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.

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