SACW | 20 Oct 2004

[sacw]

South Asia Citizens Wire   |  20 October,  2004
via:  www.sacw.net

[This issue of the dispatch is dedicated to the 
memory of the veteran journalist and secular 
activist Batuk Vora. Batuk Vora died on the 19th 
of October, 2004. Deeply affected by the Gujarat 
massacres of 2002, he systematically sent his 
ideas and leads for SACW posts. . . ! ]

o o o

[1] Pakistan: Three raging storms (Shahid Javed Burki)
[2] Indo-US Ties Stuck In A Groove - 'Partnership' as illusion (Praful Bidwai)
[3] Bangladesh: Shaheen Akhtar: Committed 
feminist (Niaz Zaman and Tasneem Khalil)
[4] India: Drafting The Law To Prevent Communal Violence (Asghar Ali Engineer)
[5] India: Essay Competition:Democracy versus 
Communal Fascism: Why India Needs to Remain a 
Democracy

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

[1]

DAWN
19 October 2004

THREE RAGING STORMS
By Shahid Javed Burki

Karachi lost its economic dynamism as a consequence of a series of
ill-advised actions taken by a succession of 
Pakistani leaders over a period of four
decades. It all began with the decision of President Ayub Khan to move the
country's capital from Karachi to a new city he 
was to call Islamabad. That move
deprived the city's well-educated, well-trained, highly experienced and
politically inclined work force of jobs in the government sector.

A significant number of these people belonged to the Mohajir community. This
community had come to Karachi, pulled by the promise of a better life in the
capital city of the country they or their parents had fought hard to create.
The move of the capital, therefore, was more than an economic loss. It was also
a kind of betrayal.

The second shock was felt by the city a decade 
after the decision by9? military leader to 
relocate the country's capital. While Ayub Khan
punctured the public sector, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto inflicted an equally serious
blow on the city's private economy. A series of nationalizations of privately
held assets ordered by Bhutto devastated private enterprise in the city. Even
when Ayub Khan took with him government functionaries to Rawalpindi-Islamabad,
there was still a great deal of economic life left in Karachi.

Some of it was, in fact, the consequence of the model of economic development
the military administration had pursued in the 'sixties. This model had
produced a vibrant private economy. In the 1960s, 
Pakistan developed a commercial
banking and insurance industry that was remarkable in its scope, depth and
reach for a country at its stage of development.

This was not the only part of private enterprise that had grown under the
patronage of Ayub Khan. The Karachi Stock Exchange also worked remarkably well.
It was able to draw capital from the increasingly prosperous upper and
middle-income groups into industry, commerce and 
finance. KSE's market capitalization
increased significantly during the period of Ayub Khan. During that time
established as well as new entrepreneurs used 
"initial public offerings" - or IPOs
- to mobilize private savings and put them to use in their enterprises.

Karachi's economy would have survived the departure of the civil servants
from the city had Zulfikar Ali Bhutto not killed private entrepreneurship. That
Bhutto played that role in Karachi's economic travails is surprising since his
affection for the city was not hidden from view and manifested itself in many
different ways. Not well tutored in economics, he seemed not to have realized
that by killing the private sector he was killing the goose that had laid so
many golden eggs in the city.

Bhutto's nationalization of large-scale industry, finance, insurance and
large-scale commerce drained modern sector jobs from the city's economy. Once
again, the burden of this change in public policy fell on the shoulders of the
Mohajir community.

Karachi's growing economic malaise didn't go unnoticed by Bhutto. One way of
addressing the city's problems, he thought, was to bring large public sector
construction projects to the city. Bhutto realized that it would take more than
erecting monuments at some busy roundabouts to create jobs the young needed.
Something considerably bigger had to be done. The way Bhutto went about
reviving Karachi's fortunes laid the ground for ethnic conflict in the city -
between the Mohajirs and the Pushtuns.

It was during the Bhutto period and mostly because of his efforts that
Pakistan undertook one of the largest construction projects in its history, the
building of a steel mill near Karachi. The project provided new employment
opportunities first to labour from the various 
ethnic colonies that had sprung up
around the city, and subsequently to the workers 
who manned the mill once it was
operational. It also attracted new migrants to the city from the country's
northern areas.

The pattern of job creation by the construction and operation of the steel
mills offers a useful insight into the first of the many conflicts that were to
turn Karachi into one of the developing world's more turbulent cities. As with
most other large projects, the mill was constructed by workers drawn
predominantly from the Pushtun, Punjabi and Kashmiri communities.

Once the mill became operational, the construction workers were sent home and
the thousands of people employed to operate the mill were hired mostly from
the Mohajir community. Since no other major construction job was undertaken,
unemployment levels in the Pushtun communities increased significantly.

The workers employed in the mill found a political patron once the Mohajir
Qaumi Movement became a potent force, something that happened after Bhutto left
the political scene, a development to which I will return momentarily. Since
the mill was a public sector enterprise, the MQM was able to use its political
clout in the 1980s to expand the payroll with the employment of the members of
the community it represented. Some of the employees were "ghost workers" in
the sense that they did little real work but turned up only to draw their
monthly paycheques.

When in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, ethnic violence erupted in
Karachi the steel mill became one of several 
battlegrounds. The immediate cause was
Islamabad's attempt to improve the efficiency of the mills by reducing the
number of workers it employed. This retrenchment the Mohajir community was not
prepared to accept. It was now sufficiently agitated to practise a new kind of
politics - that of challenging the authority of the state by resorting to
violence.

