SACW | 31 Jul 2004

[sacw]

South Asia Citizens Wire    |  31 July,  2004
via:  www.sacw.net

[1]   India: The Real Islam: A tale of two 
visions one mystical, the other orthodox (William 
Dalrymple)
[2]   Religion, Power and Violence: A view from India (Ram Puniyani)
[3]   Seminar on Rebuilding justice and hope in 
Gujarat: A Letter to the Editor and Reports
    - Letter to the Editor (Mukul Dube)
    - India: 'Post-riots, Muslims facing economic boycott'
    - Call to re-open Godhra issue
[4]  India: Release and discussion - Gallerie's 
14th issue celebrating women (Bombay, Aug 5)
[5]  India: Action Alert!!  Protest Against The 
Netarhat Field Firing Range in Jharkhand
[6]   India's Messy 'secularism' badly needs active rebuilding
   (i)   A law to stop burying alive people (Rakesh Bhatnagar)
   (ii)  Tamil Nadu: Animal sacrifice Act repealed
   (iii)  Gujarat turns to Reiki for rains
   (iv)  Gujarat Government's partying VHP ideologue's birthday
   (v)  'Detox' drive hits pre-Joshi book (Shivani Singh)


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

[1]

Time Magazine - July 26-August 2, 2004 / Vol. 164, No. 4/5

INDIA: THE REAL ISLAM
A tale of two opposing visions of Islamic 
afterlife-one mystical, the other orthodox-in 
eternal conflict

by William Dalrymple

[Photo: John Stanmeyer--VII ]
[Photo Caption: HOLY QUEST: Early morning at the 
Nizamuddin shrine in New Delhi, where Sufis pray 
to find their way in this life and the path to 
the next]

What you must understand is this," said Amin, 
stroking his long, straggly beard. "Sufism is not 
Islamic. It is jadoo: magic tricks. It is 
superstition. It has nothing to do with real 
Islam."

Amin ul-Karim and I were standing outside a kebab 
restaurant among the medieval lanes of 
Nizamuddin, my favorite part of New Delhi. Clouds 
of charcoal smoke wafted into the air, and the 
scent of grilling meat floated out over streets 
bustling with pilgrims, madrasah students, 
sellers of rose petals, little boys playing 
cricket and beggars seeking alms.

To one side lay the destination to which the 
crowds of pilgrims were heading: a warren of 
alleys and bazaars leading toward the shrine of 
India's most revered Sufi saint, Hazrat 
Nizamuddin Auliya. Nizamuddin was a 14th century 
Muslim mystic who withdrew from the world and 
preached a message of prayer, love and the unity 
of all things. He promised his followers that if 
they loosened their ties with the world, they 
could purge their souls of worries and directly 
experience God. Rituals and fasting were for the 
pious, said the saint, but love was everywhere 
and was much the surest route to the divine.

Yet only a short distance from the shrine towered 
a very different Islamic institution, one that 
embodied a quite different face of Islam. The 
merkaz is a modern, gray, concrete structure 
seven stories tall that houses the world 
headquarters of an austere Islamic movement 
called Tablighism, to which Amin belongs. The 
Tablighis advocate a return to the basic 
fundamentals of the Koran, and greatly dislike 
the mystical Islam of Sufism, which they believe 
encourages such un-Koranic practices as idolatry, 
music, dancing and the veneration of dead saints. 
This was certainly the view of Amin, who, when I 
met him, had been busy trying to persuade passing 
pilgrims to turn away from their destination. "I 
invite these people who come to Nizamuddin to 
return to the true path of the Koran," he said. 
"Do not pray to a corpse, I tell them. Go to the 
mosque, not a grave. Superstition leads to 
jahannam-hell. True Islam leads to 
jannah-paradise."

"What sort of paradise?" I asked.

"It is beyond all human imagination," said Amin. 
"But there will be couches to lie on in the 
shade, and rivers of milk and honey and, cool, 
clear springwater."

"What about the Sufi idea that God can also be 
found in the human heart?" I asked.

"Paradise within us?" said Amin, raising his 
eyebrows. "No, no, this is emotional talk-a dream 
only. There is nothing in the Koran about 
paradise within the body. It is outside. To get 
there you must follow the commands of the 
Almighty. Then when you die, insh'allah, that 
will be where your journey ends."
Here, it seemed to me, lay some sort of crux-a 
clash of civilizations, not between East and West 
but within Islam itself. Between the strictly 
regulated ways of the orthodox Tablighis and the 
customs of the heterodox Sufis lay not just two 
different understandings of Islam but two 
entirely different conceptions of how to live, 
how to die, and how to make the final and most 
important, and difficult, journey of all-to 
paradise.

Six years earlier, I had been sitting in a 
roadside tea shop amid the desert of Rajasthan 
when I saw a succession of five bicycle rickshaws 
appear over the horizon, winding their way 
through the dusty scrub of the Jaipur highway. 
Every time a juggernaut thundered past, the 
fragile rickshaws lurched toward the dirt of the 
hard shoulder. The desert was level and 
featureless. So flat was the ground that through 
the shimmering heat haze you could see the convoy 
struggling for a full half-hour before it finally 
drew level with the roadside dhaba. Inside the 
rickshaws were 12 Sufi dervishes, with wild eyes 
and long, unkempt beards. The fronts of their 
shalwars were covered with charms, pieces of 
tinsel and silver talismans. They were 
all-drivers and dervishes alike-hot and thirsty, 
and they pulled into the dhaba calling loudly for 
water and tea.

The men were braving the desert to attend the 
death anniversary of the Sufi saint Khwaja Garib 
Nawaz, who lived in the 13th century, a little 
before Nizamuddin's time and who belonged to the 
same mystical tradition. As they shook the desert 
from their clothes, I asked them about their 
journey. "We have cycled all the way from Delhi," 
said one of the drivers.

