SACW | 7-8 Dec. 2005

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | 7-8 Dec, 2005 | Dispatch No. 2185


[1] Pakistan: Editorials from Daily Times
  (i) Our backward politicians and Zina Ordinance
  (ii) Failure to tackle Gilgit violence is unforgivable
[2] India-Tamilnadu: Politics of Culture, Sexuality and Freedom of
Expression
(i) Can one 'cultural nationalism' counter another? (J. Sri Raman)
(ii) Tamil Nadu: Burdens of Culture (Editorial, EPW)
[3] US - India: RSS Now Targets California Textbooks (Nalini Taneja)
[4] LETTERS / APPEALS:
  (i) Karbi Anglong Appeal (Peoples’ Committee for Peace ... in Assam)
  (ii)Letter To Chairperson WIPSA (IK Shukla)
[5] ANNOUNCEMENTS: Upcoming Events and Publications
  (i) Eqbal Ahmad Distinguished Lecture 2005 (Lahore, Dec 11 /
Islamabad, Dec 12)
  (ii) Citizens Peace March to the Sindh - Rajasthan Border (Dec 17-23)
(iii) Champa Foundation's annual memorial meeting (New Delhi, Dec 12)
(iv) Zubaan diary 2006 with posters from the Women's Movement
(v) India Pakistan Arms Race and Militarisation Watch No. 159 / Dec,2005

___


[1]

Daily Times
December 08, 2005 	

EDITORIAL: Our backward politicians and Zina Ordinance

On Tuesday, the National Assembly rejected a bill proposing amendments
to the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance 1979, which
requires a rape victim to present four male witnesses to substantiate
her claim or be convicted of fornication or adultery and/or face
punishment for lying. The bill — The Offence of Zina (Enforcement of
Hudood) Bill, 2005 (Amendment to Section 8) — was presented by MNA
Kunwar Khalid Yunus of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). The treasury
benches, which boast a strong pro-women lobby, joined the clerics and
other conservative MNAs to reject the proposed amendment. It is tragic
that an elected house has an all-parties majority that doesn’t want to
get rid of a bad law.

MNA Yunus of the MQM said that a clause in the offending Ordinance
should be repealed because it discriminated against women: “The Hudood
Ordinance was introduced by Gen Zia ul Haq to court Saudi Arabia’s
support for his rule. Of the 57 Muslim countries worldwide, the Hudood
law was enforced only in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The ordinance had
been enforced in 1979 without being incorporated in the Constitution by
the then parliament”. When the speaker put the bill to vote, it was
easily defeated. Predictably, MMA member Dr Sahibzada Abu Alkhair
Muhammad Zubair called the Hudood Ordinance “part of the divine law”
that could not be amended. Now take a look at the most platitudinous
lies in Muslim history, and it comes from the lips of the federal law
minister, Mr Wasi Zafar: “Women in Pakistan enjoy complete liberty and
respect, especially compared to those in Western countries”.

This is nothing new, however. An earlier bill by the PPPP on
honour-killing was watered down to include a mitigating clause. This
meant that honour-killing could go on and the victims would be the women
of Pakistan who otherwise enjoy “complete liberty and respect” compared
to what women get in the Western countries. The fact that no other
Islamic state except Saudi Arabia has the same kind of cruel legislation
as ours should mean that the “divine law” is not universal even among
the Islamic community. The argument here is not that zina is not
mentioned in the Quran but that a misinterpretation has been allowed,
and Pakistani women demeaned. Most of the women rotting in jails are
being punished for pointing to men who had raped them. In the current
practice of opposing “love marriages”, the Zina Ordinance is used by
vengeful parents, exposing the married couple to the punishment of
stoning to death.

Had our National Assembly been endowed with any moral will or intellect
it could have found ways and means to tinker with the law in force to
alleviate the suffering of women. The first point to consider was that
the Ordinance confused rape with fornication. No sensible person in the
world can believe that a woman forcibly subjected to sex can be guilty
or that she should be required to bring four pious witnesses to prove
the crime. If a rape scene has four witnesses it would be recognised as
some kind of theatrical performance rather than crime. More enlightened
Islamic scholars have already opined on the difficulties introduced into
the subject by the Arabic word zina which subsumes both rape and
fornication. It is on the ground of this scholarly opinion that the
Islamic world has not incorporated the clause that our law has.

