SACW | 23 June, 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire   |  23 June,  2003

#1. India-Pakistan border closures has kept apart families in the 
mostly Muslim community.
(Robyn Dixon)
#2. Reshaping Pakistan Along Religious Lines  (John Lancaster)
#3. Bangladesh likely face litigation for troops to Iraq (Saleem Samad)
#4. India: Facets of violence  (Kuldip Nayar)
#5. India: In Hindutva Genes:Treason and Moral Turpitude (I.K.Shukla)
#6. India: Left-liberalism and Caste Politics (Nalini Rajan)
#7. India: Cognate, Meet Agnate; Now Get Lost (Dilip D'Souza)
#8. Book Review: Pointers to Partition (Gyanesh Kudaisya)


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

#1.

Los Angeles Times (USA)

Punjab Caught in Fray of Politics
India-Pakistan border closures has kept apart families in the mostly 
Muslim community.

By Robyn Dixon
Times Staff Writer

June 22, 2003

MALER KOTLA, India - Nothing gilds the future of a young Punjabi 
couple like an engagement ring, but Shahida Kalo has had to tuck away 
her ring and her hopes into a box, waiting on the whims and plunges 
of the troubled India-Pakistan relationship.

Two years ago she was engaged at 17 to a cousin in Lahore, Pakistan, 
a couple of hours away by road. But 18 months ago, relations between 
the two nuclear powers plummeted and she had to put her wedding 
dreams on hold when the border closed.

The twists and turns in diplomatic rhetoric make predictions about 
India-Pakistan ties difficult, even for experts. As the politicians 
alternately beckon and bluster, Kalo eagerly follows the television 
news, trying to divine her future.

This mainly Muslim community is torn, with families scattered on each 
side of the border. Cross-border marriages among Muslims here have 
been traditional since the partition that created Pakistan in 1947, 
dividing Punjabi Muslims.

"Our culture is the same, our food is the same, our dress is the 
same, our language is the same," said Maler Kotla businessman Amjad 
Ali, 49.

Pakistan and India recently agreed to exchange high commissioners, 
stepping back from 18 months of hostilities when the nuclear powers 
came perilously close to war. The thaw melted the surface ice, but 
there are doubts about how far they will go to make peace in Kashmir, 
the core dispute.

Hanging on the latest thaw are the marriage hopes of at least one 
Punjabi couple and the safety of civilians in the strife-torn region 
of Kashmir. And businessmen like Ali, a textile and furniture 
manufacturer, dream of a direct trade route to Pakistan, Afghanistan 
and Central Asia.

Set in a verdant patchwork of rice paddies, Maler Kotla is a 
prosperous Punjabi town with pin-neat streets, its market a colorful 
splash of summer fruit. In a country of 1 billion, where survival for 
many is a grinding struggle, Maler Kotla is blessed. The Himalayas 
pour spring waters into Punjab's four rivers and its many canals; the 
earth is so fertile that the state, on just 1.5% of India's landmass, 
provides a quarter of the nation's wheat and 10% of its rice.

The state has the best infrastructure in the nation, according to the 
Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy, and the highest per capita 
income.

Water buffalo wallow luxuriously in ponds, some so deep that only 
their nostrils protrude. The houses are well-appointed, topped with 
eccentric water tanks shaped like soccer balls, cars, hats or 
airplanes.

Kalo, a laborer's daughter, saw her fiance, Asef Ashi, once - four 
years ago - after her parents arranged the marriage. She glanced 
shyly into his eyes, trying in one moment to glean what she could of 
her future. He was handsome, and his voice was silky. Recalling, she 
blushes, covers her face and giggles. Yes, she liked him.

Perhaps marriage will free her from her drudgery of sewing two 
dresses a day for less than $2 in a house in the back alleys of 
central Maler Kotla. Perhaps she will have to work harder.

Ashi, 22, works in a fabric shop. She doesn't know what his dreams 
are, but she's willing to work for them.

Kalo and others like her pin their hopes on an agreement between the 
governments to resume a bus service from New Delhi to Lahore next 
month.

Kalo heard nothing from her fiance until he called a few days ago, 
promising to bring her to Pakistan as soon as the bus line resumes. 
After 18 months apart they spoke just 10 minutes.

"He said I miss you and you can guess what else," she said. When Ashi 
told her he loved her for the first time, "I was thrilled," she 
added. "My heart was beating so fast. As soon as the border reopens, 
we'll marry.

"The entire fight between the two countries is because of Kashmir. I 
hope they'll solve the Kashmir problem once and for all and harmonize 
relations."

The border was closed and diplomatic ties were cut after an attack by 
Islamic militants on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 that 
killed 14, including five assailants. In April, Indian Prime Minister 
Atal Behari Vajpayee offered peace talks if the Islamabad government 
closed Islamic militants' camps in Pakistan and prevented them from 
infiltrating Kashmir.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf says that the incursions have 
stopped. He has called on India to take more concrete steps toward 
peace, but the Indians insist that the militants in Kashmir are still 
active. The U.S. ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, also said 
recently that terrorism emanating from Pakistan has not stopped.

After the border closed, some families in Maler Kotla missed 
relatives' weddings or funerals. Some could not visit dying relatives.

The day the border closed, Tahira Parveen, 30, was trapped on the 
wrong side. She managed to return to her Pakistani husband in Lahore 
but was deported last year, despite offering authorities proof of the 
marriage. She thinks that she was kicked out because relations 
between the countries were then at rock bottom.

Punjab would surge ahead, says Ali, the businessman, if only the 
leaders of India and Pakistan would make the peace that people crave, 
and open the border. "If the border opened, this would be the most 
prosperous place. They are short of iron [in Pakistan], and we have a 
lot of iron. We could export a lot of goods to them. And they have 
huge supplies of power, while we are short of electricity."

Praful Bidwai, a national political columnist who writes for more 
than 20 newspapers, said the trade benefit to both countries would 
amount to between $4 billion and $5 billion. "It's much more than the 
foreign investment that both India and Pakistan receive," he said.

