to me going there 
was negligible because no body wanted to do that.  Most of the 
medical staff in the hospital thought it was illegal. However, I had 
a letter from the Secretary of the State, Rob Chowdhury authorizing 
my work there.  It mentioned that anything I wanted to do was 
perfectly legal and they wee to give me all assistance. I can't find 
the letter now. It is probably somewhere=8ALots of papers from 
Bangladesh=8AI thought it was important since I was never going to see 
anything like that ever again as long as I lived. So, I better keep 
those.
It was very hard, horrific at that time.

B: Did all the women generally agree to have abortion or give up 
their babies for adoption? Were any of them interested to keep the 
baby?

GD: Well=8Aa few of them did=8A

B: Do you know what happened to them?

GD: I have no idea.  ISS was there to get as many babies as they 
could. Because there were less and less babies available for adoption 
in America and Western Europe and they wanted to get as many babies 
as they could get.

B: International Social Services?

GD: Yes.  It's based in Washington DC. A major organization involved 
for adoption.

B: What happened to the mothers?

GD: After abortion or delivery they stayed for a little while and 
then went off to the accommodation provided by the Relief and 
Rehabilitation Center.  They could stay there for as long as they 
liked. And then the women went into training programs. I saw a few of 
those. People making clothes on a promotional basis. In Dhaka, 
Dinajpur, Rangpur, Noakhali.


My sincere thanks to Dr. Davis for sharing his account.  Before I 
left, we had an extensive discussion about his revisiting Bangladesh. 
Our discussion naturally led to future possibilities of a war-crime 
tribunal.  Geoff held my hand tightly and placed it on his chest.  He 
had tears in his eyes.  He said he'd do anything in his power to help 
Bangladesh in its effort to seek justice.  As a preliminary step, I 
genuinely hope that this interview will inspire interested groups to 
organize for an official documentation of his story.

(  I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Mr. Roger Kilham who 
located Dr. Davis.  Sincere thanks to Dr. Hameeda Hossain for her 
comments on the draft.)

_____


#2.

The News International (Pakistan)
April 02, 2003

A new foreign policy?

M B Naqvi

=46ears of Pakistan becoming the next target in the Terror war 
notwithstanding, the fierce missiles race between India and Pakistan 
has gone on, with one missile testified by each recently. The context 
was yet another incident of grisly murder of 24 Hindu men, women and 
children in Doda district, with familiar mutual accusations. 
Independently, religious parties are demanding a new foreign policy. 
Their case is simple: it was wrong to dump Taliban and actively side 
with the US. That apparently made the Iraq War possible. Ergo, let's 
stop pro-US policy and get the four air bases, now in US use, 
vacated. On Iraq, Pakistan must take a more forthright stance and 
denounce the War. Details of the desired change are not clear.

This Musharraf-Jamali government is, on the contrary, proud of what 
it has achieved with its 'Pakistan First' notion: Americans are 
constructively engaged in restraining India from an adventurist 
course; they have arranged for nearly $1.6 billion grants or 
concessional aid and have been helpful in persuading the Paris Club 
and IFIs (international financial institutions) to be far more 
forthcoming in debt rescheduling, acceptance of new aid programmes 
from IMF and other poverty reduction loans from ADP and WB. The 
economy is, as usual, ready to takeoff. Meantime, Pakistan has built 
up $ 10 billion in Monetary Reserves -- an all time record.

=46ew outsiders agree that the economy has actually turned the corner 
or that America's remaining engaged can be relied upon to produce the 
results that the government fondly imagines. While carrying on an 
anti-American campaign based on the hoary pan-Islamist sentiment, the 
divines remain paranoid that one-day the Bush, or his successor's, 
Administration will turn on Pakistan. They know the basis: Pakistan 
has WMDs with means of delivering them; it is intensely pan-Islamist; 
it is equally anti-Israel; it is veritably the world headquarters of 
Taliban-al-Qaeda kind of Islamic Revolution; all the al Qaeda boys 
arrested anywhere display Pakistan Pakistan; and its militant 
Islamists mean to bleed India white by their Jihad. The US will not 
like all that. Ergo, it will move against them.

