SACW | 27 April 03

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  |  27 April,  2003

#1. Sri Lanka: Women's appeal on peace talks
#2. Bangladesh: 1971: An Ilish Story (Khademul Islam)
#3. In distant Geneva, India treads Pakistani line of sexual control 
(Manoj Mitta)
#4. War on Iraq:
- The Empire of Terror (I.K. Shukla)
- Ungrateful Ali: The Painful Paradox of Embedded Freedom (Siddharth 
Varadarajan)
#5. Violence has become a part of our daily discourse, internalised 
and accepted (Beena Sarwar)
#6. Learning from neighbours (Sanjoy Hazarika)
#7. India: Anti Terrorist law being used selectively against the 
minorities in Gujarat
#8. Aparna Sen's Film "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer."
- Film Review: Hatred Cannot Keep These Lovers Apart (Lawrence Van Gelder)
- Aparna Sen on the film....
#9. India: VHP - Metaphors Keen To Wound: A three-pronged spear as 
Hindutva symbol. Tell it to the Greeks. (Sheela Reddy)
#10. India: Jail Bird's Song:  But the law is one antidote to Togadia 
(Ranjit Bhushan)

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


#1.


Sunday Observer (Sri Lanka)
Sunday, 27 April 2003

Women's appeal on peace talks

A group of concerned women's organisations have expressed deep 
concern about the LTTE's temporary withdrawal from the peace talks 
and have called on the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE to resume 
negotiations to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.

They have drawn the attention of the Government and the LTTE to the 
untold suffering and hardship experienced by people from all ethnic 
communities and particularly by people of the north east in the past 
two decades due to the ethnic conflict and war and warned that the 
resumption of conflict will only subject people yet again to violence 
and destruction.

The press release signed by 15 women's organisations state: "The 
ceasefire has enabled all of us to live with the absence of war and 
it is imperative we continue to seek peaceful means of strengthening 
the ceasefire and working towards a meaningful and sustainable 
political solution to the ethnic conflict.

We are pleased to note the progress made thus far and urge the 
Government and the LTTE to continue to engage in peace talks. In the 
spirit of co-operation and trust building between the parties, we 
appeal to the Government and the LTTE to seize the opportunity to end 
two decades of conflict and resume the suspended negotiations which 
will enable a just settlement that will benefit all the peoples of 
this country.

We also call upon all individuals and organisations concerned about 
the state of the peace talks and committed to peace in Sri Lanka to 
add their voice to ours in support of building sustainable peace."

______


#2.

The Daily Star (Dhaka)
April 26, 2003

1971: An Ilish Story

Khademul Islam

It is December 1972 in Dhaka (then Dacca). A brilliant mid-morning on 
a back verandah in Rayer Bazaar. My mother and I are comfortably 
perched on old cane moras watching my maternal grandmother about to 
gut a fish. She is seated behind the dark, curved blade of an old 
boti, holding down its scarred, wooden stock with her right foot. The 
sharpened edge of the blade glints. A small, stained pati (reed mat) 
is spread beneath the boti. By her side, on the coarse red cement, is 
a little wicker basket. She is a tiny woman with a white, stiffly 
starched sari like a crackling cloud around her. I haven't seen her 
since I was a child. Our family, my parents, I, my brother and 
sister, had escaped from Karachi, from the old West Pakistan, to 
Dhaka, to the newly-risen state of Bangladesh barely a month back, 
and were staying with my mama (maternal uncle) till we could find our 
footing. I look up at the sky bordering the verandah roof, at the day 
glowing with the same liquid light in which we, five refugees lugging 
three suitcases, had crossed the Indo-Bangladesh border at Benapole. 
My grandmother had come down from Chittagong to visit with us, 
marvelling at her grandchildren's growth and clucking sympathetically 
at stories of our flight from Pakistan.

"Ilish mach," she had informed me with a smile, holding it up in the 
air. From the Padma. "Taja (fresh)," she had added, pointing to a 
startlingly clear, protruding eye. And indeed, the sleek body, 
silvery as a sitar note, faintly bluish-green on its back, had winked 
in the vivid sunlight. It is a medium-sized ilish ("they're small in 
the wintertime"), the downward slant of its mouth and the angular 
line of its lower jaw giving it a vaguely determined air. I cannot 
remember the last time I had seen one.

Born and raised in dry, dun-colored, sprawling Karachi city, all 
this, fish, rivers, relatives, Dhaka's sudden swathes of green grass 
and toy-sized dak opish (post offices), is new to me.

My grandmother is talking about 1971. Every Bengali in 1972 talked 
about 1971, about the civil war, refugees, and the subsequent release 
from the daily horror.

"1971 was 1947 all over again," she says as she holds both ends of 
the fish with her hands and vigorously saws it back and forth across 
the blade. Fish scales fly in all directions and a few sizzle upward, 
float momentarily at the top of their arc, aquamarine and topaz 
spangles, before gliding down on to the cement. In 1947, during the 
Partition, my grandparents had fled from Calcutta (now Kolkata) along 
with other Muslims. Whole paras (neighborhoods) slaughtered in a day, 
my mother had said. Babies thrown over walls. Trembling adults and 
crying children fleeing pell-mell.

She then cuts off the small dorsal fin on the gray, denuded body, 
brusquely ripping through cartilage and tendon, leaving a thin scar, 
a bloodied line, on top. Then snips the smaller lower fins off, tchk, 
tchk, till the tiniest stubs are left.

