SACW | 30 Oct. 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WIRE   |  30 October,  2003

Announcements:
a)  The South Asia Citizens Web web site URL www.mnet.fr/aiindex is 
no longer valid; users are invited to use Google cache for pages held 
at the old location.  The new redesigned SACW web site is currently 
located at http://sacw.insaf.net
'South Asia Counter Information Project' a sister initiative of SACW 
is now serving as partial mirror, archive area  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] Pakistan India Peoples' Forum for Peace and Democracy sincerely 
welcomes the government of India's proposals aimed at normalising 
relations between India and Pakistan
[2] CBMs in S Asia mean oneupmanship (Edit, The Daily Times)
[3] Pakistan -India relaytions: From 'maybe' to 'yes' (Praful Bidwai)
[4]  Victims of India's war on terror:
- India's 'Patriot Act' comes under scrutiny (Dan Morrison)
- Geelani, Afsan Guru acquitted in Parliament attack case  (Anjali Mody)
- Indian court acquits Muslim professor (Edward Luce)
+ Background matter:
[5] India: One-man army against hate (Mohammed Wajihuddin)
[6] India: Letter to the Editor (Ammu Abraham, Aruna Burte)
[7] India: Of sense and Sanskrit (J Sri Raman)
[8] India: Documela 2003: Two-day festival of select documentary 
films (near New Delhi, Nov. 1-2)

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

[1]

Press statement 
	24-10-2003

The Pakistan India Peoples' Forum for Peace and Democracy sincerely 
welcomes the government of India's proposals aimed at normalising 
relations between India and Pakistan and in particular the relaxation 
of the restrictive visa regime and the restoration of air, road and 
rail links which will facilitate people-to-people contacts and ease 
the hardships suffered by the peoples of the two countries. .

The far reaching initiatives include a new bus service between 
Srinagar and Muzaffarabad, a ferry between Mumbai and Karachi, the 
restoration of Khokhrapar - Munabao link by rail or road, free 
(by-foot) crossing of the Wagah border by senior citizens, resumption 
of sporting contacts, a 'hotline between the two coast guards, 
non-arrest of fishermen at sea, etc. In addition there was 
willingness to restart the 'Samjhauta Express' and to increase the 
capacity of the Delhi-Lahore Bus service.

PIPFPD hopes that the government of Pakistan will respond positively 
to these proposals and that the two neighbours can begin the long 
overdue process of moving towards normalising relations.    

While welcoming these fresh proposals, PIPFPD would like to emphasise 
that peace and cooperative relations between the two countries 
require that both governments sincerely engage to settle the Kashmir 
dispute keeping in mind the wishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir 
as reiterated in the several declarations of the Forum since 1994. 
The Kashmir dispute has held hostage peace in the subcontinent and 
has resulted in the militarization and nuclearisation of the region 
and without a substantive political dialogue that addresses the 
Kashmir dispute no sustainable peace can be built.


Tapan Kumar Bose
Ashok Mitra
General Secretary 
		Chairperson

____


[2]

The Daily Times
October 30, 2003

EDITORIAL: CBMs in S Asia mean oneupmanship

After putting on hold its response to the October 22 Indian 'package' 
of twelve confidence-building measures (CBMs), Pakistan has unveiled 
its own 13-point package. The package can be divided into three 
categories: the proposals Pakistan has accepted without a rider; the 
proposals it has made itself; and the proposals it has agreed to in 
principle but added to them the proviso of 'composite talks'. 
Pakistan has accepted "restoration of all sporting ties with India'; 
it has agreed to allowing "people over 65 to cross the border on foot 
at Wagah, rather than wait for group transport'; and it has agreed to 
setting up a "'hot line' between the Maritime Security Agency of 
Pakistan and the Indian Coast Guard when fishermen are arrested in 
each other's territorial waters". This part of the package is 
unlikely to raise any eyebrows in India.
In the second category fall the offers made by Pakistan: it has 
offered to "treat 40 Indian children at Pakistani specialist 
hospitals"; has called "for restoring diplomatic strength to 110 
personnel in each High Commission, or embassy"; has proposed "a bus 
service between Lahore and the Indian city of Amritsar". So far, we 
are not in rough waters. But then there is the final point in this 
category, which is also the 13th point on the Pakistani list. 
Pakistan has offered "100 scholarships for Kashmiri students to study 
at Pakistani professional colleges, treatment for disabled Kashmiris 
and assistance for Kashmiri widows and rape victims". As part of this 
offer it has called "on India to allow international human rights 
groups to select people eligible for assistance". This, seen within 
the framework in which the two sides operate, is smarter than India's 
offer of a bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad. Indeed, the 
proviso Pakistan has added to the Indian offer of the bus service 
across the Line of Control while accepting the offer is another shot 
across India's bow. It wants the UN personnel to man the checkpoints 
and the travelers to have UN documents. In conjunction with the 
acceptance of this Indian demand with a rider, and its own offer to 
the Kashmiris, Pakistan has taken an integrated offence-defence 
approach which will have the Indian ministry of external affairs 
smarting.
But will this solve anything? The simple answer is no. In all 
fairness, however, Pakistan cannot be faulted for its package since 
the pattern behind what India is doing is quite obvious. India wanted 
Pakistan to reject the CBMs. That would have served two purposes. 
Pakistan would have earned the displeasure of the international 
community which has welcomed the Indian move; and the BJP would have 
gone to the elections (the current state ones and the national ones 
in 2004) suitably hawkish on Pakistan to win the big cow-belt vote. 
Islamabad's package has taken the wind out of that strategy's sails. 
It has not rejected the Indian proposal, accepting even the bus 
service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad. But what it has offered 
will make the Indian government sit up and find ways of getting out 
of something that it started with all the wrong reasons.
Everybody knows that India has so far spurned Pakistan's proposal for 
comprehensive bilateral talks and that the Indian CBMs were simply a 
diversionary tactic. Yet, under the bleak circumstances of South 
Asia, the international community responded to them with praise. Now 
India has got itself into a bind with the Pakistani response. It is a 
foregone conclusion how it would react. Both countries will be back 
to square one. There is a lesson here for both sides, but especially 
India. It won't help to try and outsmart each other. To be able to 
win support internationally, both will have to change the intentions 
behind this now sickeningly routine exercise. Let's put an end to the 
oneupmanship. *


