SACW | 7 May 2004
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Thu May 6 19:24:15 CDT 2004
South Asia Citizens Wire | 7 May, 2004
via: www.sacw.net
[1] Pakistan: Manifestations of hypocrisy (Kamran Shafi)
[2] Bangladesh: In Defence of Proshika and Mr Abdur Rob (Jeremy Seabrook)
[3] India: All Ye Faithless - Why is religious
conversion any different from other conversions?
(Nivedita Menon)
[4] American India (Todd Gitlin)
[5] India: Gujarat-Lengthening Shadows of Trident (Ram Puniyani)
[6] Family challenges Indian state over murders by mob (Martin Wainwright)
[7] Upcoming Conference: Challenges and
Opportunities in South Asia - A Youth Perspective
(June 2004)
[8] Upcoming Course: "Democracy, Sustainable Development, and
Violent Group Conflict, in Sri Lanka" (June 2004)
--------------
[1]
The Daily Times [Pakistan]
May 06, 2004
MANIFESTATIONS OF HYPOCRISY
by Kamran Shafi
We must be some of the most hypocritical people
on the face of the earth. And seeing how we are
going about our merry ways, it seems we are
perfectly at peace with ourselves hectoring
others and not taking even a little peek at
ourselves and our own predilections. Take the
latest news of the horrific abuse of Iraqi
prisoners by the American military in Iraq,
against which many a sanctimonious voice has been
raised in the Islamic Republic.
Before I go on, let me state clearly where I
stand on the assault on Iraq by the Bush
administration and its lackey, the British
government. It was ill-intentioned and most
cruelly executed. It destroyed a developing
country's infrastructure, which was better in
every way than this country's for example; it was
no good at all for the mass of the American (or
British) people; and, in my view, was part of
childish revenge-taking by George Bush, a 'My
Dad's bigger than yours' sort of thing. More than
anything else it was a highly stupid thing to do
as the poor and powerless among the American
people who are daily losing their sons and
daughters are finding out and because it has made
ordinary Americans far more enemies than they
deserve to have.
Having said that it does not behove us to raise
such ruckus on the recent revelations of abuse of
Iraqi prisoners when many of us don't give a toss
for what happens in our own country. Sure the
images were horrid, sure the abuse deserves to be
condemned; but have most of those who are crying
themselves hoarse, particularly our religious
Eminences, ever condemned the use of torture in
Pakistani police stations AND jails? The American
Army is an occupying army which has no business
to be in Iraq, sure; but don't we have any idea
at all of what goes on in our own prisons, of
what Pakistanis do to other Pakistanis, their own
countrymen and women, yes, specially poor and
defenceless women?
How many times have we read about the rape and,
in more than some cases, the consequent
impregnation of women in our jails, women who
have then been proceeded against on charges of
adultery? Women who have then spent up to twenty
years in prison under trial, many among them
repeatedly and serially abused? Let alone coming
out of our homes to protest this beastliness, how
many Pakistanis have taken the trouble of
complaining to the authorities; how many of our
Eminences have raised the issue in the assemblies
they now adorn?
This is not all. We daily hear and see news of
Pakistanis getting their heads chopped off as a
result of rough-and-ready Saudi justice. We also
know through well-documented stories, of the
inherent unfairness of these trials because the
accused does not know what is going on, simply
because he cannot understand the language used in
Saudi courts - Arabic. When has anyone protested
against that outrage?
More than anything else, and agreeing with R.
Azmi who wrote to the effect in 'Letters' - Daily
Times, May 2nd - it is the American media,
followed by that of the rest of the Western world
that first broke the story with graphic
photographs which disgusted the world, and even
moved the arrogant 'Uncle Don' Rumsfeld, who only
a month ago was shutting up reporters who asked
searching questions with a loud "Shhh!" his index
finger held to his lips, to use words like
'unacceptable'. One can only hope that those who
accuse the Western media of complete bias will
see the truth of the matter now, and to realise
as Azmi says that we would never see images of
prisoners strung upside down by their heels while
being beaten with iron rods (or, sorry to say,
have salt and chilly peppers stuffed into their
orifices) in Pakistani jails and police stations!
Indeed, while American soldiers will surely be
punished, albeit some of them lightly, when was
the last time a Yahoo of the Punjab Puls was
punished in even the slightest way? Even if he
had committed murder? Indeed, while the General
commanding US prisons in Iraq has publicly
apologised for what his command did to the poor
Iraqis, when was the last time that even a lowly
Pakistani Superintendent of Police or Jail
apologised for the excesses of his men against
fellow Pakistanis?
This, however, is not the complete picture of our
deep-seated hypocrisy. Let us leave the clerics
out of it for a moment, and see how the rest of
us react, or do not to news which would shake the
very foundations of another society. I refer to
former Supreme Court Chief Justice Nasim Hasan
Shah's interview to a private TV channel a few
months ago, in which his former Lordship said in
so many words that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was
condemned to death by a full bench of the Supreme
Court of which Shah was a member and who himself
agreed with the majority of four to three, should
not have been hanged because his 'crime' did not
warrant the death penalty! AND that then-Chief
Justice Anwar-ul-Haq was told by Zia-ul-Haq that
Bhutto had to hang! Has there been a squeak out
of anyone on this?