Well, Islamists are not alone in this fear. The government too can 
see these facts. Observers with no rightwing sympathies who realise 
that grounds for such a fear do exist. They also realise that the 
government's eyes and ears might have been vitiated by less than 
wholly objective perceptions. At any rate, it has to depend on its 
own machinery and agencies for implementing changes, with possible 
risks of distortion or even failure. Moreover, it is also not free 
from all illusions and tendencies that had led to the policies of 
nurturing and supporting Taliban. Its ability to shed all those 
illusions can be doubted. But a change has certainly become necessary 
because the present policy is going nowhere.

What precisely is the government doing today? It goes along as much 
with the US as it dares, does not say too harsh things about its War 
on Iraq and is carrying on a high trapeze balancing act in PR terms: 
firm declarations of not participating in the War while soothing 
American nerves. And yet Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali had had to 
postpone his US and UK visits. He has however rushed to Beijing where 
he was sure to be received warmly. He has promises of eternal Chinese 
friendship. Less than a $ 100 million aid for Gwadar Port development 
and many big promises besides the description of Sino-Pak 
relationship being strategic in nature, with clear dimensions of 
continued military cooperation. Pretty solid it seems. But aren't 
there any limits to this friendship?

Sino-Pakistan friendship has especially helpful features. It is one 
sided; China does not expect much in exchange, not even doing as 
Beijing may desire. Pakistan has regularly ignored the Chinese advice 
in every major crisis -- the Chinese usually advise against 
adventurism and political means -- but that has neither impacted on 
economic or military aid that Beijing gives. Pakistanis get this aid 
for being who they are and where they are. It is for balance of power 
in South Asia and even the Americans do not look askance at it. But 
for all that, the Chinese will never fight Pakistan's wars on its 
presumptions and purposes. It advises against Jihad in Kashmir and a 
resolution of Kashmir problem by amicable negotiations. We have seen 
that in 1971. Pakistanis can certainly have some aid; but cannot hope 
to seriously influence the extra-prudent Chinese policies. Thus if it 
helps the Pakistani rulers' morale, such visits are useful.

Pakistan is really engaged today with three powers: the US (to which 
it has given all it wanted), India and China. Look closely. 
Pakistan's basic business is with India. The latter holds Kashmir in 
its military grip while Pakistan wants Kashmiris' accession to 
Pakistan, if possible. Otherwise -- what? It is wholly unclear. Maybe 
Pakistan might settle for the third option as once or twice 
indicated. Maybe it will even accept Kashmiris' Azadi whatever is 
meant by Kashmiris or Azadi.

Since Kashmir's Jihad has lasted 12 years and more, India has 
repeatedly threatened war; it had in fact served notice even in 
1986-87 (Brass Tacks) because of Pakistan's nuclear programme and its 
implications for Kashmir. Since Jan 1, 2002 India has refused to talk 
altogether and has cut off all communications as in actual war. It is 
a total deadlock and a flare up is still possible, though it remains 
rather unlikely. Why? Because the reasons that made India desist in 
2002 will continue to operate in 2003 and perhaps subsequently also. 
Nevertheless, a near war situation does obtain and the possibility of 
an almighty clash remains.

Why war has to be avoided at all costs need not to be argued at 
length. Wars are fought for a purpose; they are politics by military 
means. In this case, nuclear weapons' mischief is that they destroy 
trust and peace and in a possible nuclear war would lead to what 
would in fact be defeat for both sides. It has become totally 
senseless. No cause is worth a nuclear war, not even Kashmir. The 
fact is that military means can achieve nothing positive for either 
country -- except to lead to each other's devastation.

