SACW | 2 Sept. 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  |  2 September,  2003

[1.] Pakistan - India:  Barriers to knowledge (Edit., Dawn)
[2.] Pakistan - India: Mirror Images
[3.] India: Manipulating People's Minds: BJP's Media Offensive in 
Rajasthan (Kavita Srivastava)
[4.] India: Anxiety Rises in a Muslim Enclave Near Bombay (Amy Waldman)

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[1.]

Dawn [Pakistan], Sept 1, 2003 | Editorial

Barriers to knowledge

It was refreshing to see a photograph in this newspaper the other day 
of visitors at a New Delhi book fair showing keen interest in a stall 
exhibiting books from Pakistan.
Around 40 Pakistani publishers have made the trip to the Indian 
capital to take part in the book fair. Unfortunately, a trade fair is 
about the only place in India where an Indian will be able to find 
books by Pakistani writers - and the converse is true for Pakistan. 
Indian newspapers and magazines are a cheap alternative for Pakistani 
readers and could satisfy the ever-present demand here for literature 
on Indian and South Asian topics. However, unless one has the right 
connections or if one does not mind purchasing expensive pirated 
material, it is next to impossible, at least for an ordinary person, 
to get hold of Indian publications.
The benefits to each other's reading public from a greater flow of 
such material are not only that they will be considerably cheaper 
than publications from Britain or America, but also that both sides 
will have the opportunity to know more about each other.
Notwithstanding the flurry of people-to-people exchanges, of mostly 
businessmen and parliamentarians, between the two countries, not 
every Pakistani who wishes to travel to India can do so.
The next best thing would be if books, newspapers and magazines from 
India could come to Pakistan and vice versa. This would go a long way 
towards removing some of the mistrust and misconceptions that many 
ordinary Indians and Pakistanis continue to harbour about one 
another. That is probably why there are elements on both sides of the 
border who wish to keep such a tight control over the flow of 
information.
The Internet does provide many possibilities of overcoming such 
restrictions, but then again not every Indian or Pakistani has access 
to a computer. Making books, newspapers and periodicals freely 
available between the two countries should form an essential part of 
the Indo-Pakistan normalization agenda.
Barriers to the flow of knowledge and artificial impediments in the 
way of cultural and social exchanges are in any case retrogressive 
and lead to entirely avoidable angularities.


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[2.]

The Daily Times [Pakistan]  September 01, 2003 | Op-ed.

Mirror images

ABDUL BASIT HAQQANI

When the BJP assumed power in Delhi, it was remarked that a window of 
opportunity had opened for Indo-Pak relations. Just as only Nixon, a 
rather rabid Republican of the day, could have normalised relations 
with China, only a hardline Hindu fundamentalist regime could take 
serious steps towards making peace with Pakistan. The rationale 
behind such an argument is that a 'soft' political party is always 
vulnerable to attack by the chauvinist elements if it tries to make 
any overtures with the historical enemy, but if the extreme jingoists 
themselves begin the process of normalisation, then there is no one 
further to their right who can oppose them.

The argument was only superficially appealing. For one thing, no one 
was able to come up with an example of such a process other than the 
Nixon one. Secondly, it is good to be sceptical of any theory that 
tries to predict the future on the basis of what has happened in the 
past. Even if a million examples illustrating an assertion were 
offered, there would be no guarantee that the same thing would happen 
the next time. It was the realisation of this truth that led David 
Hume to create the kind of philosophical scepticism that awoke Kant 
from 'his dogmatic slumber' and spend the next ten years writing the 
Critique of Pure Reason without being able to discover any solid 
basis for rational belief. Philosophy apart, however, the rise of BJP 
to power has not brought about any diminution of tension between the 
two estranged neighbours except sporadically and fleetingly.

The governments on both sides, it seems, have the firm belief that a 
degree of tension is in their interest - in their interests as 
political parties, that is. Noisy accusations of perfidy will 
contribute to unity within the nation and even if this does not lead 
anywhere, it might bring votes and enable the party to win the next 
election. Even if the coterie in power is not dependent on elections 
for the perpetuation of its rule, it does enable it to get more for 
its source of strength, like guns and other expensive toys 
manufactured abroad; expensive and profitable for arms dealers and 
those who will approve their bids.
While occasional scandals provide a glimpse of what goes on behind 
the scenes and who really profits from carefully nurtured tensions, 
the people at large are kept in the right frame of mind by a constant 
barrage of propaganda. As a consequence, the people are quite 
convinced that not only the government of the other side, but also 
the people are their enemies.