Zina takes us to the next step in our purblindness when it comes to
legislating Islamic laws. Those found guilty of adultery are to be
sentenced to stoning to death (rajm) which is not mentioned in the
Quran. (Rajm is a part of the hudood although hudood have to be proved
to have been ordained clearly in the Quran.) The Quran prescribes only a
hundred lashes for the offence and the exegetes are not in agreement on
the force applied to lashing. The criterion in judging a bad law is in
the possibility of its enforcement. The truth is that in Pakistan half
the Islamic laws in force have not been enforced, like the cutting of
hands and blood-money for manslaughter, to name just two. The ones that
are enforced are used only as unfair means of punishing women and the
unprotected minorities. It is sad that our legislators so easily set
aside an effort to improve a bad law. *


o o o

The Daily Times
December 07, 2005 	


EDITORIAL: Failure to tackle Gilgit violence is unforgivable

The latest news is that the intelligence agencies have unearthed a plot
by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah Sahaba to use suicide bombers to kill
Shia members of the legislative council of the Northern Areas. The
suicide bombers are said to include women and children to be sent from
outside Gilgit. There is a rumour that the extremist clerics in the
Punjab are trying to recruit potential terrorists from the quake-hit
areas of Azad Kashmir and the NWFP, distributing publications like
Zarb-e-Momin among them for this purpose. It is said that Maulana Ghulam
Kibriya of Rahim Yar Khan has been assigned to arrange for these
children’s admission to seminaries in southern Punjab.

It is clear that preparations are being made for another bout of
sectarian attacks. On Monday, a Sunni cleric from Multan was gunned down
in Karachi to avenge the murder of a Shia cleric in Balochistan a day
earlier. The entire country has become linked in a network of terrorism
which now boasts Al Qaeda-style suicide-bombing. If you look at the map
of the country, the territories under challenge comprise the Northern
Areas, the North and South Waziristan Agencies in the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and all of Balochistan, the largest
province comprising 40 percent of Pakistan’s territory. One can easily
say that half of Pakistan is in the grip of people whose way of life is
violence. And who is responsible for this if not the government which
has been unable to tackle the problems that give rise to this violence?

The biggest mess is in Gilgit, the administrative centre of the Northern
Areas. And the mess dates back to the army’s decision to deploy an
extremist anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Tayba during the Kargil Operation of 1999
in tandem with regular troops. The administration in Gilgit has shown a
criminal lack of understanding of the majority population (60 percent)
of the city, the Shia, while deciding matters such as the content of
school textbooks. Thus it would shock the world to know that Gilgit and
the surrounding areas have seen a consistent pressure from the Shia
community demanding changes in the textbooks for the last half decade
and that the government, with all its intellectual resources, was not
able to satisfy it. Nor was it able to prevent the target-killing of
prominent Shia leaders, which enlisted the sectarian emotion of the
entire community in the country.

One glaring example of Islamabad’s lack of sensitivity came to the fore
this year when the new chief commissioner of Gilgit was appointed. The
ministry concerned appointed a fundamentalist Sunni as chief
commissioner despite its awareness that the Shias of Gilgit panic at the
appointment of officers holding extreme Sunni views. What it ignored was
the message contained in the earlier murder of a retired Sunni IG. Chief
Commissioner Major (retd) Nadeem Manzur, a strict practising Sunni
officer and a son-in-law of General (retd) KM Arif, carries no blot but
his almost fanatic observance of Sunni faith should have alerted the
ministry to his unsuitability. In the event, he proved ineffective and
has recently been recalled. Why was he sent to Gilgit in the first
place? One fears that the ministry itself could be infected with
sectarian passions.

To get a perspective on how the Gilgit unrest affects the rest of the
country, let us go over this year’s toll of terrorist casualties. On
January 8, Shia leader Agha Ziauddin Rizvi was killed in Gilgit. On
January 31, a leader of Sipah Sahaba Maulana Haroon ul Qasimi was killed
in Karachi. On March 23, former Northern Areas IG Sakhiullah Tareen, a
Sunni hardliner, was ambushed and killed in the Northern Areas. On April
1, Allama Najafi, head of a major Shia seminary in Lahore, was murdered.
On May 27, a suicide bombing killed 20 at the Barri Imam shrine near
Islamabad. On May 30, the Shia seminary Jaamiat ul Ulum in Karachi was
attacked by a suicide-bomber. On June 24, Mufti Rehman and Maulana
Irshad, leaders of the Deoband-Sunni headquarters, Banuri Mosque in
Karachi, were target-killed. The government should not wait helplessly
for what the suicide-bombers of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba
have in store for the nation in the coming days.

Islamic states tend to be sectarian. Iran is overtly a Shia state where
the Sunnis may find themselves discriminated against. The Sunni utopia
created by the Taliban in Afghanistan was intensely sectarian and
anti-Shia. After 20 years of jihad and Talibanisation, Pakistan too is
showing clear signs of being a sectarian state. Saudi influence,
spearheaded by Saudi funds to hardline Sunni seminaries, has changed
Pakistan’s traditionally non-sectarian character. Its conduct in
Shia-majority localities has been extremely violent. Gilgit is a case in
point where in 1988 the state began its cycle of violence together with
Parachinar in Kurram Agency. The pattern is that Sunni extremists will
focus on areas where there is a concentration of Shias.

