SACW | 21 June, 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire   | 21 June,  2003

#1. What to make of the upcoming Musharraf Bush meet at Camp David ? 
(M.B. Naqvi)
#2. Bangladesh: How do we treat our minorities? Time for some honest 
answers (Tariq Ali)
#3. UK: There's no defence for arms sales to India (David Mepham)
#4. India: Defending the indefensible  (Khushwant Singh)
#5. India: Row Brewing over Proposal to Send Troops to Iraq (Praful Bidwai)
#6. Book Review:  'The Indus Civilization by Irfan Habib' (Parvathi Menon)
#7. India: Call for papers from the film Journal 'Deep Focus'
#8. Bollywood bonds India, Pakistan

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

#1.

What to make of the upcoming Musharraf Bush meeting on June 24 at Camp David=
 ?
by M.B. Naqvi

[Karachi,  June 20]

President Pervez Musharraf will be meeting US President George W. 
Bush on June 24 at Camp David. There are many hopes, fears and 
expectations attached to this meeting by different groups in the 
country.

Insofar as the establishment is concerned, it is mighty pleased that 
the Americans have invited Musharraf to Camp David, a treatment 
reserved for good friends. There are great expectations from this 
meeting in the establishment. These include a rescheduling, perhaps 
writing off, of debts amounting to $ 1.8 billion, hopefully with 
greater market access in the matter of cotton goods export. Above all 
else, the hope is that America will strengthen and deepen the 
cooperation between the Musharraf government and his country. With 
that is attached hopes of getting military hardware that has so far 
been denied to Pakistan. There is also, somewhere in the agenda, a 
package of economic aid. Insofar as the matter of sending troops to 
Iraq is concerned, Musharraf government is likely to be too willing 
to oblige the US.

There is a whole and seemingly big lobby of the religious minded; it 
is represented by Muttehada Majlis Amal (MMA). The latter is mighty 
afraid that Musharraf, nicknamed in these circles as Busharraf, will 
do a deal with the Americans to make Pakistan a more secular place 
and suppress the MMA. The MMA is the standard bearer of 
anti-Americanism in the country. It regards America as the enemy of 
all Muslim countries, particularly of Pakistan (because it is a 
nuclear power). MMA opposes  close links with America or so it says 
rather strangely. In the past all MMA groups have worked closely with 
the Americans and were always treated by liberal- minded Pakistanis 
as US stooges. Now they are basking in the aura of anti-imperialist 
slogans. They say nothing about the aid package or any other specific 
matter between the US and Pakistan. Its simply anti-Americanism, 
unadulterated with any specific matter.

There are mainstream parties, mainly PPP and Nawaz's PML. They are 
reticent, not saying much except to urge the Americans to insist and 
impress of Gen. Musharraf that Pakistan should be a real democracy 
and not a sham one. They have nothing else to say. If they had been 
in power they would do very much the same sort of things that 
Musharraf is likely to say  or do during his meeting with George W. 
There are many smaller parties none of which have much to contribute 
in adding to the fears or to dampening the enthusiasm of the 
establishment.

There is also a small minority of liberals and the leftovers of the 
Left. They are mighty scared on various counts. To begin with, they 
find the emerging world order to be a regressive phenomenon  that the 
Americans are establishing. It is a sort of new Empire to cover the 
whole globe. Pakistan's joining up with the mighty US as a sort of 
bag carrier. It is seen as  demeaning nationally and otherwise 
dangerous. Pakistan's willing accession will be an easy success for 
the US. The US is seen as using India and Pakistan against each other 
and making both their satellites. Their main desire is that Pakistan 
and India should reconcile to each other and present a united front 
to the sole superpower as well as to superpowers-in-the-making like 
China, Japan and EU. They would also see a reconciliation between 
China and India with a view to have a happy cooperative triangle in 
Asia that will cover a substantial part of the Asian continent.

Their enthusiasm for obtaining military aid from the US is quite 
small. They perceive with dismay the spectacle of the US, British, 
=46rench and even Russians vying with one another to sell military 
equipment to both India and Pakistan quite unashamedly. They regard 
both Indian and Pakistani leaders to be shortsighted and deficient in 
both a vision and idealism of any sort. They see both India and 
Pakistan to be willing pawns in the superpower's grand game. They 
would much rather see the revitalised SAARC to be modelled on the 
EU's earlier editions, to begin with. They also note the need for an 
Asian or at least South Asian version of the original Helsinki 
conference of 1975 on human rights, cooperation and security.

There is an intense debate among what are said to be specialists in 
security matters. While most are aligned with the establishment and 
see things with the same spectacle as the main in-group. But there is 
a minority that would like a multipolar world with effective checks 
on the arbitrariness of the US . They believe in regional groupings 
and particularly in energising and extending as well as deepening the 
SAARC. But, on the whole, few listen to them. They however expect 
very little of good from the June 24 encounter. They perceive the 
results to be what would please the Americans and enhance their power 
and status

_____


#2.

