SACW | 17 June 2004

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire   |  17 June,  2004
via:  www.sacw.net

[1] Pakistan: Our TV channels and 'enlightened 
moderation' (Editorial, The Daily Times)
[2] Pakistan: A 'Moderation' of Freedom (Samina Ahmed and John Norris)
[3] India: Are you listening? (A.G. Noorani)
[4] The UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the 
Promotion of Tolerance and Non- Violence, 2004
[5] Kashmir: Not In My Name (Shabnam Ali)
[6] India: "Vedic Maths" Letter to the Editor, Deccan Herald (M.V. Ramana)
[7] Indian Elections-2004: Implications for democratic polity (Ram Puniyani)
[8] India: The Tainted and The Sainted (Alok Rai)
[9] India: On Secularism:  Kuldip Nayar and the response by Ashis Nandy
[10] US Courts Could Order Union Carbide To Clean-Up Bhopal Toxics If ....
You Tell Indian Government To Say "Yes" To Bhopal Cleanup


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

[1]

The Daily Times [Pakistan]
June 16, 2004
Editorial

OUR TV CHANNELS AND 'ENLIGHTENED MODERATION'

President Pervez Musharraf has succeeded in 
getting the OIC to adopt the slogan of 
'enlightened moderation', which in turn has 
created some space in the OIC discussions for the 
benighted Muslim intellectual and his perennial 
and ineffectual plaint about narrow-mindedness in 
the Muslim world. The latest OIC discussion in 
Turkey has pleasantly surprised the Western 
world. Many experts know what it means for the 
Muslims to talk about moderation; even then the 
reception of the call for 'enlightened 
moderation' at Istanbul has been well received. 
But President Musharraf knows that he has made 
the call because Muslims lack both enlightenment 
and moderation. You have to read the statements 
made by our politicians in the media to gauge the 
depth of violence in the Muslim discourse. What 
is more unsettling is that our new private TV 
channels too are inclined to spread the wrong 
message through their programming.
Islam stressed attributes of good life, like 
cleanliness and brotherhood, because the Muslims 
lacked them. Today Muslims lack enlightenment and 
moderation, but they have a way of avoiding the 
onus of setting themselves right. They interpose 
the ideal where the existential is actually being 
discussed. Thus a private TV channel discussing 
the topic would normally invite a cleric who 
would put an end to the discussion by claiming 
that Islam was already the last word in 
enlightenment and moderation and that it was in 
fact the West which needed higher civilisation. 
Pakistan's two leading TV channels are running 
'religious' programmes that unfortunately don't 
mix viewership success with balance in opinion. 
This becomes obvious from the roster of the 
invitees where any channel wants to take the 
discussion. Thanks to the success of these 
'interactive' religious programmes a lot of 
people may have actually returned to a 
ritualistic belief in primitive faith rather than 
a rationally arrived value system. Who determines 
the intellectual level of the programme?
The prime example of deliberately low-pitched 
intellectual appeal are some programmes conducted 
with an extremely responsive audience among the 
expatriate Pakistani community. In one such 
programme, the anchor is currently doing a long 
series on One-Eyed Dajjal as a Jewish scourge. 
The anchor fights the war against what he thinks 
is disinformation spread by the dominant Western 
media. The drawback here is that while the 
Western media injects its bias in reporting 
incidents, the Muslim media does it through 
opinion. This channel has become popular because 
it denies most of what the Western media says. It 
has taken sides and doesn't pretend to be 
unbiased, which puts the Western media on a 
higher moral plane because they pretend to be 
unbiased. This channel is the answer to Fox News. 
It is passionate rather than objective, which is 
the Muslim way, and the anchor allows himself to 
fly off the handle as a kind of gesture of 
devotion to the Muslim cause. Already turned away 
from integration, the expatriate community is 
doomed to isolation and resultant suffering in 
his hands.
This channel also does a low-level 'istakhara' 
(divination) programme, taking the people further 
away from this world of cause and effect. It also 
runs lectures from the Bombay-based speaker Zakir 
Naek who routinely rubbishes other religions to 
show how Islam is a better faith. When asked by a 
Hindu questioner what he thought of what the 
Taliban did to the Bamyan Buddhas, he answered 
that since there were no Buddhists in Afghanistan 
and the territory belonged to the Afghans, they 
were right in destroying their own property. 
Asked if Islam allowed women to enter co-ed 
institutions and become airhostesses, Dr Naik 
said, no, Islam did not allow either. He said 
airhostesses were required to please men. He 
forbade women to go in public without hijab. Was 
the programmer aware that this message would 
create difficulties not only with Muslim women in 
India and Bangladesh but also in Pakistan where 
the common man might start behaving intolerantly 
towards women in public if he thought that they 
were not properly veiled? ARY should have known 
that after the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of 
Bamyan innocent Muslims were attacked in Thailand.
Most of the time we don't even know what 
extremism is. If you tell a Pakistani that what 
Maulana X in Jhang is doing in the guise of 
Khatm-e-Nabuwwat is extremism, he won't believe 
it. What the entire nation does to the 
non-Muslims under Blasphemy Law is extremism 
written into the statute book, but no one thinks 
it is extremism. One way to remove this extremism 
is reform, but Muslims don't feel inclined to go 
in this direction because reform requires a 
realisation of error. Muslims don't think they 
are in error. How many of the programmes are done 
to highlight this tendency? Ironically, the 
content of reform suggested is 'more of the 
same'. Similarly, the on-line Alims and Alifs 
merely reinforce narrow-mindedness by inviting 
clerics who can hardly understand what moderation 
is. The programmes are so routinely hide-bound 
that if something good happens accidentally it 
upsets the audience and the host. The clergy is 
tragically not restricted to religious 
programmes; they spread their extremism in almost 
all the discussions.
We are told the media empowers through 
transmission of information. Are we being 
empowered? If yes, where is this power and how is 
it good for us? What kind of information do we 
need to feel that we are empowered? Is it 
religious information or is it what we call 
general knowledge or data relating to the 
functioning of the state in the light of the 
rights of the people? How do we get out of the 
rut of our 'information-poor' status? If a 
channel discusses 'foreign affairs' and ends up 
moaning over the immorality of international 
politics without telling Pakistanis what is 
pragmatically good for Pakistan it simply 
generates anger which is impotent against global 
powers but destructive at home. There is more 
xenophobia and anti-Westernism in Pakistan today 
than when the state-owned media had a monopoly. 
Someone is winning the media war in Pakistan. It 
is not the West. It is not India. If there is 
empowerment in it, it is certainly not in the 
interest of Pakistan if one is to go by what we 
see everyday on the screen. *