The year 1988 was crucial to these Shia populations. That year General
Zia allowed the mujahideen to attack Parachinar to break the Shia
resistance to their operations inside Afghanistan. The same year he
allowed Sunni lashkars of Sipah Sahaba to attack Gilgit, resulting in
high Shia casualties. The same year the chief of the Shia party in
Pakistan, Allama Arif ul Hussaini, was murdered in Peshawar. Thousands
of people have died since then in this sectarian war. The future of
Pakistan has been rendered uncertain by a group of powerful clerics who
are now able to deploy suicide-bombers. If their violence against the
minority communities is not stopped, they will turn on new, more
high-profile, targets after they are done with the minorities. No one is
safe. *



____



[2]


The Tribune
December 7, 2005

Khushboo: a larger question
Can one 'cultural nationalism' counter another?
by J. Sri Raman

AFTER Ms. Jayalalithaa, no actress of Tamil cinema has
provoked so much political discussion as Khushboo has
done. And, strangely, it is the lesser of the two
stars, who raises a larger political question, though
it has not figured so far in the furore over her
observations in a media interview.

A whole range of issues, of course, have featured in
the furious debates over the Khushboo-speak in
newspaper columns and television channels, on
political platforms and in less public places, in
Tamil Nadu and at the national level. From pre-marital
sex to popular AIDS awareness, from marriage and
morals to culture and commodification, terms big
enough for academic seminars have been bandied about
in tirades following street slogans shouted to the
waving of brooms and shoes. As the dust settles down,
however, we have a near-consensus on the subject.

It appears to be agreed on all hands that the ugly and
uncivilised attacks on Khushboo and her "Kollywood"
colleague Suhasini Maniratnam constituted assaults on
the freedom of expression, a fundamental value of any
democratic and even decent society. Many critics of
Khushboo‚s views, as voiced in the ill-fated
interview, have made it a point to disapprove of the
demonstrations of intolerance staged in place of a
peaceful protest or a decorous debate. So much so that
even the political parties behind the unseemly
protests have been at pains to disown them. The
matter, however, does not, and should not, end here.

The end of this episode should mark the beginning of a
debate in greater depth about what led to it anyway.
 From where did the cultural and moral police,
associated with regions under the sway of outfits like
the Shiv Sena and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, spring up
suddenly in a state where the dominant politics of
regionalism claims "rationalism" as its defining
feature?

The simple answer is yes that this self-appointed
special task force, stalking two women, instead of a
Veerappan, did not spring up suddenly. The cultural
and moral police is a natural corollary to a kind of
politics, which had led earlier to alliances between
parties with "rationalist" pretensions and the
"Parivar" outfits. It is time to take a clearer look
at this politics, erroneously perceived and projected
so far only as either an arrangement of electoral
convenience or a power-sharing ploy.

The arrangement itself raised an obvious, but largely
unasked question. Not long ago, Tamil Nadu was one
state where the advent of the "Parivar" was considered
unthinkable. An impregnable ideological barrier was
presumed to encounter the Hindutva brigade here. The
supposedly deep roots struck by the Dravidian ideology
in the Tamil territory, it was taken for granted,
would not let the alien plant, even a grafted version,
grow. The fond hope was to prove little more than a
facile presumption.

The fact, which needs to be faced, is that no section
of the Dravidian spectrum has ever resisted the
temptation of a profitable tie-up with the BJP. None
of them has found ideology an embarrassment while
offering partnership to the Sangh Parivar. It was Ms.
Jayalalithaa‚s AIADMK that gave the BJP a toehold in
Tamil Nadu. To the DMK, in the period of its
power-sharing with the BJP at the Centre, went the
dubious credit for further legitimisation of the far
right in the state. When Mr M. Karunanidhi scoffed at
the anti-BJP camp‚s talk of "communalism" in the wake
of the Gujarat carnage, he sounded quite the same as a
Hindutva hardliner castigating "pseudo-secularism".
Similar was the stance of other Dravidian parties in
the Atal Bihari Vajpayee coalition - Mr. V.
Gopalasamy‚s MDMK and, yes, the PMK.

The ideological commonality, which made this compact
possible, consisted in the basis upon which both the
Parivar and the Dravidian camp envisage popular
mobilisation. The Hindutva camp seeks to mobilise its
constituency on communal or majoritarian lines.
Dravidianism aims to do so on caste lines. Neither of
them is for mobilising the people on either a
compositely national basis or on class lines, as
either Indians or a socio-economic interest group.

The commonality goes far beyond this fundamental
level. The more important point to be made in the
current context is that the two ideologies wear a
common veneer as well - that of "cultural
nationalism". It is well known by now that this pet
phrase of the Parivar means a cult of intolerance.
What the Khushboo episode illustrates is that the
cultural sub-nationalism of the Dravidian kind, if it
may be called that, has the same connotation and
consequences.

An ethnic chauvinism, swearing by a "Tamil culture",
has ever been part of the Dravidian platform despite
the early claim of the anti-Aryan camp to talk for all
the four southern states. Like the "cultural
nationalism" of the Parivar, its Tamil counterpart,
too, was bound to produce its cultural-moral police
and storm-troopers.