Daily Star (Bangladesh)
June 13, 2003

How do we treat our minorities? Time for some honest answers
Tariq Ali

A month or so ago, I was in Kurigram and talking to an NGO worker. She was
young and pretty and although the ostentatious sindur was not there on her
sinthi, the white sankha on her hand told me that she was married. She
proudly told me that she is considered to be the best worker in her 
office, and I
could see that she possessed those ingredients of management that set
leaders apart from the others. The reason she had started this conversation,=
 it
turned out, was that she was asking for my opinion over a dilemma that she
was going through. She was, in reality echoing the anguished question that
has rankled the minds of Hindus all over Bangladesh since 1992. "Dada, we
are still young and now is the appropriate time to make the choice of whethe=
r
to go over to India or not. Will we be able to live here, in Bangladesh?"

She had not asked me the question that would normally occupy the mind of a
young person, out to make her presence felt in the world. She had not asked
whether she will one day make it to the top of the office she worked in, or =
how
she could help her husband in turning around the family business or whether
they could one day become the pivotal players in the Kurigram social circuit=
=2E
"We are being given subtle messages that our neighbours would be happy to
buy my husband's property in the town. There is pressure as well from our
relatives in West Dinajpur to cross over and settle there," she said.

I remembered that as a sequel to the Babri Masjid demolition, when there was
widespread violence on the Hindu community here, the same anguished
question was raised at a Conference of the Rabindrasangeet Sammilan
Parishad in Dhaka. One of the responses, from an intellectual of the country
was a tearful appeal from the stage. He concluded that in a Bangladesh
bathed with the combined blood of its Hindu and Muslim children, things were
bound to get better and that they should stick it out for just a 
little more time.
The appeal was so passionately and intensely made that it induced
sympathetic tears in many of those who were in the auditorium. Ten years
later, tears welled up in the eyes of this dada as well, as he faced that sa=
me
question from this young and beautiful woman. Even if she was able to ignore
the "gentle" suggestion of selling her homestead, would she not, ten years
from today, still be strapped to her desk as a programme officer, as she
watched the entire retinue of her Muslim colleagues, one after the other,
bypass her -- yes, even in an NGO setting, let alone the government?

This is not a story cooked up to provoke a controversy. This is the 
brutal reality
for one significant chunk of the Bangladesh population; the denial of rights
that the state had promised him or her in 1971. The time has come for the
majority community to face this issue squarely and honestly.

This young lady in Kurigram could thank her lucky stars that she was not
Shilpi Chakraborty. For Shilpi, a 14-year-old student in a village school in
Arua upazila of Manikganj, the time clock reminding her that she did not
belong here, had already started ticking. Their neighbour had claimed a part
of her father's property. The father, in turn, had brought the Thana Amin wh=
o
measured the land and confirmed that the land was theirs and placed
demarcating pillars in the presence of the village elders. A few days 
later, the
pillars were found missing but under the stern stare of that 'eternal guilt'=
,
Shilpi's father did not dare raise a voice. On the night of April 26, she wa=
s
sleeping between her mother and father. The neighbour's son and seven or
eight other accomplices forced open the door, tied the father to a tree,
dragged the mother outside and then four of them gang-raped her. When they
left at dawn, they did not of course, forget to defile the whatever excuse=
 of a
shiv-mandir that stood in the premises. When we saw her in her spartan but
spotlessly clean room, her head was drawn down in shame and she was
answering in monosyllables. All that her mother wanted us to do was to
arrange for some sort of a marriage for her because lajja would never again
let her take the two km walk to school. Her father was devastated, because
like the daughter, his own prestige as the village priest had been destroyed=
=2E

Not that there has never been resistance. On the outskirts of Faridpur live =
a
community of Adivasis, (from Central India, they say) who had settled here
seven or eight generations ago and who were officially allocated a large tra=
ct
of land. That land happens to be prime property today, as the Faridpur-Khuln=
a
highway runs right through this land. These people live on the fringes of th=
e
society, the men doing menial labour and the wives, foraging the forest for
firewood. Of late, some of them were beginning to get themselves educated,
and one man in particular, Bhagya, was emerging as the leader of the
community. (Reminds me of Alfred Soren, the leader of the Santhals, who was
burnt to death under similar circumstances, in Naogaon). Around the
beginning of May a girl student of the community was harassed on her way to
school, and Bhagya protested. That set one event following the other, and on
the afternoon of May 7, a large number of people invaded the community,
beat up the women cooking their meal of the day, kicked away their rice pots
(according to them, the supreme insult and in a few cases disrobed the
women down to their skins. Twenty-six houses were damaged, their property
looted, some homes totally demolished and one home burnt to ashes. Two
mandirs were razed to the ground and the deities in them defiled. As for the
expletives hurled at them, they took no notice of them. The Adivasis, howeve=
r,
unlike their Bengali co-religionists who have been cowered into accepting
everything lying down, decided to fight it out and the community as a whole
took up the issue. Perhaps, it was the Adivasi resilience that worked in the=
m.
We wait to see if they get justice.

The news of Bibharani Singha, has received wide coverage in the vernacular
press. She was studying in the second year in the Bangabandhu College at
Chitalmari and was abducted by an employee of a photocopying shop -- in
this instance, a member of her own community -- and it is rumoured that afte=
r
a day or two she had conceded to marry him. However, by the time her father
could trace her, the lover-boy had lost his ownership rights to some other
people in Bagerhat, close to the powers that be in today's Bangladesh. When
she was finally recovered from Khulna, around the beginning of May, she had
been repeatedly raped, burnt all over with cigarette butts when she resisted
and numerous slashes were made on her body with a sharp knife. She and
her father had to sign a written statement to the effect that nothing had
happened and they would not seek redress. Consequently, no one -- not
even the father -- dared to talk to us about the incident or name the culpri=
ts.
We enquired with the OC of Bagerhat Thana why he had dithered in
accepting a police case and why it was not recorded as rape. The master
thespian tried to wriggle out of the situation by telling us that the 
victim herself
had refused to take a medical examination.