Ali believes that the cost of the Kashmir conflict in military 
spending, lost lives and lost trade is too high for both sides. "It 
will have to stop. There's no other way out. There's no life on those 
mountains," he said, referring to the disputed territory.

When a bus chugs from New Delhi to Lahore - within weeks, if the 
fragile thaw does not freeze over - Shahida Kalo's hopes, and those 
of countless others, will ride with it.

Her only problem then will be to get a ticket.

_____


#2.

The Washington Post
=46riday, June 20, 2003; Page A01

Reshaping Pakistan Along Religious Lines
Islamic Fundamentalism Exerts a Growing Influence in Secular Society
By John Lancaster
Washington Post Foreign Service

LAHORE, Pakistan -- At Punjab University last month, professors of 
English literature were flabbergasted when they learned that a top 
administrator had ordered their curriculum reviewed for un-Islamic 
texts. Among the books deemed offensive to public morals: "Gulliver's 
Travels" and "Tess of the d'Urbervilles."

"It was so absurd," one of the professors recalled. "We didn't know 
whether to laugh or cry."

Emboldened by an unexpectedly strong showing in national elections 
last fall, Islamic fundamentalists are stepping up their efforts to 
reshape Pakistan along religious lines, alarming moderate Pakistanis 
and casting doubt on President Pervez Musharraf's ability -- or 
willingness -- to curb the fundamentalists' power.

One site of their new power is parliament, where a coalition of six 
radical Islamic parties -- the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, or MMA -- 
constitutes the main political opposition to Musharraf and is 
obstructing legislative business to protest his military rule.

In North-West Frontier Province, one of four provinces in Pakistan 
and the only one where the coalition holds undiluted power, the local 
legislature passed a bill earlier this month calling for imposition 
of sharia, or Islamic law. It is considering a companion measure that 
would create a force of morality police modeled after one fielded by 
Afghanistan's deposed Taliban movement.

Islamic militants in the province's capital, Peshawar, have taken the 
law into their own hands, vandalizing satellite dishes and other 
things they see as symbols of Western decadence.

But even in places where the fundamentalists do not hold formal 
political power, they are exercising major influence.

Lahore is one of Pakistan's most cultured and cosmopolitan cities and 
capital of Punjab province, home to Pakistan's moderate mainstream 
culture and long known more for food and festivals than religious 
zealotry. Yet here student couples have been physically attacked on 
college campuses for holding hands. The bar association recently 
elected a lawyer from a fundamentalist party as its head. And on the 
streets lately, night-riding vigilantes have been splashing paint on 
billboard images of unveiled women.

Clerics have mounted a partially successful campaign to curb the 
spread of pedestrian-friendly "food streets" in Lahore's historic 
walled city. Such amenities, the clerics say, promote mixing of the 
sexes and prostitution.

"I have questioned them: Is there room for entertainment in your 
religion?" said Kamran Lashari, the U.S.-educated head of the Punjab 
Parks and Horticulture Authority, which has promoted the food-street 
plan. "I think they're basically joy killers. I don't see any event 
which has brought public joy and happiness being accepted by these 
elements."

Leaders of the religious coalition deny they are seeking to emulate 
the Taliban. They say they are committed to the rule of law and to 
working within a democratic system. "Islamization is not 
Talibanization," said Farid Ahmad Paracha, a leader of the 
Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest party in the religious alliance, and a 
member of the national assembly from Lahore. "There is no model of 
Iran or Afghanistan."

Paracha said that while Islamic law forbids most forms of music, "we 
are not going to eliminate it at once. . . . We believe in educating 
society toward the Islamic system." He dismissed the billboard 
vandalism, which many people here believe to be the handiwork of 
party followers, as "just a reaction of some people" and "not an 
organized campaign."

The growing strength of the religious alliance is of no small concern 
to the United States, which considers Pakistan a front-line ally in 
the war on terrorism and has praised its efforts to capture al Qaeda 
fighters who took refuge in the country after U.S.-led forces 
overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

At the same time, U.S. officials remain deeply concerned about 
Pakistan's support for Islamic militants fighting Indian forces in 
Kashmir and the use of Pakistan's border areas by resurgent Taliban 
forces fighting the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan. Both 
topics are likely to figure prominently in talks between Musharraf 
and President Bush scheduled for Tuesday at Camp David.

Among secular-minded Pakistanis -- many of whom welcomed the 1999 
coup that brought Musharraf to power and his subsequent pledges to 
transform Pakistan into a modern, progressive Islamic state -- the 
muscle-flexing by the fundamentalists has sparked warnings that the 
country has instead embarked on a path of "creeping Talibanization."

"I think we are entering a new phase," said Ahmed Rashid, author of 
an international bestseller on the Taliban who makes his home in 
Lahore. "There's a cultural change happening. This is going to spread 
in [the frontier province] and spread in the whole country. It will 
certainly silence the voice of the liberals," people who favor a more 
secular state. Rashid places much of the responsibility for that on 
the military, which he says has fostered the fundamentalist 
groundswell as a bulwark against India and is now living with the 
consequences.

Such warnings date at least to the military government of Mohammed 
Zia ul-Haq, who seized power in 1977 and embarked on a vigorous 
effort to "Islamize" Pakistani society that ended with his death in a 
plane crash in 1988. Musharraf and his defenders say the president is 
committed to unraveling that legacy.

Zia's efforts notwithstanding, the religious parties have 
traditionally commanded little support among Pakistanis. Their 
success in last fall's elections, analysts say, was in some ways 
brought about by Musharraf's efforts to neutralize the country's main 
opposition parties, both of whose leaders -- former prime ministers 
Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif -- were barred from participating. 
The religious parties moved into the resulting vacuum, many analysts 
say.

