SACW | 25 Sept. 2003 India; Demography spin; Censorship ...
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Thu Sep 25 04:21:08 CDT 2003
South Asia Citizens Wire | 25 September, 2003
[1] Devising Demography In The Service of Hate :
- Advani backs 'study' saying majority will be minority soon (A news report)
- A series of articles, URLS which are a critique
of this demography spin report ...
[2] The Anglo RSS nexus (Akhilesh Mithal)
[3] Fundamentally flawed (Sitaram Yechury)
[4] Snake-charming the nation (Editorial, Hindustan Times)
[5] Internet Censorship In India : Blocking of
Yahoo groups continues - Urls & an appeal (H.
Kapoor)
[6] Press Release by National Campaign for
People's Right to Information [activists
assaulted]
[7] Help communal harmony workshops in UP (Sandeep Pandey)
[8] Queering Bangalore : a film festival on queer lives
[9] South Asia Journal & web site (South Asian Free Media Association)
--------------
[1.]
DEVISING DEMOGRAPHY IN THE SERVICE OF HATE
Posted first is a news report announcing the
release of report on demography by CFPS (a BJP
operation); which suggest that Hindus etc might
be becoming a minority "in the Indian Union"?.
Such claims bolster propaganda against minorities
in India and reveal secret hopes of an
expansionist 'Akhand Bharat' (a la greater
Serbia). Such reports feed and incite Hindu
communal feelings and mobilize their base.
Two articles that do a critique CFPS report
follow along with some URLs to situate the issues
and the people behind this report.
A.
The Indian Express, September 23, 2003
ICSSR's majority report
ADVANI BACKS 'STUDY' SAYING MAJORITY WILL BE MINORITY SOON
Santwana Bhattacharya
New Delhi, September 22: A Chennai-based social
science institute, the Centre for Policy Studies
(CFPS), has come up with a study that says the
''Indian Religionists'' (Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and
Buddhists) may become a minority in the Indian
Union in 50 years. The study is funded by the
Government-run Indian Council of Social Science
Research and Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani
has written the foreword.
Advani calls the recently released book,
Religious Demography of India, essential to
maintain the integrity of our borders and ensure
peace and harmony. Advani writes: ''...the growth
and decline of population play a crucial role in
the rise and fall of nations...That is why active
and alert societies...keep a keen eye on the
changing demographic trends within themselves...''
WHAT EXPERTS SAY
* The 1991 Census data listed 82 per cent Hindus
and 13 per cent Muslims, Dr Ashish Bose,
Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Economic
Growth, notes, adding: ''Since Independence we
are adding less than one percentage point to the
Muslim proportion. So it will take another 380
years for the Muslims to be a majority. That is
if the current trend persists.''
* The author of Differentials in the Population
Growth of Hindus and Muslims, P.M. Kulkarni,
admits the rise in Muslims to the total
population is higher than the Hindus but adds:
''The impact on the share of the total population
is very negligible-half a percentage point in a
decade. In 40 years, the rise is from 10.4 to
12.6 per cent.''
He adds: ''Rigorous and continuous observations
and analyses of the changing demography of
different religious groups is...of importance in
maintaining the integrity of our borders.''
None of the authors is a trained demographer and
the centre's earlier published works include Food
for All on ''the Indian discipline of growing and
sharing food'' and Timeless India: Resurgent
India on the re-emergence of the ''Hindu
Rashtra''.
The three author-researchers of the
study-metallurgist A.P. Joshi, who was earlier
with the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore;
physicist M.D. Srinivas, who is with the
University of Madras; and CFPS Director and a
physicist from IIT, Powaii, Dr J.K. Bajaj - say
their conclusions are based on an analysis of
Census data from 1901 to 1991.
Bajaj says the fact that the authors are not
trained demographers does not matter.
''Physicists can get into anything. We did some
rigorous research for five years.''
The study says its calculations show ''a decline
of 11 percentage points in the share of the
majority community in a geographical and
civilisational region like India''. This, it adds
on a grave note, ''is an extraordinary occurrence
in the course of about a century''.
The authors then go on to show that ''the
percentage of Indian Religionists is smoothly
moving down from about 77 per cent in 1901 to
about 68 per cent in 1991, while the curve for
Other Religionists (Muslim and Christians)
correspondingly keeps moving up.'' The two
''intersect at 50 per cent mark just before
2061''. A detailed statewise analysis of the
Census data follows.
The authors even turn around the UN projections
for the population trends in the subcontinent,
including Bangladesh and Pakistan, to show that
the Indian Religionists will be reduced to 50 per
cent even before their own calculations - by 2050.
While appreciating the CFPS's efforts to compile
religious profiles, Dr Ashish Bose, Professor
Emeritus at the Institute of Economic Growth and
one of India's foremost demographers, calls their
mathematical projections faulty and a case of
statistical jugglery. Asserting that there was no
chance of Muslims becoming a majority for the
next 400 years, if at all, he asks why the centre
clubbed disparate groups like the Hindus, Sikhs,
Buddhists, Jains and the tribals under one head.
Demographer P.M. Kulkarni questions the CFPS's
decision to take the Indian Union, Pakistan and
Bangladesh as a whole to make the projection.
o o o
B.