I shall not talk about Mridul Rakshit, who was forced to live 
incognito in Dhaka
for the last five years because he was under the threat of being killed. It =
was
his young son, who finally paid that price, on his behalf, around the beginn=
ing
of April. Mridul Rakshit now has no one to bequeath his Chittagong property
to and no reason to safeguard it. Thus has been removed the last obstacle to
selling his property and going where a section of the majority community
wants all Hindus to go. The story of the minorities in South Asia has been a
sad one. But can we not show the way in Bangladesh?

Tariq Ali is a businessman.

_____


#3.

The New Statesman (UK)
23rd June 2003

There's no defence for arms sales
by David Mepham

Government economists doubt the case for weapons exports. So why sell 
Hawks to India?

A year ago, India and Pakistan stood on the verge of what many feared 
would be a nuclear war. Tony Blair and other world leaders pleaded 
with both governments to pull back from the brink. Although relations 
between the two sides have improved recently, the risk of a war 
triggered by events in the Kashmir Valley remains. In this context, 
the imminent announcement of a deal between BAE Systems and the 
Indian government for 66 Hawk jets is a source of great concern. 
Contrary to previous denials, the British government has admitted 
that an export licence for some Hawk components and production 
equipment was approved in September 2001, and it is now certain to 
pass the remaining licence to secure the deal. Of the 66 Hawks, 22 
will be directly exported to India and 44 will be manufactured there.

The government's defence for the deal will be twofold. First, it will 
say the Hawks are merely training aircraft. However, the BAE Systems 
website states that Hawks can be adapted for more offensive use and 
can "deliver a comprehensive array of air-to-air and air-to-surface 
weaponry with pinpoint accuracy". Indonesia certainly used 
British-supplied Hawk "trainers" aggressively in East Timor in 1999. 
=46urthermore, India's air force plans to use the Hawks to train pilots 
to fly Jaguar fighter aircraft that are being upgraded with Israeli 
avionics to make them nuclear-capable.

The British government's published criteria state that an export 
licence should not be granted if "there is a clear risk that the 
intended recipient would use the proposed export aggressively against 
another country or to assert by force a territorial claim". That risk 
clearly exists, but the government has chosen to play it down. By 
supporting this deal, Britain will significantly enhance India's 
offensive capability and contribute to further military build-up in 
the region. Instead, it should be working with the United States, the 
European Union and others to urge India and Pakistan to de-escalate 
and demilitarise, and to begin serious negotiations over Kashmir.

The government's second defence for the deal will be that it is good 
for the economy and jobs. But such an assertion is contested by The 
Economic Costs and Benefits of UK Defence Exports, a report first 
published in November 2001 and updated last year. The authors, Neil 
Davies and Chris Wilkinson (senior economists at the Ministry of 
Defence) and Malcolm Chalmers and Keith Hartley (independent 
academics), looked at the likely economic effect of a 50 per cent 
reduction in arms exports. They estimated that it would lead to the 
loss of 49,000 jobs in the defence sector, but that this would be 
offset by the creation of about 67,000 jobs in non-defence employment 
over a five-year period. They also argued that, overall, national 
income would be substantially the same after five years. The report 
concluded that "the economic costs of reducing defence exports are 
relatively small and largely one-off", and that "the balance of 
argument about defence exports should depend mainly on non-economic 
considerations".

The Hawk deal raises questions about the way the government makes 
policy on arms export issues. The Prime Minister, Deputy Prime 
Minister, Foreign and Defence Secretaries have all been involved in 
lobbying for the deal. Each licence application is supposed to be 
considered impartially against agreed criteria, but the ministers' 
promotion of the deal makes it almost inconceivable that a licence 
would be refused.

Clear limits should be established on ministerial involvement in the 
promotion of arms exports. The government should scrap the Defence 
Export Services Organisation - which Denis Healey set up as defence 
minister in the 1960s with the remit of promoting arms sales to the 
developing world - and phase out the support given to arms exports by 
the Export Credits Guarantee Department. There should also be greater 
parliamentary involvement on arms export issues. Four select 
committees, covering defence, foreign affairs, international 
development and trade, have called for a prior parliamentary scrutiny 
committee.

=46or too long, the moral case against some arms exports has been 
trumped by the apparently invincible economic case in favour. But the 
findings of the government's own economists suggest that a more 
responsible approach is not a question of economic loss versus moral 
gain. The government, first elected on a pledge to clean up the arms 
trade, is running out of excuses for not doing so.

David Mepham is the head of the international programme at the 
Institute for Public Policy Research

_____


#4.

The Hindustan Times (India)
Saturday, June 21, 2003
  	 
Defending the indefensible
by Khushwant Singh

  It took ten years for our law-enforcing agencies to frame charges 
for the heinous crime of destroying a place of worship.

