SACW | 11 June, 2004

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | 11 June, 2004
via: www.sacw.net

[1] Pakistan: Allegations most unbecoming (Javed Jabbar)
[2] India: Need of the Hour: Beyond 'Detoxification' (Sumanta Banerjee) 
[3] India: Vajpayee is an honourable man  So why did he do nothing when 
Gujarat burned?   (Madan Bhatia) 
[4] Pathology of aid dependency in Bangladesh and budget (Golap Monir)
[5] India: Closure on an unfortunate episode in Mushirul Hasan’s life 
(Edit, Indian Exprtess)
[6] Upcoming Events:
- 'Under-privileged and Communal Carnage: A case of Gujarat' 
by Prof. Ghanshyam Shah (Amsterdam, 15th June)
- Lecture: Fragments of Grace: My Search for Meaning in the Strife of 
South Asia - Pamela Constable (15th June, New York)	
- Roundtable: The 14th Indian National Legislative Elections: Analysis 
and Prospects (Paris, 16th June)
- IRC Annual Lecture : Readings and discussion for Refugee Week with 
Hari Kunzru, Monica Ali and Dave Eggers (London,17th June)


 _________  
 
 [1]   
 
Dawn 
03 June 2004  
 
Allegations most unbecoming  
By Javed Jabbar  
 
At a largely attended public meeting in Karachi on May 25, the acting   head of the MMA and the Amir of Jamaat-e-Islami, Qazi Hussain Ahmed is   reported to have spoken as follows according to a leading English   newspaper (not Dawn). As the version below has not been contradicted it   has to be presumed that it is an accurate report of what he said.   "Qazi Hussain said that the rulers had given total authority to the Aga   Khan Foundation for establishing a new education system in the country.  
 "The MMA chief said that the same task was assigned to the Qadiani   community but the people of Pakistan launched a movement against them   and finally they failed in their plans.   He warned the Aga Khan Foundation and Ismaili community that people   would also launch a movement against them if they continued to impose a   secular education system in Pakistan".   
This is not the place for a detailed discussion on a "secular system of   education" and an "Islamic system of education". Both systems can have   a great deal in common and need not be antithetical to each other.   Aided regrettably by the Urdu press which is so important a part of our   media sector because it commands over 90 per cent of all readership,   the religious sector has completely distorted the real meaning of the   word "secular" which is often translated into Urdu as laadiniat or   "without faith" or "atheistic".   
 
Whereas the relevant meaning of "secular" is simply that politics and   religion should be treated as separate realms, as in the context   defined by Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah in his speech to the   Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1947, when he said that   the religion of citizens should not affect the work of the state.   A secular state can have more truly religious values in its policies   than a state that claims to be religious but which applies non-Islamic   elements of dictatorship, monarchy, persecution of minorities, and   which permits barbaric torture in police stations. So the continuing   portrait of an ideal Muslim state or society as being opposite to a   "secular" state is misleading, ill-founded and untenable.   
 
The Aga Khan's education services facilitate and assist the government   of Pakistan only by invitation, not by imposition, to help improve   content, teaching skills and resource development.   The final responsibility for deciding what goes into school textbooks   rests jointly with the federal and the provincial governments and not   with a non-official body like the Aga Khan Foundation.   
 
The views and threats by the politico-religious leader are offensive   for the following reasons: a) violation of the Constitution of Pakistan   whose principles of public policy and whose substantive provisions   guarantee freedom of religion and security of citizens and which   prohibit persecution or harassment of any individual or community on   the basis of religion, sect, gender or race; b) such statements are   also subject to the enforcement of relevant provisions of the Pakistan   Penal Code such as Sections 295-A and 298-A which categorize utterances   that outrage anyone's religious sensibilities and use of derogatory   words against someone's religious beliefs as being subject to punitive   action; c) the said statement violates the values and norms of a   civilized society in general and of a Muslim nation in particular; d)   the statement injects into the political discourse of the country a new   and poisonous virus of mistrust and hate.   
 
Do the facts justify the threats? The Ismaili community is a minority   sect within Islam with certain distinct practices and features which   certainly set them apart from the mainstream Sunni and Shia sects.   However, the Ismailis accept the finality of the Prophet Muhammad   (Peace Be Upon Him). Therefore, the attempt to equate Qadianis with   Ismailis, in however indirect a manner, is wholly baseless and   unjustified.   The reverence with which the Aga Khan is regarded by the members of the   Ismaili community is quite distinct. Yet it is not very different from   the blind obedience with which members of other sects in Islam pay   tribute to their respective leaders.   The spectacle of virtual tomb worship and self-abnegation which is   visible at every major shrine and dargah throughout the country is   testimony as to how a showy piety has taken the place of genuinely good   actions.   The grandfather of the present Aga Khan had a controversial role with   the British as a colonial power before Independence in 1947, even   though the same Aga Khan played a crucial role in the founding of the   All India Muslim League in Dhaka in 1906.   But controversy of one kind or another is also associated with several   other political leaders, including Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi whose   writings are the inspiration for the Jamaat's foundation and who, in   the opinion of many, was opposed to the creation of Pakistan and to the   Quaid-i-Azam.   The philanthropy of the Aga Khan and the services rendered by the   network of the Aga Khan Foundation and by Ismaili-related organizations   have benefited our country directly in the fields of education, health,   management enterprise, hotels and tourism.   
 