But let me return to the chronological history of the development of the
factors that came together to bring so much violence to Karachi. After Bhutto's
departure, another national leader stepped in the 
late seventies and eighties to
adopt policies that compounded Karachi's growing problems. The new military
president's approach to Karachi's growing economic and political difficulties
was not motivated by any desire to find solutions for the city's failing
economy. Ziaul Haq sought a political opportunity for himself from the city's
difficulties.

He was in search of ways to soak popular support out of Bhutto's political
party the PPP, which had a significant presence in the city. He tried to get to
that goal by encouraging the disgruntled Mohajir community to coalesce into a
new political force, the Mohajir Qaumi Movement or the MQM. It didn't seem to
bother the military president that the development of politics on ethnic basis
in a city with so many ethnic fault lines meant courting long-term disaster.

Even this might not have happened had President Zia offered some political
space within his system to the party whose growth he was promoting. But Zia was
not inclined to develop political institutions. Once the PPP's influence had
been checkmated in Karachi, he left the MQM to its devices and opened space in
the city for the forces representing radical Islam.

The MQM quickly gained political potency in the eighties and the nineties by
practising the politics of agitation and violence. It acquired considerable
support for itself as reactionary forces normally do in periods of economic
distress.

The MQM, in its formative period, was a reactionary movement in the sense
that it was reacting against the established economic, political and social
order. The organization adopted the use of violence as a political tool for
intimidating its followers as well as its 
opponents. A new element was thus added to
those that were already present to turn Karachi into a violent place.

It takes at least two large ethnic groups to produce ethnic politics and
violence spurred by ethnic interests. As discussed in the first article of this
series on Karachi (September 28, 2004), by the 
time the city's economy went into
a tailspin, it had two distinct and spatially separated ethnic groups - the
Mohajir and the Pushtuns.

There was little social interaction between these two communities. While the
loss of opportunities in both public and private sectors had turned a segment
of the Mohajir community towards the politics of violence, the Pushtuns were
still reasonably satisfied with their situation. This changed suddenly with an
incident at Sohrab Goth.

The Sohrab Goth community of Pushtuns owes its origin to an entrepreneur who
set up a store in the village of that name in Karachi's outskirts, selling
imported merchandise smuggled into the country. 
Soon Sohrab Goth became the site
of a "Bara" market, so called because of a similar bazaar in a village of that
name, near Peshawar, which also sold smuggled goods.

In 1981, thousands of refugees from Afghanistan moved to Karachi and settled
in the vicinity of Sohrab Goth. With the Afghans came drugs and weapons and
Sohrab Goth became a part of a long supply chain. This chain linked the poppy
producing areas in Afghanistan, small drug processing plants in Pakistan's
tribal areas, and smuggling centres such as 
Sohrab Goth that fed the international
drug markets.

Islamabad came under intense pressure from a number of foreign governments
and agencies to move against this community of Pushtuns. This was done on
December 12, 1986, when the government sent 
bulldozers to demolish the shops and
houses that were alleged to be a part of the long drug chain. Reaction to the
operation came quickly; two days later, on December 16, hundreds of Sohrab Goth
residents descended on Orangi, a community of mostly Mohajir residents.

What ensued was ethnic violence of the type Pakistan had not known in its
history. It left 170 dead and thousands injured. 
For several days, the government
seemed to have lost control over Karachi's outskirts. The army was called in
to bring peace to the city. Karachi now had another angry group to contend
with - the Pushtun community.

While the Mohajir community's anger was channelled into political violence by
the MQM, the Pushtuns sought solace in religion. Radical Islam along with a
number of its institutions - in particular "deeni madressahs" - had arrived in
Karachi along with the Mohajir community in 1947, at the time of Pakistan's
birth. But it was not until the late eighties that it became a formidable
political force. That happened for a number of 
reasons and Sohrab Goth was only one
of them.

The other contributing factors included the first war in Afghanistan, the
arrival of political zealots who had fought in 
that war, and the preaching in the
religious seminaries by conservative ulema. As is now well-recognized,
radical Islam has flourished in situations of 
economic distress; in the late 1980s
and most of 1990s Karachi faced serious economic difficulties. It presented a
good opportunity for radical Islam to take root.

Three raging storms have hovered over Karachi's sky for several years now.
These are the storms caused by economic difficulties faced by the young and the
failure of the city to provide basic services, by ethnic rivalries that cannot
be contained by the political system, and, finally, by the arrival of radical
Islam. Will these storms clear and bring light into city once again? The
answer to that question depends on how the state 
tackles some of the problems that
have produced this turbulence in the first place.

______



[2]


The Praful Bidwai Column
October 18, 2004
--
INDO-US TIES STUCK IN A GROOVE - 'PARTNERSHIP' AS ILLUSION

By Praful Bidwai

Clever technocrats have ingenious ways of 
dressing up bad projects. One way is to declare 
that the problem project was only a "pilot", 
"prototype", or the "first phase" of a larger 
scheme, of which the "second phase" will follow 
(at a higher expense, of course). India and the 
United States have played that very trick by 
announcing the end of the "first phase" of the 
grandiosely termed "Next Steps in Strategic 
Partnership" (NSSP)-launched less than a year 
ago-and the beginning of "second phase". Last 
week, under-secretary of commerce Kenneth Juster 
visited New Delhi to discuss the "second phase" 
with Indian leaders.

Yet, going by past experience, and by US policy 
on defence-related matters, the "second phase" 
may turn out to be equally unspectacular. The 
"first phase" was to open up India's access to US 
nuclear and space exports and allow increased 
trade in "dual-use" goods (which have both 
military and civilian applications). But what did 
NSSP actually achieve? At the end of the day, 
Washington lifted sanctions imposed after the 
Pokharan-II blasts upon Indian Space Research 
Organisation (ISRO) headquarters, relaxed 
licensing requirements for certain low-technology 
dual-use items for ISRO subsidiaries, and 
liberalised exports of some equipment intended 
for "balance-of-plant" use at Indian nuclear 
reactors already under International Atomic 
Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. 
("Balance-of-plant" refers to the non-nuclear, 
back-end part of atomic power stations, like 
turbines, generators and control systems.)

