SACW | 26 Oct. 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WIRE   |  26 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] Bangladesh becomes land of plenty, for those 
who can afford it (Phil Reeves)
[2] Facts on Ummah (Farrukh Saleem)
[3] India Pakistan Arms Race and Militarisation Watch Compilation # 142
[4] India [ Documentary Films]: Ayodhya, a 
picture of diversity  (T.K. Rajalakshmi)
[5] India: Many Diwalis (Editorial, The Times of India)
[6] India: Gandhi: An apostle of violence?  (C. Rammanohar Reddy)
[7] Music & Poetry Dedicated To Indo-Pak Amity
[8] Enemies of peace (editorial, The Hindustan Times)
[9]  'Jang Parivar' and its daily dose of venom at work in India:
-BJP, VHP 'witchhunt' against a Muslim Marrying a Hindu in Dehra Dun
- Docu-maker faces VHP's wrath
- Shiv Sena bitterly opposes India Pakistan Cricketing Ties

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

[1]

The Independent, 25 October 2003

Bangladesh becomes land of plenty, for those who can afford it

By Phil Reeves in Dhaka

25 October 2003

Chandan Bhambani says he has noticed something 
about the people of Bangladesh. They are either 
very rich or very poor, with little in between.

You have only to wander the streets of Dhaka to 
see plenty of the latter. These are the "floating 
people", the rubbish-pickers, the hideously 
disfigured beggars, the pavement-dwellers who 
migrated to the capital for work or shelter.

But Mr Bhambani is - on this particular day - 
interested in the former. He wants the city's 
well-off to come to his new store. And, to his 
evident satisfaction, they are turning up.

Handsome, haughty-looking Bengali women sail in 
through the entrance like galleons in search of 
treasure. This was the first day of business at 
Shoppers' World, where Mr Bhambani - who's Indian 
- is director.

The newspaper advertisement announcing the 
opening outlined the spirit of the occasion. 
"It's not the need. It's not the necessity. It's 
not the obligation. Just listen to your heart, 
cut yourself loose and enjoy."

This call to pleasure is one that Dhaka's rich 
minority is answering with increasing 
ostentation. Bangladesh has always been the 
global brand name for poverty, an image 
periodically reinforced by cyclones and floods. 
Yet it does not always seem so.

Four-wheel-drives clog the city's up-market 
streets, jostling for road space with 350,000 
cycle rickshaws (the largest number of any 
metropolis anywhere). New showrooms display 
models by BMWs Mercedes Benz and Toyota.

Had the visiting England cricketers decided to 
eat out, they could have chosen between a clutch 
of new restaurants offering lobster, tiger prawns 
and red snapper, pigeon and quail. On the 
capital's equivalent of Manhattan's Fifth Avenue 
- Gulshan Avenue - another mall is rising upwards 
opposite Shoppers' World. Next to that stands the 
giant half-built frame of Uday Tower, which will 
be an "exclusive" office complex with swimming 
pool and health club.

Not far away, building has begun on a 22-storey 
five-star hotel. And so it goes on. Dozens of 
luxury apartment complexes, "new model towns", 
glass-fronted high-rise office blocks and malls 
are going up in a flurry of speculative 
development.

So what is going on? Part of this construction 
boom is undoubtedly about money laundering - 
although there is no suggestion that this applies 
to Shoppers' World.

For the third consecutive year, Bangladesh has 
been declared the world's most corrupt nation by 
the monitoring group Transparency International. 
This is a place where civil service jobs are 
bought and sold, where tax problems are easily 
resolved by a bribe, and where the police extort 
money on the streets.

Stories abound in Dhaka of the latest hair-raising examples of venality.

There's the man, for instance, who was forced to 
wait 35 years for a phone line because the 
company demanded a bribe that he refused to pay. 
There are the hospital workers who extracted cash 
from patients before letting them use the 
trolley-stretchers. And the teachers who, too 
lazy to go to work, hired unqualified substitutes 
in their place.

But there is more to this phenomenon. For once 
Bangladesh is enjoying an upturn in its fortunes. 
It is experiencing significant growth, not least 
because of a flourishing ready-to-wear garment 
industry and higher remittances from its army of 
manual labourers in the Gulf. (The 600,000-strong 
diaspora in Britain are, intriguingly, sending 
back less).

The country's 130 million citizens are still 
overwhelmingly poor. Per capita income is just 
$370 (£217), and children die daily due to lack 
of sanitation. But analysts are hopeful.

They cite poverty levels that have been dropping 
to 1 per cent a year and a population growth rate 
now down to 1.6 per cent. They detect the 
emergence of a small middle class.

The Asia Development Bank expects growth of 5.2 
to 5.8 per cent next year, a performance that 
many developing countries would covet. But it is 
a process that raises fundamental questions. 
Dhaka's dismal infrastructure is highly unlikely 
to keep pace. Built for less than 1 million, it 
is already overwhelmed by the demands of the 12 
million-strong population.

Clean water and housing are non-existent for many 
and the roads are crumbling. How will it be by 
2025, when - caught up in Asia's rush to urbanise 
- the capital is expected to number 23 million, 
making it one of the world's four largest cities?

And what will happen to them in an earthquake? 
The Housing Minister has admitted that Dhaka is 
in the grips of "unplanned, uncontrolled growth" 
and that no one follows the building code.

How far will the money being spent in the malls 
and gourmet restaurants trickle down to the 
masses?