[THE CRITIQUE]
URL: www.the-week.com/23jul27/events9.htm
The Week, July 27, 2003
MISCONCEIVED AND MISCHIEVOUS
Religious Demography in India extols an exclusivist political creed
By B.G. Verghese
<http://www.the-week.com/23jul27/events9.htm>
A recent book launch had Mr L.K.Advani, the
nation's Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister,
eulogise the volume " Religious Demography in
India" authored by A.P.Joshi, M.D. Srinivas and
J.K.Bajaj of the Centre for Policy Studies,
Chennai. The authors classify the people of India
as being either "Indian Religionists" (Hindu,
Sikh, Buddhist, Jain and tribal) or Non-IR
(Muslim and Christian), sheep and goats, we and
they and, implicitly, Indian and foreign. This is
a well established thesis articulated by
Savarkar, Hegdewar and Golwalkar and now
assiduously preached by the Sangh Parivar and
Hindutvadis extolling "cultural nationalism", an
exclusivist political creed with little reverence
for true faith and tradition.
Mr Advani looks upon demography as realpolitik.
His Foreword quotes Augustus Comte, the French
philosopher, as saying that "Demography is
Destiny". Why? Because "knowing, predicting and
controlling the social and economic pressures
created by our changing demographic patterns is
essential for the noble task of nation-building".
Certainly, the ghosts of Partition still haunt
memory. Yet, rather than build anew after that
trauma, the Home Minister speaks of the
"strategic pressures" of India's external and
internal demography and calls for rigorous and
continuous observation and analysis of the
changing demography of different religious in
various regions. This, he believes is of
"paramount importance in maintaining the
integrity of our borders, and peace,harmony and
public order within the country".
Mr Narendra Modi is keeping careful watch in
Gujarat and, in another context, the MMA in
Pakistan. Both represent birds of a feather on
either side of the border. The Parivar invented
the two-nation theory and obviously still clings
to it. Some nation-building.
The statistics, meticulously compiled, are culled
from over 100 years of Census data. The Home
Minister's Foreword now advocates that the Census
organization take note of this volume. This
indicates "several areas where detailed data
needs to be collected and that of the previous
censuses reorganized" so that future editions of
this book are "more complete and rigorous".
"Religious Demography of India" speaks of
"pressures" building on IRs from Christianity
and, more particularly, Islam, with their
population "suffering" a decline from 86.64% to
85.09 % between the Census years of 1901 and
1991. The thesis that unfolds is that IRs enjoy
overwhelming dominance in northwestern,central,
western and southern India (less Kerala). But in
"the heartland and eastern regions" comprising
UP,Bihar, and Assam, IRs are "under great
pressure",especially in several border districts.
In the border regions of J&K, the Northeast, Goa,
Kerala, Lakshadweep and Nicobar the IRs
constitute a third or less of the population or
are in a minority.
The inference drawn from this analysis is that
India's timeless "cultural and civilisational
homogeneity" is threatened by those who look on
it "as a source of oppression and backwardness".
This ideological prejudice is manifest in
"protection of distinctive ways of life of
religious minorities", especially those belonging
to Islam and Christianity. So there it is.
India's pluralism and diversity that the
Constitution proudly proclaims, is the enemy
within, a cancer that must be contained if not
eradicated.
The volume contains some bogus sociology. Sample
this. Indigenous faiths lost ground during
centuries of Islamic rule and Western dominance.
With decolonisation, the share of Asian and
African populations in the world rose sharply
after 1951 largely to neutralise the gains made
by European people during the previous hundred
years. Wrong. The population explosion was caused
by modern medicine and measures to combat famine.
The authors do not explain why, if IRs constitute
a single happy family, Buddhists and Jains
suffered persecution and numerical decline over
wide areas of India in the transition to the
medieval period. Nor does it tell us why caste
"backwardness and oppression" disgracefully
linger to this day,compelling many trapped in a
caste time warp to seek liberation by opting out
through change of faith.Ambedkar warned that this
would happen 50 years ago. Nor again does this
thesis explain the unpunished pogrom against
Sikhs in Delhi in 1984.
The Constitution of India, to which the Home
Minister is pledged, proclaims a common and equal
citizenship."Religious Demography in India" would
deny this basic feature. It views all Indians,
not as citizens, but as so many potentially
antagonistic religious categories.The
Constitution celebrates and protects India's rich
diversity and tradition of accommodation that has
been its great civilisational strength. The
authors of this volume, however, see this as a
political and cultural threat. The HRD Ministry
has recently constituted a Task Force to improve
all levels of education in India. Among its terms
of reference is one that would define and promote
a "national culture". Is this the "cultural
nationalism" of Hindutva and the Sangh Parivar ?
India will not be bludgeoned into a cultural
sameness by sundry cavemen.
The blurb on the dust jacket of "Religious
Demography of India" calls on India to start
afresh and "get into the task of nation building
with an abiding passion".We have been warned.
