[sacw] SACW | 13 April 03

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  |  13 April,  2003

#1. People and the Peace Process (Dr. S. Narapalasingam)
Related articles:
-Sri Lanka peace play reaches out (Rajyasri Rao)
-Sri Lanka: Of peace without war (Rasheeda Bhagat)
#2. Human rights body calls for a secular Pakistan
#3. Pakistan: The moral brigade is back (Masood Hasan)
#4. India: Book review: Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection 
by A.G. Noorani (Pradip Kumar Datta)
#5. India: Appeal against use of Electric shock therapy in India's 
mental institutions
#6. India: Aakrosh: a documentary on Gujarat runs into trouble with 
the Censor board
#7. [A Poem] Iraq ke awam ke naam, jinhon ne tisree dunyan ke awam ki 
laj rakh lee (Gauhar Raza)
#8. [ A Poem] A Revelation from Bosh Bhagwan (Badruddin R. Gowani)

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

#1.

The Island (Colombo)
Thursday 10 April 2003

People and the Peace Process
By Dr. S. Narapalasingam

According to the latest opinion poll conducted by the Centre for 
Policy Alternatives from 31 January to 14 February, 60.1 percent have 
expressed uncertainty as to when there would be peace in Sri Lanka. 
The view that the Government is committed to finding peace through 
the ongoing talks with the LTTE has declined from 70.2 percent in 
July 2002 to 56.7 percent early this year. Those who believe that the 
LTTE has gone for talks 'to fool the people' has increased from 16.1 
percent to 28.7 percent. The survey results also indicate 66.7 
percent disapprove of the involvement of the Norwegian government. 
One can expect these ratios to have changed adversely after the 
recent tragic incidents off the Northeast coast, which have cast 
doubt on the real aim of the 'Peace Talks'.

According to the same survey, 83.7 percent believe peace can be 
achieved through negotiation and 54.3 percent are satisfied with the 
progress of the 'Peace Talks' as at the end of January this year. 
What the former ratio really means is that the majority of the people 
feel that negotiation and not war is the path to peace. And with 
regard to the latter it is not clear whether the satisfaction with 
the progress is for sustaining the cease-fire or for advancing 
towards a final political settlement. If it is the latter, then the 
progress is ascribed to the acceptance in principle by the LTTE of a 
system of federal governance based on internal self-determination 
within united Sri Lanka. How the survey respondents have understood 
the promising statements of the Norwegian facilitators and the head 
of Government negotiating team, Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris, depend on 
their own perceptions of what they regard as a federal state. Another 
survey conducted by the Alternate Policy Centre showed some 41 
percent of the participants were unaware whether or not both parties 
had agreed on the framework of a political solution. Many in Sri 
Lanka have other urgent problems, such as the high cost of living to 
worry about than to ponder what is going on at the 'Peace Talks' 
taking place behind closed doors in various resorts abroad.

The high cost of living is the most pressing issue of the day for 
48.2 percent of Sri Lankans, while 18.8 percent considered the ethnic 
conflict and 16.5 percent unemployment to be the important issue. 
Amongst the Tamils, only for 30 percent the ethnic conflict is their 
main concern. It is interesting to note the approval ratings of the 
different communities to JVP's campaign on the cost of living. For 
Sinhalese and Muslims, these are 60.7 and 60.8 percent respectively, 
while the Tamils with 66.6 percent and the Up-country Tamils with 
69.7 percent have shown their frustration, despite JVP's leading role 
in the protest campaign. JVP's Sinhala nationalistic stance and the 
objection to Norway's involvement in the ongoing peace process are 
well known. The JVP leaders are also in favour of annihilating the 
LTTE militarily. Despite such extreme policies, the people of all 
races have approved JVP's protest campaign against the high cost of 
living. This shows what is uppermost in the minds of the people at 
the present time, when there are no signs of early settlement to the 
ethnic conflict through the ongoing 'Peace Talks'.

[...]

The University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna) have been reporting 
the incidents of human rights violations with all relevant 
particulars since the time the Indian peacekeeping Force (IPKF) 
arrived under the 1987 Indo-Lanka Agreement. After Dr. Rajani 
Thiranagama, a founder member of UTHR(J) was assassinated in Jaffna 
for her determined efforts to expose human rights violations amidst 
terror and counter-terror and her colleagues faced similar fate, two 
resolute academics had to leave Jaffna. With the assistance of some 
persons in the north and east, they are continuing relentlessly the 
work they started when they were teaching at the University of 
Jaffna. Not only many Tamil academics and professionals have 
dismissed their reports as fiction but also the Tamil political 
parties with elected representatives in the Parliament have ignored 
them. The latter claim to be committed to democracy but they have for 
their own survival preferred to ignore the fact that democracy is 
stifled when the freedom of expression is denied and human rights are 
violated. Some have even questioned the motive of those giving 
prominence to the reports of UTHR(J). No one has proved that the 
reported incidents of child conscription, extra-judicial punishment 
including killing of civilians, intimidation, extortion and other 
acts are untrue.

The Country Report on Human Rights Practices - 2002 released on March 
31, 2003 by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labour of the 
US Department of State contains a detailed account of the Human 
Rights situation in Sri Lanka. It said unlike in previous years, 
there were no reports blaming the security forces of arbitrary 
arrests or disappearances. The Government had released 750 Tamils 
previously arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. But it is 
critical of Government's infringement on citizens' privacy rights and 
the failure to stop the practice of torturing detainees by the 
military and the police. "In the majority of cases in which military 
personnel may have committed human rights abuses, the government has 
not identified those responsible or brought them to justice," the 
report said. While acknowledging that "the Government generally 
respected the human rights of its citizens", it criticised LTTE's 
conduct in the Northeast which violated both human and democratic 
rights of the residents.

With regard to child conscription, it said: "Despite repeated claims 
to the contrary by the LTTE, there were credible reports that the 
LTTE continued to recruit forcibly children throughout the year. 
Individuals or small groups of children intermittently turned 
themselves over to security forces or religious leaders saying they 
had escaped LTTE training camps throughout the year. During August 
and September, the LTTE handed over 85 children to UNICEF, stating 
that the children had volunteered to serve, but that the LTTE does 
not accept children." The UTHR(J) Special report No: 16 titled "Child 
Conscription and Peace: A Tragedy of Contradictions", released on 
March 18, 2003 contains a detailed account of the situation in the 
Northeast with regard to child conscription.

The US Country Report has been highly critical of LTTE's illegitimate 
judicial system. It said: "During the year, the LTTE expanded the 
operations of its court system into areas previously under the 
government's judicial system in the north and east. With the 
expansion, the LTTE demanded all Tamil civilians stop using the 
government's judicial system and only rely on the LTTE's legal 
system. Credible reports indicated that the LTTE has implemented the 
change through the threat of force. The LTTE has its own 
self-described court system, composed of judges with little or no 
legal training. The courts operate without codified or defined legal 
authority and essentially operate as agents of the LTTE rather than 
as an independent judiciary. The courts reportedly impose severe 
punishments, including execution."