This adds up to very little. ISRO headquarters 
performs an administrative role. The production 
functions are handled by its seven subsidiaries, 
which manufacture propulsion systems, rockets, 
satellites, etc. They remain sanctioned. The 
low-end items the subsidiaries import comprise 
all kinds of goods, from pins and clips, to 
third-country products using US-made silicon 
chips or software. Most of these are relatively 
easily available from alternative (including 
Indian domestic) sources. They don't contribute 
to high-technology trade-promoting which is 
NSSP's rationale.

Finally, what of the relaxation of export 
controls in regard to nuclear power? There are 
115 items subject to such controls. Of these, 103 
are already covered by multilateral controls 
under the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (or the London 
Club). The remaining 12 are governed by US 
domestic laws. Only 4 of India's 14 nuclear power 
reactors can possibly import these 12 items: 
Tarapur I-II and Rajasthan I-II alone are subject 
to IAEA safeguards. Of the 12 items, only two are 
relevant for balance-of-plant use: generators and 
special-alloy valves. But several Indian 
companies make these!

So the new licensing regime is hardly "liberal". 
As if to rub in the point, Washington on 
September 29 imposed fresh sanctions on 14 Indian 
"entities" on suspicion that these might have 
helped Iran develop mass-destruction weapons. 
They include two former chairmen of Nuclear Power 
Corporation (Y.S.R. Prasad and C.M. Surender), 
one of whom visited Iran as part of an IAEA 
delegation!

NSSP's "second phase" might at best see-if India 
negotiates extremely hard-some loosening of 
export controls on space satellites and 
components, which Washington treats as 
"munitions"! But dramatic changes are unlikely. 
The US is bound by its domestic laws like the 
Non-Proliferation Act 1978 as well as its 
commitments to voluntary multilateral agreements 
like the NSG, Missile Technology Control Regime, 
the Wassenaar Arrangement and the Australia Group.

Washington has repeatedly said its "strategic 
partnership" must be "consistent with US domestic 
laws and national security and foreign policy 
objectivesŠ" As former deputy secretary of state 
Strobe Talbott put it: "Right now the US and 
India may feel that they are moving in the same 
direction but their destination could be 
different Š There's this great fixation in India 
with NSSP, but it's going to set Indians up for a 
great disappointmentŠ. India and the US are not 
opening a new chapter, they are merely turning 
over a new leaf in the same chapter."

There are four major lessons here. First, the 
current discussion on NSSP is essentially a 
hangover from the previous (NDA) government. The 
Vajpayee government showed irrational exuberance 
about "strategic partnership" and minimised the 
asymmetrical, skewed nature of India-US 
relations. Mr Talbott in his book Engaging India 
reveals that Mr Vajpayee assigned a special role 
to his confidant Jaswant Singh just before the 
May 1998 nuclear tests. Breaking protocol, Mr 
Singh called on President Clinton's special envoy 
Bill Richardson at the US ambassador's 
residence-something senior ministers aren't 
expected to do. He conveyed the message that "he 
was under instructions from Vajpayee to serve as 
a discreet-and, if necessary, secret-channel to 
Washington, to be used for anything sensitive 
that the US leadership wished to convey to the 
Prime Minister".

Neither such kowtowing, nor the 14 rounds of 
Talbott-Singh talks put India-US relations on an 
even keel or averted reprimand from the Security 
Council and the G-8. Even after bilateral 
relations improved after 2000-thanks largely to 
extraneous factors like the business success of 
Silicon Valley Indians-, their basic character 
didn't change. For all its rhetoric, Washington 
won't share high-technology goods with India nor 
agree to build an exclusive relationship-even as 
it designated Pakistan a "major non-NATO ally".

Second, Mr Jaswant Singh was misguided in rushing 
to welcome Mr Bush's May 2001 announcement of 
plans to deploy a Ballistic Missile Defence (or 
"Son of Star Wars") system to give the US a 
shield against alien missiles. He outdid even the 
ultra-loyal British. BMD will dangerously change 
the rules of the global nuclear-deterrence game. 
Mr Singh's calculation-he was in ecstasy when Mr 
Bush "dropped in" on him-was that the US would 
share this extremely advanced, cutting-edge 
technology with India. The new US ambassador, 
David Mulford, has also since made alluring 
references to Indo-US cooperation on BMD having 
gone "beyond mere talking".

Mr Singh made a huge, morally and militarily 
untenable, departure from India's established 
opposition to BMD and militarisation of space. 
His calculation was downright naïve. Washington 
is most unlikely to share with India-and even 
with its European allies-a cutting-edge 
technology such as detecting missile launches 
with satellites and then intercepting them at 
high speed-akin to hitting a bullet travelling at 
24,000 kmph with another bullet travelling at the 
same speed. The US isn't sharing even the much 
simpler Theatre Missile Defence technology with a 
close military ally (Japan) for whom it's 
developing it. Besides, a regional TMD will 
neutralise Pakistan's missiles and create 
"imbalance", to "correct" which Pakistan will 
want its own TMD.

Third, if Indian policy-makers really think that 
friendship/partnership with America will help 
India enter the Nuclear Club, they are deluding 
themselves. There is no way that the US can 
dispense with the existing global 
non-proliferation regime (of which only India, 
Pakistan and Israel have stayed out). The US may 
not fulfil its obligations under NPT to disarm 
nuclear weapons, but it sees the Treaty as a 
bulwark against the spread of nuclear weapons.

