SACW | 1 Sept. 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  |  1 September,  2003

[1.] Sri Lanka: Militarization or Democratization (Ahilan Kadirgamar)
[2.] Srinagar, Four Years Later (Suvir Kaul)
[3.] India: A Democracy That Has Room Even for Violence (Amy Waldman)
[4.] S.Asia/ Diaspora, everywhere: War at Home (Kalbinder Kaur)
[5.] Train to Lahore: a journey down memory lane (K Sivaraman 
recounts to Kamala Balachandran)
[6.] India: UP slap in the BJP's face: The wages of opportunism (Praful Bidwai)
[7.] India: Banning cow slaughter to Beef up Hindutva (Sunanda k. datta-ray)
[8.] India: Why is Sangh Parivar up in arms against noted theatre 
personality Habib Tanvir
[9.] India: Books of bias and errors (Parvathi Menon)
[10.] India: Upcoming Public discussion on the Book Joothan: A 
Dalit's Life (4 Sept., Delhi)

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

[1.]

Lines [Sri Lanka]  August 2003

MILITARIZATION OR DEMOCRATIZATION

by  Ahilan Kadirgamar

You've used the expression 'as we soldiers say'. To a Colombian, 
accustomed to the way our guerrillas talk, your language doesn't 
sound very soldierly. How military is your movement, and how would 
you describe the war in which you have been fighting?

We were formed in an army, the EZLN. It has a military structure. 
Subcomandante Marcos is the military chief of an army. But our army 
is very different from others, because its proposal is to cease being 
an army. A soldier is an absurd person who has to resort to arms in 
order to convince others, and in that sense the movement has no 
future if its future is military. If the EZLN perpetuates itself as 
an armed military structure, it is headed for failure. Failure as an 
alternative set of ideas, an alternative attitude to the world. The 
worst that could happen to it, apart from that, would be to come to 
power and install itself there as a revolutionary army. For us it 
would be a failure. What would be a success for the politico-military 
organizations of the sixties or seventies which emerged with the 
national liberation movements would be a fiasco for us. We have seen 
that such victories proved in the end to be failures, or defeats, 
hidden behind the mask of success. That what always remained 
unresolved was the role of people, of civil society, in what became 
ultimately a dispute between two hegemonies. Š The world in general, 
and Mexican society in particular, is composed of different kinds of 
people, and the relations between them have to be founded on respect 
and tolerance, things which appear in none of the discourses of the 
politico-military organizations of the sixties and seventies. 
Reality, as always, presented a bill to the armed national liberation 
movements of those days, and the cost of settling it has been very 
high.

[Interview of Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista Army of National 
Liberation (EZLN) by Garcia Marquez and Roberto Pombo first published 
in Revista Cambio, Bogota, 26 March 2001 and translation in New Left 
Review 9, May-June 2001. http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR24304.shtml]

Subcomandante Marcos' words speak to the Tamil liberation struggle as 
well. In the last twenty-five years of armed struggle, the "role of 
people" has been problematic, where the Tamil militant groups were 
unable to envision and perform a role for different kinds of people. 
Many militant groups thought about how they can use different kinds 
of people, but they did not go far enough in creating a united front 
of the various struggles of different kinds of people. Nor did they 
think in terms of mobilizing the people to empower a vibrant civil 
society capable of opposing the State. The current debates on the 
dismantling of the High Security Zones (which inhibit the return of 
thousands of internally displaced) and the LTTE's new camp in 
Trincomalee (a ceasefire violation which is cause for rising tension) 
are both part of a larger question of militarization, armed struggle 
and the "role of people." In the last twenty-five years, the presence 
of the Sri Lankan army in the North and East has meant nothing but 
horror for the people. What all but few Tamils did not expect was the 
same sort of horror from the Tamil militants groups.

The record of the State's militarized institutions (armed forces, 
police and prisons) not only in terms of their brutality against the 
ethnic minorities, but also in how they dealt with Sinhala youth and 
dissent is a testament to the grave dangers posed to a society by any 
military. To support any army of a state that invades, colonizes and 
brutalizes a different people, though that is what most armies do, is 
to invite fire into ones own house. Here, I am not sure that those 
calling for militarization in the South have learned the lesson even 
after two rounds of horrifying repression. Now, I would like to turn 
to the more difficult question of Tamil militancy, national 
liberation struggles, insurrections and militarization.

A militant movement that does not have a role for people and does not 
respect or tolerate different kinds of people fails even before it 
gains power. In the case of the Tamil armed struggle, attacks on 
Sinhala civilians, Muslim peoples, fellow militants and dissenting 
Tamils were clear and early signs of such a failure. Once the LTTE 
came to dominate the Tamil armed struggle, after decimating some and 
marginalizing the rest of the militant groups, their attitude towards 
the people became one of contempt. Such a failure of Tamil militancy 
is extremely painful and costly not only for the direct victims, but 
also for the future of the Tamil community as a whole. This failure 
of armed struggle, where "the movement has no future if its future is 
military", I would see as one core aspect of militarization. It does 
not consider a role for people in their struggles and their future; 
it is rather focused on using people for its own ends of 
militarization. Such militarization of Tamil politics has led not 
only to the loss of lives, but also the crushing of dissent, scarred 
minds, political apathy and cynicism. We are in need more than ever 
of a democratic revolution, but we find ourselves without the social 
energy and political resources to confront our future. 

In such a historical flow, the moment now is even graver with the 
LTTE again turning its guns on its Tamil political rivals. As an 
ethnic politico-military organization ruthlessly committed to its 
version of a national liberation struggle, it has taken the peoples 
hostage through its path of militarization. This extreme 
militarization will not stop short of regimenting society. This is 
the second aspect of militarization, it leads to the control, 
ordering and disciplining of the people's social and political life 
in a military fashion, or what I would like to call regimentation. 
The forced recruitment of children into its ranks, the "taxation" of 
what little production in the North and East, and the engineered 
uprisings of Pongu Tamil, particularly during the last eighteen 
months of ceasefire is unquestionable proof of such regimentation of 
society even during "peace times".

