SACW | 2 Jan 2005
sacw
aiindex at mnet.fr
Sun Jan 2 00:08:05 CST 2005
South Asia Citizens Wire | 2 Jan., 2005
via: www.sacw.net
[1] Upcoming event: People's SAARC (Varanasi, 15-17 January)
[2] India: [Riots of ] 1984, 1992-93, 2002... (Editorial, Communalism Combat)
+ 1984: Remembrance, Restitution, Justice (HS Phoolka)
[3] India: Culture, The Glue (Ranjit Hoskote)
[4] Tsunami Disaster and After:
(i) CSFH Urges Responsible Giving in the Wake of Tsunami Tragedy
(ii) Early warning system didn't help in 1999 Orissa cyclone (G.S. Mudur)
(iii) Letter to the Editor (Mukul Dube)
[5] Pakistan and the Muslim World: 'Islamic
satellite' - Letter to the Editor (Nadeem Zafar)
[6] India: Baba Budangiri: Successful Resistance
to Saffronization (Hari Shankar)
[7] Recent Publications:
- 'Reporting Conflict; a handbook for media practitioners' ed. Laxmi Murthy
- 'Media Crossing Borders' ed. Rita Manchanda
- 'We Do More Because We Can; Naga Women in the
Peace Process' ed. Rita Manchanda
--------------
[1]
We are holding a Convention to create a People's
SAARC (Movement) on 15-17 January in Varanasi,
UP, India. We are bringing together persons who
feel that the inter-Governmental body created by
the heads of State of the South Asia region
(SAARC) is going on a wrong path being led
directly or indirectly by World Bank/ IMF
thinking on what constitutes economic cooperation
or even union between nations. Our stance is that
the PEOPLE are being left out. Instead the people
are being treated as objects to be manipulated by
the forces driving Globalisation and elite
domination within our societies. We are inviting
you as participant to contribute to our
discussions that will lead to a Declaration at
the end of the Conference and a Report to be set
forth to our Peoples and also the SAARC
Secretariat.
(Subodh Pyakurel-chair, Dr.Lenin,Dr. sandeep Pandey, Dr. Darin & Shruti)
Please take a look at our basic material that
follows: http://saarcwb.1accesshost.com/
COLOMBO Declaration
Let's begin 'Globalisation of Sensitivities' in
South Asia. South Asia has the world's most
populous youthful growing set of communities.
These people are poor and rural by global
standards. Globalisation has been 'hollowing
out' the more advanced areas in this region.
Wages in the regionís globalised workplaces are
declining. (SriLanka's export garments workers'
monthly wages have fallen from USD50 to USD30
between 1983 and 2003,a high growth period for
this industry.) Isn't it time we organise for
decent Social living for our people. A SAARC for
what? Global capital or global people? Our stand
is for our regional countries
1. To develop certain common standards and
fronts in dealings with Capital Movements and
ownership of large Companies
2. To develop common standards and fronts in
dealings with the agents of the global system as
donors and World Bank/ IMF
3. To develop common standards of decency of
workplace and treatment of workers
4. To develop common standards of minimum wages
5. To develop common standards of decent
housing and social infrastructure for all.
Our Campaign is to create and promote, within our
regional countries, a grass roots level activism
of direct action including:
1. Creating awareness of the World Bank/
Donors/ State Ministries/ Elite Corporate &
Professionals nexus which is the Complex that is
causing our problems and economic distortions
2. Creating actions that challenge and
overcome this Capital Using Complex in simple
activities as housing or agricultural development
in a way that is developmental and creates the
participation of the people in the exact
operations of Capital and Prices in the economy.
3. Creating public demands for a People driven SAARC.
Dr Lenin Raghuvanshi Dr Darin C Gunesekera
PVCHR Wiros Lokh Institute Varanasi, India
Colombo, SriLanka.
30 May 2004 Establishment of People driven SAARC
With the formal declaration of the 'Free Trade'
in South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC) through the twelfth SAARC
Summit. Having been learnt the meaning of the
Free Trade through the documents of the summit,
is that the trade would be at the center and the
Human Being would be at its periphery. It has
completely wiped out the importance of humans.
Thus the civil society of South Asia has the
responsibility to push up the human cause in the
trade scenario. It is a well-known fact the South
Asian region is most poverty stricken in
comparison to the entire world. The summit has
also reconstituted the Independent South Asian
Commission for Poverty Alleviation (ISACPA),
which is commendable step. But this commission,
that has the objective to play an advocacy role
and set SAARC Development Goals for the next five
years does not constitutes of a broader civil
society including the weaker section to represent
their specific cause, the reconstitution may not
have a fallback with the cause of suppressed
class.
The areas of poverty alleviation, health,
environment, education giving due regard to the
suggestions of the ISACPA report definitely
require the people from the field the questions
come from without which, the answer can not be
true in their sense.
