SACW | 21 Nov. 2003
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Thu Nov 20 21:02:12 CST 2003
SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WIRE | 21 November, 2003
via South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net
_______
[1] Pakistan: Multi Mulla Alliance fatwa in NWFP
women patients will be examined and given test
only by female medical staff (Sadia Qasim Shah)
[2] Pakistan - Israel: Debate, not fatwa (Siddique Mullick)
[3] India: A dangerous Us and Them mindset
Assam's fear of the outsider . . . (Sudhanshu
Ranjan)
+ Assam's shame (Edit., The Hindu)
+The Biharis who never saw Bihar until last night (Samudra Gupta Kashyap)
[4] Taslima Nasreen defends her book
[5] Oxford Scientist Launches Sharp Critique of Religion (Asya Troychansky)
[6] India: Message from : Mrinalini V. Sarabhai
+ President urged to intervene for Mallika (The Hindu)
+ Sarabhai paying for PIL against Modi: Writers (Indian Express)
[7] USA: Upcoming event: The Long Road to Justice: Godhra/Naroda/Best Bakery
A talk by Teesta Setalvad (November 21, NY City)
[8] India: Upcoming Conference : What is Wrong
with this Picture? Investigating Visual Studies
International Conference (Bombay - January 26-28, 2004)
--------------
[1]
Dawn
20 November 2003
Cure beyond bias
By Sadia Qasim Shah
The MMA government passed a resolution which lays
down that women patients will be examined and
given test only by female medical staff, in a
province where health facilities are already
inadequate, reports Sadia Qasim Shah.
Zubaida Bibi holds a diploma in electro
cardiography (ECG) and is the only ECG technician
in the NWFP. This makes her quite sought after
byhundreds of women patients who hesitate to have
medical tests conducted by male technicians in
the other hospitals.
Zubaida said that many women patients come to her
at the Khyber Teaching Hospital, one of the
city's main public hospitals, from far off
districts only because they have heard that a
female ECG technician is available at the
hospital.
There are some tests like the Exercise Tolerance
Test (ETT) which involves contact with the chest
of the patient and female patients feel
embarrassed when treated by a male technician
since there are no female ones around.
Zubaida observes that the reason why women don't
become technicians is because there are no
prospects for them in this field. There is one
Paramedical Training Institute at the Lady
Reading Hospital (LRH) but it has no female
technician.
To obtain a diploma, the candidate must have an
Intermediate (science group) certificate and two
years of training without a stipend, after which
they become technicians but without any surety
that they will get a BPS-05 scale government job.
The pay is very low and without any reasonable
incentives for women which is why they prefer
nursing. Women seek nursing schools also because
they have a better chance of promotions in the
profession, says Zubaida.
She works in the morning shift and performs ECG
tests on around a 100 female patients daily at
the KTH. Often when she is not around the nurses
on duty are asked to perform the ECG tests, but
Zubaida observes that a nurse cannot conduct them
better than a trained ECG technician.
In a province where ignorance and poverty
prevails and district hospitals even lack male
technicians and doctors, a resolution passed on
the segregation of treatment of patients on the
basis of gender is completely unrealistic,
especially when there is already a shortage of
female staff at public hospitals. This only goes
to show how legislators are far removed from
reality.
The medical facilities in the district
headquarter hospitals are not satisfactory, so
critical patients are usually referred to the
Khyber Teaching Hospital, Lady Reading Hospital
or the Hayatabad Medical Complex, the main
hospitals of the provincial metropolis which
treat patients not only from all over the
province but also from Afghanistan.
These hospitals are burdened with hundreds of
patients including purdah observing women who are
examined by male doctors, and their medical tests
are performed by male technicians or nurses due
to lack of female technicians.
One resolution passed in May by a majority, led
by an MMA member of the provincial assembly, Dr
Zakir Shah, addressed the deployment of women
technicians at public hospitals for checkups of
female patients. The majority passed this
resolution keeping in view that it is against
religion and culture for male doctors or
technicians to examine women.
Dr Simeen Mehmood, an MPA of PML-Q, immediately
opposed the resolution. She said that it was not
possible at this time to adopt such a measure.She
stressed how emphasis needs to be put on saving
lives, without any discrimination on the basis of
gender.
The so-called think tanks of the MMA government
did not go through the official records to check
whether female staff especially the trained
female technicians were available or not. They
just went ahead and issued directives to all
public sector hospitals in August that ECG and
ultrasound examinations of women patients were to
be conducted by female staff.
There are no hospitals exclusively for women with
trained women technicians, so without the
administrative capability to provide such health
facilities, it is impossible to implement the
resolution. But the resolution was passed
unanimously so it is binding on the government to
implement it.