Talk of the moral superiority of the "Tamil culture"
over its mortal Aryan adversary, in fact, became a
defining feature of Dravidian propaganda even its
early years. Dravidian ideologues espied, for example,
outrageously obscene passages in Aryan epics, with
their share of erotic poetry. The Ramayana, in
particular, invited literary criticism from a loftily
moral angle. Even the Kamba Ramayanam, considered a
glory of Tamil literature, was trashed on grounds of a
Tamil "morality". The pristine eroticism of Sangam
works, which included (as some have pointed out) poems
on premarital affairs, was not seen as running counter
to a re-invented "Tamil culture".

This notion of moral superiority has found a
particularly noxious expression now in the repeated
assertion by the anti-Khushboo brigade that "Tamil
brides are virgins".

Like the "cultural nationalism" of the Parivar, the
Dravidian version, too, was bound to turn against
women, and to make them bear the brunt of its
moralising missions. True, Tamil Nadu has thus far
been spared Rajasthan-type attempts at revival of
"Sati" and Shiv Sena-style acid attacks on
"improperly" clad girls. But the macho-sounding boast
about Tamil women‚s chastity ("karpu" in equally
chaste Tamil), combined with tolerance for bigamous
males, shows that Dravidianism did not exactly banish
the danger. The crusade against Khushboo shows how
close the danger has always been.

The entire episode underlines the political lesson of
the Parivar-Dravidian partnerships of the past decade,
especially for the liberal-Left sections. More fully
exposed now is the folly of the hope that the
Dravidian ideology, which at best represented a false
consciousness, can bar the road to the far Right in
Tamil Nadu.

The danger illustrated by the episode is increased by
the social description of the anti-Khushboo agitators.
It is the "educated people" whom the actress has
enlisted in her support, while the plebeian character
of the protests against her is evident. This heightens
the threat to democratic freedoms as much as the Dalit
participation in the Hindutva pogrom in Gujarat did.

o o o

Economic and Political Weekly
November 26, 2005

Editorial

Tamil Nadu: Burdens of Culture

Last week, the actor Khushboo "surrendered" before the judicial
magistrate in Mettur, Tamil Nadu for her "objectionable" comments on
pre-marital sex, after the Madras High Court refused to stay a
non-bailable arrest warrant against her. She was subsequently granted
conditional bail and released. Khushboo committed the offence of
uttering, in an interview on television, that pre-marital sex was
acceptable, as long as women protected themselves from unwanted
pregnancies and venereal disease, and that educated men could not expect
their prospective wives to be virgins. The unmitigated harassment meted
out to the actor since then, as well as to Suhasini Mani Ratnam who
spoke publicly in her support, was re-enacted by activists of the
Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and Dalit Panthers of India (DPI) with full
fervour outside the court. The incident is disturbing not only for the
curbs that are being placed violently and publicly on women's sexual
conduct and freedom of expression, but also because of the political
degeneration that underpins it and the nature as well as limited form of
support the actor has received. Together they highlight, perhaps, the
degree to which the conflation of women's bodies with nation and culture
is current and how the legal construction of the marital space is itself
an ambiguous affair.

The leading lights of this enterprise, the PMK and DPI, though they have
officially disclaimed responsibility for the actions of their cadre,
have an obvious eye on the upcoming assembly elections next year. Since
both parties have a distinct caste base, with the PMK being primarily a
party of the backward caste vanniyars, it is important to expand their
appeal and espouse a "pan-Tamil" cause. The two launched the Tamil
Protection Movement earlier this year for the protection of Tamil
language and culture, deploying tactics such as tarring shops that did
not use Tamil signage, a technique used by the Dravidar Kazhagam during
the anti-Hindi protests in 1965. The travesty of the situation though is
that Tamil nationalism has become entirely shorn of its original
liberatory underpinnings – as articulated through the Self-Respect
movement beginning in 1944 – and has morphed into a shrill chauvinistic
discourse resulting from years of distortion for electoral ends. The
"Tamilness" espoused by the founder of the movement, Periyar E V
Ramaswamy Naicker, was iconoclastic and thus able to articulate ideas
that by any measure could be termed as radical: the nation cannot be
free unless women are liberated from the slavery of marriage and that
women's chastity signifies their unfreedom. The version of Tamil
nationalism we see today tends to be revivalist, harking back to a
golden past, and espouses a static and morally conservative culture.

