SACW | 11 Oct. 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WIRE   |  11 October,  2003

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[1] Pakistan: In the land of pure, law is on trial (Najam Sethi)
[2] Pakistan: Another sectarian murder? (Abbas Rashid)
[3] Pakistan: [Excerpts ] Human Rights Watch Letter to General Pervez Musharraf
[4]  Pakistan: Abolition of Hudood Ordinance demanded
[5] India: Myth And History  (AndrÉ BÉteille)
[6] India: Bulldozing the Past into Existence  (Janaki Nair)
[7] India: Concern at prospects of Fascist Mayhem in Ayodhya:
- High Court directs UP govt to stop VHP programme
-  Agnivesh wants PM to stop VHP rally
[8] Full texts of these available via SACW
- Muslims and Others (Rustom Bharucha)
- Space, Place and Primitive Accumulation in 
Narmada Valley and Beyond (Judy Whitehead)


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

[1.]

The Indian Express,  October 11, 2003

IN THE LAND OF PURE, LAW IS ON TRIAL
Pakistan's justice system, based on blind 
enforcement of Islamic provisions, outdoes even 
Arab countries

[by] Najam Sethi

The chairperson of Pakistan's National Commission 
on the Status of Women (NCSW), Justice (retd) 
Majida Rizvi, addressed a meeting of citizens in 
Lahore last week and explained why the commission 
has recommended the repeal of Hudood Laws in 
Pakistan. These were enforced by General Zia ul 
Haq in 1979 as ordinances.

The contradictions in the ''blind'' enforcement 
of these Islamic provisions reduce justice to a 
farce. The 15-member committee set up by the NCSW 
to prepare the report on the repeal showed the 
following pattern of opinion: 12 favoured repeal, 
two wanted the Hudood amended to remove 
contradictions, one wanted the recommendations 
''given effect''.

According to the press, when the report was made 
public in September, the only nay-sayer in the 
committee was chairman of the Council for Islamic 
Ideology (CII) S M. Zaman, who didn't want the 
Hudood laws changed.

But then the CII has recommended the most 
blatantly extreme legislations to further 
Islamise Pakistan. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal 
vows to implement the CII's recommendations thus 
far shelved by a shell-shocked government.

The last commission under Justice (retd) Nasir 
Aslam Zahid had recommended similar reform in 
1997 but its report joined others in the dustbin, 
starting with the one prepared by Begum Zari 
Sarfaraz under orders from Zia ul Haq himself.

The latest report is supposed to go before the 
National Assembly where the MMA is rampant while 
the opposition parties, the Pakistan People's 
Party and Pakistan Muslim League (N), are not 
interested in losing ground among the masses by 
endorsing it.

The PML(N) can hardly go back on its Islamic 
agenda, which included separate electorates and 
the dreaded 15th Amendment that would have 
outdone the clergy in its extremism. And the less 
said about the PML(Q) the better in matters of 
Islamic reform because its leaders have made an 
art form of hanging on to coat-tails, first of 
General Zia, then of the jihadi clergy.

Parliament is poised to tear the report to 
pieces. Prime Minister Zaffarullah Jamali's 
government will probably sit on it pretending to 
prepare a suitable legislative document and may 
in the end consign it to oblivion.

Meanwhile, the impression is being created that a 
majority of Pakistanis is opposed to tampering 
with the Hudood Ordinances, with less than 20 per 
cent in favour of amendments, as per a recent 
independent TV channel programme. And this with 
the public knowing next to nothing about the 
laws, and labouring under the mistaken illusion 
that repealing General Zia's diktat would somehow 
be violative of Divine Will.

The clergy too has gone to the press growling 
that any change in the said laws would be opposed 
tooth and nail. We know that most Pakistanis will 
favour the recommendations of the report if 
properly explained its contents. For instance 
Kausar Firdaus of the Jamaat-e-Islami, who 
participated in a TV discussion with Justice 
Majida Rizvi on September 23, conceded the 
ordinances would have to be amended to meet the 
demands of justice.

The main reason for repealing the Hudood 
Ordinances is that this would allow the courts to 
consider cases under the more rational Islamic 
principle of Tazir. Since Tazir gives more 
latitude to the court it can help avoid that 
which literally binds the judges to handing down 
maximum punishments without considering any 
mitigating factors.

What are the Hudood Laws' contradictions? If a 
woman alleging rape is unable to bring four male 
witnesses to the act she can attract the mischief 
of the Hudood under Zina and may be lashed or 
stoned to death simply because she has owned up 
to being violated.

On the other hand, when men accuse women of 
fornication and fail to prove it, they are not 
subjected to qazaf and punished for wrongful 
accusation.

Sections of the Hudood and Tazir laws covering 
traditional personal laws are applicable to 
non-Muslims as well, but non-Muslims, together 
with Muslim women, are not allowed to become 
witnesses under the Islamic law of evidence. 
Non-Muslims are not allowed to be presiding 
officers in court when their co-religionists 
appear before it under Hudood.

Pakistan has been consistently embarrassed by the 
law of rijm or stoning to death. It is accepted 
in Pakistan as a hadd (Quranic punishment) 
without emanating from the text of the Quran. The 
country's higher judiciary has given two 
contradictory decisions on its validity.

Although General Zia enforced rijm, Pakistan has 
so far avoided stoning anyone to death for fear 
of being globally ostracised. The Pakistani 
clergy was greatly embarrassed this year when 
Iran abolished the punishment after stoning a few 
innocent women to death.

As Justice Rizvi's report says, why not get rid 
of a bad law if you can't implement it? Why 
should General Zia's ordinances be considered 
sacrosanct to the extent that removal of their 
flaws is considered violative of divine 
injunction?

We know that if the MMA comes to power in 
Pakistan it will imitate the Taliban and stone 
people to death in public to show how pious 
Pakistan is. But that is not how other Islamic 
countries think.