The NWFP health department had issued directives
to the administration of all the public sector
hospitals to ensure that electrocardiography and
ultrasound of women patients are conducted by
women staff and technicians. But, according to a
health department official, only one female ECG
technician is available across the province.
The only female ECG technician at the Khyber
Teaching Hospital performs her duty in the
morning shift and the male technicians works in
the evening while there is no female technician
in the Lady Reading Hospital, another one of the
public hospitals of the city where women patients
from the surrounding districts come for treatment
and medical tests. There is no female ultrasound
specialist in any public hospital of the
province. The province's only qualified
ultrasonographist has left the country for good.
According to a male ultrasound specialist, about
100 ultrasounds are performed daily on female
patients, if men were to stop carrying these out
then where would all the female patients go, as
there is no female ultrasound specialist in any
public sector hospital in the entire province?
There is no female anaesthesia technician and
dispenser throughout the province. Female
patients are operated upon for haemorrhoids or
piles by male surgeons because there are only two
female general surgeons in the entire province.
The hospitals still lack the services of female
X-ray, laboratory and physiotherapy technicians.
There is no female radiographer in the 1,300 bed
hospital, a radiologist of KTH said.
Any sensible person can see that hospitals need
to be equipped with the latest medical health
facilities and qualified and trained staff need
to be appointed before gender restrictions can be
imposed. It is the government's responsibility to
first and foremost provide the best medical care
to all its citizens without any discrimination,
prejudice or bias on any basis - least of all
gender.
_____
[2]
Dawn, 20 November 2003
Debate, not fatwa
by Siddique Mullick
It is a good omen that a debate on the question
of recognizing Israel has been under way in
Pakistan without 'fatwas' being issued by the
self-declared custodians of Pakistanis' morality
and religious beliefs.
Pakistani society, it seems, has become
relatively open-minded and courageous. It
indicates that the Pakistanis have finally
started to cultivate a quality that did not exist
before in the Muslim world in general and the
Pakistani Muslims in particular i.e.: the ability
to ponder and discuss issues and matters without
being overwhelmed by religious emotions.
Not long ago, any hint of flexibility, modernity
or plain realism, expressed by the Pakistani
society, was quickly overshadowed by attempts to
declare the related topic, a taboo.
Some zealots called Sir Syed Ahmad, a Kafir
(infidel), because he wanted the Muslims of India
to seek education. They gave the same obnoxious
treatment to the great philosopher, Mohammad
Iqbal (he died before the creation of Pakistan),
because they couldn't grasp his deep
philosophical thoughts.
Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah was given
the same label because he wore elegant suits,
spoke immaculate English, had a great analytical
mind and wanted a separate homeland for the
economically down-trodden Muslims of India.
Now, let us think what is wrong with Pakistan's
recognizing Israel except that it will offend a
few hateful bigots? Israel is a reality and
ignoring a reality cannot be considered prudent.
During the 1971 war in Pakistan's eastern wing,
then called, East Pakistan, the world (except
India) held back its diplomatic forces and did
not recognize Bangladesh while a fight was in
progress between Pakistani forces and the
separatists who wanted the province to be
declared as an independent country. As soon as
Bagladesh emerged on the world map international
recognition came quickly. Even Pakistan
recognized Bangladesh within two years.
It was a wise move, and showed the acceptance of
a reality. If Pakistan could recognize a
territory which was once its province, as a
sovereign country, what is the logic behind
withholding this acknowledgement of the reality
in the case of Israel?
During Israeli prime minster's recent visit to
India, a senior member of his entourage extended
an olive branch to Pakistan by making a
conciliatory statement. Pakistan must not turn a
blind eye to this diplomatic opening.
The impression that Israel has a lot to gain from
its being recognized by Pakistan, as this will
make it easier for other countries with Muslim
population, to offer Israel a hand of friendship
is just a myth.
Egypt, Turkey and Jordan have diplomatic
relations with Israel. How has this made other
Muslim countries more amenable to Israel?
Frankly, in the context of budding India-Israel
friendship, Pakistan needs Israel more than
Israel needs Pakistan.
The recognition of Israel will enhance Pakistan's
ability to play a constructive role in finding a
solution to the riddle of the Middle East.
Countries can keep diplomatic ties and still
passionately oppose each other on various issues.
France, Germany, the UK, Spain and the US are not
only close friends but also members of the
strategic alliance, called NATO. Yet, during the
current war in Iraq, all these countries did not
hold the same view.
It will be pragmatic on the part of Pakistan
government to realize that religion is not a
factor in the issue of recognizing Israel. If an
Israeli action in the occupied territories
resulted in the death of a Christian Palestinian
and a Muslim Palestinian, will Pakistan condemn
Israel, only for the death of the latter?
