SACW | 8 March 2005

[sacw]

South Asia Citizens Wire   | 8 March,  2005
via:  www.sacw.net

[1] CPJ condemns detention of prominent Nepali editor [Kanak Mani Dixit]
[2]   Pakistan:
- I am not alone, says Mukhtar Mai
- Mukhtar Mai: political class and judiciary must 
reflect national concerns (Nasim Zehra)
- Clerics seeking decree to declare Aga Khanis infidels (Waqar Gillani)
[3] [Pakistan - India:]  Left interaction (Editorial, Dawn)
[4] [Pakistan- India] The good news from Islamabad (Radha Kumar)
[5] India: On Muslim Women in Gujarat (Mukul Dube)
[6]  Women Against Fundamentalism (Dolores Chew)
[7] Announcements:
-  Coming soon - Anhad Video CDs in Hindi


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

[1]

Committee to Protect Journalists
330 Seventh Avenue,
New York, NY 10001 USA  
Web: www.cpj.org 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:


CPJ CONDEMNS DETENTION OF PROMINENT NEPALI EDITOR


New York, March 7, 2005-The Committee to Protect 
Journalists condemns the detention today of 
prominent Nepali journalist and political analyst 
Kanak Mani Dixit, editor and publisher of the 
Nepalese-language Himal Khabarpatrika magazine. 
Dixit, who has criticized the king's February 1 
takeover of the government, was taken into 
custody shortly after returning from India, where 
he delivered a talk on the political crisis in 
Nepal.

"The jailing of Kanak Dixit is another severe 
blow to the ideals of democracy and press freedom 
that once seemed so promising in Nepal," CPJ 
Executive Director Ann Cooper said. "Despite 
international censure of the king's actions, 
journalists remain in jail and conditions for the 
press are dire. We call for the immediate release 
of Dixit and all other journalists in detention."

Criticism of the king's actions has been banned 
in Nepal, along with independent reporting on the 
ongoing Maoist conflict there. Dixit is among 
more than a dozen journalists who have been 
arrested since February 1. At least five remain 
in prison.

Plainclothes security personnel were waiting for 
Dixit when he returned to his home on Monday 
evening, Kunda Dixit, his brother and a 
well-known journalist himself, told CPJ. He was 
taken into custody and was being held at 
Jawalakhel police station. Police have not 
informed his family of the reasons for his 
detention or how long they intend to keep him in 
custody.

Kanak and Kunda Dixit run Himal, a publishing 
company that also publishes the English-language 
magazine Himal South Asian, which is on an 
unrelated hiatus. The editors support a 
constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy 
in Nepal. Kanak Dixit is known internationally 
for his centrist stance on politics and his 
hatred of violence.

In an open letter posted online shortly after the 
February 1 takeover, Kanak Dixit called King 
Gyanendra's move "drastic and ill-advised." In a 
February 2 essay he contributed to the U.S.-based 
think tank Foreign Policy in Focus, Dixit warned 
that "King Gyanendra's announcement of a takeover 
for 'up to three years' provides a long window in 
which Nepal's highly successful experiment with 
democracy of the past dozen years may be eroded."

In a recent trip to India, Dixit reiterated 
criticism he has voiced in recent articles 
written for Indian and other international media, 
according to his brother.

In e-mails to CPJ last week, Dixit described the 
efforts of Himal Khabarpatrika editors to publish 
critical commentary in the Kathmandu-based 
magazine. "We have achieved a half-way victory 
with the military censors," he wrote. "We are 
able to say quite a lot ourselves, but Š the 
government could come down with a heavy hand at 
any time."

On March 3, security forces in the eastern 
district of Panchther arrested Labadev Dungana, 
executive editor of the Panchther Times and 
district correspondent for Rajdhani daily, 
according to the Federation of Nepalese 
Journalists (FNJ). Officials accused Dungana, who 
is president of the Panchther district FNJ 
branch, of violating public security after he 
reported on student protests of the king's 
proclamation.

In custody since February 22 are Arjun Prasad 
Shah, editor of Batabaran weekly, and Monohar 
Pokhrel, editor of Jana Aakrosh weekly. The two 
men are FNJ representatives in the southern 
district of Saptari. Security forces have been 
holding D.R. Panta, local correspondent of the 
Kantipur daily in the district of Dadeldhura, 
since February 15.