The delay itself should be cause for serious concern to honest 
citizens of our country. Later, newspapers carried pictures of Uma 
Bharati embracing Murli Manohar Joshi to share her joy at seeing the 
Babri masjid reduced to a rubble and interviews with Bal Thackeray 
who boasted that his Sainiks had played a decisive role in the 
demolition.

Among those charge-sheeted is our deputy prime minister L.K. Advani. 
He was the prime mover of the 'Ayodhya movement'. If he had not 
organised the rath yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya, none of this tragic 
drama would have been enacted. In normal circumstances, 
charge-sheeted men and women would have resigned their ministerial 
posts till the court trying them had delivered its judgment. There is 
no likelihood of this happening as the accused happen to be pillars 
of the establishment. Far from accepting moral responsibility for the 
crime committed, they are proud of having righted a historical wrong.

If it took ten years to frame charges with bail and exemption from 
personal appearance granted to the accused, how long will it take for 
the case to be concluded and judgment pronounced? Perhaps another 10 
or 20 years, by which time the majority of the accused will have 
departed from the earth. They will only be answerable for their 
conduct in the court of god in whom they profess to believe. The 
earthly verdict will be only of academic interest.

Saffronites try to downplay the Ayodhya tragedy as of little 
importance. They have got it wrong. It not only blackened our faces 
in the eyes of the Muslim world, it also put us on par with vandals 
like Mahmud Ghazni. The only difference is that while Ghazni 
destroyed our temples in medieval ages, we destroyed the Babri masjid 
only ten years ago.

Out of the ashes

At the time when Khalistan militancy was at its height, I visited 
Amritsar, Mehta Chowk (headquarters of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale), 
Tarn Taran and several surrounding villages. I also interviewed a few 
young Sikhs who had deserted militant groups and surrendered. Despite 
my strong disapproval of Operation Blue Star and the repressive 
methods adopted by our army and police, I regarded Bhindranwale as an 
evil genius who had misled a gullible section of the Sikh community 
along a separatist path and the demand for Khalistan as suicidal for 
the Khalsa Panth.

I supported K.P.S. Gill for resorting to extra-judicial methods to 
stamp out terrorism. The judiciary was in a state of collapse and 
magistrates too terrified to refuse applications for bail put by 
terrorists. The administration was paralysed and people gave in to 
extortion and violence perpetrated by gangs. If the police caught 
those with criminal records or those who admitted to murdering 
innocent people, instead of taking them to court, the police 
eliminated them. It was jungle justice but it had an element of 
justification behind it. But even in this savage war of attrition, we 
expected the police to discriminate between criminals and others who 
were proving a nuisance to them.

When stories came out about abductions and cold-blooded killings of 
over 2,000 young Sikhs in Amritsar and Tarn Taran, I refused to 
accept them simply on records of purchases of wood made by the police 
to cremate them. Then came the case of Jaswant Singh Khalra, a human 
rights activist who was picked from his house on September 6, 1995, 
within sight of a few witnesses; he was later seen in police custody 
by others. He was executed by the police on October 28 and his body 
dumped in a canal. Khalra belonged to a well-known family with a 
record of involvement in the freedom movement. He had committed no 
crime. There were others like him who were disposed of because the 
police did not like them. All this has been brought out in Volume I 
of Reduced to Ashes: The Insurgency and Human Rights by Ram Narayan 
Kumar, Amrik Singh, Ashok Agarwaal and Jaskaran Kaur. It is 
spine-chilling.

Asked for his comments, Gill, who claims credit for putting down the 
insurgency, dismissed it with one word: 'Rubbish'. Well, Mr Gill, it 
is not rubbish; you and the Punjab police have quite a few awkward 
questions to answer. The case is with the National Human Rights 
Commission. You can clear yourself before it.

I often wonder why so many senior police officers drink so hard. Now 
I have a clue.

______


#5.

Inter Press Service

POLITICS-INDIA:
Row Brewing over Proposal to Send Troops to Iraq

Commentary - By Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI, Jun 19 (IPS) - A major political face-off is brewing in 
India over the issue of dispatching troops to Iraq to partially 
relieve the U.S. and British soldiers now occupying that country.

The U.S. government is insistent that India should send about 17,000 
soldiers as a "test" of its commitment to fighting international 
terrorism, and more important, of India's bid for great world-power 
status and its much-coveted "strategic alliance" with Washington.

Washington is offering India the carrot of military hardware and 
lucrative contracts in Iraq's "reconstruction".

On Jun. 16, the U.S. government sent a senior-level Pentagon 
delegation to talk to Indian ministers and diplomats. It did not get 
an assurance that India would send troops, but was told that the 
government is trying to generate a "consensus" on the issue by 
talking to all political parties, as well as Iraq's neighbours.

Indian public opinion and the political opposition is set against 
sending troops to Iraq and bestowing legitimacy on what it regards as 
the illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Besides, Indians would not like their sovereign army's soldiers to 
salute the U.S. flag or fight under a U.S. general command.

Caught between the two forces, the Indian government is desperately 
looking for a figleaf such as authorisation for the troops' dispatch 
from the U.N. Security Council. For it, this is a test case for 
diplomatic fancy footwork and spin-doctoring.

New Delhi would like to depict military cooperation with the 
occupation powers in Iraq as a variant of a "peacekeeping" operation. 
It would like to get around the problem of a U.S.-dominated command 
structure in Iraq by asking for an "autonomous" operating area or 
zone for Indian troops.