Militarization of this ethnic politico-military organization does not 
end with those it can regiment; it ventures to cleanse those who 
refuse to be regimented. The forced removal in forty-eight hours of 
eighty thousand Muslims in 1990 from the North (the bulk of whom 
continue to live in refugee camps in the Puttalam) was a horrifying 
example of such "ethnic cleansing." The many massacres of Muslims in 
the East in the 1990's, including the bloody massacre in the 
Kaathankudy Mosque, and the more recent provocations, attacks and 
displacement of Muslims in the East are consequences of a military 
organization's attempts to mobilize its cadres and the population at 
large by promoting ethnic cleansing. Next, the murder in the last few 
months of numerous active and former members of political groups 
reflect the LTTE's project of "political cleansing." Ethnic and 
political cleansing by this ethnic politico-military organization is 
indiscriminate. It sanctions the targeting of all those that refuse 
to be regimented. Such is the logic of recent murders of former 
political activists quietly making a living for their families and of 
Muslim farmers and fishermen targeted while at work.

In looking at the recent attacks on Muslims and dissenting Tamils, 
each individual act is worrisome, but the central problem is the 
ideology of militarization, characterized by "regimentation", 
"cleansing" and a future that is military. Yet, the LTTE's very 
ideology of militarization is often cynically justified as its 
strength; that it is such military power at any cost that has enabled 
it to negotiate with the Sri Lankan state. This logic brings up a 
question when we look at the LTTE's reasons for pulling out of the 
peace talks, pointing to the "existential" and humanitarian crisis 
facing the people because of the lack of rehabilitation and relief, 
particularly resettlement of internally displaced peoples inhibited 
by the Army's High Security Zones. If the LTTE were serious about the 
people's interests, it would have to think seriously about the 
democratic interests of the people as well, which are opposed to 
regimentation and cleansing. It should be noted however, that the 
LTTE's cynical appropriation of the people's concerns and struggles 
should in no way lead us to dismiss the interests of the people.

Therefore when addressing the debates on High Security Zones and the 
LTTE camps in Trincomalee, I can only respond by calling for 
demilitarization. That means not only the disarmament of the Sri 
Lankan army and the LTTE, but also the dismantling of militarized 
structures controlling Lankan society as a whole. Progressives 
following the peace process and addressing the issue of an interim 
administration have demanded the need for it to adhere to 
international standards of human rights. I would say that the interim 
processes should come out of a political solution based on 
inter-ethnic justice. Furthermore, any interim process should embody 
the principles of the political solution, which would include human 
rights, democratic participation and demilitarization. Hence the 
demilitarization of society should enhance democratization and 
certainly an end to both the reality and ideology of regimentation 
and cleansing.

That is the route to open room for people's politics, a path 
abandoned in the North and East in the early stages of the Tamil 
liberation struggle. If the LTTE's project of militarization is 
inward looking, the State's immediate trajectory seems to be in the 
opposite direction, to find a safety net of international military 
support and to open training camps for "UN Peace Keepers" in Sri 
Lanka. In the post Sept 11th environment, it is all too clear that 
this is how militarization is imported and exported - stooges and 
mercenaries for empire. Past experience reminds us that 
militarization, whether inward looking or outward looking, whether 
imported or exported will ultimately turn the guns on the people. We 
should be opposed to any military culture that does not have a "role 
for people" and perpetuates an "armed military structure." If as 
Subcomandante Marcos says a "soldier is an absurd person", then a 
society such as ours that is militarized is a tragedy. The way out of 
such a tragic history would call for our political resources to be 
focused on democratization and demilitarization.  

_____


[2.]

The Telegraph [India]  September 01, 2003

SRINAGAR, FOUR YEARS LATER

Suvir Kaul returns to his homeland and finds that Kashmir's 
multi-religious, syncretic culture might be impossible to restore

(The author is professor of English, University of Pennsylvania)

All the calendars in our home in Srinagar stood frozen at October 
1999, which is the last month my parents lived in their house there. 
We feared great damage in the intervening years, but were relieved to 
find only enormous volumes of dust, and the detritus of pigeons 
nesting in the attic and the balcony, encouraged by the easy access 
provided by broken window-panes. As we cleaned - the hard work being 
done by two neighbourhood caretakers called Abdul Gaffar and 
Raghunath - it was tempting to think of the restoration of this home 
as a metaphor for a restored Srinagar, and a Kashmir, and a return to 
a multi-religious, syncretic culture.

That restoration, however, is going to be much harder, and even 
perhaps impossible, to achieve. The brutal history of the past 
fourteen years cannot be wished away, and a people ground down under 
the military might of the state and the violence of well-armed 
militants, cannot but wonder at what might have been, or indeed what 
the future might hold. But there are other important reasons why the 
state of siege in the valley will not be lifted soon: too many people 
have enriched themselves in the last decade, and they know exactly 
what they will lose if the conflict in Kashmir de- escalates.

Stories are rife of the wealth accrued by the leaders of each 
political faction (and there are many). Similar stories circulate 
about bureaucrats, officers of army units and of each paramilitary 
force (these too are multiple, and their acronyms - BSF, CRPF, SSB, 
JKP, RR, STF - have become the new idiom of Kashmiri). People talk at 
length of the money that has circulated in the valley via each of 
these groups and their counterparts in Pakistan, and of how much the 
politico-military elite on both sides of the border has benefited 
from the state of affairs in Kashmir.

Money to be made is arguably the most powerful local vested interest, 
but there is also the heady power of this elite bull-dozing its way 
in elaborate convoys past locals who have learnt to step aside or be 
assaulted. Recently, the local papers described a woman professor 
whose car failed to give way quickly enough being dragged out by her 
hair and beaten. When officers or their families go shopping on 
Residency Road or Lambert Lane, trucks of soldiers deploy on either 
side, all in addition to the forces permanently on patrol there. 
Local Kashmiris have learned to ignore such activities as the antics 
of a powerful elite, but for the likes of us visiting Kashmiris, 
every day offered ugly instances of the ways of a superior occupying 
force.

The boulevard that fringes the Dal Lake is alive with people, but no 
one can take free passage for granted, for at a moment's notice the 
road is blocked and civilians must detour. Perhaps most egregious of 
all is the fact that local, non-upper class Kashmiris are turned away 
from the springs at Chashmashahi, while outsiders are granted access.

