SACW | 24 Oct. 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WIRE   |  24 October,  2003

Announcements:
a)  The South Asia Citizens Web web site 
continues to be down, users are invited to use 
Google cache till further notice.  'South Asia 
Counter Information Project' a back-up, archive 
area and sister site of SACW can be accessed at: 
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/sacw/
b) All  SACW and associated list members in India 
wanting to consult web sites being blocked at 
groups.yahoo.com   may try to bypass the 'ban' 
via:
http://www.proxify.com
http://www.multiproxy.org/multiproxy.htm  [a more detailed list is given below]

+++++

[1] Legislator Fights Pakistan's 'Blood' Marriages (Juliette Terzieff)
[2] Ayesha and the Scarf (Ram Puniyani)
[3] Ayodhya's Forgotten Muslim Past (Yoginder Sikand)
[4] Press Release by AIDWA
[5] Little More Vibrancy and Gujarat Volcano Would Explode (Digant Oza)
[6] Public Meeting on the Battle for Justice  in Gujarat (31 Oct., Bombay)

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


[1]

Womensenews.com
October 20, 2003

Legislator Fights Pakistan's 'Blood' Marriages
By Juliette Terzieff
WeNews correspondent

A Pakistan legislator is challenging the 
centuries-old tradition of "blood marriages," the 
use of forced unions to settle inter-clan 
disputes. Her campaign seeks to outlaw the 
practice that continues across the country.

LAHORE, Pakistan (WOMENSENEWS)--Humaira Awais 
Shahid's campaign to outlaw forced marriages of 
women in Pakistan began with a letter from an 
illiterate girl named Sitara Isakhel.

A tribal jirga, or council, last year sentenced 
the 17-year old and her 8-year old sister, 
Sameera, to marry members of a more powerful 
tribe after their brother was accused of 
impregnating a woman he was not married to.

"They didn't listen to us even though we swore on 
the Koran," says Sitara Isakhel's December 2002 
letter. "The jirga's decision was such that the 
land disappeared from under our feet and the sky 
blew open. We are too afraid to go to the police 
and I am writing to you in secret. Soon our 
funeral will take place: we are to be married 
within the next two months."

At the time, Shahid, now a member of the Punjab 
Provincial Assembly, was researching violations 
of women's rights for her Lahore-based newspaper 
Khabrain. After receiving the impassioned plea 
from a friend of Sitara Isakhel, who also helped 
pen the letter, Shahid began a journey that would 
take her through the corridors of Pakistan power 
on a quest to quash the centuries-old tradition 
known as vinni.

Her first stop was Mianwali in the central Punjab 
province, where Shahid, 32, led an investigation 
into the fate of the two Isakhel sisters. She 
challenged the local jirga and the police over 
the illegal marriage of minors. The marriages 
were dissolved this spring and a monetary 
settlement worked out between the families.

"Every victim I spoke to actually expected me to 
do something for them and others like them," 
recalls Shahid of the past year.

"The more I probed the issue, the more I realized 
the extent and acceptance of such practices and 
the desperate need for such tribal traditions to 
be legislated and monitored," adds the mother of 
two young children.

Tribal Justice

Vinni, which comes from the Pashtun word for 
blood, vanay, is a centuries-old practice in 
Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan of giving women 
into marriage as compensation in cases of murder, 
territorial disputes or other serious 
disagreements. The "aggrieved" party normally 
seeks young, beautiful, virgin girls to assuage 
their need for revenge and in the process forever 
damaging the reputation of the "guilty" family. 
The custom is also known as swara in the northern 
areas of Pakistan. It is common in three of the 
four Pakistan provinces, including the Northwest 
Frontier, Sindh and Punjab.

In exchange, the accused parties--almost 
exclusively male--escape further punishment.

"The councils play a major role in this, as the 
decisions are taken and implemented by them," 
Shahid tells Women's eNews in an interview. "And 
in most cases, no matter the evidence, the 
panchayat (tribal elders) rule in favor of the 
more influential party."

Standard rates do apply. One girl above the age 
of 7, or two girls younger than 7, is viewed as 
commonly acceptable compensation for murder.

Women given in vinni, say investigators, live 
their lives in perpetual bondage. Denied proper 
food, clothing and medical care, they are 
considered the lowest member in their husband's 
family. Rarely are they allowed any contact with 
their parents once the marriage is consummated.

Brides are sometimes sold off to other members of 
the receiving family or are used merely as unpaid 
servant-mistresses.

"It's an extension of the old feudal tribal 
system which holds 'zar, zamin, zan' (money, 
land, women) as the sources of all conflict, 
which effectively reduces women to property," 
says Lahore-based criminal lawyer Uzma Saeed. 
"Often there is not even an official wedding 
ceremony performed, the woman is just handed over 
like she was a cow or a buffalo."

While Pakistan law, including the constitution, 
protects the inviolable rights of every Pakistan 
citizen, they are rarely enforced especially in 
the rural areas away from the prying eyes of the 
nation's liberals. A 1991 amendment to the 
Pakistan Penal Code, incorporating the Qisas 
(punishment equal to the crime) and Diyat (blood 
money) Ordinance, was widely interpreted by 
tribal elders as official sanction for vinni 
practices.

