SACW | 30 Sep 2004

[sacw]

South Asia Citizens Wire  |  30 September,  2004
via:  www.sacw.net

[ INTERRUPTION NOTICE: Please note regular SACW 
dispatches will remain interrupted between the 
period October 1- October 7, 2004]

=======

[1]  Pakistan: Punjab University prodded by 
Islami Jamiat Tuleba bans co-ed trips (Waqar 
Gillani)
[2]  India: Justice Is not Revenge (Mukul Dube)
[3]  India - Gujarat:  Letter by 45 to National Commission for Minorities
[4]  India: Book review - Exploding Myths on Conversions (Anshu Malhotra)
[5]  India: In Modi's Gujarat, Hitler is a textbook hero (Harit Mehta)
[6]  [India-Pakistan] Getting down to serious business (Praful Bidwai)

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

[1]


Daily Times - September 30, 2004

PUNJAB UNIVERSITY BANS CO-ED TRIPS

* Only staff of same gender will supervise trips, says directive
By Waqar Gillani
LAHORE: So much for President Musharraf's 
'enlightened moderation' - Punjab University has 
banned boys and girls from going together on 
excursion and study tours.
The PU authorities re-issued a 2001 directive on 
Wednesday requiring all departments to organise 
tours for male and female students separately and 
under supervision of a university staff of their 
own gender as a "policy matter".
Sources said the directive came under pressure by 
the Islami Jamiat Tuleba (IJT), youth wing of 
Jamaat-e-lslami. The vice chancellor, Lt Gen (R) 
Arshad Mahmood, refused to comment.
The directive went to all deans of faculties, 
principals of constituent colleges, directors of 
institutes and centers, and heads of teaching 
departments.
Sources said there was nothing new to the 
directive. It had the same content as an earlier 
one issued on August 28, "just reminding the 
staff to comply with the order", sources added.
"It is our moral and parental duty to check 
behavior of our students especially as it relates 
to interaction between the male and the female 
students," said a university official. "This is 
to avoid any untoward situation... We've had 
cases of teachers getting involved with 
students..."
However, he said that one-day co-trips were 
"obviously allowed". But, an overnight stay with 
boys and girls together is simply out of the 
question, he said.
"Only female teachers will go along with the girl 
students on long trips and if there were no 
female staff available only married male teachers 
would be allowed to goŠ and that too along with 
their wives."
About alleged pressure from the IJT, the official 
said that it was not one particular group that 
the university had listened to.
"After all we live in an Islamic country." Asked 
if the university had consulted the student 
adviser on this issue, the official said yes.
He said the university had decided to implement 
the directive strictly after a recent trip to 
Murree. He said it had turned out to be a messy 
situation where organisers had failed to house 
the traveling students "respectfully".
Many teachers, including chairpersons, directors 
and heads of various PU departments have strongly 
reacted to the decision, calling it a violation 
of equal rights for male and female students. 
They said it also negated the idea of 
'enlightened moderation' as articulated by 
President Musharraf.
It is believed that the IJT, despite the 
government's ban on students' political 
organisations, has significant influence over the 
PU administration. Individuals supportive of, or 
at least sympathetic to the IJT, have key jobs at 
the PU which enables the group to lobby 
effectively.
The IJT is alleged to have forced the PU 
administration to ban boys and girls hanging out 
together at all university canteens. Similar 
attempts to segregate the university along 
religious and gender lines have been made before.


______


[2]

Justice Is not Revenge
by Mukul Dube

[To appear in *Mainstream*, 9 October 2004]

After they won the Second World War, the Allies imposed the
justice of the victor on the Axis Powers, though not in the same
way on all of them. Germany received the harshest treatment,
first in the Nuremberg trials and then through the reparations it
was made to make. There were many who said that the Allies'
actions were guided not by justice but by vengeance. There is of
course no way to prevent such an accusation from being levelled.
When two enemies fight, the one who comes out on top cannot
easily be taken to have forgotten the enmity which caused the
fight and which grew with it -- because when people have killed
one another, enmity is indeed very difficult to forget.

I have begun with this leaf out of history because very soon I
hope to see the new rulers of India go about setting right the
monstrous wrongs done by their saffron predecessors. No one I
know had expected the Hindu Right to be routed on this scale; but
bare hours after the results of the general election became clear
on 13 May, we were speaking of the dangers of complacency and of
the need to maintain a constant pressure on the new government to
force it to act to undo the damage done by the various limbs of
the RSS -- above all, to finally show humanity towards the
thousands of Indians who suffered grievously in Gujarat just two
years back and who continue to be victims of discrimination,
oppression, terror and violence.

Every action that the new government takes against those who
constituted the previous one will immediately be called
vindictiveness. To some degree this is inevitable in a situation
of this kind, but the Sangh Parivar is a class apart: it has
demonstrated time and again its ability to run from rational
discussion and argument, instead muddying the waters with all the
filth it can dredge up from its constantly filled cess pool.
Every attempt to assess the Sangh Parivar's responsibility for
the wrongs done during its rule will bring forth precisely this
reaction. We Indians have long been known for the extraordinary
nature of our litigiousness, which means that disputes over the
simplest matters are piled up with and hidden under a mass of all
manner of entirely irrelevant non-issues and even lies. This is
what comes naturally to the Sangh Parivar and it is what we must
expect. It seems likely that the chief diversionary tactic of
these people will be the loud claim that they are being made the
whipping boy for things they did not do: or else they will act
according to another of their excellent habits and say that those
things never happened.

We have seen their reaction to the removal of four state
governors who had RSS backgrounds. The removal of the four was
entirely valid on constitutional grounds but the Sangh Parivar
made it out to be illegal, quite apart from loudly howling about
vindictiveness and "setting a bad precedent". The sole
justification for all this was the description of the RSS of
itself as a "cultural" body. Where else in the world, we
may ask, do cultural bodies have political wings like the BJP?
Where else do they have what are in effect armies of thugs like
the Bajrang Dal? Is the description of religious minorities as
"foreigners" something which legitimately belongs to the
realm of culture? The extraordinary range of meanings that the
RSS gives to the notion of culture is but one instance of its
grand plan to rewrite not just the history of India but the entire
world's lexicon.

