SACW | 25-26 Dec2004

[sacw]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | 25-26 Dec.,  2004
via:  www.sacw.net

[1] Pakistan:   Passports and religion in political mix (Aamer Ahmed Khan)
[2] UK: Freedom of expression
(i) Sikhs are the real losers from Behzti - 
multiculturalism which promotes religion and 
stifles dissent
(Gurharpal Singh)
(ii) I'm disgusted ministers did nothing as Sikhs 
forced play's closure, says Rushdie (Rajeev Syal)
[3] Bangladesh:  Protests follow killing of Dr 
Muhammad Yunus - Fundamentalist may be involved 
()
[4] India: Manmohan's First Litmus Test (Praful Bidwai)
[5] Canada: Sharia law is a danger to women (Sheila Copps)
[6] India: VHP, BD activists want ban on New Year parties
[7] India: The institutions of education (Romila Thapar)
[8] India: Anhad Dispatch
- text of the Draft Communal Crimes Act
- Anhad 2005 calender/ planner
- Gujarat students hostel  - help needed
4. New Books by ANHAD
[9] Upcoming event:
16th Safdar Hashmi Memorial (New Delhi, 1st January 2005)




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

[1]

BBC News
24 December, 2004, 06:46 GMT 

PASSPORTS AND RELIGION IN POLITICAL MIX
By Aamer Ahmed Khan
BBC correspondent in Karachi

Who would have thought that a document as routine 
and essential as a passport could cause a split 
in the ruling coalition and set a quarter of the 
country's heavily fragmented parliament frothing 
at the mouth?

Keeping in line with the efforts of the 
International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) 
to introduce global standards for travel 
documents, the government started issuing machine 
readable passports earlier this year.
So far, according to passport authorities, 
300,000 machine readable passports (MRPs) have 
been issued.
The format for the new passports was borrowed 
from the ICAO and was the same as has been 
adopted by several other countries.
One new feature is that the passports do not 
include a column to specify the holder's religion.
The column had been introduced in Pakistani 
passports in 1980 by the government of General 
Zia ul Haq.

'Attack on our identity'

This apparently routine change in the passport 
format drew a sharp response from the six-party 
religious alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal 
(MMA), which won a substantial presence in the 
Pakistani parliament in the October 2002 
elections.

  Supporters of General Zia's legacy seem adamant 
not to let religion drop away from public eye at 
any level

"We feel that the omission of the religion column 
is an attack on our very identity as Muslims," 
MMA leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman told reporters 
in Karachi last month.
He was speaking after an MMA meeting had adopted 
a resolution calling for the inclusion of the 
religion column in MRPs.
That demand was rubbished by Interior Minister 
Aftab Sherpao some three weeks later.
The government, he told a press conference in 
Islamabad, had no intention of retaining such a 
column in the MRPs.
So it was a surprise, to say the least, when this 
week former Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat 
Hussain, who heads the governing PML party, 
announced that the party wanted the religion 
column back in the passports.
He was speaking after a party meeting attended 
by, among others, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
Mr Hussain's declaration raised eyebrows all over 
the country, leaving political observers 
wondering what had led the former premier to 
embark on a path that was in clear conflict with 
Gen Musharraf's stated agenda of "enlightened 
moderation".

'This is ridiculous'

"The whole controversy has little to do with 
religion," says one observer. "It is evident from 
the sheer absurdity of the MMA's arguments."

The MMA see the passport issue as an attack on their Islamic identity

The alliance argues that the omission of a 
religious column would allow Qadianis, a minority 
sect declared to be non-Muslims in the Pakistani 
constitution in 1974, to travel to Mecca for 
pilgrimage.
"This is ridiculous," fumes a senior official at the Karachi passport office.
"The two Saudi missions in Pakistan have access 
to the complete database on which the MRPs are 
based and that database records the religion of 
every holder. In any case, it is not the Saudis 
that are objecting."

Most observers feel that the issue has more to do 
with the fragility of the political structure 
pieced together by Gen Pervez Musharraf than with 
religion.

What is being seen as a reconciliation process 
initiated by the government with the release last 
month of former premier Benazir Bhutto's husband 
Asif Ali Zardari, argue some observers, has left 
the PML leadership somewhat insecure.
As such, they say, the passport volte-face is an 
attempt by Mr Hussain to demonstrate who is 
really in charge.
"Despite holding no government post, he has 
demonstrated his control over the ruling party by 
getting it to adopt a resolution that even the 
prime minister does not support," says one 
observer.
It seems to be a classic example of religious 
orthodoxy finding sustenance from local political 
compulsions.
Overt religious symbolism was an essential part 
of Gen Zia's strategy for Pakistan's Islamisation.