Egypt's Al Azhar has allowed riba (bank 
interest), anathema in Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia 
says it will allow the accused to bring their 
lawyers into Islamic courts. Are we in Pakistan 
holier than the Pope?

[Reprinted from:] The Friday Times

____


[2.]

The Daily Times [Pakistan], October 11, 2003
Op-Ed.

Another sectarian murder?

Abbas Rashid

The killing of Maulana Azam Tariq on Monday will 
probably turn out to be yet another episode in 
the cycle of sectarian violence in Pakistan that 
shows little sign of letting up. His murder will 
not resolve anything and is likely to fuel 
further violence. He was head of the 
Millat-i-Islamiya Pakistan (MIP), renamed after 
the banning of Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) that 
emerged and became powerful under General Ziaul 
Haq's rule. Subsequently, a faction more focused 
in its violent approach split from the parent 
party as Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, though the perception 
remained that it was more of a division of labour 
with the SSP making inroads into Parliamentary 
politics while the LJ pursued other means towards 
the same end.
Targeted sectarian killings by extremist groups 
have, over the last few years, occurred with 
devastating frequency in Pakistan. This latest 
incident was preceded by the killing of five Shia 
employees of the Space and Upper Atmosphere 
Research Corporation (SUPARCO) in Karachi, only 
days earlier. But possibly, given the planning 
that seems to have gone into the assassination of 
Maulana Azam Tariq, it seems like a response to 
the deadly attack last July on people gathered 
for Friday prayers in a mosque in Quetta. That 
incident left 47 people dead and about 65 
wounded. While it is always possible, as 
government officials often claim, that some 
external forces are involved in such acts for the 
purpose of destabilisation, the theory is far 
from widely shared. What feeds the perception, 
also, is the public proclamation by the party 
that all Shias should be categorised as 
non-Muslims.
As more violence may be on the cards security is 
obviously an issue. So far, it has been 
problematic. Maulana Azam Tariq, apparently, 
insisted on making his own security arrangements. 
He had survived many an assassination attempt and 
perhaps believed that he would continue to do so. 
That still does not entirely explain the events 
of the day and better security may well have 
saved his life. But if his death could not be 
prevented what explains the security lapse in 
Islamabad the next day when, given the history of 
sectarian violence, the security forces should 
have been on maximum alert.
How is it that a relatively small crowd, 
following funeral prayers, was allowed to go on 
the rampage in the heart of the capital and carry 
out acts of arson? It was in Jhang that the 
attendance at his namaz-e-janaza was very large 
and estimated to be over 20,000. The Maulana was 
gunned down along with his guard and driver on 
his way to attend a National Assembly session. He 
was allowed to contest the elections even though 
his party had been declared a terrorist 
organisation and banned. So much for the Election 
Commission. But, he refused to join up with other 
politico-religious parties under the banner of 
the MMA because he could not countenance sharing 
such a forum with the leader of a Shia party. 
Predictably, though, the ruling party was not 
averse to having his support.
Sectarianism in Pakistan received a significant 
boost in the late 70s. As the volume of 
petro-dollars coming in from the Middle East 
resulted in strengthening the power of the 
politico-religious groups and madrassas, a number 
of key developments converged. For Pakistan the 
assumption of power by General Ziaul Haq was 
critical in this regard. The general was casting 
around for legitimacy when the Soviet invasion of 
Afghanistan and the Iranian revolution occurred 
in quick succession. In the backdrop of what was 
perceived to be an ideological challenge posited 
by the revolution in Iran Zia played the 
sectarian card by attempting to privilege one 
sect over the other. The result was the formation 
of the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-Fiqh-i-Ja'faria followed by 
the formation of the Anjuman Sipah-i-Sahaba 
Pakistan.
Over time other more radical groups emerged to 
line up on either side of the divide - for 
instance, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi on one side and 
Sipah-i-Muhammad on the other. Sectarianism in 
Pakistan thereby acquired a more organised form 
and the continuing war in Afghanistan not only 
radicalised it and rendered it more violent, it 
also ensured an extension and deepening of its 
influence as a steady stream of finances and arms 
flowed in from diverse sources.
The role of key groups in Afghanistan's struggle 
against the Soviets provided them with a degree 
of legitimacy with successive governments and 
within their own narrowly defined community 
blunted the charge of fomenting violence at home. 
Kashmir provided a similar context. However, 
while the role of such groups externally may have 
been viewed in a positive light at a certain 
point in time by the powers that be, the internal 
'blowback' over the years has assumed ominous 
proportions.
Clearly, the first priority is to bring to an end 
this internecine violence that has claimed so 
many lives on both 'sides.' This is not just a 
matter of enhanced security but also of a much 
improved intelligence network. Beyond that, and 
as importantly, it is a matter of changing the 
mind-set of those most affected. The madrassas, 
for instance, will not change just because they 
are provided computers or English-language 
teachers. It will require a completely different 
level of effort and investment of resources to 
even initiate the task in any meaningful manner. 
The madrassas, as President Pervez Musharraf 
keeps reminding us, play an important role in 
providing genuinely free education to a very 
large number of children from very poor families. 
But, what kind of education? To be fair one may 
also want to ask what kind of education is being 
provided by the great majority of public sector 
schools that are directly the government's 
responsibility. This has to do with how seriously 
we take education and what we are willing to 
spend on it.
Let us remind ourselves that through our neglect 
of this sector, across the board, we are helping 
create an environment that devalues our rich Sufi 
traditions of tolerance and liberalism and one in 
which extremism may survive and prosper.

