SACW | 1 Nov. 2005
sacw
aiindex at mnet.fr
Tue Nov 1 08:16:35 CST 2005
South Asia Citizens Wire | 1 Nov, 2005
[1] Worldwide Vigil for the Victims and
Survivors of the South Asian Earthquake
[2] After the tremors (Kamila Hyat)
[3] Update 3 - KERRCC (PIPFPD) - Srinagar, J&K
[4] Why was there such resounding indifference
to the earthquake in Kashmir? (Barkha Dutt)
[5] Bangladesh: Ultimatum by Khatme Nabuwat Fascists
[6] India: Public Intellectuals - Who are they?
- Why do we have so few? - Arundhati Roy in
conversation with Amit Sengupta
[7] India Pakistan Arms Race and Militarisation
Watch Compilation # 157 (31 October, 2005)
______
[1]
www.saquake.org
WORLDWIDE VIGIL FOR THE VICTIMS AND SURVIVORS OF THE SOUTH ASIAN EARTHQUAKE
To grieve for lives lost, provide hope to those still struggling to survive,
and draw the world's attention to the work that still needs to be done
Tuesday, November 8, 2005 @ 6:30 pm
West Front of Capitol (facing the Mall)
Metro: Capitol South (Blue/Orange Line)
On October 8, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck South Asia effectively
destroying entire towns and villages. Due to the severe cold weather,
lack of shelter, and lack of urgent medical attention, the tragedy
wreaked by this disaster continues. As of October 28:
· 79,000 confirmed dead in Pakistan; 1,500 dead in India
· Over 15,000 are believed to be school children.
· Over 74,000 injured
· Over 3 million homeless in Pakistan
· 10,000 children at risk of dying in the next 2 weeks from hypothermia
· 100,000 survivors at risk of dying in 4 weeks
· These numbers will rise significantly in the next weeks as winter sets in
Join the Washington DC vigil so our individual voices can be one loud
message of support, hope and action. THEY STILL NEED US -- WE MUST NOT
ABANDON THEM
For more information go to www.saquake.org
______
[2]
The News International
November 01, 2005
After the tremors
by Kamila Hyat
(The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor)
The aftershocks from the quake early in October
will eventually die away. But it is already
obvious that the impact of the tragedy on the
political scene within the country will be felt
for a much longer time to come.
In the first place, the aftermath of the colossal
disaster has exposed the precarious state of
relations between civilians and the military. As
the military has moved into more and more spheres
of life, it would seem that resentment against
the institution has grown. The results of these
often unseen tensions manifest themselves when
the need to work together arises -- as in the
traumatic post-quake situation.
Even though the military has, in many individual
cases, offered quite invaluable help to the
thousands of civilians closely involved in the
relief effort, while the actions of some
officers, pilots and ordinary soldiers in their
efforts to save lives have been nothing short of
heroic, the deep-lying mistrust has handicapped
the relief effort. Civil-sector organisations
have repeatedly claimed their consignments of
relief items have been forcibly seized by the
military. Other groups have preferred to risk
being looted rather than to hand over goods to
the army or have set off on their own for
quake-hit areas, ignoring advice to consult the
military. In several cases, civilians who
vanished into the hills many days ago with trucks
or loaded vehicles have reportedly not yet
returned.
While in very many cases those who have opted to
cast aside prejudices and talk with the military
have found at least some officers to be
unexpectedly helpful, the deep reluctance to
cooperate with the army suggests the depth of the
political crisis in the state. Such a breakdown
in relations between civilians and the military
cannot be a good thing.
The mistrust is the inevitable consequence of the
army's exit from the barracks, and occupation of
not only political office but also offices within
educational institutions, the bureaucracy, the
business sector and much more. More than anything
else, the present situation, where the military
continues to come under fierce criticism -- some
aspects of it justified and others not --
underscores the need for the army to turn once
more to its professional role, rather than
striding further along the murky track of power
acquisition in the civilian sector which has
already cost it dearly in terms of the trust and
goodwill of the people the force is entrusted to
defend.
For many months and years, the people of the
nation have been given fervent assurances that
militants in the country have been crushed, their
organisations demolished and their leadership
decimated. Yet, following October 8, more and
more accounts that sound almost Biblical in their
description of events state how, in many cases
within hours of the quake, bands of bearded men
walked calmly out of the mountains and began
treating the injured, rescuing those lying under
debris and then burying the dead.
