SACW | 29 Oct. 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WIRE   |  29 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] Sri Lanka: Women in politics: A prospect for change?
[2] India:  In Solidarity with Malika Sarabhai who is under attack in Gujarat:
- Sahmat Press Statement in defence of Malika Sarabhai
- Prominent personalities speak up 'Mallika 
Sarabhai is being framed' (in Timesof India)
- Upcoming Meeting to express solidarity with 
Malika Sarabhai (November 1, 2003, New Delhi)
[3] India: After The 'Sankalp Sammelan': 
Hindutva's strategic crisis (Praful Bidwai)
[4] India: Silly sentimentality  (Badri Raina)
[5] Protest against the 19th World Mining 
Congress, New Delhi (Campaign against Plunder of 
resources)
[6] India: A Bad Day In Usayini: The Sinister 
Targets of Indian Health Camps  (Sreelatha Menon)
[7] India: Watch this film, Praveenbhai: 'Pinjar' 
is an eloquent testament against the politics of 
division (Mohammed Wajihuddin)
[8] India: Togadia's trishul distribution function banned in Madurai

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

[1]


The Island, October 29, 2003
Cat's Eye
Women in politics: A prospect for change?

Do not throw pearls before swine, for they will 
turn and rend you ... what suits European women 
will not suit us, said Sir Ponambalam Ramanathan 
infamously in his reply to the Donoughmore 
Commissioners on the demand for women's franchise 
in 1927.

Florinda Wijekoon of the Women's Franchise Union, 
was to retort "The Honourable Knight has done us 
a service .... Because that statement of his has 
strengthened our cause and has added more to our 
members."

The cause at the time was the vote for women, and 
of course the Donoughmore Commission was to 
disregard the sentiments of the diehards and 
grant universal suffrage, including women's 
franchise. The demand for women's right to vote 
was led by the Ceylon Women's Franchise Union 
formed in 1928, and the women had the support of 
the Trade Union movement and A. E. Goonesinha's 
Labour Party. Their cause was also championed by 
radicals led by George E. de Silva and included 
support from the Jaffna Youth Congress. Opposing 
women's franchise were conservative elements 
within the Ceylon National Congress and the 
reactionary Unionist Party.

Thus Ceylon was the first British Colony to 
achieve universal suffrage. At the elections to 
the State Council in 1931, the number of voters 
increased from 205,000 in 1924 to 1,500,000 in 
1931. No women contested the first elections to 
the State Council. However, in November 1931, 
following the death of her father, Adeleine 
Molamure contested the Ruwanwella seat, and won 
with a majority of over 9000. Naysum 
Saravananmuttu was the second woman to be elected 
to the State Council from Colombo North. At the 
first Parliament post independence, in 1948, only 
two women were elected, both from the Lanka Sama 
Samaja Party - Florence Senanayake and Kusuma 
Gunawardene. The percentage of women in 
Parliament between the 1930s and the present has 
never exceeded 5%.

As Casting Pearls - The Women's Franchise 
Movement in Sri Lanka, an excellent record of 
women's history of the period, published by the 
Social Scientists Association notes in a 
postscript -

"The struggle to increase the participation of 
women in politics continues into the 21st 
century. Sri Lanka had the world's first woman 
Prime Minister, Sirimavo Bandaranike elected in 
1960, and her daughter Chandrika Bandaranaike 
Kumaratunge was elected President in 1994 and 
2000. Yet despite these milestones, and the 
active electoral participation of large numbers 
of women, Sri Lanka has yet to see any 
significant representation of women either as 
candidates or elected members of Parliament and 
local bodies. One can only hope that as a result 
of further women's activism, the centenary of 
universal suffrage, in 2031, will be celebrated 
as a period of gender equity in political 
representation."

Electoral Reform Proposals

Women took another step forward in that direction 
in October 2003 when various women's groups and 
coalitions including representatives from the 
Ministry of Women's Affairs went before the 
Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral 
Reform with their proposals for increasing 
women's representation and democratising the 
electoral process.

This Parliamentary Select Committee is made up of 
21 multi-party representatives - 20 men and 1 
woman. This time around we hope for a more 
positive attitude towards women's representation. 
We also hope that the representatives from the 
Left, the Tamils, the Muslims and the Sinhalese 
will follow in the footsteps of their more 
enlightened forefathers who supported women's 
suffrage at the turn of the last century and will 
take that victory to its logical conclusion, by 
enabling women to not only vote, but also to be 
truly represented in the political decision 
making of this country.

At the Select Committee women's groups advocated 
affirmative action as an issue of priority, to 
further democracy and equality for women. They 
pointed out that without State action (in the 
form of legislation and policy reform) and 
support, non-governmental efforts will be 
insufficient to make a substantial impact to 
increase the political representation of women.

Women noted that there is widespread support 
among women's groups in Sri Lanka for a system of 
quotas at the levels of local government, 
provincial councils and Parliament which would 
ensure that at least 30% of women are elected. It 
is accepted internationally that to make 
substantial change at the level of representation 
and decision making, any marginalized group must 
strive for at least a third of the seats on offer 
so that they can constitute a critical mass.

Women making their representations before the 
Parliamentary Select Committee noted that a mere 
reservation in the party nomination list would 
not guarantee the election of a substantial 
number of women. Without a mechanism that 
positively guarantees a place for women, they 
will continue to be marginalised from political 
and decision-making processes, and vital issues 
of relevance to the lives of women will continue 
to be determined by men.

Among some of the substantive recommendations put 
forward by the Women and Media Collective, the 
Muslim Women's Research and Action Forum, 
International Centre for Ethnic Studies, and the 
network Mothers and Daughters of Lanka, who have 
all done extensive work at community level among 
women who were concerned with the political 
process and political representation were:

To replace the existing Proportional 
Representation (PR) with a mixed system of 
representation with the introduction of a 
combined PR system and the First Past the Post 
(FPTP) system to maximize the participation of 
women.