The BJP and its NDA allies were silent for two weeks after the
results of the general election were declared. Then, on 28 May,
the damage control began. What had never been said was said to
have been said. There was a flurry of press conferences, and many
statements were issued. Shahnawaz Hussain of the BJP said that
his party had "always" criticised the happenings of Gujarat -
- but the only example of which he could think was what Vajpayee
had said in Siwan fully twenty-six months after Godhra. Digvijay
Singh of the Janata Dal (U), a former Minister of State, said
that his party had "always" been critical of events in
Gujarat in 2002; but it must have been so in the privacy of his
party's sound-proofed collective toilet, since no one ever
heard this presumably loud criticism. All we heard was his chief,
George Fernandes, saying in parliament that mass rape was a way
of life. Chandrababu Naidu of the TDP said after the election that
those events had harmed his party's image and chances: but he
did not trouble to say why, having criticised them at the time,
his party had continued to share the BJP's opulent sty in New
Delhi. Thackeray Junior of the Shiv Sena had his own line.

Lal Kishenchand Advani, now reduced to Leader of the Opposition,
was circumspect in his first public appearance, a far cry from
the master orator we had grown used to gritting our teeth over on
a daily basis. His silence may well have said all there was to
say. I have said long before, and I still expect, that the BJP
will jettison Modi, probably sooner rather than later, but in a
face-saving way. To throw him out immediately would have been to
admit that it had been wrong not to have done that in 2002
itself. In all likelihood Modi's removal will be attributed to
opposition to him within the Gujarat wing of the BJP, a normal
development in a party run on democratic lines by a dictator
sitting in a city in Vidarbha. The RSS, though, has still to make
up its mind. Earlier it said that the affairs of the BJP --
especially its thumping loss in the election -- did not concern
it, but now it has appointed its own men to ride herd over its
political wing.

Finally, it will be necessary to ensure the safety of
Hindutva's blue-eyed boy, who is, as we have seen, threatened
hourly by terrorists who all have to be killed and who are
identified only by the meticulously maintained and detailed
diaries which they always carry -- along with miraculously
ineffectual weapons of advanced design. The Chief Scientist of
the Hindutva Experiment should, I suggest, be housed in a hollow
concrete cube with walls eight feet thick, its internal
dimensions being six feet on all three axes. There should be two
holes in the walls, one for the ingress of materials and one for
their egress. In a rough imitation of the plaster-encased soldier
in Joseph Heller's *Catch-22*, these two holes should be
connected by a pipe. Modi will then at last be at peace with
himself.

The challenge before the new government is to restore meaning and
teeth to the institutions set up by the State. In relation to
Gujarat in 2002, the National Human Rights Commission and the
Election Commission were the only two constitutional bodies which
showed humanity through spine. They saw their duty clearly and
went about doing it, despite the fact that little co-operation
was forthcoming and despite the petty but time-consuming hurdles
placed in their path. The Minorities Commission and the National
Commission for Women, both of which were set up to perform
functions essential to the health of our democracy, need to be
pulled out of the gutter of luxury in which they have wallowed of
late.

The Supreme Court was apparently inactive for a long while, but
we can now see that it was thinking and planning in silence, and
that it had its eyes open, because when it finally did act, it
pulled the rug from under the feet of many who had thought
themselves untouchable, invulnerable, above the law. The showing
of the judiciary in Gujarat, however, was shameful to say the
least. Nothing other than firm action by the Supreme Court seems
likely to be able to bring it into line.

In many democracies, there are two principal parties which are
alternately voted to power. A common attitude is, "Let us give
the other side a chance." The electorate can tire of a party
over a term or terms of office, and then the expression "anti-
incumbency" is used. As the results of the general election
became clear, I heard these views expressed. It was almost as if
an alternation between the Congress and the BJP was natural and
inevitable, much as that between Labour and Conservatives in
Britain was for long and that between Democrats and Republicans
in the US is until this day.

I believe, though, that it will be a grave mistake to treat the
RSS front as just another party in a parliamentary system. That
would assume that the differences between the BJP and other
parties are differences of degree. There is a profound truth in
the BJP's claim that it is "a party with a difference" --
  though the difference is nothing like what the BJP means. The
last eight years have shown conclusively that the BJP is
*different in kind*, not in degree, from other parties, not
counting fundamentalist groupings which claim to speak for this
religion or that.

The meaning of this is clear. If the pattern of alternation is
not broken and the BJP is returned to power in a future election,
we shall have lost our last chance of functioning as a secular
democracy. The Sangh Parivar has failed once to realise its dream
of setting up a Hindu Rashtra, as it defines that -- and if it is
given another opportunity, it will crush all those who are
opposed to it. It will crush them so conclusively that they will
never be able to rise again. I have a personal interest in this:
I shall be one of the millions who will be notionally alive
although we will be mingled with the dirt several feet under the
surface of the earth.

The strategy of the Opposition, hints of which had been seen
earlier too, became clear once parliament reconvened. The former
rulers of the land did little other than shout down others and
hold up business. Having been made to fall silent on the non-
issue of Sonia Gandhi's prime ministership, they began to make
a terrific noise about "tainted" ministers. These are the
people who said that they would be an alert and critical but
responsible and constructive opposition. They have shown just how
constructive they are by staging walk-outs, by ignoring and
insulting the Speaker, and by deciding to boycott parliament's
standing committees. Shouting and abuse, yes: work, no. That is
the means of expressing the "nationalism" which these
people go on about and which is their typically deceptive term for
Hindutva and minority bashing.