Will the growing display of consumer riches 
deepen the gap between the haves and the 
have-nots, hardening the strands of anti-Western 
Islamist sentiment in this generally moderate 
Muslim society?

The visitors to Shoppers' World may be able to afford the gorgeous saris.

But the rich of Bangladesh "cut loose and enjoy" at their peril.


_____


[2]

The News International, October 26, 2003

Facts on Ummah
Dr Farrukh Saleem

The Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) has 
fifty-six member states plus Palestine. Ten other 
entities holding 'Observer' status are: Thailand, 
Turkish Muslim Community of KIBRIS, Moro National 
Liberation Front, Organisation of African Unity 
(OAU), League of Arab States (LAS), Bosnia and 
Herzegovina, Central African Republic, 
None-Aligned Movement (NAM), Economic Cooperation 
Organisation (ECO) and the United Nations (UN).

Out of the fifty-six, Syria, Iran, Libya, 
Pakistan, Iraq, Tunisia, Algeria, Somalia, 
Maldives, Burkina-Faso, Uganda, Sudan, Gambia, 
Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Cote d'Ivoire, Gabon, 
Mauritius, Lebanon, Guinea, Turkmenistan and 
Kazakhstan are categorised as 'Authoritarian 
Regimes'. That is a total of twenty-two or 40 
percent of the OIC (Afghanistan has long been 
classified as a 'Totalitarian Regime').

Nearly 15 percent of OIC member states are 
'Traditional Monarchies'. They are: Saudi Arabia, 
Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE, Brunei, Oman, Qatar and 
Morocco. To be certain, some nine OIC members do 
pass as 'Restricted Democratic Practices'. They 
are: Malaysia, Jordan, Egypt, Cameroon, Senegal, 
Comoros, Yemen, Chad and Tajikistan.

To be certain, the following OIC members are 
'Democratic'. They are: Indonesia, Turkey, 
Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, 
Mozambique, Mali, Kyrgyz, Togo, Benin, Guyana, 
Djibouti, Albania and Suriname (any member state 
that fulfils just three objectively analysed 
criteria qualifies as a 'Democracy'. The 
qualifiers are: multi-candidate, multi-party, 
competitive elections).

Conclusion: At least 70 percent of OIC members 
are Authoritarian Regimes, Totalitarian Regimes 
or Restricted Democratic Practices.

Next, we look at the issue of 'Freedom of 
Citizens' of OIC member states. Allow me to first 
introduce Freedom House (FH). FH is a 
non-partisan, non-profit, broad-based, 
democracy-related research think-tank. FH has 
offices in Warsaw, Kiev, Belgrade, Bucharest, 
Budapest, Washington and New York. FH's official 
mission statement is to "conduct an array of 
research, advocacy, education, and training 
initiatives that promote human rights, democracy, 
the rule of law and independent media."

At the heart of individual freedom lie political 
rights and civil liberties. Freedom House's first 
year-end reviews of Freedom in the World came out 
in the 1950s as the 'Balance Sheet of Freedom'. 
Freedom surveys haven't stopped since. The 
methodology of these surveys is based on the 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights with little 
or no culture-bound view of freedom.

The 'Political Rights Checklist' has three 
critical questions: (1) Is the head of state 
and/or head of government or other or other chief 
authority elected through free and fair 
elections? (2) Are the legislative 
representatives elected through free and fair 
elections? (3) Are there fair electoral laws, 
equal campaigning opportunities, fair polling, 
and honest tabulation of ballots?

Then there is a 'Civil Liberties Checklist', a 
'Freedom of Expression Checklist', a 'Rule of Law 
Checklist' and a 'Checklist on Personal Autonomy 
and Individual Rights'. Freedom House then 
assigns each country a political rights and a 
civil liberties rating along with a corresponding 
status designation of 'Free, Partly Free, or Not 
Free'. To be sure, Freedom House "does not rate 
governments or government performance per se, but 
rather the real-world rights and freedoms enjoyed 
by individuals as the result of actions by both 
state and nongovernmental actors".

Of the fifty-six, at least thirty OIC member 
states were classified as being 'Not Free'; 53 
percent of the total membership. The 'Not Free' 
countries are: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, 
Egypt, UAE, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Bahrain, Qatar, 
Oman, Afghanistan, Tunisia, Sudan, Gambia, 
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Algeria, 
Maldives, Mauritius, Somalia, Lebanon, Guinea, 
Kyrgyz, Tajikistan, Chad, Yemen and Cameroon.

Bangladesh, Indonesia, Turkey, Malaysia, Morocco, 
Kuwait, Jordan, Burkina Faso, Uganda, Azerbaijan, 
Cote d'Ivoire, Gabon, Sierra Leone, 
Guinea-Bissau, Comoros, Senegal, Niger, 
Mozambique, Nigeria and Togo are 'Partially 
Free'. Only four OIC members were classified as 
'Free'. They are: Mali, Benin, Guyana and 
Suriname.

Conclusion: At least 93 percent of OIC members 
are either 'Not Free' or 'Partially Free'.

Here are some other rather depressing facts: OIC 
has in it more than 1.3 billion people, one-fifth 
of humanity. Within the OIC are Saudi Arabia, 
Iraq, Iran, UAE and Kuwait that among them 
possess 700 billion barrels of proven oil 
reserves. All the 1.3 billion put together have 
an annual GDP of less than $1.5 trillion. There 
are only 290 million Americans and their annual 
GDP is $10.4 trillion. France is at $1.54 
trillion, Germany $2 trillion, UK $1.52 trillion 
and Italy, long the sick man of Europe, $1.4 
trillion.

