SACW | 14 April 2004
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Tue Apr 13 21:08:26 CDT 2004
South Asia Citizens Wire | 14 April, 2004
via: www.sacw.net
IMPORTANT NOTICE: STARTING TODAY (APRIL 14) SACW
DISPATCHES WILL BE INTERRUPTED TILL MAY 2, 2004.
[1] Pakistan Government Gives Women Job Jolt (Naeem Khan)
[2] Pakistan: 'Jihadi types' contesting elections?
[3] India: Reflecting on Violence against Secular
Activists in Baroda: Thoughts from a meeting
(Mukul Dube)
[4] India : The Hindu Right in Madhya Pradesh is
enforcing its dictates aggressively
[5] India, 2004: The Digitization of Fascist Feudalism
A corrective for public amnesia on the eve of
General Elections (Aseem Shrivastava)
[6] A message from Madanjeet Singh Founder, South Asia Foundation
--------------
[1]
OneWorld South Asia
13 April 2004
Pakistan Government Gives Women Job Jolt
Naeem Khan
LAHORE, Apr 13 (OneWorld) - The Pakistan
government's move to abolish five percent
reservation for women in government jobs has
evoked sharp criticism from activists and the
opposition, which, recently introduced a bill
demanding an increase in job reservations for
them.
The government abolished the reservations despite
suggestions from the National Commission on the
Status of Women (NSCW), a recommendatory body to
the federal government, to reserve 33 percent of
jobs in the public sector for women.
The lower house of Parliament, the National
Assembly, was informed last week that the
government had dispensed with the five percent
quota, introduced when Benazir Bhutto was prime
minister.
The government justified the move by claiming the
reservations amounted to gender discrimination
and hence violated the Constitution.
The house was informed that recruitment for
government departments would be made purely on
merit.
Statistics indicate that women comprise only 5.4
percent of federal government employees, mostly
in the social sectors, while their numbers are
almost negligible in higher levels of employment.
A NCSW report reveals that the main reason for
the lower status of women is the lack of a
conducive, safe work environment. About 50
percent of women in the public sector face
harassment.
Observes Nuzhat Rafiq, who holds a managerial
position in a private sector firm, "The absence
of women in posts that carry power despite the
previous government's attempts to have a five
percent quota for women in public sector
employment shows the scheme has not worked. It is
necessary to recruit women in greater numbers
now, especially at high-level posts."
Human rights activist Anwar Sultana feels women
should be inducted directly into mid-level posts
because they are unable to work their way up from
entry level jobs, despite being competent and
qualified, due to discrimination at the workplace.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP)
also slams the new move as a blatant violation of
women's fundamental rights. It rejects the
government's claim that such reservation is
unconstitutional, pointing out that reservations
for women are provided for in the country's basic
laws.
The commission says it is unfortunate that NCSW's
recommendations aimed at curtailing "legal,
political and economic discrimination" against
women are being consistently ignored by the
government.
Lawyer Naveed Saeed Khan, member of the Supreme
Court Bar Association of Pakistan, accuses the
government of misinterpreting the Constitution
when it says job reservations are
unconstitutional. Khan points out that the
Constitution allows for changes in the law aimed
at the uplift of women, and reservations fall
under this category.
The NCSW also wrote to the government expressing
its unhappiness with the move. It had earlier
suggested women should hold posts in all
commissions, inspection and inquiry committees,
departmental promotional committees and selection
boards.
The NCSW head, retired chief justice Majida
Rizvi, argues that though women account for 50
percent of the population, they do not get equal
opportunities in the employment field, so there
is an urgent need for a special quota.
Riza feels the few women holding policy making
positions lack the vision to introduce a change
in existing policies or work towards empowering
women.
Parliamentarian Nahid Khan, political secretary
to Benazir Bhutto, feels the plight of women in
Pakistan is worsened by discriminatory laws like
the Hudood Ordinance, according to which a woman
needs to provide four male witnesses to prove
rape, failing which she is charged with adultery.