Abbas Rashid is a freelance journalist and 
political analyst whose career has included 
editorial positions in various Pakistani 
newspapers


____


[3]

http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/10/pakistan10103-ltr.htm

[Excerpts ] Human Rights Watch Letter to General Pervez Musharraf

October 10, 2003

His Excellency General Pervez Musharraf
President Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Aiwan-e-Sadr
Constitution Avenue
Islamabad, Pakistan

Dear General Musharraf:

October 12, 2003 will mark the fourth anniversary of
the military coup that brought you to power. Since the
1999 coup, Human Rights Watch has monitored the
suppression of civil liberties and the progressive
undermining of civilian institutions in Pakistan.

Human Rights Watch is concerned that in the years
since the coup, the Pakistani government has
systematically violated the fundamental rights of
members of the political opposition and former
government officials. It has harassed, threatened, and
arbitrarily arrested them. Many have been detained
without charge, mistreated and tortured, and otherwise
denied their basic due process rights. The government
has removed independent judges from the higher courts,
banned anti-government public rallies and
demonstrations, and rendered political parties all but
powerless. In addition, the last four years have also
witnessed the rise of extremist political activity and
an increase in sectarian killings.

Meanwhile, your involvement with the United States in
its war on terror has been characterized by a
disregard for the due process rights of suspects.
Arbitrary arrests and detentions, apparently with the
support of U.S. authorities in Pakistan, have taken
place with depressing regularity.

The rule of law is a critical element in the promotion
and protection of human rights. Your failure to
institute genuine and periodic elections as required
by international law has become an important symbol of
the lack of rule of law in Pakistan. We urge you to
provide a timetable and demonstrate a commitment to
genuine, pluralistic elections at the earliest
possible date. October 12 would provide an excellent
opportunity to make such a commitment. Solutions to
many of the human rights problems discussed below
depend, at least in part, on the creation of a duly
constituted civilian government.

[...]

Legal Discrimination Against and Mistreatment of Women
and Religious Minorities

Inaction on the Hudood Laws persists despite the
government-run National Commission for Status of Women
calling for repeal of the Hudood Ordinance on the
grounds that it "makes a mockery of Islamic justice"
and is "not based on Islamic injunctions." This,
despite the outcry in Pakistan and internationally,
over cases such as the tribal "jirga" ordered
gang-rape of Mukhtaran Bibi in Punjab and the
sentencing to death by stoning of Zafran Bibi on
grounds of adultery. Human Rights Watch has monitored
these and other cases involving abuses under the
Hudood Laws. Informed estimates suggest that over
210,000 cases under the Hudood laws are under process
in Pakistan's legal system

Under Pakistan's existing Hudood Ordinance, a woman
who has been raped and wants the state to prosecute
her case must have four Muslim men testify that they
witnessed the assault. In the absence of these male
witnesses, the rape victim has no case. Equally
alarming, if a woman cannot prove the rape allegation
she runs a very high risk of being charged with
fornication or adultery, the criminal penalty for
which is either a long prison sentence, including
public whipping, or, though rare, death by stoning.
The testimony of women carries half the weight of a
man's testimony under this ordinance.

Further, the Qisas (retribution) and Diyat
(compensation) Ordinance makes it possible for crimes
of honor (such as the killing of women in the name of
honor) to be pardoned by relatives of the victim and
assesses monetary compensation for female victims at
half the rate of male victims.

These are just part of a set of "Islamic" penal laws
introduced by the former military ruler, General Zia
ul-Haq in 1979. While your administration has publicly
warned against this kind of extremism, these warnings
have failed to translate into concrete legal measures
to protect the basic rights of women in conformity
with international norms.

Discrimination and persecution on grounds of religion
continues, and an increasing number of blasphemy cases
continue to be registered. The Ahmadi community in
particular has been the target of religious extremists
and Human Rights Watch has followed several cases
where members of this community have been subject to
discrimination, not just at the hands of religious
extremists but the Pakistani police and military
authorities as well.

Information provided by the Ahmadi community and
authenticated by HRW indicates that during 2002-3 at
least ten Ahmadis were charged under various
provisions of the Blasphemy Law. Mushtaq Ahmed Saggon
and Waris Khan were charged for "preaching" and a case
was registered against "Abdul Nasir and three others"
for distributing "objectionable literature." Four
Ahmadis were accused of preparing to build a "place of
worship." (Ahmadis can be charged under the Blasphemy
Law for using the term "mosque" to describe their
places of worship.) In 2002 at least three members of
the Ahmadi community were convicted under the
blasphemy law. One was subsequently acquitted on
appeal. However, Nazir Ahmed and Allah Rakhio were
awarded life imprisonment by an Anti-Terrorist Court
on charges of "desecrating the Quran" and "demolishing
a mosque."

In addition, at least six others were sentenced under
the Blasphemy Law in 2002. Of these four were awarded
the death penalty and two received life imprisonment.
They have appealed their sentences.

Sectarian Violence

Pakistan has experienced an alarming rise in sectarian
violence since the 1999 coup. In particular, Sunni
extremists, often with connections to militant
organizations such as Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP),
have targeted Muslims of the Shi'a sect. There has
been a sharp increase in the number of targeted
killings of Shi'a, and particularly Shi'a doctors,
since the 1999 coup. These doctors make easy targets
as they work in easily accessible public places and
follow predictable routines. Indeed, the majority of
the victims have been killed in or around their
clinics or hospitals. Shi'a Muslim doctors are now
fleeing Pakistan in large numbers in fear of their
lives. Human Rights Watch has interviewed the families
of many of those killed.

Since assuming power, your government has followed
what can only be described as a deliberate policy of
strengthening sectarian militant organizations. This
has involved providing support to the political wings
of these organizations under the umbrella of the MMA
and otherwise, while little effort has been made to
bring those responsible for acts of sectarian violence
to justice or to provide protection to the targets or
their families.