Most recently, through an open and transparent process, the Aga Khan   group has secured management control of Habib Bank Limited, one of the   premier financial institutions of our country.   In practical terms, the Ismaili community has benefited the lives of   millions of Pakistanis, the overwhelming majority of whom are   non-Ismailis. In all the work associated with the Aga Khan Foundation,   whether it be the hospital and the university in Karachi, whether it be   the numerous other health centres and institutions, where educational   programmes are developed, standards of excellence have been set and   maintained.   It is also true that there is a perception amongst many that in its   services and priorities, the network tends to discriminate in favour of   Ismailis. There are also frequent complaints about excessive financial   charges or of occasional negligence and incompetence in its health   services.   However true or false some of these perceptions and some of this   information may be, one has never come across a single charge laid   against the Aga Khan or against the Ismaili community of trying to   convert non-Ismailis to their own sect, or of in any way interfering   with the practices of other religions and sects.   The very opposite is true. 
 
Ismailis are among the most tolerant,   peaceful, law-abiding and disciplined citizens of the country. They are   highly productive and industrious, contributing substantially to wealth   generation, to income tax and other taxes, to public service and to   national development.   It is ironic that the Ismaili community and the Jamaat-i-Islami have   much in common. Both are minorities. One as a sect of Islam, the other   as a political party. Both are tightly disciplined entities and   practice a high work ethic. Both follow a professional approach in   their respective areas of interest and both have strong, stable   financial resources.   But here the similarities end. 
 
Where the head of the Ismaili community   is chosen according to the principle of heredity, the head of the   Jamaat-i-Islami is elected, albeit by a relatively small number of   electors, but through an open and competitive process.   The quoted observations by the head of the MMA are extremely unfair.   They have already created unwarranted misperceptions about Ismailis in   the minds of thousands of people who attended the public meeting on May   25.   These, in turn, will share these misperceptions with thousands more.   The consequences are unpredictable and potentially destructive. A small   sign was the fact that in response to the brutal killing of Mufti   Shamzai in Karachi on May 30, mobs burnt an Aga Khan Foundation   Diagnostic Centre in Gulshan-i-Iqbal and another on Business Recorder   Road.   Other targets were also hit by the mobs. But was this also partly due   to the wholly false allegations made by the Jamaat-e-Islami leader   against the Aga Khan five days earlier, painting him as an "un-Islamic"   or a "secular" figure?  
 
 It is pertinent to remember that, whereas religious leaders are free   and able to make such false utterances to thousands of people and to   have them reported widely by the press and media, there is no   reciprocal reaction by the Aga Khan and his followers.   This is partly due to perhaps their desire not to fuel a controversy   and mainly due to the relatively docile, non-violent and   non-intimidatory character of the Ismaili community as a whole which   tries to tread very carefully in such situations. Be that as it may,   the scope for inflaming passions remains heavily weighted in favour of   the religious parties.   The silence of the federal and provincial governments concerning the   remarks quoted at the start of this article and the absence of any   statement by any political leader refuting the accusations are   indicators of how easily official as well as political leadership is   intimidated by those who claim to be the sole custodians of Islam and   who have, de-facto, become a self-appointed clergy in a faith that does   not permit such interlocutors between Allah and His believers.   
 
If we continue to permit inflammatory falsehoods to be spoken in public   and be reported in the media, we are worsening conditions for violence   at precisely the time when we need to build peace through tolerance and   cohesion.   The government should take immediate cognizance of the baseless charges   made on May 25 by taking appropriate action and by requesting the   courts to hold accountable all those who make such statements.   The writer is a former senator and information minister.    
 
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 [2] 
 
 The Economic and Political Weekly 
 June 05, 2004      
                  
Need of the Hour :Beyond 'Detoxification'                           
 
In order to undo the damage that had been inflicted on us by the   previous regime, it is necessary to go beyond the immediate task of   cleansing the crucial institutions. Merely shunting out the heads of   institutions and bureaucrats will not do.                         
 
By Sumanta Banerjee                          
 
Well-wishers of the UPA government have been expressing the ardent hope   that there would now be a detoxification of the Indian polity and   civil society freeing the system of the communal poison of religious   intolerance that had been injected by the Vajpayee-led government   during the last five years or so. This should indeed be the priority of   the new government. But in order to undo the damage that had been   inflicted on us by the previous regime, it is necessary to go beyond   the immediate task of cleansing the crucial institutions (e g, police,   bureaucracy and education in particular) of the Sangh parivar agents   (who had been carrying out the parivar agenda thanks to the official   positions that they occupy). Mere transfer of these heads of   institutions, or bureaucrats and police officials, would not destroy   the deadly toxin of Hindu communalism that had seeped into the body   politic.  
 
In his first statement on May 20, as the prime minister-designate,   Manmohan Singh promised that he would never allow a repeat of Gujarat   of 2002 and the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. If he has to keep his promise,   his government will have to formulate a long-term strategy that   prioritises the task of ridding our society of religious intolerance   and communal fanaticism of all hues. It is no easy task given the   deeply ingrained religious prejudices and superstitions that rule our   society, and the ease with which the Sangh parivar (or any other   orthodox religio-political formation for that matter) can exploit them   to serve their interests. 
Any government committed to this task, will   have to prepare itself for a long and bitter haul. A judicious mixture   of force and persuasion, firm coercive steps against the saffron   brigade and patient ideological education of the people, can be a   possible basis for an effective multi-pronged strategy to wipe out the   monstrosity known as the Sangh parivar from the Indian political scene.   
 