A hint recently dropped by Shaikh Rashid Ahmed, the Information 
Minister, that a solution of the Kashmir problem looks likely within 
two to three years but it will satisfy the wishes of neither India 
nor Pakistan assumes some significance. The ferment in the Pakistani 
mind is shown by the recent advice of Jamaat-e-Islami's Qazi Hussain 
Ahmed to Pakistan's Foreign Office. He correctly assumed that America 
is benefiting from the Indo-Pak hostility and that the best way to 
tackle the US now is for Pakistan to talk to India -- implicitly by 
doing what it takes. What will it take is clear: Jihad has to be 
ended for good; only then Indo-Pak talks would proceed. Remember 
Hizbul Mujahideen, the main Jihadi group in Kashmir associated with 
Qazi Hussain Ahmed's Jamaat-e-Islami. It once offered a unilateral 
cease-fire to India. Talks were to follow. That the talks did not 
come through was because of Indian politics. Qazi did tour major 
capitals of the world and was received at the highest levels; he was 
obviously lobbying for something definite. Good that he has revived 
the idea.

To think that India would not negotiate is silly. It has to. There 
are issues that require discussion and give and take. War is not an 
option for India too. But it also wants a price; it looks it has to 
be paid for various reasons: The Jihad is going nowhere; Kashmiris, 
after sacrificing 70,000 young men and 14 years of penury, are not an 
inch nearer to their Azadi. Pakistan also remains helplessly caught 
in the coils of international crises because of that fruitless Jihad, 
with no initiative. These are too good reasons for change.

Let's admit Pakistan is not in a position to force a desired Kashmir 
solution on India. Nor can India make Pakistan forget its stand, 
though it can deny a reasonable solution of the problem because war 
is not an option. Therefore, it is much better to accept the advice 
given to non-official Pakistanis -- though perhaps intended for 
Islamabad -- by India's former Naval Chief Admiral Ramu Ramdas two 
weeks ago. It is an opening.

What he said was that both countries are still committed to the 
Lahore Process and documents exist that bear the signatures of two 
elected Prime Ministers. India cannot, in reason, refuse to talk on 
the basis of those documents. Why not use this opening -- of course 
with a flexible mind that is free from adventurism -- and Islamabad 
will probably see that both Beijing and Washington, not to mention 
others, would support and may ensure that the dice is not 
unnecessarily loaded against Pakistan in the ensuing talks. India too 
needs to get off the hook just as much as Pakistan does.

Pakistan-India relations need not only normalisation but also 
improvement, if we all have to grow up into adult citizens of free 
countries living cheek by jowl in a rich natural region. There is no 
reason why the region cannot be normalised and harmonised to make 
economic progress and achieve some political harmonisation. Let's 
anchor the originally-visualised Indo-Pak friendship, based on a true 
people-to-people rapprochement, in the integration of a freely and 
preferentially trading region -- Saarc.

_____


#3.


The Week (India)
Apr 6, 2003

The menace of fascism

Writers'World

Interview/Khushwant Singh
I am not going to be silent

By Sachidananda Murthy

Contrary to his image as a jolly old sardar, Khushwant Singh, 88, is 
a writer who feels deeply about the growing communalism in India. As 
a young man, he witnessed the horrors of Partition, an experience he 
distilled into his famous novel Train to Pakistan. As a much mellowed 
man, he returned his Padma Bhushan award, aghast at the Sikh genocide 
of 1984. His anguish over the Godhra carnage and the anti-Muslim 
riots in Gujarat last year has now resulted in a collection of 
essays, The End of India. He feels thae India of his dreams is dead 
and gone. In an exclusive interview with The Week, Singh spells out 
his diagnosis of a fascist India and why the Indian Muslim has 
remained an outsider. Excerpts:

Do you have no hope for India?
India will not break up physically, but it is growing fascist and 
intolerant. I see no reversal of this fall into the abyss of hate. 
Hatred is being ingrained into the psyche of a majority of our 
people. Even those who are not hateful are resigned to this politics 
of hate. "Mera kya hai" (what is it to me) is their response, as one 
by one our institutions are overrun by fundamentalists.

The good are becoming cynical, even as the bad are growing in 
numbers. The fundamentalists, or fundoos, as writer Githa Hariharan 
has called them, are on the up and up. This is not an image of India 
that is acceptable to me. So I put my thoughts together on the way 
this country is being lost to the fascists. I know I will get flak 
from them.

