SACW | 23 Jan. 2006 | India Pakistan Nuclear Arms Race; British Asians fly to India Abort girls; Renaming Cities

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at mnet.fr
Sun Jan 22 20:54:44 CST 2006


South Asia Citizens Wire  | 23 January, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2207


[1] Hardly anyone is talking of the Indo-Pak Nuclear Arms Race (M B Naqvi)
[2] US-Pakistan: It doesn’t matter what the facts are (Khusro Mumtaz)
[3] Desperate British Asians fly to India to abort baby girls (Dan
McDougall)
[4] On the Re-naming of Cities in India:
    - Nothing Beyond Virtual Reality (Alok Rai)
    - The is no Cal but Cal! (Ruchir Joshi)
[5] Announcements:
(i) India: National Consultation on Communalism (New Delhi, Jan 26-27)
(ii)India: Kalinga Nagar Chalo on Martyr Day: Jan 30)

____________________________________


[1]

South Asians Against Nukes - January 23, 2006
http://www.s-asians-against-nukes.org/2006/mbNaqvi23012006.html
http://snipurl.com/lu2o

WHILE THE SPOTLIGHTS ARE ON MIDDLE EAST, THE WORLD HAS TURNED A BLIND
EYE TO THE INDO-PAKISTAN NUCLEAR ARMS RACE !

by MB Naqvi

While many in the world are greatly exercised by nuclear weapons
proliferation in the Middle East, there is the nuclear arms race
spiraling up all the time between India and Pakistan. Hardly a day
passes either of them tests on adapted missile. Why do they do these
tests? Is it not to see if the adaptation for the new warhead is
successful?

True, not many are talking about this arms race largely because of two
reasons. There is little that anyone can do anything meaningful about
the populous South Asia. Secondly, all others have left it to the sole
superpower to tackle this problem and which is doing it its own way.

In practice, the US has made both countries its allies - of different
kinds. It is in a close alliance with Pakistan in its War on Terror. It
is also assiduously cultivating India, promising all manner of aid to it
under a Military Cooperation Framework agreement with a view to enabling
it to become a major global power. The US has also agreed to sell India
up to eight civilian nuclear reactors for power generation on the
condition of putting all its civilian nuclear programme under IAEA
inspections after separating it from its military-oriented programme.
This would enable India to enjoy all the privileges of a recognized
nuclear state without signing the NPT. This implied, indeed de facto,
recognition of being a nuclear power would mean the lifting of all
sanctions on it without paying much of a price.

Where does that leave South Asia? "These two nuclear-armed countries
were actively at each other's throats since a few months after their
emergence as independent nations while adversarial perceptions are the
warp and woof of their state-building. They have ran an unending arms
race from day one. It has been accelerating ever since. But in May 1998
this arms race began spiraling after both test exploded 11 nuclear
weapons. While popular expectation was that a few atomic weapons would
so deter each other that expenditures on conventional armaments could be
reduced", said Prof Pervez Hoodbhoy, a noted physicist and peace and
human rights campaigner.

"The idea that a few atomic bombs could both keep peace between India
and Pakistan and enable them to reduce defence expenditure was
deliberately fed by the Bomb lobbies in either countries. It was
predicated on an overly simplistic notion. The fact of the matter is
that nuclear weapons are by their very nature evil; they are the weapon
of ultimate destruction, a weapon of only offence that has no known
defence, all talk of anti missile defence systems notwithstanding", said
Hoodbhoy.

He also noted that "it is the nature of the Bomb that creates a mayhem
even in thought processes. Since there is no defence against it, its
presence in an adversary's arsenal destroys trust in a radical kind of
way. No assurance from that adversary can ever be trusted. What nations
do, and have done, is to counter the nuclear menace with one's own."

"But this weapons is conceived in secrecy and is developed by deception.
Nobody declares what minimum amount of such weapons it has or will have.
There is no known case of any détente between nuclear adversaries
because one dismisses the actual agreements between the Soviets and the
USA as inapplicable elsewhere. The Soviets found themselves in a tight
economic situation in which they could not continue their arms build up.
They had to have a détente at any price and because of that compulsion
they made concession after concession that an ordinary nuclear power
would not make. The Americans made no substantive concession. In point
of fact the Americans merely won the race with the adversary being
knocked out by itself", said Hoodbhoy.

Prof Hoodbhoy explained India-Pakistan case: "look at the way the two
nations went to near war situation in 2002, not to mention the quarter
war over Kargil in 1999. More than a million troops confronted each
other across international border and the LoC in Kashmir. The Indians
made as if they would invade and their threat was credible to both
friend and foe. The fact that a war did not break out in 2002 owes
itself to several factors. But the chief among them was that India did
not really know what would happen if it did go to war with Pakistan and
gained the upper hand at some stage as the power balance showed.
Pakistanis had threatened at least thirteen times to use their nukes in
any difficult situation."

