SACW | 30 May 2006 | Sri Lanka: Failed State ?; Sri Lanka -India -UK: State and Non State Censorship

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | 30 May, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2253

[1]  Sri Lanka:
        (i) Sri Lanka: A Failed State? (N Shanmugaratnam)
        (ii) Free Media Movement Press Release  re President's order 
ban the film "The Da Vinci Code"
[2]   India: Far right's war on a film (J Sri Raman)
[3]   UK: Yet again we cave into religious bigots. And this time 
they're Hindus (Nick Cohen)
+ Letter to the Editor, The Guardian: Reinstate Indian art exhibition 
(Chetan Bhatt, Rajeswari Sunderrajan, Priyamvada Gopal
[4]  Chobi Mela IV: International Festival of Photography 2006: Call 
for Entries
[5]  Publications:     
    (i) Stories are invited for the upcoming Zubaan Book of New 
Writing by Young Women
    (ii) Book review: Blood Brothers By M.J. Akbar - reviewed by Ashok Mitra
    (iii) INSAF Bulletin 50 - June  2006


___

[1]  Sri Lanka

(i)

SRI LANKA - A FAILED STATE?
By Prof. N Shanmugaratnam  (May 18, 2006)

Sri Lanka has been ranked 25, between Rwanda and Ethiopia, on the 
list of Failed States Index (FSI) as computed by the US based Foreign 
Policy & Fund For Peace. Sri Lanka is one of the 28 countries in the 
red 'Alert' segment headed by Sudan. Norway is at the other end of 
the list of 146 countries and hence the world's best performer in 
terms of the Index. The FSI is an aggregate of scores for twelve 
criteria derived from a liberal democratic concept of the state. It 
is not the purpose of this essay to go into the merit of each of the 
criteria or into the validity of the statistical procedure.

Moreover, it needs to be said that, beyond the rankings according to 
a common set of criteria, the FS indices are not useful for 
comparisons of state building in different countries, as each 
national case has to be seen in its historical context and with 
reference to its location in the changing global political 
environment. Just recall, for instance, the diversities in the 
historical, geopolitical and global contexts of state formation in 
Western Europe, former colonies in the 'Third World' and in the 
former Soviet bloc countries. The FSI offers a simple aggregate 
statistical statement of some key internal conditions at a given 
point in time. It says nothing about history or the powerful external 
pressures on national state building in today's world. It can be 
dismissed with justification as an ideologically motivated construct 
meant to serve the imperial project of neoliberal hegemony.

However, the FSI list is not without value. In my view, it is worth 
considering the overall finding that many states in the 'Third World' 
have failed or are failing in terms of some basic conditions for 
successful capitalist state building in today's global environment. 
These conditions, if I may take the liberty to choose, include the 
monopoly on violence, genuine control over the territory formally 
recognised as belonging to the state and over the people living 
there, guarantees of basic freedoms and protection of citizens' 
rights, economic and social development and basic human welfare. One 
can address these conditions with reference to Sri Lanka without 
being restricted by the FSI framework, even by rejecting it 
altogether. I think the FSI report has, at least, given us an 
opportunity to look at the state of state building in Sri Lanka.

The Lankan state has lost its monopoly on violence and its 
sovereignty has been effectively challenged by the LTTE in parts of 
the north and east of the country. Closely and causally related to 
the armed conflict are the communalisation of the polity and the 
desecularisation of the state in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious 
country. The internal war, which has been going on for more than two 
decades, has caused massive loss of lives and assets and left 
hundreds of thousands displaced. It has caused more divisions, 
generated new grievances and conflicts, and rendered the national 
question more intractable. Successive governments have been callously 
indifferent to the indignities suffered by the Tamil speaking people 
due to the lack of enforcement of their language rights. These rights 
exist only on paper. A government, which spends in billions to fight 
the LTTE, has not bothered to create a functioning machinery for the 
implementation of Tamil as an official language. If this is not 
discrimination, what is it? Can the Tamils be faulted for having lost 
faith in such a government and in the majoritarian unitary state?

Lanka's law and order machinery has been progressively weakened due 
to corruption and politicisation and its legitimacy is highly eroded. 
The human rights record is poor and disappearances and extra judicial 
killings are again on the rise as this is being written. Development 
continues to be socially and geographically uneven. The state has not 
been able to play a developmental role in the sense of enabling an 
inclusive economic transformation and social advancement. It has 
simply shifted from an interventionism that lacked a transformative 
developmental vision to a total submission to the neoliberal 
conditionalities of the international financial institutions (IFIs). 
Sri Lanka had missed an opportunity to put to good use the human 
capital it had created through free healthcare and education in the 
early decades after independence.

