SACW | 2 June 2005
sacw
aiindex at mnet.fr
Wed Jun 1 21:43:18 CDT 2005
South Asia Citizens Wire | 2 June, 2005
[1] Nepal: Arrest this drift into obscurantism (CK Lal)
[2] Pakistan:
- Desecrating Lahore's historic memory (Editorial, Daily Times)
- Sheer madness (Editorial, Dawn)
[3] India: Briefing on the Consultation on
Communal Violence (Suppression) Bill, 2005
[4] Announcements: Events and Publications
(i) Meeting to Remember Moneeka Misra Tanvir (New Delhi, 4 June 2005)
(ii) Course on health and human rights (Bombay, July 4-15, 2005)
(iii) July 2005 Issue of Himal is out
(iv) Conference - Negotiating ethnicity in
Nepal's past and present (Kathmandu, September 12
- 14, 2005)
--------------
[1]
Nepali Times
27 May - 2 June 2005
ARREST THIS DRIFT INTO OBSCURANTISM
Statecraft can't be divinely pre-ordained in this day and age
by CK Lal
Last week, an honorary ADC to the king made a
very startling statement. Brigadier General
Bharat Keshar Simha asserted from a public forum
that a Hindu king had no need to follow a
constitution as he was bound by higher norms of
his religion.
Gen Simha has a reputation of being somewhat of a
gadfly, hence the usually vociferous civil
society of Kathmandu chose to ignore his remark.
But in an age when even the gods have to conform
to the laws of the land, there seems to be method
in the madness of those bent on transforming a
nominal Hindu kingdom into an obscurantist regime.
Since King Gyanendra was declared 'the emperor of
the world's Hindus' in September 2002 all kinds
of Indian godmen have given their stamp of
approval to his political moves. Despite extreme
sensitivity to interference in our internal
affairs whenever the subject is human rights and
democracy, the royal regime extolled this
endorsement by communal Indian politicos like
Yogi Adityanath and Ashok Singhal. These are
views that even the BJP finds too radical. The
president of the World Hindu Federation in Nepal
accepting sermons of sundry holy men from across
the southern border on divinely ordained
statecraft is extremely worrisome.
We need to be worried about the RSS-brand of
Hindutva that resulted in the destruction of the
Babri Mosque and the Gujarat pogroms. Despite an
overwhelming proportion of our population being
Hindus, Nepal is a country of tremendous racial,
religious, linguistic, cultural, and ethnic
diversity. Religious fundamentalism, political
authoritarianism and social racism are
interrelated. People with democratic aspirations
have to begin by separating their private
beliefs, which can be religious, and public
behaviour that has to be secular.
Intolerance is a by-product of politicised
religion, the hallmark of Hindutva
fundamentalism. For Nepal, further deepening of
existing fissures is sure to be catastrophic. If
accident of birth or adoption of faith be the
arbitrator of fate, nothing can stop a 'low-born'
or a non-believer from rebellion.
We lay grandiose claims to over 700 years of
religious tolerance and peaceful co-existence.
But as the September riots last year in the wake
of killing of innocent Nepalis in Iraq showed,
our veil of urbanity is thin. There is great risk
of inflaming the passions of a seething urban
population. Already in the grips of a senseless
class-war, we can't afford to open the far more
dangerous front of a communal flare up.
Once let loose, it is a genie that won't easily
go back into the bottle. And religious
fundamentalism in any form anywhere is inimical
to peace everywhere. The only way to fight
fascism is to prevent it from raising any of its
three heads: fundamentalism, authoritarianism and
racism.
_______
[2]
Daily Times
June 02, 2005
EDITORIAL: DESECRATING LAHORE'S HISTORIC MEMORY
In order to win accolades without doing much, the
city government of Lahore under Mian Amer has
advertised its decision to rename roads after
famous "Islamic" personalities (mashaheer). The
chief public relations officer of the Lahore
nazim says in the advertisement that the listed
names would be changed if no one objects to them
or comes up with better ones. For instance Chowk
Yateem Khana on Multan Road has been renamed
Anjuman-e-Himayat-e-Islam Chowk and 13 streets in
Shahdara have been named after the buzurg
shakhsiaat (elders) of the Mehr Brothers. Bachian
Chowk has been renamed after a "leading Pakistani
industry", Haier; and Lahore's famous Qila Gujjar
Singh will now be called Qila Shah Faisal!