The NPT cannot be opened up for signature to more 
nuclear weapons-states (barring the 5 which 
conducted nuclear explosions before 1967). It 
could be amended to permit an additional protocol 
for India's and Pakistan's signature. But such a 
"5+2" formula would oblige India and Pakistan to 
accept additional arms control measures-including 
limitations on fissile material production. But 
that's precisely what India has been trying to 
avoid. This would be a fool's bargain.

We must pause and think about what kind of 
high-technology or dual-use goods we really need. 
We have long attached iconic, totem-like value to 
technology for its own sake. For years, India 
begged the US to sell it a Cray-XMP 
supercomputer. One such processor was procured. 
But it sat for years in the Meteorological 
Department, and has added nothing to the quality 
of our monsoon forecasts! Meanwhile, India's 
Centre for Development of Advanced Computing 
produced the even faster PARAM! Do we really want 
America's nuclear power technology, which has 
proved a market failure? In the US, no new 
reactor has been ordered for 26 years. Is nuclear 
power the path to energy security, rather than 
renewable sources, including biomass, wind, and 
solar?

Finally, there are irreconcilable, fundamental 
differences between Indian and US views of and 
plans for the world. The US aspires to Empire and 
domination. It wants to reshape the world by 
changing the rules of international politics. 
India's interest lies in a multi-polar world 
where might is not right, and peaceful resolution 
of disputes is possible. For the US, nuclear 
disarmament isn't a long-term goal; its' at best 
a legal and moral obligation to be ducked or 
defied. For India, disarmament was an ideal for 
50 years-until the NDA violated it. It still 
remains a long-term objective, and a precondition 
for a peaceful world. The US imposes unequal 
trade and investment policies on the world 
through the WTO and the World Bank/IMF. India 
declares victory when it can resist these, as it 
did at Cancun!

There is a limit beyond which India and the US 
cannot be partners. They can reduce friction in 
their relations and reach understanding on a few 
issues. They can certainly improve their economic 
and political relations. But "strategic 
partnership" is an illusion.-end-


______


[3]

New Age
October 16, 2004

SHAHEEN AKHTAR: COMMITTED FEMINIST
Shaheen Akhtar has published two novels and three 
volumes of short stories. Recently she met
Niaz Zaman and Tasneem Khalil and discussed her 
work at Ain O Salish Kendra, her writing and 
women's issues in Bangladesh