_____


[2]

The Washington Post
Tuesday, June 15, 2004; Page A23

A 'MODERATION' OF FREEDOM
Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf Isn't Practicing What He Preaches
by Samina Ahmed and John Norris

Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, recently 
made a broad and seemingly heartfelt call for 
Muslims to raise themselves up through what he 
terms "enlightened moderation" [op-ed, June 1]. 
Decrying the influence of militants, extremists 
and terrorists, Musharraf insisted that political 
injustice lay at the heart of the vast suffering 
of Muslims around the globe. His path forward is 
for Muslims to disavow extremism in favor of 
socioeconomic progress and for the United States 
to take on a much bolder role in resolving 
political disputes in the Muslim world, 
particularly in places such as Palestine and 
Kashmir.

The words sound good, and such language from the 
leader of a nuclear nation on the front lines of 
the war against terrorism should be reassuring. 
But sadly, to most people who follow Pakistan 
closely, Musharraf's comments come across as 
dangerously close to farce. While advocating 
enlightened moderation abroad, Pakistan's leader 
is content to practice enlightenment in extreme 
moderation at home.

First and foremost, he continues to avoid handing 
real power back to democratically elected 
officials. While the Bush administration 
repeatedly holds up Iraq as a nation that could 
serve as a shining example of Islamic democracy 
in action, it continues to offer a blank check to 
a Pakistani government in which all power resides 
in the military. Curbs on democratic freedoms in 
Pakistan remain draconian. To discourage domestic 
dissent, the government has sentenced Javed 
Hashmi, leader of Musharraf's main political 
opposition, to 23 years in prison for daring to 
offer criticism. And it deported an exiled 
opposition leader, Shahbaz Sharif, when he had 
the temerity to attempt to return home after the 
Supreme Court confirmed the right of all citizens 
to actually reside in Pakistan.

In the same vein, Musharraf's domestic reforms 
are primarily aimed at strengthening military 
rule. For example, he promoted a recent plan for 
a devolution of power to local officials as a 
means to "empower the impoverished" and 
strengthen local government. Instead, it has 
undercut mainstream moderate political parties, 
left widespread corruption unchecked and shifted 
power away from the provinces as a means to 
bolster military rule.

U.S. officials are rightly beginning to grumble 
that they are not getting what they are paying 
for with billions of dollars of economic and 
military aid. In high-profile pledges two years 
ago, Musharraf vowed to crack down on madrassas, 
the religious schools where many Pakistani 
children receive their education and which have 
often been a wellspring of extremism. Pakistan 
has failed to deliver on those pledges; most 
madrassas remain unregistered, their finances 
unregulated, and the government has yet to remove 
the jihadist and sectarian content in their 
curricula.

The Pakistani government has taken a similar 
approach to jihadist organizations. The growth of 
jihadist networks continues to threaten both 
domestic and international security. After 
declaring that no group would be allowed to 
engage in terrorist activities in 
Indian-controlled Kashmir, the government ordered 
a number of extremist groups to do little more 
than change their name. One extremist leader was 
allowed to run for parliament, and won, even 
though he had been charged with more than 20 
violent crimes. The leaders of other banned 
groups, designated as terrorist organizations by 
the United States, continue to preach freely 
their sectarian and anti-Western jihad. Pakistan 
has also notably failed to adequately address 
important issues such as terrorist financing, 
including money laundering, making the country a 
favorite base of operation for all too many 
extremist organizations.

Indeed, escalating sectarian violence in Karachi, 
deplored by the U.N. secretary general, painfully 
underscores the government's failure to tackle 
extremists within its own borders. This failure 
was also shown in the government's halting and 
contradictory statements after cordon and search 
operations in northwest Pakistan designed to 
apprehend al Qaeda operatives and Taliban 
militants. After initially trumpeting that the 
arrest of "high value" suspects was imminent, the 
government sheepishly had to admit that any such 
suspects had escaped as it engaged in 
negotiations with local tribesmen to free a 
number of captured Pakistani soldiers.

Pakistan could serve as the force of moderation 
and enlightenment espoused by Musharraf, but it 
will require enlightened leadership on his part. 
Pakistan's military needs to return to the 
sidelines of political life and give its moderate 
political parties -- which have always done 
reasonably well in keeping a lid on extremism -- 
a chance to function. While the military has done 
a good job in using the aftermath of the Sept. 
11, 2001, attacks to strengthen its position, 
military governments across the globe have 
demonstrated that they usually do not stand the 
test of time or enlightenment.

Samina Ahmed is South Asia project director and 
John Norris is special adviser to the president 
of the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit 
organization that specializes in conflict 
resolution.


____


[3]

Hindustan Times,
June 14, 2004

ARE YOU LISTENING?
by A.G. Noorani

The UPA government faces daunting challenges on 
the foreign policy front. The peace process with 
two neighbours, Pakistan and China, are at a 
delicate, nascent stage. Iraq and Afghanistan are 
in a shambles thanks to its 'liberators'. While 
it is very much in our national interest to have 
good relations with the US, we must also assert 
clearly the points on which we differ. There is, 
besides, the problem of national consensus.

The NDA regime repeatedly claimed unprecedented 
achievements that turned out to be empty boasts. 
There was scant respect for national consensus. 
The Jan Sangh belittled Jawaharlal Nehru. The BJP 
followed suit. Jaswant Singh's book, Defending 
India, retained (p. 45) the lie that Nehru wanted 
to "scrap the army", relying on the word of the 
first Commander-in-Chief, whom Nehru had sacked. 
Worse, citing Nehru's Discovery of India, Jaswant 
Singh referred (p. 56) to Nehru views expressed 
by Gandhi ignoring deliberately the differences 
which Nehru had recorded on the very same page 
(p. 443). Ignored also was Nehru's memo of 
February 3, 1947, which said: "We are going to 
provide for defence by armed forces." Nehru 
listed his expectations from all their three 
wings (Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru; Vol. 
2, p. 353). This, despite a handsome grant from 
the Dorab Tata Trust "for the research costs of 
this book".

