SACW | 6 Oct. 2003
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Mon Oct 6 16:29:40 CDT 2003
South Asia Citizens Wire | 6 October, 2003
Announcement:
a) The SACW web site is currently down, users
are invited to use Google cache till further
notice.
b) 'South Asia Counter Information Project' a
back-up, archive area and sister site of SACW can
be accessed at: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/sacw/
o o o
[1] Pakistan's fundamentalists are on the rise --
even at its top university (Miranda Kennedy)
[2] Pakistan: No half-measures on sectarianism (Editorial, The Daily Times
[3] Other Side of Kashmir (Edit., the Times of India)
[4] India Pakistan Arms Race and Militarisation Watch Compilation # 140
[5] India; Many ways of stereotyping Muslims (Daya Varma)
[6] India: Naidu's "providential escape" ? A letter to the editor by Mukul Dube
[7] India: 'We are here to call the bluff of the imams and mullahs'
[8] India: Shivaji & Islam - A letter to the editor by Shariq Alvi
[9] India: Mischievous advertisement issued by
the Department of Information and Broadcasting,
Government of India, on Gandhi Jayanti day
[10] India: Mumbai is for Marathis, says Thackeray
[11] India: Upcoming event - Act Now For Harmony (Anhad) Workshops Schedule
[12] Canada: Upcoming Public lecture: The
Economic and Political Impact of the Indo-Pak
Arms Race
[13] USA: Upcoming event: Atlanta Workshop on
Promoting Peace and Development in South Asia
--------------
[1.]
Boston Globe [USA]
October 5, 2003
Campus takeover
Pakistan's fundamentalists are on the rise -- even at its top university
By Miranda Kennedy, 10/5/2003
LAHORE--On a sunny day at Camp David in June,
President George W. Bush hailed Pakistan's
president, General Pervez Musharraf, as "a
courageous leader" who is "working to build a
modern Pakistan that is tolerant and prosperous."
On his foreign trips, Musharraf proudly touts the
progress in the war against Al Qaeda and the
Taliban and the spread of press freedoms under
his watch.
But for all the applause from Western leaders,
Musharraf's Pakistan is a nation in deep trouble.
Since the surprisingly strong showing of a
coalition of six radical Islamic parties, the
Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), in national
elections last October, Pakistan's religious
right has become increasingly assertive. In the
frontier province bordering Afghanistan, the
MMA-led government recently voted to impose
Islamic law and is considering establishing a
morality police modeled on the Taliban's Ministry
for Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue.
Across the country, the war in Iraq has only
heightened the sense among many Pakistanis that
the United States is waging a war on Islam --
with the aid of their president and army.
While academics and journalists admit that life
is freer under Musharraf, they refuse to forget
that his is still a military regime. "A free
press in the absence of an independent judiciary
and a parliament is meaningless to me," says M
Ziauddin, the Pakistani president of the South
Asia Free Media Association. "This is a totally
untenable system: an elected government led by a
military dictator, and the opposition led by the
clergy."
Furthermore, many believe the MMA could not have
risen to power without the help of Musharraf, who
created a vacuum for the religious parties by
banning his two mainstream political rivals. "We
have always maintained that the reins of the
mullah lie in the hands of army general
headquarters," says Asma Jehangir, Pakistan's
best-known human rights lawyer and activist, who
has repeatedly been sentenced to death by
Islamist mullahs.
The creeping "Talibanization" of Pakistan is
evident even in its much-vaunted public
universities. Sprawling across the cultural
capital of Lahore, the state-run Punjab
University is Pakistan's largest and oldest
university, founded in 1882. Its 12,000 students
are drawn from across economic and geographic
backgrounds, thanks to fees that run at about
$150 per year. But the university's academic
reputation has been dulled by fundamentalism in
the city that is also the home of the
Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest party in the MMA
alliance.
Hang around the campus a little while and you'll
notice that the colorful clusters of students
strolling between buildings are either all women
or all men. Pressure from Jamaat-e-Islami and its
student wing forced the university to adopt a
separate-seating policy for men and women in
classrooms, in the cafeteria, in the library, and
on university buses.
The Islamia Jamiat Taleba, the students' Islamic
organization, can be found in a grimy student
union office hung with posters that read, rather
awkwardly, "Quran and Sunnah" -- the Word and the
Way of the Prophet -- "is only that we demand to
rule upon our land." On a recent day, Allahbaksh
Leghari, a 27-year-old Jamiat leader, folded his
hands and patiently explained that Jamiat's role
is to "educate students about Islamic ways" to
create "the ideal moral environment."
Many Pakistani academics believe Jamiat does more
than that. They say the group controls the
university according to its version of
conservative Islam, with the collusion of the
retired military officers who administer the
institution. Departments and student groups must
request permission from Jamiat to hold a
function. Dance and life-drawing classes are
forbidden. When a couple were discovered holding
hands on campus several months ago, students beat
them with wooden clubs. Since the MMA gained
political power, student Islamists have been
known to rove the streets of Pakistan's cities at
night, smearing black paint on billboards showing
women's faces.
