SACW | 15 June 2004
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Mon Jun 14 15:03:04 CDT 2004
South Asia Citizens Wire | 15 June, 2004
via: www.sacw.net
[1] UK: Religion and education don't mix.
Denominational schools are simply indoctrinating
kids
(David Aaronovitch)
[2] Canada: Sharia Arbitration Tribunal is unwarranted (Hamid Bashani)
[3] India: Memorandum From Women's Organisations For A Gender Just Budget
[4] India: VHP to triple projects in sensitive tribal areas (John Dayal, AICU)
[5] India:Letter to the Editor (Mukul Dube)
[6] Book Announcement: 'Black Wings' By Sehba Sarwar
[7] Book Talk: Nadeem Aslam on his 'Maps for Lost Lovers'
[8] Invitation to 3 film screenings: On RSS and
on the Gujarat Genocide (Bombay, June 19)
[9] Documentary Film Available: 'Final Solution
is a study of the politics of hate'
[10] Seeking contacts with South Asian Sociologists/Anthropologists
--------------
[1]
The Observer [UK]
June 13, 2004
Comment
Find faith in diversity
Religion and education don't mix. Denominational
schools are simply indoctrinating kids
David Aaronovitch, columnist of the year
It was just a little thing in the local paper,
and it has helped remove the scales from my eyes.
The story was this: where I live we have many
schools, state and private, and the school run
has become for us what closing shops are to
country-folk - a microcosm of our
dissatisfactions. The roads are clogged by 4x4s,
no one walks, no one cycles, no one else can
park, the buses are delayed, ambulances can't get
through and so on. So the council, after much
consultation, is phasing out the 'Dropping off at
St Boniface's' permits, while encouraging schools
to adopt 'green travel' plans.
This week a local barrister is looking into
whether the scheme breaches human rights
legislation according to the Hampstead and
Highgate Express. Not for everyone, but just for
those whose children attend faith schools. His
argument seems to be that it's a human right to
attend a denominational school and given these
may be further away from home than the local
school, parents should not be subject to the same
penalties as those whose child's journey results
purely from choice. In other words, a religious
choice in education is a matter of freedom of
conscience, whereas any other kind of choice
isn't.
Steam emerges from every orifice at this.
Especially when the barrister adds: 'When I got
married we promised to bring up our children in
the Catholic faith and so we put them through a
Catholic school.' This is the non sequitur upon
which he bases his claim to be accorded superior
treatment. Perhaps he would like a little sticker
for his car that reads 'Free parking for
monotheist pupils only'. I also look forward to a
pamphlet entitled 'Why Christian kids can't use
public transport'.
It isn't just him. Some parents are trying the
same trick when they are charged (like everyone
else) for school buses to out-of-area schools. If
the reason for their travel is to have Buttercup
taught at a school that does proper Nativity
plays, then apparently it is the job of the rest
of us (whose children attend schools of
insufficient godliness) to subsidise it.
Up until recently I didn't care much about this.
I like diversity, in schools as in haircuts or
music. Denominational schools seemed to be like
other schools except with more vicarish stuff at
assembly. True, I felt a bit sorry for the
convent girls with their come-and-get-me,
ooh-go-away sexual neuroses, and even sorrier for
my friend Graham when one slapped his face.
Nor do I accept that faith schools need lead to a
Northern Ireland situation, since that was as
much a product of competing nationalisms as of
religion; I don't blame faiths for the greatest
ills of the world, since neither Adolf nor Joseph
led religious movements; I don't see how you can
have state-funded church schools or Jewish
schools and deny the same rights to Muslims; I
can understand that it is better to have
regulated denominational schools than watch all
religious instruction be carried out by untrained
teachers in madrassas, yeshivas or Sunday
schools; I recognise that we have plenty of
non-faith 'ghetto schools' as a consequence of
real ghettoes.
So blaming faith schools for our social problems
seems wrong. But even so, something, it seems to
me, is going badly wrong. I suppose my
presumption was that, with time, denominational
schools would become less exclusive. People whose
beliefs are not religious-based do not require
(and could not get) state funding for their own
schools, so we do not have socialist schools,
conservative schools or ecological schools. The
trick would be to get a genuine discussion in all
schools about culture, ethics, politics and
citizenship, a discussion founded in respect for
other views.
And yet we seem to be moving in the other
direction. Already a quarter of schools are faith
schools (almost all Christian), and more are
being added. Unsurprisingly, some Muslims are
pushing hard for their own schools. Last week a
report, Muslims on Education, called for more
state funding for Muslim faith schools.
Some of the reasoning was, to say the least,
worrying. On Radio 4 Baroness Uddin, one of the
authors, asked why Pakistani and Bangladeshi
children in state schools were under-performing.