There are dozens of other streets whose names
would be Islamised through the names of the
Companions of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon
him), and it doesn't matter if their memory is
desecrated through the abysmal sanitary state in
which the streets will be kept. The late King
Faisal will not be greatly pleased with the state
of the area now named after him. (We renamed
Lyallpur after King Faisal, then drowned it in
what is today an extreme example of urban
degradation.) What a comedown it will be after
the grand mosque in Islamabad! Cooper Road will
henceforth be Ansari Street. We are sure that
poet Munir Niazi was not consulted before his
name was put on Ganda Nallah Road! Lake Road will
be Hakim Allah Ditta Road and Durand Road will be
Musaddaq Ahmad Khan Shaheed Road! There are also
roads and streets named after former nazims and
local councillors.
There is nothing new in what is being done. The
big roads were "Islamised" under General Zia
during the first surge of Islamic overhaul that
most of our rightwing politicians supported in
their frenzy to wipe away the recent past. In
pushing aside the recent past they also destroyed
the distant past whose memory was embedded in our
culture and its creative manifestations. Many
cities lost their old names. The British names
were taken off and "Muslim" names were given. In
some cities like Toba Tek Singh in Punjab and
Jacobabad in Sindh, the local populations
objected to the proposed changes and retained the
names their ancestors had accepted. In distant
places, Fort Munro and Fort Sandeman survived in
collective memory because local culture refused
to submit to this vandalism of names. In Lahore,
Davis Road is still the name to give to the taxi
driver because the Aga Khan mentioned on the old
road, with his full name and his number in
succession, is so tedious that it has been
rejected by the citizens. The same goes for Hall
Road, Beden Road and Temple Road, and dozens of
other roads in the city.
What happens when we give a road a new name and
it fails to stick? The first thing that happens
is that collective memory is jolted so violently
that it refuses to accept the new name. The
government puts up a plaque and polishes it
periodically but people simply refuse to read it.
What accounts for the persistence of collective
memory and why do people resent its obliteration
by the bureaucracy? The answer is culture. People
form their culture spontaneously and not through
a religious edict under threat of violence. Their
past is peopled by names and places and they get
their bearing from the emotional coordinates the
old city provides them. When Saadat Hassan Manto
mentions Beden Road and Lakshmi Chowk in his
short stories his readers know exactly what
ambience he is trying to conjure. When
Qurratulain Hyder writes about Birdwood Road,
popular memory gratefully accepts it as something
that lives on location. If you replace them with
names from your pantheon of hardline religious
personalities, and they get rejected, it is your
religion that gets insulted. You create a
wasteland where there was once a habitation of
past memory.
This is real desecration. Nothing less than a
series of civil society protests will thwart
these city government officials who have nothing
much to do in the way of creating new localities
of residence and passage for the people of
Lahore. Bringing in new names for new roads and
new settlements would be perfectly justified, but
to destroy the people's memory to earn kudos from
the clerical parties on the eve of local
elections is not a very moral thing to do. The
roads may be dirty and pot-holed and may bring
nothing but insult to the religious saints they
are being renamed for, but they are a part of the
citizen's internal world which must be
safeguarded against trespass. Who will cast the
first stone against those who would vandalise our
historic memory? *
o o o
Dawn, June 1 2005 | Editorial
SHEER MADNESS
IT'S sheer madness. There is no other word for
the suicidal frenzy that has gripped the country.