Professors in Punjab's English Literature
department got a rude shock this past spring when
they discovered that a junior member of the
department had apparently been recruited by the
university administration to "purge" the syllabus
of "vulgar, obscene, and morally corrupt"
elements. An internal memo circulated by the
lecturer in question, Shahbaz Arif, singled out
Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock," noting
that "the title of the book itself shows
vulgarity," and Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's
Travels" for its description of a "monstrous
breast." Of Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also
Rises," he noted, "All characters sexually
astray: men homosexuals; females
lesbians/promiscuous; Brett Ashley nymphomaniac
and so on." Sean O'Casey's play "The End of the
Beginning" was selected for the sentence, "When
the song ended, Darry cocks his ear and listens."
Arif had underlined the word "cocks."
Arif's colleagues were not amused. "The
administration would like to filter information
the students get," worries assistant English
professor Zareena Saeed. "But if you are not
going to allow students to understand other
cultures, then you are going to produce a rigid
generation." Muhammed Hafeez, head of the
sociology department, agrees. "Most people are
not going to change their sexual behavior because
they read Pope or Donne, certainly not when we
have satellite TV beaming into our bedrooms."
Fellow academics suggest the English department
has been targeted because department chair
Shaista Sonnu Sirajuddin is an outspoken
progressive. Among the last remnants of the
university's secular and elite left, she runs her
department without religious influence, refuses
to cover her head, and even sometimes wears a
sari (the Indian national dress). But retired
army colonel Masood ul-Haq, the university
registrar, insists the issue has been blown out
of proportion. "No change will be made to the
syllabus. We are good Muslims here -- but the
university is an entirely independent academic
environment." He says Arif has temporarily been
moved to another department because of internal
matters.
But Arif's memo was hardly an isolated incident.
Several weeks earlier, the administration
arranged for the English department to meet with
the wife of a high-ranking former army officer.
She came armed with her own list of works on the
syllabus she found offensive -- because, she
said, they promoted Jews, favored Indians, or
were written by lesbians -- and she informed the
department it was "high time we became less
tolerant." Across campus, history professors
complain that "most of our textbooks were written
by Islamists," as department veteran Kamar Abbas
puts it. "History in Pakistan always comes down
to religion and anti-Hindu feelings."
In fact, the university has been controlled by
Islamists since the time of dictator General
Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, who forcefully "Islamized"
the country until his death in a mysterious 1988
plane crash. Pakistan's two dozen or so private
colleges, mostly funded by profit-seeking
companies, are able to offer more academic
freedom than Punjab University, but fear and
self-censorship infiltrate intellectual life
pretty much everywhere in Pakistan.
Journalism professor Mehdi Hassan spent his
32-year tenure at Punjab University trying to
undo that legacy. Because his Marxist,
anti-fundamentalist views were not popular with
the religious right, Hassan says, he was twice
accused of blasphemy and dismissed from the staff.
That's a charge familiar to Pakistani
journalists, who live in fear of the country's
stringent blasphemy law, which is punishable by
death. After Musharraf's military coup in 1999,
he promised he would reform the law as part of
his campaign to rid Pakistan of Islamic
extremism. But when he was advised not to incur
the wrath of the extremist forces by doing so, he
retreated from that position.
Meanwhile, journalists and academics continue to
censor their work in the name of national
interest and Islam. And international media
watchdogs say that new laws regarding defamation,
freedom of information, and the establishment of
a watchdog Press Council proposed by Musharraf's
government actually curb journalistic freedoms
and public access to information.
Still, there are those who see some hopeful
signs. Across town from Punjab University, Salima
Hashmi has been flooded with applications for a
new private school of visual arts. Hashmi is the
daughter of the radical Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed
Faiz, who was accused of conspiring against the
state and thrown in jail in 1951. She herself
spent years teaching at Pakistan's premier
fine-arts college, the National College of Art,
where in the `80s her life-drawingclasses were
attacked by Islamists.
Hashmi waves off the doomsday predictions of the
Talibanization of Pakistan. "Those were really
bad times," she laughs. "This is a piece of cake
right now."
Miranda Kennedy is a writer and radio journalist based in New Delhi.
_____
[2.]
The Daily Times [ Pakistan]
October 05, 2003
EDITORIAL: No half-measures on sectarianism
The killing of six SUPARCO (Space and Upper
Atmosphere Research Organisation) employees in
Karachi, by all indications, is an act of
sectarian violence. The attackers waited for the
Sunni passengers of the SUPARCO bus to alight at
a mosque and attacked it en route to an
imambargah, the Shia place of prayer. This
incident, as others in the recent and distant
past, clearly shows that sectarian terrorists,
despite some setbacks in the past year, still
roam this country in search of their targets and
can strike at will. While the sectarian menace
has haunted Pakistan for more than a
decade-and-half, the violence has an added
dimension in the wake of Pakistan's own war on
terrorism following the events of Sept 11, 2001.
We have often editorialised on this issue and
pointed out to the authorities that there is no
real distinction between sectarian terrorists and
the so-called jihadis. Since the militant groups
fighting inside Afghanistan and Kashmir were
Wahhabi-Deobandi, a free hand to them by the
state meant they would also pursue a sectarian
agenda. There is enough evidence to suggest that
cadres of the so-called jihadi organisations also
doubled, in many cases, as sectarian terrorists.
For instance, it is futile to distinguish among
groups like Harkat-ul Mujahideen, Jaish-e
Mohammad, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Lashkar-e
Jhangvi as jihadi or sectarian. Putting jihadi
and sectarian tags on one or the other is a
futile, in fact downright dangerous, exercise.