The summit has also appreciated by signing the
SAARC Social Charter that puts up the cause of
poverty alleviation, population stabilization,
women empowerment, health and nutrition, youth
mobilization, human resource development and also
protection of children. We too appreciate the
above cause taken up by through the charter but
would like to indicate that the charter despite
speaking on several issues misses out a few vital
ones. It does not talks about Human Right for
marginalized, development and democracy through
empowerment in regard to the women and even after
talking about child protection the abuse on
children has been left out that makes a key issue
in South Asia. Trafficking of children is a major
issue to be touched very specifically keeping the
various laws of SAARC nations by the Charter
without which the document purpose would not be
complete.
The document does talks of the child and women
protection against trafficking of against
prostitution. It does not specifies the other
hazards which are or could be of trafficking for
bonded labour or for Camel Jockey that specially
includes India and Bangladesh as route for the
trafficking. The document also lacks the measures
against the threats of organ transplantation,
forming a major business boom for traffickers.
Also the document ignored the cause of men and
their right under the association. As the summit
declaration deal with the varied culture of the
SAARC nation it speaks of the cultural mosaic.
However the underline does not specify the
formation of a composite culture with the varied
forms of culture and does not even deals with the
communal fascism rigging in these very SAARC
nations.
We demand a clear vision on the issue to culture
for it is the identity of any nation and mixture
of same shall there be crystal clear and not
opaque by any means. It has been observed that
conscience has at various stages hindered
relations and development of nations and despite
attempts an unclear military stand gives an
unwanted threat. The topic is same with the SAARC
nations who do talk of protection but the
military threat and the cold war going between
the nations has been ignored from the nations.
Any expense on bomb is a worry on many faces and
the same investment on creative thing if dwelling
smile on millions. The document as it talks of
development and protection shall be incomplete if
it does not specifies the associationís stand on
military operations between the nations as this
would continuously bring upon a fear psychosis on
human under the big umbrella, pulling down the
efforts.
Taking examples of Cuba where the military
expense if five per cent against fifty five per
cent expense on health and education, of it GDP,
can not the association put pressure on the SAARC
nations to adopt a similar pattern and give boost
to people's health rather then bringing military
threat. The fourteenth summit of the association
is going to be held in January 2005.
There is time for a South Asian People's Forum to
be formed that may take up the burning topics
before the next summit begins and pressurize to
include the peopleís cause in their existing
agenda or may modify the present one. It is the
responsibility of the people of South Asia to get
united on this bigger issue and form a unified
force before the January of 2005.
The objective of conference:-
1) To review the policies and strategies in
regard to various issues related to rights of
marginalized in south Asia.
2) To workout a plan of action for the next two
years for South Asian People's Forum.
3) To initiate cultural fronts there by
strengthening the cultural movement in the South
Asia.
Major output:
1) Establishment of South Asian People's Forum.
2) Memorandum for SAARC (about policies for marginalized).
3) Plan of action for two years.
4) Organizational set up.
Important mobile no.: +91-9839717860 (Lenin)
+91-542-3121109 (Tanweer) +91-9415810955
(Shruti) Office phone No.: +91-542-2586688/2586676
Chair of core group: Subodh R. Pyakurel,INSEC(Nepal)
Chair of Reception committee: Prof. Deepak
Malik,Director-Gandhi Vidya Sansthan,Varanasi
(founded by Jai Prakash Narayan)
Chair of Local organizing committee: Mr. Sanjai Rai (mobile:+91-9415121462)
Program Schedule:
15 January 2005:
Inauguration - 11 AM to 2 PM at Gandhi Adhyyan
peeth, kashi Vidya peeth, Varanasi. Consultation
meeting of core group: 4PM to 8PM at Kamesh Hut
Hotel,Varanasi.
16th January 2005: 9 AM to 6PM
Meeting of Core group of South Asian People's Forum at Kamesh hut Hotel.
Agenda:
Future program, organizational structure,
Finalisation of South Asian Declaration and
memorandum for SAARC's secretary general
From 7PM Indian classical Music at kamesh Hut Hotel
17th January 2005:
9 AM to 12 AM: Ongoing session at Kamesh Hut Hotel.
Parallel sessions on 16th Jan.2005:
(A) Food Security in South Asia: 10 AM to 4PM
(Contact person:Mr.D.Guruswamy and Mr.John Bosco
,email:fianindia at yahoo.com) organized by FIAN
India, Musahar Vikas Pahal of eastern UP,Rozi
Roti Haq Abhiyan,Right to campaign, UP,
Venue:Kamesh Hut Hotel,
(B) Child right and child participation in
South Asia: at Gandhi Adhyyan Peeth, Varanasi.
(Contact person:Mr. Kumar bhatarai (CWIN),Ms. Inu
Stephen,Child Line India
foundation,Mobile:+91-9892310428 and Ms. Anupam,
PVCHR) Time:10 AM to 4 PM.Organised by: Childline
India Foundation,CRY, CWIN(Nepal)
______
[2]
Communalism Combat
November - December 2004
EDITORIAL
1984, 1992-93, 2002...