______



[2]

The Daily Times
8 March 2005

I AM NOT ALONE, SAYS MUKHTAR MAI

Staff Report
MULTAN: Mukhtar Mai and Dr Farzana Bari led a 
rally from Allama Iqbal Park to Kalma Chowk on 
Monday. The rally was organised by the Pattan 
Development Organisation, Khawateen Councillors 
Network and South Punjab NGOs Forum as well as 
the Pakistan Democratic Party and the PML-N 
(Women's wing).
In an emotional speech to the rally Mukhtar said, 
"I shall continue to struggle for women's rights 
till death and will not bow down before tyranny 
and exploitation. This rally shows that millions 
of women support me and I am not alone."
"We will take Mukhtar's case to the Supreme Court 
and pressed the government to detain the convicts 
acquitted by the High Court," said Dr Farzana 
Bari, a Pattan Development Organisation 
representative. Over 3,000 women participated in 
the rally to mark Women's Day and express 
solidarity with Mukhtar Mai.

o o o o

Daily Times - 8 March 2005

STATE MATTERS: MUKHTAR MAI: POLITICAL CLASS AND 
JUDICIARY MUST REFLECT NATIONAL CONCERNS
Nasim Zehra

The Lahore High Court judgment setting aside the 
conviction of five of the six people sentenced by 
the anti-terrorism court to death for 
jirga-sanctioned gang-rape of Mukhtar Mai 
reflects four hard facts about today's Pakistan. 
One, the state has yet to emerge as the protector 
of citizens and a credible arbiter. Two, law 
enforcement is inefficient and controlled by the 
influential. Three, exceptions notwithstanding, 
the rights of the average citizen are invariably 
sacrificed at the altar of power play. Four, the 
judiciary has yet to engage in the judicial 
activism needed in a situation where social mores 
begin to fall apart.
Crimes against women are not being punished 
effectively, consistently and systematically. 
Therefore the question of the role of state and 
the political class becomes important. Is the 
factor of power and disruption always going to be 
the primary instigator of change, as for example 
in the case of Balochistan recently? The 
establishment of two parliamentary committees on 
Balochistan was important. But it was a crisis 
that prompted a long overdue exercise. 
Alternatively, policy shifts - even to our 
advantage - have been prompted by external 
pressure, as in some elements of foreign policy 
after 9/11.
Then there are many instances when the state has 
'guided' the judiciary to serve its immediate 
ends. One such was the recent handling of Asif 
Zardari's case. When on December 21 a Karachi 
court cancelled his bail on 'technical grounds', 
both the cancellation and the readmission 
subsequently were probably at the behest of 
elements of the government and establishment. The 
'higher' reason of power and politics prompted 
the intervention.
Exceptions to the rule notwithstanding, as in the 
case of General Asif Nawaz's court martial of an 
officer in Sindh in 1992, the state has generally 
failed to take serious steps to punish violations 
of citizens' rights and enforce the law. In 
Mukhtar Mai's case, it failed in its duty to 
adequately record and present the evidence for 
effective prosecution.
Pakistani women still do not figure in the 
national power calculus. In addition to the curse 
of poverty they have to deal with the brute force 
of men. Even as human rights groups report 
hundreds of honour killings every year, the state 
has refuses to accept major responsibility for 
aggressively challenging this practice. A 
majority of parliamentarians thus rejected the 
private bill calling for the state to be the wali 
(plaintiff) in cases of honour killings. They 
invoked 'Islam' - in defiance of the letter and 
spirit of the Holy Quran - to defend their 
position that the very people who plan the 
murders of their daughters and sisters should 
remain their "guardians, heirs and custodians" 
and they should decide whether the state should 
prosecute those charged with the crime, accept 
blood money or pardon them. This is how power and 
politics numb all other senses.
The amendments proposed by Kashmala Tariq, and 
earlier by Sherry Rehman, must be discussed 
seriously despite the law minister's explanation. 
A law free of loopholes is required to deal with 
the crimes being committed against women. All 
those involved in the facilitation, planning or 
execution of murder, rape or use of women to 
settle scores should be punished. No act in the 
chain of the crime - from inception to abetment, 
attempt, planning and implementation - should be 
"compoundable", meaning 'excusable'. The tragedy 
in the case of an 'honour killing' may be 
personal but the impact is societal. To the 
extent that it promotes a social evil, it is not 
a personal matter. Its prosecution, therefore, is 
a concern of state and the society.
No relative or custodian of the victim should be 
allowed to compound the offence. There should be 
no escape route left for the convict. The state 
must be the wali to ensure this. The option of 
compounding a crime only upholds the murderer in 
a family that sanctions 'honour killings'.
Unfortunately none of the influential groups - 
from mainstream politicians to the military, the 
religious parties and the business class - have 
considered questions of rape, honour killings and 
violence against women as sufficiently critical 
to their own personal or collective welfare, 
certainly not enough to espouse sustained action 
against it. They do not see it as an issue that 
is directly linked to human, religious and 
civilisational values. Perhaps that is a 
reflection of the extent to which the bitter 
battling for power has stunted the development of 
our human sensitivities.
The agenda of power play has spun off myriad 
conspiracies and back-stabbings which amount to 
endless ways of compromising at the cost of rule 
of law. The result is a society in which some 
people desperately try to live by their own 
individual values. But a big majority, lacking 
power and 'powerful backing', is exposed to the 
law of the jungle.
Crimes like rape take place everywhere in the 
world. In better-managed societies the rule of 
law remains a major deterrent for such crimes. 
That is what we need in Pakistan. The onus for 
this change is on the state. Willing partners 
must come from the media and citizens' rights 
groups, as in the Mukhtar Mai case. The task is 
to make sure that there is no space left in the 
public realm for justifying such crimes. The 
sooner the political class comes round to this 
conclusion and nudges the judiciary to reflect 
its national concerns, the better.
The writer is a security analyst and a freelance writer