In reality, this is a litmus test of the independence of India's 
foreign and strategic policy and its potential contribution to making 
the global order less skewed and unipolar than it is.

It is also a test for New Delhi's responsiveness to domestic public 
opinion -- in short, for the quality of democracy.

If India fails this test, it could move towards consolidating a close 
and unequal relationship with the United States, to the point of 
allowing Washington to build military bases on Indian soil.

The number of soldiers India is being asked to send is nearly six 
times higher than the troops committed by the United States' closest 
military allies -- barring Britain -- which supported the Iraq war, 
such as Italy (3,000) or Spain (2,300).

It is not just India's opposition that is against sending Indian 
troops to Iraq. Even some coalition partners of the ruling pro-Hindu 
Bharatiya Janata Party - including Defence Minister George Fernandes' 
Samata Party -- are opposed to the proposal.

U.S. pressure on India has become especially heavy over the past few 
weeks as most of the U.S. strategic allies have refused to send 
troops and bestow legitimacy on the occupying powers.

U.S. diplomats, and President George W Bush himself, have repeatedly 
raised the issue of the dispatch of troops with Indian leaders. So 
have Vice President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld 
and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

Despite Washington's best efforts, it has received promises of only 
15,000 troops from other countries -- in place of the tens of 
thousands it needs to take the heat off its own 130,000 soldiers and 
Britain's 15,000 troops stationed in Iraq.

The Iraqi political situation remains messy and the prospect of a 
representative government a mirage. The U.S.-British coalition is 
suffering the loss of one soldier every other day or so. The United 
States would like some of its army units to be pulled out and Indian 
troops to be placed in the line of fire. However, Indian troops are 
not being invited as peacekeepers under U.N. auspices -- a role they 
are familiar with since the 1950s. Rather, they are being asked to 
assist the occupation powers in ways that will bring them into 
hostile contact with Iraqi civilians through heavy-handed policing 
and imposition of order amidst unrest. Matters are further 
complicated by the fact that the Indian government took a stand 
against the war on Iraq, under pressure from the national Parliament, 
which held that Iraq's invasion breached all criteria of "just war" 
-- including military necessity, non-combatant immunity, 
proportionality in use of force..

The U.S.-British coalition waged war in violation of the U.N. Charter 
and without the authorisation of the Security Council, which alone 
can sanction the use of armed force -- except in self-defence.

Indian public opinion holds that the coalition failed to demonstrate 
that programmes for weapons of mass destruction that Iraq may have 
had posed a credible threat to anyone. No such weapons have been 
found more than two months after U.S. troops took Baghdad.

It now emerges that the U.S. and British governments deliberately 
'sexed up' and exaggerated intelligence reports on Iraq's weapons of 
mass destruction.

This has embarrassed even the U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), 
the Central Intelligence Agency and MI-6. The DIA now confirms that 
one of its reports concluded that the agency "had no reliable 
information" that Iraq had chemical weapons.

The reason why the Indian government wants to collaborate with the 
United States in Iraq has to do with its eagerness to seal a 
long-term military alliance with Washington and outflank Pakistan.

India is also keen to buy top-of-the-line U.S. and Israeli military 
equipment, including missile-defence systems and the 'Patriot' 
missile.

The United States is keen to hold joint exercises with Indian forces 
and establish access to military bases. According to a Pentagon 
report, quoted by U.S. defence specialist John Carbaugh, who advises 
the U.S. defence industry and policymakers: "American military 
officers are candid in their plans to eventually seek access to 
Indian bases and military infrastructure."

Says Carbaugh: "India's strategic location in the centre of Asia, 
astride the frequently travelled sea lanes of communication linking 
West Asia and East Asia, makes India particularly attractive.=E0"

The issue of sending Indian troops to Iraq thus goes well beyond the 
particular circumstances of Iraq. It directly relates to India's 
potential collusion with U.S. plans for a global empire. The 
Hindu-sectarian government in New Delhi runs a huge risk in working 
against the domestic consensus. The risk is all the greater because 
secular opinion in India -- comprising a majority of its 820 million 
Hindus and its 120 million-strong Muslims -- would see any 
collaboration with the United States as driven by anti-Islamic 
prejudice.

One thing is certain: dispatching troops to Iraq will be extremely 
divisive and create serious strife in India. (END/2003)

____


#6.

=46rontline (India), June 21 - July 4, 2003
BOOKS

Mysteries of the Indus Valley

PARVATHI MENON

The Indus Civilization by Irfan Habib; Tulika Books; pages 110; Rs.225.

REPRESENTING a particularly high watermark of ancient history, the 
Indus Valley Civilisation has never failed to stoke the curiosity and 
capture the imagination of historian and lay person alike. This is 
not surprising. The evidence for this early chapter of the 
subcontinent's history conceals a great deal more than it yields 
while yet offering clues to many puzzles and mysteries that continue 
to confound and confuse us. Locked in the diverse yet relatively 
sparse representations of the Indus culture are the secrets of the 
subcontinent's collective identity: of who we are, where we are from, 
how we are linked, and why we have come to be the way we are.

