SACW | 6-13 Sept. 2005

[sacw]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | 6-13 September,  2005

[1]  Obscurantism still alive (Anwar Syed)
[2]  Is India a science superpower? (Meera Nanda)
[3]  Is 'Riot Free India' a Possibility? (Ram Puniyani)
Announcements:
[4]  "In Search of Faith Unconquered" Anhad  Book 
Release and evening of Sufi Music
(New Delhi,  13 September 2005)
[5]  Closer to reality - Report and Film by We for Bhopal
[6]  Erotic Justice: Law and the New Politics of Postcolonialism by Ratna Kapur

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[1]

Dawn
September 11, 2005

OBSCURANTISM STILL ALIVE
By Anwar Syed

A GOOD deal of comment has recently been heard 
against fundamentalism, extremism, and 
obscurantism. We know that fundamentalists are 
those who wish to profess and practise their 
religion in what they consider to have been its 
original, "pure" version to the exclusion of 
influences it may have gathered during its 
journey through cultures beyond its place of 
birth.
We know also that extremism is an attitude of 
mind that tells its adherents that those who do 
not follow their beliefs and practice deserve to 
be placed outside the pale or, better still and 
if possible, removed from this world.
It is not equally clear what "obscurantism" is. 
In casual usage it may refer to beliefs that one 
consider to be incredible, weird, outmoded, or 
dysfunctional. In stricter usage it is, to begin 
with, the inclination to make a proposition or a 
body of knowledge difficult for the generality of 
people to understand, and thus limiting its 
intelligibility to a small elite group. This may 
be done by choosing an uncommon medium of 
expression and/or by resorting to allusions, 
riddles, allegory, metaphor, similitudes, 
sarcasm, ambivalence, and other such techniques.
Taking an example from a professional context, 
let us suppose an herbalist tells his assistant 
to add a certain amount of "hermes" to the lotion 
he is preparing. The latter will understand this 
instruction only if he knows that a deity in 
Greek mythology named Hermes corresponds to a 
Roman god called Mercury.
Obscurantism may relate not only to the language 
used but also to the substance to be conveyed. I 
have just finished reading Uberto Eco's famous 
novel, The Name of the Rose, which apart from 
telling a story presents many long accounts of 
theological discourses and disputations within 
the Catholic Church. The setting is a Benedictine 
abbey (monastery) in Italy in the 1320s. 
Everybody here speaks Latin and, with the 
exception of a few servants, no one understands 
the vernacular spoken in the neighbouring 
villages and towns. Outsiders are thus excluded 
from the knowledge the abbey houses.
Its library is famous all over Christendom for 
the richness of its collection the bulk of which 
is Latin, but it does also contain several 
thousand Greek and Arabic volumes. No one other 
than the abbot (head of the abbey), the 
librarian, and his assistant may enter the 
library. A resident monk may tell the librarian 
the title of a book he wants, and the latter will 
give it to him if he thinks the book in question 
is appropriate reading for that particular 
individual. In other words, the monks do not have 
free access to knowledge of their choice. For 
instance, a monk may not read a book on Islam if 
the librarian thinks there is no need for him to 
read it.
Not only the church but also the professions 
wished to keep their knowledge beyond the reach 
of outsiders. Physicians, judges, lawyers, and 
professors spoke and wrote Latin, which was the 
medium of instruction and discourse in the 
universities, but which the folks outside did not 
understand.
In the medieval Catholic tradition knowledge or 
belief at variance with the scriptures was 
banned, and the person spreading it was liable to 
be arrested, tortured, and burned on the stake. 
We have all heard of Galileo's experience: he 
discovered and announced that, contrary to the 
Bible, the earth revolved around the sun and not 
the sun around the earth. The church authorities 
arrested him for heresy, tortured him, asked him 
to recant, and threatened to burn him alive if he 
wouldn't. Galileo invited them to look out 
through his telescope and verify his finding. 
This they declined to do.
Women physicians who cured illnesses with new 
herbal medicines were considered to be in league 
with Satan, accused of witchcraft and, if 
discovered and apprehended, put through the 
Inquisition and then to death.
Regardless of their reasonableness or efficacy, 
beliefs uncongenial to the Pope were treated as 
heresy. That a doctrinal position had emanated 
from him was to be taken as proof of its 
veracity, for being the Vicar of Christ he was to 
be regarded as infallible. Take the case of the 
Minorites, an offshoot of the Franciscan order, 
who eschewed property, lived on alms, and 
preached poverty on the reasoning that Jesus was 
poor, and that he had only the use, but not the 
ownership, of whatever little he possessed. This 
doctrine annoyed the Pope who at the time was 
immensely wealthy. In places where he had 
political power the Minorites were branded as 
heretics and punished.
Obscurantism is still alive and kicking. 
Thousands of school boards in America have asked 
their biology teachers to stop teaching Darwin's 
theory of evolution and instead teach the 
"creationist" view of the beginnings of the earth 