Last month, member of Parliament Sherry Rehman,
part of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party,
introduced a bill appealing against such
discriminatory laws and calling for 50 percent
reservations for women in government jobs.
The bill is likely to be taken up for discussion
in the next few weeks, at which time the National
Assembly is sure to witness heated arguments.
The bill has already attracted flak from a number of politicians.
Parliamentarian Dr Farid Ahmad Piracha of the
six-party religious alliance Muttahida
Majlis-e-Amal argues that if women want equality,
they should not seek discriminatory laws for
themselves. "The bill presented in the lower
house of Parliament seeks to end discrimination
against women on the one hand and asks for a
reserved quota for them on the other hand," he
says.
Advisor to the prime minister Neelofar Bakhtiar
has also voiced her opposition to the bill,
claiming that since women in the country are
already empowered, they do not need such bills to
protect their rights.
But several other women in Pakistan paint a
different picture than that depicted by Bakhtiar.
Saba Khattak, chief executive of the Sustainable
Development Policy Institute, says a study
conducted by her organization reveals that 50
percent of Pakistan's women need permission to
step out of their homes and only a small
percentage are allowed to go for work without
chaperones.
Most working women have to hand over their
earnings to their parents or husbands.
On a slightly positive note, she points out that
men now encourage their wives to work provided
they earn reasonable salaries.
Publicly though, there is still hardly any
visible change. Around 50 percent of married
women prefer home-based work due to fear of
harassment at the workplace and other social
pressures, points out Khattak, adding that 90
percent of women have no knowledge of labor laws
or legal recourses to curb harassment and
discrimination.
A survey by the Institute of Development
Economics shows 77 percent of the total female
labor force falls within the purview of the
informal sector, while 53 percent are classified
as home based workers.
In the rural sector, where 79 percent of the
female population above the age of ten is
actively involved in farming, only 37 percent are
gainfully employed in their own family farms
while the rest fall within the category of unpaid
workers.
_____
[2]
The Daily Times [Pakistan]
April 14, 2004
Editorial
Terrorists contesting elections?
Former federal minister and PML-N leader Syeda
Abida Hussain has made a public statement that in
Jhang well known personalities belonging to some
banned terrorist parties and groups were talking
part in the by-elections in NA-89. The said
persons, according to her, belong to Sipah
Sahaba, the mother of all sectarian jihadi
outfits, whose leader Maulana Azam Tariq was done
to death not long ago, and to its opponent,
Tehreek-e Islami Pakistan, whose leader is
currently under trial for the killing. In a list
of six notorious gangsters, are included people
like Munir Ahmad alias Kala Pehelwan and Hakim
Ali, who was a minister in Punjab when the
province saw the highest number of sectarian
killings, not to speak of torture and mayhem
inflicted on the opposed sect in Punjab. Others
include a brother of the slain Azam Tariq, named
after the great sectarian leader of Jhang,
Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi; and one Alam Tariq,
'khatib' at the Jamia Masjid of Jhang, named
approximately after the last of the great
apostatising leaders of our times, Maulana Azam
Tariq. Mrs Hussain has sent her complaint to the
Chief Election Commissioner.
The Chief Election Commissioner had better sit up
and see what is going to happen once again in the
district of Jhang, the incubator of Pakistan's
greatest political scourge, sectarianism. Last
time around he was not so careful. Maulana Azam
Tariq, despite the fact that his party had
already been declared a terrorist party and
banned from the polls, was able to stand for the
2002 elections and get elected to the National
Assembly. Most embarrassingly, his vote enabled
the Jamali government to obtain a majority in the
house, suggesting that the secret agencies may
have helped him win. Awakening late to the fact,
the Election Commission went to court against his
election and the matter was pending when Azam
Tariq was gunned down in Islamabad in a revenge
killing. The man had seen 21 attempts on his life
and was a known patron of the terrorist outfit
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi that is guilty of killing
hundreds of innocent citizens and public
servants. In any other country such negligence on
the part of an election commission would not have
been condoned.
