SACW | 2-3 Sept. 2005

[sacw]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | 2-3 September,  2005

[This issue of the SACW is dedicated to 
remembering Alice Thorner. She died in Paris on 
the 24th of August 2005. The late Alice was known 
to several generations of South Asia scholars, 
intellectuals. Alice will live on in our 
memories. ]


[1]  Bangladesh: Mullahs Bomb 63 of the 64 districts:
   - We can't say that we haven't been warned (Zafar Sobhan)
   - Religiously affiliated NGOs - A probing look 
necessitated (Editorial, The Daily Star)
[2] Sri Lanka:
  (i) We condemn the assassination of  Minister 
Kadirgamar (Democratic Left Front)
  (ii) Impunity in the Name of Peace (University 
Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), Sri Lanka)
[3]  Insurgency-ridden Kashmir has many 'disappeared'  (Basharat Peer)
[4]  Gay like Us - Why are Indians homophobic? (Farah Baria)
[5]  Book Review:  "The Parivar Raj and After by Mukul Dube"  (Yoginder Sikand)
[6]  Upcoming events:
(i) 'Land, Agrarian Struggles and Democratic 
Rights' 20th Dr Ramanadham Memorial Meeting
(New Delhi, 3 September 2005)
(ii)  The AMAN Peace and Conflict Studies Course 
(Delhi, September 26 - October 26, 2005)

______


[1]

The Daily Star
August 19, 2005
  	 
Editorial

WE CAN'T SAY THAT WE HAVEN'T BEEN WARNED
Zafar Sobhan

The only possible silver lining to the horrific 
serial bomb blasts that reached into every nook 
and corner of the country on August 17 (apart 
from the fact that the death toll was thankfully 
low) is that now at least we can perhaps agree 
that the debate on the presence of religious 
extremists in Bangladesh, their scope, and their 
intentions can be put to rest.

There can be no doubt (not that there should have 
been before, but anyway) that there exists a 
well-organised movement that wishes to replace 
our democratic system of government with a 
religious theocracy, and that they are prepared 
to use any means necessary to achieve their ends.

Don't take my word for it -- or that of any other 
media trouble-maker for that matter. Take their 
word for it.

Interestingly enough, though, early indications 
are that neither the government nor the 
opposition are doing so.

BNP Standing Committee member Khandaker Mosharraf 
Hossain laid the blame for the bomb blasts at the 
door of those "trying to tarnish the image of the 
country." He did not come right out and implicate 
the opposition, but his suggestion that the 
perpetrators "want to create political issues as 
they don't have genuine issues against the 
government" echoes earlier critiques of the AL 
and leaves little to the imagination.

Jamaat-e-Islami leaders were less circumspect. 
Senior party leaders including Secretary General 
and Cabinet Minister Ali Ahsan M. Mujahid pointed 
the finger of blame straight at the AL, and 
asserted that the blasts were part of an 
opposition plan to make the country politically 
unstable and bring it into disrepute.

This kind of irresponsible and mendacious 
accusation is more of the same from the 
government, which has made even more 
unsupportable claims about previous terrorist 
attacks such as the one on the AL rally last 
August 21. The time has come to speak honestly 
and to stop insulting the intelligence of the 
country.

Let's be perfectly frank. If the AL had the 
organisational capacity and internal discipline 
to pull off this kind of an attack, it would have 
been able to force the government from office 
long ago.

For its part, the AL is laying the blame for the 
bombings squarely at the feet of the government. 
Sheikh Hasina is on record as saying that 
"without government involvement no one could 
carry out such a series of bomb blasts in 63 
districts at a time" and opining that culpability 
goes all the way to the PM.

Persuasive as this argument might seem, there is 
another possibility in terms of how the 
government could have let such an attack occur, 
which given the government's record seems far 
more likely -- common or garden incompetence.

Let's be frank here, too. If the government had 
the ability to pull this off then one would have 
expected that it would have been able to do a 
better job running the country the last few years.

Two more persuasive reasons militate against the 
possibility of government involvement or 
complicity with the bomb blasts.

One, the text of the leaflets found as well as 
the fact that administration and court buildings 
were principal targets make it clear that the 
bombers do not consider the current government 
their friend, regardless of the presence of 
mainstream religious parties within the ruling 
coalition.

Two, it is hard to see how the blasts do anything 
but hurt the incumbent government. The fact that 
religious extremists have been proved in such 
dramatic fashion to exist and that the government 
has apparently zero ability to curb their actions 
cannot benefit an administration hoping for 
re-election or trying to project a positive image 
of its rule to the outside world.

But this is not to say that the government can 
escape blame for what must be counted as a 
shocking failure on its part.

In the first place, the blasts happened on its 
watch, and so it is in part culpable. It is the 
government's job to keep us safe and it is clear 
that this is a duty that it is not meeting. In 
light of the other terrorist attacks and 
incidents of the past few years, the government 
had an even greater duty to take the steps 
necessary to ensure security, but what the blasts 
have proved is that the government has done 
little or nothing while the threat has grown 
right under its nose.