"Down the road from our house," she continues with an upward glance 
at us, the irises of her eyes black as amulet string, "there was a 
Hindu household." Her hands are betel-nut brown and turmeric-stained, 
a working matriarch's hands, ceaselessly directing, ladling, tucking 
in, handing out the daily bazaar money, smoothing out, folding a paan 
leaf, picking.

She neatly fits the blade under the crescent moons of the gill covers 
and shears them off, exposing the glutinous, intricate balsa wood 
fretwork of bone, spotted with scarlet moss and lichen, that knits 
together fish head. The gills, serrated flaps laid on top of each 
other, are a distinct, flushed maroon.

"Taja," she says again and nods approvingly, the corona of sprung 
hairs around her head stirring with the motion. Behind her against 
the far wall are two empty flowerpots and a red earthen bowl with 
drained rice starch for crisping her saris. Their shadows, 
peasant-dark doubles, are sharply etched on the peeling yellow 
limewash. A column of ants is marching up the sides and round the rim 
of the bowl.

"They were long-time residents of our para. We would allow them to 
use our big pond for bathing," she says, vigorously scraping the last 
few scales off near the deeply Vee-d tail. Her words are in sync with 
her moving, working arms, spilling out, then halting, then spilling 
again.

"Well, you know, Chittagong is a conservative place, and our maulvi 
was a Peace Committe member." Peace committees had been Bengali 
groups, largely in the rural areas, fostered by the Pakistan army for 
propaganda and terror. She turns the fish upward and makes an 
incision just below its throat with the tip of the boti, a precise 
surgical cut, then gingerly draws out tiny fish sacs and glands, gray 
and yellow snot strung on liquid lines like a surreal dhobi's wash. 
Out come micro pouches and bags, pearl and umbra, to be flicked on to 
the mat. The first flies appear.

She then grips the fish solidly with both hands, one clamped over the 
mouth and the other around its middle, and cuts its head off, the 
flesh on her upper arms jiggling with the effort. A snapping sound as 
the spine, after an initial resistance, gives way. Red specks spatter 
her spotless right knee. Ash-colored threads, supple links to an 
external world of water and weeds, are visible inside the hollow 
stem. The mouth gapes. She trims the head with casual, familiar 
little flourishes and puts it in the basket.

"One night--well, it was two o'clock in the morning, we heard 
screaming and shouts of narai takbir," she continues, referring to 
the Muslim rallying cry during the 1947 communal riots.

She holds the ilish lengthwise along the blade, grasping it by the 
twin prows of its headless neck so that its back is towards her and 
slices open the soft white underbelly with one single fluid upward 
motion. She then brings the fish closer to her and peers inside.

"Eggs?" my mother asks.

"I don't see any," my grandmother replies. "They get eggs only during 
the borsha (rainy) season." My mother waves her hands to ward off the 
flies.

She pulls out the slithery guts from the marbled, moist cavity with 
practiced fingertips. Dark strings coated with clotted blood. Her 
agile fingers worry inside the gaping, boat-shaped abdominal hole, 
checking and rechecking for detritus. For life, wet, humid, 
mucous-laden.

"The next morning we heard that they had been attacked and killed," 
she says with another glance at us, pushing back rimless spectacles 
with the back of her right hand, careful to keep her fingers clear of 
the lenses. "They said the mollah himself had slit their throats." 
Her voice ends on an accusing note.

"Who said?" asks my mother.

"Their immediate neighbors. Muslims."

A silence, in which a breeze sighs through torn leaves as she deftly 
turns the fish over and under in her hands, scrutinizing her 
handiwork. A painter surveying an almost finished canvas, assessing 
shades and tones. Then, slowly, almost dreamily, she slices the fish 
into proportionate, heart-shaped pieces, bullying only through the 
spine and translucent rib bones, and plops them into the basket. The 
tail lands right by the head. Teardrops of blood, instant rubies in 
the hot bright gush of sun, well up from the chunks of pale pink 
flesh. The boti blade, like her fingertips, is streaked with blood 
and slick traces of gummy matter. Fishy secretions, around which the 
flies happily buzz.

"Where's the maulvi now?" my mother asks.

"Oh, he's still walking around, hale and hearty."

She had used the word "jobai," the language of Qurbani Eid, the day 
of ritual sacrifice of animals that I have been steeped in since 
childhood. It specifically means to slit the throat. In Urdu, in 
Pakistan, it is the sharper, metallic "zabai." On Eid day, scared, 
wild-eyed cows would have their hooves tied and brought crashing down 
on to cement courtyards or bruised grass, and then the mullah would 
step in with his kalma and his newly whetted knives. Mullahs' hands, 
nails bitten to the quick, raised in supplication or stroking a 
beard, an index finger reverently running along a line in an open 
Qur'an as if to underline its surging rhythms. Hands that ran 
orphanages, bathed the dead, performed marriages, went door to door 
on Qurbani Eid plying their trade.

The cow would draw air through its mouth in great heaving gasps only 
for it to vent noisily through the ripped, open gullet, dewlaps 
flapping, and as this noise would fill the air above our heads, we 
the children in our festive new Eid clothes (the littler girls 
spangled in flickering zari and silk hair ribbons) would stand in a 
circle and watch as arterial blood, red, viscid, slippery, would 
first spurt and then seep into the earth. Beneath Karachi's peerless, 
fabulously blue summer skies.