In Jhang, a city that has known no reality other
than apostatisation and sectarian violence since
the Ahmedis were declared non-Muslim by the state
in 1973, any major sectarian leader is likely to
win the elections hands down. The tehsils of
Jhang, Shorkot and Chiniot (including old Rabwah
renamed Chenab Nagar) have been ravaged by the
infighting mullahs whose creed has spread to the
entire country, not without some help from our
Muslim friends abroad. People of public spirit
have absolutely no chance of getting a vote
because they don't have the 'fire power' that
gives protection to people from the hoods 'on the
other side'. Our Election Commissioner should
wake up to the nightmare of Jhang and pay special
attention to who might get elected in the
by-elections. He should take it well to heart
that Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, who
have recently tried to take the life of President
Pervez Musharraf on behalf of Al Qaeda, have been
the offspring of Sipah Sahaba, which was founded
in Jhang in 1985. Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi
(1952-1990), the founder, was assisted by the
intelligence agencies spearheading General Zia's
plan 'to teach the Shias of Jhang a lesson' after
they had refused to pay zakat.
A khoja graduate of a Deobandi seminary in the
city, Jhangvi was vice-president of the JUI in
Punjab till he became too big for the party. His
hold on the administration (called
thana-kutchehri) increased over time till
everyone with political ambition had to fund him.
Funding for him came from the marketplace, from
businessmen and drug-dealers looking for
protection. The businessmen of Chiniot - a group
that dominates Pakistan's industrial sector -
were forced to seek protection. Jhangvi had put
together a strong organisation of criminalised
youth mostly from the muhajir Arain community
from East Punjab. He was eventually to die in the
violence he had done much to instigate. He was
killed in a local feud in 1990. An Iranian
diplomat in Lahore was killed thereafter to
avenge Jhangvi's murder. The thugs are back in
the reckoning in 2004, and if the Election
Commission lets them into the political
mainstream, we are all done for. *
_____
[3]
12 April 2004
A meeting was called this evening at ANHAD'S office in New Delhi to
protest the obscene and contemptible attack by BJP and VHP ruffians
yesterday in Baroda on the mostly young people who form the Youth for
Peace Aman Carvan. A statement was later carried to the office of the
Election Commission of India. Here I do not present a report of the
meeting: it is mainly an arbitrary collection of some of the thoughts
that came to one person as a result of listening to the speakers.
While all speakers condemned the attack, none seems to have been overly
surprised by it. One speaker in fact said that something of the kind had
been expected long before. Indeed, at a kind of stock-taking meeting of
ANHAD's several months ago, I had said that beasts who had killed and
raped and destroyed could hardly be expected to greet opponents with
sweet-meats and gulab jal. We have now seen that even entirely non-
violent - though spirited and unequivocally honest - opposition to the
Sangh Parivar can call forth only a violent response, for the reason
that the beasts are trained in violence alone and know nothing other than
violence.
The Baroda attack was not something random, a one-off affair. Sehba
Farooqui said that while many in the country had been lulled into a
feeling of calm, taken in by the representation of certain individuals
of the Parivar as "moderate", the reality was never far below the
surface. This reality, which can be seen daily all across the country
and which affects all those whom the Sangh Parivar perceives as threats -
and to the Sangh Parivar, anyone who disagrees even mildly with its
narrow vision is a threat - must be exposed for what it is.
K.M. Shrimali said that what had happened in Baroda should not be called
an occurrence, a "ghatana", because that would lessen its
significance: it should be seen, instead, as an expression of a larger,
systematic and malign policy, "neeti". Several speakers pressed
home the point that the Sangh Parivar routinely attacks and tries to
suppress opposition the moment it becomes visible. Even more speakers
remarked - one citing the example of a child whose tee shirt was
mindlessly ripped up because of the harmless slogan it carried - on the
essential intolerance that the Sangh Parivar practises, in just about
any area of life at which one cares to look, and which has no place at
all in a democracy.