You have received a lot of hatemail.
I keep them as mementoes. They call me a Pakistani kutta (dog) and 
say I am born to a Pakistani randi ki aulad (son of a whore). They 
abuse me because they have no answer to my exposing their humbug and 
hate. But I am not going to be silent.

Interestingly, I got similar mail when I wrote against the hate 
preached by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. The only difference is the 
postcards were written in Gurmukhi script then, and now they are in 
Devnagari.

You said the Gujarat events culminating in the landslide victory for 
the BJP is the end of India. But now the BJP has lost in Himachal 
Pradesh and done badly in byelections.
Himachal is too small. Secularism, where religion is kept away from 
the state, ended with the death of Jawaharlal Nehru. Ever since then, 
every Prime Minister has been wooing the Hindu as well as the Muslim 
vote banks.

The Congress and other parties allowed the build-up of private 
armies, over whom the state has no control. These private armies 
decide things for the country. Whether India should play cricket with 
Pakistan, Bal Thackeray decides. He created a private army called 
Shiv Sena, who wanted to choose who should reside in Mumbai. Then you 
have the RSS, which I call the biggest private army in India. The RSS 
decides what the budget should be, what the school curriculum should 
be.

But there are states which are well governed....
Governments have no right to be there if they cannot enforce law and 
order. The Godhra carnage was used as an excuse for vengeance, while 
the police looked on. In 1984, when Hindu mobs went on a rampage 
against Sikhs in Delhi, the police did not lift a finger. I witnessed 
a large number of policemen watching as goondas burnt Sikh shops in 
the market in front of my house. What kind of hope can you have in a 
country where the police are not only silent witnesses to genocide, 
but even participate in them on orders.

There is no accountability enforced. Fundamentalists burn M.F. 
Husain's paintings and the police don't do a thing. They block Deepa 
Mehta's film in Varanasi and the police do nothing. Earlier, the 
government was weak. Now comes the dangerous phase. The governments 
at the Centre and the states are collaborating in the hate campaign 
against Muslims and Christians.

Do you blame the Centre, too?
Instead of leading the country, the government is led by private 
armies of fundoos. In Punjab, too, the Congress collaborated with 
Bhindranwale so it could bring down the Akalis. He controlled the 
destiny of Punjab till he was killed.

Punjab is now back in the mainstream. Similarly, India can get over Hindutva=
=2E
Punjab is different. Bhindranwale tried to create a rift between 
Hindus and Sikhs. But they have no mutual antagonism.

It is not the same with Islam or Christianity, which have no common 
feature with Hinduism. Muslims are seen as outsiders. Nobody bothers 
how much blood Muslims have shed for India. This hatred, which is 
centuries old, is attracting more and more knickerwallahs.

Don't you think religion can play a positive role?
If it stays within the house. We don't need microphones blaring 
religious speeches and hate. We don't want television sets spewing 
religious propaganda. Religious discourses have no connection with 
our social conditions. Secularism means the freedom to practise one's 
religion in one's own house. Outside the house, there is no religion. 
I have coined a phrase for my book=D1work is worship, but worship is 
not work.

In the book you have said Indian Muslims have a national problem, not 
a religious one.
Their very nationality and allegiance have been questioned for so 
long. Even during British rule, Muslims were seen as separate. Many 
opted for a Muslim India when the idea was put across. But those who 
stayed back cannot be wished away. Now they are being pushed into 
ghettos by treating them as second class citizens. Every Muslim in 
India is treated as a Pakistani sympathiser. They don't trust anyone, 
because whenever they reach out they are spurned.

Do you have a wishlist for India?
We must separate religion from politics. We must ban religious 
parties like the BJP, Akali Dal and the Muslim League. We must ban 
hate speeches like Praveen Togadia's.