"We do have a lot of laws protecting women," said 
Saeed, the lawyer. "But it's a symptom of our 
patriarchal society that they remain 
unimplemented with social and customary bias 
overruling the law from tribal elders, to police 
officials, up through the judiciary. The 
customary practices, like vinni, are used to 
perpetuate the status quo, for powerful people, 
landowners, to demonstrate their supremacy; for 
men to dominate women."

Pushing for Change

Shahid, a journalist by trade, entered the Punjab 
Provincial Assembly after nationwide elections 
last October, excited at the prospect of having 
an official say in policymaking decisions.

"To my horror, most of the time women aren't 
really allowed to speak up in debates and not ask 
questions. It's like we are just there to amuse 
the male legislators," she says sadly.

Challenging an engrained social practice certainly was not on the agenda.

But the politically inexperienced Shahid pushed 
forward, presenting a resolution last February 
calling on the federal government to enact 
legislation against vinni, setting a five-year 
imprisonment for any person involved in ordering 
or carrying out a sentence issued by the tribal 
elders. The resolution passed unanimously.

"Truth be told, half of them didn't even know 
what they were voting on," she recalls with a 
laugh. "For weeks after, other members came up to 
ask me what precisely vinni is and, to their 
credit, once I explained, they gave me full 
support."

Over the ensuing three months, Shahid enlisted 
the help of lawyers, human-rights activists and 
politicians to create a draft bill, which wound 
its way through the Punjab Law Department and 
then the Home Department and has now landed with 
the Federal Interior Ministry for approval. Once 
the ministry signs off on the draft, Shahid will 
have to persuade a member of the National 
Assembly to sponsor the bill and press for a 
final vote.

"We are all holding our breath and saying our 
prayers that the law will go forward and be 
passed, because at least if we have good laws, 
even if the implementation is uneven, there'll 
still be good results," says Farzana Mumtaz, a 
researcher at the Aurat Foundation, a 
non-governmental organization with offices across 
Pakistan that highlights the plight of women.

For her willingness to stand up and speak of the 
politically unspeakable, Shahid has earned 
widespread kudos from human-rights organizations 
and women's rights advocacy groups.

"There are a very small number of people willing 
to step up and open their mouths publicly about 
this issue, even though most people condemn the 
practice," Mumtaz says.

"Publicity is paramount," the researcher 
believes. "In the cases that have been 
highlighted by Mrs. Shahid and others, the victim 
may not always have gotten redress, but it's 
likely the villagers would think twice before 
handing out similar judgments in the future and 
that is a step forward."

Parallel with the growing publicity and 
reservations about the practice is an increasing 
public willingness to speak out against it, 
according to Saeed, the lawyer. "There was a time 
when 90 percent of these cases went unreported as 
families feared slow state reaction and 
retribution by the more powerful clans," she 
said, "but the number has now dropped to about 60 
or 65 percent."

Confident her vinni bill will pass, Shahid has 
already begun looking at other inhumane practices 
to tackle during her five-year tenure as a 
provincial legislator. In August, she put forth a 
resolution calling on the federal government to 
amend the Pakistan Penal Code to classify 
throwing acid as attempted murder. The practice 
is widespread and can permanently scar a woman. 
Again, her resolution passed unanimously.

"Eventually my new colleagues may get tired of 
all my pushing and prodding," says Shahid. "These 
issues are just not a priority, when they should 
be, and I'll keep fighting to make them until 
women get the justice they deserve."

Juliette Terzieff is a freelance journalist 
currently based in Pakistan who has worked for 
the San Francisco Chronicle, Newsweek, CNN 
International, and the London Sunday Times.

____

[2]

Issues in Secular Politics, October-II 2003
[22 October  2003]
------
Ayesha and the Scarf

Ram Puniyani

While walking down the pavement a few days after the
25th August (2003) blasts in Mumbai, I got a bit of a
shock when I saw Ayesha covering her head with scarf,
duppata. I have known her from her childhood and her
father happened to be well acquainted to me. She is
the only child of her beard-sporting father. She grew
up as a bright young child in the English medium
school. One could never see any typical Muslim
identity from her dress. So in a way I was taken aback
with her taking duppatta on her head. Since this has been a
comparatively recent phenomenon, one presumes
this way of putting the duppata has been a post
Gujarat carnage effect for her.

While seeing her like that some more incidents flashed
instantly. It was during the Mumbai riots of 92-93
that my doctoral student Salim, who earlier was
indistinguishable from any other student, started
sporting a typical Muslim beard and walked into my
office one of the days telling me that if we have to
die like this why should we not we kill few before
dying. It was a very traumatic experience for me to be
unable to convince my student that violence is no
answer to the ongoing anti Muslim pogrom. It was
during that period only that one of my friend born in
a Christian family, who was an atheist,
told me to my utter surprise that in the aftermath of
the Mumbai riots he has started going to the Church
regularly, essentially searching for his community
association, which may be the only savior in such
situations.