Even some 16 years after his death, the 
supporters of his legacy seem adamant not to let 
religion drop away from public eye at any level.
Even as the machine-readable passports 
controversy continues, there are indications that 
the government, instead of insisting on its 
current stance, may relent.
There is talk that the machine readable passports 
may have a page added to them - it would be 
non-machine readable and give the religion of the 
holder.
In that eventuality, the world may find another 
reason for looking at Pakistan as a deeply 
orthodox nation inherently incapable of coming to 
terms with the modern world.
Few among outside observers are likely to 
understand that such orthodoxy is more often than 
not driven by political compulsions of weak 
governments than by any misplaced notions of what 
constitutes piety.


______

[2]  [2 articles on the implications of the 
violence against the Play Behzti in the UK ]

(i)
The Guardian
December 24, 2004
Comment

SIKHS ARE THE REAL LOSERS FROM BEHZTI
This is a multiculturalism which promotes religion and stifles dissent

By Gurharpal Singh

The cancellation of the play Behzti (Dishonour) 
following protests by Sikhs in Birmingham was 
not, as a Sikh spokesperson claimed, without 
winners or losers. If anybody has lost it is 
British Sikhs. In a single act the community has 
overturned years of hard work and reverted to 
type as a militant tradition fixated with narrow 
communal interests. Doubtless the mobilisation 
will be seen as another nail in the coffin of 
freedom of speech, coming close on the heels of 
the murder of Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh in 
the Netherlands and the proposed legislation on 
incitement to religious hatred. What these 
interpretations overlook, however, is the 
pioneering role of Sikhs in framing British 
multiculturalism, the contribution - unwittingly 
- of the British state in promoting the idiom of 
religion in public life, and the deep tensions 
within the Sikh community itself that have 
produced such a play.

For the 336,000 British Sikhs life in Britain has 
been a bittersweet experience. While hard work 
has gradually transformed a mainly peasant 
community into one with a strong representation 
in the business and professional classes, 
achieving recognition in mainstream British 
society has been a far more difficult exercise 
for the "favoured" sons and daughters of the 
empire. Until the 1980s a mixture of racial 
victimisation and communal pride gave rise to the 
turban campaigns: the right to wear a turban at 
work, on motorcycles and on building sites. Their 
success was marked by a judicial decision that 
ensured Sikhs special protection against 
discrimination as an ethnic group .

But these campaigns were essentially defensive. 
In the 1990s two developments contributed to a 
more aggressive assertion of Sikh identity. 
First, the decline of the Khalistani movement for 
a separate Sikh state, which began after the 
storming of the Golden Temple in 1984, created a 
vacuum in which the politics of agitation has 
given rise to professional lobbying. In Britain 
this has taken the form of a separate Sikh 
political party, a parliamentary Punjabi group 
and a sustained campaign for a separate 
(non-Indian) Sikh identification in the census. 
Beyond Britain Sikh leaders see themselves as 
spearheading the global Sikh diaspora in 
refashioning the fortunes of the world Sikh 
community, of which the major component in Punjab 
remains in a high degree of distress. Whether it 
is the turban campaign in France or hate crime 
elsewhere, British Sikhs are at the forefront.

Second, the promotion of religion in public life, 
especially under New Labour, has not only 
legitimised "rotten" multiculturalism - where 
culture has long given way to religion, 
particularly if it is capable of delivering 
ethnic minority votes. It has also created space 
in institutional forums that has been exploited 
by communities such as the Sikhs. While the 
sentiments of inter-religious dialogues are 
noble, the result is often to stifle dissent 
within religions and essentialise particular 
traditions as representing the Sikh, Muslim, 
Christian or Hindu way. In a highly plural and 
secular society, nothing could be further from 
the truth.

Behzti is not an aberration. While the gaze of 
the establishment has been fixed on using 
religions to deliver peaceful outcomes, it has 
overlooked the serious contestations within these 
traditions and the implications for 
multiculturalism. Marginal groups, like the 
Southall Black Sisters, have long complained of 
physical abuse within minority ethnic 
communities; only last week a Sikh father was 
sentenced for plotting to kill his daughter who, 
according to him, had brought disgrace on the 
family by marrying a Jew. Behzti is thus 
symptomatic not only of a fatal attraction 
between third-rate talent and British 
libertarianism with a penchant for titillating 
tales of minority voyeurism; it is, above all, 
the playing out of community traumas in public. 
The tragedy is that multiculturalism has shied 
away from providing creative spaces for the 
peaceful resolution of these dilemmas.