This recommendation is made because the manner in 
which the PR system is implemented in Sri Lanka 
has not resulted in any favourable advance of 
women's representation at the local or the 
national level.

- There should be 1/3rd reserved seats on the 
constituencies elected on the FPTP and 1/3 of 
reservations for women when it comes to 
appointing members from the national list. Where 
the use of the proportional representation system 
is concerned preference voting should be 
abolished and instead a closed list should be 
introduced with a mandatory requirement that the 
party allocate 1/3rd of seats won for women. The 
use of the PR system would compensate for any 
disproportionality produced by the use of the 
FPTP system, which has been a particular concern 
of minority communities.

There was also a request that the youth quota of 
40% (on nomination lists) operative at the local 
government elections should be allocated equally 
between male and female youth and not be used 
with such blatant disproportion in favour of 
young male candidates.

Discrimination

Many of the representatives on the Select 
Committee were however most uncertain if 
political parties would be able to put forward 
the number of female candidates required. The 
doubting MPs need to be convinced by the women in 
their own parties and in their constituencies. 
Women's groups have discovered a different 
reality. Women of all parties complain with one 
voice that there is no internal party democracy 
that allows them equal access to positions of 
decision making within party hierarchies, 
especially the all-important Central Committees 
and Nominations Committees. Women also complain 
that time and again their requests for 
candidature is disregarded or ignored. Male party 
bosses who reject women attempting to come 
forward in their own right, however, have no 
hesitation whatever in nominating widows or 
daughters of male politicians. Women contend that 
these are the practices that give women's 
representation a bad reputation and in turn, 
shore up male reluctance to nominate women who 
don't have strong male backing.

Violence

Violence and impunity within the electoral 
process has been another concern for women. Here 
again party bosses are quick to express 
reluctance to expose women candidates to the high 
level of violence that is prevalent during 
election time. The problem, say women, is rather 
in the political system that allows such violence 
and impunity which political party hierarchies 
(often those who instigate or turn a blind eye to 
the practice) must stop. Aspiring women 
candidates also argue that they are willing to 
contest despite the violence, and that they have 
to contest and win in greater numbers to begin a 
process of changing this climate of political 
violence and impunity. Women are outraged that 
the very violators of the tenets of democratic 
practice make such abuse the excuse to deprive 
women of their rights to contest in free and fair 
elections.

- Women's groups also called upon the Select 
Committee to prohibit parties from placing on 
nomination lists those with criminal convictions. 
They also advocated a stronger system that would 
punish violations of human rights and election 
laws.

- Women's groups also noted that as current 
election laws in Sri Lanka do not have sufficient 
deterrent impact on the party itself, as opposed 
to an individual candidate, penalties should be 
imposed on political parties for the corrupt and 
illegal practices of individuals acting as agents 
of parties. The relevant acts relating to local 
authorities, provincial and parliamentary 
elections in Sri Lanka should be amended to 
incorporate these penalties.

State Resources

The abuse of State resources was another matter 
that was raised by women's groups. They noted 
that the enforcement provisions relating to 
directions by the Election Commissioner 
prohibiting the use of any movable or immovable 
property belonging to the State or any public 
corporation by any candidate, political party or 
independent group as well as for the purpose of 
promoting or preventing the election, are 
non-existent in the 17th Amendment which only 
imposes a vague duty on every person or officer 
in whose custody or control such property lies, 
to comply with and give effect to such direction.

The women's groups therefore requested the 
introduction of a clause, which relates not only 
to the Commissioner's authority with regard to 
state resources, but also compels any person who 
contravenes, fails or neglects to comply with any 
direction or order issued by the Commissioner or 
any provision of the law relating to elections, 
guilty of an offence.

Expenditure

The question of election-linked expenditure was 
another matter that women's groups wished to 
highlight noting that women candidates often had 
no recourse to such high sources of finance. 
Women have often noted that the election costs 
effectively cut off the chances of poorer 
candidates and bred a corrupt system of 
electioneering.

Among the recommendations made to the Select 
Committee were that a ceiling should be imposed 
on campaign spending and candidates should be 
required to make the requisite declaration to 
that effect with punishment amounting to the 
forfeiture of the seat won for violation of these 
laws.

It was further observed that transparency and 
accountability can also be achieved through 
requiring candidates to keep separate accounts of 
all expenditure incurred by him or her from the 
date of nomination to the date of election. The 
relevant acts relating to local authorities, 
provincial and parliamentary elections in Sri 
Lanka should be amended to incorporate these 
stipulations.


_____

[2]     [ IN SOLIDARITY WITH MALIKA SARABHAI ]

SAHMAT
8, Vithalbhai Patel House
Rafi Marg, New Delhi-110001
Tel-23711276/ 23351424
e-mail: sahmat at vsnl.com
27.10.2003
Press Statement on Mallika Sarabhai

The manner in which noted actress and danseuse Ms.
Mallika Sarabhai, is being intimidated and harrassed
in Gujarat on patently trumped up charges is very
disturbing. Even a cursory reading of the facts of the
case, in which Ms. Sarabhai is sought to be implicated
by the local police under various sections of the IPC
makes it quite clear that this is being used as
political vendetta by the state administration and
police.

Strictly in accordance with the terms of the contract
the Darpana Academy of the Ms. Sarabhai returned the
money received in advance from a number of aspiring
dancers who wished to go on a foreign trip but could
not do so on denial of  a visa. After months of
investigations when nothing tangible could be found
either against the Academy or Ms. Sarabhai, the state
administration and its political leadership utilised
the services of a local NGO whose pro-government
record is well-known to file a police case against the
Academy and Ms. Sarabhai.