_____
[3]
The Indian Express
November 21, 2003
A dangerous Us and Them mindset
Assam's fear of the outsider is not a new phenomenon
SUDHANSHU RANJAN
The demand now being made by some of the more
extreme elements in Assam, for 100 per cent
reservations for the Assamese in Central
government jobs in the state, is not new.
However, it is not legally permissible.
It was to douse the fire of parochialism that the
Parliament enacted the Public Employment
(Requirement as to Residence) Act. Through it,
all laws promulgated by states for giving
priority to their citizens were declared null and
void. If there cannot be any reservation for the
state in the state services, how can there be a
state quota for central jobs? The domicile
provision attracts Articles 14, 16 and 19 of the
Constitution.
Bihar is notorious for casteism but it has never
been infected by the virus of regional
chauvinism. After the Fazli Ali Commission's
report created a storm the chief ministers of
Bihar and Bengal offered to amalgamate their
tates in order to check the "linguistic madness".
But even in December 1947, when the Damodar
Valley Corporation was being built, an
interesting debate took place in the Bihar
assembly. Members harped on the inescapable fact
that a lot of land in Bihar would be submerged as
a result of this project, while the benefits of
flood protection and irrigation would go to
Bengal. The then chief minister, S.K. Sinha,
stood up and said, "It was only a few months back
that we on August 15, 1947, made ourselves free
and swore allegiance to India, to one India. None
could realise that they would soon be forgotten
that, if millions were benefitted in Bengal by
flood protection works which did submerge a few
villages in Bihar, those millions protected were
as much Indians as those in Bihar who lost some
land."
Assam's mindset was different possibly because of
the high levels of migration the state had
experienced. After the British annexed Assam,
large population movements from the south have
been a recurring phenomenon.
When the demand for partition was raised, it was
suggested that Pakistan would comprise of the
Muslim majority provinces in the west and
Bang-e-Islam, comprising Assam and Bengal, in the
east. Moinul Haque Chaudhury, M.A. Jinnah's
private secretary, had told Jinnah that he would
"present Assam to him on a silver platter". That,
however, did not happen.
It was Bangladeshi migrations that fanned the All
Assam Students Movement in the 1980s. But even
before this, in '66-'67, there was a movement
known as "Bengali Kheda", to drive out Bengalis.
Now it is the turn of the Biharis. They,
incidentally, constitute almost the entire
workforce of Assam and it all began when the
British imported Bihari labour for the tea
gardens.
The situation in Assam today is extremely serious
and does not portend well for either Assam or
India. Both the Assam and Bihar governments, as
indeed the Centre, must do all they can to defuse
the situation immediately.
o o o
The Hindu,
Nov 21, 2003
Opinion - Editorials
Assam's shame
THE KILLING OF close to 30 people in Assam in a
wave of attacks over the last few days on the
Hindi-speaking population of the State has once
again exposed the worst face of regional and
ethnic chauvinism in the North-East. The attacks,
which began with Assamese students preventing
Hindi-speakers from writing a selection
examination for junior posts in the North-Eastern
Frontier Railways (NFR), sparked off reprisals
against north-easterners in Bihar, the State to
which most Hindi-speakers in Assam trace their
roots. This in turn became the excuse for the
killings in northern Assam where a large number
of Hindi-speaking people live. The Assam
Government has been forced to seek the Army's
assistance to bring the situation under control.
The entire series of events, from the first
incident to the last killing, is reprehensible
and unacceptable to all who consider themselves
part of a civilised society. It has to be
condemned as such and a clear message sent out to
the perpetrators that such actions cannot be
tolerated. To her credit, the Bihar Chief
Minister, Rabri Devi, took swift measures to
clamp down on the incidents in her State. In
Assam, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi's efforts were
evidently inadequate: they failed to prevent the
grisly killings.
The latest episode of anti-migrant wrath in Assam
has provided the United Liberation Front of Assam
a tailor-made opportunity to rear its ugly head
again. Since the mid-1990s, the outfit has been
languishing on the margins, pushed there by the
Assamese because of its resort to terrorism,
retributive killings and criminal extortion.
Evidence of its unpopularity came when voters
defied its call to boycott the 1999 Lok Sabha
elections and turned out to vote in large
numbers. Hundreds of its cadres have laid down
arms, some of them saying they did not agree with
the senseless violence it advocates. More
recently, the group's call for a boycott of Hindi
films evoked no response. In the present spate of
violence gripping Assam, the State Government has
named ULFA as the main instigator and the
perpetrator of the killings. Clearly, the
extremist organisation, which has been banned
under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, sees in
the situation a chance to make a comeback. In all
this, the role of the All Assam Students' Union
needs to be highlighted. The AASU, which led the
agitation in Assam in the 1980s, recently
demanded that the NF railway "should be
restricted to the region" and it was the first to
raise the "foreigner" bogey in the matter of the
zonal railway recruitment examinations. In doing
so, the student body may have had an eye on its
own political fortunes but its strategy has
dovetailed neatly with that of the ULFA.