The fires of bigotry and sectarianism stoked by
the Zia regime and not only ignored but often
fanned by other governments continue to exact a
frightening toll, dying out for a while but
breaking out again with renewed force. After the
Bari Imam carnage that killed and injured scores
of people on Friday, an attempt to attack an
imambargah in Karachi on Monday was foiled, but
six people were killed when one of a group of
suicide bombers blew himself up as he was
checked. Even more chilling, six bodies were
recovered early on Tuesday morning from a nearby
restaurant that was set on fire by an enraged
crowd reacting to the attack. How many innocent
people have been killed in the name of religion,
how many sacred places of worship attacked, how
many families left without succour? A deep
fault-line has been created in society by decades
of holy rhetoric and the pampering, as part of
state policy and strategy, of holy warriors. The
frustration felt by ordinary people at the
indifference of state agencies is manifested
after each terrorist incident in mindless street
assaults when again it is the innocent who
suffer. A very determined effort is needed on the
part of everyone to confront this monster that we
have nurtured in our ranks.
Also on Monday, the bullet-riddled body of a
Jamaat-i-Islami leader was found in Karachi.
Aslam Mujahid was returning after attending the
funeral of a party activist murdered on Sunday
night when he was waylaid and then shot in his
car. This reflects another dimension of the
violence that has hit Karachi. With local
elections in the offing, a blame game has started
between the Jamaat and the MQM, and citizens fear
that the political tussle will slide into
internecine warfare. These are all troubling
signs of a society in disorder, particularly if
one remembers what has been happening in
Balochistan and the tribal regions. How can
respect for the law be expected in a country
where constitution and institutions are
repeatedly subverted? This is another aspect of
the national crisis that needs to be addressed as
we mourn the dead and lament the lack of sane
leadership on the part of governments and
political parties.
_______
[3]
BRIEFING ON THE CONSULTATION ON COMMUNAL VIOLENCE (SUPPRESSION) BILL, 2005
Held in Delhi on 18th May 2005
Organized by Centre for Study of Society and
Secularism (Mumbai) in collaboration with
National Foundation for Communal Harmony
I. Background
The Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India
had recently circulated the Communal Violence
(Suppression) Bill, 2005. Different individuals
and groups have raised their critiques and
suggestions on this and had taken up this there
concerns regarding improving the orientation and
scope of the Bill. However, none of these
suggestions found mention in the draft, which the
Ministry has come out with. Representatives from
these organizations and concerned citizens from
different parts of the country held a meeting on
18 May 2005 to discuss the draft. A discussion on
ways to articulate opinions from four different
civil society drafts and to publicize the need
for reworking the Bill was also held.
II. Important outcomes of the Meeting
Rejection of the Draft of the Communal
Violence (Suppression) Bill, 2005 elaborated by
the UPA government and communication of this
rejection to the UPA government.
1.
Draft Bill circulated by the Ministry was
rejected unanimously by the participants- a group
of social activists, lawyers and legal experts
who attended this consultation. The unanimous
rejection was based on the outcome of extended
debate that the proposed draft doesnt address,
in a satisfactory way, the issues related to
communal violence. The main grounds for rejecting
the Bill were:
2.
The Ministry seems to have not understood the
importance of the exercise, even after the
pressing situations following the Gujarat
massacres. Many sections of the existing laws
which were designed to give more repressive
powers to the State, like the POTA and the AFSPA
1953 and TADA were included nearly verbatim. This
indicates that sufficient amount of in-house
consultation itself was not done by the legal
research section, indicating a serious flaw in
the preparatory phase.
3.
Constitutional and legal experts said importance
should be on Constitution and rule of law-that
implementing provisions in the constitution
regarding protecting minorities and marginalised
people is the main priority, which has not been
taken as a serious matter by different
governments. Also the matter of having a new law
should focus on devising measures to have time
bound, prompt and effective to address the
accountability factor of the state. Two broad
points of criticism were that the Act:
4.
This last point is object of concern and prompted
a vigorous rejection of the draft since this
increase of power of the armed forces and the
police are seen as a draconian measure that will
only worse the safety of the minorities in a
situation of communal violence.
5.
The participants felt that the proposed draft
does not do anything towards considering communal
violence as large scale human rights violation,
and that internationally accepted norms and
emerging scholarship on protection of affected
people is ignored in the government draft. Also
it has not consulted the processes in preventing
communal violence in the Indian context, some of
which lie in the pre independence period.
6.