o o o o


Daily Times - March 07, 2005

CLERICS SEEKING DECREE TO DECLARE AGA KHANIS INFIDELS

By Waqar Gillani
LAHORE: Difa-e-Islam Mahaz (Front for the Defence 
of Islam), an alliance of 22 Sunni religious 
organisations, is trying to get a fatwa (decree) 
from scholars of all sects including Shia and 
Ahle Hadith in Pakistan to declare Aga Khanis 
kafir (infidels), Dr Mufti Sarfaraz Naeemi, 
principal of Jamia Naemia, told Daily Times on 
Sunday.
He said, "We have first called for a decree from 
local Sunni scholars and then the consensus will 
be made on a national basis to declare Aga 
Khanis, like the Ahmadis, non-Muslim. After that, 
no school considering them non-Muslim will join 
the Aga Khan Board (AKB)."
He said this when asked to comment on the AKB 
issue, which was part of the main agenda of the 
Difa-e-Islam Mahaz meeting held at Jamia Naemia 
on Sunday afternoon. The other agenda included 
the recent amendment in Section 295-C (Blasphemy 
Law) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and the 
abolition of the religion column in the new 
passport.
He said Sunnis already considered Aga Kahnis 
non-Muslim. Asked what the problem was with 
having an Aga Khani educational board in Pakistan 
as thousands of students were already taking 
exams under the British (Christian) system, he 
said it was already clear that the British system 
was Christian.
About discussions on Section 295-C (Blasphemy 
Law) of the PPC, Dr Naeemi said the meeting 
opposed the recent amendment in the aforesaid 
section, empowering only a superintendent of 
police level official to inquire into a blasphemy 
incident before lodging a First Information 
Report (FIR).
He warned that the situation could also instigate 
common Muslims to react or attack such an accused 
if he were not arrested immediately. He feared 
that though this would be against the law, the 
government would be responsible for such a 
situation.
He also said the meeting decided that the 
abolition of the religion column in the new 
passport was another US agenda. He said the 
Difa-e-Islam Mahaz's Lahore faction would join 
the Tahafuz-e-Namoose-Risalat's train march 
against Section 295-C of the PPC's amendment when 
it would reach Lahore.
Shahid Gardezi, Difa-e-Islam Mahaz information 
secretary, told Daily Times that the meeting 
passed resolutions demanding the restoration of 
the religion column in the new passport to not 
let Ahmedis enter Mecca.


______


[3]

Dawn
07 March 2005	 | Editorial

LEFT INTERACTION

The visit of two leaders representing, 
respectively, the Communist Party of India and 
the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has 
created quite a stir. Their meeting with a 
president in uniform and the search by 
progressives here to cobble together a vestige of 
a left front to talk to the visiting leaders have 
been the subject of some levity. But the visit 
has served two important purposes. It has 
underlined the desirability and usefulness of 
contacts between the politicians of India and 
Pakistan. Such contacts, as opposed to 
interaction among government representatives, 
permit a freer and perhaps a more meaningful 
exchange of ideas. They can thus create both 
greater understanding and goodwill at the level 
of civil society. The second purpose that may 
have been served is that the visit has drawn 
attention to the virtual absence of left politics 
in Pakistan.
The left has been decimated by years of either 
outright state oppression or systematic political 
ostracization. It was barely tolerated in the 
early years after independence, and in the 1950s 
faced a massive crackdown by the government. 
After the military intervention in 1958, which 
led us down the road to constitutional ruination 
on which we continue to travel, all political 
parties suffered, the left more so because of its 
basic lack of organization and inability to 
mobilize committed cadres.
The charge that the leftists spent more time in 
woolly-headed arguments in coffee houses than in 
serious discussion on organization and policy 
goals was not entirely without substance. Added 
to this was a continued onslaught on left and 
liberal elements by the right-wing media.
The story is long and sad, with the Sino-Soviet 
schism making its own contribution to the 
decimation of the left. There was a stronger left 
movement in East Pakistan than in the western 
wing, and in fact it was pressure from that part 
that sustained the democratic, progressive forces 
in this wing. 1971 put paid to all that. Among 
the major parties, the National Awami Party (now 
the Awami National Party) was the closest to a 
left-of-centre party, but the anti-Bhutto 
movement that led to the Zia dictatorship 
confused the NAP/ANP leadership, and it appears 
now to be on the verge of another split.
The left should be seen as a very advanced stage 
of political development. In our country, even 
liberal tendencies have been stifled because the 
liberals have a habit of persisting in 
criticizing military rule and in asking for 
democracy. The establishment attitude towards 
them has been one of disdain, if not downright 
contempt.
Ironically, the present military-led regime finds 
that it actually now needs some kind of liberal 
backing. The international climate, too, has 
changed. The Americans were at one time part of 
the witch hunt of Pakistani liberals in disregard 
of all considerations of human rights and civil 
liberties and promoted religious parties; the 
pendulum has swung the other way. A small window 
of opportunity has opened for liberal, secular 
and democratic forces to regroup. There are 
issues that have dogged the nation for five 
decades and have not lost their urgency and need 
to be tackled without considerations of region or 
ethnicity or group interests. Unemployment, 
social injustice, education, inflation, 
feudalism, workers' rights, cultural rights, 
oppression of women - these are all problems that 
concerned the progressive movement at one time 
and remain as pressing as ever.
The mainstream parties have been so trapped in 
the power game that many problems that affect the 
lives of ordinary people have been ignored. 
There's space for a broad front of enlightened, 
committed political and social activists to act 
as a pressure group on the already established 
parties to move away from narrow parochial and 
personal biases. The public response might 
surprise everyone.