______


[3]

The News International
October 30, 2003

 From 'maybe' to 'yes'

Praful Bidwai

It is an encouraging sign of good sense that the Pakistan 
establishment has quickly moved from a negative response to Indian 
Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha's surprise announcement of 12 
proposals or steps for improving bilateral relations to a largely 
positive one. The first, immediate reaction of Foreign Minister 
Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri to the proposals was to call them a way of 
avoiding a dialogue, which Pakistan is keen on. Sinha's "omission" of 
the "core issue of Kashmir", Kasuri said, reflects India's 
"non-serious" attitude, itself driven by the "biased attitude of an 
extremist Hindu group".

This tone was reinforced by Information Minister Sheikh Rashid 
Ahmed's accusation that India indulged in "jugglery of words" and 
"delaying tactics". He said the BJP was "playing with the emotions of 
people to get their sympathies" and warned: "Pakistan cannot be 
deceived by the political manoeuvres of the Indian government."

However, just two days later, Pakistani foreign office spokesperson 
Masood Khan promised that each of the proposals would be "considered 
very seriously and very cautiously". By Sunday, the government let it 
be known through a private media briefing that Pakistan is "not 
unwilling" to first discussing "softer issues", as India proposes. 
Indeed, it said Pakistan had itself made similar proposals, including 
the resumption of sporting ties and the Karachi-Mumbai ferry, and 
raising the strength of embassy staff.

Regardless of who made the proposals first and with what motive, one 
must hope Islamabad will welcome them because they are intrinsically 
worthy. Indeed, there is good reason why India should unilaterally 
take some of the steps it has proposed for bilateral discussion - no 
matter what Pakistan does, and regardless of Masood Khan's 
characterisation of Defence Minister George Fernandes as a 
"psychopath" for his "war-mongering".

One may or may not agree with the view that the 12 proposals 
represent an attempt to "breathe life into the slow-moving peace 
process" which was shakily launched six months ago, or that they were 
framed with an eye on Western opinion. But Western opinion has 
treated them favourably, as should be evident from the reactions in 
London, Paris and Washington (which gushed to "warmly welcome" them 
as "a major step towards establishing normal links between these two 
important neighbours and for providing a foundation for real 
progress...") Moscow and Beijing also welcome them.

The proposals do mark a significant change and improvement in India's 
approach. Pessimistically, they will at minimum facilitate greater 
and easier people-to-people contacts between the two countries. On a 
more optimistic assessment, they could lead to the crucial thirteenth 
step, a comprehensive India-Pakistan dialogue on all issues, 
including Kashmir.

Consider the minimalist scenario. People-to-people contacts are in 
and of themselves worthy of unconditional, unstinted support. 
Admittedly, such contacts are no substitute for state-level or 
policy-related decisions. Yet, there is great virtue in citizen-level 
interaction in a long-vitiated climate, in which mutually inimical 
perceptions thrive on both sides and where hostility is visceral, and 
demonisation of each other the instinctive, knee-jerk reaction.

The proposals thus represent an overdue correction of the wanton 
disruption of citizen-level exchanges after December 13, 2001. Soon 
after Prime Minister Vajpayee held out the "hand of friendship", and 
his counterpart Jamali responded positively on May 6, the two 
governments retreated, creating a hiatus between official moves and 
civil society-level reconciliation.