New Age: You are a maker of documentary films as 
well as a fiction writer. Is there any conflict 
between these two aspects of your work?
    Shaheen Akhtar: I have made documentary films 
as part of my work. The fiction I write for 
myself. The themes are completely my own choice. 
My fiction is quite autobiographical, based on my 
experience, on things that I have seen. The 
themes of my documents were based on what my 
office required from me.
    NA: How does your later fiction differ from what you wrote earlier?
    SA: My early writings were very abstract. But 
my novel Talash is different. Before I wrote it I 
was doing some research for Ain O Salish Kendra, 
interviewing women who had been raped in 1971. 
This research had some impact on my fiction 
writing. The theme of Talash relates to 1971. I 
hadn't thought that I would write fiction about 
1971 but when I became involved in the ASK Oral 
History Project, about women who were victimized 
in various ways during the Liberation War, I 
realized that there was another face of war. 
Everyone talks about women being raped in 1971, 
but what was the reality? There are many things 
that have been glossed over, many things that we 
do not know. It was to know this reality that I 
interviewed many women even outside the project.
    NA: You have mentioned that it was the 
politics of the state as well as of the family 
that hid the truth by relegating what happened to 
numbers and statistics.
    SA: Yes. For example, there were a number of 
women rehabilitation centres where women had to 
fill up forms with their names, addresses etc. 
But the womenís addresses were destroyed so that 
when they went back to their own families, their 
identities would be hidden.
    NA: Can you tell us something about the story 
of Talash? Who is the main character of the book?
    SA: The main character is a young woman and 
the story follows her as she leaves Dhaka. The 
war begins and she is captured and put into a 
camp. There are a number of sub-plots, but hers 
is the main story.
    NA: Most readers of Talash would say that the 
writer is a feminist? Would you agree?
    SA: If one writes about women, and from their 
perspective, I suppose one would be a feminist.
    NA: Talash was your second novel. What was 
your first novel and how did it differ from 
Talash?
    SA: My first novel was Palabar Path Nei 
(2000). And it had a straightforward linear 
structure. For Talash I had done some sort of 
research and had a definite idea of what I wanted 
to do. But because it was not based on my 
experience, I would have to stop my writing and 
go back to my interview notes.
    NA: Did you get help from libraries and books?
    SA: No. For example, no books give any 
information on what life was like in the camps 
where these women were. No interviewer has gone 
into any detail. Yes, they asked how many people 
tortured the girls and for how long, but no one 
really bothered to find out what the daily lives 
of these women who stayed in the camps for days 
on end was like. Some women were so desperate 
that they committed suicide. It was for details 
like these that I needed to do research. Perhaps 
I will not have to go into such details for any 
other book.
    NA: So you really had to do a lot of research for this book?
    SA: Yes, I collected several notebooks in the 
prices of preparing for this book. Sometimes 
there was a lot of information which I couldn't 
use. I realized I was writing fiction but there 
was information that I wanted to give. I had to 
ask myself how I could do this.
    NA: How long did it take you to write this book?
    SA: Three years. Doing research and writing. 
Of course, I also wrote other things while 
writing Talash a couple of short stories 
especially when I seemed to have got stuck.
    NA: Have your short stories been published?
    SA: Yes, one anthology has been published from India and two from Dhaka.
    NA: What do you think of the recent movement 
to use the Purba Bangla, the East Bengal, dialect 
for creative writing?
    SA: I don't know whether you can call it a 
movement. And I don't quite like the term Purba 
Bangla. After all there are other dialects as 
well, thereís the Chittagonian dialect, the 
Sylheti dialect and so on. Of course, I agree 
that the Kolkata Bangla which seems to have 
become the standard literary Bangla is not the 
language we use in our everyday life. So of 
course we do not have to use it in our creative 
writing. Writing must reflect what we see around 
us and be in the language that we hear around us.
    NA: Do you consciously try to do this in your writing?
    SA: I don't know whether I do it consciously, 
but a lot of this has entered Talash since the 
book is about people of this part. When I think 
about a certain character, that characterís 
language also enters my consciousness. We used to 
have a complex about ourselves regarding our 
language; I don't think we have this inferiority 
complex any more. We don't think that our words 
or phrases are inferior to the West Bengal 
standard. I think that this consciousness has 
affected all our writers, whether they take part 
in a Purba Bangla language movement or no. In the 
seventies and eighties, if you attended any 
literary gathering, you would find our 
intellectuals trying to talk in the Kolkata 
style. Today they don't. Today our writers talk 
in their own dialects.
    NA: Have any of your writings been translated?
    SA: Yes, a few of my short stories have been 
translated. Amit Chaudhuri has taken a chapter 
about Kolkata from my novel Palabar Path Nei for 
a book he is doing on Kolkata. I think Penguin is 
supposed to be publishing it. And Urvashi 
Butalia, who was formerly with Kali for Women and 
has now started a publishing house of her own, 
has expressed an interest in an English 
translation of Talash.
    NA: Will the book on Kolkata represent writers 
from both Bangladesh and West Bengal?
    SA: I think the book is trying to represent the new generation of writers.
    NA: Letís return to the question of feminism. 
Many women writers, even when they write about 
women and about discriminations against women, 
refuse to call themselves feminist. But you 
accept the label that you are a feminist writer. 
What exactly do you mean when you say that you 
are a feminist writer?
    SA: As a woman, there are some experiences 
that I have had that inspire and motivate me to 
write fiction. And it is as woman that I write 
about these experiences.
    NA: What differences do you see between a male writer and a woman writer?
    SA: Womenís experiences are prominent in their 
writings. Perhaps men can also write about these, 
but womenís writings would be more detailed. And 
I don't think a woman has to proclaim herself a 
feminist to be one. For example the Urdu writer 
Ismat Chugtai. Her writings were feminist, 
weren't they? Womenís writings are about felt 
experiences, from within, in a way that menís 
writings cannot be.
    NA: Should women writers have an agenda?
    SA: I donít know what you mean by an agenda. 
And I don't think that writers should have 
agendas. There should be something spontaneous 
about writing. Writers should write from their 
experience. My experience will be different from 
the experiences of someone else. Writers should 
write from the self. This is something I've also 
thought about. A lot of Indian women of the 
earlier generation have written autobiographies. 
Kamala Das, for example. But I don't think any 
woman from either of the Bengals has written in 
quite this way.
     NA: A lot of women choose a male protagonist. 
Are your protagonists always women?
    SA: No, I have also used a male protagonist 
for some of my fiction. But most of my fiction 
has been woman-centred.
    NA: In which story did you choose a male protagonist? And why?
    SA: This story was inspired by my father. It 
was about  71. The story is about a man who tries 
to escape from his village because he knows that 
the army will attack, but he is finally unable to 
leave.
    NA: Have you written other stories about '71?
    SA: There are about three stories that I've 
written about  71. One of them is called, 'Tini 
Guro Maricher Behabar Jantein' (She knew how to 
use pepper).
    NA: There has been a lot of controversy about 
Taslima Nasreen. What are your views about her?
    SA: I think that she has written about a lot 
of important issues. She is a fluent writer and 
her columns were very well written. She had a 
large readership. On the other hand, I feel that 
some of her writings led her to being used. 
Still, I will say that she is a very courageous 
writer. But perhaps. . .
    NA: Do all her writings have great depth?
    SA: I don't think it is necessary for all 
oneís writings to have great depth. Many writings 
can be interesting without being of great depth. 
But I think that she has become famous not 
because of the depth of her writings but because 
of the controversy that surrounded her writings. 
There is something political about the matter.
    NA: But wouldn't you agree that Taslima 
Nasreen has played an important part, 
particularly in the lives of the younger 
generation?
    SA: Yes, of course. The way she has written 
about womenís issues has reached a lot of young 
women and made them aware in a way they weren't 
previously. They were able to identify with her 
writing. About her present writing, I would say, 
however, that she is catering to the market. I 
think that she has become used to the limelight 
and she doesn't want the light to move away from 
upon her. She is afraid of being in the dark. 
After this piece of writing I think she will try 
to be even more daring
    NA: Has any writer influenced you?
    SA: Not that I know.
    NA: What has been the reaction of literary critics to you?
    SA: Not very good, I'm afraid. However, 
recently Pervez Hussain wrote about my writing in 
Prothom Alo. The next week Sumon Rahman wrote 
about my novel in just two paragraphs. I wouldn't 
call it praise, but I think he understood what my 
novel was about. Very little has been written 
about me, perhaps it is because I fall outside 
the literary circle, the literary network. I 
don't have much interaction with other writers. I 
came to writing late, as you know, after working 
in documentary films.
    NA: What do you expect from literary critics?
    SA: That they explain my shortcomings. I would 
like to learn something from them. So far, there 
is nothing I can learn from them.
    NA: What is your opinion of the next generation of writers?
    SA: Some of them are very good. Audity 
Falguni, for example, and Papri Rahman. I think 
that there are some brilliant male writers as 
well, but I would say that they are mostly 
writing poetry, not fiction.
    NA: You work and write. Which is full time? Your writing or your work?
    SA: I work from 9 - 3.00. But mentally my 
writing occupies much more of my time.
    NA: Do you consider yourself a writer?
    SA: I would love to do so, but perhaps I have 
to write more and better in order to call myself 
a writer.
    NA: Thank you very much for your time.
    SA: Thank you.

