SACW | 15 May 03

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire   | 15 May,  2003

ALERT FOR ACTION: In Defence of the Indian Historian Romila Thapar
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/Alerts/IDRT300403.html

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#1. [On the 5th Anniversary of the Indo-Pak Nuclear tests]
- Shooting ourselves in the foot (Praful Bidwai)
#2. Zulm aur Aman a film by Daljit Ami
#3. File [complaints to the Police] FIR against Togadia: Citizens' groups
#4. Against The Law
Were the law-keepers true to the Constitution, hate-mongers like 
Togadia could be easily put in their proper place: behind bars 
(Teesta Setalvad)
#5. Urgent --appeal 1 (Narmada Bachao Andolan)
#6. Urdhva Mula - journal on women  (Sophia Centre for Women's 
Studies and Development)


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#1.

The News International (Pakistan), May 15, 2003

Shooting ourselves in the foot

Praful Bidwai

On the fifth anniversary of the Pokharan-II and Chagai nuclear tests 
this month, what does the India-Pakistan security balance-sheet look 
like? The honest answer must be: negative, ugly and frightening. The 
two countries have lost, not gained, in security and trust, as well 
as in global stature and prestige. The social, economic and political 
impact of going nuclear has been grim, in some respects, disastrous.

Supporters of nuclear weapons had made a number of predictions about 
their likely virtuous effects. Consider just five. They said both 
India and Pakistan would become more secure and self-confident in the 
knowledge that neither can now blackmail the other on the strength of 
conventional strategic superiority or covert support to militant 
groups. This new strategic equation would form the bedrock of 
"stability" in South Asia as a whole.

Second, the leaders of both Pakistan and India, they prophesied, 
would start behaving "responsibly" and "maturely". The destructive 
power of the Bomb would itself ensure that -- regardless of the 
quality of leadership.

Third, even an India-Pakistan conventional war would become 
impossible, indeed inconceivable. Doesn't deterrence theory tell you 
that nuclear weapons-states do not go to war with one another? The 
low-intensity conventional skirmishes between the USSR and China in 
the late 1960s and 1970s across the Ussuri river were only an 
"aberration". By contrast, during the greatest confrontation of the 
second half of the 20th century, the Cold War, the main adversaries 
(US and USSR) never exchanged a shot. That same result should and 
would hold for India and Pakistan.

Fourth, the Bomb's supporters predicted, nuclearisation would greatly 
expand India's and Pakistan's capacity for political and diplomatic 
manoeuvre in world affairs. India would even gain a permanent seat on 
the Security Council.

And fifth, the adverse social and political impact of nuclearisation 
would be minimal, and its economic costs affordable.

All five predictions have proved false. India and Pakistan have both 
become edgy, nervously unsure about each other's designs and 
doctrines, and more prone to panic reactions -- and strategically 
unstable. In May 1998, South Asia became "the world's most dangerous 
place". Since then, the nuclear danger here has increased, not 
decreased.

Nuclear weapons have not induced "maturity" and "sobriety" among our 
leaders. Indeed, they have promoted hubris and rank adventurism. Some 
of our generals genuinely believe that nuclear weapons can work as a 
shield or cover under which to indulge in grossly provocative or 
reckless acts against the adversary. The casual, cavalier, manner in 
which India and Pakistan have repeatedly exchanged nuclear threats is 
truly spine-chilling.

Evidently, the realisation has not sunk in among them, or the larger 
public, of just how horrific nuclear weapons are, nor of how 
vulnerable millions of people living in cities within the range of 
their missiles have become. Even a first-generation nuclear bomb 
dropped on Mumbai or Karachi will kill 800,000 or more people, 
flatten most buildings in the city centre, destroy all 
communications, and contaminate vast swatches of land with 
radioactive poisons, some of which will last for thousands of years.

There is no military, civil or medical defence against nuclear 
weapons. There is no cure for the health injury they cause. They are 
not weapons of war, but of indiscriminate killing, mass 
extermination, genocide.

As for "deterrence", Pakistan and India went to war barely a year 
after the Pokharan-Chagai nuclear tests. Kargil was a middle-sized 
conflict by international standards, involving 40,000 Indian troops, 
top-of-the-line weaponry and billions of dollars. Post-December 2001, 
the two rivals were again at each other's throats for 10 long months, 
with a million troops eyeball-to-eyeball.