Nowhere is the remaking of an older Kashmir into the soulless forms 
of a modern India more visible than in the paramilitary take-over 
(which can also of course be styled the "preservation") of the old 
Hindu shrines of Kashmir. Kheer Bhawani (Tulla Mulla) and the 
Shankaracharya temple that overlook Srinagar have lost whatever 
ancient sanctity they once possessed. They are now armed camps, 
festooned with the bright colours and signboards so beloved of 
military officers. Commanding officers of units stationed at these 
sites have turned them into advertisements for themselves - now you 
can only get to the Devi via CRPF yellow and red, and by walking past 
large tin placards that rewrite Kashmiri belief into the vocabulary 
of a more "mainstream" Hinduism. When we visited, bhajans that blare 
from jagrans in Delhi were playing loudly - only the wonderful old 
chinars suggested all that was once distinctively Kashmiri about 
Tulla Mulla.

A Ram Mandir is being built at the site of the ancient sun temple at 
Martand (Mattan). This is not simply an addition to what is already 
there - it is a deliberate refashioning of Kashmiri Hindu worship to 
obey the dictates of Hindutva practice. But worst of all are the 
excessive displays put on ostensibly for the benefit of the Amarnath 
yatris, but which actually function as a warning to local Kashmiris: 
all along the route past Pahalgam, and to some extent on the Baltal 
route, banners and wall-slogans sponsored by the CRPF and the BSF 
(and occasionally, the Jammu and Kashmir police) welcome the yatris. 
These units also make available tea and snacks, and announce them as 
prasad. There is no constitutional separation of temple and state to 
be found here - the yatris, and those who guard them, are equally, 
and aggressively, Hindu.

Most surprising for the visitor, however, is the great prosperity of 
Srinagar, where new homes are ever larger and the air impressively 
polluted by the thousands of cars and buses bought recently. Stores 
are stocked with the goods sold in the fancy shops of south Delhi. 
The handicrafts for which Kashmir has long been famous are plentiful, 
and the situation in the valley has meant that enterprising dealers 
have developed outlets for them across the country. The electricity 
supply has improved considerably - there are power cuts, but they 
operate according to a schedule, and the voltage is no longer 
miserable. Outside Srinagar, however, it is a different story. 
Villagers talk of a time, twenty years ago, when they knew 
electricity, and wish for doctors and teachers, who, like piped 
water, are a scarce resource.

But there is change in the air, and everywhere in the valley people 
are celebrating their opportunity to travel to places that they have 
not dared to visit for years. An entire generation has been deprived 
of civic life and of the joys of Kashmir, and they are aware of this 
deprivation. Schoolchildren now flood Pahalgam and Gulmarg, and the 
Mughal Gardens are full of local visitors. No one knows how long this 
lull will last, with the result that locals are moved by a 
near-hysterical urge to wander, to picnic, to talk of the future.

This is a moment of hope then, of young people wishing for a life 
different from that they have suffered so far, of conversations in 
which plans are made for a Kashmir in which ideas can flourish, the 
mind can be without fear, and the head can be held high. I invoke 
Tagore's great nationalist poem deliberately, for its aspirations - 
as true for Kashmiris as for Indians more generally - might well be 
those of a group of young college students and lecturers I met. They 
gather on Sundays to discuss a life of ideas outside of the 
machinations of international politics, paramilitary strategies, and 
the self-aggrandizement of those who rule Kashmir. Their hope, like 
Tagore's, is to build a heaven of freedom into which Kashmir, and 
India, might one day awake.


_____


[3.]

The New York Times [USA]  August 31, 2003

A DEMOCRACY THAT HAS ROOM EVEN FOR VIOLENCE

by Amy Waldman

BOMBAY  Americans can count on one hand the incidents of large-scale 
political violence in the last 10 years: the attacks on the World 
Trade Center and the Pentagon, and on the federal building in 
Oklahoma City. The most recent major racial disturbance was in Los 
Angeles in 1992, the last sustained period of broad upheaval in the 
60's and early 70's.

Indians, in contrast, lost count of such incidents long ago. For 
decades, they have lived with left-wing and Islamic insurgencies, 
ethnic and geographically based separatist movements, communal riots 
and terrorism. In the last two decades, they have lost two prime 
ministers — Indira Gandhi and her son, Rajiv — to assassination. In 
the country's northeast, militants fighting Indian rule marked the 
eve of India's Independence Day this month by killing at least 34 
people.

So when two bombs shook Bombay last week, killing 52, the shock was 
more at the mystery — no one claimed responsibility — than at the 
method of expression.

In this hearty democracy, elections are held, Parliament meets and 
the Constitution holds. The society seems to offer adequate 
nonviolent means for accessing power and resolving disputes. Yet 
political violence is routine.

The question is why.

Sunil Khilnani, the author of "The Idea of India," calls it the 
"curious co-existence" of violence and democratic politics. 
Democracy, he notes, is usually seen as a pacifying force that "draws 
the teeth" from conflict.

But he also points out that perhaps India's predicament is not 
curious after all. India's democracy is only a half century old. It 
was imposed by political elites on the masses after centuries of rule 
by invaders and empire-builders, rule that was usually maintained by 
force.

"In India the choice can never be between chaos and stability," Ashis 
Nandy, a political psychologist, has written. "It is always between 
manageable and unmanageable chaos, between humane and inhuman 
anarchy, and between tolerable and intolerable disorder."

In other democracies as well, Mr. Khilnani notes, the early years are 
often marked by violence, and even civil war. This was true in France 
and America, even ancient Athens. As democratic politics intensifies, 
it can become as much about conflict as competition.

That is certainly the case in India, where the broadening of 
democratic participation has seemed only to churn up more violence. 
Like an American democracy that initially tolerated slavery, the 
democracy born here was incomplete: it left intact a feudal, 
caste-based system that even now has a grip. It was inevitable, 
perhaps, that the further transformation of that system would not be 
entirely peaceful.

"With majoritarian democracy you unleash all these forces," said Ajai 
Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict 
Management in New Delhi. As the old system weakens, he argues, space 
opens for ideologies of violent transformation, like Sikh separatism 
in Punjab.