As External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh 
promised "tectonic shift of consciousness" and 
carried out such "shifts" in many respects, most 
notably, when it came to the US. The Jan Sangh 
had advocated markedly pro-American and 
pro-Israeli policies. The UPA, therefore, can't 
be blamed for correcting excesses inspired by 
ideological biases. The BJP had received full 
cooperation from the opposition during the months 
it had pursued its harebrained Operation Parakram 
and in the two peace processes. The UPA 
government must not allow itself to be deflected 
from its course as Inder Gujral was when Vajpayee 
attacked the Islamabad Joint Statement of June 
23, 1997. It envisaged a mechanism for a 
composite dialogue on all issues. Had Gujral not 
reneged on the accord by refusing to set up a 
working group on Kashmir, Pakistan's insistence 
on discussing the issue first would not have 
acquired the edge it did. India did not offer 
Pakistan the Chinese model of a working group. To 
plead "Let us put Kashmir aside" is to arouse the 
very fears and suspicions in Islamabad which need 
to be set to rest if the peace process is to 
succeed.

The fine print of the Simla agreement (para 6) is 
instructive: "Both governments agree that their 
respective heads will meet again at a mutually 
convenient time in the future and that, in the 
meanwhile, the representatives of the two sides 
will meet to discuss further the modalities and 
arrangements for the establishment of durable 
peace and normalisation of relations, including 
the question of repatriation of prisoners of war 
and civilian internees, a final settlement of 
Jammu and Kashmir and the resumption of 
diplomatic relations."

Three points deserve note. First, the existence 
of a Kashmir dispute, which required "a final 
settlement", was accepted. Second, to this end 
the heads of government were to "meet again". 
Third, "in the meanwhile", representatives of 
both sides were to meet to discuss Kashmir and 
other issues. They met to discuss only 'other 
issues' in 1972-73, never Kashmir. The summit 
envisaged by para 6 was never held. The Simla 
agreement does not provide a mechanism that works 
on its own. It is a do-it-yourself kit, with 
incomplete instructions and a price tag. Over 
time its text acquired layers of sub-texts. A 
decade ago, Mani Shankar Aiyar remarked: "I never 
understood the logic of using the Simla agreement 
to put the Kashmir issue on the backburner."

External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh has 
done well to stress a commitment to "Simla, 
Lahore plus January 6; total continuity" and also 
that "nothing that the Vajpayee government has 
accomplished will be undone; it will be taken 
further".  International accords bind States 
regardless of changes in government. None of the 
challenges facing the nation can be resolved 
except through national consensus. This is true 
not only of Kashmir and the boundary dispute with 
China but also of, say, revision of the 1950 
Treaty with Nepal or disputes with Bangladesh. 
The BJP's cooperation must be sought, but it 
mustn't be allowed to veto initiatives as it did 
in 1997.

It is certainly not partisanship to repair the 
damage the NDA implicated for ideological reasons 
in several areas of foreign policy. For instance, 
from the Rajiv-Zia accord of Dec. 17, 1985, on 
talks on Siachen, right till 1998, it was tacitly 
accepted by both sides that they would disengage 
from the area. For reasons of his own, not hard 
to discern, George Fernandes abruptly reversed 
the policy on July 18, 1998 by declaring "India 
needs to hold on to Siachen, both for strategic 
reasons and wider security in the region". Both 
reasons run counter to experts' opinions. 
National Security Advisor J.N. Dixit remarked in 
Outlook (Nov. 2, 1998): "One wonders why both 
countries do not implement the agreement already 
initialled on Siachen and Tulbul Navigation 
(Wular Barrage) finalised between 1990 and 1994." 
P.V. Narasimha Rao aborted an accord in November 
1992, as everyone knows.

It is this record that Natwar Singh will have to 
grapple with. Precisely what will be his 
government's policy on Siachen, on the Wular 
Barrage Project and on Sir Creek? He must break 
the logjam by agreeing to a substantive dialogue 
on Kashmir in earnest and, simultaneously, on 
these three issues. Convinced that Kashmir is not 
being put on a backburner, Pakistan should be 
persuaded, as the talks progress, to settle the 
trio by a fair compromise.

India faces challenges to diplomatic creativity 
on the Kashmir dispute as also the boundary 
dispute with China. On both, much common ground 
is very much in sight already; on Kashmir perhaps 
for the first time in years. President Pervez 
Musharraf has all but abandoned the UN 
resolutions. Plebiscite is thus excluded. So is 
the LoC. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says, 
"Short of secession, short of redrawing 
boundaries, the Indian establishment can live 
with anything." It is not at all impossible to 
find common ground that is short of secession yet 
goes beyond the status quo.

China insists on some concession in the eastern 
sector in return for the ones we seek in the 
western sector. There is surely some room for 
concession if the 1914 McMahon Line is redefined 
in 2004 by modern methods. Having served as a 
member of the IFS, Natwar Singh must act 
energetically to revive its morale which 
successive PMs and EAMs undermined. The Planning 
Division is a shambles. The MEA deserves much 
better of the government. It is vain to draw much 
comfort from improvement in relations with the 
big powers, Japan, Germany, South-East Asia or 
the Gulf States when relations with the 
neighbours call for improvement.

A breakthrough in this area will add immensely to 
India's prestige the world over.


____


[4]

The UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the 
Promotion of Tolerance and Non- Violence, 2004
CALL FOR SUBMISSION OF CANDIDATURES

For individuals, institutions and organizations 
that have made a significant contribution to the 
promotion of tolerance and non-violence through 
activities in the fields of science, the arts, 
education, culture and communication.

