SACW | 27-28 Jan 2005
sacw
aiindex at mnet.fr
Thu Jan 27 22:12:07 CST 2005
South Asia Citizens Wire | 27-28 Jan., 2005
via: www.sacw.net
[1] Oppose the impending attack on Iran - Online Petition by concerned citizens
[2] Bangladesh / Pakistan: The Bihari question, again (edit, New Age)
[3] India: Gujarat state fails to protect women from violence - New
Report by Amnesty International
[4] India: Sounds of Silence: Remembering Gandhi, If Only For Two
Minutes (Shahid Amin)
[5] Churning of the Ocean: The Tsunami and the Third World (Vijay Prashad)
[6] Imagining a new future for Northeast India (M. Khogen Singh)
[7] India: Indian Historian Romila Thapar turns down state honour
(Anita Joshua)
[8] India: Always Already Secular? - Afterthoughts on the
Secular-Communal Question (Sasheej Hegde)
[9] Is Depleted Uranium From The West Asian Battlefields Coming To
India? (Padmanabhan VT)
[10] Upcoming events :
(i) Invitation to "Aakhir Kyun?" [Play against Honour Killings]
(Karachi, January 28, 2005)
(ii) Public Discussion: "Bauxite Mining and the Kashipur Struggle"
(New Delhi, 28 January 2005)
--------------
[1]
[ All SACW subscribers are requested to take a few minutes to sign
the below online petition to oppose the impending attack on Iran; the
petition is open to all citizens of the world.]
o o o o
OPPOSE THE IMPENDING ATTACK ON IRAN
URL: www.PetitionOnline.com/oiai/petition.html
Let's oppose the impending attack on Iran
There are several reports and indications that US
aggression on Iran is in the offing. The argument is
that Iran is developing the Nuclear facilities which
are a threat to the US and World security. Let's
recall here that during last 15 years three major
attacks have taken place in his Middle East region,
first the 1991 attack by US and allies on Iraq on the
pretext to save the sovereignty of the Sheikh of
Kuwait. The next in line was the post 9/11, post WTC,
attack on Afghanistan and than in 2004 the massive
aggression on Iraq, on the ground that Iraq is having
weapons of mass destruction and is posing a threat to
the security. In all the attacks thousands perished
along with a massive loss of social wealth, resulting
in the destitution of thousands more.
Due to this process the military presence of US in the
Oil zone has gone up several times. The control over
the oil fields by the US companies has become
stronger. It is due to this military occupation by US
that the violation of Human rights of people of these
areas has suffered a severe jolt. Now it is the US
which is the biggest violator of the Human rights all
over the World. The pictures of torture of Abu Ghraib
prison are a vivid reminder of the same. At the same
time there has occurred severe erosion in the
authority of the United Nations. An international body
which had the potential of becoming an arbitrator of
the international disputes has been reduced to a small
shriveled appendage of the US policies. US
administration has unilaterally usurped the powers to
decide the fate of the World.
The acquisition of the Human race has been very
profound, and having high potential for progress in
the direction of more and better civility all around.
The values of peace and justice, the concept of Human
rights have been the main hallmarks of Human progress.
The institution of United Nations symbolized the
emerging global village and a potential World
Government. All this is receding into the backdrop
during the period of last decade and a half. In a way
this is a set back to the development of Humanism and
the related positive values. We need to work for
global peace, resolution of international disputes
through the international bodies, to nurture the
values of Human rights as enshrined in the UN charter
and to improve upon them.
As we see the arbitrariness in the matters of US
policies at the same time we are witness to the
emergence of Global peace movement. Those standing for
peace and justice are emerging as a significant social
presence all over. This fact came as a pleasant
realization with the staging of massive demonstration
of people on the streets of New York and London,
Calcutta and Washington. We need to strengthen this
process, we need to join and articulate this voice of
sanity.
One more aggression by US will further cripple the
World as a whole and Iran in particular. It will be a
biggest setback to the process of emergence of
peaceful international community. It is time that we
wake up to the warning signals of the impending attack
on Iran. It is time that we wake up to oppose the US
administration's barbaric plans. We need to strengthen
the norms of resolution of international conflicts on
the negotiation table. We need to carry this voice of
conscience all through the World and create an opinion
which can stall the impending war.