There is an increasing number of third and fourth 
generation British Sikhs who are seriously 
disaffected from a tradition that remains 
obstinately rooted to the politics of homeland 
while being ambivalent or unresponsive to the 
challenges of British society. Community 
leadership appears incapable of addressing their 
concerns. The choice before it is stark: relapse 
into a narrow agitational Sikhism or recognise 
the need to accommodate young British Sikhs' 
voices. Only the latter offers hope of turning 
the defeat into a lasting victory in which the 
real dishonour will not be that of a 
self-confident community sure of its ideals, but 
of an unsophisticated playwright and her grasping 
backers.

· Gurharpal Singh is professor of inter-religious 
relations at Birmingham University. He is 
currently writing a book on Sikhs in Britain.

o o o o

(ii)

The Telegraph
I'M DISGUSTED MINISTERS DID NOTHING AS SIKHS 
FORCED PLAY'S CLOSURE, SAYS RUSHDIE
By Rajeev Syal
(Filed: 26/12/2004)

Salman Rushdie, the author given a death sentence 
by Muslim clerics for writing the novel The 
Satanic Verses, has expressed outrage at the 
Government's refusal to criticise last week's 
violent protests by Sikhs that led to the closure 
of a play in Birmingham.

The author told The Telegraph that ministers 
should have stepped in to prevent the closure of 
Behzti, which had been staged at Birmingham's 
Repertory Theatre, and accused them of helping to 
endanger Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, the play's author.

Salman Rushdie: 'It has been horrifying to see the response'

Mr Rushdie, 57, speaking at his London home, 
said: "It has been horrifying to see the 
response. It is pretty terrible to hear 
government ministers expressing approval of the 
ban and failing to condemn the violence, when 
they should be supporting freedom of expression."

His outburst was sparked by the refusal of Fiona 
Mactaggart, the home office minister, to offer 
support for either the theatre or the author 
following protests by a violent mob last weekend. 
Sikh groups organised the demonstrations because 
part of the play, which involves scenes of rape 
and murder, takes place in a temple, or gudwara.

"The minister is sending entirely the wrong 
message," Mr Rushdie said. "It should be quite 
clear that, in this country, it is the liberty of 
any artist to express their view of their own 
society and their own community. Frankly, 
bookshops and theatres are full of things that 
would upset an interest group."

Mr Rushdie, 57, was sentenced to death by Iranian 
clerics in 1989 after he portrayed Mohammed, the 
Islamic prophet, as a man with sexual urges in 
The Satanic Verses. He went into hiding and was 
given protection by Special Branch. The fatwa was 
finally lifted in 1998.

Mr Rushdie said that he had been offered much 
more offical support than Ms Bhatti, who has been 
forced to leave her London home.

"In 1989, when The Satanic Verses was attacked, 
all political parties were united in their 
condemnation of the violence and their support 
for the principle for freedom of expression. It 
seems that the Blair government's capacity to 
disappoint knows no bounds," he said.

Behzti, meaning "Dishonour" in Punjabi, has been 
described as a "black comedy" and tackles 
difficult subjects such as rape and murder within 
a Sikh community. It was closed following a night 
of rioting last Saturday outside the theatre.

Ms Mactaggart, whose constituency of Slough has a 
large Sikh population, refused to condemn the mob 
and told Radio Four's Today programme on Tuesday 
that the play would be helped by the closure.

"I think that when people are moved by theatre to 
protest, in a way that is a sign of the free 
speech which is so much part of the British 
tradition. I think that it is a great thing that 
people care enough about a performance to 
protest," she said.

Mr Rushdie said that Ms Mactaggart had failed to 
grasp the arguments involved, and should be 
defending the rights of artists to express 
themselves. "If being upset is the only 
requirement to banning something, there will be 
nothing on in the theatres," he warned. "Should 
we ban Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice for 
being anti-Semitic? Where do you stop?"

Mr Rushdie, who was born in India, said that the 
Sikh protestors had adopted the violent tactics 
used by Hindu nationalists on the sub-Continent. 
"This seems to be a trend that has come from 
India, where extremists have attacked a number of 
artistic and cultural events, with very little 
control. Works by some of India's most revered 
artists have been attacked by Shiv Sena [an 
extremist Hindu grouping], and now the Sikh 
community here are travelling down a similar 
path," he said.