The NDA has no right to speak of "tainted" ministers and
MPs so on: for the reason that many of its own people were, and
are, facing legal proceedings. It is no good to say that the
cases against Lal Kishenchand Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi and
Uma Bharti are "political", because conspiracy is
conspiracy and vandalism is vandalism. In addition, there is the
matter of the action that must be taken against many of the
Parivar under those sections of the penal code which are
specifically aimed at preventing or penalising words and deeds
that pit one religion against another (Rajeev Dhavan, "The
'Tainted' Debate", *Hindu*, 11 June 2004).

The Republic of India has a Constitution which grants certain
rights to citizens and assigns certain duties to them. It has a
body of codified laws which, in different fields, define what is
acceptable and what is not acceptable and which prescribe
punishments for those who break them. There are many acts by
which one person can wrong another and there are many acts which
are defined as being directed against the State. Any person who
is shown to have committed either kind of act is held to have
wronged the State, and it is the State -- that is, the formal
manifestation of the collectivity -- which decides on the
punishment.

In earlier times, justice and vengeance often amounted to the
same thing. If I were to murder A, then A's family or A's
village -- or any other body of persons to which A had belonged --
  would seek revenge. Justice would be considered to have been done
when I had been killed in retaliation. Very commonly the result
would be a blood feud between my group and A's, which could
well go on for generations and result in the spilling of enormous
quantities of blood.

It is true that that form of justice-vengeance has not entirely
disappeared. It has, however, been declared illegal by the State,
which explicitly forbids people from taking the law into their
own hands. Instead, it steps in to right such wrongs as have been
done and to punish those who are guilty of crimes. This is the
system which operates in all modern nations, for the reason that
no modern nation can exist without it. A nation would soon
collapse if its citizens were to run amok, killing one another
and destroying one another's property. Who, in such disorder,
would decided who was to lead the nation? Those, presumably, who
had killed the greatest number of their enemies. Would that be
modern or mediaeval?

Laws, then, are designed to protect both citizens and State and
are enforced by the State. During the NDA's rule we saw a
glaring crime of commission where the State itself was the guilty
party. This was the genocide in Gujarat. The Home Minister of
India at the time, Lal Kishenchand Advani, simply turned his back
on the whole affair by saying, in parliament, that law and order
was a state subject and that Modi was well in control of the
situation. Can this man, perched at the head of an elaborate
intelligence apparatus, really not have known what was going on
in Gujarat? Did continued violence against Muslims, in which the
police connived, represent his idea of Modi's "control"?

India's Constitution visualises a nation with a federal
character. Such a structure necessarily involves an often
delicate balance between the autonomy of its constituents and the
role of the central authority. Often the Centre has stepped in
with aid when states have been unable to cope with such
occurrences as floods, droughts and earthquakes. The Centre has
also stepped in when states have been governed badly -- although,
naturally, the validity of such actions has been disputed. The
question which has faced us since the end of February 2002 is,
What could or should the Centre have done in regard to the
violence in Gujarat?

There may be no law which has not been perverted and misused in
Gujarat under the leadership of Narendra Damodardas Modi. POTA is
easily the worst example, for the reason that it confers
virtually unlimited power on those who wish to use or misuse it.
In a state in which the law and justice machinery is already so
completely suborned, being subject only to limited review by the
Supreme Court because facts are easy to distort and suppress,
something like POTA means nothing less than open season for the
hunters -- hunters of the religious minorities, to be specific --
whether they are those who govern the state, those who are
employed by it, or those who elevated its rulers to power and now
bask in their patronage and munificence.

Zakia Jowher is among the people who have been recording the
evidence of those who have been victimised under POTA. They have
been demonstrating against that act and have petitioned the
President for its repeal. As an interim measure, they ask that
those held under POTA be given fair trials, possibly outside
Gujarat. Here is a summary of a fictional account which she wrote
about what has been happening to Gujarat's Muslims. It is
based on real events which have occurred numerous times.

  "Imagine that it is 3 a.m. You and your family are fast asleep.
  There is a violent knocking on your door. You open it and, before
  you realise what is happening, 20 to 30 men have rushed into your
  house. They are all over the place, ransacking household goods,
  abusing you, kicking you, asking all manner of questions to which
  you have no answers. The ordeal continues for well over an hour.
  Finally they pick up a member of your family -- a male -- to be
  taken away for questioning. You watch helplessly. If you ask
  'Where are you taking him?' or 'What is his fault?',
  you only get abuse and threats about POTA. They also threaten you
  with dire consequences if you tell anybody about what happened.
  This is only the beginning of a long wait for your loved one to
  return. But very often he does not return. Often you hear that
  your son or your husband has been found guilty of a 'terrorist
  action' such as the tiffin blasts or the Haren Pandya
  assassination or a *jehadi* conspiracy to kill BJP or VHP
  leaders.

  "Or imagine that your son or your husband or your brother has
  gone to buy fruits or medicines in the neighbourhood. A
  perfectly ordinary, everyday errand. But he does not return. When
  you try to find out what happened, you hear only the confused
  accounts of bystanders about how he was taken away by the police
  for questioning."

Citing studies by civil society groups, Zakia Jowher further
estimated that in September 2003, some 350 to 400 members of the
families of those arrested under POTA were themselves in illegal
detention in Ahmedabad alone. For every person arrested, there
are several others who are illegally detained. Most of those
accused under POTA were employed as electricians, in radio and
television repairs, as drivers and as teachers. All are below 30
years of age and most were the sole bread earners of their
families. What is being done to them? Electric shocks to their
genitals are only one of the forms of hospitality that the police
extend.

This, then, is how Gujarat uses POTA. Arrest and torture one
member of a family, lock up a few more, and starve the rest.
Ransack their homes and shops repeatedly so that the fear in them
remains fresh. Threaten to eliminate them in "encounters"
if they speak up. POTA, it becomes obvious, is not an ordinary law
-- it is a sort of super-law which can be used to bend all other
laws any which way, or ignore them, or pulverise them. It flows
like molten lava, it spreads like a cancer: and all this is the
handiwork of the police controlled by Narendra Modi through his
Minister for Law and Justice, Ashok Chandulal Bhatt.