________

[4]


The News International - March 06, 2005

THE GOOD NEWS FROM ISLAMABAD

Radha Kumar

After a depressing lull in the India-Pakistan 
talks, during which the two governments appeared 
to be stuck on niggling technical details, 
Foreign Ministers Singh and Kasuri have given us 
an enormous breakthrough. The agreements they 
announced at Islamabad on February 15 and 16 - to 
start the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service on 
April 7, and the Khokrapur-Munabao rail link in 
October - are key confidence building measures 
for India and Pakistan as well as for Kashmiris, 
Sindhis and Rajasthanis, who have already started 
to celebrate.

Like Mehbooba Mufti, I hope that the next routes 
to be reopened will be between divided Jammu and 
Kargil-Skardu. The benefits that these routes can 
bring to local residents on either side are 
enormous, both tangible and intangible; as are 
the political dividends that would flow to Indian 
and Pakistani leaders for having made a long held 
Kashmir wish their priority.

A number of misgivings over the decision have 
been voiced in India, some very petty, like the 
BJP's complaint that the Indian government should 
have insisted on travel by passport rather than a 
permit. Such a position would have violated the 
Indian government's claim, reiterated by 
parliament during the BJP's tenure, to the whole 
of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir; a 
claim that is also made by Pakistan. More 
important, it would have detracted from the 
spirit of the service, which was to free 
humanitarian interests from legal and territorial 
disputes, or rather not to let the latter impinge 
on the former.

The more serious concern that many Indians have 
voiced is security, both for the bus service and 
about the potential for its misuse. Yet the 
likelihood that the bus service will actually 
improve the security situation is much greater 
than the likelihood of its misuse. An increasing 
number of countries - and groups of countries, 
such as the European Union and the Organization 
of African States - are beginning to find that 
soft borders can help reduce violence and pave 
the way for lasting peace. For a start, the more 
official crossing points there are, the less the 
unofficial crossing points will be, curbing the 
black economies that generally develop in 
conflict-ridden areas to the benefit of armed and 
criminal groups, as both India and Pakistan have 
learnt to their cost.

This of course means that there will be spoilers. 
The groups that benefit from Jammu and Kashmir's 
isolation have already threatened to disrupt the 
Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service. Worse still, 
they have begun to assassinate the civic 
representatives elected in recent municipal polls 
in Jammu and Kashmir. Ten elected representatives 
have already been killed; this has led to an 
equal number resigning in panic, and publishing 
"apologies" to the militant groups for having 
stood for election.

In India, the perception is that the Pakistani 
government and civil society could have done more 
to push for an end to political assassinations in 
Jammu and Kashmir. Unequivocal opposition to 
these acts is still, unaccountably, missing at 
the public level. More distressingly, so is back 
channel opposition. There is a belief in New 
Delhi that in the past, when word went out from 
the Pakistani agencies to militant groups to halt 
their attacks, it was broadly effective, and that 
the agencies' influence is still fairly strong. 
It is reported that earlier this year, 
instructions to militant groups to concentrate 
their attacks on Indian security forces and stop 
civilian attacks were obeyed in the valley, 
though less so in the border regions of Jammu. In 
other words, the thinking is that if the 
Pakistani government were to put out the word 
that these killings must stop, they would give 
genuine relief to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

True, the Hurriyat Conference has also not spoken 
out against the killings. On the contrary, their 
call for a poll boycott played into militant 
hands. Abdul Ghani Lone and Maulvi Mushtaq both 
lost their lives to elements seeking to keep the 
Hurriyat under their control -- the former had 
courageously gone public on the need for an end 
to the violence and the withdrawal of "guest 
mujahedeen". In fact, the Hurriyat, or at least 
the majority of the Hurriyat now that Mr. Geelani 
has split from them, have sought an honourable 
exit for the militant groups for some years now.