"Delhi? But that is-what?-400 km away?"

"Garib Nawaz will reward us for our pains," he 
replied. "It is he who gives us strength." The 
drivers and their passengers sat together on a 
charpoy, pouring their tea into tin saucers, then 
noisily sipping the hot, sweet liquid from the 
plates. "Anyone who steps through the door of his 
shrine," said another driver, "will get paradise 
as his everlasting home."

I was heading in the same direction, so the 
following day I went along to the Sufi festival 
in Ajmer. Virtually overnight the small 
provincial town was transformed into a heaving, 
mystic metropolis. Tens of thousands of pilgrims 
from all over India were milling around the 
streets, pouring out of buses, unrolling their 
bedding on the pavement, and cooking their 
breakfast on portable stoves. From the different 
encampments on the outskirts-tent cities that 
resembled the halting place of some medieval 
army-rivulets of devotees threaded through the 
bazaars, forming larger streams as they converged 
on the streets leading to the shrine.

A succession of Mughal mosques, tombs and 
pavilions were crammed to bursting with ecstatics 
and madmen, pilgrims and spectators. The entire 
complex was alive with the intoxicating smell of 
roses, which the devotees carried in 
sweet-smelling punnets to pour great fountains of 
petals onto the saint's grave. The numbers were 
amazing, but what was even more remarkable in a 
nation polarized by religious rivalries was the 
different traditions from which the pilgrims were 
drawn. Many were Muslim, but there were also 
Hindus, as well as the odd Sikh and Christian, 
all queuing to pay their respects to the saint. 
Here, for once, you saw religion bringing people 
together, not dividing them. Sufism was not just 
something mystical, ethereal and otherworldly, I 
felt, but a balm on India's festering religious 
wounds. I asked one group of Hindu pilgrims if 
they were made to feel welcome in a Muslim 
shrine. "Of course," said their leader, a trader 
from neighboring Gujarat state. "All Gods are the 
same."

When I asked why they had made the effort to come 
all this way, the man replied with the following 
story: "When our child was young, he became very 
ill. No medicines from any doctor helped. We 
tried everything, but our son only got weaker. 
Then some neighbors said we should come here. We 
were desperate, so we got on a bus. We brought 
the boy to the shrine and one of its guardians 
cured him. What could not be done in 12 months he 
did in a minute." So now the trader and his 
family return each year to give thanks.

From the very beginning of Sufism, music, dance, 
poetry and meditation have been seen as crucial 
spiritual strides on the path of love, an 
invaluable aid toward attaining unity with 
God-true paradise. Music, in particular, enables 
devotees to focus their whole being on the divine 
so intensely that the soul is both destroyed and 
resurrected. At Sufi shrines, devotees are lifted 
by the music into a state of spiritual ecstasy.

Yet these heterodox methods of worship have 
divided Sufis from many of their Muslim brethren. 
Throughout Islamic history, more puritanical 
Muslims have claimed that Sufi practices were 
infections from Christianity and Hinduism, quite 
alien to the original principles of Islam. As 
Najaf Haider, professor of medieval history at 
Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, tells 
it, such conflicts were inevitable: "In orthodox 
Islam the object of creation is the worship of 
God; God is the master and the devotee is the 
slave. The Sufis argue that God should be 
worshipped not because he has commanded us to but 
because he's such a lovable being. The 
cornerstone of Sufi ideology is love, and all 
traditions are tolerated because anyone is 
capable of expressing love for God."

The most formidable of all the anti-Sufi 
movements was Wahhabism from Arabia, its 
followers the progenitors of modern Islamic 
fundamentalists, who on coming to power in the 
early 19th century destroyed all the Sufi and 
Shi'a shrines in Arabia and Iraq. Today, the most 
prominent-and powerful-Wahhabis are the Saudis. 
Because they dominate media in the Arab world, 
many contemporary Muslims have been taught a 
story of Islamic religious tradition from which 
Sufism is rigorously excluded.

I first came across strongly anti-Sufi sentiments 
last fall when I visited a shrine just outside 
Peshawar in Pakistan's North-West Frontier 
Province. The Sufi shrine of Rahman Baba has for 
centuries been a place where Muslim musicians and 
poets have gathered. It is built around the tomb 
of a 17th century mystic poet whose Pashtu Sufi 
verses have led to him being described as the 
nightingale of Peshawar. A friend who had lived 
nearby in the 1980s advised me to visit on a 
Thursday night, when crowds of Afghan refugee 
musicians sing to their saint by the light of the 
moon-a sight he described as unforgettable. Since 
he had left Peshawar, however, much had changed. 
Two Saudi-funded madrasahs had been built on the 
road to the shrine, and they had taken it upon 
themselves to halt what they regarded as the 
shrine's un-Islamic practices.

One Thursday I drove out of Peshawar, passed the 
two madrasahs, and found the tarmac road giving 
way to a mud track, down which herds of sheep 
were throwing up huge clouds of dust as they were 
driven back to their village compounds for the 
night. Past the village was a well-irrigated 
enclosure sheltered by a windbreak of date palms. 
Beyond lay the glistening white dome of the 
shrine, and facing it a mosque and a new 
mud-brick library. Tamarind, neem trees and a 
great, spreading banyan grew beside a bubbling 
spring. But there were no musicians there that 
evening, only a small crowd of beggars, a man 
selling chick peas and dates from a trolley, and 
a couple of Sufi holy men carrying green flags. 
Watching suspiciously a short distance away were 
two young men wearing full beards, white robes 
and checked red-and-white Saudi ghuttras, or head 
scarves.

