SACW | 8-13 June 2005

[sacw]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | 8-13 June,  2005

[1] Pakistan:
- Rights groups want Mai 'freed' in 48 hours (Report in Daily Times)
- Mukhtaran Mai's plight (Editorial, Dawn)
[2] Sri Lanka: The Curse of Impunity (UTHR)
[3] India: BJP, RSS and the controversy on Jinnah
(i) Back On The Ram Rath (Mahesh Rangarajan)
(ii) Jinnah, The Janus-Faced (Mushirul Hasan)
(iii)  So many Jinnahs (Ian Talbot)
(iv) The Great Metamorphosis - 'Iron Man' As 'Straw Man' (Subhash Gatade)
[4] India: Mullahs Can't Speak For Muslims: 
Secular politics requires new language, actors
(Yoginder Sikand)
[5]  India: Police Brutality at Jadavpur 
University: Where Will this end? (Rila Mukherjee)
[6]  India: protest the suspension of university 
professor by BJP appointed vice chancellor
[7]  India: Online petition to protest the attack on the Rozgar Adhikar Yatra
[8]  USA-India: Online petition to protest 
against Indian film makers harrowing experience 
with New York Police

______

[1]

The Daily Times
  June 13, 2005

Rights groups want Mai 'freed' in 48 hours

ISLAMABAD: Accusing the judicial administration 
of messing up the Mukhtar Mai case, human rights 
organisations on Sunday gave the government a 
48-hour ultimatum to end Mai's house arrest and 
remove her name from the Exit Control List (ECL).
"If the government does not consider our demand, 
we will march towards Mukhtar Mai's house in 
Meerwala," said HRCP Chairperson Asma Jahangir. 
She told Daily Times that it was the justice 
system failure that a gang-rape victim had been 
hankering for justice while the convicted rapists 
had been freed by court. "If Mai's case has been 
mishandled technically and legally, it is also 
the failure of the judicial administration in 
setting things right," she added.
Earlier at a press conference, representatives of 
various human rights organisations including the 
HRCP and Pattan lashed out at the government for 
detaining Mai. They rejected the government's 
contention that Mai had been in protective 
custody. "President Musharraf and Prime Minister 
Shaukat Aziz are very much under threat (of 
terror attacks). Why are they not subject to 
house arrest," said the HRCP chairperson. Mai 
told journalists from Muzaffargarh on the phone 
that she wanted to meet her lawyer but her house 
was besieged by police. "I wanted to meet my 
lawyer on May 9 but was not allowed," she said 
and added that she needed security but not at the 
cost of her right to move. mohammad kamran

o o o o

Dawn - June 12, 2005 | Editorial

Mukhtaran Mai's plight

JUDGING by Friday's events, Mukhtaran Mai's 
nightmare seems to have no end. First, the Lahore 
High Court declined the Punjab government's 
request seeking an extension of the detention of 
13 men accused of raping her in June 2002. Before 
she could register her shock over the fact that 
the accused had once again been released - though 
on surety bonds - she learnt that the interior 
ministry had her name put on the Exit Control 
List. Mukhtaran Mai was due on Saturday to travel 
to London on an invitation extended to her by 
Amnesty International. It seems that the 
government fears that with her visit the 
country's image would be tarnished, an old 
complex that each government suffers from. This 
bizarre move highlights once again how rape 
victims are continuously victimized in Pakistan. 
That the victimization should be at the behest of 
a government, and that too one which has been 
supportive of Mukhtaran, is baffling. Mukhtaran 
claims that she has been virtually living under 
house arrest during the past 10 days and has been 
disallowed from going to Lahore to meet her 
lawyer to discuss details of an appeal she has 
filed with the Supreme Court. This is the latest 
in twists in a number of moves, including legal 
ones, that she has had to contend with since her 
ordeal began. However, her courageous spirit and 
determination remain unimpaired as she has vowed 
to carry on with her struggle for justice.
The government is wrong in thinking that it is 
protecting Mukhtaran by restricting her 
movements. By putting her name on the ECL, it has 
evoked the very same national and international 
reactions it was hoping to avoid. The authorities 
must realize that it cannot wish Mukhtaran's 
tragic plight away. Her case has become the 
litmus test to determine whether the government 
is genuinely committed to upholding and 
protecting women's rights. That it needs to be 
reminded again and again of this responsibility 
is disappointing but it can still make amends. 
The interior ministry should immediately remove 
her name from the ECL and allow her free 
movement, albeit under tight security.



______


[2]

UNIVERSITY TEACHERS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (JAFFNA) SRI LANKA.
Special Report No: 19
Date of release: 12th June 2005.

The Curse of Impunity
Part I
Bindunuwewa, the Thin End of the Wedge of Impunity

Contents:
1. Background
2. The Bindunuwewa Fiasco
3. Assessing Culpability
4. Questionable Alibis & Command Responsibility
5. The Political Dimension
6. Bias: Blaming the Victims
7. Throwing a Veil Over Other Crimes Against Humanity
8. No Trade Off Between Peace and Impunity

available at:
http://www.uthr.org/SpecialReports/spreport19.htm



______



[3] India: BJP, RSS and the controversy on Jinnah

(i)

The Telegraph
June 13, 2005

BACK ON THE RAM RATH
- The parivar denies debate, even from one of its famous sons
Mahesh Rangarajan
The author is an independent researcher. He has 
recently co-edited the book, Battles Over Nature

The rumpus over Advani's remarks provides an 
occasion to reflect not only on the future but on 
India's past. How he interprets his party's 
future is closely tied to the idea of India and 
the movement he has espoused for much of the last 
century.

Writing in December 1947, only weeks before the 
assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, an astute 
observer in Lucknow was struck by the "very 
impressive" rallies of the RSS among the youth. 
Given the central role she was to play on the 
stage of India's history, her subsequent comments 
in a letter to her father are worth recalling.