It may be reading too much into the recent 
agreements to say that they indicate a new 
willingness in Pakistan to end support for the 
violence in Jammu and Kashmir. Until recently, 
the general feeling in Pakistani political 
circles was that their government had gone a long 
way in curbing militant movement across the Line 
of Control, and India would have to open talks on 
Kashmir for any further steps to be taken. Now it 
looks as if the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road 
agreement signals a new, albeit tacit, policy by 
the two governments: to let "people-to-people" 
measures make their own impact on reducing the 
violence. The Azad Kashmir police have said they 
will ensure security for passengers; this should 
put some curbs on the comforts that militant 
groups have enjoyed there.

On the Indian side of the Line of Control, the 
bus service will cut through the isolation that 
the militant groups have flourished on. Indeed 
when Vajpayee proposed the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad 
bus service in 2000, the militant groups saw it 
as a "ploy" to free Uri from their control, as it 
then was. Uri hasn't been under militant control 
for some years, but the bus will allow the 
residents of Azad Kashmir to see how deep the 
longing is for an end to the violence in Jammu 
and Kashmir.

The impact of the bus service on the political 
situation on both sides of the Line of Control 
could be even more considerable, especially if 
the Jammu and Kargil-Skardu routes are opened. No 
one can tell what will emerge as the dominant 
Kashmiri voice once the many communities and 
cultures of Jammu and Kashmir begin commingling 
again; or whether there will be one dominant 
voice instead of the many that presently exist . 
Much depends on how officials on either side deal 
with the travel permits. If they are restrictive, 
which would be a likely and natural response 
given the hostility that has persisted between 
them, then the political situation will be only 
slightly changed, and not for the better. 
Political activists on both sides - especially 
the trouble spots of the valley, Gilgit and 
Baltistan - will have a new grievance against 
India and Pakistan if they are denied the access 
that divided families or tourists might have.

But if the two governments are liberal in their 
grant of permits, which means that they would 
have to increase traffic as fast as they can, the 
political impact could be huge. At first sight, 
the implications could be worrying, especially 
for those Indians who fear the valley is lost to 
them, and to the far fewer Pakistanis who fear 
Baltistan, and maybe Gilgit, are lost to them. A 
second look, however, shows the far greater 
probability that Kashmiris will discover once 
again the respect for difference which had 
traditionally helped them live together; a 
development that can only benefit both India and 
Pakistan.

Imaginatively, one of the side benefits least 
commented on is a vision that Kashmiris on the 
Indian side of the Line of Control have long held 
as for the role their region could play, as a 
place where Indians and Pakistanis could put the 
hostilities of partition behind them. As of April 
7, Kashmir will be the only part of India and 
Pakistan that the two countries' nationals can 
visit without passports and visas. Who could have 
expected this when relations between the two 
governments seemed to be sliding into acrimony? 
Strange indeed are the ways of our leaders - 
wondrous strange, and in this case, wondrously 
pleasing.

The writer is a visiting professor at
Jamia Millia University, Delhi,
and author of the forthcoming
Making Peace With Partition, Penguin India

______

[5]

sacw.net  |   8 March 2005
URL: www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ArticlesArchive/MDube08032005.html


ON MUSLIM WOMEN IN GUJARAT

Mukul Dube

The violence against Muslims which began in Gujarat on February 28,
2002, the day after the Godhra incident, has been called one-sided
and state-sponsored and has been likened to a pogrom. Neither gender
was spared, nor any age group. One form of violence, though, could be
directed only against women and girls. Rape often took the form of
gang rape and was followed by mutilation and finally by the
destruction of evidence through the burning of the victims. But some
victims of rape were left alive, and for an excellent reason.

While there are ways of estimating, at least roughly, how many people
were killed, the number of rapes committed cannot be estimated. Many
victims will not have spoken of their trauma, because rape is perhaps
the single crime known in which the victim is made out to be the
criminal, morally and socially. Further, the police of Gujarat either
refused outright to register complaints or else twisted them and
watered them down so that they became meaningless.

Figures of several thousand rapes must be discounted, since there is
no evidence and since wild exaggeration is common in situations of
this kind. Other methods of estimation must be used, imprecise though
they are. There were many instances of women's being raped in
groups. Survivors have described the subsequent killing of the others
of their groups. Such accounts have not been systematically recorded
and collated, but there have been enough of them to indicate that
many more women were raped than those who survived. Two thousand or
more Muslims have been widely estimated to have been killed. How many
of this number were women who had been raped is uncertain. It is
perfectly possible that even the charred remains of some, or of many,
were never seen.