With regard to LTTE's past record on academic freedom the Country 
Report said: "The LTTE restricted academic freedom, and it has 
repressed and killed intellectuals who criticize it, most notably the 
moderate and widely respected Tamil politician academic Dr.Neelan 
Tiruchelvam, who was killed by a suicide bomber in July 1999. The 
LTTE has severely repressed members of human rights organizations, 
such as the University of Human Rights (UTHR), and other groups." The 
widespread view among the Tamils seems to be that no one must say 
anything to discredit the work and the sacrifices of the Tigers in 
the struggle to win the political rights of the oppressed Tamil 
community. Two explanations could be advanced for this mind-set. One 
is that the violations are inevitable given the nature of the 
struggle and the other is that raising these at this time would be 
detrimental to the Tamil cause. Even the Tamil intellectuals, who 
were in the forefront promoting the UTHR's book - The Broken Palmyra 
- have distanced themselves from UTHR(J).

[...].

  { FULL TEXT AT: http://www.island.lk/2003/04/10/featur02.html  }


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

[RELATED ARTICLES]

BBC News, 10 April, 2003
Sri Lanka peace play reaches out
By Rajyasri Rao (BBC correspondent in Delhi)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2936099.stm

o o o

Business Line
Apr 09, 2003

Sri Lanka: Of peace without war
Rasheeda Bhagat
http://www.blonnet.com/2003/04/09/stories/2003040900070800.htm

______

#2.

The Daily Times (Lahore)
April 13, 2003

Human rights body calls for a secular Pakistan

Staff Report
KARACHI: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on Saturday 
said the separation of religion from the state would promote unity in 
a pluralistic society like Pakistan.
The commission held a daylong workshop on the rights of minorities in 
the country. Participants said the government should protect the 
rights of the minorities as they were a part of the state.
The participants said languages such as Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, 
Balochi and Seraiki must be accepted as national languages and the 
state must ensure their promotion. The medium of instruction, 
especially in primary education, should be in the children's mother 
tongue, they said.
The participants recommended the deletion of all religion-based 
provisions of the Constitution, such as Article 2, 2A and 203 which 
they said divided the citizens on the basis of their beliefs.
The meeting also declared that the revival of the joint electorate 
should be followed by action to end discrimination in economic and 
social areas.
Other forms of discriminatory law, stemming from the blasphemy law, 
the Hadood Ordinances, the Diyat law and the Federal Shariat Court 
rules should be abolished.
Guarantees under Article 36 must be respected as the minorities do 
not get their share in federal and provincial services. Lessons on 
religion in textbooks require thorough revision to eliminate negative 
aspects about other religions.
Participants of the workshop said the media should be sensitised to 
stop projecting a negative picture of the minorities.
They agreed that the mechanisms needed to ensure respect for the 
rights of minorities were not effective.
The meeting recommended that constitutional safeguards should be 
rephrased to enable discriminatory policies and actions to be easily 
challenged in courts.

______


#3.

The News International
Sunday April 13, 2003-- Safar 10, 1424 A.H.

The moral brigade is back
by Masood Hasan

A recent circular from the Ministry of Information & Media 
Development is making the rounds, which carries the crusade against 
'Obscenity in Print & Electronic Advertisements' to its logical 
conclusion, which is more nonsense and poppycock, though I am the 
first to admit the poppy word may have the Ministry in convulsions.

The Islamic Ideology Council has recommended action against such 
advertising agencies who promote in the ministry's words, 'vulgaring 
and obscenity'. Well at least they got the obscenity bit right. These 
laudable objectives are based on the findings of a session of the 
Council in January 2003, which was highly disturbed that in the guise 
of offering lucrative careers in modelling, advertising agencies were 
luring young women into lives of sin. The learned Council was of the 
opinion that such agencies were probably unlicensed and were 
operating without any code of ethics. It therefore suggested the 
appointment of a commission to take stern action against these 
morally corrupt and wayward organisations, which were merely 
spreading vulgarity and obscenity while purporting to advertise goods 
and services. It also asked for the setting up of a regulatory 
authority to keep a close watch on these morally deviant elements, 
which were spreading filth in society. No less than a Dr Ghulam 
Murtaza Azad, Director General Research has affixed his signatures to 
the circular.

This is not the first time such 'action' has been recommended and it 
certainly will not be the last time either. 'Vulgaring' has been a 
charge that has been hurled not only at advertising agencies but at 
every activity that has anything remotely to do with the fine arts, 
music, dance, painting, et al. The charges have been so generalised 
that it has been almost impossible for its practitioners to defend 
themselves. The question remains, what constitutes vulgarity and 
obscenity, the two dreaded diseases that repeatedly afflict the 
Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It is a complicated issue because 
opinions can be very subjective and what you and I may not find 
vulgar or obscene in the least may send others into a paroxysm of 
agony. What is vulgar however remains a very debatable point but the 
ramblings of the IIC, once more, are way off the mark. They have been 
for a long time and each incumbent in Islamabad has felt it his (it 
is always men) moral duty to wage a crusade against the forces of 
evil.

In the eighties, when that benevolent and far-sighted General ruled 
the land whose high moral vision gave us ethnic cleansing and forever 
split our country into pockets of hate, bigotry and intolerance 
(while ironically fighting against these very evils), his minister 
for (dis)information went about cleaning the electronic media. He 
found hundreds of TV commercials vulgar and obscene. While these had 
been on the air for a long time and there was never any evidence that 
they had caused a serious decline in the moral values of society -- 
there never is, he still felt it his duty to disinfect PTV. Dozens of 
commercials were taken off; others chopped and sliced into pieces 
that were rendered senseless. A film of dancing fruits had the 
minister in convulsions. Whereas everyone saw fruits, he saw other 
unmentionable objects. It was a sad day for fruits. A little girl, 
perhaps six or seven, running on a beach in a swimming suit (you 
couldn't see her legs) had the moral brigade in frenzy. While the 
under-attack PTV officials were trying hard to follow the minister's 
wandering mind and very free association of ideas, there was more 
gnashing of the holy teeth. A carbolic soap commercial showing a 
young man lathering his manly chest under a gushing 'nalka' (tap), 
almost felled the minister, who thought the entire film was 
suggestive, lewd, vulgar, obscene and 'furthermore' as the Sikh joke 
puts it. PTV lost about ten million in revenue, but were reminded 
that they had gained immensely in virtue.