"The growth of this organization," wrote Indira 
Gandhi, "is so amazingly like the Brown Shirts of 
Germany that if we are not very quick on our 
toes, it will grow beyond our controlŠThe recent 
history of Germany is too close for us to be able 
to forget it for an instant. Are we inviting the 
same fate to our country?"

She went on to argue that people of sanity were 
inclined to believe such a movement would die a 
natural death. But it was easy but unpardonable 
to ignore that the threat to democracy could grow 
and engulf it.

Indira Gandhi's own later life, especially the 
Emergency and her dalliance with soft saffron in 
the Eighties, obscures her early heroic work 
against such elements. In particular, as a young 
mother in her thirties, she worked with Subhadra 
Joshi with Muslim refugees in Delhi's Purana Qila.

Were L.K. Advani to reflect on his own past, it 
would provide a clue to where he was in those 
momentous years. The Australian historian, Ian 
Copland, uncovered the answer. Advani was the 
prant pracharak or chief ideologue of the 
princely states that now make up a large part of 
Rajasthan. These included Alwar, where some of 
the most horrific "ethnic cleansing" took place 
before the term had even been invented. As was 
the case with Hindus and Sikhs in large swathes 
of Pakistani Punjab, the Muslims who had lived in 
this land for ages were subject to 
state-sponsored atrocities.

There is no evidence linking him to such 
atrocities. But there is little evidence of the 
sangh or its allies ever condemning the 
massacres. After all, it was not Narendra Modi 
who invented the logic of action-reaction in 
2002. He was only repeating the logic of the 
sangh and Hindu Mahasabha of the mid-20th century.

Just as Mohammed Ali Jinnah was to declaim about 
the need for a secular state, so too Advani would 
affirm then, as now, his belief in such a state. 
But his semantics disguises two inescapable facts.

One, such rational practising politicians, more 
at ease with statecraft than religious dogmas, 
have have a central role in playing the sectarian 
card in our history. It is not religion as much 
as the colouring of politics by drawing on it 
that has enabled them to do so much damage.

Further, they are not spared the ghosts that they 
have helped create. Jinnah, before the end of his 
lifetime, was to endorse the invasion of Kashmir 
by the tribal levies. Its key lynchpin, Major 
Akbar Khan, was to attempt the first military 
coup in Pakistan's history. Similarly, the very 
Jinnah who affirmed religious pluralism in his 
speech to the constituent assembly of the new 
nation state sang a different tune in Dacca. He 
asked the students there to adopt Urdu in place 
of Bangla as the lingua franca. The fact that he 
spoke in English did not deter him.

Yet, Advani, unlike Jinnah who died in 1948, has 
lived most of his life in a vibrant democracy. 
Few can disagree that the Ram rathyatra did more 
than any other single event to popularize the 
idiom of his parent organization. It became 
respectable among the middle class and vast 
sections of the underclass to bemoan how 
"oppressed" Hindus were under the Congress raj.

Though he regretted the demolition, Advani let 
loose the forces that celebrated it then and now. 
Even as he expressed himself in no uncertain 
terms that it was unfortunate, he disavowed any 
responsibility for it.

Unlike Jinnah, who in his early life was a 
liberal, Advani's entire political life has been 
in the sangh. Its iron discipline, which struck 
the young Indira Gandhi in the Forties, has been 
a feature that remains striking to this day. This 
very discipline in deed is also carried over to 
the world of thought.

The difference between the Pakistan movement of 
the Forties and the Hindutva currents then and 
now is crucial. Jinnah wanted and got a Muslim 
state. He was not dissimilar to the Jewish 
nationalists under Ben Gurion, who got the state 
of Israel the following year, 1948. Jinnah's 
roots were in liberalism and Ben Gurion's in 
socialism.

Advani is correct in invoking the liberal beliefs 
evident in Jinnah's speech and similar strands 
would be evident among the founders of Israel. 
Jinnah was not Maulana Maududi with his call for 
a society based on the fiqh and sharia law. Ben 
Gurion had little in common with Jewish religious 
zealots.

But there should be little doubt that such men 
opened the door to such elements. Advani went 
several steps further. His parivar or family 
played a key role in unionizing such groups and 
giving them a popular platform. Having let loose 
such forces, he now has to face the bitter truth 
that they have no idea how to conduct a debate. 
They are used to settling debates with the stick, 
not parleying about ideas and ideologies.

A critical feature about Hindutva is that it 
speaks to a Hindu rashtra or nation, not a Hindu 
state or sarkar. It is perfectly possible for an 
Advani or a Vajpayee to exist in a secular state. 
Their aim and objective is to transform the 
polity, the terms of debate and discussion. Once 
everyone speaks only in terms of majority and 
minority, it will not be relevant what kind of 
law or constitution we live under.

The reality is that a plural polity can allow for 
a kind of dissent and debate that groups that 
subscribe to a narrow ethic cannot. Indira Gandhi 
was right in comparing the sangh to the Brown 
Shirts of Germany. Their methods and techniques 
may differ, but their narrowness of thinking has 
not progressed beyond that of the groups so 
prominent in Europe in the Twenties.

As a child of the parivar, the party has so far 
been unable to break its apron strings. There is 
room for debate in India. But not in the parivar, 
even for one of its most famous sons.


o o o o o


(ii)

Outlook Magazine - June 20, 2005

JINNAH, THE JANUS-FACED
JINNAH BEGAN AS SECULAR. BUT POLITICAL AMBITION MADE
HIM CHANGE COLOURS OFTEN.
Mushirul Hasan

M.A. Jinnah's role must not be interpreted from the
lofty heights of majoritarianism. Nor should we hold
him solely responsible for India's partition. Others
played an equally important part in signing united
India's death warrant. Yet, Jinnah was the one to
raise the war cry at Lahore, a city with a glorious
history of multiculturalism and composite living. He
was the one to talk of Muslims having their homeland,
their territory, and their state.