While we are on the subject of hypocrisy, let us
look at another manifestation of it: the ongoing
debate on the school curriculum that is approved
for government schools by the Federal Education
Ministry and the Provincial Textbook boards. What
greater hypocrisy could there be than suggesting
that Pakistan came into being in the Eighth
Century, in the words of the current textbook of
Pakistan Studies (Compulsory) for Xl and Xll
classes by MD Zafar: "Š as a matter of fact,
Pakistan came to be established for the first
time when the Arabs under Muhammad-bin-Qasim
occupied Sindh and Multan in the early years of
the eighth century, and established Muslim rule
in this part of the South Asian Sub-continent.
Pakistan under the Arabs comprised the Lower
Indus Valley." As if this was not enough
poppycock, Muhammad-bin-Qasim is also declared
"the first Pakistani citizen" in Social Studies
for Class Vl (Sindh Textbook Board, 1997).
Staying with this, is it not utter hypocrisy to
teach our young that only Muslims suffered during
partition? Observe: "While the Muslims provided
all type of help to those wishing to leave
Pakistan, the people of India committed cruelties
against the Muslims (refugees). They would attack
the buses, trucks, and trains carrying the Muslim
refugees and they were murdered and looted". And:
"The Hindus in Pakistan were treated very nicely
when they were migrating as opposed to the
inhuman treatment meted out to the Muslim
migrants from India".
And so on and on, dear friends, goes the litany
of our hypocrisy. May the Almighty save us from
ourselves.
______
[2]
[Re the attack by the Government of Bangladesh on
the NGO Proshika - which they have accused of
conspiracy, have arrested many of its workers. ]
o o o
Mr ABDUR ROB, BANGLADESH
by Jeremy Seabrook *
02.05.04
This man was arrested in Dhaka on April 20 and
charged with 'treason.' He is the Deputy Director
of the Cultural Department of a Western-funded
non-government organisation, PROSHIKA. PROSHIKA,
partly funded by DFID, has had an extensive
programme of education, with schools all over the
country; of micro-credit and the economic
emancipation of women; and especially, a
commitment to secularism and pluralism.
When the Bangladesh National Party, in coalition
with two Islamic Parties, including the Jama'at e
Islami (which had fought against the Independence
of Bangladesh in 1971), came to power in October
2001, they froze the funds of Proshika, and
strengthened the control of the government over
foreign funds flowing into the country.
The Welfare Ministry portfolio was given to the
Jama'at e Islami. The intention of the new
government was to decrease the country's reliance
on Western funding, in favour of money from Saudi
Arabia and the Gulf, which would fund welfare and
educational projects. With the spotlight on the
nature of the instruction furnished by this money
in the Middle East, it was perhaps understandable
that some of its investment would be shifted to
countries such as Bangladesh, which Christina
Rocca, US Assistant Secretary for South Asian
Affairs, described as 'a moderate Muslim
democracy.'
The Awami League Opposition (like the present
government before it) refused to accept the
legitimacy of the victors of the October 2001
election. They have never participated in the
parliamentary process, but have instead (again,
mirroring the work of the BNP when it was in
Opposition), relied upon hartals (day-long
strikes that close down all economic activity,
and original a weapon used against the British),
which their supporters enforced with threats of
violence.
The irreconcilable antipathy between the Awami
League and BNP goes back to the war of Liberation
in 1971, and the struggle between the secularists
of the Awami League and the nationalists of the
BNP; rooted in a quarrel over who was primarily
responsible for Bangladeshi freedom - was it a
popular uprising under the Awami League, or a
military victory led by what became the army of
Bangladesh? This has mutated over time into an
argument over whether the people of Bangladesh
are Bengalis before they are Muslims or Muslims
before they are Bengalis. This has led to the
low-level - but sometimes violent - cultural
civil war since Independence.
Hence the significance and sensitivity of being
involved in any 'cultural programme.'
The BNP government has had some successes -
Bangladesh is now the biggest contributor to
peace-keeping forces under the UN; its garments
industry is its largest earner of foreign
exchange; more than half its garment exports go
to the USA. But the law and order situation in
the country has continued to deteriorate, with
extortion and corruption and crime increasing.
Transparency International continues to find
Bangladesh the most corrupt of the 90 or so
countries it reviews.
The Awami League, (which found natural allies in
NGOs like Proshika) had announced earlier this
year that it would topple the government of Prime
Minister Khaleda Zia by April 30 2004; this
being the mid-term point in its mandate). This
inept and ill-timed declaration depended upon a
mass rally of Opposition activists converging on
Dhaka to demand the ouster of the existing
administration.