Kuwait, UAE and Brunei are the only OIC members 
where per capita income exceeds $10,000 a year. 
At least fifty OIC members have per capita 
incomes of under $5,000 a year. Forty-five OIC 
members have per capita incomes of under $1,000 a 
year.

Of the 1.3 billion OIC Muslims more than 800 
million continue to be absolutely illiterate. Of 
the 290 million Americans 227 are Nobel Laureates 
(India has 4).

Of the 1.3 billion Muslims less than 300,000 
qualify as 'scientists'. That converts to a ratio 
of 230 scientists per one million Muslims. The 
United States of America has 1.1 million 
scientists; Japan has 700,000.

Among them, fifty-six OIC countries have an 
average of ten universities each for a total of 
less than 600 universities for 1.3 billion 
people. India has 8,407 universities, the US has 
5,758.

The planet's poorest countries include Ethiopia, 
Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Somalia, 
Nigeria, Pakistan and Mozambique. At least six of 
the poorest of the poor are OIC members. The 
largest buyers of conventional weapons are 
Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, S Korea, China, 
India, Greece, Egypt, Japan, UAE, Israel, 
Finland, Pakistan, Kuwait and Singapore. Of the 
fifteen top buyers of conventional weapons six 
are OIC members. The US, Russia, France, UK, 
Germany, Netherlands, Ukraine, Italy, China, 
Belarus, Spain, Israel, Canada, Australia and 
Sweden are the largest suppliers of weapons. Not 
one is part of OIC.

Is the Ummah listening? We are trapped in a 
vicious cycle of illiteracy, poverty and 
violence. We continue to blame non-Muslims for 
all our failures. Salman Rushdie is convinced 
that America's 'war on terrorism' is all about 
Islam. Rushdie says what we have is a "paranoid 
Islam, which blames outsiders, 'infidels' for all 
the ills of Muslim societies, and whose proposed 
remedy is the closing of those societies to the 
rival project of modernity.... this is presently 
the fastest growing version of Islam in the 
world." Rushdie goes to add that "if Islam is to 
be reconciled with modernity ... the restoration 
of religion to the sphere of the personal, its 
depoliticisation, is the nettle that all Muslim 
societies must grasp in order to become modern. 
The only aspect of modernity interesting to the 
terrorists is technology, which they see as a 
weapon that can be turned on its makers. If 
terrorism is to be defeated, the world of Islam 
must take on board the secularist-humanist 
principles on which the modern is based, and 
without which Muslim countries' freedom will 
remain a distant dream."

____


[3]

India Pakistan Arms Race and Militarisation Watch Compilation # 142
(October 26,  2003)
URL: <>groups.yahoo.com/group/IPARMW/message/153


____


[4]

Frontline, October 25 - November, 07, 2003

CINEMA
Ayodhya, a picture of diversity

T.K. RAJALAKSHMI

Two documentaries made by Vidya Bhushan Rawat 
lead the viewer to a surprising tranquillity 
within Ayodhya, which has a rich diversity of 
religious denominations and a long history of 
their peaceful coexistence. 

AYODHYA is more or less synonysmous with strife 
and an unresolved issue in the context of the 
events of December 1992, when kar sevaks brought 
down the Babri Masjid. However, what is striking 
is that despite all these years of communal 
polarisation, particularly around Ram 
Janmabhoomi, there seems to be a strange 
tranquillity within the town and among its 
people, exemplified in the rich diversity of 
religions and history of their harmonious 
coexistence over centuries.

The place by itself evokes no hostility - if 
anything, there is remorse among those who may 
have partaken in bringing down the Babri Masjid - 
and the people are emphatic that the problem is 
not religion, but a specific brand of politics. 
In fact, why should religion be a problem for the 
people of Ayodhya, asks Vidya Bhushan Rawat, an 
independent film-maker and social activist, who 
has recently completed two documentary films on 
the rich variety of religious denominations that 
exist there.

What is left unsaid is an uncomfortable fact and 
this is what Rawat does very revealingly. Through 
the lens of his camera, he digs out that which is 
invisible to the public; he shows that people are 
fed up with the continuous sense of tension in 
the town each time the Vishwa Hindu Parishad 
(VHP) decides to launch a nationwide campaign on 
the issue of constructing a Ram temple or each 
time the Bharatiya Janata Party decides to make 
the temple an issue.

The two documentaries, which have less in terms 
of narrative and more in terms of content and 
information, were completed recently, after over 
one and a half years of research. Titled Ayodhya 
Se Maghar Tak: Ayodhya Ki Sanskritik Viraasat 
(From Ayodhya till Maghar: Ayodhya's Cultural 
Heritage) and Viraasat Ki Jung (The Struggle to 
Define a Legitimate Heritage), the films detail 
the innumerable Sufi shrines, which, unknown to 
many, have coexisted for centuries with Buddhist, 
Sikh and Jain shrines. It is not a treatise on 
the religiosity of the place but more an 
exposition on the history of coexistence among 
the people of Ayodhya. The problem, as Usha 
Gupta, one of the persons interviewed, says, "has 
come from outside", referring to political 
interference.

The Sufi shrines are well maintained by the 
people and are visited by persons belonging to 
all communities, including many people from the 
majority community. Ayodhya is also called "Khurd 
Mecca" or the "Small Mecca" because of the 
presence of several tombs or dargahs of Sufi 
saints.

