SACW | 4 Aug. 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire   |  4 August,  2003

[1.] Pakistan:
- 'Multi Mulla Alliance' wants Sharia enforced in Balochistan
- "Musharraf trying to please west and Mullahs" Mubarak Ali 
Interviewed (Yoginder Sikand)
[2.] India: A letter to Dr. Nelson Mandela (Sukla Sen)
+ Movement For Secular Democracy, Ahmedabad also request people to 
write letters to Mandela
[3.] Its Taboo to Criticize Mother Teresa in Secular India:
- 'Hell's Angel' pulled out of film festival
- The film is based on the book 'The Missionary Position: Mother 
Teresa in Theory and Practice
by Christopher Hitchens'
- An interview with Christopher Hitchens
[4.] India: Muslim Personal Law not applicable to Jammu and Kashmir and . . .
[5.] India:  Far right is spreading : 'Hindu Mahasabha' launches in Kerala
[6.] India: Remembering Bhishma Sahani (K.G. Kannabiran)
[7.] International helicopter-borne monitoring force coming soon to 
the Indo Pak Border
[8.] India Pakistan Arms Race and Militarisation Watch Compilation # 128


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

[1.]


Daily Times, Pakistan, August 4, 2003

Multi Mulla Alliance wants Sharia enforced in Balochistan
... After the approval of the Sharia Bill in the Frontier Assembly, 
the Muttahida
Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) now wants to enforce an Islamic system in Balochistan
  http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_4-8-2003_pg7_11


  o o o


PAKISTAN CHRISTIAN POST
4th August, 2003

Mushraf trying to please west and Mullahs. Mubarak Ali
Interview by Yoginder Sikand.

Lahore-based Mubarak Ali is a leading Pakistani scholar and activist. 
He has taught History at the University of Sind, and is presently the 
editor of the Urdu quarterly 'Tarikh'. Here he talks to Yoginder 
Sikand on Islam and militancy in contemporary Pakistan.

Q: What do you feel about the current talk of madrasas emerging as 
centers of 'terrorism' in Pakistan?

A: Much of this talk is exaggerated, I must admit. On the whole, the 
madrasas create narrow-minded, sectarian students but not terrorists. 
Not all the Afghan Taliban was madrasa-educated. They also included 
young people educated in modern schools or colleges. The television, 
radio, newspapers and textbooks influenced them. During the Russian 
occupation of Afghanistan, the Americans motivated madrasa students 
to engage in armed jihad and prepared for them special textbooks that 
glorified 'holy war'. Then, when Mullah Omar took power in 
Afghanistan, he encouraged the madrasa students to come to his help. 
During this period they were militarily trained and fought for the 
new regime in Afghanistan.

Q: How can madrasas be suitably reformed?

A: In Pakistan even the modern educational system is like the 
madrasas as far as the curriculum is concerned. The only way out is 
to radically change and reform the curriculum and introduce the 
teaching of social sciences. Instead of doing this, our government is 
focusing on the introduction of the natural sciences in the madrasa 
syllabus and is also providing them computers. I think this is a 
useless exercise. It is the social sciences that make people to think 
and helps them open their minds, not the natural sciences.

Q: What are your views on how the Musharraf government has gone about 
dealing with the madrasas?

A: The Musharraf government lacks a proper vision as far as education 
is concerned. Musharraf is trying to please both the Americans as 
well as the mullahs. He is attempting to register the madrasas, but 
the mullahs are resisting this and he has no courage to defy them. I 
think that the best way out of the dilemma is to establish faculties 
of theology at the college and university levels and to abolish the 
madrasa system altogether.

Q: What are your reflections on the possibilities in Pakistan today 
of developing new ways of understanding Islam to seriously take into 
account issues such as democracy, human rights, women's rights, 
religious pluralism etc.?

A: As I see it, day-by-day Pakistan is becoming more fundamentalist. 
In the beginning the state was fundamentalist but now the wider 
society has become increasingly fundamentalist. Every mullah is free 
to issue any fatwa he wants. Rich people in Pakistan prefer to give 
donations to a madrasa or a mosque rather than to an organization 
working for social development. Dictatorship and 'feudal democracy' 
have disappointed the people, and economic hardship and social 
problems are forcing them to take refuge in religion. There is little 
hope for a real people's democracy in Pakistan today. The Army is 
powerful and has increased in size, consuming more and more of the 
country's resources, leaving little for the people. As the nature of 
state has changed in accordance with the interests of the ruling 
classes, there is shocking lack of respect for human rights. State 
institutions treat people as subjects and not citizens. In such a 
situation, in a backward society, the interpretation of religion is 
also backward. In presence of Hudood ordinance, women are denied 
their rights. The religious minorities are often made victims of the 
blasphemy law. There is little effort being made to develop new 
Islamic perspectives on issues of contemporary concern.

Q: What are your views on the current relations between Muslims and 
the West, and on the emergence of Islamist radicalism?