The government could scarcely not act. There were
mass arrests at the river terminals, bus and
railway stations of people coming into Dhaka on
25th and 26 April. Officially, some 7,000 people
were arrested, although unofficial estimates are
far higher. Among these, many vulnerable people,
including the elderly, children and those
pursuing their daily business , were rounded up
and imprisoned. The mass arrests ceased on
Tuesday 27 April. A pro-government newspaper had
raised the alarm that 3 million people were due
to converge on Dhaka.
The employees of Proshika mounted a quite
separate demonstration on 20 April, to protest at
the withholding by the government of the money
from their donors, which had crippled the
activities of the organisation. It was on this
day that Abdur Rob was arrested. Produced in
court three days later, it was stated that he had
signed a 'confession' that he had sent a letter
to all the beneficiaries of Proshika throughout
the country, asking them to come to Dhaka en
masse before April 30, in order 'to topple the
government'. In court, he stated that the
statement had been obtained under duress and that
he had been tortured. He was remanded again and
refused bail, charged with 'treason.'
The letter was a forgery. There is no doubt that
the Government had seen in the vainglorious
declarations of the Opposition a chance also to
dismantle an organisation that has been critical
of them. The government does not distinguish
between the State and the government of the day.
This is characteristic, not only of the present
administration, but was no less true of the Awami
League when it was in power; but the level of
paranoia has risen conspicuously recently,
particularly since 9/11, since when the US
government has been swift to acknowledge
Bangladesh as an ally in the War on terror. Colin
Powell, for instance, called Bangladesh 'an
eloquent, compelling and greatly needed voice for
moderation in the world.' This, in spite of the
fact that when the present government was elected
in 2001, there were outrages against Hindus in
many parts of the country. Some fled to India.
When the writer and broadcaster Shahriar Kabir
produced the evidence of this, he was arrested,
imprisoned and held for more than two months.
There is a second reason why the West is
reluctant to acknowledge human rights violations
in Bangladesh. Christina Rocca insists it is a
'model of strong, stable democracy'. It must
remain so, for its role is to demonstrate to the
world that the United States is no enemy of Islam
- as long as it behaves in conformity with US
interests. US companies - including Unocal -
have also been involved in negotiations to
exploit the natural gas deposits in Bangladesh
for export to India - the country's only
significant natural resource.
I know Abdur Rob well. Three years ago I wrote a
book about the country, Freedom Unfinished. He
was my guide at the time; and I learned much
about his life. At the time of the Liberation
war, he was one of the few Bengali pilots to be
trained in the then West Pakistan. At the
outbreak of the war, he escaped from West
Pakistan, and made his way back to what would
soon become the free country of Bangladesh. His
patriotism and devotion to his country are beyond
reproach. The government has made an unfortunate
choice in the scapegoat they have selected and
accused of 'treason'.
(* 3 Springfield Avenue
Muswell Hill
London N10 3SU, UK)
______
[3]
The Telegraph [India]
May 06, 2004
ALL YE FAITHLESS
- Why is religious conversion any different from other conversions?
by Nivedita Menon
(The author is reader in political science, Delhi University)
Consider this - religious conversions are
permissible if they are genuine, and not brought
about by fraud or coercion.
That many reasonable people would agree with this
statement demonstrates the extent to which the
Hindu right has transformed the terms of public
debate in India. What, after all, do "fraud" and
"coercion" mean? Of course, no decision taken on
the basis of actual physical force, or the threat
of it, can be legitimate. But nobody believes
that conversion "by the sword" is an issue today.
(It is another matter that if it had ever been
seriously practised in India, Muslims would not
be a mere 12 per cent of the population, and
Christians less than 3 per cent, after centuries
of rule.)
Going by the last election manifesto of the
Bharatiya Janata Party, fraud and coercion refer
to "promises of social or economic benefits" but
many opponents of the BJP, too, would endorse
this interpretation. Genuine religious
conversion, on the other hand, is understood to
involve the spiritual transformation of an
individual on the basis of "knowledge", both of
the person's "own" religion as well as of the one
to which he converts. Informed choice, in other
words. Interesting notion, considering one's
original religion is hardly the best illustration
of "choice" - you're born into it, right?
So ignorant Dalits or tribals, who convert to
Christianity, Buddhism or Islam in the hope of,
and lured by, economic benefits - jobs, schools,
health facilities - and social benefits -
dignity, self-respect - are instances of
fraudulent conversion. Pandita Ramabai and
Babasaheb Ambedkar may be conceded as genuine,
not by the Hindu right, for whom they are
traitors, but by liberals, who will,
nevertheless, not refrain from pointing out that
hierarchies of caste and gender continue to
operate in all these religions as well, so the
move is at best, misguided.
The unquestioned foundation of the entire
discussion is the assumption that converting from
one religion to another is essentially wrong, an
act requiring justification. The recent
self-defined exposé by a weekly on George W.