While a state of hostility remains the norm in Indo-Pak relations, 
there are also occasions when peace and goodwill are in the air. In 
moments such as these a great deal is said about our two people being 
the same, of our shared culture and history and all the other 
nonsense that is regarded as compulsory in that kind of mood. It is 
conveniently forgotten that any two people share a lot of history, 
provided you go back far enough, because they share an overwhelming 
number of genes. They are all human, and this common humanity makes 
for commonalities that override the differences between them.
In the case of India and Pakistan, this is accepted as 
incontrovertibly true by the peacemakers. But the theory is regarded 
as perfidious by the fundamentalists of both the Islamic and Hindu 
persuasion. According to them, religious differences have wiped out 
anything that the two peoples had in common. Thus, our history does 
not start before Mohammad bin Qasim. For the champions of Hindutva, 
we slipped out of Indian history the moment our ancestors accepted 
Islam.

Perhaps these differences serve to explain the real nature of our 
relationship. We are neither the same, as the liberals seeking better 
relations maintain, nor are we radically different as the 
fundamentalists proclaim. We are merely mirror images of each other. 
Let me clarify.
During the days of the Soviet Union, it was interesting, and 
frightening, to hear Moscow and Washington berate each other for 
things that each side considered wrong in the other. Neither side 
realised, however, that what it criticised in the other existed in 
itself. Thus, taking what may be regarded as trivial examples, the 
leadership of the Communist state was ridiculed for going about in 
'gas-guzzling Zils', while the political and economic leadership of 
the United States did not find anything wrong with riding in block 
long stretch limousines.

Moscow may have been host to the admirable Bolshoi but people could 
not get to see its productions because the tickets, though nominally 
priced (and theoretically within the range of everyone), were 
available only to important functionaries, the 'nomenklatura'. 
Ironically, however, theatre tickets in the United States, which were 
theoretically available to anyone who wanted to buy them, could only 
be obtained by the rich because of their price.

The Soviets were accused of having built a police state because the 
law enforcement agencies held enormous powers. But this criticism 
ignored the wide-ranging powers of police officers in the United 
States. The Soviet state was controlled, it was alleged, by a small 
coterie of party bosses. It was never admitted that in the American 
system, the elections could not be won by anyone other than a 
candidate handpicked by a small inner circle from either party, 
supported by fabulous sums from big business.
To return to India and Pakistan. It was not all that long ago when 
Pakistan refused to have any sporting relations with India which 
prompted the latter to accuse us of mixing sports and politics. Now 
India is doing that same thing. One would have been flattered that 
they were copying us were it not for the fact that they could have 
made a better choice of what to emulate.

It used to be India's position that both sides should encourage 
contacts between the peoples and the more intractable problems would 
then become easier to resolve. Pakistan rejected this because it felt 
that the big issues should be tackled first. Now India discourages 
such contacts (except for high profile exchanges such as those 
between Track II diplomats) or occasional propagandist exercises. 
Instead, it wants the big issue (the big issue not being the same as 
the one so identified by Pakistan) to be resolved first. It goes even 
further and maintains that there can be no talks unless the 
objectives of such talks have already been achieved.

Pakistan used to be chary of establishing communication links between 
the two countries lest these encourage contacts and lead to a 
dilution of Pakistan's purity of nationalism. Now India is afraid of 
these and would rather give up its manifest self-interest in 
restoring air links and overflights unless it can maintain a 
permanent advantage through the ability to halt overflights by 
Pakistan whenever it likes.

There was a time when Pakistani diplomats were under instructions not 
to 'socialise' with their Indian counterparts. In recent experience 
Indian diplomats have avoided their Pakistani colleagues. Indian 
diplomats are pursued and harassed by our agencies. Pakistani 
diplomats receive the same treatment from Indian spooks. Both sides 
get on their respective moral high horses and condemn the other for 
uncivilised behaviour and then continue to do what they condemn in 
the other.