They permitted limited citizen-to-citizens interaction and MPs' 
visits. But they refused to allow each other's high commissioners to 
leave their respective capitals or meet any officials of consequence. 
In fact, in recent weeks, they have clamped down on people-to-people 
interactions and Track-II dialogue and reverted to the familiar 
exchange of hostile rhetoric, accelerating nuclear and missile 
preparations and racing to acquire sophisticated armaments. A change 
of direction away from hostility is itself welcome.

Put bluntly, Sinha's proposals involve accepting a distinction 
between "normalisation" and "dialogue", as "The New York Times" put 
it. Secondly, besides greater people-to-people contacts, they are 
aimed at a modest (mainly economic) target. This is not an ideal 
situation. It would certainly be preferable to discuss the whole 
gamut of outstanding issues between India and Pakistan in a 
"composite dialogue". This should have started five or six months 
ago. But if the choice today is between normalisation and closer 
trade relations, pending a dialogue, on the one hand, and nothing (or 
rather, greater hostility), on the other, then it would be surely 
wise to prefer the first.

The modest target in question is progress towards a South Asian 
free-trade area, which alone can lend meaning to the next SAARC 
summit. India is negotiating a series of fast-track free-trade 
agreements collectively with ASEAN, with Brazil and South Africa, and 
bilaterally with Thailand and Sri Lanka. The only area where no such 
deal has been struck is India's own immediate neighbourhood!

One reason for this is that Pakistan has long dragged its feet on 
trade. But in the last round of Kathmandu talks, it extended 250 
tariff lines to India - substantial progress according to Indian 
foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal. This has raised hopes that the SAARC 
summit could produce a trade breakthrough. A trade pact and the 12 
proposals would go nicely hand in hand - to both countries' and 
peoples' benefit.

Many of the 12 proposed steps are a rehash of what existed, or was 
proposed earlier by Jamali. That doesn't negate their worth. The new 
idea is the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus, for which there is 
considerable support on both sides of Kashmir. This would be the 
first step in "softening" the border and facilitating contact between 
the long-divided people of Kashmir. This bus link should be heartily 
welcomed. It won't do to object that it will be the first step 
towards making the Line of Control an international boundary. That's 
not how international borders are drawn.

Pakistan isn't so weak as to be browbeaten into conceding a boundary 
that is patently prejudicial to its perceived interest. Nor is India 
being bled so badly by the overflight ban that it has no choice but 
to agree to Pakistani terms. So it makes sense for both governments 
to resume talks on airlinks between their cities, as well as 
overflights. Both need to show flexibility, or they could lose an 
opportunity to clinch a deal.

We must accept that there could be more than one pathway to 
India-Pakistan reconciliation. While summit-level breakthroughs are 
one route, gradualism could be another, if it is sustained and 
nurtured carefully so that the present climate of compulsive 
hostility is transformed. We have to give the reconciliation agenda 
the same chance as Nehru and Ayub Khan gave to Indus river 
water-sharing, so that an agreement became possible through the World 
Bank's mediation.

The addition of one more rail link, increasing the Lahore-Delhi bus 
capacity, and above all, permitting senior citizens to cross the 
Wagah border on foot could go a long way in quelling mutual 
suspicions and generating goodwill. Many Indians feel New Delhi 
should take unilateral steps in a number of areas, which Pakistan 
cannot but reciprocate. The same sentiment probably exists across the 
border too.

If these pro-reconciliation currents exert persuasive moral pressure 
on the two governments, they could contribute to breaking the present 
impasse. Surely, we deserve that break.


____

[4.]

The Christian Science Monitor
October 30, 2003 edition

India's 'Patriot Act' comes under scrutiny
Wednesday, a court overturned the conviction of a Muslim professor 
accused in a terrorist conspiracy.
by Dan Morrison | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
BOMBAY - An Indian appeals court Wednesday overturned the conviction 
of a Muslim professor who had been sentenced to die as a conspirator 
in the December 2001 terrorist attack on India's Parliament. The 
attack, for which India blamed neighboring Pakistan, almost drove the 
nuclear rivals to war.

Prof. Syed Abdul Geelani and three other defendants had been 
convicted under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), which grants 
broad powers to police and prosecutors and which critics say tramples 
the rights of the accused.

The Delhi High Court verdict came as India is reassessing the 
terrorism law and adding measures meant to safeguard defendants from 
abuse. There are complaints that federal and state governments have 
wrongly used the law against common criminals, political opponents, 
journalists, and even children.

"Indian justice has redeemed itself,'' says Ram Jethmalani, Mr. 
Geelani's lawyer. Geelani, a lecturer at Delhi University, had been 
sentenced to the gallows on the basis of a brief cellphone 
conversation in which, prosecutors said, he showed knowledge of and 
approval for the attack.

The high court said the conversation wasn't sufficient to convict him.

"The evidence turned out to be useless,'' Mr. Jethmalani says. "It 
established his innocence rather than his guilt.''