Bush's conversion agenda in India, is a typical
example of this kind of thinking. The research
simply showed that conversions to Christianity
are indeed taking place, that people who have
converted claim they no longer have troubles - a
claim triumphantly disproved by the reporter with
the fact that one of the interviewees lost a
family member in an accident recently. A film on
Christ has been successfully used to draw
villagers to Christianity - this is written about
in a way as if the very showing of such films is
a breach of trust or legality, or both. There is
also evidence of a lot of funding from the United
States of America for conversion activities, but
then foreign funding comes in for a range of
other activities, from business investments to
development work, to political agendas,
especially those of the Hindu right.
My question is - why is religious conversion
essentially different in a democracy from other
kinds of conversion? When rival companies bid for
candidates offering higher salaries and better
perks, inducing them to convert from one employer
to another, why is that not fraudulent? When
political parties attempt to convert voters with
wild promises, when Naxalites are wooed back into
mainstream society by the state, when political
ideologies - of the market or of Marxists or of
feminists or of the Hindu right - attempt to
convert with promises of redemption and threats
of various kinds, both material and spiritual,
why are all these not fraudulent? If by
conversion we mean a total change of identity, I
might point out that this is what a perfectly
ordinary marriage involves for most women -
change of name (in many communities even the
first name), place of residence, way of life, and
in general a complete restructuring of their
sense of self.
I don't understand why religion should occupy a
special place from all of the above in a modern
democracy. Not that I don't know what the answer
will be - religion is a matter of the spirit and
not of crass materiality, it should be governed
by different standards. In that case, why expect
the state to intervene at all in this sacred
realm? After all, even from the gods of their
ancestors, people expect material benefits. What
is the worship of Lakshmi all about, and
students' earnest prayers during examinations?
Why not ask the state to enact laws against the
performance of pujas and religious ceremonies in
general for material benefit? A puja hoping for
better profits in business is "religion", but
converting to another religion hoping your
children can go to school is "economics"?
For the democratically-minded who buy the
argument against "fraudulent" conversions from
what I consider to be mistaken premises, here's
another thought. It is fundamentally
anti-democratic to force people to retain any
identity against their will, especially one
assumed by the very act of being born -
nationality, caste, religion or even sex. The
possibility of change is central to democracy. We
have no option but to respect a decision to
change any identity for a perceived better
future, whatever our opinion about whether that
change will bring about the desired result.
That's the problem with democracy.
Of course, the real reason behind the Hindu
right's obsession with religious conversion has
nothing to do with protecting the sanctity of
religion. The creation of a birth-based political
majority is crucial for the project of Hindutva
and for its definition of Indian-ness. If
"others" turn into the majority, the easy
coinciding of Hindutva and the Nation falls
apart. When Ambedkar decided to leave the Hindu
fold along with large numbers of Dalits, who felt
the most threatened? Not the orthodox Hindus, who
thought it was good riddance. It was Savarkar and
the modernist Hindutvavadis who reacted most
sharply, understanding fully the importance of
numbers for a modern politics of Hindutva. Hence
their ever-increasing horror stories about
galloping Muslim and Christian populations, the
most recent example being the Indian Council for
Social and Scientific Research-sponsored study on
the decline in population of "Indian
religionists".
Recognizing this, it worries me that most
democratic and secular arguments contesting this
picture have restricted themselves to factual
corrections and reinterpretation of data.
Essentially, they have been trapped into offering
reassurances that there is no way Muslims and
Christians will outnumber Hindus, ever. Surely we
need to ask another, more aggressive question of
our own instead - so what if Hindus become a
minority one hundred years from now, or a decade
from now, or a year from now? Surely the point is
to ensure democratic institutions such that it
will make no difference how large your community
of birth is?
Many of my generation studied in Christian
institutions, we participated in Bible quizzes,
at some point some of us may even have thought of
converting (our modern young minds drawn to the
clean quiet of the chapel, so different from the
messy humanity of temples), we often wore
crosses. Our parents were usually indulgent, and
confident about themselves. Hindutva has managed
to make an 85 per cent-strong majority community
feel insecure about the strength of its durable
traditions, unsure of the ability of these
traditions to survive. Congratulations. Even a
thousand years of "Muslim rule" couldn't achieve
this.
______
[4]
www.opendemocracy.net
6/5/2004
AMERICAN INDIA
by Todd Gitlin
Wrapping-up his travels through Greece, Turkey
and India, Todd Gitlin heads back home to the
United States possessed with the spirit of
democracy.
Jaipur, India
The traveler always travels from somewhere. You
carry your lenses from home. Yet the point of the
lenses, to belabor the obvious, is transparency -
proof that the world remains new, proof that the
world is older than your eyes, proof of the
worldliness of the world.
Toward the end of approaching an impossible
transparency, you commit yourself to remain
open-eyed, beyond smugness and also beyond
abjection. Discovery is the mission, including
discovering the color of your home lenses. The
stranger goes everywhere to prove his own
strangeness - and to improve upon it. Yet the
farther you travel, the stranger home appears.