BOOK EXTRACT
The menace of fascism
By KHUSHWANT SINGH

Until a few years ago I used to think that I could dismiss the menace 
of fascism erupting in my own country as a figment of my sick mind. I 
can no longer do so. The Indian brand of fascism is at our doorstep. 
The chief apologist for Indian fascism is Deputy Prime Minister L.K. 
Advani, who read Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf while in jail during the 
Emergency. Bharatiya fascism has its crudest protagonists in Bal 
Thackeray, the Shiv

Sena supremo who openly praises Hitler as a superman. Its chief 
executioner is Narendra Modi, chief minister of Gujarat. And of 
course, there is the rag-tag of the Singhals, Giriraj Kishores, 
Togadias and other tuppenny-ha'penny rabble-rousers.

Distort facts, inject dollops of pride in your own race and religion, 
and prejudice and contempt for others, and you have a witches' brew 
of hate which can be easily brought to a boil....

We talk about the Taliban using

religion to stifle the social and cultural lives of the people of 
Afghanistan. The same thing has been happening in our very homeland 
and we see it in every aspect of our daily life. It is not only the 
Shiv Sena that foams at the mouth about 'Western influence', Minister 
of State for Tourism and Cultural Affairs Bhavnaben Chikalia was 
recently considering banning discotheques in all government hotels. 
She felt it was 'against our culture' and a 'bad influence on our 
Bharatiya sanskriti'. Some years ago, Sushma Swaraj made a hue and 
cry about Fashion Television, and the Sangh Parivar agitated all over 
the country against Deepa Mehta's Fire and even succeeded in stopping 
Water, her next film about widows of Varanasi.

These moral police have problems with books, with plays, with music 
and with art. In their effort to create a Hindu rashtra, they have 
played up the Shah Bano case, using the Congress's appeasement of the 
Muslim orthodoxy as their trump card. They have attempted to 
'rectify' Muslim 'wrongs' in history by rewriting it. They have 
tampered with textbooks in their efforts to 'amend' Leftist readings 
and tried to reconstruct in the twenty-first century an imagined 
Hindu golden age.

Every fascist regime needs communities and groups it can demonise in 
order to thrive. It starts with one group or two. But it never ends 
there. A movement built on hate can only sustain itself by 
continually creating fear and strife. Those of us today who feel 
secure because we are not Muslims or Christians are living in a 
fool's paradise.

The Sangh is already targeting Leftist historians and 'westernised' 
youth. Tomorrow it will turn its hate on women who wear skirts, 
people who eat meat, drink liquor, watch foreign films, don't go on 
annual pilgrimages to temples, use toothpaste instead of danth 
manjan, prefer allopathic doctors to vaids, kiss or shake hands in 
greeting instead of shouting 'Jai Shri Ram.' No one is safe. We must 
realise this if we hope to keep India alive.
(From The End of India by Khushwant Singh. Rs 200. Excerpted with 
permission from Penguin Books India).


_____


#4.

The Hindu / Literary Review
Sunday, Mar 02, 2003

Resisting regimentation

GITHA HARIHARAN'S new book, In Times of Siege (Viking, Rs. 295), is 
about a history academic whose text on the medieval saint Basava 
attracts the unexpectedly violent attention of Hindu fundamentalist 
groups. ANURADHA ROY talks to her about the book.

Your book captures the common man thrown unwittingly into political 
troubles and forced into taking a position: is the novel a cautionary 
tale for placid "liberals"?

YES, to the extent that it is possible for many people to be 
"liberal" because they are not directly, painfully affected by the 
oppression of the authorities they are critical of. Recent 
experiences - Gujarat for example - show that the times of siege we 
are talking about have stripped the cushioning of even this usually 
comfortably placed class. The liberal in the novel, Shiv, says in 
some desperation when he sees the "opposition" is not as united as 
they need to be: "Forget your little arguments, the enemy is almost 
at our heels! If this can happen to an ordinary, cautious man like 
me, what about you ideologywallas?" But the novel is also saying that 
when pushed to a point where a choice has to be made, many of those 
we think of as "just ordinary, decent people" will speak up for the 
fundamental values that hold their world in place - peace and harmony 
so that everyone in society can go about their business, as well as 
the basic freedom to think, speak, and ask questions. This is what 
happened during the Emergency, after the demolition of Babri Masjid, 
and after the Gujarat carnage.