(Mr. B.G. Verghese is a Columnist. He is the
Treasurer of the Executive Committee of CHRI in
addition to being an Honorary Research Professor
at the Centre for Policy Research , New Delhi)
o o o
URL: www.telegraphindia.com/1030710/asp/opinion/story_2150614.asp
The Telegraph, July 10, 2003
DEMOGRAPHIC DEMONOLOGY
- A theory of religious demography blissfully
ignorant of social science Review Article /
PARTHA CHATTERJEE The author is professor of
political science and director, Centre for
Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta
Spectres of demographic pollution and inundation
inhabit all modern right-wing ideologies. They
kindle fears of conversion, miscegenation, the
blurring of identities and, above all, in a
democratic age where numbers matter in politics,
the swamping of native populations by barbarian
others. The Indian subcontinent has seen many
such inflammatory campaigns in the 20th century,
most notably, and with devastating consequences,
by both Hindu and Muslim fanatical groups. Most
of the demographic "facts" cited by these
campaigners are in the nature of half-truths,
conjectures, innuendoes and, more often than not,
plain lies. This was shown during the recent
communal violence in Gujarat where many Hindus
apparently believed that in many parts of the
state Muslims had become a majority of the
population.
The advocates of Hindutva politics have now given
us a study of the Religious Demography of India
(Chennai, Centre for Policy Studies, Rs 800),
with a foreword by L.K. Advani commending the
book "to all Indians", that claims to bear the
insignia of social science. The authors have
academic backgrounds in the physical sciences and
were once engaged in a project to reclaim the
indigenous traditions of science in India. In
recent years, they have clubbed together in the
Centre for Policy Studies in Chennai to write
books such as Ayodhya and the Future India (1993)
and Timeless India: Resurgent India (2001). Their
latest book on religious demography is neatly
organized and argued, packed with statistical
tables and maps, and is rarely tendentious or
strident. But the social science theory
underlying the study is shockingly crude and
naïve.
Working with census figures from 1881 to 1991,
A.P. Joshi, M.D. Srinivas and J.K. Bajaj find
that Indian Religionists have declined by 11 per
cent in the Indian subcontinent. Based on current
trends, they estimate that Indian Religionists
will turn into a minority in the subcontinent by
2061. Within present-day India, Indian
Religionists have declined by two per cent
between 1951 and 1991. This in itself, the
authors say, is "not too remarkable". But there
is a belt of districts stretching from Bahraich
in eastern Uttar Pradesh, through north Bihar and
north Bengal, to Nagaon in Assam, where the
Muslim population has grown by seven per cent
since 1951, and "Indian Religionists have already
turned into a minority in several districts of
the region". In Kerala, Indian Religionists have
declined by 12 per cent through the 20th century.
Most strikingly, in the northeastern states and
in the Nicobar Islands, the number of Indian
Religionists has declined precipitously,
especially after independence, owing to the
spread of Christianity. While the overall balance
of religious blocs within the Indian Union may be
considered relatively stable, these pockets of
Muslim and Christian concentration in the border
regions must cause, the authors say, serious
concern. "Existence of such distinct pockets,"
they remind us, "formed the demographic basis of
Partition of the country in 1947."
But what, we must ask, is this category called
"Indian Religionists"? It turns out that this is
simply a residual category obtained by
subtracting Muslims and Christians from the total
population. Anyone who is not a Muslim or
Christian is an Indian Religionist, including
Zoroastrians and Jews. True, the authors add a
separate chapter in which they analyse the
population trends of the less numerous religions,
including Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc., but
these do not affect their basic conclusions about
Indian Religionists. They defend their
ludicrously simple tripartite classification of
the population of the subcontinent (the whole of
which they call India, as distinct from
present-day India which is called the Indian
Union) by citing a historical theory. This theory
states that until the coming of Islam, India had
an entirely homogeneous religious civilization
based on the sanatana dharma, "the timeless
discipline that forms the core of all religious
doctrines of Indian origin". Indeed, even today,
"Islam and Christianity are the only
heterogeneous faiths present in India." Thus,
from anti-Vedic and nastika religions like
Buddhism and Jainism, to the deeply
anti-Brahminical sects built around saintly
figures such as Vasavanna, Nanak or Kabir, to the
religions of the adivasi peoples of central India
or the Tibeto-Burman or Khmer peoples of the
Northeast, everything is homogenized into the
timeless essence of sanatana dharma. The theory
makes nonsense of all accumulated textual,
historical and anthropological scholarship on
Indian religions.
Historical demography is a distinguished and
sophisticated discipline in India that has
attempted to explain population trends in terms
of underlying social dynamics. Unfortunately,
Joshi, Srinivas and Bajaj do not even attempt to
relate the changes in religious demography to
other social or economic factors for which plenty
of information is available in the very census
reports they have used. As far as one can
discern, they have four simple explanations for
the trends they have discovered. One, they think
that the religion of the rulers has something to
do with the religious composition of the people.
Thus, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the "heartland" of
India and "critical to its civilizational
identity", "bore the brunt of the wrath of both
the Mughals and the British" and are still
suffering from the effects of demographic
decline. For the same reason, Indian Religions
have recovered lost ground in Goa and Jammu and
Kashmir after independence. Second, migrations
across the border following the partition of
India continue to affect the religious demography
of the eastern and northeastern states. The
authors do not even ask if the demography of
Bihar and UP is affected by migrations from those
states to other parts of India and if there might
be differential pressures and opportunities for
such migration among different religious groups.