Violence can also deliver electoral dividends. Indians have used 
their roles in insurgencies to build political profiles. Communal and 
caste violence has often helped solidify constituencies, most 
recently in Gujarat, where the chief minister called and won early 
elections in what many saw as an attempt to capitalize on 
Hindu-Muslim riots. "The shortest route to democratic power is a 
rejection of democracy," Dr. Sahni argues.

There has also been, many have argued, a decline in the quality of 
India's political leadership. The number of parties has multiplied, 
but mostly along caste or regional lines. So voters get an illusion 
of options and ideologies, rather than real chances to transform 
their society. This only helps left-wing revolutionary groups in poor 
states like Bihar.

There is also India's extraordinary diversity. All sorts of groups 
have grievances — about language, religion, ethnicity and more. Even 
the Hindu majority can feel aggrieved, since the Congress Party, 
which dominated national politics in India's early decades, built its 
electoral victories partly by catering to Muslims.

Mr. Sahni also argues that not all of the roots of the violence lie 
in India. Starting in the late 1980's, he says, Pakistan began acting 
on the notion that it could bleed India by a "thousand cuts." The 
result, he said, has been the "hardening, strengthening, and arming 
of all these movements that exploit all these grievances or 
fissionary tendencies." Pakistan denies any role in the violence, 
saying India's flawed democracy breeds violence all on its own.

Outside money has also given political violence an entrepreneurial 
cast. Where at the dawning of independence, for example, there was 
one separatist movement in India's northeast, there have since been 
perhaps a dozen. Some have even been sponsored by the central 
government, to destabilize political rivals.

Such self-interested and potentially deadly political activity drags 
on partly because of the Indian political system's seemingly high 
tolerance for the loss of human life, Dr. Sahni argues. "Even today 
we're dealing with 150 to 200 lives a month in Jammu and Kashmir, and 
it makes no difference to anyone," he said.

Bombay, too, is an example. The blasts on Monday were preceded in the 
last nine months by five smaller ones. Every time there is an 
incident, Dr. Sanni said, "there's 10 days of excitement, but nothing 
changes."

_____


[4.]

[June 2003 - Women's World's contest, "Women's Voices in War Zones," 
co-sponsored by the Nation Institute with support from the Puffin 
Foundation, received 290 entries from 45 countries in answer to such 
questions as "Do you live in a war zone or state of terror? Is it 
personal or public?" Prizes were given in three categories: 
citizens/residents of the United States; citizens/residents of other 
countries; and immigrants or refugees. The judges were Ammiel 
Alcalay, Katha Pollitt, and Paula Giddings. ]

o o o

  WAR AT HOME
  Kalbinder Kaur, UK
  June 11, 2003

Violence doesn't end. Not with a generation, or after the assault. It 
lives on in the father asleep on the sofa, watching black and white 
Hindi films, while I sit upstairs typing, not sure whether he will 
follow and slap me. My fault he did warn me, with his red eyes alien 
as I begged him to go to work today. Or violence might come home to 
me, brother-shaped, and nearly break my nose, like he did for my 
eighteenth birthday. My fault again, I did bleach my fringe blonde, 
mistakenly thinking it belonged to me, and not to the izaat of the 
family. My hair is natural black and fringeless now, intact like my 
izaat. Thanks bro, for protecting me against western demise.

"When was the last time you had a battering?" My dad asks today, 
light and fun, in the spirit of a child. "Must be, the last time your 
eyes were red." I am not afraid, his eyes are clear, the whiskey 
bottle unopened. The truth is, I can't remember when he last did 
break my skin. I was always the mute in the corner, while my mum 
wiped her blood from the kitchen walls, and my brother hid the broken 
mop, which splintered when it hit his spine. My brother had spirit, 
still has, even though my father tried to dilute it.

In a war there are enemies and heroes, statically posed in history 
books, locked away in the library. My enemy is my hero, sometimes. 
There are no clear boundaries, a 'no man's land', or a trench to hide 
in. This is my family, bound together by love and blood. How do we 
all go from victim to victor? We are healing each other, that's the 
only way to stop the infection spreading. I bandage my father. My 
mother won't leave, and I have only just returned- my wounds only 
seeping, when violence is threatened, or attempted.

My hair is black, because blonde looks wrong, I have no fringe 
because it got in my eyes. My father lost his taste for violence, 
when he lost his taste for Bacardi and Coke, his old bloated body 
rejecting his weapon of mass destruction. Only occasionally when he 
is haunted by the ghost of his father, will he force-feed himself 
violence, and that is why I am here typing. Because even when the 
assailants you grew up with disappear, you can never be sure that 
they are truly dead. Aware that the brother you have come to love, 
may still return to dope and hopelessness, for which I will be a 
target.

Not the heroic story of mother and daughter abandoning their 
violators, to take on the world. But this is not fiction, or my 
mother would be in English classes instead of in the factory, and my 
dad would be far away, at peace, but far away, just-in-case. My 
mother would have taken my advice to leave him. This is a story of 
having-to-make do. Having to work with traditions that fasten you to 
your attacker, where no matter how much strength you have accumulated 
by living without fear, by leaving home, and guilt and memories, you 
still can not force your version of justice on the woman you adore.

I would not live anywhere else, but here with my family. After seven 
years of unpicking the fear and blame and the notion that I am 
worthless, I want to be here. After seven years of denial, not 
wanting to be the Asian woman victim, the teachers, and counsellors 
suspected I was, that I must be. I found another identity, not as 
victim, or as stereotype, I found my voice, though I admit, I lose it 
sometimes.

After a year of helping other women to survive violence and terror, 
in the way that they could, whether it was to leave their home, or to 
stay, I came to use my voice to medicate and fortify my family in 
their time of relative peace. The girl who was mute is now always 
talking, after years of silence, and listening to lectures of how 
oppressed I am. How my culture binds me. I find that I am not ashamed 
of my voice, of what's in my head. And I watch my family, in their 
fragile peace, only an inch deep: and I want to save us all. But now 
I know that it is only possible to save yourself. Your war is with 
yourself, the voice that says you are nothing, and deserve to be 
broken. You are nothing, and those people who love you, must be 
nothing too, so it won't matter if you hurt them, like you hurt 
yourself with your drugs, alcohol and street fights. Violence never 
ends, we can take it, and turn it into fire to burn others and 
ourselves, or find a way to evolve it into ash, which can heal and 
take away the fever of our ghosts.