Every speaker, without exception, saluted the young people of the Carvan
for their courage and for their determination to go on with it despite
what was done to them in Baroda yesterday. Those who are, like me,
rather over half a century old, may well have felt as I did: that while
we have apparently failed to achieve anything of value, our children are
not lacking in bravery and that the future is in good, strong hands.
The parents of the young people in the Carvan were also applauded for
their courage. John Dayal, himself a parent, spoke of how people worried
when their children were far from safety - in this case, literally in
the lion's den. Sunita Gupta described briefly how her son, after his
school exams, spent all his time at the ANHAD office and then went with
the Carvan. This is the human side of what is more often seen as an
ideological and political struggle, and I do not know if there were many
dry eyes in the place.
But I shall end with a word of warning. Today the Supreme Court ruled
that the Best Bakery case should be tried again, in Maharashtra this
time. A speaker referred to this and there was clapping. I did not clap.
To me it is obvious that the Sangh Parivar will see this as a defeat -
which it is - and will engage in even greater violence wherever it has
the political backing to do that.
Mukul Dube
_____
[4]
Frontline
Volume 21 - Issue 08, April 10 - 23, 2004
COMMUNALISM
A law unto itself
PURNIMA S. TRIPATHI
in Gwalior
With a friendly dispensation in place, the Hindu
Right in Madhya Pradesh is enforcing its dictates
aggressively.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharati hugs a
calf in a gaushala that was opened at her
residence in Bhopal.
BE careful of what you say or do once you set
foot in Madhya Pradesh. You can be terrorised,
humiliated publicly, jailed and even hounded out
of the State on the slightest pretext. The
law-enforcing agencies will look the other way
and the party in power will feign ignorance. Ever
since a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government
took office in Madhya Pradesh, the State has slid
into the hands of lumpen elements from the
Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).
What is disconcerting is that the law-enforcing
machinery appears increasingly to be an
accomplice in the destructive Hindutva project.
This is what the family of a retired insurance
officer, who has been living in Gwalior for the
past 50 years, discovered on March 14, when
members of the Bajrang Dal and the VHP and its
women's wing Durga Vahini descended on their
house in order to punish the daughter for
insulting Ram, Sita and Laxman. According to VHP
activists, the daughter, who teaches at the
Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel
Management, a Central government institute,
directed a play lampooning Ram, Sita and Laxman.
The play was staged on February 21 at the
institute's annual day function. The girl pleaded
innocence, and said that she regretted if
anything wrong had been done. However, the
activists wanted to blacken her face in public in
order to teach her a lesson. When her father,
brother and sisters protested, they were beaten
up, shoved and dragged around the house.
Furniture was destroyed and flower-pots were
smashed. Said an eyewitness: "All the while the
police remained a `mute spectator' only trying to
ensure that fatal injuries were not inflicted."
When all the damage was done, the police arrested
six persons and chased away the rest.
On March 9, VHP activists blackened the face of
the institute's director, Devendra Singhai, a
senior Indian Administrative Service officer.
Chief of the Gwalior unit of the VHP, Narendra
Pal Singh Bhadoria, proudly takes the credit for
"teaching a lesson" to those who dared to insult
Hindu gods and goddesses. He warns: "This was
nothing. We can do much more if anybody dares
repeat such things again. Ram ka apmaan bardash
nahin hoga (we will not tolerate an insult to
Ram)."
According to Bhadoria, the play was sacrilegious
because the characters Ram, Sita and Laxman were
shown singing Hindi film songs and Sita was shown
wearing a pair of jeans. Bhadoria says he was
happy that he had succeeded in his aim of
"creating fear in those who dared insult Hindu
gods and goddesses". However, according to
students at the institute, the play was a
"harmless" skit called "Kal Aaj aur Kal" in which
Ram, Sita and Laxman were made to sing lines from
popular Hindi songs. "There was nothing insulting
and such plays have always been staged in
colleges," a student said. But Bhadoria has
justified the resort to "direct action".
Following the incident, Singhai is incommunicado
and the girl has gone into hiding. The other
family members, after having been warned against
speaking up in public, are scared to go out into
the city alone.