=46or the enlightenment of the worthies who make up the IIC, not that 
it will cut much ice with them, there exists a strong code of ethics 
in Pakistan since at least the seventies, which has created problems 
over and over again since it has, like many codes, a viewpoint that 
is debatable and not quite balanced in the upstairs department. 
However, all the practitioners of the black arts have chosen to live 
within its often-strange pronouncements. Most advertising agencies, 
which are not in the business of luring young women into lives of 
sin, live on the same planet as the IIC and are pretty well versed in 
what can pass the censors and what can't. PTV's censor board is made 
of steel walls ten feet thick. Anything that remotely is suggestive 
doesn't get through. It's been like that for years. Agencies, 
scriptwriters, filmmakers and others, know what can work. They are 
not idiots. In print advertising too, in all responsible and mature 
publications, be they newspapers or magazines, certain established 
norms of taste are observed. There are always cases where things are 
depicted which can be borderline cases, but no quality publication 
sets out to sell sin and get away with it. Not here. So while this 
may come as a surprise to the IIC, each media and its practitioners 
follow an unwritten but well understood code that regulates their 
creative outpouring. Rather than turn their swords on the advertising 
profession, the IIC may well take a good long look at the cinema, 
particularly the one that flourishes more than the poppy in the MMA's 
backyard, where high vulgarity is now fully standardised or direct 
its gaze on the wall chalking that establishes this as a sex starved, 
impotent and sexually inadequate nation of men or the hundreds of 
medicines and fly by night operations where quacks and frauds offer 
miracle cures, even promising those no longer virgins the magic of 
becoming the same again.

Using women tastelessly in advertising has been going on for years, 
even in the emancipated west and there is no doubt that there are 
many cases where they are exploited without relevance, to sell 
anything from car batteries to bulldozers. To regulate this is a 
serious problem because it is far too complicated a matter to 
implement. However, there is in every country, a framework that 
restricts and regulates communication so that it does not get 
offensive. As and when these codes are violated, even in the evil 
west, action is taken. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but 
here in Pakistan, the heavy-handed approach has only had the opposite 
effect. Women in society are targeted as sex objects and the reasons 
are not billboards. Our repressive and narrow thinking has put women 
at a disadvantage in a society were the males go unchecked. This 
attitude has led to the rise of vulgar behaviour rather than its 
control.

Who are we to guide the IIC which is perched on high moral ground, 
but it does need a reality check, remove its blinkers and understand 
what is going on and what actually constitutes 'vulgaring' and 
obscenity. Disfiguring faces of women on billboards, to us is vulgar 
and obscene, the work of sick, sexually depraved men. That should be 
stopped, not the work that appears on the billboards.

______


#4.
=46rontline (Chennai), April 12 - 25, 2003
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2008/stories/20030425001007300.htm
BOOKS
Savarkar re-examined

PRADIP KUMAR DATTA

Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection by A.G. Noorani; LeftWord 
Books, New Delhi, 2002; pages 168, Rs.295.

THERE is a certain serendipity - if that is the right word - in the 
recent appearance of this book. Although he wrote it much before the 
installation of V.D. Savarkar's portrait in the Central Hall of 
Parliament, A.G. Noorani provides enough insights to assess the 
implications of making Savarkar a national icon. This is probably 
owing to the fact that the process of iconisation had already begun. 
Noorani's book was provoked by the renaming of Port Blair airport as 
Veer Savarkar airport in May 2002. Consequently, at the back of 
Noorani's understanding of Savarkar lies the question: Is it right to 
make Savarkar a figure of national inspiration?

The book examines Savarkar's personal behaviour and the implications 
of his brand of nationalism. But let me enter a qualification here. 
Putting the themes of the book in the way I have done may actually 
muffle its hard edge, which comes from its urgent, angry and 
insistent tone. This passionate excess springs not just from the 
problem of assessing Savarkar's nationalism, but from the intuition 
of a question that today we, the readers, can formulate. The question 
is: Does the placement of Savarkar's portrait (opposite that of 
Gandhi's) in Parliament signal the second murder of Gandhi? Or, to 
put it less dramatically, does the acclamation of Savarkar indicate 
another step in the emergence of a new nationalism - and in the 
jettisoning of the social ideals of toleration and self-reflection 
that have marked the relationship between religious communities in 
our country?

Let me first relate some of the highlights of the fifth chapter of 
the book entitled "Gandhi's murder", which is, incidentally, its most 
remarkable part. One can see the lawyer in Noorani delighting in 
describing the many facets of Gandhi's murder trial. Also, it 
explains my statement about Gandhi's second murder. The most relevant 
and exciting revelation made here concerns the report of the Kapur 
Commission, which was instituted in the mid 1960s to review the 
evidence regarding Gandhi's murder. Clearly, it was generally felt 
that the court of Justice Atma Charan, which had let off Savarkar, 
had not yielded the full truth. Indeed, even before the trial, Sardar 
Vallabhbhai Patel had, in a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, clearly 
stated that Savarkar had masterminded the murder. In the court, 
approvers had testified to the intimate guru-chela relationship 
between Savarkar and the Godse brothers, but there was no 
corroborative evidence to nail down Savarkar's assertion that he had 
had merely formal relationships with them. Consequently, he was 
released.

The Kapur Commission was in a more fortunate position. It had access 
to testimonies of Savarkar's aides (including his bodyguard, 
secretary and so on) and important Hindu Mahasabha functionaries who 
were not available to the Atma Charan court. And all these 
testimonies indicated the intimate and inspirational hold of Savarkar 
on the Godse brothers. The weight of this evidence led Justice Kapur 
to reverse the conclusions of the court trial and state unambiguously 
that "all these facts taken together were destructive of any theory 
other than the conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group".

Recently, the usually aggressive, righteous chorus of Hindutva 
propagandists has been claiming that Savarkar's relationship with 
Gandhi was as innocent as Gandhi's relationship with Bhagat Singh, 
`Netaji' Subhas Chandra Bose and others who wished to remove the 
British through violence. Noorani's book puts paid to this defence of 
Savarkar: the claims of Tarun Vijay and others are clearly based on 
the version that Savarkar himself offered in court. At the same time 
the book defines the profound difference between Savarkar and the 
`violent' anti-colonial nationalists such as Bhagat Singh. The hard 
fact remains that the latter may have criticised Gandhi, denounced 
him, but it did not cross their minds to kill him. The reason for 
this distinction, it may be inferred from Noorani's insights on 
Savarkar's ideology, is a political one. Hindutva - the grand 
creation of Savarkar - was an ideology that created an internal enemy 
and saw it as more dangerous than the external power of British 
colonialism. War against Muslims was far more necessary than removing 
the British. It was this political commitment (among other things) 
that regularly led Savarkar to pledge loyalty to the British (a fact 
well-documented by Noorani). And it was the paranoia about Muslims 
that led Godse to say that the reason he killed Gandhi was (striking 
a note that is amplified today) that the Mahatma appeased Muslims. Of 
course, this is a far cry from the commitment to India's freedom from 
the British that had inspired Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekar Azad, Bose 
and others. They were not paranoid about internal enemies. 
Consequently, they had no reason to fear Indian leaders or keep 
themselves alive from the hangman's noose to fight Muslims.