In the second place, a big part of the problem 
has been that for too long the government has 
insisted that it is not presiding over a time of 
rising religious militancy. The government 
instead blamed the opposition and the media and 
"foreign hands" for conspiring against it by 
fabricating such accounts for their own gain. The 
truth is that it is the government that has mined 
this issue for partisan gain and we are all 
paying the cost.

Third, the government's turning a blind eye to 
other incidents of religious militancy and its 
half-hearted pursuit of religious extremists in 
the past has served only to embolden them.

Let us not forget that the Jamat-ul-Mujiahideen 
was supposedly banned back in February. It is now 
clear that what the media has been saying all 
along, that the government action against the 
militants, which had left most of the senior 
leaders untouched, was little more than a public 
relations stunt intended to enhance the 
government's image rather than to strike 
effectively at the terrorists, is entirely 
correct.

But for all their faults, common sense and 
political self-interest dictate that neither the 
AL nor the BNP were behind the bomb blasts. The 
less time the government and opposition spend 
trading acrimonious accusations the better.

The question that we need to be focused on now is 
the implications behind this attack: why now, 
what do the bombers hope to gain from their 
campaign, and what does this mean for the future?

The first thing to note is that it seems that the 
attacks were intended not to cause maximum death 
and destruction (one can be thankful for small 
mercies), but to frighten or to send a message. 
Had the bombs been more powerful, thousands could 
have been killed or maimed.

It has been speculated that the blasts were a 
"dry run" for a future more devastating attack. 
But this makes little sense as one would have 
thought that the terrorists would not have wanted 
to tip their hand and alert the citizenry if they 
wished to inflict maximum casualties in the 
future.

The most likely motivation is that the bombers 
wished to send a message as to their 
organisational capacity, reach, and intentions.

The interesting thing is that such an approach is 
in marked contrast to earlier terrorist attacks 
in the country, which were almost all committed 
anonymously. The question we need to be asking is 
what does it mean that the Jamat-ul-Mujahideen is 
now stepping out of the shadows.

It means, at the very least, that the time is 
long overdue for us to get serious about this 
threat. It is not true, as the government has 
long claimed, that violent extremists do not 
exist in the country. It is evident that they 
exist, and are well-funded and well-organised.

However, neither is it true that there are 
extremists hiding under every rock and that they 
are poised to take over the country. The good 
news is that there is no evidence that the 
terrorists enjoy any kind of support among the 
general public. We cannot be complacent but we 
need not be alarmist either.

But let us hear no more denials of what we all 
know to be true. The government has brought this 
on itself due to its perfunctory pursuit of 
religious extremists in the past. Unfortunately, 
it has brought this on all of us, too.

The Jamat-ul-Mujahideen has fired the first shot. 
The serial bomb blasts need to be recognised as a 
warning shot across the bows of the nation. The 
smart move would be to take heed. This might 
sound ridiculously obvious, but the fact is that 
in the past too many of us have not taken heed of 
the threat that has been gathering.

Let us never again hear anyone say that religious 
extremists are not active in the country or that 
they are not a serious threat. After August 17, 
we can never again say that we haven't been 
warned.

Zafar Sobhan is Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.


o o o o


The Daily Star
September 01, 2005	 
  	 
Editorial

RELIGIOUSLY AFFILIATED NGOS
A PROBING LOOK NECESSITATED
The current administration has expended a great 
deal of effort to bring certain NGOs under their 
scrutiny. NGO finances have been rigorously 
examined, and registration and operation of NGOs 
has come under far more stringent control than at 
any time in the past.

It is quite ironic that at the same time that it 
has been exercising such strict control over 
non-religiously affiliated NGOs, that the 
government has been so lax in its oversight of 
the religiously affiliated NGOs -- specifically 
Islamic NGOs.

As a result, these entities have been given a 
virtual free pass, and have been able to run with 
only minimal governmental oversight and 
supervision.

There are 34 Islamic NGOs currently registered 
with the NGO bureau and funded from abroad. 
However, the oversight over these entities 
remains negligible. In addition, there are 
several hundred NGOs that are registered with the 
social welfare department, which has neither the 
resources nor the inclination to keep a tab on 
their activities. These NGOs are barely 
scrutinised, and little or no record of their 
activities is maintained.

Finally, there are countless NGOs and NGO-type 
entities that have no registration whatsoever, 
and thus no government oversight.

In effect, the administration has permitted such 
NGOs a virtual free hand. The result is that 
there is no accurate accounting done of much of 
the foreign funds that come into the country, or 
what is done with them, or what the operations of 
these NGOs are.

This is not to say that all the NGOs are suspect; 
for, there may be those that are doing a good 
Samaritan's job; but it is the rapid 
proliferation of religiously nomenclatured 
entities that makes one sit up and take note.

Let's not forget, the links between the more 
disreputably affiliated NGOs, some of which have 
been already outlawed by the government, and the 
militant organisations, no longer remain matters 
of hypothesis.