It is well known that Mallika Sarabhai has been in the
forefront in filing an appeal in the Supreme Court of
India demanding compensation and justice for the
victims of the Gujarat carnage of last year. The
appeal is coming up for hearing now. The timings of
the filing of a case against Mallika Sarabhai is to
stifle her voice that is seeking justice for the
victims of communal violence. This is nothing but a
blatant political vendetta and an attempt to muzzle
the voice of dissent using state machinery.

We express complete solidarity with Mallika Sarabhai.
We are confident that the opinion of the creative
community and democratic citizens is fully behind her
at this juncture. We appeal that the prime minister
advise the Narendra Mody government to desist from the
vindictive course of hounding Ms. Mallika Sarabhai.

for
SAHMAT

M.K.Raina, Vivan Sundaram,
Indira Chandrasekhar,	Madan Gopal Singh,
Ram Rahman, Tejbir Singh,
Mala Singh, Prabhat Patnaik, Utsa Patnaik, Irfan Habib
and others.
o o o


The Times of India
'Mallika Sarabhai is being framed'
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2003 12:05:52 AM ]
MUMBAI: Prominent personalities from all over the 
country have condemned the alleged victimisation 
of noted dancer Mallika Sarabhai by the Narendra 
Modi government in Gujarat.

In a memorandum addressed to Deputy Prime 
Minister L K Advani and Mr Modi, the signatories 
alleged that over the past few days, the Gujarat 
government was trying to 'frame' Ms Sarabhai, who 
is based in Ahmedabad, in a false case of human 
trafficking.

A case has already been registered under sections 
14, 34 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

A few months ago Ms Sarabhai's Darpana Academy in 
Ahmedabad had planned a trip to the US for some 
of its students. The trip did not fructify, after 
which monies were returned to the students. 
However, one of the students lodged a complaint 
and the government initiated a police inquiry and 
a probe by the charity commissioner.
The signatories said Ms Sarabhai cooperated fully 
with the inquiries. Nevertheless, she was being 
harassed, the activists alleged. Some of the 
signatories include Vijay Tendulkar, Jaidev 
Hattangady, Kuldip Nayar, Shabana Azmi, Atul 
Setalvad, Javed Akhtar, Zoya Hasan, Irfan Habib, 
Teesta Setalvad, Javed Anand and Asghar Ali 
Engineer.

They alleged that Ms Sarabhai was being targeted 
because of her stand against the anti-Muslim 
pogrom in Gujarat. She is the key petitioner in a 
petition in the Supreme Court in this regard.

In the past she was threatened by vested 
interests who wanted her to withdraw the 
petition. The personalities have called for an 
immediate end to the victimisation of Ms Sarabhai.

A young woman who was a short term student of 
Darpana has accused Ms Sarabhai of duping her. 
She has alleged that Darpana had promised to 
procure a US visa for her by including her in a 
dance troupe to the US.

The tour was allegedly a ruse to help students to 
illegally emigrate to the US. However, Ms 
Sarabhai has rejected the charge. She had stated 
that when the visas were rejected, all the monies 
for the cancelled tour were refunded along with 
the passports to the students concerned.

Fearing her arrest, Ms Sarabhai has applied for 
anticipatory bail in a court in Ahmedabad which 
is likely to come up for hearing on Tuesday. She 
has also sent out a note to friends appealing for 
support. The other signatories include Rajmohan 
Gandhi, B.G. Verghese, Alyque Padamsee, Dolly 
Thakore, Chitra Palekar, Mushirul Hasan, Vivan 
Sundaram and J.B. D'Souza.

o o o

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 18:29:32 +0530

Subject: Mallika Sarabhai and the Government of Gujarat

Dear friends,

In order to express our solidarity with Mallika Sarabhai, who is
suffering persecution in the hands of the Gujarat government for her
courageous stand against injustice in the state sponsored pogrom of
2002, a meeting of citizens has been organised at the India
International Centre Annexe, New Delhi at 12:30PM on 1 November, 2003.
You are warmly invited to attend this meeting.

Warm regards,
Harsh Mander


____


[3]  

The Praful Bidwai Column                                      
October 27, 2003

After The 'Sankalp Sammelan'
Hindutva's strategic crisis
By Praful Bidwai

Millions of Indians will heave a sigh of relief 
that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's deplorable plan 
to precipitate a crisis in Ayodhya with its 
sankalp sammelan on October 17 turned out a damp 
squib. VHP leaders could not enter the 
temple/mosque complex and perform the rituals 
they threatened to conduct on that day. Indeed, 
two days earlier, they were left more or less 
pitifully pleading to be allowed to visit Ayodhya 
on promise that they would remain peaceful. 
Finally, VHP supporters had to content themselves 
with a darshan of Ramlalla in small groups under 
the government's escort. VHP working president 
Ashok Singhal stood completely isolated in his 
sadhu's robes when he was arrested in Ayodhya.

The flopping of the sammelan demonstrates four 
things. First, a state government that's 
determined to uphold the law can confidently 
maintain the Ayodhya status quo without shedding 
blood. In the present instance, Chief Minister 
Mulayam Singh Yadav had a specific mandate in the 
Allahabad High Court's directive against allowing 
any meeting at or near the "disputed" site. The 
Supreme Court told the Centre that it too has an 
obligation under the Places of Worship Act, 1993 
to protect the status of the land vested in it. 
The BJP's national leadership was reluctant to 
destabilise the state government, especially 
after Mr Yadav indicated he would take a 
"moderate" approach. (This was reflected in his 
allowing some 20-30,000 VHP supporters to enter 
Ayodhya after October 17 and hold a meeting the 
next day attended by 12,000 people-although even 
this could have been avoided).