The Hazara Shia in Quetta had to endure two
dastardly attacks which killed more than sixty
and left over 100 injured. The Shia clerics
categorically accused Jaish and LJ activists. At
least one of them went to the extent of also
obliquely blaming the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, the
two factions of which are components of the
Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal. The general tendency so
far has been to accuse the Indian RAW of
perpetrating these attacks even as, in all cases
where the police have managed to apprehend the
terrorists, it is clear who they are and what
groups they belong to. Such is the level of
hatred now that following the killing of Shia
Hazara, two Sunni boys were allegedly torn to
pieces by a Shia mob, though the story never made
it to the newspapers. While Daily Times could not
get it corroborated by any official source, the
incident is widely known in Balochistan.
Regardless of its veracity, it hardly needs be
emphasised that no decent society can allow this
kind of violence to go unchallenged.
General Pervez Musharraf has, on many occasions,
talked about curbing extremism. But so far the
government has failed to put down this scourge.
We are also concerned about why leaders of banned
extremist groups like Jaish continue to be
treated as VIPs. There can be no half-measures on
this score. The sectarian serpent's head has to
be cut off. This can only be done by striking
where it matters the most, at the level of top
leadership. But while sectarianism must be
treated as a priority law-and-order problem in
the short-term, in the longer run the government
needs to take a more integrated approach to the
problem. That is where we need to address the
question of what is it that produces sectarian
hatred? A debate on this question would involve
looking at societal tendencies that have
developed over the past two decades. Have we
become more intolerant and bigoted? Are we now
wearing religion on the sleeve? Do we consider
apostate anyone who does not share our worldview
or denominational particularities?
There is need to look at these issues with
rigorous intellectual discipline at multiple
levels and use the findings to formulate
policies. General Musharraf's talk about
modernising Pakistan will remain just that, mere
talk, unless he were to take concrete measures to
address these deep-seated prejudices and
distortions. It's time for him to walk the talk. *
______
[3.]
The Times of India, October 6, 2003 | Editorial
Other Side of Kashmir
[ Monday, October 06, 2003 12:00:01 Am ]
It's time India and Pakistan listened to saner voices from within
"Today millions of children in India and Pakistan
are malnourished. Millions more do not have
water, sewage and healthcare. What are both
countries doing? They are spending more and more
resources on armament. Religious fanaticism is
sapping the energies of their people. Instead of
building on the traditions of ahimsa and sufism,
they have fallen prey to the cunning tricks of
the industrial-military complex... Moderate
Muslims must become vocal and refuse to
acknowledge and support the wayward... The voice
of moderate Muslims must be loud enough to drown
out the radicals... Islamic states must be
democratised and secularised, and mosque and
state separated for good...". The phrases, the
tone, the lament. We have heard it all before.
Except, have we? The all-too-familiar excerpts
have been taken, not from the Indian media, but
from letters published in the latest issue of
Friday Times, a Lahore-based weekly newspaper.
Yet, the stereotypical vision of the Pakistani as
an illiberal, India-hating bigot persists on this
side of the LoC. Pakistani society is assumed to
be uncritical and closed, and its media posited
as shackled in contrast to its free and fair
Indian counterpart.
In truth, there are hawks on both sides, just as
there are those "and presumably these are in
greater number" who want peace more than anything
else. Nonetheless, when India and Pakistan meet
in the diplomatic arena, there's not even a
pretence of civility in their relations. When the
two sides speak, it is always in the language of
threat and innuendo. Reason: Kashmir. No, not
even Kashmir as a whole, but a minuscule
geographical area called the Kashmir valley. A
microscopic piece of mountain-locked land has
become an obsession so monomaniacal for the
neighbours that neither can see anything beyond
it - not the achievements, not the failures, not
the many continuing social and economic
challenges. If only Pervez Musharraf would listen
to voices in his own country. In case he has
trouble hearing, here is another example. "If
Germany and France, the countries whose armies
have invaded each other for centuries over
Alsace-Lorraine, cannot just live in peace but be
close allies, surely there is no reason India and
Pakistan cannot resolve their differences."
(Irfan Husain, Dawn). Are the political leaders,
on either side of the border, listening? They
must, if only more and more of us begin to speak
out.
______
[4]
India Pakistan Arms Race and Militarisation Watch Compilation # 140
(October 5, 2003)
URL: groups.yahoo.com/group/IPARMW/message/151
______
[5.]
International South Asia Forum (insaf ) Bulletin [18] October 1, 2003
Postal address: Box 272, Westmount Stn., QC, Canada H3Z 2T2 (Tel. 514 346-9477)
(e-mail; insaf at insaf.net or visit our website http://www.insaf.net)
Many ways of stereotyping Muslims
Daya Varma
The history of human kind is inseparable from the
role religion has played in war and peace, in
prosperity and poverty, and in violence and
harmony. Likewise, suppression of an entire
community because of their religion has been
catastrophic.
We are well aware of the atrocities against
Muslims of India committed by the extended Sangh
Parivar. But stereotyping Muslims and extending
this to several levels of victimization is not
limited to India. Overtly or covertly, it has
permeated the main polity of Western countries
which claim to abide by secularism and
democracy.