and mankind. The Darwinists maintain that the 
earth came into being many millions of years ago, 
and that man evolved from lower species over a 
very long period of time. Paleontologists have 
been discovering fossils that support this 
explanation. DNA technology shows a 98 per cent 
correspondence between chimpanzees and humans.
Creationists say that these explanations have 
been devised by atheist scientists under the 
spell of Satan. The earth, they believe, is only 
a few thousand years old and all the species 
living on it were created in their present form 
in six consecutive days of a single week about 
4,000 BC.
Equally obscurantist are the racist theories that 
hold that the people of colour, particularly the 
blacks, were made genetically less capable of 
learning than the whites. Howsoever reprehensible 
these theories may be, the fact is that they have 
not been given up.
Muslims have their share of obscurantism. It 
should be clear that the issue here is whether 
propositions in the realm of belief are to be 
subjected to rational examination. The 
"Mutazilites" did just that: they sought to find 
rational explanations for articles of faith. They 
were influential for less than a century (748-827 
AD), and then they were suppressed until they 
disappeared from Muslim theological discourse.
The winners in this contest, known as Asharites, 
opposed the application of reason to matters of 
religion. They preached conformity to the 
teachings of the earlier interpreters, and they 
cultivated prejudice against philosophy and 
non-religious branches of knowledge. In 1150 
Caliph Mustanijid ordered the burning of the 
philosophical works of Ibn Sina (Avicena), and in 
1194 Amir Abu Yusuf al-Mansur, then at Seville 
(Spain), ordered the burning of the works of 
another great Muslim philosopher, Ibn Rushd 
(Averros). Further thinking in philosophy, 
mathematics, and science ceased in the Muslim 
world.
The ulema opposed the products of modern 
technology. The printing press did not appear in 
any Muslim country until 1798 when Napoleon came 
to Egypt (some 350 years after the first printing 
of the Bible). It came to Turkey in 1839 but was 
limited to the production of non-religious books. 
The Quran was not printed in a Muslim country 
until 1874. The ulema do not oppose modern 
science and technology any longer, but they still 
oppose the attitude of mind (disposition to 
questioning and free inquiry) that made advances 
in these areas possible.
It may be argued with considerable justification 
that objective reason has no place in the domain 
of faith. If a proposition passed the test of 
such reason it would not have to be taken as a 
matter of faith. The problem in our case arises 
from the fact that our ulema have extended the 
domain of faith to include thousands of 
injunctions relating to all aspects of life and 
human interaction. We are asked to give them 
unquestioning obedience, because "so it is 
written and therefore so it must be done". The 
ulema are unwilling to concede that some of these 
injunctions may have been addressed to specific 
situations in a given temporal context, and that 
their applicability was therefore intended to be 
transient, not eternal.
Insistence on conformity and disapproval of the 
questioning mind have spilled from the domain of 
faith to other areas such as home, school, and 
the workplace. The subordinate person in these 
places must accept what the superior has said 
simply because he has said so. This attitude has 
had a devastating impact on the acquisition, 
dissemination, and application of knowledge in 
the Muslim world.
The same attitude of unquestioning obedience is 
commended with respect to custom and tradition. 
Not only certain readings of theology but 
tradition say that women are to stay home. It is 
argued that there is then nothing wrong with 
stopping them in parts of NWFP from contesting 
local elections or even casting their votes at 
polling stations.
Some Muslim theologians believe that it is wrong 
to have a good laugh or to tell jokes that make 
the listeners laugh, because the Prophet (pbuh) 
never laughed; he smiled and that too only 
occasionally. (Catholic priests said the same 
thing with reference to Jesus.)
It may be useful to recall how the Quran deals 
with the issue of obscurantism. In verse 7 of the 
third Sura (Al Imran) we are told that there are 
verses in the Book which are basic ("muhkimat") 
and whose meaning is clear and firm. Then there 
are others ("mutshabihat") whose meaning is not 
well established (or, shall we say, obscure). 
Persons who look for their hidden meaning have 
perversity in their hearts, and they seek thus to 
create discord in the community. No one knows 
their true meaning except God and those few who 
are firmly grounded. (My paraphrase of Abdullah 
Yusuf Ali's translation.) We are in effect being 
asked to leave alone the formulations whose 
meaning is obscure; not to bring them into 
discussion and debate.
Fundamentalism and extremism pose a clear and 
present threat to the peace and good order of the 
republic; indeed, a threat to its very existence. 
Obscurantism may produce the same result through 
a different procedure. It works like a 
slow-acting cancer that will eventually kill the 
Muslim people's spirit of enterprise, capacity to 
be innovative, and creativity. Thus it makes them 
retrogressive and incompetent and vulnerable to 
external forces that intend to control and 
subjugate them.