We the signatories of this petition demand that US and
its allies desist from any more wars or sanctions. We
need to revive the mediatory role of UN and to build
up norms of more amicable World Community.
[20 January 2005]
Sincerely,
URL: www.PetitionOnline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?oiai
The Undersigned
______
[2]
New Age
28 January 2005
Editorial
THE BIHARI QUESTION, AGAIN
The plight of the Stranded Pakistanis, also known as Biharis, is a
glaring instance of how some very major issues have remained
unresolved in South Asia. It is not merely the question of Kashmir
and the like which have kept diplomacy in a bind, especially where
ties between Pakistan and India are concerned. In similar fashion,
the periodic difficulties India and Bangladesh go through over water
sharing along their common rivers have quite demonstrated a need for
a more sober and sophisticated approach to politics in the
subcontinent. When it comes to the issue of how badly the Stranded
Pakistanis have suffered in this country over the last thirty four
years, one cannot but imagine their physical as well as psychological
state given that Pakistan has shown scant interest in having them
repatriated to its territory. When these Pakistanis, who have never
had the opportunity to travel to the country they opted for after the
emergence of Bangladesh in 1971, demand on the eve of the SAARC
summit in Dhaka that measures be taken for their permanent
rehabilitation, one can quite understand their sentiments.
Desperation is usually the feeling among people who know they have no
state they can realistically call their own.
It was not supposed to be like this. In the early 1970s, when
India, Bangladesh and Pakistan engaged in tripartite and other forms
of negotiations, the principle was simple - that Pakistan's prisoners
of war would go back home from captivity in India, that Bengalis
stranded in Pakistan as a result of Bangladesh's triumph in the 1971
war would make their way to their free country and that the Biharis,
large numbers of whom sided with the Pakistan army during its
nine-month genocide in occupied Bangladesh, would be taken to
Pakistan once they had given the option of being citizens of that
country. The move to have the Biharis repatriated to Pakistan was not
made by the Biharis on their own. The governments of both Pakistan
and Bangladesh agreed that they had a right to settle, as
Urdu-speaking people defining themselves through association with
Pakistan, in what remained of Pakistan after the war. Quite a few
families indeed made their way to Pakistan and it was especially in
the times of Nawaz Sharif that a pretty good number of Bihari
families were settled in the Punjab. That was about all, with the
result that in all this time the Biharis who looked forward to going
to Pakistan in the 1970s have aged and their children are today a new
generation of Stranded Pakistanis vocal about their place in life.
When a few Bihari young men were given the right by the Bangladesh
judiciary to adopt Bangladesh citizenship, a clear message went out
to both Dhaka and Islamabad - that the Biharis born after 1971,
having spent their youth in the squalid circumstances euphemistically
known as the Geneva camps, are today in little mood to accept their
status as stateless people. And yet economic and political
considerations make it hard for Bangladesh to grant blanket
citizenship to these people and those of their parents' generation.
It all then boils down, once more, to the question of how Pakistan
means to handle them.
The onus is therefore on the Pakistani authorities, naturally.
While they can certainly look away from the issue, as they have done
for more than three decades, they can hardly deny that it exists. It
is in the fitness of things, as such, that the leaders of Bangladesh
and Pakistan find time to engage in a purposeful dialogue on the
Stranded Pakistanis question. Beyond politics, there is the thought
of morality. If Jews from across the globe can find free passage to
Israel, it makes little sense for less than half a million men and
women calling themselves Pakistanis to be denied entry to a land they
regard as their own.
______
[3]
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE
AI Index: ASA 20/007/2005 (Public)
News Service No: 010
27 January 2005
INDIA: JUSTICE -- THE VICTIM IN GUJARAT
Nearly three years after violence erupted in the state of Gujarat in
Western India those responsible continue to walk free. The violence
left over 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, dead. Several hundred girls
and women were stripped naked, raped or gang-raped, had their wombs
slashed and were thrown into fires, some while still alive.