As I've traveled in Greece, Turkey and India over
the past seven weeks, I've sometimes been
gripped, sometimes amused, sometimes frustrated
by the mental gymnastics I perform as I try to
grasp the evidence of my senses - to see what I
see (and hear, and taste, and smell). If I
scramble to keep my gyroscope upright, does this
keep me balanced or uncomprehending? The various
exercises in familiarization we ambitiously call
"understanding", but the more we see, the
stranger the world appears, and the stranger the
world appears, the less confident we should be
that we understand.
The women carry pots of soil on their heads away
from construction sites; the torpor of unemployed
men squatting in the dust in the blazing heat
while, across the road, piles of trash
accumulate; the women in splendidly colored saris
pumping water from village wells; the cows, water
buffalos, donkeys, goats and pigs wandering the
Indian streets; the brilliantly maneuvering
rickshaws, autorickshaws, and bicycles, the
lumbering, overloaded tractors, ox-carts, truck
sand buses; the frescoed palaces and marble
mosques; the temples, the temples, the temples;
the castes and the untouchables-are these not
elements of a different civilization?
Omit the computer schools ("Om Logistics Ltd."
one is called) and this is still not San Jose and
never will be. For all that one may want to agree
with Amartya Sen that a civilization is a
conversation and not a monolith, how can anyone
think that all conversations are equivalent? They
may not be destined to clash, in Samuel
Huntington's famous words, but can they really
constitute proof that the human condition is
essentially one?
In the Madhya Pradesh town of Orchha I attended a
Hindu ceremony just before sunset at the gleaming
Ram Raja Temple with its pink and gold domes.
There were not more than one or two other
tourists. After ringing a bell upon entering,
some of the visitors held back in the central
courtyard, but a hundred or more crowded into a
fenced-off area close to the shrine, the sanctum
sanctorum, where the scent of incense was heavy
and a young priest stood before the stone icon.
People wearing scarves damp from the ritual bath
they'd just taken in the nearby river crowded as
close as they could get, kept at bay by a soldier
bearing a rifle with fixed bayonet. Many
worshippers strained forward to get a look at the
gilded peacock feather that the priest spun
around and around the statue. Then they craned to
get a look at him circumambulating. They surged
forward to get dampened by the holy water he
tossed into the crowd. They chanted.
A few chatted, greeting friends, as in the back
rows of any European cathedral, but many of these
Hindu devotees leaned forward as the chanting
continued. You could see the hunger in their
faces - their lust to get close to the god whose
palpable sign stood right over there.
I couldn't help but wonder whether some of these
ritual devotees had also been among the fanatical
Hindu mob that stormed a 15th-century mosque in
Ayodhya, a couple of hundred miles away, in 1992,
some of them chanting "Atomic bomb! Atomic bomb!"
as they smashed the mosque to pieces because they
believed it usurped the birthplace of the god
Rama. Not so long ago, mob violence led to
hundreds of deaths in the state of Gujarat.
Narendra Modi, the formerly disgraced chief
executive of Gujarat who played communal violence
to the hilt, is creeping back into prominence
while at the same time the ruling BJP, not far
from its Hindu-fundamentalist origins, is playing
the Muslim card in the current campaign.
Though people in the tourist business tend to
downplay the danger, chiming with the BJP's
"India Shining" campaign (a success with young
voters, if the polls are to be believed), the
traveler cannot help but wonder when the
smoldering fires of communalism might flame up
again. Everywhere outside Europe, it would
appear, religious purification is a tempting
ticket for politicians and secularism is always a
struggle.
On the surface, at least, India has more
constructive work to do than rekindle religious
hatred. The country today votes its third
election round, with one more remaining, and
though politicians are widely suspect, the verve
of campaign rallies is still impressive. In Agra,
I saw a caravan of local party supporters surge
down the street in trucks, cars, and
autorickshaws waving their yellow flags bearing
the party symbol, a yellow airplane. (There was
even a model yellow airplane, probably
papier-mâché, on the roof of one of the cars.) In
America's late 19th century, the history Michael
McGerr has taught us, elections were also
festivals; the parties mounted cavalcades and
parades to rev up civic commitment and celebrate
themselves. The electricity of crowds is a
thrilling and fearsome thing.
But the absence of that electricity is also
fearsome in its own way. In November-December
2000, as the Republican party apparatus (all the
way up to the Supreme Court) ran rings around the
Democrats, America stood still for a slow-motion
coup d'etat. Was it a mark of democratic maturity
that the world's oldest democracy permitted
George W. Bush to ascend to power without putting
up an honorable resistance? More like a mark of
lethargy.
Four years later, on the other side of the globe,
America indulges again its own democratic ritual
of symbolic genuflections, moral evasions and
intellectual defaults. To the extent "character"
is brandished, nobility is lacking. With the
connivance of a show-business press, the Bush
team - or so I read - seems to have succeeded (so
far) in branding John Kerry a "flip-flopper", as
if changing one's mind were a sign of bad
character - and as if, when Bush reverses
policies, it's a measure of his manliness.