I look at my tingling palms, at my grandmother's cheeks, still smooth 
after all these ruffled decades, at the chipped tomato of my mother's 
toes. Bengali skin, tenderly being warmed by a saffron sun. Our 
flesh, the mysterious, particular, almost prim denseness of live 
tissue, its sinuous declivities, the cells and membrane stitched 
together, really, by faith and prayer.

What unmakes us, makes us.

Later at lunch, with sugary squares of siestatime light streaming in 
through thin white curtains and my grandmother's hair still wet from 
her bath, my mama notices that I am giving the fish curry a wide 
berth.

"You're not eating the ilish?"
"Not today."
"Can't sort out the bones, eh?"
"Yes. I think I need more time."
A pause. Another round of rice and daal for everybody except me.
"You're hardly eating at all."
"I'm not very hungry."
"So how do you like our Dhaka?"
"Bhalo (good). Khubi bhalo (very good)."

 From Six Seasons Review, Volume 1 Number 2, published by Mohiuddin 
Ahmed, UPL, Dhaka.


_____


#3.

The Indian Express (India)
April 27, 2003

In distant Geneva, India treads Pakistani line of sexual control
Manoj Mitta

Geneva, April 26: No country has a problem reaffirming the familiar 
principle that there should be no discrimination on the ground of 
sex. But how about discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation?

The idea of introducing this radical twist - that you can't 
discriminate against somebody simply because he or she is not 
heterosexual - has caused much commotion in the just-concluded annual 
session of the UN Commission on Human Rights.


The last two days of the six-week session saw sharp differences 
emerge on the subject among countries on regional and religious 
lines. While the West by and large backed the proposal on sexual 
orientation mooted by Brazil, most Asian and African countries 
opposed the idea of doing anything that could encourage homosexuality.

Pakistan led the charge as it contended that the sexual orientation 
proposal sought to impose on Islamic countries a value system that 
was totally unacceptable to their religion.

Interestingly, India quietly followed Pakistan's lead on both days of 
the debate. On April 24, India voted in favour of Pakistan's motion 
that the Commission should take no action on the Brazilian 
resolution. Even after the no-action motion was narrowly defeated, 
India stuck by Pakistan which made further efforts the next day to 
stall voting on the resolution.

Acting in concert, Pakistan and four other Islamic countries flooded 
the Commission with amendments which altered the whole idea of the 
resolution. Brazil and the EU countries objected to the ''so-called 
amendments'' which sought to delete all references to sexual 
orientation from the resolution.

Pakistan's permanent representative to the UN, Shaukat Umer, brushing 
aside their objection, said the amendments would improve the 
resolution because they talked about ''human rights for all and not 
just for those who are sexually oriented or disoriented.''

Libyan diplomat Najat Al-Hajjaji, Commission chairperson, ended the 
stalemate by introducing a compromise formula of putting off the 
consideration of the resolution and ''the amendments there to'' to 
the next annual session.

India voted along with Islamic countries in favour of the 
chairperson's postponement motion.

In the event, the 53-member Commission adopted the postponement 
motion as 24 countries voted in favour of it, 17 against it and 10 
abstained. There was a split in the western bloc: while the European 
countries wanted the resolution to be considered immediately, the 
United States chose to abstain from voting on the postponement motion.

In a sense, India and the US share a similar dilemma. The sexual 
orientation proposal came up before the Commission at a time when the 
sodomy law is being reviewed by the judiciary in the two countries.

The US Supreme Court began hearing the challenge to the sodomy law 
only last month and is expected to deliver its judgment this summer. 
The Delhi High Court, on the other hand, has been stuck with a Public 
Interest Litigation since 2001 challenging the statutory ban on 
sodomy, Section 377 IPC.

Despite repeated directions from the court, the Centre has been 
dithering on taking a stand whether it was discriminatory to forbid 
sex between two consenting adults of the same sex. This issue has 
been raised in India, as elsewhere in the world, as a hurdle in the 
efforts to combat AIDS.

NGOs have been arguing that homosexuals are more vulnerable to AIDS 
because the sodomy law forces them to stay underground. This is the 
first time the matter has been raised before the UN Commission as a 
growing threat to human rights. While Islamic countries have blocked 
the resolution in the name of religious sensitivity, it is 
significant that the main sponsor of the resolution, Brazil, is the 
largest Catholic country in the world.

Catholics are generally considered to be the more conservative sect 
of Christianity. And the irony doesn't end there: the United States, 
the largest Protestant country, has taken an ambivalent position on 
sexual orientation.

_____


#4. [On Iraq]

- The Empire of Terror
by I.K. Shukla (April 23, 2003)
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/iraq/IKshukla230403.html

- Ungrateful Ali: The Painful Paradox of Embedded Freedom
by Siddharth Varadarajan (April 25, 2003)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=44399440

______


#5.

The News on Sunday (Pakistan)
April 27, 2003

Justifying violence

Violence has become a part of our daily discourse, internalised and 
accepted as a norm -- dictating terms in our region, justifying 
increased military spending and reducing the pressure to seek other 
options

By Beena Sarwar

The most dangerous form of violence in South Asia is arguably the 
threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan. It colours the 
statements made by the leaders of both countries and strengthens the 
extreme right wing in both countries, which feeds off and thrives on 
the fanaticism of its counterparts next door. The rhetoric of war, 
whether it is made by George Bush, Ariel Sharon, Atal Bihari Vajpayee 
or Pervez Musharraf, gives the cue to these elements to indulge in 
more violence, and justify it with the rhetoric of religion, 
patriotism, or nationalism.