The suggestion seemed to be that their faith was
insufficiently recognised, and for this reason
they were doing badly. One notes here the
completely unscientific elision of religion and
community. What was once the Bangladeshi
community has suddenly become the Muslim
community. Seen in this light, the problem
becomes redefined as one of Islamophobia, not the
translation of rural peoples to a Western
metropolis; and the answer is redefined too - and
it seems to be more good ol' religion.
One of my Guardian colleagues argued that
Islamophobia was the new weapon for attacking
faith schools. I would argue the opposite, that
an abuse of the term 'Islamophobic' is becoming a
new weapon for attacking those who want to see a
non-denominational, equal education system.
The truth is that denominational schools are
beginning to crowd out secular parents, or those
whose first allegiance is not to religion. They
increasingly find that their choices are
circumscribed by religious-based schooling that
they do not want. And it is making hypocrites of
the others. As church attendance has fallen, so
numbers of parents claiming to be church-goers
has risen. Non-faith schools are robbed of kids
whose presence would be so valuable, though it
seems that the religious feel well able to do
without the presence of the children of atheists.
What is going on here, I think, is an attempt to
protect the young from modernity. Parents believe
their kids are threatened by the materialism and
immorality of other peoples' kids. One
proselytiser for Muslim education who sends out
letters to the media captures this very well.
When there was a conviction for an 'honour
killing' in London last autumn, this campaigner
argued that the victim, killed by her father,
'was educated to be a Westernized woman, instead
of a Muslim'. He added: 'Already there are more
than 6,000 Muslim teenager girls in the custody
of the social services, a product of the
mis-education and de-education by state schools.
Muslim youth are involved in drugs, prostitution,
abandoning families, abortion and high rate of
divorce.'
This is a social agenda, as much as a religious
one. It was argued by a pro-faith school
columnist that at least the two great faiths -
Catholicism and Islam - permit equality to
believers and co-religionists. But they don't. If
they did there would be women priests and women
imams. My fear is that this emphasis on faith
schooling is an attempt, albeit unconscious - to
return us to the days before feminism, an attempt
which affects all of us.
It's also a way of getting the male priests and
mullahs back in. Last autumn, the Archbishop of
Canterbury made a speech encouraging schools to
hold their own communion and confirmation
services. 'The church school,' he said, 'is a
church. More is needed in terms of religion in
schools than clergy visits and choral services in
nearby churches.'
A church school is a church where the
congregation is - as school-children are -
captive. I've been asleep to this creeping
indoctrination. I'm awake now.
_____
[2]
14 Jun 2004 10:32:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: Hamid Bashani <bashani2000 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Sharia Arbitration Tribunals
The introduction of Sharia Arbitration Tribunal is
unwarranted and totally at odds with the Charter of
Rights and freedom. We are equal citizens of Canada,
we are equally accountable under the law, and we
believe that the constitution of Canada must treat us
equally and be applied to all of us, irrespective of
our race, gender and religion. Charter of Rights and
Freedom guarantees fundamental rights of all Canadian
including the rights of Muslim women. A small group of
Muslim fundamentalists is misusing Ontarioís
Arbitration Act by setting up arbitration tribunal
under Sharia law. This move will cause fragmentation
of Muslims and force them to surrender the fundamental
rights they are enjoying under the law of the land.
This was stated by Hamid Bashani, in his presentation
on introduction of Sharia Arbitration Tribunals in
Ontario, in University of Ottawa, loumoureaux Hall, on
Saturday. He said that Muslim women in Canada enjoy
all rights granted by Islam, and they have even
greater protection of their rights under the
constitution of Canada.
We have one of the best justice systems in the world
and best laws on divorce, inheritance and child
custody. There is no issue which cannot be addressed
by secular Canadian courts, but it is unfortunate that
some people are trying to misuse the religion and
forcing women to segregating themselves in to
fragmented communities.
Under proposed Sharia Law Muslim women will be
deprived of many rights including the ability to have
a pre-nuptial agreement, no polygamy, and laws against
violence, and child custody. The government of Canada
needs to ensure justice is equal for all and must not
allow some people to impose their own rigid framework
of laws on their communities.
He said that In Canada, everyone is free to exercise
his religious rights because of the values of
fairness, social justice and acceptance of diversity.
If there is any injustices we should oppose it
collectively rather than segregating ourselves in
fragmented communities. Cultural relativism must not
be used as an excuse for violation of human rights,
and no one should be allowed to use the religion as a
justification for human rights abuses. The
introduction of Sharia tribunal will oppose free
thought, freedom of expression and women rights would
be adversely affected. The gathering was also address
by Alia Hogben, president of Canadian Council of
Muslim women and Dr Farhat Rehman president of the
Council's Ottawa Chapter.