Such accounts have emerged from the Mansehra area
of the NWFP, the Neelum Valley in Kashmir and
other quake-devastated villages and towns
scattered across the affected area. The militants
who descended to help the victims in most cases
belonged to groups active in jihad. The fact that
they were on the spot almost immediately, well
organised in their work, able to move in teams of
medics to assist the injured and ready to do
whatever was required -- without waiting for
orders -- must somewhere contain a message for
the military high command. So too should the
testimony of villagers, who say the militants
generally keep away from the populace, engaging
only in their own work, but are always on hand to
help in times of crisis. Perhaps the Pakistan
Army needs to ask itself why the militant
brigands it once supported as a part of the
political realities of past times have now
surpassed the country's largest institution in
terms of their ability to organise relief work
and assist citizens.
The fact that these militants are being seen as
heroes in many communities could also have
important political manifestations in the future.
After all, winning the battle for hearts is a
crucial element of victory in any war.
But even more important is the fact that the
claims that militants have been totally crushed
are nothing but a fantasy -- or else a deliberate
attempt to misguide people. The groups, it is
quite evident, are still very much present and
able, despite the dozens of casualties they
themselves must have suffered, to direct their
collective efforts as required by any situation.
It is also obvious that eliminating them will
take more than mere statements. In the first
place, it will take genuine will and recognition
that the militants can only damage Pakistan's
broader national interests.
The multiple blasts in New Delhi as the Pakistani
and Indian governments discussed opening the Line
of Control (LoC) come as proof of this. And
militancy cannot be wiped away without adopting a
broad-ranging policy which focuses on diluting
the sympathy for militancy that exists within the
country, rehabilitating the many militants
trained over past decades and altering the
intolerance that pervades the air. This hatred is
perpetuated through school textbooks, the media
and the narrowness of the mindset created by the
state that has for decades prevented a growing
number of people from thinking outside specific
cramped outlines.
An example of this comes in the assertion that
Indian pilots could not be permitted into the
country. The decision in this respect had the
backing of many, even those who see themselves as
holding liberal opinions. But it is obvious that
the very concept of 'national interest' has
become distorted.
Surely, any help possible to the thousands
stranded without food, without shelter and
without medical help in areas such as the Neelum
Valley must take precedence over all else.
Surely, the plight of mothers watching helplessly
as children die from cold, hunger and the pain of
untreated injuries must come ahead of any other
'sensitivities'. This is especially so as it is
quite obvious that, in an age of satellite maps,
little within national boundaries is hidden from
those physically located outside them.
In this context, the opening up of points along
the LoC is an important step forward. President
Musharraf's bold initiative in this deserves to
be given credit, as do the efforts of the
individuals who worked quietly behind the scenes.
The step brings divided Kashmiri families a
little closer. It also brings nearer a solution
to the Kashmir issue -- and like everything else
that has happened over the past weeks, the
crossing points on the disputed frontier will
have a long-term bearing on political
developments in the region over the years that
follow the quake.
______
[3]
Kashmir Earthquake Relief and Rehabilitation
Coordination Centre
Pakistan-India Peoples' Forum for Peace and Democracy
Delhi Office: A-1/125 Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi
110029, INDIA Tel:+91-11-51652451-452 E-mail:
pipfpd at pipfpd.org
Srinagar Office: House No.7, Amar Singh College Lane,
Gogji Bagh, Srinagar 190008, (J & K) India Tel:
+91-194-2310586 and 2310244 Mobile: +91-9906755050
UPDATE 3 - KERRCC (PIPFPD) - SRINAGAR, J&K
Dated 28th October 2005
Reporting from the core team:
The arrival of the PSI team ( Rajesh Tiwari and Rajesh
Sharma) and Dunu Roy on the 25th Oct followed by a
discussion and fine tuning of the damage assessment
survey forms.
Volunteer orientation program, attended by 25 group
leaders representing various areas on 26 th Oct.
Outcome of meeting, - all forms to be available in
both languages, - English and Urdu, further
simplification of forms, decision to have a second
orientation session at the two main base camps (on
28th at Uri base camp and on 29th at Kupwara). All
volunteers (except Srinagar based data entry friends)
to attend this.
Printing of Volunteer ID Cards, Survey forms,
instruction sheet for field based volunteers, village
inventory survey form, etc were done.
PSI team attended and helped with briefings in the
volunteer meetings and also travelled to some of the
areas where immediate temporary shelter construction
is underway. They are preparing a brief of their
temporary shelter building and long-term
reconstruction assessment, which will be part of the
next update.
