SACW | 23 Jul 2004

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire    |  23 July,  2004
via:  www.sacw.net

[1]  Sri Lanka: July still black after twenty one years? (Eric Fernando)
+ some readings on the 1983 riots
[2]  India: Kashmir should be at the top of the left's agenda (Ashok Mitra)
[3]  India retries pivotal Hindu-Muslim hate crime (Scott Baldauf)
[4]  India: How to desaffronise education (Kancha Ilaiah)
[5]  India: 1984 riots and Gujarat: Sashikumar' film Kaya Taran
[6]  Upcoming Seminar: Rebuilding Justice and 
Hope in Gujarat (New Delhi, 29 July)
[7]  India: Meeting to remodel 'Defeat BJP Forum' (New Delhi, 23 July)
[8]  India: The Women's Movement and our Troubled 
Relationship with Prostitution: A Dialogue
(New Delhi, August 7)
[9] India: Appeal To The President Re The Death Penalty On Dhananjoy

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

[1]



Daily News [ Sri Lanka]
23 July 2004

JULY STILL BLACK AFTER TWENTY ONE YEARS?
by Eric Fernando

Twenty one years down the road, memories of July 
1983 still make Sri Lankans quiver. Most now 
agree it was Sri Lanka's 'week of shame'; it 
began on the 23rd of July and in fact has not yet 
ended. State controlled media of the day 
described the events as an ethnic disturbance. 
But discerning citizens knew what they were 
witnessing was nothing short of a holocaust Sri 
Lankan style.

The details of the horrors and mayhem after two 
decades remain sketchy; they are not fully 
chronicled for obvious reasons. They will however 
remain etched in the minds of people both 
Sinhalese and Tamils.

Most politicians to this day use 'Black July' in 
their regular rhetoric but go no further; it is 
clear now politicians of the day crafted this 
program against the Tamil people.

It is heartening however the proposals of the 
Presidential Truth Commission are being given 
effect to today on the 21st anniversary of the 
pogrom. The President herself is to handover 
compensation to 30 randomly selected victims.

Mobs armed with iron poles, swords and gasoline 
systematically went about the business of 
killing, looting and burning Tamil establishments 
and homes. A trail of destruction and human 
misery was all that was left at the end, with 
Tamil people being forced to seek refuge with 
their Sinhala friends and even with strangers who 
protected them for months on end, while 
authorities looked the other way, making little 
or not effort to stop the rampage.

The riots were triggered off by a landmine attack 
in Jaffna, which killed 13 soldiers on July 23, 
1983. No one at the time could have predicted the 
sheer magnitude the riots would reach or that 
this could change the course of history and cause 
Sri Lanka to become what it is today.

The post Black July period saw a virtual exodus, 
scores of disgruntled Tamils left for the West 
and neighbouring India, others went to the North, 
young men and women joined the militants.

Black July strengthened militancy and the Tamils' 
resolve to do something about their grievances. 
The Eelam demand began in earnest and a civil war 
raged on for 18 years, over 60,000 lives were 
lost on both sides of the divide. The Sri Lankan 
dream if there was one, was shattered. The 
economy came to a virtual standstill.
[...] .


o o o

[SOME READINGS ON THE 1983 RIOTS IN SRI LANKA]


Dissanayaka, T D S A. The Agony of Sri Lanka: An 
In-depth Account of the Racial Riots of July 
1983, (Colombo, Swastika Pvt Ltd., 1983).

Amnesty International. Sri Lanka: Current Human 
Rights Concerns & Evidence of Extrajudicial 
Killings by the Security Forces, July 1983-April 
1984 (NY, 1984).

Abeysekera, C. & Gunasinghe. N. (eds) - "Facets 
of Ethnicity in Sri Lanka", Social Scientist 
Association, (Colombo: Social Scientists 
Association , 1987).

Tambiah, Stanley J. Sri Lanka. Ethnic Fratricide 
& the Dismantling of Democracy (Chicago: U. 
Chicago, 1986).

Sieghart, Paul. Sri Lanka: A Mounting Tragedy of 
Errors (London: International Commission of 
Jurists, 1984).
Dharmadasa, K.N.O. Language, Religion, & Ethnic 
Assertiveness: The Growth of Sinhalese 
Nationalism in Sri Lanka (Ann Arbor, 1992).