______


[2]

Frontline
Volume 22 - Issue 19, Sep 10 - 23, 2005

IS INDIA A SCIENCE SUPERPOWER?

by Meera Nanda

On the radical disconnect between the dreams of 
becoming a science superpower and the grim 
reality of mind-numbing superstitions and 
life-threatening pseudo-sciences that pervade all 
levels of society.


"THE next century belongs to India, which will 
become a unique intellectual powerhouse... 
capturing all its glory which it had in millennia 
gone by," declared Dr. Raghunath Mashelkar, 
Director General of India's Council of Scientific 
and Industrial Research in Science earlier this 
year. Thomas Friedman, The New York Times 
columnist and author of the recent bestseller The 
World is Flat, agrees that India, with its 
talented, yet low-cost brainpower, is on its way 
to becoming the "innovation hub" of the global 
economy. Not to be outdone, the British weekly, 
New Scientist, has dubbed India the world's 
emerging "knowledge superpower".

On a recent visit to New Delhi, I found that many 
Indian scientists have bought into this hype. 
Indian science, I was told by my friends from my 
old microbiology-biotechnology days, has "taken 
off", and only "the sky is the limit". My old 
classmates, grey-haired professors and 
researchers now, have the air of quiet confidence 
that comes with recognition in their chosen 
profession.

And why not? Information and biological 
technologies are the twin engines pulling India's 
economy. At a time when global corporations come 
courting Indian scientists and engineers not just 
for drudge work, but for advanced research and 
design as well, all this talk about India as a 
"science superpower" does make sense.

What does not make sense, however, is the radical 
disconnect between the dreams of becoming a 
science superpower, and the grim reality of the 
mind-numbing superstitions and life-threatening 
pseudo-sciences that are thriving at all levels 
of society. Indian scientists may well be the 
most sought-after workers in the global economy, 
but many behave as if what they do inside their 
laboratories has nothing to do with the 
supernatural and/or spiritual "truths" that pass 
as "scientific" explanations of natural phenomena 
in the rest of society. If anything, corporate 
science and technology is only adding to the 
ruthlessness of the global capitalist economy, 
which feeds the existential anxieties that feed 
on obscurantism.

Do I exaggerate? Here is a report on the six 
weeks I spent in northern India this summer:

In early May, throughout the countryside in 
northern India, thousands of children, mere girls 
and boys, were married off on Akshay Trithiya, a 
day considered astrologically auspicious for 
marriages and other new ventures. A social worker 
who tried to prevent child marriages had her 
hands cut off, allegedly by those bent on 
defending their hoary traditions. There are, of 
course, many complex social and economic reasons 
why child marriages still persist in India in 
significant numbers. But these secular motives 
come with the full blessings of our priests and 
astrologers who have declared the bright sun and 
the moon on the third day of the month of May to 
be auspicious for new ventures, including child 
marriages, which are supposed to bring good karma 
to the parents of the child brides.

Meanwhile, astrology was getting a corporate 
makeover to appeal to the "modern", urban 
middle-classes, who were being bombarded with 
advertisements by the World Gold Council to 
celebrate the "auspicious" alignment of the stars 
by buying some more gold jewellery.

If you thought that scientists, especially space 
scientists, would have something to say regarding 
the astrological logic underlying popular 
traditions, well, think again. While the country 
was gearing up for Akshay Trithiya, India's top 
space scientists were busy seeking the blessings 
of Lord Balaji at the Tirupati temple for a safe 
launch of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. A 
miniature model of the rocket was laid in the 
sanctum sanctorum of the temple and prayed over 
by priests in the presence of 15 scientists. 
Scientists, who have not let go their own 
security blanket of gods, can hardly be expected 
to question the comforting but false illusions 
astrologers sell to ordinary people.

