SACW | 7 Dec. 2003

[Harsh Kapoor]

SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WIRE   |  7 December,  2003
via => www.sacw.net

_______

[1] Pakistan: A bloodied minority (Zahra Rizvi)
[2] Pakistan: Civil society clamours for repeal 
of the anti-women Qisas & Diyat Ordinance
+ Judges term Karo-kari 'highly un-Islamic'
[3] Bangladesh: Religious tolerance precondition 
for democracy (Editorial, The Daily Star)
[4] India: Beware The Core Ideology - Secularism 
cannot be left to the mercy of political parties 
(Rudrangshu Mukherjee)
[5] India: Censorship: Unofficial might  (Kalpana Sharma)
[6] India: Citizens Resistance to Fascist's moves 
to convert Sufi shrine into Hindu Temple
  - Organisations stage protest against Togadia's entry
- Secular outfits firm on protest rally at Bababudangiri
- Samajotsava will be 'peaceful', say ['Kambakth'] organisers
[7] India: Imminent release of "Threatened 
Existence: A Feminist Analysis of the Genocide in 
Gujarat"
- report of the International Initiative for 
Justice (IIJ)  [Bombay, Dec 10, 2003]
[8] Bangladesh: Investing in Nature around Sylhet 
- An Excursion into Geographical History (David 
Ludden)

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

[1]

The News on Sunday
November 30, 2003

A bloodied minority

The rising tide of sectarian violence in Pakistan 
is a critical question for the Musharraf regime 
to address urgently

By Zahra Rizvi

We are sprayed with ammunition while burying our 
murdered dead, blown to pieces in places of 
worship. Bullets are pumped into us as we leave 
home, on our way to work, or when taking our 
children to school. This is General Musharraf's 
Pakistan, where innocent Pakistanis, particularly 
religious minorities, are targets for 
assassinations and mass murder.

A silent roll call of murdered loved ones, now 
numbers over 600 since Musharraf's coup in 1999. 
The worst act of terror struck in Quetta in the 
bombing of a Shi'a mosque on July 4th, killing 
sixty, mostly Hazaras, including 12 children. 
This followed the mass murder of 12 Hazara Shi'a 
police cadets, also in Quetta.

Hate struck Pakistan again, in October, with an 
attack on a bus carrying mostly Shi'a Suparco 
employees, killing seven. While Pakistani lives 
and resources are sacrificed for America's 
security, little is done by this government to 
make Pakistanis safer within Pakistan. How would 
the latest attacks be exonerated by those 
individuals accountable for the security of this 
country's citizens?

Sadly, Interior Minister, Faisal Saleh Hyat, has 
descended into the politico-religious cesspool 
stirred by General Musharraf. He lends his voice 
to the chorus of government luminaries parroting 
that oft used, interminable "foreign hand" 
conspiracy theory, deflecting any accountability 
for sectarian killings in Pakistan. The Minister 
alleges Indian involvement in Quetta and refuses 
to name Pakistan's malaise. Instead, he provides 
the creative spin on why Pakistanis keep dying in 
acts of sectarian terrorism. Talk is loud but 
cheap. Disingenuous pretenses of action have come 
at a heavy price for this nation's citizens.

US-based Human Rights Watch calls the escalation 
in sectarian violence "alarming" during 
Musharraf's regime. Why this escalation? Because 
extremist groups have been permitted to go 
underground, mutate and resurface as well-armed 
death squads, killing Pakistanis at will with 
little fear of punishment. General Musharraf has 
yet to distinguish himself by proving that he has 
changed the state's policy.

We are doctors, lawyers, CEOs of companies and 
presidents of banks. We are rich, poor and middle 
class. We are poets, authors, artists and 
journalists. We are bureaucrats, clerics, 
soldiers and generals. We are Parliamentarians 
and Ministers of State. We are Pakistanis, 
inseparable and inextricable from the fabric of 
Pakistan. But we have been wantonly murdered by 
what General Musharraf dismisses as a "wild 
illiterate minority". An extremely potent 
minority, which he is unwilling to defang, 
because these extremists are proxy warriors and 
jihad-ready militias.

Ironically, the September 11th tragedy reversed 
Pakistan's slide into misfortune. But the worst 
consequence of state patronage of these 
extremists is the severe "blowback" onto innocent 
Pakistanis.

In these four years when the General's diktat has 
loomed larger than previous dictators in 
Pakistan, 712 died in sectarian killings, 600 
were Shi'a. The Friday Times reports that over 
500, mostly Shi'a doctors, have fled Pakistan 
over the last couple of years, after more than 50 
of their colleagues were assassinated in Karachi. 
More continue to leave rather than risk being 
shot, signifying their lack of confidence in the 
state's will to safeguard them. Police in Karachi 
have responded to these killings by recommending 
that doctors apply for gun licenses.