______


[4]

(Secular Perspective October 16-31,2004)

DRAFTING THE LAW TO PREVENT COMMUNAL VIOLENCE

Asghar Ali Engineer

The Gujarat carnage had shaken the country very 
badly and it was felt that there should be a 
separate law to prevent recurrence of such 
carnage resulting in the death of hundreds of 
innocent people and bring shame to our country in 
the comity of nations. The UPA Government also 
promised such a law in its Common Minimum 
Programme but it is hardly its priority. It is no 
more talking about it nor is it preparing any 
draft for discussion.

Some NGOs like the Centre for Study of Society 
and Secularism and Communalism Combat took 
initiative to prepare such a draft and circulate 
it for discussion among other NGOs and other 
concerned people. Surprisingly Mr. Ajit Singh of 
U.P. also took initiative and drafted a bill to 
this effect and a discussion was held in Lucknow. 
We will throw some light on these drafts here. It 
is felt that such law must come into effect as 
early as possible so that future recurrence of 
communal violence may be stopped.

Before we proceed with the draft law it is also 
important to point out that some police and IAS 
officers who were invited to participate in the 
discussion on the draft bill pointed out that 
there was no need for such special law as present 
laws are sufficient to take care of any such 
situation. Problem is that these laws are not 
honestly implemented. The need, therefore, is to 
implement these laws effectively and punish the 
culprits who create disturbances in the society.

This is also a valid point of view.  The laws are 
not implemented and not only this the guardian of 
law themselves violate the law i.e. the police. 
The provisions of IPC section 153 (A), if 
enforced honestly can prevent the provocateurs 
from delivering provocative speeches resulting in 
outbreak of violence. How far the police is 
responsible for this state of affairs? It would 
be of course unfair to blame the police alone 
though the police should also share part of the 
blame.

In fact the complicity of the politicians is no 
less responsible. If the state government is 
determined to prevent violence no communal riot 
can occur and if it does, it can be checked 
within no time. The best examples of this are 
states of West Bengal and Bihar. In West Bengal 
no major communal riot has taken place for last 
27 years since the Left Government is in power. 
The West Bengal Government has issued strict 
instructions to the police not to allow any 
communal riot to take place and in the event of 
any riot taking place the police officers of the 
area will be held responsible and punished. It 
has worked very well. Similarly since Lalu Yadav 
took over in Bihar no riots have occurred though 
Bihar was highly sensitive state. The last major 
riot in Bihar took place in Sitamarhi in 1993. 
Mr. Yadav controlled it effectively.

But in most of other states the governments have 
no will to control communal riot as it is part of 
their political culture. Some chief ministers 
have even encouraged communal violence for their 
own selfish political gains. A chief minister in 
Maharashtra in early eighties even made a 
political deal with the Shiv Sena Supremo to 
unleash communal violence for his personal 
political gain and Bhivandi-Bombay witnessed 
major outbreak of communal violence in 1984. 
Hundreds were killed and properties worth crores 
of rupees were completely destroyed.

Thus much depends on political will. In Gujarat 
carnage it is well known that Mr. Narendra Modi 
not only looked the other way when communal 
carnage was taking place but even allowed his 
cabinet ministers to lead marauding and pillaging 
mobs. This clearly shows that Narendra Modi was 
encouraging the violence. The violence went on 
unchecked for months. The police openly sided 
with rioters and marauders.

  If the existing law is violated with such 
impunity what the new law will achieve? This 
question of course cannot be dismissed lightly. 
But still there is some point in drafting the new 
law. This will be a Central enactment. In fact 
law and order is a state subject. Normally Centre 
does not interfere with law and order matter in 
the states. But when state fails to ensure law 
and order the Indian Constitution makes a 
provision in the form of articles 355 and 356 to 
intervene.

The proposed law will be a Central enactment and 
if a state government totally fails to check 
widespread communal violence the provisions of 
this law will apply and the Centre will intervene 
to check the violence. But if in the state and 
Centre same party governments are there the 
Central government may be reluctant to take 
action. When Gujarat carnage took place BJP was 
in power both in state as well as in the Centre 
and when in Mumbai widespread communal violence 
broke out after demolition of Babri Masjid in 
1992 the Congress happened to be in power both in 
Maharashtra as well as in the Centre and hence no 
action was taken in both cases by the Centre.

But due to regionalisation of political power and 
possibility of only alliances of parties ruling 
at the Centre such probabilities of same party 
government both at the centre and in the state is 
becoming less and less. And even if it does 
happen and such a law against sectarian violence 
does exist one can file a case under this law in 
the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has much 
better record for delivering justice to the 
aggrieved and hence it can be relied on enforcing 
provisions of such a law if state or Central 
governments fail in their duty.

Thus seen from whatever angle this law does have 
its validity. The Centre for Study of Society and 
Secularism took initiative to draft this law and 
requested Justice Daud to prepare a draft for 
discussion. A meeting of justices, eminent 
lawyers, retired and on duty police officers, 
writers and social activists were invited to 
discuss the draft.  The draft provides both for 
pre and post violence situations.