One more incident at personal level is
worth recalling here. One of the activists of
Muslim womenís rights group confessed that their
movement got serious set back in the wake of Mumbai
riots. This movement of Muslim women had primarily
been demanding abolition of triple talaq, end of
polygamy and opposition to burqua. This had started
picking up slowly in mid eighties, had a setback post
Mumbai riots, came up a bit later and again was pushed
back seriously in the wake of Gujarat riots!

Of course, Mumbai riots were a severe jolt to me as
well. But initially it was difficult for me to
comprehend as to why Salim has to grow beard, why he
has to go to the level of insanity in talking the
language of an eye for an eye, knowing fully well that
in this case it is the whole body and not just the eye
which is at stake, knowing fully well that this is not
going to compensate for the lives of coreligionists
who have lost their lives. It gradually dawned upon me
that a life lost in violence sets in chain of
socio-cultural thought process and makes the holes in
the feeling of security of the community and that of
the person.

In the times when Osama bin Laden and Kashmir centered
terrorism is stalking the globe and the country, one
can only feel the heat through the expressions of
communities and people in their lifestyles. Narendra
Modi demonstrated the limit of this when without
naming the local Muslim community he could give a
clear message that Muslims are terrorists and so need
to be given a punishment. How could Mr. Modi give this
message? How could the average common sense accept
that the neighboring Muslim deserves the same
treatment, which should be meted out to the criminal
terrorists? In a way the process of demonisation of
Muslims community, which has been, going on at social
level found its culmination in the Gujarat carnage.
Now when one talks of terrorist it is not even
necessary to use to prefix Muslim, as Terrorist has
become a synonym of Muslims.

One wonders as to what must have been the plight of an
average Sikh during the Khalistani movement. One
wonders what must be the image of an average Tamil in
Srilanka where LTTE has been indulging in the acts of
terror at mega scale. What impact Dhanuís acting as a
live bomb to kill Rajiv Gandhi, must have had on the
image of Srilankan Tamils in India. It is fortunate
that these acts of terror have not crossed the
critical level where the whole community continues to
be branded in that stereotype.

Coming back to Muslims, Islam and Ayesha, one is
struck by the critical levels having been crossed many
times over. Multiple factors have contributed to
stereotypes about Muslims. To begin with the
continuation of Pre Indepencedence communal politics
of Muslims surfaced in the decades of 80s to play the
retrograde role in the Shah Bano case in particular.
The more assertive Hindu communalism kept going up and
up all through again getting its critical mass in the
decade of 80s when it used the Meenakshipuram
conversions of Dalits to Islam, the Shah Bano case,
and the rising Dalit presence in the social space, to
launch the Ram Temple campaign. This campaign took the
anti Muslim propaganda, spread through RSS Shakhas in
a consistent manner from decades, to the higher
levels. And from this time on every incident served to
increase the heat of communalism. The riots, which
accompanied this politics, saw that the number of
victims from Muslim community in proportionately much
much large in numbers. Also it was successfully
propagated that Muslims start the riots and than
Hindus just retaliate. This has no grain of truth in
it whatsoever, but in a polarizing society this
formulation found an easy acceptance. This was further
compounded by the problem of adverse Indo Pak
relations on the issue of Kashmir and alienation of
Kashmiri youth.

The phenomenon of  ìIslamic terrorismî emerges from
three major components. The first and major being the
formation of Israel, the plight of Palestinian
refugees. This is closely associated with the US lust
for control over oil resources, its intervention in
Afghanistan through Jihadi Muslims to evacuate the
Communist occupation, its alliance with the despotic
rulers and curbing of democracy in this region with an
overall view that it is easier to manipulate the
Sheikhs and dictators than the democracies. The
unresolved Indo-Pak relations getting manifested in
the Kashmir imbroglio is another major factor
contributing to the triad of reasons contributing to
ëIslamic terrorismí. One has to slightly introspect as
to what is primary. Terrorism or US imperialist
polices of control over oil resources? What is
primary, Palestinian militants or the Israeli
highhandedness in controlling vast lands or Palestine?
What is primary, the terrorism of Kashmiri militants
or the alienation of Kashmiris? The Gujarat Muslim
revange group or the Gujarat carnage? Here off course
Modi and his ilk wants us to belive that Godhra, an
act of Muslim terrorism in Godhra led to Gujarat, but
off course this popularized version has too many holes
in it to believe that. In nutshell, whether terrorism
is a disease by itself or whether it a manifestation
of the deeper diseases needs to be understood.

The Gujarat carnage has many a lessons to learn from.
Two of these stick out in prominence. When an affluent
and socially prominent Ahsan Jaffery is killed after
being mutilated what message it sends to millions of
less privileged Muslims? When the Muslim womenís being
is violated, what signal it sends to millions of women
of that community? And to top it all who than gives
the shelter to these hapless survivors of the
violation of their democratic rights? As witnessed in
Gujarat, it was the mosque or the Muslim run charity,
which gave shelter to the survivors. What message it
sends for the whole community except increasing the
hold of obscurantist mullahs and orthodox elements in
the community.