Deadline: 30 June 2004

For more information, please contact Mr. Serguei 
Lazarev, Secretary of the Prize
Tel: +33 (0)1 45 68 38 54 -fax: +33 (0)1 45 68 57 23
e-mail: s.warde at unesco.org
http://www.unesco.org/tolerance/prize1e.htm


_____


[5]

Outlook
Jun 14, 2004


FROM THE HEART
Not In My Name
What was the ostensible reason for targeting 
innocent tourists in Pahalgam? An Al-Nasreen 
spokesman apparently told PTI that the tourists 
were "spreading vulgarity in the valley which 
they could not tolerate". I think we must tell 
them what we cannot tolerate. Updates

by Shabnam Ali

zarra zarra mere kashmir kaa mehmaan nawaaz
raastoN ke pathroN ne bhii diyaa paanii mujhe

Chakbast

(Each small particle of my Kashmir is hospitable
Even the wayside stones provided water to me)

It's a familiar story. Each report of increasing 
tourist traffic in the Kashmir valley is greeted 
with a silent prayer: May it not just be a 
prelude to yet another incident of mindless 
violence. It was just last week that tourist 
arrival in the valley touched one lakh. I was 
trying to persuade my friends in Delhi that it 
was safe to visit my land, my beloved--and 
bloodied--valley rather than suffer the stifling, 
oppressing heat of the capital. But--predictably, 
heart-breakingly--terror struck at the tourist 
resort of Pahalgam--at around 4:15 pm on 
Saturday, June 12.

Around 40 tourists lazing around under a warm 
afternoon sun were violently reminded of the 
terror that so far had only perhaps lurked 
somewhere in the back recesses of their minds. 
The exploding grenade immediately killed 
four--Danish Halwai Mustakam Halwai, from Uttar 
Pradesh and Bahvesh Chanderkant and his 8-year 
daughter Neelu, from Mumbai. While Bahvesh's wife 
was one of the 21 injured, the deceased Bhuvesh's 
10-year old son, Ratik, finally succumbed to 
injuries on Sunday, June 13, taking the 
death-toll to five.

I do not know what prompted this ill-fated lot of 
tourists to visit the valley. Was it news of the 
tourist influx? Knowledge that even the 
terrorists would not target the tourists? An urge 
to visit the most beautiful part of the country? 
Nostalgia? Reviving an old family tradition? 
Implorations by the kids, seduced perhaps by the 
romance and adventure as depicted in films? I do 
not know. Heavens, I do not want to know.

What was the reason for targeting these tourists? 
Terrorist outfit, Al-Nasreen, has been quick to 
claim responsibility for the grenade attack, 
saying it was carried out to "warn tourists not 
to visit Jammu and Kashmir". An outfit spokesman 
apparently told PTI on phone that the tourists 
were "spreading vulgarity in the valley which 
they could not tolerate". I think we must tell 
them what we cannot tolerate.

How specious and brutally cruel this mindless 
"reasoning" is does not need any elucidation 
because the truth is that it is the tourists that 
are the lifeblood of the valley's economy. The 
last decade and a half of terror and violence has 
not only resulted in the cold-blooded murder of 
innocents, but has also been responsible for the 
terrorists' real aim--of keeping the valley 
isolated from contact with visiting 
tourists. While the leaders live in palatial 
mansions with Z-plus security and the Al-Nasreen 
apparently does not have to bother with mundane 
chores like earning a living, thanks to their 
pay-masters abroad, it is the poor Kashmiris who 
have suffered--the shikara-wallahs, the 
houseboat-wallahs, the pony-wallahs, the 
papier-mache and traditional craftspeople whose 
very livelihood depends on the tourists.

Spreading vulgarity? It would be vulgar and 
profane to the memory of those killed, not to 
mention futile, to address any question to this 
bunch of so-called Al-Nasreen, for they are not 
only cowards but also brain-washed, 
killing-machines, with hate as perhaps the only 
known emotion. To kill anybody--leave alone 
innocents and children--in the name of "azaadi" 
is the not only vulgar but also an act of 
heart-breaking cruelty. It is cold-blooded 
murder, and in any civilised society we know what 
the punishment for murder is.

But what would they care? They are after all above
any law, and haven't they and their other fellow 
"freedom fighters" shed the blood of many times 
more of their own co-religionists than that of 
the "kafirs"? Perhaps we would get another litany 
of counter-claims about the "blood of martyrs" 
and shrill, self-righteous indignation that 
perhaps only gets assuaged by killing innocents 
and children.The litany of hatred from the Hindu 
right is equally shrill when they invoke each 
such incident to "justify" their "revenge" in 
atrocities such as Gujarat.Each time I would hear 
this from one, I would be comforted by at least 
10 more from the same Hindu community who would 
be the first to denounce this specious 
rationalising. And each time I would hear 1984 
being invoked to justify 2002, I would cringe, 
knowing that there were many in my beloved 
valley, aided, abetted and instigated by those 
from across the borders, to retaliate and take 
revenge for the "crimes of the Indian state".

It would take too long to dwell on the real or 
perceived "crimes" of various parties involved 
and while any of this doesn't need any repetition 
and while I know that what I am writing right now 
is neither novel nor particularly insightful, I 
do feel the urgent need to reach out. It is 
high-time, I feel, that we, the common-people of 
J&K, added our voices, spoke out and reached out 
to our brothers and sisters outside the 
valley--in India and elsewhere--yes, even in 
Pakistan--to join us in condemning this latest 
outrage unequivocally.

The only redeeming feature seems to be that at 
least some of the mainstream political parties 
and leaders like Shabir Shah have spoken out 
against this latest outraging act of terror. But 
the common people--particularly those who have 
suffered loss personally--understand the pain, 
the anguish, the anger, the rage that any 
innocent death entails. We need to speak up. Just 
as I saw my friends in rest of India and abroad, 
speak out when innocent Muslims were targeted 
after the dastardly, inhuman barbarity of Godhra.

Apart from the selfish motive of wanting tourists 
to visit the valley for the sheer sake of their 
livelihood and economy, there is also the human 
factor. The Chief Minister was only stating the 
obvious when he pointed out that this brutal 
killing could only be the handiwork of the 
enemies of the state and that it is a "conspiracy 
to target Kashmir's interests and its people". 
Each time a peace-process is initiated, each time 
a government is elected, each time we Kashmiris 
see just the tiniest of rays of hope in the 
revival of the tourist-trade, a heinous, violent 
act of terror such as this.is perpetrated in our 
names.

I have got used to the analogy with the 'Good 
Germans". Become immune to it. It has even 
stopped irritating me, this demand from 
non-Kashmiri, well-meaning people to lend my 
voice--hadn't I lost a brother?--against the 
madness in J&K.   I was tired, I would argue, of 
reiterating that I, and countless others like 
me--indeed, the majority in the valley-- do not 
approve of any violence, but to speak out to 
silence those who found our silence eloquent 
somehow seemed so demeaningly trite. Aren't we 
human? Don't we feel pain at the loss of innocent 
lives? Aren't our discussions filled with remorse 
at what little has been done by the community at 
large for the Kashmiri Pundits and all those who 
have suffered at this mindless violence of the 
last few decades? But then don't we have to move 
on with our lives? Should we suspend all other 
activities and just take to condemning each and 
every atrocity supposedly perpetrated in our 
names?

