SACW #2 | 15-17 Feb 2006 | Sri Lanka on the edge; Pakistan-Bangladesh Ties; India: Ramdev Nationalism, Sexist Judge Dhingra; Rajasthan-Sindh rail link

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire Part 2 | 15-17 February, 2006 | Dispatch
No. 2218


Contents:

[1] Sri Lanka: An Island on the Edge (Alex Perry)
[2] Pakistan-Bangladesh ties (M B Naqvi)
[3] India: Ramdev and Somatic Nationalism - Embodying the Nation,
Desiring the Global (Chandrima Chakraborty)
[4] India: 'It was a crime that I was born a woman' (Indira Jaisingh)
[5] Statements by Greens and Communists in France on Clemenceau, arms
sales etc
[6] Pakistan-India: On the Resumption of Rail Links Between Rajasthan &
Sindh (Seemant Lok Sangathan, Jodhpur, Rajasthan)
[7] Intervention on Religious Fanaticsm and Fascism in South Asia (SFU,
Burnaby,February 26, 2006)
				

____________________________________


[1]


Time Asia Magazine
Feb. 20, 2006

AN ISLAND ON THE EDGE
If last-ditch negotiations to save a faltering cease-fire fail next
week, Sri Lanka's 23-year-old civil war could resume in full force
BY ALEX PERRY | MULLAITIVU


JOHN STANMEYER—VII
A Shrine in Kililnochchi remembers a Tamil Tiger who blew himself up
rather than be captured by Sri Lankan soldiers

Sunday, Feb. 12, 2006
As she squats alone on the floor of her one-room hut, untwisting and
retying a torn fishing net, it becomes clear that Rosa Nobert, 43,
shares her days with the dead. The walls are hung with faded
photographs: her husband, shot and burned in his fishing boat by the Sri
Lankan navy; her two nephews, Tamil Tiger guerrillas killed in battle;
and 17 relatives, including 13-year-old daughter May Linda, washed away
by the tsunami. As Sri Lanka once more flirts with civil war, Rosa
expects she will soon be adding one more picture to her gallery of
ghosts: her 23-year-old son, Anthony. He joined the Tigers five years
ago and she hasn't seen him since. "I remember golden days here when I
was a girl," she says. "Playing on the beach, swimming, running through
the trees with my friends. I learned to stitch and sew under those
palms. I thought I'd be happy with whatever life gave me. I was wrong."

For two decades, Sri Lanka lived with war, as the Tigers fought for a
Tamil homeland in the north and east of the island. Now, after a
four-year cease-fire, many fear it is drifting back into full-blown
conflict. Norwegian facilitators have persuaded the Sinhalese government
and the Tigers to meet in Geneva later this month, the first time the
two sides have come together in three years. The sole item on the agenda
is to discuss better implementation of a cease-fire agreement, signed in
Feb. 2002, but which is now on life support. "There will be some pretty
important people from both sides there," says a Western diplomat in
Colombo. "And the hope is that if you get them together in a room,
they'll move onto the big picture." But the Tigers have already
threatened to pull out of the Geneva talks after suspected paramilitary
death squads kidnapped eight Tiger social workers on Jan. 29. For its
part, the government wants to amend the truce, which it claims gives the
Tigers too much freedom of movement. On that point, the Tigers won't
give an inch.

Nobert lives with the consequences of such mutual intransigence.
Mullaitivu, at the end of a spit off Sri Lanka's northeast coast, was
once a village of red-tiled bungalows, purple bougainvillea and powdery
white shores, where Tamil boatmen lived by shrimp-fishing and smuggling
coconut whisky to India. But when civil war broke out in 1983 between
the Sinhalese-dominated government to the south and the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (L.T.T.E.) based in the north and east, Mullaitivu
wound up on the front line. The village fell first to the Sri Lankan
army. Then in 1996 the Tigers took it back, wiping out a garrison of
1,200 government troops and losing 800 of their own in a single day.
After the two sides stopped fighting, Mullaitivu enjoyed three years of
peace. Then came the tsunami of Dec. 26, 2004, which killed 3,323 people
in the village.

Today, those left in Mullaitivu fear that war is returning. In the past
two months, rebels and their proxies have carried out assassinations and
deadly mine attacks on military convoys. On Jan. 7, a speedboat laden
with explosives was driven into a Sri Lankan navy pursuit craft anchored
a few hours south of Mullaitivu, killing 13 sailors. The Sri Lankan army
and its paramilitary allies behave little better, raping, abducting and
executing civilians thought to support Tamil nationalism. Both sides
accuse the other, explaining any killings carried out by their side of
the divide as forgivable retaliation. The violence over the winter
prompted the new international effort to prevent a lurch back into
all-out war. But Erik Solheim, Norway's International Development
Minister and the chief mediator in the conflict, warns that the Geneva
talks are unlikely to produce quick results. Sri Lanka, he says, won't
be "sorted out in a few months."
	
Sri Lankans seem to have quickly forgotten the spirit of cooperation
that flickered briefly after the tsunami. Across the Indian Ocean in
Aceh, the disaster persuaded guerrillas and the Indonesian government to
declare a truce and work together. Sri Lanka had a similar opportunity.
International donors pledged more than $7.5 billion in development and
tsunami aid—that's $375 for every person on the island. But bitter
squabbles over how to share the cash—last summer, nationalist Sinhalese
and Buddhist monks claimed giving aid to the Tigers legitimized
terrorism—only aggravated divisions. Hagrup Haukland, Norwegian chief of
the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, can barely contain his frustration
over the recent fighting. "It's madness," he exclaims.