In light of recent events, now is the time for a 
comprehensive policy to regulate such NGOs. There 
is no justification for the fact that they are 
subject to less scrutiny than regular NGOs. This 
type of scrutiny should have been undertaken long 
ago. Better late than never.

_____


[2]


(i)

Democratic Left Front

Media Release

WE CONDEMN THE ASSASSINATION OF  MINISTER KADIRGAMAR
WE AWAIT THE  RESULTS OF THE INVESTIGATION EAGERLY.

One can infer on the face of it that the  LTTE could
be held responsible for the assassination for the
reason that Mr. Kadirgamar was being considered an
enemy by the LTTE for quite sometime.  Nevertheless
according to the information available as of now there
has been a serious lapse related to his security
arrangements.  When the former defence  minister Mr
Ranjan Wijeratne was assassinated similarly the LTTE
was alleged to be responsible.  But later on other
forces were suspected to be behind it.  Up to date the
real fact of it is not known.

Therefore it is necessary to launch an immediate and
incisive investigation to probe into why and how the
assassin was able to get at him in this manner despite
the heavy security.  Who knew that Mr Kadirgamar was
going to the place of incident on this day and at this
time?  Why did his security leave him uncovered and
exposed in or near the swimming pool? How did the
assassin manage to escape so easily from the scene of
the crime?

His  death is a substantial loss to our  society and
we express our condolences.

As an organization that deplores any  political
violence we condemn this political assassination
vehemently.  Similarly we also condemn efforts by
racist political forces to incite communal violence
and drag the country back to war capitalizing on this
unfortunate event.


Vasudeva Nanayakkara 
		Quintus Liyanage
Secretary 
			National Organiser

49 1/1 Vinayalankara Mawatha
Colombo 10
13 - 08 - 2005

o o o o

(ii)

University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), Sri Lanka

Date of Release: 17th August 2005


IMPUNITY IN THE NAME OF PEACE:
NORWAY'S APPEASEMENT STRATEGY CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTIM

The killing on 12th August of Lakshman Kadirgamar, Sri Lanka's Foreign
Minister and the government's most senior Tamil officeholder has brought
to the world's attention one of many heinous acts carried out by the LTTE
over the years. Will the international community once again make
rhetorical statements of condemnation and yet close its eyes to the other
daily acts of violence that have for so long engulfed our community?

Lakshman Kadirgamar was a respected figure in the Southern polity, one of
the few who understood and opposed the fascist nature of the LTTE and
voiced his criticism worldwide. There can be no illusions about who killed
him, or why. But Southern politics has long been dominated by illusions,
unattainable shortcuts and untrammelled opportunism. Upcoming elections
and the associated deal making currently in the air, work to Sri Lanka's
detriment and to the LTTE's gain.

A perverted culture also prevails among a section of the expatriate Tamil
community that celebrates this type of killing. The attitudes expressed in
the many websites which promote hatred and narrow ideology in the name
nationalism need to be checked if the Tamil community is going to regain
its humanity.  And while the LTTE-dominated Tamil media gloats over
Kadirgamar's murder, the climate of impunity in Sri Lanka and the Police
atrophied by the non-investigation of hundreds of killings of Tamils will
leave room for mischief and manipulation. There can be no civilisation,
democracy, peace or dignity of citizens without competent law enforcement.

Norway's Role

Since the beginning UTHR(J) has expressed concern over major flaws in the
peace process that reward impunity, encourage the LTTE to violate the
Cease-fire Agreement (CFA) and provide no meaningful checks on abuse.

We have also consistently raised questions about Norway's positioning,
which has often been both politically charged and extremely soft on human
rights.  Norway began the peace process in 2002 by quite openly sidelining
President Kumaratunge in favour of her long-time political adversary,
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe. It showed its readiness to further
interfere politically when it threatened to withdraw from the peace
process over the President's takeover of ministries dealing with security
in November 2003.

At the same time, Norway has virtually ignored the LTTE's political
killings and its scandalous conscription of children. The Norwegian
government even facilitated LTTE efforts to strengthen its worldwide
propaganda network (and thus its control over Tamil populations) by for
example, helping them to acquire transmitting equipment.  Norway has
facilitated travel abroad for so-called LTTE fact-finding missions,
including coaxing European representatives to meet them. Norwegian
lobbying of the international community has encouraged tacit support for
the LTTE's methods, and diluted or obstructed many initiatives aimed at
holding it to account.

It is time for Norway to reassess its role in the process and have the
courage to admit that they made wrong assessments of the ground realities
and to openly declare that it is not only the CFA that needs reappraisal,
but also that the SLMM is not an adequate mechanism for the task at hand.