While on a sojourn in Kabul in 2000, Musharraf 
announced his decision not to alter the egregious 
Blasphemy Laws endorsed under General 
Zia--another leading indicator of how powerful 
this militant minority is vis-a-vis its 
bargaining power with the state. The Blasphemy 
Laws continue to inspire state sanctioned 
religious hatred, giving license to kill in the 
name of religion.

Will this government protect Pakistani citizens? 
Some chilling data points have emerged to answer 
this question. In October the death toll of 
murdered Shi'as this year, rose to 100. The usual 
noises were made by Islamabad, but again little 
action was taken. Yet following Azam Tariq's 
assassination, we were subjected to the appalling 
competition between government officials to 
eulogise the Maulana. How do they explain Azam 
Tariq's many public hate speeches, including an 
appearance in a BBC documentary exhorting 
madressah students to kill Shi'as? Or the myriad 
murder cases pending against him? The Interior 
Minister is quoted by The Daily Times as saying, 
"The Maulana was an honest, upright and bold 
person, who had performed remarkable services for 
the religion." Indeed.

Scores have been arrested or eliminated, yet 
sectarian killings continue unabated. How? These 
games of let's blame a "foreign hand" by 
government aficionados must stop. Too many 
Pakistanis are dead and will continue to die 
because of this government's failure to give us 
peace and security. Moreover, the accountability 
buck has to stop at General Musharraf since he 
has chosen to crown himself Pakistan's most 
powerful dictator, and with his chief security 
czar, Faisal Saleh Hyat who has chosen to serve 
in the General's reign of shame.


_____


[2]

The News International
December 06, 2003

Civil society clamours for repeal of Qisas & Diyat Ordinance

By Farhat Anis

KARACHI: At a highly motivated forum comprising 
prominent members of civil society, it was 
demanded that the Qisas & Diyat Ordinance should 
be repealed as it had loopholes, which were 
against the Islamic injunctions and did not 
provide social justice to all.

The forum was provided by the National Commission 
on the Status of Women (NCSW) for the second 
day's group discussion on "The concept of Justice 
in Islam: Qisas & Diyat Ordinance (Act II of 
1997)".

Justice Majida Rizvi presided over the session 
while Syeda Viquar-un-Nisa Hashmi, research 
associate at the National Commission on the 
Status of Women tried to get the maximum 
information and recommendations from the 
enlightened participants for the final report to 
be prepared and forwarded to the Government of 
Pakistan.

Dr Farooq Ahmed Khan, a religious scholar based 
in NWFP clarified the status of Wali (guardian) 
according to the religious studies that every man 
and woman are the "Wali" of each other.

Wali, he said, is not required to be a legal 
heir. According to him, honour killing is 
un-Islamic and Surah Nur mentions that if a man 
sees his wife in a compromising position with 
another person, he can take 'Lyan' (separation). 
Nowhere, he said, is it written that he has the 
right to kill the woman.

"The exchange of woman against the custom of 
Swara/Vani comes as "Zina bil Jabar" as the girls 
consent is never taken before giving her in 
marriage or exchange to the other party," said 
Niaz Siddiqi, IGP, Sindh, and an instructor at 
NIPA.

He stressed on social justice and said that there 
shouldn't be any rule of diverse justice. He 
blamed the judiciary and police for corrupting 
the law even more.

Shamim Siddiqi (MNA), Heer Soho (MPA), Bilqees 
Mukhtar (MPA), Abbas Jafri (MPA) belonging to the 
Muttahida and Mehreen Bhutto (MPA) PPP stressed 
greater awareness among the masses so that the 
feudals and other influentials, who manipulate 
the situation taking cover of the existing 
defects in the law for their personal interests 
should be taken to task.

It was demanded that the Diyat money should be 
assessed with the value of today's rupee and not 
with the age-old value of 100 camels.

Nargis Rehman stated that Islam stressed Ijtehad (consensus).

Why then, she queried, should we accept a law in 
which no consensus was taken and the law was 
promulgated overnight.

Justice Rashida Patel asked the National 
Commission on the Status of Women to study the 
law and the judgments given by our courts to see 
whether they had any cohesion. She said that 
compounding in the cases of Karo-Kari should be 
abolished.

Arif Hasan, Ardesher Cowasjee, Muhammad Yusuf 
(CPLC), Rahila Rahim, Nuzhat Shirin, Karamat Ali, 
Hamid Maker, and Salimah Ahmad also gave 
recommendations.

o o o

The News International
December 07, 2003
Judges term Karo-kari 'highly un-Islamic'

Differ on various clauses of Qisas & Diyat 
Ordinance; agree on accountability for judiciary

By Farhat Anis
www.jang.com.pk/thenews/dec2003-daily/07-12-2003/metro/k8.htm

_____


[3]

The Daily Star
December 07, 2003
Editorial

Anti-Ahamadia demonstrations
Religious tolerance precondition for democracy
Anti-Ahamadia zealots demonstrated against the 
sect again Friday and have given the government a 
one-week ultimatum to declare Ahamadias 
non-Muslims. This time several thousand were 
present at the hate-filled rally in Tejgaon in 
which the demonstrators threatened to either burn 
down or take over the Ahamadia mosque in 
Nakhalpara and vowed to bring the country to a 
standstill if their demands are not met.