I now believe that just as the ordinary people 
spoke out against Gujarat, because the dastardly 
deeds were done in their name, it is high-time 
that we, the ordinary people of J&K, spoke up. In 
unison. We must speak out, shout, and scream till 
our voices get hoarse.I saw how almost routinely, 
for more than two years now, almost on a daily 
basis, newspapers, TV channels, magazines, have 
had an unrelenting profusion of Hindu names and 
faces lamenting what happened to the innocent 
Muslims of Gujarat.The situation with J&K is 
undoubtedly not completely analogous, but  I feel 
almost compelledto demand that we, the common 
people of the valley, have to let our voices be 
heard, read and registered, that don't want any 
bloodshed, that we do not want any killings of 
anybody in our name.

When writing in the backdrop of the brutal murder 
of tourists, perhaps this is not an opportune 
time  to speak of starting a movement for the 
rehabilitation of the displaced Kashmiri Pundits, 
and all those who have suffered, but in our own 
self-interest it is time to speak out. The risks 
involved are many, and there is the fear of the 
gun--but the guns have to be silenced somehow. If 
they won't be, perhaps individually we could 
begin by trying to drown out their obscene sounds 
with a loud and clear scream -- not in my name.

My friends are convinced now to visit the valley 
before the summer is out. Meanwhile, it is time 
to spare more than a moment for prayers for those 
who became the victims of hate in this latest 
"vulgar" outrage in Pahalgam.

(*Shabnam Ali, is a post-doctoral researcher who 
works with disadvantaged children.)


_____


[6]


[ submitted as Letter to the Editor, Deccan Herald ]

Subject: Vedic Maths
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 12:04:01 +0530

Sir,

With regard to the article "Vedic Maths can be fun too" (Deccan Herald,
Wednesday, 16 June 2004), it should be noted that Vedic Maths is neither
really Vedic in its origins nor is it serious Mathematics. It can best be
described as a bunch of tricks to perform faster arithmetic, many of which
can be derived by any serious student of Mathematics for himself or herself.
The example given in the first line of the article itself demonstrate this.
It is fairly straightforward to realize that to multiply 73.58 by 9.9999,
one should use the fact that 9.9999 = 10 - 0.0001. Multiplying 73.58 by both
10 and 0.0001 are easy as is subtracting the latter result from the former.
The final answer is 735.792642. One needs no Vedic Maths trick to do this.
To use this trivial example to argue that one should "plunge into Vedic
Maths" so that "even the toughest mathematical problem would appear as a
primer riddle" is just nonsense. Can one, for example, prove Fermat's last
theorem or the Riemann hypothesis using the methods of Vedic Maths?

Sincerely,
M. V. Ramana
Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development
ISEC Campus, Nagarabhavi
Bangalore 560 072
www.cised.org

______


[7]

From Milligazette
June, 2004

INDIAN ELECTIONS-2004: IMPLICATIONS FOR DEMOCRATIC
POLITY
by Ram Puniyani

The verdict of 2004 elections has come as an utter
surprise to most of the people of the country. All
those individuals and groups who perceived the threat
from the rise tide of communalism during last few
years have felt great relief. The major setbacks
suffered by the country during last six years of BJP
rule had been multiple. The erosion of democratic
institutions has been one of the main. The riots of
Gujarat, on the pretext of Godhra train burning had
been too shocking for words, and the post violence
handling of issues had been worse than the pogrom
itself.

Added on to this was the issue of
communalization of textbooks, blatant violation of the
autonomy of centers of learning and the introduction
of obscurantist course like astrology and Karmakand in
the universities. The pro US-Israel tilt of the
foreign policy was very visible and India bending its
knees in front of the US Empire was a big shame. Add
on to this the appointment of key personnel in the
positions that matter, the grip on the different wings
of state apparatus by pro Hindutva individuals made
the picture gruesome. This did stifle the liberal and
democratic space to no end. The scar of these
policies, the Gujarat riots and the formation of ëtwo
nationsí within Gujarat, on the minority psyche has
been too deep for words.

Steps are being taken by the Government to undo some
of the damage done by the RSSís political arm, the
BJP. Various ministries are chalking out programs to
put the things back on rails. Various civic rights
groups are drafting the petitions and appeals to
ensure that the violations of democratic norms and
human rights indulged in by BJP are reversed at the
earliest. While it is too early to comment on the
outcome of these attempts, it is sure that more the
pressure from civic groups more is the possibility of
democratic norms and practices being restored.

Is that the end of the threat from intimidating
Hindutva/Fascist threat to Indian democracy? We have
to realize that the defeat of BJP has not been
comprehensive. BJP has been able to do good showing in
MP, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh. It has registered its
presence in Kerala and come up in Karnataka. Despite
erosion, it has retained good bit of strength in
Gujarat. Its voting share has gone down by mere two
percent. BJP is not alone in this game.

The problem lies in other direction also. It has the
support from VHP, Bajrang Dal, Vanvasi Kalyan Ahsram
and myriad other organizations which are manned by RSS
volunteers. The threat to Indian democracy is from
various directions and BJP is merely the political
angle of the story. RSSís role in subjugating culture,
and other arenas of life cannot be underestimated. One
can say that it is precisely due to the activities of
BJP affiliates that BJP can make its impact.

It is due to the mass indoctrination and doctoring of mass
consciousness that communal violence breaks out and it
is the communal violence, which lays the base for the
politics of BJP. Who can take on this foundational
work of RSS? Can the Government machinery counter this
onslaught on our society? The best it can do is to
undo the damage to curricula, the farthest it can go
is to ensure that the heads of controlling bodies like
ICHR and others are appointed on the grounds of their
competence, professionalism and not due to their
loyalty to Hindutva as has been happening during last
six years. But thatís just the small subset of the
problem, which one can see in the most visible manner.