A selective purging of RSS agents and their fellow-travellers from   positions of control can be the first step that will go a long way in   detoxifying the administration and educational institutions. Such a   step will, of course, lead to a hue and cry about witch-hunting by   sections of the Indian liberal intelligentsia a cry that will be   picked up by the Sangh parivar ideologues to project themselves as   victims of Leftist conspiracy. In fact, soon after his defeat, the   erstwhile BJP minister of HRD Murli Manohar Joshi, expressed the fear   that the Left would reverse his policies of saffronisation of education   and culture. Asking them to leave our values alone, he said that no   attempt should be made to change the Indian ethos of our education and   history (Hindustan Times, May 18). Our values are clearly the RSS   values that inspired Joshi to introduce astrology in universities,   employ hacks to write history books distorting facts and figures, and   valorise Hindu communal leaders like Savarkar and Hedgewar and spew   anti-Muslim venom in school text-books. 
 
It is this Indian ethos as   constructed by Joshi and his parivar which was sought to be imposed on   the Indian educational system and cultural scene.  De-saffronising Education  The Sangh parivar, quite understandably, concentrated on educational   and research institutions, since they are major tools in the hands of   any ruling power to mould the minds of the younger generation and   recruit ideologues. The cultural commissars of the Sangh parivar, under   the HRD ministry who ruled over important institutions like the NCERT,   ICSSR, ICHR for the last five years, had done irreparable damage to   elementary education and academic research, in their fanatical zeal to   spread their ideology. In a typical show of intolerance of democratic   functioning, the ministry also got embroiled in an unseemly tussle with   the IIMs when it tried to encroach on their autonomy.
 
 The minimum   penalty that these commissars of the HRD ministry deserve is getting   the sack following their mentor, Murli Manohar Joshi, who had been   shown the door by the electorate.  One can understand Joshis concerns and fears. Education is a crucial   area for his parivar. They believe in the American motto: catch em   young. Thousands of Saraswati Shishu Mandirs have been set up by the   parivar in far-flung villages where children are brain-washed into   believing that Muslims are foreigners and all minorities must be   homogenised under the hegemony of Hindutva. In tribal areas, Vanavasi   schools have been set up to incorporate tribal children into the folds   of Hindutva by initiating them into the tenets and rituals of Hindu   religion. It is these students, reared upon a system of fanatical   beliefs and norms of violent offensive, who form the storm-troopers of   the Sangh parivar as evident in the participation of the tribals in   the anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat, or their en masse voting for the BJP   in places like Chhattisgarh or Jharkhand (indicating how little   political influence the Naxalites have over them despite their boast of   wielding power in those areas!).  But a complete dismantlement of the Sangh parivars educational   infrastructure in the rural areas cannot be brought about by a mere   ham-handed crackdown on the RSS- and VHP-run schools.
 
 In large areas of   the country particularly in inaccessible tribal zones the   government-run primary schools are dysfunctional, what with the absence   of teachers, or even suitable buildings. The vacuum had been filled up   by the RSS cadres dedicated to their goal of indoctrination who had   set up parallel schools, imparting to the tribal children not only the   three Rs, but also the hate-filled doctrine aimed against Muslims and   other minorities. In order to offset the impact of their dangerous   teachings on the growing generation, the new HRD ministry will have to   overhaul the system that prevails in the government-run primary   schools. They need to be reinvigorated with adequate and qualified   staff to provide education that would develop the scientific temper,   humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform, as envisaged in our   Constitution.  
 
A re-iteration of these words from the fundamental duties chapter of   the Constitution is necessary not only to reverse the obscurantist   trend of hegemonic Hindutva that had marked the writing of history text   books under the BJP regime, but also to avoid a drift into the other   extreme mode of re-interpreting history by casting it into yet another   simplistic mould that may suit certain political views and wishful   thinking about the past. We may mention in this connection the bias   betrayed by Congress historians who privilege Gandhi and his   non-violent tactics over the various other movements (e g, peasants,   working-class, armed revolutionaries) that had dominated the freedom   struggle. Historical facts are stubborn, and refuse to go away,   however, much text-book writers may try to suppress some and use other   facts selectively to serve their respective political purposes. One   hopes therefore that under the new regime, our children are given the   opportunity to look at their past history without blinkers, and are   thus allowed to develop the scientific temper and spirit of inquiry   from the point of view of humanism.  
 
De-energising Sangh Parivar  It would be a much more challenging task to dismantle the murderous   outfits of the Sangh parivar which had been at the forefront of the   communal violence that had rocked India since Advanis notorious   rathayatra in October 1990, followed by the demolition of the Babri   masjid in December 1992, and reaching its nadir in Gujarat in 2002. The   sadhus and politicians of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) along with   the activists of the RSS, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena, had played a   decisive role during the last decade in determining the policies of the   Indian state and bullying the Indian people by their acts of terrorism.   They had been the main power supply for the BJP whether in winning   elections or running state governments.  They are still around. Let us take into account the stark facts. 
 
