SACW | 7 March 2006 | India-US ties; Golwalkar, Communalism in Gujarat and Goa, Hindutva peddlers in California repelled

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at mnet.fr
Mon Mar 6 21:33:21 CST 2006


South Asia Citizens Wire | 7 March, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2227


Contents:

[1] India-US ties after Bush's visit: A Global bully as a friend?
(Praful Bidwai)
[2] India: M.S. Golwalkar: Conceptualizing Hindutva Fascism (Ram Puniyani)
[3] India: New tensions on the political scene (Harish Khare)
[4] India: They Hate Us, We Fear Them – The Situation In Gujarat (Asghar
Ali Engineer)
[5] India: Communal Violence in Goa: Neros in Khaki
[6] US - India: Victory over Hindu nationalists in California textbooks
rewrite (FOSA)
[7] How Does California Teach about Hinduism? (Romila Thapar, Michael
Witzel)
[8] Announcements:
Books:
- Secularism, Communalism and the Intellectuals by Zaheer Baber
Events:
- A Festival of Films by Asian Women Filmmakers (New Delhi, March 7-8, 2006)
- Discussion > Transforming India: The Employment Guarantee Act and Its
Promise for the Poor (Washington,March 9)


____________________________________


[1]


Kashmir Times
March 6, 2006

A GLOBAL BULLY AS A FRIEND?
INDIA-US TIES AFTER BUSH'S VISIT

by Praful Bidwai

The Indian urban middle class has a confused, contradictory and
schizophrenic attitude towards the United States. Going by an opinion
poll commissioned by Outlook magazine (March 6) among lower-middle class
and higher strata in nine cities, 66 percent believe that President
George W. Bush is a "friend of India". Yet, 50 percent believe
Washington is "closer to Pakistan" than to India! (Only 30 percent think
the opposite is true".) Strangely, 49 percent think this "friend" hasn't
done "enough to help India" in fighting terrorism." But an even larger
55 percent believe "India can trust the US for support in times of need."
As many as 72 percent of respondents think the US is a global "bully".
And a good 59 percent think India has "compromised on its foreign
policy" by getting too close to America. And yet, 46 percent "love the
US". (Only 14 percent "hate" it.) Seventyfour percent think that India
should "link itself with the US" on trade and business issues, although
their interests diverge on these. The middle-class person's logic isn't
consistent. Fiftyone percent approve of India's two pro-US votes against
Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency. But 64 percent think
India should "ignore Washington's objection and pursue the
Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline." They obviously don't realise that
India's anti-Iran votes have set back the pipeline's prospect.
A survey last June by the US-based Pew Research Centre confirms that
India's middle-class is remarkably strongly inclined towards the US. As
many as 71 percent in this all-urban India sample have a favourable
opinion of America-the highest proportion among the 16 countries
surveyed. Only 41 to 45 percent in most Western European countries have
such a favourable opinion, barring the UK (55 percent). The percentage
is 42 in China, and a miserable 23 in Pakistan.
It's a safe bet that poor people, who constitute a majority of India's
population, are far more critical of Washington. India's upper crust is
probably much more enamoured of the US than its middle class. This elite
is now severely recasting and re-aligning our foreign policy in
Washington's favour.
The Bush visit offers eloquent and irrefutable evidence for this. Most
of the agreements the US President signed were negotiated in secrecy and
without adequate discussion with the concerned ministries. Our
policy-makers, starting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, demonstrated
evangelical zeal in re-aligning India with the US while giving up even
the pretence of independence. It's as if they lived in a fantasy or
make-believe world and become blind to the character of the US as a
power in desperate search of a global Empire, and to Washington's
disastrous role in spreading insecurity and instability in the world,
including most volatile region, West Asia-North Africa, as well as our
immediate neighbourhood.
This assessment is not based on knee-jerk anti-Americanism or mindless
nostalgia for non-alignment. It derives from an analysis of the driving
forces behind contemporary US foreign policy and actions. The US is
today engaged in an aggressive project to reshape the world. Various
statements of this orientation are available in the public domain,
including the "National Security Strategy of the US" and "Nuclear
Posture Review" of 2002, a total of 44 National Security Presidential
Directives signed by Mr Bush, "Strategic Command" documents such as
"Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations", and reports of the National
Intelligence Council, including "Mapping the Global Future" (December 2004).
The US wants to establish "full-spectrum" dominance in all strategic
areas and prevent the emergence of a potential rival or alternative
power-centre anywhere, including most importantly, Eurasia. It wants
unfettered neoliberal or "free-market" globalisation. To achieve this,
the US must control strategic resources like oil and gas and reject any
proposals for limiting consumption. Washington is prepared, indeed
eager, to beat back any challenge to its economic, political and
military hegemony by waging, if necessary, preventive or pre-emptive
wars-an indefinitely "long-war", as defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld
put it. Washington won't brook any resistance to its designs.
The most articulate formulation of these designs is the Neoconservative
manifesto, "The Project for a New American Century" The Project seeks to
indefinitely prolong the "unipolar moment" which arose with the Cold
War's end, when the greatest state-level challenge to America collapsed.
The primary means by which this is to be done shall be military-not
least because the US's military prowess exceeds that of any other power.
Indeed, US defence spending, now $450 billion-plus, exceeds the military
expenditures of the next 14 nations put together.
Under Mr Bush, the Neocons have emerged as the most powerful group in
command of US policy. It's impossible to delink their influence from
specific US actions-the terrible mess in Iraq after its occupation, or
the rush to further develop weapons of mass destruction, the atrocities
in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay, refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol
and the International Criminal Court treaty, or pushing an iniquitous
agenda in the World Trade Organisation and other forums. It's impossible
to understand the logic of these actions without reference to
Washington's larger strategic goals.
To achieve these, the US must build a system of alliances which
neutralises all rivals and dissenters and co-opts previously
recalcitrant states-be they "Old Europe" (which temporarily defied the
US on Iraq), or Russia and other former Communist states. Such alliances
must contain or counter possible challenges which might arise from anywhere.
That's where formerly non-aligned India comes in. The US has been trying
to recruit India into a "partnership"-among other things, to counter
China. India's strategic location between West Asia and Southeast Asia,
and her emergence as an economic power, place it in a special league.
That's the fundamental rationale of the US offer last year to "help
India become a great power in the 21st century"-the fountainhead of
agreements like the India-US nuclear deal and defence cooperation
framework of last year, and the Bush visit itself.
India has dutifully reciprocated America's overtures. Ashley Tellis, a
senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has
appreciatively listed some of these, including India's enthusiastic
support for Mr Bush's Ballistic Missile Defence ("Star Wars") plans even
before his closest strategic allies backed them; India's silence over
the abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty; its offer of
military bases for the US war in Afghanistan after 9/11 (something it
never offered to the USSR despite the Treaty of Peace & Friendship);
endorsement of the US position on climate change, including its latest
avatar, the "Asia-Pacific Partnership"; helping the US get rid of a
Third World director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons; and of course, the September and February votes
against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency.
To these must be added the 30 India-US military exercises involving all
three services, 50 high-level military conferences; $990 million worth
of arms imports; issue of 1,320 licences for arms transfers; and close
strategic relations with Israel at Washington's behest. India maintained
a deafening silence on the 2002-03 US campaign for war on Iraq-right
until the day before the invasion, when the Opposition forced a
resolution through Parliament. Worse, in 2004, India came close to
sending a whole division for Iraq's "stabilisation".
Bush's visit further consolidates this partnership. The agreements
signed during it, while important, are much less significant than its
overall thrust and character, which is strategic and comprehensive,
covering civilian nuclear cooperation, economics, agriculture, space,
scientific research, energy, nano-technology, the Container Security
Initiative (which mandates intrusive checks on shipments for supposedly
"anti-terrorist" purposes), and not least, medical drug trials (using
Indians as guinea-pigs).
Many of these agreements are downright unequal and one-sided. Some will
tend to undermine multilateral arrangements like the Climate Change
Convention. It's futile to rationalise them as being in India's
"enlightened national interest." In a greatly asymmetrical relationship,
the stronger partner always calls the shots, the weaker partner follows
his agenda, on terms set by him.
All that India will have gained if the nuclear deal goes through and is
ratified by the US Congress-a far-from-certain prospect-is acceptance
and legitimisation for its weapons of mass destruction and second- or
third-rate status as a US ally which acts as Washington's junior
policeman in escorting "high-value" US cargo to the Straits of Malacca
and otherwise provides logistical support for US strategic operations.
We must pause and ask if the cost involved-a complete betrayal of the
Gandhi-Nehru legacy of peace and abandonment of the UPA's promise to
return to the global nuclear disarmament agenda and fight for a
multipolar world order-can ever be worth the price.
The question might be irrelevant for the worshippers of nuclear weapons
and defenders of the "right" to visit mass destruction upon unarmed
civilians. But for us citizens, it matters. In the long run, morality
and universal values relevant to making the world a better place cannot
be divorced from worthy foreign or security policies. The India-US
partnership runs against such values. Soon, we'll find that we cut off
our nose to spite our face.