The problem has been created due to the RSS ideology
being percolated through thousands of Shakhas, the RSS
swayamsevaks infiltrating in different wings of our
state machinery. And surely the vehemence of other
wings of Sangh combine had reached very dangerous
proportions under the political umbrella provided by
BJP rule. It is true that the very fact of BJP not
grabbing power again has demoralized many of these
outfits. One was also puzzled by the momentry eclipse of
Togadia. His ëquietí period is being extended and one
is wondering about the future of this ëpoison spewingí
machine. Is he on way out like his predecessor Sadhvi
Ritambhara or is he recuperating after too many of
outpourings?

One has to wait and watch as to what is up the sleeve
of RSS. What course it adopts now. After having said
that BJP defeat is due to underplaying the Hindutva
agenda, even RSS is at loss to find another emotive
issue, which can put it, back into offensive track?
They really must be cursing Sonia Gandhi for taking
away the highly usable emotive issue of Sonia Janmbhumi
from their gambit. Ram Janmbhumi may not deliver the
desired results any longer and the Kashi, Mathura is
also unlikely to enthuse the gullible now.

While one awaits the future strategy of RSS and its
progeny one does realize that some of the damages done
to democratic polity done by the acts of commission of
this multi headed hydra cannot be undone by the state
or the Government all by itself. The two pressing
problems of the day relate to the influence of ëHate
Otherí propaganda ceaselessly done by this outfit.
Lately the impact of this propaganda has been boosted
by the international events in which the likes of
Osama bin Laden and Talibans have added fuel to the
fire of Hatred generated against Muslims in
particular, from last nearly eigth decades. The other
major problem is the creation of divides amongst
communities on the grounds of religion. While Gujarat
is the worst example of this, other states are also
not spared and one finds dime a dozen examples where
one cannot buy a house in a particular locality
because one happens to belong to the ëwrong religioní.

It is here that efforts of civic groups, social
movements are most crucial to deepen the democratic
ethos in the country.

The Hate propaganda generated
against minorities has to be undone in a most humane
and effective method. The projections of History, the
communal viewpoint of history introduced by British,
are the ruling viewpoints in popular minds in the sub
continent. The community divides are on the increase.
The teachings of Bhakti saints and Sufi saints have
been dumped in to the backyard. The efforts of Mahatma
Gandhi in building the modern India on the ground of
Citizenship cutting across religions are being
challenged by the notions of religion based
nationalism of Jinnah, Savarkar-Golwalkar variety. Can
the government efforts reach the nook and corners of
society to re-cultivate the concepts of composite
nationalism? Sure, merely the correction in the school
curricula, though an essential prerequisite, are not
adequate enough. New programs are to be designed by
the Government to propagate the values, which were the
foundation of freedom movement, the values that guided
our Indian constitution, in a way that all and sundry
re-imbibe these values in their psyche?

How can the hurt minority psyche be soothed and how
can they be made to feel secure in this country? One
fears that the threat of bringing back Hindutva agenda
may mean more violence and more bloodshed. One fears
that the ëdefeatedí BJP, RSS combine may resort to any
method to deepen the divisive agenda in the society.
The present ëfeel goodí of the democratic
secular-democratic groups may not last much once RSS
combine hits back with its usual ëtoolsí. One is aware
that preservation and strengthening of Human rights is
the need of the hour. One is aware that the social
groups whose human rights have suffered adversely
during last two decades are dalits, women, workers,
adivasis and minorities. One is also aware that it is
precisely to suppress these issues that Hindutva wants
to bring in emotional issues.

Social movements will be faulting in their commitment
to social issues if the divisive politics is not
combated at social level. And this government must
feel duty bound to morally uphold these initiatives
for harmony and the efforts in the directions, which
strengthen the grass root bonding and amicable atmosphere.


______


[8]