Why is it that all Muslims in the US are treated
as terrorists unless proven otherwise? Why is it
that French, Italians, Polish, Russians, Germans,
etc in Canada, US and other Western countries
are identified by their nationality although
almost all of them are Christians? And why is it
that Muslims from different countries are
identified by their religion and not national
origin? Hindus from Trinidad and Tobago are
primarily identified by their nationality and not
religion. Hindus from India are called Indians.
In the case of Muslims, the attitude of
politicians and media is quite different; to
them, they are all Muslims and therefore must be
alike and more likely than others to be
anti-secular and terrorists.
Of course, Islam is the religion of all Muslims.
All practicing Muslims (most likely atheism is as
frequent among Muslims as in other religions)
revere Koran. But that is where the similarity
ends. The societal behavior of believers and
nonbelievers is determined by institutions like
Church, Mullahs and priests rather than holy
scriptures. That is why music was a criminal
offence in Talibans' Afghanistan and was taken
to new heights by Muslims in India. Is there
much common between a Muslim from Kerala and a
Muslim from Gujarat or Kashmir? Indeed the Survey
of India took into account multiple variables and
found very little difference between Hindus and
Muslim of India.
Yet, Hindutva bigots have built numerous
derogatory myths about Muslims of India; these
myths are becoming a part of Indian cultural
outlook. This cannot be undone by clarification
because myths are not subject to scientific
analysis. But it can be done and can only be done
by ushering an alternative democratic movement
and culture.
" In the early 1580s the emperor (Akbar) began
openly to worship the sun by a set of rituals of
his own invention. Four times a day he faced the
east and prostrated himself before a sacred fire.
Simultaneously, Akbar engaged in abstinence from
excessive meat-eating, sexual intercourse, and
alcohol consumption. These were all rites and
practices much in evidence in the daily world of
Hinduism in North India. Worship of the sun and
moon with its images of light was easily
compatible with the myths of origin and descent
central to ethos of Rajput nobles." (John F.
Richards in "The Mughal Empire", The New
Cambridge University Press, 1993, Indian edition,
page 47)
______
[6.] [Letter to the editors]
D-504 Purvasha
Mayur Vihar 1
Delhi 110091 [India]
5 October 2003
Sir or Madam,
In a speech the high points of which were broadcast over radio, Shri L.K.
Advani spoke of the "providential escape" of Shri Chandrababu Naidu and
attributed it to the grace of Lord Venkateswara. The honorable Deputy Prime
Minister was misleading the nation, for I have it on the highest authority
that the divinity responsible was either Lord Panduranga or Lord Murugappa;
though some hold that the two worked as a team. To resolve this crucial
issue, I invite Shri Advani to a public debate.
Yours truly,
Mukul Dube
______
[7]
The Times of India
October 5, 2003
'We are here to call the bluff of the imams and mullahs'
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, OCTOBER 03, 2003 01:40:35 AM ]
MUMBAI: In an attempt to challenge the hardline
strain in their community, a group of Muslim
intellectuals on Thursday came together to form a
national alliance called Muslims for a Secular
Democracy (MSD).
The alliance is an attempt to represent the
liberal face of the Muslim community and
challenge its domination by mullahs.
The new body, spearheaded by such prominent
citizens as lyricist Javed Akhtar and social
activist Javed Anand, is aimed at countering the
hate agenda of both the Sangh Parivar and Islamic
extremists.
"For years we have heard allegations that there
are no secular Muslims," said Mr Akhtar. "We are
here to call the bluff of the fundamentalist
Shahi Imams and mullahs." He said that the
alliance could not have chosen a more auspicious
occasion than Gandhi Jayanti to announce its
launch.
"Do not mistake us to be another elite
organisation simply waxing eloquence," said Javed
Anand, co-editor of Communalism Combat
magazine. "We are an apolitical organisation
which represents the voice of the Muslim
community."
The alliance plans to consider core issues like
population control, discouraging the use of
loudspeakers for azaans, namaaz being held on the
streets and the slaughter of goats during
Bakri-Id in housing colonies in which members of
other communities also live.
"Our local level study groups will hold meetings
with people and provide the right information to
them," Mr Anand said. "After that they are free
to make an informed choice."
_____
[8.]
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com:80/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=213291
The Times of India, October 4, 2003
LETTERS TO EDITOR
Shivaji & Islam
[ THURSDAY, OCTOBER 02, 2003 08:41:25 PM ]
Praveen Togadia, the VHP leader, was recently
speaking at a meeting of Muslims convened by the
minority cell of the BJP.
As usual, he warned Muslims that they must toe
his line of convictions, if they wish to live in
India peacefully. Further, he emphatically
declared that his ideal is Shivaji.
There is considerable evidence that Shivaji
welcomed Muslims in his state. The court
proceedings of 1657 lists names of Muslim qazis
(judges) who received regular salary to
adjudicate on cases.
Shivaji also welcomed Muslims in his army. The
first unit was a group of 700 Pathans, who had
left Bijapur after the treaty with Mughals.
Individual Muslims like Sidi Ibrahim, was a
trusted commander in Shivaji's army. Nur Khan Beg
was one of Shivaji's closest confidants.
Mr Togadia must know that Shivaji's
confrontations with Mughals were not based on
religious identities. The skir- mishes between
the two were for political supremacy. In short,
Hindu-Muslim enmity was non-existent during
Shivaji's reign. The time has come when such
communalists like Mr Togadia must be reined in.
Shariq Alavi, Lucknow
_____
[9.]