Pakistan's political cross-currents converge in Lahore, a sprawling 
low-rise city of about 6 million people 220 miles southeast of 
Islamabad. Studded with minarets and the tombs of ancient kings, 
Lahore has been a center of politics and intrigue for centuries, 
first as a center of the Mughal empire, more recently as an outpost 
of British colonial administration in pre-independence India.

In many ways, the British era lives on through a small but 
influential Westernized elite, whose generally secular outlook is 
evident in the city's many art galleries and a performance of "The 
Vagina Monologues" scheduled for later this month. One of the city's 
most distinctive landmarks is Aitchison College, an exclusive 
colonial-era boarding school -- often described as "the Pakistani 
Eton" -- that sends many graduates to top universities in the United 
States and Britain.

"You can go to parties here and you can imagine you were in New York 
or anywhere in the world," said Shehla Saigol, the city's leading art 
patron -- Lahore's "Peggy Guggenheim," in the words of one associate 
-- and the wife of a wealthy industrialist. Sitting in her billiards 
room one recent night, Saigol, 49, said she sometimes frets that her 
grown children "seem to know Monte Carlo and Cannes and Sardinia more 
than they know Pakistan."

But the political and cultural winds may be shifting in Lahore. 
Although it is not heavily represented in the provincial government, 
the religious alliance wields considerable street power in the city, 
which serves as the headquarters of Jamaat-e-Islami.

Youth organizations linked to the religious parties are deeply 
involved in campus politics, and are often accused by secular-minded 
faculty members of promoting an atmosphere of intolerance. At Punjab 
University last month, militant students used wooden clubs to beat a 
male and female student -- both from Iran -- after the two were 
discovered sitting together on a campus veranda, according to three 
professors.

Masud Haq, a retired military officer and the university's registrar, 
said in an interview that he has taken a number of steps to curb 
fundamentalism on campus and that one of the students who carried out 
last month's attack has been expelled. "I have firm control of the 
university," he said. "I don't allow any student or any extremist to 
raise his head."

But the fundamentalist influence is felt in subtler ways as well, 
some faculty members say. Last month, the university's academic 
council engaged in heated debate over whether to drop English as a 
requirement, as fundamentalist groups have urged.

And then there was the flap over English literature, which began when 
Haq ordered a member of the department, Shahbaz Arif, to scrutinize 
the curriculum for offensive material.

Arif compiled a long list of examples, including Jonathan Swift's 
description of "a monstrous breast" in "Gulliver's Travels" and the 
title of Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock," according to a copy 
of the memo he supplied to colleagues in the English department. 
Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises," was deemed especially 
offensive: "All characters sexually astray: men homosexuals; females 
lesbians/promiscuous," he wrote.

In an interview, Arif said he did not hold extreme religious views 
and described himself as "very much Westernized," citing, among other 
things, his linguistics doctorate from Essex University in Britain. 
But he defended the logic of his review, asserting that in a 
conservative Islamic society, "some limitations should be there."

Infuriated by what they regarded as an assault on academic freedom, 
professors in the department alerted the local press to the 
controversy. Haq, the registrar, described the text review as routine 
and said it would not result in any curriculum changes. He said he 
had ordered the review only after receiving a complaint from someone 
he declined to name.

"We are proud to be Muslims, but we are gentleman Muslims," he said. 
"We are good liberal citizens of the world."

But faculty members, who have been ordered not to discuss the case 
with reporters, in some cases interpret the episode in a more 
sinister light. "What's happening in the university is more or less a 
microcosm of the political environment of the entire country," said 
one English professor. "We feel a very real threat to the liberal 
environment."

Iqbal Hussain shares their worries. A prostitute's son who grew up in 
the red-light district, where he still occupies the family home, 
Hussain, 51, is one of the city's best-known artists. His frank 
portraits of prostitutes and dancers fetch prices as high as $10,000 
on international markets. They also have gotten him in hot water with 
religious zealots, one of whom paid him a disturbing visit last year.

As Hussain recalled the episode recently, the bearded visitor pointed 
to a wooden sculpture -- an abstract representation of a woman -- at 
the entrance to Hussein's home, part of which has been converted into 
a gallery and restaurant. "You have a nice house," Hussain recalled 
the man saying in flawless English. "You have a nice gallery. I 
suggest you remove this sculpture now."

"I got the message," said Hussain. He moved the sculpture inside.


_____


#3.

[21 June 2003]

Bangladesh likely face litigation for troops to Iraq

By Saleem Samad
Source: Bangladesh Observer, page 11

Speculation regarding sending Bangladesh troops to Iraq for security 
purpose at the behest of United States is high on the agenda of 
official talks during the visit of US Secretary of State Colin Powell 
and Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia Thursday.

The United States had requested India to send contingent of military 
troops to Iraq. India diplomatically avoided a response. The request 
for troops was sent to Pakistan. General Musharaff quietly passed the 
request to the newly elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, who is yet 
to place it at the cabinet due to sensitivity of the issue.

Now America seems to have turned its head towards Bangladesh for 
mobilisation of a contingent of battle troops for security purpose of 
strategic targets, including key installations, government buildings, 
street patrolling, and security of religious and archaeological sites 
in Iraq, occupied by Anglo American coalition forces.

=46oreign Minister Morshed Khan said Bangladesh is ready to send troops 
for peacekeeping in Iraq for containing law and order situation and 
its reconstruction, but clarified that it should be under the United 
Nations umbrella.

Bangladesh in 1994 agreed to send troops to Haiti after the United 
States invaded the Central American country. Prime Minister Begum 
Khaleda Zia agreed to American President Bill Clinton?s telephonic 
conversation to despatch a contingent of troops to join the UN 
sponsored multinational forces.

Soon after the decision a writ was filed in the High Court 
challenging the decision to join the US forces in Haiti on September 
12, 1994. Advocates Shamsul Huq Chowdhury, M.I. Farooqui, M.K. 
Rahman, K.M. Saifuddin Ahmed and M. Saleem Ullah filed the writ 
petition.