My atheist friend born in a Christian family starts
going to Church when he witnesses the violence against
another minority community. My research scholar Salim
grows the beard to show his Muslim identity in the
face the Mumbai riots, can Ayesha be far behind in
succumbing to the pressures of the same elements to
start putting the duppatta on her head? Will Salimís
progeny take to terrorism or will they come to take
the path, which their father had taken before the
92-93 riots in Mumbai? Will Ayesha graduate into a
burqua clad women in due course or will she revert to
the earlier carefree self of pre-pogrom phase is a
question which has no clear answers today. If we can
provide a situation where Ayesha is not intimidated by
the violations outside, then the internal pressures
will get diluted. Its time we struggle against the
deeper disease which gives rise to the symptom of
terrorism rather than letting a particular religious
community be demonized by the vested elements globally
and locally.

_____



[3]

22 Oct 2003 10:20:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: yogi sikand <ysikand at yahoo.com>

Ayodhya's Forgotten Muslim Past

Yoginder Sikand

The Ayodhya controversy continues to drag on, 
with no sign of any solution in sight. Hindutva 
ideologues insist that Ayodhya must be theirs 
alone. Reinventing tradition and myth, they claim 
that Ayodhya has always been Hindu, thus 
promoting it to the status of a Hindu Vatican. 
Yet, as critical historians have pointed out, 
this claim is completely unsubstantiated. In his 
slim yet insightful booklet, 'Communal History 
and Rama's Ayodhya', Professor Ram Sharan Sharma 
writes, 'Ayodhya seems to have emerged as a place 
of religious pilgrimage in medieval times. 
Although chapter 85 of the Vishnu Smriti lists as 
many as fifty-two places of pilgrimage, including 
towns, lakes, rivers, mountains, etc., it does 
not include Ayodhya in this list'.  Sharma also 
notes that Tulsidas, who wrote the Ramcharitmanas 
in 1574 at Ayodhya, does not mention it as a 
place of pilgrimage.

Long before the emergence of the cult of Rama and 
of Ayodhya as a place of pilgrimage in the 
Brahminical tradition, the town is said to have 
been a holy city for the Buddhists. As Buddhism 
was forcefully challenged by Brahminical 
revivalists in early medieval India, many 
Buddhist shrines were taken over and converted 
into Hindu temples. It is thus possible that 
Ayodhya, too, met with the same fate. This 
explains why some Buddhists today are demanding 
that they be treated as an interested party in 
the current dispute.

The Buddhist claim is not unfounded. According to 
Buddhist tradition, Ayodhya, then known as Saket 
or Kosala, was a major city in the kingdom of 
Shuddhodhana, father of the Buddha. The fifth 
century Chinese traveler Fa-hsien visited Ayodhya 
and mentioned a tooth-stick of the Buddha in the 
town that grew to a length of seven cubits, 
which, despite being destroyed by the Brahmins, 
managed to grow again. Two centuries later, 
another Chinese Buddhist traveler Hsuien Tsang 
came to Ayodhya, where he noted some three 
thousand Buddhist monks with only a small number 
of town's other inhabitants adhering to other 
faiths. At this time Ayodhya had some one hundred 
Buddhist monasteries and ten large Buddhist 
temples. The Hindutva argument that Ayodhya has 
always been a Hindu holy city is, as this clearly 
suggests, patently untenable.

In the Hindutva imagination, the relation between 
Muslims and Ayodhya is one characterized by 
continuous large-scale destruction and bloodshed. 
Serious historians have forcefully challenged 
this image, and have pointed to the fact that the 
spread of Islam and the emergence of Muslim 
communities in the area owed principally not to 
violent invaders but, rather, to the peaceful 
missionary work of Sufi saints. Considerably 
before the emergence of Ayodhya as the centre of 
the cult of Rama, it appears that several Sufis 
had settled in the town. With their message of 
love and compassion, based on an ethical 
monotheism, they attracted a large number of 
followers, particularly among the 'low' castes, 
victims of the Brahminical caste system. In other 
words, Ayodhya's association with Islam and 
Muslims dates to a period much before the 
construction of the Babri Masjid in the sixteenth 
century.

As many local Muslims themselves believe, Ayodhya 
is a particularly blessed town. They consider it 
to be the 'Khurd Mecca' or the 'small Mecca' 
because of the large number of Muslim holy 
personages who are believed to be buried therein. 
These include, or so local tradition has it, two 
prophets, Hazrat Sheesh, son of Adam, and Noah, 
or Hazrat Nuh. In addition, there are said to be 
more than eighty Sufi shrines or dargahs in 
Ayodhya. Interestingly, most of these shrines 
attract both Muslim as well as Hindu devotees.