Lest we forget, his 1939 call for 'Deliverance Day'
and for 'direct action' on August 16, 1946, sounded
the death-knell for united India. His 'Muslim nation'
was born in the throes of ugly violence and bloodshed.

	Till the mid-'30s, it was 'secular' Jinnah. Then he
changed tack.


	"This is not that dawn," wrote Urdu poet Faiz, "for
which we waited."

Nehru said in 1937: "I do not quite know what our
differences are in politics. I had imagined they were
not great." Fact is, Jinnah did all
the right things from the time he accepted Dadabhai
Naoroji's political tutelage. A quintessential
liberal, he played a big part in the Home Rule League,
aided the Congress and the Muslim League to craft an
agreement in December 1916 that led Sarojini Naidu to
call him the 'ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity'. And
in the early '20s, he distanced himself from the
pan-Islamic movement.

So far so good. Till the mid-'30s, people heard the
voice of 'secular' Jinnah loud and clear. Thereafter,
he changed tack and, in the process, changed the
course of modern India. He expounded the idea of a
civilisational unity among Muslims, and counterpoised
it against other religious/cultural heterodoxies. He
also questioned the very idea of unitary nationalism
being foisted on different nationalities. This he had
not done before. In '39, he was congratulating himself
for removing the 'unwholesome influence of the
maulvis'. A few years later, he was courting Muslim
divines. Earlier, he opposed the mixing of religion
and politics; in February '39 he concurred with a
deputation that religion and politics could not be
divorced in Islam.

In '30, Jinnah opposed the complete independence
resolution and blamed Gandhi 'for this sudden outburst
of political hysteria'. He derided the civil
disobedience, saying it appealed mostly to callow
youth and the illiterate, that their involvement would
lead to anarchy. After '40, he used the same groups to
whip up passions. The National Guards, conceived on
much the same lines as the RSS, were deployed to
disseminate the ideas behind the creation of a Muslim
nation. Their fury was unleashed on the Muslim
nationalists.

To Wavell, the viceroy, Jinnah was 'a vain, shallow,
ambitious man who would probably think twice the
present time inopportune for any rapprochement with
the Hindus'. A harsh judgement, perhaps, but Jinnah
did show great obstinacy in negotiating with Nehru,
the secularist, and Gandhi, the champion of
Hindu-Muslim unity. "The two mountains have met,"
Wavell referred to the Gandhi-Jinnah talks in '45,
"and not even a ridiculous mouse has emerged."

Of course, their views and lifestyles offered a stark
contrast. Jinnah relished debating finer points of law
and performed with characteristic elan in cosy
chambers. He stayed clear of the dusty roads, the
villages inhabited by millions of hungry, oppressed,
physically emaciated peasants, and the British prison
where so many of his countrymen were incarcerated for
defying the government. Whenever he found the British
government tilting slightly towards the Congress, he
would conjure up the self-image of a wounded soul, and
raise the spectre of a civil war.

Gandhi, by contrast, walked barefoot to break the Salt
Law and to galvanise the masses by culturally resonant
and action-oriented symbols.

Around that time, the immaculately dressed Jinnah
waited in his Hampstead house, for his turn to occupy
the commanding heights of power in Lutyen's
DelhiAgain, while Gandhi trod the path fouled by
religious zealots in Bihar and Bengal's riot-stricken
areas to provide the healing touch, Jinnah waited to
be crowned as Pakistan's governor-general.

The Lincoln's Inn-educated barrister once told Gandhi,
"We are a nation". The Mahatma did not agree. Nor did
others. The ulema of Deoband advanced a theory of
territorial nationhood; Maulana Azad, Khan Abdul
Ghaffar Khan, Syed Mahmud and many others did the
same. They, rather than Jinnah, deserve commendation.

If Jinnah's image is suddenly transformed by the
exigencies of time, where does one locate all those
men and women, Hindus and Muslims, who championed
secular nationalism and defended composite
nationality? If Jinnah was secular, what were they?
Was free India's first prime minister less or more
secular than the Qaid-e-Azam? Lastly, if a secularist
ideology also means preserving our composite legacies,
what place is to be assigned to the father of the
nation? Did he die for nothing?

After partition, probably moved by the intensity of
violence and loss of lives, Jinnah talked of building
a tolerant, pluralist society. A case of too little,
too late. In February '48, he dropped a bombshell by
saying Pakistan, born on the basis of religion, "is
not going to be a theocratic state—to be ruled by
priests with a divine mission". He knew reining in
religious fundamentalists was going to be an awesome
task. Today, that remains Jinnah's unfinished agenda.

Was Jinnah secular or not? Let's not be bogged down by
such rhetorical questions. Historians are not in the
business of issuing testimonials. Still, let me
conclude with the observation of M.C. Chagla, who
parted company with Jinnah after '40: 'A political
faith should be something lasting—and I never thought
Mr Jinnah belonged to the category of men who
foreswore their faith because of temporary irritation
or momentary anger.' I hope Mr L.K. Advani is listening.


o o o o o

(iii)