Meanwhile, the many satellites that India's space 
agency has launched in the past were busy beaming 
television programmes selling unsubstantiated 
health benefits of yoga and Ayurveda, delivered 
in a heady brew of spiritualism and Hindu 
nationalism. India's most popular tele-yogi, 
Swami Ramdev, offers his Divya Yoga on 
television. Interspersed with the swami's calls 
for awakening "desh kaa svabhiman" (national 
self-respect) by teaching "crore saal purana 
vigyan" (science dating back ten million years), 
one finds totally unsubstantiated claims about 
the power of yogic postures, deep breathing and 
his own Ayurvedic concoctions for every ailment 
known to humankind including cancer, heart 
disease, diabetes, glaucoma and obesity. What is 
Ramdev's standard of evidence? A headcount of 
those attending his camps, who profess to have 
been cured by the yogic exercises he teaches. 
What is his view of human physiology? It centres 
on the ancient notion of prana, or vital energy, 
which modern biology completely discarded more 
than a century ago. (An aside: those who think 
Hindu nationalism is in retreat need to pay 
attention to TV-gurus like Ramdev - the Hindu 
equivalent of American televangelists. They are 
clearly injecting Hindu chauvinistic themes into 
their "spiritual" teachings.)

What is remarkable is that all these reason- and 
evidence-defying traditions come wrapped in the 
fancy dress of "science". On my visit to 
Chandigarh, my hometown, I heard an Arya Samaj 
preacher exhort devotees at an open-air public 
discourse held outside my house (with 
loudspeakers set at full blast) to "read the 
ancient Vedas to learn all the sciences known to 
humanity". He was discoursing on how to succeed 
in the modern world with its prized high-tech 
jobs. Astrology, yogic ideas of prana and 
kundalini and even the ideas of reincarnation, 
karma and varna (that is, caste order) are 
justified in the language of modern physics and 
evolutionary biology. All these ancient 
metaphysical speculations are proclaimed to be 
"vedic sciences" (that is, empirically testable 
and logical within the metaphysics of the Vedas) 
and they are supposed to have been belatedly 
rediscovered by modern science. What we have here 
is pseudo-science in its purest form, that is, 
religious dogma, lacking rigorous scientific 
evidence and plausibility dressed up as science.

NOW here is why I find the whole situation very 
troubling. On the one hand, there are countless 
gurus - from popular tele-yogis like Ramdev to 
elite, Sanskrit-speaking teachers of Vedanta - 
all eager to take on the prestige of modern 
science for an essentially spirit-based cosmology 
derived from the Vedas. On the other hand, India 
has literally an army of PhDs, many with advanced 
training in the most cutting-edge fields of 
natural sciences who, rare exceptions aside, 
refuse to stand up and draw a principled 
distinction between natural science and 
spiritualism. If the scientific community has not 
stood up for scientific reason, neither has the 
intelligentsia. Indeed, leading public 
intellectuals in India have generally taken a 
postmodernist stance of suspicion towards modern 
science. They have been more concerned with 
revealing the Orientalist and capitalist 
prejudices in science, than with using it to 
demystify the many dangerous and irrational 
beliefs that make up the commonsense of many of 
our fellow citizens.

My conversations with my old scientist friends 
confirmed my worries. When I brought up my 
misgivings about the continuing hold of 
astrology, I discovered that I had touched a raw 
nerve: some of my friends had been consulting 
soothsayers. Then there were those who defended 
the right of Vedic astrologers to carry on their 
"research", as if there were legitimate puzzles 
still left to be solved after so many centuries 
of falsification of each and every tenet of 
astrology.

In another conversation, I happened to bring up 
the issue of space scientists praying over a 
satellite launch vehicle. My colleagues treated 
the news as the routine business of running a 
laboratory and recounted similar instances. I 
learnt of yagnas being done in the laboratories 
of a major university to ward off ghosts; I 
learnt of jagrans being held on university 
campuses, presided over by the members of the 
science faculty. My friends saw nothing 
particularly objectionable to such 
compartmentalisation between the work you do as a 
scientist and what you do in the rest of your 
life outside the laboratory. But what happens 
when what you do outside directly contradicts and 
negates all that you know as a scientist, I 
asked. How do you live with the contradictions of 
praying to supernatural forces for the safety of 
a rocket that you have fashioned out of your own 
hands without invoking anything but natural 
forces? Where, in modern physics and astronomy, 
is there room for a supernatural power that 
listens to our prayers? Or for that matter, where 
in modern biology is there any evidence 
whatsoever for immaterial spiritual energy, 
prana, that is routinely treated as an actual 
force of nature in the discourses of our yogis 
and gurus?