_____
[3]
MEMORANDUM FROM WOMEN'S ORGANISATIONS FOR A GENDER JUST BUDGET
To
June 10, 2004
The Union Minister for Finance
Government of India,
New Delhi
Dear Shri Chidambram,
1. We appreciate your giving us an
opportunity to place before you the concerns of
women regarding the forthcoming budget. We
request you to include women's organizations and
representatives as an "interest group" in your
pre-budget consultations regularly. You will
appreciate that it is women as managers of family
budgets as well as members of the workforce who
are most directly impacted by the budget.
2. In the light of the CMP adopted by the
Government we feel that there is an urgent need
for a reappraisal of the priorities set in the
Tenth Plan which according to us are at variance
with the social commitments made in the CMP. We
believe that a course correction in the direction
of the Plan is required to keep in focus the
social priorities of the CMP. This is an exercise
which brooks no delay.
3. The previous budgets had cut down on
actual budgetary resources for crucial sections
of society such as women, labour, children and
the unorganized sector. This should be corrected
and allocations increased substantially. The
commitment for increased allocations for health
and education must also be implemented
4. There are two aspects of affirmative
action for women. Firstly allocations and designs
of women-specific schemes. Secondly allocation of
a specific percentage of the resources, for women
in all programmes and schemes of different
Ministries. Unfortunately in spite of our
repeated demands there has been no review of the
past allocations. Recently there has been a
gender post budgeting exercise which has shown
that the benefits to women have declined from
1.02 per cent of public expenditure in 1998-1999
to 0.87 per cent in 2001-2002. The earlier
Government orders on 40 per cent allocations of
all resources to be used for the benefit of women
has not been implemented. Even as far as
beneficiaries in Government employment schemes
are concerned, recent estimates of the Ministry
for Rural development programmes show that it is
even below 20 per cent. Your budget must correct
this injustice. We request a clear commitment of
resources and political will to ensure that at
least forty per cent of the resources allocated
for different programmes of employment
generation, self employment, skill enhancement
for employment must be earmarked for women with
clear arrangements for its monitoring. This
should be done by the Planning Commission in a
transparent manner, making the results available
to the public on six monthly basis.
5. A large number of women work in the
unorganized sector and in traditional industries.
Current policies have led to the destruction of
many of these industries like handloom, coir,
cashew etc. because of the taxes levied on raw
materials and the problems of marketing. The
budget must express a clear financial commitment
to help all these industries. In the unorganized
sector schemes for social security should form
part of the budget. The needs of women for
credit, for training and for marketing support
should be fully supported by the Central
Government by creating a special fund and
improving access with the help of women's
organizations so that the funds are utilized and
the scheme does not remain on paper.
6. While welcoming the CMP commitment for
100 days work for every rural and urban household
we would like to emphasise that the programme
must include at least 40 per cent women in its
beneficiaries, specifically women headed
families, and single women.
7. In the organized sector there was an
earlier practice to employ a family member of
the deceased employee on compassionate grounds
which has, in practice, been given up. This must
be restored by a commitment in your budget
speech. In the context of widows and single
women, and senior citizens, unfortunately social
security is non-existent and even the meager
widow pensions have not been available in the
name of inadequate resources. We urge you to
increase allocations for widow pensions
specifically to ensure social security and
dignity for this section of our population. Women
senior citizens also require your special
consideration. There are an increasing number of
single women and women headed families among the
middle class also. They must be supported to
provide for their social security through savings
encouraged by tax concessions, which at present
is only a token of a few thousand rupees in
standard deductions for income tax.
8. Mid-day meal schemes have not been
implemented in many States because of the lack of
resource allocation from the center. In fact
previous budgets have actually cut down
allocations for this scheme. Your budget must
provide adequate resources for the
universalisation of cooked mid day meal scheme
for all primary schools as a first step.
9. The Center and the State Governments
should continue to take direct responsibility for
efficient and equitable benefits of the ICDS
which must be further expanded to universalize
the programme as per repeated commitments An
increased allocation for the salaries of
anganwadi workers and helpers who are extremely
overburdened with multiple responsibilities is
essential. In other locations crèches should be
started and funded from the Central Government if
necessary through a cess on employers.
10. Women's health particularly primary
health care at all stages of their life should be
strengthened as part of State responsibility to
its citizens. This may be further supported by
comprehensive health insurance schemes. Earlier
proposals were extremely gender insensitive and
ignored the special health needs of women. At
present allocations for primary health have a low
priority as compared for example to family
planning budgets. Priorities must be changed to
focus on the basic health needs of women and
children. We consider allocations and commitment
for the promises to provide safe drinking water
and sanitation services as essential parts of
health needs of women and children. Specific
allocations to ensure these services in all
locations must be accepted as a national priority
for the central Government and should be
reflected in the budget.