Fantasies and Bankruptcy

Several NGOs in the South have sought comfort in "politically
correctness," projecting themselves as peacemakers by embracing conflict
resolution strategies endorsed by Norway that have little applicability to
the Sri Lankan reality. The daily killings and promotion by default of
terror politics in the Tamil community have been treated as minor
irritations to an otherwise excellent peace process. The LTTE's suicidal
ideology and its effect on the Tamil community has been almost completely
ignored, while any token commitment by the LTTE to democracy has been
welcomed as a statement of good faith in a bid to perpetuate the status
quo. In this perverted social analysis, fascistic actions are treated as
mere illiberal tendencies. Contrarily, when Southern groups voiced
anti-NGO rhetoric, they were called fascists without any reservation.

This attitude of the peacemakers and erstwhile progressives has out of
bankruptcy identified Tamil rights with appeasement of the LTTE. It
reflects a continuing disregard for the risks taken by members of the
Tamil community struggling against the LTTE's ruthless bid for asserting
total control while demanding a political solution ensuring dignity and
fair play. More ironically, the peacemakers have conceded the moral high
ground of defending the basic human rights of Tamils and their children to
Sinhalese supremacist elements, who long stood against a decent political
settlement.

The UNP played a particularly callous game in this regard, flirting with
Sinhalese chauvinism to obstruct a political settlement, while at the same
time promising the LTTE a fiefdom to attain power. Combined with the utter
passivity of the present government, it allowed the LTTE to entrench its
killer squads all over the country and to play Russian roulette with the
peace process.

The 'Sri Lanka experts' in global capitals, whose attitudes reflect the
growing contempt for democracy in their own countries, came to respect
principally the LTTE's stunning capacity for violence, which it held
together by constantly attacking the humanity of its people. Its
mafia-like network, which it wove to continually upgrade its destructive
power under the very noses of Western governments, is allowed to go
unchecked. Indeed, it was virtually rewarded with sole representation of
the Tamil community.

The ISGA or P-toms, both a formal expression of appeasement, looked
appropriate against the South being unable to present a cohesive political
challenge to the LTTE.  Demands for human rights protection and democratic
space for alternative voices were treated as efforts to inhibit the peace
process. It was in fact, this lack of clarity and direction in all
sections of the Sinhalese polity and the failure to perceive the
consequences that pushed Norway into its disproportionately influential
role.

Elite Southern NGOs and members of the international community appear to
be waiting for the UNP to come to power once again, to promote the ISGA as
the means to achieve peace, a strategy that promises rewards for everyone
but the ordinary Tamil people; their predicament is apparently of no
concern.  .

Even in this climate, individuals and small networks of committed
individuals in Sri Lanka and abroad, joined isolated organisations such as
UTHR(J) in exposing the continued child conscription and political
killings, and lobbied for tangible initiatives to address them. The
conscription of children was so rampant and open that even UNICEF, which
supported engagement with LTTE to resolve it, was finally forced to come
out openly and critically against the LTTE's behaviour. However, the
present initiatives in the Security Council to check child recruitment may
not have any real impact on the LTTE if the leading nations, especially
Norway, determine that they should be ineffective so that their
discredited peace strategy would have a further lease of life.

The Cost of Self-serving Illusions

Lakshman Kadirgamar's murder was one of many and bears a resemblance to
those that preceded it.  Just hours before his assassination, SLBC
journalist Relangi Selvarajah and her husband were shot and killed in
their travel agency office in the Bambalapitya neighbourhood of Colombo.
Relangi Selvarajah had produced a radio programme that was critical of the
LTTE. They leave behind an eighteen-month-old infant born after many years
of childlessness.

Subathiran of the EPRLF, who was important to the revival of democracy
among Tamils as Kadirgamar was to Sri Lanka, was killed on 14th June 2003.
The SLMM guardians played the role of the proverbial three respectively
blind, deaf and dumb monkeys, who dismiss political killings as mere
criminal acts unconnected with the peace process. It is further ironical
that ignoring the LTTE's use of a sniper from a nearby tall building to
assassinate Subathiran, who was exercising, may have served to encourage
its use as the modus operandi against Kadirgamar in similar circumstances.

The Police's failure to investigate Subathiran's killing despite the
evidence against Easwaran (then Nallur LTTE Commissar) being available
immediately, also created the climate for the same Easwaran to play a
leading role in abducting and killing Jaffna SP Charles Wijewardene
following the accidental shooting by an SL Army soldier in Inuvil on 5th
August 2005.

In the face of mounting internal dissension and resistance from the
people, the LTTE's typical moves are to provoke reprisals and a return to
war. This time the absence of reprisals against civilians, which the LTTE
hoped for, threw the focus on the LTTE's miscreants and placed it in a
crisis. Its provocations became more desperate.

Along with the lethargy in seeking a political settlement, the illusion
persists that the LTTE respects Sinhalese who act with friendliness and
goodwill, provided they ignore the LTTE's treatment of its fellow Tamils.
On the contrary it has contempt for them and when it wants to provoke,
they are the first targets. When the LTTE wanted to provoke war with the
Indian Army in October 1987, the first victims were Chairman Jayamanne of
the Cement Corporation and several journalists who had come from the South
in a spirit of goodwill. Soosai then cruelly killed two very friendly and
helpful Sinhalese policemen in Valvettithurai. When the LTTE wanted a
return to war in 1990, it killed hundreds of security personnel who were
hobnobbing with it during the appeasement that preceded it. In a land of
illusions and shortcuts leaders do not want to understand.