Mr Vajpayee's recent 'hand of friendship' is, finally, a move away 
from the tension that has engulfed the region since 9/11, and 
particularly since the US-led attack on Iraq. Hopefully, the 
Pakistani leadership will respond in kind.

The sabre-rattling of Indian and Pakistani leaders had reached a 
dangerous level in the past months. Furthermore, there was increasing 
insecurity in the region since the US-led attack on Iraq as the 
question of "who's next on the list?" started doing the rounds.

Many observers have dismissed as irrational the fear that Pakistan 
could be 'next' (as long as it toes the line, as it has been doing), 
but it is interesting that this fear is not limited to Pakistan where 
it is a hot topic, as borne out by letters to the editor and TV talk 
shows. Surprisingly, there are similar apprehensions in next-door 
India too.

A 'very strange phenomenon' is taking place there, apparently 
propelled by fear of the USA, notes Deepa Kandaswamy of Kerala, 
India, writing in the web discussion list at Blueear.com. "The press 
is already talking about India Next (paranoid or not), and this seems 
to bring India together." She lists the reasons behind this fear, 
then concludes: "Hindu fanatics who were pro-war because it was 
anti-Islam as they saw it during the first week are now anti-war and 
pro-Islam openly! There is also a leaning towards Be Indian, Buy 
Indian - the swadeshi mentality -- and even far right are slowly 
turning centrist or at times weirdly leftist and/or conservative."

India and Pakistan were until now busy deflecting such an attack, 
arguing that the other country is a "fit case for a preemptive 
strike", and calling on the USA to attack it. But Islamabad and New 
Delhi's urgings prompted a cool response from the world's most 
powerful country -- White House instead dished out some sensible 
counter-advice about sorting out problems through dialogue and 
diplomacy (we won't here get into the argument that its chief 
inhabitant refuses to follow this course).

Washington's refusal to rise to the bait (South Asia is the other 
direction from Iraq/Syria, and besides, we don't have oil) did not 
initially stop New Delhi and Islamabad from continuing to brandish 
their metaphorical swords. (The aggression of India's foreign 
minister Yashwant Sinha paled in comparison to the belligerence of 
Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rasheed, who would win any 
uncouthness contest hands down for his rude Bakwas band karo, warning 
to India to at a public rally in Lahore).

International pressure had to be stepped up, despite the diversion 
provided by Iraq, since these threatening postures could not be 
dismissed as just so much rhetoric, all sound and fury signifying 
nothing. If there was even a small chance that they would escalate 
into more than just verbal abuse, the stakes were too high, and the 
dangers too great, to ignore. Military experts and peaceniks alike 
have often warned that any future war between these nuclear-armed 
neighbours will not remain limited to 'conventional' warfare.

Meanwhile, the rhetoric and irresponsible statements aimed at each 
other, reported constantly by the media, contributed to the 
escalation of tensions and violence between both countries and within 
their borders.

Sadly, violence has become a part of our daily discourse, 
internalised and accepted as a norm. Constant talk of war eventually 
gives the impression that war is inevitable, that there are no other 
options, thus reducing the pressure to seek other options. The 
discourse of violence dictates terms in our region, justifying 
increased military spending, and diverting finances from vital areas 
like poverty alleviation, food, housing, healthcare, education and 
social infrastructures -- the real issues faced by the people.

Of course, this happens not just in our region. Bush's war may end up 
costing America up to $200 billion. This is in addition to the 
current Pentagon budget of $355 billion -- which dwarfs the $40 
billion Washington allocates for children's health care, $34 billion 
for children's education, and $29 billion for affordable housing.

It is not just finances that are diverted -- also diverted is the 
people's attention. As Arundhati Roy put it when she visited Karachi 
last year, when governments talk of war they force activists to 
digress from the fight for social justice and political rights -- the 
fights against big dams and evictions, for the rights of landless 
peasants, for equality and human dignity.

The impact goes beyond the activists. American businessman Ben Cohen 
-- who co-founded Ben and Jerry's ice-cream as well as the activist 
website TrueMajority.com -- puts it like this: "The continued 
belligerence of our leaders saps our souls, saps our spirit, and saps 
our strength as a nation."

No religion preaches violence, or justifies taking innocent lives. 
Yet, religion is routinely invoked by extremists on either side of 
the border who justify their violence on some righteous pretext or 
other.

A horrific example is that of a serial killer who targeted sex 
workers in Gujranwala some months back. When interviewed in prison by 
Geo TV, he showed no remorse.

Instead, he justified his actions by saying that he was only 
following "Allah's orders" in order to stop these women from their 
immoral way of life. "I did not aim to kill but to disable their 
bodies," he said, "If any of them died, that was fate -- their time 
had come". His statements eerily echo the stand taken by US President 
George W. Bush & co as they geared up for the attack on Iraq and the 
inevitable loss of civilian lives.

This is not to suggest that the murderer was influenced by Bush or 
vice versa, but it does illustrate how wrongdoers justify their 
illegal actions with self-righteous invocations to 'God's will' and 
how the loss of innocent lives is put down to some kind of 
'collateral damage'.