I asked one of the shrine's guardians, Tila 
Mohammed, why there were not more pilgrims and 
what had happened to the musicians for which his 
shrine was once famous. He motioned for me to 
come into his room beside the library, out of the 
earshot of the two men in ghuttras.

"My family has been singing here for 
generations," said Tila Mohammed. "But now these 
Arab madrasah students come here and create 
trouble. They tell us that what we do is wrong. 
They ask people who are singing to stop. 
Sometimes arguments break out-even fistfights. 
This used to be a place where people came for 
peace of mind. Now they just encounter more 
problems, so gradually people have stopped 
coming."

"We pray that Baba will work a miracle," Tila 
Mohammed continued, "that good will overcome 
evil. But our way is pacifist. We love. We never 
fight. When these Arabs come here, I just don't 
know what to do to stop them."
The tablighis in Nizamuddin are not Wahhabi, but 
their beliefs are derived from similar 
theological traditions. They share the Wahhabis' 
suspicion of the Sufis, and their effect on the 
Nizamuddin shrine is the same, as they slowly 
attempt to undermine Islam's most tolerant and 
syncretic incarnation just when that face of 
Islam is most needed in healing the growing 
breach between Islam and other religions. After 
leaving Amin at the doors of his Tablighi 
headquarters, I headed on down into the alleys of 
Nizamuddin. Taking off my sandals at the entrance 
of the shrine, I spoke with Hussein, the old man 
who looks after the shoes of the pilgrims. I 
asked what he thought of the Tablighis. Hussein's 
response was passionate: "These people are so 
extreme and intolerant. Look around you. Everyone 
in Delhi knows about the power of Nizamuddin. 
Everyone knows that if your heart is pure and you 
ask him something, that he cannot refuse you. I 
have felt his power in my own life. I lost my hut 
in a slum clearance 10 years ago. I was hungry 
and I had nothing. But I prayed to the saint, and 
through him I found a place to stay and a way of 
supporting my family. I tell you: if anybody 
abuses Nizamuddin Auliya, I will be the first to 
defend him-with my knife if need be."

  The cornerstone of Sufi ideology is Love.
-NAJAF HAIDER,  Indian historian

It was a Thursday evening when, during the 
singing of the qawwalis, the mesmerizing love 
songs of the Indian Sufis, the spiritual life of 
the shrine was to reach its climax. Huge crowds 
of pilgrims were already sitting cross-legged in 
the forecourt in front of the tomb, and the first 
qawwali singers were beginning to strike up their 
music. Around them was a press of excited 
onlookers. Most pilgrims had come with their 
families-groups of little boys with eyes 
wonderfully darkened with kohl, little girls who 
perhaps had been ill and had been brought for 
healing. At the shrine itself there were young 
women trying to tie small threads through the 
lattices of its screens, each one of them with 
some prayer or petition, usually a plea for 
marriage or children.

To one side was a huge cauldron of biryani that 
had just been carried in to feed the poor. On 
another was a gathering of women who had come to 
learn to read Arabic in the simple school that 
operated from the back of the shrine. There were 
Muslim grandmothers in black chadors from Bengal, 
Punjabi Sikhs in their blue turbans, Hindu women 
from South India with the large red bindis on 
their foreheads, all coming to pray to the saint, 
all coming to use Nizamuddin as their 
intermediary to God.

The crowds thickened. The tempo of the music 
quickened, and some of the pilgrims began to sink 
into a trance. Old men were swaying now, arms 
extended, hands cupped in supplication, lost to 
the world; women were tossing their hair from 
side to side; and the first of a succession of 
dervishes rose to their feet to dance. The 
atmosphere, already heavy with the rich scent of 
rose petals, grew heavier still, filled with the 
softly mouthed and murmured prayers, and with the 
passionate incantations and expectations of 
10,000 pilgrims.

I left them there, with their prayers and 
petitions, still seeking paradise in that most 
elusive of all destinations, the human heart.

_____



[2]


Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 10:17:52 +0530 (IST)

RELIGION, POWER AND VIOLENCE: A VIEW FROM INDIA

by Ram Puniyani

The world scene has seen immense and horrific violence
in recent times. Two planes ram into the World trade
center, nearly three thousand people perish into
oblivion, an 'Islamic
terrorist' Osama bin Laden thanks Allah for this act.
US President George W. Bush launches an attack on
Afghanistan to catch hold of Osama bin Laden and call
this attack as crusade.

Separated by thousands of kilometers, in another part
of the World, Gujarat, India, a train coach is burned.
Instant investigation by the Chief minister of that
state gives him the insight that this was an act of
Islamic terrorists in collaboration with local
Muslims. His associates give the call that Hindus are
in danger and he signals that revenge process will not
be disturbed. He instructs his staff to sit back. His
administration goes a step further and assists the
rampaging marauders out to kill Muslims. Two thousand
people loose their life. The plight of women and
children is beyond description. What these victims
share in common is the religion called Islam. Just a
few years ago people in Bosnia and Rwanda died in
thousands for belonging to the 'wrong' religion.

Last three decades have seen the violence world over
under the flag of religions. Is this violence done to
save some religion or its followers? Is it done to
protect the moral values, din, ethics, and dharma of
the particular religions? Is this violence done to
save the traditions and communitarian ethos of the
followers of those religions? How are religions
related to the massive violence, which goes on in
their name?