A: There are several complex reasons for the emergence of Islamist 
radicalism and anti-West feelings among large sections of the Muslim 
community. What has happened, and is still happening, to the Muslims 
in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Palestine and Kashmir etc. has convinced 
people that there is a conspiracy against the Muslims by the 
Christians, Jews and the Hindus. And so, growing numbers of Muslims 
feel that the way out is to adopt the path of 'holy war', turning 
their backs on dialogue. Widespread poverty and economic backwardness 
is another reason, leading to the feeling of extreme helplessness 
among many Muslims. Acts of violence provide them some 'satisfaction' 
that they can terrify even their powerful 'enemies'.

_____


[2.]

August 3, 2003

[Dear Friends,
Here is a self-explanatory letter to "Dr. Nelson Mandela"<nmandela at anc.org.za>,
with a copy to the grand-daughter of Mahatma Gandhi, "Ms.Ela
Gandhi"<egandhi at anc.org.za>, who is a Member of Parliament in
South Africa.
You're requested to do likewise and spread the word.
Sukla Sen]

Dear Dr. Mandela,

I am from India and one of your innumerable admirers, spread
all over the globe, who look upon you as the luminous icon and
tallest figure of one of the most enduring and hard-won struggle
for human emancipation from the bondage of oppression, humiliation
and segregation based on skin colour in the century just bygone.

But this message is not to convey my immense admiration for you
but to give expression to a deep sense of anguish and despair.


A recent report 
(http://www.telegraphindia.com/1030731/asp/nation/story_2217479.asp)
in a leading national newspaper has indicated that you have accepted
the invitation extended to you by Narendra Modi, the incumbent
Chief Minister of Gujarat, to grace the forthcoming birthday
celebrations, to be organized by him, of Gandhi at his birthplace
Porbandar as the chief guest.
While your reverence for Gandhi is well known and shared by millions
and millions of women and men all over the world, I do not know
whether you are aware, Narendra Modi is surely not one of them.
He, in fact, belongs to an organization called the RSS (Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh) from whose ranks came Nathuram Godse, the
proud and unrepentant assassin of the man - 'Mahatma' for the
vast multitude of Indian masses and a weak-kneed, hated 'appeaser'
of Pakistan and the Muslims in the eyes of the RSS and its followers.
What is even more relevant that over the years there has been
no change, absolutely none, in the ideological stance of the
RSS and its affiliates – the BJP included. As recently as the
February last, the BJP-led Government of India installed a portrait
of V D Savarkar, the ideological mentor of Godse and a co-accused
in the assassination case, in Indian parliament in the teeth
of widespread and stringent criticism.
What, however, is of far greater relevance today is the fact
that in February-March 2002 the Gujarat government under the
leadership of Narendra Modi carried out a campaign of genocide
against the ‘minority’ Muslims in the state of Gujarat making
most blatant use of the state machinery and with the RSS brigade
as its battering ram. Even as per official statistics, which
is a shameless understatement, more than a thousand – overwhelmingly
Muslims, lost their lives. Credible unofficial estimates put
this figure over two thousand. More than a lakh were overnight
turned destitute. Scores of Muslim women were publicly assaulted
in the worst bestial manner.
Not only numerous national and international human rights organizations,
including the Amnesty International, passed severe strictures
against the state government, and Narendra Modi in particular,
for their abominable role in the orgy of mass murder and worse,
even the official body NHRC (National Human Rights Commission),
most of whose members – including the chairperson, were appointed
by the BJP-led GoI, were unsparing in its criticism. The Election
Commission of India had to defer the assembly elections in the
state on account of the reign of terror let loose by the RSS-BJP-VHP-Bajrang
Dal goons duly backed up by the state administration.
But quite unfortunately the story did not end here. After romping
back home to power, capitalizing on the avalanche of hatred among
the ‘majority’ Hindus triggered off in the most cynical manner,
Narendra Modi and his government continue undeterred with their
sinister agenda. In the process even the judicial process has
been badly tampered with.  The situation has become so desperate
that in an unprecedented move the NHRC on July 31 had to move
the Indian Supreme Court asking for a retrial outside Gujarat
of a case in which all the twenty one accused of burning fourteen
people alive were acquitted by a 'fast track' trial court set
up by the Narendra Modi government. The NHRC has also asked for
transfer of four other important cases outside Gujarat. Consequently,
instead of showing any sign of repentance, the BJP has hit back
by calling the constitutional body "anti-Hindu".

Dear Dr. Mandela, you would now surely acknowledge that Modi
has invited you not out of any reverence for you or the ideals
you cherish and stand for. It is only a sinister ploy to gain
legitimacy for his government whose claws are dripping with innocent
human blood to continue with its fiendish agenda with redoubled
vigour.
Under the circumstances I leave it to your immense sagacity to
deny the 'Killer' Modi any credibility by making any deceptive
use of your haloed name and the lofty tradition you represent.