11. Given the increase in incidents of
violence against women, there is an urgency for
the provision of funds for short stay homes and
shelters as well as for counseling services. The
budget should make adequate provision for such
services.
12. Given that the budget is an instrument
through which the Government prioritises the
collection and allocation of resources, we urge
you to ensure that your budget does not increase
its revenue through the levying of taxes on
essential commodities. In this context we urge
you to refrain from any increase in the prices of
kerosene that will badly hit the poor. Food
security is basic to the right to live. In this
context the food subsidy for the consumer which
constitutes barely one third of the entire
subsidy bill should not be reduced in the name of
targeting. On the contrary, targeting has led to
the exclusion of large sections of the poor among
whom women are the majority. With only a small
increase in the subsidy, the country can have a
universal food distribution system at cheap
prices which will serve the basic needs of the
people.
Thanking you,
Yours sincerely,
Brinda Karat (AIDWA) Gomti Nair (AIWC) Nirmala
Buch, C.P.Sujaya (CWDS) Mohini Giri (Guild of
Service) Jyotsna Chatterjee (JWP) Syeda Hameed
(Muslim Women's Forum) Sahba Farooqui (NFIW) Mary
Khemchand (YWCA) Husna Subhani (All India Muslim
Women's Association)
_____
[4]
Dr. John Dayal
National Vice President: All India Catholic Union
(Founded 1919, Asia’s largest and oldest Laity Organisation)
Secretary General: All India Christian Council
505 Link Society, 18 I.P Extn Delhi 10092
Phones 9811021072, 22722262
<mailto:johndayal at vsnl.com>johndayal at vsnl.com;
<mailto:mercy at satyam.net.in>mercy at satyam.net.in
FOR INFORMATION AND POSSIBLE USE
VHP to triple projects in sensitive tribal areas
to 30,000 by 2006, target is 100,000 by 2011
Many such projects are funded by NRIs
By John Dayal
New Delhi, June 14
The militant Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the religious
wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the
main instrument of the former ruling Bharatiya
Janata Party, plans to triple its presence within
two years in India’s highly sensitive tribal belt
that spans the six states of Gujarat, Rajasthan,
Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh and Jharkhand. The
BJP rules in all these six states, and in the
seventh, Orissa, in a coalition government.
Barring Jharkhand, where elections are due within
a year, the party has clear four years of rule in
these states and can patronise the VHP.
The main projects of the VHP work in tandem with
the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, which is notorious for
turning tribals against Christians and Muslims
and attacking Cristian institutions and personnel.
Recent information from India, the United Kingdom
and the United States has shown that a large
chunk of funding comes from Non Resident Indians
as well as from official, governmental and even
church organisations that been fooled into
donating for programmes allegedly for the welfare
of widows and for orphan children.
However, minority and Civil rights groups have
repeatedly charged that the money is being
diverted to hate campaigns, distribution of
religious literature and artifacts and, in the
worst case of misuse, in the distribution of the
Trishuls to be carried as a side-arm weapon in
its holster. Money is also being used in the
so-called Ghar Wapsi or conversion of Christian
dalits to Hinduism masterminded by former
minister Ju Deo.
Ju Deo, who as forest minister in the Atal Behari
Vajpayee BJP-led coalition government, was caught
on tape accepting bribes for mine projects.
Though he was denied the ticket for the recent
Lok Sabha elections, he was active in the
electioneering and has been rewarded with an easy
elevation to the membership of the Rajya Sabha,
the Upper House of parliament. His corruption
case is still in the process of criminal
investigations.
The VHP had planned a nation wide expansion
project, but with the ouster of the BJP from the
central government, seems to be focusing its
energies in states where it still controls the
government apparatus and has the patronage of the
chief minister and senior administrative and
police officers.
Shyam Gupta, the central joint secretary general
of the VHP who is directly in charge of the VHP
projects in tribal areas, says the target is to
reach 100,000 tribal villages (a fourth of the
total villages in India) by 2011. Sokw reports
suggest that the Sanh may well have over 50 to
trained 60,000 voluteers in the villages already.
At the core of the VHP tribal project is the one
teacher school. All would be well but for the
fact that this teacher is an RSS card-holding
cadre, trained by the Sangh Parivar is everything
from use of arms to ideological pedagogy. There
is no state government certification of the
schools, nor of the curricula, and of course not
at all of the textual material and propaganda
literature and audio visual aids that are used
ins several of these schools. In the absence of
any such supervision by the state, or audit by
the authorities, civil society groups fear that
the children are subjected to a systematic
pedagogy of hate. For the record, Gupta says the
VHP focuses on a four-point programme, which
contains education, health, economic progress,
and self-respect.