Hoodbhoy went on "the Indians, for calling off the bluff of Pakistani
generals said they would press ahead with the war, the threat of atomic
warfare or no threat. But apart from the mediatory role played by the
US, the real reason that compelled India to stay its hand was that it
simply could not take the risk of led conventional war escalating into
atomic one. Irrespective of the nuclear doctrine of either country,
India simply could not afford to take the risk of having a few of its
cities wiped which is what might have happened, if an atomic exchange
had taken place. Who fired when would be irrelevant. What damage
Pakistan suffers would not be a solace to the Indians for the loss they
would suffer. Hence there was no war and Indians were happy to oblige
the Americans in arranging a mutual withdrawal through the promise of
talks about peace."

Both countries are in the same condition three years down the line. Both
kinds of arms races are proceeding in parallel: Hoodbhoy said,
"conventional arms race has received considerable impetus from two
separate factors. In the case of India their military build up is
independent of Pakistan and is predicated on their fascination for
becoming a global military power. Pakistan has no such pretensions. Nor
can it have. But generations of administrators have grown up and retired
after independence. Adversarial attitudes, assumptions and purposes form
part of their mental make up in both countries. That makes Pakistani
state blindly imitate the Indians. This is foolish and beyond the means
of Pakistan. Pakistanis ought to take a lesson from the experience of
Soviet Union; the latter imploded, despite the plenitude of nuclear and
conventional armaments. It is the economy that matters."

"The American strategy supposedly promotes nuclear nonproliferation and
wants to manage both India and Pakistan. What the American policy has
achieved is the contrary of these objectives. It is true that Americans
cannot be blamed for India or Pakistan going nuclear. They did it on
their own and for their own purposes, mistaken though they may have
been. First the two countries became nuclear powers to reckon with; they
do not possess nuclear weapons symbolically; they possess them in
cognizable numbers that make them significant military powers", averred
Hoodbhoy.

"Insofar as Pakistan is concerned, it has no business competing with
India, Pakistanis ought to wake up and take a lesson from the Soviet
experience. They have to de-link their policies from what India does or
does not do. Pakistan has to look towards its own economy and its
shortcomings. It is far too underdeveloped and there is mismatch between
the military development and the state of the society and the economy.
Pakistanis have already lost a great deal through constant
militarisation - a militarisation that is not confined to the growth of
the military. It extends to society becoming militarized, social morals
being affected and economy being undermined and the country coming under
the sway of the military like any banana republic", concluded Hoodbhoy.

That has a lesson for both India and Pakistan. They need to think
creatively and purposefully.


____



[2]

The News International
January 23, 2006

US-PAKISTAN:
IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT THE FACTS ARE
Being the only superpower in town means never having to say you’re sorry

by Khusro Mumtaz

On July 03, 1988 an American naval warship — the USS Vincennes —shot
down an Irani civilian commercial passenger jet, Flight 655, as it flew
over the strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, and killed all the
passengers and crew - 290 people all told, including 42 non-Iranis -
onboard. Facing international outrage, the US initially claimed that the
plane was flying outside its approved commercial flight path and at only
7,000 feet and descending towards the USS Vincennes before it was shot
down and hence the American actions were justified. About a month later,
the US finally admitted that Flight 655 was flying within a legitimate
air corridor and at 12,000 feet (and not 7,000) and it was NOT descending.

The US conveniently attributed its error to psychological stress on the
American warship’s crew which was facing combat for the first time (the
US warships had been stationed in the Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war to
escort and defend Kuwait oil tankers registered under the US flag and
the USS Vincennes had been battling gunboats of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard that would harass passing oil tankers apparently
misidentified the plane as an Irani F-14 fighter).

To further rub salt in Irani wounds, instead of receiving a reprimand
(at the very least) the Captain of the Vincennes, Will C Rogers was
awarded a Legion of Merit and became a military instructor and his
entire crew was awarded combat-action ribbons. Commander Lustig, the
air-warfare coordinator, even won the navy’s "Commendation Medal" for
"heroic achievement" his "ability to maintain his poise and confidence
under fire" having enabled him to "quickly and precisely complete the
firing procedure." The same procedure which resulted in the downing of
Flight 655 and the snuffing out of 290 innocent lives.

The US also never formally apologised for its mistake. On the contrary,
George Bush Senior, ex-CIA Director and then-incumbent vice president
and future president of the United States when asked to comment on the
incident while on his ultimately successful presidential campaign
(in)famously said, "I will never apologise for the United States, ever.
I don’t care what the facts are."