Dargah Naugazi, an impressive grave 18 yards 
(16.2 metres) long, named after a pir (saint) 
called Nuh Aleihi Salaam, is located in a narrow 
lane. Interestingly, Nuh is believed to be Noah 
and the grave the famous Ark. Another 
interpretation is that the mound perhaps was 
built over the remains of the Ark. The shrine, 
visited by scores of devotees, has no independent 
custodian. Ram Milan, a devotee who makes an 
offering every day, says that for him the dargah 
is no less than a temple. He experiences a lot of 
mental peace when he visits the dargah. Ram 
Milan, like most of Ayodhya's residents, is not 
interested in the background of the pir. And like 
the rest, he is not the kind who would willingly 
desecrate a place of worship.

The films are not about the beliefs of people. 
However, they reiterate that intolerance among 
the people is not a natural trait but the outcome 
of a consciously cultivated process. For 
instance, the Dargah of Sayyed Mohammad Ibrahim, 
named after a 17th century figure, was fiercely 
protected by the local people, including several 
Hindus, when its dome was attacked in December 
1992. Sayyed Mohammad Ibrahim is believed to have 
been born during the reign of the Mughal emperor 
Shah Jehan and ruled a small principality. 
Influenced by Sufi teachings, he renounced his 
worldly pursuits. According to local legend, he 
arrived in a boat, pictures of which are depicted 
on his shrine. A large number of Hindu halwais, 
or confectioners, from the Hanumangarhi area 
visit the shrine every Tuesday and makes 
offerings and distribute prasad.

The Teen Darvesh dargah, whose dome was also 
targeted by bigots in December 1992 after the 
demolition of the Babri Masjid, is near Naugazi. 
No one knows the identity of the three saints 
buried there but it has a large following coming 
from all communities.

The most notable after Naugazi is the dargah of 
Sheesh Paigambar. Considered one of the holiest 
shrines in the town, some people believe the 
saint to be the son of Adam. There is a spot 
called the Ganesh Kund, on the southern side of 
the grave, where devotees take a dip. There 
appears to be no contradiction of faiths here.

In fact, there are several features that are seen 
as protests against religious orthodoxies 
including patriarchy. For instance, the dargah of 
Badi Bua located at a railway crossing between 
Ayodhya and Faizabad, is one of the few dargahs 
of women in the area. Badi Bua was the sister of 
Hazrat Khwaja Nasiruddin Chiragh Dehli, the 
spiritual successor of the Hazrat Khwaja 
Nizammudin Auliya, the Chisti Sufi of Delhi. 
Legend has it that she was a strikingly beautiful 
woman, who chose to serve God by serving the 
poor. She faced a lot of opposition from the 
clergy, to which she is supposed to have declared 
famously: Na Aalim Rahega, Na Zalim (There shall 
be no place for either the cleric or the 
oppressor). Badi Bua's shrine is revered by one 
and all.

THE film-maker has tried to bring out the 
contrasts in the prevalent ethos of Ayodhya. In 
Viraasat Ki Jung, while in one scene people are 
shown praying at the Ram Ghat in the calm waters 
of the Sarayu at the break of dawn, there is 
another, of the Trishul Deeksha ceremony of 
Pravin Togadia held in Delhi.

Maghar, where the poet-saint Kabir is said to 
have spent his last days, is 150 km from Ayodhya. 
It is said that the Brahmins of Ayodhya persuaded 
Kabir to turn to Kashi, where he could attain 
moksha. Instead, he went to Maghar, which, it was 
believed, would turn a person into a donkey in 
the afterlife. Kabir died at Maghar and there is 
a structure dedicated to him on which his 
teachings are engraved.

The people of Ayodhya can never forget December 
1992. "The Masjid was broken, there is no doubt 
about that. It will be a matter of pride for the 
entire world if the locals rebuild it jointly. 
Aaye di ke bawaal se log pareshaan ho gaye hain, 
rozi roti ka sawaal bana hua hai (People are fed 
up with the vitiated atmosphere, they are more 
concerned with issues of livelihood). The 
business class and the working class can no 
longer tolerate the tense atmosphere in the 
district," says a local resident in Viraasat Ki 
Jung. He says that the local people will oppose 
any organisation seeking to inflame passions 
around the mosque and temple. At the Anees and 
Chakbast Library in Faizabad district, there are 
some people who actually express remorse at what 
had happened. Says one: "The Babri Masjid should 
not have been brought down. But it happened." 
Then he clarifies that he had gone for the 
parikrama but not for the demolition. Evidently, 
there is a feeling among the people there that 
what happened was grossly wrong.

The sense of compositeness is exemplified in Raj 
Rani's statement. A Dalit woman, she lives near 
the Dargah Shaikh Shamsuddin Fariyad Ras, which 
is located in a prominent Hindu locality. She 
says that the dargah is as important to her as 
Ram and that the Baba has never failed her in 
times of distress. Similarly, the 700-year-old 
Dargah Bijli Shaheed is revered by the Dalit 
family that lives in front of it. An upper-caste 
family maintains the dargah of Makhdoom Shah 
Fateullah. Rajpal Singh, a member of the family, 
does not associate the dargah with any religion. 
He says that people visit it to cure themselves 
of ailments.