The chilling reality is that just one case of assault on a woman is
being tried in the courts: that of Bilqees Yaqoob Rasool. In the
second week of February 2005, almost three years after the violence,
a news report did say, "Police in Gujarat said they were re-
investigating many of the cases that had been closed down and had
also filed charges in a majority of rape cases." There are two
obvious difficulties here. First, the Gujarat Police has a record of
evasion and of an inability to substantiate its claims, a fine
instance being its replies to the National Human Rights Commission.
Second, the facts that "many of the cases" and "majority"
can be defined any which way, and that the Gujarat Police can
scarcely be expected to bring to light its complicity in the cover-ups
or worse.

Before and after the assembly election of 2002, rapists swaggered
about and threatened their victims with the repetition of their act.
They do it to this day. The act itself is seen as one which brought
glory to them, and obscene songs are sung to keep its memory alive.
Even the police, staunch defenders of a law perverted beyond
recognition, use the threat as a means of keeping Gujarat's
Muslims cowed and silent. I said that some Muslim women who were raped
were not killed. They are the walking, breathing proof that the
threat is real.

Throughout history, while women have been the immediate victims of
rape, the act has served to subjugate the groups to which they have
belonged - caste, tribe, kingdom, nation, religion, race. Thus the
swaggering rapists threaten all of Gujarat's Muslims, not just
women. Three years later, they do it as part of their daily routine,
even as an indication of their agenda. This is murder of the spirit
of an entire community.

Of the hundreds of men who were arrested in Gujarat under POTA after
the "riots", just one was not a Muslim: and of course he was
not a Hindu. Those in prison have been tortured physically and
mentally, and their trials have not even begun. That is so far as
their individual suffering goes. That they are almost all young and
that they were nearly always the sole bread earners of their
families, are facts whose implications are staggering.

Indian women's social circles are almost always smaller than those
of men. They can turn to fewer people for support, and their ability
to earn is limited. A woman in trouble is likely to have to deal with
it by herself. But the responsibility of looking after the home, of
feeding and clothing both children and the old, is hers. She bears
this burden even when a man is around, and it becomes far heavier
when the man is locked up or dead. It is a slow, painful and sure
starvation.

The government of Gujarat promised a compensation of Rs.150,000 to
the families of those who were killed: Rs.90,000 in cash and the
remainder in bonds. Whether the bonds will ever have any value is not
known. What is known is that an identical package was promised after
the riots of 1985 - and the bonds still remain promises.

On paper, then, the government of Gujarat has fulfilled its
responsibility. There end its efforts at the rehabilitation of an
entire uprooted community. Muslim groups stepped in to provide
shelter and means of livelihood; but at this time none can say what
the effect  of these actions will be in the long term.

One effect, though, is only too visible: the growing power of the
Muslim religious establishment. Progressive Muslims in Gujarat look
on, helplessly, as the bulk of the adherents of their religion are
taken backwards. They speak of the ruin of a quarter century's
worth of advances. There is the inevitable policing, with a constant
watch being kept specially on women. Having suffered so much
barbarity, and while being kept deprived of material resources,
Muslims must also bow before the dictates and whims of those who
claim to be their moral guides. What is to stop the rise of suicidal
fundamentalism?

We humans need anchors which hold us in place. We need basic
security, hope, good times to look forward to. I paraphrase a
description of what happens routinely in Muslim homes in Ahmedabad.
"Twenty or more men hammer on your door at 3 a.m. They ransack
household goods and abuse and kick you. After an hour or two of this,
they take away a male 'for questioning'. You are warned not to
tell anyone about what has happened. After that you begin to wait.
Often your wait is without end, for your loved one never returns."

Report after report, based on investigation, interviews and analysis,
and prepared by journalists, activists, academics, lawyers and judges
of unimpeachable integrity, has spoken in detail of what Gujarat's
Muslims, women in particular, have suffered and are still suffering.
The most recent is "India: Justice, the Victim", released in
January by Amnesty International. Like the others, it sets out the
administrative and legal measures which must be implemented. The
victimisation must end immediately, it says, and compensation and
restitution must take a real form.

Not one cogent argument has been advanced against any of these
reports, yet their recommendations have been ignored. The reports
might just as well not have been prepared. Our leaders say, ad
nauseam, that we are a democracy in which people's voices are
heard: but those who have spoken up for the thousands who were
mercilessly crushed have been crying into the wind.

What compels the Central Government to permit Gujarat to continue to
deny to Muslims ordinary human rights and to keep them from living at
a level even of bare subsistence? Are those shattered people not
citizens of India, not human beings? Is our Constitution no more than
paper?

[The help of friends who gave information and insights, specially
Zakia Jowher, is gratefully acknowledged.]