The Bill was originally called the “Act to 
Prevent and Punish Genocide” but after discussion 
it was agreed to drop the word genocide and 
replace it with “sectarian violence”.  The 
statement of objects and reasons of the Bill 
says, among other things, “For more than 5 
decades after getting independence this country 
had to contend with several genocides 
conveniently classified as communal riots, caste 
conflicts, and group differences. These carnages 
are a blot on the nation and seriously prevent 
its emergence as a strong, united and throbbing 
democracy. The origin of every group riot lies in 
something insignificant or obscure. It is the 
spark lit by the evildoers who have driven the 
targeted group into a corner by painting it as 
treacherous, lecherous, unreliable and 
unscrupulous.  The yellow press, which 
unfortunately has a fairly large readership in 
this country, is not slow to embellish accounts 
received by it and knowingly publish accounts, 
which are untrue, or exaggerations of what has 
really transpired.”

The Bill states that “With a view to prevent 
group-hatred and violence emanating there from 
and in furtherance of the duty cast upon the 
Union Government under Article 355 of the 
Constitution of India, it is hereby enacted as 
follows” and then various sections of the Bill 
follows.

In Section 4 of the Act it is states “wherever 
within the territory of India, (a) speaks and or 
writes in any manner or publish matters tending 
to incite hatred or ill-will against any group or 
individual belonging to a group, resident of any 
State on account of their or his group 
identities; (b) aids or abates the physical, 
social or economic harm to any person or persons 
on the grounds of their affiliation to any such 
group; (c) advocates the perpetration or 
perpetuation of any injury to any group or 
individual belonging to that group as a 
constituent of that group, shall be punished with 
imprisonment of either descriptions for seven 
years and also with fine.”

The section 5 of the Bill provides for 
registration, the investigation and the trial of 
offences falling under this Act shall be in 
accordance with the provisions of the Criminal 
Procedure Code, 1973. Under Section 6 of the Bill 
the Central Government shall have the power to 
issue directions to all authorities functioning 
in the land to do or refrain from doing that will 
trigger, aggravate or give rise to disharmony 
amongst groups of people in any part of the 
country. The authority so directed shall be bound 
to carry out the directions given.

The Act also provides for compulsory inquiry of 
all such acts of sectarian violence.  Thus it 
says after every act of genocide irrespective of 
the number of those killed, wounded or maimed and 
the value of the property destroyed, the Central 
Government shall appoint a Commissioner to 
ascertain the perpetrators of the violence and 
destruction of the property, whether it be on 
individual or organisations, if the State 
Government has not done so. The report will have 
to be submitted in any case within 12 months of 
appointment of Commissioner and in section 8 the 
Central Government on the basis of the 
Commissioner’s report shall compensate the 
bereaved families, the injured persons and those 
suffering financial damage as a consequence of 
the rioting, in full.

Thus this Bill will also take care of proper 
compensation as today it tends to be arbitrary. 
It will mot depend on the whims of the chief 
minister. The section 10 of the Bill also 
provides for debarring the perpetrators, abettors 
and initiators of the violence from contesting or 
canvassing elections to any representative body 
for a period of 10 years. Today the perpetrators 
not only contest and win elections but also 
become ministers or chief ministers as it 
happened in Gujarat.

Thus enactment of such a bill will greatly help 
control communal violence and Gujarat like 
situation will not repeat. If the state 
government fails to act it will be the duty of 
the Central Government to intervene and check 
violence and punish the culprits. It is for the 
UPA Government to enact such a law before 
communal violence again breaks out in any other 
State. The UPA government should fulfil its 
pledge to people of India on priority basis. 
Unfortunately so far it has not moved in the 
matter. It is for NGOs and activists for communal 
harmony to put pressure on the UPA Government to 
act as early as possible in this direction. This 
exercise by the Centre for Study of Society and 
Secularism is part of that campaign.

---------------------------------------
Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai.

______



[5]

Subject: Essay Competition:Democracy versus 
Communal Fascism: Why India Needs to Remain a 
Democracy
To: anhad_delhi at yahoo.co.in


CREATIVE WRITING COMPETITION FOR DELHI AND MUMBAI STUDENTS

DELHI: ESSAY COMPETITION

What is Communalism? Why we need a Democracy? 
What is fascism? Can U stop Gujarat from 
happening again?

Would U like to discuss these questions and many more with Rahul Bose?

Enter the Youth For Peace (Anhad) Essay Writing 
Competition and Interact With Rahul Bose.

EXPRESS YOUR VIEWS / WRITE

Topic

Democracy versus Communal Fascism: Why India Needs to Remain a Democracy

Last date:             November 15, 2004

Results to be declared: November 20, 2004

The winners meet Rahul Bose on: November 24, 2004

For entering the competition read the rules & regulations.

Rules

1.        The Essay Writing Competition  is open 
to students : CATEGORY I-studying at the graduate 
level of various colleges, universities and 
institutes based in Delhi and CATEGORY II- 
students of class IX-XII of schools based in 
Delhi.

2.        The entries should be in English or Hindi.

3.        The essays should be CATEGORY I- 2,000 
to 3,000 words , CATEGORY II- 1500-2000 words. 
The entries should be typewritten, on A4-size 
paper with all pages numbered.

4.        A separate cover sheet with the 
following details should be included: essay 
title, student’s name(s), name of the school/ 
college/ institute, class, age, home address and 
contact number and e-mail if any.  The student’s 
name should not appear in the main essay.

5.        The closing date of the competition is 
November 15,  2004. Entries which are not in 
compliance with any of the competition rules will 
be disqualified.

6.        The essays will be assessed in 
confidence by an independent panel of judges. No 
appeals will be entertained. The results of the 
competition will be announced on 20, November 
2004.