Yours sincerely,
Sukla Sen

  o o o


MOVEMENT FOR SECULAR DEMOCRACY
C/o, Narmad-Meghani Library, Opp. Natraj Railway Crossing, 
Mithakhali, Ellis Bridge, AHMEDABAD-380006. India

appeas to all to write letters to Dr Mandela informing him about the 
gruesome genocide executed by
Narendra Modi's government. People may also address letters to:

THE SOUTH AFRICAN HIGH COMMISSIONER 
B-18 Vasant Marg
Vasant Vihar
New Delhi   110 057
Tel: 011-26149411 to 20
Fax: 011-26143605
<sachcnde at del2.vsnl.net.in>


_____


[3.]

The Hindustan Times, August 4, 2003

Hell's Angel pulled out of film festival
Agence France Presse
(Kolkata, August 3)

A controversial film on Mother Teresa, Hell's Angel, has been dropped 
from a film festival planned here to mark her beatification later 
this year, an organiser said on Sunday.

"Hell's Angel would be withdrawn as Missionaries of Charity and 
Bishop Lobo who was in the Diocesan team probing the life, virtue and 
reputation of Mother Teresa's sanctity for the cause of her 
sainthood, opposed its screening," said Father C.M. Paul, a member of 
the organising committee.

Italian Channel 4 has produced the film and Christopher Hitchens has 
directed it.

"Father Brian Kolodie-jchuk, postulator of the cause of Mother 
Teresa's sainthood and Missionaries of Charity priest, now in Rome, 
also faxed a letter to the organising committee of the film festival 
to drop Hell's Angel," he added.

Hell's Angel is based on the 1997 book The Missionary Position: 
Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice" by US-based British author and 
columnist Christopher Hitchens, who breaks with orthodoxy by 
questioning the work of the Missionaries of Charity.

Hitchens faulted Mother Teresa for using her political clout on 
behalf of conservative causes and accepting money from dodgy sources. 
He contended that her work was focused on the dying and made little 
effort to improve the bad circumstances behind Kolkata's public 
health woes.

The film had stirred up a hornet's nest as Missionaries of Charity, 
the order of nuns founded by Mother Teresa, and Bishop Salvador Lobo, 
a member of the Diocesan team shepherding her candidacy for 
sainthood, said the film distorted the work she did.

They had written a letter to ask the Archbishop of Calcutta Lucas 
Sircar to exclude the film from the festival planned in November.


o o o

[ For those who havent read the book here are the details]

The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice
by Christopher Hitchens

Verso books April 1997
100 pages
ISBN: Paper 1 85984 054 X
http://www.versobooks.com/books/ghij/h-titles/hitchens_mother_teresa.shtml
[Also available cia amazon.com]

o o o

Lip Magazine
http://www.lipmagazine.org/articles/featpostel_56_p.htm

THE MISSIONARY POSITION:
Mother Teresa's Crimes Against Humanity

by Danny Postel
09/15/98

An interview with Christopher Hitchens

What exactly inspired you to write a book about Mother Teresa?

I went to Calcutta-for a different reason-a few years ago. There was 
a general election in India, and I was actually making a documentary 
about a fraudulent cult movement there. I didn't go specifically to 
Calcutta, in other words, to see Mother Teresa. But when I was there 
I thought: here is probably not only the greatest name recognition in 
the second part of the 20th century for an ordinary human 
being-someone who isn't in power, so to speak- but also the most 
fragrant name recognition.

Apparently the only name about whom no one had anything but good to 
say. Now I will have to admit-no I won't have to admit, I'm proud to 
admit- that this was enough to make me skeptical to start off with. 
Call me old-fashioned if you will; say I have a nasty mind if you 
like. I won't say I'm a practicing Catholic or even a sympathizer 
with the Holy Mother Church, because I'm not. And I have my 
reservations in any case about the whole idea of the Christian 
missionary project in India and its historic links to British 
imperialism and the rest of it.

Okay. I went with an open mind, with the constraints I've just 
identified; it was as open as I could get it. And there she was. And 
you felt when you saw that grizzled face: I've known this face all my 
life. She gave me a tour; we went around a small 
orphanage-drop-in-the-bucket size, but quite nice.

So it began as an amicable encounter?

Indeed. I was even sort of thinking, hmmm. . . maybe I should fumble 
for some money. And with a gesture of the arm that took in the whole 
scene of the orphanage, she said: you see this is how we fight 
abortion and contraception in Calcutta. And I thought: Oh I see-so 
you actually say that do you? Because it had crossed my mind that 
part of her work was to bear witness for the Catholic creed regarding 
the population question, to propagandize for the Church's line. But I 
hadn't realized it was so unmediated. I mean, that she would want to 
draw my attention to the fact that this was the point.

I don't know Calcutta terrifically well, but I know it quite well. 
And I would say that low on the list of the things that it needs is a 
Christian campaign against population control. And I speak as someone 
who's personally very squeamish on the abortion question. People who 
campaign vigorously against contraception, I think, are in a very 
weak position to lay down the moral law on abortion.