But more is involved than this distinction. At one point Noorani 
observes that while Hindutva ideologists may "denounce Nehru", their 
"real target is Gandhi". Unfortunately Noorani does not elaborate 
this point explicitly. But he does offer a plethora of observations 
and insights elsewhere that provide clues to light up this 
formulation. This concerns Savarkar's resentment of Gandhi's 
Hinduism. Now, it is true that Savarkar was an atheist; at any rate, 
the political-cultural ideology of Hindutva is distinct from the many 
beliefs and practices that make up Hinduism. But it is also true that 
Hindus provide the ideological constitutency of Hindutva. A crucial 
aim of Hindutva is to transform Hindus into an aggressive, martial 
`race' with blazing eyes and swollen chests, ever ready to extract 
two eyes for one. Above all, it wishes to cultivate a supremacist 
attitude in Hindus towards other religious communities, to make 
Hindus believe in their destiny as lord and master of other 
religions. For the Hindutva technicians of Hindu `character', 
Gandhi's doctrine of ahimsa, of moral introspection rather than 
retaliation, of humility and stress on the `feminine', devotional 
aspects of Hinduism, posed the main hurdle to making Hindus `potent'. 
He had to be surgically removed.

Noorani's monograph also allows some speculations on Savarkar's 
mindset. Noorani may be right in calling Savarkar's Hindutva an 
ideology of hate, hitting the nail on both psychological and moral 
counts. Nevertheless the characterisation seems insufficient. A 
perplexing feature of Savarkar was that he shifted from a commitment 
to a composite national culture in which different communities would 
play equal parts (his early aspiration was to form an United States 
of India) to communal nationalism (a description that is justified by 
Savarkar's recommendation that Hindus must be `communal' in their 
nationalism). He made this change during his incarceration in the 
Andamans, where he wrote the bible of Hindutva (in the book of the 
same name). In jail he decided to start a suddhi (`reconversion') 
programme and fashioned his unquenching resentment of Muslims. Why, 
it may be asked, did Savarkar's political conversion take place in 
jail? There is little documentation of this period. But we could 
speculate on a psychologically plausible scenario. Prison is a 
condition of absolute disempowerment, where the rules of the world 
are pared down to the most basic elements of domination and 
subordination. Other things - social relationships, bonds of 
affection, ideas of forgiveness and so on - could seem pale and 
pathetic realities in the face of this overwhelming condition. It is 
a condition that could encourage a nationalist to tell himself, 
"look, let's face it, the main thing in existence is power; without 
power there can be no freedom and national power can only come from 
complete, unconditional unity. We are helpless - my condition 
testifies to that. There can be no power for our country unless 
differences between our peoples are erased and people begin to 
believe passionately in their oneness and not just in coexisting with 
others." And if the hypothetical prisoner was also an ex-terrorist, 
he could continue: "This may not be achieved by simply worshipping 
the nation; the terrorists have failed despite their reverence for 
Mother India. We also need to acquire the sense of power that comes 
from dominating an intimate enemy. Power is, after all, the ability 
to dominate." Such a vision would, it may be observed, be profoundly 
distrustful of political systems such as democracy that allowed 
coexistence of different beliefs, with its messiness of conflict and 
debate, pragmatic solutions of accommodation and compromise and 
apparent slowness in showing results.

But it is worth noting that prison vision may not yield only this 
illumination. There are scores of other prison memoirs that indicate 
that prison life could equally reaffirm/generate a belief in 
solidarity, fraternity and the need for the messiness of human 
connections. It is thus plausible to see that jail simply helped 
Savarkar to articulate clearly and intensify his submerged 
proclivities. Noorani does point out from Keer's hagiographical study 
of Savarkar that as a boy he had led a party of communal rioters. But 
there is also another incident from his jail life which reveals a 
more general attitude to prison life itself. Noorani draws upon a 
little known memoir of a revolutionary terrorist and fellow prisoner 
of Savarkar's in the Andamans by the name of Trailokyanath 
Chakravarty. Chakravarty recalls that he, along with other prisoners, 
were encouraged by Savarkar and his brother Ganpat to call a strike 
in jail. But when the time came to join the strike, Savarkar cried 
off, claiming that he was too old for solitary confinement, which 
would be the inevitable consequence of this strike. Noorani notes 
that there were other senior prisoners who remained without food for 
over three weeks. This little incident suggests that Savarkar lacked 
faith in human solidarity, a lack that he filled with visions of 
national oneness built on the abnormal conditions of worship and 
hate. Incidentally, the hunger strike was successful.

NOORANI'S book displays the many facets of a superbly skilful lawyer. 
A strong sense of evidence, hard investigative work, isolation and 
analyses of patterns of behaviour and regularities in the mass of 
evidence, backed up by a strong argument and purpose. Such skills are 
extraordinary but not uncommon in a profession that commands the best 
brains and the fanciest prices that these can fetch. But Noorani 
offers more than the common fare - however uncommonly sumptuous it 
may be in his profession. For, he combines legal skills with 
something much more rare, that is, a moral passion. Noorani's 
argument is one in which law and morality inform each other. Even 
when Noorani upholds the importance of procedures, for instance the 
importance of corroborative evidence (owing to a lack of which 
Savarkar was discharged), he is acutely aware that the deeper moral 
problem of the credibility of the witness is not really answered. But 
there is something else to which I wish to draw attention. This is 
the passion that drives Noorani's argument against Savarkar in the 
first place. It stems from the exasperation of one who firmly 
believes that Savarkar should not become a moral exemplar for the 
country. I may add that reading this book has persuaded me that this 
is an important enterprise because there is a common sense that has 
obscured assessments of Savarkar by, according him, a heroic aura. 
What sadder proof of this is needed after the decision to instal the 
portrait was taken by a parliamentary committee, which included 
members of the Opposition?