Kallbinder Kaur is a British-Asian woman and writer, whose parents 
emigrated to the UK from India in the 70s.

_____


[5.]

Deccan Herald [India] , Sunday, August 31, 2003
TRAIN TO LAHORE: A JOURNEY DOWN MEMORY LANE

With exchange of students and politicians revving up the pace of 
Indo-Pak amity, a nonagenarian reminisces about his time 
in Lahore, many summers ago

Chidambaram to Lahore: It is under 1500 miles, as the crow flies. But 
on the rails, I travelled over 1900. The journey was done in three 
legs over four days: Chidambaram-Madras; Madras -Delhi; and 
Delhi-Lahore.

The year was 1936 and I was 25. I doubt if my mother realized how far 
away her first-born was going away to. In fact, my going off to 
Lahore wasn't the highlighted part of the happening at all. Everybody 
was jubilant that in the difficult pre-war period, I had got a job in 
the central service at princely salary of 110 Rupees! 

We reached the station in a bullock cart and purchased the ticket to 
Madras. My luggage consisted of three items; bedding; a steel trunk 
that held all my essentials (Ganesa's framed photo, vibhooti, 
panchangam, silver panchapathram and uddiruni, all certificates and 
some clothes!); and a large cloth bag stuffed with snacks. When the 
train arrived, I experienced a strange mix of elation and fear.

Getting into the grand Trunk express at central station, in the pre 
reservation days wasn't simple. I still recall, with gratitude, the 
figure of the elderly porter who, for a small charge, pushed his way 
into the crowd and 'booked' a place for me with the luggage. He 
instructed me to open the bedding and spread it over the entire 
'bench' which I obediently did. For a ticketed price of Rs. 23, for 
the next 50 hours, I owned the entire berth! Thankfully the concept 
of three tier berths was unknown at that time.

When you travel for two days and two nights in a train pulled by a 
steam engine, you get so wholly covered with black soot that even a 
peep into the mirror is scary! So it was customary practice in the 
long distance trains for people to bathe and change before alighting. 
It amazes me that even up to the sixties, I have taken a bath, in the 
third class, train toilet.

I was received at the New Delhi station by a distant relative. It was 
expected of those who had migrated earlier to the North, to receive, 
play host and settle in a new comer from back home. Later, at Lahore 
station too, I was received by a relative of an acquaintance and 
housed in his residence till I found my own accommodation. And when 
it was my turn to play the senior, I too have done the very same for 
a host of youngsters. 

After a refreshing sit-down food, and nap on steady ground, I packed 
up once again.

There was a choice of two trains to take to Lahore. The preferred one 
was the Frontier Mail that travelled faster. Enroute were the 
important stations of Meerut, Sahranpur, Ambala, Ludhiana, Jullandar 
and Amritsar. It went beyond Lahore to Rawalpindi and stopped at 
Peshawar. The other was the slower Batinda Express that stopped at 
Lahore.

I joined as the Engineering Supervisor, Phones. The pay scale was 
80-5-120 and the house rent Rs.30. There were no cuts and the full 
pay was given in cash. The exchange had a capacity for 5000 lines, 
and at that time in all of Lahore, Multan and Ferozpur there were 
about 2500 lines. I was allotted a phone at home for the purpose of 
being available on call. I do not remember having either made or 
received any calls, outside of the official ones! There were many 
Hindus and Mohammedan operators and Anglo Indian girls as signals 
personnel. There was no animosity and each respected the other's 
traditions. There was one particular mechanic who worked closely with 
me. 

Once when a fault needed to be attended at night, I went over to his 
house to call. He offered me a chair and some fruits. He requested me 
to have them, as he said he knew I would not drink water from his 
house. I am surprised today that I too did not feel any embarrassment 
over the statement and both had a matter fact approach.

A year later, in 1937, my 15 year old bride V.Meenakshi, came over, 
all the way from Madurai! I rented a fairly spacious house for 18 Rs. 
at the Anarkali. That was where most of the 40-50 south Indian 
families in Lahore lived. All were in government services and we 
lived like one large joint family. I remember clearly that my wife 
arrived in the morning with my father and immediately went into the 
kitchen and cooked lunch! Friends across the street later chided me 
for it!

Life at Anarkali was, in many ways, a continuation of the lives we 
lived back home. The significant variation was that we learnt to eat 
rotis. It was the accepted idea among south Indians that a wheat diet 
was necessary to withstand the cold. Tamarind was not locally 
available and to save on the stock taken from home, rasam was usually 
made with anar-ka-dana.

Milk and fruits were available in abundance. Thick cow's milk was 
sold at 8 seers for a rupee! Though we saw the locals drinking huge 
brass glass full of it, we did not learn to consume any more than was 
our habit! Nobody set curds at home. Curd made from buffalo's milk 
was sold in patheela, a wide, shallow, earthen vessel. It had a top 
half inch layer of thick cream like the cake icing. My wife used to 
remove that and throw it away as it made the curds rice greasy and 
unpleasant on the hands! Dry fruits from Afghanistan were sold like 
vegetables. But we used the abundantly available badams and pistas, 
only to make payasams, on occasions!

There were some special features of life in Lahore. In summer water 
was stored in the front yard of the house in very large mud pots. The 
cooled water was used for bathing. Toilets were on the terrace. It 
was dry lavatory and the scavengers used to go up the steps and bring 
down the pots on their head for disposal. The memory of it still 
makes me feel miserable.

Poverty was visible and people were thrifty. I remember the 'sookian' 
collector. Hearing his call, house wives emerged from inside with 
Sun-dried left over rotis and dried wheat dough. The man took them by 
weight and paid in anna and paise. His sack was full by the end of 
the day. This was, it seems, sold to the poor.

In my 33 years of service, I have served in many capacities all over 
the country. But none of them stick up in the memory as the stint at 
Lahore. And today when I read of the resumption of bus and train 
service to Lahore, my heart misses a beat!