Yes, but hardly new. The civil war killed 64,000 people from 1983 to
2001. Tamil rebels—who run their own shadow government, with courts,
traffic cops and a national anthem behind their heavily defended
borders—have long demanded that leaders in Colombo recognize their
sovereignty. The rebels say that if this is granted, they are willing to
discuss the establishment of a federal state. The government in Colombo
still insists on a unified state. Even if some sort of compromise is
reached in Geneva, President Mahinda Rajapakse, a Sinhalese nationalist
elected last year, might be hard pressed to sell it to the south.
Rajapakse was elected on a hard-line platform that promised to do away
with the cease-fire agreement. By agreeing to the talks, he risks
alienating extremist Sinhalese parties who want the Tamil uprising put
down with force and whose backing helped him win office.

The Tamil side has its own die-hard brigades. In a late-November speech,
rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran admitted he had intended to launch a
new offensive last year before the tsunami made it impractical.
Prabhakaran warned Rajapakse that he would attack within three months
unless the government recognized Tamil self-determination. "The Tigers
didn't even allow me to breathe," Rajapakse told TIME. "They attacked
within days [of the election]. They are trying to force us into war."

The Tigers deny responsibility for recent attacks on the army, blaming
them on spontaneous Tamil uprisings. Tiger political chief S.P.
Tamilchelvan says the Sri Lankan army and its paramilitary squads have
provoked such unrest. The Northeast Secretariat on Human Rights, which
receives some funding from the Tigers but is reputed for its
independence, has recorded the death of more than 70 Tamil civilians
since Rajapakse's election, killed by the army or plainclothes death
squads. The killings include the execution-style shooting of five Tamil
students, the assassination of a Tamil parliamentarian in church on
Christmas Eve, and the murder of a Tamil actress, her sister and mother
at home in Jaffna.

Should war return, its impact will be severe—but probably less so on the
southern beaches that are Sri Lanka's main attraction. Foreign aid and
investment will fall, as will tourist numbers. But Sri Lanka's economy
kept growing during the earlier years of war, and is in better shape
today than it was, now that a collection of boutique hotels has made the
island the favored destination of the long-haul travel crowd. Although
tourists may continue to enjoy Sri Lanka, if war is renewed, those who
live there year-round will continue to have their aspirations for peace
thwarted. Haunting the island is the possibility that neither side in
the conflict is able to rise above its worst instincts, and that two
decades of ferocious conflict may have brutalized the island beyond
repair. Says a European diplomat in Colombo: "Killing is how Sri Lanka
does politics." Father Gnanapragasam Peter, who runs a mission for the
Catholic aid charity Caritas, concurs. "Neither side," he says flatly,
"cares for the people."

It could have been so different. Dayan Jayatilleka, a former visiting
scholar of South Asia Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies in Washington D.C., says he was amazed in the days
after the tsunami to see soldiers donate blood for Tamils. "I thought,
'My God. There is hope. Underneath all this hate and suspicion, there is
a humanity to us.' It was a magical moment. Then it was gone."


____


[2]

The News Internationaal
February 16, 2006

PAKISTAN-BANGLADESH TIES

M B Naqvi

The writer is a veteran journalist and freelance columnist.

Begum Khalida Zia, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, ended her Pakistan
visit yesterday. Her mission could only be to foster Pakistan-Bangladesh
ties. The relations between the two, all said and done, remain distant
and less than normal. There is little enthusiasm in either country for
more cooperation or closeness. But Bangladesh also wants to see progress
in its Saarc project and some more trade on preferential terms. That
requires Pakistan's cooperation. What the visit has achieved is not,
despite several MOUs and agreements, something to write home about.

Begum Khalida's visit may have something to do with the unending
political warfare between Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party
in the context of national election later in the year. Could it be that
by appearing to forge closer ties with Pakistan, she hopes to
consolidate BNP's electoral position?

The second context is the delay in SAFTA's implementation. Technically
it is both India and Pakistan that are responsible for the delay. In
reality, it is Pakistan which continues to have reservations about free
trade with India; especially repugnant to Islamabad is India's desire
for the passage of Indian goods to and from foreign countries through
Pakistan, so long as the Kashmir issue remains unresolved. But all
members of the Saarc are aware that Kashmir and SAFTA are serious
matters. If the SAFTA is not implemented that will be the start of the
unravelling of Saarc. It cannot long survive without SAFTA's
implementation. Clear-cut decisions are needed now. Bangladesh was the
first to advance the idea of Saarc and wants it to take off.

What keeps the two countries distant is history: the origins lie in the
manner in which Bangladesh emerged out of the troubled womb of Pakistan.
It was born amidst tears and bloodshed. 1971 signified that the much
tom-tommed Muslim Nationalism foundered on the rocks of race, language
and culture. That bitterness has yet to dissipate fully. The
relationship between the two peoples can best be described as a
love-hate relationship. There are elements that unite the Bangladeshis
and the Pakistanis. But there are also strong memories of a bloody civil
war that sundered their close unity in pre-1971 period. The latter is
strong enough to keep them away from each other. These factors must be
clearly stated and understood.

Doubtless, in the larger historical perspective the peoples of
Bangladesh and Pakistan have had many commonalities. But the question
has become controversial in terms of the interpretation of that history.
In the context of emerging Indian nationalism in the 19th century that
was largely secular, Muslim Separatism had its formal birth in Dhaka in
the shape of Muslim League, a body of nawabs and Talukdars and of course
landlords, big and small. Even poor tiny-sized landlords liked it as a
godsend. Through the ups and downs of three decades, the Muslim League
evolved its Two Nation theory in 1940s and began working for Pakistan.

Of all the areas constituting Pakistan today, most were those which were
not of keen concern. Those who were fascinated by the Pakistan idea and
were most enthusiastic were the Muslims of Bengal who chose to reject
India's secular Indian nationalism and preferred to become associated
with the western provinces of India where the Muslims were in a majority
but had different ethnicities. The motivation of Bengal ML was at the
bottom to mainly get rid of Hindu landlords while Muslim leadership in
Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP was primarily big-sized landlords
who opted for Pakistan mainly to preserve their properties and privileges.