Mischievous advertisement issued by the
Department of Information and Broadcasting,
Government of India, on Gandhi Jayanti day
(2-10-2003).
Date: 4th Oct 2003
We were horrified to see the advertisement issued
by the Department of Information and
Broadcasting, Government of India, on Gandhi
Jayanti, quoting Gandhi on the need to take up
arms rather than suffer dishonour. The
mischievous intent of the advertisement is
obvious. Given its preoccupation with reinventing
histories to suit its agendas, and the discomfort
of living with the internationally-famed Gandhian
legacy of non-violence, it is no surprise that
the present government would choose to select a
line from Gandhis writings, totally removed from
its context, to prove that even the great Apostle
of Peace endorsed violence in the name of
nationalism.
The quote used in the advertisement is a line
from Gandhis article in Young India dated 11
August 1920, titled The Doctrine of the Sword.
The article was written by Gandhi in the wake of
country-wide violence following the passing of
the Rowlatt Bills and the Jallianwallah Baug
massacre in 1919, and centred on the call for
non-cooperation from 1st August 1920. It sought
to explain his concept of non-violent
non-cooperation, and the spirit of non-violence
itself. The article, unlike its misrepresentation
by the line used in the advertisement, is devoted
to the real possibility of non-violence as a
political strategy, and its moral significance.
The opening sentence of the article reads: In
this age of the rule of brute force, it is almost
impossible for anyone to believe that anyone else
could possibly reject the law of the final
supremacy of brute force.Gandhi goes on to
explain how violence can be resorted to where
there is only a choice between cowardice and
violence. However, the real intent of the article
is made clear in the sections following the line
quoted in the advertisement issued by the
Government on Gandhi Jayanti: But I believe that
non-violence is infinitely superior to violence.
Gandhi goes on to explain how violence is
resorted to by the helpless, whereas the people
of India should not see themselves as being
helpless. The advertisement could just as well
have quoted his other famous lines in this
article: I am not a visionary. I claim to be a
practical idealist. The religion of non-violence
is not meant merely for the rishis and saints. It
is meant for the common people as well.
Non-violence is the law of our species as
violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies
dormant in the brute and he knows no law but that
of physical might. The dignity of man requires
obedience to a higher law to the strength of the
spirit; or: I am not pleading for India to
practise non-violence because it is weak. I want
her to practise non-violence being conscious of
her strength and power. No training in arms is
required for realization of her strength. We seem
to need it because we seem to think that we are
but a lump of flesh. I want India to recognize
that she has a soul that cannot perish and that
can rise triumphant above every physical weakness
and defy the physical combination of whole world.
Perhaps the most apt quotation that could have
been used to honour Gandhi in these
conflict-ridden times would have been one of the
closing lines from the same article: Indias
acceptance of the doctrine of the sword will be
the hour of my trial.More than eighty years
later, this is precisely what is coming about: we
seem to be accepting the doctrine of the sword,
subverting Gandhis ideals to legitimate an agenda
of violence. That this is now being done even
through an official agency of the Government like
the Department of I & B, is a shame and a
tragedy. Gandhi could only have grieved if he
were alive today.
Human Right Activists
Rohit Prajapati Nandini Manjrekar
Anand Mazgaonkar Johannes Manjrekar
Trupti Shah Deeptha Achar
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Young India, 11-8-1920
VOL. 21 : 1 JULY, 1920 - 21 NOVEMBER, 1920
In this age of the rule of brute force, it is
almost impossible for anyone to believe that
anyone else could possibly reject the law of the
final supremacy of brute force. And so I receive
anonymous letters advising me that I must not
interfere with the progress of non-co-operation
even though popular violence may break out.
Others come to me and assuming that secretly I
must be plotting violence, inquire when the happy
moment for declaring open violence will arrive.
They assure me that the English will never yield
to anything but violence secret or open. Yet
others, I am informed, believe that I am the most
rascally person living in India because I never
give out my real intention and that they have not
a shadow of a doubt that I believe in violence
just as much as most people do.
Such being the hold that the doctrine of the
sword has on the majority of mankind, and as
success of non-co-operation depends principally
on absence of violence during its pendency and as
my views in this matter affect the conduct of a
large number of people, I am anxious to state
them as clearly as possible.
I do believe that where there is only a choice
between cowardice and violence I would advise
violence. Thus when my eldest son asked me what
he should have done, had he been resent when I
was almost fatally assaulted in 1908,1 whether he
should have run away and seen me killed or
whether he should have used his physical force
which he could and wanted to use, and defended
me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me
even by using violence. Hence it was that I took
part in the Boer War, the so-called Zulu
rebellion and the late War. Hence also do I
advocate training in arms for those who believe
in the method of violence. I would rather have
India resort to arms in order to defend her
honour than that she should in a cowardly manner
become or remain a helpless witness to her own
dishonour.
But I believe that non-violence is infinitely
superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly
than punishment. Forgiveness adorns a soldier.
But abstinence is forgiveness only when proceed
from a helpless creature. A mouse hardly forgives
a cat when it allows itself to be torn to pieces
by her. I, therefore, appreciate the sentiment of
those who cry out for the condign punishment of
General Dyer and his like. They would tear him to
pieces if they could. But I do not believe India
to be helpless. I do not believe myself to be a
helpless creature. Only I want to use Indias and
my strength for a better purpose.