The Indian Express
June 09

SO MANY JINNAHS:
Was he an avowed communalist or advocate of a secular Pakistan?
by Ian Talbot
<http://www.indianexpress.com/about/feedback.html?url=http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=71931&title=So%20many%20Jinnahs>
The furore surrounding L.K. Advani's recent visit 
to Pakistan and his homage to its founder at 
Jinnah's mausoleum in Karachi has reopened the 
debate about the Quaid-e-Azam's vision for the 
subcontinent. A rhetorical reply to the question, 
will the true Jinnah stand up, is the response 
which one do you want? For there is the Jinnah of 
the 1916 Lucknow Pact, dubbed by Sarojini Naidu 
as the "Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity". Then 
there is the Jinnah of the 1940 Lahore Resolution 
and the two-nation theory basis for dividing the 
subcontinent. Another Jinnah speaks of making 
Pakistan "a laboratory for Islam", while 
contradicting this is the celebrated espousal of 
a secular state in the speech of August 11 1947 
which Advani cited with approval in Karachi. One 
could go even further and add the Jinnah of 
Ayesha Jalal's Sole Spokesman construction who is 
portrayed as arguing only for Pakistan as a 
bargaining counter in the constitutional round 
with Congress and the British. Jinnah was, 
however, finally forced to accept the 
"moth-eaten" Pakistan of the 3 June Plan as the 
only realistic option.

Nearly 60 years later, the debate continues to 
swirl around Jinnah's enigmatic vision for 
Pakistan. Its academic and public dimensions, as 
at the present, frequently generate more heat 
than light. Why the controversy? First and 
foremost, it stems from Jinnah's own vagueness 
about Pakistan. This was a deliberate attempt to 
provide as much common ground as possible in the 
Muslim League struggle. Lack of a clear vision 
hindered post-colonial nation building. It left 
the field open to conflicting understandings of 
the role of Islam, language and ethnicity in the 
new Pakistan state. Jinnah's early death enabled 
his legacy to be appropriated by all manner of 
aspirants to power. The fact that he did not 
commit his innermost thoughts to paper provided 
further scope for mythologising. For the 
carefully preserved record of his public 
utterances reveal them for what they are. 
Addresses finetuned for their differing audiences 
and contexts. They are as much all things to all 
men as was the Pakistan demand itself. Selective 
quotations frame the Jinnah required by those who 
seek to refer to history to legitimise 
contemporary concerns. Founders of nations are 
always used in this way. Jinnah however is a 
particularly rich symbolic resource for a 
subcontinent negotiating conflicting sources of 
identity.

The view of Jinnah in India has been much more 
consistent than in Pakistan. Despite the attempts 
by such writers as H.M. Seervai and Gandhi's 
grandson Rajmohan to row against the current, the 
tide of opinion is overwhelmingly negative. This 
intellectual view finds a popular echo in bazaar 
level portrayals of Jinnah as Ravana. With 
varying degrees of sophistication, Jinnah is thus 
the maligned "other" of Indian nationalism; the 
communal counterpoint to Nehru's secular vision 
of a united India. Personal circumstances, the 
desire for power and the divide and rule policies 
of the Raj have all been used to explain his 20 
years' transformation from Muslim nationalist to 
communalist. The final descent to the dark side 
is marked by the passage of the Lahore 
Resolution. Jinnah the architect of Pakistan, the 
destroyer of Indian unity in this discourse 
cannot be readily accorded a "secular" mantle 
once Pakistan is created. The speech to the 
Constituent Assembly of August 11 is thus 
ignored, or glossed over as damage limitation, a 
desire to keep the minorities and more 
importantly their money in Pakistan. Political 
considerations aside, this way of thinking about 
Jinnah in India inevitably casts Advani's 
comments on Jinnah's secular credentials in a 
dissonant note.

For Jinnah, the secularist, resplendent in the 
clarion call, "Hindus will cease to be Hindus and 
Muslims will cease to be Muslims, not in the 
religious sense, because that is the personal 
faith of each individual but in the political 
sense as citizens of the state", we have to turn 
to the liberal discourse in Pakistan. Why is 
Jinnah its hero? It needs to be recognised that 
successive bouts of martial law have hindered 
civil society and freedom of expression. In such 
circumstances even muted liberal sentiments 
require the buttressing of the founding father's 
favour. The key text as Advani rightly recognised 
is the August 11 1947 speech. In times of 
enlightened moderation, Jinnah's Karachi 
Constituent Assembly address is available in 
full. During the martial law regime of 
Zia-ul-Haq, it was removed from collections of 
his speeches. Newspaper articles on the occasion 
of the anniversary of Jinnah's birth in 1981 
omitted the key "secular" phrases of the speech. 
This censorship was consonant with the regime's 
self-perceived commitment to the preservation of 
the Pakistan ideology and the "Islamic character" 
of the state.

It was also during the period 1977-88 that a 
number of unconvincing attempts were made to 
depict Jinnah as wanting to establish an Islamic 
state. Karam Hydri's work (Millat ka pasban) was 
typical of this genre. The restoration of 
democracy in 1988 encouraged liberal 
interpretations which played down the two nation 
theory and the conception of Pakistan as a 
"theocracy". Saeed R. Khairi (Jinnah 
Reinterpreted) contrasted the pragmatic and 
reasonable Jinnah with the Utopian and irrational 
Gandhi who introduced religion into politics and 
the insensitive Nehru who dealt the final blow to 
Indian unity with his "re-writing" of the 1946 
Cabinet Mission Plan.

The most ambitious reinterpretation of Jinnah was 
produced by Akbar S. Ahmed, social scientist and 
civil servant. He grandiloquently called Jinnah's 
August 11 speech as part of his "Gettysburg 
address". Ahmed, however, ran into controversy 
surrounding his multi-media projects on Jinnah 
because his portrayal was too socially liberal, 
rather than because it undermined nationalist 
orthodoxy. Indeed he castigated Jalal for 
disconnecting Jinnah from his cultural roots and 
portraying him like a "robot" "programmed to play 
for high stakes". Attempts to provide Jinnah with 
a "human face" with respect to his Parsi wife 
Rattanbhai Petit did not however play well. With 
a good deal of sophistication and scholarship, 
Ahmed maintained that in the closing period of 
his life, Jinnah increasingly moored his concern 
for tolerance and the safeguarding of minority 
rights in his understanding of Islam. In other 
words, Jinnah's secular vision had an Islamic 
rather than western basis. This squaring of the 
circle enabled Ahmed to claim that Jinnah 
provides a paradigm for Muslim identity and 
leadership in a modern world obsessed with 
western media images of Islamic fanaticism and 
terrorism.