The history of turbulence in Pakistan is well known to the people of
Bangladesh as well as Pakistan. The crisis of federalism versus a strong
centre obsession of the ruling elites in Pakistan came to a head in the
1971 civil war when Pakistani generals refused to accept the popular
verdict of East Pakistan. That dovetailed into an India-Pakistan war in
which Pakistan was decisively defeated and broke up.

The question now is, with this background, what is the demand of
statesmanship on the leadership of both Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Hitherto taciturnity at state level has been the outstanding reality.
Meet a common Bangladeshi, and other things being equal, he is likely to
be ambivalent: he tends to embrace the long-lost brother and the very
next moment he is apt to remember what that brother did 34 years ago. He
is repelled. He loves as well as hates Pakistanis. The Pakistanis also
exhibit the same characteristic. This is where matters stand. There have
been perfunctory attempts to mend fences before. None took off. One
ventures to suggest that politicians and diplomats have been ignoring
the vital context: it is India.

It may be true that the 20th century boundaries of India had resulted
from the long British efforts to unite all the areas of India's
civilisational and cultural sway under their sovereignty and suzerainty
(in some states and places). But a civilisational homogeneity of the
region called South Asia today was and is a fact, having taken thousands
of years to evolve. The common bonds between Bangladeshis and Pakistanis
came into being by being parts of that common civilisational space -- ie
as parts of India's social and political evolution. Thus without Indian
participation -- and which in practice now means closeness in Saarc --
the idea of these two, Bangladesh and Pakistan, becoming friends would
remain far-fetched and prone to a worsening of ties.

That opens up a large historical question: can ties among Pakistan,
India and Bangladesh become normal and productive for common good
without a communal reconciliation of the Muslims and the Hindus? India's
secular idea was acceptable one hundred per cent before 1940 to all
Muslims. They only put certain demands to be met before going whole hog
in creating a single progressive and vital entity of India. These
demands were basically about language, culture and provincial autonomy.

But the reality underneath ML in West Pakistan was an anxiety on the
part of Muslim elites not to let Indian National Congress carry out its
supposed programme of eliminating absentee landlordism. And Bangladeshis
ought to know better because their very first major action -- abolition
of absentee landlordism -- alienated West Pakistan's landed aristocracy.
That was the cause of Pakistan's undoing. Grandees of West Pakistan
destroyed democracy to prevent the Bengali majority coming to power.
Landlords in the west killed democracy -- and that killed Pakistan.
Pakistan remains dominated by the same social elites. The social bases
for a close relationship between Bangladesh and Pakistan do not exist.
Can new ties be created?

The question is how? One thinks that it cannot be done without India
being a part of first an entente cardiale as a part of general
reconciliation of the common people of all three countries, in fact all
the people of the Saarc. Without the Indian context, there would be no
meeting ground between Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The state in Pakistan is now sustained by the military and an ideology
of Islamic solidarity that had manifestly failed to keep Pakistani
Muslims united and today politics in Pakistan is split along ethnic
lines. The politics of the Pushtoons is distinct from the politics of
the Punjabis, which in its turn is distinct from those of Baloch and
Pushtoon nationalists. Old historical forces should be allowed to help
bring about a grand historical reconciliation. This new idea can only be
a secular and democratic one. The Hindu Rashtra, the Muslim Nationalism
and even hard ethnic constructs need to be fused into a larger
Saarc-wide homogeneity in secular democratic pluralism and economic
development.


____


[3]

Economic and Political Weekly
February 4, 2006

RAMDEV AND SOMATIC NATIONALISM
EMBODYING THE NATION, DESIRING THE GLOBAL

Guru Ramdev's defence of his fitness/health programme on moral,
anti-western and anti-capitalist grounds, while reminiscent of
orientalist and Gandhian discourse, now appears in consonance with his
claims to legitimacy based on the degree of penetration of such
"tradition" into the global market.

Chandrima Chakraborty

The popularity of Guru Ramdev’s fitness programme broadcast daily on the
Aastha television channel is a demonstration of how Hindu “ascetics” in
contemporary India are dipping into a new era of the fitness consumer.
The rising spending and purchasing power, an increasing exposure to
international markets, as well as the growing consciousness of urban
consumers have resulted in spending on fitness goods and services like
never before. The expanding middle class forms a lucrative market and
cable television programmes are increasingly geared to meet their social
and lifestyle aspirations. Thus, advertisements for fitness clubs and
products along with programmes promoting yoga, aerobics, pilates, and
tai chi are increasing on Indian television. A proliferation of
spiritual channels (Aastha, Sanskar, Sadhana, God and Q TV) where
ascetics give spiritual, religious and fitness lessons has also taken
place. Hindu ascetics seem to have recognised both the recent boom in
the fitness industry in India and the global market for yoga and Hindu
spirituality. They are trying to carve a niche for themselves in the
fitness industry by packaging yoga for the educated, professional
classes and promoting it as a means of empowerment through which people
can take control of their bodies and their health.