Times of India
June 15, 2004

THE TAINTED AND THE SAINTED
by Alok Rai

Of course I can imagine a civilized parliament and, with a little voice
training, even Sushma Swaraj and Mamata Banerjee might be granted a place in
it, provided they promise to keep their hair on. (And Mr Jaitley of course -
he looks so sincere!) But if all people with serious criminal charges against
their names are to be excluded, it will be a very small parliament indeed.
The former Home Minister, we know, will be forced to stay at home.  And this
is the real reason why the BJP has dug up the quaintly religious idea of a
"taint", whereby a flexible sort of distinction is sought to be established
between different sorts of charges and different sorts of unconvicted crimes.
Thus, the Bihari Uddins, so to speak, are accused of offences like kidnapping,
extortion and murder. And these are, beyond doubt, horrible crimes. And so
the Uddins are deemed to be "tainted" merely by virtue of the fact of being
accused of such heinous crimes. It is of course a damn pity, and an
embarrassment, that these people have all been elected - rather like Mr
Advani and the infamous Modi. One may still try to base some kind of
distinction on the grounds that one lot are elected because of their crimes,
while the others are elected despite them. But I defy anyone to work out
which is which. (Consider Shahabuddin: despite? because? Consider Modi:
because? despite?Š)
But, be that as it may, election can hardly offer exemption from justice.
Legislators cannot be presumed to be above the law, like policemen. We know,
of course, that all of these people are still unconvicted - so perhaps we
could just pick on the judicial system, and forget the whole messy business?
But even this would be somewhat complicated by the fact that, until lately,
Mr Advani actually presided over the very department that was supposed to
investigate and perhaps convict him! I suppose saints must be presumed to be
above mere conflict of interest.
So, what is the real distinction between the tainted and the sainted - between
say, Shahabuddin and, say, Advani? Somehow, the implication is that the
former's crimes are worse than the latter's; that the latter's crimes are, in
fact, not crimes at all. Mr Vajpayee is actually quoted as saying only
yesterday [ PTI, June 10 ] that the cases of his colleagues were "of a
different nature". He introduced the notion of a "political crime" that was
fundamentally different from the "other" kind. He opined magisterially if
ungrammatically that "you cannot have one gauge to (sic) all issues," thereby
lending his authority to the idea of multiple standards.
Now, I hold no brief for the louts, those ordinary "ordinary" criminals -
exclusion isn't enough, hang them if you can, pull out their fingernails! But
I wish to examine the arguments whereby Advani and MMJoshi and Uma Bharati,
the Babri Three, are sought to be exempted from this necessary justice.
One can understand why the "sainted" ones are reluctant to name the tradition
whose moral glamour they seek to invoke in their favour. This is the
tradition of civil disobedience, associated indissolubly with the name of the
assassinated Father of the Nation - assassinated, let us never forget, by a
member of Mr Advani's own ideological fraternity. In civil disobedience, the
law is broken publicly, declaredly, without violence and with the explicit
political intent of subjecting the law to the critique of a higher,
undeniable moral law. One thinks of Gandhi breaking colonial law on the beach
at Dandi; of Martin Luther King breaking the segregationist, racist law in
the southern U.S.; of Mandela and apartheidŠ
It is of the very nature of such "law breaking" that conviction is a certainty
- unless of course one is a friend of the Home Minister or, better, one is
oneself the Home Minister! Gandhi, as every schoolboy knew - before Joshi got
to work on the textbooks! - actually requested Judge Broomfield to convict
him. Though Vajpayee may claim that Advani's "crimes" are different, the fact
of the matter is that Advani, unlike Gandhi, has actually sought to escape
conviction - rather like the Bihari Uddins, in fact!
But, perhaps, there is something in Vajpayee's distinction after all. It is
possible that the "crimes" of Advani et al are a distinct third category,
distinct both from the common or garden crimes of the Uddins and from
non-violent civil disobedience. The difference lies in the fact that these
are calculated acts of public violence, executed in order to achieve
political ends. The commonly available designation for such acts, I fear, is
terrorism.
Lawyers make a fundamental distinction between civil and criminal law. While
disputes regarding property fall within the purview of civil law, resorting
to extra-legal means to settle such disputes - whether through violence or
subterfuge, as in forgery - are the subject of criminal law. In the light of
this distinction, the violence of the Uddins are still, essentially, about
seizing property and are arguably therefore, admittedly from a macro godlike
perspective, still a zero sum game: your money, my pocket, that sort of
thing!
But the political violence associated with the proponents of "cultural
nationalism" is radically different. When it rises "idealistically" above
mundane intentions like clearing slum properties and benefitting land mafias,
it aims at nothing less than kidnapping the nation, Constitution and all. The
existing civil and criminal law - existing by virtue of the same Constitution
- can hardly capture its fundamental enormity. After all, Germany barely
survived the paroxysm of perverted Hitlerite nationalism in the 1930s. I
believe that India 2004 has had a narrow escape from a similar fate: India,
that is Bharat, that might have been Modi's Gujarat. Mere murderers are
nothing compared to these madmen. And women. Of course they must all, the
tainted and the sainted, be convicted under the existing law. But it is only
consistent with the moral altitude claimed by these "sainted" ones -
perpetually implying and declaring that they are "above" the law - that they
receive a "higher" sentence.

(Alok Rai teaches English at Delhi University)


______


[9]

[ On Secularism:  Kuldip Nayar and the response 
by Ashis Nandy; the articles are pasted below]

o o o

Outlook [India]
May 31, 2004
opinion

ABHOR SINGULARITY!
The critique of secularism by Nandy et al confuses tradition with religion

Kuldip Nayar

I met Ashis Nandy the other day to find out if the message I got from his
writings on secularism was correct. What I understood, I told him, was that
he did not believe that secularism was suited to the genius of India. He
replied: "You are more or less correct." He's not the only one. In fact,
there's a growing breed of intellectuals which has arrived at similar
conclusions. They think the secularism agenda has flawed the Indian state
right from the beginning. According to some of them, secularism, by virtue
of being a western concept, is alien to India. For others, it is
anti-religion and, therefore, in contradiction with the bedrock of our
society's beliefs.

I wonder why scholars like Nandy have lost faith in the pluralistic ethos of
the country. I can imagine their disgust over the contamination of the
educated Hindu middle class. But I hope this is not their dialectical
materialism that builds political theory on political 'fact'. According to
me, they should have fought against prejudice and bias instead of
rationalising them, conferring credibility on them in the process. When they
claim that in India tradition and religion are synonymous, they mock at the
synthesis the country has managed over the years, enabling respect for the
sanctity of individual entities.

I have no quarrel with those who equate religion with tradition so long as
they realise that the Indian tradition does not have the stamp of any
particular religion. My difference arises when this tradition is mistaken
for Hinduism. Our tradition is that of accommodating different religions and
separate faiths. Secularism is a product of that process. It has gone
through the crucible of tolerance and understanding. So, secularism is about
not mixing religion with the state or politics.

I recall my short stint at London as India's high commissioner. Margaret
Thatcher was the prime minister then and the Soviet Union was crumbling.
After her return from Moscow, Thatcher met me at a party. I asked her how
she found Mikhail Gorbachev, then the boss at Moscow. She said Gorbachev
told her that the country was slipping away from his grip and that he could
not hold it together. She said she had advised him to go to "your friend"
India and see how people there had lived together for centuries despite
their different religions, castes, languages and standards of living.

Thatcher then asked me what I attributed this to. It took me sometime to put
my thoughts together. I told her that we in India did not think that things
were either black or white. We believed there was a fuzzy area of overlap
which we went on expanding. That was secularism. And the sense of tolerance
and the spirit of accommodation that grew out of it was the glue that held
us together.

True, the proponents of Hindutva are chipping away at it. They are making
secularism look anti-Hindu and are equating it with 'minorityism'. And
intellectuals like Nandy fail to realise precisely this. Religions, as
Jawaharlal Nehru said, have laid down values and have pointed out principles
for the guidance of human life. They should not be mistaken for attributes
of a completely formed and closed culture that we have inherited.

The fight between secularism and chauvinism is nothing new. In Europe, all
experiments with religions, holy wars, theocratic concepts of states have
been discussed. After fighting wars for hundreds of years, the continent has
come to the conclusion that religion and state should be separated. Even
Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the exponent of the two-nation theory, said after
Partition that religion shouldn't be mixed with politics.

What I hear in support of Hindutva today is nothing new. In fact, it was
worse following Partition in August 1947 because after the struggle for
independence, something that was conducted keeping the secular ideals in
mind, the division of India on the basis of religion was a staggering
blow.At that time, the Hindutva forces were up in arms to drive out the
Muslims who were told that they had their 'share' in the shape of Pakistan.