Mr. Gogoi has blamed the troubles on the Central
Government's failure to create adequate
employment opportunities in Assam. That may be
true, but it is only a part of the story and a
lazy way out - good for deflecting criticism but
bad in the long run because it plays into the
hands of the extremists. It reinforces the view
that while the mainstream political establishment
in Assam may distance itself from groups like
ULFA, it is not above using them for its own
political gains. Assam needs to look inward for
answers to this week's violence. The victims were
those whose families had migrated from Bihar
generations ago. It is time the so-called
"indigenous Assamese" looked at them as an
integral part of the State's ethnic mosaic
instead of as "outsiders". In this time of
crisis, it rests on Mr. Gogoi's shoulders to
provide leadership. Above all, he must resist the
temptation to fall into the
more-Assamese-than-thou trap.
o o o
The Indian Express
Friday, November 21, 2003
The Biharis who never saw Bihar until last night
Railway jobs, what railway jobs? Victims ask as they hide in Tinsukia
SAMUDRA GUPTA KASHYAP
TINSUKIA, NOVEMBER 20: Twenty eight-year-old
Mukti Yadav has never been to Bihar. He has only
seen its outline on a map of India. And that was
very long ago: he was a child then, studying in
an Assamese-medium school. Home has always been
Assam for Mukti, a Bihari.
But today he sits huddled in a corner of the
Debipukhuri Hindi High School, one of the 300
Biharis on the run after mobs torched their
homes, saying the Biharis were gobbling Assamese
jobs.
There are many like Mukti who have no idea what
this ruckus over railway jobs is all about. Nor
do they have any place to go to: the school where
they have sought shelter is a temporary relief
camp, organised by some locals because the
administration is yet to make up its mind whether
these people should be provided relief material.
''Those who attacked our homes were not from our
village. My friends from neighbouring villages
came in the morning to help us,'' says Biswanath
Yadav, another inmate at the camp. He's from
Guinjan, close to Boroguri which has always been
Mukti's home.
Tinsukia is Upper Assam's busiest town and has
the largest concentration of Biharis in the
region. Most work here as labour hands. Today,
with curfew in place, this bustling town has a
ghost-like appearance.
Trouble began on Tuesday after nearly 100 Biharis
who, fearing for their lives after stray
incidents of assault, collected in a temple. But
they ended up clashing with the locals there.
Advocate Bhaskar Dutta blames the slack
administration: ''Had they played a proactive
role, this situation would have never arisen. The
authorities failed to gauge the mood.'' Once
violence broke out, police opened fire. And then
rumour-mongers took over, fanning passions across
Tinsukia and Dibrugarh.
Tinsukia was the nerve centre of plywood
factories until 1996 when the Supreme Court ban
on tree-felling came into effect. The last
junction in the east on the railway map, its
entire workforce came from Bihar.
''There must be some 50,000 Biharis here. If you
were to include Dibrugarh, it would probably be
80,000,'' says Shew Sambhu Ojha. He should know.
He has been the local MLA twice and a minister in
the Congress government of Hiteswar Saikia from
1996-2001. Now a BJP leader, Ojha says most
Biharis are ''local'' people.
''The second generation was born in Assam. They
have forgotten their Bihar links. Many will not
be able to trace their ancestral village in
Bihar,'' says Ojha.
Sixty-year-old Budhiya Devi echoes Ojha. She says
she has nowhere else to go. ''Ihe janam-maran ke
rishta ho gail ba (we can identify ourselves only
with this state).'' She
was born in Sadiya, a town that slipped into the
Brahmaputra during the great earthquake of 1950.
Curfew has helped bring the situation
under control. Barring stray incidents last
night, it's been peaceful. But the damage has
been done: a generations-old bond is once again
suspect.
_____
[4]
The Hindu
Nov 21, 2003
Taslima Nasreen defends her book
Kolkata Nov. 20. The exiled Bangladeshi writer,
Taslima Nasreen, whose ``amorous'' and
``politically explosive'' autobiographical
account ``Ka'' has been stopped from being
printed in India by a Calcutta High Court order
after the same fate in her country, said if she
had damaged anybody's character in the book then
it was her own.
``I was alleged to have written obscene material.
Some who in the past praised me for my honesty
and the truths about which I wrote are now
attacking me for that very same honesty. What I
wrote were descriptions of what literally,
physically, and emotionally happened to me. I
wrote about those of my friends who surrounded me
at different times of my life's story,'' Ms.
Nasreen said.
``In my book I portrayed them as human beings.
Were I to have damaged anybody's character, I
would have been damaging my own, not theirs,''
said the controversial writer from the U.S.,
where she is now doing research work at Harvard
University.