Let me not be misunderstood. Strength does not
come from physical capacity. It comes from an
indomitable will. An average Zulu is any way more
than a match for an average Englishman in bodily
capacity. But he flees from an English boy,
because he fears the boys revolver or those who
will use it for him. He fears death and is
nerveless in spite of his burly figure. We in
India may in a moment realize that one hundred
thousand Englishmen need not frighten three
hundred million human beings. A definite
forgiveness would therefore mean a definite
recognition of our strength. With enlightened
forgiveness must come a mighty wave of strength
in us, which would make it impossible for a Dyer
and a Frank Johnson to heap affront upon Indias
devoted head. It matters little to me that for
the moment I do not drive my point home. We feel
too downtrodden not to be angry and revengeful.
But I must not refrain from saying that India can
gain more by waiving the right of punishment. We
have better work to do, a better mission to
deliver to the world.
I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical
idealist. The religion of non-violence is not
meant merely for the rishis and saints. It is
meant for the common people as well. Non-violence
is the law of our species as violence is the law
of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the
brute and he knows no law but that of physical
might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a
higher law to the strength of the spirit.
I have therefore ventured to place before India
the ancient law of self-sacrifice. For satyagraha
and its off-shoots, non-co-operation and civil
resistance, are nothing but new names for the law
of suffering. The rishis, who discovered the law
of non-violence in the midst of violence, were
greater geniuses than Newton. They were
themselves greater warriors than Wellington.
Having themselves known the use of arms, they
realized their uselessness and taught a weary
world that its salvation lay not through violence
but through non-violence.
Non-violence in its dynamic condition eans
conscious suffering. It does not mean meek
submission to the will of the evildoer, but it
means the putting of ones soul against the will
of the tyrant. Working under this law of our
being, it is possible for a single individual to
defy the whole might of an unjust empire to save
his honour, his religion, his soul and lay the
foundation for that empires fall or its
regeneration.
And so I am not pleading for India to practise
non-violence because it is weak. I want her to
practise non-violence being conscious of her
strength and power. No training in arms is
required for realization of her strength. We seem
to need it because we seem to think that we are
but a lump of flesh. I want India to recognize
that she has a soul that cannot perish and that
can rise triumphant above every physical weak-
ness and defy the physical combination of whole
world. What is the meaning of Rama, a mere human
being, with his host of monkeys, pitting himself
against the insolent strength of ten-headed
Ravana surrounded in supposed safety by the
raging waters on all sides of Lanka? Does it not
mean the conquest of physical might by spiritual
strength? However, being a practical man, I do
not wait till India recognizes the practicability
of the spiritual life in the political world.
India considers herself to be powerless and
paralysed before the machineguns, the tanks and
the aeroplanes of the English. And she takes up
non-co-operation out of her weakness. It must
still serve the same purpose, namely, bring her
delivery from the crushing weight of British
injustice if a sufficient number of people
practise it.
I isolate this non-co-operation from Sinn
Feinism, for, it is so conceived as to be
incapable of being offered side by side with
violence. But I invite even the school of
violence to give this peaceful non-co-operation a
trial. It will not fail through its inherent
weakness. It may fail because of poverty of
response. Then will be the time for real danger.
The high-souled men, who are unable to suffer
national humiliation any longer, will want to
vent their wrath. They will take to violence. So
far as I know, they must perish without
delivering themselves or their country from the
wrong. If India takes up the doctrine of the
sword, she may gain momentary victory. Then India
will cease to be pride of my heart. I am wedded
to India because I owe my all to her. I believe
absolutely that she has a mission for the world.
She is not to copy Europe blindly. Indias
acceptance of the doctrine of the sword will be
the hour of my trial. I hope I shall not be found
wanting. My religion has no geographical Limits.
If I have a living faith in it, it will transcend
my love for India herself. My life is dedicated
to service of India through the religion of
non-violence which I believe to be the root of
Hinduism.
Meanwhile I urge those who distrust me, not to
disturb the even working of the struggle that has
just commenced, by inciting to violence in the
belief that I want violence. I detest secrecy as
a sin. Let them give non-violent non-co-operation
a trial and they will find that I had no mental
reservation whatsoever.
Rohit Prajapati / Trupti Shah
37, Patrakar Colony, Tandalja Road,
Post-Akota, Vadodara - 390 020
GUJARAT, INDIA
[See Related News Report:
Gandhi (mis)quote in I&B ad raises hackles (Times of India - October 5, 2003)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com:80/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=216162
]
____
[10] [Posting on Hindutva @ Work Blog > haw.blogspot.com ]
o o o
Mid Day [Bombay, India], October 6, 2003
Mumbai is for Marathis, says Thackeray
By: A Mid Day Correspondent
October 5, 2003
Hammer out the Bangladeshis from Mumbai and
Maharashtra, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray
ordered his troops at the party?s annual rally
held at Shivaji Park in Dadar yesterday.
A Marathi maanus alone cannot weed out the threat
of Islam, hence the call for Hindutva that will
unite all Indians, Thackeray said. ?I have said
that Maharashtra and Mumbai is for Marathis, just
like Bengal is for Bengalis, Gujarat for
Gujaratis and so on. All of them cannot take on
Islam, ISI or (Lashkar-e) Taiba on their own. But
together they can deliver an iron blow,? he said.