Of the recent television gurus, Ramdev has emerged as an influential
proponent of “traditional” Indian medicine. He primarily teaches yogic
breathing exercises (pranayamas) and promotes ayurveda as effective
medicine. About one million viewers watch the daily broadcast of his
yoga classes on television. He is recognised as the motivating force
behind the Rajasthan government’s recent decision to make yoga a
compulsory subject in schools; Madhya Pradesh, Uttaranchal and
Chhattisgarh could soon follow suit. His permanent camp at Haridwar and
his weeklong yoga camps held all over India are attended in the
thousands. His Divya Yoga pharmacy, which manufactures ayurvedic
medicines, is doing brisk business.1

Ramdev’s unique distinction as a new-age fitness guru lies in his
linking of civic bodies to the nation’s body politic. Unlike urban
fitness clubs, Ramdev’s daily fitness lessons mixed with spiritual
instructions seek to improve the national health through daily practice
of yoga. He promotes yoga and ayurveda as alternative and effective
medicine as opposed to biomedicine or allopathy. He offers his fitness
regimen as a national programme for the improvement of the nation’s
health and for a redefinition of the “self”. His yoga ‘shivirs’
(training camps) aim to attain a collective, national perfection. He
promotes a somaticised religio-nationalism as an alternative lifestyle,
which, in turn, aids the ideological work of Hindutva. Yoga, Ramdev
claims, can eradicate undesirable traits, control desires, and assist
the cultivation of a new nationalist subject in this era of
globalisation. At the same time, his anti-globalisation rhetoric coupled
with an assertion of “Indianness” is in tension with his aspirations for
counter-hegemony.

Somatic Nationalism

Ramdev posits the bodies of Indians as the primary site for transforming
India through discipline and education. He teaches yoga to his
disciples/trainees as the precondition for the possession and nurturing
of desirable qualities, such as health, strength, and youthfulness. He
views the health of the nation as organically tied to individual bodies
and souls and presents fitness as a psycho-spiritual well-being rather
than as a merely physical well-being. He conflates the crisis of
physical disease with the crisis of cultural disease. For him, the
malaise of the human body is a reflection of the malaise of the national
body in a globalising era. In his view, the construction of the
yoga-practising citizen will enable a reconstruction of the true
“Indian” self that has been lost in modernity. The recovery of health
and “traditional” Indian values is interlinked in his drive for national
self-improvement and for a redefinition of “self”. His life’s mission is
to bring forth a “nirjara” (disease free) and ‘swasth’ (healthy) nation.

Ramdev’s discourse on national health echoes Mahatma Gandhi’s advocacy
for the practice of pranayama, the importance of breathing fresh air,
and doing regular, moderate exercise to build a nation of healthy
citizens.2 It is also resonant of Gandhi’s critique of western medicine
as an instrument that made Indians dependent on and subject to colonial
policy. In Hind Swaraj, Gandhi constructs an opposition between
biomedicine, as a quick fix to alleviate symptoms but with only
temporary effects, and Indian medicines’ more holistic and spiritual
approach that views illness and health as caused by a mind-body
connection. Indian “traditional” medicine heals slowly and requires
greater self-control on the part of the patient, but it ultimately gets
to the root cause of the problem and rids the body of the disease.3
Reminiscent of Gandhi, Ramdev asserts that his fitness programme enables
individuals to control their bodily desires, which prevents disease and
nurtures their spiritual well-being. He recounts his own miraculous
recovery from childhood paralysis to visibly embody the benefits of
yoga.4 He presents his yoga-practising body as a built body – an
achievement made possible through control of the mind and bodily
practices. He invokes the Gandhian binary of biomedicine versus Indian
systems of medicine: his herbal medicines that he insists are more
holistic with the promise to rejuvenate and heal versus biomedicine, a
temporary fix that depletes the body and soul. Yoga, Ramdev argues, is
an easily available, low-cost, alternative and effective medicine that
can bring about a permanent cure. He promotes yoga for both wellness and
specific health issues and calls for increased medical self-competence.
The ineffectuality of biomedicine coupled with increasing incidence of
modern diseases justifies the self-proclaimed ascetic nationalist’s
assumption of the “duty” to prescribe yoga, acupressure, and herbal
remedies to the ill and the “enlightened” (devotee/viewer/fitness trainee).

Ramdev sees the nation as sapped of its strength by globalisation (=
westernisation) and in need of rejuvenation and disciplining. His
mission is to replace weak bodies and modern diseases reflecting modern
forms of indulgence with fit and beautiful bodies. He imagines a new,
youthful India embodied in the discipline associated with the practice
of yoga. He suggests an investment-oriented attitude towards the body;
youthfulness is not natural but self-produced through bodily practices.
The daily practice of yoga, he claims, can stop, and, in many cases,
reverse the ageing process (natural glow of the skin will be retained;
grey hair will turn black; in some cases the elderly will grow new
teeth). Thus, he harnesses the fitness industry discourse to popularise
his yoga-in-thirty-minutes programme. But he de-emphasises the looks of
the body in favour of the functional benefits of yoga. Ramdev’s
programme is not merely a personal self-care and spiritual-development
regimen, but a way to create a nation of fit/healthy citizens. He holds
Indians responsible for the nation’s present condition and its future
recovery. The success of self-improvement and self-care falls upon the
shoulders of every citizen. He offers lessons in social issues,
scriptures, and mythology without any opportunity for the listener to
interject, respond, or seek clarifications. Only a complete submission
of the self to the fitness and spiritual instructor can bring forth a
healthy and fit nationalist subject. The daily performance of pranayamas
and a disciplined diet promises miraculous transformation of both
distorted individual bodies and minds and the modern nation.

The notion that exercise and fitness define a total way of life is not
new. But Ramdev problematically equates exercise with control over
health. He affirms that if people have patience, they can be entirely
disease free; it will take time to heal from serious or long illnesses
(polio, paralysis, asthma, diabetes, depression, AIDS, and so forth).
This discourse effectively assigns individuals the responsibility of
societal problems regarding ill health. As Pirkko Markula (2004) notes
in the context of “mindful fitness”, such “a justification can easily
turn into a disciplinary practice where participation in fitness becomes
an individual’s responsibility for reducing such mental-health problems
as stress, depression, and anxiety, but leaves the underlying social
origins for these problems untouched”. Ramdev’s advocacy for a simple,
healthy lifestyle and his vision of public health in India as a
low-cost, easily available, self-treatment rings hollow for a majority
of Indians. For the starving masses tormented by hunger, the
prescription to regularly drink milk and eat fresh fruits and vegetables
or fast once a week is both ludicrous and cruel.