So I thought, okay, that's interesting. And then I noticed something 
else which I guess I'd noticed already without realizing it. Calcutta 
has the reputation as being a complete hell hole thanks to Mother 
Teresa. You get the impression from her that it's a place where 
people are just about able to brush the flies from their children's 
eyes, the begging bowl is fully out, that people are on their knees 
and crawling.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Calcutta is one of the most 
vibrant and interesting cities in the world. It's full of film 
schools, universities, bookstores and cafés. It has a tremendously 
vibrant political life. It's the place that produced the films of 
Satyajit Ray. It's a wonderful city. It's architecturally beautiful. 
And the people do not beg. They're not abject. They're very poor; 
some sleep on the street, but they're usually working and hustling at 
something. They don't grovel, as in some parts of India I must say 
they do.

It's hugely overpopulated partly because of the refugees, mainly from 
the successive wars of religion-stupid wars about God that have been 
fought in the neighborhood. That's not its fault. It's basically a 
secular town. So I thought: What a pity that Mother Teresa should 
have given this great city such a bad name and made us feel 
condescending toward it.

So partly for the honor of Calcutta, and partly out of my feeling 
that her actions are being judged by her reputation rather than her 
reputation by her actions (a common postmodern problem in the image 
business of course, but amazing in this case), I sort of opened a 
file on her, kept a brief. And then I noticed her turning up 
supporting the Duvalier family in Haiti, for example, and saying how 
wonderful they were and how great they were for the poor and how the 
poor loved them.

What a coincidence. . .

Yes. And then I noticed her taking money from Charles Keating of the 
Lincoln Savings and Loan and saying what a great friend of the poor 
this great fraud and thief was. Then I noticed her get the Nobel 
Prize for Peace though she had never done anything for peace. And say 
in her acceptance speech in Stockholm that the greatest threat to 
world peace is abortion.

Then I noticed another thing. That no matter what she said or did at 
this time nobody would point it out because she had some kind of 
hammer lock on my profession. It had been agreed she was a saint and 
there was to be no argument about it. So I thought, okay, that does 
it, and I wrote a column for The Nation. That was all I did at first. 
And then I got approached from some comrades in Britain to make a 
documentary based on the column, and we found that an amazing number 
of her crimes against humanity were actually on film.

There is film of her going to Albania and laying a wreath at the tomb 
of the dictator Enver Hoxha, vile bastard who oppressed Albania for 
years. She was Albanian by nationality, incidentally. Born in 
Macedonia. There was film of her groveling to the Duvaliers and 
flattering and fawning on Michele Duvalier in particular. There was 
film of her jetting around on Charles Keating's plane which he used 
to lend her as well as giving her a lot of money that belonged to 
other people.

How how did she explain things like this?

She was never asked to.

She was simply never approached with these questions?

No. Nor have any of her defenders-many of whom have attacked me or my 
motives-ever come up with any reply. I've had acres of print 
reviewing this book, certainly in every country where English is 
spoken, including, by the way, a lot of very intelligent and 
interesting reviews in India. But also a lot in Britain and Ireland 
and the U.S. and Australia and so on. And a lot of it has been very 
abusive-from the faithful-which I expected and don't mind.

But what did interest me was that at no point did anyone say: 
"Hitchens falsely accuses Mother Teresa of groveling to the 
Duvaliers." Nothing like that. It was: "Hitchens attacks a woman who 
is older than him and helpless." Well excuse me. If I had attacked 
her thirty years ago it would have been alright? I mean infantile 
stuff of this kind. A real refusal to think that people might have 
been wrong, in other words. She was interviewed last year by the 
Lady's Home Journal. I don't know if you get that publication.

I had just cancelled my subscription around that time. Afraid I missed it.

What a pity. In any case, they asked her what the effect of my book 
had been. And I wondered what her reply had been. She said it had 
been to get her to cut down on the number of interviews she gave to 
the press and to instruct her nuns when reporters came to Calcutta to 
say that she wasn't in.

In other words to lie. As a matter of fact I don't think she meant to 
keep this resolution because she remained more or less the recepient 
of uniformly heroic publicity. She did in the course of this 
interview say another interesting thing worthy of mention as an 
instance of what I mean about her morality.

They asked her about her friendship with Princess Diana. The two had 
become very matey. They had several meetings over the last few years. 
I think you can probably guess what each wanted from the other. And 
both of them got it. It made sort of the perfect friendship in a way. 
In any case, she was asked about Princess Di's divorce. She said, 
yes, they're divorced and it's very sad but I think it's all for the 
best; the marriage was not working, no one was happy and I'm sure 
it's better that they separate.

Two months before that Mother Teresa had been campaigning in Ireland 
on the referendum to lift the constitutional ban on divorce there. 
Ireland was the only country in Europe that had a constitutional ban 
on divorce and remarriage for women. It was a very hard-fought 
campaign for obvious reasons. First it was going to bring Ireland 
into the European family, as not having church-legislated law. Second 
it was very important in the negotiations for the Protestants in the 
north who quite justifiably, in my view, will never agree to be 
governed by the Vatican.