This is utterly unacceptable. In the first place, 
who are these self-proclaimed arbiters of 
religious faith and what gives them the right to 
declare that another person is or is not a 
Muslim? In the second, what possible good can 
come of the government declaring the Ahamadia 
community non-Muslims. Nothing will thereby be 
accomplished, no one will benefit. To the 
contrary, the Ahamadia community will only be 
further marginalised and will have been denied 
their constitutional and human right to practice 
their religion freely without interference.

Finally, the government cannot sit idle as 
rabble-rousers threaten violence and destruction 
if they are not appeased. No group can be 
permitted to terrorise a community and intimidate 
the government with impunity.

The government must respond in the strongest 
possible manner to this kind of religious 
extremism. There can be no question of declaring 
any sect non-Muslim. This is not a question for 
the government in any event. Furthermore, the 
government cannot tolerate violent demonstrations 
that threaten the security and safety of any 
community and indeed all of us.

The government must crack down on this kind of 
incitement to sectarian violence with an iron 
hand. It is against the law in this country to 
foment religious hatred and violence. The 
ring-leaders are a matter of public record as are 
the group's plans and agenda that amount to 
organised terror.

This is a test for the government. It cannot 
permit this kind of lawlessness that could lead 
to the further disintegration of our society. Do 
we wish to live in a country where religious 
bigots can terrorise communities they disapprove 
of and dictate terms with threats of violence?

_____


[4]

The Telegraph
December 07, 2003

BEWARE THE CORE IDEOLOGY
- Secularism cannot be left to the mercy of political parties
Rudrangshu Mukherjee

Dussehra mock battle
Standing in the courtyard of the Indian 
International Centre in New Delhi one morning in 
late October, a prominent member of the Congress 
think tank and an ardent advocate of the free 
market told me, "The Congress will have shot 
itself in the foot if Congress doesn't win three 
of the four states." He was referring, of course, 
to the elections the results of which are now 
known. Having shot itself in the foot, the 
Congress is no longer limping. It is hobbling and 
may even be close to collapsing.

It is not just the fact that the Congress has 
lost three of the four states but it is also the 
scale of the defeats in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan 
and Chhattisgarh that makes the Congress somewhat 
of a non-starter as a candidate to unseat Atal 
Bihari Vajpayee's government next year. Add to 
the defeats the fact that in Uttar Pradesh, the 
Congress is not even an also-ran; that in West 
Bengal it is practically non-existent; that in 
Maharashtra Sharad Pawar is unlikely to play 
footsie with an obviously losing side - and you 
get a picture of a political party that is no 
longer in a position to provide any kind of 
challenge to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The remarkable decline of the Congress has 
another grave implication. It means that the 
political party that was seen as a vehicle for 
opposing the communal politics of the BJP is now 
non-existent as a force. There are two factors 
that explain why this has happened.

There is the question of leadership. There is a 
widespread scepticism about Sonia Gandhi's 
abilities to lead the country. Even committed 
secularists feel if in a hypothetical 
presidential election they had to choose between 
her and Vajpayee, they would probably prefer the 
latter. This has nothing to do with her Italian 
origins which the BJP attacks. It is a more 
fundamental doubt about her abilities. As 
president of the Congress, she has done precious 
little to remove these doubts. She has failed to 
give to her party any programmatic and 
ideological direction. The Congress has been 
buffeted like a rudderless boat alternately by 
the currents of Nehruvian socialism and then by 
liberalization. Ms Gandhi is neither a 
liberalizer nor a socialist - even if one were to 
comepletely disbelieve the canard that she is a 
liberalizer after Manmohan Singh has spoken to 
her and a Nehruvian after a spell of conversation 
with Pranab Mukherjee.

Similarly, the Congress can no longer boast of a 
strong secular thrust. It has failed to reject 
completely a soft Hindutva line to counteract the 
BJP and woo the majority vote. One has only to 
remember Sonia Gandhi starting off the Gujarat 
election campaign in Ambaji temple and more 
recently Digvijay Singh's pathetic attempts to be 
more Hindu than the sangh parivar. The Congress's 
secular credentials have always been a trifle 
suspect, especially after the massacre of the 
Sikhs in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi's 
assassination. Ms Sonia Gandhi, either through 
intent or through inactivity, has failed to 
reaffirm Congress's commitment to secularism.

Ms Gandhi has not even tried to put her stamp as 
a leader on the Congress. She is a leader by 
default because she has no challenger or, what is 
worse, because she is the widow of Rajiv Gandhi.