The nuclear danger in South Asia is uniquely grave. The CIA's "Global 
Threat 2015" report says that of all the regions of the world, the 
risk of nuclear war is the highest in South Asia, and will remain 
"serious". Agency director George Tenet has said the chances of war 
between India and Pakistan "now are the highest since 1971". They are 
certainly much higher than the likelihood of a US-USSR conflict after 
the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Take the issue of global stature. After Chagai, Pakistan became a 
virtual pariah state -- until 9/11 gave it a chance to get into an 
"anti-terrorist" alliance with the US. India's profile in Washington 
rose somewhat around (and after) Bill Clinton's visit here in March 
2000. But that was because of information technology and the success 
of Indian entrepreneurs living in the US -- that is, despite India's 
nuclear weapons.

India's bargaining power and room for manoeuvre vis-a-vis Washington 
has shrunk thanks to its nuclearisation. India remains a middle or 
secondary league player in global affairs. For India and Pakistan, 
nuclear weapons were clearly no invitation to the world's High Table.

The economic costs imposed by nuclearisation, which are still 
unfolding, have proved harsh and extremely burdensome, especially on 
Pakistan. The run on the Pakistani rupee triggered by Chagai 
inaugurated a serious economic downturn. India has almost doubled its 
military spending over five years -- at the expense of health, 
education and social welfare expenditure.

Military expenditure will spiral as the two build more and more 
nuclear warheads, and invest in delivery vehicles, 
command-and-control systems and other components of nuclear weapons 
programmes. This could prove ruinous.

Even if nuclear weapons are not used, making and deploying them will 
impose heavy costs upon India and Pakistan. India will have to spend 
anything from Rs60,000 to Rs100,000 crores to acquire a small nuclear 
arsenal, which is about one-fifth the size of China's. This will 
bankrupt the state and cripple public services. Their collapse would 
spell the failure of the state itself.

No less burdensome are nuclearisation's social and political costs. 
Nuclear weapons do not come on their own. Inseparably associated with 
them is ideological baggage -- nuclearism" (or an almost mystical 
faith in the power of the Bomb, among other things, to produce 
security), legitimisation of the idea of mass destruction and 
unbounded militarism. All this is destructive of the values of 
humanity, peace and reason. It can only promote extreme intolerance 
and vicious male-supremacism. These are a recipe for the corrosion 
and destruction of democracy.

In the South Asian case, there is a strong correlation between 
militarism -- both in the form of militarisation of society and daily 
life, and the rising weight of the military in state and society -- 
and communalism or religion-based fundamentalism. Domestically, this 
is the gravest danger in both countries. It threatens to rend them 
asunder as nothing else does.

This lends great urgency to negotiating nuclear risk-reduction and 
restraint measures, leading to regional nuclear disarmament. A 
beginning can be made if India and Pakistan return to the unfinished 
agenda of the Lahore summit.

At Lahore, India and Pakistan made a commitment to measures "aimed at 
prevention of conflict", to meeting "periodically to discuss all 
issues of mutual concern, including nuclear-related issues", and 
"bilateral consultations on security concepts, and nuclear doctrines, 
with a view to developing measures for confidence-building in the 
nuclear and conventional fields, aimed at avoidance of conflict", as 
well as to "consultation on security, disarmament and 
non-proliferation issues within the context of negotiations...in 
multilateral fora". Will our leaders rise to the occasion?

______


#2.


Zulm aur Aman a film by Daljit Ami

A film depicting the hazards of war and revealing the gainers and 
losers of the game of death is released by the producer director 
Daljit Ami. This third film of the young  activist is a skillful 
collage of multimedia art , images of  television footage of wars, 
overlaid captions, together with a song by Nassebo. The film ends 
with a reading of a poem written by Sahir Ludhianwi with haunting 
lines,"Is liye aye sharif insano, jung talti rahe to behatar hai | 
Aap aur hum sabke aangan mein, shama jalti rahe to behatar hai!"

Daljit has had an active role since his early youth in community 
activism, first as a student, later as a commentator in Punjabi 
journalism and as a member of democratic  awareness organisations 
like Chetna Manch and Science and Technology Awareness Group (STAG) 
in Chandigarh.

His earlier film on agricultural labour in Punjab received a 
commendation award from IDPA (Indian Documentary Producers 
Association) in the year 2002 and it was accepted for participation 
in 2Kara Film Festival in Karachi the same year.