A new report from Amnesty International India: Justice, the victim --
Gujarat state fails to protect women from violence examines how
officials of the state government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP), claimed that a fire on a train on 27 February 2002 was planned
and caused by Muslims. It then took no steps to prevent or stop the
widespread and systematic attacks by Hindu mobs on members of the
Muslim minority which followed, and indeed many party and state
officials were seen to participate. In many cases, these human rights
abuses constitute crimes against humanity. The central government
(until May 2004 also led by the BJP) failed to censure the government
of Gujarat during and after the violence. Now both governments must
take effective steps to bring justice, truth and reparations to the
victims.
"The Gujarat state government has grossly failed to protect Muslims,
especially women and girls, during the violence," said Amnesty
International. "The fact that it still refuses to admit failings and
express regret -- despite evidence from many respected local
observers -- is a further insult to the victims."
Bilqis Yakoob Rasool, herself a victim of gang-rape who lost 14
family members reported: "They started molesting the girls and tore
off their clothes. Our naked girls were raped in front of the crowd.
They killed Shamin's baby who was two days old. They killed my
maternal uncle and my father's sister and her husband too. After
raping the women they killed all of them... They killed my baby too.
They threw her in the air and she hit a rock. After raping me, one of
the men kept a foot on my neck and hit me."
A litany of institutional failures added to the suffering of women
like Bilqis Yakoob Rasool and prevented justice being done against
their assailants. During the attacks, police stood by or even joined
in the violence. When victims tried to file complaints, police often
did not record them properly and failed to carry out investigations.
In Bilqis Yakoob Rasool's case, police closed the investigation,
stating they could not find out who the rapists and murderers were
despite the fact that she had named them earlier. Doctors often did
not complete medical records accurately.
Existing rape laws were too narrow to cover the wide range of abuses
women suffered. Judges and prosecutors in many cases failed to
protect witnesses from threats, sided with the accused and acquitted
them.
"Little has been done to prevent such violence happening again," said
Amnesty International. "The Gujarat state government must urgently
make institutional changes, including gender-sensitization training
for police, judges, and prosecutors. Those who deliberately hampered
the prosecution of offenders should be held to account. If the state
takes no measures to remedy its failings, the victims will find it
much more difficult to overcome their ordeal and regain a sense of
safety."
Some survivors bravely tackled these obstacles to fight for justice.
Bilquis Yakoob Rasool is one of them. Another is Zahira Sheikh, who
witnessed her relatives and neighbours being burned to death in the
family enterprise, the Best Bakery. Both cases highlight glaring
failures at all levels, including police, the courts and the
government.
Indian human rights campaigners, national human rights organisations,
national media and the Supreme Court have supported victims of
violence and contributed to restoring hope at this late stage to some
victims. In August 2004, the Supreme Court ordered that over 2,000
complaints closed by police and some 200 cases which ended in
acquittals of the accused be reviewed with a view to possible
remedial action.
For many victims, justice -- if it comes at all -- will come too
late. "Many women were burned alive after they'd been raped, leaving
no trace of the crimes against them," said Amnesty International.
"Scores of other women never filed rape complaints -- they were
either prevented or were too afraid or ashamed to do so. These are
the forgotten victims of the violence."
The report was shared with the governments of India and Gujarat prior
to publication. Both governments provided detailed comments which are
reflected in the report. To see the report, please go to: [URL:
web.amnesty.org/library/index/engasa200012005 ]
Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW. web: www.amnesty.org
o o o o
"India Justice, the victim: Gujarat state fails to protect women from violence"
A report by Amnesty International (27 January 2005)
URL: web.amnesty.org/library/pdf/ASA200012005ENGLISH/$File/ASA2000105.pdf
______
[4]
The Times of India
January 28, 2005
SOUNDS OF SILENCE: REMEMBERING GANDHI, IF ONLY FOR TWO MINUTES
by Shahid Amin
The streets of Delhi seem to have left very little room for marking
historic events. No stretch invites us to imagine the day Nadir Shah
unsheathed his sword for the qatl-e-aam in Shahjahanabad. No plaque
on the Ring Road marks the long day in early May 1857, when rebel
soldiers from Meerut had hammered at the Rajghat Darwaza, demanding
to be let into the city. No mural at the recently-consecrated metro
terminal at Kashmere Gate portrays the dark hour in the September of
that year when the denizens of Delhi were killed, maimed, looted and
recolonised by the avenging force of the Company Bahadur.