Generally speaking, India's debate over POTA is similar to concerns 
in the United States over the USA Patriot Act. Both laws give the 
government broad powers to investigate and interrogate suspects.

In India, the law for the first time makes jailhouse confessions 
admissible as evidence. In nonterrorism cases, such confessions are 
not admissible because they are assumed to be the product of torture. 
Wiretaps and transcripts of phone conversations are also admissible, 
and bail is all but impossible.

"This was a test case for POTA with its draconian provisions, which 
hold that we must deviate from the norms of justice to fight 
terrorism,'' says attorney Nitya Ramakrishnan, whose client, Navjot 
Sandhu, was ordered freed. "The verdict shows a lack of 
accountability, a lack of conscience'' by the authorities.

Ms. Sandhu had been sentenced to five years in prison for allegedly 
concealing her husband's role in the conspiracy. The high court 
upheld the death sentences handed to her husband, Shaukat Hussain, 
and another man, Mohammad Afzai, for their roles in the conspiracy.

Prosecutor Gopal Subramanian says he can't comment until he reads the 
decision. "I have not yet observed the wording,'' he says.

The Dec. 13, 2001, assault on India's Parliament is seen as India's 
Sept. 11. Five attackers stormed the walled Parliament complex and 
killed nine people before they were gunned down. India blamed 
Pakistan-backed militants for the attack, which Pakistan denied, and 
more than a million soldiers were massed at the border.

None of the four defendants was present at the attack. Instead they 
were linked to it through intercepted mobile-phone conversations and 
by confessions they claimed were the result of police torture. Police 
deny those charges.

Human rights advocates say the trial, most notably Geelani's 
conviction, was rife with procedural errors, fabricated evidence, and 
capriciousness by the judge.

"It throws open all these questions,'' Ms. Ramakrishnan says. "A 
trial court sentences a man to death after tying both hands behind 
his back, and the high court acquits him.''

Ajai Sahni, editor of the South Asia Intelligence Review, says the 
verdict "does not reflect on the validity of the law or the necessity 
for the law." He says POTA is one of the weakest antiterrorism laws 
in the world, but seeks to adapt the antiquated Indian penal code to 
the challenges of terrorism.

"Most of what would be evidence in the West would not be evidence 
here," he says.

Almost every Indian state government has been accused of misusing the 
terrorism law.

In the state of Jharkhand, a 13-year-old boy and an 81-year-old man 
were charged as terrorists during a February round up of 200 
suspected Maoist rebels and their supporters.

In Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister Jayalalitha has charged a political 
opponent, who is also a junior member of the federal cabinet, under 
the law for allegedly speaking in favor of Tamil separatists.

On Monday, Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam added new sections to 
the terrorism law that give review committees the power to quash 
unfair prosecutions. Now the committees have the power to "review 
whether there is a prima facie case for proceeding against the 
accused under this act and issue directions accordingly.''


  o o o

The Hindu, Oct 30, 2003
Geelani, Afsan Guru acquitted in Parliament attack case

By Anjali Mody

A jubilant Arifa Geelani hugs lawyer Nandita Haksar after the Delhi 
High Court on Wednesday acquitted her husband, S.A.R. Geelani, who 
had earlier been sentenced to death, in the Parliament House 
terrorist attack case. Ms. Geelani's son and her father look on. -- 
Photo: S. Subramanium

NEW DELHI OCT. 29. The Delhi High Court today acquitted S.A.R. 
Geelani and Afsan Guru in the December 13 Parliament attack case. Mr. 
Geelani, a Delhi University lecturer, had earlier been sentenced to 
death by a special POTA court on charges of conspiring in the attack. 
Ms. Guru (formerly Ms. Navjot Sandhu) had been sentenced to 
five-years rigorous imprisonment on the lesser charge of concealing 
knowledge of the conspiracy.

The two-judge Bench, comprising Usha Mehra and Pradeep Nandrajog, 
however, dismissed the appeals of Mohammed Afzal and Ms. Guru's 
husband, Shaukat Hussain Guru, against their conviction under the 
Prevention of Terrorism Act and the death sentences awarded to them 
on three counts. The judges also upheld an appeal by the state to 
increase the sentence on the charge of conspiring to wage war against 
the state from life to death. Citing a Supreme Court judgment of 
2002, they held that "the offence is of a magnitude that the 
collective conscious of the community is so shocked that it will 
expect the holders of the judicial power centre to inflict death 
penalty irrespective of their personal opinion as regards 
desirability or otherwise of retaining the death penalty."

Eight security personnel and a gardener were killed in the attack by 
five armed militants on Parliament on December 13, 2001. The 
militants, who were named by the investigators as Mohammed, Hamza, 
Rana, Haidar and Raja, were also killed. A telephone number found on 
their persons was said to belong to Mohammed Afzal. The call records 
of this number led them to Mr. Geelani, who knew Afzal through his 
cousin, Shaukat Hussain.