Second, there was/is no support for the sammelan 
in Ayodhya/Faizabad or poorvanchal (eastern UP), 
leave alone elsewhere in UP and the rest of the 
Hindi heartland. Ayodhya's traders, and a 
majority of its mahants and sadhus, joined hands 
against the VHP's disruptive activities. The lead 
was taken by Mahant Gyan Das of Hanumangarhi who 
went around Faizabad's mohallas assuring Muslims 
of their safety and pleading solidarity with 
them. The VHP now stands badly discredited in 
Ayodhya. Bonds of friendship between Hindus and 
Muslims have been greatly strengthened in and 
around the town.

Third, a majority of the rowdy groups which the 
VHP collected in the guise of Ram-bhakts came 
from the non-Hindi speaking states. According to 
district administration sources, half came from 
Gujarat alone. Next in line were Karnataka and 
Maharashtra. The Ram-bhakts' strength was only a 
small fraction of the numbers the VHP could 
mobilise from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. 
Evidently, the temple movement is running out of 
steam. It is also coming into direct conflict 
with India's judicial processes-despite their 
many flaws.

Finally, the "confrontationist" nature (NB: the 
BJP's term, not mine) of the VHP's activities is 
denting the image of the entire sangh parivar, 
including its political arm, the BJP, and their 
collective paterfamilias, the RSS. In recognition 
of this, and of the VHP's growing unpopularity, 
the BJP has sharply criticised the Parishad. In 
return, the VHP has been spewing filthy abuse 
week in and week out at the BJP, and even more 
important, at Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, accusing 
them of "capitulating" to that horrible thing 
called secularism, and of being inebriated with 
power! The fact that Mr Vajpayee hasn't rebuffed 
the VHP and instead asked the public to "trust" 
it despite its campaign of abuse against him, has 
not enhanced his stature. The RSS too has eaten 
humble pie. It wants to end "the bitterness 
between the Centre, state government and various 
Hindu sections".

After the sammelan fiasco, the BJP and the VHP 
are likely to drift further apart, with their 
leaders staking out their respective terrains. 
The BJP, especially its governmental wing 
dominated by Mr Vajpayee, will try to rein in the 
VHP. Equally certainly, the VHP will try to 
resist this and take hardline positions. The RSS 
will try to play the mediator. Here lies the 
BJP's dilemma. It needs to milk the Ayodhya 
movement politically. But it doesn't like the 
movement's leadership, dominated as that is by 
far-from-pliable fanatics like Mr Singhal and Mr 
Togadia. On the one hand, the BJP wants to assert 
its overall political supremacy over the 
parivar-to the point of antagonising the VHP. On 
the other, it cannot dispense with the VHP's 
cadres. It needs them for the next, 
make-or-break, Parliamentary election campaign.

The VHP, like every sangh parivar organisation or 
"front", has a well-defined function cut out for 
itself. Such "fronts" are said to number anywhere 
between 150 and 300, and are active in different 
fields, from traders' associations to industrial 
trade unions, and from women to Adivasis 
(tribals). Some, like the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, 
have an economic policy that's is narrowly and 
fiercely nationalist (but strongly 
anti-internationalist), and opposed to the 
unequal globalisation the BJP strongly favours. 
This enables them to occupy the opposition space, 
thus edging out the real Centre-Left opposition 
to economic neoliberalism. Yet others, like Vidya 
Bharati, which runs a network of 20,000 schools, 
are crucial to propaganda and recruitment of 
children. Some, like the Bajrang Dal, are 
composed of ruffians and modern-day 
storm-troopers who use physical violence to 
intimidate opponents. Their goons periodically 
smash public property and burn churches, mosques 
and people-as happened to Graham Staines and his 
two little sons.

Historically, the VHP's function has been 
threefold: to politicise disaffected and 
lumpenised sadhus; mobilise people on sectarian, 
emotive and seemingly "religious" issues like the 
Ram temple; and not least, raise funds for the 
sangh combine as a whole, especially from North 
America and Britain. The VHP is close to 
exhausting the first two functions although it 
still generates cadres who are useful to the BJP. 
Its third function remains extremely important, 
indeed virtually irreplaceable.

The VHP has a number of associates and 
organisations based in the US, UK and Canada that 
claim to be religious, which collect huge sums 
from the non-resident Indian community, and 
increasingly, from corporations. Some collect 
money in the name of earthquake relief or 
"development" assistance. The principal example 
is the India Development and Relief Fund, headed 
by none other than Mr Bhishma K. Agnihotri, a 
long-standing RSS activist, and shamefully, 
India's "second ambassador" to the US, in charge 
of NRI affairs. Mr Agnihotri's anomalous 
status-the US doesn't recognise him as official 
ambassador Lalit Mansingh's equal or a second 
Indian plenipotentiary-, his communal views, and 
his demands on the Indian exchequer, have 
generated a lot of controversy.

However, what puts him in especially 
uncomplimentary light is IDRF's fund collection, 
a portion of which probably financed last year's 
terrible violence in Gujarat. A US-based Indian 
secular activists' group has carefully documented 
the identity of IDRF donors from US official 
records. They include companies like Sun 
Microsystems and software giant CISCO. This 
outstanding investigation thoroughly exposes the 
nefariously communal ends to which the VHP helps 
the sangh combine, including its ethnic-cleansing 
and genocidal agendas. The BJP has never been 
fully distinguishable from the VHP's nasties in 
this regard. For instance, the Gujarat pogrom was 
the joint work of the VHP and the BJP, carried 
out under the patronage of Mr Narendra Milosevic 
Modi. The BJP is becoming a virtual prisoner of, 
or a hostage to, communal hardliners.

The supreme irony is that the sangh parivar has 
nothing to do with religion in the real, deep 
sense. Hindutva's advocates deny the richly 
syncretic and plural nature of Hinduism and put 
it into a rigid upper-caste-oriented, puritanical 
and intolerant frame, which is amenable to 
political exploitation. They don't even have 
multiple stories of Ram, including narratives 
that show him in a sensitive, kindly light, as a 
person with a complex relationship with Seeta, 
who can be remorseful for having been harsh to 
her. Their Ram is a warrior God, angry, militant, 
his hair flowing in the wind as he sets out on 
his punitive expeditions. This Ram can behead 
Shambuka merely because he is a shudra who has 
dared to learn the shastras, or kill Bali, his 
potential ally Sugreev's sibling, in a highly 
questionable way.