The   BJP (which includes the RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal candidates) alone has   won 138 seats, and with its allies occupy 186 in the present Lok Sabha   thus accounting for a little over one-third of MPs. Twenty one odd per   cent of the Indian electorate still support the BJP. As the main   opposition in the new Lok Sabha, the Sangh parivar is not willing to   give up easily. Soon after its defeat, the BJPs general secretary   Pramod Mahajan contacted a leader of his ally the Shiv Sena party and   suggested that they should lie low for some time, take stock of the   situation, and start reorganising from June (from a television   interview on March 13). The RSS spokesman Ram Madhav blamed the defeat   on the dilution of the ideology of Hindutva by some of his leaders,   and said: our effort will be to bring the ideology back to centre   stage (The Indian Express, May 14). The next day, the BJP leader   Bangaru Laxman echoed similar sentiments saying that his party had lost   because it had abandoned the issue of Hindutva.  It is quite likely therefore that the Hindutva issue may be revived in   a more aggressive way by the Sangh parivar by bringing back the Ayodhya   tangle to centre-stage. The VHP president Ashok Singhal described the   BJPs electoral loss as a categorical rejection by people for failing   to fulfil the aspirations of Hindus (The Times of India, May 22,   2004). The aspirations, according to the VHP, are centred around the   building of the Ram temple on the site of the demolished Babri masjid.   But the Ramjanmabhoomi issue may not attract the vast Hindu masses   today as it did in the 1990s. 
 
The Sangh parivar therefore is putting   their eggs in many other baskets. They are exploring other avenues to   whip up a mass frenzy against the new incumbents. Soon after their   defeat, they dug up the long-forgotten (and legally rejected) issue of   Sonia Gandhis foreign origin, and fielded their two representatives   the perpetually belligerent Hindu sanyasin Uma Bharti and the   equally intemperate Sushma Swaraj to oppose Sonias candidature. Both   reduced themselves to butts of ridicule by their abrasive and uncouth   behaviour, and Sonia stole the show by refusing the post of prime   minister, thus taking the wind out of the BJPs sails.  Having lost on the bogey of Sonias foreign origin, the Sangh parivar   has found another issue which ironically enough has been offered to   them on a platter by the UPA government itself. By inducting   politicians tainted by pending criminal cases (Laloo Yadav,   Taslimuddin, Jagdish Tytler) as ministers in his cabinet, Manmohan   Singh has made himself, as well as his cabinet, vulnerable to the   charge of appeasement of corrupt politicians in order to run the   government. 
 
Although the BJP itself sheltered similar corrupt   politicians in its cabinet during its regime (George Fernandes, Dilip   Singh Judeo for instance), it will have no qualms in flinging the mud   back at the UPA government. It is obvious that the Sangh parivar is   just awaiting a chance to swoop down upon any lapse of the UPA   government to launch a violent agitation. Given the number of their   cadres and their wide network, it is an easy game for them to mobilise   a few thousands, disrupt rail traffic, create communal riots and bring   the economy to a standstill.  
 
It is this dangerously violent potentiality of the Sangh parivar which   needs to be nipped in the bud, and its manifestations ruthlessly   suppressed by the new government. In reality, they are not as powerful   as they make themselves out to be. Incarceration of their leaders in   jail, and severe police action against their followers in the streets,   are enough to put the fear of god in them. 
 
Past experiences in places   like West Bengal have shown that strict administrative steps can   prevent riots. If the UPA government is serious about stopping the   saffron brigade from creating troubles, it can take preemptive   measures.  But will the Congress-led UPA government demonstrate the courage   necessary to put an end to Hindu communalism once and for all? The   track record of the Congress so far does not inspire enough confidence.   It was at the intervention of the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi that   in February, 1986, the locks of the Babri masjid were opened allowing   Hindus to worship there. (It was Rajiv Gandhi again who was to appease   the Muslim orthodox elements a few months later by overturning a   Supreme Court judgment on the Shah Bano case and enacting in May 1986,   the infamous Muslim Womens Act that was denounced by womens   organisations and Muslim women throughout the country). It was again   another Congress prime minister Narasimha Rao, who remained a silent   witness to the demolition of the Babri masjid by the Sangh parivar   hoodlums in December 1992. Since then we have had hardly seen any   Congress leader determinedly leading his followers to resist the onrush   of the juggernaut of Hindutva. On the contrary, many among them entered   into a competition with the Sangh parivar in trying to appease Hindu   communal sentiments their politics acquiring the term soft   Hindutva. Their statements and gestures quite often overlapped with   those of the Sangh parivar. The then Madhya Pradesh Congress chief   minister Digvijay Singh campaigned against cow-slaughter; Keralas   chief minister Antony made statements attacking minorities; the   Maharashtra chief minister Shinde joined the Shiv Sena-BJP camp in   launching an offensive against the historian and biographer of Shivaji,   James Laine.  
 
One can argue that all these Congress stalwarts were so awe-struck by   the success of the BJPs Hindutva card as to veer round the view that   Hindutva (in a milder form) would have to be incorporated into its   politics. The terms of political discourse were dictated by the Sangh   parivar till the recent elections. Now that their assumptions have been   proved wrong (with the majority of the voters rejecting the BJP, for   some reason or other), these Congress leaders are inclined to revert to   slogans of secularism. Are they honest in their commitment to   secularism, and promise to fight the Sangh parivar? Will the new prime   minister be able to break out from his partys traditional practice of   compromising with religious bigots to serve immediate political   interests ? Will he draw lessons from the past to recognise that such   compromises have paved the way for the resurgence of religious   fanaticism? More importantly, will he and his colleagues in the   government, be able to muster the courage necessary to bring about the   elimination of murderous religious forces that are masquerading as   political parties?    
 
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 [3]  
 
Indian Express 
June 10, 2004  
 
Vajpayee is an honourable man  So why did he do nothing when Gujarat   burned?      
MADAN BHATIA     
 
The BJP, while demanding the resignation of charge-sheeted ministers,   has said that L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti, who had   also been charge-sheeted and were made ministers, belonged to a   different class because the crimes with which they were charged did not   involve moral turpitude.   
 