Third, the authors frequently remind us that both
Islam and Christianity are vigorously
proselytising religions. Fourth, they suggest
that since the number of children per Muslim
woman was 12 percent higher than that for Hindu
women in censuses before 1941, the same trend
continues today. (One must say that this argument
is at least better than the absurd canard that
deduces Muslim overpopulation from Muslim
polygamy.)
Underlying all this is a global theory of
religious demography. There are actually, the
authors say, three religious blocs in the whole
world: Christianity, Islam and Native Religions.
There is a titanic struggle going on between them
for demographic supremacy. One person added to
one bloc is one person lost to the others. There
are no in-betweens, no people who fall into none
of the categories. Those who declare themselves
to be non-religious or atheists are victims
either of repressive Marxist states or of the
individualizing pressures of modernity and are
not "serious converts from Christianity". Once
again, the category "Native Religions" is assumed
to be transparently clear. We are not told why
Islam in Indonesia and Christianity in the
Philippines are foreign religions while Buddhism
in Thailand or Laos is native to those countries.
The Social Darwinism implicit in many of these
assumptions is so crude that they would have
embarrassed even 19th-century advocates of race
theory. And their understanding of religion and
religious communities is so blissfully ignorant
of all social science that one can only attribute
it to the intellectual innocence of former
physical scientists.
Their global analysis shows that Christianity has
swept Africa in the 20th century, while Muslims
have increased their share of the world
population by seven per cent. India has done
relatively well in the last century in resisting
both Islam and Christianity. But the most
exemplary defence of Native Religions, according
to Joshi, Srinivas and Bajaj, has been put up by
China. "During the course of the twentieth
century, not only the proportion but also the
absolute number of Muslims in China has declined,
and Christianity has failed to find any foothold
there. India has not responded like China.
Consequently, India has suffered Partition, and
several border areas of the post-Partition Indian
Union have become vulnerable to non-Indian
influences." They do not, of course, suggest that
India needs a Maoist revolution; that is a
spectre they would rather not think about.
o o o
LIES, HALF TRUTHS AND STATISTICS:
The Fine Art of Demonisation as Political Demography
by John Dayal
[4 July 2003]
URLs:
www.mnet.fr/aiindex/2002/dayal04072003.html
www.aiccindia.org/art26.htm
o o o
CENSUS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF COMMUNALISM IN INDIA
R B Bhagat (EPW Commentary 24 Nov 200)
URL:
www.mnet.fr/aiindex/2002/CensusandCommunalism.html
o o o
Dr.M.D.SRINIVAS, SPEAKING:
MD Srinivas, Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai
(one of the authors of this fascist demography
book) giving a speech at 'Nuclear Tests- an
interdisciplinary discussion': a lot of it is
nauseating, but reveals a virulently Brahmanical
worldview (talks of using ultimate weapons on
rakshasas, etc.) also, note his clever
intermixing of historical personalities with
mythological characters and the importance
accorded to Brahmanical texts.
URL:
www.vigilonline.com/records/audiofiles/Nuclear%20India/02%20MD%20SRINIVAS.mp3
______
[2.]
The Asian Age, Sept. 14, 2003
The Anglo RSS nexus
- By Akhilesh Mithal
Hard evidence of the nexus between the British
government of India and the RSS. (Rashtriya
Swayamsewak Sangh) is available in A Life of Our
Times, the memoirs of Rajeshwar Dayal, ICS
published by Orient Longman in 1998. The RSS was
supplied detailed maps of towns and villages to
enable them to attack Muslims.
Dayal says: "At a cocktail party, in early 1946,
the Chief Secretary told me, almost casually that
I would be the next Home Secretary of the U.P. I
happened to be the first Indian officer named to
the post which had hitherto apparently been
reserved for British officers." (Page 77).
As Home Secretary Rajeshwar Dayal became privy to
the most confidential information "I must record
an episode of a very grave nature. When communal
tension was still at fever pitch, the Deputy
Inspector General of Police Western Range a very
seasoned and capable officer, B.B.L. Jaitley
arrived at my house in secrecy.
He was accompanied by two of his officers who
brought with them two large steel trunks securely
locked. When the trunks were opened, they
revealed incontrovertible evidence of a dastardly
conspiracy to create a communal holocaust
throughout the western districts of the province.
The trunks were crammed with blueprints of great
accuracy and professionalism of every town and
village of that vast area prominently marking out
the Muslim localities and habitations. There were
also detailed instructions regarding access to
the various locations, and other matters which
amply revealed their sinister purport."
Dayal took the incriminating evidence to the
Chief Minister Gobind Ballabh Pant "There, in a
closed room, Jaitley gave a full report of his
discovery backed by all the evidence contained in
the steel trunks.
Timely raids conducted on the premises of the RSS
(Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh) had brought the
massive conspiracy to light. The whole plot had
been concerted under the direction and
supervision of the Supremo of the organisation
himself.
Both Jaitley and myself pressed for the immediate
arrest of the prime accused Shri Golwalkar, who
was still in the area."
Pant decided to put the matter before his
cabinet. There were RSS sympathisers in the
Congress and the presiding officer of the
Legislative council, Atma Govind Kher was a
sympathiser and his sons were known to be members
of the RSS.