So most Irish political parties said, look, we really must show that 
the Vatican doesn't control life here. So a lot was hanging on it. 
And third, obviously, because Irish women should have the right to 
get divorced and remarry. Mother Teresa took the stand on this 
referendum and said: There will be no forgiveness for you if you vote 
for this.

Unless you happen to be the Princess of Wales.

Unless it turns out you're the Princess of Wales. In other words it's 
pretty much like the state of indulgences in the Middle Ages. The 
bulk of humanity is described as a bunch of miserable sinners 
condemned to everlasting hell unless they've got the price of a 
pardon, which they can purchase at the nearest papacy. It's no better 
than that. In fact it's slightly worse given the advances we think 
we've made in the meantime. I've said this repeatedly. But I might as 
well not have bothered as far as most people are concerned. They 
simply do not judge her reputation by her actions. They consistently 
do the reverse and judge her actions by her reputation.

You mentioned the money she got from Charles Keating. The court 
attempted to contact her to let her know how Keating had gone about 
obtaining that money. Her response to the court says it all.

When Mr. Keating was finally brought to justice after the 
embezzlement of that titanic sum of money that we're all still paying 
off-because, as you know, among the key principles of Clintonism is 
that private debts are covered by public money-he was sentenced to 
the maximum that California law allows, which he's still serving. The 
court, interestingly enough, was Judge Ito's court.

As in the judge for the first O.J. Simpson trial?

That's the one. Mother Teresa wrote to the court and said, look, 
Charles Keating is a great friend of the poor and a lovely man and 
you should go easy on him. I reprinted her letter, in which she says 
if he's done anything wrong she can't believe it and she doesn't know 
what it is. The deputy D.A. of L.A. County a very clever guy by the 
name of Paul Turley, who I would say from his letter must at least 
have been a Catholic in his life, if he isn't still. He wrote her 
back a letter, explaining the process by which Keating had separated 
really large numbers of poor people from their life savings without 
any scruple at all or remorse, and then pointed out that in their 
audits they discovered that quite a lot of the money he had stolen 
he'd given to Mother Teresa. He said, now that you know this when are 
you going to give it back? At this point she broke off the 
correspondence and made no move to return the money.

Let's say she really didn't know. Let's make the assumption of 
innocence and imagine that when she wrote the letter to the court she 
really had no idea what Keating had been doing. Well, she knew 
subsequently because the letter is extremely careful and highly 
persuasive and very well-sourced. She knew she was in receipt of 
stolen money. She did nothing to redeem that. As a matter of fact 
it's not possible to discover anything about what is done with the 
huge fortune she amassed. There's no audit. Nobody knows what the 
accounts are; it's impossible to get at them. But I can tell you 
where it isn't going. It's not going to the hospices and orphanages 
of Calcutta, because I've been to them and so have many other people.

Most people are surprised first off at the sheer primitiveness of the 
poverty and backwardness of these places. I mean when Mother Teresa 
got sick she didn't go there-let me put it like that. People go there 
to die; there's not much else you can do. Needles are washed in cold 
water. There have been many reports in the medical journals of really 
squalid and primeval conditions there. So that's not where the 
money's going.

With half the money she got just from the prizes she's been given she 
could have built a teaching hospital for Calcutta; she certainly 
never did that. If you wonder where it's gone my best guess would be 
the interview she gave where she said she's opened convents in more 
than 150 countries. Sorry to have to break the news to people who 
think their money is going to the relief of the poor of Calcutta. 
Instead, they've just equipped a nice chalice-infested convent richly 
decorated with lots of incense somewhere in Kenya.

Aside from this sort of muckraking you do in the book, you also 
explore Mother Teresa as symbol, as icon: the place she occupies in 
the cultural imagination of the industrial world. What is it, 
precisely, that she symbolizes? What do we need her for?

I make the case in the book that she's symbolic indeed, or 
emblematic, of two things larger than herself. One, the fact that the 
rich world has a poor conscience-a poor conscience about what it used 
to call the Third World. It knows it doesn't do much about it. It 
likes to think someone is doing it and hands off the task vicariously 
to the old mission racket and probably therefore doesn't want to hear 
this isn't all that it appears or all that it might be.

That's only one aspect of the way in which religious figures are 
given this sort of special pass on credulity. It's either consciously 
or subconsciously assumed that a person of the cloth actually has 
better morals. There's precious little evidence of this; there's a 
great deal of evidence to the contrary, in fact. But somehow it's 
still considered-especially in a country like America which suffers 
from a sort of mediocre version of multiculturalism-a possibly 
offensive thing to suggest. Because you're not attacking a religion; 
you're attacking the Catholic community-a rather different 
proposition. And the idea of offending that is anathema to so many 
people.

Do you think the title of the book might have contributed this? Could 
it have deterred certain people from even opening it up?