Thackeray also hinted that the recent attack on
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu
was carried out by Islamic terrorists and not by
the Naxals as is widely believed by the
intelligence agencies.
?Take that weapon in your hands, there is no
other option. What?s wrong in it? Even Mahatma
Gandhi has said that one must fight out like a
mard and not sit helpless,? he claimed.
He did not forget to reiterate that Mumbai
belonged to Marathis. He also asked Maharashtrian
youth to do away with ?useless education? and
look for something else. ?I can?t see a Marathi
milkman, a vegetable vendor or even a cabbie any
more,? he moaned.
Thackeray reiterated his opposition to the peace
process, though he didn?t launch a direct attack
on the Centre or Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee for conducting peace talks.
?We are again talking about a bus service to
Lahore. While our passengers to Pakistan are
usually clean, what about theirs? What will you
do if there are terrorists?? he asked.
He supported his son and Sena Executive President
Uddhav Thackeray?s experiment of joining hands
with Dalits under the slogan Shiv Shakti + Bheem
Shakti = Desh Bhakti (Sena power and Dalit?s
strength put together is patriotism) and promised
there won?t be any backstabbing from the Sena.
?You tried others. Now try us,? he appealed.
Referring to the police permission to
loudspeakers at Sena?s Dussehra rally and then
its withdrawal, Thackeray challenged that if the
police had guts, they should remove loudspeakers
from mosques that blare much before the allowed
time frame.
His bete noire and Maharashtra Home Minister
Chhagan Bhujbal, however, received a word of
praise from Thackeray for his act of allowing
loudspeakers at Sena rally in his own powers. ?I
won?t call him Lakhoba (a slang for a traitor in
Marathi, conferred upon Bhujbal after he quit
Sena in 1991) any more,? Thackeray announced.
The 40-minute speech, however, was devoid of any
major fireworks, which is a Thackeray trademark,
barring a few usual punches.
A jubilant Sena crowd, after the defeat of
Congress in Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde?s
Loksabha constituency, was expecting a thunderous
speech from Thackeray that did not happen.
There were no speeches from Uddhav and Raj
Thackeray, both of whom sat on either sides of
Thackeray.
____
[11]
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 19:25:44 +0100 (BST)
From: Shabnam Hashmi <anhadinfo at yahoo.co.in>
ACT NOW FOR HARMONY (ANHAD) WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
8,9,10,11,12 OCTOBER
Venue: Bhartiyam, Delhi State Bharat Scouts and
Guides Campus, Near Humayun's Tomb, Nizamuddin,
New Delhi
Note: Schedule for the films/ documentaries is
yet to be worked out. There are two workshops at
the same venue: one is in English and second is
in Hindi.
Workshop in English
8 October 2003
8.30-9.30- Breakfast and Registration
9.30-11.00 Need and Urgency to Resist the
Rise of Fascist Forces- Prof. Bipin Chandra-
Tea- 11.00-11.30
11.30-1.0 Secularism as Constitutional Right: Colin Gonsalves
Lunch- 1.00-2.00
2.00-3.30 Formation of the Indian Identity- Sohail Hashmi
3.30-4.00
4.00-5.30 AYODHYA-Dr. KM Shrimali
5.30-6.30- movement songs
6.30-7.00- tea
7.00 onwards film followed by dinner
9 October 2003
9.30 onwards with lunch and tea breaks till 5.30pm
REALITY UNVIELED- Ram Puniyani
Facts Vs Myths on
· Appeasement of Minorities
· Anti Nationalism of Minorities
· Demography of the nation [population of the minorities]
· Conversion and Christian Missionaries
· Godhra – the facts and falsities
· Kashmir – the facts and falsities
5.30-6.00- tea
6.00-7.00 movement songs
7.00 onwards film followed by dinner
10 October
9.30-11.0 Gujarat: The Present Situation- Digant Oza
11.00-11.30 tea
11.30-1.00 History of the Sangh Parivar- Pralay Kanungo-
Lunch- 1.00-2.00
2.00-3.30 Communalisation of
Education and History- Rizwan Qaisar
3.30-4.00 Tea
4.00-5.30 COMMUNALISM,
NATIONALIST CHAUVINISM AND INDIA PAKISTAN
HOSTILITY: THE CONNECTION- Praful Bidwai
5.30-6.00--- tea
6.00-7.00- movement songs
7.00 onwards film followed by dinner
11 October-Saturday
9.30-11.00 –Legacy of the Freedom Movement- Mridula Mukherjee-
11.00-11.30- tea
11.30-1.00- Minority Communalism—Prof. Imtiaz Ahmad
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00-3.30 Gender issue, movement & interrelation
with communal politics- Nivedita Menon-
3.30-4.00 tea
4.00-5.30 -Communalisation of Media-Rajdeep Sardesai-
5.30-6.00- tea
6.00-7.00- movement songs
7.00 onwards film followed by discussion
October 12, 2003
9.30-11.00 -Dalit – issue, movement &
interrelation with communal politics--SK
<mailto:Thorat-skthorat at hotmail.com>Thorat
11.00-11.30- tea
11.30 onwards-
FOLLOW UP ACTIONS TOWARDS SECULAR COMMUNITY BUIDLING
Possible secular actions & initiatives
Mode, language, idiom of communication/intervention
Cultural interventions
Forms of active resistance
Plan of actions and commitments from the district