____


[2]

sacw.net  >   Communalism Repository
March 6, 2006

http://tinyurl.com/ot9wa


M.S. GOLWALKAR: CONCEPTUALIZING HINDUTVA FASCISM

by Ram Puniyani

Beginning this twenty Fourth February, RSS combine has undertaken
programs in different parts of the country to celebrate the centenary
year of RSS second Sarsnghchalak (supreme dictator), Madhav Sadashiv
Golwalkar, known in Sangh circles as Shri Guruji. What are going to be
the implications of this celebration? To answer this, we will have to
delve into the work of Golwlakar, who penned a small book, 'We or our
Nationhood Defined' (We…), which gives an outline of his ideology and
later his articles were published as a compilation, 'Bunch of Thoughts'.
In both these books and also in various other outpourings of his, he
denigrates democracy and pluralism on one hand and upholds fascist
concept of nationhood and sectarian version of culture on the other. His
writing is most intimidating to the minorities in particular. He was the
chief of RSS for 33 long years and was instrumental in giving RSS a
direction, which assumed menacing proportions in times to come, and
strengthening the foundations of the 'hate minorities' ideology
resulting in the consequent waves of violence, undermining the
democratic norms in the society. He can also be 'credited' with giving
the sharp formulations which laid the ideological foundation of
different carnages in the country.
[. . . ] .

FULL TEXT AT: http://tinyurl.com/ot9wa

____


[3]

The Hindu
March 6, 2006

NEW TENSIONS ON THE POLITICAL SCENE

by Harish Khare

The cause of secular India is ill served by any appearance of
acceptance of religious mobilisation.