Dealing with the LTTE to prevent a recurrence of war is important. But
there can never be a surrender of human rights and basic functions and
responsibilities that give dignity to a State. Equally there should be no
illusions about the nature of the LTTE, for which there is absolutely no
excuse. The LTTE's recent behaviour has been precipitated by the Karuna
split in 2004 and the failure of Norway's stratagems on Prabhakaran's
behalf. (Norway pronounced that it was an internal affair, but did not
threaten to withdraw from facilitation citing a lack of clarity about who
held power in the North-East. It was such an alleged lack of clarity about
the South that Norway offered as the pretext for withdrawing from
facilitation in November 2003.)

Kadirgamar joins an unending line of Tamils, all distinguished in their
chosen spheres and victims of LTTE killer squads, who defied the advance
of fascism and worked for a dawn when there would be peace with dignity
for all. Among them were Subathiran, Cheliyan Perinpanayagam, Neelan
Thiruchelvam, Thangathurai and many others known and not so well known. In
the absence of the Sinhalese polity and leadership challenging the LTTE by
coming forward with a political settlement that addresses Tamil
aspirations, all such Tamils were facing marginalisation, of which they
were painfully aware, and life itself would have become more painful than
death.

The Sinhalese polity has a choice. It could shower empty words of praise
on these Tamils and go on as before, or get its act together and seek
dignity and justice for all. If it chooses the former, appeasement with
its illusions is the only course open. If the latter, it is time to
examine Norway's role and show that we are capable of deciding our own
future. Then the demands below will be appropriate:

·	Effective steps should be taken at the international level to take the
LTTE to task according to the full force of international law for its
crimes against humanity, and in particular the continuing perpetration of
political killings and child conscription.

·	Those who support and promote the LTTE's 
ideology in the Diaspora should
be challenged for their promotion of hatred and suicidal politics.

·	The political parties in the South should unilaterally work towards a
political solution that addresses minority aspirations, given the LTTE's
refusal to negotiate, as evident from the assassination of Lakshman
Kadirgamar.

·	The international community should pressure the LTTE to resume
negotiations based on principles expressed in the Tokyo Declaration, with
the protection of human rights, independent participation of a Muslim
delegation in talks, a permanent political solution and de-militarisation.

·	There should be zero tolerance for child 
recruitment. The LTTE should be
required to release all children who have been recruited.

·	The Government should immediately take 
the initiative to ratify the Rome
Statute of the ICC.


______


[3]

Tehelka
September 10 , 2005

THE PRICE OF TURBULENCE
Insurgency-ridden Kashmir has many 'disappeared' 
sons. Some are determined to find out where they 
might be

By Basharat Peer
New Delhi

From the picturesque village of Vangaam near the 
north Kashmir border town Bandipora, 
sixty-year-old Hajra has travelled 26-hours in a 
bus to reach Delhi as part of a delegation from 
Kashmir's Association of Parents of Disappeared 
Persons (APDP). Formed in 1994, the APDP has been 
fighting for justice for the persons who have 
disappeared after being taken into custody by 
security forces or the police in Kashmir. On the 
occasion of the international day of 
disappearance (August 30), the APDP came to 
register their protest in the capital.

Three of Hajra's sons were killed in the early 
years of the conflict and her fourth son, Bashir 
Ahmad Sofi, who ran a bakery in her village, is 
missing. She approached the local legislator, the 
local police and went to the army camp. Eleven 
years later, she still has no news of her son.

"They should at least tell us they killed our 
boys, show us a dead body. But all that the army, 
bsf, police or the government says is that the 
disappeared men are not with them or they might 
have crossed the border," said Parveena Ahanger, 
president, APDP. Her 17-year-old son, who 
suffered from a speech disorder, is missing too. 
"Soldiers from National Security Guard took him 
from my house. I filed a case in a Srinagar 
court. It took years for the court to get 
sanction from the Union Home Ministry to take 
action against the army people who took my son. 
But even then nothing happened."

She has lost her faith in the courts. But works 
tirelessly to mobilise and guide people who share 
her fate. Along with her lawyer, Pervez Imroz, a 
human rights activist, Parveena set up the APDP. 
It has documented most cases, and meets every 
month in Srinagar. It believes more than 4,000 
men are missing. Her determination and work has 
been recognised this year: she is one of the 
group of 100 women worldwide nominated for the 
Nobel Peace prize.