But it would be a mistake to view the unfolding events simply as the
machinations of particular political parties, for their views appear to
have wide currency. The police have reportedly slapped no less than 20
cases on Khushboo and Suhasini based on a cocktail of charges ranging
from defamation of Tamils, provocation to cause riots, promoting enmity
between groups, malicious acts to outrage religious feelings, breaching
peace, etc. Moreover, the qualified and belated support for Khushboo
betrays in many ways public ambiguity about the issue as well as fears
of a backlash, marking parallels with the protests that emerged when
screenings of the film Fire were disrupted and vandalised in some of the
northern states in 1998. The Nadigar Sangam (actors' association) has
finally objected to the way Khushboo was treated but cautioned actors
about expressing "certain" views in public; the CPI and CPM have taken
exception to the violence of the protests; and a journalists' forum has
focused on defending freedom of expression "without going into the
merits of the statement". A similar disinclination to deal with the
lesbian presence in the film Fire was apparent when nationwide protests
were organised solely around the issue of freedom of expression, leading
some groups to come together to form the Campaign for Lesbian Rights to
politicise this invisibility and carve out a space for political action.
Unfortunately, this time, no groups have visibly joined the fray to
protest against these incursions on women's sexuality, autonomy and
right to choose. Khushboo's remarks on the right to decide on one's
sexual partner, as well as the right to health and reproductive choice,
are entirely legitimate and that is precisely what makes them so
dangerous for her critics and supporters.

While considerable zeal is being expended on women's "dishonour", it
would be worthwhile to point out that the simple act of marriage
disqualifies a woman from filing a charge of rape against her
perpetrator, if he happens to be her husband. The law then sits quite
comfortably with the tenor of the protests: if pre-marital sex, with a
woman's consent is wrong, why should sex after marriage without a
woman's consent be an offence?


____


[3]

People's Democracy
December 04, 2005

RSS Now Targets California Textbooks

by Nalini Taneja

THE battle over secular texts on Indian history for schools and a
rational view of the past is not confined to the matter of NCERT
textbooks in India. More recently the RSS inspired organisations and the
Hindutva lobbyists in the US have been over-active in attempting to
change school textbooks in the state of California. That they have not
had a walk-over is thanks to the vigilance and commitment of the many
academics involved in Indian studies all over the world, who have
solidly opposed these moves.

The proposed changes in favour of the Hindutva view of Indian history
and culture in the school texts became known only on November 5, 2005.
Some of the individuals who had been asked to sign a memorandum,
prepared by The Vedic Foundation, got alarmed and were alert enough to
write to Professor Witzel of Harvard University, who has been
consistently and publicly writing against the Hindutva concoctions of
history. Thereafter the matter snowballed into a controversy at November
9 public hearing when a letter from Professor Michael Witzel was
submitted to the Board of Education informing them of the motivations of
the Hindutva efforts and requesting them to reject the
Hindutva-recommended changes.

The State of California is now in the final stages of approving the
history/social science textbooks for grade 6-8 in schools. This exercise
takes place periodically and a number of publishers submit their books
for approval and selection on these occasions to the Department of
Education. It is at this stage this year that two Hindutva organisations
based in the US, the Hindu Education Foundation and the Vedic
Foundation, submitted what they argued were necessary “corrections” to
be made in the textbooks approved, and Shiva Bajpai, a Hindutva-leaning
advisor to the California Board of Education, succeeded in getting
virtually all the changes requested by them approved by an ad hoc
committee of the State Board of education.

RENOWNED HISTORIANS REJECT HINDUTVA LOBBY CORRECTIONS

Professor Witzel and Professor Steve Farmer, along with fifty other
academics, including renowned Indian historians Romila Thapar, DN Jha
and Shereen Ratnagar, have written to Ruth Green, president, State Board
of Education, California, on behalf of “world specialists on ancient
India”, reflecting “mainstream academic opinion in India, Pakistan, the
United States, Europe, Australia, Taiwan and Japan”, to “reject the
demands by nationalist Hindu (Hindutva) groups” that California
textbooks be altered to conform to their religious-political views.”
They have pointed out that “the proposed revisions are not of a
scholarly, but of a religious-political nature and are primarily
promoted by Hindutva supporters and non-specialist academics writing
about issues far outside their areas of expertise”, and that “these
views not reflect the views of majority of the specialists on ancient
Indian history, nor of majority of the Hindus.”

Their letter also says that these proposed ‘corrections’ are motivated
by political agendas discriminatory to millions of people in India,
especially the minorities, lower castes, and women, and that they have
been debated thoroughly and rejected in India as well by academics and
secular political forces. They have clearly warned that the endorsement
of the views of these Hindutva so-called scholars by the California
State Board of Education would cause a virtual international scandal.

They have referred in their letter to the US State Department
“International Religious Freedom Report 2003” and the one for 2004,
which gave considerable space to the social and political tensions that
arose (mentioning Gujarat as example), and were likely to exacerbate, in
India through textbooks that vilified minorities. Given this, the letter
argued, the acceptance of the pro- Hindutva changes by the State Board
of Education in California amounted to going against the wisdom of US
State policy as well.