On October 6, Maulana Azam Tariq, a Sunni extremist
leader and member of parliament, was murdered in an
apparent act of retaliation by unknown assailants.
Maulana Azam Tariq had generated animosity because of
his reported declaration that Shi'a were non-Muslims
and legitimate targets for murder, and his being
allowed to contest the October 2000 elections despite
being the head of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, which the
government had declared a terrorist sectarian
organization. Further, when under arrest on charges of
murder, Tariq had the unusual privilege of being
provided a stipend of 10,000 rupees per month by the
government. Once elected to the National Assembly,
Tariq chose to support the pro-Musharraf government in
place since November 2002.

Human Rights Watch fears that Azam Tariq's murder may
spark a new wave of violence against the Shi'a
community. It is the responsibility of the government
of Pakistan to protect the Shi'a citizens of Pakistan
and safeguard their right to life. This is a duty that
the government has thus far failed to perform.

Human Rights Watch urges you and your government to
take measures to address the problem of sectarian
violence in Pakistan. Those implicated in acts of
sectarian violence must be prosecuted, and actions to
protect the affected communities must be undertaken.
It is critical that your government act, and appear to
act, impartially on all religious and sectarian
matters. The failure to do so could result in serious
violence.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to
your reply.

Yours sincerely,

Brad Adams
Executive Director
Asia Division

_____


[4.]

DAWN [Pakistan]  10 October 2003

Abolition of Hudood Ordinance demanded

KARACHI, Oct 9: Justice (r) Majida Rizvi, 
Chairperson of the National Commission on Status 
of Women, observing that discriminatory laws 
against women were a major cause of violence, has 
called for abolition of all such laws.
Inaugurating a three-day workshop on Different 
Dimensions of Gender, organized by the Working 
Women Support Centre, a project of the Lawyers 
for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA), here on 
Wednesday, she lauded efforts by the government 
to set up the permanent commission and added that 
the discriminatory laws were under review of the 
commission.
Justice Rizvi described Hudood Ordinance as a 
discriminatory instrument against women. She 
stressed the need for an enhanced women 
representation at all levels which, she said, 
would help upgrade their status in society.
She said women were also being discriminated upon 
in services sector and pointed out that the 
previous government had allocated five per cent 
job quota for women but when her commission 
conducted an inquiry covering all the four 
provinces, it transpired that women were not 
getting the quota.
She said that women's promotions to higher grades 
or their placement in decision-making bodies were 
other issues of concern as most of the women 
employees reach retirement age before qualifying 
for a promotion or being deputed on policy-making 
bodies.
Justice Rizvi emphasized on the need to reform 
the Citizenship Act and cited article 25(2) of 
the Constitution against any discrimination on 
the basis of sex.
President of the LHRLA Zia Ahmed Awan, speaking 
on the occasion, observed that Hudood Ordinance 
was not only discriminatory against women but 
also stigmatize men and members of minorities. He 
stressed the need for developing a proper system 
of testimony. He observed that in most of cases, 
Hudood laws are invoked to level scores.-PPI

_____


[5]

The Telegraph [India], October 11, 2003

MYTH AND HISTORY
- Talking about a nation's glory is the easiest way to teach its history

AndrÉ BÉteille
The author is chairman, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta

Twenty years ago, one of our more exuberant 
public intellectuals introduced a collection of 
his own essays by saying, "I shall not grudge it 
if some enterprising reviewer finds unconvincing 
history in the following pages, as long as he 
finds in them convincing myths." As I read those 
words, my stomach turned a little. The 
declaration of preference for myth over history 
by a recognized social scientist made me wonder 
when the pigeons would come home to roost. They 
are now coming home to roost.

Historians and social scientists do not produce 
myths. At best, they provide the raw materials 
from which others produce them. Those who provide 
the raw materials for the production of myths are 
rarely able to anticipate the form the finished 
product will take. It is often far removed from 
the dreams of the providers of raw materials.

What makes a myth convincing is different from 
what makes history or social science convincing. 
Myths cannot be subjected to the same test of 
evidence to which history and social science must 
submit. It is this freedom from the test of 
evidence that appeals most to some of our public 
intellectuals, and their tribe is increasing.

The myth by which increasing numbers of Indians 
are now willing or even eager to be convinced is 
the myth of national greatness and glory. It is a 
seductive myth but, like all myths, it simplifies 
the reality and shows scant respect for 
contradictory evidence. It is far from my 
argument that historians or social scientists 
should not be patriotic, but they should not 
distort or disregard the facts of the case. The 
difference between history and myth is that in 
history, where the facts are unavailable, the 
argument must rest without a conclusion, whereas 
a myth must move to its inevitable conclusion, so 
where there are no facts, they have to be 
invented.

The natural inclination of teachers of history in 
India, particularly school teachers, is towards 
what may be called "edifying history" as against 
"objective" or "positive" or "scientific" 
history. Talking about the greatness and glory of 
a nation is the easiest way of teaching history - 
or sociology - in an edifying way to the young. 
It is easier to do this for the past than for the 
present, so that teachers of sociology have a 
harder job than teachers of history, particularly 
ancient history, where the facts are vague, 
unclear and amenable to divergent 
interpretations. In India, teachers do not like 
relating unpleasant facts to the young, unless 
the unpleasant facts are about other people.

Indian civilization has great achievements to its 
credit. Why should teachers of history be loath 
to talk about them to their students? It is 
indeed their duty to talk about these 
achievements provided they take care to avoid too 
much exaggeration and embellishment. Distortion 
begins when the teacher turns the spotlight only 
on the achievements of his nation and always away 
from its failings. There is no civilization that 
has only achievements and no failings. The 
natural tendency in nationalist myth-making is to 
embellish the achievements of the nation and to 
brush its failings under the carpet.