Evidently, the poor have no place in Ramdev’s health programme. In
contrast to biomedical doctors, who charge exorbitant fees, Ramdev
presents himself as rendering his services free of cost for the national
cause. He repeatedly reminds his fitness trainees/viewers that his
Patanjali Yogapith will be run at a minimal cost-recovery, no-profit
basis. Yet, the high membership rates for his weeklong yoga camps and
the Yogapith-under-construction suggest that very few Indians will be
able to partake of his fitness and medical services. In fact, his
attempt to situate his body practices in the discourse of the wellness
industry and routinise institutional practices that are elements of the
modern research system indicates his preferred consumer profile.

Ramdev describes yoga and ayurveda as “traditional sciences practised by
our great hermits”, which he learnt in gurukuls.5  Through a combination
of the “ancient” science of yoga with “modern” medical science, Ramdev
seeks to convince literate, westernised Indians and western consumers to
shift their allegiance from biomedicine to ayurveda and yoga. To court
contemporary techno-savvy consumers, he makes yoga and self-cure
remedies available through cassettes, CDs, books, television, and the
internet. He endorses confession as a motivational strategy and invites
participants to confess their lifestyle excesses.6 Clinical trials,
patient-recovery data, and interviews with star achievers seek to
establish the merits of his medicine. The aim is to motivate viewers to
adopt yoga as a regular lifestyle activity and thereby successfully
redirect consumption practices to suit his needs.

Hinduising the Nation

Given television’s crucial role in circulating narratives and symbols of
collective belonging, Ramdev’s significance needs to be located in a
wider reading of cultural and political hegemony. It is noteworthy that
Ramdev promises to give Indians the power to control not only the
microcosm of the body but also the macrocosm – the nation. In order to
compete with biomedicine, he self-consciously frames his fitness/health
discourse as a national programme that is both secular and universal. He
suggests that pranayamas that prevent stress and tension should be done
before every session of the Parliament, so as to bring serenity into the
minds and hearts of political leaders. Training the police force in the
art of pranayamas will similarly calm minds and increase concentration.
He urges Indians across age, gender, religion, and class boundaries to
practise yoga. “Illness crosses all sectarian boundaries, so does yoga.
But if you do pranayama for half an hour daily, you will never fall
sick”, he asserts. He broadcasts interviews with Muslim
physical-education teachers and Muslim participants in his yoga camps,
who have embraced yoga for both wellness and fitness. Despite such
strategies, Ramdev’s promotion of a somaticised religio-nationalism as
an alternative lifestyle contributes to the Hinduisation of the nation.

His fitness consumers are primarily Hindus from west and north India,
who speak Hindi and share the religious mythologies and belief systems
that he draws upon to popularise yoga and ayurveda. Dressed in saffron
robes, he sits on a raised open stage on the background of a saffron
screen that prominently displays the om symbol, and often images of
Swami Vivekananda, Krishna and Rana Pratap. The strategic mixing of
mortal and divine heroes serves as visual reminders of Hindu masculine
and martial prowess of the past.7  His daily lessons usually conclude
with patriotic or devotional songs accompanied by rhythmic clapping of
hands in order to benefit from acupressure! Interestingly, these songs
are either taken from old Hindi films or patriotic and devotional lyrics
are set to popular Hindi film music. This not only ensures their mass
appeal, but also facilitates north Indian (Hindi) devotional songs
mostly devoted to Ram and Krishna to pass as “national”. Further,
Ramdev’s spiritual and anti-globalisation rhetoric continually invokes
Krishna and Ram and idioms from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. This
enables Hindu religious symbols and tropes to enter the collective
consciousness, thus aiding the ideological work of Hindutva.

Ramdev gives his yoga lessons every morning and evening in open public
spaces and encourages viewers to collectively practise in parks.
Disciplining the body is a public display of obedience and discipline,
breaking bad habits, and self-care/self-cure. The yoga shivirs, similar
to the 19th century Anusilan Samiti ‘akharas’ and the Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ‘shakhas’, provide the foundation for the
construction of a somatic nationalist bond through shared bodily
performances. Even when one does pranayamas in the confines of one’s
living room, members of the yoga camps and the ascetic instructor
visible on the television screen motivate the viewer to perform. The
daily vision of a community of sufferers actively engaged in body
practices in different parts of India creates an imagined, somatic
community. Further, with Aastha now available in Canada and in the US,
the ascetic as fitness instructor is contributing to the dissemination
of a hinduised-Indian diasporic imaginary.

Modernising Yoga, Healing Modernity

Ramdev’s model of bodily practices seeks to counter the negative effects
of globalisation on Indian bodies/souls and the body politic. He urges
Indians (and others) to shift their allegiance to his cost-free “Indian”
treatment of pranayama-for-30-minutes every day and stop buying foreign
goods. He utilises western typologies of yoga as Indian tradition and
orientalist idioms of Indian medicine as spiritually attuned,
anti-materialist, and non-violent in contrast to biomedicine to enhance
the transnational appeal of yoga, but subverts such modes of knowledge
by framing yoga as a competitor to biomedicine. Ramdev has explained the
recent allegations of selling “adulterated” drugs as “a conspiracy” of
multinational companies. Many of his yoga-camp participants, he argues,
have stopped consuming western products such as cold drinks. Irked by
their loss of sales, Ramdev alleges, MNCs have started “this false
campaign”. His self-professed resistance to MNCs and articulation of
Indianness to local, regional, and international audiences employs a
discourse of authenticity and antiquity. The linking of a reinstatement
of yoga and herbal medicine to both a recovery of “Indian” culture and a
recuperation of “Indian” resistance to the west are attempts to mask his
own globalising aspirations.