The Board has now, since the November 9 public hearing, come to accept
the perspective of these eminent scholars, and has since been working
with them to allow only such changes as meet the standards of objective
scholarship. Yet the battle is not over.  The next public hearing is
scheduled for December 1, after which the State Board on Education will
take its decision to finally reject/include the changes it initially
approved at the behest of their Hindutva leaning advisor, Shiv Bajpai.
The final step in the process is the adoption of the recommendation of
the Board of Education by the Curriculum Commission also on December
1-2, 2005.

STRENGTHENING THE SECULAR POSITION

To strengthen the secular position a petition has also been circulated
on the internet and signatures are pouring in every day. They have also
appealed to the public at large that “If you believe in teaching
California's children true history and culture of India, it is very
important for you to attend the public hearing on December 1 and 2 in
Sacramento and voice your opinion rejecting the Hindutva-recommended
changes.” The major demand is that no changes should be made in
textbooks at the behest of any organisation/individual other than the
distinguished panel of scholars the Board has been working with since
November 9.

On the other side, Pranawa C Deshmukh, a professor of physics at Indian
Institute of Technology is mobilising Hindutva forces in support of the
changes suggested by the Vedic Foundation and the RSS-inspired Hindu
Education Foundation. A large number of their cronies are likely to
either write to the Curriculum Commission or show up at the public
hearing. Among such members is the notorious David Frawley!

A look at the specific changes demanded by the Hindutva organisations
would show them to be integral to the Sangh Parivar political agenda,
and very similar to what the BJP government was trying to do here with
the NCERT syllabus and the NCERT textbooks in social sciences,
particularly history.


CORRECTION SUGGESTED BY HINDUTVA FORCES

For example, among the ‘corrections’ suggested is a clear attempt to
deny the integrality, in fact the very mention of the caste system in
ancient India. On women, they are anxious to present their gender bias
in the form of ‘difference’, a very fashionable and now sanctioned
social science category pushed through by post modernists.

In one textbook the changes included a specific addition that “the
recent archaeological proofs are negating the Aryan invasion theory. The
new theory suggests that Aryans were not the outsiders.” The lines
saying “Men had many more rights than women” was to be replaced by “Men
had different duties (dharma) and rights than women. Many women were
among the sages to whom the Vedas were revealed.”

In another textbook the entire paragraph on the caste system was to be
deleted, and the picture of an untouchable removed. Other corrections
pertained to putting back the dates for the Rig Veda,  confusing the
dates of the Indus and Harappa city-based civilisations with the Vedic
civilization to show the antiquity/indigenous origin of the Aryans in
India, conflating Brahmanical beliefs with Hinduism, denying the
plurality of gods worshipped through history in favour of one God in
different forms, depicting shudras as “serving all classes” and doing
“labour intensive work” rather than serving the three upper castes and
so on. The sentences dealing with the sacredness of the cows, diet, were
also suitably amended.

Tolerance was presented as “usual” for the time of Ashoka in ancient
India, and references to science and mathematics in ancient India were
modified so as to present it as the earliest and greatest civilisation,
while references to the negative aspects of society in ancient India
were sought to be deleted or presented as cultural specificities rather
than oppression. They also wanted to insert long sections written out by
themselves, which were not allowed as they over- stepped the brief for
updating of texts and “corrections”.

This entire effort is part of the RSS’s larger goal to “educate” the
Hindu children brought up in the US to be “good Hindus” and to “learn
the truth about Indian history and culture”, no doubt assisting in the
search for “roots” and “anchor” that the Hindu youth —like the other
immigrants—hanker for! That these children could become Hindutva’s
international support one day is one thing; they could well become its
victims right now if the powerful Hindutva organisations in the US are
allowed to have their way.


____


[4]  LETTERS / APPEALS:

(i)

Karbi Anglong Appeal

The Peoples’ Committee for Peace Initiative in Assam would like to draw
your attention to the tragedy unfolding in the autonomous district of
Karbi Anglong in Assam. For the last four weeks, ethnic Dimasa and Karbi
peoples have suffered immensely in a conflict that has disrupted the
age-old fraternal ties between the two communities. Both the government
of Assam and the autonomous district council authorities have failed to
provide relief and security to the affected peoples of the district. As
of now, there are more than 30,000 internally displaced persons living
in abysmal conditions in camps scattered around the districts of Karbi
Anglong, Nagaon and the North Cachar Hills. Women in advanced stages of
pregnancy, children suffering from water-borne diseases, and elderly
persons with no access to health and civic amenities are stuck in these
camps, where food, shelter and medical attention are desperately scarce.

Seeing that the administration has failed in its duties either to
control the violence or to offer relief, we appeal to all sections of
society, including civil society organisations and NGOs – particularly
those capable of offering relief and medical aid – to offer their
services to the victims. Please contact us at:
karbi-anglong.relief at blogger.com

o o o

(ii)


Letter To Chairperson WIPSA:

It is with anguish and pain that I have to place on record my
remonstrance against the blatantly anti-national misconduct of two
members of WIPSA in Lucknow: Meera Khanna and Monisha Banerji-Gill.
Unless they are expelled, WIPSA as a whole would be deemed complicit in
their perfidy.