There is one such historic road, however: Tees Janvari Marg, the site
of an obscene violence - the hallmark of the illegitimacy of
majoritarian nationalism - that seems equally to be fast disappearing
from the horizon of our remembered past. And I say that as someone
who was born into the Republic of India and the independent
nation-state.
For India's midnight children, those born in a freshly-partitioned
and free Hindustan, Gandhi and Nehru represented the two facets of
adolescent, post-colonial pride. The tension between the Mahatma's
anarchic vision of a self-sufficient India and the armature of a
sovereign state that Jawaharlal was fabricating feverishly at
Durgapur and Khadakvasala, Sindri and Bhakra was not always clear to
us children 'handcuffed to history', to borrow the words of Salman
Rushdie. For the primary-schoolers of the 50s, it was the
'Sabarmati-sant' who had 'miraculously given us freedom sans
shield-and-sword': 'De di hamen azadi bina khadag bina dhaal;
Sabarmati ke sant tune kar diya kamaal', as that Jagriti film song
had famously put it.
We knew from our school books that the young Gandhi had refused to
cheat as his teacher had nudged him to copy the correct spelling of
'kettle' so as to present the visiting inspector with a class of
word-perfect spellers. Growing up in largely teetotaller middle class
homes, we could empathise with young Nehru, when he saw Motilal
'drinking claret or some red wine and rushed' inside to tell 'mother
that father was drinking blood' (autobiography). We could almost hear
the goat which kid Mohandas had consumed with a friend (to be like
'the mighty Englishman/ Because being a meat-eater/ He is five cubits
tall'), bleating normatively inside young Gandhi. We awaited with
solemn, juvenile eagerness the two-minute break from all scholarly
activity at 11 a.m. on Martyr's Day - January 30, when Gandhi was
gunned down at Tees Janvari Marg in Lutyen's Delhi. As Stanley
Wolpert's meticulous biography makes clear, the assassin's bullet
found its mark that day in 1948 just after five in the evening:
"Mahatma Gandhi's passionate heart poured its crimson blood out onto
his white shawl. His gentle body collapsed and stopped breathing at
5.17 p.m.".
In that hour of national dishonour, when fighting his tears Nehru
announced the assassination of Bapu in that touching 'The light has
gone out' speech, he took care to request those of his countrymen
outside Delhi to 'go to the river or the sea and offer prayers there
at the appointed time of cremation': 4 p.m. on Saturday, January 31,
1948. But every subsequent national comme-moration of the Father of
the Nation rightly required that we remembered the Mahatma outside
the disaggregated space of families huddled over an evening cup of
tea. It must have been Nehru's idea that, even if mildly
anachronistic, individual Indians stand up in nonfamilial groups,
wherever they were - at offices, schools, colleges, factories, not at
5.17 p.m. but at 11 a.m. - in silent tribute to Mahatma Gandhi. But
those days, to bend the language a bit, is past now. Most denizens of
the city are no longer stopped in their tracks by the 11 o'clock
siren. Save the exceptional ones, no such commemoration seems to take
place in most schools these days. 'What is Martyr's Day?' is a
general knowledge question that 11-year-olds have to get right in a
school test; they don't live those two Gandhian minutes every year
any longer. One wonders whether the average aspiring crorepati on
that TV show would have got it right first shot, without phoning a
friend or going 50:50!
Must our brightest school-children, who would soon be looking forward
to Stanford or Harvard degrees, be denied the poignancy of that Tees
Janvari moment? Shouldn't our FM radios be airing at least half an
hour of film songs connected with Gandhi on October 2, and those
abjuring violence on January 30?
A year ago, a previous HRD minister had to apologise to Parliament
for the inadvertent omission of Gandhi's assassination in new
textbooks. However, a survey of our best school and college-level
history books, written by some of our leading historians, reveals
what I feared would be the case: No mention of the day and the way
Gandhi died. And that is largely because most such books, called
'Modern India', or 'From Plassey to Partition' end with the year
1947. While India gave birth to Mohandas, it was the vengeful idea of
a majoritarian 'Indian nation' that killed him. Let's reclaim once
again those precious two minutes on January 30 every year to remind
ourselves of the wayward ways of righteous nationalism.