Volunteer team from Pune (Dr. Mukadam, Nirmala and
Sarah) travelled to some remote areas in Uri block on
the 25 th and did field based medical relief. They
also held a medical camp on the 27th Oct, which was
attended by more than 300 villagers. The team also
distributed medicines that has been channelised
through the KERRCC
Distributed medicines and some other materials like
woollens, blankets, etc through local relief
organisations that approached us with specific
requirements for specific areas
Mobilized separate Srinagar volunteer teams for
information entry and computation of data (during and
post field work). 20 volunteers from Srinagar will be
helping with these tasks and also the task of reaching
the survey forms and other field based information,
enquiries, etc to the Srinagar head office
Infrastructure - Computer systems, Internal network
and 24 hour net facility activated. (Total of four
computers and one laptop). The office has an increased
capacity to house upto 17 people.
Consultations with Government and NGOs – Meetings were
held with govt officers (Divisional Commissioner,
Kashmir among others) and consultations done with some
of the NGOs active in R&R activities. KERRCC was
informed as on the 24 th about two other field based
surveys that are being held in Kashmir by NGOs;
1) Action Aid – aims to be involved with village level
data collection in all affected areas (in
collaboration with TISS and Kashmir University Depts).
This study, it was shared, will be more in lines of
the social sciences survey undertaken by TISS in
Latur, etc and essentially targets formation of
alternate (non-state) data bank about these areas and
affected communities
2) Save the Children – involved with three villages
and children related issues
After consultations with these NGOs, it was decided
that the KERRCC process of Disaster and Damage
assessment (house to house damage assessment along
with scientific village inventory – focussed on
reconstruction) should be carried on.
Legal Update
25th October
PIL – Public interest litigation forum Vs State and
others bearing number PLI – 546/05;
The latest hearing ended with some very negative
observations made by by Chief Justice and Justice
Mansoor about the state functionaries: "the state is
not cooperating in any way with the court nor are they
clear about their task in the affected area of Karna
and Uri". The union of India was asked to file the
affidavits on behalf of BEACON, BSNL and Army about
the road clearances in the areas under their
respective commands and BSNL was supposed to file an
affidavit about the restoration of the official lines
in the affected areas. The case is listed for further
orders and responses from the state and the union of
India 26 th of this month.
26th of Oct.
The petition was listed before the division bench of
the High Court headed by the CJ.
All the officials and departments have already filed
their affidavits regarding the implementation of
directions and their progress in work in the affected
areas.
The Hon'ble court again directed the officials and
departments to file by 27th, the supplementary
affidavits about the latest work done and the latest
progress report regarding the steps taken by them for
temporary rehabilitation programme. The Court also
asked Bar Association of Kashmir to constitute a team
of advocates by 29 th of the month, the team has to go
and visit the areas for ascertaining the factual
position.
General:
26th October: Landmine blast in Kashmir lead to the
killing of a BSF jawan. Almost 20 soldiers are
wounded.
27th October: Anti-Army Occupation hartal all over
Kashmir valley, called by political organisations like
APHC, JKLF and others and by militant organisations
like HM. October 27 th was the commemoration day of
the Indian Army occupation of Kashmir in 1947.
Plan of action
1. Short term Tasks
Collecting information of the nature of the damage
caused by the earthquake, preparing a data base and
centralising all information about the impact of the
earthquake on the lives and livelihood of the affected
population
Sharing the data with all national and international
relief and rehabilitation organisation in order to
better coordinate the immediate, mid-term and
long-term rehabilitation efforts.
Availing all outside help for reconstruction and
rehabilitation in Kashmir
Facilitating collection of required materials for
reconstruction and transporting these to the affected
areas
Helping local communities and Kashmiri organisations
in Building earthquake resistant temporary shelters to
protect the homeless during the coming severe
Himalayan winter.
2. Mid-Term Tasks
As the disaster assessment data collection and
analysis work continues, it will be shared with all
non-governmental and governmental organisations in
Kashmir and with the governments of India and Pakistan
in order to assist the governments to develop a
meaningful rehabilitation package.
Develop design for cost effective winter shelters for
the earthquake-affected people with available
materials.
Train local people in recovering useable building
materials from the damaged houses and build adequate
and quake resistant shelters.
Build about a hundred winter shelters, one each in
every earthquake-devastated village in Kupwara and
Baramula districts.
3. Long-term Tasks
Spreading awareness about earthquake resistant houses
Through posters and handbooks
Holding training programmes for masons, carpenters and
construction workers with the help of experts in
alternative housing construction and local engineers
Constructing model houses with the help of experts and
local Kashmiri groups
Shivani Mohan
On Behalf of KERRCC Srinagar Team
______
[4]
Hindustan Times
October 31 2005
The Great Divide
WHY WAS THERE SUCH RESOUNDING INDIFFERENCE TO THE
EARTHQUAKE IN KASHMIR?
by Barkha Dutt
FINE, OK, I get it. I'm obsessed with Kashmir.