The decision to send Bangladesh troops to join the US led forces in 
Haiti on the request of American President, the petitioners argued 
that was in violation of Article 63 of the constitution which says: 
"War shall not be declared and the Republic shall not participate in 
any war except with the assent of parliament."

According to Dhaka Law Report 47 (1995), page 218, the court rejected 
the petition on the plea that the decision to send troops to Haiti 
does not violate the fundamental principles of the state policy of 
Bangladesh.

In another litigation, former student leader Advocate Ruhul Quddus 
Babu and also junior of M.I. Farooqui filed a writ in the High Court 
challenging the decision of the Advisory Council of the Caretaker 
Government on September 19, 2001 to provide air space, sea ports, 
airfields and refuelling facilities to the US-led coalition forces 
against Afghanistan. The judgement remained pending after a show 
cause issued upon the authority.

The petitioner stated that the "government's decision to participate 
in the belligerency" by providing military facilities without the 
approval of the parliament on recalling the dissolved parliament 
under Article 72(4) of the constitution was illegal.

Advocate Farooqui told the Bangladesh Observer on Wednesday that the 
government would once again invite another writ in the High Court, if 
Bangladesh agrees to send military troops to Iraq without the UN 
mandate. He observed that with deployment of Bangladesh troops in 
Iraq, Dhaka would apparently recognise the Anglo-American led war and 
occupation of Iraq.

_____


#4.

The Hindu (India)
Jun 23, 2003

=46acets of violence
By Kuldip Nayar

Violence, the demolition of human rights and values, is taking place 
all over the country.

THE SIKH community's attitude towards Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale has 
always been ambivalent. It has not owned him fully because his word 
cost Punjab many innocent lives. Yet, the community has never 
denounced him because the shadowy figure was able to shroud the 
Sikhs' sense of identity with the sentiment of independence. His rise 
is the story of machinations by small men for small gains that made a 
village preacher a near prophet, a political puppet, a political 
puppeteer.

By declaring Bhindranwale a martyr, the Akalis, who primarily 
represent the Sikhs, may have ended the ambiguity. But they have not 
served the community well. On the one hand, they have given 
recognition to such wayward forces which brought no glory to the 
Sikhs. On the other, they have re-sown the seed of distrust in the 
minds of the majority community.

Punjab may well be in for ferment again. The 1980s were the worst of 
times in the State. The Bhindranwale cult of violence, Operation 
Bluestar in the Golden Temple, the assassination of Indira Gandhi and 
the killing of Sikhs in Delhi - all happened in a span of five years. 
And they took their toll on peace and equanimity.

Punjab looked nearly beyond repair. Never before were human rights 
and religious sentiments so blatantly violated as was done then. 
Besides the loss of thousands at the hands of terrorists and the 
security forces, a feeling of insensitivity came to pervade the land. 
Today, when there is a demand to account for the missing young men 
since then and to punish those responsible for false encounters, 
there is also praise for those who "fought against terrorism".

The Akalis are not answering the real question: how did Bhindranwale 
come to acquire a large following among the Sikhs? He was the 
instigator of violence. Should he have been glorified? A former Akali 
leader, Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, who was till recently an MP, puts 
it succinctly: "The Akalis never face the truth because in their 
calculation two and two do not make four". Still, the Akalis have a 
point when they say that those who killed 3,000 Sikhs in Delhi in 
1984 have gone scot-free. None has been imprisoned or hanged. They 
have every reason to criticise the snail speed of the Nanawati 
Commission conducting a fresh inquiry into the killing.

But they exasperate everyone and create doubts about their motive 
when they hail Bhindranwale. He came to represent terrorism which 
cannot be condoned in any way. Nor can violence.

It is, however, sad to see that violence, the demolition of human 
rights and values, is taking place all over the country. Even 
organisations motivated by economic considerations are behaving like 
the Akalis whose propelling force is religion. The naxalites, for 
one, should be working differently. There is no difference between 
them and the security forces. Both are indiscriminate.

The third report by the Committee of Concerned Citizens covering the 
5-year-long effort, from 1997 to 2002, shows their fruitless 
intervention in the climate of social turmoil and violence in rural 
Andhra Pradesh, especially Telengana. The committee was disappointed 
to find that there was "no change at all" in the Government's 
approach. Nor was there any qualitative change seen in the practices 
of the People's War, a naxalite group.

In 2001 and 2002 alone, as many as 350 lives were lost in police 
"encounters" and more than 310 persons died as a result of violence 
by naxalites. Most of the victims were from the weaker sections - 
women, youth and children. This unending and spiralling violence, 
according to the report, tended to obscure the basic issues of people 
and progressively brutalised the State and the society, reducing the 
people to passive spectators and often victims.

"It is the considered position of the committee that law is not just 
a weapon in the hands of the State but also a restraint on its 
behaviour and unless the State itself first respects law, it is not 
possible for the State to expect adherence to law by people", says 
the report. "Likewise, the committee is equally clear that the 
naxalite parties must adhere to higher standards of human rights, 
human values and human concerns through their theory and practice and 
this alone can provide moral legitimacy and justification for any 
revolutionary or transformatory movement and every action has to be 
examined on the touchstone of democratic, moral and humane standards."

This takes me to another facet of violence: dowry. I am referring to 
dowry deaths. There are hundreds of women jumping into fire or the 
well for escaping the demands of their greedy in-laws. Media 
publicity is essentially on the incident, seldom against the evil. It 
is surprising that leading women journalists have not built a 
campaign against dowry as they have done in other fields. The recent 
incident of a bride in Delhi who showed the bridegroom the door and 
his parents is a case in point.

I also find that the law is unhelpful. By jailing the husband, you 
may have the satisfaction that the guilty is undergoing some 
punishment. But the wife's problems - maintenance, shelter for her 
and her children - continue. Above all, women facing the dowry 
problem are generally poor. They cannot undergo the rigours of the 
delay in our criminal justice system.