I will not detail the litany of subversive and treasonous crimes these
pro-war and pro-division, anti-India and anti-Pakistan members of WIPSA
committed not just against Tehrik-e-Niswan and Sh[eem]a Kirmani, our
invited guests and socially committed thespians of repute, but also
against civility and cultural norns traditionally honored and practiced
in the entire sub-continent over millenna past. They injured and
insulted far more than a visiting theatre group from Pakistan.

At a time when people to people contact is steadily generating a climate
of bonhomie and peace between two neighbors, the misconduct of
Meera-Monisha duo cannot be an ill-advised aberration.
They would be suspected of acting out a plan designed beforehand. They
have thus made WIPSA look suspect as an anti-national outfit fronting
for foreign interests that are contemptuous and dismissive of India's
sovereigny and security.

By their miscondut they have alerted neighboring South Asian nations
that Big Brother India can be a menace, vulgarly brutal and
untrustworthy even in matters civil, artistic, and cultural. How far
this is conducive to our drive for better relations and genuine
camaraderie between nations of the subcontinent, only these redoubtable
ladies can answer.

Meera-Monisha have thus aggressively, venomously, and boorishly asserted
that India as a society is wedded to communal fascism, that it is an
unabashed surrogate of and subservient to imperial interests of foreign
origin, and that it would betray our national interests and besmirch our
culture of mezbani (hospitality) with wanton recklessness.

They deem their right to insult others and injure many as freedom of
expression, of a diabolic kind. As to their understanding of art and its
function or culture and its multiverse richness of creative imagination,
the leat said the better.

They did not stint in their abuse of Lucknow known for its multichrome
heritage. They must be unaware or derisive of this city's culture. Let
me give just a few examples. Malik Muhammad Jayasi
(Jayas, near Lucknow) wrote his Sufi epic with a Hindu theme, Padmawat,
in Awadhi, predating Tulasidas. Munshi Nawal Kishore published from his
famous press numerous books in Persian. Pahari Sanyal, the well-known
thespian of Calcutta, came to Lucknow to learn Kathak when he was 60
years old. And, that incorrigible connoisseur, Ghalib, sang his paean to
Lucknow in his inimitable style thus: Maqta-e-silsila-e-shauq naheen hai
yeh shahar/Azme-saire-najfo-taufe-haram hai hum ko/ Liye jaatee hai
kaheen ek tawaqqo, Ghalib/Jaad-e-rah kashishe-kaafe-karam hai hum ko.
This Lucknow, the magnet of magnanimity, was destroyed by one fell blow
from Khanna-Banerji-Gill. May we ask, at whose behest, for whose benefit?

These twin pathetic females have only enhanced the pristine stature of
both Sh[eem]a Kirmani, the Kathak pioneer in Pakistan, and
Tehrik-e-Niswan, the celebrated theatre, known for its socially relevant
presentations. To them we as a nation owe apology and amends and pray
that they gracefully, large-heartedly accept it as our national shame.

But, at home, we would have WIPSA probed, its Ford-connection
scrutinized. What national threat NGOs pose, WIPSA has proved best.

I.K.Shukla

05.12.04

____


[5]


ANNOUNCEMENTS: Upcoming Events and Publications


(i)

You are cordially invited by SAFMA-Punjab & Eqbal Ahmed Foundation to the
Eqbal Ahmad Distinguished Lecture 2005 by:

SHRI KULDIP NAYYAR, leading journalist, peace activist & former member
of the Rajya Sabha on: POSSIBLE OPTIONS ON KASHMIR.

LAHORE: 2:45pm on Sunday, 11 December 2005 at Khurshed Mahal, Avari Hotel.
The discussants will be Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali (former foreign minister)
and Mr Najam Sethi (editor Daily Times).

ISLAMABAD: 2:30pm on Monday, 12 December 2005 at National Library
Auditorium. The discussants will be Major General Jamshed Ayaz Khan
(president, Institute of Regional Studies) and Mr. Imtiaz Alam (Secretary
General, SAFMA).

o o o o

(ii)


Citizens Peace march to the Pak India (Sindh - Rajasthan) Border Dec
17-23,2005 and festive
event and vigil on 23 Dec by Pakistan India Peoples Forum for Peace and
Democracy.

(Posted below is an invitation by the organisers from the Indian Side /
Similar preparations are underway by Pakistani organisers)

--

28th November 2005


Invitation to the Shanti Yatra and Aman Mela of PIPFPD (from
Jodhpur to Munabao border checkpost - Rajasthan)

Dear Colleague,

You are aware that PIPFPD is holding a Peace March (Shanti Yatra) in
Rajasthan between the 17th and the 23rd of December 2005. The Shanti
Yatra will start from Jodhpur in Rajasthan to Munabao which is on the
border between Pakistan (Sindh) and India (Rajasthan). The Yatra will
culminate into a Peace Fair (Aman Mela) on the 23rd December evening. As
you know, the Shanti Yatra and the Aman Mela have been declared as Joint
programmes of PIPFPD India and Pakistan Chapters, as both chapters will
be mobilising for the mega event. Many prominent artists, eminent
personalities from India and Pakistan will be participating in the
Shanti Yatra and especially at the Aman Mela.