Despite repeated demands by civil society groups,
the Vajpayee government failed to give any data
on the amount of funds that were being received
by the groups. Nor is there any analysis of
_____
[5]
D-504 Purvasha
Mayur Vihar 1
Delhi 110091
14 June 2004
Dear Editor,
Pandit Atal Behari Vajpayee took twenty-seven months to come out
with the view that N. Modi, who was Chief Minister of Gujarat at
the beginning of 2002 and still holds that position, should have
been sacked after the genocide in that state. Had this so-called
statesman formed this view on moral or constitutional grounds, he
would have acted on it immediately: after all, he was Prime
Minister at the time. Coming today, his words are clearly based on
cynical afterthought: "the Opposition had politically manoeuvred
the issue", he said (*Hindu*, 14 June 2004).
When N. Modi is removed -- and that will happen soon enough -- it
will not be on account of his criminal role in the planned and
organised "riots": instead, the BJP will attribute his removal to
opposition to him within its Gujarat wing, a normal development
in a party run on democratic lines by a dictator sitting in a
city in Vidarbha. There is also the danger that someone will
notice that while the Parivar makes a ruckus about "tainted"
ministers, its own blue-eyed boy has been roundly criticised by
the Supreme Court -- and is not considered quite human by
millions of people.
Mukul Dube
_____
[6]
NEW NOVEL 'BLACK WINGS' BY PAKISTANI AUTHOR SEHBA SARWAR
Islamabad, Pakistan (11-Jun-04): As part of its summer 2004 collection,
Alhamra Publishing releases a new novel, Black Wings, by award-wining writer
Sehba Sarwar. Spanning two continents, Black Wings is the story of Laila and
Yasmeen, a mother and daughter, struggling to meet across the generations,
cultures, and secrets that separate them. The protagonist Yasmeen, a recent
divorcée, is living in Houston with her young children, Saira and Sameer,
when her mother, Laila, visits from Pakistan to meet her grandchildren for
the first time. Estranged from Laila, whom she secretly blames for the death
of her twin Yasir, Yasmeen has been living in the United States for many
years. But her mother's visit and the stories she weaves for her
grandchildren about Yasmeen and Yasir's childhood in Karachi and a hill
station village Hawagali (an invented Gali, the venue for much of the drama)
force Yasmeen to confront the past and its painful memories.
Slowly, as mother and daughter share layers of magical stories with the
children and each other, Yasmeen learns about her mother's secrets and the
twisted circumstances of her twin's death. Deciding to return to her
homeland for a long overdue visit, Yasmeen takes a temporary leave from her
life and her lover in Houston to visit Pakistan with her children. More
stories, real and magical, emerge as the fog continues to cloud the family's
past even as they wind their way into the Pakistani hill station and a
confrontation with the past.
"With a keen eye for sensory detail Sehba Sarwar evokes the ambiance of
Pakistan as deftly as she portrays the life of a migrant family in America.
A charming, suspenseful and well-structured first novel," says leading
novelist Bapsi Sidhwa.
This is Sehba Sarwar's first novel, and she is thrilled to have it released
through Alhamra. "It's exciting that a Pakistani publisher-especially one as
reputable as Alhamra-would pick up my work. The novel is based on memories
of growing up in Karachi and is about family and separation. Ultimately, the
novel speaks to how family stories become realities, especially when there's
distance," she says.
Sehba Sarwar grew up in Karachi, where she received her secondary education
and went on to earn an undergraduate degree in English in at Mount Holyoke
College, USA. After returning to Karachi and working as Assistant Editor at
the evening Star for a year, she returned to the USA to obtain a graduate
degree in Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin. She has
been living in Houston for the last ten years, is married to a
Mexican-American educator and is co-Founder and Director of Voices Breaking
Boundaries, a non-profit multi-media arts organization. She has also
published her poetry and is a radio producer. She teaches writing workshops
and regularly returns to Pakistan to visit family.
Black Wings is available at leading bookstores in Pakistan and may be
purchased internationally through Alhamra's website, www.alhamra.com.
Alhamra Publishing Saudi Pak Tower, 3rd Floor, Jinnah Avenue, Islamabad
44000 Ph: 2800248/ Fax: 2800249 www.alhamra.com
______
[7]
The Independent [UK]
11 June 2004
Nadeem Aslam: A question of honour
Nadeem Aslam's new novel is a dramatic and moving
portrayal of Muslim life in a Northern town. He
tells Marianne Brace why it took him 10 years to
write it
A few minutes into our conversation, Nadeem Aslam
looks startled and asks, "Is it OK if I switch my
mobile off?" He stares at it as if he's never
seen one before. For the last 11 years, Aslam has
lived untroubled by must-have gadgetry. "I
basically removed myself from the world," he
explains quietly. "My life has been so reduced. I
didn't have a mobile phone until I'd finished my
book and could afford one, and until there was
any need. Now I am trying to engage with the
world - things like e-mail and the internet. I
feel like Rip Van Winkle."