Forget about their personal faith in God, I 
argued with my friends, but should Indian 
scientists not strive to apply scientific 
methodology to at least those aspects of 
traditional spiritual-medical practices that step 
directly into the turf of modern science and 
medicine? Should Indian scientists not at least 
challenge the unsubstantiated and misleading 
health claims that are being made for yoga and 
Ayurveda? Should they not insist upon stringent 
double-blind tests of the concoctions Ramdev 
sells through his Divya Yoga business empire, for 
example?

Yes, that would be good, my friends responded, 
but I am demanding too much. We are already too 
busy writing research papers, running the 
laboratories, training students and publishing 
papers, they said.

And then, perhaps irritated by my rationalist 
prodding, my friends threw down the gauntlet. All 
societies have their superstitions, they told me. 
Look at America, they admonished me. If America, 
a country awash in superstition, can claim the 
mantle of a science superpower, why cannot India?

A fair question. It is true that nearly 40 per 
cent of Americans believe in the literal truth of 
the Bible. Under the current administration of 
George W. Bush, regrettably, conservative 
evangelical Christians have been given a free 
rein to inject Christian ideas of God and 
morality into science education, medical research 
and health policy - a situation not very 
different from how the Bharatiya Janata Party 
sought to Hinduise science education and research 
when it was in power. It is also true that New 
Age irrationalities, from astrology, crystals, 
auras, Feng Shui and Vastu Shastra, reincarnation 
and past birth regressions are all gaining new 
adherents in America and Europe.

But this dismal state of affairs in America hides 
a more complex reality. Polling data show a far 
lower level of belief in God among American 
scientists than the levels that prevail among the 
general public. Indeed, the 1998 poll of the 
members of the National Academy of Sciences 
revealed that only 5.5 per cent of biologists and 
only 7.5 per cent of physicists believed in God. 
The numbers believing in immortality of the soul 
were also in single digits for most scientists. 
Indeed, the very idea of NASA scientists holding 
prayer services before space shuttle launches is 
inconceivable in America. What is more, American 
scientists remain far more actively engaged in 
public debates about religion, ethics and the 
standards of evidence and truth. Well respected 
scientist-scholars like (the late) Stephen Jay 
Gould, Richard Dawkins (from Britain, but read 
widely in America), Edward O. Wilson, Daniel 
Dennett, Steven Pinker, William Provine, Robert 
Pennock, Paul Gross and a host of others are 
giving the Christian creationists a run for their 
money. Well-respected scientists including Steven 
Weinberg (a Nobel Laureate), Noam Chomsky, Alan 
Sokal, Paul Gross and Norman Levitt have 
intervened in the academic debates about the 
nature of scientific evidence and how it differs 
from other ways of knowing. Likewise, vigilant 
voices from within the medical profession have 
consistently demanded rigorous experimental 
checks on the claims of corporate and 
complementary medicine.

So, yes, there is pseudo-science in the United 
States, and plenty of it. But there are 
well-respected, serious, engaged voices from 
within the scientific community in significant 
numbers who are fighting pseudo-sciences and 
religious obscurantism every step of the way.

If India wants to become a genuine "science 
superpower", Indian scientists will have to do 
much more than just get integrated into the 
global pecking order of corporate research and 
development. They will have to develop a genuine 
culture of open, fearless questioning and 
experimentation within their laboratories and in 
the larger culture outside the walls of the 
laboratory.

This will require an overhaul of science 
education so that science is not treated as 
merely a matter of rote learning of technical 
formulas, but is integrated into a new secular 
understanding of nature and life. It is not 
enough for the institutions of higher learning in 
India to produce doctors and engineers who can 
perform well in the West, or in the IT/BT jobs 
imported from the West. They must produce 
critical thinkers who are engaged with larger 
issues that affect the cultural climate of their 
societies.

Until then, India will remain the "pseudo-science superpower" of the world.

Meera Nanda obtained a Ph.D. in biotechnology 
from the Indian Institute of Technology, New 
Delhi, before moving on to the field of 
philosophy of science. She is currently a 
research fellow

______


[3]

IS 'RIOT FREE INDIA' A POSSIBILITY?

Ram Puniyani

After the tabling of Nanavati Commission report
(August 2005), we have once more seen the face of our
polity in the mirror, the defects and flaws in
implementation of democratic ethos are there for us to
give a serious thought once more. The first thing,
which emerges, is about the sequence and the major
victims of the communal violence. Starting from
Jabalpur riot (1961), Hindu-Muslim riots have gone on
and on, the last one being the horrific anti-Muslim
pogrom in Gujarat, in the aftermath of burning of
Sabarmati express at Godhra. These riots have been
projected as Hindu Muslim riots but the statistics
tell a different tale. In the data released by the
ministry of Home affirms that prior to the Babri
demolition, the percentage of Muslim victims in these
riots had been 80%. (In the total population Muslims
are 12.6%). Post Babri demolition the ratio might have
become more adverse to Muslims.