Perhaps the majority of teachers would like to 
say to their students that India is a great 
country and, as I have suggested, there is no 
harm in this provided some moderation is 
maintained. Some go on from there to say that 
India is not just great, it is the greatest, and 
it is at this point that the falsification 
begins. It is, of course, difficult to maintain 
that India is the greatest in its present state, 
but one may, with a little effort, persuade 
oneself and others that it was the greatest in 
its pristine state. For the teacher who is a 
zealous nationalist, history has more 
possibilities than sociology.

The glory begins with the land. India has, of 
course, been represented in song as a land 
overflowing with milk and honey, and this is true 
of many other countries as well. The question is, 
how far what is commemorated in song should be 
taken as the literal truth to be taught to 
students through text-books of history and social 
studies. In a recent book, written for a wide 
readership, India is represented as having the 
best of everything: the best of sunshine and 
rainfall, the best rivers and mountains, an 
abundance of every form of plant and animal life, 
and, of course, inexhaustible stores of all the 
necessities of everyday life.

In this representation, the country's most valued 
resource is its traditional social life, animated 
by tolerance, forbearance, fortitude, compassion 
and all the other virtues that made India the 
envy of the rest of the civilized world. The 
privileged site of these virtues was the Indian 
village community where peace, prosperity and 
goodwill among men prevailed. Reading all this, 
one would get hardly any idea of the divisions of 
caste, the practice of untouchability or the 
subordination of women; and the representation is 
completely at odds with Dr Ambedkar's depiction 
of the Indian village as "a sink of localism, a 
den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and 
communalism".

Dr Ambedkar notwithstanding, more and more 
students are being taught by their teachers about 
the greatness and glory of India. After learning 
so much about India's pristine condition, some of 
them might wish to know why there is so much 
poverty, inequality and discord in India today. 
Why is India's present so completely different 
from its past? Those who read the edifying 
text-books also read newspapers and watch 
television, and it is difficult to reconcile the 
messages that come from these different sources.

There is an obvious and attractive explanation 
for the mismatch between the splendour of the 
past and the squalor of the present, and that is 
the intervention of colonial rule. The same 
text-books that represent the India of the past 
as a land overflowing with milk and honey also 
represent colonial rule as a period of relentless 
plunder, spoliation and degradation. Myths have 
need not only of the forces of light but also of 
the forces of darkness. In the last few decades, 
the best liberal and radical historians have 
trained their heaviest guns against the misdeeds 
of colonial rule to which all of India's present 
ills are attributed. This monotonically 
anti-colonial historiography has made it easy for 
the traditionalists to represent India's past as 
a period of glory and grandeur.

The British were no doubt alien intruders who 
disrupted a contented and harmonious way of life. 
But were they the first or only intruders to do 
so? What our radical and liberal historians have 
started is being continued further back into the 
past by other historians. A recent account of the 
pristine greatness of India and its spoliation by 
the British ends by saying that perhaps the gloom 
had set in earlier, around AD 1000. Who were the 
bearers of this pre-British gloom? Could they 
have been Afghans, or Turks? The myth of the 
destruction of everything that was good in India 
by the British has extensions that may not all be 
pleasing to those who have contributed to its 
making. But the creators of myths do not expect 
to be asked to take responsibility for their 
creations.

______



[6]

The Economic and Political Weekly, October 4, 2003  |  Commentary

Bulldozing the Past into Existence

Some scientists and spiritual leaders have become 
strange bedfellows in their quest for a new 
historical method. They are united in one very 
important respect: they both share the singular 
goal of producing a uniquely Indian antiquity, 
one full of dead certainties and minus the 
distracting quibbles of the historian.

Janaki Nair

Historians may well be the most beleaguered 
professionals in India today. For a while now, we 
had been told by those envisioning a bright, new, 
technocratised future that disciplines such as 
history are increasingly irrelevant to the 
production of technocrats and computer 
professionals and are only a frustrating drag on 
the speed with which India could take its place 
as an information superpower. The ink-stained 
breast pocket might once have earned respect if 
not admiration. No more. The new badge of honour 
is the IT company lanyard, emblematic of the new 
world order even when it is pushed into a breast 
pocket. Now the historian herself joins the dusty 
shelf of antiquities and defiantly dull 
dissertations. The prospect of harnessing this 
unencashable discipline to more productive uses 
briefly brought a gleam back to the eyes of those 
who saw tour operators as fitter users of such 
knowledge, and in some universities, tourism is 
yoked to the teaching of history.

The new irrelevance is something that the 
profession did not prepare us for. We were 
prepared to be a lowly group, for whom 
institutional space was narrowing and funds and 
students were drying up. And for years, we 
welcomed many who forsook physics, economics, 
political science or sociology for an arduous 
scouring of the archive. They took up residence 
in our house, and shared its privations. It has 
without doubt been an enriching experience for 
the discipline. Such long term residence helped 
to keep at bay the threat posed by benign neglect.

Of late, it is not neglect that threatens the 
discipline but unwelcome attention to the 
practice of history. History is at the centre of 
many contemporary political debates. And a host 
of people have entered with enthusiasm into the 
question of rewriting the Indian past. Rather 
like the guest who overstays his welcome, and 
even evicts the unsuspecting host from her house, 
there has been an exploitation of history's 
legendary hospitality. These practices and 
institutions challenge, rather than enrich, the 
field and are trying to reconstitute it in ways 
that not only threaten the occupants but the 
edifice itself.

The practice of history, we are told in a hundred 
new ways, is too important to be left to the 
professional historian alone. Crowding out the 
historian are those who are bringing new 
techniques and questions into the field, not, as 
in the past, in order to add to the multiplicity 
of interpretations, but to establish a new 
antiquity. Antiquity has come to be valued for 
itself, especially since the past, and the 
ancient Indian past in particular, was perfect. 
Any historical views which question Indian 
Antiquity and its perfection, even when they come 
from professional historians are therefore 
suspect. In order to make a watertight case for 
such perfection, many other professionals and 
charlatans alike have been pressed into service.