This differentiation exposes the depravity of the party. According to   it, if you destroy a place of worship for Muslims, drive a wedge of   hatred between Hindus and Muslims and strike at the basic foundation of   secularism on which the Constitution is based and thereby commit an   offence under Section 153A of the Indian Penal Code, punishable with   imprisonment extending to five years, such an offence is merely part of   political ideology and bereft of any moral turpitude. No wonder the BJP   has been identified with fascism. By this logic, Hitler and his Nazi   party which committed crimes against Jews and resorted to the final   solution by exterminating 6 million Jews did not commit any crime   which involved moral turpitude; those crimes were committed in   furtherance of the Nazi ideology.  
 
The offences committed by the Sangh Parivar and with which the BJP   leaders had been charged were crimes against the integrity of India.   They are so heinous that Section 8 of the Representation of the People   Act provides that if a person is convicted of an offence punishable   under Section 153A of the IPC, he shall be disqualified for a period of   6 years. The BJP leaders criminal conduct does not stop there. On   February 27, 2002, two bogies of the Sabarmati Express were set on fire   near Godhra station by a mob of Muslims; 59 passengers were burnt to   death in a gruesome manner. Those who perpetrated the cold blooded   murders were guilty of a crime against Indias integrity. The might of   the state should have been directed at catching them and they ought to   have been tried in the manner of the Nuremberg trials. Retribution   ought to have been swift and exemplary.   What actually took place was an occurrence the like of which had never   taken place in independent India. There was state-sponsored terrorism   and riots in which thousands of innocents, Muslim men, women and   children, were butchered. Women were raped. Lootings went on unchecked.   Thousands left their homes and huddled like animals in makeshift camps.   
 
While all these events were taking place, the Modi government, to   borrow from the Supreme Courts observation, fiddled like Nero. Modis   conduct made him the abettor of all these crimes.   This abetment did not stop at Modi. The then home minister, L.K.   Advani, and the then prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, were equally   guilty of abetment. The Gujarat disturbances called for the immediate   deployment of the army. Advani desisted from deploying these forces. He   declared it was a law and order problem which did not fall within the   Centres purview. Vajpayees only concern was the media which was   exposing the events. When disturbances broke out on February 28, all   that Advani did was to make an announcement on the evening of February   28 that a decision had been taken to instruct the army to stand by.   Only 600 troops reached Ahmedabad on March 1 but they were not   deployed. It was only in late afternoon that they were sent in by which   time the carnage had spread to different parts of the state. The stand   taken by Advani and the Vajpayee-led Union government that what was   happening was a matter of law and order which fell within the state   governments purview, and that the Union had no constitutional   responsibility, was specious, indefensible and contrary to Article 355.   
 
The US Constitution which is purely federal in character obliges the   federal government under Article 4 Section 4 to protect each state from   foreign invasion and on application by the Legislature or the   Executive of a State against domestic violence. There is no such   restriction contained in Article 355 of the Indian Constitution. But   even in the US, the Supreme Court has nullified the restriction of an   application by the legislature or the executive of a state before the   federal government can intervene to put down domestic violence by   declaring: No trace is to be found in the Constitution of an intention   to create dependence of the Govt of the Union on those of the States   for the execution of the great powers assigned to it. Its means are   adequate to its ends and on these means alone was it expected to rely   for the accomplishment of its ends...We hold it to be incontrovertible   principle that the Govt of the US may by means of physical force   exercised through its official agents, execute on every foot of   American soil, the powers and functions that belong to it. This   necessarily involves the power to command obedience to its laws and   hence the power to keep the peace to that extent.   
 
Each word of the US Court applies with equal force to the Indian Union.   For the protection of life, liberty and fundamental rights of citizens   and for preserving Indias integrity and secular fabric, the writ of   the Union runs on every foot of Indian soil. Advani and Vajpayee,   therefore, neglected their constitutional duty. Their complicity, and   that of the BJP, in the Gujarat events stood exposed at the meeting of   its National Executive in Goa at which Modi was hailed as a hero and   Vajpayee virtually declared that it was Muslims themselves who were   responsible for the carnage.   Modi is liable to be chargesheeted for the crimes committed in Gujarat   2002 as accomplice and abettor of those crimes. Advani and Vajpayee are   liable as abettors under Section 107 of the IPC for having failed to   perform their constitutional duty to crush the disturbances. Their   utterances at Goa and conduct in protecting Modi demonstrate their   indifference and omission to perform their constitutional duty to   protect the lives, liberty and rights of Gujarats Muslims was   deliberate. 
 
Vajpayees admirers may describe him as the best prime   minister India has had after Nehru. But for his indefensible and   morally, politically and constitutionally reprehensible role during the   Gujarat disturbances, posterity shall not forgive him.   If the BJP removes Narendra Modi and Uma Bharti as chief ministers and   Advani resigns as leader of the Opposition and Vajpayee and Advani are   chargesheeted and face trial for abetment of the crimes committed in   Gujarat, the nation will support the BJPs demand for the resignations   of Laloo Prasad Yadav and other chargesheeted ministers. If the BJP is   not willing to do so, it has no locus standi or moral justification to   make such a demand.  
The writer, a barrister, is a former Congress MP                                 
 
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[4]  
 
The New Nation 
May 26th, 2004  
Editorial Page                      
 
Pathology of aid dependency in Bangladesh and budget 
By Golap Monir  
 
Though the aid dependency in Bangladesh is decreasing day by day, but   per capita debt burden is increasing. This is a cruel truth, often   pronounced by our economists. According to our finance ministry, the   amount of foreign aid Bangladesh got in 1991 equals to 5.9 per cent of   our GDP. In 2003 it becomes 2.8 per cent of GDP. The remittance we get   through our expatriate Bangladeshis is double of the aid we are getting   each year. In 1972 our per capita debt burden was only Taka 67, while   in 2004 it reaches to Taka 7200. In 1991 per capita overseas loan was   119 dollars that now stands at 122 dollars. 
 