For a while, he was also feeling bereft. Aslam
was 26 when he embarked on his second novel, Maps
for Lost Lovers (Faber & Faber, £16.99),
thinking it might take two years to complete.
"The only time I'm ever fully alive is when I'm
writing. When I'd finished this book, I felt like
a cage from which the songbird is being removed.
For a month I just didn't know what to do."
Although culturally a Muslim, Aslam describes
himself as a "non-believer". His Communist father
- a poet and film producer in Pakistan - worked
as a bin-man and in factories in Huddersfield.
There was no money, so Aslam has never been back
to Pakistan since his family arrived when he was
14. But he was raised with "a feeling for the
life of the mind". Home was full of books, with
pictures cut from magazines framed on the walls.
His father always told his son to "live a
passionate life" and not to worry about money.
When Aslam received a Royal Literary Fund grant,
he turned part of it down. "I said, 'I don't need
that much'."
Aslam began writing his debut novel, Season of
the Rainbirds, knowing little about agents or
publishers. He sent his manuscript, unsolicited,
to Andre Deutsch and within 10 days it was
accepted. The book won two awards and Aslam lived
on prize-money and various grants, writing Maps
for Lost Lovers between Huddersfield, Edinburgh,
Leicester and Reading - wherever friends could
lend him a flat.
Draping the windows with black cloth, he wouldn't
go out for six weeks at a time. Sometimes he
would fall asleep on the floor rather than go to
the bed. If he did go out he would feel
disoriented. "I'd wonder, 'Why is it snowing?'
because it would be summer in the town I was
writing about." But seclusion was essential. "I
always think of the silence and the darkness of a
root that enables the flower to grow."
The fruit of this silence and darkness is a
richly poetic and poignant novel. Maps for Lost
Lovers spans a year in a Muslim community in a
nameless English town. The 65-year-old Shamas,
director of the Community Relations Council, and
his devout wife Kaukab, are waiting to learn what
has happened to Shamas's brother Jugnu and his
young lover Chanda, who has vanished five months
before. Although their bodies have never turned
up, several pages into the narrative Chanda's
brothers are arrested.
This is a working-class community suffocating in
its intimacy and secrets. "I'm from a
working-class family and I've always lived in
these places," says Aslam. Shoppers gossip at
Chanda's parents' grocery store over the loquats
and hibiscus-flower hair oil. Here it's a
neighbourhood curse to say "May your son marry a
white woman", and Pakistanis with halting Eng-
lish might only talk to three white people in a
year - and that's three too many.
Although set in a town, Maps for Lost Lovers -
unlike Monica Ali's Brick Lane - is pastoral. It
follows the seasons, reflecting the emotional
weather of the characters. Nature offers a vivid
framework for tragic events. When Chanda first
enters Jugnu's garden, the apple trees have not
yet blossomed. The reference seems bridal.
"That's what I wanted it to be," says Aslam.
"Chanda will never see those blossoms turn into
fruit because by that time she'll be dead. The
trees seems to know it because they actually get
hold of her veil at one point and try to hold her
back."
Aslam notices everything in microscopic detail:
"glint-slippered" frosts, blown rose heads lying
in clumps like "bright droppings of fantastic
creatures", the white fur necktie of a moth. The
missing Jugnu worked as a lepidopterist and so
Cinnabar, Great Peacock and Large Emerald moths
flitter through the prose.
The moths are also a link to Islamic literature,
one of whose central themes is the quest for the
beloved. Man's search for his lover is his soul
seeking God. "There are various images within the
Indian subcontinental literary tradition,"
explains Aslam. "The moth and the flame is one."
There are other Islamic literary references, too,
from the Thousand and One Nights to Wamaq
Saleem's poetry.
The story, however, is contemporary, brimming
with cultural issues concerning Asian Muslims in
Britain: racism, arranged marriages and Muslim
divorce - "Talaaq. Talaaq. Talaaq" - which can
deprive a woman of her security in a moment of
marital rage. Aslam is sensitive to the plight of
women. Indeed, he references every
headline-grabber: from an exorcism that leaves a
rebellious girl battered to death to the aborting
of female children. "A woman in one Pakistani
prov- ince is killed every 38 hours," he says,
and points out that each shocking incident in the
book is based on a true case. There's even abuse
by a paedophile cleric, which happened, he says,
in a Midlands town. "The guys from the mosque
pulled a gun on the family that was going to the
police."