A.M. FARUQUI
VHP activists being arrested when they tried to
force the closure of shops in Bhopal on March 17
to protest against the arrest of their leader
Acharya Dharmendra in Ujjain on March 16 for
making incendiary speeches.
What is amazing is that an incident involving the
director and faculty member of a premier Central
government institute has not even come to the
knowledge of BJP leaders in the State or the
Tourism Minister under whose jurisdiction the
institute falls. "I have no information on this,"
said Union Tourism Minister Jagmohan. Senior
State BJP leader Maya Singh, who is also the
party's election-in-charge in the State, was
unaware of such an incident.
Significantly, several such incidents are being
reported from other parts of the State. In
Indore, for example, in February, activists of
the VHP and the Bajrang Dal attacked and
demolished a car shop owned by Sajid Carwalla, a
Muslim youth who had eloped with a Sindhi girl.
The girl kept pleading that she wanted to marry
the man, but activists of the Bajrang Dal and the
VHP separated the couple by force. According to
the local police and the municipal corporation
who assisted in the demolition, the shop stood on
encroached land. Sajid is in jail on charges of
intimidation and kidnapping. The local VHP chief
J.C. Jain justifies the action against Sajid. "He
was an anti-social element luring Hindu girls and
forcing them into wrong deeds. By punishing him
we have done a great service to society because
despite complaints against him, the police not
taking any action. They took action only when we
intervened," Jain said. He added that the girl's
family members had come to the VHP for "help".
The "anti-social element" theory, is, however,
not substantiated by the police. "We have no
records of him on this. But he is in jail on
charges of kidnapping and intimidation. The girl
has given a statement against him," says the
Superintendent of Police.
According to reports in the local newspapers,
initially the girl kept saying that she wanted to
marry him and later changed her statement. Says a
local journalist: "It is a fact that Bajrang Dal
and VHP people have become very aggressive ever
since Uma Bharati became Chief Minister." He
cites an incident on December 31, when activists
of the two outfits staged a noisy protest against
the staging of a fashion show at a hotel in
Indore. In most of these incidents, the police
are seen as not having stopped the perpetrators.
Is Madhya Pradesh becoming yet another laboratory
for the Hindutva forces? This streak of
intolerance, as opposed to the benign tolerance
of Hinduism, is more in evidence now than ever
before among the votaries of Hindutva.
Another case in point is Maharashtra BJP leader
Gopinath Munde's demand to ban Jawaharlal Nehru's
Discovery of India for its "defamatory remarks on
Shivaji". According to Munde, "the book refers to
Shivaji as a dacoit. This is a great insult to
the king. If the book by James Laine can be
banned for defaming Shivaji, then the same
yardstick must be applied to Discovery of India".
Munde's remarks came a day after State Home
Minister R.R. Patil demanded an apology from
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for his
appeal to lift the ban on Laines' book, Shivaji:
A Hindu King in Islamic India. The issue led to
an uproar in the Maharashtra Assembly on March 17.
But the occurrence of such incidents in Madhya
Pradesh is hardly surprising. Uma Bharati's
fetish for Hindutva was obvious right from the
day she was sworn-in in the presence of
saffron-clad sadhus. She went on to inaugurate
gaushalas (cowsheds) all over the State as the
cow, according to her, was associated with the
"agrarian culture of India". While people were
largely amused at these actions, her move to ban
liquor and non-vegetarian food in the religious
towns of Ujjain, Amarkantak, Onkareshwar and
Maheshwar resulted in a rash of protests from the
local people. Given that the cities are located
on the banks of rivers, it was feared that the
move, if implemented, would render a large number
of local fishermen jobless.
However, she remains resolute and the ban
continues to be in force. She told Frontline:
"The ban is definitely on. Sale of non-vegetarian
food and liquor in the vicinity of religious
places is prohibited. I have even told those
managing the mosques and churches to see to it
that such shops do not come in their vicinity."
She admitted that sporadic incidents involving
Bajrang Dal and VHP activists had come to her
notice and "strict action has been taken against
those responsible". However, there is no evidence
of any "strict action".