______
[5]
ZNet Commentary
January 26, 2005
CHURNING OF THE OCEAN: THE TSUNAMI AND THE THIRD WORLD
By Vijay Prashad
The January 17, 2005 issue of the European edition of Time and of the
International edition of Newsweek had the same photograph. It showed a burly
US naval officer from the USS Abraham Lincoln holding a badly injured child
in the Indonesian port city of Banda Aceh. The pathos on the face of the
officer is not propaganda, nor is the grief and fear on the face of the
gravely affected child staged. The tragedy is real, as is the immense human
effort of reconstruction and healing.
What is almost offensive is the tenor of the media coverage in the US, and
of its main periodicals. In the aftermath of the death of the quarter
million and the devastation in the lives of the survivors, the emphasis of
this media has been on the role of the US government and of US nationals in
the clean up. The cover picture in these flagship magazines, as well as the
tenor of the coverage within the US, displays a classic colonial device: to
show the white nations as the protector, and the darker nations as the
helpless lot thankful for the temperament and technology of the overlords.
The photo-shoot is everything: Senator Bill Frist during a photo opportunity
on his disaster tour in Sri Lanka asked his aides to "Get some devastation
in the back."
The autonomous effort of people along the Indian Ocean rim and of their
sacrifice has not graced our press. Terri Gross of Fresh Air (1/19/05) noted
that the US government's aid package of $350 million is larger than that of
Saudi Arabia, which is all very well. Bear in mind that the US contribution
is only 0.003% of our GDP. But why is the US always the main story, even
when the devastation is in Asia, and even when the main effort of recovery
will be made by Asians and not by the few US marine and medics who are in
the area?
I was in Chennai last week, one of the worst hit parts of India. During a
visit to the offices of the largest newspaper in the city, and in Southern
India, The Hindu, I learnt of the open hearts of ordinary people toward
those so tragically affected. The newspaper had started a fund drive, and
within a few weeks had collected over Rs. 10 crore, which is Rs. 100 million
or else $2.25 million. The amount is not large in itself, but consider this:
most of the money has come in from individual donations or else from
schoolteachers, bank clerks and other salaried employees as well as hourly
workers in factories and shops who have donated a day's salary. Those who
can least afford to put money in the can have been the most enthusiastic.
In Kolkata, even street beggars decided to donate a day's earnings toward
the Prime Minister's Relief Fund, whose coffers will swell to around $100
million. The Communist members of parliament pledged a month of their
salaries. Political parties from across the spectrum held drives to raise
money and to send people for relief work. All this money is going toward
state and extra-state agencies who are in the thick of reconstruction. More
Indians died in the Gujarat earthquake of 2001 (30,000), and yet the Indian
population has easily raised more in two weeks for this tragedy than they
did in twelve months after the 2001 quake.
Talking to Indians of all political denominations and from different social
locations, it became clear that the money came in for two reasons. First, we
remain baffled by the scale of the disaster in the region, not just in the
nation. Conversations on the lack of an effective early warning did not
detract from our awe at Nature's power over human endeavors. Attempts to
connect the scale of the devastation to global warming and other such human
disasters will need to be studied, although some of this ecological analysis
seemed politically opportunistic. Clearly the attrition of mangrove forests
along part of the coastline, and other such issues affected the scale of the
death, but we don't know that it produced the shift in the tectonic plates.
Money poured in because it was the very least one could do in the face of
what is without mercy.
Second, when the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced that his
government would not require foreign aid, and when the Indian media reported
on the efforts of the Indian navy and others in the region (including in Sri
Lanka and the Maldives), it showed that one had to do one's part in the
region and not rely upon any external uncles for help. Singh's words stirred
up an almost anachronistic Third World anti-colonial nationalism, even as
Singh himself leads a government otherwise prone toward concessions to the
world's bankers. Before the US government pledged $2.6 million to Sri Lanka
in the days after the Tsunami, the Indian government already offered $26
million.