Indeed, Ramdev is actively modernising yoga as a modern, international
fitness regimen. He is aware that traditional medicine has a lucrative
global market and his cures for consumerism denote a longing to
transform discourses of health into commodified regimens of medicalised
self-help. His defence of his fitness/health programme on moral,
anti-western, anti-capitalist grounds while reminiscent of orientalist
and Gandhian discourse is now consonant with claims to legitimacy based
on the degree of penetration into the global market. His vision of the
future includes foreigners coming to his Yogapith for treatment, the
entire world embracing yoga, and herbal remedies and cow urine being
exported to US. Thus, his health/fitness programme extends from
recuperating individual health and curing illness to healing modernity
itself. Yoga and ayurveda emerge as effective “native”/“Indian”
antidotes for both modern lifestyles and modern pharmaceuticals; the
only global alternative to resist degeneration of mind, body and soul.

Email: chandri at mcmaster.ca

Notes

[Research for this article was made possible by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada’s postdoctoral fellowship.]

1 Employees at Divya Yoga pharmacy have been complaining against
dismissal procedures and various wage-related issues for a number of
months now.
2 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, 100
Vols, Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting,
Government of India, 1951-95, Vol 11, p 449; Vol 30, p 551; Vol 31, pp
188-353.
3 Gandhi later detracted from the ferocity with which he condemned
biomedical practice. See, for example, his letter published in Young
India, January 1921 and printed in Hind Swaraj (Navajivan Press,
Ahmedabad, 1938).
4 According to his own account, in his childhood he suffered paralysis
on the left side of his body. The only visible sign of the illness today
is his slightly shrunken left eye. The Aastha-USA programme website
introduces Ramdev thus: “The leading Yoga Master attracting millions of
practitioners. He was a paralytic till he took to Yoga. Now he teaches
it as a complete Medical Science guaranteeing major if not total relief
from various ailments, e g, obesity, diabetes, migraine, stress,
depression, asthma, hypertension, etc”
http://www.aasthatv.com/fpc-aasthausa.htm.
5 Ajay Uprety, ‘Interview/Guru Ramdev’, The Week (August 28,
2005),http://www.the-week.com/25aug28/currentevents_article10.htm
6 Fitness is portrayed as a way to protect oneself from diseases,
dependency on medicines and doctors, unhealthy lifestyle (overeating,
lack of exercise), degeneration of morals, consumerism, et al. Ramdev
often claims that in one day he can change the food habits of children
(such as desire for Coca Cola, pizzas and burgers) and teach them
“traditional” values (primarily, respect for parents and elders).
7 Ramdev usually does not explain who helps in the organisation of his
yoga shivirs. Each of his yoga camps is well equipped with stages,
loudspeakers, LCD screens, flute and other musical accompaniment and
thousands of participants are seen neatly seated in rows. Sometimes at
the conclusion of a particular shivir Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu
Parishad (VHP) members are thanked for their help and support along with
numerous local and government patrons.

Reference

Markula, Pirkko (2004): ‘‘Tuning into One’s Self’: Foucault’s
Technologies of the Self and Mindful Fitness’, Sociology of Sport
Journal, 21, p 319.

____

[4]

Rediff.com
February 13, 2006

'IT WAS A CRIME THAT I WAS BORN A WOMAN'

by Indira Jaisingh

While on the one hand, the judges sympathise about violence against
women, on the other hand women lawyers are disrespected in the very
temple of justice.

Navratna Chaudhary, while appearing in the court of Justice S N Dhingra
on January 7, 2006, was told by the judge that he knew how women lawyers
make it, implying thereby that they use immoral means.

The lawyer who is fairly senior at the bar was shocked by his words. She
requested the judge not to use words which would outrage her modesty.
Promptly came the reply, "You have no modesty to outrage."

There are several witnesses to the incident, including male lawyers with
more than 40 years experience at the bar.

Apparently, Justice Dhingra was called by the chief justice of the Delhi
high court for an explanation.

It appears that though he has admitted that some unpleasant exchange of
words did take place, he denied using specific words attributed to him
by Chaudhary.

What could have led a well-respected judge to say things like this?

I can only think of the fact that he was outraged by the ongoing strike
by the lawyers in Tis Hazari who are protesting against the bifurcation
of the court.

Whilst I don't agree with the lawyers' strike, the judge must know where
to draw the line.

It is one thing to be angry against striking lawyers and deal with them
professionally; it is another thing to disrespect women at their place
of work.

In an amazing show of solidarity, women lawyers have approached the
chief justice of New Delhi high court with three demands.

1. That a departmental inquiry should be conducted against the judge for
misconduct in accordance with the Vishakha guidelines. (A judgment
related to sexual harassment at the workplace.)

2. That the chief justice of the New Delhi high court should grant
permission to prosecute Justice Dhingra.

3. And, that contempt of court action should be taken against the judge
because when Chaudhary sited a judgment of the high court, the judge
refused to look at it because he claimed he didn't recognise such
judgments. They also demand that pending the inquiry, Justice Dhingra
should go on leave.

While it was the Supreme Court that laid down the guidelines to prevent
sexual harassment at the workplace, the courts themselves have always
taken the view that this judgment doesn't apply to them.

There have been cases where women judges have been harassed by male judges.

In Rajasthan, a Dalit lady judge has been demanding justice at hands of
the judiciary for being sexually harassed by a male judge.

The battle promises to take on an all-India character. Women lawyers are
now demanding that a committee for sexual harassment should be set up in
all courts across the country.

At the heart of the controversy is the issue of great importance to
women -- the right to be treated with dignity at the workplace.

The incident illustrates that woman lawyers are not taken seriously.

On the contrary, they are viewed as women who have no business to be in
the courtroom and are not considered as professionals.