The second minority to be on the target has been the
one dealt in the report mentioned above, the Sikh
community. In the single and intense anti Sikh pogrom
(1984) around 3000 Sikhs were butchered in most
merciless fashion. The third on the firing line has
been the Christian community, amongst them
particularly the nuns and priests, working in the
remote areas. In this violence the most horrific case
has been the burning alive of Pastor Graham Stuart
Stains along with his two sons, Philip and Timothy
(Ages, 11 and 7). Apart from this glaring act many a
nuns and priests have been done to death, and an
additional tool of community humiliation, rape, has
been used against the nuns at places.

The inquiry commissions have been instituted off and
on, not all of them have been satisfactory for various
reasons. But surely some of them have been outstanding
in their approach from judicial and human rights
angel. Justice Jagmohan, Madon and Shrikrishna being
few examples of that. In most of the anti Muslim riots
the investigation commissions have shown the RSS links
of some organization floated at times by RSS
swayamsevaks for the specific purpose of the riots,
apart from the deeper role of RSS ongoing program of
'Hate minorities propaganda', which keeps going on
ceaselessly through its vast and frighteningly
organized network of trained, indoctrinated
swaymsevak.

In the anti-Sikh pogrom the PUCL report was a work of
outstanding quality. Various reports on this riot did
put the blame on second rung of Congress leadership,
while the top leadership occupying the throne, was
apparently too grieved to discharge the constitutional
duty at that time.

The anti-Christina violence has been investigated only
once at official level, Wadhva Commission after the
murder of Pastor Stains. This commission while not
totally satisfactory in some aspects did point the
finger to Dara Singh, who was convicted initially for
the death sentence, which later was reduced to life
imprisonment. This commission report did point out
that the allegation that Pastor Stains was
'converting' is totally baseless. It is not the place
the debate whether or not preaching one's religion is
a crime or a perfectly valid legal and social
activity. Apart from this many a human rights groups
have come out with significant reports on this issue
and practically all of them conclude that the
propaganda of conversion activity is a manufactured
myth and that one can see the hand of RSS affiliates,
Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and
Bajrang Dal’s in all such acts of violence. The writer
of these lines also happened to be part of few of
these committees and needless to say one is amazed as
to how cleverly RSS has laid and continues to lay the
mines to trap the missionaries working in remote
areas.

The second most disturbing general observation is that
while on one hand it is the innocents who are killed
in the communal violence, the perpetrators and
planners of the riots generally go unpunished, many a
times their social and political prestige also goes
up. Shiv Sena, a close cousin of BJP, was the leading
force in Mumbai riots. Its supreme leader, Balasaheb
Thackeray, was elevated as Hindu Hriday Samrat
(Emperor of Hindu Hearts) after leading the Mumbai
riots. Narendra Modi was given the same prefix, after
he "successfully" presided over the Gujarat carnage.
Dara Sing was also anointed, Hindu Dharm Rakshak
(Protector of Hindu Faith). And seems to be the lone
exception who is in the jail for his crime. What
connects these different events of anti-minority
violence? Is there a method in the madness, which
grips the section of society? One cannot fully
generalize from these acts of violence but some
observations do stare us in the face. The first one is
the strengthening of the communal forces in the area
where the riots take place. Starting from the decade
of sixties various add on factors have also been
aiding in the communal violence, like settling the
business rivalry, grabbing the land by the builder
lobby. The major aftermath of communal violence has
been the electoral strengthening of those who have led
the riots. Congress in 1984, Shiv Sena in 92-93 and
BJP in post 2002 elections. These parties improved
their electoral performance. Some do say that BJP lost
the 2004 elections at national level due to Gujarat,
but one wishes this conjecture were right. In Gujarat
BJP did emerge as a more powerful force.

The biggest common factor, which underlies the
communal violence and, which needs bigger highlighting
is the intense demonization of that particular
community prior to the riots. This acute demonization
rides on the ongoing chronic demonization, which is
part of the program of communal outfits. In case of
anti Sikh riots it was a temporary phenomenon, where
every Sikh was made to look like Bhindranwale, a
terrorist. In case of Muslims it is an ongoing
process, which began before the partition tragedy and
keeps building itself by the day. In case of
Christians the propaganda was intensified in the mid
nineties and violence followed in due course. The
major players in the anti minority violence have been
the RSS along with its progeny and the Congress. While
RSS and its progeny has well-oiled machinery for
spreading hate on sustained basis for Congress it was
a one go affair in the anti Sikh pogrom.