This is how the unjustifiable is justified. Those who raped and 
killed in Gujarat also found some way to justify their violence, and 
place the onus on the victim ("If Saddam had left Iraq, his people 
would have been spared the suffering of being bombed"). Those who 
threw hand grenades in Pakistani churches and killed innocent people, 
similarly must have developed some kind of argument justifying their 
actions and enabling them to live with themselves after taking 
innocent lives.

The axioms that violence begets violence, and that it does not pay in 
the long run, mean nothing to those driven to desperation by tyranny 
and occupation, or to those who believe that killing a non-believer 
will win them a ticket to paradise. Least of all do they resonate 
with those who gain financially from violence, like the contractors 
and oilmen who are 're-constructing' Iraq and 'securing' its 
resources. (Amusingly, peace activists are writing to Halliburton's 
chief executive asking him to donate the profits from reconstructing 
Iraq, to charity in order disprove allegations that his company is a 
war profiteer!).

Some also argue that when all else fails, violence is the only way to 
get rid of unwanted despots, whether Taliban or Saddam Hussein (both 
friends and partners of the USA until not so long ago). Certainly, 
many Iraqis and Afghans are grateful to be rid of their oppressors -- 
but their answer may have been different had they been given a choice 
between being bombed and destroyed, and having to endure the Taliban 
or Saddam Hussain for another decade.

In the long run, the people of the world -- and America -- will pay a 
heavy price for the belligerence of Bush and his war-hungry cohorts. 
As one peace demonstrator wrote on a banner at the Karachi Arts 
Council at an Artists Against War event on April 7, "You can bomb the 
world to pieces, but you can't bomb the world to peace".

_____


#6.

The Statesman (India), April 26 2003

Learning from neighbours

SANJOY HAZARIKA

BANGLADESH is often criticised in India, especially by Right-wing, 
conservative forces, for "sending" hundreds of thousands of illegal 
migrants to settle in our country, particularly in the North East. 
Some politicians and policy-makers in Delhi and elsewhere would have 
us believe that the demographic movement of migration is a "planned" 
strategy by Dhaka to overwhelm the North East.
This, in my view, is rather far-fetched. Of course, there is 
migration into India - there can be no doubt about that. One person 
has travelled extensively in Bangladesh and documented this movement. 
The Bangladesh High Commissioner to India conceded late last year 
that there was "economic migration". But to suggest that there is a 
meticulous plan aimed at reducing the North Eastern communities to a 
minority and nudging Bangladeshis living there into a majority 
strikes me as far more complex and organised than is physically 
possible.
About 15 million Bangladeshis are living in India, according to a 
task force set up by the home ministry. One assumes that after 
Bangladesh came into being in 1971, these people have travelled 
across the borders since then. What existed before was East Pakistan. 
The creation of Bangladesh, after the liberation war and the Indian 
Army's campaign against Pakistan, was a negation of the concept of a 
partitioned subcontinent.
The trouble in India, especially our regional parties and the 
Right-wing, is that they think there's can't be any agenda except a 
"Boot-Bangladeshis-out" programme. Anything less than that is 
considered sacrilegious. But if we just consider one factor - that of 
size and scale - how can 15 million people to be sent out in an 
organised manner? And as often this column has stressed: the country 
of origin of the illegal immigrant must accept him/her back. Without 
this basic agreement, can anyone be sent anywhere?
On top of that we have this IMDT (Illegal Migrants Determination by 
Tribunal) Act of 1983, a legacy of the then Congress raj which makes 
international law on illegal migration stand on its head. In all 
other countries, a suspected illegal immigrant has to prove that he 
is not that. In Assam, the law states that the accuser has to prove 
his charge, unlike elsewhere in the world! Under the IMDT Act, he has 
to be living in the same police station area as the accused and pay 
Rs 10 to file the complaint - to ensure no frivolous changes are made!
The IMDT Act is state specific. The law does not apply to the rest of 
India, a most discriminatory provision that is one reason why the Act 
should be struck down. Is this to suggest that there are illegal 
immigrants only in Assam and no other state of the North East? What 
about the rest of the country? This is an issue that can be discussed 
and written about ad infinitum.
But there are other things to Bangladesh besides migration and 
floods. That country anyway has done a good job in flood management. 
It has brought down the fatality rate in natural disasters, reduced 
the birth rate and the size of the average family (giving women a 
chance to live longer) and improved the condition of its poor. It has 
succeeded through a number of innovative schemes, including the much 
revered and reported Grameen Bank, as well as a vast network of 
non-government organisations supported by international donors 
working in every possible area - from flood-control and road building 
to primary health care, education and culture.
Indeed, there are lessons to be learnt from Bangladesh.
This week's North East Page has a new, occasional section which gives 
voice to some issues plaguing the flood-prone plains of Bangladesh. 
It's written by a sensitive and far-sighted person who works for the 
World Bank (it's hard to believe that such people exist!). It 
reflects on the developments in that country which are both 
encouraging and cause for concern. He minces no words while talking 
about the problems faced by Hindu fishermen in the area he worked. He 
speaks about the use of the embankment and how it has transformed 
life in the region and how the lives of the poor and marginalised 
have actually improved.
It would be a big mistake if we in the North East shrug these off as 
not relevant to us. Mobilisation of communities, empowering the poor, 
strengthening the traditional agricultural and fishing occupations - 
how are these to be done?
The questions raised in Bangladesh mesh with the issues raised by 
Rangan Dutta, former Director-General of CAPART, in Open Forum. The 
Assam State Development Report and its recommendations have been 
raised in this paper, this page and these columns earlier. But even 
in the North East, the report has not been studied adequately by 
journalists and academics or policy-makers and politicians; and not 
enough has been written or debated about it. One wonders why! 
Possibly because journalists find it too difficult to read a couple 
of hundred pages? Have they got out of the habit of reading?
The national budget is written about, analysed, dissected and 
reviewed from every possible angle by many people, including my good 
friend and renowned columnist Swaminathan S Aiyar. But what about the 
state budgets? Just a cursory, standard story (or maybe two or three) 
which could have been written by anyone sitting in any old office, 
without bothering to go into the details of what it means to the 
ordinary people and the state. And then we forget about it.
How many reporters - and how many editors encourage them - go to the 
field to assess the impact of these state policy proposals on people 
(for whom it is written)? And why not ask the state finance minister 
a simple question: explain what is meant by deficit financing. It is 
not the monster that it's painted to be.
These are issues as critical as migration? Are they not? Is the 
livelihood of a fisherman in Majuli as critical if not more than the 
karmachari member in the Assam state secretariat? Don't people in the 
rural areas deserve a better life? Why should we deny them a decent 
standard of living - Assam's GDP in the past 40 years has fallen 
drastically to be among the lowest in the country, and the state 
matches Bihar in the lack of growth.
The details are there in ASDR, and it's good news indeed that Dr 
Jayanta Madhab, one of the region's most experienced bankers and 
respected name in financing, has agreed to be the financial adviser 
to the Assam government. This step should have been take a year ago. 
Dr Madhab realises, as much as anyone else, the need to accelerate 
the implementation of economic programmes instead of developing new 
concept papers. He has developed micro-credit schemes through the 
Eastern Himalayan bank in Guwahati and knows the region well enough 
and is familiar with international and national finance and financial 
institutions.
Whatever is needed for Assam's deliverance and that of the North East 
has been put down on paper - clearly and precisely (Shukla Commission 
Report, etc.). Instead of additional reports, we need a time-frame to 
implement the work in hand. And one of the first steps must be to 
reduce the size Assam's huge bureaucracy (especially the number of 
school teachers) so it ceases to be a burden on the state. This can 
become an example for other states of the North East.
We have to work at the ground level to improve the livelihood of the 
people living along the Brahmaputra and in the Barak Valley. That is 
going to be the test of what we learn from our neighbours and one of 
Dr Madhab's greatest challenges.