When making fiction out of contemporary upheaval, did you have any 
literary models, like Coetzee's Disgrace, for example, in mind?

There was almost too much from real life threatening to push its way 
into the novel as I wrote it. The challenge was to contain the times 
we are living through into an individual, human story. But you are 
asking about literary models. I am not consciously aware of models as 
I write; but certainly I am, like all writers, deeply indebted to the 
writing I admire. In this sense Coetzee's writing has always been a 
model for me - and this is true as much of Age of Iron as of 
Disgrace. There are chilling, heartbreaking parallels between 
apartheid and communalism, just as there are between Hitler's fascism 
and Hindutva.

Could you say something about your use of the Basava story?

I came across A.K. Ramanujan's translation of medieval Kannada 
vachanas when I was a college student. I am still amazed by the 
contemporary voice of these poems - they are ruthless in their 
commitment to social equality and in their questioning of formal 
religion. Basava was a poet and politician who asked dangerous 
questions, about caste for instance. He was also a reformer - what we 
would today call an activist. A deeply religious man, he mocked 
pious, caste-obsessed chauvinists. He wrote, for example: "there are 
so many gods there's no place for a foot." Or he taunted them that 
they used the same thing - water - in their temples as well as their 
lavatories. Basava is just the sort of complex man who cannot be 
interpreted in just one, "official" way as we are being bullied into 
doing with so many icons. If we are regimented into seeing the past, 
and figures from the past, in the way our present history-rewriters 
want us to see them, we are going to lose the richness of those 
lives, times and ideas. The next step, of course, is that we will 
have to judge the present too with this impoverished worldview: say 
these are "saints" or those are "foreigners".

=46or a man much given to reflection, Shiv, the 50-something professor, 
goes unquestioningly by his instincts in his passion for the young 
student. What was your intention in depicting this relationship?

Reflection and instinct are more or less balanced in Shiv - as much 
as they are in many men of his age and position! His response to 
Meena is understandable, not just because he is a cautious, rather 
unglamorous middle-aged man and she is a passionate, outspoken young 
woman - but because he is being challenged for the first time on both 
personal and political fronts. In his life before the crisis brought 
on by the fundamentalists - what Meena calls the fundoos - Shiv 
sidestepped commitment in every way. Personally, this meant a 
halfhearted little affair with a colleague if his marriage was not 
quite what it should be. But his obsession with Meena is not just 
physical - it's also his fearful fascination for everything her world 
stands for: risk and danger, choice and commitment.

The novel demonstrates the oppressiveness of reducing "multitudinous 
mysteries" to oversimplified opposites. Have you, living on a 
university campus, found things oppressive at times from this point 
of view?

You don't need to live on a campus to see either the past, or the 
modern Indian experiment of a multi-cultural nation, reduced to crude 
dichotomies. Our world is pervaded by the "us and them" mindset as 
never before.


_____


#5.


Indian Currents April 6, 2003

Hindutva and Dalits

Ram Puniyani

Post Gujarat riots, many moves have been made by the Hindutva 
organizations vis a vis dalits. The latest one being a threatening 
letter by Vishwa Hindu Parishad addressed to dalit organizations in 
Gujarat to adopt Hindutva. This letter published by VHP, from Paldi, 
Ahmadabad, states that, =ECLet the Ambedkarite Harijans who oppose the 
Hindutva ideology understand. We will not let them mix with even the 
soil of Hindustan; today time is in our hands. Hindutva is the 
ideology of true Hindus (and) it never accepts the Harijans who are 
the off springs of the untouchable Ambedkar.