``My memoir's purpose was not to prove that I am
a good person, a saint, a goddess. My purpose was
to describe the beautiful, the not-so-beautiful,
and the in-between events that happen in one's
literary life,'' said Ms. Nasreen, whose book
``Dwikhondito'' (``Ka''), the third in the series
of her autobiographical accounts, has been put on
hold from printing, sale and marketing by the
Calcutta High Court on Tuesday after a defamation
suit filed by the city-based poet Syed Hasmat
Jalal for ``defamatory remarks and references
about him which are false and frivolous.''
The two previous books in the series are Amar
Meyebala (My Girlhood) and Utal Hawa (Wild Wind),
while Shibani Mukherjee of Peoples' Book Society
now is publishing the book in the eye of the
storm.
``I am shocked that the book's printing has been
stopped in Kolkata because India is a progressive
democracy unlike Bangladesh,'' said Ms. Nasreen,
the writer of ``Lajja'' that depicted the
atrocities on the Hindus of Bangladesh following
the Babri Mosque demolition in India in 1992 and
which along with her ``anti-Islam'' views led to
her exile from the country.
Earlier, Bangladeshi poet and novelist, Syed
Shamsul Haq, had filed a $1.72 million defamation
suit against Ms. Nasreen for causing ``hurt'' and
``embarrassment'' by writing about him in her
book, which has been banned in Bangladesh.
UNI
_____
[5]
The Harvard Crimson
November 20, 2003
Oxford Scientist Launches Sharp Critique of Religion
By ASYA TROYCHANSKY
Despite the massive costs religion has imposed on human society, it
persists because children do not question their parents' beliefs, renowned
Oxford scientist Richard Dawkins argued in a fiery lecture last night at
Lowell Lecture Hall.
Before a packed house of 450 community members, faculty and students,
Dawkins argued that the widespread presence of religion -despite its lack
of obvious benefits-suggests that it was not an evolutionary adaptation.
Rather, he argued, religion is a societal norm that stems from children's
psychological tendencies.
"It is their unique obedience that makes them vulnerable to viruses and
worms," Dawkins said.
Society provides a breeding ground for the "virus" of religion by labeling
children with the religion of their parents. Children, in turn, absorb
these beliefs because they are conditioned to do so.
Though it is universal, Dawkin said, religion is not widely beneficial.
Rejecting the theory of many of his contemporaries, Dawkins argued that
religion has not helped people to adapt or to survive. Beyond acting as a
source of solace, religion provides no protection against diseases or
physical threats.
"A person who is faced with a lion is not put at ease when he's told that
it's a rabbit," Dawkins said.
Religion, in Dawkins' view, not only provides false comfort-it is actively
divisive and harmful. Designated as Christians or Muslims by their parents,
children are apt to face the discrimination associated with these labels,
Dawkins said.
Dawkins pointed to the example of Protestant fundamentalists in Belfast
spitting at young Catholic girls merely because their parents labeled them
Catholic.
He said these labels also preclude children from making independent
decisions as adults regarding their beliefs.
"Religion should be something for children to choose or not when they
become old enough to do so," Dawkins said. "The child is not [naturally] a
Christian child, but a child of Christian parents."
Following Dawkins' speech, Johnstone Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker
proposed two amendments to Dawkins' theory, both of which Dawkins accepted.
Pinker argued that peers, as much as parents, affect children's beliefs.
He also attributed the spread of beliefs to the active faculty of the human
brain, which he referred to as "the intricate activity of neurons."
Although most audience members responded with approval to the controversial
remarks, some found fault with his assumptions. One questioner accused
Dawkins of basing his theory on the unproven premise that religion is
false.
Lauren E. Tulp '07 was also not entirely convinced by Dawkins' theory. A
practicing Roman Catholic, she said, "It was presumptuous to assume that
everyone in the room was an atheist."
Dawkins did, however, concede that there is a sort of religious quality
that characterizes scientific phenomena.
"The sense of transcendence is something that is shared by those who don't
call themselves religious," Dawkins said.
Dawkins will discuss the presence of religion in science at 5 p.m. today at
Lowell Hall, as the second event of the Tanner Lectures on Human Values.
On Friday, he will conclude the lecture series with a seminar at the Wiener
Auditorium at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
_____
[6]
Message from : Mrinalini V. Sarabhai
Date: 18 Nov 2003
My dear friends,
It was on the 18th of October, exactly a month
ago that this horror that has trampled and tried
to destroy every right and freedom that I have as
a human being and a citizen of this country,
started.