One recalls that even in medieval times the phenomenon
of crusades, jihads and dharmayudhs, which, kings
undertook on the pretext of religion. Were these meant
to expand religion or were they meant to expand their
empires. One recalls that the identity of religions is
associated more with the clergy and less with the
moral values of the religions. It does not require too
much of knowledge to realize that in pre-industrial
society the clergy, the most visible part of religions
was associated with the landlords and the kings in
different forms. Somewhere in direct collaboration
from top to bottom, somewhere in fragmented form. Also
there was another set of people associated with
religions, the saints, who were away from the power
centers. These were the saints, the bhakti saints in
Hindu tradition, the Sufi saints in Islamic tradition
and mystiques and later liberation theologian in
Christian tradition, were away from the centers of
power and were close to the poor, exploited and
oppressed sections of society.

The rulers did not tolerate the saints. The clergy,
the official upholders of the religion, were hostile
to bhakti saints, who were killed in various ways. The
two facets of religion were always counter-posed to
each other. Since the traditions close to power are
more dominant, the Church, Olema and Brahmins are
presented as the vehicles of religion. The parallel
traditions of saintís remains on the margins, snubbed
by the social and political powers.

A sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya refused to receive the
emperor in his dargah, Tukaram was done to death,
Chokhamela reprimands God himself for the plight of
the poor. These traditions emphasize on the message of
love and amity in contrast to the clergy, which gives
importance to rituals and the written word. In India
the saints, mostly came from low caste and did
proclaim that they have no capacity to learn the heavy
tomes of their religion written in Devbhasha (language
of Gods, upper caste) Sanskrit, which was denied to
them anyway, because of their low caste status.

During the process of secularization the role of
clergy declined from the social and political space.
The structural hierarchies of caste and gender, which
this clergy legitimized in the name of religion
started getting challenged, got abolished in countries
where industrialization took place in the early
period. These societies strove for the values of
Liberty Equality and Fraternity (community). In
colonies the nexus between colonial powers and the
landlords, kings blocked the secularization process.
And in country like India these declining classes,
Landlord-Clergy, threw up the politics in the name of
religion, known as communal politics. For example in
India it came up as Muslim league and Hindu
Mahasabha-RSS, but these were marginal streams. At
World level the politics was dominated by the colonial
powers. Later US emerged as the major World power and
national liberation struggles in the colonies took the
inspiration from Russian and Chinese revolutions, at
many places under the flag of socialism. During this
era the global violence was presented as the struggle
between the ëfree worldí and communism.

After the cold war era, the decline of socialist
economies, the hegemony of US started becoming
indisputable. Its machinations in the oil zone where
Islam was the dominant religion, the new offensive of
Imperialism took the garb of religious language and
the 'backward Islam' started being targeted by the US
and its cohorts. It is to support this imperialist
ambition that the theory of Clash of Civilizations
(Samuel Huntington) came up as a cover for US
policies. This theory very cleverly counter poses the
advanced Western Civilization against backward Islamic
civilization. Here the Western civilization is not
Christian, and the Middle East Muslims and others are
clubbed to be having the backward Islamic
civilization. The wars launched by US against the
people of Afghanistan and Iraq is presented as a
logical extension of this thesis, to set right the
wrongs of backward Muslims.

Around this time in India the rise of Hindutva
politics has goals similar to the ones of the US as
far as targeting Muslims and Islam are concerned. This
Hindutva ideology is a politics based on Brahminical
stream of Hinduism and had base earlier in the
declining classes of Landlords and clergy (Jamindar,
Brahmin, Bania) and now it flourishes amongst the new
middle class thrown up by the so called development
process. This middle class, affluent and the core of
ëShining Indiaí has gained immensely from the process
of industrialization and also from the mindless
globalization from eighties onwards. It is this middle
class, which sustains a new breed of religious people,
in saffron or any other color. This new set of Gurus
and Acharyas, Sri Sri Ravishankar, Asaram Bapu,
Pandurang Shastri Athwale, Sudhanshu Mahraj, Aniruddh
Bapu and the like, are the nerve soothers for the
existential tensions of the middle class. These Gurus
are pushing the Manusmsirit and the feudal values of
caste and gender hierarchies in a new language, the
language laced with modernity, so to say.

Globally and locally various phenomenon are
overlapping. Now as the offensive of power seekers at
world level is masked in the language of religion,
particularly anti-Islam, those aspiring for control on
social and political power at home are also using this
Hindutva, religion based politics.

The language of religion is deceptive. It gives it a
type of moral sanctity, it creates a sort of mass
hysteria, and it offers a sort of platform for the
retrograde ideology. The goals of power are creating
violence, condoned by those who should have different
types of social power. Violence is the superficial
layer of this politics of power in the name of
religion. It is more than a coincidence that while,
religion targeted by US at the level of the World and
the one targeted in India by Hindutva are the same.
The camaraderie of those using religion for their
political goals cannot be missed.

Religion has diverse functions in society. The way it
is being used (! abused) by Hindutva and US and its
cohorts, is its most dominant face. The clergy at many
times plays diverse roles as well. At times it has
played the role of projecting the religion, which is
the opiate of the masses, it has also been the sigh of
the oppressed in this heartless world. The Sufis and
saints had particularly played the latter role. While
the opiate role has been played by the section of
clergy tied to the apron strings of those in political
and social power, acting as legitimizers of their
exploitative and oppressive role. One sees the Church
of old times associating with Kings, and the one
currently, which is opposing the US offensives as the
same institution playing diverse role with change of
time. One can see in Indian context the fleet of gurus
with immense wealth under their control serving as the
base for creating the opinion and opium for Hindutva
politics. One also sees the saffron clad sadhus of
Vishwa Hindu Parishad asking for revenge against
Muslims.

Religion, if one regards moral values as its core,
should not be associated with power. Different types
of people associated with religion have at times
played as handmaiden to the power centers,
legitimizing their violence in turn. The triad of
religion power and violence gets connected once we see
the ambitions of those using religion for their narrow
goals. If the people of religion cannot be associated
with the plight of poor and oppressed they are
handmaidens of the powerful. And in turn then they are
legitimsers of violence. The examples of these abound.