The orientation of the bill suggest that the
draft seems to have not discussed in detail among
different agencies in the Government, like the
NHRC, which had appraised the governments of the
lacunae in criminal procedure system and state
machinery in preventing violence and assuring
relief to the affected in the aftermath of
Gujarat massacres. It was also mentioned that an
adequate bill on Communal Violence Suppression
has to address the following aspects:
Accountability of the political authorities (state and central level)
Reparation, Compensation and Rehabilitation of the victims
III. Creation of a committee of lawyers and legal
experts to formulate another draft of the Bill.
This group shall elaborate another draft
addressing the aspects mentioned above and
dealing in particular with difficult questions
like legal justice (framework for the
constitution of an independent statutory body,
investigation procedures, prosecution) and
compensation (how to calculate it), and other
issues.
IV. Publication of a booklet in order to open
the debate in the civil society on this issue.
This booklet should contain the following elements:
the reasons for the rejection of the present draft made by the UPA government;
the previous 4 drafts of the bill presented to
the government that seemed not to have been taken
in consideration;
the new proposed draft done by the appointed
committee and detailed explanation of each
provision.
The brief note was prepared by
Joana and Bijulal
Human Rights and Law Unit,
ISI - New Delhi
<http://us.f303.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=hur@unv.ernet.in>hur at unv.ernet.in
_______
[4] Announcements:
(i)
SAHMAT
8, Vithalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg
New Delhi-110001
<mailto:e-mail-sahmat at vsnl.com>e-mail-sahmat at vsnl.com
1.5.2005
Moneeka Misra Tanvir passed away on 28 May, and
with her, we lost an incredible life devoted to
theatre. Through Naya Theatre, the company she
ran with her husband Habib Tanvir, she helped
make some of the finest theatre many of us ever
saw. For those who knew her personally, her
delightful, full-throated laughter will ever
remain alive.
Come together to remember Moneeka-di, to share her memories, to salute her:
4 June 2005, Saturday, 5.00 p.m., Deputy
Speaker's Hall, Constitution Club, Rafi Marg [New
Delhi]
Jana Natya Manch
Sahmat
o o o o
(ii)
Dear Friends,
An intensive course exploring linkages between
health and human rights and Building skills in
rights based monitoring and use of international
and national instruments, designed for health and
human rights activists is being organized by
CEHAT and TISS from July 4-15, 2005 [Bombay]
Please check website and register
http://www.cehat.org/hhrindex1.html
Best wishes
Kamayani
CEHAT
Survey No. 2804 & 2805
Aram Society Road, Vakola, Santacruz East
Mumbai -400055
Tel: 022-26673571 / 26673154
Fax: 26673156
Email : <mailto:cehat at vsnl.com>cehat at vsnl.com
<http://www.cehat.org>www.cehat.org
o o o o
(iii)
Himal Southasian is out on the net with an extended article on the
proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline -- "Within Grasp: Persian
Gas for the Southasian Engine" by Kanak Mani Dixit.
http://www.himalmag.com/
o o o o
(iv)
Social Science Baha-- Institute of World Society
Studies /University of Bielefeld
CNAS /Tribhuvan University - German Research Foundation - EU-Asia-Link
Negotiating ethnicity in Nepal's past and present
September 12 - 14, 2005, Kathmandu
Since 1990, ethnicity formation has provoked a
large number of public debates in Nepal, and it
has remained on the political agendas until the
beginning of 2005. Immediately after the "spring
awakening", the image of a multicultural,
multi-religious and multi-lingual Nepalese
society emerged as a powerful counter-project to
the official rhetoric describing Nepal in an
assimilative and homogenising language during the
Panchayat period. However, the project to depict
the Nepalese society as 'multicultural' has
proven to be an embattled ground where diverse
visions, strategies and grievances have come to
intersect and to contest each other. The aim of
the conference is to understand these
negotiations and specifically to grasp the
dynamics of 'ethnicisation' and
'de-ethnicisation' in Nepal's past and present.
The conference's architecture is designed around
several crucial topics pertaining to ethnicity
formation as well as to alternative projects. At
the same time, the conference also aims to locate
Nepali experiences within a wider South Asian and
global contexts.