It is indeed a sign of backwardness in thinking among the legal
establishment.

With what confidence can a woman litigant expect justice from the court?

While on the one hand, we continue to pass legislation to 'protect'
women on the other hand, at the ground level, women are discriminated
against for being women.

As Chaudhary told me, "It was a crime that I was born a woman and a
further crime that I decided to become a lawyer."

Today, she is deeply disturbed woman. The only ray of hope is that women
lawyers from Tis Hazari have rallied around her and are determined to
carry this issue to a logical conclusion. The Delhi Bar Association and
the witnesses have stood by her.

On Monday, between 12 and 2 pm, women lawyers will demonstrate outside
the New Delhi high court.

I have decided to join the dharna because the issue raised goes beyond
Navratna Chaudhary.

They pertain to the accountability of the Judiciary in this country.

Indira Jaising is a New Delhi-based constitutional expert

____


[5] (As Chirac heads to India, one battle by spirited citizens in India
and France has been won; To avoid facing protests in India and growing
opposition in France the Clemenceau has been recalled by France.
A lot remains to be done at the Indian end. India's shameful minister of
environment who backed the coming to India of that toxic ship should be
sanctioned; Concerned citizens and autonomous media should mobilise
their energies against arms vendors accompanying Chirac and their
natural allies in India, its defence and nuclear establishment who have
an un-ending appetite to sell and buy weapons that kill. India is
already armed to the teeth; its citizens need basic human security. So
lets get on with this difficult job against India's national security
maniacs and their international allies--SACW)


CHIRAC IN INDIA
STATEMENT OF THE FRENCH GREENS (District 93)

The French Greens (Les Verts) of Seine Saint-Denis, or "District 93"
which can pride itself for its international cultural diversity, see
India as a great nation which is in its own way a protective obstacle
against the worst kind of ultra-liberalist, capitalist globalization.
Once known as the pioneer of the movement of non-aligned nations, India
still enjoys respect for political and social traditions set by leaders
like Mahatma Gandhi.

The Greens have worked in solidarity especially with struggles for
ecological, especially food  autonomy, against the appetites of
multinationals pushing GMOs in agriculture, and who see India as a
source of royalties, with utter disregard for the lives of millions of
small peasants, or for India’s ecological diversity.

L'affaire Clemenceau, where the symbol of a French militarist past, the
aircraft carrier stuffed with cancer-causing asbestos is headed for
India, is a significantly revealing illustration of the division of our
earth into different kinds of zones. Developing nations must become
dumping grounds for our weapons and our poisonous trash, and the
“developed” world (but what growth is more “sustainable” than the
spiritual..?), must plunder the resources and wealth of our common
mother earth.

After long years of scandal and exposure about the horrors and ravages
of asbestos in France, French know-how and legislation in matters of
asbestos decommissioning is now widely recognized. Choosing to dump our
poison onto a country which has not developed adequate means to protect
its workers smacks of the worst kind of cynicism, blatantly in
contradiction with European legislation.

Jacques Chirac, “Vice-President, Sales”, is carrying a sack full of
sophisticated arms to show off before his Indian hosts. But how can he
sell arms to India without Pakistan feeling justified in wasting its own
sparse resources in buying more to ensure a balance of terror? Is this
the dharma of France, known as the motherland of Human Rights? Oh
Marianne! How can you reap a harvest of peace when you sow the seeds of
war?

The Greens wish to build a world confederation of nations marking out
geographical zones based on regional autonomy and local self-sufficiency
characterized by sober and sustainable development respectful of all
forms of life (Ahimsa), because man is only one aspect of life on earth.

President Chirac’s visit to India can be seen only as a symptom of a
world built on the dying values of productivism and deadly,
profit-obsessed exploitation, which is leading the world to its ruin.

But building another world is possible … and urgent.

10th February 2006

(Les Verts 93) French Greens (Federation 93)
Contact :
lino.ferreira1 at wanadoo.fr
dabin.gerard at neuf.fr

o o o

JACQUES CHIRAC IN INDIA (20-21 Feb. 2006)
Declaration of the French Communist Party's District 93 (Seine
Saint-Denis) Federation

French President Jacques Chirac will soon be in India on a state visit.
The District 93 Federation of the French Communist Party considers such
relation-building to be of the utmost importance, knowing how long this
great nation of Asia has been ignored by successive governments of our
country. But today we must ask : "Going to India, for what?"

Our relations with India have been tarnished by the tragic "Affaire
Clemenceau" : this French aircraft carrier, stuffed with dangerous
cancer-causing asbestos, is on its way to its grave in Gujarat. The port
of Alang there is a place where not just ships, but men too, are trashed
and pushed to their graves. Conditions of work and safety are a picture
of horror, wages are shameful, toxic waste and pollution is everywhere.

India has lately been in the headlines for another reason too :
L'affaire Mittal Steel, where the hostile bid to gobble "our own"
Arcelor giant was turned by French leaders into a xenophobic anti-Indian
campaign, drawing the attention of both French and Indian workers away
from the real issue -- democratic control over industry in the context
of a rat-race between capitalist raiders for the quickest profit.

This is the ugly face of globalization as they understand it, provoking
rivalry and competition between the poor and the poorer, even in India,
all to the advantage of rich raiders.

What a shameful loss of face and wealth for France ! The French
authorities are packing off our own dangerous poison for treatment in a
developing country. Knowing full well that it is here in France that we
have developed the the safest know-how concerning the treatment and
disposal of asbestos, they have chosen to dump this poison callously
onto a country which hardly offers state-of-the-art safety to workers
dismantling asbestos, indeed ordinary safety measures even in other
fields of industry.

The real aim of Chirac's visit is to sell French goods. And what is our
chief sales manager taking to India in his glossy catalogue ? A range of
sophisticated French armament, which will immediately push Pakistan to
buy more of the same, to ensure a balance of terror.