It was some weeks before the recent developments
in the Best Bakery case that we had
resolved that our next cover story would
commemmorate the 20th anniversary of the
anti-Sikh massacre of November 1984. Written by
senior lawyer, HS Phoolka, who has been at the
forefront of the legal battle for the victims of
that carnage, the facts, dispassionately
narrated, log serious black marks against our
system.
Phoolka, incidentally, was publicly threatened in
the course of a live programme on national
television on September 7, 2004 by Union Minister
Jagdish Tytler, a man who continues to face the
charge of leading and inciting a mob during the
anti-Sikh carnage in Delhi. This speaks volumes
for the impunity that our system gives to those
charged with serious mass crimes. On the basis of
the evidence placed before it, the ongoing
Nanavati Commission has issued notice to Tytler,
on the prima facie ground that there was a case
against him. The Commission relied on the
eyewitness report of Surinder Singh, a head
granthi (priest) of a Sikh gurdwara, who had said
in his affidavit that during the November 1984
carnage he saw Tytler incite and lead a mob of
rioters to burn the gurdwara and kill Sikhs.
Of the 2,000 prosecutions launched in courts
arising out of the massacre of Sikhs, only nine
convictions have resulted. None involved
prominent politicians or members of the police
force who hold command responsibility and need to
be directly held responsible and culpable when
mass crimes against sections of the population
take place.
Eighteen years after Delhi 1984, the Gujarat
genocide of 2002 shocked the conscience of the
people, including jurists, profoundly. A historic
verdict delivered on April 12, 2004 not only
attempted corrective justice but in scathing,
no-nonsense terms, squarely detailed the hell let
loose on the soil of Gujarat by the political
leadership. Just as a corrective process was
underway and the re-trial had begun in Mumbai in
accordance with the historic verdict, (see
Special Report in this issue), a serious attempt
to challenge these remedial attempts is afoot.
Since the day that Zahira Sheikh held her press
conference in Vadodara on November 3, 2004, at
which she rubbished the historic steps underway
to renew faith in the judicial process and hurled
baseless allegations at us while declaring
herself as a hostile witness, we have maintained
that she is a pawn for those who would like to
see justice subverted in Gujarat.
In a system and society that grapples with the
reality of interminably long drawn out criminal
trials, a very low conviction rate (a mere six
per cent in criminal cases) and a huge backlog of
cases, the phenomenon of witnesses being made to
turn hostile is unfortunately routine. Radical
reform and corrective measures that include both
police and judicial reform, witness protection
schemes and a new law to prevent and punish
genocidal killings are the crying need of the
hour.
Between Delhi 1984 and Gujarat 2002, the mapping
of violent internal conflict includes the
Meerut-Malliana (UP) massacre in 1987, where
Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) jawans lined
up and shot dead in cold blood 53 Muslim youth
and the Bhagalpur massacre of 1989 during which
an overnight slaughter of the minority (nearly
1,000 were killed) was organised. In one gruesome
incident, bodies were buried and vegetables
planted over them in a unique cover-up operation.
There have been no convictions worth the name for
these crimes. In the post-Babri demolition
violence in Bombay 1992-1993, despite the
publication of the Srikrishna Commission report
in February 1998, no significant prosecutions
have followed.
The message is therefore clear. For the
perpetrators of a pogrom or genocidal killing,
impunity from prosecution and punishment appears
to be guaranteed in advance. Armed with this
impunity, the mass murderers have mastered
techniques of subversion of investigation. And
the destruction of evidence is now 'in-built'
into the very modes of killing adopted. This was
clearly visible in Gujarat where a chemical
powder was extensively used while burning people
so that no trace of the victims remained and
which made it all the more difficult to 'count
the dead'.
Demonisation of sections of the population
through hate speech and hate writing are a vital
ingredient of the genocidal plan. Delhi 1984 and
Gujarat 2002 displayed this tendency in full as
did the pogroms in between. Economic crippling
and cultural humiliation wrap up the picture. If
270 dargahs and masjids were destroyed in the
first 72 hours in Gujarat (see Genocide; Gujarat
2002), 450 gurdwaras (nearly 75%) were destroyed
or seriously damaged in 1984.
Each or all of these elements have been visible
on Indian soil for well nigh a quarter of a
century. Nineteen-eighty-four constitutes a
watershed in the history of communal violence in
post-Independence India. While earlier there were
riots, what we have been witnessing with
frightening frequency since 1984 are one-sided
pogroms and genocidal assaults with the active
connivance of, if not brazen sponsorship by, the
State. Even as justice eludes the
victim-survivors of 1984 (Delhi) and Mumbai
(1992-93), the post-2002 attempts to subvert
investigation and justice for the
victim-survivors of the Gujarat genocide are a
new challenge to Indian democracy. Will it
respond?