Sivanandan, Ambalavaner. When Memory Dies (London: Arcadia, 1997)


______



[2]

The Telegraph [India]
July 23, 2004

   THE VALLEY IS STILL UNQUIET
- Kashmir should be at the top of the left's agenda
Ashok Mitra

The excitement, always somewhat ersatz, over the 
Union budget proposals is nearly abated. The 
budget in any case is a bit of a hoax, an 
exercise in public relations on the part of the 
government. It draws attention to what the regime 
considers it worthwhile to draw attention to. The 
new government's supposed anxiety to derive 
appropriate lessons from the poll outcome and 
concentrate on fostering rural welfare was made 
the keynote of this year's exercise. The media 
have responded in the Pavlovian mode: they have 
gone overboard to record the breathtaking rural 
transformation which the budget is seemingly 
determined to usher in.

In this raucous milieu, one runs the risk of 
being considered a pariah by mentioning, with or 
without temerity, such facts as that while the 
allocation for the ministry of agriculture was Rs 
3,170 crore according to the revised estimates 
for 2003-04, the allocation suggested for 2004-05 
is Rs 4,192 crore, an increase of merely around 
Rs 1,000 crore; or that the position is much 
worse with regard to the ministry of rural 
development, in whose case the revised allocation 
of Rs 19,200 crore in 2003-04 has actually been 
slashed to Rs 1,600 crore in the current year's 
budget. Equally revealing is the comparison 
between the Central plan outlays in the two 
years: these were Rs 12,238 crore and Rs 3,671 
crore respectively for rural development and 
agriculture in 2003-04; and are down to Rs 9,239 
crore and Rs 2,643 crore respectively in 2004-05.

Given the surcharged atmosphere, ground reality 
has to stand aside and offer homage to vacuous 
hoopla. The media have little time to comment on 
the nearly 30 per cent jump in the allocation for 
the ministry of defence, from around Rs 60,000 
crore last year to roughly Rs 77,000 crore this 
year, and the defence minister has already hinted 
at a further upward revision in the latter figure.

Unalterable India, unalterable the reign of the 
establishment in New Delhi. The colour of the 
government changes; the defence lobby though goes 
on forever. And rest assured, in the 
parliamentary debates, members of parliament will 
make themselves hoarse praising or condemning 
this or that teeny-weeny bit of allocation for 
the rural sector and split hairs over the merit 
or demerit of a couple of crore of rupees 
marginally allocated for, say, mid-day meal 
schemes. The defence budget, however, for all one 
knows, will be guillotined and passed within a 
space of ten seconds. Even if it is not 
guillotined, an aura of hush-hush will descend on 
Sansad Bhavan: the issue of defence is 
sacrosanct, the very security of the nation is 
involved, therefore tread softly, do not raise 
your voice, and, please, do not stray into 
posting patently unpatriotic questions about this 
or that item of expenditure.

Any query which challenges, even remotely and 
indirectly, a proposed outlay with a high-import 
content will be dubbed a sensitive matter; 
members will be privately advised to be demure. 
They can only watch from the sidelines even as 
actual allocations for the two ministries that 
are crucially relevant for amelioration of rural 
poverty, those of the ministry of agriculture and 
the ministry of rural development, get reduced in 
the net over the year, while the allocation for 
the ministry of defence is raised heftily. The 
allocation for defence is almost four times the 
amount set aside for the two agriculture-related 
ministries.

The story does not quite end here. Budgetary 
funds being placed with the ministry of home 
affairs include large chunks of money for 
purposes of security operations. This is really a 
second front for defence outlay. There are a 
number of other secret niches which conceal funds 
allotted for purchase of weaponry and espionage 
operations. On a conservative estimate, the total 
funds currently doled out under several heads to 
the military and security establishments will 
easily amount to a neat Rs100,000, or even more, 
each year.