The action taken was not arrest but a letter to
Golwalkar stating the evidence and asking for an
explanation. As could be expected Golwalkar
slipped away and managed to elude the couriers.
"This infructuous chase continued from place to
place and weeks passed."
The next paragraph, on page 94 of the book speaks
for itself "Came 30th January 1948 when the
Mahatma, the supreme apostle of peace fell to a
bullet..."
These maps could have originated only in the
British Surveyor General's office. The British
administration was known for the passionate zeal
with which they guarded maps. That these were
made available to the RSS is evidence of the
link. That collaborators of the Anglo-Americans
are in power all over the world and not only in
India, is borne out by a message received from
Denmark.
This communication was in response to the column
on Durga Das and how the RSS government was
trying to create "Hindutva" friendly heroes by
twisting, obfuscating and obliterating history
even if they had to go back hundreds of years.
"All governments use history for the weirdest
excuses. We have the most remarkably stupid Prime
Minister. Yesterday, 29th August, it was 60 years
ago the Danish government said ëNoí to the
conditions the Germans wanted to impose. Until
then we had what was called a ëpeaceful
occupation.ííí
"The 'heroic' day was of course celebrated, and
the prime minister used the occasion to compare
our "Brave, No" and the resistance movement with
our joining the American coalition in Iraq.
In both cases we were and are heroically fighting
dictatorship and help to secure democracy. It is
absolutely grotesque seeing we are part of an
occupation force. It is also grotesque in view of
the fact that his party did not have the best of
records during the German Occupation. Such is
politics." Thus what is happening in India is not
unique. Collaboration and misrepresentation are
another aspect of globalisation!
As we go to press the RSS are trying to take over
Shyamaji Krishna Varma one of those who fought
for Indiaís freedom from abroad although he lived
and died long before the birth of the RSS. We
shall revert to him in a later column.
Meanwhile the new government in the UP should
publish the evidence of the Anglo-RSS nexus and
the Anglo-Muslim League nexus. To expose these
two communal bodies which have partitioned India
and made it into a dwarf amongst nations.
______
[3.]
The Hindu, September 25, 2003
FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED
Sitaram Yechury
Full Text at: www.hindustantimes.com/news/printedition/250903/detPLA01.shtml
______
[4.]
Editorial, The Hindustan Times, September 25, 2003
SNAKE-CHARMING THE NATION
In the past, we have commented about Murli
Manohar Joshi's campaign to push for the
inclusion of astrology and Vedic science in
university syllabi being cuckoo.
The HRD minister's penchant for extolling the
virtues of mumbo-jumbo and attempts to transform
parlour games into 'serious scientific'
disciplines, we thought, were dangerously silly
as it would push India back into an 'irrational'
age when astronomy was the handmaiden of
astrology and the rules of vaastu would determine
architectural plans. Well, silly us. Considering
that Bihar's Minister of State Sanjay Paswan
wants tantrik practices and exorcism to be
included in school curricula, the Allahabad
University physics professor now sounds not that
'voodoo' at all.
Mr Paswan's logic for letting ojhas loose on the
campus and beyond is actually quite similar to
that of Mr Joshi's logic for the need to create
certified and trained Vedic scholars. According
to Mr Paswan, not only are tantrik practices and
exorcism a "futuristic science", but there is
also a great demand for their practitioners. And
how else to maintain quality control of ojhas,
gunis, bhagats and 'healers' than to have a
state-programme which trains 'potential experts'
in the fields? Mr Paswan even quoted the
'scriptures' - which in this case happens to be
the WHO definition of 'health' (physically fit,
mentally alert and emotionally balanced) - to
point out that while medical doctors take care of
the corporeal side of the business, faith healers
could take care of the rest. Trying to tell Mr
Paswan that it's not ghouls infesting a human
that result in delirium tremens, hysteria or
violent psychosis, however, is as difficult as it
is to convince him that the country needs more
mental healthcare specialists (psychiatrists etc)
than exorcists.
Mr Paswan has denied any politics driving his
campaign. We aren't that sure. The fact that the
BJP minister honoured 51 shamans - most of them
Dalits - in Patna coupled with the fact that the
minister is trying to position himself as a Dalit
leader, may have something to do with his
shenanigans. That the enterprise is nothing but a
vote bank-charming ritual should not be lost on
us. The question is what does it take to exorcise
Indian politics of such cheap tricks? A
'scientific' education, which ironically, is what
Mr Paswan - like Mr Joshi - received during
student days.
______
[5.]
INTERNET CENSORSHIP IN INDIA :
Blocking of Yahoo groups continues
Posted below are URL's to most news reports about
a draconian move by the Indian state to
specifically block a specific online news group
on yahoo. (The targeted Group's name on Yahoo is:
kynhun Bri U Hynniewtrep. URL:
groups.yahoo.com/group/kynhun/)
Blocking of a near invisible web site ordered by
Indian agencies in the name of national security,
is reprehensible enough, but the blocking of an
entire domain, (groups.yahoo.com) is criminal. It
seems that when Yahoo refused to comply with
request from Indian authorities to delete the
'kynhun' yahoo group in question, and the
consequence was that the entire groups.yahoo.com
domain has become inaccessible to India based
users for the last 4 days or so. There are
literally thousands of yahoo groups sites related
to and/or based in India (if you do search on
yahoogroups with the term India, it gives you
figure of 12503).