The other factor consists of the subtle changes 
in the BJP under the initiative of Vajpayee. Ever 
since he became prime minister, Vajpayee has been 
trying to distance his government's policies and 
the BJP from the more fanatical proponents of 
Hindutva. Not that there haven't been instances 
of doublespeak on his part and a slew of 
clarifications. But overall there has been a move 
to put issues like the Ram mandir on the 
backburner and to concentrate on development. The 
grotesque aberration in this has, of course, been 
the pogrom in Gujarat but there has been no 
repetition of the experiment despite threats from 
Togadia and Modi. Significantly, Hindutva was not 
prominent in the election campaigns, not even in 
the states where the BJP has won against the tide 
of conventional wisdom. These elections were won 
and lost on the basis of performance and 
governance or the lack of them.

It is also important that despite pressure from 
sections of the sangh parivar, the BJP under 
Vajpayee has not abandoned the path of 
liberalization. In this and in the highlighting 
of governance during the election campaign, 
Vajpayee and his deputy, Lal Krishna Advani, have 
spoken in one voice, whatever differences they 
may or may not be having on other matters.

Under Vajpayee, the BJP has usurped the political 
and ideological space that was previously 
occupied by the Congress: closet Hindutva plus 
liberalization. (It needs to be recalled that 
neither Indira Gandhi nor Rajiv Gandhi was beyond 
playing on majoritarian sentiments when it suited 
their interests.) The great Indian battle between 
communalism (read BJP) and secularism (read 
Congress) is no more than a piece of 
shadow-boxing: men of straw in a mock battle with 
Rama and Ravana easily interchanging places.

Does this mean the battle for secularism in India 
is over or actually non-existent? Has the BJP 
changed colour or is it that the anti-minority 
crusade has been abandoned? The answer to both 
questions is in the negative.

A journalist known for his loyal espousal of the 
cause of the BJP - arguably the only writer in 
English who does so with eloquence and a 
disarming and pernicious rationality - wrote in 
The Telegraph the day after the election results: 
"If the BJP steered well clear of emotive issues 
centred on its Hindutva ideology, it was not 
because the party is no longer interested in its 
core ideology." The verb "steered" is important. 
Hindutva has not been abandoned. The BJP stayed 
away from it because the particular political and 
electoral context demanded a different set of 
priorities and a different kind of campaign. 
There was a degree of political acumen in the 
choice. But this is no guarantee that Hindutva 
and majority-led violence will not be used in the 
future for political gains.

The battle for secularism has become more 
difficult because circumstances have forced the 
belated recognition that secularism cannot be 
made dependent on any political party. It is far 
too important for that. Political parties have 
betrayed India's past; India's present and its 
future cannot be left to them.

Secularism is an endangered value and an 
important one. It needs to be defended and upheld 
by individuals as individuals or in a group. For 
those who believe that secularism and tolerance 
are vital to civlized existence, the election 
results convey an urgent message. The results 
underline a danger of mistaking appearance with 
reality. The challenge is to combat the BJP's 
core ideology and not be swayed by a 
context-driven election campaign and the ensuing 
victories.

_____


[5]

Magazine Section / The Hindu
Dec 07, 2003

Censorship: Unofficial might

The recent experiences of some independent 
documentary filmmakers, who chose to look at the 
events in Gujarat, post-Godhra, illustrate a 
disturbing reality - the contradictions between 
the opinions and ideas of the unofficial censors 
and those of the official ones, says KALPANA 
SHARMA. Here, she looks at the larger issue of 
the freedom of expression.

IF the official censor does not get you, the 
unofficial one will. And this can happen in a 
country that guarantees freedom of expression. 
The recent experiences of over half a dozen 
independent documentary filmmakers, who chose to 
look at the events in Gujarat, post-Godhra, 
vividly illustrate this contradictory reality.

Every single one of these filmmakers has faced an 
uphill battle - either to obtain a censorship 
certificate, or to find people willing to take 
the risk to organise screenings without the 
official stamp of approval or to persuade a 
television channel to telecast their films. As a 
result, very few people have seen the 
over-half-a-dozen films that have recorded the 
terrible events in Gujarat of last year. 
Ironically, more people outside India have 
probably seen these films than people within the 
country. And hardly anyone in Gujarat has viewed 
these documentaries.

These experiences raise a number of important 
questions about the freedom of information, about 
documenting contemporary history and about the 
right of people to know all sides of a story as 
complex as the Gujarat communal carnage. If 
official and commercial media does not 
investigate such political events, is it not the 
responsibility of independent journalists and 
filmmakers to do this job? Yet for doing 
something that is important for us as a society, 
these same people are literally made to walk on 
hot coals. Apart from the perennial problems of 
finding funds and filming in areas where they 
often encounter hostile political groups, these 
filmmakers are confronted with at least three 
immediate hurdles.