It is time that the people associated with religion
realize the abuse to which religion has been put. Some
streams of religion are for this goal in a blatant
fashion. Than there are other streams of religion
which play a soothing role for the exploited sections
of society. This section of religious people, true to
the moral values of religions, can live their religion
only by associating themselves with the plight of the
poor, oppressed and the underdogs. Association of
religion with power is the crux of its negative role
in society. A severance of this will surely put
religion more as the vehicle of sigh of the oppressed
and this can only be achieved by firm advocacy of the
causes of this section, this can be achieved by
associating with their struggles for the justice,
gender, economic, social and political.

(Excerpts from the talk delivered at 6th W.A. Vissert
Hooft Memorial Consultation, Ecumenical Institute
Bossey, June 2004)



______



[3]    [The Seminar on Rebuilding justice and 
hope in Gujarat: A Letter to the Editor and 
Reports ]

Letter to the Editor

D-504 Purvasha
Mayur Vihar 1
Delhi 110091

30 July 2004

Dear Editor,

Anhad, Citizens' Initiative, the India International Centre
and Janandolan jointly organised a seminar, "Rebuilding justice
and hope in Gujarat: the agenda ahead", in New Delhi on 29
July 2004. Although the speakers dealt with several subjects --
the subversion of legal justice, compensation and rehabilitation,
the economic boycott of Muslims, and the many things that remain
to be done -- the report published the next day in the *Hindu*
covered only Godhra and POTA. Just over three quarters of the
report were devoted to Godhra while the remainder went to POTA.

Indeed Godhra is important. For one thing, it is widely used as
shorthand for all that happened in Gujarat after 27 February 2002.
It is important also because the sole attempt, though a notably
twisted one, that the Sangh Parivar has made to approach
rationality is to explain away the violence against Gujarat's
Muslims as a "natural reaction" to what happened at Godhra,
paying no attention to the large body of evidence which suggests
that what was nothing less than a pogrom had been carefully
planned and prepared for well in advance.

POTA too is important: just as TADA was before it, just as the
earlier Mrs. Gandhi's Emergency was -- and just as, even
today, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act is important in our
north-eastern states. All represent or represented the use, by
the State or by its organs, of unusually stringent and harsh
measures against people who need not even be suspects in the
strict sense; all place or placed severe curbs on people's
ordinary democratic rights and on their access to the system of
justice; and all are or were justified on the ground that the
laws already in place are or were insufficient to cope with
dangers which have in each case been described as exceptional.

Did the Staff Reporter of the *Hindu* consider those other
matters -- the subversion of legal justice, compensation and
rehabilitation, the economic boycott of Muslims, and the many
things that remain to be done -- unimportant? Is a person who
has been wronged not entitled to justice? Are those who have
lost goods or homes or property, or even their very limbs, not
entitled to be compensated and rehabilitated? Does the economic
boycott of citizens not amount to their slow starvation, to the
denial to them of necessities such as food, clothes, health
care and education?

Above all, did the Staff Reporter of the *Hindu* not hear what
speaker after speaker said about the role, the negligence, the
culpability of the political leadership of Gujarat and of the
law and justice machinery of that province?

Mukul Dube

o o o o

[Call to re-open Godhra issue  (The Hindu, July 30, 2004)
URL: www.thehindu.com/2004/07/30/stories/2004073014900300.htm  ]

o o o o

[Related news coverage]

Delhi Newsline - July 30, 2004

'POST-RIOTS, MUSLIMS FACING ECONOMIC BOYCOTT'
Express News Service
New Delhi, July 29:	A seminar on the 
rehabilitation of victims of the post-Godhra 
riots was organised by the NGO ANHAD, at the 
India International Centre today.

Fr Cedric Prakash, a social activist from 
Ahmedabad, said that one of the most important 
issues is the ongoing economic boycott of most of 
the state's Muslims. ''The condition in Gujarat 
is much worse today than it was in March 2000,'' 
he said. ''Today, if you are a Muslim in Gujarat, 
your life is confined to clearly defined ghettos, 
without any economic activity of import...where 
you will not find even a single branch of a 
nationalised bank.''

  ''There is no better example of a fascist state 
than today's Gujarat anywhere in the world,'' he 
added.

''There are people who live in the so-called 
border areas of these ghettos...with their bags 
perpetually packed, ready to leave at the 
smallest sign of trouble, whether in the form of 
police checks before a VIP passes through, or a 
procession to the nearest temple,'' said Zakia, 
an aid-worker. She also mentioned the increasing 
drop-out rates among Muslim children.

Speakers drew attention to ''inadequate 
compensation'' provided to riot victims. ''The 
state spent anything between Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 4 
lakh per family when the earthquake happened. All 
it has done in the case of the riot victims is to 
build 5,000 homes, at a cost of Rs 22,000 to Rs 
32,000 each,'' said Gagan Sethi, one of the 
panelists. He claimed there are 5,000 displaced 
people who have not received any aid.

''If to be rehabilitated means to have four walls 
and a roof around you, then yes, these people 
have been rehabilitated. But the fact remains 
that most of us have bigger bathrooms than the 
so-called houses that government has built for 
them,'' said Professor Ansari, one of the 
speakers. ''In fact, after the riots were over, 
the inspectors went around evaluating the losses 
suffered by the victims. Some of their houses and 
shops were valued at a few hundred rupees, 
whereas earthquake victims got Rs 40,000, even if 
they lived in a slum,'' he added.

''The state bureaucracy have identified 
themselves with the powers-that-be, thinking that 
is going to help them survive...Police are busy 
looking after VIP-security and partisan policing 
poses the greatest danger to the well-being of 
the state today,'' said Chaman Lal, a former 
member of the National Human Rights Commission.