Though our overall   dependency on aid is decreasing, but some of our projects in different   sectors dominantly dependent on foreign aid. The projects of health,   population and family welfare sectors still bear the dependency rate of   74 per cent, public administration sector 73 per cent, oil, gas and   natural resources sectors 46 per cent, and, media sector 43 percent.   The aid dependency on our ADP is decreasing gradually. The dependency   rate of our ADP on aid in 1991 was 87 per cent, but in the financial   year 2003-2004 it is only 42 per cent.   
 
In this perspective our economists rightly say that Bangladesh at this   present stage is able to formulate its annual budget without depending   on foreign aid. They opine that as the donors are increasingly applying   different odd conditionalities before granting their aid, so Bangladesh   should avoid all the foreign aid except the technical assistance. And   if we were some-how strategic, we can easily avert foreign aid in   formulating our annual budget each year. More over, if we could collect   our revenues successfully, definitely we needed no aid at all. It also   should keep in mind that 70 per cent of the aid we get, is being looted   by the interest group(s), but as a whole the people is to bear the   burden of this debt. As our finance minister is always busy with the   issues on collecting aid from abroad, he always is in a tension mood   and unable to think for other national issues very much vital for the   national interest. 
 
These are some of the opinions our economists and   intellectuals hold.  Needless to say, if we go through a little bit austerity and be strict   enough to curb the corruption in the state level, it is quite possible   for us to formulate our own budget without foreign aid. In that case we   also should be cautious while accepting development projects to avert   wastage. We are to be aware of that in the coming years that the donors   would dictate more odd coditionalities against granting aid to the   developing countries like ours one. So it's the time to think for   formulating aid-free budget.  
 
To understand the aid mechanism, first of all we should clear our idea   on 'foreign aid' and 'aid dependency'. When you go through a   dictionary, you would find that it gives the definition of 'foreign   aid' as: 'The administered transfer of resources from the advanced   countries for the purpose of encouraging economic growth in the   developing countries'. So not to confuse it with the investments of   multinational corporations and commercial banks, many economists opine   that 'foreign aid' to meet two distinct criteria: 01. Its objective   must be non-commercial from the point of view of the donors and 02. It   should be characterized by concessional terms.  In practice, transfer of resources from advanced countries to less   developing countries goes in many ways and means, chiefly in two ways:   multilaterally and bilaterally. Multilaterally, as with the many   international agencies such as World Bank or various departments of the   United Nations. 
 
Bilaterally, which is an agreement between two   countries for a specific amount or item of aid. Direct food aid is   granting of preferential tariffs by developed countries to third world,   while exporting manufactured goods. No doubt different form of foreign   aid effects differently in different countries. The idea of foreign aid   began to be attractive to both donors and recipients during the 1950's.   In that decade the ex-colonies began to realise just how dependent they   still were on the former imperial powers. 
 
The USA, plus the major   European nations believed that providing foreign aid would not only   allow a measure of continuing control over their former charges, but   also help to contain the threat of communism. That's the way in which   the very aid merry-go-round began, although the people in the recipient   countries were always in the high hopes for ending poverty, ignorance   and decease utilising the aid they provided with.  Now let we have a look at on the issue of aid dependency. 
 
We have a   dependency theory as well, and it posits that their reliance and   dependence on more economically developed countries cause the cause of   low levels of development in the less economically developed countries.   It clears that less economically developed countries are undeveloped   because they rely on the more economically developed countries. Some   proponents of this dependency theory assert that less economically   developed countries will remain less developed because the surplus that   they produce will be siphoned off by more economically developed   countries - under the guise of multilateral corporations. There is, as   such, no profit left for investment and development. As a corollary of   this theory, less economically developed countries should cut off ties   with the more economically developed countries, retain their surplus   production, and follow economically independent ideas in order to   develop their economies further.   
 
Figures kept between 1960 to 1986 show that Official Development   Assistance (ODA) has increased from an annual rate of 4.6 billion   dollars in 1960 to more than 37 billion dollars in 1986. These figures   include bilateral and multilateral grants, loans, food and technical   assistance. The statistics, however, are misleading as in real terms   there has been a steady decline since 1960 in the actual percentage of   GNP of the developed countries devoted to ODA. It declined from an   overall percentage of 0.51 per cent in 1960 to 0.36 per cent in 1986.   The United Nations recommends a minimum of 0.7 per cent of GNP from   developed nations towards ODA. But in a recent study of contributions   to ODA by developed countries only 5 of 18 studied managed to reach and   pass this figure. They were, in order to ranking Norway - 1.03 per   cent, Netherlands - 0.91 per cent, Sweden - 0.86 per cent, Denmark -   0.80 per cent and France - 0.78 per cent. The United Kingdom was   twelfth with 0.34 % of GNP devoted to development assistance of all   forms, While the USA came to the bottom of the table with 0.24 per cent   of GNP going towards foreign aid. However, besides Japan the USA   remains the largest donor in real terms with contributions totaling 24   per cent of all ODA.  
 