Let me begin with the assault on historical 
method as we know it from those who keep the 
desired historical conclusion in mind before 
beginning their calculations. In January this 
year, the four Sankaracharyas of Kanchi Kamakoti 
Peetham, Dwarka Jyotirmath, Badrinath 
Govardhanpeeth and Puri unanimously accepted 
April 3, 509 BC as Adi Sankara's exact date of 
birth, bringing an end to the alleged debate on 
the subject. At that time, the Kanchi 
Sankaracharya spelt out his understanding of 
history. Since no political party or government 
in the country has understood the importance of 
Indian tradition, he said, "it is the duty of 
spiritual leaders to come together to establish 
this date as the beginning of determining and 
asserting many more truths of Bharat, now India." 
A new kind of authority is being brought to bear 
on what we thought was an established historical 
truth, as historians knew it. One cannot help 
thinking that this revision has in part been 
prompted by the desire of the four seers to 
ensure that the Adi Sankara's '2500th birth 
centenary' celebrations at his birthplace, Kaladi 
in Kerala, in 2010 will occur well within their 
lifetimes

Adding to these calendrical computations, which 
are more easily answered, are the tireless 
efforts of scientists and ex-scientists. This is 
clearly the more worrying trend. There has of 
late been growing reliance on scientists of 
various hues to produce a new version of the 
Indian past. There are many Indian scientists who 
believe that since the best brains are drawn to 
science, any scientist who takes up the study of 
history will without question perform better than 
the professional historian. Some of them have 
produced well researched narratives, and have 
developed a warmth towards the idea of studying 
the past. Let us also remember the path-breaking 
work of mathematicians like D D Kosambi and 
physicists like M N Saha to the understanding of 
the Indian past, and not just the history of 
science or scientific institutions. But 
increasingly, scientists have been called on to 
lend the extraordinary cache that science enjoys 
in the intellectual world to trump the views of 
historians. For instance, the recent interest in 
tracing, and perhaps even reviving, the 
paleo-channels of the mythical Saraswati, has 
received governmental funding on a scale that 
historians may only have dreamed about. The more 
cautious words of the scientists involved in the 
remote sensing exercise which claimed to have 
traced these channels has been ignored. Instead 
there has been a triumphant rendering of the 
evidence as confirmation that the Harappan 
civilisation in fact had Vedic origins.

More recently, four experts, one of them an 
archaeologist, have been funded to carry out 
excavations from Adi Badri to Bhagwanpura in 
Haryana followed by excavations from Bhagwanpura 
to Kalibangan on the Rajasthan border. The 
experts have been asked to trace the Kapalmochan 
and Ranmochan where, according to the person who 
has blessed the project with his munificence, 
Jagmohan, "the Pandavas took their bath"!

Thus, says director S Kalyanaraman of the 
Saraswati Nadi Shodh Prakalp, Bangalore, the 
search for the 'mythical' Saraswati river, which 
began about 16 years ago, has now concluded, and 
the river was neither myth nor legend, but "hard 
fact". It is precisely the authority that 
science, and its espousal of "hard facts" lends 
to such statements that has emboldened text-book 
writers in Karnataka, for instance, to speak of 
the Saraswathi Sindhu civilisation, a 
nomenclatural shift that connects the Harappan 
and Vedic societies. It is the authority of the 
scientist, rather than the professional 
historian, that is continually evoked in the 
course of making such claims. On Hindunet it is 
claimed that "about 18,000 years ago, the entire 
Eurasian continent was filled with ice sheets for 
a period of over 1,000 years and some regions 
were not affected by such glaciation. One such 
unaffected region which could thus support 
vegetation and human settlements was Bharata. The 
story of the lost and revived river Saraswati 
which nurtured a civilisation with over 2,000 
archaeological sites dated to ca 3300 to 1400 
BCE, has been told virtually completely by the 
scientists of Bharata."

Almost simultaneously, the discovery of some 
artefacts at the gulf of Cambay by the 
Chennai-based National Institute of Ocean 
Technology, and the carbon dating of a piece of 
wood has been triumphantly flourished as a sign 
of the "oldest world civilisation" that pushes 
Indian history back to 7500 BCE. This has been 
contested, both by archaeologists who have long 
studied Harappa, as well as geologists who 
strongly suggest that this may be another case of 
a natural formations being mistaken for 
historical artefacts. Despite the lack of 
corroborating evidence, Murli Manohar Joshi has 
been quick to seize the opportunity to claim a 
new antiquity. Would Hindunet be far behind? It 
concludes "Kudos to the scientists of the 
National Institute of Ocean Technology who have 
discovered what appears to be a neolithic 
settlement in the Gulf of Khambat about 30 m 
below the sea-level. This is a discovery that 
certainly rewrites the history of the 
civilisation of Bharata."

More recently, several ex-physicists have turned 
their attention to historical demography to 
provide proof that 'Indian religionists' will be 
outnumbered given the current rates of growth of 
Muslim and Christians, not just in India but 
worldwide. The three authors, two of whom are or 
were physicists, have scrutinised census data 
from 1881 to conclude that 'Indian religionists' 
declined in the undivided subcontinent, and 
although "the decline in the proportion of Indian 
religionists within the [independent Indian 
union] has not been too remarkable" the decline 
is sharp in certain regions of the country. This 
conclusion is obtained by defining Indian 
religionists in ways that ignore or deny the 
existence of difference between a range of Indian 
religions (and needless to add, there is an 
Olympian dismissal of long histories of 
protestant religious traditions which severely 
critiqued the one 'Indian religion' that has 
always claimed to represent all Indians, namely, 
brahminism). The fanfare that accompanied the 
release of the book at New Delhi by none other 
than the union home minister L K Advani 
took sycophancy at the ICSSR to dizzy heights. 
By merely releasing this book, and 
bestowing fulsome praise on its dubious 
'insights', Advani has even achieved "scholarly" 
status in the latest ICSSR bulletin (pp 10-13).