"America Slashing" might be his slogan.
And so, back home in my benighted, scarred,
oblivious land of donkey and elephant, against
the odds that reason can prevail, what the
political scientist E. E. Schattschneider called
"the semi-sovereign people" are bestirring
themselves, and the consequences, as in colossal
India, will be vastly more imposing than the
glittering, trivial surfaces suggest.
_____
[5]
[May 6, 2004]
GUJARAT-LENGTHENING SHADOWS OF TRIDENT
by Ram Puniyani
While the country is in the middle of the general
elections (April-May 2004), the news from Gujarat
continues to be very disturbing. During the period of
this month two events in particular shook the
conscience of those committed to democratic and
secular values. The first one was the aftermath of
Supreme Court judgement in the Best Bakery case. To
recapitulate the apex court has ruled that the
deliverance of justice in Gujarat has been flawed from
bottom to top. The state Govt. has not been able to
protect the witnesses in the case, the goons of
Bajarang dal intimidated them and VHP due to which
they turned hostile and the lower court exonerated all
the culprits. In response Zahira Sheikh with the help
of Citizens committee for Justice and Peace filed a
case in the Supreme Court to shift the case away from
Gujarat so that justice can be done to the victims of
riots. Immediately after this as the judgement came,
the local supporters of BJP-VHP came and intimidated
Teesta Setalvad, Secretary of Citizens Committee, and
Fr. Cedric Prakash of Prashant, an NGO deeply
associated with the Human Rights issues of Gujarat
victims. The duo had to be given police protection.
The group of Youth traveling the country, under the
banner of Youth for Peace, (from Anhad), under the
program Meri Awaz Suno (Please here me out), was
attacked by the followers of same set of political
formations. This group has been touring all over the
country appealing to uphold the secular democratic
values in the forthcoming elections. It is in Gujarat
that even the appeal of such a nature is looked down
at, as being Anti Hindu and the Hindutva forces, the
followers of Modi-Advani, cannot tolerate them. These
two incidents remind one of the state of civic society
in this state. This has been worsening since the
genocide and the post genocide polarization of the
communities on religious lines. It is not only that
Human rights activists are being targeted, the
democratic space has also been constrained at social
level. Recently an appeal released by Sahmat and
Communalism Combat points out that ìTerror continues
to be unleashed systematically against the Muslim
minority in Gujarat through indiscriminate arrests and
illegal detentions by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch of at
least 80 Muslim youth, the selective application of
POTA against 12 Muslims for alleged involvement in the
Haren Pandya murder and 123 accused in the Godhra mass
arson. Muslim women, relatives of allegedly absconding
accused and even of detained persons, have also been
brutally abused during questioning by the Ahmedabad
police.î
In addition as per the same report the economic
boycott of Muslim community started in the wake of the
Gujarat violence also continues in various cities. A
person no less than the status of Mallika Sarabhai, in
one of her recent interviews given to a newspaper,
points out that a feeling of terror prevails in the
state due to which the democratic right of expression
has been curtailed to a great extent. As such also the
opposition movement is groping its way to find the way
to ensure the preservation of human rights but the
odds are too many. There is also a fear in the air
that large sections of Muslims may not be permitted to
vote in the forthcoming elections by shear force and
intimidation.
Is it difficult to imagine as to how a group of youth
with an appeal to National integration and shunning of
communalism be attacked? How can the civil society be
made to keep quiet and forced into submission by the
fundamentalist forces? It has become easy for the
political activists of BJP-VHP to intimidate the
social workers that are trying to preserve the cause
of democracy and in turn are defending the rights of
riot victims to get justice.
Gujarat has been having the uninterrupted rule of BJP
from last decade or so. The consolidation of section
of Hindus in to a solid block backing the politics of
RSS and its progeny is by now reaching critical
limits. Limits critical enough to be understood as the
end of the road for democratic and liberal space. This
process began from last two decades first as
anti-Dalit riots in sequence 1980, 1981 and 1986.
Later through various Rath yatras, which are a modern
innovative tool of RSS-VHP, politics and upper
caste-class section started being consolidated into a
camp, which stood to benefit from the suppression of
rights of Dalits and OBC. During late 80s a conscious
policy was undertaken to co-opt the Dalits and to
unleash them upon the ëexternalí enemy in the form of
Muslims. Such politics of hate always requires an
external enemy. This process was supplemented by an
intense process of communalization of social space
through anti-minority propaganda, which was achieved
by spreading myths about the minorities, the myths
based on history, medieval and present and through the
myths based on demographic lies and the international
politics. This process of consolidation was boosted by
the anti-Christian violence, which was done in mid
nineties. This was also accompanied coopting sections
of adivasis through identity politics. Both dalits and
adivasis were used by RSS and its progeny in the
Gujarat riots.
Meanwhile the state apparatus also has been
communalized. It was manifested in its bowing to the
butcher of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, during the riots.