The first is the official censor board. For 
public showings of any film, a certificate from 
the Board of Film Certification has to be 
obtained. If you make films on birds and bees, 
there is no problem. But talk about war, 
communalism, sexuality, exploitation, even 
poverty, and you have to encounter the entire 
might of the political establishment even though, 
on paper, the board is supposed to be free of 
politics.

The filmmaker has the option of not approaching 
the Censor Board at all and restricting 
screenings of the film to private shows. But 
there is always a risk that these screenings will 
either be disrupted, or that the police will 
decide that they are public and therefore require 
a censor certificate. In the absence of a 
certificate, the police are within their rights 
to confiscate copies of your film. Or, as 
happened in Mumbai last year, a private showing 
of Anand Patwardhan's award-winning documentary 
"War and Peace" had to be cancelled at the last 
minute because the regional head of the censor 
board decided to be pro-active and inform the 
police that the film had not yet got an all-clear.

Another option now available to filmmakers is 
television. No longer is Doordarshan the only 
channel. And for telecasts, the censor board does 
not come into the picture. Yet private channels 
do not take risks with political films. Unlike 
television channels in the West, which often buy 
the rights to telecast documentaries by 
independent filmmakers, no Indian TV channel has 
done this. Thus commercial interests act as the 
third check to the dissemination of these films.

Of course, the 24-hour private news channels did 
play a role in informing the country about the 
carnage in Gujarat. We saw the arson, we heard 
the cries of the wounded and the survivors of the 
carnage, we saw their wounds, and we were 
repelled at the sight of the death and the 
destruction. We heard the militant and crazed 
voices of those who justified their actions in 
the name of religion.

Yet, all these images came and went. They did not 
remain to remind us, say a year later, that what 
happened then could happen again, that there has 
not been a closure on those events, that justice 
has failed the majority of the victims of the 
violence and that the ideology that fuelled the 
killings continues to reign supreme - and 
unrepentant.

This is precisely what some of these documentary 
filmmakers have tried to do. They have 
painstakingly researched the reasons for the 
Gujarat violence, they have recorded the voices 
of many of those whom the media overlooked, they 
have tried to place these events within the 
larger issues of economics and politics and they 
have attempted to explain the consequences for 
the rest of India if no one is held accountable 
for such a carnage.

Yet, the tragedy is that the majority of these 
films will never be seen, particularly in 
Gujarat. The few attempts that have been made to 
show these films have resulted in disruption and 
forced the filmmakers to grab their prints and 
run out of the State.

The latest such event took place on October 20 
when journalist-turned-filmmaker Shubhradeep 
Chakravorty tried to arrange a private viewing of 
his film, "Godhra Tak - the terror trail" in 
Ahmedabad. He had to change the venue at the last 
minute because of threats, and at the end of the 
screening at the new location he was surrounded 
by members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) who 
demanded that he apologise for making the film. 
Later, the crime branch of the police came asking 
for the filmmaker and wanted a copy of his film. 
Chakravorty picked up his prints of the film and 
fled the city.

This film investigates the Godhra train fire of 
February 27, 2002, and in which 59 people died. 
It is in the genre of an investigative 
journalistic film. Chakravorty covers many angles 
that the print and electronic media have 
overlooked. For instance, he managed to locate 
four passengers who were on the train and who are 
not kar sevaks. They describe the behaviour of 
the kar sevaks on the train. Chakravorty also 
located people in Rudauli village in Faizabad 
district, who were roughed up by the kar sevaks 
at the station as they made their way to Ayodhya.

Even more telling is the evidence presented by 
the former director of the Central Forensic 
Laboratory, Dr. V.N. Sehgal, who studied the 
report of the Ahmedabad-based Forensic 
Laboratory, checked the burnt out carriage and 
vestibule and said on camera that there was no 
way that the inflammable liquid could have been 
poured from the outside.

Chakravorty's is the kind of film some television 
channels in the West would produce to investigate 
an incident like Godhra. In India, despite the 
growth of such 24-hour news channels, nothing of 
this kind is telecast. The channels do their own 
investigations but the formats restrict the depth 
of such stories. None of the channels has a 
dedicated team that is given the time and the 
space to follow an issue in detail and come up 
with a film that sheds new light.


IMAGES FROM SABRANG, GAUHAR and ANAND PATWARDHAN



"Godhra Tak" has been preceded by a number of 
other films. One of the first off the block was 
"Aakrosh", a 20-minute film by Geeta Chawda and 
Ramesh Pimple of the People's Media Initiative, 
Mumbai. The film was submitted to the censor 
board in February this year. Within a week, the 
application was rejected on the grounds that "the 
film depicts violence and reminds the people 
about Gujarat riots last year. It shows the 
government and the police in a bad light ..." The 
film was banned. An appeal to the revising 
committee did not yield positive results, nor to 
the Appellate Tribunal. Pimple says that they 
have been left with no option but to turn to the 
Bombay High Court where he is filing an appeal. 
In the meantime, he plans to show the film to as 
many people as he can through private showings.