______

[6]

sacw.net  | March 8, 2005
URL: www.sacw.net/Wmov/DChew08032005.html

GLOBAL REENGINEERING: FEMINIZATION OF MIGRATION AND MODERN SLAVERY

4TH annual International Women's Day event
organized by the 8th March Coordination and 
Action Committee of Women of Diverse Origins, 
Montreal
Saturday 5th March 2005

"WOMEN AGAINST FUNDAMENTALISM"
Dolores Chew

Feminist greetings, sisterhood and solidarity for 
International Women's Day.   In the past couple 
of weeks as we built up to today's event and I 
was sending out information on my e-networks 
there were responses from friends in India who 
were very enthused by what we had planned -- 
they wanted report backs and commended our 
conceptualization of issues. This networking that 
we do both locally and globally is so important 
because as the pace of information moves faster 
and the powers that seek to control our lives are 
constantly engaged in evolving new ways to 
dominate us, we need to share information. And 
this is what we have been doing so successfully 
over the past few years with our women's day 
events. It is only by placing the local issues 
and struggles in a global context that we can 
make sense of what is being attempted by the 
forces of capital, patriarchy and imperialism. 
And it is only by sharing information, strategies 
and making the connections that we can be 
successful in confronting the behemoths that seek 
to dominate us.

Where do fundamentalism and women's struggles 
against fundamentalism fit into all this? Are 
there connections between global reengineering, 
the feminization of migration and modern slavery? 
At first glance these seem slim. Isn't 
fundamentalism about religious men trying to keep 
women in Afghanistan and Iran  in burkhas and 
chadors and living in medieval times?  And isn't 
global reengineering just the opposite -- about 
transforming the world, making it a better place 
with democracy and justice being delivered by 
bombs to people's doorsteps and rooftops (whether 
they like it or not) and everyone having a camera 
phone to speak on while eating a Big Mac and 
guzzling Coke because things go better that way 
(or perhaps your chai latte, because of course 
the drinking water is contaminated)?  So aren't 
fundamentalists and democratizers in opposition?

Well one would expect so, but surprise surprise, 
you have a democratizer with a Texas strut 
committed to bringing justice to the world, who 
is also in opposition to a woman's right to 
choose.  And then you begin to see that the Dark 
Ages (in some traditions, the Kali Yug) are right 
here and fundamentalism and modernity or 
post-modernity are not necessarily in opposition!

As feminists we need to remind ourselves that 
though there are chinks in the armour, patriarchy 
is alive and well and like capitalism and its 
corollary imperialism, it's constantly finding 
new and innovative ways to re-invent itself. 
Patriarchy is about power - for some, while 
convincing all men that no matter how oppressed 
they are by political and economic systems, there 
is always someone below them who they can control 
- their wife, their mother, their sister, their 
daughter. Fundamentalism too is about power and 
control, often in collusion with patriarchy. 
What we need to remind ourselves is that we 
cannot be smug. Fundamentalism is to be found 
everywhere. Every tradition and culture has the 
possibilities of fundamentalism. And 
fundamentalism has little to do with religion and 
everything to do with politics and control. In 
fact we need to remind ourselves that 
religiosity, spirituality have answered and 
continue to respond to human needs. They are not 
in question. It is the manipulation of people's 
religiosity and the exploitation of a sense of 
insecurity, powerlessness, of not knowing where 
to turn to in times of economic and political 
crisis, when there is a sense of hopelessness and 
helplessness that fundamentalist forces move into 
the vacuum, with promises of formulaic, quick 
fixes that are grabbed onto by those who feel 
they need something to hold on to.

While we need to make these distinctions we 
should not shy away from recognizing that most 
major religions over time have become 
institutionalized and uphold class and gender 
privilege. And as such afford opportunities for 
fundamentalist articulations. However, around the 
world today it seems a no-brainer - Islam = 
fundamentalism. This is something we must 
vehemently oppose - every major world religion 
has its fundamentalist possibilities and 
groupings - Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, 
Christianity, and yes, Islam too - to name the 
major ones.  But religions in their practices and 
rules are social and cultural constructs, despite 
individual belief about divine revelations (and I 
know that this could be hotly contested). The 
personal aspect of religion and the public face 
can be very different.  We see this with 
interpretations, rules that evolve, local 
particularities and practices, etc.

But moving on to some of the specifics about 
fundamentalism, we need to develop an 
understanding of how fundamentalism works and 
recognize that it has very little to do with 
'tradition' and everything to do with maintaining 
control - political, national, gender. That it is 
a strategy and mechanism that morphs and 
reinvents itself in adaptation to the times. So 
when Hindu nationalists committed genocide 
against Muslim minority populations in the Indian 
state of Gujarat in 2002, it had little to do 
with being a good Hindu and everything to do with 
seizure of state power.  That Muslim women were 
especially, brutally targeted was an obscene 
blending of gender-based violence and misogyny 
that is implicit in most fundamentalist 
worldviews. In the aftermath of the murder of 
Milia Abrar in Montreal in 1998 and till today, 
word on the street is that this is what happens 
when a misguided young woman breaks from 
tradition. Across the border many of those who 
are anti-choice for women support the death 
penalty, so we know their concerns stem less from 
taking human life than controlling women's 
bodies.  In Canada today the debates and 
discussions around same sex civil marriage are a 
fierce reminder of how in a modern democracy the 
insecurities of people can be exploited to deny 
equality in law to many citizens. Fundamentalism 
has little to do with brown people who talk funny 
and wear flowing robes!