But the Hindus of Gujarat have been inoculated against this
cancer, this poison. It does not spread among them. Modi's
famous "five crore Gujaratis" may be viciously and
inexplicably maligned the world over, but from POTA they are
safe. God is just. In Gujarat, divine retribution in the form of
the dreaded Vedic *pota-shastra* (*shastra* as in weapon, not
science) is reserved for Muslims, who, as everyone knows, are all
evil polygamous *jehadi* Pakistani terrorists, agents of Miyan
Musharraf.

Here is what the official web site of the Government of Gujarat,
<http://www.gujaratindia.com/>, tells us: "Shri Narendra Modi
has inculcated his social ideals from the Father of the Nation --
Mahatma Gandhi." Any school child will confirm that Gandhi,
who is depicted saluting the RSS flag in the comic books of that
fine nationalist organisation, had a bag full of laws like POTA
which were to be used exclusively for the benefit of the
religious minorities. Gandhi, unlike the rest of the Congress
party, was not pseudo-secular, and that is why he was
assassinated by a man who had nothing whatsoever to do with the
RSS other than a blind devotion to V.D. Savarkar, who was
implicated in the assassination plot but then was most honourably
acquitted on a technical point.

The clerk who first typed the full form of POTA was either
careless or else a semi-literate RSS implant, and unfortunately
the distorted name has come to be accepted as the correct one.
The true name of this fine piece of legislation is the Persecution
of the Terrorised Act. It represents no more than the giving of a
formal shape to what might be called the customary law of the
Sangh Parivar. Licence to kill, some call it.

The State has certain clearly defined responsibilities towards
the people. If it does not discharge these, it is guilty of
dereliction of duty and its elected leaders are guilty of having
reneged on their promises and of violating their oaths of office.
In an article published recently (in the *Economic and Political
Weekly* of 3 July 2004), A.G. Noorani speaks of a tort recognised
in law, "misfeasance in public offices", and cites a
Supreme Court judgment which said that a state must compensate
citizens who had suffered on account of arbitrary actions by its
employees.

So much for crimes of commission. Noorani then quotes Section 32
of the Penal Code, which says that "words which refer to acts
done extend also to illegal omission". Noorani explains it
thus: "It is illegal on the part of a minister, civil servant
or police officer wilfully to omit to act and by his inaction
allow murders to be committed."

Now, Section 299 of the Penal Code says, "Whoever causes death
by doing an act ... with the knowledge that he is likely by such
act to cause death, commits the offence of culpable homicide."
When Sections 32 and 299 are taken together, the conclusion is
inescapable:a person who fails to do something while knowing that
that inaction will lead to someone's death, is guilty of
culpable homicide. This is the least that Narendra Modi and his
gang of ruffians can be charged with. The Supreme Court put this
in plain language in its judgment on the Best Bakery case:
"Those who are responsible for protecting life and properties
and ensuring that investigation is fair and proper seem to have
shown no real anxiety. Large number of people had lost their
lives."

But N.D. Modi -- like his distinguished mentor L.K. Advani, Home
Minister and later Deputy Prime Minister -- belongs to a
"cultural" organisation which has a long and undeniable
history of ugly conspiratorial activity. Rajeshwar Dayal, then
Chief Secretary of U.P., has recorded (*A Life of Our Times*,
Orient Longman, 1997) that in 1947 the D.I.G. of the province
came to meet him, bringing two large steel trunks. "When the
trunks were opened, they revealed incontrovertible evidence of a
dastardly conspiracy to create a communal holocaust throughout
the western districts of the province. The trunks were crammed
with blueprints of great accuracy and professionalism of every
town and village in that vast area, prominently marking out the
Muslim localities and habitations. There were also detailed
instructions regarding access to the various locations, and other
matters which amply revealed their sinister purport."

This material had been recovered during a raid on the premises of
the RSS, and it had been established that the "supremo" of
that organisation, Golwalkar, had directed and supervised the
entire exercise. Rajeshwar Dayal and the D.I.G. took the evidence
to the Premier, G.B. Pant, and pressed for Golwalkar's arrest.
Pant, however, chose to adopt delaying tactics -- and Golwalkar,
who was forewarned, made his escape.

Much has been written about the computer print-outs which were
carried by the marauding goons of Gujarat in 2002. It has been
said by many that certain ministers were present in the police
control room at the time of the "action". Transport was
evidently well organised, because once a large group of rapists
and murderers had finished its work at one place, it was rapidly
taken to the next place where its duties were required.

Two things have always puzzled me. We know that the distribution
of LPG cylinders is carefully regulated. They can be obtained
illegally, but that involves money. If they disappear, money is
again the solution. Often, though, there is a formal
investigation as well. How is it that the use of so many LPG
cylinders in Gujarat in 2002 as explosives, the purpose being the
destruction of houses, never became an issue? Why was it given no
attention at all?

The second puzzle has to do with the repetition of a pattern.
Modi claimed, and Advani and even Vajpayee backed him in this,
that the "riots" were a "spontaneous reaction". How
was it that ordinarily peaceful "Hindus", maddened beyond
reason by the burning at Godhra of the most devout of their kind,
did the same things, in the same way, all across Gujarat? Might
this have been the result of common genetic factors, factors
which caused so many different people in so many different places,
when they were enraged to the point of insanity, not to thrash
about wildly as might be expected but to act in a manner which
suggested that they had been programmed identically so that their
reaction, although a spontaneous one, would also be disciplined?
Or did Golwalkar perhaps have a master plan made in 1947 which
has been adapted to all parts of the country?