In Akbarpur district, formerly part of Faizabad 
district, is the dargah of Kachhauchcha Sharif, 
deemed to be the resting place of the famous Sufi 
Sayyed Ashraf Jahangir Samnani. Born in 1307 in 
Samnan province of Iran, he was motivated to 
travel to India by a Sufi seer. Travelling 
through Samarkand and Bukhara, he went to Bengal 
and Jaunpur, where he set up a Sufi centre. 
Samnani visited Ayodhya and breathed his last in 
Kachhauchcha Sharif. This place attracts people 
from all denominations. It is said that more 
Hindus than Muslims visit the shrine.

Similarly, the two famous Jain temples in Ayodhya 
and the Gurudwara Brahmakund Sahib - where three 
prominent Sikh gurus, including the founder of 
the Sikh religion, Guru Nanak, are known to have 
preached - are symbolic of the peaceful 
coexistence of various communities over the 
centuries.

There is also a strong Buddhist influence in the 
Awadh region. Ayodhya was said to be the second 
most important pilgrimage site after Shravasti, 
the capital of Koshal. Sacred Buddhist sites such 
as Kushinagar, Sarnath and Shravasti were once 
part of the Awadh province.

"Celebrate Ayodhya's cultural heritage - do not 
destroy it" is the message of both the 
documentaries. Ayodhya is much more than the 
birthplace of Ram, and the people of Ayodhya 
believe in this.

There is some local history attached to these 
shrines and it appears that the grip of orthodoxy 
has weakened considerably over the years as 
people have experimented with other faiths. The 
area has a history of rejecting orthodoxies, a 
practice that continues as people flock to the 
Sufi shrines.

There are about 80 important dargahs in Ayodhya 
town itself with several others spread over 
Faizabad district. Rawat says that Ayodhya was 
known as Shahar-e-Auliya or the city of Sufis. It 
is also the land of Mangal Pandey, who led the 
Meerut rebellion in 1857 and the famous vocalist 
Begum Akhtar; it is also the place where freedom 
fighter Ashfaqullah Khan was hanged (the hanging 
took place at the Faizabad Jail). It was in fact 
this heterogeneity that was attacked in December 
1992.

Ayodhya's heritage is multi-cultural and 
multi-religious, and this has to be recognised 
and preserved. It is here that both the 
documentaries successfully show that the dominant 
forms of showcasing places and people's opinions 
may not reveal everything and that there is a lot 
that is unsaid, unheard and unseen.

____

[5]

The Times of India, October 25, 2003 |  EDITORIAL

Many Diwalis

In her justly famous 'Many Ramayanas', Paula 
Richman, a world-renowned scholar of South Indian 
religious history, describes the numerous 
'living' traditions of the epic that are still 
extant in India and other parts of the world.

While Valmiki's Ramayana and, to a lesser degree, 
Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas, have acquired a 
certain cultural pre-eminence in the last half a 
century, particularly in the north of the 
country, there are many versions of Ramayana 
which vary quite substantially from the two: From 
Kamban's Tamil 'Iramavataram' to the Thai 
'Ramkien'.

Then there are the oral traditions, in one of 
which  delightfully documented by one of India's 
foremost cultural critics, the late A K Ramanujam 
Rama, upon his exile, tries to dissuade Sita from 
accompanying him to the forest. Sita pleads with 
Rama to change his mind. When Rama refuses to 
relent, she says: 'Hey Rama' there are hundreds 
of variations on your exile story. But have you 
heard of even one in which I don't accompany you? 
Rama has no answer to this and is forced to take 
Sita with him into the forest.

This narrative diversity of Ramayana, regarded as 
one of the ur-texts of Indian civilisation, is of 
course anenduring metaphor for a plurality that 
lies at the heart of our cultural, religious and 
philosophical ethos. Take the varying myths that 
sustain the festival of lights in different parts 
of India.

While in the dominant northern version, Diwali 
marks the return of Rama to his native Ayodhya, 
following his victory over demon king Ravana, in 
many southern versions, it commemorates Krishna's 
slaying of the demon Narakasura. While there is a 
certain unity in these themes as they join in the 
triumph of that which is good and dharmic over 
that which is  not so much evil  as unjust and 
adharmic, there is also difference.

The idealised masculinity of Maryada Purushottam 
Rama, with its stress on a strict moral and 
righteous conduct, stands in striking contrast to 
the playful, liminal and often amoral lila of 
child-god Krishna.

The irony of course is that while this rich, 
complex, even contradictory, tapestry seems 
threatening and heretical to those brought up on 
the contemporary cry of cultural nationalism, 
with its obsessive search for a commodified and 
politically expedient conformism, it's this that 
gives India its unique identity. Let this Diwali 
be a time for celebrating rather than bemoaning 
this plurality and its embodiment in a million 
little and big traditions.

_____

[6]

Magaine / The Hindu, October 26, 2003

AGAINST THE GRAIN

Gandhi: An apostle of violence?

C. RAMMANOHAR REDDY

THIS is the season for peculiar sarkari 
advertisements, one of which even twists history 
in the interests of aggressive nationalism. 
Fortunately, at least one of the ads - the `India 
Shining' series - has been put into cold storage 
on a directive by the Election Commission. For 
those who have been lucky enough not to notice 
the print, TV and street hoardings, the `India 
Shining' series is supposed to feed "a feel good 
factor" about the Indian economy. But with its 
peculiarly worded running message, stilted 
grammar ("There has never been a better time to 
invest, build, create and shine together.") and a 
text in brown on a white background, the opening 
ad looked ominously like the stark directives 
during the Emergency to talk less and work more.