LUCKNOW HAS a long history of periodic Shia-Sunni conflicts, but not of
Hindu-Muslim violence. On Friday, the city witnessed a Hindu-Muslim
standoff, ostensibly related to George W. Bush's visit to India. Hardly
anyone in Uttar Pradesh believes the State Government did not know what
was cooking in the sensitive areas of the city. And now tension is
building up in other towns and cities across the State.

All this in the name of Muslim anger at Mr. Bush, the United States,
the West, and the Manmohan Singh Government's Iran policy. First an
Uttar Pradesh Minister promised to reward anyone who beheaded the Danish
cartoonist. Now a senior Muslim cleric in Bareli has announced a reward
of Rs.25 billion for anyone who beheads President Bush.

According to Amar Ujjala, the Uttar Pradesh-based Hindi newspaper,
Maulana Tankir Raza Khan, a senior Barlevi Sunni cleric, has said that
every Indian Muslim would be happy to fork out Rs.99 each towards this
fund. According to the Maulana, as there are 25 crore Muslims in India,
the total purse would add up to just about a few lakhs less than Rs.25
billion.

The violence in Uttar Pradesh is the direct outcome of the deliberate
stoking of Muslim anger. Mr. Bush is gone but there are long-term
issues, which the democratic polity has to sort out, sooner than later.
The secular leaders must have watched with considerable embarrassment
that the Jamat-e-Ulema-e-Hind was able to mobilise last week in Delhi a
turnout five times larger than what the Communist Party of India
(Marxist), the Communist Party of India, and the Samajwadi Party could
muster among them. Smaller groups have managed impressive Muslim
turnouts in other cities.

Not spontaneous

Secular leaders cannot possibly be so naïve as to believe that these
turnouts are spontaneous expressions of Muslim anger against whatever is
happening in Iraq, Geneva or Copenhagen. Someone has to be paying for
this entire mobilisation. The security agencies are reported to be
keeping close track of the growing interaction between West Asian
chancelleries in New Delhi and Muslim political entrepreneurs.

After 9/11, the Sangh Parivar thought it had the licence to import Mr.
Bush's categories of enemies and friends; secular India spurned the
Parivar's attempt to replicate a Bush-inspired civil war at home.

Now, in a strange twist, in the secular theology Mr. Bush's enemies are
becoming our best friends, who are deemed to have a better claim on our
attention and policy than our own judgments.

There can be many secular reasons for castigating the Manmohan Singh
Government for voting against Iran at Geneva. But the cause of secular
India is ill served by any appearance of acceptance of religious
mobilisation. In the heat of the moment, the secular voices seem to
concede that it is legitimate for the Shias to agitate in favour of Iran
against an Indian Government. Of course, all those who castigate the
Indian Government for having voted against Iran take care to invoke
issues such as "autonomy in foreign policy" and "American blackmail," etc.

Even at the Bareli rally, Maulana Tankir Khan while announcing a reward
for Mr. Bush's head took care to throw in a fit of indignation at the
American sniffer dogs' presence at Rajghat.

Iran, the Danish cartoons, Hamas, Abu Ghraib are orthodox
clergy-centric and clergy-inspired passions and cannot possibly be the
Muslim masses' agenda.

Sober and liberal Muslim voices certainly do not think so. In a letter
to editor in the latest issue of the Milli Gazette, J.S. Bandukwala, a
distinguished retired professor at MS University, has courageously
asked: "Where are Muslims headed? There is hardly any attention to the
actual problems facing the community: absence of quality education, lack
of jobs, increased ghettoisation, the introduction of dowry, and the
poor health of women due to frequent pregnancies that are aborted. Most
important is the widening disconnect between orthodoxy and a modern
scientific society."

A responsible political leadership is obliged to ponder whether the
secular polity stands to gain if Muslims are seen as being encouraged to
aggressively organise themselves on religious issues.

The reaction

The reaction will not be far behind. The reaction of the middle classes
has already been on display. It is no coincidence that all those who
raised their voices against the so-called "Muslim census" in the armed
forces are the very interests that favour the nuclear deal with the
United States, endorse the vote against Iran at Geneva, lobby for
modernisation of airports, and believe in unlimited privatisation.

The great Indian secular project stipulates taming of religious
passions and discourages a tapping of special religious claims. If this
nascent trend of Muslim mobilisation on non-Indian issues is not bucked,
the Praveen Togadias of the Sangh Parivar will feel that their idiom of
religious mobilisation stands validated. What is sauce for the goose is
sauce for the gander. All the secular gains of recent years are in
serious jeopardy.


____


[4]

Secular Perspective
March 1-15, 2006

THEY HATE US, WE FEAR THEM – THE SITUATION IN GUJARAT

by Asghar Ali Engineer

The situation in Gujarat is afar from normal even more than three years
after carnage of 2002. The situation, particularly in rural areas is as
Harsh Mandar, former IAS officer and prominent activist for communal
harmony in Gujarat put it “they (i.e. Hindus) hate us and we (i.e.
Muslims) fear them. As any psychologist will know hate and fear are not
normal human situations. Hindus, particularly, those of Sangh Parivar,
hate Muslims and Muslims, particularly those who suffered in 2002
carnage, fear the Hindus.

The Gujarat carnage was unprecedented in the history of communal riots
in independent India. Never such communal violence took place with so
much active collaboration of the state. There never was so much hate
campaign against minorities in the history of Independent India as in
Gujarat. There is no let up in the hate propaganda even now. The prophet
of hate Pravin Togadia is spearheading this campaign.