- Editors
o o o o
Communalism Combat
November - December 2004
1984: REMEMBRANCE, RESTITUTION, JUSTICE
Punishment of the guilty is necessary not because
we are brooding over the past but because we are
worried about the future
BY HS Phoolka
Should we leave behind the 20-year-old massacre
that took place in November 1984? Should we not
move ahead in life and forget about this
horrifying past? Why should the peace attained
and maintained among communities now be disturbed
by talking about the genocide that happened two
decades ago? These are some of the questions that
are repeatedly put to me by the media as also the
public in general. They often ask that now, since
a Sikh has become Prime Minister of the country,
should not the Sikhs be happy, and pardon the
Congress party for what happened in 1984?
http://www.sabrang.com/cc/archive/2004/nov-dec/cover.html
______
[3]
[Excerpted from : 'Memos for the future',
Magazine section, The Hindu, Jan 02, 2005]
CULTURE, THE GLUE
[By] Ranjit Hoskote
In the Nehruvian formulation, culture was the
glue that would hold together the fissiparous,
bewilderingly multiple and mutable group
expressions that constituted the nation, under
the aegis of the state's unifying machinery of
control and distribution. This culture would bind
India's expressivities to a dirigiste
administration that could use them to produce a
strong emerging-power identity for the country.
On the one hand, such a national culture provided
a space of belonging for a people churned by the
enthusiasm of Independence yet shattered by the
Partition. On the other hand, it gave the new
postcolonial state an aura of splendid genius, a
compensatory self-inflation to set against the
poverty and industrial backwardness of a newly
liberated colony.
REUTERS
Will the digital divide be transcended?
This hyphenation strategy worked well from the
1950s to the 1990s, but was productive only so
long as the state maintained a liberal, inclusive
attitude. Despite occasional departures dictated
by expediency, successive Congress governments
adhered to this charter. Even so, culture was
often reduced to emporial spectacle in official
productions, especially during the 1980s,
becoming a theatre of romantic nationalism. And
there were always crucial elements that got left
out of this narrative, such as Dalit
self-representations and the newly evolving urban
folklores. As the schism between nation and state
opened wide in the late 1980s, whether in the
North-East, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, or rural
Bihar and Andhra Pradesh, the mandarin-scripted
national culture began to look tragically absurd.
An official national culture is a fossil idiom,
and cannot compare with culture actively produced
through the dialogue of individual reflection and
social performance. Worse, an official national
culture can change, sometimes drastically, when
one ruling group is displaced by another.
These dangers of an officially legislated
national culture became manifest during the
1990s, as the Mandal and the Ramjanambhoomi
agitations mobilised different genres of
resentment, and the annihilationist forces of the
Right seized state power. Theirs was a vision
that accorded primacy to culture, but in a
dangerously narrow way. To them, Indian culture
was identical with Hindutva culture (not Hindu
culture, that immensely rich and plural tapestry
which is far beyond the tunnel vision of the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak).
The hyphen between nation and state became
vocalised during the Bharatiya Janata Party's
ascendancy, but alas, with deplorable results on
either side. The state became an instrument for
the promotion of Hindutva, and the obdurate
nation was sought to be trimmed, in Procrustean
fashion, to disenfranchise those who did not
subscribe to such a conception of culture.
With the BJP's vulgar religiosity went a vulgar
spectacularism, staged in counterpoint to the
catastrophes of collective life. The war
mythology of Kargil was played at full blast, to
drown out the Orissa supercyclone; the pomp of
Pravasi Bharatiya Divas papered over the pogrom
in Gujarat. National culture became a celebration
of aggressive self-assertion. At the same time,
an overt censorship by mob or more subtle
coercion through social sanction came into force
against a wide range of cultural producers:
painters, scholars, writers, musicians,
storytellers, dancers and filmmakers.
This neo-tribalism of the Right gathered momentum
even while the processes of globalisation led
large numbers of people to seek their identity
and location in new spaces. In globalised India,
the individuated self, extending itself beyond
what it regards as a constraining state and a
limiting national identity, is the base unit of
the mathematics of the imagination. It premises
itself on an aspiration graph and a consumption
pattern that seem incompatible with the pieties
of any of our established political parties.
We cannot predict the locations that Indians will
assign to themselves in the next 25 years. How
will they name and represent themselves as they
explore spaces of aspiration beyond the
nation-state, and yet are held down by the
nation-state's protocols? Will the hyphen float
free, to link self and context, rather than
nation and state? Will there be a multiplication
of subcultures of resistance, which will counter
to whatever official culture happens to be in
place? Will high culture drive into the
cul-de-sac of formalism, preferring museality to
the contaminations of experience? Will culture
emerge from performances meant for small
communities rather than mass audiences, as the
Great Public gives way to innumerable specialist
publics? Will the digital divide be transcended,
in such a way that children in shantytowns will
project their images and accounts into the
world-stream? I conclude with the hope that
India's cultural producers will preserve their
tactical gift of revelation-by-surprise, eluding
both the commodifiers and the regimenters, the
colour-blind ecclesiarchs and the colour-drunk
publicists.