Gauhar Raza, Delhi-based activist and scientist 
with the Council for Scientific and Industrial 
Research, is not interested in battling with the 
censors. He has made two films on Gujarat, 
"Zulmaton ke daur mein (In Dark Times"), which 
was on the 1998 elections and "Junoon Ke Badte 
Kadam (Evil stalks the land") which was on the 
recent communal violence in the State. The first 
one was made for television, for the now defunct 
TVI Company. It was telecast just once and then 
abandoned. Both films, he says, are part of his 
battle against the spread of communalism. He 
plans to use them in ways that generate 
discussion, especially among young people. But 
even this has not been easy. Screenings of his 
films were stopped in Goa during the elections 
last year and at the end of the year, a showing 
in a Mumbai college was stopped when the Shiv 
Sena raised objections. The police confiscated 
the tapes on the grounds that Raza did not have a 
censor certificate, something that is not 
required for a private showing.

Award-winning Mumbai-based filmmaker Suma 
Josson's film "Gujarat - A laboratory of Hindu 
Rashtra" was shot in three days just before the 
2002 State assembly elections when Narendra Modi 
and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were 
returned to power. She concentrated on 14 
villages in Anand district that had been affected 
by the violence. But Josson has had hardly any 
showings of the film in India. A few showings in 
other States, particularly Uttar Pradesh, have 
often elicited a hostile response from audiences 
which refuse to believe that the scale of 
violence was as great as shown in the film. She 
says these audiences questioned the authenticity 
of the film going so far as to accuse her of 
shooting the entire film in one room!

Josson has not submitted this film for 
censorship. Her previous film on the Mumbai riots 
of 1992-93 - "Bombay's Blood Yatra" - took two 
years before it was finally cleared without any 
cuts by the appellate tribunal.

For battling the censors there are few 
documentary filmmakers who can match Anand 
Patwardhan's record. This Mumbai-based filmmaker, 
who has collected dozens of awards in India and 
around the world for his impressive array of 
films, has fought to get a censor certificate for 
every single film that he has made. This has 
often meant years in court.

Patwardhan feels that a censor certificate is a 
kind of insurance policy for political filmmakers 
because it denies the police the right to disrupt 
showings or confiscate the films. Also, State 
television is left with no excuse to telecast 
films like his that have won national awards. 
Yet, despite his record of struggle with the 
censor, and the plethora of precedents set by 
successive court judgments, every time he 
approaches the censor with a new film, he goes 
through an almost identical battle. His latest 
victory is getting a censor certificate for his 
epic three-hour film "War and Peace". The censor 
had demanded 22 cuts. Patwardhan succeeded in 
getting it passed without a single cut. He says, 
"It is my constitutional right to make films. Why 
should the censor board behave like a communal 
body?" He holds that other filmmakers should also 
submit their films for censorship and fight the 
system. "If you don't fight it out legally here 
at home, you are left with no option but to show 
your film abroad," he says. "This would defeat 
the very purpose of making the film."

Another filmmaker who is following in 
Patwardhan's footsteps is Rakesh Sharma. His film 
on the Gujarat earthquake of January 2001, 
"Aftershocks" created a stir because it revealed 
the other agendas at work under the guise of 
relief and rehabilitation. Sharma managed to get 
that through the censors, but he is apprehensive 
about his new three-part film on Gujarat. But 
Sharma too is prepared to fight it out because 
ultimately, he believes, the censorship laws must 
be challenged.

Stalin K., an Ahmedabad-based activist and 
filmmaker, whose film on Gujarat is "a work in 
progress", says that the censorship rules only 
apply to those making films that question 
dominant politics. Thus, the VHP, he points out, 
has made many short films on the Gujarat 
incidents of last year, and on Godhra. These are 
readily available on CD at any VHP office and are 
being shown all over the place. There has neither 
been any disruption of these showings, nor has 
the police asked whether the showings can be 
deemed as public showings and therefore demanded 
a censorship certificate from the VHP. On the 
other hand, in Gujarat today even films that have 
censorship certificates, such as Patwardhan's 
"War and Peace" have a problem finding a sponsor.

The experiences of these filmmakers raise issues 
that need to be debated more widely. They 
illustrate the growing intolerance of dissent, of 
independent documentation, and of creativity that 
does not fall within the dominant norms. More 
than the workings of the official censor board, 
it is the actions of the unofficial censors that 
should worry anyone who is concerned about 
guarding rights such as the right to freedom of 
expression.


_____


[6]

The Hindu
Dec 07, 2003

Organisations stage protest against Togadia's entry

By Our Staff Reporter

Girish Karnad, playwright, addressing a gathering 
in Bangalore on Saturday. - Photo: K. Bhagya 
Prakash

BANGALORE Dec. 6. Several Bangalore-based human 
rights and civil society organisations today came 
together to protest against the entry of the 
Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader, Pravin Togadia, 
into the State for Sunday's Virat Hindu 
Samajotsava in Bangalore and the proposed Datta 
Jayanti celebrations at the Bababudangiri shrine 
in Chikmagalur.