The Ambedkarite Harijans, Bhangis, tribals and the untouchable Shudra 
castes who believe in (respect) Ambedkar do not have any right to 
give speeches or criticize the Hindutva ideology in Hindustan,=8ANow 
Hindutva has become aware and it is time to teach these Ambedkarites, 
untouchable Harijans a lesson. Not even the miyans (Muslims) can come 
to their aid now.=EE (Extract from the letter received by Banaskantha 
Dalit Sanghthan)

This is a sort of open threat to Dalilts to toe the VHP line and to 
politically subordinate to Sangh Parivar (SP). One has witnessed in 
the recent Gujarat carnage that number of Dalits and Adiviasis were 
used as foot soldiers of Hindutva to undertake the anti-Minority 
violence. Also it was BJP ally Mayawati who came to campaign for 
Narendra Modi. What are the portents of this new move on the part of 
VHP, a component of Sangh Parivar and a progeny of RSS? As such Dalit 
leadership is totally fragmented in Gujarat and the assertion of 
Dalit aspirations has been totally weak. Gujarat has witnessed 
massive anti-Dalit riots around the issue of reservations (1980 and 
1985). After these riots the politics of S P changed the track and 
manipulated and unleashed the Dalits against the Muslim minorities. 
The Hindutvaisation of Dalits has been a very complex process. It 
broadly has aimed to bring the =EBUnity=ED of all the Hindus without 
disturbing the caste equations, social hierarchies. To achieve this 
these has gone on several processes.

On one hand there has been an urge to move upwards on the part of 
section of dalits who have partly benefited from the process of 
development, reservations etc. This layer has been looking for the 
channels of upward mobility, Sanskritisation, and Hidnutva has 
provided them this in abundance. This has come at cultural level by 
providing newer community symbols, which have been popularized and 
accepted by the section of Dalits. At another level Asaram Bapu, 
Pandurang Shashrti and company have been spreading the neutral 
sounding sermons, but in depth they do hide the refined version of 
Manu Smiriti. This has been one of the major platforms, which has won 
over sections of Dalits to the Hindutva. Another factor has been the 
floating of Samajik Samrasata Manch, (Social Assimilation Platform) 
which aims to bring together all the Hindus, sidetracking the 
challenges of the caste system. Projecting the unity of Hindu society 
as it is, meaning that the present inequalities are all right and 
they are not to be questioned. This added on to the availability of 
thousands of dalits who have lost jobs due to closure of textile 
mills has provided Hindutva with a vast army of Dalits whom it could 
use as the one=EDs to be the executioners of the anti-Muslim pogrom 
witnessed in Gujarat.

So why this new threat to the Dalit organizations. This letter has 
been received by many an organizations, particularly those holding 
out against the Hindutva onslaught. The message is clear and loud. In 
the stage so far Hindutva has been able to assimilate large sections 
under its ideology and tutelage. How come some are still holding back 
from getting assimilated? The =EBsuccess=ED of Moditva (blatantly 
aggressive Hindutva) has emboldened them to lead an assault on the 
sections, which have not been assimilated. In this type of scenario, 
which exists in Gujarat where Hindutva organizations have a free 
hand. The attempt is to combine all the strategies, to lure them by 
inducements, and to indoctrinate them through the Asarams Bapus and 
Pandurang Shastris. And now to threaten them as a last resort.

Hindutva had a complex relationship with Dalit question. With the 
rise of Dalit consciousness in the elementary form in the middle of 
19th century the reaction came in the form of vague articulation of 
Hindutva, which expressed itself in Shuddhi campaign and also in the 
programs parties like Punjab Hindu Sabha. The upper caste reaction to 
Dalit=EDs coming to social space, education and industry was to be 
opposed it in a subtle way. This opposition was manifested in the 
attacks on Mahtma Jotiba Phule who led this process. The same stream 
of Landlord-Clergy was also opposed to the emerging politics of 
Indian National Congress and the accompanying values of Liberty, 
Equality and Fraternity. During early part of Twentieth century the 
anti-Landlord-Brahmin movement picked up a great deal along with the 
social and political changes, which aimed to change the status of 
Dalits. This period saw the consolidation of the of upper caste 
revivalist ideology in the form of Hindu Mahasabha and later RSS. 
Both these organizations kept the clear goal of Hindu Rashtra. Their 
major agenda was to ensure that caste equations don=EDt change; the 
hegemony of Landlord-Brahmin persists.