Bilateral aid is the direct transfer of specific resources or money   between two countries. Many of the industialised nations in the West   have their own official development agencies. Such as the USA has the   United States AID and the UK has its Overseas Development   Administration. Bilateral aid is really an outright grant of money. It   is usually a low interest loan. However, in the majority cases it is a   tied-loan, which means that the recipient of the loan is required to   purchase goods and services from the donor country.   Most multilateral aid is channeled through the World Bank, the IMF and   various agencies of the United Nations. The IMF is something of a   misnomer here as its loans are really cocessional, but it is still   regarded as an important adjunct of development. The two main agencies,   World Bank and IMF, claim that their international status make them   totally objective and enables them to make value free decisions the   distribution of ODA. Their stated aim is to promote and implement   economic policies favourable to development. To this end, especially   during 1960's and 1970's, many of their lending policies were directed   towards the economic infrastructure of a country, such as development   of transports, communication and power systems. 
 
 
Following the   publication of the Brandt report-1980, there was a noticeable shift,   especially by the World Bank, in policies relating to development   assistance. The aim was to redirect the emphasise of international aid   away from capital intensive projects in order to help the rural poor.   To this end, the higher proportion of the Wold Bank funds were sent to   agriculture, education, health and the provision of technical   assistance. The IMF and the World Bank are held in great esteem by   private lending institutions and have been referred to as 'police of   development'. Other official and private lenders tend to lend or not to   lend according to whether the government in question has the approval   of these two agencies. This gives them a great amount of leverage when   negotiating economic policy decisions with developing nations.  
 
 The US AID through its 'food for peace' programs is the main purveyor   of the direct export of food to underdeveloped countries. This policy   has been criticized in certain quarters as some commentators believe   that it creates a dependency culture, distort the local markets and   provides a discouragement to agricultural programs to create   self-sufficiency. Another aspect of the food aid is the green   revolution, where hybrid strains of food crops have been developed by   some western nations so that the cereals would grow faster and be more   productive.  How does the green revolution works against the interest of the poor?  
 
 It has been noticed that through green revolution process dramatic   increase in agricultural production from genetically hybrid grains that   produce high yields. But in return it requires high inputs of chemical   fertilizes and pesticides. Economically less developed countries are   importing three times cereals from economically much developed   countries because the green revolution has made these less developed   countries increasingly dependent on foreign grain imports although the   revolution was supposed to promote self-sufficiency. Green revolution   intensifies the need for chemical fertilizers, mechanised farming,   irrigation etc, which clears the way to be over dependent on the   developed countries. The green revolution also creates for the   industrialised countries and plunges under-developed countries into   deeper and deeper dependency. It brings a radical transformation in   agrarian class- structures. 
 
The cost favours he large landowners and   widens the gap between the rich and the poor. Then the poor are forced   to sell their land to the well-off farmers and join the labour force.   These are cases with the countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, India,   Thailand, Mexico, Philippines etc.  There was a time when we have no other way but to go for aid. The   emergence of Bangladesh as an independent country through an arms   struggle was accompanied by a devastation of the economy. Then it was   impossible for us to run the country without help from the   international community. But now it is the time to initiate a   self-reliant budget free of foreign aid for our national interest as   depending on aid we could not assure our national development in the   past three decades. Our economists are signaling the very thing to   initiate a self-reliant budget in near future. And the question is   whether we should go for this or not.  
 
Copyright 2003 by The New Nation     
 
 
______
    
[5]  Indian Express
June 6, 2004 
Editorial
 
 
Circle of unreason  
 
Closure on an unfortunate episode in Mushirul Hasans life. Elsewhere,   censors roam       It has been some years since India rehabilitated Salman Rushdie. And   vice versa. The midnights child who in 1999 bid farewell to the   country, in his novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet, has in subsequent   years become a frequent traveller to the land of his birth, commenting   on its politics and people and reclaiming family landmarks. Closure on   the violence on the streets and in attitudes of The Satanic Verses   episode has, however, been slower for others. Twelve years ago   historian Mushirul Hasan became the target of a shrill campus protest   for merely suggesting that banning books, in this case Verses, is   unwise. Then pro-vice chancellor of the Jamia Millia Islamia, he was   even forced to flee the campus for a while. His appointment this month   as vice chancellor of Jamia, thus, formally ends an unfortunate chapter   in intolerance.                          
 
The anger against Rushdies book is now spent. Unfortunately, the   search for texts and creative work to rally vast segments of the   population into passionate indignation continues. Whether it be a   Saraswati painting by M.F. Husain, a polemic by Arun Shourie or a novel   by Taslima Nasreen, street protests in years past have been common. In   any case, there was something curiously manufactured about the   beginnings of the campaign against Hasans opinion on the banning of   books. All these years later, passions are being whipped up in   Maharashtra over historical works concerning Shivaji. The plunder at   Punes Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute is a case in point. It is   shocking that James Laines book on Shivaji stands banned, and that the   legal case against him is alive. There are also reports about other   books on Shivaji being scrutinised by self-appointed censors.  The hatred and violence over The Satanic Verses was, in retrospect, so   unnecessary and so very harmful. No one won any debating points on that   issue. Yet, the censorship roadshow carries on, moving to different   sites, carrying different protagonists, waging different political   battles. A true beginning would be made in fighting this dangerous   trend if the state kept away from these bursts of intolerance and   desisted from banning books.                                                   					

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[6] UPCOMING EVENTS:

(i)

Center for Asian Studies and the Amsterdam School for Social science 
Research have the honour to invite you to the 15th Wertheim lecture by 
Professor Dr. Ghanshyam Shah.