Among the demonstrators were Girish Karnad, 
playwright, Arundhati Nag and G.K. Govinda Rao, 
theatre persons, Ramachandra Sharma and 
Shivarudrappa, writers, S.G. Vasudev, artist, 
Gauri Lankesh and B. Suresh, filmmakers, and B.T. 
Lalita Naik, former Minister.

Women's organisations such as Vimochana, Women in 
Black, Muslim Mahila Organisation, and All-India 
Democratic Women's Organisation, and human rights 
organisations including People's Union for Civil 
Liberties and Muslim groups participated in the 
demonstration. Members of leftist organisations 
including the Democratic Youth Federation of 
India (DYFI) were present.

They held placards which read: "Violence-free 
homes make for violence-free communities", "Women 
say no to communal politics", and "One land, one 
people". Several women were dressed in black to 
register their protest.

Later, addressing presspersons, Mr. Karnad said 
it was unfortunate that the Government could not 
prevent the entry of Mr. Togadia into the State. 
It was a terrifying situation for a democracy, he 
observed and called for building up a movement 
against the threat to democracy. Ms. Arundhathi 
Nag urged the common man to rise above the 
communal ideology and expose the political agenda 
of communal forces.


o o o

The Hindu
Dec 07, 2003

Secular outfits firm on protest rally at Bababudangiri
By Our Special Correspondent
Bangalore Dec. 6. Several progressive and secular 
organisations and Dalit activists have decided to 
participate in the protest rally at Bababudangiri 
in Chikmagalur district on Sunday to voice 
concern over the efforts of the Vishwa Hindu 
Parishad and the Bajrang Dal to give a communal 
twist to the Datta Jayanti celebrations.

The representatives of the Bababudangiri Souharda 
Vedike, Chandrashekar Patil and `Agni' Sridhar, 
told presspersons here today that despite the ban 
imposed on holding any protest rally at 
Bababudangiri, the people in favour of a secular 
society would go ahead with the demonstration.

Reports, however, said the police were preventing 
the demonstrators from congregating at 
Bababudangiri and preventive arrests were being 
made in the neighbouring districts of Hassan, 
Shimoga and Dakshina Kannada.

Dr. Patil and Mr. Sridhar alleged that the State 
Government, particularly the Chief Minister, S.M. 
Krishna, and the Law Minister, D.B. Chandre 
Gowda, were a party to the Datta Jayanti 
celebrations by the Sangh Parivar and "the 
Congress party in fact utilised the services of 
the Bharatiya Janata Party to organise the 
programme. Rather than imposing a ban on 
celebrations by the Sangh Parivar, it was strange 
that the authorities had imposed a ban on those 
opposing the celebrations."

They said every effort would be made to stall the 
Sangh Parivar from converting Karnataka into 
another Gujarat.

"The Sangh Parivar's aim is to promote its 
Hindutva philosophy using the Datta Jayanti 
celebrations and extend the programme all over 
the State. We will ensure that the opposition to 
such an attempt is extended to all parts of the 
State. It is the Congress Government which has 
granted permission for the "Shoba Yatra."

``We are not against the organisers of the 
programme, but the Government which has accorded 
permission for it. People who incite violence 
should be kept out of the State," they added.

Arrests in Hassan

Our Hassan Staff Correspondent reports:

The police today stalled "Souhardadedege Namma 
Nadige," a walkathon organised by various 
progressive organisations in association with the 
district unit of the Democratic Youth Federation 
of India (DYFI) to Chikmagalur to express 
solidarity with the "Bababudangiri Souharda 
Vedike" which is trying to foil what is termed an 
attempt by the VHP and the Bajrang Dal to 
communalise the rituals associated with the 
Bababudangiri shrine.

The police arrested nearly 75 members of various 
progressive groups and political parties, 
including the secretary of the State Committee of 
the Communist Party of India (Marxist), G.N. 
Nagaraj, the president of the State unit of the 
DYFI, Mahantesh, the noted writer, Bhanu Mushtaq, 
Ja. Ho. Narayanaswamy, and the DYFI district unit 
president, Dharmesh. They were released in the 
evening.

The Superintendent of Police, Panduranga H. Rane, 
told The Hindu that the arrests were a 
precautionary measure.

Celebrations begin

The three-day Datta Jayanti celebrations were 
officially started by the district administration 
at the Dattatreya Peeta at Bababudangiri today.