It was a risk one ran. Once I thought of the title I realized I was 
gonna have to do it. I was very hurt by somebody describing the title 
as "sophomoric," because it's a triple entendre, which is not all 
that common. You have three layers of pun. I had wanted to call it 
Sacred Cow (laughter), but that would have had only one pun in it. 
The Missionary Position has two.

What are the multiple meanings, after all?

Well, there's the theory and practice of the missionary-the idea of 
the evangelizing of the world by Christians, which has this long 
imperial history. There's Mother Teresa's desire to have control over 
the sex lives of the poor-in other words, her belief that only 
Princess Diana had the right to get divorced, that there should be no 
contraception, etc. She adopted the most extreme version of all 
Catholic teaching on matters of sex and reproduction and did so in 
countries where it is actually possible, if the church is powerful 
enough, to withhold these things from people, to deny them access to 
contraception. And her extraordinary view that abortion is the 
greatest threat to world peace. And the third meaning is one I've 
forgotten, but I'm sure some of your listeners will remember... [ L i 
P ]


______


[4.]

Kashmir Times

Muslim Personal Law  not applicable to Jammu and Kashmir

KT NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, Aug.2: With the debate on the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) 
once again taking a front seat in the political and the legal 
circles, hardly anybody here knows that Muslim Personal Law (MPL) is 
not applicable in the country's only Muslim majority state of Jammu 
and Kashmir. The communalists have come out with daggers to seek 
electoral mileage out of the recent Supreme Court suggestion for 
enactment of the UCC as mandated in the Article 44 of the 
Constitution.
Jammu and Kashmir has not yet given place to the Muslim Personal Law 
(Shariat) Application Act of 1937, that governs personal matters of 
the Muslim community in rest of the country. Muslims of J&K are 
governed by Sri Pratap Consolidation of Laws Act 1977 Bikrami Samwat 
(1920 Christian Era).
Muslim law or Shariat is applicable to Kashmiris only to the extent 
it is not in conflict with local customs. In case of a conflict 
between a rule of Muslim law and local custom, local custom prevails 
over the MPL.
Jammu and Kashmir is not the only state where the MPL is not 
applicable. In fact, recently a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) 
on Waqfs said in its report tabled in the Parliament that while 
seeking depositions in Panaji, Goan Muslims told the committee that 
they prefer to be governed under what is popularly known as the 
common civil code of the Portuguese era.
The JPC had sought to enforce the Waqf Act of 1995 on the Goan 
Muslims on the ground that it is an all-India law. The Association of 
All Goa Muslim Jamats, however, opposed the Waqf Act tooth and nail. 
In a memorandum to the JPC, the Association insisted that the Muslim 
Personal Law was not applicable in the state, and therefore, let the 
Waqf Act also be kept away. The Portuguese Code in the matters of 
personal status governs people of all religions in Goa.
Besides Goa, the union territories of Daman and Diu are other 
territories in India where the Muslim Personal Law is not applicable. 
In these parts of the country the Portuguese Civil Code is applicable 
to all the residents there.
However, it does not necessarily means that the Goa has a Uniform 
Civil Code. "Though the Code declares that canonical law shall be 
applicable to Catholics, it does contain provisions safeguarding 
religious and customary laws of Hindus and other non-Catholics," say 
legal experts.
In Goa, Daman & Diu, Hindu laws and customs have been protected by 
Decree on Protection of Usage and Customs of Gentile Hindus of 1880. 
The decree is still in force, Hindu Law Code of 1955-56 enacted by 
the Parliament has not been extended to these parts of the country.
The Muslim Personal Law was extended to Pondicherry in 1968 subject 
to the provision that it shall not be applicable to the "Renoncants." 
Renoncants are the native people, irrespective of their religion, who 
had opted for the French Civil Code in preference to their native 
laws and customs.
Applicability of Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937 
has not been uniform throughout the territory where it has been in 
force. Muslim Personal Law expressly exempts agricultural land, 
charities and charitable institutions, and charitable & religious 
endowments as these subjects were in the state list at the time its 
enactment. However, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh (Andhra area) and 
Kerala have extended applicability of this law to agricultural land 
as well. In rest of the country, Muslim Personal Law is not 
applicable in the matters relating to agricultural lands.
Personal law regime of India is very diverse and complex. And 
religion is not the sole reason of this diversity. Understanding the 
context of such diversity in the personal laws of the country is 
vital for any informed debate on this issue.

_____


[5.]

Newindpress [India] August 4 2003
Hindu Mahasabha launches Kerala unit
http://www.newindpress.com/Newsitems.asp?ID=IER20030803125725&Title=Kerala&rLink=0

_____


[6.]