Briefly put, the common sense about Savarkar (with which Hindutva 
propagandists continually thump their chests) is one that says he was 
a brave and heroic revolutionary terrorist, who made a daring escape 
from a ship and later underwent immense hardship in the Andamans 
before his release. This is a version that has commanded respect from 
even the political opponents of Savarkar. Noorani endorses this 
version. But he also suggests that there is another larger, hidden 
story behind the recounting of the bare facts of heroism and this is 
the one that he uncovers with concentrated precision. The most 
important element of this submerged story is a repeated pattern of 
behaviour that shows Savarkar instigating a conspiracy and then, 
after imprisonment or investigation, pledging loyalty to the 
authorities against whom the plots were hatched. Noorani provides 
repeated instances in which Savarkar pledged loyalty to the British 
Crown, beginning from 1911, the year he was confined to the Andamans. 
Savarkar had been implicated in the murder of two British civilian 
officials and later testimonies indicate that he had directly 
instigated them. Within a year of his incarceration in the Andamans 
(Savarkar had surrendered after the incident of his daring escape) 
Savarkar dispatched a "petition for clemency". Savarkar refers to 
this in his 1913 petition (which is still preserved) where he 
applauds the British by acclaiming that "the Mighty alone can afford 
to be merciful" and tells them that he was a "prodigal son" 
presumably waiting to be swept back into the arms of the colonial 
bureaucracy. This is only two of the several instances where Savarkar 
uses a rhetoric of pleading that is far in excess of what is apposite 
to a self-respecting plea for pardon. But there is also something 
else that is interesting. This concerns not Savarkar's capacity for 
mendicancy but something related to it, that is, his habit of denial. 
Noorani relates a significant incident. The setting is the Gandhi 
murder trial at Red Fort. Savarkar sits with the accused, including 
the Godse brothers, for whom he has been a figure of intimate 
inspiration. But throughout the trial Savarkar studiously ignores 
Nathuram. Interestingly, Godse seemed less hurt by Savarkar's 
labelling of him and the others as criminals than by the fact of 
Savarkar's cold rejection. Inamdar, a lawyer-admirer of Savarkar, 
records: "How Nathuram yearned for a touch of Tatyarao's [Savarkar] 
hand, a word of sympathy, of at least a look of compassion in the 
secluded confines of his cell." It may help to recall that Godse was 
facing certain death at this point for a crime in which Savarkar was 
also implicated to deduce the obvious facets of Savarkar's character.

This book is a valuable addition to the growing corpus of knowledge 
about Hindutva and its practitioners. Indeed, this may well be the 
first non-hagiographical biography of an important Hindutva leader: 
it certainly is the first such on Savarkar. I have already dwelt upon 
the considerable merits of the book. In fact if there is a problem 
with the book it stems from a job being done too well. Noorani's 
argument is tenacious and while registering the contrary features of 
Savarkar it possesses the qualities of a brilliant legal brief that 
effectively demolishes the myth of Savarkar, the nationalist icon. 
However, one does not get the sense of a living self emerging from 
these pages. One wishes for a bit more stress on the inconsistencies 
in Savarkar's behaviour, more personal details and much more by way 
of placing him in social and political contexts. This book would have 
been far richer if it had negotiated with many more conventions of 
the biographical genre.

But these are merely qualifications. They must take a place secondary 
to the importance of the question that the book asks. With the 
installation of Savarkar's portrait one can see yet another step by 
which the dominant notion of nationalism is being shifted from 
anti-colonialism to Hindu sentiments. This initiative to redefine 
nationalism is not surprising since it comes from a government that 
has outdone all others is selling off the assets of the country and 
demonstrated its considerable skills in playing Radha to the United 
States' government's Krishna. A government that has even lost the 
nerve to straightforwardly condemn the most unpopular and publicly 
unjust war in history, a war that tells all nations today that you 
may be the next target after Iraq. But this only means that some of 
the patterns of communal nationalism evident in the national movement 
of substituting an internal enemy for a powerful, external one, are 
repeating themselves in a different form in the age of U.S.-dominated 
globalisation. To confront the problem of Savarkar in the present, 
therefore, is also to reckon with a debate that was unresolved in the 
course of the freedom struggle. How do we define ourselves as a 
country, as Hindus/Muslims or as people fighting - with others in 
different lands - for a shared freedom? In being able to suggest 
directions to questions it had yet to confront, I can only express 
gratitude to Noorani's book.

Pradip Kumar Datta teaches in a multi-disciplinary position at the 
Department of Political Science, Delhi University.

______


#5.

Center for Advocacy in Mental Health
A research center of bapu trust
36B Ground Floor Jaladhara Housing Society
583 Narayan Peth, Pune 411 030, India
T- 0091-20-4451084 Email- wamhc@vsnl.net
Website- http://www.wamhic.com

3-3-2003

Dear friends,

We are making an appeal to all friends, mental health professionals 
and human rights activists to take note and respond to a most urgent 
issue concerning DIRECT ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy).

We are shocked that Dr Chittaranjan Andrade, a very reputed 
psychiatrist from NIMHANS, should make a case for direct ECT (Electro 
Convulsive Therapy) in a recent Issue of Medical Ethics (Andrade, 
2003). This article comes in the line of a series of very worrying 
articles and perspectives promoting direct ECT, and urging more 
research on direct ECT.

In ECT, an electrical current of between 70 to 170 volts is passed 
for between 0.5 and 1.5 seconds. In direct ECT the voltage may be 
slightly lower. It throws the body into epilepsy like seizures. While 
the patient is conscious in the beginning, he or she is rendered 
unconscious when the grand mal seizure starts. He is held down 
physically to prevent fractures and internal injuries. The risk of 
injury is high. As the procedure is given in series, usually this 
hazard is experienced again and again. In an ideal situation, the 
procedure is repeated between 6 to 10 times. But continuous dosing up 
to 20 times or more in India is not unknown

Direct ECT is commonly practiced in India. This procedure has 
recently been placed as a controversial and contested issue before 
the Supreme Court, through a petition filed by Saarthak, a mental 
health NGO working from New Delhi. On the misleading advise of 
psychiatrists with a vested interest in this procedure, the supreme 
court declared the procedure "safe".

In its "modern" or "modified" form (Modified ECT), the patient is not 
allowed to eat or drink for four hours or more before the procedure, 
to reduce the risk of vomiting and incontinence. Medication may be 
given to reduce the mouth secretions. Muscle relaxants and anesthesia 
are given to reduce the overt epileptic / muscular convulsions and 
patient anxiety. The muscle relaxant paralyzes all the muscles of the 
body, including those of the respiratory system. A "crash cart" is 
kept nearby, with a variety of life-saving devices and medications, 
including a defibrillator for kick starting the heart in case of a 
cardiac arrest. The brain is subjected to seizure activity induced by 
the electrical current. The causal mechanism by which the treatment 
works is not known. Endocrinological, neurotransmitter and other 
changes have drawn a blank. It is believed that electricity itself 
and the seizure activity it produces is the curing element. We must 
remember again that this procedure is repeated several times, 
increasing risk multifold.