More than a decade ago, some lawyer NGOs drafted a model law on 
domestic violence. The National Commission for Women gave a helping 
hand. A bill was introduced two years ago in the Lok Sabha. But it is 
not a comprehensive legislation. It defines domestic violence as 
habitual assault. Why has the assault to be habitual? Section 4 (2) 
gives the man the leeway of `self-defence'. He can always make the 
plea of `self-defence' to justify his fights with his wife, 
mother-in-law or other members of the family. A woman jurist, Indira 
Jai Singh, while criticising the bill said: "The present law is a 
complete sell-out of the rights of woman."

We must demand that the state perform its most elementary duty, that 
of protecting the life and liberty of its citizens in an effective 
way, consistent with its constitutional and international 
obligations. Law helps no doubt. Social problems depend on the 
sensitivity of the society for remedy. Men have to be awakened to 
what women go through.

Seema Sirohi, a journalist of eminence, has tried to do that. In a 
book, `Sita's Curse', she has narrated the story of six dowry 
victims. Their tales of woe are so poignant that even the tough will 
melt. She says: "Dowry makes one realise that women are often treated 
like second class citizens. While doing research for my book, I 
realised that there is too much pain that women go through and there 
is nothing to justify it". Joining Seema, actress Nandita Das says: 
"Dowry, as a social issue, impacts all our lives. It is the 
realisation of the fact that it can happen to any of us, which will 
bring about a change in the social perception of dowry as an issue".

An activist, Sagari Chhabra, who has developed a distinctive style of 
her own, has shot a film, "Hunger in the Time of Plenty", portraying 
the agony of women, in the interior of Orissa and Rajasthan. It tells 
all about the struggle of women for a space of their own. More than 
anything else, it is a cry for human dignity, something similar to 
what Seema focusses attention on.

In the current issue of a journal released by the National Human 
Rights Commission, its former Chairman, Justice J. S. Verma, has made 
a similar plea: "Human dignity is the quintessence of human rights". 
Governments and political organisations need to remember this.


_____


#5.

22 June 2003

In Hindutva Genes:Treason and Moral Turpitude
by I.K.Shukla

Depravity is not aberrational or one-time affair. It is as much 
cultivated as calculated. Crime and wanton bloodletting raised to the 
status of a "national" ideolgy is fascism. When Muslim women in 
Gujarat of Narendra Modi were gangraped, mutilated, and burnt alive 
by rampaging Hindu hordes, and the state police was ordered to help 
the holocaust, it was nothing exceptional or random. It had a 
pedigree. It had a well-plotted political purpose. It was in 
fulfillment of a project long revered, long formulated, long 
incubated.

This realisation would dawn on anyone reading Dhananjay Keer's 
biography of Savarkar referred to in a recent article by Dr Ram 
Puniyani. Which will make one wonder how tendentious iconography 
mangles and misleads.

A clemency-begging, cravenly, collaborationist, and traitorous 
Savarkar was invested with the honorific of Veer (brave) by his 
acolytes. And, in a final assault on logic and ethics, the portrait 
of an enemy of India's freedom was installed in the Parliament, 
facing Gandhi's. Far from irony, it was infamy gone wild.
Naming the Andaman cellular jail after a traitor, Advani again 
distinguished himself as crass.

The Shivaji, whom local Brahmans would not anoint as a king for he 
was a shudra, is today misappropriated as the savior of Brahmanism! 
And, the Shivaji who installed measures of social justice, abolished 
discriminatory practices in revenue collection, instituted laws 
guaranteeing egalitarianism and equality, and ordered women of all 
faiths protected and respected whether in peace or war, the Shivaji 
whose courtiers, administrative officers and generals were nearly all 
Muslims, is the Shivaji shunned and viciously sought to be excised 
out of all historical record and collective memory of a nation. Here 
too, Savarkar bobs up as a stinking lump in pellucid waters.

Savarkar, crowning his inhuman and subhuman streak, disapproved of 
Shivaji sending back with escort and full honours, the 
daughter-in-law of Kalyan's Muslim king, against whom he had just 
fought and won a battle. Savarkar wanted her to have been  used for 
teaching the mlechchhas a lesson.

It was this "unfinished business" of teaching a lesson to the 
Muslims, long postponed and long due in their book of unhistory and 
immorality, prescribed by Savarkar to his Hindutva homonids, that was 
gleefully and lethally staged in Gujarat, Modi directing the show for 
the benefit of his depraved and despicable Hindu men, women, and 
children. It was Savarkar the sadist writ large all over Gujarat.

That treason came to Savarkar naturally and reflexively is proved by 
another historical scandal. Sir C.P.Ramaswamy Aiyar, the Dewan of 
Travancore, had declared the state independent of India!  The perfidy 
did not stop there. He gallantly and speedily appointed an ambassador 
from Travancore to Jinnah's Pakistan, thus affirming once more his 
credentials as an inveterate enemy of India free and whole.

And, for this treason, who lustily applauded Aiyar in all of India? 
Who else but "Veer" Savarkar?

Savarkar should have been tried for treason. He was let go in those 
days of national euphoria. It only whetted his passion for more 
treason and grosser crime, culminating in Gandhi's assassination.

A.G.Noorani, in his review of two biographies of C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar 
in the latest issue of Frontline, a Hindu publication from Chennai, 
furnishes the sordid details.

No wonder, with this patrimony, Hindutva could be nothing less than 
perpetually criminal and anti-national.END.


____


#6.

The Economic and Political Weekly (India)
June 14, 2003

Commentary

Left-liberalism and Caste Politics

Whether it is dalit politics or feminist struggles, more and more 
analysts are focusing on the realm of embodied experience involving 
groups rather than on abstract rationalist theory involving 
individuals. The obvious question is: can communities, like caste 
groups, be viewed as legitimate categories within the framework of 
liberal modernity? This essay explores the idea that group-centred 
'embodied experience' may be no more than a phantom category. The 
emergence of this third category in order to bypass the 
tradition-modernity or communalism-secularism dyad, may turn out to 
be without much substance.