The ethos that motivates this effort comes from regionalism, from the
fifty-year tradition of Third World solidarity, as well as from the
two-decade attempt by the Indian state to be the major power in the
neighborhood. These complex motivations drive the agenda. What is remarkable
is not what motivates the government, but how the demonstration of
sovereignty provokes this large-scale voluntary contribution toward
reconstruction not just within the nation, but also within the region. Our
reporters miss such an effort perhaps because it is so alien to US
nationalism.
Time carried a sidebar story that questioned the mechanism of relief
delivery ("How Much Will Really Go to the Victims?"). Despite our best good
intentions, the article argues, "Donor countries do not want their aid to
overwhelm a country's bureaucracy or feed corruption, so in the name of
accountability, they give very carefully." The idea of "donor nations" comes
from institutions like the Paris Club (created in 1956 to coordinate the
relationship of advanced capitalist states and "Third World debt") and the
G-7 (formed in 1975 to coordinate macroeconomic policy among the advanced
capitalist states).
These institutions promote the view that they "give" and the darker nations
"take." The Third World is the "recipient" of First World largess, which
entirely covers up the sacrifice and effort of two thirds of the world's
people. Those who live outside the G-7 too demonstrate their capability to
be donors, even if they make demands upon the imperial powers to redress
historical theft, to compensate for a lack of technical and capital
resources.
To invoke corruption is a necessity, because any relief effort is suffused
with mendacity and greed. However, corruption in the Third World should not
be an excuse not to provide monies for reconstruction. Within Indian
society, for instance, corruption is both endemic and condemned. It is a
political issue that inflames discussion and organization - countries such
as India welcomed the UN Convention Against Corruption (2003). Neither
corruption nor bureaucratic unaccountability stops global corporations and
G-7 nations from doing business with the darker nations.
Corruption is a problem, but the work that the discourse of corruption does
is almost as insidious as the ailment itself. To harp on about corruption
allows the media to paper over the fundamental lack of generosity of our
governments, but also to occlude a much greater problem - that the national
liberation and Third World bourgeois state has been cannibalized, that it
cannot provide many basic services, and that it has few resources to command
for social development.
For days in much of South and South-East Asia, the state did not act. This
had little to do with corruption or bureaucratic unaccountability alone, but
it had lots to do with the fact that under IMF direction and with the
enthusiasm of the domestic elite, the state's capacity to provide services
had been slashed. The shell of the state, now increasingly privatized, had
to rely upon the immense sacrifice of its officials, of organized political
outfits and of ordinary citizens to conduct the normal operations of modern
relief.
The military in much of the region took the lead because of all state
institutions it has been least cannibalized - a sad commentary on modern
civilization. On January 12, the Paris Club declared that it would suspend
collection of debt payments from Tsunami affected countries "until the World
Bank and the IMF have made a full assessment of their reconstruction and
financing needs." This was by far the most important gesture from the G-7,
greater than all the money that its independent nations pledged. What it
recognized is that the debt service payments are so vast that they cripple
the ability of the darker nations to conduct social development, and relief.
That recognition needs to be built upon.
Despite the cannibalization of the state form and the endemic corruption and
bureaucratic unaccountability, people still turn over their money to the
state for reconstruction. The horizon of the state as the dispenser of
justice lives on as a legacy of Third World anti-colonial nationalism. If
the state has withered, the belief in the state has not altogether gone. And
indeed, how would it go.
What are the alternatives: private capital, which is motivated by its
profits alone, and which is also unaccountable and also corrupt (viz.
Enron)? Non-governmental organizations, whose scale is so miniscule that
despite whatever good work they do, they cannot provide the sort of services
(insurance, naval assistance) provided by the state or global corporations?
The only institution that seems viable is the national state, and this is
perhaps the reason why individual Indians, for example, raised money and
turned them toward the state for rehabilitation.
Short of a month after the Tsunami, the US military decided to pull out of
the effort. At a dramatic press conference on January 19, US Pacific
Command's chief Admiral Thomas Fargo announced that the US military "will
start right now transferring functions to the appropriate host nations and
international organizations." Transferring? As if the US had been the
dominant power in this effort. The soldier on the cover of Time and Newsweek
will deploy, if Seymour Hersh is right, somewhere near Iran, keener to
create tragedy than to mollify it. The darker nations, meanwhile, will
persist in recovery long after the television cameras and print journalists
have gone on to the next misfortune.