The Italian Ugo Cerletti invented ECT in 1938, drawing inspiration 
from the fact that pigs being prepared for slaughter in an abattoir 
were first rendered unconscious by passing electricity through 
bilateral placement of electrodes against the head. The pigs 
convulsed and fell unconscious. After a long innings of brutal 
experimentation and research, the developed world banned direct ECT 
in the early 1960s. Many European countries have phased out even 
modified ECT, while in the US its usage has come down drastically 
after the 1980s, following class action. The 1978 APA Task Force 
reported that only 16% of psychiatrists gave (modified) ECT. ECT 
research does not receive funding from government bodies, or from 
large foundations. It is largely funded by private business. 
International journals will not publish articles on direct ECT.

To make a case for direct ECT in this day and age, establishes a 
fresh, new low for psychiatric ethics in India. Instead of debating 
the issue of =91whether or not ECT=92, and what community alternatives we 
can create in mental health, we are placed in this ridiculous 
situation of debating direct ECT.

Dr Andrade claims that direct ECT is "virtually" risk free. But 
neither in this article nor in any of the relevant research in India, 
some of which is mentioned herein, has anyone vouchsafed even the 
relative safety of ECT, whether direct or modified. The only argument 
made is that modified ECT is even worse than direct ECT. Of course, 
we can expect patients will be reassured by this argument.

In the West, two important factors led to the phasing out of direct 
ECT: one was the discovery that between 0.5% to 20% of patients 
suffered from vertebral fractures; and the second was their evident 
terror and trauma. Even Dr Andrade writes that direct ECT is 
associated with risk of vertebral / thoracic fractures, dislocation 
of various joints, muscle or ligament tears, cardiac arrhythmias, 
fluid secretion into respiratory tract, internal tears, injuries and 
blood letting, other than fear and anxiety.

Kiloh, et. al. (1988) give this long list of common "complaints" 
following ECT, which are more acutely experienced when given direct: 
headache, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, muscle stiffness, pain, visual 
impairment due to conjunctival haemorrhages, tachycardia/bradycardia, 
BP surges, changes in Cardio Vascular activities, alteration in blood 
brain barrier, ECG changes, arrhythmias, cardiac arrest, ventricular 
fibrillation, sudden death, dysrhythmias, transient dysphasia, 
amenorrhoea, hemiparesis, tactile/visual inattention, homonymous 
haemianopia. Among the "risks" mentioned are the following: 
myocardial infarction, pulmonary abscesses, pulmonary embolism, 
activation of pulmonary TB, rupture of colon with peritonitis, 
gastric haemorrhage, perforation of a peptic ulcer, haemorrhage into 
the thyroid, epistaxis, adrenal haemorrhage, strangulated hernia, 
cerebral haemorrhage and subarachnoid haemorrhages. Infrequent 
"complications" that arise may be fractures (vertebrae, femu! r, 
scapula, humerus) and dislocations (jaw, shoulder), cardiac 
arrhythmias, apnoea and "tardive" convulsions. Among the inevitable 
"side-effects" are mentioned, cardiovascular responses, postictal 
clouding of consciousness and memory impairment. With modified ECT, 
the effects are "less likely" but not completely ruled out.

What is it, about being "mentally ill", that permits society and 
psychiatric professionals to argue that being exposed to these risks 
repeatedly is quite all right? Even the professionals never 
considered ECT as a "cure", but only as palliative. This means that 
in practice, professionals can use it as and when they like as, 
palliative care can be seen as an ongoing need, unlike curative care.

Andrade cites "further evidence" of research by Tharyan, et al. 
(1993), highly (mis)quoted studies done in the early 1990s on direct 
ECT. He writes that in this study only 12 patients experienced 
fractures out of a total of 1835 patients receiving 13597 treatments. 
This sounds as if a few of the patients walked out of the ECT table 
with a slight twisting of the middle finger. He fails to mention 
relevant data from this study that these were thoracic / vertebral 
fractures involving almost a third of the body vertebrae. Andrade 
also fails to mention that in this study, there was one reported 
death due to cardiac arrest (i.e. one patient out of 1835 died), a 
good percentage experienced body aches, both local and generalised, 
and another one percent of the patients had cardiac complications. 
These data, especially the spinal injury and the mortality rate, 
which from a consumer point of view seem horrific, are not considered 
"clinically significant" by the authors of this cont! entious study 
nor by Andrade. In Andrade=92s own study (2000), 2% of the patients 
experienced "a musculo-skeletal event".

The recent APA Task Force on ECT (2001) notes that contrary to 
earlier evidence, they have to now acknowledge that mortality rates 
with ECT (modified) may be as high as 1 in 10,000 patients. Consumers 
(Frank, 2002) say that mortality rates may be as high as 1% with 
modified ECT. The mortality rates are probably higher among the 
elderly, making it a highly contested procedure among them. The Task 
=46orce report also notes that 1 in 200 may experience irretrievable 
memory loss. The Bombay High Court ordered against the use of direct 
ECT way back in 1989, following the Mahajan Committee 
Recommendations. In Goa too, due to legal advocacy and the proactive 
role of psychiatrists there, direct ECT has been banned.

Death in the case of ECT is usually due to cardio-vascular or 
cerebral-vascular complications, followed by respiratory failure. 
Shukla (1985), in discussing a case report of death following 
modified ECT, reviews the mortality data associated with the 
procedure. Rates between 0.8% and 0.003% have been reported in the 
western literature. Shukla, finding it a curious fact that deaths 
have not been reported at all in the Indian professional literature, 
observes that fatalities are not always publicly reported, 
particularly in India but every psychiatrist would have experienced 
such cases in his practice.

The European CPT (Convention for the Prevention of Torture) 2002 
prohibits the use of direct ECT as a form of torture. One of the 
reasons cited is the terror experienced by patients in use of the 
procedure. The suggestion in relevant literature is that ECT affects 
the limbic system of the brain, the same system that is affected by 
deep trauma. Medical narratives regarding direct ECT highlight the 
very understandable horror of experiencing ECT effects as well as 
accidents and disabilities following a procedure which is supposed to 
"cure" (Wiseman, 1995). The motor, physiological and cognitive 
effects of ECT recipients following treatment are the same as trauma 
victims. The terror is a sign of trauma, and not a sign of insanity. 
Victims of direct ECT should be considered as victims of medical 
torture and brought within human rights and medico-legal 
jurisprudence.

In Tharyan et al=92s study, a high percentage of patients (7.5%) 
reported fear and apprehension of the procedure, and 50 patients 
refused the treatment. How did the researchers proceed with the 
study? They did so, by actually sedating the patients!! Quoting them 
in full: "A fifty of them [patients] refused further ECT due to this 
fear while in the remainder (100 patients) the fear was reduced by 
sedative premeditation enabling them to complete the course of ECT. 
In the earlier half of the decade under review, barbiturates, oral 
diazepam, parenteral haloperidol and even thiopentone were used to 
allay anxiety; in recent years, this has been effectively managed by 
pretreatment with 1 to 4 mg of lorazepam given orally." The authors 
of this study find it an interesting observation that those who 
refused the treatment were not among those who were sedated. Their 
study also suggests that it is common practice to sedate patients who 
refuse ECT. Amazingly, they recommend the use of ! sedatives to 
minimize the fear of ECT.