While Aslam is critical, he also shows great
compassion. The locals nickname the town
Dasht-e-Tanhaii, or The Desert of Loneliness.
Displaced but unwilling to assimilate, its people
suffer a terrible emptiness. Shamas, a
non-believer, cannot communicate with his
religious wife; Kaukab, meanwhile, feels
despairing because her children reject her
values. Her oldest son already has a failed
marriage to a white woman. Her youngest has not
been home for eight years.
Is Aslam apprehensive about how the Muslim
community will receive his novel? He shakes his
head. "Writers have always got into trouble with
people who think they know the answer." He adds
that "there's no message in my books. My writing
is my way of exploring my own life and the
workings of my own consciousness."
Maps for Lost Lovers takes place in 1997. How
different would it have been set four years
later? "In a way, the book is about September
11," says Aslam. On visiting Ground Zero, he felt
disappointed and angry. "I asked myself whether
in my personal life and as a writer I had been
rigorous enough to condemn the small scale
September 11s that go on every day." He adds that
"Jugnu and Chanda are the September 11 of this
book".
Aslam explains further: "Most ordinary Muslims
say, 'We just want to get on with our lives.
Don't identify us with the fundamentalists.' But
it's a luxury. We moderate Muslims have to stand
up. As a child I was really frightened of the
game Hangman. I was terrified that my not knowing
the answer was going to get somebody killed. As a
grown-up, I feel that a game of Hangman is being
played on an enormous scale in the world, and
that sooner or later I'm going to be asked
certain questions, and if I don't give the right
answer somebody is going to get hurt.
"America is the sole superpower and as such it
must be kept an eye on. But Islam is a great
religion which means it, too, is open to abuse."
He adds: "Osama bin Laden and his ilk say they
are distressed by the sad situation of Muslims
everywhere in the world. Well, Bin Laden lived in
Afghanistan, one of the poorest Muslim countries.
How many hospitals did he build? How many schools
and colleges, roads and networks of railways? He
is a billionaire and could have done that easily.
Instead he built terrorist camps."
Over the 11 years of writing, the emotional
content of the novel did not alter, although
Aslam says his technical skills improved. He
writes longhand, which may explain why Maps for
Lost Lovers has a meditative feel. "Sometimes a
sentence would take a whole page of crossing
out." He stringently revised, taking five years
or so to get the opening chapter right and
following a story about Kaukab for seven months,
which he then rejected. Out of those 70 pages, he
kept one sentence.
After the first two years, Aslam stopped working
on the forward momentum of the novel altogether
and spent four years producing 100-page
biographies of the main characters. After that,
"I fully understood what this family was. Then I
was six years into the writing and in deep
financial trouble." He laughs: "But it had to be
done."
Aslam decided to use as many similes and
metaphors as possible. "The characters are
constantly comparing England with Pakistan, and I
wanted the text to have that kind of fidelity
with the characters. They do it so much that they
don't see their life in England. I wanted the
read- er to feel that frustration. I wanted
England to shout, as it were, 'Look at me!'"
Having emerged from his solitude, Aslam is now
getting used to the Chinese whispers of fame.
While lunching with his American publisher, a
moth appeared and circled around them, which he
took to be a good sign. "A few weeks ago someone
came up to me at a party and said, 'Is it true
that when you went to New York to have lunch with
Sonny Mehta you took your pet moth?'" And with
that, Aslam bursts out laughing.
Biography: Nadeem Aslam
Nadeem Aslam was born in 1966 in Gujranwala in
Pakistan. He came to Britain at the age of 14
when his father, a Communist, fled President
Zia's regime and settled the family in
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. He went to
Manchester University to read biochemistry but
left in his third year to become a writer. At 13,
he had published his first short story in Urdu in
a Pakistani newspaper. His debut novel, Season of
the Rainbirds (1993), set in rural Pakistan, won
the Betty Trask and the Author's Club Best First
Novel awards, and was shortlisted for the
Whitbread First Novel award. His second novel,
Maps for Lost Lovers, is published this month by
Faber & Faber. He currently lives in north London.
______
[8]
INVITATION:
You are invited to the following screenings:
1. The Boy in the Branch, 27 mins
2. Men in the Trees, 98 mins
Both directed by Lalit Vachani
3. Final Solution, 150 mins [shorter version]
Dir: Rakesh Sharma
Date: 19th June, 2004, Saturday Time: 2:30 p.m.
Venue: Juhu Jagruti Hall, A.J. Commerce College, 1st floor, Opp NM
College,
Vile Parle West
Amrit Gangar
This has been organized by various institutions. The idea is to sensitize
the middle classes [particularly Gujarati] about Gujarat genocide.