The author, who won the Booker prize for his 
first novel, Midnight's Children, said that the 
content of Behzti poses some awkward questions 
about sexual abuse which some Sikh elders may 
have found difficult to accept.

"The question it raises is whether such things 
are actually happening within the Sikh community. 
If it is true that things are going on in 
gudwaras that should be exposed, then this 
episode needs to be examined in a new light," he 
said.

Ms Bhatti, 35, who is a Sikh, was said last night 
to be in hiding after receiving a series of death 
threats. Braham Murray, the artistic director at 
the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, said: 
"She is devastated that this has happened. Not 
surprisingly, she wonders if she can continue 
writing. It is shocking and sad for the nation 
that mob violence has curbed free speech."


______


[3]

The New Nation
Dec 25, 2004

RU TEACHERS BEGIN WORK STOPPAGE: KILLERS OF DR YOUNUS NOT YET ARRESTED
By Staff Reporter

None could be arrested by police in connection 
with the gruesome killing of Professor Muhammad 
Yunus of the Department of Economics of Rajshahi 
University, even after two days of his death.

Professor Yunus was knifed and hammered to death 
by unidentified assailants at Binodpur in 
Rajshahi city on Friday morning when he was 
returning home taking his regular morning walk.

Police recovered his body just half an hour after 
his killing receiving a phone call from an 
unknown caller.

No case was filed till yesterday evening by any family members of the victim.

In protest of the killing, Rajshahi City Awami 
League called a dawn-to-dusk hartal in Rajshahi 
on December 30.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh Chhatra League and students 
of the Department of Economics of RU yesterday 
brought out separate processions on the campus 
protesting the Friday's killing of Dr Muhammad 
Yunus.

The processionists demanded immediate arrest of 
the killers and bring them before justice.

Awami League led 14-party alliance also brought 
out a procession in Rajshahi city holding the 
religious extremists responsible for the brutal 
murder of Professor Yunus.

No classes in the university were held yesterday 
as the teachers went on work stoppage protesting 
the killing, which will continue till December 31.

Meanwhile, admission tests of Rajshahi University 
scheduled for December 29 have been postponed. 
Fresh dates will be announced later.

The United States of Awami League yesterday 
strongly condemned and protested the gruesome 
murder of Prof Mohammad Yunus, a professor of the 
Department of Economics of RU, president of RU 
unit of Bangabandhu Parishad and a valiant 
freedom fighter.

"The anti-liberation forces are taking revenge of 
their defeat in 1971 by brutally killing the 
greatest sons of the soil--meritorious teachers, 
journalists, politicians--one after another in 
the month of intellectuals' massacre relying on 
BNP," the US unit of AL said in a statement faxed 
yesterday.

It said the name of Prof Yunus has been added to 
the list of the killing of hundreds of 
progressive leaders and workers including Dr 
Humayun Azad, Manzurul Imam, Momtajuddin, Humayun 
Kabir Balu, Manik Saha, Ahsan Ullah Master, 
Principal Gopal Krishna Saha and Ivy Rahman.

"Time has come to launch a counter-attack against 
the anti-independence, reactionary and 
fundamentalist forces," it said.

Bangladesh Economic Association (BEA) said Prof 
Yunus was killed by fundamentalist and communal 
forces.

In a message of condolence, BEA president Dr QK 
Ahmad and general secretary Dr Abul Barkat said 
the killing was nothing, but the implementation 
of the design of the armed fundamentalist 
communal forces to eradicate the spirit of the 
War of Liberation from the country forever.

Teachers of Jahangirnagar University yesterday 
strongly condemned and protested the killing of 
Prof Yunus of the Department of Economics of RU.

"We think that this murder was pre-planned. We 
don't have the words to condemn the heinous 
attempt to strangle the voice of pro-democratic, 
liberation war and independence forces," said 
Prof Subash Chandra Das and Prof Afsar Ahmad, 
president and general secretary respectively on 
behalf of the pro-liberation war, democracy and 
progressive teachers of Jahangirnagar University.

"We are concerned that the government is yet to 
take any step despite the killing and attempt to 
kill the intellectuals one after another. The 
silence of the government's administrative 
machinery will encourage such activities," they 
also said.

Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee president 
Prof Kabir Chowdhury, acting president Shahriar 
Kabir and general secretary Kazi Mukul in a 
statement alleged that the killers belonging to 
fundamentalist and communal Jamaat-e-Islami 
murdered Prof Mohammad Yunus, because he was 
always vocal against fundamentalism and 
communalism. "Prof Yunus was knifed to death in 
the same way as was Prof Humayun Azad killed by 
fundamentalist killers at Dhaka University in 
February this year," they said.

______


[4]

The News International
December 23, 2004

MANMOHAN'S FIRST LITMUS TEST

Employment Act of India promises to elevate the 
living conditions of those below the poverty 
line, but the question remains whether it can 
actually eradicate poverty from India

By Praful Bidwai

Barely six months after it came to power, India's 
ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) faces a 
litmus test, which will determine whether it goes 
Leftwards towards popular legitimacy, or drifts 
Rightwards into eventual disgrace.

At issue is the UPA's biggest promise: to 
"provide a legal guarantee for at least 100 days 
of employment, to begin with ... at minimum wages 
for at least one able-bodied person in every 
household" every year. This was not a casual 
pledge, but reflected a solemn commitment by the 
Congress right since 2002, and reaffirmed by 
Sonia Gandhi at least five times.

The Employment Guarantee Act (EGA) was meant to 
distinguish the UPA from its predecessors' 
economic policy and create a great social bridge, 
healing the rift between the poorest people and 
the not-so-poor. It would try to reconcile the 
elementary aspirations of the wretched of the 
earth with the lofty ambition to make India a 
great power. Implicit in the employment guarantee 
concept were universal eligibility, inalienable 
work entitlement and guaranteed minimum wages.

The UPA started diluting the EGA early on. It 
whittled down its coverage to rural areas only - 
as if there were no grinding poverty in India's 
towns! It also redefined "households" such that 
just one person in a family would get work 
regardless of whether it is nuclear (four to five 
members) or joint (say, 8 to 15 members). Then, 
it further confined the EGA's scope to just a 
quarter of India's districts with no promise of 
national coverage. All this ran roughshod over 
the draft thoughtfully prepared after wide 
consultations by the UPA's own National Advisory 
Council, comprising highly accomplished social 
scientists and activists.

Now, the UPA has tabled a Bill which mocks at the 
very concept of an employment guarantee. The Bill 
allows the government to switch the scheme on or 
off at will. This parodies the notion of a right! 
Under the Bill, state governments shall provide 
employment "in such rural areas ... and for such 
period" as may be "notified by the Centre". The 
"guarantee" does not have universal eligibility. 
It only covers households below the poverty line 
(BPL). And it does not even assure them the 
minimum wage. There's no hint of extension to the 
whole of India!

The case for an EGA arises from three 
considerations. First, there exists structurally 
caused and socially determined mass poverty and 
deprivation in India. So even a person who is 
willing to perform unskilled manual labour, much 
like a draught animal, cannot find work. Millions 
are forced into chronic poverty for no fault of 
theirs. Society has failed to redress this 
unacceptably unjust waste of valuable human 
potential. It is duty-bound to provide employment 
to the poor.

Second, "normal" economic processes cannot 
resolve the problems of chronic poverty, 
unemployment, all-round poor social indicators, 
and depleted human capacities. Such processes 
will perpetuate, they won't redress, the 
underlying structural causes.

One great theorem of Development Economics is 
that public action through special programmes is 
indispensable for this. Surveys show that men and 
women even in relatively prosperous Haryana find 
agricultural work for less than 50 days a year 
and non-agricultural work for respectively 70 
days and just three days! At the same time, rural 
landlessness now stands at 40 percent nationally.

Third, recent economic growth in India has been 
perversely jobless. Earlier, 4 to 5 percent GDP 
growth generated roughly two percent employment 
growth. Today, a 5 to 6 percent GDP increase 
produces just one percent more employment - or 
only about half the annual increase in the number 
of job seekers.

The EGA is vastly superior to bureaucratic rural 
development schemes, which are badly designed, 
top-down in nature, and implemented with 
callousness and no transparency. Its main 
attraction is that it alters the balance between 
the government and poor people by giving them 
entitlements - independently of the government's 
whims.

That's precisely why Professor Amartya Sen calls 
the EGA an "enormously important instrument" of 
empowerment. Yet, many critics attack it. Some 
argue that it will cost an unaffordable 5 percent 
of GDP. Others hold that its scope must be 
narrowed to the very poorest by lowering the wage 
rate. Yet others say it's a wasteful populist 
measure. One commentator goes as far as to say 
it'd be better to drop Rs5 or 10 coins by 
helicopter!