A number of Sufis seem to have made Ayodhya their 
centre for spiritual teaching and instruction 
from as early as the twelfth century. One of the 
first of these was one Qazi Qidwatuddin Awadhi, 
who came to Ayodhya from Central Asia. He is said 
to have been a disciple of Hazrat Usman Haruni, 
the spiritual preceptor of India's most famous 
Sufi saint, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer. 
Another great Muslim mystic of Ayodhya of 
pre-Mughal was Shaikh Jamal Gujjari, of the 
Firdaussiya Sufi silsilah. According to a popular 
local story, the Shaikh would regularly go out of 
his house carrying a large pot of rice on his 
head, as the men of the Gujjar milkmen caste did, 
which he would distribute among the poor and the 
destitute of Ayodhya. This is how he earned the 
title of 'Gujjari'. His spiritual preceptor, Musa 
Ashiqan, who also lies buried in Ayodhya, would 
liken his distributing food among the poor to 
sharing the love of God with all mankind.

Ayodhya also seems to have been home to a number 
of spiritual successors of the renowned 
fourteenth century Sufi of Delhi, Khwaja 
Nizamuddin Auliya. The most important of these 
was the famous Sufi Shaikh Nasiruddin 
Chiragh-i-Dilli, who lies buried in what is today 
New Delhi. Shaikh Nasiruddin was born in Ayodhya, 
where he learnt the Qur'an from one Shaikh 
Shamsuddin Yahya Awadhi. At the age of forty, he 
left Ayodhya for Delhi to live with Khwaja 
Nizamuddin Auliya. Yet, he would often return to 
Ayodhya to visit his relatives and make disciples 
who, in turn, grew into great men of religion. 
These included people such as Shaikh Zainuddin 
Ali Awadhi, Shaikh Fatehullah Awadhi and Allama 
Kamaluddin Awadhi. Other khulafa or spiritual 
deputies of Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya from Ayodhya 
include Shaikh Jamaluddin Awadhi, Qazi Muhiuddin 
Kashani, Maulana Qawamuddin Awadhi and Shaikh 
Alauddin Nilli.

Ayodhya is also home to one of the few shrines of 
female Sufi saints, the dargah of Badi Bua or 
Badi Bibi, said to have been the sister of Sheikh 
Nasiruddin Chiragh-i Dilli. She is said to have 
been particularly beautiful, because of which 
many men offered to marry her. She, however, 
remained unmarried throughout her life, devoting 
herself to serving God and the poor. When she was 
asked why she refused to marry she would answer, 
'I only love God and nothing else'. She is said 
to have been greatly troubled by the local 
mullahs, perhaps because of her refusal to marry. 
One day, so the story goes, the mullahs of the 
town appeared before her, insisting that if she 
were really a pious Muslim she should follow in 
the path of the Prophet Muhammad and marry. To 
this she replied that she indeed did follow in 
the path of the Prophet and offered to get 
married, but laid down the condition that her 
husband must be a truly pious man. The Kotwal, 
chief police officer, of the town, who was 
attracted to her, dispatched a messenger to her 
asking for her hand in marriage. Badi Bua 
declined to speak through a messenger and asked 
the Kotwal to come before her himself. The Kotwal 
willingly complied.

When the Kotwal appeared before her, Badi Bua 
asked him why he wanted to marry her. His reply 
was that he was in love with her eyes.  Without a 
moment's hesitation, so the story goes, she 
plucked out her eyes and gave them to the Kotwal. 
The shocked Kotwal, realizing that Badi Bua was 
no ordinary woman but a true devotee of God, fell 
at her feet and begged her for mercy.

Stories of these and other Sufis of the town are 
today almost completely forgotten, for there are 
now hardly any Muslims left, almost all of 
Ayodhya's Muslim families having fled in the wake 
of the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992. 
However, visible signs of centuries' old Muslim 
presence continue to dot the townóthe crumbling 
minarets of ancient mosques, neglected graveyards 
rapidly slipping under a dense cover of weeds, 
the broken walls of what must have once been 
grand Sufi lodges. Some of these structures came 
down along with the Babri Mosque, vandalised by 
bloodthirsty Hindutva mobs more than a decade 
ago. In the violence that followed even hallowed 
Sufi shrines, such as the dargahs of Shah 
Muhammad Ibrahim, Bijli Shah Shahid, Makhdum Shah 
Fatehullah, Sayyed Shah Muqaddas Quddus-i Ruh and 
the Teen Darvesh, were attacked.

Today, some Sufi shrines still survive in 
Ayodhya, continuing to be visited by local 
devotees in the hope of a miraculous cure to 
their owes or in search of solace. Strikingly, 
and despite the almost total takeover of the town 
by votaries of Hindutva, several of them are 
carefully tended to by local Hindus, particularly 
'low' castesóa silent reminder of a past now 
rapidly being forgotten and one that perhaps can 
never be relived again.