Nalini Rajan

[Full Text of the above paper is available to all intersted. should 
you require a copy send a request to <aiindex@mnet.fr> ]

_____


#7.

Rediff.com (India)
June 21, 2003

Cognate, Meet Agnate; Now Get Lost

Dilip D'Souza

After an argument, some wise man once wrote, each
protagonist walks away convinced that all other minds
were firmly closed. I found confirmation of this after
a workshop I attended. As it degenerated into a
shouting match, I could not even tell which side I was
on. No one who was yelling had listened to a word
anyone else was saying: so convinced were we all that
we were right. Naturally, I was sure I had been
open-minded. But going home with a friend, I realised
as she spoke that I had not heard anything she had
said earlier. I still did not agree with her. But away
from the ruckus, at least I understood her position.

Only then did I truly understand how difficult a
subject the workshop had tackled. So many people talk
easily about a Uniform Civil Code. But when you sit
down to discuss one, you're immediately caught in a
thicket whose ferociously tangled state few of us
comprehend.

The first problem comes from trying to remove politics
from the debate. So charged has the atmosphere become
that any discussion, any opinion at all, on a UCC is
viewed through political lenses. If you express even
faint reservations about one, you're a reactionary --
or that nasty breed, a pseudo-secularist -- who is
dividing India. If you're just as faintly positive,
you are a Hindutvawadi, a Muslim hater no doubt, and
you are also bent on dividing India. And don't sit on
the fence: then both sides abuse you.

But what's debate without sharply differing views?
Where will solutions to the UCC tangle come from if
some few don't brave the abuse, the differing views,
and get down to addressing the issue? That's why a
small group in Pune tried a few years ago to draft a
UCC. They were whom I went to hear that day.

In their attempt, they ran smack into the next great
problem: making sense of the unbelievable mess our
personal laws are. At every level, in every area,
there are differences by religion. If Hindus are the
exception to one rule, Muslims are to another,
Christians to a third and Parsis, a fourth. Or some
combination forms the exception here; another
combination there. What "uniform" can mean in this
situation, I haven't the faintest idea. How is it
possible, from innumerable exceptions and special
cases, to extract the holy grail of a UCC?

But you want examples, no doubt. Chew on a couple.

Personal laws by religion apply to adoption,
inheritance, marriage and divorce. Let's take only
inheritance.

You have two, and only two, grandchildren. One is the
son of your son, the other the son of your daughter.
Tragedy strikes one June afternoon: during the annual
family vacation on Pulicat Lake, your son and daughter
both fall off the boat and drown. Of course the news
devastates you. You waste away in grief. A month
later, you too are dead.

Unfortunately, you have not left a will. Your
grandsons are your only heirs. How will your property
be divided between them?

To answer that, you have to understand that the law
looks at the relationship you have with your grandsons
differently. You have an agnate relationship with your
son's son, a cognate relationship with your daughter's
son. Pay no attention to the mysterious words: just
know that these are two different relationships. Why
is that important?

Because if you are a Muslim or a Hindu, your son's son
gets preference over your daughter's son, in deciding
who inherits your unwilled estate. That is, these two
faiths prefer a son's line of inheritance. The laws
for Parsis and Christians, on the other hand, make no
distinction between the two kinds of grandchildren. If
you followed one of those faiths, both grandsons would
get an equal share of your estate.

Got that? Did that surprise you? Leave you cold?
Simple enough, you say? Whatever it is, let's try one
more example.

You have a son, a daughter and a devoted husband. Your
parents are aging, but in good health. Tragedy strikes
one wintry December night. Driving home from a hard
day's work, you drop off to sleep at the wheel and
crash into a wall on Tyagaraj Marg. Your car is
totalled. You are dead on the spot.

Unfortunately again, you have left no will. Who
inherits your car-less estate?

No surprise: again, that depends on your faith. Among
Muslims and Parsis, five basic relationships --
mother, father, son, daughter and spouse -- are never
"excluded" from inheriting. That is, all of them are
entitled to and will get a share of your property.
There is, however, some difference between the two
religions in the size of the share each relation is
entitled to. I won't even touch upon that difference
here. Leave it at this: each of your five close family
members will get a share.

But if you're Christian, the fact that you have
children automatically excludes both your parents.
They get nothing. Then again, had you been a childless
Christian, your father would not be excluded: he would
inherit. Though your poor mother would remain excluded
in that case too.

=46inally, if you're Hindu, the situation is different
again. Your father is excluded from a share of your
property. Your mother is not. She will inherit.

Got all that? Believe me: this is only the tip of a
monstrous iceberg. These intricate distinctions go on
and on, through every aspect of inheritance law.
Marriage, divorce and adoption laws are riven with
such stuff as well.

Why have we got ourselves into this bizarre mess?
Because we have pandered to every possible tradition
that's followed in our country, reflecting each one in
our laws. As a result, we have today the fierce knot
of rules and exceptions that pass as our personal
laws.

So when this enormous debate has to begin somewhere,
if this knot is ever to be untied, we need to ask,
again: what can a "uniform" code possibly mean?

What can it mean, when in almost any aspect of
personal law, drafting a UCC will mean stepping on
toes marinated in tradition and religion? When aspects
of existing laws for one religion are diametrically
different from those for others?

What's that you say: simply choose the "best" aspects
of our different personal laws and slap them together
into a UCC? Fine, so take just example #2 above, where
your parents survive you. If Hindus exclude your
father, Christians exclude both (but only your mother
if you had no kids), while Muslims and Parsis exclude
neither, on what grounds can one of these options be
termed "best"? Go ahead, tell me: which one is "best"?

When you tackle such questions, you find yourself up
against a third major problem. Everyone is smugly sure
that their own religion is the finest in existence. So
a uniform code, they say to themselves and sometimes
more publicly, need mean nothing other than --
surprise! -- their own laws.