Nothing surely can beat the advertisement put out 
by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry on 
Gandhi Jayanti. Readers were startled (they were 
meant to be) when they saw this quote of Mahatma 
Gandhi: "I would rather have India resort to arms 
in order to defend her honour than that she 
should in a cowardly manner become or remain a 
hopeless witness to her own dishonour." There was 
no mention about where and when Gandhi made this 
statement or what the context was.

A man for whom non-violence was a creed is cited 
as saying India would be a coward if it did not 
use arms to defend its honour. A public notice of 
this kind on Gandhi's birthday has an obvious 
motive. Members of the ruling dispensation at the 
Centre and their supporting apparatus have never 
hid their ambivalence (at best) towards Gandhi 
while they do not hesitate to celebrate Veer 
Savarkar. Statements of the kind publicised on 
October 2 are useful for silently demolishing the 
unique position that Gandhi occupies in India's 
history.

I set out to find where and when Gandhi uttered 
these words. A colleague forwarded an e-mail of a 
statement put out by a brave non-governmental 
organisation in Baroda putting Gandhi's words in 
their original context. A friend pointed out a 
report in a daily, citing the same NGO statement. 
I wanted to check the original myself. 
Fortunately, the same I&B ministry had a few 
years ago put Gandhi's collected works on CD, an 
extremely useful compilation if you can ignore 
the gaudily designed add-on documentation on 
Gandhi's life.

Gandhi did write those words the I&B Ministry 
gleefully reproduced on October 2. Yet, a reading 
of the essay, telling titled "The Doctrine of the 
Sword", and published in Young India on August 
11, 1920, shows that what Gandhi was trying to 
argue was, naturally, the exact opposite of what 
this Government would like us to believe. The 
essay was written at a time when the 
non-cooperation movement of the early 1920 was 
gathering momentum. It was just a year since the 
Jalianwalla Bagh massacre and it required all of 
Gandhi's skills to make a case for non-violence. 
The Young India essay was one of many where he 
laid out the logic of his political philosophy.

Gandhi's arguments, as always, were simple. A 
person, a society and a country which is weak and 
helpless has no choice but to resort to violence.

But when you are strong, as India was, 
non-violence is the true moral instrument in the 
fight for swaraj. The core message of the article 
is to be found in the following sentences, not in 
what the I&B Ministry quoted on October 2: 
"Non-violence in its dynamic condition means 
conscious suffering. It does not mean meek 
submission to the will of the evildoer. It means 
the putting of one's soul against the will of the 
tyrant. Working under this law of our being, it 
is possible for a single individual to defy the 
whole might of an unjust empire to save his 
honour, his soul and lay the foundation for that 
empire's fall or its regeneration. "And so I am 
not pleading for India to practise non-violence 
because it is weak. I want her to practise 
non-violence being conscious of her strength and 
power."

If these sentences more accurately convey the 
content of the 1920 essay, what is particularly 
dishonest about the I&B Ministry's reproduction 
is that in the very sentence following the words 
about honour and violence, Gandhi wrote: "But I 
believe that non-violence is infinitely superior 
to violence." Given its motives, the Government 
would not want to give us the true context of 
Gandhi's statement on the use or arms. Nor would 
this Government cite the following sentences from 
the end of the essay: "If India takes up the 
doctrine of the sword, she may gain momentary 
victory. Then India will cease to be pride of my 
heart .... My life is dedicated to the service of 
India through the religion of non-violence which 
I believe to be the root of Hinduism."

Perhaps we should not be perturbed about such 
mischievous distortion of Gandhi's writings. 
After all, we have had Israeli Prime Minister, 
Ariel Sharon pay homage at Raj Ghat.

This is the same Mr. Sharon, who has been 
indicted by an Israeli Government Commission as 
responsible for the killing of thousands of 
Palestinians in Lebanon in 1982. And we had 
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi say on 
October 2 that his government was the only the 
State Government in the country to adhere to 
Gandhian principles.

o o o

[See related material:]
Rediff.com, October 20, 2003
Dilip D'Souza
Use Gandhi to undermine Gandhi!
http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/oct/20dilip.htm

_____

[7]

Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 10:00:56 +0530

MUSIC & POETRY DEDICATED TO INDO-PAK AMITY
EMINENT Urdu writer, critic and chairman of national Urdu promotion council
and president of the Sahitya Akademi Professor Gopi Chand Narang will
release world's first ever music album on the poetry of Allama Iqbal, the
greatest Urdu poet of the 20th century, on 10 November at India Habitat
Centre, New Delhi.
Titled "Sitaron Se Aage Jahan Aur Bhi Hain", the album is sung and composed
by the 'singing sensation from Jammu & Kashmir' renowned ghazal exponent
Seema Anil Sehgal, popularly hailed as the 'Peace Singer of India'. She
earlier sang SARHAD, an album dedicated to Indo-Pak amity.
It may be recalled that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee presented the
album, as a national gift, to his erstwhile Pakistani counterpart, during
the historic Lahore Summit, in February 1999.
"Iqbal is an Indian poet and an integral part of our cultural heritage. He
is revered as the national poet in Pakistan. Urdu, a language that was
developed in India, is the national language of Pakistan. Can there be a
better rallying point for the estranged neighbours India and Pakistan than
an album on Allama Iqbal?" asks retired Squadron Leader Anil Sehgal,
producer of  "Sitaron Se Aage Jahan Aur Bhi Hain", the album that is
dedicated to indo-Pak amity.