In other words, being the only superpower in town means never having to
say you’re sorry. Erich Segal eat your heart out. You can flout
international law when you want to, break international protocols on the
environment when you feel like it, invade a country on deliberately
fabricated pretexts, fly suspects on unlawful flights over the airspace
of allied countries to illegal detention and interrogation (some would
say "torture") centres in Europe, keep prisoners of war for years on end
at Guantanamo Bay without bringing charges, have your soldiers torture
and humiliate prisoners at Abu Gharaib and more or less brush the whole
affair under the carpet when the international media gets wind of the
it, bomb, kill and maim civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq and call it
collateral damage, and ignore or bully the United Nations when it suits
you. As George Orwell said, "All animals are equal. But some animals are
more equal than others." No wonder then that Condi Rice, totally
oblivious to irony, declares that "we’ve got to demonstrate to Iran that
it can’t just cast aside the just demands of the international community."

So people demanding an apology from the United States over the death of
18 innocent civilians in the Bajaur air strike better face reality.
There will be no admission of guilt and no expression of regret. Ever.
When 290 deaths didn’t matter then why should only 18? We can huff and
we can puff and we can go blue in the face but America will never say
sorry no matter what the reality may be. Remember what the current US
President’s daddy said? "I don’t care what the facts are".

However, leaving aside apologies there is a little something known as
self-respect. Our leaders have lodged severely feeble (to put it mildly)
protests with the Americans but simultaneously provided them with
justification for their actions. Pakistani officials have declared that
four foreign militants, including top Al-Qa’eda operatives, were also
killed in the Bajaur attack. But there is no proof of this, no bodies
have been found and the Americans themselves have claimed no such thing.
What is it they say about being more loyal than the king?

In any case, the possible deaths of some Al-Qa’eda members does not
justify the killing of even a single civilian - collateral damage is
never really acceptable and certainly not in this case. And, instead of
ringing open the New York Stock Exchange and smiling his practiced smile
for the cameras, Shaukat Aziz should be out demanding compensation for
the families of our fellow citizens. Apologies we may not get but
compensation we certainly can.

In 1989 Iran brought a case against the US in the International Court of
Justice for the murder of its citizens on Flight 655. On February 22,
1996 though without admitting any responsibility or liability for the
incident and refusing to compensate Iran for the cost of the aircraft
itself which was worth more than US$ 30 million, the US did agree to pay
Iran US$ 62 million in compensation to the victims.

So, General Musharraf and Mr Aziz, when are we taking the US of A to court?

The writer is a banker
and freelance writer

____


[3]

The Observer
January 22, 2006

DESPERATE BRITISH ASIANS FLY TO INDIA TO ABORT BABY GIRLS

Women refused terminations on the NHS are joining the millions of
Indians who have surgery to uphold a sons-only tradition. Dan McDougall
reports from Delhi


Bringing up a girl, to quote a Punjabi saying, is like watering a
neighbour's garden - and it is widely acknowledged that India's
patriarchal society has long been based on a simple need for male heirs,
often at the cost of unborn females, who are widely seen as little more
than an economic burden.

As many as 13 million female foetuses may have been aborted in India in
the past two decades following prenatal gender checks. Hi-tech mobile
ultrasound technology, it seems, is responsible for sending millions of
women to backstreet abortion clinics across the country.

But abortion of female foetuses has long been a part of life in Britain
and The Observer has uncovered evidence that pregnant British Asian
women, some in effect barred by the NHS after numerous abortions, are
now coming to India for gender-defining ultrasounds and, if they are
expecting girls, terminations.

The medical procedure is called partial-birth abortion. After around 24
weeks in the womb, two-thirds of a full-term pregnancy, the foetus is
pulled from the mother feet first, up to the neck. The doctor then
creates a hole in the skull to take out the brain, making it easier to
collapse the head and take out the foetus.

'We can abort at over 20 weeks pregnant and the delivery of the foetus
at that stage is difficult,' says Dr Revati Mukundan matter-of-factly in
the neat offices of the Kalkaji Family Planning Clinic in south Delhi,
her clipped English making the matter sound clinical and routine.

'Certainly we can do it, but we would need to have specific grounds for
the procedure, and I can assure you a complaint about the sex of the
child is not a good reason. We have had a number of British clients, but
also clients from the Middle East and Germany. We offer a professional
and caring service.'

Behind her, in a waiting room, Ritu, 27, is fidgeting impatiently with
her scarf. This mother of two children from Leicester has come to India
while her husband, an engineer, has stayed with his family. With her is
a cousin she barely knows. Ritu is just over 14 weeks pregnant. 'I'm
here because we were already coming on holiday to see relatives,' she
says quietly, motioning her cousin away. 'I had an ultrasound here a few
days ago. It cost about £20 and we found out I was having a girl. My
mother-in-law suggested we aborted the baby because the family wants a
boy, but insisted we do it in Delhi. I've had an abortion in the UK and
she is worried the NHS won't let it happen again; anyway, it is cheaper
here - only £100 - and the doctors are excellent.'