Viewers, television critics, policy-makers, col
leagues and competitors, have all bemoaned my
insatiable appetite for tracking which way the chinar
falls.
But this fortnight the chinar, quite literally, fell
to the resounding sound of silence. The emotional
indifference to the earthquake across much of India
left me stunned. Almost as if when the earth moved in
the Valley, the rest of us were unmoved, looking on
with the same weariness, that same glazed _expression
that we wear when thousands die in some
unpronounceable part of China, or Africa. Far away.
Somewhere else. Not our own.
As journalists, you often look for the one face that
captures the hidden depths of a tragedy; that one
narrative that breaks down the wall of indifference
between the story and its audience. Usually, it's
children. Tracking the tsunami, I met a six-monthold
baby, born blind, to parents who had saved all year to
have him operated on -- their money and hopes had now
been swept ashore. But equally overwhelming was the
tidal wave of help, as people wrote out blank cheques,
doctors volunteered, hospitals waived fees and
families wanted to adopt Baby Sukumar. Many just wrote
to say they had wept.
This time in Srinagar, I met Ishfaq. A miracle rescue
of the quake, bright-eyed and precocious, he asked the
prime minister why he had come visiting without
chocolates. When the eight-year-old was airlifted into
the army hospital, his abdomen had been ripped apart,
his pulse was dead, and worse, there was no sign that
his parents had survived.
Doctors battled to drain two litres of blood from his
tiny frame to save a boy who had caught their
imagination. The day we met Ishfaq, he had
serendipitously been reunited with his father, an
ageing schoolteacher, who came to the hospital after
burying his other son in the village grave. Ishfaq
told us, he had always dreamt of being a doctor. It
was a compelling story, of heartbreak and hope, of
sadness and succour, one we hoped would register on a
different kind of Richter scale. It never quite
happened. Our emotionally seismic ride was essentially
our own, a lonely one.
I kept thinking, why was it that the desolation of
coastal fisherfolk in Tamil Nadu had managed to sear
through the thick wall of urban indifference, but here
in Kashmir, we were still struggling?
Kashmir's relentless violence and tragedy has, in a
sense, underlined its beauty, adding soul and pathos
to mere good looks. To make our way to the ravaged
township of Uri, we would drive down what's arguably
the most breathtaking stretch of road in the country;
the same one on which Shammi Kapoor courted Sharmila
Tagore, and countless other screen romances were
mapped.
But there were no film stars to be seen. No Vivek
Oberoi to adopt a village, no Rahul Bose to raise
money, no Shah Rukh Khan at the PM's residence. The
contrast with the reaction after the tsunami could not
have been more stark.
And it's a poorly-kept secret that apart from notable
worthies like Infosys, the PM had to personally nudge
and elbow Corporate India into action. Ajai Shriram
astutely pointed out that business houses had
responded with more alacrity after the Bhuj earthquake
because, after all, they had a presence in Gujarat,
unlike Kashmir, where, industry is still negligible.
I've heard the other theory. Disaster fatigue, said
most. Indians were simply spent. But was the truth
just a little more awkward? Is it simply, because it
was Kashmir?
Some of it makes sense. First, there's terrorism. Life
simply isn't worth risking for people who may be ready
to volunteer otherwise, as hundreds did in Tamil Nadu.
But there's another unspoken reason. Many people
privately argue that they just can't be bothered about
a people whose loyalty to India they question. The
more bigoted among them may go so far as to whisper,
"These Muslims..."
This is exactly the problem. We can't care about a
people, and fight four wars (counting Kargil) over
Kashmir. We can't go into a paroxysm of middle-class
rage over why the state has its own constitution and
flag, but passively flip the channel to Desperate
Housewives when we learn that two lakh people in
Kashmir are without a home and are sleeping out in the
open; we can't want the land, and disclaim
responsibility for a scarred relationship with its
people, and we can't want dividends, without being
stakeholders in Kashmir's future.
Equally, the ordinary Kashmiri who points at the
indifference of the rest of the country needs to look
inward. The domestic discourse in the Valley is still
dressed up in much hypocrisy. A people who have always
seen the army as the enemy now find themselves
entirely dependent on the military for earthquake
relief. Sure, extreme circumstances don't erase past
transgressions and viola tions by men in uniform. But
rehearsed conspiracy theories and irresponsible local
editorials against the military's role in earthquake
relief have a false, distasteful ring to them. Uri
exists alongside Chittisinghpora, in Kashmir's
complex, blood-soaked history. The lazy slotting of
victims and villains just doesn't hold in a shifting
society; truth lives in shades of grey.