Meanwhile, the country remains highly dependent on foreign aid even 
after three decades of economic liberalisation under the tutelage of 
the IFIs. Even worse, the overall rate of absorption of foreign aid 
does not exceed 20 percent (Institute of Policy Studies). The rate of 
utilisation of tsunami aid is pathetically lower than this at 13.5 
percent (Auditor General's office). Government leaders often mention 
the war as the major cause of the poor development record. But they 
have not been able to find a political solution to bring the war to 
an end. This would involve a fundamental restructuring of the state 
to enable reunification through power sharing and that calls for a 
leadership with the political will to do it. We do not seem to be 
anywhere close to such a solution and the country is sliding back 
into war.

In these circumstances, it will be hard not to conclude that Sri 
Lanka's project in post-colonial state building has failed in some 
basic respects and that the failure to build a Lankan society based 
on an overarching Lankan identity has been the biggest failure of 
all. Sadly the political elite that shaped state formation had a 
different notion of a 'Lankan nation' as they were committed to the 
creation of a state that is Sinhala Buddhist both in character and 
appearance.

Perhaps those ultranationalist allies of the government who are for a 
military solution believe that war is the best way to finish the 
unfinished business of building a unitary Sinhala Buddhist state and 
for the state to regain its monopoly on violence. The Liberation 
Tigers are responding in the same language - a final war to complete 
the secession. I am no military expert but many experts seem to think 
that war will not lead to either of these outcomes but to a 
prolongation of the agony of the people and to a deeper crisis for 
the unitary state. I am deeply convinced that reviving the peace 
process is the first step towards a solution. The solution may be 
miles away but a long march to a durable peace through negotiations 
is better than a protracted war of mutual annihilation.

Dr. N. Shanmugaratnam is Professor of Development Studies and Head of 
Research, at Department of International Environment & Development 
Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences


o o o

(ii)

PRESIDENT ORDERS REVIEW BOARD TO BAN FILM "THE DA VINCI CODE"

The following is an FMM press release:

The Free Media Movement wishes to express its concern regarding a 
decision by the President to order the Public Performances Board to 
ban the film "The Da Vinci Code", as reported in the "Daily News" on 
25 May 2006.

The report goes on to say that this move is in response to an appeal 
by the Catholic Bishops' Conference.

In principle, the FMM is opposed to all forms of censorship that 
restrict the freedom of expression.

Throughout the world, the issue of censorship is one that is 
extremely contentious. Guidelines to prevent the exposure of children 
to scenes that may have an adverse impact on their development as 
well as to prevent the depiction of extreme violence and brutality 
are present in almost every country. However, these guidelines are 
almost always implemented through a legal mechanism, such as a Board 
of Censors or a Public Performance Board, such as we have in Sri 
Lanka. The existence of such a mechanism provides accountability and 
also avenues for redress for those who may feel their artistic 
freedom has been curtailed by the decision to restrict viewing of 
certain public performances for children.

In this context, a decision by the President to "order" the Public 
Performances Board, which is mandated by an Act of Parliament to 
carry out its mandate in reviewing every public performance and in 
granting certification for universal or restricted performance, to 
ban any public performance, is a serious challenge to existing legal 
norms and standards in Sri Lanka.

We urge the President to call on the Public Performances Board to 
carry out its mandate by reviewing the film The Da Vinci Code" when 
it is due for screening in Sri Lanka and then take a decision 
according to the powers vested in it through the Public Performances 
Act and according to the guidelines it has developed for its 
effective functioning.

We also urge the President, the Public Performances Board and the 
general public to understand the principles of freedom of expression 
that underlie the decisions of the governments of India and Thailand, 
our closest neighbours, to permit the public screening of the film 
"The Da Vinci Code" following intense debate and legal and moral 
arguments.
MORE INFORMATION:

For further information, contact the Free Media Movement, 237/22, 
Wijeya Kumaratunga Road, Colombo 05, Sri Lanka, tel: +94 777 312 457 
/ +94 11 257 3439, fax: +94 11 471 4460


____

[2]

Daily Times
May 29, 2006

FAR RIGHT'S WAR ON A FILM
by J Sri Raman

The religious garb of the far right never concealed its real aims. 
Behind its divisive communalism lay a design for destructive 
"development", with no place for the people or peace. The BJP and the 
parivar may have acted as censors of anti-Hindutva films in the past, 
but they now seek a mob-imposed ban on films made by anyone who mocks 
the idea of "development"

This is not the first time the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has risen 
in furious revolt against a film. The party and the rest of the 
parivar (the far-right "family") as well as its allies, have 
periodically sought to empower themselves by waging a war on the most 
popular products of mass entertainment. The offensive unleashed on 
Aamir Khan's Fanaa, however, is different. It adds a new dimension, 
in fact, to the cultural crusade of India's far right.