Hindutva advocates have no respect for any 
religious sensibilities. As a non-religious 
agnostic, I can admire Mother Teresa's epochal 
social work among India's poor, without sharing 
her religious fervour, or believing that she 
really performed "miracles". The RSS cannot. Its 
first reaction to her beatification, watched by 
over half a million people-many of whom admired 
her spirit of service much more than her 
religious devotion-was to declare churlishly and 
peevishly that it is a "Christian conspiracy". 
According to the sangh, the Pope honoured her for 
"creating 10,000 priests in Mizoram" and 
contributing "50,000 Indian nuns to the Christian 
world".

This speaks of a despicable meanness of spirit 
and bloody-mindedness-and a complete failure to 
see anything good in any religion other than the 
sangh's sclerotic, dried-up version of Hinduism. 
It also speaks of xenophobia and paranoia about 
non-Hindus: "all they want to do is propagate 
their religion and wipe out Hinduism from this 
country", says the RSS. Such sick minds are unfit 
to lead. It's our collective tragedy that the RSS 
is the chief leader and guide of our present 
national leaders. We urgently need a leadership 
change!-end-                                                                                                               


____


[4.]


The Hindustan Times
October 29, 2003

Silly sentimentality
Badri Raina

  By common repute, Praful Patel of the NCP is an 
educated and sensitive person and a committed 
secularist. It is disappointing that such a 
poised and rational practitioner of politics 
should, out of no respectable logic, become the 
spokesperson of a retrograde, racist thesis.

On a recent television programme, Patel, with 
commendable integrity, admitted to the position 
that there is no constitutional, legal and 
democratic bar to Sonia Gandhi's possible claim 
to prime ministership. His argument against such 
a claim is that it is a matter of 'sentiment' - 
an oxymoron if there ever was one.

One truly wonders whether in his own mind Patel 
has sufficiently pursued the far-reaching 
historical implications of that position. If 
'sentiment', notwithstanding our constitutional, 
democratic system of governance, were to be 
accorded pride of place as a guiding political 
principle, the question would inevitably arise as 
to how one order of 'sentiment' might or might 
not be privileged over some other, since every 
sectarian 'sentiment' usually claims equal rights 
to 'legitimacy'.

For example, on what ground would Patel then 
counter that other 'sentiment' which has run amok 
now for over a decade - the 'sentiment' that 
claims that the demolition of the Babri mosque 
and the concomitant project of building a temple 
at that very place are matters that transcend the 
jurisdiction of the Constitution, the courts and 
even Parliament, should the latter institution 
show 'anti-national' resistance to that 
'sentiment'? Or, that larger 'sentiment' 
enshrined in

M.S. Golwalkar's We, Our Nationhood Defined which 
decrees that true citizenship in India accrues 
only to the Hindu race, and that either the 
minorities (chiefly the Muslims) accept that 
'sentiment' or be reconciled to relegation sans 
citizenship rights.

Precisely such a 'sentiment' was to devastate 
Europe and the world some 50 years ago when the 
Nazis exterminated the Jews who, the Nazi 
proponents of 'Aryanism' held, had no right to 
cause pollution amongst the pure race. Patel will 
recall that German 'race pride' (Golwalkar's 
phrase) was to prove inspirational to the Hindu 
Mahasabha and the RSS, and that, however much 
they may say today that Golwalkar's infamous text 
has since been revised, current-day Hindutva 
continues at the level of 'sentiment' to hold 
that thesis dear to heart.

Were citizenship - and all the rights that flow 
thereof, including the right to be prime minister 
- to be thrown open to 'sentiment', many other 
interesting, even if catastrophic, possibilities 
might emerge. I had earlier pointed out to P.A. 
Sangma how, if 'sentiment' was to be admitted as 
a yardstick of 'authenticity', a whole lot of 
people would feel encouraged to articulate the 
view that true 'Indianness' does not square with 
some particular cut of face, exactly as some 
parts of the Republic continue, in popular 
'sentiment', to be regarded as peripheral to the 
solid 'centre' of the nation.

Another order of 'sentiment' might dictate that a 
Dalit politician, however meritorious, must not 
aspire to the highest elected office in deference 
to the lore that only a svarna may be trusted to 
guide the State. After all, who doesn't remember 
the shameful instance when precisely such a 
covert 'sentiment' deprived the nation of the 
outstanding leadership of the late Jagjivan Ram.

Indeed, scratch the surface and you might find 
that other 'sentiment' which holds that even 
India-born women - unless they be suitably 
pedigreed - should not hold offices such as that 
of the home minister or defence minister, not to 
speak of the top job. After all, apartheid need 
not always be as formal and institutionalised as 
it was in South Africa; it can simply be a 
'sentiment' or a conglomerate of 'sentiments' 
within which the State and polity can be made to 
function to the exclusion of the Republican 
Constitution.

Consider, for example, that the parivar continues 
to regard, without the least bit of 
embarrassment, Indian NRIs who may well be born 
outside India as blue-blooded Indians, provided 
of course they are Hindus and Hindutvavadis. 
After all, it is they and not the Muslim NRIs in 
the Gulf countries who are to be accorded dual 
citizenship, never mind the cruel fact that it is 
the ones in the Gulf, and not the blue-eyed ones, 
who transfer their earnings back to Bharat. Or 
that the news of Bobby Jindal's prospects in 
Louisiana are tom-tommed as 'Indian' ascendance 
worldwide; please remember that Jindal was not 
born in India. Conversely, were our own Mother 
Teresa, Bharat Ratna and Nobel laureate, to have 
aspired to prime ministership, she would have had 
to be stopped, having been 'foreign' born and a 
Christian to boot.