It is in this context that one is impelled to 
refer to the daunting, unfinished agenda of 
Kashmir. The valley remains unquiet despite the 
temporary détente worked out with Pakistan and 
despite the fact, tacitly acknowledged by New 
Delhi too, that across-the-border infiltration of 
men and arms has declined considerably in recent 
months. In fact, such infiltration can be said to 
be almost a matter of the past, at least for the 
present. That has not however led to any 
cessation of violence in Jammu and Kashmir. 
Unhappy incidents continue. Fiercely committed 
militants, whom many across the globe will regard 
as devout local patriots, persist with their 
activities; several amongst them embracing what, 
whether we like it or not, most Kashmiris hail as 
a martyr's death.

The recent Lok Sabha polls have been a sobre 
eye-opener. A change in the complexion of the 
government at the state level 18 months ago has 
not restored the faith of a majority of Kashmiris 
in the Indian polity; votes cast in the 
parliamentary elections this year have been 
barely 35 per cent of the total electorate as 
against 43 per cent in the last assembly 
election. In constituencies such as Srinagar and 
Anantnag, the proportion of votes polled has 
actually been as low as 20 per cent or less.

Clearly, whatever the nature of reverie indulged 
in in New Delhi, the problem of Kashmir will not 
go away. Should an honourable peace in the valley 
be the key objective, army occupation, 
indefinitely extended, will be of no avail; 
additional appropriations for augmenting defence 
and security measures are also unlikely to strike 
any extra terror in the hearts of the insurgents.

To ruminate over how the great divide has come 
about is neither here nor there. A meaningful 
first step for bringing peace to the valley is 
recognition, with some humility, of the reality 
of Kashmir being an alienated persona. The need, 
no question, is to start on a clean slate. The 
United Progressive Alliance government, the prime 
minister has gone on record, will be open to 
having free-ranging discussions with Pakistan on 
all issues, including Kashmir. Is there then any 
need, within the domestic contour, to stand on 
ceremony and keep postponing direct parleys with 
the so-called extremists in the Hurriyat 
Conference?

The Centre can here easily take a leaf from out 
of the Andhra Pradesh government's gesture 
towards the People's War: pre-conditions have 
been shed on either side, accompanied by the 
declaration of a ceasefire. Kashmir is of as much 
grave import to New Delhi as the Naxalite 
rebellion is to Hyderabad. And if Hyderabad can 
afford to take certain risks, why cannot New 
Delhi? If emotions are past, and inhibitions a 
roadblock, they deserve to be at least suspended 
for the present.

True, there is a further problem beyond 
run-of-the-mill sentiments and prejudices. The 
jacked-up budgetary allocation for purposes of 
defence and security packs into itself a grisly 
datum. Some determined groups are around who 
would like to log on to Kashmir for eternity; the 
persistence of the imbroglio in the valley 
amounts to prolonging the discord with Pakistan 
and thereby encouraging rising defence 
expenditure. Foreign merchants and their local 
agents will not willingly give up Kashmir, one of 
their major lifelines over the past five decades. 
It is not for nothing that scandals such as those 
of Bofors and coffins keep recurring.

May not an appeal be made, and with some ardour, 
to the country's left? Kashmir is an issue which 
should occupy the top of their agenda. Between 
the end of World War II and the Gorbachev-Yeltsin 
joint act of skulduggery that drew the curtains 
on the Soviet system, the left was in the 
forefront of the battle for global peace. Kashmir 
provides them an opportunity to re-explore the 
source of the idealism. To speak up on behalf of 
the valley and its people is no betrayal of 
patriotism either: a lowering of defence spending 
and the transfer of resources thus saved to 
worthwhile directions such as health, education 
and rural development could be a significant blow 
for accelerated economic development cherished by 
every patriotic Indian.


______



[3]
The Christian Science Monitor
July 23, 2004
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0723/p07s01-wosc.html

INDIA RETRIES PIVOTAL HINDU-MUSLIM HATE CRIME
On Monday, the notorious Best Bakery case nudged closer to a trial date.
By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

MUMBAI, INDIA - When a Hindu mob stormed a bakery 
and killed 14, including two Muslims burnt alive 
in ovens, the gruesome crime became the symbol of 
religious violence that gripped India two years 
ago and left nearly 1,000 dead.

Now, in what appears to be a second chance for 
justice, the Best Bakery case moved this week one 
step toward retrial.