On the 3rd of November, we appealed to the court
to change one rule in the anticipatory bail, that
of curtailing my freedom to travel outside
Gujarat to perform, lecture or fulfil my
television assignments. Yesterday, two weeks
later the court rejected this. They knew from
the 3rd that I have commitments in Mumbai, Pune
and Delhi from the day after tomorrow,
commitments which I must keep. It is their
attempt to stop my voice being heard, and
Darpana's main income through performances
stopped.
Today I have moved the sessions court to allow me
to travel. Simultaneously we are admitting a
squashing petition in the High Court this
afternoon.
Meanwhile, a new income tax enquiry mirroring the
words of the local newspaper has been started.
Another enquiry by the Charity Commissioner in to
the mother Trust, Karmakshetra Educational
Foundation started by my parents and under which
Darpana runs has also been started.
The grapevine tells us that Mr. Saxena and
'Others' are preparing several more cases of
similar nature.
Amidst all this working 18 hours a day,
providing information to the various enquries, we
try to keep sane, smiling, optimistic and
creative.
I thank for your continual support and love,
Mallika Sarabhai
o o o
The Hindu - New Delhi
19.11.2003
President urged to intervene for Mallika
New Delhi, Nov 19. (UNI): Eminent Gandhian
Nirmala Desh Pandey, noted art historian Kamla
Vatsayan, singer Shubha Mudgal and a host of
other intellectuals, artists and writers have
appealed to the President A P J Abdul Kalam to
intervene to desist the Modi Government in
Gujarat from "harassing Dr Mallika Sarabhai by
implicating her in false cases for filing a PIL
in the Supreme Court in connection with Gujarat
riots".
Expressing surprise and anger over a local
court's restrictions on the movement of the noted
danseuse, they also appealed to the Supreme Court
to "review all such cases as have been initiated
by the Gujarat government against those who spoke
and rose up against the genocide in that state,
and provide physical and mental security to
them,".
A resolution making these demands was passed at a
meeting held here last evening. The participants
also appealed to Gujarat artists and writers to
break their silence and come out in an open
support of Dr Sarabhai.
The resolution said allegations against the
danseuse have been levelled at the behest of one
V K Saxena, who is well-known for supporting
Narendra Modi and acting against those carrying
on anti-Narmada agitation.
Expressing concern over the goings on in Gujarat,
eminent scientist Prof Yash Pal said what had
happened in that state was part of a
widespreading malaise in the country.
"A very deep criminal conspiracy is going on the state," he said.
It was decided at the meeting that a
demonstration will be held outside the venue of
the World Economic Forum meeting which will be
addressed by Narendra Modi here this week.
o o o
Sarabhai paying for PIL against Modi: Writers
Express News Service
New Delhi, November 18: SCIENTISTS, writers and
visual artists gathered today at Triveni Kala
Sangam to protest against the Gujarat court's
decision rejecting Mallika Sarabhai's - world
renowned dancer - plea to allow her to travel
outside Gujarat.
They said the Gujarat government falsely
implicated Sarabhai because she was the first
artist to have openly criticised Narendra Modi
government's role in the communal violence in
that state.
Ashok Vajpayee, Hindi poet said: ''The Gujarat
government is shamelessly curtailing civil
liberties of people who criticised the genocide
in Gujarat. ''
Kapila Vatsyayan, art historian said the
implication of Sarabhai in a false case and
deliberately curtailing of her freedom to travel
outside Gujarat ''is cruelly suppressing the
human rights'' of the sorts which not even the
colonial government had resorted to.
Prof Yashpal, former UGC chairman, said the image
of Gujarat as harbinger of civil rights and
patron of liberal arts has been shattered by the
actions of the Modi government.
Harsh Mandar, former IAS officer said Sarabhai
has been falsely implicated as all the money
''Darpana'' owes has been refunded on the
cancellation of the dance tour and except Manushi
Shah no other student has complained. Sarabhai is
implicated because she filed a PIL in Supreme
Court against Modi government's role in Gujarat
riots, he said.
The meeting also decided to protest before the
World Economic Forum building on the day Modi
addresses the forum.
_____
[7]
The Long Road to Justice:
Godhra/Naroda/Best Bakery
A talk by
Teesta Setalvad
Friday November 21, 7:00 PM
Hunter College (Lex and 68th, Manhattan) [New York City]
Hunter North C002
The state sponsored carnage of the Muslim minority in Gujarat in
March-April 2002 was a watershed event in the troubled history of
secularism in India. More than 2500 innocent muslims were massacred by
militant Hindutva (a Hindu nationalist movement) forces and more than
150,000 others were rendered homeless. Within days after the carnage
began, Human Rights groups from across the country began mobilizing in an
effort to seek justice -- to bring the perpetrators to justice and ensure
the safety and security of the muslim minority in Gujarat and elsewhere in
India. Now, nearly two years after the genocidal attack not a single
person has been convicted and the minorities in Gujarat continue to face
inhuman conditions. However, the process of fighting for justice has
pushed the limits of the Indian judicial system -- public interest
litigations in the Supreme Court, numerous cases in the Gujarat State
court system, evidence gathering and witness protection under
circumstances of dire threats -- have al continued ceaselessly. Teesta
Setalvad, the convener of the Concerned Citizens Tribunal, that produced a
two volume report (Crimes Against Humanity) with detailed evidence of
State complicity in the massacre, is one of the chief actors in the battle
for justice. In her talk, Teesta Setalvad will outline the nature of the
contradictions that have emerged over the last year and half of legal work
around the Gujarat massacre, especially in the context of the recent
Supreme Court directives on the Best bakery case.