The Indus Civilisation flourished between 2500 B.C. and 2000 B.C. A 
comprehensive interpretation of the rich archaeological remains of 
the Indus culture has not been possible as the elusive Indus script - 
the key to the civilisation - remains un-deciphered. Further, the 
modern division into two hostile countries of the region across which 
the Indus civilisation once lay has undoubtedly been a major 
impediment in the study of this subcontinental legacy. We have also 
seen recent attempts by Hindutva writers to re-interpret the evidence 
from the Indus Civilisation. At the level of serious scholarship, 
these efforts have been firmly rejected. Nevertheless, theories which 
posit a Vedic origin for the Indus civilisation, on the basis of a 
flaky interpretation of archaeological evidence and a `decipherment' 
of the script, have been popularised by a credulous media. They are 
also becoming part of classroom knowledge via a new generation of 
history textbooks for schools.

DESPITE these limitations and setbacks, serious Indus scholarship has 
moved painstakingly ahead, uncovering new evidence, while 
reinterpreting and even challenging old theories. To this growing 
body of scholarship, Irfan Habib's new book on the Indus 
Civilisation, makes a substantial and valuable contribution. The 
second in the Peoples History of India series sponsored by the 
Aligarh Historians Society, this slim book with its sedate layout and 
presentation packs not a few punches. Though best known as a 
historian of medieval India, Habib is no stranger to the history of 
ancient India, although this is his first major work on the Indus 
period. In keeping with the objectives of the People's History of 
India project, the book has been written for a popular audience and 
for use by high school and college teachers. Therefore, considerable 
attention has been paid to explaining issues that historians might be 
familiar with but not the average reader, and the book has 
explanatory notes on the methods of archaeology and the 
reconstruction of language history.

Archaeologists, like investigative journalists, deal with data or 
information, often disparate and apparently unconnected. Careful data 
collection is just one part of the job. The data must be analysed, 
and the connections of the parts with the whole made. But the most 
important part of the process is the interpretation. This often 
necessitates a leap in reasoning which elevates the story to a new 
level of credibility. Habib is not a primary investigator of the 
period he writes about and instead draws upon the vast literature 
that already exists on the theme. But he has constant surprises in 
store for the reader by his reasoned insights into his subject 
matter. His study thereby substantially advances the base of our 
awareness and knowledge of this fascinating period of our ancient 
past.

If the Indus Civilisation diffused from a small core area, which 
Habib believes it must have done given the remarkable uniformity of 
its cultural features, this area has not been firmly established, 
although it could possibly have been in the Kot-Diji culture area of 
the Punjab, and northern and central Sindh. According to Habib, the 
Urban Revolution took place in the region extending from Iraq to the 
Indus basin between 3500 B.C. and 2500 B.C. The existence of towns 
would imply that agricultural communities had started producing a 
surplus and that a group of people were thereby freed from 
agriculture to take up other occupations. The increase in 
agricultural production was driven by a range of technological 
advances. A state apparatus emerged, which collected taxes and 
administered the towns. Religion and ideology reinforced the process 
of urban integration. The term `civilisation' describes a society of 
which town life is a central feature. Habib discusses the Helmand 
Civilisation, the material remains of which present a model of how 
urban societies developed out of agricultural communities. The 
Helmand culture existed in present-day Afghanistan between 2600 B.C. 
and 2100 B.C. With its two cities of Shahr-i Sokhta and Mundikak, it 
was a fairly advanced society, although, interestingly, there is no 
firm evidence of any interaction between it and the Indus 
Civilisation with which it overlapped in its late phase.

Indus Civilisation sites or settlements shared certain standard 
cultural features, according to Habib. These included the following: 
the distinctive Harappan wheel-made pottery which was in widespread 
use; the Indus script that appears on seals, potsherds and metal 
artefacts, and which is uniform in the Indus culture zone; baked 
bricks of a standard size with their sides in the 1:2:4 ratio; 
standard weights based on a unit equivalent to 13.63 grams; a grid 
pattern for roads in urban settlements and a drainage system; 
citadels built adjacent to the town; masonry walls and tanks; and a 
common burial pattern in cemeteries outside the town. The diffusion 
of the Indus culture over such a wide extent could only have been 
driven by political expansion, Habib argues. "One must imagine," he 
writes, "that the proto-Indus state, by use, perhaps, of ox-drawn 
chariots and bronze weaponry, subdued the territories of the 
different Early Indus cultures, and thereafter imposed its major 
features of economic and cultural life in all parts of the `Indus 
empire', which was now formed. ...Whatever the details of the 
process, the role of the state in the spread of the Indus 
Civilisation is likely to have been crucial."

In the second section of the book Habib puts more pieces of the Indus 
jigsaw in place by working with existing evidence to examine the 
historical processes at work, while building new arguments on various 
facets of the Indus culture. He discusses Indus agriculture, craft 
production and trade; there is a detailed discussion on towns and 
urban life; sections on religion, writing and art; and a stimulating 
discussion on society, state and the Indus decline. The culture was 
geographically vast (a map of the Indus culture area in relation to 
the rest of the subcontinent would have provided a sense of its 
extent). It extended over most of present-day Punjab (in both India 
and Pakistan), Haryana, parts of western Uttar Pradesh and northern 
Rajasthan, Sindh, most of Gujarat and parts of northeastern and 
southern Baluchistan. Population estimates for the area range between 
one and five million. If at the height of de-urbanisation in the 19th 
century the rural population was nearly nine times the urban, Habib 
argues, the rural population of the Indus Civilisation could not have 
been less than 15 times the urban if they had to produce sufficient 
food at the existing levels of agricultural productivity. He makes a 
rough population estimate of four million on this basis for the whole 
area, or six persons per square kilometre. (In 1901 the same area 
supported 50 persons per square kilometre). The combined population 
of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa was 150,000 and the total urban 
population not less than 250,000.