Generally the guilty of communal violence are not punished but the
Gujarat Government has broken all records in this respect also. They
closed down all the cases; soon after the carnage saying no evidence is
available. It was only after the intervention of the Supreme Court that
these cases were reopened, more than 2000 of them. The police are
generally partial but in Gujarat it acted almost like a Hindutva force.
It openly took part in killing and looting though there were some honest
and committed officers who were rendered ineffective by transferring
them to administrative posts or to those areas where there was no rioting.

All this is history now. The present situation is no less worrisome.
Harsh Mandar and some of us sat together to evolve a strategy for
effective intervention. More than 50% refugees are still unable to
return to their villages. Many of these refugees are rotting in ghettoes
created after the carnage. They want to return to their villages but are
afraid to go back. They are threatened or blackmailed to withdraw the cases.

There are heart- rending stories. Those who have returned live in fear
and total isolation. No one talks to them, no one invites them, no one
even looks at them. So scorned they find it difficult to live there.
Villages are small units of population and quite interdependent. In big
cities one can live in such situation but not in small villages. These
victims say we can live even with economic boycott but not when everyone
hates us or neglects us.

All this is due to hate campaign going on by VHP and Bajrang Dal cadres.
Other political parties just do not exist including the Congress. Even
if it does, it dare not speak up. There is no effective intervention by
social activists. The NGOs are as much polluted by communal poison. They
either hate Muslims or are totally indifferent to their fate. Harsh
Mandar wants to develop some module of active intervention to bring
Muslims into village mainstream again.

The Congress at the Centre is not bothered. The Congress workers at the
state level are more in sympathy to the BJP than to minorities. Some
NGOs working in cities like Ahmedabad may have sympathy for Muslims but
not those working in rural areas. We put our heads together and try to
evolve some ways to effectively intervene to bring about some
interaction between Hindus and Muslims.

The Hindus are not real obstacle in general, but militant Hindu
organisations. They have acquired high stake in hate politics. They
collect money in the name of protecting and promoting Hinduism (read
Hindutva). They bring money for ‘welfare’ of Dalits and tribals and use
it for hate campaign among them and for Hinduising dalits and tribals.
Thus these weaker sections of Hindu society also have become part of
Hndutva campaign.

These dalits and tribals, even when not in agreement with Hindutva
campaign cannot speak out as they also have to live in the same village.
They cannot afford to earn hostility of upper caste Hindus. Thus Muslims
are totally isolated.

Harsh Mandar tells us that Mrs. Malika Sarabhai has agreed to develop a
cultural package for rural areas. She will give cultural performances
with message of peace and harmony, with no overt propaganda. Malika
Sarabhai had taken very bold stand against Narendra Modi and Narendra
Modi left no stone unturned to harass her. But she stood up courageously.

This will be followed up by screening the Film Gandhi to further
consolidate the message of peace and non-violence. This could be
followed by inter-community dialogue after carefully selecting villages,
which are more prone to the message of peace. It is undoubtedly a slow
process but there is no short -cuts in such matters. Hate and suspicion
are easy to create but difficult to remove.

Also, there are thousands who have not been able to re-enter their
villages after the carnage. What about them? This is even more
challenging. Either they are not being allowed to enter or they are
allowed conditionally – withdraw the cases in the court. Thus it becomes
question of justice and survival. If they want justice – and it would be
long to come by, if at all it is delivered – or their immediate
survival. They have to choose between the two.

Many are inclined to choose the later – survival, but many are
determined to get justice. Either way it is very challenging. Unless
state helps nothing can be done. As pointed out state itself is involved
in perpetrating injustice. A booklet recently published by Yusuf
Meherally Centre and Aman Biradari, states, under the subtitle “Planned
Subversion of Justice in Gujarat”, “There has been injustice and
partisanship by state authorities in India in communal situations in the
past. But never in independent India have state authorities treated a
segment of its citizens with such open consistent and elaborate
structured discrimination, as has been observed during the state
sponsored pogrom of 2002 and its aftermath, in defiance of every
civilised principle of justice and the rule of law.” (p-9)

The logic of this situation is simple. If the state thinks of giving
justice (which it will never) it will go against itself. Because it is
state, which is primarily responsible for whatever has happened in
Gujarat. And state will never go against itself. It will be totally
discredited politically. Modi still indulges in clever attacks on
Muslims of Gujarat. When some babies were born to women in refugee camps
he had said satirically in one of his speeches that I cannot run baby
producing factories for them (i.e. for Muslims).

And recently, a month ago, again he observed, while launching a health
camp that what happens to these Muslim women’s purdah (veil) while going
for easing themselves in the morning (outside their houses). He
basically considers Muslims as enemies, not citizens of his state. It
has been well known that even in Ahmedabad in Juhapura Muslim area, no
buses stop, no bank and school facilities are available. Even foreigners
are treated with more respect.

Thus as long as Narendra Modi is in command and BJP is in power, one
cannot expect justice for Muslims and even for Christians at the hands
of the state. And the civil society in Gujarat less we speak better it
is. To the civil society of Gujarat the words of Martin Luther King Jr.
(quoted by the said booklet) are quite apt: “In the end, we will
remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
The deafening silence of Gujarat civil society is more conspicuous by
its presence.

And irony of the situation is that there is no other way but to rely on
some civil institutions – whatever available – for promoting awareness
for justice for the victims of the Gujarat carnage. In many ways the
present post-carnage situation is worse than when violence was taking
place. It was visible and people from other parts of Gujarat could
protest and pressurise.