This view is as much a construct as the many 
other images of Jinnah created by devotees and 
opponents alike. The real Jinnah remains as 
ungraspable as the aloof stereotypical portrayals 
of Pakistani painters. His inscrutability is 
nothing new. It frequently frustrated Mountbatten 
during the series of meetings which took place 
between them early in April 1947. Historians may 
well gnash their teeth at the futility of 
projecting backwards contemporary understandings 
of secularism and fundamentalism in order to 
label Jinnah. Competing visions for the 
subcontinent he helped divide will continue to 
appropriate his legacy in the quest for 
legitimacy.

Talbot is director of the Centre for South Asian 
Studies, Coventry University, and author of 
'Pakistan: A Modern History'


o o o o


(iv)

June 12, 2005

THE GREAT METAMORPHOSIS
'IRON MAN' AS 'STRAW MAN'
by Subhash Gatade


"Just as a Vaishya ( prostitute) changes her 
clothes and appearance, a politician changes his 
stand"

- Sudarshan , RSS Supremo, in Jaipur ( 11 June 2005)

BJP president L.K. Advani today said he has gone 
through "extraordinary and unexpected 
experiences" over the past 15 days and has 
"learnt a lot". (New Delhi, June 11)

I
Learning never stops. Right from a newly born 
child to a person on deathbed the process of 
learning goes on consistently and incessantly. 
Definitely Hindutva brigade and its 'lunatic 
fringe' cannot be said to be an exception to this 
process. Ofcourse they can be considered as slow 
learners. Many of the things the common Indian 
has seen and practiced for centuries together 
have yet to reach their heads. It is common 
knowledge that neither they are able to see it 
for themselves nor they have the wisdom to 
comprehend the complex history of any 
civilization in general and the subcontinent in 
particular -  a history which is dotted with the 
emergence of syncretic traditions in the country 
down the years and the space for tolerance among 
people/communities. And a logical culmination of 
this understanding is that in 21 st century they 
preach vengeance which has medieval overtones.
Definitely no particular individual among the 
Hindutva formation could be considered 
responsible for this. A weltanshauung which is 
based on an 'exclusive' kind of framework, which 
has no qualms in 'othering' people on the basis 
of their religion or caste which celebrates Nazi 
pogroms and organises similar carnage when in 
power can lead one to only such stunted growth of 
the intellect only.
It is also true that it requires a long and 
detailed process of indoctrination for them to 
achieve this.It was mid sixties when Harishankar 
Parsai, the famous litterature of Hindi , had 
tried to throw light on the way the 
indoctrination process unfolds itself in such 
ambience. He was rather trying to understand the 
emergence of a homogenised majority of 
nikkerdharis parroting the same language. Looking 
at the daily Shakha routine coupled with the 
regular staple of baudhik where mythology is 
peddled as history and the way children are 
inculcated with such 'character building lessons' 
he had remarked that the cumulative effects of 
all such activities results in 'brains getting 
locked'. He did not forget to add that 'keys are 
then sent to Nagpur' ( to the then Sangh Supremo 
Golwalkar Guruji). It is now history how 
infuriated the Hindutva brigade people felt over 
these comments that they physically attacked Mr 
Parsai in a meeting.
It would be cliché to say that much water has 
passed down the Ganges- Jamuna and Narmada down 
these years. M.S. Golwalkar, the then Sangh 
Supremo and his bete noire Mr Parsai are long 
dead. But passage of time has rather vindicated 
Parsai's observations. The latest episode in the 
Hindutva Parivar where the 'iron man' found 
himself isolated with no one coming forward to 
even support him after his 'pathbreaking Pakistan 
trip' is an added proof about the lack of scope 
for independent thinking in the Parivar. 
Mediapersons were privy to the silence maintained 
by all those 'near and dear' ones of Advani 
during the 'crisis'. None of the unflinching 
support he had provided to all of them could work 
in his favour once all those essential 
Swayamsevaks wearing the garb of political 
workers came to know that the Sangh hierarchy is 
opposed to the once blue eyes boy's outbursts in 
Pakistan. And they did not want to sound heretic. 
While his loyalists looked the other way, his 
adversaries tried to remind him of the 
'ideological core' of the party and the Parivar. 
His one time protegee Togadia even called him a 
'traitor' over his remarks about Jinnah.
II.
The party office in Delhi witnessed celebrations 
when Advani reassumed charge of the President. 
But the celebrations could not hide the fact 
about who calls the shots in the biggest 
opposition party in the country.
The 'cultural organisation' as the Sangh likes 
itself to be called can even tell us umpteen 
times that it has no formal connections with the 
plethora of mass organisations it has founded, 
but it is a stark fact ( which has come out in 
this episode in a rather crude manner) that 
autonomy to various front organisation is a big 
fraud and the Sangh hierarchy alone dictates 
terms even in its mass political formation. It 
was a sign of the full spectrum dominance exerted 
by the Sangh over the extended family that only 
two months ago K.S. Sudarshan the present Sangh 
supremo in an interview to a newschannel asked 
the two seniors of the BJP to quit their posts 
and give way to new generation. He also made many 
uncharitable remarks about their personal lives. 
But neither the two seniors  -  namely Vajpayee 
or Advani- had the audacity to challenge this 
firman of the Sarsanghchalak nor anyone else from 
the party tried to question the authority of 
Sudarshan over internal matters of BJP. One could 
not expect that any of them would have done 
otherwise.
Despite the continuing intervention of RSS in the 
internal matters of the BJP and once a party to 
it, Mr Advani remained oblivious to the extent of 
its influence among the top echleons of the 
party. He rather felt that the aura of 'iron man' 
and the TINA factor facing the party would help 
him in his image makeover and he can don the 
moderate mask with ease.
And thus one of the most intelligent expositors 
of Hindutva brigade could understand the modus 
operandi of the Sangh Parivar in a very hard way. 
The furore over his 'pro Jinnah' remarks in 
Pakistan coupled with his comments on Babri 
Mosque demolition ( 'saddest day of his life') 
created a crisis like situation for the party. 
And compromise could only be worked out when he 
was ready to eat his words which he had uttered 
in Pakistan. The other option open before him was 
to stick to his resignation and consequently 
loose the post of leader of opposition also. But 
realpolitic prevailed and throwing all notions of 
self respect to the winds this 'Iron Man' decided 
to procrastinate before the Sangh hierarchy. The 
first serious attempt at independent thinking 
which he had undertaken in his 60 year old 
political career had gone haywire.