'Under-privileged and Communal Carnage: A case of Gujarat' 
by Prof. Ghanshyam Shah 

The Anti Muslim violence of 2002 in Gujarat was one of the worst 
communal carnage in the recent history of South Asia. In this lecture 
Prof. Shah contextualises the collective violence in the market driven 
globalisation and focuses on some of the unexplored aspects of the 
communal carnage. Why would a segment of the poor - the ex-untouchables 
in particular- who are on the fringe of the so called mainstream 
collaborate with the traditional adversaries - upper caste Hindu 
fundamentalists against the equally deprived community of Muslims?
Ghanshyam Shah is currently a fellow at Netherlands Institute for 
Advanced Study (NIAS).
Wertheim Lecture is organised by Amsterdam School for Social science 
Research (ASSR) University of Amsterdam [ Phone: 020-525 2262]. 

Date: 14 June 2004 
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
		
Venue: 
Oost Indisch Huis (OIH)			   
Kloveniersburgwal 48			   
1012 CX Amsterdam	
The Netherlands 		   


___


(ii)

Lecture: Fragments of Grace: My Search for Meaning in the Strife of South Asia 	
 
Date: June 15th
Time: 	6:30 pm - 8:00 pm 	   
Location: 	New York 
Asia Society and Museum, 725 Park Avenue, New York 	   
Cost: 	$7 members/NGOs; $10 nonmembers; $5 students w/ID 	   
For five years, Pamela Constable, a veteran foreign correspondent and 
award-winning author, traveled through South Asia on assignment for the 
Washington Post. Following religious conflicts, political crises, and 
natural disasters, she also searched for signs of humanity and dignity 
in societies rife with violence, poverty, prejudice, and greed. 
Between extended sojourns in South Asia, Constable returned to the West 
to reflect on the risks and rewards of her profession, revisit her 
roots, and compare her experiences with Islam, Hinduism, and 
Christianity. Her book is a uniquely personal exploration of the rich 
but solitary life of a foreign correspondent, set against a regional 
backdrop of extraordinary political and religious tumult.
Pamela Constable has been covering South Asia for the Washington Post 
since April 1999, spending four years as the region’s bureau chief. She 
is the coauthor with Arturo Valenzuela of A Nation of Enemies: Chile 
Under Pinochet. She has been awarded an Alicia Patterson Fellowship and 
the Maria Moors Cabot Prize, and she recently completed her tenure as 
the Pew International Journalism Program’s journalist-in-residence.
Copies of Fragments of Grace will be available for purchase and 
signing. 


____


(iii)


Roundtable
UMR 7050 Sciences-Po CNRS

Les 14èmes élections législatives nationales
indiennes : analyses et perspectives [The 14th Indian National 

Legislative Elections: Analysis and Prospects]

Date: 16 juin 2004
Time: 16h 30 - 19h 00

Venue: 56 rue Jacob
75006 Paris

CHAIR: Jean-Alphonse Bernard, Historian of Contemporary India
Elections 2004: How Congress revived the Idea of India
Zoya Hasan, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
The Defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National Democratic
Alliance
Christophe Jaffrelot, CERI-CNRS
The Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty: Some Reflections
Max-Jean Zins, CERI-CNRS
The Foreign Policy of the New Indian Governement: Legacies,
Challenges and Prospects
Jean-Luc Racine, CEIAS-CNRS
The discussion will be introduced by Jyotsna Saksena, INALCO


____


(iv)

IRC Annual Lecture (17th June): Readings and discussion for Refugee 
Week with Hari Kunzru, Monica Ali and Dave Eggers 
International Rescue Committee, UK
	   
International Rescue Committee (IRC) - UK
Prize-winning authors, Monica Ali, Hari Kunzru and Dave Eggers, are 
among the guest-speakers attending a special event in London this month 
promoting greater understanding of what it means to be a refugee. 
Hosted by the International Rescue Committee as part of Refugee Week, 
the event will take place on Thursday 17th June at Church House 
Conference Centre, Dean’s Yard, Westminster, London SW1P 3NZ. The Chair 
for the evening is Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian newspaper. 
Doors: 6.30pm (for 6.45), with drinks reception at 8.15.pm 
Tickets should be purchased in advance by calling 020 7692 2737. 

Tickets are priced: 
£25 lecture and reception, £10 lecture only £6 concessions (NGO staff, 
students, pensioners, unemployed, low waged) 
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: 
Dave Eggers made his name with his first novel, A Heartbreaking Work of 
Staggering Genius. He will talk about his work on the ‘lost boys of 
Sudan’, a group of refugees who spent most of their childhoods on the 
move in South Sudan trying to escape capture by Sudanese armed forces. 
Many of these boys have now been resettled to the US and elsewhere. 
Hari Kunzru, author of the critically acclaimed novel, The 
Impressionist, famously rejected the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize as a 
protest against hostile rhetoric about immigrants and asylum seekers 
published by its sponsor, The Mail on Sunday. His second novel, 
Transmission, was published this month. 
Monica Ali’s insights into the experiences of flight and exile provided 
much of the material for her internationally successful debut novel, 
Brick Lane. The daughter of English and Bangladeshi parents, she spent 
the first three years of her life in Dhaka before her family fled to 
Bolton during the 1971 civil war. 
For further information or to purchase tickets, call: 
020 7692 2737 
or email 
events at ircuk.org 
All proceeds from the event will go towards IRC’s work with refugees 
and displaced communities around the world. 

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

Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on 
matters of peace and democratisation in South 
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit 
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