It's also time for the Valley to be more vocal about
violence, to rip off the shroud of silence and let the
men who were beast enough to kill a firsttime
politician last week know that there is no
constituency for them.
The problem is sometimes you need emotional confidence
and a sense of belonging to speak up. Trapped between
the battlelines all these years, most Kashmiris have
been pummelled into a self-defeating passiveness.
Perhaps it comes from carrying the burden of a grief,
that is unique and thus isolating. In which other
state would an archaic rule that forbids direct
dialling from `our' Kashmir to `theirs' become one
more element of an unfolding tragedy.
Before the prime minister intervened to have phone
lines across the LoC operational, we connected divided
families via satellite, through a crackly audio line.
One man discovered on live television that his sister
in Muzaffarabad had died. I watched the lines on his
face change -- silent, in shock and, above all, so
alone. Would the pain of that moment make him more
assertive for his own future, or simply push him into
philosophical resignation?
In the end, fuzzy as it sounds, it really is all about
dotting the lines on a battered drawing board.
Connecting people, not just across the LoC, but
bridging the great divide within.
With his mop of untidy curls, and his shy, but cheeky
smile, Qazi Tauqeer, the boy from Srinagar who made
the giant leap to national iconhood, is one such
example. Fifteen million Indians voted to make him the
winner of Sony TV's Fame Gurukul. He now must sing for
us all.
The writer is the Managing Editor of NDTV 24x7. This
is the first of a fortnightly column
______
[5]
The Daily Star
October 29
FRESH KHATME NABUWAT ULTIMATUM
Staff Correspondent
Khatme Nabuwat Movement Bangladesh (IKNMB) yesterday threatened to
oust the BNP-Jamaat government by any means necessary if it fails to
pass a bill in the parliament declaring the Ahmadiyyas non-Muslims by
December 23.
At an agitation rally at Nabisco Intersection in the capital after the
Jumma prayers, the IKNMB leaders warned that the situation may go out
of their control on December 23 when they will lay their scheduled
siege to the Ahmadiyya Mosque at Bakshibazar in the city.
"We are ready to be martyred for upholding the dignity of our prophet
Hazrat Mohammad (SM), but shall not compromise with the government
that assumed power in the name of Islam and now betraying us," said
IKNMB Joint Secretary Maolana Abu Taher.
The leaders said political parties like Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami
Oikya Jote, who always speak for Islam, failed to uphold the dignity
of Hazrat Mohammad (SM) as they did not demand such a declaration in
the parliament.
"If you cannot speak up in the parliament, leave the power," said
IKNMB's central cabinet member Mufti Abdur Razzak, adding that
December 23 is the last date and that the Muslims of the country will
drag down the government from power without wasting any more time.
Alhajj Noor Hossain, another leader of the organisation, alleged that
the present government is pretending to sleep on the Ahmadiyya issue.
The fact is that Britain, Israel and the European Union are backing
the Ahmadiyyas and threatening the government with suspension of
funding, he added.
"But we ask the BNP-Jamaat government whether we the Muslims of the
country brought them to power or the Western forces did that for
them," he said.
Presiding over the rally, IKNMB Ameer Maolana Mahmudul Hasan said the
Omrah being observed by Prime Minister Khaleda Zia in Saudi Arabia
could not be valid if she does not declare the Ahmadiyyas non-Muslims.
"The contradictory policy of respecting our prophet and not paying
heed to the demands of the Muslims to declare the Ahmadiyyas
non-Muslims is a betrayal to Islam," Mahmudul Hasan said.
He conducted an oath where several thousand Muslims pledged to
continue their movement until December 23 demanding the declaration by
the government.
IKNMB's Central Nayebe Ameer Enayetullah Abbasi, central members
Maolana Ruhul Amin and Mamtazul Karim also spoke.
______
[6]
Tehelka
Nov 05 , 2005
PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS
Who are they?
Why do we have so few?
Arundhati Roy in conversation with Amit Sengupta
*fame is also a gruesome kind of capitalism, you
can accumulate it, bank it, live off it. but it
can suffocate you*
*I start with an old question: When Tehelka was
being cornered you had said there should be a
Noam Chomsky in India. Later you had once told me
that 'I am not an activist'. What is this idea of
Noam Chomsky in a context like India?*
I think essentially that whether it is an issue
like Tehelka being hounded or all the other
issues that plague us, much of the critical
response is an analysis of symptoms; it's not
radical. Most of the time it does not really
question how democracy dovetails into
majoritarianism which edges towards fascism, or
what the connections are between this kind of
'new democracy' and corporate globalisation,
repression, militancy and war. What is the
connection between corruption and power?