Commenting on the issue NIRANJAN RAMAKRISHNAN ( 
Counterpunch 'Exit Right, Advani' June 8, 2005) 
quotes from a short story by R. K. Narayan to 
explain the plight of Advani. According to him 
"..A veteran thief has picked hundreds of pockets 
over the years. One day, for the first time, he 
considers the matter from the victim's standpoint 
(I don't recall what prompts this soul-searching 
-- maybe he finds something inside a stolen 
wallet). Whatever the reason, he decides to 
return the purse to the owner. He reckons it will 
be least problematic if he simply slips it back 
into the victim's pocket. You can guess the rest. 
As he is putting the purse back, he is caught, 
for the first ever time. Something similar 
happened this week to Lal Kishan Advani
"

Interestingly in his first ever speech to party 
workers after reassumption of office after the 
'resignation drama' Advani shared with them a few 
things. According to him during the last fifteen 
days he has learnt many lessons. It was worth 
noting that he did not elaborate on the 'lessons' 
he has learnt. While the 'isolation' within the 
party was for everyone to see the other important 
lesson which he pliantly implemented was 
preferring complete security in the environs of 
the Sangh hierarchy rather than fight for self 
respect. The 'iron man' did not even bother to 
insist that his one time protegee Praveen Togadia 
be reprimanded for his uncharitable remark that 
he was a 'traitor'.

Close wathchers of Hindutva brigade tell us that 
by surrendering before the Parivar Mr Advani 
saved himself from the ignominy of turning into a 
Balraj Madhok. People are aware that Balraj 
Madhok was President of Jansangh the mass 
political formation launched by the RSS who found 
himself marginalised when he tried to antogonise 
the Sangh leadership.

But can a badly bruised Advani who preferred to 
'kneel' down before the Sangh when challenged 
continue to lead the party from the front or 
would turn out to be a stop gap arrangement ? 
Looking at the antagonism which exists among the 
Sangh hierarchy over Advani's reinduction as a 
Party president it is true that coming days we 
can get to hear more and more such skirmishes.

_______


[4]

Times of India,
June 08, 2005

MULLAHS CAN'T SPEAK FOR MUSLIMS: SECULAR POLITICS REQUIRES NEW LANGUAGE, ACTORS
by Yoginder Sikand

In theory, Islam preaches the radical equality of 
all Muslims, having no room for a priesthood or 
intermediary between the individual believer and 
God. Ironically, that is precisely what the class 
of mullahs has been reduced to. Claiming the 
status of heirs of the Prophet, they argue that 
they alone possess true knowledge of Islam. Lay 
Muslims, they insist, must follow them 
unquestioningly. To do otherwise, they warn, 
would be tantamount to defying the divine will.

Mullahs routinely use their claim to leadership 
of the Muslim community as a bargaining tool with 
political parties. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi's 
recent meeting with the leader of the 
Jamiatul-Ulama-i-Hind, Asad Madani, is the most 
recent instance of parties bending backwards to 
appease conservative mullahs in the hope of 
garnering Muslim votes. By according the mullahs 
the status of leaders of the Muslim community, 
secular politicians do little to help the cause 
of the ordinary Muslim. Indeed, they do the 
ordinary Muslim positive harm by hoisting on him 
a reactionary leadership that is ill at ease with 
the modern world and is unable to play any 
positive role in helping the community face 
today's challenges.

By privileging conservative mullahs as Muslim 
leaders, secular parties indicate their own 
prejudicial belief of Muslims being the sole 
exception to democratic politics. While lay 
individuals can represent Hindus, Sikhs, Dalits 
and Christians, these secular leaders concur with 
Islamists, mullahs and Hindutva chauvinists that 
Muslims must necessarily be represented by men 
from the madrassas. In this way, Muslims are 
denied the opportunity of developing an alternate 
leadership that, in contrast to the majority of 
mullahs, is in touch with the real problems of 
Muslims and of the complexities of living in a 
multi-religious society.

Rather than harping only on contentious issues, 
such as the Babri mosque, Urdu or Muslim Personal 
Law, such leaders would focus on the real 
concerns of Muslims, including poverty, 
illiteracy, women's rights and communalism. Such 
a leadership would obviously be perceived as a 
threat by a range of formidable actors. Radical 
Islamists and many conservative mullahs may be 
expected to denounce such leaders as enemies of 
Islam. Again, there is nothing that anti-Muslim 
forces such as the Hindutva brigade, as well as 
secular parties who see Muslims simply as vote 
banks, would hate more than having progressive 
Muslims replace mullahs as leaders of the 
community. This would mean an end to the politics 
of tokenism, forcing political parties to give 
Muslims their due.