(As told by K Sivaraman, retired director of Telegraphs, P&T, to 
Kamala Balachandran, his daughter)


_____


[6.]

The Daily Star [Bangladesh] September 01, 2003  | Editorial

UP SLAP IN THE BJP'S FACE: THE WAGES OF OPPORTUNISM
by Praful Bidwai

The decisive speed with which Ms Mayawati wrecked her Bahujan Samaj 
Party's alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party is stunning. The BJP 
leadership was taken so completely aback that its sole counter-gambit 
was to give to the UP Governor a letter withdrawing support.

This was clearly an afterthought -- two hours after the August 25 
Cabinet meeting.

This shows the BJP in poor light. It demands a revision of the view 
that the BJP's ideology may be controversial, but its leadership is 
astute, and always stays one step ahead of its adversaries.

UP's BJP leaders didn't have a clue to Ms Mayawati's likely moves -- 
even after she told the media the previous day to expect "spicy 
news". Meanwhile, she drafted an elaborate 30-page letter to the 
Governor.

To cover up its political ineptitude, the BJP now claims that Ms 
Mayawati's recommendation to the Governor to dissolve the Assembly is 
invalid because it came after she had lost her legislative majority. 
But she commanded a majority when she held the Cabinet meeting! Not 
one BJP minister resigned for the next two days despite the 
"withdrawal of support".

It is constitutionally irrelevant for the BJP to claim that Ms 
Mayawati made her decision "unilaterally", without "consulting" her 
allies. Under the Westminster system, which India follows, the Chief 
Minister's word is final.

In any case, according to The Indian Express, Ms Mayawati had 
obtained her ministers' prior signatures on a blank sheet. As to how 
the BJP supposedly a "party with a difference" agreed to this servile 
and humiliating arrangement defies comprehension.

But let that pass. Let us also not go into the rationale of the 
Governor's decision not to dissolve the Assembly.

What is material is the pathological opportunism underlying the 
BJP-BSP alliance. Ms Mayawati openly says the two parties shared 
neither ideology nor programme, only power. Why else would she ally 
with a party wedded to casteist Manuvad -- the antithesis of Dalitism?

The BJP is more culpable than the BSP for this unprincipled politics. 
It allied with the BSP for the third time -- with its eyes wide open. 
Unlike the BSP, which says it needs short-term power to advance the 
Dalit cause, the BJP claims adherence to "principle".

The BSP's UP social base is unshakable. That's not true of the BJP. 
Now even the "novelty factor" hasn't worn out.

Thanks to its third "honeymoon" with the BSP, much of the BJP's 
upper-caste support has eroded. Earlier, most of its OBC support-base 
moved out when former CM Kalyan Singh was expelled.

It would be a great surprise if the BJP retains even half of its 
current seats in UP: 87 (of a total of 403), compared to the SP's 142 
and the BSP's 110.

The BJP's situation nationally is hardly better. The BJP and allies, 
forecasts a friendly India Today-ORG-Marg poll, will lose 55 Lok 
Sabha seats (from the present 304), reducing the NDA to a minority.

The BJP's own national tally appears certain to drop from 182 to 
under 150. Without the BSP's help, the BJP might win barely 100 seats 
-- reflecting its "natural" status.

The collapse of the BJP-BSP alliance in UP will have an immediate 
impact on the four Hindi-heartland Assemblies (Rajasthan, Madhya 
Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi) where elections are due. Without the 
BSP's crutch -- through its 6-to-10 percent vote -- the BJP could 
face a defeat in all four states, especially if the Congress reaches 
a seat understanding with the BSP.

This, on top of reverses everywhere except Gujarat, and growing 
general unpopularity due to misgovernance, spells serious trouble. In 
the next Lok Sabha elections, the BJP faces disaster, and loss of 
credibility, leading to yet more electoral-political defeats.

So the party will try devious and desperate means to avert 
marginalisation and collapse. Amongst these are: communal 
polarisation through sectarian issues (e.g. Ayodhya, cowslaughter), 
and terrorist violence, for which to blame Muslims, with or without 
proof.

The BJP can stoop very low. It can incite and use communal violence 
as a strategy of political mobilisation. Other parties may 
occasionally flirt with communalism or soft-Hindutva. But none 
(barring the Shiv Sena) has systematically used anti-minority 
violence to garner votes like the BJP.

Amidst the BJP's grave crisis comes the report of the Archaeological 
Survey of India on the Ayodhya excavation. The BJP will use it to 
press the temple demand. But the "final report" is thoroughly rigged. 
None of the ASI's earlier "interim" reports even mentioned the 
possibility of a temple having pre-existed the Babri.

According to reputed archaeologists and historians, the "evidence" of 
a 10th century temple was smuggled in at the last stage, dodging 
independent scrutiny. It cites as key evidence 50 "pillar bases" with 
carvings bearing lotus motifs, etc. which are "distinctive features" 
associated with north Indian temples.

However, archaeologists Suraj Bhan and Supriya Verma and historians 
Irfan Habib and R.C. Thakran, who have visited the site many times, 
say "no pillar bases" exist. They don't belong to a single period; 
they aren't aligned, and the material doesn't suggest a temple. "When 
I was there, I did not see any 'massive structure' beneath the Babri 
mosque," says Prof Thakran.

The "pillar base" is an old red herring. In 1975 too, pro-Hindutva 
archaeologist BB Lal claimed to have excavated "pillar bases". This 
claim was convincingly refuted by archaeologist D. Mandal. To 
establish a temple's pre-existence, what's needed is not figurines or 
carvings, but a sizable structure, with clearly defined walls, 
plinth, base, etc. That has not been found.

The BJP will try to capitalise on popular ignorance of archaeology, 
and play on "patriotic" sentiments and false pride about Indian 
civilisation. It will stoke feelings of revenge and present our 
religious minorities as villains. It must be stopped in its tracks.

Postscript: Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav's appointment as CM has raised 
high expectations, especially about the Ayodhya-case chargesheet 
against Mr Advani and about a secular, non-vindictive, agenda. Mr 
Yadav must not disappoint.

(Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist. )

_____


[7.]