The story, the pattern of arrest and 
disappearance remains the same over the years. On 
June 11, 1994, Shaheena Guru was walking in 
Srinagar city centre with her brother, Sajjad 
Guru. There was a grenade blast and half-an-hour 
later they boarded a bus for home. Men from 30 
bsf battalion grabbed Sajjad on his neck and took 
him away in a jeep. She looked for him in all the 
prisons and interrogation centres of Srinagar. 
"We even went to Jammu and Rajasthan jails but 
could not find him." In 1996, DD Saklani, then 
adviser to the Jammu and Kashmir Governor, 
offered her compensation of one lakh rupees and a 
job for her younger brother on condition that she 
accepted her brother was dead. She refused. "We 
had some hope during the 2002 elections. pdp 
leader Mehbooba Mufti said she will help us find 
our missing relatives if we voted for her party. 
But she did nothing."

These women scoff at the Mufti government's 
much-talked-about 'healing touch' policy, calling 
it 'peeling touch'. Since Mufti came to power, 
188 more men have disappeared. Men like 
32-year-old Tahira's husband, Tariq Ahmed, from 
border town Uri. He had left his village in 
Baramulla for Delhi on official work. He never 
reached the capital, and has not returned home 
since December 11, 2002. "I met army, police 
officers and even law and finance minister 
Muzzaffer Beigh. But there is no news of my 
husband," said Tahira, who works in a sewing 
centre in Srinagar and lives in a rented room 
with her three sons.

Families of the disappeared persons have not seen 
any positive sign. None of these lost boys has 
returned home. Most believe they were killed in 
custody.

"I have not seen my son's body. I dream about 
him. I am sure he is alive somewhere," hopes 
Hajra. Parveena, the APDP president, is 
determined to fight on, to tell the world her 
story: " I have come to Delhi to talk to the 
people, not the government. We have to try our 
bit. One day god will punish the guilty. I will 
not give up till I am alive."

______


[4]


The Indian Express
August 26, 2005
	 	 
GAY LIKE US
WHY ARE INDIANS HOMOPHOBIC?
Farah Baria		 

That I can't name him in this piece, is perhaps 
the ultimate irony. I can't, not because he gives 
a fig leaf - he doesn't - but because the people 
who care for him do. And so this man I love so 
well is consigned to anonymity, to living in the 
shadow of another love that dare not speak its 
name.

It hasn't been easy. At barely sixteen, he 
clipped a silver ring on his left ear, and let 
the world know exactly who he was - an act of 
such naked bravery, it was tantamount to social 
suicide. But hey, better to die than live a lie! 
It hasn't been easy enduring those sidelong 
glances from sniggering colleagues, sidestepping 
black-mailing policemen, or assuring well meaning 
relatives that he wasn't looking for a wife, 
thank you very much.

Now, twenty years later, the earring is gone, and 
the flagrant pink shirts have been packed away; 
age has mellowed the rebel, taught him that while 
what he does in his bedroom is no secret, it 
isn't a public statement either. I once asked him 
when he guessed he was gay. ''Oh, before I could 
recite Georgie Porgie'' he said, with 
characteristic black humor. ''I always knew I was 
different.''

Last week, at the country's first official gay 
rally in Mumbai, a section of his misunderstood 
species protested that ''different'' does not 
mean ''criminal.'' After all, in a world where 
babies are butchered because they belong to 
another God, and hatred is the official foreign 
policy of nations, surely no love between two 
consenting adults can possibly be a crime?

Yet, almost six decades after India pledged 
herself to liberty and equality, section 377 of 
the Indian Penal Code says it can - on the same 
grounds as child abuse and bestiality. While 
every other democratic country in the world has 
legalized homosexuality, our Government, which 
almost never addresses the issue of public 
morality - how can it, when corruption is as 
intrinsic to governance as the so-called 
''crime'' of sodomy is to gay sex? - seems almost 
passionate about enforcing its own brand of 
personal morality on private citizens.

Recently, replying to a petition filed in the 
Delhi High Court by Naz Foundation, an advocacy, 
AIDS control and gay outreach organization, the 
Government claimed that Indian society was ''not 
ready'' for the practice of homosexuality. In 
fact the 42nd report of the Law Commission opines 
that society's disapproval was ''strong enough to 
justify it being treated as a criminal offence, 
even when adults indulge in it in private.'' The 
penalty? Imprisonment for ten years or even life.

How ironic that in a country where criminals seem 
to go scot-free for roasting 14 people alive in a 
bakery, national leaders are acquitted for 
abetting the carnage of 3,000 Sikhs, scores are 
maimed or blinded because they belong to a 
''lower'' caste, women are wantonly assaulted on 
city streets, and many, many marriages are alibis 
for legalized violence and rape, our government 
wants to ''protect'' us from law abiding 
citizens, whose only ''crime'' is their sexual 
preference!

Worse, its absurd contention that legalizing gay 
sex will encourage paedophilia is like saying 
heterosexual intercourse encourages rape or 
incest.

As for society not being ''ready'', 55 years ago, 
when the Constitution was being framed, were we 
ready for a ban on sati, equal rights to women, 
and concessions to backward castes? I think not. 
The joke is that for all our gratuitous prudery, 
Indian society provides the model for Sigmund 
Freud's gay archetype. According to Freudian 
psychology, homosexuality is caused by faulty 
child rearing, typically an overprotective, 
fawning mother, and a distant, autocratic father 
who the male child fails to identify with. But if 
the Freudian theory was indeed true, nearly all 
Indian men would be gay!