Teesta Setalvad, a long time journalist, is currently the co-editor of
Communalism Combat, the only Indian magazine in English entirely dedicated
to the anti-communal struggle, and the Director of KHOJ, a schools project
to promote secular education. Most recently she was the Convener of the
Concerned Citizens Tribunal that investigated the killings in Gujarat,
published now in a two volume report titled "Crimes Against Humanity."
Setalvad has won many awards, including the [Nurem]berg International Human
Rights Award, Human Rights Defenders Award, the Pax Christi International
Peace Award, the PUCL Human Rights Journalism Award and the Dalit
Liberation Education Trusts' Human Rights Award.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Directions to Venue: 6 Train to Hunter College/68 Street
For reports on the Gujarat massacre: http://www.onlinevolunteers.org/
For More Information on the talk Call: 917 232 8437 or email mathew at rider.edu
For Insaf-NY/FOIL list info send email to: info at foil.org
_____
[8]
What is Wrong with this Picture?
Investigating Visual Studies
International Conference
Organized by
Prashant Parikh and Arindam Dutta
Mohile Parikh Center
National Center for Performing Arts
Mumbai, India
January 26-28, 2004
Program
Monday, January 26: In the Dock: Visual Evidence
09.00 - 09.45: Coffee
09.45 - 09.50: Introduction by Prashant Parikh
09.50 - 10.00: Introduction by Arindam Dutta
10.00 - 11.00: Ackbar Abbas
11.00 - 11.30: Coffee
11.30 - 12.30: Tapati Guha-Thakurta
12.30 - 01.30: Lunch
01.30 - 02.30: Ranjit Hoskote
02.30 - 03.30: Harsha Dehejia
03.30 - 04.00: Coffee
04.00 - 05.00: Panel discussion
Day chair: Kamala Ganesh
Tuesday, January 27: Strategies of the Visual:
Methodologies and Disciplinary Critiques
10.00 - 11.00: Chris Csikszentmihalyi
11.30 - 12.30: Parul Dave Mukherji
01.30 - 02.30: Arindam Dutta
02.30 - 03.30: Susan Buck-Morss
04.00 - 05.00: Panel discussion
Day chair: Shubadha Joshi
Wednesday, January 28: Technologies of the Visual
10.00 - 11.00: R. Srivatsan
11.30 - 12.30: Sanjit Sethi
01.30 - 02.30: M. Madhava Prasad
02.30 - 03.30: Tom Levin
04.00 - 05.00: Panel discussion
Day chair: Gita Chadha
05.00 - 05.05: Vote of thanks by Amrita Gupta,
MPC Visual Arts Forum Program Coordinator
Format of Conference: Each of twelve speakers
will give a forty-five minute talk followed by
fifteen minutes of questions. An hour-long panel
discussion will round out each day.
Concept Note
'What is Wrong with this Picture?'
Investigating Visual Studies
Arindam Dutta
In Art History, the disciplinary question 'What
is art?' is never far from the mind. To ask the
same question of Visual Studies, Art Historyís
more recent offshoot, may be either simpler or
trickier, since the objective and subjective
elements of study are both obvious and, on the
other hand, could possibly be extended to simply
everything. What the eye sees - vision itself -
remains unperturbed and untrammeled by any
disciplinary boundaries. Understanding this,
archaic philosophy sought to harness vision with
the categories of knowledge. In the Platonic
characterization, the epistemic category precedes
the seduction of vision; vision plays tricks with
the mind. On the other hand, vision was also
accorded with a discerning, verificatory ability,
as illustrated in the contemporary adage 'What
you get is what you see.' In both senses, the
linkage of vision and knowledge is ancient. 'To
see is to know': this conceit links together the
Sanskrit word, vidya, or knowledge, the
epistemological tracts called the Vedas, and
video.