And now we have history and scientists at the 
forefront again, this time in determining whether 
or not a temple existed below the demolished 
Babri masjid, in order to provide 
incontrovertible proof to decide a legal suit of 
property. The 'science' of archaeology threw all 
field norms to the winds in order to fulfil the 
brief of the court to determine the existence or 
not of the temple. Leaning heavily on the 
'scientism' of the Geo Penetrating Radar Survey 
of an Indo-Japanese agency, which merely pointed 
to anomalies in the soil which could only be 
assessed and evaluated by qualified 
archaeologists and historians, the ASI willingly 
lent its services, not to the task of 
preservation which was its original mandate, but 
to willingly conduct a 'treasure hunt' at the 
behest of the court: it has succumbed to extra 
legal pressure to fulfil the one point agenda of 
finding the only possible treasure, namely, 'a 
temple' on the site.

What is striking in all these efforts is that the 
status of these claims and counterclaims has 
increasingly been staged as the clash between the 
cultures of science (and its pursuit of truth 
through 'hard facts') and professional historians 
(who, alas, for long misled by Marxism, are 
incapable of anything more than tentative and 
contentious, and therefore uncertain 
conclusions). The desperate anxiety to use every 
shred of evidence as the sign of the oldest 
civilisation which knew everything before anyone 
else is thus equally a move to discredit and 
disavow the methods and insights of entire 
generations of social science scholars and 
historians, whose conclusions may cause not a 
little discomfort to those who desire the 
security of a Perfect Indian Past.

All this is happening at a time when there has 
been much productive ferment within the 
discipline of history itself. The last 40 years 
or so have seen the burgeoning of professional 
historians in universities and research 
institutes who have contributed substantially to 
knowledges of the Indian past as much by 
uncovering new materials and sources as by being 
open and receptive to the methods of other 
disciplines. As a result of the transformations 
of both sources and methods, many of the old 
certainties about the Indian past have been 
questioned and revised, thereby bringing into 
focus such 'people without history' as women, 
lower castes, ethnic minorities.

However, it must be immediately pointed out that 
much of the new research and analysis has been 
confined to metropolitan centres in India, and to 
English language journals. This has resulted in 
enclaves of privilege in India and the diffusion 
or circulation of these new critical insights has 
been severely hampered by the absence of 
established channels between these enclaves and 
the provincial universities and other 
institutions.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the 
Karnataka textbooks that I had an opportunity to 
review recently reveal a shocking lack of 
awareness of more than 40 years of research 
particularly in the rich sub-fields of social, 
cultural and economic history. There is a 
perceptible time-lag between the work of 
professional historians in various parts of the 
country and the textbooks, which rely for the 
most part on the detailed, well-written and 
comprehensive, though somewhat dated, textbooks 
of yesteryear, e g, R C Mazumdar et al, An 
Advanced History of India. The accounts that 
currently circulate in schools are largely 
dynastic histories, in a truncated and very 
poorly written form, interspersed with chunks of 
information on aspects of the art and 
architecture or literary achievements of the 
period.

Yet there is a further paradox: although the 
textbook writing establishment has remained 
impervious to the insights of contemporary 
historical research, the texts under scrutiny 
reveal a surprising openness to other kinds of 
claims on the Indian past which have emerged from 
outside the fold of the professional historian. 
There is, in particular, a noticeable warmth and 
receptivity to more recent, and more 
controversial historical claims made by the wide 
range of scientists who have been cited above. 
The sanctioned ignorance of current trends in 
professional historical research is therefore 
matched by an eagerness to embrace the more 
contentious claims of space scientists or 
oceanographers. Although such references are few 
and confined to only certain textbooks, the 
result is a noticeable unevenness in content.

This is clearly a very troubling trend. Overall, 
the neglect of contemporary historiography on the 
one hand and the eager reception of scientism on 
the other have meant that history textbooks 
continue to bear the burden of building a 
national consciousness, and inculcating a 
misplaced sense of national pride (and here the 
nation could stand for the federal union of India 
or the linguistic state of Karnataka). In a way, 
as in the phase of the Indian nationalist 
movement in the earlier part of the 20th century, 
the textbooks continue to address the colonial 
master, more than 50 years after he was forced to 
leave Indian shores. Even more disconcerting is 
the attempt in these textbooks to build up a 
newly unified and homogeneous Indian nation, 
despite increasing evidence, particularly at the 
present moment, that such a representation may at 
best be an optimistic hope, and at worst a 
dangerous ideal. This is achieved in these 
textbooks in a number of ways: I give just one 
example below. In the Standard V text (p 21) V: 
21, a direct link is made between Harappa and the 
Vedic Saraswathi in the "do you know this?" box.

The ancient sites of the Sindhu civilisation have 
been found in both the Sindhu and the Saraswathi 
river plains. Therefore, some historians call the 
civilisation the Sindhu Saraswathi civilisation. 
The river Saraswathi became dry several centuries 
ago. Recently, the course of its dry bed has been 
traced through aerial survey.


What has been traced through satellite mapping 
are the paleo channels of the Ghaggar/Hakra, 
which is interpreted as being the Saraswathi. 
Most professional historians do not accept that 
the mythical Saraswathi is the same as the now 
dried up Ghaggar/Hakra to the east of the Indus. 
The Saraswathi may even have referred to a river 
in Afghanistan which corresponds more correctly 
to the literary references to a perennial high 
mountain range origin.