Ritu says two of her aunts in Britain have had five abortions between
them in their quest for a boy. Both were eventually refused ultrasound
tests in Leicester and had them privately.

'There are clinics in Leicester that won't identify the sex of babies to
Asian women. They have a policy, they say, so more British Asians are
coming to India when they are pregnant to make sure everything goes to
plan. All I want to do is keep my family happy. My husband doesn't seem
to care. We already have two daughters and he agrees with his mother
that we need a boy, so I'm going through with it; I don't have any
choice. We are going on holiday after this and we will try again for a boy.'

There is more than anecdotal evidence that some British Asians are
timing family visits to Amritsar, Ahmedabad and Delhi with trips to
ultrasound and abortion clinics. For many couples in the UK, under
pressure from traditional extended families, multiple abortions at home
in their quest for male heirs are seen as increasingly risky.

Another case brought to the attention of The Observer is of Kulwant
Seghal, 37, not her real name, from Sheffield, who horrified her own
relatives by going to extreme lengths to give birth to a baby boy.
Despite having two healthy daughters, she felt barren for not having
produced a son and, above all, felt the scrutiny of her in-laws, in the
UK and India, over her perceived failure. When she finally had a boy
after three abortions he had a mental impairment so she is now trying
for a second son.

'I might have two daughters,' she told The Observer, 'but they don't
mean anything to me without a son. Who is going to look after me and my
husband, who is going to take care of the family business? No woman is
complete without a son.'

Asked about her son's learning difficulties, Kulwant goes quiet. A
relative says she may have had four abortions, the third on a trip to
India last autumn.

Last month, Saroj Adlakha, 59, a GP, stood in the dock with Shilpa
Abrol, 20, at Birmingham magistrates' court. The doctor, with a surgery
in the King's Heath area, is now on bail, alleged to have passed details
of a clinic in Barcelona to the young expectant mother, who had passed
the 24-week UK abortion limit.

A report by the Commons Science and Technology Committee conceded last
year: 'Some UK communities do have a decided preference for boys over
girls and permitting such choices leads to increased opportunities for
reinforcing sexist attitudes.' It cited research at De Montfort
University, Leicester, proving that a social need for male children,
particularly among Britons of Indian descent, was widespread.

Dr Sabu George, a gender rights expert based in New Delhi, said aborting
healthy baby girls was well documented among British Asians, and
multiple abortions for married Indians in Britain had become
increasingly common. 'The desire for boys transcends caste, social,
educational and economic status. One in seven girls in Delhi is killed
in the womb and the situation goes on in Britain, where the belief
systems are identical.

Only health centres and clinics in the UK, particularly those in Asian
communities, are now increasingly refusing to declare the sex of unborn
babies,' he said.

'It is getting complicated and becoming an issue of a "right to know",
but permissiveness by these clinics leads to abortions and the doctors
working in them are digging their heels in. This is why we believe more
and more British Indians are coming here for abortions.'

Another key issue is the development of gender pre-determination
technology. Senior members of the Asian community in Scotland have
called for the closure of a gender selection clinic in Glasgow after it
placed adverts in the Punjabi press exploiting the preference for boys.

There is little dignity to be found in the small queue outside the
entrance the Kalkaji Family Planning clinic. Shivering in the freezing
night air in thin shalwar kameez, the painted nails and gold sandals of
the women look out of place in this Delhi suburb. There are no men in
sight. The damp, windowless basement they are waiting to descend into
has three rooms. The teenage nurse there gave The Observer a tour
earlier in the day. Patients are met in a dark hallway and taken to an
examination room where they lie on bedsheets stained brown with blood
and urine.

Next door is the operating theatre where, under a flickering sodium
light, they are clamped on to a medieval-looking iron operating table,
padded with a thin foam mattress. Strapped into two worn leather leg
stirrups, the patient can see jars of formaldehyde or broken glass
phials on metal surgical trays. The last thing they see before leaving
the clinic is the thick layer of mould growing on the ceiling of the
recovery room.

The abortion costs 1,000 rupees (£13). It takes less than an hour
between the initial examination and returning to the street. The
majority of the women in the queue are married and are giving up healthy
unborn girls under pressure from husbands or other relatives.

Dr Puneet Bedi, a foetal medicine specialist in Delhi, said: 'People
don't look at this as a life or death issue, or even as an ethical
question. It's just an extension of our consumer culture. If someone can
afford to buy a Mercedes, they feel they can afford to secure themselves
a son.

'There is a common saying among Indians, Ladka marey kambakth ka; Ladki
marey bhaagwaan ki (It is a fool who loses his male child and the
fortunate who loses a girl). It's the logic these people hold and they
will keep going until they get what they want, a son.'