In conclusion, I repeat that neutral justice is very different
from revenge. Morally it is far higher. As it is defined in our
country, justice means the even-handed protection of the citizen
and the even-handed punishment of the guilty. No one is above it:
certainly not those who have sworn to uphold it. Those who have
broken laws, whether through their actions or through their
failure to act when they should have acted, must be punished. The
law is concerned only with their crimes, not with their caste or
religion or parentage -- nor with the high offices which they
hold or have held. This is what is meant by justice, and this is
what the present government must be made to enforce. Jackals will
always howl, and that right should not be taken from them.

______



[3]

[September 29, 2004]

Dear Friend

National Minority commission had invited "Opinion 
Makers" of Gujarat for an inter-community meet. 
Same evening chairman and Members of the 
commission addressed a media meet. It was total 
contradictory to what was really deliberated in 
the meet.

Some Muslim organization and individuals kept 
away from the meet, putting question Mark before 
the role of NMC in Gujarat.

Some of the 45 participants have addressed a 
letter to NMC, copy of which is being of 
forwarded to you. Dr. Hanif Lakdawala, Shri 
Yaswant shah (Editor : Jai Hind), Prof. Anil 
Gupta, Bishop of Gujarat etc. might have signed 
if they were NOT out of Ahmedabad.

[...].

Digant Oza
B-1, Neeldeep Appt., Opp. Sandesh Press,
Laad Society Road, Vastrapur.
Ahmedabad-380015,

o o o

Sheeba George, Professor Nisar Ansari, Digant Oza, Victor Moses
C/O St. Xavier's Social Service Society
Post Box: 4088
Navrangpura
Ahmedabad - 380 009
Gujarat


24th September 2004


Hon. Tarlochan Sing[h]
Chairman - National Commission for Minorit[ies]
R.A.. Sherwani
Lt. Gen (Rtd.) A.M. Sethna
VV. Augustine
Member Secretary Dev Swaroop
New Delhi - 110 003

Dear Sir

We appreciate the pronounced intention of NMC 
[read NCM] to organize the "Inter Community 
Meeting" for strengthening and streamlining the 
atmosphere of communal amity and brotherhood in 
Gujarat. It was a good initiative provided the 
spirit was maintained by NMC while conducting the 
meeting. NMC had stated that the idea is to bring 
people on one platform to discuss issues of 
communal harmony and deliberate on ways to avoid 
communal clashes. But the as popular proverb says 
if Truth had prevailed harmony would have 
triumphed, however, the truth was the first 
victim in the 23rd September meeting.

The tone and atmosphere of the discussion on the 
floor was far from the objectives set for the 
meeting. We are also shocked to see the reports 
in the print media of the press conference where 
none of the issues raised on the floor had been 
highlighted by the honourable members of the 
Commission. Moreover, the commission seems to 
have all praises for the prevailing communal 
atmosphere in the state, with which the 
undersigned do not agree. The so-called efforts 
by the State Government for the amity had been 
mentioned by the Chairman in the media-meet, 
which, also far far away from truth. In fact, 
many of the suggestions not only by the civil 
society but also by the NHRC [National Human 
Rights Commission] and NMC have not been 
implemented by the State Government.

It was shocking to note that the credibility of 
NMC was subjected to question. Some of the 
speakers even suggested introspection for NMC 
because as said on the floor of the meeting some 
of the minority organizations preferred to stay 
away from the meeting. The NMC did not confirm or 
contradict this statement.

We would like to bring on record the following 
points which came up on the floor but conspicuous 
by its absence in the media-conference.

· What was the basis on which people were 
invited? The presence of Justice Soni was 
therefore made highly debatable. Some of the 
speakers even objected to Justice Soni's 
participation. But the Chairperson overruled it. 
Justice Soni had openly spoken against the 
directive of the Supreme Court to reopen the 
closed cases. On the basis of 1961 Gujarat 
Government resolution, Justice Soni was speaking 
in a language which did not mean to bring 
harmony. NMC allowed him to do so despite the 
persistent protest on the floor.

· Justice Soni was unnecessarily tracing back to 
the case of Sha[h] Banu, which was obvious 
attempt to trigger of controversy.

· NMC was not the platform to have allowed the 
use of word 'appeasement'. It was not called for. 
The honourable members of the Commission neither 
stopped him nor NMC seriously objected to the use 
of the word. Some of the political minded groups 
even accused the formation of National Minority 
Commission, as an attempt to appease the minority 
- are we to allow it?

· The freedom of expression was also brought up 
on the floor. The honourable members were briefed 
as to how, when socially concerned citizens and 
civil society tried to highlight the truth, they 
were labeled as 'psudo-secularists' and 
'anti-Gujarat' and their patriotism was put to 
question. One of the speakers even went to say, 
"hum yahan annyaya ei khilaf chilla bhi nahi 
sakte?!"

· There have been lot of promises from NMC but no 
corresponding fulfillment. Some of the groups, 
which did not attend the meeting, went up to 
accusing that their memorandum was not even 
replied. In this context, some of the invited 
speakers also expressed their dissatisfaction and 
suspicion that prevail among the civil society of 
Gujarat regarding the role of NMC.

· To instill confidence in the cultural group of 
Gujarat what was required was concrete action. 
Therefore, it was suggested in the meeting that 
the tomb of Poet Vali Gujarati be reconstructed. 
He was the symbol of cultured and harmonious 
Gujarat.

· The presence of Gopal Bhojvani (as he himself 
mentioned two times MLA of BJP)? He went to the 
extent of describing Godhra as "Mini-Pakistan". 
Does the NMC have the same view and endorse this 
atrocious statement? There was serious objection 
on the floor. Some of the 45 participants even 
preferred to walk out from the meeting amongst 
the noisy protest. But NMC chose to coolly listen 
to him instead of sharply reacting.

· Some members on the floor also pointed out to 
the fact that on the one hand polarization 
/ghetoisation has been taking place in Gujarat in 
Gujarat and Ahmedabd particular while on the 
other hand hundreds of families were forced to 
still stay out of their houses. Such a 
ghetoisation (Muslim free zone of Ahmedabad!) was 
by accident or design? It was recommended that 
the Commission initiate a scholarly 
study/research on this, as a link aimed by the 
Commission. It was also recommended that 
affirmative action be initiated where 
encouragement is given to the developers who 
consciously promote co-habitation of diverse 
communities.