We Pakistanis look into the mirror across Wagah and see our own 
distorted face there. Indians look into the same mirror and see an 
unrecognisable self staring back. We glare at each other, fascinated 
and repelled by what meets our eyes. No wonder we cannot make peace.

_____


[3.]

[Sept.,1 2003]

MANIPULATING PEOPLE'S MINDS
The BJP's Media Offensive in Rajasthan

As the elections are approaching the BJP offensive at controlling the 
print and the electronic media in Rajasthan has taken off. Their 
efforts are as follows: 

management of existing media

- prevention of publishing and telecasting of news/stories that puts 
them in bad light by managing the top management, editors and owners 
of newspapers and TV channel.

This was blatantly carried out during Vajpayee's visit to Jaipur on 
the 10th of August, 2003 and during Vasundhara Raje's Parivartan 
yatra. One TV channel took of the news from its channel at prime time 
as the TV journalists had called the rally a flop show and had shown 
visuals of disruption of the rally by Social Justice front members. 
One newspapers changed the copy of its reporter as the latter had 
reported objectively on the rally stating that it was nothing much.

- complaining about correspondents when their copies do not suit them 
and also getting reporters off the rolls of the paper .

One reporter was removed from his job as he wrote objectively and 
critically and his stories went against BJP communal politics. 
Complaints were made against a couple of reporters who took the BJP 
and Vasundhara to task in their stories,  their seniors received 
phone calls that the beat of the reporters should be changed.

- intervening at the top management and editorial levels resulting in 
harassment of the journalists as they are expected to give 
explanations to their editors/owners.

One TV channel reporter and one news paper reporter had to write long 
explanation for his story that showed the BJP in bad light.

setting up of a news agency and a local TV channel

- a hindi news agency called the News Network of India,  with a 
network of stringers in towns and kasbas is being set up in 
Rajasthan. Some coorporate agents have made contact with hindi 
journalists to set up this news agency. They will be paying a 
handsome sum to the person who will look after the State office 
located in Jaipur. The news agency is being mainly set up to feed 
local papers in Rajasthan and not for the metro / national papers.

According to sources the financial support to this news agency will 
come from the News Network of India's other projects. One of which 
consists of formulating media plans for public sector undertakings. 
This news agency is being promoted by the office of Mr. Pramod 
Mahajan and Vasundhara's press Secretary.

This new venture is apart from the many newspapers that they already 
control. The RSS already has another media group called the Vishwa 
Samvaad Kendra established in most districts of the state of 
Rajasthan.

- a news channel

( still exploring more information about this channel )

Infiltration in the Pink City Press Club

It has been observed by members of the press club that in the last 
few weeks a bunch of RSS and ABVP members have started visiting the 
club regularly with the agenda to gauge the mind of the press 
persons, gather information and plant stories. Some members of the 
press club have decided to increase the attendance of the secular 
people in the press club in order to counter this infiltration.

Apart from all this the pro BJP papers have raised the tenor in 
defense of the BJP ideology and its leaders.

setting up of media watch groups with senior media persons

This has been set up at Delhi level to build a certain image of the 
BJP. Its role is monitoring and creating news that helps the BJP.

Response of Journalists Unions

There are two journalists union, one affiliated to the national union 
of journalists of India and the other National Working Journalists 
Union, both have ceased to be active on the front of ethics, rights 
of journalists and debating such issues which their members have 
tried putting forward to them. No press note has been issued despite 
requests by members.

Response of other parties including the Congress party

There has been no public statement or strategy against this 
dimension. The BJP has the field completely to itself.

Basically the battle is being fought by secular, individual 
journalists on their own. Social groups are yet to get their act 
together and strategise effectively. 

Kavita Srivastava



_____


[4.]


The New York Times, September 1, 2003

Anxiety Rises in a Muslim Enclave Near Bombay
By AMY WALDMAN

MUMBRA, India, Aug. 26 — The teeming streets of this suburb of Bombay 
are notable for two things: that most of the people are Muslim, and 
that a decade ago the streets were not teeming at all.

Since then, as if in a small replay of the 1947 partition of India 
and Pakistan, Muslims have migrated to Mumbra by the hundreds of 
thousands, creating a stark segregation.