On a talk show I watched not long ago, a Parsi man
asked sadly: why can't every other religion have rules
as fair as mine does, rules that treat men and women
just the same? How much happier the world would be! He
fumed in silence when reminded that Parsis draw a
clear distinction between men who marry outside the
religion and women who do. The men's children retain
inheritance and other rights, the women's retain none.

Similarly, a Muslim at the workshop I attended told us
that unlike in other religions, laws in Islam come
straight from the Creator himself. They are based on
"revelation, not reason." Thus, he said, they are
infallible. Being so, who could possibly argue with
them?

Now why a Creator would distinguish between a son's
son and a daughter's son beats me, but never mind.
Because every religion encourages its faithful to feel
superior to every other like this.

And there's one more thing that complicates the UCC
debate: the notion that our personal laws "favour" one
religion. Really? So I'd like to know, in just the two
examples I cited above, how the law "favours" Muslims
over others. Go ahead, tell me: how are Muslims
"favoured"? Or anyone?

Spreading the ignorant lie that the personal laws
favour Muslims is no way to achieve the consensus that
a UCC will have to be. So it seems to me that those
who paint such a picture don't really want a UCC. They
only want to hold on to something they can fling at
Muslims, portray them as stubborn backward thinkers.
Not the best way to start a debate, but certainly the
best way to get Muslim backs up.

To anyone who takes the time to look, the truth is
clear. Overall, the personal laws "favour" nobody.
They are just an all round mess.

So do we want a UCC? Yes, you say? Well, there seems
only one way to see through this crazy fog. Every
aspect of the personal laws must be examined in the
light of constitutional guarantees to every Indian:
equality, justice, right to life. Laws that fail to
uphold these basics must be thrown away. That is,
going back to my two examples, we cannot allow
inheritance laws that make a distinction between
agnate and cognate, or between mothers and fathers.

This must happen whether the laws are based on
traditions or not. If we have traditions that lead to
injustice and discrimination -- and too many of ours
do just that -- the faster they are thrown on the dung
heap they belong on, the better. Often, the best way
to reform is to actually change
our laws.

Not easy, but that's the spirit the Pune group brought
to their efforts. It's why the man who led their work,
S P Sathe, wrote an article about the experience with
this interesting reflection: a UCC need not be "a
common law, but different personal laws based on
uniform principles of equality of sexes and liberty
for the individual."

I'll take that, thanks. Because I really don't care,
don't want to care, what "agnate" is. Nor that it is
distinct from "cognate."


_____


#8.

The Economic and Political Weekly (India)
June 14, 2003
Book Review

Pointers to Partition

A Narrative of Communal Politics: Uttar Pradesh, 1937-39 by Salil 
Misra; Sage, New Delhi, 2001; pp 363, Rs 295.

Gyanesh Kudaisya

Since the publication of the first vol- ume of Ranajit Guha's 
Subaltern Studies over 20 years ago the pursuit of political history 
is said to have become unfashionable in south Asian historiography. 
The work under review, coming from a younger scholar, might be 
dismissed by some as a throwback to good old empirical history, with 
a focus firmly set on the institutions and structures of organised 
politics. Yet, this is precisely the strength of the book. In 
highlighting the importance of organised politics and structures in 
historical narration and analysis, it provides an insightful account 
of a period which was critical in terms of both decolonisation and 
partition.

At the core of the book lies the author's ambition to unravel a 
controversy which has for long confounded historians of 20th century 
south Asia: could the partition of the subcontinent in 1947 have been 
avoided? The author by focusing on Uttar Pradesh (UP) has highlighted 
the centrality of UP to partition studies which have traditionally 
focused on Punjab and Bengal, the two regional societies which were 
actually divided in 1947. Misra looks at UP's 'share' in the politics 
leading to partition and he focuses on the years 1937-39, a momentous 
period in communal politics.

In doing so he challenges head-on the 'coalition theory' which has 
been immensely influential in the historiography of partition. The 
coalition theory, briefly stated, runs along these lines. The push 
for partition did not come from Punjab and Bengal, the two Muslim 
majority provinces, but ironically from the 'heartland' state of UP, 
where the Muslims were in a minority and in territorial terms could 
never hope to be a part of the envisioned Muslim homeland of 
Pakistan. It was in UP that the campaign for Pakistan gathered 
momentum. According to this view partition was the product of a 
process which was unleashed in 1937 in UP when the Congress turned 
away the Muslim League from sharing power in a coalition ministry. 
According to the 'coalition theory' view of partition, there had 
existed an informal understanding between the Congress and the Muslim 
League. The Congress had virtually agreed to a coalition before the 
provincial elections of 1937. During the elections they avoided 
confrontation; the Congress even delegated the task of contesting 
Muslim seats to the League. As proof is offered the example of 
Congress leader Rafi Ahmad Kidwai against whom the League did not put 
up a candidate. However, the deal fell through after the elections, 
as the Congress changed its attitude. Although Jinnah 'pleaded' for a 
coalition, Nehru rejected the proposal. The Congress, 'jubilant' over 
its electoral success, spurred the offer. This infuriated Jinnah and 
he launched a massive campaign against the Congress ministry in 
power, reorganised the Muslim League to resist the coming of 'Hindu 
raj' and in 1940 at the Lahore session of the Muslim League demanded 
a separate homeland for the Muslims. Thus, the 1937 episode triggered 
an increase in communalism, Congress-League hostility, the increasing 
popularity of the Muslim League and eventually the partition of the 
subcontinent in 1947.

It is argued that if, on the other hand, the two political parties 
had forged a partnership in 1937, a decade later partition may well 
not have occurred. Under a coalition, the Muslim League would have 
been co-opted into constitutional politics. Jinnah would not have 
been pushed towards the separatist path of demanding a separate 
Pakistan; Muslim masses might never have rallied behind the League; 
and politics might not have been communalised to the extent that it 
did. In such a narrative the year 1937 is represented as a landmark, 
a missed opportunity, in which the immediate responsibility of 
realising its potential rested upon the Congress alone.