_____


#7.

The Hindu (India), Apr 27, 2003

'POTA being used selectively in Gujarat'
By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI APRIL 26. Civil rights activists today tried to turn the 
spotlight back on Gujarat to the plight of the minorities in the 
"communally-divided" State.

At a press conference organised by Communalism Combat and Sahmat 
here, Teesta Setalvad, of Communalism Combat, Prashant Bhushan, 
lawyer, and Kamal Mitra Chenoy, academic, said: "Gujarat should not 
be forgotten, for at stake is Indian democracy.

``The nation, the democratic institutions and the media should 
respond to the continuing tragedy, the low intensity terror and 
genocide that continues in Gujarat".

After the BJP's landslide victory in the Assembly elections, the 
Hindutva forces had become so emboldened that they were openly 
threatening civil rights activists fighting for justice, they said.

"The genocide in Gujarat continues through social and economic 
boycott of Muslims in at least 10 of the 24 districts of the State 
and a politically vindictive State - headed by the Chief Minister, 
Narendra Modi - seeks to subvert all criminal investigations in the 
incidents of violence last year."

According to Ms. Setalvad, the Haren Pandya murder probe was being 
used by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch to unleash a "reign of terror" on 
the minority community despite the formal handing over of the case to 
the CBI.

"Over the past fortnight, police officers and others directly accused 
of close proximity to the ruling political dispensation have been 
brought in and are terrorising people to extort money from them," she 
said adding that the Prevention Of Terrorism Act (POTA) was being 
selectively used.

Those who led the carnage last year against the minorities were not 
only walking free, but also terrorising the survivors who were trying 
to put their lives together, they said.

Questioning the role of the State public prosecutors in the major 
carnages, the speakers said national and international laws had been 
violated by using the truth serum on five of the 123 booked under the 
POTA for the Godhra incident.

The Gujarat Government was going about its "fascist agenda" with 
"impunity" and the Opposition had chosen to turn a Nelson's eye to 
the misery of a community that was being assaulted in a sustained and 
systematic manner, they added.

_____


#8.

The New York Times (USA)
April 25, 2003

MOVIE REVIEW | 'MR. AND MRS. IYER'

Hatred Cannot Keep These Lovers Apart
By LAWRENCE VAN GELDER

plea for an end to sectarian violence comes wrapped in adventure and 
romance in the Indian film "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer."

Written and directed by Aparna Sen, it focuses on communal bloodshed 
between India's Hindus and Muslims to appeal as well for an end to 
conflict between Palestinian and Israeli and between Protestant and 
Roman Catholic in Northern Ireland.

The well-acted romance, as the two principal characters are thrown 
together by unanticipated events, is hard to resist, even though the 
answer to the crucial question it raises is all too conveniently 
deferred time and again.

In its preachments, "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer," which opens today in New 
York and the San Francisco area, is not a subtle film; and, most 
curiously - to put it mildly - for a sermon on tolerance, it resorts 
to history's eternal scapegoat, a Jew, when it seeks a character 
willing to betray another to save his own skin.