______
[9]
I am enclosing information about my recent film -
Final Solution ( India; 2004; Digital Video format - miniDV; 209 minutes).
Awards : Wolfgang Staudte award and Special
Jury Award (Netpac), Berlin International film
festival (Feb 2004).
Silver (Best Doc category)/Humanitarian award,
HongKong International film festival.
Special Jury Mention, Munich Dokfest.
Special Award instituted and given by NRIs for a
Secular and Harmonious India (NRI-SAHI), USA.
Festivals : Berlinale ( International premiere
of the film), HongKong, Fribourg, Hot Docs
(Canada), Zanzibar, Durban, Commonwealth film
festival (UK), One world filmfest (Prague),
Istanbul 1001fest, Singapore, Flanders
(Belgium), World Social Forum (Mumbai; Indian
premiere), Vikalp (Mumbai filmfest organised by
Campaign against Censorship) and several other
filmfests.
Please let me know whether you will be interested
in acquiring a copy of the film for your
institution/ library. I'd be very grateful if
you could forward information about the film to
your colleagues and friends, especially those
teaching at Universities or working with
institutions/NGOs, asking them to support the
film by buying copies. Please note that copies
are available at a discount for individuals/
activists/ students.Please also note that the
film has distributors in different countries -
so, to place an order or for price queries,
please send your postal address as well.
Regards
Rakesh Sharma
Final Solution is a study of the politics of
hate. Set in Gujarat during the period Feb/March
2002 - July 2003, the film examines the
consequences of Hindu-Moslem polarization in the
state.
Part 1 : Pride and Genocide deals with the
genocidal violence against Moslems and its
immediate aftermath. It probes the patterns of
pre-planned violence by right-wing Hindu cadres
which many claim was state-supported, if not
state-sponsored.
Part 2 : The Terror Trail reconstructs through
eyewitness accounts the attack on Gulbarg
(Ahmedabad) and acts of barbaric violence against
Moslem women at Eral and Delol/Kalol
(Panchmahals) even as Chief Minister Modi
traverses the state on his Gaurav Yatra.
Part 3 : The Hate Mandate documents the poll
campaign during the Assembly elections in Gujarat
in late 2002. It records in detail the
exploitation of the Godhra incident ( in which 58
Hindus were burnt alive) by the right-wing
propaganda machinery for electoral gains.
Part 4 : Hope and Despair studies the situation
after the storm and its impact on Hindus and
Moslems - ghettoisation, the call for economic
boycott of Moslems and continuing acts of
violence more than a year after the carnage.
The film is anti-hate/ violence as "those who
forget history are condemned to relive it".
Dir: Rakesh Sharma Tel : +91 98203 43103
email
<mailto:finalsolutionindia at yahoo.com>carnagefilm at yahoo.com
/ <mailto:actindia at vsnl.com>actindia at vsnl.com
Final Solution has been shot and edited on DVcam;
it is subtitled in English. Copies of the film
are available on VHS pal / Video for Rs 2000 for
NGOs/ activists groups/ libraries and
organisations. Copies are available for Rs 1000
for Individuals and for Rs 600 for students/
grassroots activists. Please mail a bank draft
payable at Mumbai favouring Rakesh Sharma to : PO
Box 12023, Azad Nagar post office, Mumbai 400053.
Rakesh Sharma began his film/TV career in 1986 as
an assistant director on Shyam Benegal's
Discovery of India. His broadcast industry
experience includes the set up/ launch of 3
broadcast channels in India: Channel [V], Star
Plus and Vijay TV and several production
consultancy assignments. He has now gone back to
independent documentary film-making. His last
film Aftershocks : The Rough Guide to Democracy
won the Best documentary film award at Fribourg,
Big Mini-DV and at Big Muddy and won 7 other
awards {including the Robert Flaherty prize}at
various festivals in USA and Europe during
2002-03. It has been screened at over 90
international film festivals.
_____
[10]
H-ASIA
June 12, 2004
Seeking contacts with South Asian Sociologists/Anthropologists for
Workshop in Delhi in Feb. 2005
*****************************************************************
From: Ravinder Kaur <ravinder_iitd at yahoo.com>
The Indian Sociological Society, supported by the
International Sociology Association, is planning to
hold a South Asia Workshop in Feb. 2005 in Delhi. The
theme of the workshop is "The State of Sociology:
Issues of Relevance and Rigour".
As convener of the Workshop I would appreciate
information on sociologists/anthroplogists from
Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka who could
participate in this workshop. This workshop seeks to
bring together south asian sociologists working out of
their own countries.
Please reply directly at this address:
ravinder_iitd at yahoo.com
Ravinder Kaur
Convener, South Asia Workshop
Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences
IIT, Delhi
E-mail: ravinder_iitd at yahoo.com
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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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