The first trial, held in May 2003 in the state of 
Gujarat, where the massacre took place, ended in 
the acquittal of all 21 of the accused rioters 
after the victims changed their testimony. The 
Indian Supreme Court last April ordered a retrial 
out of state, calling state officials "modern-day 
Neros" for ignoring the complaints of witnesses 
that they had been politically harassed and 
pressured to change their testimony by police and 
state officials.

The opportunity for another trial in this 
cornerstone case is seen here as an important 
chance to resolve a major irritant in Hindu- 
Muslim relations and a chance to chip away at the 
pervasive problem of witness tampering in the 
Indian justice system.

"This case has been a kind of systematic failure 
of the Indian legal system," says Teesta 
Setalwad, a human rights activist who led the 
effort to get the case a second hearing. "This 
has been a symbol, hopefully, to revive the 
criminal justice system in India."

In a country where prosecutors win violent 
criminal cases only 4 percent of the time, some 
dramatic reforms are required, Ms. Setalwad says. 
"In India, we have failed (in providing justice.) 
Trials take 10 years to finish. Witnesses turn 
hostile and change their testimony. The whole 
system needs to change."

The trouble in Gujarat began at a train station 
in Godhra on Feb. 27, 2002, when a train car full 
of Hindu activists was torched, killing 68 
passengers. For more than two months, Hindu 
rioters took their revenge on Muslim neighbors, 
killing nearly 1,000 citizens. Police claimed 
they were unable to contain the rioters, but 
later, senior officials admitted to human rights 
activists that they had been directed by Gujarat 
Chief Minister Narendra Modi to allow the 
"anticipated Hindu reaction" to run its course.

Mr. Modi, a member of the Hindu-nationalist 
Bharatiya Janata Party, has claimed that his 
state apparatus had done everything it could to 
keep the peace, but has also called the riots a 
"natural reaction" to the Godhra attack.

The Best Bakery case was once seen as the best 
chance to bring the rioters to justice, some of 
whom included police officials and activists of 
the BJP and other Hindu nationalist groups. The 
star witness, Zahira Shaikh, named 21 of the 
rioters directly involved in the murders of 11 
members of her Muslim family as well as their 3 
Hindu employees. But on May 17, 2003, she changed 
her testimony. Later, Ms. Shaikh told reporters 
that she had been threatened by a BJP state 
legislator, Madhu Srivastava, who had escorted 
her to the courthouse.

"He told me, 'Think about what you have to do. If 
you don't, you will suffer,'" Ms. Shaikh later 
told India Today magazine. "I knew I had two 
options: to get justice for dead family members, 
or save those who were living."

Mr. Srivastava denies having threatened Shaikh, 
but admits that he did escort Shaikh to court to 
protect her from the crowd. "She was receiving 
threats," he told reporters at the time.

On Monday, a judge in Mumbai gave the case one 
more nudge toward a trial date, ordering Gujarat 
to issue warrants against 10 of the 21 accused 
rioters who had not been apprehended.

Even with a second chance to give testimony, free 
of coercion, the Best Bakery case will not be an 
easy conviction. The Shaikh family has given two 
versions of the story and estranged members of 
the family tell an entirely different story.

Yet whatever the outcome of the Best Bakery case, 
the very fact that it got a retrial at all - and 
that, out of Gujarat - may have reverberations. 
On Aug. 3, the Indian Supreme Court is scheduled 
to hear arguments from six other heinous cases 
similar to Best Bakery, which are also pushing to 
be tried outside Gujarat.

The largest of these, the massacre of 89 Muslims 
in the district of Naroda-Patiya, occurred the 
day after the Godhra tragedy. Police waited 
nearly a year to investigate this case or to 
press charges.

While some activists say Best Bakery will bring 
legal reforms that will guarantee more 
professionalism and less political interference 
in future cases, others like Mr. Jethmalani says 
a deeper reform within human character is needed.

"Either out of communal motives [of promoting 
hatred toward the Muslim community] or out of 
some political motives by the state leaders, the 
investigation was totally unequal to their task," 
says Mr. Jethmalani. Yet the problems seen in the 
case go far beyond Gujarat.