A Narrative of Communal Politics tries to demolish this view of 
partition. In this meticulously researched monograph Misra argues 
that no evidence exists, whatsoever, of any prior agreement, either 
formal or tacit, between the Congress and the League. He argues that 
both the parties did not leave seats for the other to contest. 
Neither could the unopposed election of Kidwai be taken as a sign of 
tacit understanding; the League's sheer lack of a candidate to field 
against Kidwai was the reason. Likewise, Misra refutes the assertion 
that the Congress and the League manifestos were common in their 
appeal and programme.

Misra offers a detailed and convincing analysis of why the coalition 
did not eventuate. He untangles the ambiguous Congress-League 
relations during the election campaign in which "if cooperation was 
not the dominant theme, neither was hostility". He then goes on to 
take stock of inner-party alignments within both the Congress and the 
League to show the forces arrayed for and against the coalition. 
Within the Congress two distinct groups were hostile to the idea of a 
partnership with the League: the 'nationalist' Muslims who saw in it 
a compromise with the high ideal of 'secularism' and a second group 
made of Socialists and Left-wingers within the Congress. The latter 
looked upon the UP Muslim League as a body dominated by 'landlords 
and Nawabs' who could not be partnered if the Congress was to pursue 
an agenda of agrarian tenancy legislation. Likewise, Misra shows that 
within the Muslim League, there existed diverse pulls and pressures. 
While the prominent Lucknow politician Chaudhury Khaliquzzaman 
clearly wanted an alliance with the Congress, there existed at least 
two other groups with divergent aims: one advocated unity with the 
landlord-dominated National Agriculturist Party, while another group 
owed allegiance to Jinnah and his 'all-India' agenda for the unity of 
Muslims, which looked beyond 'provincial' interests. Misra is able to 
show that, in the end, the forces arrayed against the coalition in 
both the parties won the day. He thus condemns the 'coalition theory' 
as having little basis in historical evidence and as based upon the 
forecast of an imperial historian (Reginald Coupland), the judgment 
of a governor (Sir Harry Haig), the hindsight of a Muslim nationalist 
(Maulana Azad) and the subjective experience of a provincial 
politician who stood to gain from the coalition (Khaliquzzaman).

Characters in a Tragedy

Misra devotes three individual chapters to profiling the three main 
actors in the drama: the Congress, the Muslim League and the Hindu 
Mahasabha, as they operated at the provincial level. He sees each of 
them interlocked in a triangular relationship, with the British on 
the one side and the two political parties on the other. Chapter 4 
looks at a Congress coming to terms with the experience of provincial 
power. He shows that, in spite of being in office, the Congress was 
not all powerful though certainly it did possess all the cards. It 
showed itself to be very vulnerable vis-a-vis the Muslim League. 
Misra attributes the fragility of the Congress in terms of a lack of 
base among the Muslims of UP, tracing this weakness to the late 
19th century. Chapter 5 analyses in-depth the politics of the Muslim 
League. Misra argues that the organisation had an autonomy of its 
own. He shows that Muslim League's phenomenal growth in these 
years was not contingent upon the Congress' tactical mistakes, but 
was the result of a well-worked out political strategy. He rejects 
the view of the League simply as a tool of the British and 
attributes to it a strongly anti-imperialist character.

In Chapter 6 Misra shows the Hindu Mahasabha to be ideologically 
strong, yet organisationally and electorally weak in UP. He rejects 
the tendency in some circles to look upon the Mahasabha simply as the 
Congress' younger sibling. Instead, he asks the question: in spite of 
a flourishing and vibrant Hinduism, why did the Mahasabha remain 
'lame and crippled'? (p 289). His answer is that the Mahasabha faced 
a 'formidable task' of 'not just to mobilise Hindus, but first to 
wean them away from the Congress influence'. This proved to be 
difficult as the UP Congress had struck 'deep roots among Hindus'. 
His work shows an interpenetration of ideas and persons between the 
Mahasabha and the Congress.

Misra's insightful study helps us make sense of the fundamental 
change which came about in these critical two years in the political 
behaviour of both the Congress and the Muslim League. From the 
experience of these years the Congress realised the need to gain 
Muslim support. This it could gain either by forging alliances with 
political parties like the Muslim League, or making a direct appeal 
to Muslim masses. Such thinking led the party to launch the 'Muslim 
Mass Contact Programme'. It served to further antagonise the UP 
Muslim League, provoking a vicarious anti-Congress tirade which 
propagated the alarmist imagery of a Hindu raj. Likewise, Misra shows 
that the failure of power-sharing arrangements in UP demonstrated to 
Jinnah in a stark manner the futility of politics built upon separate 
electorates. Jinnah realised that, while separate electorates 
provided an incentive to communal politics, they prevented its 
further advance into formal structures of power, which required a 
majority status. Nowhere was the problem more acute than in UP where 
even if it the League had won all the minority seats (66 in a house 
of 228) it would still had to remain in opposition, or at best play a 
subordinate role to the party in power. According to the author, 
Jinnah learnt the 'right lessons' from the experience and proceeded 
to build an alternative all-India political structure of the Muslims. 
"He knew that politics of safeguards and concessions had been 
rendered obsolete and must give way to the politics of seeking parity 
with the other all-India structures" (p 152).

This work draws upon extensive primary archival materials. Misra has 
made admirable use of private papers and newspapers such as the Star 
of India which have enabled him to recover contemporary voices and 
perspectives. However, the overuse of colonial official sources 
remains a weakness of the book. Further, the ambition to provide a 
meticulous account of organised communal politics has led the author 
to neglect the important dimension of communal violence. Can we 
accept that communal politics and communal violence belonged to two 
separate realms? Perhaps the author needed to explicate in his work 
clear linkages between the two.

Notwithstanding these criticisms, this book makes an immense 
contribution to our understanding of the political history of the 
1930s, and the ways in which the micro-politics of two critical years 
set India for the d=E9nouement it faced in 1947.
 

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