Pakistan Chapter is organising a parallel Yatra from Hyderabad (Sindh)
to Kokhrapar (Eastern Border check-post of Sindh) that will also
culminate in a similar Aman Mela on that side of the border on 23rd
evening. PIPFPD intends to hold a Joint Candle-light vigil of citizens
from both sides at the zero point after the border. It is intended that
Indians and Pakistanis from the Forum will meet at the border, exchange
greetings and get a chance to light the symbolic candles of Peace. It is
in this context that we seek your active cooperation, support and
physical presence during these events organised by PIPFPD.

The State chapters have been requested to inform all members and
finalise list of volunteers who would like to participate in the Shanti
Yatra. National committee through earlier communications had also
requested the State Chapters to mobilise contributions for the Shanti
Yatra. I am sorry that we have received rather poor response from the
State Chapters in this regard. I hope and look forward to a more
enthusiastic response to this final communication. Please note that your
participation and contributions are necessary to make this Shanti Yatra
a success. I am sure that  you will understand the emotions and
sympathies attached to this kind of an event, involving thousands of
separated families, friends and and well wishers of Pakistan-India peace
efforts.

Information about the Yatra, schedule, places and persons to be
contacted are attached. Jodhpur and Barmer are well connected by
railways and road transport with the rest of the country. Kindly inform
the Rajasthan Chapter secretariat at Udaipur. (Contact information
enclosed). Kindly make sure that you inform the Convener, Mr. Munawwar
Rahi, your confirmed participation dates. For those members who cannot
participate throughout the Shanti Yatra, we will prefer to have your
availability in either the inaugural programme at Jodhpur or the Aman
Mela at Munabao. Also please note that it will be quite cold in the
desert. Adequate warm clothing are necessary.

With regards,

Tapan K Bose
General Secretary
PIPFPD India

Encl. Pls find a detail schedule and itinerary of the Shanti Yatra and
the Aman Mela.

TRAINS RUNNING  FROM  JODHPR-MUNABAO-BARMER

JODHPUR - BARMER : MALANI EXPRESS (DAILY)

DEP. JODHPUR  6.40 A.M.
ARR BARMER  11 A..M.

DEP. BARMER 6. P.M.
ARR. JODHPUR 10 P.M.

BARMER-MUNABAO (PASSENGER TRAIN)

DEP. BARMER 7 A.M.
ARR. MUNBAO 10 A.M.

DEP. MUNABAO 10.50 A.M.
ARR. BARMER 2 P.M.


Note: Trains from all metro cities come to Jodhpur

Barmer-Munabao., Jodhpur to Barmer - buses leaves at every one hour.
Contact Rajasthan roadways.


(iii)

CHAMPA-
The Amiya & B.G.Rao Foundation,
25, Nizamuddin East, New Delhi-110013.


The last decade or so has witnessed major changes in the economic,
social and political structures of Indian society leading to the loss of
livelihood as well as the erosion of the people's democratic rights.
Struggles of the marginalised people are taking place in many parts of
the country but they are not being reported in the media and are being
ignored by the political establishment. The Champa Foundation's annual
memorial meeting will be held on the theme :-

Privatisation, MNCs and People's Struggles

On December 12, 2005 at 4 p.m.
At Dy.Chairman‚s Hall, Constitution Club,
Rafi Marg, New Delhi-110001

The meeting will be chaired by Dr. Navin Chandra, Former Director of the
National Labour Institute

Speakers:

Nagaraj Adve
Nandlal Master
Ranjana Padhi

Worker s from the Honda factory, Gurgaon will join the discussion.

We request your participation in the meeting to lend your support to the
struggles of our people.

T.K. John
N.D. Pancholi
Uma Chakravarti


(iv)


ZUBAAN DIARY 2006

The Zubaan diary features posters from the Women's Movement since the
1970s. Poster Women, is a Zubaan project that is a visual mapping of the
womenís movement in India and will culminate in a travelling exhibition
in 2006. In case you wish to order a copy(s), please do so by sending an
email to:

contact at zubaanbooks.com and zubaan at gmail.com


Zubaan,
An imprint of Kali for Women,
K-92, FF,
Hauz Khas Enclave,
New Delhi - 110016
Tel: +91-11-26521008, 26864497 and 26514772
Website: www.zubaanbooks.com


(v)

India Pakistan Arms Race and Militarisation Watch No. 159
(04 December,  2005)
URL: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IPARMW/message/170


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

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/

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