Today these injustices are quite invisible and intolerable. It requires
constant campaigning to make these injustices visible. As it falls with
the state subject one cannot even ask the Central Government to
intervene. Judiciary can and did. But there is limit to what the
judiciary can do. The whole administration is in the grip of the Modi
government. Civil servants or bureaucracy also cannot be expected to move.

Thus some NGOs like Aman Biradari are campaigning for justice. They are
training what they call nyay pathiks i.e. barefoot justice activists who
are being imparted paralegal training to work among the victims of 2002
carnage. These nyaya pathiks are drawn from amongst men and women of
different castes and communities. They will be mostly from working class
and farming communities.

Some nyay pathiks may work full time and may be given some monetary
compensation but most will work part time and on voluntary basis. Also
there will be need for students and youth and other activists for
engaging with the campaign for peace and harmony. There is also need to
bring about reconciliation in the spirit of forgiveness. The majority
community should be brought about to say sorry for what happened and
victims should show generosity to forgive. That perhaps will show the
path for long -term peace in Gujarat.


____


[5]

Communalism Watch
March 5, 2006

COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN GOA:
NEROS IN KHAKI

The BJP ignites a minor incident and has fuelled
hatred that has snowballed into full blown communal
carnage in Curchorem. As homes and hearts of the
minorities are being torn apart, a hapless and “badly
stretched” police watches over the destruction and
loot.
[. . .] .

FULL TEXT AT: http://tinyurl.com/kt2un

____


[6]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 28, 2006

www.friendsofsouthasia.org

VICTORY OVER HINDU NATIONALISTS IN CALIFORNIA TEXTBOOKS REWRITE

Sacramento, California, February 28th 2006: The intense struggle over
the content of Indian history in California textbooks ended yesterday
afternoon at 2 p.m. with the special committee of the California State
Board of Education [SBE] voting unanimously to overturn a majority of
contentious changes proposed by Hindu right-wing groups to California
school textbooks. This decision is a victory for community organizations
such as Friends of South Asia (FOSA), the Ambedkar Center for Peace and
Justice, the Federation of Tamils on North America, and the Coalition
Against Communalism (CAC), who have worked diligently  to ensure that
ahistorical and sectarian content proposed by Hindu right-wing groups is
removed from California textbooks.  Hundreds of South Asian scholars
from across the United States and nearly fifty internationally renowned
Indologists had repeatedly written to the Board as well, protesting the
changes proposed by the Hindu nationalist groups.

At a public hearing on February 27th, the SBE special committee heard
testimony from scores of people, regarding controversial edits for 6th
grade history-social science textbooks proposed by two  Hindu
Nationalist Indian American groups, the Vedic Foundation (VF) and the
Hindu Education Foundation (HEF).  These organizations have provoked
outrage from a broad spectrum of South Asian community groups for
pushing  sectarian agendas and revisionist histories which whitewash
references to the oppression of women and Dalits (formerly known as
"untouchables"), and present Hinduism as a monotheistic religion and
Aryans as indigenous to India, despite overwhelming scholarly evidence
to the contrary.

Parents, students, working professionals, faculty, first and second
generation immigrants, and representatives of many community groups
eloquently stressed the importance of presenting children with accurate,
scholarly information on all aspects of ancient Indian history. Some of
the most moving testimony before the SBE came from individuals who had
personally experienced caste oppression. Representatives of Dalit
organizations urged the SBE to restore references to Dalits and the
caste system, which had been deleted from the textbooks on the HEF's and
VF's recommendations. "The caste system is the single  most important
repressive social phenomenon that has been unique to Hinduism for over
3,000 years and should therefore find a place in the textbooks,"
reminded Rama Krishna Bhupathi of FOSA and a Dalit himself.  Speaking
for the Federation of Tamils of North America, Thillai Kumaran, a
concerned parent who stated his lower-caste origins during his
testimony, strenuously objected to the textbooks' suggestion that the
caste system is no longer relevant in modern India. "Hinduism continues
to affect the social status of people in India, and has condemned
millions of Dalits as social outcasts," he said. Hansraj Kajla, also a
parent and representative of the Guru Ravi Dass Gurdwara (a Dalit
group), suggested that the deletion of references to the caste system
and the word "Dalit" in the textbooks was tantamount to "wiping out the
histories of more than 160 million people in India."

The powerful and stirring testimony from Dalit groups was met with
outright denial from the HEF and VF supporters. One speaker claimed that
there was no oppression against lower castes in India and indeed it was
only higher classes in India that faced discrimination due to the
affirmative action programs, while another argued that the very fact
that some Dalits had migrated to California is evidence enough that
Dalits are a privileged community in India.

While supporters of the VF and HEF claimed that references to negative
aspects of Hinduism such as the caste system and the oppression of women
damage the self-esteem of their children, others strongly disagreed.
Speaking from her experiences of learning about caste and gender
oppression in middle school, Veena Dubal, a joint law and doctoral
student at the University of California, Berkeley, explained, "Like many
of my European-American classmates whose ancestral histories could be
traced to a time before women and people of color were given independent
legal identities and allowed political participation. I was painfully
embarrassed to read about the injustices committed in my parents'
homeland. Yet it was precisely these lessons that taught me about the
necessity for universal civil liberties and human rights." Simmy
Makhijani, who also remembers facing racism and sexism in American
classrooms while growing up, challenged the attempts by HEF and VF to
sanitize Indian history. She asked, "My concern is why should history be
(re)written to make us feel better?"