This is not the first time the Indian government
has tried to block web sites, during the Kargil
war of 1999, the web site of the prominent
Pakistan daily was blocked, this was very
vigorously fought by many in the media in India
and some activists abroad. In 1998 a law suit was
filed by online activist Arun Mehta to challenge
other moves by the Indian state to block some
websites.
This current move to block internet content for
thousands of users, is a serious violation of
freedom of expression and sets a very dangerous
precedent of censorship and control of the
internet in India. Human rights groups in India,
South Asia and around the world need to take note
and express concern.
Addresses of the officials and bodies to whom
people may write to protest or to seek their
intervention re this latest instance of Internet
censorship in India:
Minister (Communications & Information Technology & Disinvestment)
Ist Floor,Electronics Niketan,
Lodhi Road,New Delhi Email : ashourie at nic.in
Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad
(Minister of Information and Broadcasting)
E-Mail: ravis at sansad.nic.in
Phone: (91) 23384340, 23384782 Fax : (91) 23782118
Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In)
www.mit.gov.in/cert/
India's Department of Telecom
www.dotindia.com/
ddgir at sancharnet.in
The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI)
www.ispai.com/
Yahoo! India Web Services Ltd;
386, Veer Savarkar Marg
Opp. Siddhivinayak Temple
Mumbai 400025
Phone: +91-22-56622222
Fax: +91-22-56622244
Delhi Office:
Yahoo! India Web Services Ltd;
Ground Floor, First India Place,
Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road
Gurgaon [Haryana]- 122002
Phone: +91-0124-5061888/9 (from Delhi 95124-5061888/9)
Fax: +91-0124-2560057
solutions.yahoo.co.in/contact.html
[* India's Official Human rights watch dog]
National Human Rights Commission(NHRC)
nhrc.nic.in/contact.htm
Please write to any or all of the above, write to
the press and contact human rights groups to take
this up.
I would particularly recommend that activists who
have in the past vigorously fought against
censorship on the internet in India [1] should be
involved and some legal action should be
initiated right away, if this ban persists this
week.
In the meantime users in India wanting to
urgently access the groups.yahoo.com domain based
sites despite this unofficial ban should attempt
to beat the ban by browsing via:
www.anonymizer.com
or may want to visit www.proxy4free.com/
[this second option may require some figuring out
changing settings]
I also propose the formation of a campaign group
consisting of individuals moderating and managing
groups on the groups.yahoo.com domain to
challenge the India government, this ban lasts
any further.
Lets organise to beat the ban.
Harsh Kapoor
(South Asia Citizens Web)
E-mail: <aiindex at mnet.fr>
NEWS REPORTS & URLs:
www.hindu.com/2003/09/25/stories/2003092507820400.htm
The Hindu, Sep 25, 2003
Protest against blocking of Yahoogroups
By Our Special Correspondent
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM SEPT. 24. Protest is mounting
against the blocking of the Yahoogroups by the
Internet Service Providers (ISP) in the country
on a directive from the Union Ministry of
Communication and Information Technology.
Though the directive was aimed at blocking just
one of the hundreds of discussion groups on
Yahoogroups, the entire Web site and services of
groups.yahoo.com was blocked in most parts of the
country. This has angered users ranging from
professionals to laymen who use Yahoogroups for
discussions on a variety of topics. Some members
of the Cybercom India mailing list is planning to
petition the Ministry as they are also users of
Yahoogroups.
The directive, issued by the Department of
Telecommunication under the Ministry, was aimed
at blocking a discussion group called `kynhun',
allegedly run by Naga insurgents. However,
service providers operating the gateways seem to
have blocked the entire site. This prevents
moderators and owners from carrying out their
functions though discussions though email could
be continued.
The former Director General of Police and one of
the early users of Internet in
Thiruvananthapuram, P.R. Chandran, told The Hindu
that blocking discussion groups might not be a
vary effective way of checking dissemination of
information by insurgents or terrorists. Hardened
people would find alternate ways.
Even if they do not have the necessary technical
expertise for that, help from other extremist
groups would be easily forthcoming.
He said that the Government has the right to
check the functioning of such groups. Its
intentions are good. However, setting up
facilities for monitoring the users of the groups
would be more effective than blocking access.
What has happened now (the blocking of the entire
Yahoogroups) was the result of incompetent
persons handling technology.
o o o
Mid Day, September 24, 2003
web.mid-day.com/news/city/2003/september/64623.htm
o o o
Economic Times, September 24, 2003
Is the government right in blocking all Yahoo groups?
economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=199990
o o o
Sify (Pioneer) September 24, 2003
'Govt has no right to block Yahoo group'
sify.com/news/pioneer/fullstory.php?id=13259504&vsv=71
o o o
Cnet Asia, Sept. 24, 2003
India blocks Yahoo web site
By Staff, CNETAsia
asia.cnet.com/newstech/industry/0,39001143,39152163,00.htm
o o o
Newindpress, September 24, 2003
Yahoo refuses to remove anti-India content, site blocked
This is the first time a website has been blocked under Cert-IN since it came
into being in July this year. Representatives of Yahoo in India had been
www.newindpress.com/Newsitems.asp?ID=IEH20030923005101&Title=Top+Stories&rLink=0
o o o
Editorial, Hindustan Times, September 24, 2003
No net gain for Big Brother
www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_387920,0012.htm
o o o
News Today, September 24, 2003
Yahoo Groups continue to be blocked
newstodaynet.com/23sep/ld1.htm
o o o
Rediff, September 24, 2003
Government bans Yahoo! group
www.rediff.com/netguide/2003/sep/23yahoo.htm
o o o
The Hindu,September 23, 2003
Bid to block anti-India website affects users
By Sandeep Dikshit
www.thehindu.com/2003/09/23/stories/2003092312761100.htm
o o o
The Register [UK]
India blocks Yahoo! Groups
By Andrew Orlowski
Posted: 23/09/2003 at 16:21 GMT
www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/32983.html
o o o
Business Week, September 23, 2003
www.businessweek.com/technology/cnet/stories/5081021.htm
o o o
The Times of India., September 23 2003
Yahoo website blocked
timesofindia.indiatimes.com:80/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=196169
o o o
The Hindustan Times, September 23, 2003
Govt blocks e-group but can't prevent access
Siddharth Zarabi
www.hindustantimes.com/news/printedition/230903/detFRO04.shtml
o o o
Business Line, India - 20 Sep 2003
Govt issues orders to ISPs - ` Block separatist outfit's e - ...
www.thehindubusinessline.com/2003/09/20/stories/2003092002890100.htm
o o o
[Read Postings and to post a Message on the
Ministry of Information Technology Discussion
fora ]
www.mit.gov.in/discussionforum/
BACKGROUND RESOURCES ON OTHER INSTANCES OF GOVT CENSORSHIP:
[1] guide.vsnl.net.in/tcpip/columns/censorship/cc04.html
Indian Government Ban of Net Access to Pakistani News Broken
July 5, 1999
www.rediff.com/computer/1999/jul/05dawn.htm
______
[6.]
South Asia Citizens Web | 24 September 2003
www.mnet.fr/aiindex/new/RTIattack092003.html
National Campaign for People's Right to Information
C 17A Munirka, New Delhi 110 067 [India] ; Tel: (91) 26178048
___________________________________________________________________
PRESS RELEASE
24 September 2003
DARE TO ASK
People seeking ration related records beaten up by ration shop keepers
On the afternoon of 23 September, 2003, Panini
Anand and Rajiv Kumar, volunteers of Parivartan
who had gone to assist people who were seeking
records in the Assistant Commissioner's office of
the Food and Supplies Department, North East
Delhi, were abused and attacked in his office
premises by local leader and ration shop owner,
Jagatpal Singh, along with some other ration shop
owners of the area. The volunteers were severely
beaten up in the office premises and one of them
was, later, hit by a brick while he was on the
way to the Nand Nagari police station to file a
complaint. An FIR (No. 548/2003) has been filed.
Subsequently, some ration shop owners surrounded
the Nand Nagari police station and threatened the
Parivartan volunteers with dire consequences. It
was only on the intervention of the Deputy
Commissioner that the volunteers, including four
women, were evacuated by a police vehicle and
driven to safety.
Based on the threats issued by the ration shop
owners, it is clear that this attack was in
retaliation to Parivartan's role in helping the
people of Delhi to file applications under the
Delhi Right to Information Act, seeking to
inspect records of ration shops. Obviously the
attack was an effort to create insecurity and a
sense of fear among the people, especially as
many of the applicants have also reported
receiving verbal threats and have been asked to
withdraw their applications for information.
It is worth noting that, fed up with the problems
of corruption plaguing the public distribution
system, several residents of resettlement
colonies across Delhi have been asking for access
to information, related to records of ration
shops, under the 'Delhi Right to Information
Act'. In fact, a meeting attended by over 300
resettlement colony residents was organised by
Parivartan and other groups, on 29 August, 2003,
at the Gandhi Peace Foundation, to discuss and
highlight the problems that these people were
having with ration shops in their areas. The
participants also went in a delegation to meet
the Commissioner, Food and Civil Supplies, Delhi
Government and over 150 applications were filed
for inspecting records concerning the
distribution of rations.
It was in this connection that on 23rd September,
records of ration shops of Circle 46 were to be
shown to the applicants in the office of the Food
and Supplies Officer. However, when people
reached the office of the Food and Supplies
Officer to inspect the
records the local ration shopkeepers were already
present there and seemed determined to prevent
public access to the records, in order to hide
discrepancies in the distribution of ration and
kerosene oil, and the modus operandi and quantum
of corruption. Even before this attack, they had
tried to threaten and bribe the applicants to
prevent them from applying for information.
The National Campaign for People's Right to
Information strongly condemns this action of the
ration shop owners. Although the ration shop
owners are obviously trying to intimidate the
people, their resorting to violence reveals their
desperation and further confirms our conviction
that empowering the people of Delhi through the
Right to Information Act is an important, and
perhaps the best, way of fighting entrenched
vested interests.