____



[4] [ON THE RE-NAMING OF CITIES IN INDIA]


The Times of India
January 8, 2005

NOTHING BEYOND VIRTUAL REALITY

by Alok Rai

  The move to name — or rename? — Bangalore as Bengaluru seems of a
piece with the reactionary attempts to redress, through a form of
hypernominal activism, the taint of time, the "wounds" of history —
similar to the way in which local street names are changed along with
changing political regimes.

This tendency must be resisted. There are more important things to be
done — better that roads be maintained and cleaned than that they be
renamed.

Not less important, there is irreplaceable cultural value in that
patina, that depth of resonance which can only be acquired through
time's slow che-mistry.

And yet, respect for the achieved and given world must be balanced
against the also-human desire to register one's passage, to leave a
mark, to modify that which is given and resist that which is imposed.

Time, then, to ask Shakespeare's question — what's in a name? Because,
clearly, something is. It used to be called Priya Square, but in these
heady, headlong days, that name itself might well be retro now.

  Particularly in Priya Square. This is the open space in front of the
Priya multiplex in Delhi's Vasant Vihar.

With large stores emblazoned with the iconic brands of international
consumption — Nike and Baskin Robbins and Levis and the inevitable
McDonald's — this enclave in south Delhi is an enchanted space for a
certain kind of young person — because as soon as one steps in here, as
one bubbly young thing was heard remarking loudly, India khuttam! Across
this magic threshold, India stops, and one is instantly transported to,
well, Byzantium, with...

The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees... and soft,
relentless, muzak in the neon-lit arcades of the shopping mall. It's not
true, of course.

India is still present, in the famished shapes soliciting alms, the dark
children with stick-like limbs, weaving unseen and unregarded through
the throngs of the well-heeled, devouring their ice-creams and their
accessories with hungry, angry eyes.

It would be unfair to suggest that all forms of the globalisation
fantasy — or aspiration — take such gross forms.

  The CII ideologues are vastly more sophisticated, but even in their
accounts of that globalised future which is simultaneously desirable and
imminent, the transition from an all-too-present present to the
gleaming, glamorous future is always visualised as smooth and
streamlined, lubricated by a miraculous coincidence of desire and
possibility, so that everyone gets what they want, and there are no
losers and no costs.

That this infantile fantasy should have acquired so many adult believers
is one of the great mysteries of our time. It's not difficult to
understand the desire to escape from this world of weariness and woe.

After all, the more dire the misery becomes, the less likely it is to be
relieved in the span of the one and only lifetime that is given to us.
And, so the sages have told us, what cannot be cured must be endured.

So we endure, with ready stoicism, the misery of others. But that escape
— sought even if not achieved — exacts a price. The "global" sheen has
effects that go well beyond the surface.

The call-centre hacks who acquire slick tele-identities along with their
shaky accents are common knowledge.

  One can easily imagine the damage caused by the social dislocation
that results from working a graveyard schedule to suit the convenience
of customers in American time-zones — so that the only other people one
can know are the similarly afflicted, other denizens of the night-world
in which they are Bob and Carrie and Chuck and Robbie, au fait with
cultural trivia derived, I'm told, from a pedagogic exposure to Friends.

The real damage, however, results from the hollowing out of oneself. It
is generally understood that identities exist in relationship with other
identities, in matrices of ascription and recognition.

Identities acquire density through being implicated in everyday social
networks, in the quotidian interactions of the pre-global world.

But the virtual identities of this world — of which a kind of "English"
is the lingua franca — are altogether different. They are lightweight
and elective, and commit one no more than does the choice of a silk
shirt — perhaps even less.

The resultant cultural desolation is camouflaged in an ideology of
rootlessness, a celebration of a shiny glo-balised world that, in more
senses than one, exists beyond gravity.

Pico Iyer identified the new "post-imperial" culture thus: "...English
is the lingua franca, just about everywhere is a suburb of the same
international youth culture, and all countries are a part of a unified
CNN and MTV circuit, with a common frame of reference in McDonald's,
Madonna and Magic Johnson".

In this ideal world, the lightness of being is not merely bearable, it
is actually desirable. Of course, not everyone can be a part of this
world — and there might even be some who do not wish to be part of it —
but to the ideologues of globalisation, such people are mere living
relics, and their cultural hankerings obstacles in the seamless
transition to the future.

 From such a position, even a relatively harmless symbolic gesture such
as the renaming of Bangalore in line with local pronunciation is seen as
dangerously retrograde, the thin end of the Luddite, future-denying wedge.

The writer is professor of English, Delhi University.

o o o

The Telegraph
January 22, 2006

THERE IS NO CAL BUT CAL!
- Calling cities by their private names
The Thin Edge / Ruchir Joshi

Adding to the mixture

I went to Bangalore for the first time last month, around the new year.
On the flight, a newspaper headline announced that the city was now
about to be renamed, or, rather, it was to revert to its ‘traditional’
name Bengaluru. Reaching Bangalore (or, “B’lore” to any sensible person
using a keyboard of any sort) I met up with two old school friends —
neither of them enemies of tradition per se — and we kept bursting into
laughter at the new name being proposed.