At one point when the Tehelka expose happened, I
thought, thank God the BJP is corrupt, thank God
someone's taken money, imagine if they had been
incorruptible, only ideological, it would have
been so much more frightening. To me, pristine
ideological battles are really more frightening.
In India we are at the moment witnessing a sort
of fusion between corporate capitalism and
feudalism - it's a deadly cocktail. We see it
unfolding before our eyes. Sometimes it looks as
though the result of all this will be a twisted
implementation of the rural employment guarantee
act. Half the population will become Naxalites
and the other half will join the security forces
and what Bush said will come true. Everyone will
have to choose whether they're with "us" or with
the "terrorists". We will live in an elaborately
administered tyranny.
But look at the reaction to the growing influence
of the Maoists - even by political analysts it's
being treated as a law and order problem, not a
political problem - and like militancy in Kashmir
and the Northeast, it will be dealt with by
employing brutal repression by security forces or
arming local people with weapons that will
eventually lead to a sort of civil war. That
seems to be perfectly acceptable to Indian 'civil
society'.
Those who understand and disagree with the
repressive machinery of the State are more or
less divided between the Gandhians and the
Maoists. Sometimes - quite often - the same
people who are capable of a radical questioning
of, say, economic neo-liberalism or the role of
the state, are deeply conservative socially -
about women, marriage, sexuality, our so-called
'family values' - sometimes they're so
doctrinaire that you don't know where the
establishment stops and the resistance begins.
For example, how many Gandhian/Maoist/ Marxist
Brahmins or upper caste Hindus would be happy if
their children married Dalits or Muslims, or
declared themselves to be gay? Quite often, the
people whose side you're on, politically, have
absolutely no place for a person like you in
their social, cultural or religious imagination.
That's a knotty problemŠ politically radical
people can come at you with the most
breathtakingly conservative social views and make
nonsense of the way in which you have ordered
your world and your way of thinking about itŠ and
you have to find a way of accommodating these
contradictions within your worldview.
*In the Hindi heartland, the same terrain that
had Munshi Premchand, Muktibodh, Nirala, Kaifi
Azmi is still one of the most stagnating,
backward, poverty-stricken terrains of India. But
in terms of the lilt of the languages here,
humour, bawdy jokes, hard politics, there is a
vibrant churning going on; there is Dalit
churning. This is engagement with reality in a
very different manner. There are new theatre,
literary, cinema journals; a vibrant culture.
*
There is a lot of excitement in the air and it is
actually happening here in India, an excitement
that is in a way absent in the West. If you live
in America or Europe it is almost impossible to
really believe that another world is possible.
Over there, anybody who talks about life beyond
capitalism is part of a freak show, they're just
considered nuts and weirdos, going through
teenage angst.
But here, it actually still exists, though they
are being rapidly destroyed. It is very
important, the anarchy of what you were saying,
there are magazines, and little pamphlets, all
over India, which cannot be controlled by the
corporate establishment, and that's very
important, the way communication links are kept
alive. We are in a very striking phase. But how
powerful are these alternative ways of
communication? You can see these mighty
structures of capitalism. Can you fight them with
these alternatives? The only way you can be
optimistic is to insist on being irrational,
unreasonable, magical, stubborn, because what you
see happening is an inevitable crunching through
of these structures.
*There is a lot of excitement in the air and it
is actually happening here in india, an
excitement that is in a way absent in the West.
if you live in america or europe it is almost
impossible to really believe that another world
is possible*
*Is it possible for anyone to stand up against
these structures, as Chomsky has done again and
again, or you, and not be hounded out by the
entire apparatus?
*
Until recently, we all hoped that it was the
question of getting the facts out, getting the
information out, and that once people understood
what was going on, things would change. Their
consciences would kick in and everything would be
alright. We saw it, rather stupidly, as a
question of getting the information out. But
getting the story out is only one small part of
the battle. For example, before the American
elections, Michael Moore's film was in every
smalltown cinema hall everywhere; the film was an
evidence-based documentary, it was by no means a
piece of radical political thought, it was just a
fact-based political scandal about the House of
Bush, but still, Bush came back with a bigger
majority than the earlier elections.
The facts are there in the world today. People
like Chomsky have made a huge contribution to
that. But what does information mean? What are
facts? There is so much information that almost
all becomes meaningless and disempowering. Where
has it all gone? What does the World Social Forum
mean today? They are big questions now.
Ultimately, millions of people marched against
the war in Iraq. But the war was prosecuted, the
occupation is in full stride. I do not for a
moment want to undermine the fact that unveiling
the facts has meant a huge swing of public
opinion against the occupation of Iraq, it has
meant that America's secret history is now street
talk, but what next? To expose things is quite
different from being able to effectively resist
things.