"I must compliment the people of India for 
setting their face against such fundamentalism, 
when they voted against the BJP in the last 
elections," he says. But the decline in human 
character and the rise of fundamentalism "is 
getting worse," he adds, and not "just in India 
but in the West as well."

_____



[4]

Deccan Herald
July 23, 2004

Caste and religion
How to desaffronise education
India suffers from both religious and caste 
communalism. So education should decasteise 
society as a whole
By Kancha Ilaiah

Ever since Arjun Singh took over as Minister for 
Human Resources Development, he started a process 
of desaffronising education. The process of 
saffronisation was deep as Murli Manohar Joshi 
had pushed the Hindutva ideology to all levels of 
the education system. This does not mean that 
during the phase of secularisation of education, 
the education system was made pro- productive 
masses. What the secular educationists did was 
that they tried to mediate between Hindu and 
Muslim historical systems.

But, however, they too did not realise and work 
out a historiography of the productive mass based 
on multi-culturalism. For nationalist historians 
the national ethos was based on Vedism. For 
Marxist historians it was of class without any 
face of Indianness, which in essence was caste. 
For subaltern historians the nation was of 
peasant or farmer, again unidentifiable in terms 
of the real identity of the productive masses - 
the tanner, the shoe maker, the potter, the 
shepherd, the tiller and so on, who struggle with 
the nature to produce food and other goods and 
commodities for human survival and each one of 
such social group is known by its caste name.

So desaffronisation of education does not mean 
deleting some sentences and paras from history 
books or deleting sections that deal with 
astrology from the books prepared by the Hindutva 
historians. Indian history does not become 
representative history only if the so called 
Vedic mathematics, Vedic science etc are either 
removed or nuanced with the language of a secular 
historian. The difference between caste 
communalism and secularism has been very thin. 
India does not suffer from only religious 
communalism. It suffers from caste communalism as 
well. Hence education should decasteise society 
as a whole.

Foundations hit
The school textbooks brought out by the NCERT 
during the BJP regime really destroyed the social 
foundation of Indian society. The Vedic 
Brahmanism was not only made central to future 
life but it was made binding for people who live 
in future too. The history of Muslim rulers was 
shown as a period of devilishness. There was no 
scientific analysis in any particular form or 
there was no serious examination of the history 
and social sciences. The form and content of the 
books that were brought out under Rajput 
leadership need to be scrapped. The question, 
however, is that what do we replace it with? What 
kind of history are we going to hand down to the 
millions of children? Is it enough to have a 
syllabus that teaches that Hindus, Muslims, 
Christians, Sikhs, Bouddhas and Jains should live 
side by side without involving themselves in 
social conflicts? But it does not resolve the 
historical mindsets, stereotypes and caste 
biases. The whole question of teaching history 
and social sciences does not mean teaching about 
religious institutions alone. History and social 
sciences have to deal with, castes, cultures, 
different modes of customs, conventions and the 
institutional structures that emerged based on 
all these factors. In a caste society like India 
purely class-based analysis does allow the 
student to understand the multi- cultural 
structures India. The future citizens of India 
should know the positive and negative history of 
India. They should know what should be practised 
what should not be practised. They should know 
what is a vehicle to reach the goal of equality 
and what is hindrance for equality. More 
significantly they should know that the caste 
system destroyed dignity of labour.

Why should dignity of labour be central to our 
school education? The school education all these 
years has remained very vague. The sociological 
explanation, the cultural history, the political 
history, so far, have not treated the caste as a 
negative system. It is amazing that no historian 
has discussed jobs like shoe making, pot making , 
shepherding and even tilling the land. If the new 
education policy being framed by the Arjun Singh 
ministry does not grapple with castes and the 
kind of indignity of labour that it created once 
again we are in for a system which perpetuates 
caste inequalities, thereby other inequalities as 
well.
No doubt Arjun Singh himself is very sensitive to 
the question of communalism. And the committee 
that he is going to constitute might have people 
who are very sensitive to the communal mode of 
history written by earlier communal authors. But 
there is a general feeling among most historians 
that a discourse on caste is undesirable. But 
such an attitude towards history will show a 
hidden respect for superstition among many of our 
otherwise progressive historians.