These arguments are largely specious. Many of 
them have been empirically discredited by 
Maharashtra, India's first state to introduce the 
EGA. The Maharashtra scheme saved thousands of 
lives during the terrible droughts of the 1970s. 
For many, it represented the difference between 
one meal a day, and two meals. It was diluted, 
but still covers the whole state, and offers 
universal eligibility and an alienable right to 
work (albeit at a low wage of Rs45) or, 
alternatively, an allowance - a quarter of the 
wage-rate for the first 30 days, and after that, 
one-half the rate.

A national EGA will at most cost Rs40, 000 crores 
a year. This is just 1.2 percent of India's GDP - 
surely a small price to pay for empowering 
hundreds of millions. There is both an ethical 
and an economic need to peg the wage payable to 
the present national minimum (Rs66). The function 
of a minimum wage is to set the floor under which 
rural incomes must not fall. There must be such a 
floor if India's villages are not to be an abyss 
of poverty and wretchedness. There must be a 
special effort to give work preferentially to 
women under the scheme too - because there is 
only one job available per household.

Above all, however, the scheme's coverage must be 
extended to cover all rural households, not just 
BPL families. So-called targeting tends to work 
against the poorest. India's recent experience 
with the Public Distribution System for food 
shows that BPL households are hard to identity 
accurately. Local power structures are such that 
the privileged bully the rural bureaucracy into 
including them, not the poor, under the BPL 
category. It's better that some non-poor are 
wrongly included that the poor are excluded from 
a universal access scheme.

If the UPA is serious about redeeming its 
promise, it must revise the unacceptable clauses 
in the latest Bill. It must also amend the clause 
pertaining to transparency, which requires that 
information about the scheme can only be accessed 
on payment of a fee.

The UPA won't find it easy to retain the spirit 
of the EGA by making all these amendments. Many 
forces and individuals in it are opposed to any 
deviation from "free-market" neoliberal policies, 
which might help the poor. Some have openly 
expressed their scepticism, including Planning 
Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh 
Ahluwalia, bureaucrats and a whole gaggle of 
Right-wing market analysts parading themselves as 
"expert economists".

The real issue is whether neoliberal voodoo 
economics prevails, or poor people's interests 
do. Can mass poverty ever be compatible with a 
half way decent, democratic society? Sonia Gandhi 
has already made her stand clear by endorsing the 
National Advisory Council's (NAC) draft. It's now 
Manmohan Singh's turn. The UPA's survival, 
credibility and legitimacy demand that the Bill 
be amended radically.


______

[5]

National Post, Toronto
http://tinyurl.com/5ac33
December 24, 2004

SHARIA LAW IS A DANGER TO WOMEN

By Sheila Copps

The report released this week recommending the use of sharia law in
Islamic family disputes in Ontario should send a shiver down the
spines of women across the country.

The report's author, former Ontario attorney-general Marion Boyd,
recommends widening the scope of current arbitration legislation
allowing consenting parties to avoid court by choosing mediation or
arbitration. Specifically, she advocates broadening the provisions
of the provincial Family Law Act to allow religious arbitration
including -- but not limited to -- principles drawn from sharia law.

Boyd has defended her recommendation on the basis that arbitration
involving Christians, Jews and Ismaeli Muslims has been successful
since the process was established 13 years ago. But that argument
would be a whole lot more convincing if allowing sharia law wasn't
opposed by the Canadian Council of Muslim Women and spokespersons
for the Muslim Canadian Congress.

Boyd contends that it's offensive to suggest Muslim women are less
capable of making choices than women of other faiths, and that
because members of other religions have the option of mediation or
arbitration, Muslims should not be excluded. What's needed, she
suggests, is public education to ensure Muslim women understand "the
consequences of choices."

What hogwash. The problem is not with women failing to know about or
understand their choices -- it's with economic, religious and
familial pressures depriving them of those choices in the first
place.

Boyd has failed to examine whether religious arbitrations meet the
test of fairness. Does she really believe that a penniless mother
with four or five children, no Canadian work experience and limited
English or French language skills has choices? Is she naive enough
to think there are choices when one party (usually male) holds all
the economic power and the other party lives in a dependent
situation? When marriages dissolve, that balance of power becomes
even more precarious -- which is why a civilian legal system is
critical.