The Telegraph [India]  August 30, 2003

BEEFING IT UP AGAIN - Banning cow slaughter is part of the Hindu 
community's internal politics
Sunanda k. datta-ray
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1030830/asp/opinion/story_2305477.asp

_____


[8.]

Deccan Herald [India], Sunday, August 31, 2003

SENTIMENTAL INTOLERANCE
The Sangh Parivar is up in arms against a play by noted theatre 
personality Habib Tanvir which attacks the custom of untouchability 
and exposes the illogicality inherent in the caste system. The 
Parivar's grouse is that the play hurts Hindu sentiments
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/aug31/sl4.asp

_____


[9.]

Frontline [India] Volume 20 - Issue 18, August 30 - September 12, 2003
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2018/stories/20030912000807400.htm

BOOKS
Books of bias and errors

PARVATHI MENON


History in the New NCERT Textbooks: A Report and an Index of Errors 
by Irfan Habib, Suvira Jaiswal, and Aditya Mukherjee; Indian History 
Congress, Kolkata, 2003; pages 129 Rs.50.


TOWNS and cities in our Neolithic past? Cloth woven on wheels in 
ancient India? 4,600 B.C. as the date when the Indus Civilisation 
took birth? The Mughal emperor Babur deliberately selecting a site 
for a mosque in a place where the "tenth and last avatar of Vishnu 
was to appear at the end of the yuga"? The English East India Company 
established in 1600 in India? India, "a land of free looters"? Lenin 
leading merely a coup in Russia in 1917?

These and many more historical howlers contained in a clutch of 
history books brought out by the National Council of Education 
Training and Research (NCERT) in 2002 could have served simply to 
provide us a hilarious foray into nonsensical history, were it not 
for the fact that they form the stuff of school textbooks that will 
give lakhs of Indian children their only insight into nearly 5,000 
years of their country's past. Carrying the stamp of approval of the 
powerful NCERT, which has a pervasive reach into the school system, 
the new history textbooks of 2002, written in conformity with the 
NCERT's own saffronised National Curriculum Framework of School 
Education, 2000, are shot through with factual errors, falsehoods, 
unreason and bias. They are surely a disgrace to the discipline of 
history writing, and draw nothing from the scholarship and analytical 
sophistication attained by this branch of the social sciences in 
India.

Although there was an outcry against these textbooks from several 
quarters after their appearance, it is the Indian History Congress 
(IHC), through the publication of the book under review, that has 
given the most serious rebuff to this official exercise in the 
falsification of history. The credentials of the IHC to do so are 
impeccable. With a membership of over 7,000, it is a forum that is 
representative of professional historians in the country today. 
Founded in 1935, the IHC has over the years set benchmarks in 
scientific and secular history writing; it has provided a valuable 
forum for peer interaction and review amongst historians; it has 
helped historians from small colleges and less advantaged departments 
of history to publish their work; and it has maintained its 
independence by putting in place a tradition of resistance to 
establishment pressures of one kind or the other. Thus, just as it 
once boldly opposed the Emergency as an attack on democratic and 
intellectual freedoms, it is today fighting another assault on 
scholarship and reason by a communal and divisive state-supported 
ideology.

When the NCERT published its policy statement on school education in 
2000, the IHC responded almost at once at its session in Kolkata in 
January 2001. A detailed resolution was passed expressing concern at 
the way history was being treated in the school curriculum. In the 
following year at its Amritsar session, the IHC Executive Committee 
set up a committee to scrutinise the history textbooks that had been 
published by the NCERT in 2002.

The committee, comprising Professor Irfan Habib (Aligarh), Professor 
Suvira Jaiswal (Hyderabad) and Professor Aditya Mukherjee (New 
Delhi), produced a report along with an Index of Errors, which was 
released as a publication of the IHC in June 2003. Four textbooks 
published in 2002 were reviewed. These were Makhan Lal, et al: India 
and World, for Class VI (Historical Portion: Unit II); Hari Om, et 
al: Contemporary India, for Class IX (Historical Portion: Unit 1); 
Makhan Lal: Ancient India, for Class XI; and Meenakshi Jain: Medieval 
India, for Class XI.

In the published Index, each error in the textbook is quoted in full 
under the relevant page number. A concise analysis or comment follows 
the error. Note has been taken of the corrections made in the 
reprinted edition. The authors state that the Index is not complete 
and that "... many slips and misstatements of varying degrees of 
seriousness have had to be overlooked to keep our Index within 
manageable limits".

The Index lists 99 errors in Makhan Lal's India and World for Class 
VI, 112 mistakes and 22 spelling errors (of proper nouns) in Ancient 
India for Class XI by the same author, 127 mistakes in Meenakshi 
Jain's Medieval India for Class XI, and 141 errors in Hari Om, et al, 
Contemporary India for Class IX.

A quick categorisation of the errors listed in the Index in just one 
of the four books reviewed, namely, Meenakshi Jain's Medieval India, 
shows their range and incidence. A few errors find place under more 
than one category.

1. Errors of commission. Careless and inexcusable errors of 
historical fact. These account for the largest number in all the 
books. In Medieval India, 79 such errors out of 127 are listed. The 
corrections for these are provided by the compilers of the Index.

Examples: On page 194, the author says that Aurangazeb died at 
Aurangabad. (He died at Ahmadnagar). On page 132 the author says that 
Rana Sanga died in the Battle of Khanua. (In fact, he was not killed 
in battle at all; he fled from the battlefield).

2. Errors of omission. Important facts left out of the narrative, 
conveying thereby an incomplete understanding of the particular 
topic. Twenty-three of the errors listed in the Index in Medieval 
India come under this category.

Examples: In the description of Shivaji's administration (page 
190-91) the author does not mention Shivaji's levy of chauth 
(one-fourth of revenue) and sardeshmukhi (an additional one tenth), 
which he exacted from areas not under his control with the threat of 
sacking those regions that did not pay up. In levying these exactions 
and in the punishment for non-payment, he did not differentiate 
between Hindus and Muslims. Or, the author's total omission of 
Akbar's views and actions on social matters, like his prohibition of 
slave trade, disapproval of sati and prohibition of involuntary sati. 
Or, when the author lists the appalling record of the number of 
Bahmani kings murdered, deposed, and blinded, she fails to mention 
that other ruling dynasties of that period had blood on their hands 
too. For example, the practice amongst the Rajputs and the Vijaynagar 
ruling classes of killing hundreds of wives, concubines and slave 
girls of a ruler when he died. The logic of exclusion suggests that 
the author would like to associate violence and cruelty with Muslims 
rather than with the conventions and practices that were common to 
all medieval ruling classes.