It is not to exonerate Congress for its other acts of
omission and sometimes commission, which either let
the violence go on and sometimes even initiate and
perpetuate it. The crucial difference is that RSS
combine has specialized in demonizing the minorities.
As far as Muslims are concerned, the building blocks
of demonization are constituted by the communal
history, the bunkum about temple destructions;
forcible conversions and torture of Hindus,
particularly atrocities on Hindu women. From
contemporary social phenomenon four wives twenty
children and the fanatic nature of Islam. Lately what
has been propagated is that all terrorists are
Muslims, due to the teachings of Maadrassas and nature
of Islam. Most of these have been shown to be totally
baseless at worst and small fragment of the larger
canvass of truth at best. Needless to say that
fragment of truth is more dangerous than a lie.

About Sikhs, their being terrorists, became a fodder
for the popular understanding for quite sometime. That
Christian missionaries convert is equally rooted in
the popular imagination today. Again what is common in
most of the components of social common sense is the
uniform projection of the whole community. Few Sikhs
indulged in terrorism, all Sikhs are looked at as
terrorists. Few Muslims took up the terror tactics;
all Muslims get dubbed as terrorists. Muslim Kings
destroyed temples like Somanth, for wealth or for
insulting 'our' religion is irrelevant here. 'Let's
avenge that historical phenomenon', list the places to
be destroyed one after the other. Christian
Missionaries do conversion activity, let's burn them
in remote places while at the same time pressurizing
them to admit 'our' children in their schools and
colleges in cities! We will not go in to the motives
behind this propaganda and its totally manufactured
character here, what we have to see is that the germs
of this understanding. This 'call a dog as mad', to
prepare ground to kill it, is widely being practiced
in a systematic and 'socially approved' fashion. One
has a firm understating that punishing the guilty is
the first prerequisite for future riot prevention. The
other most essential step, which is crucial for riot
free India is effectively combating the outpourings of
Hate Spreading factories. The demonization of
minorities seems to be the ground on which violence
stands and sustains itself. No measures for the riot
free India can be complete without bringing to halt
the stereotyping the minorities and effectively
neutralizing the 'hate other' propaganda.


______
ANNOUNCEMENTS



[4]

ANHAD INVITES YOU TO A BOOK RELEASE

"IN SEARCH OF FAITH UNCONQUERED"
A Journey In Three Acts

And AN evening of Sufi Music

On TUESDAY, 13th SEPTEMBER, 2005

FROM 5PM onwards

AT THE DEPUTY SPEAKER HALL,
CONSTITUTION CLUB, RAFI MARG
NEW DELHI

Programme:
Introducing the Book           Harsh Mander
Book Release                      Sharmila Tagore
The Journey                       Manasa Patnam & Sahir Raza
Sufi Music                  Dhruv Sangari


Anhad
4, Windsor place
New Delhi-110001
Ph:23327366/67


_____


[5]


We for Bhopal

We for Bhopal is a student group based in Delhi 
University dedicated to the task of spreading 
awareness about the Bhopal Gas Tragedy and 
related issues of environmental degradation and 
corporate crime. On 2-3rd December 2005, Bhopal 
celebrated the 20th anniversary of what has been 
described as the world’s worst industrial 
disaster. Of the 5 lakh population, living in the 
vicinity of Union Carbide India Limited (now 
taken over by Dow Chemicals), many continue to 
suffer the after effects of the 40 tonnes of MIC 
that leaked from inside the premises of the 
factory, killing 20, 000 and causing grievous to 
moderate to mild injuries to the rest. Given the 
on-going nature of the tragedy there is an urgent 
need to apprise people of the various aspects of 
the event.

We for Bhopal has come out with a report titled 
"Closer to reality: Reporting on Bhopal 20 years 
after the Bhopal Gas tragedy". The 77-page report 
is the outcome of what the group describes as a 
"project for gathering evidences". 14 student 
members of the team with 2 coordinators visited 
Bhopal on 3-7th October 2004. As part of their 
project they visited the gas-affected bastis, 
hospitals, the factory site; met survivors, 
doctors, bureaucrats, leaders of the survivor 
groups and talked to the man on the street in New 
Bhopal. The report is entirely the student's 
attempt to analyse what they saw, and offer ways 
and means to deal with the problems. What makes 
Closer to Reality unique is that it is the first 
report of its kind, written, produced and 
presented entirely by students offering a youth 
perspective, and addressing itself to their own 
peer group. The report is futuristic in nature 
and offers solutions for the problems.