_____


[4]

ALL INDIA DEMOCRATIC WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION
121, Vithalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg, New Delhi- 110001 [India]
tel no. 23710476, 23319566

Press Release				Oct. 22, 2003


The All India Democratic Women's Association 
condemns the trivialisation and 
sensationalisation of the issue of rape at the 
BJP Bhopal election rally addressed by the Prime 
Minister. It is perhaps for the first time in the 
history of our country that a Prime Minister 
gives public sanction to such low political 
standards that damage struggles against sexual 
assault against women and promote public cynicism.
The increasing violence against women is most 
definitely an issue that political parties must 
address but to exhibit a victim of rape to win 
votes as was done at the rally is to mock at the 
efforts of women's organizations to bring 
anti-rape struggles on to the political agenda. 
AIDWA along with other women's organizations has 
always supported rape victims who speak out 
against sexual violence against them and have 
provided public platforms for them in their 
struggles for justice. But the BJP's efforts to 
manipulate the issue and exploit the woman 
concerned for electoral purposes is made clear by 
the fact that they have not lifted a finger to 
help the woman they paraded. Her complaint of 
rape made in 1994 was rejected by the court who 
convicted the criminals for the murder of her 
husband while exonerating them of the charge of 
rape. Since it knew of the case why did not the 
BJP appeal against the court decision and help 
the woman in her struggle for justice all these 
years ?
Women demand a public apology from the BJP .

Brinda Karat
(General Secretary)

______


[5]

Apurna Kranti of Jay Prakash
LITTLE MORE VIBRANCY AND GUJARAT VOLCANO WOULD EXPLODE

Digant Oza

Whether anybody realizes or not, Mody's Gujarat 
is seating on Volcano today. Majority of 
Gujaraties were never with him, not even during 
the legislative assembly polling, but now, they 
are up against his government.

One who observes present scenario of the so 
called Hind Rashtra of Gujarat would realize that 
thirty year old history of Navnirman is being 
repeated both in letter and spirit.

Recently, with lot of funfare the state 
Government, who leaves on overdraft and cutting 
planed expenditure, spent huge amount on 
celebrating Navratri and festival called Vibrant 
Gujarat. The idea was to attract Non-Resident 
Indians(NRI) for investments in the state, it was 
also an effort to make good the economic losses 
to the state due to last year's communal carnage.

The so called "Hindu Hriday Samrat", popularly 
known as "Namo", Chief Minister and his officials 
were bracing for a Mega Event to host their 
expected number, around ten thousand NRI's and 
foreign investor guest, during festival of Garba 
and Raas but the festival finally turned into 
fiasco, with arrival of hardly thousand and odd 
guests including relatives, many came because 
they were attracted by special air-fare 
concessions, the local police officials and their 
family members got vintage seats. At the 
Ahmedabad's Sardar Patel international Airport 
Government officials were garlanding arriving air 
passengers only to know that they were local 
Ahmedabadi's who had gone abroad to see their 
children or relatives.

The list of MOU's and proposed investments is 
dominated by known local Industrialists.Despite 
Congress publicly demanding transparency of 
details the Government is silent. It is a 
different issue that the past history of such 
investors meet has recorded only half or less 
than that of MOU's signed being actually getting 
implemented. Thus, Namo Government's purpose of 
synchronize and celebrate vibrant Gujarat to 
attract foreign capital failed miserably in 
actually vibrating.

However, people of Gujarat have been vibrating 
with anguish, agony and anger against Mody 
Government, ever since Congress and other secular 
parties presented on silver plate power in 
Gandhinagar to Bhartiya Janta Party, thanks to 
their stupid strategical mistakes.

Mody could become Chief Minister once again with 
only 31% of the total Gujarat electorate(5 Crore 
Gujaraties). Thus 69% of total citizens of 
Gujarat were not with BJP  at the time of last 
assembly elections in 2002.

After Legislative Assembly elections 21different 
By-elections have taken place in Gujarat at local 
self Government level. Out of these 21 
By-Elections, .Mody's Hindu party has lost only 
19 and won 2, can you believe?.

And now, the formation of Maha Gujarat Navnirman 
Front without formal support of Sonia Congress, 
people are preparing themselves for a possible 
mass movement against Mody Government which is 
expected to usher-in from 23rd of Nov when a 
rally has been planned.

But the beginning is with the Bhartiya Janta 
Party whose workers attacked its district 
President Mr, Dilip Trivedi in Kutch, Dilip bhai 
had to be hospitalised along with several others 
and Mody's Police was forced to register cases 
against BJP workers. The story is being more or 
less repeated in different districts of Gujarat 
because of the groupism within the ruling party. 
Chief minister wants to have his say in every 
singular selection and it is being resisted by 
rank and file within the party. Keshubahi 
Patel's, former Chief Minister, silence is more 
dangerous than his eloquence. So is union Rural 
Development Minister Kashiram Rana.

A decade after the Nav Nirman movement, Senior 
Journalist Tushar Bhatt did a story for SUNDAY 
magazine on a decade after the agitation. He 
interviewed a lot of people, including late 
Chimanbhai Patel, who had been toppled by the 
agitation to find out what lessons had been 
learnt from the traumatic experience.