______
[4] [Tsunami Disaster and After:]
(i)
GIVE WELL, GIVE WISELY!
CSFH Urges Responsible Giving in the Wake of Tsunami Tragedy
Friends,
It is time to give and give generously. As the death toll climbs past
150,000 and the world comes to grips with the devastation caused by the
deadly Indian Ocean tsunamis, numerous organizations across Asia are
stepping up to organize relief and rehabilitation. We at the Campaign to
Stop Funding Hate (CSFH) urge all individuals in the U.S. and elsewhere
to support them by donating generously.
However, our responsibility does not end with giving. It is also our
combined responsibility to ensure that our funds do not end up in
sectarian hands, and that this tragedy does not turn into another
opportunity for communal groups to gain foothold in our plural society.
KEEPING ACCOUNTABILITY, SOCIAL JUSTICE ON THE AGENDA
The response to the tsunami tragedy in the US has been heartening, with
hundreds of dedicated volunteers making enormous effort to raise
resources for relief operations in India and elsewhere. Many of these
groups have a long history of carrying out grass-roots, non-sectarian
development work in India, and have been able to effectively mobilize
their networks at this time to administer relief. They can be counted
upon for working closely with affected communities in a transparent and
accountable manner. The immense loss of life in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and
Thailand, makes it incumbent on us to consider giving to our suffering
Asian neighbors, either through transnational organizations or through
informal networks of local community-based organizations. (See below
for a partial list of such organizations).
Many of us are also members of a variety of linguistic, regional and
cultural associations. Because of their social and cultural affinities,
such organizations are well equipped to intervene in on the ground
activities. Precisely because of these reasons, sectarian groups try to
use them as vehicles to advance their own agendas. We therefore urge you
all to not only take an active part in the fund raising activities of
these organizations but also be involved in discussions on how and where
the funds are to be used. Disasters of this kind are occasions when we
should be on high alert to keep social justice at the top of the agenda.
STAY CLEAR OF SECTARIAN GROUPS SUCH AS IDRF, HSS, SEVA INTERNATIONAL AND
VHPA
Please remember the lessons of past natural calamities: Latur earthquake
in 1993, Orissa cyclone in 1999 and the massive earthquake that shook
Gujarat in 2001. Sectarian groups in the guise of non profits have
swooped in on these areas engulfed in tragedy (funded in large part by
unsuspecting donors in the US) and established their presence in the
grief-stricken communities on the pretext of providing relief. Not only
did this lead to unequal disbursement of relief among various
communities, but it also caused further fracturing of these struggling
communities along lines of caste and religion.
This time too, the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF), Hindu
Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), Sewa International and Vishwa Hindu
Parishad-America (VHPA) have all put out appeals for Tsunami relief.
CSFH has done extensive research on these groups and traced their
linkages to the parent organization in India: the violent and
anti-minority Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). (See
http://www.stopfundinghate.org for details.) Affiliates of this
organization have been implicated by numerous national and international
human rights groups as having engineered the anti-Muslim Gujarat pogroms
in 2002 and the anti-Christian violence in 1998-2000. RSS itself is a
secretive organization, openly sectarian in its operations, and is not
legally permitted by the Government of India to accept funds from
abroad; consequently, its US affiliates (IDRF, HSS etc.) are raising
funds for organizations like Sewa Bharati, Jana Sankshema Samiti and
Vivekananda Kendra in India, all of which are intrinsic parts of RSS
operations in India and follow its divisive ideology.
We urge everyone to make the responsible choice in favor of supporting
secular groups with a long-standing commitment to the pluralistic ethos
and democratic ideals of India. On our part, we are following up on our
work of the past several years some of which is documented at
http://www.stopfundinghate.org . We will be happy to assist you with any
information and would really appreciate it if you will alert us to the
debates and discussions that you are involved in by emailing us at
info at stopfundinghate.org
We are building a FAQ to be posted on our site and it will be helpful to
know the kinds of questions being raised. Meanwhile, please feel free to
use the list below as a starting point to identify the kind of
organizations that are worthy of support.
Thank you
CSFH (http://www.stopfundinghate.org)
------------------------------------------------------
A partial list of non-sectarian, grassroots groups involved in relief
operations:
1. AID - Association for India's Development
http://www.aidindia.org/CMS/
2. American India Foundation
http://www.aifoundation.org/
3. Asha For Education
http://www.ashanet.org/
4. India Literacy Project
http://www.ilpnet.org/news/Tsunami/index.html
5. India Relief and Education Fund
http://iref.homestead.com/
6. Indians for Collective Action
http://www.icaonline.org/
7. Pratham
http://www.prathamusa.org/
8. Singh Foundation
http://singhfoundation.org
9. Vibha
http://www.vibha.org/emergencyrelief/
These groups are partnering with various mass-based organizations and
NGOs in India, such as the Tamil Nadu Science Forum, the National
Fishworkers Forum, Vidyarambam, APVVU (agricultural workers' union in
AP), People's Watch, Bharathi Trust and Bhoomika Trust.