One of the most contentious edits that received
considerable attention at the meeting was one where the HEF sought to
replace the original text, "Men [in ancient India] had many more rights
than women" with one that read "Men had different duties (dharma) and
rights than women." The staff of the California Department of Education
recommended against making this edit yesterday, in keeping with the
demands of groups such as FOSA, CAC and others who insisted on a
historical approach to ancient India.  As Kasturi Ray, a specialist in
Gender and Women's studies in UC, Berkeley, and herself a Hindu-American
parent said in her letter to the Board, "This sentence also equates
difference with what were actually systematically-denied duties and
rights based on gender. With this sentence, we lose the opportunity to
understand what women really had to do (and continue to do) to win equal
duties and rights." Angana Chatterji, an Associate Professor of
Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, concurred
that an accurate understanding of history can inspire individuals to
become better citizens. In her letter to the SBE, Chatterji observed,
"We must make distinctions between a national pride that wishes to put
forward a uniform and glorifying version of history and the scholarship
of history, which seeks to present the complexities of societies.
Fiction as history does not benefit Indian-American and other California
school-goers."

Speakers at the special committee meeting also pointed out the VF and
HEF have organizational ties to militant Hindu groups such as the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in India
that have been linked to large-scale violence against religious
minorities.  Others underscored the pluralistic nature of Hinduism.
Shiva Mandalam challenged the Hindu Education Foundation's claim that
the Vedas constitute the source of Hinduism "Popular Hinduism, as it is
practiced today," he pointed out, "is a complex set of practices, which
has little to do with the Vedas."  He claimed that the VF and HEF
promote the views of high-caste Hindu elites "who view culture in terms
of neat, boxed, and segregated religious categories and feel threatened
by practices that are egalitarian and tolerant of other religions."

Raju Rajagopal, an organizer for CAC, marveled at the overwhelming
community mobilization against the VF's and HEF's campaign to insert
sectarian material into California textbooks. He also highlighted that
this controversy was not just abstract debate but had immediate social
relevance. "Hindu right wing historians claim that the Taj Mahal in Agra
and the Kaaba in Mecca and some 1000 mosques in Ahmedabad were once
Hindu temples. This was clearly on the mind of VHP/RSS rioters in 2002,
when they destroyed or converted into temples over 270 mosques during
the massive Gujarat pogroms. Rewriting history the Hindutva way - as
suggested by many of the edits by VF/HEF -- are designed and destined to
lead to more communal conflicts in India. "

The SBE is slated to make its final decisions regarding textbook
adoption on its meeting on March 8-10, 2006.

Photographs:
*         Photograph 1: Mohan Gill, a Dalit from Yuba City presenting
testimony to the special committee of the State Board of Education on
Feb 27th, 2006

http://www.friendsofsouthasia.org/textbook/Photos/mohangill.jpg

*         Photograph 2: Dr. Parama Roy, Dept of
English, University of California, Riverside testifying before the
special subcommittee of the State Board of Education on Feb 27th, 2006

http://www.friendsofsouthasia.org/textbook/Photos/paramaroy.jpg

*         Photograph 3:  Attentive audience at the History Social
Science committee meeting in Sacramento on Feb 27th, 2006

http://www.friendsofsouthasia.org/textbook/Photos/crowd2.jpg

Press Contacts:
This update released by Friends of South Asia (FOSA),
an organization working toward a multicultural, pluralistic, and
hate-free South Asia, and Coalition Against Communalism (CAC), an Indian
American organization which promotes religious tolerance in the Indian
diaspora.
* Anu Mandavilli: +1-408-480-5805
amandavilli at ...  (with Friends of South Asia
http://friendsofsouthasia.org)
* Thillai Kumaran: +1- 408-857-0181
<mailto:ka_thillai at ...> ka_thillai at ...  (with the Federation of Tamil
Sangams of North America)
* Shalini Gera: +1-408-656-7519
shalinigera at ... (with Coalition Against Communalism  www.cac.ektaonline.org)
* Dr. Angana Chatterji, Associate Professor, Social and Cultural
Anthropology Program, California Institute of Integral Studies:  +1-
415-575-6119 (work); +1-415-648-0138 (home);
+1-415-640-4013 (mobile)

Recent Media Stories:
* Defending the Faith. New Battleground in Textbook Wars: Religion in
History Daniel Golden, The Wall Street Journal, Jan 25, 2006
<http://tinyurl.com/8uotw> http://tinyurl.com/8uotw

* India History Spat Hits US. Scott Baldauf, Christian
Science Monitor, Jan 24, 2006.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0124/p01s03-wosc.html

* Opponents of Hindu depictions want to rewrite
textbook history Rachel McMurdie, The Milpitas Post, Jan 27, 2006
http://www.themilpitaspost.com/schools/ci_3440960

* History Hungama:  The California Textbook Debate
Raja Swamy and Sunaina Maira, Siliconeer, February 2006, Volume VII
Issue 2
http://www.siliconeer.com/past_issues/2006/february2006.html#Anchor--COV
-11304

* A Textbook Debate Over Hinduismi Teresa Watanabe,
Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hindu27feb27,0,5072695.story?col
l=la-story-footer



_____


[7]


San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, March 6, 2006
Page B - 7

HOW DOES CALIFORNIA TEACH ABOUT HINDUISM?
A DIFFERENT AGENDA

by Romila Thapar, Michael Witzel

The California Board of Education is discussing a very controversial
issue. The board has to ask the community for suggestions in regard to
the updating of school textbooks. Ominously unscientific,
religious-based materials thus received may now be presented as
historical facts. Remarkably, in this case, the religious
fundamentalists are not Christian but Hindu.