Mainstream [India]
August 2, 2003

Remembering Bhishma Sahani
K.G. Kannabiran

Tamas has more relevance today than when it was written. The role of 
religion in politics was waiting in the wings. Its proponents were 
slowly working at this for a few decades. The partition riots 
provided them the only "natural" occasion to bring about a change in 
the secular politics of the country. Madanlal's unsuccessful attempt 
on Gandhiji's life and Godse's success of the mission of 
assassination were the early attempts to mould the country's politics 
on theocratic lines. This proved to be demonstrably 
counter-productive, as it did not have the support of the Hindu 
liberals among the leaders and intellectuals of the country and the 
assassination could not have received the open support of even rabid 
communal politics, notwithstanding Godse's statement to the court, 
which was a chargesheet against Gandhiji and the Congress he was 
leading. Albeit the main theme of politics provided by the partition 
of the country and the communal violence it produced, was leading a 
subterranean existence until the total breakdown of liberal politics 
in the late seventies. In the JP movement we witnessed the Marxist 
upholding the Constitution and the Hindu fundamentalist politics 
systematically undermining the Constitution. It was during this 
period that Bhishma Sahani's Tamas was translated into a film, and 
televised in 1988.
It is true, partition led to unprecedented violence. A million died 
and around ten million were forced to leave their homes on either 
side of the border and quite a few thousand women were abducted 
during partition. The literature that emerged from this large-scale 
violence re-enacts the people's sufering and pain and their heroic 
effort to cope with this incomprehensible event when it occurred. The 
violence on both sides was indistinguishably brutal that communal 
justification of the violence became wholly untenable. This 
widespread rioting abated after Gandhiji's assasination. The 
Constitution, which was on the anvil during that period, was not in 
any manner influenced by the communal politics of the partition days 
and on the contrary the debates in the Constitution Assembly 
reinforced secular values as a major premise of our political 
functioning. Sardar Patel, while tabling the Report of the Advisory 
Committee in the Constituent Assembly on May 25, 1949 said:
It is not our intention to commit the minorities to a particular 
position in a hurry. If they really come honestly to the conclusion, 
that in the changed conditions of this country, it is in the interest 
of all to lay down the real and genuine foundations of a Secular 
State, then there is nothing better for the minorities than to trust 
the good sense and sense of fairness of the majority and to place 
confidence in them.
Despite this assurance, the legacy of fundamen-talism of the Muslims 
and Hindus (both of which had nothing to do with either the struggle 
for independence or the making of the Constitution) was haunting the 
electoral politics always stoking communal belligerence into violence 
in one part of the country or the other. There were unfortunately no 
hard campaigners for secular values. Unfortunately there are certain 
values, adherence to which will not yield any electoral advantage and 
secularism is one such value. People were not allowed to come to 
terms with partition as also the unprecedented violence. The 
liberal-minded were not willing to discuss the partition violence as 
they felt that it was too sensitive a subject and has the possiblity 
of a threat to internal security.

¨

Tamas, written by Bhishma Sahani, recieved the Sahitya Academy Award 
in 1975 and it did not raise any controversy. But when it was sought 
to be televised in January-February 1988 there were objections to the 
film being serialised. The slot time given by Doordarshan was 10 pm, 
hardly prime time. The serial did not encounter any objections to 
being screened for public viewing. The first episode was screened and 
that brought to the viewers a vivid account of the violence 
engendered in communal politics, a true to life reproduction of the 
partition violence which people talked about but could never 
comprehend the scale and magnitude of violence. This was a period 
when politics was being reduced to a single-point agenda of 
minority-baiting. Tamas on TV exposed the claim of tolerance of the 
Hindu society and its pretensions to democracy. There were angry 
protests against continuing the screening of Tamas. The film 
Director, Govind Nihalani, and others connected with the making and 
the screening of the film recieved threats to their lives. Govind 
Nihalini and Bhishma Sahani had to be provided with security guards. 
It was widely propagated that that it was a lopsided presentation and 
it implied that Hindus alone were violent. The BJP with its front 
organisations indulged in violent demonstrations at various 
Doordarshan centres in Punjab, Delhi and Bombay demanding the 
immediate withdrawal of the screening of Tamas. With a view to 
legitimising this unjust protest against the screening of the film a 
favourable judgement if it could be managed, first a writ petition 
was filed by one Javid Ahmed Siddique who was alleged to be a nominee 
of the Shiv Sena in the Bombay High Court. The proceedings also gave 
a representative character to the complaint. The writ petition and 
the appeal were dismissed by the High Court. By the time the SLP was 
filed against the judgement in the Supreme Court a writ petition by a 
practising advocate called Ramesh was filed under Article 32. Before 
the Supreme Court there was a proceeding by a Muslim representing the 
Muslim sentiment and a petition by a Hindu representing the Hindu 
sentiment, both of them asking for a ban on the film. This also 
informs us as to how this institution is used.
Tamas was adjudicated upon. It was argued that it violates Articles 
21 and 25, that is to say, right to life and freedom to profess and 
practice one's religion. To substantiate how these rights are 
violated they took two instances from the serialised episode 
depicting the body of a pig thrown at the doorstep of a mosque and 
the other where a Guru teaches a young Hindu boy to slaughter a hen 
so that this prepares him to kill human beings. These depictions are 
shown as being prejudical to national integration, peace and amity 
between the two communities and have a tendency to promote hatred and 
ill-will between the two religious communities. The Court dismissed 
the petitions and pointed out:
The attempt of the author in this film is to draw a lesson from our 
country's past history, expose the motives of persons who operate 
behind the scenes to generate and foment conflicts and to emphasise 
the desire of persons to live in amity and the need for them to rise 
above the religious barrier and treat one another with kindness, 
sympathy and affection. It is possible only for a motion picture to 
convey such a message in depth and if it is able to do this it will 
be an achievement of great social value.
Bhishma Sahani anticipated Gujarat long before and later in 1988, 
when his work was televised.