In this context of the politics of 'sentiment', 
perhaps the one diverting spectacle is that of 
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the BJP spokesperson, as he 
expands with unflinching loyalty on the theme of 
Sonia Gandhi's 'foreign' origin. In the first 
place, the source of the amusement resides in the 
uncanny resemblance he bears, in style and 
quality of unthinking assertion on behalf of his 
lord and master, to that endearing erstwhile 
Iraqi minister of information who remained 
undeterred by the truth even as the tanks rolled 
some feet from his microphone. But, more 
painfully, each time Naqvi appears on the screen 
and descants on the 'eligibility' theme, the 
impulse to put some sense into him is 
overpowering.

Perhaps he may be asked to respond to one simple 
question: does he honestly believe that the 
parivar, were such a moment to arrive, would ever 
consider him or that other handsome collaborator, 
Shahnawaz Hussain, both India-born and loyal to 
the marrow, for prime ministership? The answer 
from him would, in all likelihood, be an outraged 
'of course'; which is when he would be the most 
tragically deluded. Perhaps also, only such a 
trauma might bring home to suchlike the force of 
the injunctions set out by Savarkar and Golwalkar.

Consider also that 'sentiment' about true 
Indianness seems to oscillate between the claims 
of indigenous birth and commitment to Bharatiya 
parampara. To this day, the parivar holds the 
view that Gandhi erred grievously in nominating 
Nehru as his heir. And the error, supposedly, lay 
in Gandhi's inability to see that although Nehru 
was Allahabad-born, he was in substance a western 
secularist, and thereby alien to Indianness. And 
now that the parivar has been forced to admit 
that Sonia Gandhi has indeed adhered to 
parampara, as defined by the medievalists, it is 
nonetheless her 'foreign' birth that disqualifies 
her.

All that notwithstanding the fact that she heads 
the largest political party in the country and 
has won parliamentary elections both in the north 
and the south. As we know also, all the 
communists may well be India-born, they remain 
equally 'ineligible' because the sources of their 
world view are western, never mind that the 
parivar's own mentors were Mussolini and Hitler. 
All this, Patel must understand, has nothing to 
do with Sonia Gandhi personally, but involves 
considerations of fatal consequence to the kind 
of social order we mean to build.

____


[5]

SANSADHANO KI LOOT VIRODHI ABHIYAN
Protest against the 19th World Mining Congress, New Delhi

The official 19th World Mining Congress and Expo 
is being organised in Delhi from 1st to 5th 
November 2003 to give “excellent business 
opportunities” for mining and other “high 
priority core sectors”, and to display “the most 
advanced technologies in mining”. The Indian 
government has invited many industrial giants 
from "more than 60 countries, including USA, UK, 
Australia, Canada, China, Finland, Germany, 
Italy, Japan, Poland, Russia and South Africa".

The Indian government is organising this mega 
event for the second time after 1984. The 
post-1984 period witnessed the initiation of 
liberalization in the manufacturing sector, 
mechanization of public sector mining companies, 
opening up of bauxite-aluminium mining to the 
world market and reform in environment policy. 
The 19th World Mining Congress and Expo 2003 will 
only serve to open up the natural resources for 
further exploitation at a massive scale 
undermining the gains of our past struggles.

The laws and constitutional provisions are being 
amended to ensure more free entry to MNCs. Labour 
laws are being amended along with the Mines and 
Mineral (Regulation and Development) Act 1956. 
Acquisition of land for such purposes will no 
longer require a public hearing in violation of 
the Land Acquisition Act and the 5th Schedule of 
the Constitution. Challenging any aspect of 
mining policy in any court of law is being 
disallowed.

Struggles are being waged across the country for 
the protection of both lives and livelihoods from 
both existing and proposed mining projects. Some 
of them include the struggle against bauxite 
mining companies like Alcan of Canada, and 
Hindalco and Sterlite of India in 
Kashipur-Lanjigada in Orissa, by adivasis for 
defending their control over their lands and 
forest; against Kudremukh Iron-ore mining company 
in Karnataka for protecting the Tunga-Bhadra 
river; against uranium mining in Jaduguda in 
Jharkhand for protection from the dangers of 
atomic radiation; against uranium mining in 
Nalgonda in Andhra Pradesh; against the proposed 
public sector NMDC steel plant in Nagarnaar in 
Bastar district; against privatisation of power 
in Madhya Pradesh; against the S Kumars sponsored 
Maheshwar Dam Project in the Narmada valley; and 
against coal mining in Jharkhand, for a better 
rehabilitation package. The state’s immediate and 
sustained response has only been to repress these 
movements.

Your solidarity and active participation is 
crucial for the lives and livelihoods of millions 
in this country !

Oppose the plunder of our resources by large companies!
Oppose the destruction of our forests!
Express your solidarity to the ongoing people’s struggles!


1st November: Public Meeting at 4pm at Constitution Club.
Speakers: PRABHAT PATNAIK AND PRASHANT BHUSHAN

Join the Protest Demonstration Against The 19th 
World Mining Congress At Pragati Maidan (Gate No 
– 3) On 2nd November From 10 A.M To 5pm.

Representing Organisations at present :	Prakrutik 
Sampad Surakshya Parishad, Kashipur, Orissa; 
Chatisgada Mukti Morcha; Jharkhand Organisation 
Against Radiation; Adivasi Aikya Vedika, Andhra 
Pradesh; Janasangharsha Morcha, Madhya Pradesh; 
Samajwadi Jana Parishad; All India People’s 
Resistance Forum; People’s Democratic Forum, 
Bangalore; KNPVO; SAANET
and others joining in!!