Is this what the people of India and Pakistan need ? Or would they
rather have durable peace and friendship amongst neighbours? What is
urgent is a political settlement between the two. And, after the recent
catastrophes - tsunami, earthquake - humanitarian aid and cooperation
should be the priority. Do the Kashmiris need our killer Mirages and
Rafales, or rather French medical know-how and other relevant skills?
Millions of Indians and Pakistanis living in poverty would have
employment, health and education higher on their list than French
instruments of death and horror.

The PCF 93 Federation calls upon President Chirac to open a new chapter
in Franco-Indian relations, built around education and culture, health
and ecology, cooperation and sustainable development, to replace the
relationship until now preferred by our cynical leaders, where military
encounters are preferred, whereas it is the cultural encounters that the
citizens of Europe and Asia eagerly await.

Pantin, 6th February, 2006

French Communist Party (Federation 93)
14, rue Victor Hugo 93500 PANTIN www.93.pcf.fr


____


[6] Pakistan - India:

ON THE RESUMPTION OF RAIL LINKS BETWEEN RAJASTHAN & SINDH

Seemant Lok Sangathan, Jodhpur, Rajasthan				

The Seemant Lok Sangathan, Jodhpur, extends a very
hearty welcome to all the passengers of the first
train from Sindh to Rajasthan since 1965 which starts
on the 18th of February, 2006. We also extend our best
wishes to the passengers of the first train from
Rajasthan to Sindh in more than four decades. We hope
all of you, in your own ways, will carry the message
of peace and love between the peoples of our two
countries.

We regard the inauguration of the railway link between
Sindh and Rajasthan as a major step in the normalizing
of relations between India and Pakistan. Sindh and
Rajasthan have historically had very close cultural,
religious, economic and political relations. In the
wake of the Partition in 1947, numerous people from
Rajasthan migrated to Sindh and from Sindh to
Rajasthan. Today, there are thousands of families in
Rajasthan and Sindh, both Hindus and Muslims, who have
relatives living across the border. The restoration of
train links between Sindh and Rajasthan will be a
great blessing for these divided families and will
also contribute to re-building cultural and economic
links in the region that were disrupted as a result of
the Partition.

The Seemant Lok Sangathan is a community-based
organization located in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, with
volunteers in different places in western Rajasthan.
For almost a decade now we have been working with
recent migrants from Sindh living mainly in western
Rajasthan. Through our advocacy and mobilisational
efforts we have been able to get the Government of
India to introduce suitable policy changes to provide
Indian citizenship to some 13,000 of these migrants,
living mainly in the districts of Rajasthan bordering
Sindh. We have also been demanding a suitable
rehabilitation policy for these migrants.

Currently, we are in the process of expanding our
activities to include the following:	

·	Promoting various cross-border peace initiatives and
cultural links between India and Pakistan.

·	Promoting communal harmony in the border districts
of Rajasthan, including highlighting shared religious
and cultural traditions that bind people of different
religious communities together.

·	Working for modification of visa rules to allow for
easier travel between India and Pakistan to enable
people from both countries to visit their friends and
relatives in border districts.

·	Raising the issue of liberalizing visa rules to
allow for pilgrims from India and Pakistan to visit
holy places located in the other country.

·	Taking up the issue of Indian and Pakistani
nationals languishing in jails in Pakistan and India
respectively even after having served their full
sentence.
·	Highlighting the need for SAARC countries to
cooperate with each other to address the problems of
refugees.

If you would like to know more about our work or if
you are interested in participating in the mission
that we have taken up, please contact the following:

Hindu Singh Sodha
President
Seemant Lok Sangathan
2, Dilip Singh Colony
Near UIT
Jodhpur-342001
Rajasthan (India)
Tel: 0291-2626171
email: hssodha at gmail.com


____


[7]

Dear friends:

We invite you to a Public Forum of SANSAD:

Intervention
Religious Fanaticsm and Fascism
in South Asia

   Sunday Feb 26, 2006, 2-5 pm
              SFU Harbour Center, 515 West Hastings, Room 1900


Four years ago, on February 28, 2002, the entire State of Gujarat in
western India was engulfed in a highly organized and state-backed
genocidal masscre of Muslims. Over three thousand innocent citizens of
India were slaughtered by organized fanatics, many women were gang-raped
and chopped into pieces, and over a hundred thousand became refugees in
their own land. Gujarat was declared a 'Laboratory of Hindu Rashtra'.
The same political party and its Chief Minister Narendra Modi are still
ruling the State.

In Pakistan, 40,000 Pakistani military personnel are stationed in
Baluchistan, where hundreds of Baluchis and scores of Pakistani
soldiers have already been killed in a region of immense strategic
importance where US and Chinese interests are likely to collide. More
recently, the area has been used by the US to manage its "war on terror"
in Afghanistan and would likely be used in the event a full-scale
invasion is contemplated in Iran.


The  Baluchistan Question in Pakistan
Mr. Imran Munir, Senior reporter for a National English daily
newspaper in Pakistan and currently a PhD
candidate at SFU.

The Gujarat Genocide: Four years Later, and Other "Gujarats" in the Making
Dr. Hari Sharma, Professor Emeritus at Simon Fraser University, and
president, SANSAD
(Dr. Sharma recently returned from an extended fact-finding visit to India)

And we proudly present

Dr. Angana Chatterjee
Department of Social and Cultural Anthropolgy, California Instutute
of Integral Studies
Dr. Chatterjee has published extensively on
globalization, nationalism, and religious fundamentalism (See for example,
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9485). Most recently
she was a co-Convener of the Indian People's Tribunal on
Hindu Majoritarianism in Orissa.
Dr. Chatterjee will speak on
Violent Gods: Hindu Supremacy in India's Present

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

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.