Something about the name brought out the schoolboy in all three of us
and the holiday was rife with jokes. Was the name-change proposed by a
local Bong? If not, why on earth would IT-rich, culturally proud, ’Digas
want ‘Bengal’ included in the name of their capital city? The second
half, ‘luru’, with a couple of letters added or changed, led to all
sorts of dormitory-humour, wisecracks unreproducable in a family
newspaper such as this, except it suffices to say that the tweaked
‘luru’ could play one way in the Hindi we all spoke, and another in the
Bangla with which we were all familiar.

On the flight back, a slightly more serious vein of thought asserted
itself. I remember clearly how angry I became when Bombay was officially
renamed Mumbai a decade ago, and again, when the same thing happened
soon after to Madras and then, finally, to Calcutta. Usually this anger
remains contained to a note I add when writing for newspapers and
magazines unfamiliar with my preferences, a note which requests everyone
to kindly leave alone the city names I use, such as Calcutta, Bombay or
Madras. But now, with the imminent adding of Bangalore to this list, the
whole issue rekindles itself for me and it’s about far more than just names.

The first fact, one that barely bears repetition, is that Calcutta and
Bombay, at least, were colonial cities birthed and brought up by the
East India Company and the British raj. Without going into the
well-documented crime that was Empire, we must not forget that both
these cities were, from pretty early on, cosmopolitan; the initial
populations may have been local, but by the mid-19th century, Bombay
belonged as much to Gujaratis and Parsis as it did to the Marathas and
the local coastal communities, and Calcutta belonged as much to bhaiyas
from Bihar and UP, and to the Marwaris as it did to Bengalis. The long
cusp of the 19th and 20th centuries saw the entry of many, many more
communities into both these megalopolii, and it is these succeeding
waves of immigration that made each city into what it is today.

Imagine a Bombay that consisted only of Marathis, or a Calcutta without
its massive working class from the Gangetic basin, without Sikh taxi
drivers, without a Chinatown, without a Badabazar teeming with Marwaris,
Sindhis, Gujaratis and Punjabis, or a Park Street and Free School Street
without Anglo-Indians, Armenians and Jews. Imagine, also, a Calcutta
without Europeans, not all of whom were Running Dogs of the Raj. Imagine
a raag consisting of only one note or a daal only spiced with salt. That
raag would not be a raag, that daal would not be a daal, and that
Calcutta would not be the city we know.

Now, nobody, save the Marathi-speakers and Gujaratis called Bombay
‘Mumbai’, and nobody except Bengalis, Oriyas and Assamese called
Calcutta ‘Kolkata’. Bombay/Mumbai/ Bambai (the latter with the short ‘a’
sound) and Calcutta/Kolikata/Kolkata/Kalkatta (ditto, short ‘a’s), (or,
my favourite, Kalkatwa, as in “Ei babua, ii t^o puraa Kalkatwa jaanbey
kari!’), were made into what they are by people for whom they were all
these names. No one, no Shiv Sena in Bombay or CPM in Calcutta, had a
right, therefore, to wipe out this nomenclatural history and reality by
privileging the local name used by the ethnic majority in the city.

The usual return of serve to this argument goes thus: the renaming of
India’s cities is part and parcel of the larger project of wiping out
our colonial hangover and re-asserting our national and regional
cultural identities; just as we do not need roads and squares named
after British officials we do not need our cities forever lumbered with
their raj monnikers, (many of them deriving from the goras’ inability to
pronounce simple Indian names such as Vadodara and Thiruvananthapuram).

There is one big problem with this. While I am all for changing ‘Road’,
‘Street’ and ‘Avenue’ to Sarani, Marg and Vithi, happy with the exchange
of Lansdowne for Sarat Bose and chortlingly happy with the kicking out
of Harrington in favour of Ho Chi Minh and the cancelling of Camac to
install Shakespeare, (or even ‘Sex Pyaar’ as one signboard notably
proclaimed), to my mind the same principle does not apply to city names.

This is because, a city, like a country, is a much larger, a much more
complex construct than a lane or a plaza. There is a reason why most
people reading this column probably did not pause to think twice about
my use of ‘India’ and ‘Indian’ in the previous paragraph but one:
‘India’, much more than ‘Hindustan’, ‘Bharat’, or ‘Bharatam’, is the
name that is now truly representative of the country we live in; it is
the one agreed name that diverse people from all over the country use
regularly and without quarrel, and, since the spread of cricket and
television, it is a name that is now freely used across city, small town
and even village; also, not unimportantly, now that we see ourselves as
deeply connected to the world, it is the name by which the international
community knows us and recognizes us.