--------------
Workshop in HINDI
8,9,10,11,12 OCTOBER
8.30-9.30- breakfast and registration
9.30-11.0 Need and urgency to
resist the rise of fascist forces-Achyut Yagnik-
11.00-11.30- tea
11.30-1.0 Legacy of the freedom Movement- Amar Farooqui
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00-3.30- KM Shrimali- Ayodhya
3.30-4.00 Tea
4.00-5.30 Communalisation of Education- Krishan Kumar
5.30-6.00- tea
6.00-7.00- movement songs
7.00 onwards film followed by dinner
Oct 9
9.30-11.0 Formation of the Indian Identity- Sohail Hashmi
11.00-11.30
11.30-1.0 Civil Society and
State: Lessons from Gujarat-Harsh Mander
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00-3.30 Fascism: Gauhar Raza
3.30-4.00 pm
4.00-5.30 Secularism as Constitutional Right- Prashant Bhushan
5.30-6.0- tea
6.00-7.00 movement songs
7.00 film followed by dinner
Oct 10
9.00-10.30- History of the Sangh Parivar- Pralay Kanungo
10.30-11.00 –tea
11.00 onwards till 5.30 pm with lunch and tea breaks
Day 3/ Session I -IV REALITY UNVIELED
Facts Vs Myths on
· Appeasement of Minorities
· Anti Nationalism of Minorities
· Demography of the nation [population of the minorities]
· Conversion and Christian Missionaries
· Godhra – the facts and falsities
· Kashmir – the facts and falsities
5.30-6.00- tea
6.00-7.00- movement songs
7.00 onwards – film followed by dinner
Oct 11
9.30-11.0 Communalisation Of Media-Amit Sengupta
11.00-11.30-tea
11.30-1.00-Gender - issue, movement & interrelation with communal politics
Nivedita Menon
1.00-2.00pm
2.00-3.30-Minority communalism- Prof. Imtiaz Ahmad
3.30-4.00 tea
4.00-5.30-Dalit - issue, movement and
interrelation with communal politics- Dr.Tulsiram-
5.30-6.00 tea
6.00-7.00- movement songs
7.00 onwards- film followed by dinner
Day 5/ 9.30-11.00
COMMUNALISM, NATIONALIST CHAUVINISM AND INDIA
PAKISTAN HOSTILITY: THE CONNECTION- TO BE FIXED
11.00-11.30-tea
11.30 onwards
FOLLOW UP ACTIONS TOWARDS SECULAR COMMUNITY BUIDLING
Possible secular actions & initiatives
Mode, language, idiom of communication/intervention
Cultural interventions
Forms of active resistance
Plan of actions and commitments from the district
____
[12]
Announcement
The Economic and Political Impact of the Indo-Pak Arms Race
Speaker: Sushil Khanna
Professor of Economics, Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata
Friday October 10, 2003 7.30 p.m.
Place: Center for developing Area Studies (CDAS), McGill University
3715 Peel Street, Montreal [Canada]
Sponsored by: CERAS and CDAS
Admission free
All welcome
______
[13]
2nd Annual Atlanta Workshop on Promoting Peace and Development in South Asia
Saturday, October 11th, 2003, 10.00 am - 4.30 pm
Location: White Hall, 480 Kilgo St., Emory University, 30322 [USA}
http://www.emory.edu/FMD/web/central.htm (White
Hall is Bldg #4 on the map link)
Organized by South Asians for Unity (www.SA4U.org) from Atlanta, and by
Develop in Peace (DiP) from Charlotte
Chai, Refreshments, and Lunch will be provided
Main Presenters Will Be:
Professor Raju Thomas (International Affairs Studies, Marquette University)
Hussain Haqqani (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)
Amit Pandya (Open Society Institute)
Purpose of Workshop:
1. To involve members of the South Asian
community in the United States in a constructive
dialogue on Peace and Development in South Asia.
2. To influence positive sociopolitical change between India and Pakistan.
3. To find ways to sustain local forums on improving India-Pakistan relations.
There is limited space for this event, so please
pay your $10 registration fee today.
Registration Information
Complete and mail with your $10 registration fee
to South Asia Peace Workshop, P.O. Box 49494,
Atlanta, GA 30395. Please make your check out to
"Develop in Peace".
Very soon you will be able to register through Sulekha.com as well.
1. Name: ___________________________________________________
2. Address: ___________________________________________________
3. City: __________________ 4.
State:_______ 5.Zip Code:__________
6. Telephone number: __________________ 7.
Email: _________________________
8. What would you like to accomplish at this workshop?
If you have any questions, would like to
VOLUNTEER or make a tax-deductible DONATION,
please contact Khurram Hassan (SA4U in Atlanta),
Cell Phone 404-213-9825, kohassan at yahoo.com or
Gautam Desai (DiP in Charlotte), Cell Phone
704-540-5066, developinpeace at hotmail.com. Please
contact Gautam for further details on 2 hour
seminars on "US-India-Pakistan relations: A road
map to peace" planned in the Raleigh area on 9th
Oct Thursday at 6:00 pm, Davidson College at
10:00 am and Charlotte, NC at noon on 10th Oct
Friday.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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). [Please
note the SACW web site has gone down, you will
have to for the time being search google cache
for materials]
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.
--
More information about the Sacw
mailing list