Such is the prejudicial approach to mentally ill patients, that 
fearful refusal of a hazardous and life-threatening procedure is 
considered as a mere symptom of insanity, and further treated with 
sedatives. How do the professionals reconcile ethical issues of 
consent in such instances?

In many countries, giving even modified ECT to children, elderly and 
pregnant women is prohibited. In Tharyan et al=92s study, direct ECT 
has been administered to the age group 14 to 70, including women in 
all trimesters of pregnancy. How did the IEC of CMC, the site of this 
study, allow this to happen? The study has continued uninterrupted 
for 11 years.

Tharyan, et al=92s study further reassures that "trained" professionals 
were used to give direct ECT. What does training mean in the context 
of direct ECT? You just need some physically very strong people to 
tie down the patient in strategic points and to keep the jaw and 
joint areas from major injury. Note further, in Tharyan et al=92s 
study, the composition of the full "team" used in this study to 
prevent injury: four orderlies, three nurses, two postgraduate 
trainees and a consultant psychiatrist, a total of 10 trained people! 
The argument concerning the cost-effectiveness of the procedure is 
not validated by this study. Even with a full load of 10 people tying 
down a patient from the convulsions, the reported injury rate was not 
insignificant. Have the costs of disability days following ECT been 
taken into account? Kiloh et al (1988) reported studies where the ECT 
took only a few hours, but the patients had to be hospitalized for a 
week after that, waiting for the confusi! on and suicidal ideation to 
clear up (p.251)!

Why would presumably rational scientists produce such irrational 
arguments to safeguard a scientifically dubious and highly hazardous 
procedure? The fact is that in nearly every city, a majority of 
private practitioners give ECT in their private clinics. A recent 
survey in western India showed that nearly 80% of private 
psychiatrists give ECT, costing anywhere between 500 to 1000 rupees 
per dose. For a minimum of 6 doses, the cost would be between 3000/- 
to 6000/- rupees. Repeated dosing is not uncommon in India. ECT is 
given as palliative care, and not as cure. This means that in 
practice, professionals can justify repeated and uninterrupted use of 
direct ECT, exposing the patient to repeated risk as well as 
increasing the cost of care tremendously. ECT is the only piece of 
technology that psychiatry can boast of. Psychiatrists make a lot of 
money by giving ECT in their clinics. There are psychiatrists who ask 
the patient to first take an ECT before even consultation (Ba! pu 
workshop, 2002)! ECT has been given to cure "naxalism" (Ramaswamy, 
2000) and homosexuality. In private practice, it is difficult to have 
the medical back up necessary to give anesthesia or for 
resuscitation. ECT guidelines do not exist in India, making it 
conducive for doctors to engage in rampant abuse of the procedure. 
The situation here is similar to sex selection tests as the private 
market rules the roost and must be confronted in a like-wise manner.

In our view, direct ECT is a matter for human rights law, prevention 
of torture instruments, regulation and consumer litigation. Andrade 
suggests that there must be further research on direct ECT. We oppose 
any future conduct of such research. Statutory authorities, human 
rights commission, and medical regulatory bodies must proscribe such 
research. Funding bodies must act strictly against the use of direct 
ECT in their field areas.

We appeal to all those committed to a human rights regime in mental 
health care to address this issue in an urgent manner. This would be 
an important way of making meaningful linkages with those struggling 
for human rights within the mental health service delivery system.

Yours sincerely,

Aparna Waikar
Bhargavi Davar
Chandra Karhadkar
Darshana Bansode
Deepra Dandekar
Seema Kakade
Sonali Wayal
Yogita Kulkarni


References:
Andrade, C. (2003) "Unmodified ECT: Ethical Issues", Issues in 
Medical Ethics, Vol. 11 Issue 1, pp. 9-10.
Andrade, C., Rele, K., Sutharshan, R., Shah, N. (2000) 
"Musculoskeletal morbidity with unmodified ECT may be less than 
earlier believed", Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 42, pp. 156-162.
Bapu Workshop, (2002) "Right to Rehabilitation of Persons with Mental 
Illness", August 24th, Indian Social Institute, New Delhi.
CPT, (2002) European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and 
Inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, CPT - 2002, Chapter VI- 
Involuntary Commitment to psychiatric establishments, Section 39 - 
ECT. Council of Europe Convention.
=46rank, LR 2003, "Electroshock: A crime against the spirit", In a 
Nutshell, Fall/Winter 2002-2003, pp. 16-22.
Kiloh, L.G., Smith, J.S., Johnson, G.F. (1988) Physical treatments in 
Psychiatry. Foreword by Sir Martin Roth. Blackwell.
Ramaswamy, G. (2000) "A remembered rage", In Aaina, Vol. 1 Issue 1, 
January 2000.
Shukla, G.D. (1985) "Death following ECT- A case report", Indian 
Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 27, Issue 01, pp. 95-97.
Task Force Reports (1978, 1990, 2001) on ECT. American Psychiatric 
Association, USA.
Tharyan, P., Saju, P.J., Datta, S., John, J.K., Kuruvilla, K. (1993) 
"Physical morbidity with unmodified ECT: a decade of experience", 
Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 35, Issue 4, pp. 211-214.
Wiseman, B. (1995) Psychiatry: The ultimate betrayal. Freedom 
Publishing Co. A Publication of Citizens Commission for Human Rights, 
LA, California.

______


#6.

=46rontline  (Chennai) Issue 08, April 12 - 25, 2003
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2008/stories/20030425001105200.htm

Screening the truth

ANUPAMA KATAKAM

"WE are supposed to be citizens of a democratic nation. If the right 
to speech and expression is taken away from us, then we cannot call 
ourselves a democracy... they want to suppress the truth, but we will 
not let them," says Ramesh Pimple, the producer of Aakrosh, which has 
run into trouble with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

In what appears to be a concerted effort to muffle the hard truths, 
the CBFC has denied a certificate of release to Aakrosh, a 20-minute 
documentary film based on interviews with some of the survivors of 
the communal riots that took place in Gujarat last year. Objecting to 
the narration, which describes certain insensitive, callous and 
communal aspects of the Gujarat police force, the board has stated 
that the film cannot be cleared for release as "it shows the 
government and police in a bad light". Moreover, the board feels that 
"the film depicts violence, which will remind the people about the 
Gujarat riots. The overall impact is negative as it will lead to 
inciting communal hatred wherever screened". Unless the film is 
certified for release it cannot be shown anywhere to any audience 
which the police define as the "public".