According the mullahs the status of leaders of 
the Muslim community is harmful for both Muslims 
as well as the country. The mullahs are fiercely 
divided among themselves. Sectarian intolerance 
is intrinsic to the worldview of the mullah, 
which also extends to seeing all other religions 
as deviant. One can, therefore, hardly expect the 
majority of traditional mullahs to be passionate 
advocates of genuine dialogue and pluralism.

Muslims rank among the poorest communities in 
India and there is considerable merit in the 
argument that they have suffered government 
neglect and discrimination. Allowing mullahs to 
represent the Muslim community will make no 
difference to the stark reality of Muslim 
poverty, and is even likely to only further 
worsen it. For one thing, the majority of the 
Muslim poor is of low caste background, while 
mullahs are generally from the ranks of the 
ashraf or higher castes. The latter, like their 
Hindu upper caste counterparts, have shown little 
or no concern about the plight of their low caste 
co-religionists.

In addition, most mullahs have little 
understanding of the complexities of a modern 
economy. Almost all that they learn in madrassas 
are the Qur'an, the sayings attributed to the 
Prophet and mediaeval tomes on Islamic 
jurisprudence. Most of them would naively imagine 
that a ban on interest, imposition of the zakat 
levy and strict observance of Qur'anic laws of 
inheritance would miraculously eradicate poverty. 
They can, thus, be expected to do little to help 
Muslims climb out of the trap of poverty. On the 
education front, too, the mullahs have done 
little for Muslims other than setting up 
madrassas, where poor Muslim children get free 
food and a modi-cum of education. Many mullahs 
look upon modern education with mistrust, as 
threatening to lead Muslims astray and tempting 
them to question the authority of clerics.

Treating mullahs as authoritative spokesmen of 
Muslims inhibits the development of alternate 
voices that can speak for Islam. Such voices are 
crucial today in order to articulate more 
relevant Islamic perspectives than what mullahs 
preach on a range of issues, from interfaith 
relations and gender justice to questions of war 
and peace. A number of progressive Muslim 
modernists in the co untry — scholars as well as 
activists — are struggling to do just that, often 
having to face the wrath of Islamists and 
conservative mullahs. For secular parties to 
flirt with mullahs further diminishes the hope 
that progressive modernists will get a seri ous 
hearing within the community and beyond.

_______


[5]


Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 20:06:28 +0530

More Police Brutality at Jadavpur University: Where Will this end?
Rila Mukherjee

As a teacher of the so called 5 star Jadavpur 
University , Kolkata, India, as a parent and also 
as a concerned citizen of India I write to 
express my deep anguish at the lathi charge by 
the police and the RAF on agitating students of 
the Faculty of Engineering of Jadavpur University 
(FETSU). Students observing a hunger strike were 
lifted by the police between 1.30 and 2.30 am in 
the morning of June 11, 2005, from the campus 
premises, taken to a local state run hospital and 
brutally beaten up.

The FETSU students had been agitating since 
September 2003 for a review of the semester 
system. Since the university authorities had not 
responded to their appeal for talks earlier this 
year some of them went on a hunger strike. There 
was also a call to boycott the semester exams 
which was successful. The Vice Chancellor 
appealed to them earlier this week to not hurt 
the image of the 5 star university.Not 
surprisingly, the striking students disregarded 
this call.The campus was then flooded by the 
police and the students beaten up.

Despite allegations of brutality on either side 
certain facts need to be addressed.
1 Why did the university authorities break up a 
peaceful hunger strike by calling the RAF (one of 
the elite forces that cannot be mobilised without 
the CM's sanction) into the campus? And that too 
late at night. As students of history does this 
remind us of parallels in Europe in the last 
century?
2 Why were the students beaten up even while in 
hospital? As a concerned citizen and mother I 
would like to know how the university 
authorities can answer this?
3 It is said that the universitie 
authorities floated a resolution that future 
students applying to JU will have to sign a bond 
foregoing their right to protest and strike.Are 
we living in India in 2005 or Hitler's Germany?
4 It is clear that the VC of JU, Mr. A.N.Basu, in 
his desite to make JU a fast track university has 
ridden rough shod on students' sentiments.
5 It is even more clear that the state cannot 
afford to hush up this matter. It is clearly a 
party to this incident.

More and more facts need to be addressed; not 
just about students' grievances but about 
promotees ruling the roost in this so called 5 
star haven, about enquiry commissions set up by 
JU that resolve nothing (at least 3 commissions 
in the last 3 years have white washed culprits to 
my knowledge), about centres and schools that are 
distributed as sinecures to the faithful and 
displays of rank discouragement and apathy 
towards many of the faculty that have been 
compelled to seek academic jobs outside the state.
After all, this crisis is not just symptomatic of 
the rot in JU, it is symptomatic of the rot that 
has set in in a state ruled by the same coterie 
for the last 26 years. How much longer? Where 
will this end? Are we still living in a so called 
democratic state? Have we lost our right to 
protest?


______


[6]

[thanks to Akshay Bakaya for sending this | For 
more background information write to: 
Dr.Apporvanand <resistanceever at yahoo.co.in>]

We protest the suspension of Prof.V. P. Jain 
(Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University)

It is a matter of great concern that the only 
Professor and the senior-most faculty of the 
Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi 
Vishvavidyalaya,  Prof. V.P.Jain has been  put 
under suspension by the controversial Vice 
Chancellor of the University, Prof. G. Gopinathan 
whose appointment during the NDA  regime  [Former 
govt. led by the BJP] as V.C. has been questioned 
and who is facing an inquiry  following an order 
by the President of India who is also the Visitor 
of the University .