_____


[7.]

The News International [Pakistan]
August 04, 2003

International force may be deployed at L[ine] o[f] C[ontrol]

By Zia Iqbal Shahid

BRUSSELS: An international mechanism to check alleged infiltration 
from across the Line of Control by deputing an international 
helicopter-borne force is under "active consideration" in European 
capitals, a defence source in Brussels told The News.

The option of monitoring the border was first expounded by British 
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, known as Straw Formula. European 
diplomats have told the two nuclear rivals in South Asia that a 
workable mechanism to monitor the alleged infiltration is essential 
as Western capitals are increasingly linking their economic and 
defence relations with India and Pakistan to their respective resolve 
and efforts to fight terrorism in the region.

The proponents of the Straw Formula insist that Europe should make an 
effort to convince India that the proposed helicopter-borne force 
will not affect their position that the Kashmir dispute must be 
resolved through bilateral dialogue between India and Pakistan. They 
insist that Europe should launch the pursuit aimed at knowing the 
truth on the alleged infiltration along the LoC even if India refuses 
to accept the Straw Formula, a European diplomat underlined.

Diplomats from both sides of the Atlantic are of the view that the 
Indian frequent allegations and several Pakistani denials on 
cross-border incursions must be checked through an independent 
mechanism as ambiguity on this account is creating difficulties for 
Western countries wanting to condition their respective aid packages 
for developing countries to their respective roles in the fight 
against terrorism in their respective regions.

Washington has already attached the condition of recipient country's 
active role in fight against terrorism before any aid package is 
delivered. The aid worth $3 billion approved by President Bush for 
Pakistan is also conditioned to annual presidential certification 
stipulating that Pakistan is playing satisfactory role to combat 
terrorism.

"Pakistan has agreed to the so-called Straw Formula. Pakistani 
authorities have conveyed to the Western capitals their considered 
opinion that an international helicopter-borne force to monitor 
infiltration along the LoC would bolster the peace process in South 
Asia," the diplomat said.

India is being lured by both the US and European diplomats to 
consider the so-called Straw Formula giving the guarantee that such 
force, if and when created, would specifically monitor infiltration, 
while Kashmir would remain the dispute to be resolved through 
bilateral dialogue between both countries.

G-8, the group of most industrialized counties, the European Union 
and even the NATO are willing to provide helicopters, other logistics 
and technical support for the proposed force without getting 
themselves involved in the core of the half a century-old Kashmir 
dispute between the arch South Asian nuclear rivals.

Meanwhile, a joint appeal by two prominent international scholars and 
physicists seeking to establish a monitoring mechanism along the LoC 
is also under active consideration in European countries. Prof M 
Martellini, a physicist at the University of Insubria at Como, Italy 
and Dr AH Nayyar, a physicist at the Quaid-i-Azam University in 
Islamabad and coordinator of the Pakistan Peace Coalition (PPC), had 
been supporting the Straw Formula, suggesting formation of an 
international helicopter-borne force to monitor infiltration along 
the LoC.

In their joint appeal Nayyar and Martellini argue the helicopter 
force should be acceptable to both India and Pakistan on the basis of 
four core reasons: (1) Pakistan will need a monitoring mechanism to 
show that it does not support the infiltration of insurgents. (2) The 
presence of an external monitoring force would ensure India does not 
wage a war on that frontier. (3) India would also achieve the 
objective that an external insurgency-based policy not be pursued in 
Kashmir, stopping infiltration altogether. (4) And above all it would 
provide the two countries with an exit strategy, always needed in a 
situation of conflict.

Both the scholars insist the US and Europe should go ahead with the 
proposal even if India does not agree to it. "The proposal is to 
build an international helicopter-borne force on the Pakistani side 
of the LoC alone, if any other bilateral arrangement is not possible, 
to monitor any infiltration of insurgents across the LoC, reporting 
to India and Pakistan and to the relevant international community 
body involved," the movers of the joint appeal promoting Straw 
Formula argue.


_____


[8.]

India Pakistan Arms Race and Militarisation Watch (IPARMW) Compilation # 128
(3 Aug 2003)
URL: groups.yahoo.com/group/IPARMW/message/139


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Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace 
and democratisation in South Asia. SACW is an independent & 
non-profit citizens wire service run since 1998 by South Asia 
Citizens Web (www.mnet.fr/aiindex).
The complete SACW archive is available at: http://sacw.insaf.net

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.