I am more interested now in whether there are new
strategies of resistance. The debate between
strategies of violence and non-violenceŠ
*somebody like me runs a serious risk of thinking
i am more important than i am. people petition
me. they want me to intervene. you think it is in
your power to do something *
*One option is to keep digging, keep digging and
there is always the danger of stagnation,
becoming self-righteous, dogmatic, moralistic,
losing your sense of humour, songs, masti. You
stop laughing. As if the poor or the working
class don't laughŠ
*
You are absolutely right on that one. In India
particularly, self-righteousness is the bane of
activists or public thinkers. It's also the
function of a kind of power that you begin to
accumulate. Some activists have unreasonable
power over people in their 'constituencies', they
have adulation, gratitude, it can turn their
heads. They begin to behave like mainstream
politicians. Somebody like me runs a serious risk
of thinking that I'm more important than I
actually am - because people petition me all the
time, with serious issues that they want me to
intervene inŠ And of course an intervention does
have some momentary effect, you begin to think
that it is in your power to do something. Whereas
actually is it or is it not? It's a difficult
call.
At the end of the day, fame is also a gruesome
kind of capitalism, you can accumulate it, bank
it, live off it. But it can suffocate you, block
off the blood vessels to the brain, isolate you,
make you lose touch. It pushes you up to the
surface and you forget how to keep your ear to
the ground.
I think it is important to retreat sometimes.
Because you can really get caught up in fact and
detail, fact and detail, and forget how to think
conceptually, and that's a kind of prison.
Speaking for myself, I'm ready for a jail-break.
*You mean even anti-conformism can become a conformist trap?*
There is the danger, especially for a writer of
fiction, that you can become somebody who does
what is expected of you. I could end up boring
myself to death. In India, the political
anti-establishment can be socially very
conservative (Bring on the gay Gandhians!) and
can put a lot of pressure on you to become
something which may not necessarily be what you
want to be: they want you to dress in a
particular way, be virtuous, be sacrificing, it's
a sort of imaginary and quite often faulty
extrapolation of what the middle class assumes
the 'people', the 'masses' want and expect. It
can be maddening, and I want to say like Bunty in
Bunty aur Babli, 'Mujhe yeh izzat aur sharafat ki
zindagi se bachaoŠ'
There are all kinds of things that work to dull,
leaden your soulŠto weigh you downŠ
*sometimes i want to say like bunty from bunty
aur babli: 'mujhe yeh izzat aur sharafat ki
zindagi se BAchao...'*
*I like Jean Paul Sartre. He used to say money
must keep circulating. He used to blow his money
on taxis, without any purpose. Blow it up on
booze. Money should etherise. That does not take
away his strange involvement with histories or
literature: the Spanish civil war, Stalin. I
don't agree with the term, Intellectual. Anybody
with skills and intelligence can be intellectual.
A cobbler is an intellectual.
*
I don't really want to work out the definitions.
It's just the opposite of what novelists do. They
really try to free their thinking from such
definitions.
As for money, I have tried to take it lightly.
Really, I have tried to give it away, but even
that is a very difficult thing to do. Money is
like nuclear waste. What you do with it, where
you dump it, what problems it creates, what it
changes, these are incredibly complicated things.
And eventually, it can all blow up in your face.
I'd have been happier with Less. Yeh Dil Maange
Less. Less money, less fame, less pressure, more
badmashi. I hate the f***ing responsibility that
is sometimes forced on me. I spent my early years
making decisions that would allow me to evade
responsibility; and nowŠ
People are constantly in search of idols, heroes,
villains, sirens - in search of individuals, in
search of noise. Anybody in whom they can invest
their mediocre aspirations and muddled thinking
will do. Anyone who is conventionally and
moderately 'successful' becomes a celebrity. It's
almost a kind of profession now - we have
professional celebrities - maybe colleges should
start offering a course.
It's indiscriminate - it can be Miss Universe, or
a writer, or the maker of a ridiculous TV soap,
the minimum requirement is success. There's a
particular kind of person who comes up to me with
this star-struck smile - it doesn't matter who I
am - they just know I'm famous; whether I'm the
'BookerPrizeWinner' or the star of the Zee Horror
Show or whatever is immaterial.
In this freak show, this celebrity parade,
there's no place for loss, or failure. Whereas to
me as a writer, failure interests me. Success is
so tinny and boring. Everyone is promoting
themselves so hard.
*You gave your Booker money to the NBA. Your
Sydney prize money to aborigine groups. Another
award money you gave to 50 organisations who are
doing exemplary work. You trusted them. You gave
away your money, okay, it's not your money, the
money came from somewhere; but you gave it away.