"There is not an iota of violence shown in Aakrosh," Pimple said. 
Through a series of interviews, the film documents and gives voice to 
the sufferings of those who were innocent targets of the communal 
hatred instigated by some political leaders. But the film does not 
mention the names of people or political parties, Pimple told 
=46rontline. In fact, in spite of catching the perpetrators of violence 
on camera, the team did not include several gruesome images of 
violence, bodies, rape victims and so on.

"It simply focusses on narrations of factual events that took place 
in Gujarat last year by people who experienced it first hand," Pimple 
said. "Essentially, we leave it to the people who survived the 
onslaught of a relentless pogrom to tell the complete truth." He says 
he cannot understand why the film has been denied a release 
certificate. "We have not violated any guideline. It is obvious that 
the Central government wants to black out what happened in Gujarat 
from the country's history. And they are scared of the truth coming 
out."

In a statement to the media, the People's Media Initiative (PMI), the 
organisation that supported the making of the film, said: "All we 
wanted to do was show the futility of violence and the necessity for 
a peaceful existence for all. Besides, we wanted to show that the 
sufferer of this kind of attack is inevitably the common man, who is 
as it is struggling for his day-to-day survival. For us a victim is a 
victim. He need not belong to any religion - which is why we have not 
mentioned names. They should not be identified by religion because 
that is what the communal forces want. Their aim is to divide people 
like this."

The word `aakrosh' means `outburst'. The documentary includes 
poignant visuals of 30 to 40 survivors of the carnage. Each person 
interviewed talks about brutal massacres that took place in their 
neighbourhoods. They describe frenzied communal mobs escorted by the 
police and politicians. The survivors also speak about how the police 
ignored cries for help. Both men and women break down on camera 
saying that they have nowhere to go. A person whose wife and children 
were killed by a mob says he will never go back to his village. 
Another, whose house was burnt, says she was given Rs.500 as 
compensation and adds, "This won't even build a door." The film has a 
few shots of people in hospitals, injured children, wrecked homes, 
burnt vehicles and deserted streets, which is in context with the 
interviewees' descriptions. Nothing is here that has not already 
appeared on television during the coverage of the riots.

More than 1,000 people were killed in the communal riots that 
engulfed Gujarat since February 2002. Some 1.5 lakh people were 
hounded out of their homes and continue to remain homeless with 
little relief to sustain a decent life. The government's apathy 
towards the plight of the affected people is well-known but it goes 
unchecked.

"We wanted to make a film to tell people exactly what happened in 
Gujarat," says Geeta Chawda, the cinematographer of Aakrosh. 
"Humanity has suffered and it is our responsibility to use our media 
to make people aware of what mindless violence does. The audio- 
visual media are the most powerful. When you hear and see people talk 
of the riots it is far more convincing than reading about it. Much of 
what we have covered has appeared in the print media but nobody in 
that stream is being suppressed the way we are," she says. "It is 
completely absurd. The film is a straightforward documentary. Why 
don't they censor feature films which show domestic violence and 
distasteful shots of gore and blood?" Geeta Chawda asks

Aakrosh was selected for screening at the Hyderabad Film Festival 
organised by the South Asian Forum. Ironically, it was to be India's 
official entry at film festivals in London and Thiruvananthapuram 
besides one in Japan as well as the Geneva Human Rights Film 
=46estival. However, as the film has been denied the release 
certificate, it cannot be screened at any of them. For any film that 
is entered or invited to participate in a film festival has to have 
the clearance from its country's censor or certifying board to be 
screened for public viewing.

"They have violated the guidelines that we have set for documentary 
films dealing with sensitive issues," Arvind Trivedi of the CBFC told 
=46rontline. He, however, refused to give details regarding the 
guidelines. "Ask the producer" was Trivedi's refrain to any more 
questions. The producers have appealed to a revising committee for 
the certificate of release.

Aakrosh has met the same fate of Anand Patwardhan's War and Peace. 
=46or the past two years, Patwardhan has been trying to get the CBFC to 
certify the film. Is this an ominous sign of things to come, ask 
film-makers.

_____


#7.

Sham-e-Ghariban

Qatilo Yeh jagha kuchh naee to naheen
Ye jagha is se pahle bhi sajti rahee
=46auj ke silsile aur tabl-o-alam
Lashkaron ki safen, azm ke qafile
Jan lene ka dar, jan dene ki dhun
Puri dunyan pe qabze ka tha ek nasha
Taj ki takht ki bhook thi ek taraf
Aur yaheen the who sab,
Sar pe bahdhe kafan
Jo usulon pe mitne ko tayyar the
Is jagha zulm ki had muqarrar hui
Aur shahadat ke paimane banche gaye
Yeh wahee ret hai, yeh wahee dhool hai
Nainawa hai wahi, karbala hai wahee
Teer bhi, sang bhi, bediyan bhi wahee
Ham ne pahle bhi parkhe hain zalim yahan
Ham ne pahle bhi dekhe hain naizon pe sar
Khoon-e-nahaq ki khushboo hai ab tak yahan
Is ko pahchan lo,

Qatilo Yeh jagha kuchh naee to naheen
Ye jagha is se pahle bhi sajti rahee

Jeet kar jang pahle bhi hare the tum
Jeet kar jang phir har jao ge tum
Aur tareekh apne ko dohraigee
Qatilo is se pehle bhi aisa hua
Qatl ho kar bhi bazee hamari rahee

Qatilo Yeh jagha kuchh naee to naheen
Ye jagha is se pahle bhi sajti rahee

(Iraq ke awam ke naam, jinhon ne tisree dunyan ke awam ki laj rakh lee)

Gauhar Raza
05.04.2003

_____


#8.

A Revelation from Bosh Bhagwan*

Badruddin R. Gowani

a Muslim mosque is razed
was built on a place
where Lord Ram was born
claim the Hindu fanatics

Ram is a myth
mosque was a reality
reality doesn=92t matter
(if it mattered
Babylon won=92t be a danger
for those viciously attacking it)
what matters is power

now the Buddhists claim
it belongs to them
Jains have already joined the battle
Sikhs can=92t
Guru Nanak was around
when the mosque was built
Christians can=92t
a terrorized community just can=92t

religious idiots and bigots
(for whom
myth past dead
is valuable precious lovable
reality present living
is cheap worthless hateful)

stop this nonsense
solve this impasse
before =85

Bosh Bhagwan
who has as many arms
as there are nations on the map
is planning to claim
(His Holey-ness, the Bosh Bhagwan
revealed this to me in my dream)
His arm extending to India
(presently in a blessing mode)
was manufactured on that same spot


*God or god in several South Asian languages.
April 7, 2003


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