The real question untouched in the Boyd report is why civil society
would agree to religious arbitration -- Muslim, Jewish, Christian or
anything else -- in the first place. Have we really done all we can
to examine families' experiences since such processes were given the
green light in Ontario, including how many arbitrations have
resulted in decisions accepted by economic dependents with few real
choices? Or is this really about finding a quick solution to the
backlog in our courts?

Even aside from faith-based decisions and processes, secular society
has hardly eliminated gender inequality: It starts when we're young
and continues through all aspects of life, from the classroom to the
boardroom and from the home to the House of Commons. Throw in the
volatile mix of religion and the law and you have a Molotov cocktail
that could blow up at any time.

A few months ago, I watched a powerful television documentary
exploring the lives of women living in a British Columbia religious
commune where their leader went through wives like hors d'oeuvres at
a Christmas party. One woman fled and was working to save those left
behind, but repeated attempts to engage authorities -- from the
local police to the judiciary -- achieved little. All were
sympathetic, but they were either unwilling or unable to save women
from physical and sexual oppression in the name of religion.

A personal experience, too, offered ample evidence of the dangers of
taking religious freedoms to the extreme. As a Member of Parliament,
I was once involved in helping a woman whose children were spirited
out of the country during a bitter divorce proceeding. Citing
cultural and religious differences, her ex-husband fled with their
children to his native Pakistan despite an outstanding Canadian
court order requiring the children to remain in Canada. Working with
a private investigator and the Foreign Affairs Department, she
tracked the children down and went to Pakistan to retrieve them. The
only thing she received for her efforts was a severe beating at the
hands of her husband's family.

A Canadian court decision could not protect the woman or her
children. At the time, I wrote to two dozen family members who were
in contact with the children, asking for their help in securing a
safe return to Canada. But all of them, including the current
president of a local Muslim organization, remained silent -- and
that mother has never again seen her kids. There is no sugar-coating
it: Those children were kidnapped in the name of culture and
religion.

The B.C. commune and the ordeals of that mother are but two examples
of how faith-based traditions and customs can clash with the values
and principles our civil laws strive to defend. With the scales of
justice already weighted in favour of the family breadwinner, why
risk a further erosion of women's rights in the name of religion?

______

[6]

Ahmedabad Newsline
December 25, 2004	 	 	 

VHP, BD ACTIVISTS WANT BAN ON NEW YEAR PARTIES
Express News Service
Surat, December 24:	VISHWA Hindu Parishad 
(VHP) and Bajrang Dal activists took out a rally 
on Friday in protest against the dance parties to 
be held on December 31 night to welcome the New 
Year. They have threatened to disturb any such 
programme if the administration does not initiate 
any action.

Around 100 activists, from the VHP and the BD, 
submitted a memorandum to the district collector 
and the police commissioner, demanding that the 
programmes planned at party plots for New Year's 
eve not be given permission. They also said that 
the police must issue a notification prohibiting 
late night parties on December 31.

VHP city unit president Suresh Master told 
Express Newsline: ''The tradition of celebrating 
New Year's eve came from the western world. The 
westerners booze and party for the whole night. 
If this goes on here, our culture will be under 
threat. So we will not let this happen any more.''

Master added, ''We have urged the district 
administration for not allowing any programmes to 
be held on December 31. People are free to move 
on the roads to celebrate the last day of the 
year, but not at the disco parties and any such 
programmes.''

VHP city unit secretary Vimal Unnadkat said, ''If 
the administration fails to take any action, we 
will move out in the city and disturb all the 
programmes to be held at the party plots. We will 
not allow the programmes to go on.''



______


[7]

The Hindu
Dec 26, 2004

THE INSTITUTIONS OF EDUCATION

The crisis of education was in part created by 
the collapse of those institutions that had 
neither the democratic nor the professional 
autonomy to sustain themselves against government 
directives. This has to be corrected. Such a 
correction should be the priority of the present 
Government, argues Romila Thapar, the eminent 
historian of early India. The educational system 
must recognise one of its purposes as being 
encouragement to the advance of knowledge through 
the educational values it endorses and the 
facilities it provides. Such values require the 
availability of school education to all - a 
commitment few governments are willing to make in 
India as is evident from the perennial refusal of 
an even half

By Romila Thapar
http://www.hindu.com/2004/12/26/stories/2004122601211400.htm

______

[8]


ANHAD DISPATCH

1. Human Rights Law Network, Centre for Study of 
Society and Secularism , Jan Sangharch Manch and 
Anhad have worked on a DRAFT OF THE PROPOSED 
COMMUNAL CRIMES ACT. The draft is attached for 
comments. It has been submitted to the PM, Home 
Minister, Law Minister and Chairperson UPA.