In a 392-page judgment, the two-judge Bench said that the evidence, 
on which the lower court relied in convicting Mr. Geelani, did not 
stand up to scrutiny.

They said that "we are left with only one piece of evidence against 
Geelani - the record of telephone calls between him and Afzal and 
Shaukat. This circumstance, in our opinion, does not even remotely, 
far less definitely and unerringly, point towards the guilt of 
Geelani. We, therefore, conclude that the prosecution has failed to 
bring on record evidence, which cumulatively forms a chain, so 
complete that there is no escape from the conclusion that in all 
human probabilities Geelani was involved in the conspiracy."

In the case of Ms. Guru, the judges dismissed the state's appeal 
against her acquittal in the lower court on charges of conspiracy.

They upheld the trial court's judgment absolving her of any part in 
the conspiracy. Further, the judges held that on the evidence against 
Ms. Guru "even the offence that she had knowledge of the conspiracy 
and failed to report the same to the police is not established." They 
took the view that her husband's confessional statement - one of two 
pieces of prosecution evidence - was not evidence against her. They 
said that a confession made before a police officer under POTA was 
not admissible as evidence against a co-accused.

Ms. Guru's lawyer, Nitya Ramakrishnan, told The Hindu after the 
verdict that the question to be asked is: "Why had the police, with 
the best legal advice and in such a high-profile case, not paused to 
consider if it had sufficient evidence to prosecute the case."

Nandita Haksar of the All-India Defence Committee for S.A.R. Geelani 
echoed the sentiment. She said that while Mr. Geelani's acquittal 
vindicated the judiciary, "the question that remains to be answered 
is how did any court sentence a man to death on no evidence at all."

Both Shaukat Hussain Guru and Mohammed Afzal are expected to file 
appeals in the Supreme Court. Shanti Bhushan, counsel for Shaukat 
Hussain, said that "he has an excellent case and should have been 
acquitted. He has been falsely implicated because he is a cousin of 
Afzal who is a surrendered militant. I am quite sure the Supreme 
Court will do justice and acquit him".

Mohammed Afzal's counsel, Colin Gonzalves, said that he would file an 
appeal after a meeting with his client.

The public prosecutor, Mukta Gupta, said any decision by the state to 
appeal against the acquittals of Mr. Geelani and Ms. Guru would be 
taken only after the judgment had been scrutinised by all the 
"relevant departments".

Gopal Subramanium, who argued the case as the special prosecutor, 
said he could not comment on the judgment, as he had not yet read it.

PTI reports:

Accepting the prosecution contention that Afzal and Shaukat Hussain 
Guru were known to Mr. Geelani and used to remain in contact with him 
over telephone, the Bench said ``there is, however, no evidence on 
record to establish that he (Geelani) remained in touch over the 
telephone with the terrorists. When one acquires a mobile phone, it 
is but natural that one would test it for use. What other number 
would one connect other than that of a known person," the court 
asked, and added that "by itself, with nothing more, we are afraid 
that conviction cannot be sustained on this evidence."

o o o

Financial Times
Oct 30 2003

Indian court acquits Muslim professor
By Edward Luce in New Delhi
Published: October 29 2003 13:35 | Last Updated: October 29 2003 13:35
A New Delhi appeals court on Wednesday overturned last year's 
conviction of a Muslim academic who had been sentenced to death for 
his alleged role in orchestrating a suicide terrorist attack on 
India's parliament two years ago.

Wednesday's ruling, in which S.A.R. Geelani, a professor at Delhi 
University was freed after almost two years in custody, comes as an 
embarrassing blow to the New Delhi police which had based much of its 
case on Mr Geelani's role in the outrage.

The court also acquitted Navtoj Sandhu, wife of Shaukat Hussain Guru, 
whose death sentence was on Wednesday confirmed by the court. Ms 
Sandhu had been sentenced to five years for withholding knowledge of 
the conspiracy. The court also upheld the death sentence against 
Mohammed Afzal.

All five terrorists, whom New Delhi says were from Pakistan, were 
killed in the attack. "This ruling is a real triumph for India's 
judicial system," Ram Jethmalani, lawyer to Mr Geelani, told the 
Financial Times. "It showed that the judiciary has the courage to 
take on the establishment."

The attack, which New Delhi says was carried out by two 
Pakistan-based terrorist groups, claimed 12 lives and came close to 
wiping out a large chunk of India's political leadership, including 
senior cabinet ministers. It was followed by a tense nine-month 
military stand-off between the two nuclear powers.

Wednesday's ruling is likely to raise further questions about alleged 
police misuse of India's tough prevention of terrorism law which was 
enacted a few weeks after the attack. Human rights groups say that 
the law allows India's police to detain people indefinitely even 
where normal evidence is lacking.