The text of that article is not handy today but 
Tushar still remember a revealing half-answer 
Chimanbhai gave. He said he had learnt that a 
ministry could not afford to have all members 
doing talking and loud thinking. It needed some 
members who put in solid file work in key areas 
of development and law order. He implied that his 
Ministry in 1973 did not have enough 
hard-working, administratively capable Ministers. 
The unanswered part of this was that a ministry 
cannot survive if it did not have efficient men 
of public stature which he did not have. The same 
story can be repeated for the present Mody 
Government.

Some of the observers surmise at that time, as 
also now, is that the agitation did more harm to 
Gujarat than good. First of all, it was an 
anti-politics agitation and a democracy cannot 
function without political parties. There were 
complaints against individual politicians but the 
grievance was blown up into a general contempt 
for political system. It led to alienation of 
youth from the political mainstream and political 
parties did not get ever thereafter enough bright 
and capable young workers who could replace the 
old guard. The alienation has not ended even 
today. Consequently there is a dearth of young 
blood in both the BJP and the Congress as also in 
public life. Every young man of potential started 
saying politics is the last resort of the 
scoundrels and kept away from it. Nav Nirman was 
a nihilist movement which branded all political 
parties bad. Election-based democracy can not 
thrive on such a premise of destructiveness. 
However, Nav Nirman did change a duly elected 
Govrnment, it was thrown out through violent 
street action which atleast Mody would remember, 
because he and his party were part of street 
action called " NAVNIRMAN".

Unfortunately for BJP and Narendra Mody, and 
fortunately for the state of Gujarat, Navnirman 
history appears to be repeating itself after 
three decades, different sections of society are 
joining the agitation for their own demand and 
reasons, and repression by NAMO's police is 
helping the agitators to solidify themselves.

Various sections of people feel bereft of a human 
regime, while expressing their ire on different 
issues through marches and demonstrations. For 
the first time in history, perhaps, entire 
minority community recently observed a total 
Bandh in Ahmedabad, without any formal call by 
any organization or individual, against arbitrary 
arrests of not just alleged terrorist accomplices 
but also some prestigious Muslim businessmen 
under POTA by the police, creating a reign of 
terror among this community.

Much more angry with the Mody administration here 
is the mass of farmers, who are waging a 
long-drawn agitation against heavy mark-up of 
electricity charges. They are worked up because 
of a violent police attempt to suppress this 
agitation recently at Vadodara. One farmer died 
after police beating. They are at present 
marching in thousands on foot from South Gujarat 
town of Dandi to reach Sabarmati Ashram by Oct. 
2, reminiscent of Mahatma Gandhi's march in the 
30's on the same route.

Look at the students of universities. They are 
talking aloud to resume their old 'Navnirman' 
movement to oust the Mody regime, as they did in 
1974 kicking out the then chief minister Chiman 
Patel. Students at the Gujarat University are 
burning the effigies of their Vice-chancellor 
demanding reduction in increased fees. Professors 
and teachers of various colleges of the same 
university are out on the streets against the 
education department's "callous attitude" in not 
implementing their earlier assurance on demands 
Teachers and students have actually joined hands 
against the government shouting such slogans as 
"We reject work-to-rule only for the teachers, 
but why is there no rule for Mody government?"

All the fire directed against Mody hardly makes 
any difference to him. But their time seems to be 
running out, looking at a crushing defeat at the 
hands of the Congress in the last week's 
by-elections of Municipal and Panchayat bodies, 
winning only two seats. Their way of governance 
is because of anger and disappointment within the 
Legislative Wing of Bhartiya Janta Party, many of 
them are opposing the extra tight security. The 
Governance which  many critics here call 
neo-fascist perpetrating a wide divide between 
Hindus and Muslims engineered by them since the 
bloody days of carnage in 2002. This is despite 
the caustic remarks passed recently by the 
Supreme Court asking Mody to quit if he couldn't 
facilitate justice to the victims of carnage. 
Mody has chosen to remain silent on this. If it 
was in his power, he would have lambasted the 
chief justice also as a 'hypocrite secularist.'

Leave alone a secular, but so far as the 
Gujarat's dire need for a humane and democratic 
governance is concerned, two issues draw much 
criticism here: state government's failure to 
form a women's commission and equally its refusal 
to form a human rights commission, proposal for 
which is pending since BJP came to power five 
years back.

Even a deaf and dumb would realize how much a 
women's commission was needed in the state 
looking at the report of atrocities on women. 
There were 262 rapes,697 kidnapping, 269 murders, 
35 deaths on account of dowry and to cap it all - 
some 1,799 suicides by women in 2001!

It was declared by the government that the 'newly 
to be formed' women's commission would work under 
social justice department. Later they formed a 
separate office of women and children's welfare 
but no chairman or members of the commission were 
appointed. The government even issued an 
ordinance for such a formation but it never was 
followed up by actual formation of commission!! 
Only woman minister in Mody Cabinet, education 
minister Anandibahen Patel, later told the media 
that "our government was new and many other 
appointments were yet to be filled up in public 
sector institutions also.