Shekhar Singh
On behalf of NCPRI
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Working Group: Ajit Bhattacharjea, Aruna Roy,
Asmita Kabra, Bharat Dogra, Harsh Mander, Nikhil
Dey, Nitya Ramakrishnan, Prabhash Joshi, Prashant
Bhushan, Renuka Mishra, SR Sankaran, Shekhar Singh
______
[7.]
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 08:39:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: asha <ashaashram at yahoo.com>
dear friends, presently i'm on a trip to eastern
UP along with dr. asghar ali enginner of centre
for study of society and secularism, mumbai.
yesterday we were in ayodhya and today in
gorakhpur. we are also going to cover varanasi
and sultanpur. asghar ali ji is conducting one
day workshops in each of these places on communal
harmony. he talks about the medieval history, the
pre-partition history, the partition and present
day challenge of communalism. being with him i
realize the importance of his work. he is a true
pacifist but takes strong position against all
fundamentalists. he has faced the wrath of
religious leaders of his own community in the
past. his workshops are having a very positive
influence on people. they are convinced of the
need for communal harmony. sitting in his
workshops i also realize that this is what
education should be about. it should prepare one
to face the challenges of our times.
we're going to follow up his workshops with
another trip by professor ram puniyani of iit
mumbai on the same subject. as you might know ram
puniyani ji has written some wonderful books on
communal harmony.
some of the participants, who show keen interest
in the subject will then be sent to mumbai for a
week long workshop from 29th nov. to 6th dec. to
be jointly conducted by asghar ali engineer and
ram puniyani.
i request those of you who would like to support
this work to send financial contributions to take
care of some of the expenses in organizing these
trips. the speakers are coming from mumbai to UP
on their own expenses and local organizers are
taking care of the local expenses. but we have to
bear some of the intermediate expenses - like
travel within UP, etc.
in the process of organizing these workshops we
are building a strong network of people who
believe in the idea of communal harmony.
please send your donations in the name of Asha to my address:
A-893, Indira Nagar, Lucknow-226016, UP, India
thanks,
sandeep
______
[8.]
3 days. 12 award winning films - Indian and
International. Queer life journeys.
Documentaries and Features. Reading Performances. Panel Discussions.
Pedestrian Pictures, Scorus, Swabhava Trust
Present
Queering Bangalore
a film festival on queer lives
over three days - 3, 4, 5 October 2003
at Attakalari, (behind Gallery Sumukha)
Bus Depot Road, Wilson Garden, Bangalore [India]
Queering Bangalore is the first public film
festival in Bangalore focussing entirely on queer
rights. Featured at the festival are award
winning documentaries and features, commended for
their portrayal of life stories and issues facing
lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, hijras,
kothis and others identifying as ëqueer.í They
have reached audiences in film festivals across
the world from Montreal to Berlin and have
successfully created spaces for the queer
community everywhere. Our intention here in
Bangalore is to not only focus on the violence
perpetrated by society, law, the State, family
and other such institutions but more importantly
to celebrate a community with all its
complexities. the panel discussions meant to
sharpen focus will feature activists and others
who have worked with and on the issues facing the
queer movement in India today.
PROGRAMME SCHEDULE
3 October 2003 (Friday): 5 to 7 p.m. : Inaugural
address followed by a short film and discussion
on ìqueerî
4 October 2003 (Saturday): 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. The
Celluloid Closet, Before Stonewall, The Wedding
Banquet, Ma Vie En Rose (My life in Pink),
Beautiful
Thing !
;
5 October 2003 (Sunday): 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. -
Paper Flowers, Kee Kautha Taahar Shaathe, Dark
and Lovely, Soft and Free, The Brandon Teena
Story, The Watermelon Woman, Before Night
Falls, My Beautiful Laundrette
Queering Bangalore is an attempt to focus on the
lives and experiences of a community
invisibilised by systemic homophobia and
transphobia. In historyís weave of cultural
tapestry these are the life stories that are
missing and left untold. And yet it is the queer
movement in India and elsewhere that is providing
the much needed challenges to heteronormativity,
i.e. the binding definitions of what a marriage
and family is, the gendered role plays within
these etc. At a time when we are surrounded by
shackling definitions of the ëideal familyí,
ëideal husband, wife, daughter-in-lawí, it
becomes important to recognize and highlight
these challenges inherent in our society.
Pedestrian Pictures is a media activist group
based in Bangalore, working for the past 2 years
against the development paradigm in place
today. The medium of films is our tool to
initiate discussions and hence actions on issues
ranging from war and militarisation to adivasi
rights and queer rights.
Scorus is an endeavour to create social spaces for the queer community.
Swabhava Trust (est. 1999) is a non-government
organisation that works with sexuality, HIV/AIDS
and sexual health concerns, providing access to
support services for the queer community.
For details, synopses and complete schedules, contact
Pedestrian Pictures: 5670 2232, Scorus: 98440 49503, Swabhava Trust : 212 4441
Email : <queeringbangalore at rediffmail.com>
______
[10.]
South Asian Journal SAFMA
South Asian Free Media Association has launched a
South Asian Journal and is looking for
subscribers. People can also use the
Southasianmedia.net which is a web site for news
and views, and extensive information on South
Asia.
Zebunnisa Burki
Assistant Editor,
South Asian Journal
www.southasianmedia.net
journal at southasianmedia.net
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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.
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