The challenge for these organizations was to preserve the status quo 
while using the language, which is modern and sounding to be of 
equality. We are same because we are Hindus! We are Hindus so lets 
not talk of our internal matters, caste etc. lets fight against the 
external enemy Muslims and Christians! So during this period on one 
hand one sees the rise of Ambedkar and burning of Manu Smriti, on the 
other hand we witness the rise of Hindutva as a clear ideology. We 
see the coming up of the concept of Hindu Rashtra as the goal of 
Hindus as the alternative to the freedom movement, which was movement 
for free democratic India. The language and projection of Hindutva 
sound as if it has deep anti-Muslim and Anti Christian overtones. In 
a way these are incidental and these are there to hide the deeper 
project of maintaining hegemony of Brahminical values in the new 
garb. So Ambedkar is not opposed directly, some of his agenda against 
untouchability is also accepted but his deeper goal of democracy, 
which is the only system, which can be libratory to Dalits and women, 
is countered in the language of Hindutva and Hindu Rashtra.

The third major consolidation of this politics of Hindutva occurs in 
the wake of Mandal commission implementation in 1990. While the upper 
caste crystallization around Ram Temple and other religiosity based 
Yatra continues the Mandal commission threatens the status quo in a 
serious way. It is at this time that ongoing processes of 
crystallization of upper caste-Brahminical values of caste and gender 
hierarchy get more fillips to assert themselves as a severe threat to 
Indian constitution. Mr. Vajpayee of BJP formulated the raison de tre 
of Ram temple movement by saying that =EBthey brought in Mandal so we 
had to resort to Kamandal (religiosity). The rest is too well known 
to be recounted. The use of religion in politics, Babri demolition, 
Mumbai riots etc. resulted in rise of BJP in electoral arena as the 
big player in the political field. Gujarat has come as a big lesson 
to us all. The declining fortunes of BJP could be reversed by this 
party resorting to the rivers of blood in the form of state sponsored 
anti Muslim carnage. All this has given big space to the politics of 
Hindutva, which is now aiming to manipulate the society from the top. 
This manipulation is at cultural, social and political level.

The incident like this letter to recalcitrant Dalit organisations is 
an attempt to browbeat the Dalits into submission. Sangh Parivar 
cannot afford to let the intra Hindu identities be the fly in the 
ointment of Hindu Rashtra. While on one hand it is merrily getting 
social and political certification from its alliance with Dalit 
leadership like Mayawati-Kanshiram, the odd ones=ED opposing this 
politics and the Hindutva hegemony have to be shown occasional stick 
if necessary. If not in Modi=EDs Gujarat where else can they use 
intimidation to the Dalits, or for that matter to other layer of 
society.

(Writer works for EKTA, Committee for Communal Amity,
Mumbai)


______


#6.

"Hindu Nationalism and the Future of Indian Polity" - Symposium at MSU

Saturday April 5, 2003
9:00 am - 12:00 pm
Event Location: Erickson Kiva, Michigan State University
Notes: http://www.isp.msu.edu/AsianStudies/spring03Events/Hindu_nationalism.=
htm

Organized by Dr. Mohammed Ayoob. (ayoob@msu.edu). Speakers include:
1. Professor Christopher Jaffrelot, Director of the Centre dEtudes et 
de Recherches Internationales (CERI), Paris, will speak on The 
Origins and Evolution of Hindu Nationalism in India.
2. Professor Sunil Khilnani, Director of the Center for South Asian 
Studies, Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies

______

#7.

The Island (Sri Lanka)
2 April 2003

Extract from Cats Eye

South Asian Women Protest

In Sri Lanka over 15 women's organizations have joined to strongly 
condemn the war as illegal and to express concern for the people of 
Iraq. The protest is endorsed by the leading women's organizations - 
Centre for Women's Research (CENWOR), Women's Education and Research 
Centre (WERC), the Women's NGO Forum, Women and Media, Voice of 
Women, Kantha Shakti, the Women's Development Foundation (Kurunegala) 
and the Women's Development Centre (Kandy).

Similarly women's groups in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have 
denounced the war and are participating in street demonstrations 
protesting the holocaust being inflicted on the Iraqi people. Last 
Sunday, masses of women joined the protest in Calcutta on the war.


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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.