Similarly, what a ‘Calcutta’ or a ‘Bombay’ signifies is a typically
subtle Indian way of eating your cake and having it too. What the old
names say, which Mumbai and Kolkata don’t, is: ‘yes, we come from a
colonial history, but also, yes, we have overcome that colonial past and
are confident enough to keep whatever is useful from that past, whether
it be the English language, our railway network, or, indeed, the names
of two of our most famous cities. Just as the name India provides a
nomenclatural umbrella to awesome diversity, so do the names of these
urban leviathans provide each a name-shelter under which all who have
contributed to that living city can live and continue to work.’

I also have another argument, one that many may see as converse to the
one laid out above, and perhaps perverse to the point of encouraging a
kind of verbal chauvinism. Basically, I come out in hives every time I
hear an Aussie or English cricket commentator mangle the names ‘Mumbai’
and ‘Kolkata’. (‘That’s a graayt inniings! That’s the 35th test hundrid
for the boy from Moomboy! Onbelievable, moyte!’), (`That cuvver drive
tells you why I call `im the Prince, the Prince oof Kulcattar!’) As a
Cal-raised Gujarati, when my parents and I travelled west we took the
Bombay Mail via Nagpur to…Mumbai. As a student abroad, feeling homesick
while talking to a home-based friend on an international call, I would
say ‘Guru, Kolkata’r shei bhaab-ta bhishon miss korchhi!’ Whether they
were named in Gujarati — ‘Kalkatta aney Mumbai’ — or spoken of in Bangla
— ‘Kolkata aar Bombei’ — these names were my names for cities that were
in typical, personal and secret ways mine alone, and these cities
answered me when I took their names, like a person answers to an
intimate nickname only when addressed by those family members licensed
to use it. No governmental clown had any business releasing these
private names into the bland, pronunciational mash-making machine of
world-speech.

In short, no matter which argument gets it for me, I want my Kolkata and
my Mumbai back. Which means my Calcutta and my Bombay also have to be
returned to me. It may be too late, and I may resemble no one more than
a Don Quixote on a recalcitrant buffalo, but it’s not too late for U.R.
Ananthamurthy, the well-known Kannadiga writer and intellectual who
apparently suggested the name-change for Bangalore. ‘U.R. saar, please
think saar!’, I say to him, ‘Please think before you lose both your
Bengaluru and your Bangalore!’



____


[5]


ANNOUNCEMENTS:

(i)

Anhad   Invites you to attend the
   NATIONAL CONSULTATION ON COMMUNALISM

   January 26, 27, 2006
   9am to 9pm
   at the Indian Social Institute, 10, Lodhi Road Institutional Area,
Lodhi Road, New Delhi-110001

   Supported by: Aman Samudaya, Peace and Sangat


   The communalisation of Indian society witnessed during the last two
decades has now entered a new phase.  After the election of 2004 the
Communal forces are regrouping and revising new modes to regain the lost
ground and to further their influence. Hate mobilisation against Muslims
and the attacks on Christians are being relentlessly pursued. The Sangh
schools continue to imbibe hate in young minds, through falsifying
history and demonizing minorities. Despite the schism within the
Parivar, the attempts at communalisation, undertaken by social-cultural
organisation is unabated.

   The election in the summer of 2004 was no ordinary election. The
people of India realised that its outcome would decisively influence in
many ways the destiny of the nation. This election could either return
and further legitimise, or else reject the band of determined, highly
motivated communal forces that had mounted an unprecedented assault on
and challenge to the secular democratic India.

   The Congress-led UPA alliance was catapulted to power by people who
had decisively rejected the politics of hate. The expectation was that
the new Government would recognize the significance of this moment in
our political and social history and that it would take immediate steps
to reinforce the secular democratic future of the country. Although some
steps have been taken particularly in the field of education, the
influence of communal ideology has not been effectively undermined.

   Gujarat still remains a blot on the secular image of India. Even
after four years, little has changed for the survivors of Gujarat.  The
legal justice is openly subverted and economic boycott and fear persists
for the victims of the carnage.  There is no rehabilitation package, no
measures to secure independent investigation, prosecution and trial.
Life has not improved in any way for the survivors of the carnage. More
than half of those displaced from their homes in 2002 are unable to
return, almost four years later.

   It was expected, as promised in the CMP, that the UPA government
would bring a legislation to prevent communal violence. The expectation
was that the law would strengthen the hands of citizens by codifying the
mandatory duties of the state to prevent and control communal violence,
and to secure compensation and legal justice. Instead, the proposed
legislation enhances the powers of the state which is likely to go
against the interest of the marginalized groups, particularly in states
where the communal forces control the governments.

   For the last few decades, people in different parts of the country
are fighting against great odds to defend the secular fabric of our
land. This battle continues despite changes in governments. Communal
parties like BJP may get defeated in elections, but the strength of
communal organisations like RSS is not affected. In this context it is
necessary to further – the secular forces and organisations.