Among international organizations, Doctors Without Borders is reputed to
be the most committed and experienced with meeting disasters with
professional expertise. http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org
The International Red Cross has country specific operations which may be
accessed and supported through the following links:
Sri Lanka: http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/sri_lanka!Open
Indonesia: http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/indonesia!Open
Thailand: http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/thailand!Open
Additionally, we urge you to also spread the word about the Red Cross's
'Family Links' initiative which helps locate separated family members
throughout the affected region. You can find out more about this from
http://www.icrc.org/home.nsf/home/webfamilylinks
o o o o
(ii)
Early warning system didn't help in 1999 Orissa cyclone
Five minutes after the earthquake off Sumatra,
seismologists in at least 20 Indian stations
should have known about it. G.S. Mudur reports on
why it didn't trigger thoughts of a tsunami
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050102/asp/opinion/story_4201526.asp
o o o o
letter to the editor
D-504 Purvasha
Mayur Vihar 1
Delhi 110091
1 January 2005
Remember Andhra Pradesh 27 years ago? "Advance warning systems
will be put in place." Remember Orissa not so long back? "Advance
warning systems will be put in place." The fine things just keep
on being put in place: and there they stick.
Mukul Dube
______
[5]
Letter to the Editor
Dawn
January 2, 2004
'Islamic satellite'
It has been announced that the first "Islamic
satellite" will be launched in 2006 (Dawn, Dec
29) to facilitate crescent-sighting, a perpetual
source of division in the Muslim Ummah. One
cannot help but feel frustrated about such
worthless endeavours.
Moon-sighting can be very accurately predicted by
computer models. And the Muslim clergy has been
persistent in its reluctance to accept the
intervention of science in such matters.
Believing that an Islamic satellite will produce
a paradigm shift is like living in a fool's
paradise.
For the last 10 years I have seen this issue come
up every year in our mosques in Memphis and has
been a source of repetitive heartache and
frustration. If ever such a satellite is
launched, it should be used to facilitate
education and healthcare in far-off areas of the
Islamic world. Measures must be undertaken to
ensure that the Islamic satellite does not end up
in a controversy.
NADEEM ZAFAR
Memphis, USA
______
[6]
ZNet
December 30, 2004
BABA BUDANGIRI: SUCCESSFUL RESISTANCE TO SAFFRONIZATION
by Hari Shankar
Saffronization is a process of
re-defining India's culture, heritage, economy
and history in the narrow framework of upper
class Hindus. The gradual transformation that
happened over years under the aegis of Sangh
Parivar (extremist Hindu groups RSS and VHP), got
accelerated under the Governance of BJP (the
political wing of Extremist Hindu forces) while
in power for seven years as the leading coalition
member in the National Democratic Alliance. (1)
BJP has historically grown in strength by
appealing to the religious instincts of Hindu
majority. By mixing politics and religion, it
intoxicated the India's Hindi speaking belt in
North and West and gradually grew in numbers. In
1989 it won 85 seats, (up from 2 seats in 1984
elections) at the backdrop of the Ayodhya Babri
Masjid controversy. In 1990 the Rath Yatra headed
by its leader L.K. Advani not only left many dead
in its wake, but also prepared the grounds for
the Babri Masjid demolition in Dec 6th 1992.
Since then India saw communal riots happening at
a scale never witnessed before. BJP became the
single largest party for the first time in 1996,
but it still lacked the majority to form the
government. BJP was thus forced to suppress some
of its agendas to cater to the coalition politics
and maintain a moderate stance. But the mask fell
when the Gujarat Pogrom occurred in 2002.
Unfortunately the brazen pogrom was not much
criticized by its coalition members, since in the
subsequent elections in five states BJP won
handsomely. The "Gujarat Experiment" was thus
hailed as a success and the leaders from BJP
openly discussed the implementation of this
experiment in other states.
BJP in order to break free from the shackles of
coalition politics had to win more seats in
Eastern and Southern regions where they had a
very marginal representation. Out of 132 seats in
the South zone (non Hindi speaking belt of India
comprising of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala ,
Tamil Nadu and Union Territories of Andaman,
Lakshadweep and Pondicherry) BJP had won only 20
seats in 1998 elections. This is the maximum
number of seats that the BJP has won till date
from the Southern regions. Karnataka was chosen
as an ideal point of entry for the BJP since it
could aggressively pursue its Hindutva agenda
without causing blushes to the coalition members.