The use of the plough in Indus agriculture has been proved by the 
discovery of a clay model, and the discovery of a ploughed field at 
an excavated Indus settlement. It is the first culture known where 
wells gave access to underground water. While there is no proof that 
the pulley was in use for lifting water, the lever-lift based on 
stone counterweights could well have been in use, Habib argues. The 
range of crops had increased to 12 by this period and included 
cereals (but not rice), several millets, pulses, oilseeds, and, most 
importantly, cotton. Finds of animal bones reveal that the ox and the 
cow were domesticated as were sheep and goats (kept for meat and 
wool). The building industry had a major place in the Indus economy. 
The fired brick that was in use was an "outstanding innovation" 
according to Habib, as much for its size and ratio as for the 
technique of use, which gave extra stability to the structures.

The Indus cities were unique for their time in urban planning, and 
more particularly for their drainage system. The main features of the 
towns are well known - the division of the town into the `acropolis' 
or `citadel' built upon a large platform and a `lower town' area; the 
broad roads laid at right angles, the corbelled roofed drains which 
cleaners could enter; the granaries, and the `Great Bath' at 
Mohenjo-Daro. There were several large towns within the Indus culture 
zone. The occupied area of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa are estimated at 
over 200 and 150 hectares respectively. The site of Ganweriwala 
covers an estimated area of 80 hectares. The sites of Lakhmirwala, 
Gurni Kalan and Hasanpur-2 in the Punjab, and Dholavira in Kutch are 
among the larger of the sites (the first three have not yet been 
excavated though they have been surveyed). The large structures 
identified as granaries at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro perhaps stored 
the grain brought by officials as land tax and was meant for 
distribution in the citadel area of the cities. The region apparently 
supported a widespread network of trade both within the different 
parts of the empire and `internationally'. Historical evidence from 
contemporary societies hold exciting possibilities for extending our 
knowledge of the Indus period. The Mesopotamians gave to the Indus 
basin the name `Meluhha' and there have been finds of Indus potsherds 
and artefacts at the royal cemetery at Ur in southern Iraq. A seal of 
the Akkadian period refers to its owner as `Silusu, Meluhha 
interpreter'. The Indus equivalent of a Rosetta Stone has never been 
found, but if it ever surfaced it would surely be in a region with 
which Indus merchants had trade links.

Habib draws a convincing picture of a society that was both socially 
and economically differentiated, "a well-developed class society, 
comprising peasants, pastoral nomads, slaves, urban poor, artisans, 
merchants, priests and rulers, along with their dependents such as 
warriors, scribes and servants." The existence of private property, 
and indeed great private wealth and power, is suggested by the vastly 
different housing standards for the rich and the poor in towns, by 
the profusion of seals used to mark personal property and 
merchandise, the discovery of a treasure jar of precious ornaments, 
and so on. That women had a subordinate position in such a society 
could well be assumed; interestingly, skeletal evidence also proves 
it. Habib says that dental studies of Harappan skeletons showed that 
women from their childhood were less well-nourished. Malaria appears 
to have been a frequent visitor. According to him, the evidence of a 
malaria epidemic in India is established for the first time from the 
study of Mohenjo-Daro skeletons. While life expectancy has not been 
calculated for the Indus people, from the age profile of 90 skeletons 
from the Harappan cemetery, "it would be surprising if real average 
life expectancy exceeded thirty years", he concludes.

According to Habib, the mature Indus Civilisation state could well 
have created an `Indus empire'. For only a strong centralised state, 
which was in administrative control of the cities, could have 
established the sort of institutional and cultural uniformity that 
set the civilisation apart. Such a state was needed to conquer new 
regions and keep tax-paying peasants in subjection. What might then 
have happened to the Indus state? "A large part of the Indus basin 
having been conquered and held for some time as a centralised 
`empire'," Habib writes, "might have then broken into two or more 
parts, each under a separate dynasty but each owing allegiance to the 
same tradition of culture and governance". If the Indus Civilisation 
was indeed an empire, ruled by one or several monarchies, the symbols 
of empire like large monumental buildings, are absent from the 
remains. Will excavations of the future reveal these? Does the 
absence of such symbols disprove the theory of a strong and 
expansionist Indus state, or could imperial power have been expressed 
in other ways, which new evidence from this period might throw up?

How did it all end? How did a flourishing civilisation with an 
evolved central administrative system, a wide trade network, a 
dynamic manufacturing sector, and an agriculture that sustained this 
edifice collapse in a period of one hundred years? Soon after 2000 
B.C., cities and towns practically disappear. Some cities show signs 
of disrepair followed by abandonment, the writing disappears on 
seals, the figures of deities and sacred animals on seals and tablets 
disappear, there are changes in burial practices, the pottery is 
replaced, and crafts disappear. "The change then was so complete as 
to bring about a relapse to non-urban conditions and illiteracy, an 
alteration of religion, and a great qualitative and quantitative 
contraction of crafts. All the survivals from the Indus Civilisation 
within the succeeding cultures are of a minor and secondary 
character; and even these leave the scene fairly soon," writes Habib 
of the post-Indus scenario.