However, the Standard VIII textbook (Chapter 3) 
repeats the controversial claim about the course 
of the Hakra/Ghaggar being the same as the 
mythical Saraswati. Here there is even a map to 
support this controversial claim (and by this a 
link is made between the pastoral Rig Vedic 
cultures and the urban Harappan). Furthermore, 
the Standard VIII text (p 41) asserts that the 
"Harappan and Vedic cultures" spread eastwards to 
the Ganga Valley. Thus it once more connects 
Harappa with the Vedic age. We are told (p 18): 
"Recent researches on this civilisation have 
proved that the creators of this culture are 
descendants of those who were earlier engaged in 
agriculture. The evolution of urban life from the 
stage of rural life is clearly seen here."

Some scientists and spiritual leaders have thus 
become strange bedfellows in their quest for a 
new historical method. They are united in one 
very important respect: they both share the 
singular goal of producing a uniquely Indian 
antiquity, one full of dead certainties and minus 
the distracting quibbles of the historian. It 
will unfortunately produce a rash of such inane 
statements as the one printed in my daughter's 
school diary, which claims that thousands of 
years before the computer was invented, Indians 
had perfected the most "computer friendly 
language", Sanskrit. Science and political 
Hinduism have no qualms about jointly 
co-authoring a singular Indian past, just at the 
time when many eloquent historical voices have 
come to be heard.

______


[7]

Sify News

HC directs UP govt to stop VHP programme

By Vinay Krishna Rastogi in  Lucknow
Saturday, 11 October , 2003, 00:56

In a major development, the three-judge special 
bench of the High Court hearing the Ayodhya title 
dispute case on Friday directed the Uttar Pradesh 
government not to allow any VHP programme on 
October 17.
It may be recalled that the VHP has announced a 
'Sankalp Sammelan' at Ayodhya on October 17 and 
had given a call to all Hindus to converge in the 
temple town on that day.
The Mulayam Singh government is now armed with 
the court order to deal with the VHP firmly.
The court passed the order on an application by 
rebel saint Dharma Das who had urged  hat the VHP 
and its supporters be restrained from disturbing 
the status quo and from falsely propagating that 
the ASI report has been accepted by the court.
The court observed that the ASI report has 
niether been accepted nor rejected till date.
The court further ordered that no religious 
activity shall be allowed at or in the vicinity 
of the disputed site in Ayodhya and the state 
government must obey the Supreme Court order in 
this regard.
The court order has dealt a heavy blow to the VHP  programme.
The court also ordered that gatherings of any 
kind should not be allowed at the disputed site. 
However, no restriction shall be placed on 
Darshan and Puja at the disputed site.
The Hindu, Oct 11, 2003

o o o

Agnivesh wants PM to stop VHP rally
By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI OCT. 10. "The Prime Minister, Atal Bihari 
Vajpayee, must take full responsibility to ensure 
that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) does not 
take out a rally from Lucknow to Ayodhya on 
October 17," Swami Agnivesh of the Adhyatma 
Jagran Manch (movement for spiritual awakening) 
said.
Swami Agnivesh, who is in the city to attend a 
conference on "Human Rights and Development", 
alleged that the VHP and the BJP were planning to 
extract political mileage out of the rally. "The 
Mulayam Singh-led Uttar Pradesh Government will 
be forced to react if there were any disturbances 
in the rally, and the BJP will try to use that to 
discredit the new Government. And after that 
politics will take over the issue and use it to 
garner votes in the coming elections in five 
States," he said in an interview to The Hindu.
He pointed out that the local leaders of Ayodhya 
have already opposed the rally fearing law and 
order problems. "The Prime Minister must take the 
lead in ensuring that the rally does not take 
place".
Communal riots might not have hit the Southern 
States such as Tamil Nadu to the extent they had 
in other States, but that did not mean that they 
were immune to communal tension, he said.
His reading of the situation in the South was that it was fragile.


______


[8]

FULL TEXT OF ANY OF THESE FOLLOWING ARTICLES IS 
AVAILABLE ON REQUEST. Should you require a copy 
send a note to <aiindex at mnet.fr>:

The Economic and Political Weekly, October 4, 2003

MUSLIMS AND OTHERS
Anecdotes, Fragments and Uncertainties of Evidence

Against the intensified communalisation of civil 
society and the emergence of new modes of racism 
in contemporary India, this essay juxtaposes 
different histories of the Other through critical 
insights into the construction and demonisation 
of the Indian Muslim, along with subaltern 
performers and indigenous people, among other 
minorities. Working through anecdotes and 
fragments, bits and pieces of history, and the 
backstage life of theatre, this disjunctive 
discourse on the Other attempts to trouble 
liberal assumptions of cultural identity by 
calling attention to the uncertainties of 
evidence by which ethnic identities are 
politicised in diverse ways. While critiquing the 
exclusionary mode of 'othering' minorities, the 
essay also calls attention to more internalised 
modes of disidentification and the double-edged 
benefits of political identity for the 
underprivileged and dispossessed, whose own 
assertions of the self invariably complicate 
official identitarian constructions.

by Rustom Bharucha                  [SIZE: 101k]

  o o o

The Economic and Political Weekly, October 4, 2003

SPACE, PLACE AND PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION IN NARMADA VALLEY AND BEYOND

A hitherto unnoticed aspect of dam displacement 
is the way it contributes to processes of global 
primitive accumulation. Viewed from a wider 
perspective of neoliberal capitalist expansion, 
the creation of a global proletariat is 
facilitated by the dismantling of customary 
relations to land, forest and water. The fact 
that many dams throughout the world are located 
in territories in which existing populations hold 
legally tenuous relations to the environment may 
not be a coincidence. Further, existing laws and 
planning policies related to dam developments 
share a worldview that meshes utilitarian logic 
and legal belief in private property with an 
abstract concept of space and the environment.

by Judy Whitehead            [SIZE: 44k]


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

Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on 
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citizens wire service run since 1998 by South 
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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
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