That brief episode comes at a pivotal point in the bus journey that 
begins the film. The varied passengers - boisterous teenagers, an old 
Muslim couple, a grouchy woman, a retarded boy and his mother, some 
card-playing men - include a worldly, handsome photojournalist who 
specializes in wildlife and a lovely mother traveling with her 
year-old boy. Both are bound, eventually by rail, for Calcutta.

Introduced by mutual friends just before the start of the trip along 
hairpin turns from remote and beautiful hill country, they are Raja 
Chowdhary (Rahul Bose), the photographer, and Meenakshi Iyer (Konkona 
Sensharma), with her child, Santanam. Raja has agreed to look after 
Meena. Thanks to the restive baby, they eventually sit together, and 
the journey proceeds in relative calm.

Suddenly the bus encounters a roadblock, and when the rumors stop 
flying, it becomes clear that Hindu mobs are rampaging against 
Muslims after the burning of a Hindu village. Just before 
bloodthirsty extremists board the bus and haul off the old man to 
die, Raja tells the high-born Brahmin Meena that he is a Muslim. 
"Don't touch me" is her shocked reply.

But as he rises to confront the invaders, Meena pulls him back down 
in his seat and passes them off to the killers as the Hindu couple 
Mr. and Mrs. Iyer.

As Meena gradually overcomes her prejudice, she and Raja fall in love 
while the perilous adventure puts them among police, among mobs and 
in an isolated and dilapidated resort. The unanswered question grows 
louder: Is there a real Mr. Iyer?

Directed by Aparna Sen
In English, with subtitled Tamil and Bengali
Not rated, 120 minutes

o o o

Screen (India)
25 April
http://www.screenindia.com/fullstory.php?content_id=3291
Aparna Sen's magic box
After the success of Mr & Mrs Iyer, Aparna Sen is most likely to make 
her much desired film Goyner Baksa (Jewellery Box) the script of 
which has been kept in waiting for sometime. [...] Aparna Sen is 
currently in the States with the film for a lecture on the issue of 
'ethnic riots and communal violence', a subject that lies at the core 
of the film. She has made a statement after the success of the film 
thus, "There is no war in my country. Not yet, anyway. But the 
communal riots that have torn it apart in recent years have been no 
less violent, no less ruthless. Like others who believe in secular 
and democratic values, I too have been deeply troubled by the rise of 
religious fundamentalism in my country since early '90".

Aparna Sen added, "I never was, at least for many years, an actively 
political person. Basically, I was a humanist, an old-fashioned 
liberal really. My father has always been one to his very being and I 
inherited his genes. We believed sincerely, albeit somewhat naively 
that India really was a secular country". The inspiration to make the 
film of the kind the film stands out now is the religious unrest and 
communal passion. "All through the Babri Masjid crisis", she 
narrated, "I had never really believed, never imagined not even once, 
not even when things were at their worst, that the mosque would 
actually be destroyed. After all, we were a secular lot, a 
catastrophe like this could never happen here. When it did, the shock 
was quite unbearable". Perhaps, the flux of ideas that worked at the 
back of her creative mind fired her soul to come out with a film that 
would hold a mirror before us to see for ourselves that we have gone 
the cannibalist way, killing and destroying ourselves with a 
vengeance. And it has traumatised Aparna Sen so much that she went to 
make a film on the subject whose core is humanism.

According to her Mr & Mrs Iyer "traces the unfolding of precisely 
this sensitivity", an endeavour to understand another beyond the 
obvious identity signified by one's name. And said she with a 
humanist pride, "An external journey, that of a woman travelling to 
join her husband, becomes a metaphor for a journey within oneself." 
And while she prepares all the way to make a discourse in the States 
after her film will be shown, she does not balk for a moment or 
fumble to put across the message that "it is forged amidst the 
violence wrought by a group of religious fundamentalists when they 
hold up a long-distance bus filled with passengers from all parts of 
India and star picking out and killing people simply because they 
happen to belong to a different religious order".

______


#9.

Outlook Magazine (India) | May 05, 2003

VHP
Metaphors Keen To Wound
A three-pronged spear as Hindutva symbol. Tell it to the Greeks.
SHEELA REDDY

The next time Praveen Togadia hands out his trishuls, he should stop 
to read a little history. Shiva's mythological weapon that the Vishwa 
Hindu Parishad leader claims as part of his legitimate Hindu heritage 
was better known in Greek and Roman myths than in India.

Vedic Indians had never heard of it. The closest they came to the now 
familiar Hindutva symbol was the shula (sharp-edged spear) which they 
used as a barbecue rod to roast
VHP's Custom-Designed Trishul