4 members of the team carried a handy cam with 
which they took video clippings that was then 
shaped into a 24 minutes film titled "Closer to 
reality". Once again the film is the work of 
amateurs, but has the passion, brilliance and 
conviction of the young, who look at the world 
with fresh but critical eyes. The film reaches 
out to youth with the important message that 
"many more Bhopals" are waiting to happen, unless 
and until we do our bit to prevent them.

We for Bhopal intends to use the report and film 
to reach out to the student body both in schools 
and colleges. We are going to have a major 
screening in Delhi University towards the third 
week of October 2005. Once we officially launch 
the report and film in September (plans are 
underway) both will be available for distribution 
and sale.

We will also take the report and film to 
bureaucrats and concerned officials in different 
organisations that are in charge of doing relief 
and rehabilitation for Bhopal. This project was 
largely in response to what the President of 
India advised the student representatives of the 
group, when we went to meet him on 25th March 
2004. He asked us to go to Bhopal, see reality 
for ourselves and come back and tell him what we 
saw. “Closer to Reality is our answer to the 
President, and we intend to take it to him and to 
other key political leaders.

We invite schools, colleges, universities across 
India and the rest of the world to place bulk 
orders for the book for their libraries, 
societies and for screening at seminars and 
workshops. We ask NGOs, organisations and groups 
who work in related fields to come forward and 
buy copies of the report and film. As a youth 
enterprise we have worked on a tight budget, and 
our only means of recovery of cost is through 
sales. All the money will be poured back into our 
funds so that we can carry out further projects.

We would be happy to participate in any event 
that you can help organize to promote the cause 
of Bhopal, and hope that the report and film will 
help to further intensify the issues involved. We 
would encourage all of you to read the report, 
see the film and spread the word.

The report is priced at Rs 100 for institutions 
and Rs 50 for students. The CD of the film is 
priced at Rs 150 for institutions and Rs 50 for 
students. For both report and CD the discounted 
price is Rs 200 for institutions and Rs 75 for 
students. The price of report and film for 
selling abroad is US$ 10 each for students and 
US$ 25 for film and US$ 20 for report for 
institutions. You can place orders at the address 
given below. Copies will soon be available at 
other outlets that will be announced at the time 
of the launch.

Dr Suroopa Mukherjee
Coordinator
We for Bhopal
P- 62, Sector XI
NOIDA 201 301
Uttar Pradesh
Tel: 9818029882/ 95120 5335794
Email: 
<mailto:suroopa.mukherjee at touchtelindia.net>suroopa.mukherjee at touchtelindia.net
        <mailto:suroopa.mukherjee at gmail.com>suroopa.mukherjee at gmail.com

______


[7]

Ratna Kapur

EROTIC JUSTICE
Law and the New Politics of Postcolonialism

Hardback / 206ppp / ISBN 81-7824-132-3 / Rs 650.00 / South Asia rights

Erotic Justice addresses the ways in which law 
has been implicated in contemporary debates 
dealing with sexuality, culture and 'different' 
subjects - including women, sexual minorities, 
Muslims, and the transnational migrant.

Law is analysed as a discursive terrain wherein 
these different subjects are excluded or included 
in the postcolonial present on terms reminiscent 
of colonialism and its treatment of difference.

Bringing a feminist legal analysis to her 
discussion, Kapur is relentless in her critique 
of how colonial discourses, cultural 
essentialism, and victim rhetoric are reproduced 
in universal, liberal projects such as human 
rights and international law, as well as in the 
legal regulation of sexuality and culture in a 
postcolonial context.

Drawing her examples from contemporary India, she 
demonstrates the theoretical and disruptive 
possibilities that the postcolonial subject 
brings to international law, human rights, and 
domestic law. In the process, she challenges 
existing constructions of the nation, sexuality, 
cultural authenticity, and women's subjectivity.

This book will be welcomed by teachers and 
researchers in law and culture, feminist and 
postcolonial theory, and international and human 
rights law.

RATNA KAPUR is Director of the Centre for 
Feminist Legal Research and also lectures at the 
Indian Society for International Law.

Published by:
Permanent Black
D-28 Oxford Apartments, 11 I.P. Extension, Delhi 110092
<perblack at vsnl.com>

website: www.orientlongman.com


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