3. Errors deriving from communal bias. There are 14 such examples of 
communally biased assertions of historical fact. These also include 
attempts to Sanskritise names or terminology in a wholly 
inappropriate fashion.

Examples: On page 10, the author has separately classified modern 
historians of medieval India by their religions, that is, as Muslim 
or Hindu. On page 92, she states that Bukka I of the Vijaynagar 
period "freed practically the whole of the south from foreign 
domination". From this the reader must surmise that Muslims are 
equated with foreigners, as the compilers of the Index point out. The 
heading for Chapter 2 is "Struggle for Chakravartitva", an 
inappropriate phrase used obviously to make a point of Sanskritising 
what could, as the authors point out, have simply been titled 
"Political Supremacy".

4. Errors of spelling. There are seven such errors.

Examples: "Fawadul Fawaid" for "Fawaidul Fawad", Bahamani for 
Bahmani, Guru Arjun for Guru Arjan, Suleh-kul for sulh-i kul, and so 
on.

5. Errors of language. Poor English, along with displays of ignorance 
and obfuscation add up to nine examples listed in the Index

For example, on page 162 the author writes of Nur Jahan: "The new 
queen soon became the favourite of the Emperors' wives". What she 
obviously meant was that the new queen became the favourite wife of 
the emperor. On page 26 and page 27, the author writes about 
"Muhammad Ghur" and "Mahmud Ghazni", instead of Muhammad of Ghur, and 
Mahmud of Ghazni. The compilers refer to these errors as "pieces of 
illiteracy". On page 160, there is an illustration titled "Meeting of 
Jahangir with the Persian king Shah Abbas". The reader is not 
informed that it is an imaginary representation and that in reality 
the two never met.

According to the report, all four books reveal a shocking lack of 
awareness of basic historical facts. Secondly, the language is 
riddled with grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and inappropriate 
expressions. Finally, they all present History with a strong 
chauvinist and communal bias. Thus, in respect of the Ancient India 
textbook, the familiar myths abound - India is the original homeland 
of the Aryans; "Vedic civilisation" embraced the Indus civilisation; 
Hinduism is held to be the most advanced of all religions; the caste 
system was fine until some "rigidities" crept in later; women in 
ancient India were held in high esteem and had equal inheritance 
rights as men.

A "neutral or even admiring stance", according to the authors of the 
report, accompanies the accounts of sati and jauhar. The Medieval 
India textbook is imbued with anti-Muslim prejudice. Muslims, or 
"foreigners", brought nothing to India but bloodshed, violence and 
the practice of temple destruction. The substantial evidence of the 
rise of a composite culture in this period is firmly stamped out. 
Thus, there is barely a sentence on Kabir and his teachings, the 
report reveals.

The Contemporary India textbook appears to be in a class by itself in 
respect of the distortions mentioned. According to the authors of the 
report and the Index, this book portrays "Muslim separatism" as the 
beast, while Hindu communalism is ignored and Hindu Mahasabha leaders 
are idolised as patriots. The great Indian social reform movement is 
ignored; the modern values of democracy and secularism that the 
freedom movement stood for are passed over; Jawaharlal Nehru is 
either ignored or presented in an unfavourable light; and the 
Communists are vilified. The prejudice and distortion has, as its 
foundation, a singular ignorance of colonialism and its economic and 
political impact on India.

Indeed, the sheer range and variation of errors, 141 in all, as 
listed by the authors of the Index from Hari Om's Contemporary India, 
qualifies this single textbook as perhaps the most damaging of all. 
Here is an authorial pen that is untroubled by the rules of English 
grammar and usage, that constructs a history of modern India from 
which all modernity has been purposefully cut away, and that 
oftentimes projects Indian history as a theatre of the absurd. For 
example, on page 22, he tells us:

"Lord Curzon even went to the extent of saying that the people of 
India were `the peasants, whose life was not one of political 
aspiration'. This had a tremendous impact on the Indian Freedom 
Struggle".

Or again, on page 23:

"Both of them (Tilak and Aurobindo Ghose) believed in and advocated 
cultural nationalism... They also held the view that the Moderates 
were only playing with "bubbles" like the legislative councils and 
not taking up the issues capable of protecting and promoting the 
Indian culture."

"Bubbles" is Hari Om-speak for "baubles", but on a more serious note 
he has conjured cultural nationalists out of Extremists, as the index 
compilers point out.

The NCERT appears to be undaunted by the criticism and by the 
potential damage such textbooks might cause to young minds. Some 
minor changes have been made in the reprint editions, but more 
textbooks containing material on history for other classes have been 
published this year. For this once prestigious organisation, which 
brought out several splendid History textbooks from the 1970s 
onwards, the rewriting of history commissioned by it now surely 
represents a great leap backwards.

To conclude with this reviewer's favourite error, from Hari Om's 
Contemporary India, pages 59-60, picked out from the Index:

"... leaders and think-tanks like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and V.P. Menon."

The Index authors' tired response: "One has not heard of single 
persons as "think-tanks". But one lives and learns"!


_____


The Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi 
University, and the publishers, Samya, invite you to a discussion
on

JOOTHAN: A DALIT'S LIFE
An autobiography by  Omprakash Valmiki

Translated by Arun Prabha Mukherjee

The speakers:
Omprakash Valmiki (Author)
Prof. Arun Prabha Mukherjee (Translator)
Prof. G. Aloysius (Academy of Third World Studies, Jamia Milia 
               Islamia)
There will be short presentations on the book by some MA students of Sociology.

The discussion will be chaired by Prof. Anand Chakravarti

Time: Thursday, 4 September 2003, 2 p.m.
Venue: Lecture Theatre, Delhi School of Economics,  Delhi University.


_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

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