A National Consultation is planned on January 22, 
2005 at Mumbai. Those wanting to be part of the 
consultation should write to 
<anhad_delhi at yahoo.co.in>

Everyone joining the consultation is coming at his/ her own expense.

Draft is attached. Please circulate to others.

[The full text of the Draft Communal Crimes Act 
(posted in 2 parts) is available at the URLs:
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2004/12/india-draft-communal-crimes-act-2004.html
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2004/12/india-draft-communal-crimes-act-2004_26.html 
]


2. planner/ Calender- Anhad released a 2005 
calender/ planner on December 11, 2004. The 
calender has all important dates marked and 
detailed information on special days like May 
day, Hiroshima day, Gandhi jayanti, Bhagat 
Singh's birth anniversary, Mahatma Phule's birth 
anniversary, Safdar's , demolition of babri 
mosque and so on). The calender also has 
reproductions of Anhad posters in small size , in 
colour, and info about our activities. It is 5x12 
inch , can be hung next to your computer table.

Rs 50/- per calender available at anhad office. 
please add Rs 20 for courier charges.

We are selling the calender at the cost price so cannot offer discounts.

3. Gujarat students-Update:  We had circulated an 
appeal earlier about students from Gujarat. We 
have taken a place on rent and are converting it 
into a hostel for 25 students, who are finally 
arriving in the first week of January. We hope to 
formally open the hostel in first week of 
January. Those of you who want to help please 
contact Anhad- 23327366/ 67-Mansi Sharma for any 
contributions- time, donations, kind ( still 
short of geysers, blankets etc).

4. NEW ANHAD BOOKS :

1.  In the Name of Rama by Aabid Surti- a 
hard-hitting novel inspired by a true incident 
during the demolition of the babri masjid. Aaabid 
Surti- National Award-winning author , he has won 
critical acclaim for multiple creative talents. 
Rs. 150/-

2. Dark Leaves of the Present -edited by Shabnam Hashmi & Angana P. Chatterji

Contents:

HINDU SOCIAL ORDER AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF DALITS  By Sukhadeo Thorat
COMMUNALISM AND THE VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS  By K. N. Panikkar
IROM SHARMILA: Profile in Courage An interview
POTA: Production of Terrorist Act, Gujarat By Mukul Sinha
QUEER RIGHTS: Issues in Sexual Orientation and 
Gender Identity By Arvind Narrain
THE TRIBAL WORLD  By Ajay Dandekar
VULNERABLE CHILDREN, INSTITUTIONALISATION, AND 
THE LAW By Harsh Mander and Vidya Rao
GENDERED VIOLENCE IN HINDU NATIONALISM By Angana P. Chatterji
SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY AND THE CLIMATE OF IMPUNITY IN INDIA By Ravi Nair
POTA: A REMEDY WORSE THAN THE DISEASE  By Colin Gonsalves
REFLECTIONS: PAINTINGS, PHOTOGRAPHS AND POEMS 
( Paintings by Sudhir Patwardhan, Vasudevan 
Akittam, Kalla, Yunus Khimani, Molina , Roy 
Thomas, Photographs: Sahir Raza, Poems: Anshu 
Malviya, Baburao Bagul, Ashok Chakravarty)

Price: Rs 750/-

3. Hindi- Gandhi ki Hatya Doosri Baar by Dr. Ram Puniyani- Rs 60/-


______


[9]

SAHMAT-16th Safdar Hashmi Memorial

16th Safdar Hashmi Memorial

Join Us

on Saturday, 1st January 2005

2.30 pm onwards
at the Back Lawns of Vitthalbhai Patel House,
Rafi Marg, New Delhi


- Theatre, Performance Art
- Release of Books and a Calendar on Premchand
- Readings on Premchand
- Sufi Bhakti & African Music
- Art Exhibition on Premchand


Please note the change in venue, due to Metro 
work underway at Mandi House circle.

SAHMAT, 8 Vitthalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg, New Delhi 110 001
Tel.: 23711278, 23351424. Email: sahmat at vsnl.com


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

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/
SACW archive is available at:  bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/

Sister initiatives :
South Asia Counter Information Project :  snipurl.com/sacip
South Asians Against Nukes: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org
Communalism Watch: communalism.blogspot.com/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.