   For this reason, it is proposed to bring together people who care
deeply  and are concerned about the survival of secular democracy in
India to meet in Delhi on 26, 27 Jan, 2006.

   This meeting is intended to take stock of the communal situation in
various parts of the country, particularly the steps adopted by communal
organisations during the last two years. Through such reporting we hope
to chalk out a future course of action to counter communal activities.

   This meeting would like to arrive at a possible future course of
action for secular interventions and bring into being a network of
communication among secular groups and activists. The meeting would also
explore the possibility of the formation of a monitoring group.

   Structure of the Two day Consultation:  Twelve sessions will be
distributed over two days. The morning session on both days will be a
two- hour consultation sessions, where activists working on each sector
will go into consultations on the specifics of the processes of
communalization in their sector of work.  Each consulting group will
have note takers and two to three felicitators who will guide the
discussion. Based on the discussions, the afternoon-evening sessions
will be report back sessions from each consulting group. Post report
back discussions will also be noted and added to the initial notes.

   Overall Chairs for the Consultation: Five senior academicians, social
activists would chair two sessions each.

   Sessions :

   Communalisation of:

    Adivasis
    Dalits
    Educational & Academic Institutions
    Cultural spaces and Institutions
    The State, Police, Administration, Judiciary
    Media
    Voluntary sector
    Obscurantism and Assault on Rationality and Scientific Thinking
    Minority communalism
    Women
    Political Parties , Political Organisations and Trade Unions
    Communalization of Indian Middle Classes


    Consolidation of findings. Discussion of report writing process and
timeline.
    Future Strategy.

   The final schedule of the two day consultation will be available at
the venue on January 26th morning.

   Note: 26th being Republic Day the route from the New Delhi Railway
Station would be blocked. All those coming by train should reach on 25th
evening.

   We have made arrangements for boarding and lodging at the Indian
Social Institute but only for 70 people and those many confirmations
have already come. We would appreciate if different groups can organize
their stay too apart from the travel, which is being supported by
participants themselves. In case you need us to organize the stay, you
must confirm latest by January 23rd.

   Those friends who have already sent in their confirmations need not
send it again.

   Looking forward to meeting you.

   Yours sincerely

   Prof .KN Panikkar
   Harsh Mander
   Shabnam Hashmi
   Biju Mathew

   Anhad
   4,Windsor Place, New Delhi-110001


o o o

(ii)


KALINGA NAGAR CHALO ON MARTYR DAY: 30th January 2006


Dear All,

The Vistapit Virodhi Jan Manch (VVJM) has called for a huge  Rally and
Public meeting at Kalinga Nagar on 30th January to establish  peoples
control over the land and natural resources  available in   Kalinga
Nagar area,   The adivasis still continuing their agitation for last 16
days. The economic blacked of NH200 has socked the state as this is the
major route for minerals to Paradeep port. VVJM has denied not parting
an inch of land for industries. They conveyed their unwillingness to the
government by not responding the so-called negotiation with the
administration. The VVJM declared not to sit any kind of discussion
unless their demand is accepted by the govt. immediately.

The VVJM has demanded

1.      To ensure that not a single person be displaced form
establishment of industries or any other development projects.

2.      Provide at least 5 acres of cultivated land to families those
who have been displaced in earlier projects.

3.      The tribal community itself will plan and develop with the
natural resources available in tribal areas.

4.      Do not allow monopoly houses and MNCs in the soil of Orissa.

5.      Release all the people arrested and put in different jails by
the police during agitations. Lift all the cases on VVJM workers  by the
police.

6.      Pay Rs. 20 lakhs to families who lopse their dear ones and Rs.
10 lakhs to those who got injury by police firing.

7.      Arrest and trial the Collector and SP of Jajpur District for
murdering the tribals. Suspend the immediately.

8.      Immediate expoltion of CM Naveen Pattanaik, Finance Minister
Praful Ghadai, Industries Minister as well as the mines minister  and
book them with charge of murdering  12 adivasis.

The public meeting will be held at DUBURI HAT MAIDAN at 12noon.
At 10 AM  people pay tibute to the matyres at VEER BHUMI  near Duburi
and from there the Rally will go to Duburi  where public meeting will be
held.

THE VISTAPAN VIRODHI JAN MANCH INVITES YOU TO ATTEND THE RALLY AND
PUBLIC MEETING AND STRENGTHEN THE STRUGGLE FURTHER.

How to reach DUBURI- Duburi  is 100 kms from Bhubaneswar. Bhubaneswar
and Cuttack is well linked with train and air. From Bhubaneswar or
Cuttack take private taxi to Duburi.  Bus goes up to CHandihkol
fromCuttack and you have totake private taxi form Chandikhole.

Thanks
    Nikunj

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

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.







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