Converting the communal violence into state sponsored
genocide. The affluent professional group has not
remained far behind. During Gujarat violence even the
deliverance of Medical relief was communalized,
something which goes against the Hippocratic oath
which the members of medical profession are supposed
to abide by. This oath affirms that medical
professiona will discharge their professional duties
irrespective of patientsí religion or nationality or
whatever that be. The legal community was taken in by
various means. Even as the riots were going on the VHP
prepared a team of Legal professionals to defend the
perpetrators of riots. It is not too much surprising
that the legal community which sat quiet during the
hearing of Best Bakery and turning of all the
witnesses hostile, now wakes up to make noise against
the supreme courtís decision to shift the cases away
from Gujarat.
The attitude of civil society during riots was also a
big set back to the democratic sensibilities. In a way
it reflected the state of communalization of society.
A society which witnessed the butchering of two
thousand innocents, kept quiet, believing that all
this is being done to take the revenge of Godhra. As
if revenge is an option in a democratic society, as if
by killing the innocents Muslims in different parts of
Gujarat will give justice to those killed in the
Sabrmati train burning. All this reflected the state
of the mind of the dominant sections of society. On
the top of it Modi was clever enough to pass off any
criticism of his administration as an insult of 50
billion (5 Crore) Gujratis. The human rights movements
are also being put to all the possible obstacles in
their functioning.
The tragic affairs of Gujarat are just a mirror to our
democracy. How if unguarded, the fascist tendencies
can grow and engulf the democracy lock sock and
barrel. Gujarat is very close to ëFascism in one
stateí as far as Indian nation is concerned. With the
latest victory of BJP in Madhya Pradesh, Rajsthan and
Chattisgargh, the process of fascisisation of these
states has also been put on the faster gears.
Especially in MP and Rajasthan, the dangerous signals
are emerging. The NDA rule, nee the BJP rule during
last five years has opened the floodgates for this
politics to grow at a higher pace. State sponsored
funding for RSS organizations has gone up, various
secular institutions are being taken over by the RSS
swayamsevaks. With communalization of school
textbooks, most of the job of RSS shakhas (branches)
of communalization is being parceled out to the
schools in a most official way.
Gradually the influence of RSS project is growing in
different states, Orrisa and Kerala, to name the two.
Are we doomed to witness the march of Fascism state by
state? Indian polity is at a very precarious
crossroad. The return of BJP with similar strength may
mean the early arrival of doomsday as now the leash on
Togadias and Modis will totally absent and more of
their ilk will proliferate and discover the so called
Hindutva issues state by state.
If India is to remain a democracy, secularism has to
survive. They are twins, which cannot survive in
isolation. There is no single panacea for protection
of the society from the onslaught of Fascist trident.
Apart from electoral arena, the one at social level
are equally crucial if we want our democracy to
survive. How will Human rights movement take up the
dangers posed by RSS agenda is a million life
question!
_____
[6]
The Guardian [UK]
May 6, 2004
FAMILY CHALLENGES INDIAN STATE OVER MURDERS BY MOB
by Martin Wainwright
The campaign for justice by the family of three
British tourists killed in India goes before a
court today with potentially devastating evidence
against a state government.
Lawyers will describe to a district court in
India how the group from Yorkshire was attacked
by a vengeful mob when they ventured into an area
which had been hit by anti-Muslim violence
allegedly sponsored by the government of Gujarat
state.
It will be the first stage in a civil prosecution
of the most prominent figures in the Gujarat
government which is run by the rightwing Hindu
nationalist Bharatiya Janata party.
Lawyers coordinated from London by Imran Khan,
the solicitor who handled the Stephen Lawrence
and Leeds United assault cases, will say that
officials were involved in the riots, which left
2,000 people dead, and then attempted to shield
the Britons' murderers.
The case has caused tensions between Britain and
India, with the foreign secretary, Jack Straw,
raising the issue with his Indian counterpart.
Help from forensic experts and British police has
been turned down by investigators in Gujarat.
The killings took place in February 2002 when the
tourists were stopped at an unofficial roadblock
manned by Hindu extremists after a police patrol
had told them it was safe to proceed. The group
was made up of an Indian driver, three
businessmen, Saeed Dawood, Sakil Dawood, Mohammed
Aswat, and the Dawoods' teenage nephew, Imran
Dawood, who survived the attack but was left for
dead.
Yusuf Dawood, Saeed's brother, said yesterday:
"They found themselves at the mercy of a mob who
just wanted to kill Muslims. They were clearly
British - they showed their passports - but it
was enough that they were Muslims."
The Dawood family left India more than a century
ago and moved to Britain from Fiji.
Saeed, 41, a sales manager for an electricity
company, and Sakil, 37, an optical technician,
were hauled out of their minibus and killed by
the mob, which was enraged by an earlier attack
by Muslims on a train which killed 58 Hindus. The
vehicle was set on fire and the driver, Yusuf
Palagar, and Mr Aswat, who worked for Fox's
Biscuits in Batley, West Yorkshire, also died.