· The pitiful living condition of people in the 
'colonies' rehabilitated by civil society does 
not have the basic amenities, which is the 
responsibility of the State. This was mentioned 
during the discussion but MNC did not positively 
react.

· The rehabilitation policy and package of the 
Government for the affected people of Sardar 
Sarovar Narmada Dam was recommended to be 
implemented for the victims of the carnage also.

· The cases of several villages where people are 
still not able to go back were also raised on the 
floor. In some of the villages the minority 
community compelled to abide by the rules and 
regulation as dictated by the majority community, 
which is a gross violation of the fundamentals 
values of secularism, democracy and Human Rights.

· There was lot of discussion on the need of 
education for the minority community. However, a 
particular set of people who are 'educating' the 
masses against the minority communities through 
an ongoing campaign by means such as pamphlets, 
slogans and rumours and also the textbooks. The 
commission was asked if they could condemn such a 
mentality and take active steps to stop such 
anti-minority hate-campaign, which vitiates the 
atmosphere of harmony.

We are happy to note, as the only saving grace, 
at least one of the several suggestions came up 
on the floor has been highlighted, namely a 
documentation of the positive stories in which 
people had transcended the religious boundaries 
to save people of other religion from the carnage 
at the cost of their own lives.

We are also glad that NMC is planning to set up 
an advisory committee in Gujarat. It is indeed a 
welcome move. However, the selection of members 
for such committee has to be carefully identified.

We also appreciate the recommendation of NMC to 
set-up a commission for eradication of illiteracy 
among the minorities. We were also happy to note 
that NMC was prepared to help the minority 
groups, which wanted to form educational 
institutes or expand the existing one, were 
finding it difficult to implement their 
decisions, because of lack of co-operation from 
the State Government.

And lastly, the chairman of NMC in his press 
conference was asked about the noise inside the 
conference hall, if that was timely heard, the 
credibility of NMC would not have been at the 
peril!!!

Yours Sincerely

FR. VICTOR MOSES
KRISHNAKANT VAKHARIA
PROF. NISAR ANSARI
SEEBA GEORGE
DIGANT OZA
AHMED SHAIKH
INDUKUMAR JANI
S.H. HAKIMJI
S.T. SAFRI
K.A. CHHATRIWALA
S.F. MANSAWALA
[& others]

______


[4]


EPW Book Review
September 18, 2004

Exploding Myths on Conversions

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Identity, Hegemony and Resistance: Towards the 
Social History of Conversions in Orissa, 1800-2000
by Biswamoy Pati;
Three Essays Collective,
New Delhi, 2003;
pp 57+i-xvii, Rs 180.

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

Anshu Malhotra

The Three Essays Collective is a new and welcome 
entrant in the publishing world, adding an 
academic dimension to debates on contemporary 
issues through short, sharp essays presented in 
the pamphlet mould, without losing the rigour of 
scholarly work. The book under review is a 
handsomely produced tract on what has become a 
highly polemical issue, namely, the question of 
?conversions?. In recent years, there has been a 
range of sophisticated writing exploring issues 
like the different dimensions of varied 
missionary activity in India at least from the 
time of the Portuguese, the relationship of the 
missions with the colonial state and with 
indigenous society at various levels, and a need 
to understand the dynamics of 'conversions', 
whether high caste individual or low caste mass. 
The raucous and sustained anti-Christian rhetoric 
of the likes of the VHP, often culminating in 
grisly acts of violence such as the murder of 
Graham Staines and his sons in Orissa in 1999, 
and at the same time the gains made by the Sangh 
parivar in apparently 'reconverting' 
tribals/adivasis to Hinduism, has pushed some to 
delve into and elucidate on the angst of the 
Hindu Right against Christianity, and to 
understand their number-crunching politics in the 
predominantly tribal areas of states like 
Gujarat, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Orissa. 
Biswamoy Pati brings another dimension to this 
debate by challenging the very idea of 
'reconversions' of tribals and outcastes of 
Orissa, firstly by asserting that they were not 
'Hindu' to begin with and therefore the question 
of 're'conversion does not arise, and secondly 
and concomitantly explicating a long and gradual 
historical process of ?conversion? of tribals to 
Hinduism through their incorporation into the 
caste system, thereby putting a question mark on 
the assumed non-proselytising nature of Hinduism.

The questions Pati has raised about the apparent 
'innocence' of Hinduism with regard to the 
question of conversions as against 'culpable' 
proselytising faiths, or even the gradual 
processes of change and the accumulation of 
identities, may not be entirely new. A few 
historians have also raised similar issues; for 
example, Eaton (1994) has discussed the gradual 
Islamisation of the people of East Bengal, and 
Sarkar (2004) has recently asked what may have 
happened to the large Buddhist population of 
India, or how was the spread of Hindu culture in 
south-east Asia accomplished? Yet Pati's remains 
a very important argument, both because it 
challenges the common sense understanding of the 
nature of Hinduism, and at the same time draws 
attention to the multifarious pulls on the 
socio-economic and cultural world of the tribals 
of Orissa to point to the layers in the 
acculturation of a tribal to a Hindu over a long 
period in the state.