(2)
The modus-operandi of saffronization is now
clear. The extremist forces select the places
where there are several communities living in
harmony and create tensions among them. It
appeals to the majority Hindus to exercise their
patriotic duty by participating in ethnic
cleansing. The political wing of Hindutva forces
provides the legitimacy by normalizing such
practices as well as shielding the criminals from
justice. This two-pronged approach to
saffronization is very difficult to combat. In
fact the other national party Indian National
Congress has done little to counter the spread of
Saffronization. Thus the responsibility fell
among the secular progressive citizens who
believed in preserving the pluralistic fabric of
rich diverse Indian culture. (3)
In Karnataka the target for the extremist Hindu
forces was to concentrate on a small shrine in
Baba Budangiri. This scenic place, nestled amidst
the Western Ghats in the district of Chickmagalur
has been chosen by Sangh Parivar to make it the
"Ayodhya of the South". (4) Baba Budnagiri is a
place of worship for both Muslims as well as
Hindus, a sufi shrine. Datta, broke away from the
mainstream Hindu practices and joined Bab Budan
to establish a place of worship for the
suppressed people from any religion. For several
centuries people from all the communities have
worshipped in this temple. The extremist Hindu
forces declared that the shrine needed to be
liberated and cleaned of Muslim influence. (5)
Hence they launched several new rituals and
rallies with the sole intention of creating
tension and bring disharmony. The event they
chose to intervene and carry on the
Saffronization was the birthday of Datta. This
fascist voice grew louder and shriller with the
elections coming up in 2004 May. In December 2003
entire Karnataka was doused in saffron flags and
leaders who had participated/encouraged the
Gujarat pogrom made their way to Karnataka to
make hate speeches and incite masses. (6)
The only resistance offered against the Saffron
March to Babbuddangiri was a coalition of
grassroots workers named Karnataka Forum for
Communal Harmony (Vedike). (7) This forum
comprising the Dalits, farmers, secularists,
women's groups and communists decided to stage a
protest rally against the saffron march on the
same day. The Vedike team members were arrested
in December 2003 and the Saffron Brigade was
allowed to continue its march and perform
rituals. (8) Two days later the Vedike organized
another meet in Chickmagalur, to display the
strength of grass roots activists. It turned out
to be a massive rally in which close to 30,000
people participated. There were cultural events
and spontaneous show of goodwill among people.
This rally contrasted in style and content with
the fascist forces with the display of song and
dance and bonhomie. (9)
In 2004 the Vedike assembled again with vigour to
resist the saffron brigade. (10) The ground work
was done thoroughly and Saffron Brigade suffered
serious setbacks in legal, political as well as
people's support. Vedike worked on the legal
ground that rituals established prior to 1974
should only be followed. (11) It issued Public
Interest Litigation that no new rituals should be
entertained in Baba Budangiri. It also demanded
that the government should ban all the rallies on
Datta-Jayanti (birthday of Datta-Baba that
Saffron forces celebrated to cleanse the sufi
shrine) and people can still visit the shrine as
before without enforcing new rituals. This year
the state banned both the rallies of the Saffron
Brigade as well as Vedike. This was a great
political victory for Vedike. (12) (13) (14) (15)
Vedike had expected this outcome and organized a
rally at an alternative place in Shimoga,
Karnataka on Dec 25th 2004. The event was
celebrated with gaiety, since for the first time
in India the grass roots workers had stopped the
march of the Saffron Brigade. This is no small
achievement and has been made possible only by
dedication and commitment of the farmers,
minorities, dalits, students, women's groups and
several other religious and non-religious
institutions. The resistance can inspire various
peace loving, anti-communal forces to collaborate
and work towards stopping Saffronization. We have
made a dent in the armor of Saffron Brigade. But
this is just the beginning and the movement
should continue to gain momentum from here. India
still has a long way to go before it removes the
scars of Saffronization.
Photos of the Shimoga meet on Dec 25th 2004 can be seen here:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/hari_ibm/album?.dir=/5f87&.src=ph&.tok=phzzjRCB1y11C5d0
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/hari_ibm/album?.dir=/9259&.src=ph&.tok=phMXkRCB_NQ1q48V
Notes:
Sources from The Hindu, India's National Newspaper
1.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=20040326005400400.htm&date=fl2106/&prd=fline&
2.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=20030117000704700.htm&date=fl2001/&prd=fline&
3.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2003112302490400.htm&date=2003/11/23/&prd=th&
4. http://www.hindu.com/2004/12/26/stories/2004122603250400.htm
5.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=20040102003202900.htm&date=fl2026/&prd=fline&
6.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2003120711820300.htm&date=2003/12/07/&prd=th&
7.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2003110707660400.htm&date=2003/11/07/&prd=th&
8.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2003120702570600.htm&date=2003/12/07/&prd=th&
9.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=20040102004302700.htm&date=fl2026/&prd=fline&
10.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2004102609710400.htm&date=2004/10/26/&prd=th&
11.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=20040521005311700.htm&date=fl2110/&prd=fline&
12. http://www.hindu.com/2004/12/25/stories/2004122515310500.htm
13.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2004122413490300.htm&date=2004/12/24/&prd=th&
14. http://www.hindu.com/2004/12/27/stories/2004122702520600.htm
15. http://www.hindu.com/2004/12/26/stories/2004122604650600.htm
_______
[7] [Three Publications from SAFHR]
REPORTING CONFLICT; A HANDBOOK FOR MEDIA PRACTITIONERS
edited by Laxmi Murthy
published by SAFHR, Kathmandu, Nepal, 2004
86 pages
ISBN 99946-32-57-4
Price; USD $ 6, NRs 400 & INR 250
Developed from within the South Asian media
community, the Handbook is the first of its kind
in identifying road blocks and exploring a
pathway to a more sensitive reporting of
conflicts. In the blame game the mass media is
often singled out as a part of the problem of
exacerbating conflicts. Moreover, in the wake of
the media revolution South Asia there has been a
phenomenal expansion in the reach and power of
the media as also its responsibility. However,
while the mass media is the primary vehicle of
the constitutionally guaranteed fight of freedom
of expression in our countries, its independence
is mediated by its structural dependence on the
state and market. Also, the journalist is not
outside society.