______
[5]
www.sacw.net
India, 2004: The Digitization of Fascist Feudalism
A corrective for public amnesia on the eve of General Elections
by Aseem Shrivastava
[April 14, 2004]
"We the people of India, having solemnly resolved
to constitute India into a Sovereign Socialist
Secular Democratic Republic and to secure to all
its citizens: Justice, social, economic and
political; Liberty of thought, expression,
belief, faith and worship; Equality of status and
of opportunity; and to promote among them all
Fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual
and the unity and integrity of the Nation; in our
constituent assembly this twenty-sixth day of
November, 1949, do hereby adopt, enact and give
to ourselves this Constitution." (Preamble to the
Constitution of India)
"The more things change, the more they remain the same." (Old saying)
"I love my country too much to be a nationalist." (Albert Camus)
2004: The year of elections
This calendar year, 2004, is perhaps fated to go
down as one of the most critical in the entire
political history of the world and certainly as
the most significant in our time. One may even
speculate that the elections of this year in
different countries may decide the fate of that
globally endangered species, democracy, itself:
whether it will thrive and deepen its character,
becoming an authentic form of human freedom in
the future, or whether it will suffocate under
the fascist onslaught which is practically global
in the age of corporate globalization.
There are 191 member nations of the UN, of which
roughly a quarter are dictatorships. Nearly half
(64) of the remaining countries, all democracies
of one form or another, go to polls this year. 34
of these 64 nations are due to hold parliamentary
elections, 30 are having presidential elections,
while 13 are having both presidential and
parliamentary elections. If somewhere between 4
and 4.5 billion people in the world live in
democracies, then at least half that number go to
polls this year. It is unlikely that this has
ever happened before, especially since many
countries have become democratic only in recent
times.
Clearly the stars are aligned in a rare fashion.
When was the last time that not just the two
largest democracies of the world, India (1050
million people) and the US (294 million), but so
many populous and important nations, such as
Indonesia (230 million), Japan (128 million),
Philippines (83 million), Iran (67 million),
South Africa (47 million), South Korea (47
million), Spain (42 million), Sudan (39 million),
Algeria (34 million), Afghanistan (26 million),
Malaysia (24 million), Australia (20 million) and
Ghana (20 million), had parliamentary elections
during the same calendar year?
The US Presidential elections this year are
arguably the most significant, for both the US
and the world in two and a quarter centuries of
the existence of the American republic. A victory
for George W. Bush could spell economic and
military disaster for large parts of the world,
the former perhaps not excluding the US itself. A
defeat could revive the recently lost faith in
democracy that much of the world has suffered and
perhaps pave the way for further extensions of
democracy in the future.
In Europe, the surprising results of the Spanish
elections held recently forebode an interesting
year. The pre-election favorites, the right-wing
Popular Party lost to the Socialist Party, within
days of a massive terrorist attack on Madrid for
which the electorate held the outgoing Aznar
government indirectly responsible because of its
support for Bushís war on Iraq, in defiance of
popular wishes. The results of the Spanish
election have already had their first-round
effect on French provincial elections in which
the socialists have made significant gains.
Second in importance only to the US election is
the upcoming Indian one, where a victory for the
ruling BJP (Hindu fundamentalist) coalition could
spell the final end of the already feeble
Congress party (in the leadership of which India
once won independence from the British empire)
but more importantly, it will result, among other
things, in the consolidation and
institutionalization of consumer fascism under a
saffron flag in the country and in the further
corruption of school-going minds with the
monstrous mythologies which have already been
introduced in the education curriculum. A defeat
of the BJP would, like in the US, restore
confidence in democratic processes and reveal
possibilities of more substantive political and
social change in the future.
Evidently, the implications are potentially dire.