1. On the popularity of ethnicising discourses in contemporary Nepal
Currently, ethnicising discourses tend to
influence peoples' conceptions of social orders
all over the world, and they dominate much of
political communication inside and outside Nepal.
According to the critics, the 'ethnic paradigm'
is based on the closure of we-groups using
culturalist criteria and resulting in
exclusionary practices; for its proponents, it is
a necessary devise in order to mobilise resources
and to realise rights. The 'ethnicisation of the
political' is activated wherever the ethnic
paradigm comes to dominate the political agendas
and when it captures a substantial share of
public representations, charging the discourses
emotionally and instrumentalising them in social
negotiations. With ethnicity as a mode of social
ordering ranking high on political agendas,
certain individual and collective actors manage
to get access to political forums and media more
easily than others, whereas other discourses tend
to be silenced.
The major question to be addressed in the first
panel is: why and how did the discourse(s) about
ethnicity (janajati) become dominant at a
particular juncture in Nepalese history and why
did the discourses about other cultural groups
(religious, regions) get overshadowed or even
forgotten? Thinking about the question of
ethnicity in Nepal, we have to locate the ethnic
issue (janajati issue) within the broader
question of cultural difference (thus including
issues pertaining to religion (Buddhism,
Christianity, Islam, animisms, etc) and region
(Madhesis, Tibetans, etc.) and also perhaps even
Dalits. For instance, there was a time when there
was a lot of discussion about conversion
especially to Christianity, but this issue was
slowly overshadowed by the janajati issue and
then the Maoist movement. And earlier there was
the issue of the Tarai. Thus, the 'ethnic
paradigm' has recently become the dominant model
silencing other discourses such as class, region
and religion. This panel seeks papers seeking to
explain this shift in discursive
reconfigurations. Is the attractiveness of the
'ethnic paradigm' to be seen in the previous
marginalisation and exclusion of ethnic
population, with grievances coming to light, once
the democratisation process unfolded from 1990
onwards? If so, through which interconnections
were ethnic discourses imported to Nepal? Is its
attractiveness to be at least partly attributed
to its strength and popularity in the global
space? Is it especially to be seen in the context
of the paradigm shift in the aftermath of the
1990-political transformation? Or are the
alternative discourses not powerful enough at the
current political moment? Can the 'ethnic
paradigm' be seen as a powerful resource that can
be deployed in order to reach particular goals?
2. The diversity of stakeholders and their discourses on ethnicity
The 'ethnic paradigm' is not uncontested and
there is no agreement regarding its contents and
shapes. The second panel seeks therefore to 'map
out' the key-actors involved in political debates
on the ethnicity issue and to grasp their diverse
discourses about ethnicity (and cultural
differences). The key actors include Maoist
leaders, state officials and politicians, leaders
and members of various ethnic organisations,
academicians (Nepalese and foreigners),
journalists, donors and others (such as possibly
tourists and entrepreneurs in the tourist
business).
It will be of interest to see which arguments,
which discursive figures and which images are in
use. Do they coincide or do they diverge? How is
the validity of a discourse justified or
rejected? Do the diverse discourses form a
discursive field in the sense that they borrow
from one another, or challenge the opposite (thus
unacceptable) positions, while simultaneously
taking up the opponents' concerns? To what extent
is there a diversity of ethnic discourses to be
observed, differences based on different
objectives of particular ethnic groups? Are there
strong contestations between and within ethnic
groups? Is there a regional dimension to be
grasped? Do discourses in Kathmandu coincide with
those carried out in local contexts (urban and
rural)?
3. The shift of the 'ethnic paradigm' during the last 15 years
Even during such a short span of time after the
'spring-awakening' of 1990, the discourses on
ethnicity and on other dimensions of social
boundaries have most certainly shifted. The third
panel invites papers that seek to elaborate on
these transformations. Has the term 'janajati'
gained in popularity? Are there new notions that
are challenging the 'ethnic paradigm', such as
the notion of social exclusion? How do diverse
discursive figures come to intersect? Are other
claims becoming more urgent such as those made by
the Dalits? Are there shifts in public attention
and / or recognition? Are there shifts in
identity politics to be discerned? (For instance
between 'minority protection', 'majority
protection (nationalist argument)', 'politics of
recognition' etc.?) Is there a tendency for
ethnic discourses to lose their immediacy at
present ('de-ethnicisation')? Which factors make
for all these changes?