Contacts : Harish (9811667776), Paramjeet (9891055588), Ranjana (9811150884)
E-Mail: antiloot at yahoo.com

____


[6]

http://www.panos.org.uk/newsfeatures/featuredetails.asp?id=1156
   
A Bad Day In Usayini: The Sinister Targets Of Indian Health Camps 

By Sreelatha Menon 

USAYINI, INDIA (PANOS FEATURES) - Whether in scorching summer or chilly
winter, Usayini remains a quiet spot of a village in the north Indian state
of Uttar Pradesh.

So quiet in fact that even its fortnightly health camps make no news, as I
found out during the course of several visits to the village. The reason
quickly became clear: the camps - run by the state government, executed by
the district administration and funded by the United States government's
overseas aid department - has a single focus: to sterilise women. Few want
to talk about it, and most women stay away.

The overt aim of the camps, implemented by a USAID-funded project called
State Innovations in Family Planning Services Project Agency (SIFPSA), is to
make healthcare accessible to women and children.

But it ends up offering women sterilization in the guise of reproductive
health services. Each camp has about 30 health workers, called Auxiliary
Nurse Midwives or ANMs, attached to it. Each ANM is told to fetch 'cases' -
a euphemism for women who are 'willing' to be sterilised - often on the
threat of loss of pay or even their job.

The midwives - stationed in every village in this vast and populous state of
171 million - are responsible for guiding women through pre-natal and
post-natal stages, immunisation, and family planning. What they end up doing
flies in the face of India's official policy of a target-free approach to
family planning - announced soon after the 1994 UN International Conference
on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo.

ICPD was supposed to have marked a change in the controversial history of
India's attempts to bring down the rate of its population growth. Belief in
a targeted approach in the mid-1970s led the then Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi to enforce sterilisation and vasectomy on poor masses across the
country - a draconian move that contributed to the ouster of her government
at elections.

But just two years before ICPD, India and USAID signed a deal under which
USAID pledged $325 million to "reorient and revitalise" family planning
services in Uttar Pradesh - India's largest state and a development
blackspot. The aim was to bring down the state's fertility rate (number of
children per family) from a high 5.4 to 4 at the end of the 10-year project
(the current national fertility rate is 2.58); to increase the use of
contraceptives from 35 to 50%, increase the number of births receiving
ante-natal care from 30 to 40%, and increase the number of deliveries
assisted by a doctor, nurse or midwife from 17 to 30%.

At Usayini, I decide to accompany the camp in-charge, Dr M L Mishra. The
first 'patient' arrived at around 1 pm - Guddi, a 27-year-old mother of six
children, was accompanied by her local midwife. From behind the folds of the
sari that covered half her face she said she had come for sterilisation.

Then came the second - a 26-year-old mother of four. And so on. Through the
day I counted 18 'cases' - all came for sterilisation, all egged on by a
midwife.

But for the 28 midwives attached to the Usayini health centre, which
organises the fortnightly camps, it was a bad day - because each midwife had
been set a target of three 'cases' per camp. At the very least they were
expected to bring one each. To turn up empty-handed was to invite the wrath
of officials.

"Why don't you simply come here and collect your salaries?" one official
hectored the cowering midwives.

Another senior district-level official, who arrived later that day,
reprimanded the midwives for being "inefficient" and bringing only 18 cases.
There was no talk of the women's health - in spite of the fact that they had
an average of five to six children each and unknown numbers of abortions.
None of them had seen a doctor during pregnancy or even been given a simple
tetanus injection. They were not aware of iron or vitamin pills. And no one
was telling them.

The midwives were a tense lot. They conceded they were obsessed with getting
cases. "That's all we think about day and night," they told me.

They also admitted not encouraging women to go in for other birth control
options, such as intra uterine devices (IUD) or the pill. "If we promote
Copper T [an IUD], how would we get enough women for sterilisations?" a
midwife called Radha asked.

I put that question to Anjali Gule, one of four gynaecologists at the
district hospital. She said that the poorly-equipped camps cannot offer
anything other than sterilization. And it was not humanly possible to do
anything else when sterilizations were the priority. "The numbers could be
anything - but we have to do them," doctors said.

The only woman to attend the Usayini camp for reasons other than
sterilization was Mumtaz, a 30-year-old mother of nine who had been
suffering from severe stomach cramps since a miscarriage a month ago. But no
one examined her and her midwife could not muster up the courage to press
her case. Finally, a male physician prescribed her some antibiotics and
anti-fungal medicines without an examination.

The midwife advised Mumtaz to visit the district hospital but she said she
had no money left to go anywhere. "They [the hospital] charge six rupees
[$0.1]," said Mumtaz who had already paid a similar amount to travel to
Usayini from her village.

Aradhana Johri, former director of SIFPSA in the state capital until some
months ago, tried to justify the emphasis on sterilisations: "From the
options like condoms etc, available to agencies to choose from, we went in
for sterilisation. And ANMs are also provided with IUDs and pills. If they
don't supply them it is because they are a bunch of lazy women who do not do
their job."

Every midwife has about 400 women of reproductive age under her, said Johri.
"So is it too much to expect three cases from her every fortnight?"

In the southern state of Andhra Pradesh the annual sterilisation figure is
900,000, she informed me, whereas in Uttar Pradesh - which is double in size
- the number in 2000 was 400,000. "Target-free means no work," she
concluded.

Johri's successor, Kapil Dev, said, "We don't have a targeted approach. Yes,
we have targets for a year if you wish to use that word. But that is merely
another expression for achievement levels." Dev has a new successor this
month.

About the neglect of the reproductive health goals - such as pre-natal and
ante-natal care, nutrition, and other contraceptive options - the district
SIFPSA-in-charge C K Mishra was blunt: "We have to meet targets as USAID
funds are given on the basis of the sterilisation targets achieved."