It is not for nothing that the BJP government has
been boasting recently of strong alliances with
"natural allies", the US and Israel, both
threatened by deadly fascism themselves. What a
cowardly descent from the glory days of the
Non-Aligned Movement, which India proudly shared
during the period of the Cold War with such
nations as Egypt, Cuba, the former Yugoslavia,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Algeria and a host of other
countries! Israel was not even an invitee to the
Bandung Conference, which inaugurated the
Non-Aligned Movement in 1955. But now that it has
occupied Palestine and carried out enough pogroms
since 1967, it merits our company: Surely not a
natural alliance of the kind and the merciful!
This essay is written in twelve parts that dovetail into each other. [. . . ]
[Read Full Text at:
www.sacw.net/Nation/aseemApril2004.html ]
______
[5]
UNESCO Goodwill Ambasador Madanjeet Singh
Founder, South Asia Foundation
Message on his 80th birthday, April 16, 2004
My conception of South Asia's unity in diversity
essentially stems from my teenage experiences
since I was a student at the Hindu University in
Benares (now Varanasi). The alumnae came from
every corner of the subcontinent and among my
many friends I counted not only Punjabis and
Kashmiris but others hailing from almost all
Indian provinces, including present-day Pakistan
and Bangladesh, as well as from Nepal and Sri
Lanka. Mostly we lived in groups, speaking our
own language, wearing our own regional clothes
and eating our own food in separate messes. But
there was no separation whatsoever as we entered
the classrooms or the playgrounds. I recall the
University Training Corps (UTC) drills, the
cadets all looking all alike in military
fatigues. Together we played football, hockey,
tennis and especially cricket, interacted with
each other and made lifelong friends. There was
even a sort of "barter trade" among the students
as clothes and other souvenirs were exchanged
when they returned after the summer vacations.
There were no "policy makers" to tell us what to
do. It was all so natural, so spontaneous, so
inspiring. BHU was truly a micro South Asia
before India was partitioned.
As I arrived in Rome on a scholarship in 1950, I
was still suffering from the trauma of the
gruesome fratricidal carnage I had lived through
in both parts of the divided Punjab. In Europe,
too, the havoc caused by the Second World War
could be seen everywhere. I was therefore
emotionally involved in the efforts being made by
a number of European leaders to secure a lasting
peace between their countries by uniting them
both economically and politically. The South
Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC)
was established on December 8, 1985, and I felt
elated that its charter reflected several EU
ideas. A similar South Asian Union, I thought,
was the answer to many of our problems and I
cherished the hope that SAARC would forge ahead
like the EU, dealing with subjects of common
concern. I toyed with the idea of creating a
South Asian Economic Union and hoped that as with
the euro, South Asia, too, would eventually have
its own single currency - and even invented a
name for it, sasia. I imagined that as regional
cooperation had brought France and Germany
together after centuries of devastating wars, the
commonality of SAARC would encourage India and
Pakistan to transcend their bilateral quarrel
over Kashmir. I could not comprehend why the two
neighbours did not join hands and, together with
the other SAARC countries, make South Asia a
major economic world power by effectively using
the subcontinent's immense potential and
resources.
It was against this background that I founded the
South Asia Foundation and basically my vision of
South Asia's unity in diversity is still inspired
by the twin concept of classroom (education) and
playground (creative friendship) - the two legs
on which I would like SAF to stand and walk
towards regional cooperation. I am convinced that
only a voluntary and secular youth movement,
nurtured by cultural diversity and common
traditions rooted in centuries-old interaction
between the people, can demolish the political
hurdles placed by vested interests in the way of
peace and progress in South Asia.
In barely three years of existence, the South
Asia Foundation has achieved a great deal. I am
delighted at the great leap forward that SAF's
programmes and activities in the field of
education made during the Foundation's Third
General Conference in New Delhi, on December 14,
2003. The unprecedented programme of courses
jointly designed by the Open Universities in
SAARC countries and the landmark decision taken
by the SAF Academic Council to offer 10,000 SAF
Madanjeet Singh scholarships in vocational
training and higher education will go a long way
towards benefiting the socially and economically
marginalized students in all eight South Asian
countries - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan,
India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
Beaulieu-sur-Mer: March 20, 2004.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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.sacw.net/
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bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/
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DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
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