4. Ethnicisation and its consequences
What are the consequences of these discourses for
'practices' - i.e., in terms of social inclusion
and exclusion, power, status, inter-ethnic
relations, etc.? To this panel contributions are
invited that look at both state laws and policies
(a.o. legal amendments, political representation)
and also the 'popular' culture and practices.
Equally important is the study of discourses and
practices of ethnic groups vis-à-vis other ethnic
groups, high and low caste Hindus, Madhesis,
Christians and Muslims. Also, the gender
dimension deserves attention in this field: are
ethnicising discourses re-configuring gender
relationships? Furthermore, the issue of emerging
solidarity networks formed between diverse
movements and organisations and their action, or
lack thereof, should be discussed. And: how have
identity politics contributed to shaping the
nature and scope of the political communication
space in Nepal?
5. Ethnicisation and de-ethnicisation in Nepal's past
In order to grasp the present-day dynamics of
ethnicisation and de-ethnicisation, the history
of Nepal provides a fascinating field of inquiry.
This topic is in fact so broad and so
understudied that it could be discussed in a
separate workshop with several panels. Some of
the key issues and topics which could be
addressed in this panel are:
a) Moments of ethnicisation in the Nepalese
history: To this panel contributions are invited
that will analyse key-moments when ethnic
categories have been shaped and deployed in
political language and measures. Such 'moments'
can be seen in
a. the promulgation of Muluki Ain in the year 1854,
b. the petitioning by ethnic actors to amend
stipulations within the Muluki Ain,
c. ethnic ordering in political rituals, especially on the occasion of Dasain,
d. the connection between ethnicity and enslavement,
e. the implications of the introduction of the
term 'Gorkha' and of Gorkha-recruitment,
f. negotiations over communal land-rights (kipat);
b) Discovery and use of history as argument -
discourses of past wrongs, vamsavalis as argument;
c) Ethnicity formation in the context of
development and of environmentalist discourses;
d) The role of language in the processes of ethnicity formation;
e) The role of religion in the processes of ethnicity formation.
Nepal's 'ethnic paradigm' from a comparative perspective
In addition to papers on Nepal, the conference
will invite scholars working on issues of
ethnicisation and de-ethnicisation in other
national contexts, for instance in India, Sri
Lanka, Malaysia, Ecuador, Nigeria, Canada and
Switzerland. Their contributions would not be
confined to one panel. These scholars will be
asked to present papers about their own countries
in different panels and in two public lectures.
We solicit abstracts of about 300 words from
interested scholars on any one of the
themes/issues outlined above. The deadline for
submitting abstracts to the Social Science Baha
(baha at himalassciation.org) or any of the
conference coordinators is 15th May, 2005. Only a
limited number of abstracts will be accepted,
based on quality and relevance. Participants are
expected to make their own travel arrangements;
however, local expenses (hotel/meals) in
Kathmandu will be covered.
Important dates
Deadline for submission of abstracts May 15, 2005
Information about acceptance of abstracts May 30, 2005
Submission of papers August 15, 2005
Conference coordinators
Dr. Rajendra Pradhan, Social Science Baha (icnec at wlink.com.np )
Prof. Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka, Institute of World
Society Studies /University of Bielefeld
(joanna.pfaff at uni-bielefeld.de,
joanna_pfaff at yahoo.de )
Prof. Nirmal Man Tuladhar, CNAS, Tribhuvan
University ( nirmal at ccsl.com.np,
cnastu at mail.com.np )
Conference Secretariat
Social Science Baha
Himal Association
Patan Dhoka,
PO Box 166, Lalitpur, Nepal
Phone: 977- 1- 5542544/5537408/5548142
Fax: 977- 1- 5541196
email: baha at himalassociation.org
www.himalassociation.org/baha
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
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