Repeatedly we see that intrinsic to 
fundamentalist thinking and operating is the 
control of women, their autonomy, their 
sexuality, their choices. And this is where we 
find the nexus between patriarchy and 
fundamentalism. The two are inseparable. That is 
why women are often the primary or exclusive 
targets of fundamentalist forces. Control the 
women, control the community.  Give the men power 
and they will fall in line and support you. But 
this can be somewhat simplistic. Again and again 
we see how women can be as strident and 
male-identified in their articulation of 
fundamentalist ideology - upholding institutions 
that oppress them because it offers some 
grounding, some familiarity --  better the devil 
you know than the one you don't kind of logic. 
The slaves who prefer the known quantity, 
slavery. Or the select few who profit from the 
subordination of the majority.

Returning to our theme of global reengineering, 
we need to remind ourselves that fundamentalism 
is intrinsic to the efforts of capital and 
imperialism. In order to have vulnerable, pliant 
populations, labour pools and markets you need to 
keep populations in a state of crisis. And the 
cynicism is blatant.  While Afghanistan happened 
"for the women", when Iraq happened the official 
line was "we don't do women". The flavour of the 
day changes to suit the excuse at hand. And while 
fundamentalism may garb itself in medieval drag 
it's all about the present.

On International Women's Day there are many 
reports by human rights organizations, women's 
organizations, listing and documenting the 
abuses, torture, mutilations, rapes, violence and 
death that women suffer with impunity - 
sanctioned and legitimized by cultures, societies 
and states on every continent in the world - the 
cultural specifics vary but the causal factors, 
the ideological underpinnings are not very 
different.  In no way do I want to diminish this 
pain, anguish, suffering and stunting of personal 
and physical growth that these practices cause. 
However we should not explain them away as 
cultural peculiarities and backwardness, for this 
can swing between racist labeling to various 
kinds of justifications. Yet we should not lose 
track of the bigger picture - patriarchy and the 
control of women in the service of agendas - 
national, multinational, corporate, class and 
patriarchal. If we are able to do this we will be 
able to interpret the shifting maps and faces of 
the forces of power and control that seek to keep 
us subordinate in the shifting spaces of global 
reengineering.

______

[7]  Announcements

Anhad would be releasing shortly (by the end of March 2005) the
  following package of Video CDs in Hindi.
The package called 'Un Sapnon Ki Khatir' is
  produced by Gauhar Raza
& would have 15 docu-lectures and 3 documentary films

Docu-lectures
Prabhash Joshi 
Hindutva: Ek Rajneetik Akhada   
Amit Sengupta 
Media ka Sampradayikaran          
Dr. K.M. Shrimali                               Ayodhya
Pralay Kanungo                                Sangh Parivar Ka
  Itihaas
Dr. Ram Punyani 
Sachchai Ya Brahm: Sampradayikta Ek Drishtikon
Sohail Hashmi                                    Pahchan ka Prashan
Kuldeep Nayyar                                Bharat- Pak Sambandh
Harsh Mander 
Samaj Aur Shasan: Gujarat Ek Sabak
Dr. Tulsiram 
Daliton ka Mudda aur Sampradayikta
Anand Pradhan             Vaishvikaran aur Sampradayikta
Shubha Mudgal 
Hindustani Sangeet ki Samanvyavadi Parampara
& Sohail Hashmi                          
Nivedita Menon 
Nari Aandolan aur Sampradayik Rajniti          
Amar Farooqui                                  Swatantrata Aandolan Ki Virasat
Prashant Bhushan 
Samvaidhanik Adhikar Ke Roop Main Dharmnirpekshta
Swami Agnivesh                               Dharm Ka Apharan
Achyut Yagnik                                  Maujooda Rajnaitik Haalat

Documentaries
Rakesh Sharma                                  Final Solution
Gauhar Raza                                       Zulmaton ke Daur Main &
Junoon ke Badhte Qadam
The cost of the package is Rs. 600 + actual courier charges.
For advance booking of the package please send drafts in favour of
Anhad to 4, Windsor Place, New Delhi-110001
PLEASE NOTE: A large number of people have been put in
  voluntary
time to make the above package possible and Anhad is charging only
the exact production cost. We would be in no
  position
  to offer any discounts.
PS: We have a few more sets of the English package
"In Defence of Our Dreams" . Price Rs. 1000 + courier charges



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

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/

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