Very few people do that in this world. No one
does that. So you can't stop the society to look
at you in a certain way.
*
Well, I haven't given it all away. I still have
more than I need. If I gave it all away I might
turn into the kind of person that I really dread
- 'the one who has sacrificed everything' and
will no doubt, somewhere along the way, extract a
dreadful price from everybody around them. I've
learned that giving money away can help, but it
can also be utterly destructive, however good
your intentions may have been. It is impossible
to always know what the right thing to do is. It
can create conflict in strange and surprising
places. I am not always comfortable with what I
do with my money. I do everything. I give it away
extravagantly. I blow it up, extravagantly. I
have no fix on it - it comforts me, it bothers
me, I'm constantly glad that I can afford to pay
my bills. I'm paranoid about its incredible
capacity for destruction. But the one thing I'm
glad about is that it is not inherited. I think
inherited money is a curse.
*it is impossible to always know what the right
thing to do is. it can create conflict in strange
and surprising places*
Giving money away is dangerous and complicated
and in some ways against my political beliefs - I
do not subscribe to the politics of good
intentions - but what do I do? Sit on it and
accumulate more? I'm uncomfortable with lots of
things that I do, but can't see a better way - I
just muddle along. It's a peculiar problem, this
problem of excess, and it's embarrassing to even
talk about it in a land of so much pain and
poverty. But there it isŠ
*
Last question. There is a conflict within
oneself. There is a consistency also, of
positions, commitments, knowledge. And there are
twilight zones you are grappling with. So why
can't you jump from this realm to another: there
is no contradiction in saying, what is that,
'mujhe izzatŠ'
*
I think we all are just messing our way through
this life. People, ideologues who believe in a
kind of redemption, a perfect and ultimate
society, are terrifying. Hitler and Stalin
believed that with a little social engineering,
with the mass murder of a few million people,
they could create a new and perfect world. The
idea of perfection has often been a precursor to
genocide. John Gray writes about it at some
length. But then, on the other hand, we have the
placid acceptance of Karma which certainly suits
the privileged classes and castes very well. Some
of us oscillate in the space between these two
ugly juggernauts trying to at least occasionally
locate some pinpoints of light.
______
[7]
INDIA PAKISTAN ARMS RACE AND MILITARISATION WATCH COMPILATION # 157
(31 October, 2005)
URL: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IPARMW/message/168
Contents:
1 Spend money on alleviating human distress and
not on fuelling arms race (Edit., Daily Times)
2 Musharraf rules out defence cut
3 Pakistan - India: Missile test agreement (Edit, The News International)
4 Pakistan said re-thinking U.S. F-16 deal
5 Saab Pens Preliminary Deal To Sell AEW Planes
to Pakistan (Gerard O’Dwyer, Helsinki)
6 Fiddling as Kashmir burns (Farooq Sulehria)
7 Army 'spent first days rebuilding border defences'
8 Pak activist Blames US For Arms Race
9 Pakistan's war on terror (M B Naqvi)
10 One step forward, two steps back (Praful Bidwai)
11 Pakistan's options after Trishul tests (Khalid Hasan)
12 Russia trips over Indian defense ties (Tara Shankar Sahay)
13 Army in a relief battle it can't win (Sujan Dutta)
14 Congressmen Press Rice On US.-India Nuclear Deal (Carol Giacomo)
15 India mulls acquiring U.S. warship
16 India Plans To Spend More on Defense if Economy Grows
17 Will India Ride Counter-Proliferation Waves? (J. Sri Raman)
18 India and Pakistan: Quake may have shifted Kashmir landmines, group warns
19 Boeing offers top weapons platforms to India
20 Farewell To Disarmament? - India in the US 'nuclear tent' (Praful Bidwai)
21 Why the dispute over Indian army help? (Jill McGivering)
22 Any Takers For A Nuclear Disaster? (Jawed Naqvi)
23 India might clinch biggest ever arms deal with Chile
24 No smile for Google's camera (Siddharth Srivastava)
25 Taj, temples' security @ Rs 167 mn
26 More have died of cold than enemy fire on
Siachen - world's highest battlefield (BBC)
27 South Africa-India weapons deal 'cancelled'
28 Delhi faces more air disruption (Rajan Chakravarty)
29. India test fires surface-to-air missile
30 Combat aircraft decision may pivot on nuclear co-operation (Huma Siddiqui)
31 Northeast Echoes (Patricia Mukhim)
32 India: US Triggers Arms Race In South Asia
33 Sri Lanka to hike defence budget amid war fears
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/
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