Zulm aur Aman is about what has happened to places where peace of 
happy children was a matter of fact and how it is lost in oblivion as 
all-prevailing destruction descends in the name of freedom and 
civilisation. In an amazing exercise of editing, the message is 
conveyed powerfully in about six minutes. The present day Hitlers are 
seen in their true
images as footage showing the contemporary leaders of imperialism is 
juxtaposed together with scenes from the second world war.

Copies of the film on CD are available for Rs 50 from Daljit. He may 
be contacted at
daljitami@rediffmail.com

______


#3.

The Times of India, May 14, 2003
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=46304207

File FIR against Togadia: Citizens' groups
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 2003 01:09:47 AM ]

MUMBAI: A group of citizens' organisations on Tuesday asked the Dadar 
police to file a First Information Report against VHP general 
secretary Praveen Togadia for his allegedly inflammatory remarks at a 
meeting in Dadar last month.
 
The groups urged the police to invoke sections 153A, 153B, 295A, 298 
and 505 of the Indian Penal Code "which deal with inflammatory 
remarks and acts" against Mr Togadia. The complaint says that Mr 
Togadia "hurled intemperate and provocative abuse at a particular 
community and its faith" in a speech on March 16 at a meeting of the 
Rashtriya Vichar Manch at Dadar's Nardulla Tank Maidan. The complaint 
says that statements are "a grave threat to the peace, unity and 
integrity of India" and make the minority community "more insecure 
and threatened".
 
"Besides, such statements are bound to generate communal disharmony 
or feelings of ill-will, enmity and hatred between different 
religious groups," the complaint adds. A transcript of the speech was 
attached to the complaint.
 
Mr Togadia's statements amounted to threatening the minority 
community, as witnessed during the riots in Gujarat last year, says 
the complaint.
 
Activist Teesta Setalvad said the complaint had been handed over to G 
D Pol, the deputy commission of police in zone 5. "He requested us to 
give the police a recording of the speech and we give it to him by 
Wednesday morning," she added. Mr Pol refused to comment on the 
matter. 
 
Ms Setalvad said 120 groups across the country, including 
anti-communal groups and trade unions, had got together recently to 
form a National Campaign in Defence of Democracy. The group will be 
filing FIRs against those who deliver hate speeches.
 
"We find that increasingly, the state is not taking action against 
those who give hate speeches. So we have to do this," she said.


_____


#4.

Communalism Combat (Bombay)
May 2003

AGAINST THE LAW
Were the law-keepers true to the Constitution, hate-mongers like 
Togadia could be easily put in their proper place: behind bars

by Teesta Setalvad

Several sections in the Indian Penal Code (153, 295, 298 and 505) are 
specifically intended to control the spreading of "disharmony or 
feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will" between different religious 
(or other social) groups through hate speech and writing. 
In the past, such hate-mongering preceded incidents of communal 
violence but in recent years, especially post 1986, hate propaganda 
has become a matter of 'routine' public discourse.
This can happen only because neither the political executive nor the 
police sees any need to act in accordance with their Constitutional 
obligation. Unfortunately, the judiciary, too, has failed to act suo 
motu against these blatant offences. However, in recent months, the 
MP and Rajasthan police have arrested VHP leaders Acharya Dharmendra 
and Praveen Togadia respectively for hate preaching and trishul 
distribution.
We reproduce below several speeches and statements to show the poison 
being spread among others by these 'acharyas' to spread hated against 
Muslims and other religious minorities. We urge all who retain faith 
in the Indian Constitution to join this national campaign against 
hate-preachers by registering FIRs wherever and whenever such 
offences take place to force the State to discharge its 
Constitutional obligation.

http://www.sabrang.com/cc/archive/2003/may03/cover1.html


_____


#5.

urgent --appeal 1

NARMADA BACHAO ANDOLAN
58, Gandhi Marg, Badwani-451551, M.P.
07290-222464 (Pune contact 020-5450870)


Friends,

The Narmada Control Authority has given a so called conditional 
permission to raise the height of the controversial Sardar Sarovar 
Project (SSP) from 95 meters to 100 meters, violating all the legal, 
constitutional and humanitarian norms in India. It is sure that the 
wily Narendra Modi government of Gujarat has unleased yet another 
genocide- this time on the tribal people of India and in the name of 
the development and nationalism.