Superstitious beliefs
There are some social scientists who believe that 
if we discuss caste it will spread more and more. 
It is like believing that if we discuss cancer it 
would spread in the body and if we remain silent 
about it, it would automatically disappear. There 
is also a school of writers who believe that if 
our children are taught about sex education that 
will lead to spreading of AIDS among them. 
Similarly some social scientists think that if 
school children study about caste they would 
become casteist. This is a superstitious belief. 
Cancer can be removed only by operation and AIDS 
can be abolished only by scientific sex education 
among our child population. Similarly caste can 
be abolished only by making our child population 
respect all forms of labour in everyday life. 
They must also discuss the negative influences of 
caste on the social system.

_____

[5]

The Week,
25 July 2004

Looking inward
Cinema
SASHIKUMAR DEALS WITH THE DILEMMA OF NURTURING ONE'S IDENTITY

By V.R. Devika

When your ethnic identity could be a death 
warrant, would you still preserve it? Director 
Sashikumar (left) tackles this question in Kaya 
Taran (Chrysalis), his debut Hindi film. Taking 
off from the 1984 anti-Sikh riots (after the 
assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi), 
it echoes fear. "Thousands cut their hair to 
survive," says Sashikumar, who is also the 
producer and scriptwriter of the film. "The 
question of retaining one's identity as a [member 
of the] minority population is on even in 
progressive societies where standardisation of 
dress code is thought to be the solution to 
multi-ethnic problems. I don't know if they have 
understood the deeper undercurrent of the 
problem. I decided to look at this in the film."

Based on a Malayalam short story by IAS officer 
N.S. Madhavan, the film is set in a nunnery in 
Meerut. Despite their isolation, the aged nuns 
have to deal with the assassination and 
subsequent riots when they give refuge to a young 
Sikh mother and her seven-year-old son.

"When I read the story I wanted to make a movie 
on it, but didn't know how," says Sashikumar. 
"Then the post-Godhra riots made me think about 
contemporising the story. I am not interested in 
the violence, but with the dilemma of nurturing 
one's identity."

The Minority report: The film does not look back 
in anger, but searches for answers

The film is crisp with subtle humour. It does not 
use a linear narrative form. "It is not so much 
about storytelling as about the connections that 
lend new meaning to our lives," says Sashikumar. 
The cast includes Seema Biswas and Angad Bedi, 
son of former Indian spinner Bishen Singh Bedi. 
"I knew I had my protagonist the minute he walked 
in to meet me at the India International Centre 
in New Delhi," he says. Angad plays his role as a 
journalist with aplomb. But one of the most 
brilliant performances was given by N. 
Bhattacharya, communist leader E.M.S. 
Namboodiripad's great-grandchild, who plays the 
little boy. "A student of mine suggested him and 
even I was wonderstruck at his natural acting 
talent and total professionalism," says 
Sashikumar.

Journalists Rahul Bedi, Joseph Malliakken and 
Alok Thomar play themselves in the film. "Rahul 
broke the story of the Trilokpuri carnage. He 
gives real accounts of the inhuman, unthinking 
massacres that took place against Sikhs," he says.

"The film is not looking back in anger, but 
searching for answers. It seeks to conceptualise 
the violence of 1984 with that in Gujarat in 2002 
and to show them as symptomatic of a deeper and 
more insidious challenge from within to our 
multi-cultureness." Ram Rehman, the spokesperson 
for Sahmat, a Delhi-based anti-communalism group, 
also plays himself.

A man of varied talents, Sashikumar has what it 
takes to create a seamless film. He has been a 
print and television journalist and started 
India's first regional language television 
channel, Asianet. He also set up the Asian 
College of Journalism in Chennai.

The film, however, is yet to find a distributor. 
"I have to find someone who believes in the film 
and its relevance," says Sashikumar. With 
disharmony mounting, relevance should not be a 
problem.