The verdict is also likely to add to calls for reform of India's 
police. "Clearly the police are not trained for long enough or well 
enough," said Kuldip Nayer, a commentator and former Indian high 
commissioner to the UK. "To have put someone so obviously innocent as 
Mr Geelani through all this right up to a death sentence is a sad 
reflection on their methods."

Opponents of the anti-terrorist law also highlighted a recent case 
where Iftikar Geelani, a Kashmiri journalist, was detained for 
several months having been found in possession of a document that he 
downloaded from the internet. The document was widely available and 
unclassified.

They also point to the alleged misuse of the law in the Hindu 
nationalist BJP-ruled state of Gujarat, where riots last year claimed 
up to 2,000 Muslim lives, following a mob attack on a train in which 
58 Hindu passengers were incinerated. The state government has 
detained 240 people under the law, of whom 239 are Muslim.

"If you have a law like this, which you shouldn't, then you must 
ensure the police are independent from political interference, which 
they aren't," said Mr Nayar. New Delhi recently announced the 
creation of state committees to review detentions under the law. But 
critics say the move is insufficient.

o o o

[USEFUL BACKGROUND MATERIAL]

Victims of December 13
Basharat Peer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/kashmir/Story/0,2763,990901,00.html

Delhi University Teachers in Defence of S. A. R. Gilani
http://sacw.insaf.net/new/indefenceofJilani092003.html

All India Defence Committee for Syed Abdul Rehman Geelani
http://www20.brinkster.com/sargeelani

Trial of Errors: A critique of the POTA court judgement on the 13 
December case by Peoples Union for Democratic Rights, (PUDR), Delhi 
February 2003 http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Law/2003/parliament-case.htm

____

[5]

Mumbai Newsline, October 29, 2003

One-man army against hate
Mohammed Wajihuddin
Mumbai, October 28: YEARS ago, a Delhi intellectual commended Asghar 
Ali Engineer's efforts, saying, ''He's a one-man army fighting 
against communalism.''

Engineer (64) is not a lone ranger any more. But as his Centre for 
Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS) celebrates its 10th 
anniversary on November 3, Engineer doesn't have much reason to 
rejoice.

''When I started CSSS after the 1993 Mumbai riots, many joined me. 
The carnage had jolted them out of their slumber.

"Now, most of them have gone back to sleep. Perhaps they will wake up 
when another carnage occurs,'' he says, sitting in CSSS's small 
Santacruz office, surrounded by books and journals with just half a 
dozen support staff.

Scholar, activist and Bohra reformist leader, Engineer has turned 
spreading peace and communal harmony into an article of faith.

''Before CSSS, we had an informal organisation called Ekta. Much of 
my work was individualistic then. CSSS helped me organise my 
activities,'' he says.

To his target groups-teachers, students, the police and 
journalists-Engineer teaches a module on medieval Indian history. 
''Much of the hatred in this country lies rooted in the manner in 
which our textbooks teach medieval history.

At our workshops, we tell students and teachers to look beyond the 
obvious motives of a past event,'' he explains. So, if Mahmood 
Ghaznavi attacked the Somnath temple, the motive need not have been 
to humiliate Hindus.

''They are told Ghaznavi attacked a Hindu temple, but are not taught 
that 50 per cent of his army comprised Hindus, 12 of whom were 
generals-including three Brahmins. If he was a saviour of Islam, why 
did he attack the Muslim kingdom of Multan and demolish several 
mosques there?'' he asks.

Engineer, who edited Gujarat Carnage recently, has an encyclopaedic 
knowledge of communal clashes in post-Independent India. Jamshedpur, 
Aligarh, Banares, Moradabad, Neili, Bhiwandi, Bhagalpur, Mumbai, 
Ahmedabad.

Wherever the spectre of communalism raised its head, Engineer rushed 
to fight and chronicle the method in the madness.

He still recalls the first riot he witnessed in the 1960s. An 
engineering student in Jabalpur then, he vowed to fight communalism. 
Forty years on, he is still fulfiling his vow.

Communalism crusade
Asghar Ali Engineer has spoken and written for secularism for over 
three decades-the last 10 years as head of CSSS
Set up in 1993, CSSS has held hundreds of seminars across India, 
brought out investigative reports into communal riots and published 
books on the history and politics of hatred in India
Engineer's workshops have also helped sensitise the police, 
especially in Maharashtra. ''I have received tremendous response from 
the Maharashtra police. I want the constables to get 
de-communalised,'' he says

____



[6]

Letter to the Editor: 29th October, 2003

We are shocked by the continuing harassment of activists and artists,
especially women, by the state machinary - the government and the police
- in Gujarat. A few months back, it was Nafisa Ali who had to face an
FIR on a 'defamation' case, for advocacy on behalf of the Muslim riot
victims. Barely a week back it was Shubhradeep Chakraborty, who made a
documentary called Godhra Tak, following the trail of the karsevaks from
Ayodhya to Godhra. Now it is Mallika Sarabhai, against whom an FIR has
been lodged, allegedly for cheating and conspiracy.