______



[4]

GALLERIE: A JOURNEY OF IDEAS

Join us at the launch of Gallerie's 14th issue celebrating women,
on Thursday August 5, 2004 at 6 pm. [at Crossword bookstore, Bombay]
There will be a  discussion with actor and activist Nandita Das,
deputy bureau chief of The Hindu, Kalpana Sharma,
actor and poet Tom Alter and editor Bina Sarkar Ellias.

About the bookazine

Title: International Gallerie
Publisher: Gallerie Publishers
Price: Rs 295

This issue of Gallerie celebrates women who have 
empowered themselves and made a difference
to the community through their work. Women who have claimed their own destinies
and whose lives are luminous with the vigour and courage they have summoned.

Come join us for a stimulating evening and 
participate in this lively discussion

______



[5]

National Centre for Advocacy Studies,
www.ncasindia.org
ncas at vsnl.com

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 2004 18:37:14 +0530

Subject: URGENT ALERT TO STOP DESTRUCTIVE FIELD FIRING IN NETARHAT
To:

  ACTION ALERT!!
JOIN IN THE PROTEST AGAINST THE NETARHAT FIELD FIRING RANGE

The 23rd Artillery Brigade of the Indian Army is 
planning to conduct its routine Field Firing 
Practice from 2nd to 11th August 2004 at 
Netarhat, Jharkhand causing immense livelihood 
losses, threat to life, and physical and mental 
suffering to the local population, who are 
expected to vacate the area for the same. While 
the people have not received any notice, the army 
has issued an order to the local administration 
to prepare for vacating 29 villages in the area.

The Indian Army has been using Netarhat and other 
areas falling in the adivasi dominated districts 
of Gumla, Palamau and Latehar, in Jharkhand, for 
Heavy Artillery Firing Practice since 1965. 
During the firing drills the local population is 
asked to vacate their houses or stay indoors. 
This goes on for a period of ten days, during 
which people have to either flee to the jungles 
or look for alternative shelter while their 
habitat is being bombarded with shells, often 
wounding and killing KILLING several people. The 
firing drill also causes enormous damage to the 
standing crops, fields, houses, trees and 
livestock in the region. According to activists 
of the Jan Sangarsh Samiti, there have even been 
instances of rape and sexual harassment of women 
by the army jawans. The ìinconvenienceî caused to 
the locals due to the firing practice by the Army 
is compensated with a measly amount of Re. 1 per 
day by the government. In this exercise the 
damage to wildlife, forest vegetation and the 
local ECO system is not even considered by the 
government.

Two state orders dated 25th November 1991 and 
25th March 1992, under the section 9(1) of the 
Maneuvers Field Firing and Artillery Practices 
Act, 1938, notified an area of 1471 Sq. Km 
covering 245 villages in 6 blocks of 2 districts 
for periodical field firing and artillery 
practice for ten years as the Netarhat Field 
Firing Range.

The above mentioned anti democratic and anti 
people State orders have been strongly opposed by 
the affected people. The protests from the locals 
took form of an organized movement in 1993 after 
the army put up a Pilot -Project proposal to the 
State of Bihar requesting for acquisition of land 
to set up a permanent Army Camp in the area. The 
Army claimed that only 206 Sq. Km of the 1471 Sq. 
Km notified for the Range covering 34 villages 
will be acquired, displacing approximately 29000 
people (Times Of India, 11-1-94). However, 
according to the Hindustan Times (Patna, 14-1-94) 
and the local peoples organizations an area 
covering 1 lakh Sq. Km is proposed to be 
acquired, displacing more than 2 lakh people, 
from 245 villages, of which nearly 78% are 
adivasis.

A Jan Sangarsh Samiti was formed to coordinate 
and represent the interests of the people on the 
Field Firing Range issue. Anti project 
demonstrations were carried out in the region and 
at the State capital in 1993, Memorandums were 
submitted to Ministers at the Centre as well as 
State Officials. The protest, which was 
non-violent in nature, was widespread as local 
leaders, intellectuals, student unions joined 
hands to denounce the anti-people state policy 
and oppose the Army Firing Range. In April 1994 
when the army came in for their routine firing 
the villagers staged a 5 day satyagraha and 
formed a massive blockade, forcing the Army to 
retreat. Just a few months ago, on 26th January 
2004, the Army arrived in Netarhat to carry out 
its firing drill without prior notice to the 
people, violating the Maneuvers Field Firing and 
Artillery Practices Act 1938. However, it had to 
return in the face of a determined and fierce 
opposition by the local communities being 
adversely affected by the firing practice. A 
peaceful demonstration was held by the people 
under the banner of Jan Sangarsh Samiti, stopping 
the army from entering the area. The army 
resorted to violence but people continued their 
satyagraha till the army was forced to go back on 
the January 30, 2004.

The loud and clear message from the people to the 
government was to cancel the Pilot Project as 
well as the usage of these areas as Firing Range. 
In a tripartite discussion in 1997, between the 
people, the state administration and the army, 
the government gave its word that no army 
acquisition project would come up and no firing 
would take place in the region against the wishes 
of the people. Despite the widespread protest and 
the word given to the people, the government of 
Bihar renewed the notification of the area for 
routine field firing for another ten years, 
commencing from 2002 upto 2022.

The people are continuing their struggle for the 
'right to live with dignity'. They are preparing 
to initiate a Satyagraha to protest against the 
Firing Range on 2nd August 2004, with the slogan 
'Jan Denge par Jamin Nahin Denge' (We will give 
our life but not our land).