Rajendra Mishra, director in charge of SIFPSA in the federal health
ministry, brushed aside all criticism. Had there been a targeted approach
for 10 years, Uttar Pradesh would have been another Kerala, he asserted, in
a reference to the Indian state that has become a byword for Third World
development. But Kerala, he forgot to mention, is also where women enjoy the
highest health and literacy status in India and live the longest -
unburdened by targeted sterilisation.

In the national capital New Delhi, the USAID spokesman for the SIFPSA
project, Randy Kolstad, also denied pursuing targets. "I have issues with
calling it a targeted approach," he said. As for penalties to pressure
midwives to get sterilisation cases for camps, he said: "There could be
situations where service providers have chosen not to work."

"We pay attention to the entire reproductive health needs of the couple.
Sterilisation is a predominant method of family planning," he added.

The SIFPSA project had planning levels, but that was not the same as a
targeted approach, Kolstad maintained: "We may say we intend to distribute
100 million condoms in a year and similarly with sterilisations."

To poor women brought to the Usayini camp, these are perhaps no more than
semantics. Indian women have been here before./PANOS FEATURES

Sreelatha Menon is principal correspondent with The Indian Express newspaper
in New Delhi and writes on health and development. This report follows her
investigative studies as part of a Panos media fellowship on reproductive
health and rights.

This feature is published by Panos Features and can be reproduced free of
charge. Please credit the author and Panos Features and send a copy to MAC,
Panos Institute, 9 White Lion St, London N1 9PD, UK. Email:
media at panoslondon.org.uk

____


[7]

Indian Express,
October 21, 2003

Watch this film, Praveenbhai
'Pinjar' is an eloquent testament against the politics of division
MOHAMMED WAJIHUDDIN

Praveen Togadia is a heart surgeon by training, 
but is known more for haranguing the masses than 
for holding the scalpel. In his blind rage, he 
seems to have forgotten a doctor's compassion for 
fellow human beings, his respect for human life. 
Last week he went ballistic again, threatening 
communal riots if ''Rambhakts'' were stopped from 
reaching Ayodhya.

In any law-abiding nation, Togadia would have 
been behind bars by now. But since the neocons in 
the Vajpayee government think otherwise, and no 
amount of lectures on the absurdity of riots are 
likely to sway Praveenbhai, I choose an 
alternative method. I recommend that he watch 
director Chandraprakash Dwivedi's Pinjar 
(Skeleton) releasing soon. He may take Narendra 
Modi, Hindutva's poster boy, along for the show.

As they watch Pinjar, based on Amrita Pritam's 
Partition saga, unfold on screen, they will get 
jolted. As the camera focuses on two pitchers at 
the mouth of a narrow street - marked Hindu ka 
paani and Muslim ka paani - they will see the 
yawning gulf communalism can create between 
communities.

A serious indictment of the madness that's 
communal violence, Pinjar shows why the 
Subcontinent should have exorcised this evil long 
ago. It didn't. The film doesn't shake, it 
stings. The burning bazaars of Lahore, the 
fear-stricken people fleeing their homes, the 
rape of refugees behind the bushes, in sugarcane 
fields - the frames leave you speechless.

And yet it's not just about man's bestiality 
against man. It's also about the triumph of love 
over hate. And it's conveyed through the 
character of Puro (Urmila Matondkar), a Hindu 
woman kidnapped by her Muslim neighbour. The boy 
doesn't defile her, he brings her food and gets a 
Hindu girl released from forceful confinement at 
a Muslim home, reuniting her with her family. 
Puro becomes Hameeda, but doesn't forget her 
Hindu roots. In the climactic scene she refuses 
to walk out on her once tormentor, now a doting 
husband - the Muslim neighbour - and refuses to 
cross over to India.

By the time the film ends, you are reduced to 
tears. ''I couldn't get up from the seat for 10 
minutes,'' a young woman said after a special 
screening in Mumbai. Praveenbhai may react 
similarly. Or he may just brush it aside as a 
dream-merchant's exaggeration, a novelist's 
fictitious tale. But he can't deny the 
desperation rioters foist on a city and its 
inhabitants. Remember Qutubuddin Ansari, the 
Ahmedabad tailor beseeching a mob for mercy 
during the Gujarat riots? That's what communal 
violence reduces you to.

Praveenbhai may argue he threatend violence 
because he seeks justice for Ram. But Ram belongs 
to India, not to the Sangh Parivar alone. Poet 
Iqbal calls Ram Imam-ul-Hind (Leader of India), 
not Imam of Hindus. You cannot build a house for 
the Imam-ul-Hind and please him by masterminding 
riots and destroying others' homes. Ram will 
reject a ''Rambhakt'' who threatens violence and 
brings a city under siege.


____


[8]

Togadia's trishul distribution function banned in Madurai
Press Trust of India
Madurai, October 28

Police on Tuesday banned 'Trishul distribution 
programme' by VHP leader Praveen Togadia but 
permitted a meeting to be addressed by the leader 
on October 30 at a function here,to mark 'Thevar 
Jayanthi' celebrations.

Police commissioner Vijaykumar told PTI here that 
the ban on the programme was being imposed under 
Section 41(A) of the Tamil Nadu City Police 
regulatory act.

The main objective of the ban was to protect 
communal harmony, and maintain peace in the city. 
However, the meeting to be addressed by Togadia 
had been permitted, he said.

The 'Joint Action Council Against Communalism' 
had sought Tamil Nadu Governor PS Ramamohan Rao's 
intervention to prevent distribution of 
'Trishuls', fearing that it would pose a threat 
to communal harmony.

VHP and Bharatiya Forward Bloc had claimed that 
Togadia, who would participate in Pasumpon 
Muthuramalinga Thevar 'gurupooja' celebrations, 
would distribute 'Trishuls' at a function in the 
city.

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

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
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DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
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