Habib examines the many theories that have been advanced for this 
sudden civilisational collapse. Flooding owing to a shifting of the 
river's course has been suggested as one reason for the decline. 
Conversely, there is the theory of an arid phase and the consequent 
drying up of the Ghaggar Hakra river, which in turn caused the 
depopulation of cities. There is a theory that a human-induced 
disaster occurred, the consequence of over-cultivation and 
deforesting of the land. The decline of trade with Mesopotamia after 
2000 B.C. is often cited as a reason for the decline of commerce and 
manufacture in the Indus basin, leading in turn to a collapse of the 
system.

Habib himself advances a persuasive argument for the collapse of the 
civilisation. The Indus state, he says, ran into a political crisis, 
which affected its ability to impose and collect tribute from the 
rural communities. This could have happened owing to dissension 
within the ruling class. The towns and townspeople depended on the 
tribute for their sustenance. The sudden collapse of towns therefore 
could only have happened if some crisis had caused the tribute to dry 
up. Prior to the Indus collapse, around 2200 B.C., the Helmand 
civilisation came to a sudden end, with evidence of arson and 
violence in the historical record. According to Habib, a reasonable 
inference that can be made is that invasions from the west 
overwhelmed first the Helmand cities, then the Kot-Diji culture, and 
finally the Indus cities. He points to the signs of violence in the 
later stages of Mohenjo-Daro where 38 skeletons were found in 
unnatural situations, suggesting that they were victims of acts of 
violence. Therefore, an internal political crisis of the Indus state, 
which weakened it, was followed by an external attack or invasion of 
some sort, which dealt the civilisation a final blow.

However, Habib does not subscribe to the view that the invaders were 
Vedic Aryans. The end of the Indus Civilisation can be put no later 
than 1900 B.C., 400 years before the earliest elements in the 
Rigveda. But he does say that the intruders could have been 
`pre-Vedic Aryans' who spoke some form of proto-Aryan speech, 
although this has not yet been proved.

The last section of the book deals with the period in the 500 years 
following the collapse of the Indus Civilisation. There was progress 
on some counts, namely an increase in the range of crops which 
suggested double cropping, and the spread of some craft techniques. 
But the slide-back from the achievements of the Indus culture were 
far more pronounced. This was marked by `de-urbanisation', the decay 
of a range of Indus crafts, and the withering of commerce.

A guide to the literature provided at the end of each chapter instead 
of footnotes helps keep the narrative flowing. Along with the notes 
on the methods of archaeology and the reconstruction of language, a 
note on the archaeological discovery of the major Indus sites, a 
story by itself, would have been useful and interesting.


_____


#7.

20 June 2003

Call for papers Deep Focus

"I think of theory as a practice that changes your life entirely 
because it acts on your conscience. Of course, theory becomes a mere 
accessory to practice when it speaks from a safe place, while 
practice merely illustrates theory when the relationship between the 
two remains one of domination-submission and of totalization. I see 
theory as a constant questioning of the framing of consciousness-a 
practice capable of informing another practice, such as film 
production, in a reciprocal challenge. "

-Trinh T. Minh-Ha in an interview with Scott Mc Donald in November 1989. *


Deep Focus a film quarterly, has evolved over the past 20 years as a 
serious film journal that recognizes cinema as the most potent form 
of expression to emerge in our times. The effort has been to 
understand as well as critique our immediate reality, the experience 
of the everyday, the existing structures and values by a reading, an 
interpretation and an understanding of popular films and films by 
cinema's masters.

We invite papers for our 2003 general issue, which we would like to 
publish before the International Film Festival of India (October 
2003) where it will be displayed and where we meet one another. Our 
next issue (slated for Jan-Feb 2004) however, would be a thematic 
issue focusing on war crimes, representation of war in cinema in 
postmodern times and its re-coloniality. For the general issue we 
would like to invite papers:

i.                    Articles:                 ranging from 3,000-10,000 wo=
rds
ii.                 Film reviews:       1,000 words +
iii.               Interviews with film directors, film makers
iv.               Reports on film festivals, or seminars on films
v.                  Book Reviews

Language: Deep Focus hopes to employ a language of cinema that is 
humanistic in its critique. The mixing of different modes of writing; 
the mutual challenge of theoretical and poetical, discursive and 
"non-discursive" languages, the strategic use of archetypal imageries 
in exposing stereotypical thinking.

Deadline: 15th August 2003.

[...] So please send us your papers to the following:

No. 33/1-9 and 1-10, Thyagaraj Layout, Jai Bharathi Nagar,
Maruthi Sevanagar P.O., Bangalore - 560 033.

Ph: 5492774, 549277
E-mail: <mailto:bfs@bgl.vsnl.net.in%C2%A0>bfs@bgl.vsnl.net.in  

*Framer Framed (1992) Trinh T. Minh-Ha; Routledge:New York and London

Regards
Shireen
Deep Focus/Bangalore Film Society

_____


#8.

The Times of India, June 20, 2003
Bollywood bonds India, Pakistan
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/comp/articleshow?msid=3D3342=
6

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