meat. It was not until 2,000 years after the trident flourished as a 
popular symbol in Greek and Roman mythology-from Homer's Trojan 
warriors to Zeus' trident thunderbolt to his sharp-tongued sister 
(and wife) Hera's iron staff to the Greco-Roman sea gods Poseidon and 
Neptune-that it makes its first appearance in the Mahabharata. And it 
was not until around 800 years ago that the trishul became a part and 
parcel of Hindu imagery. "It is wrong to equate the trishul with 
Hinduism," points out historian D.N. Jha. "The first trishuls to 
appear in Indian art are in the hands of Buddhist gods like Hariti or 
in Buddhist and Jain temples in Sanchi and Udaigiri. In the earliest 
known Shiva sculptures such as the one in Gudimallam in Andhra 
Pradesh, Shiva appears with an axe, not a trishul."
The trishul, Jha says, is being appropriated by political Hinduism 
the same way it claimed the cow as a holy symbol in the 19th century 
to counter British aggression. Togadia, though, is hardly the first 
Hindu leader to discover the weapon's religious evocativeness. In the 
medieval era, when temples began to create warrior-ascetics to 
protect themselves from Muslim invaders, they were armed with 
trishuls. Some historians, like David Lorenzen from El Colegio De 
Mexico, believe the Dasnami Naga sadhus with their trishuls are 
remnants of this temple militia.
In Khajuraho, in a late 10th century sculpture, the trishul can be 
seen held by a figure combining Shiva and Agni, the fire god. But in 
South India it only begins to surface in Shiva's hands in the temple 
art of the 16th and 17th centuries in the Virabhadra temple in 
Lepakshi, for instance, or the Chidambaram temple in Tamil Nadu. It 
was in fact calendar art printed in Germany in the late 19th century 
that turned Shiva's mythical weapon into the best-known Hindu symbol. 
For these hack painters of lurid religious pictures, a trishul was as 
indispensable to Shiva's depiction as the cobra coiled around his 
blue-black neck, the tiger skin around his waist and the Ganga 
flowing in a neat arc from his topknot.
Exactly how inspired the VHP is by calendar art is evident in their 
office in Delhi. Nearly every inch of wallspace in the three-storeyed 
building-even along the stairwells-is plastered with the popular 
religious prints. Sitting under a 4ft-long print of the multi-headed, 
multi-armed display of Krishna's divine splendour, joint general 
secretary Balkrishna Naik and Swami Vigyananand (coordinator for 
Asia-Pacific zone) strenuously deny that the inspiration for the 
VHP's trishul comes from calendar art. "The real trishul is not 
curved on both sides but three-pointed as the word trishula 
(three-pointed) implies."
Nor are they fazed by the fact that it first flourished in ancient 
Greece and Rome. "That's the glory of our tradition," says Naik. 
"Hinduism has survived because of its dynamism, its ability to adopt 
from everywhere and then make it its own."
The VHP's trishul shows some of this adaptability. Apart from 
sharpening the three prongs-made of stainless steel instead of the 
traditional iron-the blades are made to measure less than nine inches 
to evade the Arms Act.
The long spear handle has been replaced by a black plastic one, like 
a modern kitchen knife. "This is a handier model," explains Swami 
Vigyananand, an ex-iit engineer."It slips conveniently into a pocket 
we have tailored in the plastic sash that Bajrang Dal workers wear." 
The designer trishul works in two ways, according to the VHP leaders: 
"It attracts more of the youth to enrol in the Bajrang Dal, and it's 
a great morale-booster."
As a weapon, they claim it's useless. "We sometimes laugh that you 
can't even cut vegetables with it," says the thirtysomething swami. 
But as a symbol, it's unbeatable. "Apart from being Shiva's weapon, 
you can explain it as the three gunas in human nature, or in the 
words of Ramakrishna, 'the sharp thorn to dig out a thorn in the 
flesh'; a symbol of standing up to the onslaught of evil forces from 
within and without." But why the trishul? "Because that's the only 
Hindu symbol that is practical for modern times," explains the swami. 
"You can't expect today's youth to go around with bows and arrows or 
a sudarshan chakra. They wouldn't know what to do with it or how to 
carry it."
The VHP's creativity is not limited to reinventing the trishul. It 
extends to coining a brand new Hindu ritual, the "trishul diksha". 
Historians say there is no such thing in Hindu scriptures. The 
weapons that Shiva gave Parasuram, for instance, is not a gift but a 
sacred initiation. "The astra (weapon) diksha is like an investiture 
ceremony," explains Jha, similar to the thread ceremony. "The trishul 
is not a toy to gift." Agrees Hindu social activist Swami Agnivesh: 
"The trishul diksha doesn't exist. It's all metaphorical-diksha, 
trishul, even Shiva. These aren't real, they are only metaphors. But 
now we see people trying to breathe life into these metaphors. 
Shiva's trishul was only a symbol but these trishuls are sharp-edged 
knives that can carve out a man's innards."
What is extraordinary about the way the VHP has appropriated the 
trishul, according to Jha, is the blurring of lines between ascetics 
and householders. "Till ten years ago, even five years ago, the 
trishul was associated with militant sadhus. It's a symbol of 
renunciation, not to be worshipped in homes."
But Swami Vigyananand feels the times demand a crossing of the lines. 
"Those days when the trishul was seen only in the hands of sanyasis 
were different. The masses didn't have to be involved in their own 
defence. But today you have terrorists armed with AK-47s, with bombs 
and rocket-launchers. Who will protect the masses? Not the police or 
the army, they are unfit for it. The trishul sends a message that we 
should stand and fight. You can't kill with the trishul but symbols 
and ideas are interconnected by the law of association. When the mind 
gets ready, everything is possible."
Perhaps Swami Vigyananand could do with a lesson or two from history 
too. He'll find that religious militants prosper most in uncertain 
times like these, and that they peter out under strong efficient 
governments.


_____


#10.

Outlook Magazine (India) | May 05, 2003
Jail Bird's Song
His bout of coyness may (not) last. But the law is one antidote to Togadia
RANJIT BHUSHAN
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20030505&fname=VHP+%28F%29&sid=1

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