It is perhaps because of these archaic, intimate
links that in the new forms of Visual Studies in
the last twenty years, contributions have been
forthcoming from almost all the modern
disciplinary ramparts - Language Studies, Art and
Architectural History, Anthropology, Sociology,
History, Political Science - the 'Arts' in the
wider sense. 'Visual studies' in this sense also
appears to circulate in a field where its other
siblings have intermingled reign, comprising the
only slightly older academic fields of semiotics,
cultural studies and visual culture. As opposed
to art historyís obsession with its institutional
locations, the larger compass of Visual Studies
has drawn its partisans to studies of film,
television, advertising media, photography,
design culture, graffiti and the like. In
addition, visual studies has also operated as a
surrogate terrain for exercising cutting edge
analytical techniques - Lacanian psychoanalysis,
feminism, post-structuralism - very often outside
their parent disciplines, where their
methodological consistency would be tested. This
promiscuity has drawn both support and criticism
from the various academic barricades.
Even if one does not submit to disciplinary
parochialism, the apparent laxity evinced above
may have certainly undermined the academic ground
which Visual Studies stands on; failure to
determine methodological grounds by which
critical work is to be judged has the long term
effect of corroding the institutional relevance
of academic work in general. A 1996 review by the
magazine October suggested as much, alleging that
visual studies, in effect, only offered
university students a self-vindicating
terminology for their consumptive tendencies,
rather than graduating them into unfamiliar
frameworks of non-intuitive knowledge. As a
para-discipline, Visual Studies has largely
tended to lack methodological reflection. Some
scholars, such as Barbara Maria Stafford and more
recently Jonathan Crary, have displaced this
methodological shortcoming - and perhaps
impossibility - by attempting an epistemology of
the visual as such, by looking at the manner in
which the eye is configured within certain
conventions.
The emphasis on convention has moved the
consideration of the eye away from a 'natural'
organ to the technological and technical idioms
to which the eye is (always) subject. An entire
genre of critical studies has concentrated on the
eyeís myriad machinic surrogates and transplants:
beginning with Descartes' example of the
egg-shell in his essay on Optics, with its
technological derivatives: the telescope,
microscope, photography, cinema, X-rays,
CAT-scans, and MRIs. The implications there have
been to understand vision as entwined within a
host of technological and philosophical
discourses. The focus on visual prosthesis has,
ironically, found its takers in artistic practice
as well, igniting an entire field of
experimentation with visual technologies whose
ambits are well outside the conventional armature
of the museum wall or space. In spite of its
reservations, art history has had to take
cognizance of these shifts.
Other scholars of visual studies have
concentrated on the objects of culture rather
than the configurations of the eye, often
unwittingly extending and reversing framework of
iconological studies into more careful
examinations of receptivity and audience. Drawing
from the critical insights arrived at within
anthropology, literary criticism, and sociology,
these studies are perhaps most indebted to the
Frankfurt School in its synthesis of visual and
mass phenomena. Other significant influences
include certain - often unconsidered usages of
visual metaphors - such as Lacan's theory of the
ìmirror stageî and the gaze and Luce Irigaray's
theorization of the speculum and the 'Specular
Cave' (itself locating a blind spot in the
Platonic schema of vision). The hypnotic 'gaze'
of power, more a notional rather than physical
entity, has nonetheless spawned a host of studies
into societal relationships with the visual at
its center. As the notion of the
surveillance-state - with its burgeoning
closed-circuit cameras, identity-tagging, optic-
and DNA-scanning devices - increasingly takes
hold around the world, the philosophical domain
of the gaze has given an unnerving physical
manifestation that erodes the divisions between
object and subject.
Our conference What is Wrong with this Picture?
Investigating Visual Studies will examine this
new indeterminate territory of visual studies.
The conference will be held on January 26th,
27th, and 28th, 2004, at the Mohile Parikh
Center, in the National Centre for Performing
Arts in Mumbai (Bombay), India. Twelve speakers
will be invited, from India and abroad, to give
papers and participate in panel discussions over
a three-day period. Conference papers will
comprise case studies, disciplinary and
methodological critiques, and philosophical
reflections of and on visual studies as a field.
The Indian location of the conference is
particularly apposite since, in many ways,
institutions devoted to art history - the
principal antagonist and contributor to visual
studies - remain thin on the ground. With
increasing integration with the global economy
and the corresponding deluge of electronic media
into the country, Indian institutions might be
said to have skipped the 'art historical' phase
in their history and fast-forwarded to a more
receptive attitude to media and visual studies
instead.
The conference comprises three days of events
with talks in the mornings and talks and panel
discussions in the afternoon. The three days are
designated as follows:
Day 1. In the Dock: Visual Evidence
This session will be devoted to case studies, and
discussing what counts as a case study in visual
studies.
Day 2. Strategies of the Visual: Methodologies and Disciplinary Critiques
How do visual studies relate to other disciplines and critical strategies?
Day 3. Technologies of the Visual
What are the idioms, technological and technical
paradigms that visual studies operates with?
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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