In Mallika's case, a well planned conspiracy seems to be behind the
timing of the FIR. After four months of  enquiries, the police chose to
act at a time when the courts are on vacation, with the intention of
arrest, or forcing the victim to plead for anticipatory bail, allowing
for continuing interrogation.

After hearing about the facts behind the absurd charges, it does not
take much credulity to feel that Ms.Sarabhai is being intimidated. She
was the principal petitioner in a Supreme Court case demanding  a CBI
enquiry into the Gujarat pogroms. She has continued to speak out on the
issue.

State intimidation to violate the freedom of speech and movement of
innocent citizens is a gross blow against democracy. We condemn such
tactics against people who  have the courage to speak up about human
rights violations. By all reports, thousands of people from the minority
community are still being persecuted, harassed and subjected to
socio-economic boycott in Gujarat. India needs more Mallikas to speak
out on this.
Ammu Abraham, Aruna Burte, Women's Centre, Bombay

____

[7]

The Daily Times
October 30, 2003

HUM HINDUSTANI : Of sense and Sanskrit

J Sri Raman

Politics and ideology are driving the aggressive promotion of 
Sanskrit and this has given the language - the mother of many South 
Asian languages - an image it does not deserve
President A P J Abdul Kalam was recently in Bulgaria along with a 
mission. According to a small news item carried in many Indian 
newspapers on October 24, when he visited Sofia University, some 
students told him that they would 'love to learn Sanskrit'. The tone 
of national pride was evident in most news stories and even 
understandable. Ever since the days of colonial humiliation, every 
Oriental nation takes great pride in any Occidental discovery and 
recognition of its cultural heritage. Pride in Sanskrit, however, has 
by now acquired a political and ideological dimension of an entirely 
different kind.
India's rich Sanskrit literary heritage was also, quite largely, a 
discovery of Western scholars like Max Mueller, which consequently 
led to a nationalist rediscovery. According to eminent Indian 
historians like Romilla Thapar, along with the Western tributes came 
other theories. The concept of a racial Aryan-Dravidian divide among 
the Indian people is a case in point. Westerners, however, are not to 
blame for what Sanskrit and pride in the language have come to 
symbolise today socially and politically.
Sanskrit has come to symbolise a particular view of India's past and 
a particular kind of pride in it. Forces that reject much of India's 
history and seek to rewrite history uphold Sanskrit as the banner of 
the misleadingly so-labelled 'Hindutva', a majoritarian communalism 
that has little to do with the faith of millions. The language, that 
preserves the literature of several ancient religions and sects of 
India and schools of philosophical thought including atheism, is now 
identified with a brand of Hinduism that cannot be accepted by many 
of its devout practitioners.
Sanskrit, in the process, is now set up against other major languages 
of India. Majoritarian communalism masquerading as nationalism has 
set it up, above all, against Urdu, the latter is a product of a 
composite Hindu-Muslim culture and is unfairly identified with a 
religious minority.
This process, which finds its political culmination now, started a 
long while ago. In its early stages, this process took the form of 
concerted efforts to replace Hindustani, the people's language in the 
heartland, with 'shuddh' (pure) Hindi.
India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was openly critical 
of the exercise and frequently deprecated the creation and 
development of 'AIR (All-India Radio) Hindi' or a heavily 
Sanskritised and de-Urduised Hindi that made little sense to the 
common man. It may have become more intelligible now, but the 
political process it signified has not paved the way for people's 
unity that true patriotism should have aimed at.
In retrospect, the development of 'pure' Hindi would also appear to 
have been an attempt to deny the divided subcontinent a common 
language. Some readers may be aware that a similar campaign was 
carried out in Pakistan.
Sanskrit has also been set against another ancient, but still living 
Indian language - Tamil. The political votaries of Sanskrit, from the 
'sangh parivar' and its allies, have done the language a distinct 
disservice by pronouncing it more sacred and hence more suitable for 
worship than Tamil, the language of the southern state of Tamilnadu, 
the birth-place of the 'bhakti' (devotional) movement, which some 
historians see as the Hindu counterpart of Islam's Sufi stream.
In social terms also Sanskrit has been made synonymous with 
caste-based elitism. It may no longer be possible to prohibit any one 
other than the priestly caste from chanting Sanskrit mantras but the 
sociologist's use of the term 'Sanskritisation' to denote the elite 
in a caste society still makes eminent sense. Sanskrit is still 
widely associated with the upper castes. One will rarely ever find 
low-caste students reading Sanskrit at Indian universities. A 
low-caste or a tribal community 'Sanskritises' itself for upward 
social mobility.
Politics and ideology are driving the aggressive promotion of 
Sanskrit and this has given the language - the mother of many South 
Asian languages - an image it does not deserve. And the people who 
oppose this particular ideology and brand of politics are now also 
opposing Sanskrit. The consequent de-Sanskritisation drive is 
counterproductive.
In Tamilnadu, for instance, it led to a 'pure Tamil' movement that, 
many lovers of the language would now acknowledge, has not served its 
cause well. And when someone cast in the 'parivar' mould like Human 
Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi proposes promoting 
Sanskrit in the academia, there is a howl of protest against the idea 
of learning a 'dead language'. This reaction is uncalled for and what 
I would term a mercenary argument that might later be expanded to 
argue that there is no reason to learn about the past which is over 
and no longer relevant.
In another incident there is now a campaign against the schools that 
have been officially established for the purpose of learning the 
Vedas by rote: critics counter this move by projecting the Vedas as 
the vilest of human documents and denounce studying them as if it 
were a cardinal, reactionary sin!
The right course for any country, of course, is to study its heritage 
in a historical perspective. But a fascist ideology and the politics 
flowing from it make this well-nigh impossible.
The writer is a journalist and peace activist based in Chennai, India