Vijay Prashad has just finished writing Darker Nations: the Rise and Fall of
the Third World which will be published later this year by the New Press.
______
[6]
The Hindustan Times
January 23
IMAGINING A NEW FUTURE FOR NORTHEAST INDIA
M. Khogen Singh
Sanjib Baruah, Durable Disorder: Understanding the Politics of
Northeast India, Oxford University Press, 2005
Books on northeast India, like those on Kashmir, come out by the
dozen these days. The authors generally belong to two categories. In
the first are former bureaucrats, policemen and generals. Most of
them do not belong to the region but have served there for long. In
the second category are academics, mostly from the region.
The divide in their prescriptions for the ethnic insurgency in the
region is clear to any discernible observer. For the former, economic
development, employment generation and a corruption-free
administration are the mantras. For the academics and authors who
belong to the region, the solution lies in going beyond the
development paradigm.
But now a well-known author and thinker from the northeast has come
up with suggestions that go beyond both. Sanjib Baruah suggests
measures that do not fall in the stereotypes. His views are
influenced to a large extent by what is happening globally. This is
probably because of his long research and teaching stint abroad.
Baruah points out that in official publications and much of Indian
academic writing, the northeast's problems are often explained by two
factors: the region's underdevelopment, and poor integration into the
pan-Indian mainstream. Consequently, the measures that are put forth
to tackle the region's numerous insurgencies are broadly two:
economic development and nation-building.
But Baruah calls for "imagining a different future" for the northeast
because a "continued faith in the failed narratives of national
development and nation-building can be quite dangerous in the present
global conjuncture." The author says a lesson could be learnt from
the European Union's Committee of the Regions that was set up under
the Maastrich Treaty of 1993. The treaty allows "regional identities"
in the EU to pursue a transnational politics of recognition that has
been able to compensate for their marginalisation within
nation-states. These regional identities in the EU, according to
Baruah, are not unlike the ethnic assertions in northeast India that
are behind the various insurgencies in the region.
Baruah says it is necessary to know the region's history for a better
understanding of its contemporary problems. But unfortunately, "the
bureaucrats, politicians and military officers who make northeast
policy are either oblivious of the historical issues that
insurgencies raise, or consider them too trivial to merit substantive
engagement".
The book will be a disappointment for the uninitiated as it is not a
historical account of the region, particularly its post-independence
troubled times. Much of the material in it has also been published
earlier as articles in journals and magazines. The author says "the
primary reason for reprinting them is practical: to make them
available in India, especially those that were published in European
and American journals to which very few people have access."
Its analytical and insightful arguments definitely make it a
must-read for researchers and those in the government who shape
northeast policy. It is certainly among the best books on the
northeast to come out in recent years.
_______
[7]
The Hindu
Jan 28, 2005
''I ACCEPT AWARDS ONLY FROM ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS''
By Anita Joshua
NEW DELHI, JAN. 27. Eminent historian Romila Thapar has written to the
President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, informing him of her decision declining to
accept the Padma Bhushan award conferred on her this year. ``Whereas I am
deeply appreciative of the honour that you have done me in making this award,
I am at the same time, regretfully, unable to accept it. I decided some years
ago that I would only accept awards from academic institutions or those
associated with my professional work, and not accept State awards.''
In fact, according to Prof. Thapar, she had declined the Padma Bhushan for
the same reason in 1992. Then also, she wrote to the then President citing
similar reasons. In her letter to Mr. Kalam, the historian also sought to
underline the fact that it was a ``purely personal decision and does not
reflect on the other recipients of State awards.''
Prof. Thapar also expressed surprise over her inclusion in the awards list as
she had made her position clear to the Human Resource Development Ministry
when it had sounded her out about such a move three months ago. Stating that
she had explained to the Ministry her reason for declining the award, the
historian noted: ``I do feel that the views of individuals should be
respected.''
Prof. Thapar is the second Padma awardee this year to decline it; the other
being Kanaksen Deka of Assam, who was conferred the Padma Shri for his
contribution to journalism. Prof. Thapar was chosen for her contribution to
literature and education.
_______
[8]
The Economic and Political Weekly
January 22, 2005
ALWAYS ALREADY SECULAR?