Today's hearing rests in part on evidence
provided by Imran, 20, a tourism student. But
lawyers also have eyewitness evidence faxed to
Britain soon after the incident describing the
murders and naming 10 people responsible.
The action follows a scathing judgment last month
on the riots by India's supreme court, which
accused the state's government and its leader,
Narendra Modi, of turning a blind eye to the
violence.
If successful it would lead to compensation
claims against Mr Modi and state officials and
may have consequences for domestic Indian
politics.
______
[7]
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN SOUTH ASIA - A YOUTH PERSPECTIVE
The first conference will be held from 20th -30th
June 2004 and will focus on the India- Pakistan
scenario.
Twenty Indian and twenty Pakistani students aged
15 to 19 will be brought together on the MUWCI
[Mahendra United World College India |
www.muwci.net ] campus and will work together
for a constructive engagement of the conflict
using formal and informal forums. The conference
aims to develop a better understanding of the
conflict, its roots, and the need for stronger
relations within the sub-continent.
The highlights of the conference include:
* Perspectives of India's and Pakistan's history, and how it is taught.
* Examination of the major issues affecting
Indo-Pak relations, including Jammu and Kashmir;
* A critical look at the role of the media in the conflict.
* Training for the conference participants as
'Change Agents' to further the aims of the
conference in their immediate environment once
they return.
* Pre-conference homestays for Pakistani participants in Mumbai.
* Interaction with well known scholars, experts,
activists, political leaders and diplomats.
* Screening of film related to the conflict.
* Creative expression of conflict and peace using art, music and theatre.
Participants will be equipped with the skills
they need to transmit their own learning from
their personal experience to other youth in their
immediate environment.
Youth Initiative for Peace
Youth Initiative for Peace is a growing
organization, already consisting of members from
India, Pakistan, and fifteen other countries. YIP
established itself after conducting a "Focus on
Kashmir" conference held in Singapore (2002),
following which a week-long peace camp was
organized in Lahore, inviting delegates from all
7 SAARC nations (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka,
Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and the Maldives).
Based on the success of these ventures, a "Youth
Without Borders" conference was held in Karachi
in July 2003 to further engage young people in
dialogue. YIP aims to remove misconceptions that
have been created amongst the peoples of South
Asia by establishing a network of young change
agents in these countries.
After the success of the previous conference in
Karachi, YIP is now engaged in organizing another
peace camp to develop understanding between India
and Pakistan. The peace camp, 'Challenges and
Opportunities in South Asia', will bring together
forty students from all corners of India and
Pakistan together to promote the idea of peace in
their respective countries as embodied by the
ideals according to which YIP functions.
The aims of this initiative by YIP are:
* to improve communication and create better
understanding among a diverse group of future
peace builders from India and Pakistan;
* to explore the source of prejudices and biases
toward people from different socioeconomic
backgrounds and nations;
* to allow participants to discover which medium
of communication is their strength;
* to learn about the role of media in conflict and peace building;
* to find ways to use the arts and other forms of
expression for peace and social justice; and
* to train in the practical skills and tool of effective conflict management;
* to motivate participants to generate further,
practical initiatives, that they will undertake,
using the mediums discussed.
[See URL: www.youth.initiativeforpeace.org/ ]
______
[8]
Democracy, Sustainable Development, and
Violent Group Conflict, in Sri Lanka
Tuesday June 29th to Friday July 16th (Inclusive)
Course Director - Prof Sam Samarasinghe <ssamara at tulane.edu>
ICES, Kandy (info at ices.lk) in collaboration with
the Payson Center for International Development
and Technology Transfer of Tulane University, New
Orleans offers this course on DEMOCRACY,
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, AND VIOLENT GROUP
CONFLICT for the fourth successive year. This
program is also a part of the Summer Institute on
Conflict, Complex Emergencies, and Disaster
Assistance conducted jointly by Payson and the
Department of International Health and
Development of the Tulane School of Public
Health. The summer institute begins on May 12th
and runs through the third week of August. For
details on the full summer institute please
contact Professor Nancy Mock (504-587-7318;
mock at tulane.edu).
The 2004 Sri Lanka program begins on Tuesday,
June 29th and ends on Friday, July 16th. It is a
three credit 600 level graduate course. The
course can also be taken for certificate if you
are not interested in obtaining credit but have
an interest in the area of democracy, conflict,
complex emergences, disaster assistance and
sustainable development. If taken for graduate
credit the tuition is US $1,800. For the
certificate only tuition is $1,000. Travel and
living expenses are extra and must be borne by
the participant.
Language of instruction is English.
The Course is open to all from any part of the world.
For more information and enrolment visit:
www.payson.tulane.edu/mad/study_abroad/sl2004.htm
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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/
The complete SACW archive is available at:
bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/
South Asia Counter Information Project a sister
initiative, provides a partial back -up and
archive for SACW: snipurl.com/sacip
See also associated site: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org
DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
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