_____



[6]


REBUILDING JUSTICE AND HOPE IN GUJARAT
THE AGENDA AHEAD

IIC, Janandolan, Citizen Initiative & Anhad

Cordially invite you to a seminar

Rebuilding Justice and Hope in Gujarat: The Agenda Ahead

Venue :Main Auditorium, India International 
Centre, Max Muller Marg, New Delhi-110003

Time   : 9.30 am to 1.30 pm
Date: Thursday July 29, 2004

9.30 - 9.45 am
Audio - Visual on Gujarat

9.45 - 10.15 am
Subversion of Legal Justice
Indira Jaisingh, Farha Naqvi

10.15 - 10.45
Compensation and Rehabilitation
Gagan Sethi, Prof Ansari

10.45 - 11.15
POTA As An Instrument Of State Terror
Colin Gonsalves, Nitya Ramakrishnan


11.15 - 11.30
Tea Break

11.30 - 12.00
The Truth About Godhra
Mukul Sinha, Zafar Saifullah

12.00 - 12.30
Economic Boycott
Zakia, Cedric Prakash

12.30 - 1.30
The Unfinished Agenda
Harsh Mander, Amrish Patel,Chaman Lal, PC Sen

IIC, Janandolan, Citizen Initiative & Anhad
4, Windsor Place, New Delhi-110001
Ph. : 23327367/ 66 E-mail: anhadinfo at yahoo.co.in


_____



[7]

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:21:11 +0530

Friends,

Activists who took part in the activities of the 
DEFEAT BJP FORUM during March-May this year have 
now resolved to use the experience gathered in 
that campaign to widen the scope for the struggle 
for democratic space. Tentatively, the new forum 
will have the following features:

1. Name: People's Struggle for Democracy. This 
will be an umbrella forum for sharing experience, 
preparing documents, initiating and coordinating 
campaign activities etc. The participants are 
expected to belong to a variety of democratic 
organizations. Hence, the structure of the forum 
will be completely open-ended.

2. Agenda: (a) To continue the struggle against 
communal-fascist forces at the grass-roots level, 
(b) to oppose the continuing neo-liberal economic 
policies of the state that largely led to the 
rise of the communal-fascist forces in the first 
place.

3. Method: Direct work among the masses in small 
groups in and around Delhi to enable the masses 
to recognize and act on their own on the issues 
listed above. In this, we will use and expand on 
the contacts, resources and experience already 
gathered in the earlier campaign. There will be 
less emphasis on seminars, conventions, 
campaiging in the media etc.

We will have a meeting on 23 July, Friday, 5.00 
PM at 8, VP House to finalize on the above items 
and to chart some definite course of activities.

Please attend this meeting so that we have as wide a consensus as possible.

Nirmalangshu, Madhu, Thomas, Jadav, Nandita, and others.

______



[8]

The Women's Movement and Our Troubled Relationship
with Prostitution: A Dialogue

Dear Friends,
On 9th August, Saheli will complete twenty-three years of existence. And we
hope not only to exist for a long time to come, but to meet head-on the
challenges of understanding and struggling against patriarchy in its myriad
forms. As always, we look forward to spending this day with our friends and
supporters trying to consolidate our work and alliances, and also explore
complex new terrains together.

We would like to invite you to a dialogue on the rights of women in
prostitution. Most of the groups working on the issue agree that
decriminalizing laws around prostitution is a critical step that is urgently
needed to enable women in prostitution to access their rights and to end
police violations. Yet we all know that the wide range of experiences that
women in prostitution encounter has demonstrated the complexity of the
issue, taking the debate beyond the binaries of legalization/abolition,
good/bad, moral/immoral, etc. A grey zone exists between these extremes - a
zone of differences and discomfort, conflict and concern.

A dialogue encompassing these and other related issues is essential, and
should be as open as possible. Your presence and participation at this
meeting will help in exploring together the crucial linkages of issues for a
deeper understanding. While there may be no direct 'outcomes' from this
dialogue other than a frank exchange of opinions, we believe that it is part
of a longer process of engagement by women's groups on this issue.

Meena Seshu from Sangram, and Shabana from Veshya Anyay Muqabla Parishad
(VAMP) Sangli, Maharasthra, will be present to share their experiences.