Drawing on the work of B P Sahu on early medieval 
Orissa, associated with the period of 
feudalisation and the emergence of castes, Pati 
shows both the transplanting of brahmins from the 
gangetic plain to Orissa and their creation from 
among the indigenous population, and also 
discusses the manner in which the adivasis were 
absorbed into Hindu society as sudras and their 
chiefs as kshatriyas. With the establishment of 
the colonial state in Orissa, this move towards 
Hinduisation got a further boost, especially as 
the agricultural interventions of the colonial 
state 'commercialisation, monetisation, and the 
establishment of irrigation projects' required 
pushing tribals to settled agriculture. Pati 
shows the complex ways in which the colonial 
state legitimised itself by encouraging select 
elements of Orissa's culture, established 
relations with often 'invented' princes, and was 
complicit in the desire of the princes to 
establish their claims to rule by conjuring 
ancient relation with the adivasis. Thus, along 
with Hinduisation, the 
'kshatriyaisation'/'rajputisation'/'oriyaisation' 
of certain groups was accomplished. On the other 
hand, colonial rule also unleashed a number of 
conflicts over issues like the erosion of rights 
over forest use by tribals, or the extraction of 
forced labour from them. Importantly, Pati shows 
how some groups took advantage of this economic 
situation to establish themselves within the 
caste system, for example, the rich peasants, 
while the marginal groups experienced a worsening 
scenario, like the Paharia tribals. Refreshingly, 
it is always this dialectic within the indigenous 
society in its relationship with Hinduism and the 
colonial state that informs the present work.

In a brief section, Pati also looks at the role 
of the nationalist movement, especially in its 
Gandhian phase, which may have played a role in 
further Hinduising some tribals and outcastes. 
The adoption of the name harijan by some, or 
turning to vegetarianism, were modes through 
which this occurred, though the author is 
quick to assert that this was also a legitimate 
route to achieving self-respect. The author 
points to the adoption by the post-colonial 
governments of some of the modes of the colonial 
bureaucracy in order to establish their 
legitimacy among the tribals. He also notes the 
often overt attempts made by governments, and not 
necessarily of the right, to exploit the issue of 
'reconversions'.

A little disappointingly however, Pati hardly 
discusses the issue of conversion to 
Christianity, giving a rather bland explanation 
that Christianity was not a 'serious option' as 
it was too closely associated with the 
exploitative colonial state. The relationship of 
the missionaries with the colonial state ranged 
from the collaborative to the oppositional, a 
contrariety that has been documented in a 
plethora of writings [Frykenberg 2003]. Indeed, 
his own materials seem to suggest greater 
complexities than he is willing to concede. The 
example of Gangpur Mundas that he discusses, who 
started a no-rent movement in 1939, which was 
visible among the Lutheran Mundas rather than the 
Roman Catholics, is a statement that is a pointer 
to the spectrum of relationship of the 
missionaries and the converts to the state and 
indigenous population, whose implications must be 
explored by the author. Again, when he talks of 
the 1950s conversion of the kandhas to 
Christianity, it cannot just be the absence of 
the colonial state that is salient here; a 
serious look is required at the 
continuities/discontinuities in the work of the 
missionaries in this area from an earlier period. 
Another question that requires serious comment is 
that of taking on a new identity, for example, 
that of a Christian in a public platform and 
performance. While the author has delineated, and 
rightly so, the process of a gradual accumulation 
of identities, the question of sharp breaks and a 
public taking on of a new persona remain equally 
important, and the politics this represents needs 
to be addressed. Perhaps the present work, more 
in the nature of a concise essay, did not permit 
the space to investigate these questions, and one 
looks forward to a larger study that will take 
them on.

These questions are important especially in the 
scenario painted by Pati in the postscript. The 
attempts at sharp polarisation of the people 
indulged in by the Hindu Right in the wake of the 
Staines murders, and the celebration of the 
murderer Dara Singh as a hero, the fear of 
disappearance of civil society, is a despairing 
situation that can be countered by historicising 
the process of identity formation, as the author 
has done, showing the multiple identities that 
continue to be nurtured, and the politics, both 
empowering and otherwise, behind it. Again, it is 
not enough to say that communalism is 'clouding' 
the 'real' world of poverty, hunger and 
unemployment, problems especially acute in 
Orissa, but also to understand why certain 
choices are made, and not others, in difficult 
conditions. The book is indubitably an important 
work both for exploding the myths that sustain 
the propaganda and programmes of the right and 
for underlining the necessity of understanding 
the historical processes that make us complex and 
multi-layered peoples.

References

Eaton, Richard M (1994): The Rise of Islam and 
Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760, Oxford University 
Press, New Delhi.
Frykenberg, Robert E (2003): 'Introduction: 
Dealing with Contested Definitions and 
Controversial Perspectives,' in the book edited 
by him, Christians and Missionaries in India: 
Cross-Cultural Communication since 1500, 
Routledge, Curzon, London, pp 1-23.
Sarkar, Sumit (2004): 'Christianity, Hindutva and 
the Question of Conversions' in his Beyond 
Nationalist Frames: Relocating Postmodernism, 
Hindutva, History, Permanent Black, Delhi, (first 
published 2002), pp 215-43.



______


[5]

In Modi's Gujarat, Hitler is a textbook hero
Harit Mehta
Times News Network[ Thursday, September 30, 2004 02:11:36 Am ]
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/868469.cms

_______


[6]

The News International
September 30, 2004

[INDIA-PAKISTAN] GETTING DOWN TO SERIOUS BUSINESS
by Praful Bidwai

When 18 Pakistani journalists from different 
media groups begin their six-day tour of the 
Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday, they 
will not just be witnessing and chronicling 
history - which is what they do professionally. 
They will be making history, or participating in 
its making. They would be free to meet whoever 
they wish. Meetings have already been pencilled 
in with people representing different shades of 
opinion, including separatists in and outside the 
Hurriyat Conference, Chief Minister Mufti 
Mohammed Sayeed, Kashmiri-Pandit refugees, and 
security officials too. Significantly, the team, 
which will tour Srinagar, Jammu, Anantnag and 
Gulmarg, will include two journalists from the 
Pakistani part of Kashmir, besides some eminent 
figures in the media, also published in the 
Indian press.

It is unnecessary to contrast this development 
with the singular bloody-mindedness with which 
India and Pakistan have so far blocked 
journalists from each other's countries. The 
"quota" of regular correspondents from one 
country stationed in the other's capital has 
dwindled to just three. The general policy, 
except for special events like conferences or 
Saarc meetings, is to keep the press off limits.