_____

[8]

The Hindustan Times
Editorial: Enemies of peace
October 25, 2003

The intemperate reactions of the Hindutva hawks 
to the latest Indian peace overtures to Pakistan 
show that it isn't only the jehadis across the 
border who are unhappy about any prospect of 
peace.

There are elements on this side, too, who will 
not be pleased if there is a breakthrough in 
India-Pakistan relations. As much is evident from 
the comments of the Thackeray household in Mumbai 
to the effect that the resumption of bus services 
in Kashmir will only help the terrorists. Even 
more carping are the observations of - who else? 
- the VHP's Praveen Togadia, who is appalled by 
the thought of Indian doctors treating the ailing 
children of an 'enemy country'.

None of this is surprising, of course. The Sangh 
parivar and its extended version, which includes 
the Shiv Sena, have been reared for so long on 
venomous anti-Muslim propaganda that any thought 
of a rapprochement is anathema to them. Besides, 
since the sole basis of their politics is 
Hindu-Muslim enmity, any possibility of improved 
relations between the two countries will 
virtually rob them of their source of livelihood. 
Right from the start of Atal Bihari Vajpayee's 
peace initiative involving his bus journey to 
Lahore, the saffron camp has been uneasy about 
the possibility of peace. Little wonder that one 
of the VHP stalwarts, Acharya Dharmendra, advised 
Mr Vajpayee to go to Lahore in a tank and not a 
bus.

It is because of the resistance which the 
Vajpayee government will face from among its own 
supporters that it is sometimes said that the 
best chance of a peace between India and Pakistan 
is when the BJP is in power in New Delhi and a 
military man in Islamabad.

If a non-BJP government had made the same offer 
to Pakistan which New Delhi has made, the BJP 
would have, in all likelihood, echoed Mr 
Thackeray and Mr Togadia. But the sense of 
moderation which a stint in power induces in a 
government - and possibly Mr Vajpayee's own 
pacifist intentions - have now persuaded the BJP 
to distance itself from the hardliners. However, 
the ability of the hawks to throw a spanner in 
the works even by digging up the cricket pitch 
should not be discounted.

______

[9]      HINDUTVA AT WORK ! examples below:


(i)

Indian Express
October 25, 2003

BJP, VHP 'witchhunt' in Dehra Dun
Nikaah lands Hindu woman in Nari Niketan for sending 'wrong social message'
S M A KAZMI
DEHRA DUN, OCTOBER 24: It will be a dark Diwali 
for the Hindu woman who had ''dared'' to marry a 
Muslim here, as she spends her days in detention 
at the Nari Niketan, thanks to local BJP and VHP 
leaders. Her husband, who was in police custody, 
has reportedly gone missing.

Defending their move to intervene in the wedding, 
general secretary of the local VHP unit, Naveen 
Nagar, said: ''This marriage was sending a wrong 
social message, as the girl is highly qualified 
and the boy not even a matriculate.''

The woman in question, Harsh Sachdeva (35), is a 
resident of Dunda village. She had been living 
with Mohammed Ali for three years, till they 
decided to marry four days ago. VHP men accosted 
her when she came down to register her nikaah at 
a local court.

They barged into lawyer Razia Baig's office, who 
is also a member of the State Minority 
Commission, and slapped Harsh for deciding to 
marry a Muslim. They even tried to abduct her but 
failed.

Finally, police were called in and the newly-wed 
were taken to the police station. Here, the pleas 
of the woman that she was old enough to marry of 
her own free will, as she was 35 and held a 
Master's degree, fell on deaf ears.

The couple was detained in the police station for 
the night. Meanwhile, a complaint was lodged on 
behalf of the woman's father that a Muslim boy 
was ''teasing her''.

Harsh was produced before Sub-Divisional 
Magistrate R.P. Singh, where she reiterated that 
she was under no pressure to marry a Muslim, but 
was sent to the local Nari Niketan.

In another incident, BJP leaders, including MLA 
from Doiwala, Trivendra Rawat, prevented the 
laying of a madarsa's roof at Nehru Colony here. 
They argued that the Muslims ''were trying to 
convert the madarsa into a mosque''. Attempts by 
District Magistrate Radha Raturi to solve the 
issue failed, as BJP leaders disrupted the 
meeting. The administration has stopped 
construction work at the madarsa.

Baig said she would raise both issues at the 
meeting of the minority commission on October 22.

__

(ii)

The Times of India
OCTOBER 26, 2003
THE TIMES OF INDIA
CITIES: MUMBAI

Docu-maker faces VHP's wrath
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2003 01:42:56 AM ]
MUMBAI: Shubhradeep Chakravorty is the latest 
filmmaker to face the wrath of the Vishwa Hindu 
Parishad for screening his documentary 'Godhra 
Tak: The Terror Trail' on the Godhra incident of 
2002, that provoked a communal conflagration.

Originally scheduled for a screening at Hotel 
Nalanda in Ahmedabad, the hotel owners pulled out 
following threats.

After its screening was rearranged at Khet 
Bhawan, VHP activists intimidated Chakravorty.

"They abused and threatened me, and tried to 
force me to apologise for making the film. Later 
they tried to seize my tapes," said Chakravorty.

He was later released on the intervention of 
Mahesh Bhatt, who spoke to the Gujarat home 
minister.

Chakravorty presented his film at a private 
screening organised by Communalism Combat at 
Mumbai's Press Club on Thursday.

Film-makers Mahesh Bhatt and Anand Patwardhan 
spoke in his support at the screening.

The one-hour film revisits Godhra by recording 
the testimonies of those involved.