The scientific truth is that homosexuality is not 
a social crime; its a genetic fact. In other 
words, gays are born, not made, and persecuting 
them for their sexual preference is like 
persecuting someone for having a weak heart, poor 
eyesight or a crooked nose. This is hardly a new 
concept. Way back in 1948, the famous Alfred 
Kinsey report on human sexuality estimate that 
about 10 per cent of any given population across 
the world is homosexual.

Why, then, are Indians so homophobic? One 
hypothesis is that, as a nation, we are not 
comfortable with our own heterosexuality. Its a 
well researched fact that the human sexes are not 
mutually exclusive, but fall along a continuum; 
we all have masculine and feminine hormones, 
masculine and feminine traits, masculine and 
feminine orientations, in varying degrees. But 
try explaining that to our average male 
chauvinist! Only when Indian men understand, 
accept and even celebrate their own feminine 
side, without feeling threatened or insecure, 
will we be free from sexual fundamentalism.

Moreover we are a nation of moral hypocrites. We 
ban legal dance bars, while illegal prostitution 
flourishes. We censor on-screen kissing, but 
gleefully lap up every smutty detail of our 
filmstars' lives. We police what college girls 
wear to prevent ''indecent exposure'', but can't 
seem to get enough of Baywatch.

That's why when a sizeable gay society wants to 
come out of the closet and demand its fundamental 
right to equality (Article 14), freedom (Article 
19), and personal liberty (Article 21), it has to 
find a more ''respectable'' reason: AIDS 
prevention and control. A petition filed in the 
Delhi High Court pleads that if homosexuality is 
legalized by scrapping Section 377, high risk 
gays will be encouraged to seek medical 
intervention, instead of hiding for fear of 
prosecution. But surely AIDS control is the 
corollary, not the postulate!

If gay Indians want to be recognized, they need 
to stop hiding behind the AIDS purdah, and demand 
to be treated first as sexual minorities, on par 
with religious and social minorities. If that is 
against our so-called ''cultural values'', so be 
it. Or as a gay friend once remembered, ''Feel 
proud to be a faggot. And leave culture to the 
bigots.''

______


[5]

New Book on Hindutva Fascism
Name of the Book: "The Parivar Raj and After"
Author: "Mukul Dube"

In the history of communalism in India, the 
Gujarat carnage of 2002 was the most distinct 
marker of the deep seated religious divide. This 
divide was not an impromptu development but the 
culmination of a series of incidents of communal 
violence and of planned and targeted attacks on 
religious minorities under the BJPís rule over a 
decade. That rule itself came about because of a 
succession of planned actions of violence and a 
sustained campaign to propagate distrust and 
hatred.

Mukul Dubeís book, The Parivar Raj and After, is 
a highly critical exposÈ of the gruesome 
atrocities committed by the rabidly communal 
Sangh Parivar on the minority Muslim community of 
Gujarat, citizens of India. The authorís insights 
and analyses bring out clearly the systematic 
manipulation by the Sangh of facts about the 
events of Gujarat 2002. He shows how this 
communal outfit has successfully brainwashed the 
people, taking hatred to unprecedented heights.

Another important theme which Dube discusses in 
this book is the hypocritical so-called 
commitment of the Congress Party to secularism. 
According to Dube Gujarat remains a central theme 
in the articles which were written after the 
general election of 2004. News reports and other 
public documents are used to show that the 
Congress and its allies, who were returned to 
power in that election, have calmly forgotten the 
promises they had made. Justice remains a dream 
for those tens or hundreds of thousands of 
Indians who were brutalised in Gujarat ñ and who 
continue to suffer because all they are given are 
empty words and yet more brutality.

Mukul Dube born 1950, studied at the Delhi School 
of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the 
University of Sussex. Until the end of 1977 he 
pursued an academic career, but since has 
compiled and published the Directory of 
Performing Hindustani Musicians (2001), his The 
Path of the Parivar (nearly the whole of which is 
reproduced in this volume) came out in 2004, and 
a small book of childrenís stories is due to be 
published.

Vikas Adhyayan Kendra regularly publishes 
materials that probe different facets of the 
communal problem in the country. We hope that 
this new addition will be a useful contribution 
to the continuing debate on communal politics in 
this country.

The book is available for sale in our office at the following address:

Vikas Adhyayan Kendra
D1, Shivdham, 62, Link Road,
Malad (West), Mumbai 400 064
India
Phone: +91-22-2882 2850/ 2889 8662
Fax: +91-22-2889 8941
E-mail: vak at bom3.vsnl.net.in
Website: www.vakindia.org

Suggested Contribution:  INR 200/ -*
     US $ 10
(Both inclusive of postage charges)
* By M. O. or D. D. favouring Vikas Adhyayan Kendra


______


[6]  [Upcoming events]

(i)

20TH DR RAMANADHAM MEMORIAL MEETING

People's Union for Democratic Rights invites you to a meeting on

Land, Agrarian Struggles and Democratic Rights

Date:         3rd September 2005 (Saturday)

Time:            1.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.