State government was reminded by various women's 
organizations two years back that Rajasthan, 
Madhya Pradesh, Tamilnadu and such other states 
had already formed their own commissions but why 
not in Gujarat?

Most shocking fact happening in the state was an 
increase in child-marriages. There were 17 such 
marriages registered in police record of 1998, 
but it became 26 in 1999. Cases of mental 
tortures on women registered were 2989 in 1998, 
which rose to 3365 in 1999.

Another even more shocking is the incidence of 
fetus death has brought Gujarat as number two all 
over the country in decreased number of girl 
child per a thousand births- 878 girls for 1000 
boys! Clearly, the age old practice of killing 
girls before they are born or even after they are 
born in a few cases is still prevalent here, with 
slogans of 'new bright Hindutva' dominating the 
socio-cultural landscape.

So far as the formation of human rights 
commission is concerned, the state government has 
simply stayed any action on this score. Some 
officials say in hush-hush tones that the chief 
minister is not able to find out a pliable 
chairman for the same and that is the reason, 
while some other sources assert that the ruling 
BJP is afraid of being trapped once they form 
such a commission, which could be flooded with 
complaints from various sections of society- from 
Dalit victims of atrocities to members of 
minority community who have been continuously 
making noise against human right violations by 
the ruling party and its police.

Incidentally, those who celebrated Navratri 
perhaps do not remember that Dussehra also marks 
the end of Pandava's exile in the Mahabharata and 
the return to reclaim their Kingdom. Little 
wonder, Dusshera is celebrated in different ways 
in different regions of the country, albeit with 
a common theme- triumph of good over evil. 
Gujarat may not proof any exceptions in this rule 
and would soon see good over evil.  Ends.


______


[6]

Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 23:02:50 +0530
X-Priority: 3

Dear Friend

It's been about a year and a half since 
the terrible communal carnage (preceded by 
the Godhra train-burning incident) in Gujarat. 
But, there has been little succour for the 
thousands of traumatised victims who survived the 
violence with nothing but their lives.

The State Government headed by Narendra Modi has 
continued to rub salt into their wounds by making 
a mockery of the relief and compensation offered 
to them. L.K.Advani wants us to treat the planned 
genocide aided by his party  like 
an "aberration", effectively forget about it 
and "move on". The corporate sector wants a 
vibrant Gujarat whose promised prosperity will 
bring peace and help people forget about the 
"tragedy".

All of us want peace and harmony in Gujarat. But, 
as history has demonstrated repeatedly, there can 
be no peace without justice. And for that, the 
judiciary has to perform its duty in a fair and 
effective way, so that the inevitable cycle of 
violence is arrested.  But, since Modi's partisan 
government has been unwilling to deliver justice 
- even allowing its active obstruction by party 
members - pressure has to be brought upon it from 
other democratic institutions like the media, 
human rights groups and last but not the least 
by the pressure of public opinion.

This is where our voice counts. This is how we 
can make a difference today. An active public 
opinion can compel the government to ensure that 
the trials are conducted in a fair and unbiased 
manner. With the intervention of the NHRC, it is 
reassuring to see that the Supreme Court has 
forcefully interevened to get Best Bakery case 
retried.  There have also been other positive 
developments - such as the relatives of the 
Godhra victims appealing to have their cases 
tried outside Gujarat, and calling for a ban 
on on yatras.

Today, more than ever, it is essential that we do 
not forget about what happened there. Today it is 
imperative that concerned people like us keep 
ourselves involved in the struggle for justice... 
To begin with, by being aware of what the 
situation there is. We must never forget. "Those 
who forget history are condemned to repeat it."

Insaaniyat has organised a public meeting to 
appraise all of us about the struggle for justice 
in Gujarat. And to discuss it's implications for 
the broader struggle for democracy and human 
rights in this country.


THE BATTLE FOR JUSTICE IN GUJARAT

Speakers:

Mihir Desai (lawyer and human rights activist) 
who is representing Zahira Sheikh in the Best 
Bakery Case will report on the situation in this 
case, and also give an update on the other cases 
concerning the Gujarat-genocide that are coming 
up before the Supreme Court.

Veena Gowda (advocate with Majlis, Mumbai) who is 
representing the victims at the Shah-Nanavati 
Commision of inquiry, will provide an update on 
the Commission hearings.

M.H.Jowher (Convenor of the Society for the 
Promotion of Rational Thinking, Ahmedabad) who 
has been working towards providing relief and 
rehabilitation to all the victims, and who's 
organisation has initiated a series of programmes 
for reconciliation and rebuilding harmony in 
Gujarat, will give an on-the-ground report on the 
situation in Gujarati society today.

Venue: Bombay Union of Journalists (BUJ) office, 
2nd floor, Prospect Chambers Annexe, D.N.Road, 
(at the corner of D.N.Road and P.M.Road), near 
Flora Fountain, Fort, Mumbai-400001

Time and Date: 5.30 PM, Friday, 31st October 2003


We hope that you will be there. Please also do 
inform your friends and colleagues.

From Insaaniyat, Mumbai.


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

Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on 
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