The new openness and transparency is a tribute to 
the perseverance of the South Asian Free Media 
Association, which has long lobbied for it. More 
significantly, it speaks of new levels of mutual 
comfort and self-assurance in both governments. 
Earlier, Pakistan had allowed Indian journalists 
to travel to its part of Kashmir only on rare 
occasions, like the wedding of Amanullah Khan's 
daughter and the late Abdul Ghani Lone's son in 
2000. Both governments used to bristle at the 
thought of legitimising any interaction between 
people from the two sides of Kashmir.

The new turn will prove momentous if it is 
followed up with reciprocal moves from Pakistan, 
and more exchange visits, and then transformed 
into policy. But the fact that it comes on top of 
a "historic" meeting between President Pervez 
Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 
New York could make it a catalyst, which might 
accelerate the process of India-Pakistan dialogue 
and detente.

The Singh-Musharraf meeting, which extended to 
almost an hour from the scheduled 15 minutes, was 
a breakthrough broadly comparable to the 
Vajpayee-Nawaz Sharif meeting in Lahore in 1999. 
If that summit began a thaw after years of frozen 
diplomatic relations amidst military hostility, 
the New York meeting allayed fears that the 
dialogue process, which has seen some ups and 
downs, might run into a roadblock. The meeting 
confirmed that both sides are seriously invested 
in dialogue. They will probably sincerely try to 
hammer out solutions to problems. Above all, it 
proved that, contrary to fears, Manmohan Singh 
too now claims ownership of the peace process. He 
has taken keen interest in it.

There is reason to believe that the ebullience 
evident in Singh's and Musharraf's comments at 
the press conference, and subsequently, is not 
the result of unwarranted and irrational 
exuberance. Rather, it speaks of genuine mutual 
understanding and no-nonsense yet empathetic 
appreciation of each other's stated positions, 
preferences and compulsions. This is why hopes 
that the dialogue will move forward at a decent 
clip are not misplaced - despite the cussedness 
of many bureaucrats, soldiers and diplomats who 
remain mired in the hot-cold war mindset that has 
attended India-Pakistan relations for 57 years. 
Now, there is likely to be a direct channel 
between Singh and Musharraf, which can be used to 
iron out last-minute wrinkles and add a dose of 
just that "out-of-the-box" thinking that is 
sometimes needed to cut Gordian knots.

The Singh-Musharraf meeting was preceded by talks 
between India's National Security Advisor J N 
Dixit and Pakistan's National Security Secretary 
Tariq Aziz, and "lateral" consultations with the 
United States, which was kept in the picture. 
There was an understanding that Musharraf's 
United Nations speech would have a conciliatory 
diplomatic content and tone; there would be none 
of the fiery rhetoric that marked his address 
last year. Or else, there would be no one-on-one 
meeting between him and Singh.

During their meeting, the two men apparently 
expressed themselves with candour on their 
respective commitments to resolving bilateral 
problems, and on the constraints within which 
they must work. Singh reportedly told Musharraf 
that he is not desperate for a solution - unlike 
Vajpayee, who was in a hurry to leave a "legacy" 
behind, despite the sangh parivar's aversion to 
Pakistan - but nevertheless genuinely keen on it. 
Rivalry with Pakistan will remain a drag and a 
source of insecurity for India. Peace is worthy.

Yet, Singh would have to work within the 
constraints imposed by democracy. Musharraf 
apparently raised questions about bringing some 
relief to the "people of Kashmir". He was 
emphatic that he would abide by the commitments 
made in the January 6 joint declaration. Both 
agreed that more deliberations would take place 
between officials, including another meeting in a 
month's time between Dixit and Aziz, to take the 
dialogue forward through more CBMs.

Going by reports, India and Pakistan have agreed 
soon to open consulates in Karachi and Mumbai, 
and to resolve their differences over the papers 
to be carried by passengers on the proposed 
Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus. In discussions so far, 
India insisted on passports. This was not 
acceptable to Pakistan, which fears that this 
would eventually interfere with its claim to 
Kashmir. Pakistan would prefer some other 
identity papers. Now, a compromise seems likely: 
Passports could be carried, but not stamped. 
Alternatively, a certificate of domicile or 
residence would do.

Meanwhile, talks on proposals for oil and gas 
pipelines from Iran to India via Pakistan, and 
from the Indian Punjab to the Pakistan Punjab, 
are gathering momentum. This is a project which 
would be mutually beneficial. It would be 
mindless to sacrifice it at the altar of 
hostility and suspicion.

Once the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus starts plying, 
it would naturally accelerate the process of 
consultation in the two parts of Kashmir and 
eventually facilitate a solution to a vexed 
problem. It is of the utmost importance that the 
two governments show flexibility, resilience and 
imagination in agreeing and implementing other 
CBMs too.

India should seriously consider Musharraf's 
reported offer on demilitarising Siachen and his 
assurance that Pakistani troops would not try to 
occupy the heights that Indian troops might 
vacate. The time has come to move forward in long 
strides, while of course verifying compliance 
with agreements.

A final word. The time has also come to 
reconsider the BJP's commitment to the peace 
process, and rethink Vajpayee's role as a 
peacemaker nonpareil. The BJP's reaction to the 
New York meeting was petty and petulant. No less 
a person than former Foreign Minister Yashwant 
Sinha accused Singh of compromising India's 
interests by failing to obtain a commitment from 
Musharraf on ending "cross-border terrorism". 
Some sangh acolytes even term Musharraf's offer 
on Siachen "a cunning ploy".

A commentator in the sangh parivar's house 
journal ("The Pioneer") reminds Indian 
policy-makers of a 1984 Parliamentary resolution 
on Kashmir, warns against peace, and pompously 
says foreign policy "is far too important to be 
made subordinate to the pleasure of exchanging 
Urdu couplets in a New York hotel". The BJP may 
eventually support the peace process - for 
pragmatic reasons. But its heart is not in it.


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

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necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.