A priest appointed by the Muzrai Department 
conducted special pooja and mahamangalarathi to 
the Datta Padukas in the shrine. Three homas were 
conducted near the entrance to the shrine.

o o o

The Hindu
Dec 07, 2003

Samajotsava will be peaceful, say organisers

By Our Special Correspondent

The former Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir 
High Court and chairman of the reception 
committee of the `Virat Hindu Samajotsava', M. 
Ramakrishna, addressing a press conference in 
Bangalore on Saturday. The joint secretary of the 
RSS, Subramanya Bhat, is seen. - Photo: T.L. 
Prabhakar
Bangalore Dec. 6. All events connected with the 
"Virat Hindu Samajotsava" to be held here on 
Sunday would be peaceful, M. Ramakrishna, 
chairman of the reception committee and former 
Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High 
Court, told presspersons today. The VHP leader, 
Praveen Togadia, had confirmed his participation, 
he said.

Around 25,000 persons, including 1,000 women 
activists, were expected to participate in the 
three "Shoba Yatras" starting on Sunday afternoon 
from Shivajinagar Stadium, Jogupalya corporation 
ground in Ulsoor, and Gymkhana Grounds, Cox Town, 
Mr. Justice Ramakrishna said.

The meeting would start at 4.15 p.m. at the Raja 
Bahadur Arcot Narayanswamy Mudaliar School 
Grounds.

The public meting will be addressed by a number 
of heads of maths in Karnataka, including 
Balagangadharanatha Swami, Shivakumara Swami, 
Vishwesha Tirtha, and Ravi Shankar Guruji of the 
Art of Living Foundation. The Hindu Munnani 
leader from Tamil Nadu, Rama Gopal, will also 
address the meeting.


_____


[7]

Dear Friends,

We invite you to the release of the report of the 
International Initiative for Justice (IIJ), titled
"Threatened Existence: A Feminist Analysis of the Genocide in Gujarat"

The International Initiative for Justice in 
Gujarat was jointly organised by many women's and 
citizen's groups from Gujarat, Bombay and Delhi 
and brought together a panel of nine feminist 
jurists, activists, lawyers, writers and 
academics from all over the world to Gujarat in 
December 2002. This panel met with over 300 
women, men, survivors and activists working in 
several districts of Gujarat. The panellists 
were: Anissa Helie, Algeria/France, Gabriela 
Mischkowski, Germany, Nira Yuval-Davis, UK, 
Rhonda Copelon, USA, Sunila Abeysekara, Sri 
Lanka, and Farah Naqvi, Meera Velayudan, Uma 
Chakravarti, and Vahida Nainar from India.

The IIJ was conceived in the context of the need 
to foreground within India the issue of sexual 
violence in conflict situations and to develop a 
feminist critique of systems of justice and 
democratic governance. It was an effort to bring 
together feminists from India and outside for 
international solidarity in analysis and action 
regarding justice for Muslims in Gujarat. We 
trust that this initiative will lead to a nexus 
of shared understanding and activism on the 
immediate issues of justice in Gujarat in the 
aftermath of the pogrom; serve as a starting 
point of a transnational dialogue on issues 
thrown up by the pogrom including that of the 
inadequacy of existing legal frameworks to 
address sexual violence in times of social 
upheaval and conflict and enrich ongoing feminist 
discourse on citizenship, democracy and justice.

We expect to use this report as one of the tools 
for continuing to address the situation of 
Muslims in Gujarat nationally and 
internationally, in order to address the violence 
unleashed by Hindutva supporters both within and 
outside the machinery of the State.  We hope that 
well known and reputed voices, ideas and actions 
from feminists from different parts of the world 
will help the struggle for justice and equality 
worldwide, and will further articulate our 
concerns in protecting and fighting for our 
rights to autonomy, democracy and freedom from 
violence.
Since you have been an integral part of these 
struggles, we hope you will be able to join us 
for the release of the report and the discussions 
thereafter.

Release of the report: By Justice Jahagirdar (Retd)

Speakers: Anissa Helie and Vahida Nainar (IIJ panellists)
	   Shobha De and Javed Akhtar.

Time: 3:30 – 6:30 p.m. Date: December 10, 2003.
Venue: Conference Hall, 4th Floor, Y. B. Chavan 
Pratishthan, Near Mantralaya, Bombay.

In Solidarity,
Forum Against Oppression of Women.
Ph.: 24310160/ 24370941.  E-mail: inforum at vsnl.com

_____


[8]

Economic and Political Weekly
November 29, 2003

Investing in Nature around Sylhet
An Excursion into Geographical History

Geographical histories around the region of 
Sylhet, in north-east Bangladesh, indicate that 
transactions between mobility and territoriality, 
which typify globalisation, have long operated in 
diverse spatial and temporal registers - 
ecological, religious, demographic, economic, 
and political - to transform the social and 
cultural spaces where people invest in 
nature. Scholars, policy-makers and activists 
would thus do well to abandon the idea that 
national maps alone constitute the geography of 
modernity.

David Ludden

www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?root=2003&leaf=11&filename=6559&filetype=html

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

Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on 
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