They came seeking safety — comfort in numbers — after riots with 
Hindus left more than 1,000 Muslims dead in 1992 and 1993, many of 
them in Bombay. The riots were quickly followed by bombings for which 
Muslim underworld figures were blamed. That further heated up the 
anxiety, and the exodus.

Now the atmosphere is heightened once again, because of two bombings 
in downtown Bombay that killed 52 people last Monday. No one has 
taken responsibility or been arrested, but many believe that Muslim 
militants are to blame.

India's Muslims — about 14 percent of the population of more than one 
billion — are often characterized as a breed apart from Muslims 
elsewhere. They did not join Al Qaeda; they did not surface in 
terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. They live in secular India, 
as opposed to its Islamic neighbor Pakistan, and most see India's 
democracy and Constitution as providing them sufficient rights and 
redress.

Moreover, Muslims in India have evinced little passion about the 
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has so animated Islamists across 
the globe, although a scheduled visit by Israeli prime minister Ariel 
Sharon on Sept. 9 is generating opposition.

Indian Muslims have even stayed away from the insurgency in Kashmir, 
India's only Muslim majority state, other than the Muslims living in 
the state. Many Muslims say the hard-line sentiments found in their 
religion, especially in marginalized areas like this one, are a 
reaction to the growing strength of fundamentalism among India's 
Hindu majority, a strength that is both social and political.

A decade ago, Hindu nationalist leaders set out on a national 
pilgrimage that many Muslim youths saw as a provocation and a threat. 
In 1992, Hindu nationalists demolished a 16th-century mosque that 
they said had been built on the birthplace of Lord Ram, and the 
Bombay riots and carnage followed soon after.

A few years later, a Hindu nationalist-led central government was 
formed. And early last year, riots in Gujarat state left at least 
1,000 Muslims dead — carnage that many Muslims believed reflected 
governmental indifference, if not connivance.

"After Gujarat, the sentiment in Mumbra was very high," said Moazzam 
Naik, an official with Jamaat-e-Islami, a decades-old Islamic 
political movement. He did not agree with Muslim extremists, but saw 
the sentiment growing.

Among those extremists are the now-banned Students Islamic Movement 
of India, which the police have blamed for five smaller bombings on 
buses, trains and in markets between December 2002 and July of this 
year. Some officials have suggested the movement could be responsible 
for Monday's blasts as well, though they have not offered evidence.

The student movement was founded in 1977 as a sort of youth wing of 
Jamaat-e-Islami, to encourage young people to follow Islamic 
principles, like avoiding alcohol. By the 1980's, its radical nature 
became clear, and Jamaat began distancing itself from the offspring.

The student movement's true believers, many of them highly educated 
people in professions, grew beards, urged women to cover up and said 
idol worship should be banned, an implicit attack on Hinduism. They 
rejected conciliation, and some believed violence was justified.

"They wanted agitation, not dialogue," said Abdul Ruaf Khan, an imam 
in Mumbra, who opposes the use of violence.

Mr. Naik, of Jamaat, broke from the hard-liners in the student 
movement in 1991. He said he came to believe that some of the 
students were working with Pakistan's intelligence service, long 
accused of sponsoring terrorism in India.

Mumbra is now about 80 percent Muslim. The hills against which it 
banks are green and clean, but its streets are dirty, its odors 
noxious. For many residents, regular jobs are hard to come by, and 
there has been "a boon in illegal activity," said Ashraf Mulani, 39, 
a former municipal councilor from Mumbra.

In Mumbra and places like it, Mr. Naik said, talk of "nationalism, 
democracy, secularism, being in the national mainstream" have come to 
be seen as "anti-Islam."

A senior law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity 
said he believed that Mumbra and similar pockets provided shelter for 
militants. "For Muslims, there is a feeling of being persecuted," he 
said.

Many Muslims say that a Prevention of Terrorism Act passed in 2002 
has been used with particular force against them, resulting in 
arbitrary arrests, harsh interrogations, and detention without charge.

So even as Mumbra residents profess not to support the student 
movement, they do not condemn it. They are helping to support the 
defense of 22 men — most members of the group at one time — arrested 
in connection with the earlier bomb blasts. It is less a question of 
supporting the group than opposing police tactics, they say.


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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).
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DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
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