____

[8]

DOCUMELA 2003: Two-day festival of select documentary films
DATE: 1st and 2nd of November, 2003.
TIME: 11am till 9pm daily
VENUE: National Law College, Sector 40, Gurgaon.
There are no tickets to this festival. All are welcome.


DOCUMELA~2003
The First Gurgaon Documentary Festival

After each film, there will be a 15 minute interactive session between the
filmmaker and the audience. Feel free to ask questions. Please take your seats
five minutes before the beginning of a screening. In order not to disturb
others, please silence your mobile phones.

11:00-11:30 I N A U G U R A T I O N

11:35-13:00 Words on water/85min./Sanjay Kak/An urgent journey through
the Narmada valley and a struggle that has exposed the
deceptive heart of India's development politics

13:15-13:45 Paradise on the river of hell/30min./Abir Bazaz, Meenu Gaur
On the catastrophic desolation of Kashmir

14:00-14:45 L U N C H

14:45-15:45 Dharma Dollies/60min./Aruna Har Prasad /A portrait of
young successful Indian women in search of a belief

16:00-16:55 Some Roots Grow Upwards/55min/Kavita Joshi/Seeking
insights into the art of Ratan Thiyam, and his folk theatre

17:10-18:04 Barf (Snow)/54min./Saba Dewan/Trekking with a group of
girls from slums going out from their city for the first time

18:20-19:00 C H A I P A A N I

19:00-19:28 Backstage Boys/28min./Meera Dewan/About brave and
adventurous Punjabi boys willing to take chances through illegal
immigration by the human traffickers

19:45-20:15 Portraits of belonging-Bhai Mian/30min.
20:15-20:45 Portraits of belonging-Sagira Begum/30min./Sameera Jain
Sensitive sketches of two people who practice their skills in
the context of belonging to an old city

21:00-21:43 When four friends meet/43min./Rahul Roy
They share their secrets. sex and girls; youthful dreams and
failures; frustrations and triumphs.


Day 2
Sunday, November 2nd 2003

11:00-13:30 STUDENTS' FILMS --
a) From MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi

Because my dad tells me so/40min./Sharat Kataria, Laalit Lobo, Vikram Rohella/
Filmmakers' journeys of discovery into their gender and sexual identities
Let me speak/35min./Sukrit, Manish and Sushil/A musical portrait of the music
band 'Indian Ocean'
Tedhi lakeer~the crooked line/26min./Aparna Sanyal, Amrit Sharma, Arunima
Shankar/A tale about two men and their not so 'straight' life

b) From the School of Convergence, New Delhi
And it lives/5min./Deeya Prakash, Amanpreet Singh and Aien Longkumer About
"Zafar Mahal", the summer retreat of Bahadur Shah Zafar
Knock-Knock/22min./2nd batch of students/A feature magazine

13:30-14:30 L U N C H

14:30-15:00 Into the Abyss/28min/Vandana Kohli
A film on major depression

15:00-16:00 Tracing the arc/38min.& A million steps/22min./Pankaj Butalia
Two films about the lost history of the mapping of Asia

16:15-16:45 Ramlila/30min./Subhash Kapoor/
About how people interpret legends

17:00-18:00 Three Women & A Camera/60min./Sabeena Gadihoke/A film on
three women still photographers, including Homai Vyarawalla,
India's first woman photo-journalist

18:15-18:45 C H A I P A A N I

18:45-20:00 Tales of the Night Fairies/74min./Shohini Ghosh/
A movement of sex-workers in Calcutta

20:15-21:00 Kamlabai/45min./Reena Mohan/A portrait of the first actress of
the Indian screen

21:00-21:30 A Season Outside/30min./Amar Kanwar/Examining the scars of
violence and the dreams of hope

END

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

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.

--