Initially, the goals of these pressure groups seem benign, and even
righteous. They aim to rectify culturally biased and insensitive
depictions of India and Hinduism, and they would like Hinduism to be
treated with the same respect as Christianity, Judaism and Islam. They
indeed managed to obtain a few thousand signatures from the 1.6 million
South Asians by circulating petitions through Hindu temples across the
United States. If such reasonable changes comprised the full extent of
the desired amendments, there would be no controversy.

There are, however, other agendas being pushed that are oddly familiar:
the first Indian civilization is 1,900 million years old, the Ramayana
and Mahabharata are historical texts to be understood literally, and
ancient Hindu scriptures contain precise calculations of the speed of
light and exact distances between planets in the solar system. Not only
were many of the suggested revisions factually incorrect, but they also
explain away those aspects of traditional Indian society that are now a
matter of critical concern to Indians in India. The textbook revisions
whitewash the plight of women and the so-called lower castes. Women's
history was reduced to "different" rights while the caste system, which
subjugated millions of Indians as virtual slaves in the untouchable
caste, was simply a division of labor. By spelling God with a capital
letter they are trying to position Hinduism as monotheistic, making it
look more "modern."

The American Hindutva lobby is very closely allied to its parent in
India, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, that has a chauvinistic,
often violent agenda. However, the Hindutva lobby disguises its divisive
political agenda in the language of inclusion, while in India it is
predicated on the subjugation of minorities and pluralism in society.
Modest political victories in the United States translate into donations
and huge political capital at home. California has a large
Indian-American population and one of the largest school systems in the
country. Changes made in California have immediate repercussions for
school systems across the whole country.

When the California textbooks came up for review, a former California
history professor and Hindutva sympathizer, Shiva Bajpai, was approached
by a Hindutva foundation and later was appointed to an expert advisory
panel serving the state school board. He did not disclose his Hindutva
relationships nor was the tie of one of the Hindutva lobby groups to the
American branch of the RSS disclosed.

Our American academic colleagues, many of whom are Indian American, and
those in India, strongly objected to the historical inaccuracies
championed by the Hindutva lobby. Approximately 150 South Asian
specialists from leading U.S. universities sent a letter to the
California Board of Education, which paused to reconsider its course of
action.

Last month, the board members asked one of us, Michael Witzel, to debate
the issue with Shiva Bajpai. The historical inaccuracies were debunked
in face-to-face debate but the state school board put off a final
decision on the texts until early March -- after still another public
debate on Feb. 27, during which the board's subcommittee voted to throw
out the historically incorrect Hindutva edits.

Our letter and actions have provoked a furious but predictable response.
Contradictory slurs such as "Nazi," "Hitler," "racist," "Marxist,"
"Communist," "Hindu hater," "race traitor," "missionary" and
"creationist" have been directed toward us. We had to contact
law-enforcement agencies.

The Hindutva lobby will undoubtedly persist, even if it is stopped in
California. Hindu nationalists have a legitimate right to pursue their
political agenda in India. Hindu Americans have a legitimate right to a
fair and culturally sensitive representation in public-school curricula.
However, no one has a right to distort the truth and push their own
political agenda at the expense of schoolchildren.

For the Hindutva lobby to successfully introduce academically
irresponsible material into textbooks would be a dishonor to the rich
cultural and religious heritage it claims to cherish. Once we accept one
religious group's agenda and beliefs to be taught in the public schools,
it opens the door for every other group to do the same thing. As
educators, we should stick to teaching the facts, and allow the teaching
of religion to be handled by the real experts: the parents, pastors and
priests.

Romila Thapar is India's best known historian, professor emerita of
Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, and the first Kluge Chair at
the Library of Congress. Michael Witzel is Wales professor of Sanskrit
at Harvard University.


____


[8]  ANNOUNCEMENTS:


PUBLICATION ANNOUNCEMENT:

New title from Three Essays Collective:
(available from March 07)

SECULARISM, COMMUNALISM AND THE INTELLECTUALS
by Zaheer Baber

Contents:
1. Secularism, Anti-Secularism and "Theoretical Bubble-Blowing"
2. Hindutva and the Mainstreaming of Bigotry
3. The "Racialization" of Communal Identity and Conflict in India

About the Book:
These essays focus on the role of fashionable critiques and smug
dismissals of secularism and modernity, and the unqualified defense of
so-called indigenous traditions in providing intellectual support for
the discourse of Hindutva.

"Zaheer Baber's stern indictment of anti-secular intellectuals should
promote a revival of genuine Indian sociology rather than their
unimaginative Indology. Baber takes T.N. Madan, Ashis Nandy and Veena
Das to task, he offers us a theory of communalism, and he advises us to
consider a comparative 'race' framework for the oppressions meted out to
the socially suppressed within India: all this in a very short, readable
and insightful book." -- Vijay Prashad

About the Author:
*Zaheer Baber* is Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto,
Canada. He is the author of 'The Science of Empire: Scientific
Knowledge, Civilization and Colonial Rule in India' (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1996) and editor of 'CyberAsia: The
Internet and Society in Asia' (Boston: Brill, 2005). He has published
papers in a number of journals such as 'The British Journal of
Sociology' and is a frequent contributor to the 'Times Literary Supplement'.