In reporting conflicts, the journalist is a
participant - from determining where there is a
(newsworthy) conflict, to explaining its causes,
aggravating it or even resolving it. Well
intentioned impulses to shore up national
integrity- the patriotic imperative, and
manipulated information produce the 'mistakes' of
journalists that can drive cycles of violence.
The Handbook is a distillation of the discussions
of SAFHR's media dialogues with about 120
journalists from the region. It stretches our
understanding of the philosophic and moral issues
involved in conflict reporting as well as
grapples with pragmatic do's and don'ts. Its A to
Z of conflict reporting provides a ready reckoner
for busy working journalists.
It is an important and worthy contribution to the
study and practice of conflict reporting in our
region and is a must for working journalists,
schools of journalism, institutes of mass
communication and finally, for all those who
realise the importance of media literacy.
o o o
MEDIA CROSSING BORDERS
edited by Rita Manchanda
published by SAFHR, Kathmandu, Nepal, 2004
212 pages
ISBN 99933-874-0-1
Price; USD $ 6, NRs 400 & INR 250
An essential attribute of the modern nation-state
are settled borders - the external markers of
sovereignty, differentiating 'us' from 'them'. In
the young state system of South Asia arbitrary
administrative divisions drawn by former colonial
masters, lines of political control over
territory - borders have been sacralised. The
mass media participates in the production of the
border as zones of anxieties and sites of
conflicts over territorial and maritime
boundaries, resource sharing, destabilising
population movements, smuggling of drugs and
arms, cross border insurgencies and the 'border
politics' of competitive nationalisms. The media
reflects the national imagination and configures
borders from the positions of the privilege of
power elites.
Could the media participate in demystifying
borders and unpack the ideology of power and
exclusion that makes borders sites of
confrontation and inhibits the crossing of
borders. Could the media contribute to
de-terriorialising borders and explore their
philosophic roots in a discourse that legitimises
power and exclusions? Could it essay an
alternative imagining of borderlands as
homelands, i.e. not from the centre but from the
margins? Could the media recover spatially
expansive geographies of mobility and humanize
population movements? Is the media capable of
capturing the reality of the crossing of borders
- that is, myriad resistances?
This miscellany of a book empirically and
philosophically grapples with these questions
drawing upon a regional media audit exercise -
Mapping Borders held in Kathmandu in 2003. It is
the latest in SAFHR's series of Media & Conflict
publications and is a valuable critique and an
exciting exploration of more responsible ways of
reporting borders. The book is the first of its
kind and an important contribution to applied
journalism, social communication theory and peace
studies.
o o o
WE DO MORE BECAUSE WE CAN;
NAGA WOMEN IN THE PEACE PROCESS
edited by Rita Manchanda
published by SAFHR, Kathmandu, Nepal, 2004
96 pages
ISBN 99946-31-81-0
Price; USD $ 3, NRs 160 & INR 100
In the South Asian discourse on gender and
conflict, Naga women have an iconic status as
women of peace. This slim volume seeks to
empirically document in the grand narrative of
India's longest running insurgency, the Naga
women's story and to theoretically contribute to
establishing 'women making a difference' in both
the praxis and substance of peace building. From
the head hunting days to now, the Naga women have
used their exclusion from politics as a resource
to negotiate with state and non state armed
actors to protect their communities; to mediate
between warring factions of the Naga underground
and effect reconciliation; to sustain the
ceasefire and foster unity and to build inter
community people to people dialogues. Above all,
the women have kept the channels of communication
open and promoted an inclusive peace politics.
Naga women's peace activism has socially
legitimised their leverage to claim a seat at the
peace table as a stakeholder in the peace process.
This is a vital contribution to the corpus of
gender and conflict studies and most timely in
view of the on going Naga peace process.
(visit www.safhr.org)
For order contact; Manjita Gurung <south at safhr.org>
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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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