Let us recall that it is Prof. Jain , who is 
Director of the language center (Bhasha Kendra) 
of the University at Lucknow who has been 
resisting the moves of the present V.C. to change 
the character of the university. He foiled his 
attempt to close down the Bhasha Kendra which was 
denied funds for the last 16 months and is being 
starved to death. He has been writing petitions 
to the Visitor and the MHRD [Ministry for Human 
Resources and Development - India] questioning 
the present V.C.'s manner of functioning. It is 
indeed ironical that Prof Gopinthan is merrily 
getting away with his dubious acts while a man 
like Prof. Jain is victimized for his act of 
resistance. A recent case in point is the 
creation of  a Pro-V.C's post in violation of the 
University Act. The Executive Council ruled that 
the matter be referred to the Visitor, but Prof. 
Gopinanthan went ahead with the appointment of 
the Pro V.C !  Prof. Gopinathan has now been 
asked by the MHRD to desist from taking any major 
policy decisions till the inquiry committee 
submits its report. It is strange that the MHRD 
is silently ignoring the violation of this 
directive by Prof . G. Gopinathan.

The suspension of Prof. Jain is highly 
condemnable . He was not even served a show-cause 
notice prior to the suspension. We appeal to the 
President of India to revoke this illegal 
suspension. We also demand that the inquiry 
process be expedited . We fear that the only 
international university of India created to 
serve the cause of Hindi would be ruined  beyond 
redemption if the present V.C. appointed through 
illegal process is allowed to stay and play with 
the fate of the University.

[...]

You can circulate this protest note, copy-mail it 
to (or write individually to) :

Department of Education, Ministry of Human 
Resource Development, Government of India, 
Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi-110001
Fax 91-11-23381355, 91-11-23382947   Email : webmaster.edu at sb.nic.in

Write to the Visitor (President of India) at: 
http://presidentofindia.nic.in/scripts/writetopresident.jsp


______


[7]

Online petition to protest the attack on the Rozgar Adhikar Yatra
http://www.petitiononline.com/ray2005/petition.html

______


[8]  [Online petition]

Enclosed below is the text of a petition to be 
sent to authorities in New York, Washington DC 
and New Delhi to protest against Rakesh 
Sharma's harrowing experience with cops from 
NYPD. His seems to be a clear case of racial 
profiling, which, inspite of explicit denials by 
the US establishment, is a rampant practice. 
Please lend your support by raising your voice 
against harassment of individuals through 
draconian powers being exercised by the US law 
enforcement agencies in the name of War on 
Terror. Please sign the petition by going to 
<http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/980334649>http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/980334649 
. Please circulate this petition to others in 
your addressbook as well.


Petition text :  

We are shocked to hear about the intimidation and 
harassment faced by the well-known Indian 
film-maker Rakesh Sharma in New York on May 13, 
2005. NYPD personnel 'detained and interrogated' 
him for 3 hours and subjected him to verbal and 
physical abuse. The details of the incident can 
be found in the formal complaint filed by him on 
May 16, 2005 with The Civilian Complaint Review 
Board, New York. 
(<http://rakeshfilm.com/NYPD/index.htm>http://rakeshfilm.com/NYPD/index.htm 
)

Mr. Rakesh Sharma has been traveling in several 
countries including USA to screen his film - 
Final Solution ( 
<http://www.rakeshfilm.com/finalsolution.htm> 
http://www.rakeshfilm.com/finalsolution.htm). The 
film has been screened at over 60 international 
film festivals and has won over a dozen awards. 
On May 12, 2005, he was invited to present his 
film in New York at a screening co-organized by 
Columbia University and New School. As is clear 
from the sequence of events, the next day, Mr. 
Sharma was taking street shots of traffic in 
Manhattan, less than a block away from his hotel, 
when an NYPD detective accosted him. Even though 
Mr. Sharma answered each query, produced his 
identification papers and offered to put the 
detective in touch with his hosts in New York, he 
had to face hostile questioning, threats and 
public humiliation. The detective confiscated his 
passport, physically pushed him, snatched his 
camera and among other things said to him: "We 
know how to deal with you guys, asshole", clearly 
a racist remark. Though Mr. Sharma was not 
formally arrested, he was not free to leave, not 
allowed to make any phone calls and was 
'interrogated' by 2 more sets of officers. 
Finally, detectives of the 'cold case squad' at 
the 17th precinct illegally previewed the footage 
shot by him even after his identity had firmly 
and formally been established.

We would like to register a strong protest 
against the NYPD and urge you to immediately 
conduct an enquiry into the episode. We find the 
ethic of interrogation adopted by the NYPD to be 
violent, insidious and oppressive . We feel that 
the NYPD not just violated several of Mr. 
Sharma's rights but may possibly have indulged in 
racial profiling. According to Mr. Sharma - " 
Perhaps I was accosted and interrogated because 
of my brown skin, my beard and the fact that I 
had a camera". We urge the United States 
Department of Justice through its Civil Rights 
Division to respond, especially in view of its " 
Initiative to Combat Post-9/11 Discriminatory 
Backlash".

Mayor Bloomberg, we urge you to take immediate 
punitive action against officers responsible for 
the incident. We hope that a formal apology will 
be tendered to Mr. Sharma and due compensation 
will be offered to him for the mental and 
physical distress suffered by him. May we also 
urge you to take formal steps to ensure that 
visitors to New York City are not subjected to 
such harassment and intimidation by NYPD in the 
future.

We would like directives to be issued to law 
enforcement agencies to put an immediate stop to 
the practice of racial profiling. We oppose and 
resist the perpetuation of newer and more 
grotesque forms of violence by state agencies in 
the name of national security and protest 
strongly against the consequent violation of 
peoples' civil liberties and legal rights. May we 
suggest that such actions are not just an assault 
on the US Constitution but on the very concepts 
of liberty and freedom of  expression.


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

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