When: Saturday 7th August, 1-5 pm
Where: Indian Social Institute, Lodi Road

Please do come. We look forward to seeing you,

In solidarity,

All of us in Saheli
Saheli Women's Resource Centre
Above Shop Nos. 105-108
Under Defence Colony Flyover Market (South Side)
New Delhi 110 024
Phone: +91 (011) 2461 6485
E-mail: saheliwomen at hotmail.com

______


[9]


22 Jul 2004 19:12:07 +0500

APPEAL TO THE PRESIDENT RE THE DEATH PENALTY ON DHANANJOY

Friends,

As you know, Dhananjoy Chatterjee has been sentenced to death for the rape
and murder of a school girl in Calcutta. His appeal for clemency has been
rejected by the Home Ministry and the President is consulting legal opinion
regarding death penalty in this case. As an urgent, last minute appeal, PUDR
is urging as many groups, organizations and individuals as possible to
appeal to the President to commute his sentence. Heinous as Dhananjoy's
crime is, this appeal is part of our principled opposition to death penalty.
We have drafted a copy of a letter to the President. It is given below. We
would urge you to send similar letters to the President as soon as possible
since a final decision in this case is imminent.

His address is in the letter and his email is:  presidentofindia at rb.nic.in

In solidarity,

Sharmila Purkayastha
Secretary
People's Union for Democratic Rights

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

To,
The President
Rashtrapati Bhavan
New Delhi

Sir,

Re: Mercy Petition of Dhananjoy Chatterjee

This is a public plea to you to exercise the power of compassion and mercy
reposed in you as Head of State, to commute the death sentence of Dhananjoy
Chatterjee. We do believe that his crime is reprehensible. However, awarding
him the death sentence is not the answer.

Dhananjoy was sentenced to death in August 1991 for the rape and murder of a
16 year old in her apartment in Calcutta on 5 March 1990. After unsuccessful
appeals to the High Court and the Supreme Court, he was due to be hanged in
February 1994 after which the date was twice postponed to March 1994, but
did not take place. Hence, he has already been in jail for over ten years
under the constant shadow of death penalty, a harsh and torturous
punishment, and itself a reason for you to exercise compassion.

Heinous as the crime is, we believe that death penalty is not the answer to
the crime of rape and murder. For one, capital punishment for rape deflects
attention from the conditions in society which allow rapes to occur, and
focuses exclusively instead on the individual. Nor does it deal with other
issues such as the extremely low conviction rates in rape cases, or the
delay in filing FIRs and in awarding punishment. These would be far more
effective deterrents against rape, not meting out death sentence. Extreme
violence on women has deeper, structural, patriarchal roots that cannot be
dealt with by even more violence by the State.

The application of death penalty is extremely subjective as it depends on
the predilections of the judges. Whether you live or die cannot depend on
who is in the chair.

Also, studies globally have shown that it is more likely to be imposed when
the accused - as in Dhananjoy's case - is from a poor background. This lack
of resources hampered access to competent legal assistance in the early
stages of the case, which contributed to his ultimately being sentenced to
death.

He has had no previous history of crime. His death will not serve any wider
social purpose. Nor is death penalty in any way a deterrent to crime in
society as numerous studies in India and abroad have conclusively proved.
Those who are arguing for his death are simply demanding an eye for an eye.
Death penalty fulfills a desire for revenge, but this cannot be the
principle that guides an enlightened jurisprudence or a modern Head of
State.

We believe that death penalty has no place in a modern democracy such as
India's. We would draw your attention to the fact  that there has been a
general shift worldwide towards total abolition, or towards the non-use of
death penalty. The International Criminal Court, constituted in 1998 by 160
countries and of which India is a signatory, does not allow itself to hand
down the death sentence even though it oversees large-scale heinous crimes
including rape, crimes against humanity and genocide. As many as 79
countries have abolished it completely, 15 have abolished for all but
exceptional crimes such as wartime crimes, and 23 have it in law but not in
practice for the last ten years. That makes a total of 117 countries that
have abolished it in law or in practice. Since 1990, over 35 countries or
territories have abolished the death penalty entirely, for all crimes. We
would urge India to take this enlightened path and commuting Dhananjoy's
sentence is a step in that direction..

In light of the above, we beseech you as the highest constitutional
functionary to be generous in the exercise of gentle compassion and commute
the sentence of death imposed on Dhananjoy Chatterjee.


Thanking you,

Yours sincerely,

(NAME OF THE ORGANIZATION/ INDIVIDUAL)



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