The Gandhian thoughts of pluralism and peace were pooh-poohed. It was
considered a cowardly response to 'Islamic jingoism'. There were many
intellectuals who argued that India was culturally and traditionally Hindu
and must reflect the same thinking in the Constitution it was framing.
Still, Jawaharlal Nehru, Abul Kalam Azad and Sardar Patel stood their ground
and rejected the outmoded, unscientific way of thinking in the name of
tradition. So, India, Partition's aftermath notwithstanding, adopted the
most liberal Constitution which gave the minorities the right to even preach
and propagate their religion.

The country continued to face political religiosity or what is now sold in
the name of culture. But its standard-bearer, the Jana Sangh, a forerunner
of the BJP, never went beyond the one-digit figure in the Lok Sabha till the
mid-'70s. I believe that Mahatma Gandhi's assassination saved the nation
from the hot wind of communalism, which blew fiercely at that time. The
pro-Hindutva intellectuals and the pro-BJP think-tanks did not relish
secular thoughts but dared not open their mouths.

What is now accepted as the lure of cultural or traditional impulses was
then considered an expression of communalism. But such confusion can't be an
excuse for righting a wrong. It only shows that intellectuals like Nandy are
faltering in their commitment.

o o o o o


Outlook [India]
June 21, 2004
opinion

A BILLION GANDHIS

Down the ages, a natural tolerance—tinged with faith—has been our subsoil.
Why do my friends foist a dry import like secularism upon this rootedness?

Ashis Nandy

Secularism is not communal amity; it is only one way of achieving such
amity. As an ideology, it is not even 300 years old. Yet, despite the
consistent failure of secularism to contain the growth of both Hindu
nationalism and Islamic, Jewish and Christian fundamentalism in recent
years—both in India and elsewhere in the world—only a few seem to have the
courage to look beyond it.
In a recent column in this magazine ( Abhor Singularity, May 31), my friend
Kuldip Nayar has lamented my rejection of secularism and loss of faith in
the plural traditions of South Asia. Nayar, whom I have given company in
many battles—including some he would call secular—has got me entirely wrong.
Actually, my criticism of secularism is an aggressive reaffirmation of these
proto-Gandhian traditions and a search for post-secular forms of politics
more in touch with the needs of a democratic polity in South Asia.

The concept of secularism emerged in a Europe torn by inter-religious
strife, warfare and pogroms, when the resources for tolerance within
traditions were depleted and looked exhausted. This has not happened in
India, not even probably in most of South Asia. In India, a huge majority of
riots—indeed nearly all of them—take place in the cities. Even the few that
take place in villages begin almost always in the cities. Perhaps then it’s
no surprise that in the last 50 years, less than 4 per cent of all riot
victims in India have died in villages—where nearly 75 per cent of Indians
stay; more than 96 per cent have died in cities, where 25 per cent of
Indians stay. To go to an Indian village to teach tolerance through
secularism is a form of obscene arrogance to which I do not want to be a
party.

These ideas of tolerance in ordinary people and everyday life are tinged
with popular religious beliefs, however superstitious, irrational and
primitive they may seem to progressive, secular Indians. Modern India, till
today, has not produced a single hero of secularism except for that fading
star, Jawaharlal Nehru. If Ashoka, Akbar, Kabir and Gandhi, whose names the
secularists routinely mouth, could do without the concept of secularism, so
can the people of South Asia. They do not need leaders, vanguards, preachy
academics or journalists vending fancy theories to educate them in the
niceties of tolerance and respect for other faiths. The time has come for us
to decipher the language and culture of those humble Indians who live by
their ‘inferior’ beliefs and have made our society livable.

In a democracy, people will bring their values into politics, whether we
like it or not. Instead of imposing on them an idea that makes no sense to
the non-English-speaking majority—even the term dharmanirapekshata is a
translatese that literally means amorality—why can’t we learn from and build
upon indigenous concepts that have worked in real life over the centuries?
If secularism only means the traditional tolerance of South Asia, why do we
need an imported idea to talk about that local tolerance? And why import an
idea from countries that have such shoddy records of religious, racial,
cultural and ethnic tolerance? Why not, for instance, borrow the concept of
convivencia from Medieval Islamic Spain, arguably the only truly plural
polity Europe has produced in the last one thousand years?

However, I also know that it is pointless to raise these questions. Some
things are just not possible in the dominant, colonial culture of India’s
knowledge industry and among our official dissenters. Otherwise, at least
the Indian Left would have picked up a thing or two from the aggressively
non-secular, liberation-theology-based ideology of the Sandinistas. Instead
of obsequiously aping, in the name of secularism, the Leninist crudities of
a cut-throat regime that killed 6.2 crore of its own citizens during its
so-called revolutionary rule to become the exemplar of India’s brain-dead,
pre-war, colonial Left.

I am a child of modern India and a non-believer myself. It has taken me many
years to turn a traitor to my class—the urban, western-educated, modern
Indians—and to learn to respect the people who have sustained Indian
democracy using their tacit theories and principles of communal amity. That
has not turned me into a believer but forced me to rediscover, study and
reaffirm these theories and principles in my work during the last 20 years.
In this effort, I have been guided by Gandhi’s maxim that those who think
that religion has nothing to do with politics understand neither religion
nor politics. I leave it to the next generation of South Asians living in
South Asia to judge if it has been all a waste of time.



____


[10]

US COURTS COULD ORDER UNION CARBIDE TO CLEAN-UP BHOPAL TOXICS IF ....
YOU TELL INDIAN GOVERNMENT TO SAY "YES" TO BHOPAL CLEANUP


·	In response to a suit filed by Bhopal 
survivors, a court in New York has agreed to 
consider survivors’ claims for getting Union 
Carbide to clean up the toxic wastes in Bhopal.
·	For this to happen, the Indian Government 
needs to submit a letter to the New York court 
expressing its support for the survivors’ claims, 
and assuring the court of the Government’s 
interest in having Union Carbide clean-up the 
contaminated site and groundwater.
·	The DEADLINE set by the New York court 
for receipt of such a letter is June 30, 2004.

Send a FREE fax petition to the Indian Government
Indian Government Contacts

More Information and to send the free fax:    http://www.aidindia.org/bhopal/
Contacts:
Nishant Jain, Association for India's 
Development: (512) 422-7169, nishj (AT) umich.edu
Students for Bhopal: www.studentsforbhopal.org (Additional info, newslinks)


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

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 
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