100 pages, includes bibliography, Demy 8vo
2006
ISBN 81-88789-47-X  Rs125 Paperback
ISBN 81-88789-28-3  Rs300 Hardcover


Three Essays Collective
B-957 Palam Vihar
GURGAON (Haryana)
122 017
India

o o o


UPCOMING EVENTS:

WOMEN, MEDIA & SOCIETY : TRANSFORMATIONS
A Festival of Films by Asian Women Filmmakers
March 7-8, 2006
India International Centre, Lodi Estate, New Delhi

A two day festival of films by Asian women filmmakers will be held to
mark International Women's Day at the India International Centre on
March 7-8, 2006. This is the second year of the festival, which is
organised by the International Association of Women in Radio and
Television (IAWRT), in partnership with IIC Asia Project.

The festival will showcase the best of documentaries created by women
from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Taiwan and Malaysia. The opening film,
My Life as a Poster, an Indo-US collaboration is directed by Shashwati
Talukdar. The film tells a fictional story about the filmmaker and her
family and explores stereotypical notions about Indian culture and the
"First World's" expectations from a "Third World" filmmaker.

Other films being shown at the festival revolve around the themes of
Popular Media, Identity and Violence Against Women. After the IIC event,
the films will travel to 8 cities in India and also to Pakistan, Sri
Lanka and Bangladesh.

The schedule is given below.

MARCH 07, 2006

9:30AM   Inauguration   30m
          My Life as a Poster   8m        Shashwati Talukdar (India/USA)

10:30   TEA BREAK

11:00AM   SEMINAR 1: WOMEN MAKING FILMS

Talk by: Sabina Gadihoke + Iffat Fatima + Madhureeta Anand   60m

A Certain Liberation        37m     Yasmine Kabir (Bangladesh)

Kagad Kaanch Patra          16m       Reema Borah

Printed Rainbow             15m       Gitanjali Rao

My Confession­the Picture Diary   10m       Lor Yew Mien (Malaysia)

The Quest                   5m       Soo You (Taiwan R.O.C)


1:45   LUNCH BREAK

2:30PM   SEMINAR 2: POPULAR MEDIA

Women of the Holy Kingdom   48m       Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy (Canada)

A Decent Samosa, Ya!        25m       Natasha Badhwar & Radhika Bordia

WRITE MORE
Talk by: Jitendar Gill + Abhilasha Kumari   20m

4:10   BREAK

4:30PM   Altar              Leena Manimekalai

The Journey           16m    Rita Chandel

Will Think for Food   4m     Parvinder Kaur

5:40   BREAK

6:30PM   Beyond the Wheel   59m       Rajula Shah

On an Express Highway       28m       Reena Mohan

Our Own Eyes                28m       Ranu Sharma

8:30PM   CLOSE



8TH MARCH 2005

10:00AM

Sharira:                    28m      Ein Lall
Chandralekha¹s Exploration in Dance

She Write                   55m       Anjali Monteiro & K P Jayasankar

11:30                       BREAK

12:00   SEMINAR 3: IDENTITIES

Identities: Talk by Samina Mishra   20m

The House on Gulmohar Avenue   30m       Samina Mishra

Trans-                         12m       Tejal Shah

Where¹s Sandra                  17m       Paromita Vohra


1:45   LUNCH BREAK

2:30PM   SEMINAR 4: WOMEN & VIOLENCE

For Love or Izzat   58m       Soniali Dutta (India / UK)

Women and Conflict: Talk by Kavita Joshi / Other   20m

Untitled: 3 Films (Women & Conflict in Manipur)    18m       Kavita Joshi

4:10   BREAK

4:30PM

For Maya   38m       Vasudha Joshi

Biji: a Documentary on My Grandmother   20m       Dipti M Panesar

Lemon Yellow AfternoonsŠ   13m       Monisha R Baldawa

5:45   BREAK

Walking on a Moonbeam 17m       Madhureeta Anand

Lanka: The Other Side of War and Peace   75m       Iffat Fatima

8:30   CLOSE


o o o

A Brookings Briefing
TRANSFORMING INDIA: THE EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE ACT AND ITS PROMISE FOR THE
POOR


Moderator:
Ann Florini
Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution

Panelists:
Aruna Roy
Founder-Member, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan; Member, National
Advisory Council
Nikhil Dey
Founder-Member, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan
event registration

Contact: Brookings Office of Communications
Phone: 202/797-6105

Thursday, March 09, 2006
9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
Somers Room
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC   20036
(directions)

Event Registration

Despite the growing optimism about India's economic growth, and the
unprecedented highs of the Indian stock market, life beyond the thriving
cities remains bleak. India still has more people living below the
poverty line than any other country in the world.

Against this backdrop, India's new "National Rural Employment Guarantee
Act," which guarantees 100 days of employment per year to every rural
household, has provoked both high hopes and widespread skepticism.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently described this initiative
as "historic," saying the program "will help us get rid of the scourge
of poverty, disease and indebtness." Now India faces the challenge of
ensuring that corruption does not eviscerate an act that could
potentially change the face of rural India. Hope for success rests on
another new law – India's powerful new information access act. Citizens'
groups plan to use their new right to know to monitor whether the
Employment Guarantee Act is working. If they succeed, they could pioneer
an effective new means of overcoming the obstacles to reaching the
worlds poorest.

To address these issues and others, Brookings Senior Fellow Ann Florini
will moderate a discussion with Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey, founding
members of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan – one of the key organizations
behind both the Right to Information Law and the Employment Guarantee
Act. After remarks there will be an audience question and answer session.


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

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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