Venue:         Deputy Speakers Hall, Constitution Club, (near V.P. House)
Rafi Marg (walking distance from Patel Chowk Metro Station)

Friends,
Every year, for the last twenty years, PUDR has organized an annual meeting
in honour of Dr Ramanadham, Vice-President of the Andhra Pradesh Civil
Liberties Committee (APCLC), who was killed by the police in Warangal on 3
September 1985. Each time, we have tried to raise and debate wider issues of
significance to people's lives and for the democratic rights movement in
this country. The issues chosen are based on our understanding that an
important aspect of rights is that they are collective, and fought for
collectively.

PUDR has, since the late 1970s, sought to intervene and report on radical
agrarian struggles and the repression they face, in Bihar and other states.
The issue of land reforms and agrarian struggles have been made invisible,
particularly in the last few years. Given economic 'reforms' since the
nineties and how agriculture has been affected, does it not in fact become
all the pressing? Let us meet to discuss and debate this, one of the most
pressing democratic rights issues of our times.


Chairperson:

Prof. Anand Chakravarty (Delhi University)

Speakers:

D.M. Diwakar (Giri Institute, Lucknow; will focus on Uttar Pradesh)
Tilak Das Gupta (Writer and Columnist, West Bengal; on Bihar and West
Bengal)
D. Narendranath (Vice-President, Human Rights Forum, Andhra Pradesh; on AP)
Prof. Sucha Singh Gill (Panjabi University, Patiala; on Punjab)

Discussant: Bela Bhatia (CSDS, Delhi)

After the four presentations, we hope to have an enriching discussion.
Please do attend. Also pass on information about this meeting to anyone who
may be interested.


Deepika Tandon
Secretary, PUDR

______


(ii)

THE AMAN PEACE AND CONFLICT STUDIES COURSE (In collaboration with Jamia
Hamdard)

Delhi, September 26 - October 26, 2005

Overview

The course aims at developing and widening intellectual discourse on the
subject among individuals working in NGOs, teachers, journalists,
students and other concerned citizens. The course will make Indian and
South Asian reality a starting point for an investigation of conflict,
violence and its many ramifications. A conceptual approach that will
connect, rather than compartmentalize themes relevant to violence and
conflict will be developed. We believe that philosophical and ethical
inquiry is a necessary element in such a study. Our lectures and
seminars shall examine the relationship between local and global issues,
competing histories and antagonistic polities; and the functions that
link ethnic identity, gender, and symbols to political and economic
structures.

Duration

The course will be conducted from 26th September to 26th October, 2005.
It will be interactive and residential, with two or three units being
conducted every day, two in the mornings and one in the afternoon/early
evening. Each unit will consist of two hours, and will include a lecture
and a discussion.

Three seminars will be organized over the duration of the course

Application requirements

Prospective participants are required to send the following information
by 20th August 2005.

1) A Curriculum Vitae

2) An essay in 500 - 800 words stating your reasons for applying for the
course

3) Names and contact details of two referees

Participants' ability to comprehend lectures and other forms of
discussion in English is necessary, although the course is open to those
who wish to speak and submit their coursework in Hindi.

Course Structure: The course will consist of the following six rubrics,
whose contents will be supplied in greater detail to participants over
the weeks preceding the course. The web site can be visited for regular
updates. <www.amanpanchayat.org>

Rubric 1: Ethical and Philosophical Perspectives on Violence
Rubric 2: Aspects of twentieth century world history
Rubric 3:  Gender Violence and Conflict
Rubric 4: The world order and concepts of conflict
Rubric 5 : Issues in the Contemporary History of India and South Asia
Rubric 6: Law, Conflict and Peace Processes


Costs:

The costs for arranging this course are considerable. AMAN will charge a
minimum (subsidised) fee of Rs. 5,000/- (five thousand) for an
individual and Rs 10,000/- (ten thousand) for participants sponsored by
NGOs,organisations and institutions.
The costs are inclusive of accommodation and food but do not include
travel.

Scholarships: A limited number of scholarships are available. Those who
wish to apply for this should send us reasons for their request in no
more than 200 words.


Contact:

Please ask for more information on the Aman Trust and the Peace Course
from our office, via e-mail, or ordinary mail. Address correspondence
to:

Peace Course, The Aman Trust
C- 651, 1 st Floor,
New Friends Colony,
New Delhi- 110065
E-mail: peacecourse at amanpanchayat.org

Visit AMAN web site for further details on the course and organization
<www.amanpanchayat.org>

Early applications will be appreciated as the course is limited to 20
participants.


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

Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on 
matters of peace and democratisation in South 
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit 
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South 
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
SACW archive is available at:  bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/

Sister initiatives :
South Asia Counter Information Project :  snipurl.com/sacip
South Asians Against Nukes: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org
Communalism Watch: communalism.blogspot.com/

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