It makes its point decisively when central 
forensic expert V.N. Sehgal explains why the 
inflammatory material that set coach S6 of the 
ill-fated train on fire, could not have been 
thrown from outside, but was an inside job, 
giving lie to the conspiracy theory.

While a number of Muslim victims exhibit the 
horrendous wounds inflicted on them by the 
saffron brigade, the film cuts to Vinay Katiyar 
dismissing them casually, "It's all lies meant to 
rubbish the kar sevaks."

The film's voice over observes that it is the 
mobs calling the shots and that there is a real 
danger of Godhra being repeated elsewhere.

Mahesh Bhatt, who introduced the film at its 
screenings in Delhi and the Films South Asia in 
Kathmandu, said, "Apathy and fear are the main 
reasons the saffron brigade gets away with it. 
When a film-maker has to apologise for screening 
his films to the press, it is sad that we are not 
outraged enough. Despite our claims of being the 
world's largest democracy, fascism is in full 
bloom in the by-lanes of Gujarat."

Anand Patwardhan, veteran at battling the 
government censorship of his documentaries, said 
that, "Censorship happened either through the 
censor board or through extra-parliamentary 
censorship through bodies like the VHP."

He battled for over a year to get his 'War and Peace' cleared without cuts.

Subsequently, its screening was prevented at the 
Chavan Centre in Mumbai and in Kolkata.

A number of documentaries have emerged from 
Godhra, including Ramesh Pimple and Geeta 
Chawda's Aakrosh,Gopal Menon's 'Hey Ram: Genocide 
in the Land of Gandhi', Gauhar Raza's 'Junoon ka 
Badhta Kadam' and 'Evil Stalks the Land', and 
Suma Josson's 'Gujarat:, A Laboratory of Hindu 
Rashtra.'

Most have been struggling to show their films. 
For instance, film-makers Ramesh Pimple and Geeta 
Chawda, have been battling the censors, seeking a 
clearance for 'Aakrosh'.

Following a complaint by the Akhil Bharatiya 
Vidyarthi Parishad, the Mumbai police confiscated 
tapes of Gauhar Raza's 'In Dark Times' and 
'Junoon ke Badhte Kadam' and prevented their 
screening at a Mumbai college.

In July, the VHP prevented film-maker Gopal Menon 
from attending a public function addressed by 
Praveen Togadia in Kerala.

As Teesta Setalvad of Communalism Combat pointed 
out, "It is ironic that these film-makers are 
prevented from screening their films when lakhs 
of CDs and tapes on communal issues circulated by 
the VHP are not confiscated."

"They abused and threatened me, and tried to 
force me to apologise for making the film. Later, 
they tried to seize my tapes "

__


(iii)

The Telegraph
October 25, 2003

Sena threatens Kotla rerun

KAY BENEDICT
New Delhi, Oct. 24: The Shiv Sena has threatened 
to disrupt any India-Pakistan cricket match in 
Indian territory, reviving memories of its 
pitch-digging in 1999.

The threat was a reaction to Prime Minister Atal 
Bihari Vajpayee's latest peace proposals to 
Islamabad, including resumption of cricketing 
ties.

The workers of the Sena, a constituent of the NDA 
government at the Centre, said they are serious.

"Those who remember our pitch-digging on the 
night of January 5, 1999, at the Feroz Shah Kotla 
grounds (in Delhi) know what we mean," the 
party's north India chief Jai Bhagwan Goyal said 
today. The Sainiks, he added, "could go to any 
extent".

Delhi snapped sporting ties with Pakistan in the 
wake of the Kargil war. Both nations, however, 
played each other in third countries.

Goyal dubbed the latest offer the Centre's 
"dramabaji". "What is the need for this great 
hurry?" he said.

"Pakistan has not handed over the 20 terrorists, 
including Dawood Ibrahim, to India, stopped 
training terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, not 
returned Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Heaven would 
not have fallen if we waited."

If Islamabad were to accept all these three 
demands, the Sena would have no objection to 
Pakistan playing in India, he added.

Pakistan cannot be trusted because of its track record, he said.

"When we showed understanding, they back-stabbed. 
When we began bus service to Lahore, it ended in 
Kargil, the attack on Parliament and so many 
other attacks. Still, we are bending."

"Indian people want to reply in the same 
language, not (with) Vajpayee's peace 
initiatives," Goyal said.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad, too, is opposed to the 
peace proposals. Senior leader Praveen Togadia 
yesterday dubbed the move "an abject surrender to 
a terrorist country", which would lead to a surge 
in terrorism.

He recalled Vajpayee extending a "hand of friendship" to Pakistan in April.

, saying "at that time, he had said it was his 
last offer of peace and India would close all its 
doors on any peace offer till Pakistan stopped 
cross-border terrorism. Then, from where has this 
new initiative cropped up?"

In a clear reference to the recent militant 
attack on Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mufti 
Mohammad Sayeed's home, he said: "Will they (the 
Centre) wait for an attack on the Prime 
Minister's residence before taking any firm step?"


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

Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on 
matters of peace and democratisation in South 
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit 
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South 
Asia Citizens Web (www.mnet.fr/aiindex). [Please 
note the SACW web site has gone down, you will 
have to for the time being search google cache 
for materials]
The complete SACW archive is available at: http://sacw.insaf.net
South Asia Counter Information Project a sister 
initiative provides a partial back -up and 
archive for SACW. http://perso.wanadoo.fr/sacw/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.

--