We urge all concerned individuals and groups to 
express their solidarity with the Jan Sangarsh 
Samiti, Netarhat in their protest by sending 
Letters of Appeal to the Defense Minister, 
Government of India, the Governor and Chief 
Minister, Government of Jharkhand. A draft Letter 
of protest is enclosed.

In Solidarity

Amitabh Behar
Manshi Asher

NATIONAL CENTRE FOR ADVOCACY STUDIES, PUNE


SEND YOUR APPEALS TO

SHRI PRANAB MUKHERJEE
THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
104, SOUTH BLOCK, NEW DELHI
FAX - 011-23015403

SHRI RIPPLE PATY KYNDIAH
MINISTRY OF TRIBAL AFFAIRS,
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
SHASTRI BHAVAN,
NEW DELHI-110001,
Email: dirit at tribal.nic.in

SHRI MANI SHANKAR AIYAR
UNION MINISTER OF PANCHAYATI RAJ
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA
NEW DELHI - 110 001.
EMAIL: mopng.png at sb.nic.in

SHRI VED MARWAH
THE GOVERNER
RAJ BHAVAN, KANKE ROAD
RANCHI, JHARKHAND
FAX - 0651-2201101
SHRI ARJUN MUNDA
THE CHIEF MINISTER
CHIEF MINISTER SECRETARIAT
KANKE ROAD, RANCHI, JHARKHAND
FAX - 065 -2205100

For Details Contact:

Central Committee,
Jan Sangarsh Samiti (NFFR)
Post Mahuadanr,
Latehar,
Jharkhand
Email - rch_alertcsj at sancharnet.in

DRAFT APPEAL

TO ,

THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

THE MINISTER OF PANCHAYATI RAJ
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

THE MINISTER OF TRIBAL AFFAIRS
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

THE GOVERNER
STATE OF JHARKHAND

THE CHIEF MINISTER
STATE OF JHARKHAND


SUBJECT - APPEAL TO STOP THE FIELD FIRING AT NETARHAT, JHARKHAND

This is to draw your urgent attention to the 
Field Firing Practice planned by the 23rd 
Infantry Division of the Indian Army at Netarhat, 
to be conducted on the 2nd of August 2004. The 
Firing practice will cause tremendous livelihood 
losses and physical and mental suffering to the 
local population, who are expected to vacate the 
area for the same. While the people have not 
received any notice yet, the army has issued an 
order to the local administration to prepare for 
vacating 29 villages in the area.

Relevant Background Information
The Routine Firing Practice being conducted by 
the army since 1965 in the region has affected 
the lives of thousands of families in villages of 
Gumla, Latehar and Palamau districts in Jharkhand.

Two state orders dated 25th November 1991 and 
25th March 1992, under the section 9(1) of the 
Maneuvers Field Firing and Artillery Practices 
Act, 1938, notified an area of 1471 Sq. Km 
covering 245 villages in 6 blocks of 2 districts 
for periodical field firing and artillery 
practice for ten years as the Netarhat Field 
Firing Range.

In 1993 after the army put up a Pilot -Project 
proposal to the State of Bihar requesting for 
acquisition of land to set up a permanent Army 
Camp in the area. The Army claimed that only 206 
Sq. Km of the 1471 Sq. Km notified for the Range 
covering 34 villages will be acquired, displacing 
approximately 29000 people (Times Of India, 
11-1-94). However, according to the Hindustan 
Times (Patna, 14-1-94) and the local peoples 
organizations an area covering 1 lakh Sq. Km is 
proposed to be acquired, displacing more than 2 
lakh people, from 245 villages, of which nearly 
78% are adivasis.

In April 1994 when the army came in for their 
routine firing the villagers staged a 5 day 
satyagraha and formed a massive blockade, forcing 
the Army to retreat. Just a few months ago, on 
26th January 2004, the Army arrived in Netarhat 
to carry out its firing drill without prior 
notice to the people, violating the Maneuvers 
Field Firing and Artillery Practices Act 1938. 
However, it had to return in the face of a 
determined and fierce opposition by the local 
communities being adversely affected by the 
firing practice. A peaceful demonstration was 
held by the people under the banner of Jan 
Sangarsh Samiti, stopping the army from entering 
the area. The army resorted to violence but 
people continued their satyagraha till the army 
was forced to go back on the January 30, 2004.

Implications for the local population

The population in these areas, almost 80% tribal, 
is dependent on agriculture and forest produce 
for their day-to-day survival. Twice a year the 
firing practice in undertaken during which the 
people are expected to bring to halt all their 
activities and vacate the village or stay 
indoors. This adversely affects their livelihoods 
and threatens their very survival.

The Practice has caused severe damages to the 
property, land, and standing crops, forests and 
livestock, of which there has been no redressal. 
Many local persons, especially children have been 
injured and some have even lost their lives 
because of the explosives. According to the local 
population there have even been instances of 
sexual harassment and rape of women by the army.

Constitutional Violations

Article 21 of the Indian Constitution -  'right to live with dignity'
Continuing to allow the firing practice in the 
area is a violation of this article.

Provisions under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution
This region has a large tribal population and 
falls under the Vth Schedule to the Constitution, 
which was intended to preserve tribal autonomy, 
culture and to ensure social and political 
justice, and economic empowerment. The Firing 
Range and Pilot Project against the wishes of the 
people contradicts the spirit of the fifth 
Schedule.

The Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996
The spirit of the Vth Schedule has been further 
encapsulated in the provisions of the Panchayats 
(Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996. 
Section 4m (iii) gives the Gram Sabha the power 
to prevent alienation of land in schedule areas 
and take appropriate action to restore any 
unlawful alienation of land of a schedule tribe. 
The 73rd amendment to the constitution recognizes 
the Gram Sabha as the supreme decision making 
body at the village level. However, not involving 
and seeking the consent of the local Gram Sabhas, 
which have strongly rejected the continuation of 
Firing Range, is a clear violation of the 
Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act.