Afterthoughts on the Secular-Communal Question
A theory of secularism in the sense of a theory about possessing the
concept 'secular' is quite distinct from a theory about how the
concept secular represents. Much of the debate on the
secular-communal question has emphasised the latter aspect. This
article argues, however, that the treatment of the secular-communal
question is not only one of separating religion from politics but one
that must be orientated towards the place of secularism. The
secular-communal debate essentially ignores issues of ethical
particularism, or the intranslability of concepts (i e, secularism)
as well as the kinds of necessity that bind previous (or parallel)
instances of a concept with a new one; hence the long-standing debate
must also articulate an alternative for secularism.
by Sasheej Hegde
[THE FULL PLAIN TEXT VERSION OF THE ABOVE PAPER (SIZE: 96K) IS
AVAILABLE TO ALL INTERESTED. SHOULD YOU REQUIRE A COPY SEND WORD TO
<aiindex at mnet.fr> ]
_______
[9]
South Asians Against Nukes
January 27, 2005
IS DEPLETED URANIUM FROM THE WEST ASIAN
BATTLEFIELDS COMING TO INDIA?
by Padmanabhan VT
The explosion and fire in a smelter recycling the military scrap
imported by a recycling unit in Delhi in Sept 2004 had received wide
media coverage. As per the reports the cargo originated from Iran.
Iran and Iraq were locked in a 10 yearlong war during the eighties.
In comparison to the wars fought by the US and allies in Iraq,
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan during the past 14 years, that
one was a very low-key conflict. All these countries also share a
land border with Iran. Moreover, Iraq and Afghanistan are still in a
state of disequilibria, their foreign trade is not normalized as of
now. Hence, it is likely that the scrap is the byproduct of these
recent conflicts. The wars fought during the past fifteen years under
the leadership of USA in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo were
radioactive wars. They did not use atom bombs, but the projectiles
they fired contained uranium238, which is generally known as depleted
uranium (DU). [...]
[ FULL TEXT AT
URL: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org/2005/DUinscrapVTP27Jan2005.html ]
________
[10]
UPCOMING EVENTS:
(i)
INVITATION TO "AAKHIR KYUN?"
Aakir Kyun is a mobile theatre play created by Tehrik - e Niswan
Cultural Action Group as part of British Council's awareness raising
and Anti-Honour Killing Campaign in Sindh and Lower Punjab.
Being aware of how fantastic an impact theatre can have on people's
lives and communities. Tehrik-i-Niswan through its mobile theatre
performances, tries to empower women, communicate information and
offer a forum for discussion on the sensitive issue of Honour
Killings.
The script of the play is based on true incidents and case studies.
The first story is however based on a tale from " A thousand and one
nights".
Aakhir Kyun is conceived and directed by Sheema Kermani
Translation and design by Anwer Jafri
Venue: FTC Auditorium, Sharah-e-Faisal, Karachi
Date : 28 January 2005
Times : 7.45 pm
Performance followed by discussion and refreshments
Entry on invitation.
Contact:
Tehrik e Niswan : 583 7119
British Council : 0800 22000
o o o o
(ii)
KASHIPUR MEETING 28 JAN 4 PM CSD
The People's Movement in Kashipur has been subjected to many
repressive measures in recent weeks as the Orissa Government has
decided to go ahead with bauxite mining operations by UAIL (Utkal
Alumina International Ltd ) despite widespread opposition to the
project on the grounds of environmental destruction and tribal
livelihood.
Representatives of the movement and recent visitors to the area will
present an up to date report while members of the earlier Fact
finding Teams will review the situation.
Bauxite Mining and the Kashipur Struggle :
Recent Developments
Venue: Council for Social Development
53 Max Mueller Marg, New Delhi
Date : Friday, 28 January 2005 at 4 P M
Speakers
Lingaraj,
Samajvadi Jan Parishad
Rabi Shankar Pradhan, PSSP, Kashipur
Subhojit Bagchi, BBC
Manoranjan Mohanty, Delhi University
Ranjana Padhi, Saheli
Chair: Pradipto Roy, CSD
Pradipto Roy Manoranjan Mohanty
Council for Social Development Orissa Gabeshana Chakra
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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/
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