7.        The essays will not be assessed 
separately on the basis of the language in which 
they are written, but the best essays would be 
selected from all received entries.

8.       A viewing list and reading list is 
provided . It is advisable for the students to 
view at least one documentary/ film and read at 
least one book from the provided list before 
writing the essay.

9.        The editorial board reserves the right 
to edit essays selected for publication.

10.     For further information, please call 
Mansi Sharma/ Moyna Manku at Anhad- 23327366/ 67

11.     The entries should be sent to Anhad by 
either post/ personally or through e-mail latest 
by November 15, 2004: Anhad, 4 , Windsor Place, 
On Ashoka Road, Opp Kanishka Hotel ( new name – 
La Shangrila Hotel), New Delhi-110001, tel- 
23327366/ 23327367, e-mail: anhadinfo at yahoo.co.in

Topic:  Democracy versus Communal Fascism: Why 
India Needs to Remain a Democracy

Prizes

11. Prizes will be awarded as follows:

Best 100 essays: Commendation Certificates (50 
from CATEGORY I and 50 from CATEGORY II)

Best 50 essays from across India ( these 
competitions are being organized in other cities 
also)will be published in a book and also put on 
Anhad’s website (under construction) (25 from 
CATEGORY I and 25 from CATEGORY II)

Best 20 essays (10 from each category) : Students 
whose essays are selected as the best 20 (10 from 
CATEGORY I and 10 from CATEGORY II) would :

1.        Receive Rs. 1500 and a plaque
2.        On November 24, 2004 have an 
interaction on the issues related to secularism 
and democracy from 10am to 12.30 pm with the Film 
Actor Rahul Bose.
3.        November 24, 2004 Lunch from 1-2 pm 
with Rahul Bose, the Full Panel of Judges and 
Anhad activists.

Viewing/ Reading List

The following documentaries/ films can be 
borrowed and screened in colleges/ schools or 
students can come and view them at the Anhad 
office (Between 4pm to 8 pm from Monday to 
Saturday and 9am-8pm on Sundays). It is preferred 
that students come in groups of not less than 5, 
however even students coming individually can 
view the films. Students should ring up the Anhad 
office and inform the time when they would like 
to come.

The books are available on sale at the Anhad 
office.  We are not in a position to lend the 
books, however if there are some students who 
want to read the books at the Anhad office they 
are welcome to do so.

Documentaries and Films

Men in the Tree- Producer & Director- Lalit Vachani
Final Solution- Producer & Director-Rakesh Sharma
In Dark Times- Producer & Director-Gauhar Raza
Naata- Producer & Director-KP Ravishankar and Anjali Monterio
In The Name of God- Producer & Director- Anand Patwardhan
Mr & Mrs Iyer- Director- Aparna Sen
Naseem- Director- Saeed Akhter Mirza
Garam Hawa- Director-MS Sathyu
Zakhm- Director- Mahesh Bhatt

Books- The books are not published by us, we are 
trying to negotiate special rates for students. 
Apart from the books listed below there are many 
other books available, which students can refer 
to at Anhad:

Communalism: A Primer- by Bipan Chandra- Rs 30 (in Hindi and English)
Communalism: What is False, what is True? –Ram 
Puniyani- Rs. 5-(in Hindi and English)
Before the Night Falls- Prof. KN Panikkar- Rs 150 ( In English)
Communalism: An Illustrated Primer-Ram Puniyani 
Rs. 175 (student’s concession-Rs. 100) -(in Hindi 
and English)
Cry, My beloved Country- Harsh Mander- Rs 95 ( In English)

YOUTH FOR PEACE 
ANHAD    4, Windsor Place, New Delhi-110001

Mumbai: Creative Writing Competition

Why India must remain a democracy? What is 
Fascism? Can we stop violence? Is it possible to 
counter hatred? Can I make a difference?

Can you make a difference? Do these questions 
bother you? Do you want to remain a silent 
spectator?  Or do you want to stop this madness?

CAN YOU MAKE PEACE COOL?

Youth For Peace (Anhad)
&
Youth for Secular Democracy

Invite entries on Communal Harmony, Secularism, Peace, Democracy

ANY FORM OF CREATIVE EXPRESSION
(lyrics, poetry, essays, short stories, slogans, songs, articles )
Rules

1.	If you are a student of any college, 
school, institution in Mumbai you can enter the 
competition.
2.	The entries can be in English, Hindi, Marathi, Urdu
3.	The entries can be sent to 
<mailto:anhad_maharashtra at yahoo.co.in/>anhad_maharashtra at yahoo.co.in/ 
or can be sent to Anhad Office, c/o Bhupesh Gupta 
Bhawan, 3rd Floor, Leningrad Chowk, 85, Sayani 
Road, Prabhadevi, Mumbai-400025
4.	All entries would be pooled together and 
would be judged by an independent panel of judges 
on the basis of quality and content as a whole. 
There would be no separate categories for 
language or form while judging.
5.	All entries must have the following 
information: name, college, age, address home, 
telephone, e-mail –if any.
6.	Last date November 15, 2004
7.	Awards would be announced on November 20, 2004

Awards

1.	The students whose entries are selected 
amongst the first 25 entries would:
Get a cash prize of Rs.1000/ each
Get an opportunity to present her/ his work at a 
public function in Mumbai on November 25, 2004, 
attended by prominent people from the creative 
field and prominent activists working on the 
issue. Shubha Mudgal has confirmed to interact 
with winners.
2.	Best 50 entries( from all over India) 
irrespective of form & language would be 
published in a book by Anhad.
3.	Best 100 entries get appreciation certificates.


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

Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on 
matters of peace and democratisation in South 
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit 
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South 
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
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DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.