It is a harsh fact that  about 10,000 tribal and farmers familes in 
the hills and plains of the Narmada valley in Madhya Pradesh and 
Maharashtra will be the worst sufferers of this decision in the 
coming monsoon. The governments ( both M.P. and Maharastra ) do not 
have land for the people affected below 90 meters of the height of 
the dam. That was time and again brought out by the official 
committees. Justice Daud Committee, appointed by the Maharashtra 
government in 2000 and the subsequent Task Force appointed by the 
Govt. of Maharashtra has clearly brought out the fact that,

  - the number of the affected persons is far more than estimated byt 
he governments. The Task Force has concluded, in 2002 itself, that 
over 1000 families below the 95 meters are still to be declared as 
affected or resettled, who will be soon facing the submergence.

- the government has no land to resettle them. According to the 
Narmada Water Dispute Tribunal (NWDT) provisions, which were later 
endorsed even by the Supreme Court verdict in October 2000, that the 
oustees must be resettled by offering them suitable and irrigeable 
lands, that too 6 months before the submergence.

At present thousands of families in M.P. and Maharashtra ane even in 
Gujrat, who have been affected or will be affected this monsoon with 
submergence, have not got the land. The NCA too had recognised tha 
fact. The M.P. government has been compelling the people to accept 
the csh compensation as it had no land. Just now, the Chief Minister 
of |M.P., responding to his party President's query about the 
resettlement, has claimed that the state govt. has GOT (!)5000 ha. of 
land  for resettlement. That is strange; for the people had seen the 
so called cultivable land 3 years back and had rejected as it was 
stony, and uncultivable. That was a past story, and now Digvijay 
Singh govt. has revivied that again, to hide its bid to move out the 
people by cheating them into accepting the cash compensation. The 
media savvy M.P. Chief Minister is being seen as Divijay Singh Modi 
by the people in the Narmada valley. Whiel his party leader, 
Smt.Sonia Gandhi debunks the horrendous chief minister of Gujarat, 
Narendra Modi, the mastermind behind the canmage of Muslims in the 
state in 2002, here is her lieutenant serving the designs of Narendra 
Modi. This is shameful collusion and it is basically instrumnetal in 
another genocide of another vulneralble minority in India - the 
indegenous people in the Narmada valley at the hands of political 
elite.

But,  the Govt. of Mahartashtra, headed by a Dalit leader, 
Sushilkumar Shinde, another Sonia Gandhi favourite, also seemed to 
have fallen prey to Modi's guiles. JUsrt on May 8, Mr. Shinde had 
assured a delegation of Narmada Bachao Andolan and other 
organizations of National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) that 
there was no question of removing tribals and accepting the raising 
of dam height. He agreed that the tribals will be removed only after 
they choose and are resettled on the land that has been identified. 
He categorically assured that his govt. will not displace people with 
mere cash compensation. However, Maharashtra bureaucracy, always 
servile to the Gujarat government, has been pressurising the 
political bosses for assenting to the raising of the height of the 
dam. This time, it seems, they have prevailed on the political 
assurances given by Sonia Gandhi and Shinde. About Digvijay Singh, we 
can say that,he is totally bought by the Gujarat BJP government.

Modi has been pressurising the Central government of his own party 
for aggreing to raise the height of the dam. He met Aedvani, who has 
been his firm supporter in all matters, he has also pressured the 
Prime Minister to exercise undue influence on NCA to give consent to 
the height increase.

Over 10,000 tribal and farmers' families are threatened by this 
increase in the height. We will get back to you with more precise 
estimate- as govt. too does not seem to have that!

Meanwhile What can we Do?

- Please call unto Sushil kumar Shinde of Maharshtra and Digvijay 
Singh of M.P., and Congress party President Sonia Gandhi, asking not 
to agree to the virtual genocide of the tribals. There should be no 
submergence of the land without the full resettlement of the tribals 
and farmers of
both the states.
Ask the Prime Minister of Vajpayee not to wage war on his own tribal 
people, as he is preparing for peace talks with Pakistan. Wgy India 
government is bent upon intra-border terrorism on its own adivasis?

This is the immediate thing we can do.

We will get back to you tomorrow with more details.


Sanjay Sangvai



______


#6.

Urdhva Mula
     
An unique inter disciplinary journal
focusing on women and related issues
published by
                                            
Sophia Centre for
Women's Studies and Development
Sophia College Campus, Mumbai 400026
Phone: 23635280/ Fax: 23697163
E-mail: sophia_womencentre@hotmail.com

INDIA
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Annual subscription: Rs. 90/- plus Rs. 36/- for postage
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Two Issues: $ 18/- plus $5 for postage
Annual subscription: $18 plus $5 for postage




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