We express solidarity with the people of Netarhat 
in their protest and demand that
i)The firing practice to be carried out in 
Netarhat between 2nd and 11th August be cancelled;
ii)The notification issued by the Government of 
Bihar authorising the Army to conduct Routine 
Firing from 2002 to 2022 (No. 1862, dated 20th 
Aug 1999) be cancelled;
iii)The Pilot Project proposal to acquire land in 
Netarhat for the Army Camp and Firing Range be 
cancelled.

In Protest,

Name:
Institution:


______



[6]

[ India's messy secularism needs fixing]

(i)

The Times of India - July 27, 2004
URL: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=792357

A LAW TO STOP BURYING ALIVE PEOPLE
Rakesh Bhatnagar
NEW DELHI: Believe it or not, brutalisation of 
civility is so complete that a state - Tamil Nadu 
- had to enact a legislation with a view to 
punish people who bury others alive.

Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code which 
provides death in rarest case of murder and life 
term in others seemed to an inadequate safe guard 
against grotesque human designs in Tamil Nadu.

It was a TV telecast of a brutal ceremony of 
drugging some grown up children, mostly girls, 
and then burying them alive in full public view 
that evoked loud protests among the sane.

A public spirited organisation Common Cause 
headed by H D Shourie moved the Supreme Court in 
2002 seeking a ban on such rituals and punishment 
for anti human fanatics.

Once the notice was issued, the state government 
promulgated an Ordinance and converted it into a 
law "The Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Rituals and 
Practice of Burying Alive of a Person Act, 2002".

The TN law banning burying people alive 
stipulates: "No person shall bury a person alive, 
allow himself to be buried alive" and no person 
"shall officiate or offer to official at or 
perform or offer to perform or service, assist, 
or participate" in a ritual in which a person is 
buried alive and retrieved.

And, such rituals should not be held in any place 
of worship or its precincts or in places under 
its control. Violation of the provisions would 
attract a maximum of three-year imprisonment or 
fine up to Rs 5,000 or both. The explanatory 
statement says: "The government considers that 
such ritual and practice cannot be allowed to 
continue as it will endanger the life and 
personal safety of children".

Common Cause petition referred to the "ugly 
ritual" practised in Perayur village of Madurai 
district. The ritual involved drugging the school 
going or even smaller children, wrapping them in 
a cloth as shrouds, carrying them like corpses in 
processions, placing them in the areas already 
dug and them burying them alive.

"The ritual was an unfortunate depiction of 
bizarre beliefs and superstitions of hoary past 
which is stated to have been practised for years 
in backward areas', a visibly shocked Bench of 
Chief Justice R C Lahoti and Justice C K Thakker 
said while disposing of Common Cause's petition 
as an Act had come in force.

Such "rituals" not only violated human dignity 
but all norms and conventions that are meant to 
protect the weak, children and women.

o o o o

(ii)

The Hindu - July 31, 2004
URL: www.thehindu.com/2004/07/31/stories/2004073106370400.htm

TAMIL NADU: ANIMAL SACRIFICE ACT REPEALED
By Our Special Correspondent
CHENNAI, JULY 30. The Assembly today repealed the 
Tamil Nadu Animals and Birds Sacrifices 
Prohibition Act, 1950.

The Tamil Nadu Animals and Birds Sacrifices 
Prohibition (Repeal) Bill, 2004 introduced by the 
Animal Husbandry Minister, P.V.Damodhiran, said 
instructions were recently issued for enforcing 
the Act.

However, following representations from the 
public seeking permission for continuing the 
practice of sacrificing animals and birds in 
temples and their precincts as part of offerings, 
the Government decided to repeal the Act (Tamil 
Nadu Act XXXII of 1950), it recalled. [...].


o o o o

(iii)

GUJARAT TURNS TO REIKI FOR RAINS
URL: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/791077.cms

o o o o

(iv)

GUJARAT GOVERNMENT'S PARTYING VHP IDEOLOGUE'S BIRTHDAY
URL: cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=93362


o o o o

(v)

The Times of India - JULY 31, 2004
URL: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/797127.cms

'Detox' drive hits pre-Joshi book
Shivani Singh

NEW DELHI: On a heavy duty "de-tox" drive, Human 
Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh is 
sparing no one.

If the existing NCERT history textbooks have been 
dropped for being "communal", Medieval India, a 
pre-saffron era book, that is being brought back 
into circulation, will also be altered to make it 
legally and politically correct.

The HRD ministry has asked Satish Chandra, author 
of Class XI Medieval India, to modify passages on 
Sikh history, especially the reference to Guru 
Teg Bahadur's execution.

Raising objections to these passages, a Sikh 
group had moved Punjab High Court in 1997, 
seeking their withdrawal. When the court did not 
hear the petition, the group went in for an 
appeal in 1998. The case is pending.

To bring the book back in circulation, the NCERT 
has to tackle the legal hurdle. "Also, we don't 
want to hurt sentiments of any community. We are 
therefore asking the author to make some 
changes," said a HRD ministry official.

Chandra has agreed to rework his book. "As my 
book was withdrawn in 2002, I did not know there 
was still a court case. Although there is nothing 
objectionable, I have decided to modify certain 
passages."

"Those who raised objections probably did not 
understand these passages. I have merely cited 
views on Guru Teg Bahadur's execution from 
different sources. But nowhere I have put them as 
my own views," he added.

Chandra said he is going back to original Persian 
sources. "I am trying to figure out how to use 
different words to translate these sources. Also, 
as the NCERT has not communicated to me what is 
objectionable, I am using my own discretion," he 
said.


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

Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on 
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