Before we come to that, a word about the victim of the current 
campaign. Aamir Khan, who perhaps needs no introduction to Pakistani 
readers, is an actor of proven and acknowledged calibre. I am no 
uncritical admirer of his films, especially the bunch produced in his 
activist phase of the past few years, and I am not alone. Many like 
myself have enjoyed his Lagaan, Mangal Pande and pre-Fanaa 
blockbuster Rang De Basanti, thought we still entertain reservations 
about each.

Lagaan is about a tribal community that scores a point over the 
colonial British by winning a cricket match. Not all would have 
agreed with the assumption that the White Sahibs played cricket when 
it came to empire building. Quite a few might have also found 
unacceptable the social comment of the scenes in which an untouchable 
finds a place in the tribal team solely for his handicap that makes 
him a tricky spinner.

Even more problematic is the sub-theme in Mangal Pande - named after 
a hero of the Sepoy Mutiny or India's First War of Independence 
(1857) - about a literally kicked-about untouchable joining the 
larger anti-colonial front.

Thematic, too, is the flaw in Rang De Basanti that marred it somewhat 
for many of us. The climax where a band of youth rouses a whole 
country (or at least its middle class) into an anti-establishment 
revolt might have been more rousing if the catalyst had been 
different. The youth and the larger public in the film were outraged 
not at any atrocity carried out against people but by the death of an 
air force pilot in a peace-time accident, described as his supreme 
sacrifice "for his country".

None of this, however, ever bothered the BJP or the parivar. It is 
not Fanaa, a film with a Kashmiri backdrop, that has provoked the 
wrath of the far right. The film is being punished for Aamir's 
support for the agitation for the rehabilitation of the people whose 
homes and livelihoods are threatened by a giant dam project. In the 
Gujarat of the infamous Narendra Modi, who is as proud of the pogrom 
of 2002 as of the multi-billion-rupee Narmada dam project, the film 
faces a virtual indefinite ban.

Aamir, to his great credit, has refused to buckle under pressure. He 
has refused to apologise for "speaking for rehabilitation of the 
poor". In the process, he has made a point more forcefully than any 
of his films.

The far right has taken on films before, but culture policing of this 
kind was, in every instance, is very much a part of its communal 
campaign. One of the ugliest examples was the fiercely violent 
prevention of the screening of courageous filmmaker Deepa Mehta's 
Fire. The 1996 film about a lesbian couple was attacked not merely 
for offending a code of morality but even more for allegedly 
maligning the majority community of India. The common Indian names of 
Sita and Radha, given to the couple, were seen as proof of an 
anti-majority conspiracy.

Said Balasaheb Thackeray of the Shiv Sena, which provided muscle to 
the BJP campaign in Mumbai: "We would have no problem, if the names 
had been Shabana, Saira, or Najma." His first two references were, 
respectively, to left-leaning actor-activist Shabana Azmi and to 
former star Saira Bano, wife of Dilip Kumar, a persona non grata with 
the parivar ever since he received an official award from Pakistan. 
We do not know whether the third could have been a reference to Najma 
Heptullah, formerly a Congress leader and a deputy chairperson of the 
Rajya Sabha (the Upper House of India's parliament) who is now a 
largely-silent BJP luminary.

Deepa Mehta was in trouble again four years later over her Water - 
and her allegedly anti-Hindutva ways. Set in the 1930s, against the 
backdrop of India's freedom struggle, the film portrayed the plight 
of a group of widows forced into poverty at a temple in the holy city 
of Varanasi. It told the tale of a relationship between a widow and a 
follower of Mahatma Gandhi. Thackeray must have just forgotten to ask 
why Deepa did not make her film about a widow of foreign origin!

The communal thrust of the far right's cultural crusades has hardly 
ever been concealed. It has not been, for example, in the continuing 
campaign against MF Husain for painting female Hindu deities in 
violation of a dress code - one that devoutly adoring temple 
sculptors down the centuries knew nothing about. Similar is the 
thrust of the campaign against the Valentine's Day, vilified as a 
baneful influence of the Christian West.

The anti-Aamir offensive is different because it does not target an 
allegedly anti-Hindutva force or film. It only carries forward the 
campaign against indomitable woman activist Medha Patkar and others 
who have raised their voice against the mass deprivation that 
Narmada-like "development" projects mean if implemented in a 
Modi-like manner. Some observers also mention the actor's religion 
and his recent remarks about the latest round of riots in Gujarat's 
Vadodara, but these do not figure in the slogans against Aamir.

Initially, the campaign was given a regional complexion. Aamir was 
accused of offending Gujarati asmita (pride), no less. The BJP is 
trying now, however, to make it an all-India campaign, with 
demonstrators protecting the endangered "pride" by burning the 
actor's effigies and the film's posters in cities of other states 
like Madhya Pradesh and Bihar as well.

The religious garb of the far right never concealed its real aims. 
Behind its divisive communalism lay a design for destructive 
"development", one with nationalist pretensions but no place for the 
people or peace. The BJP and the parivar may have acted as censors of 
anti-Hindutva films in the past, but they now seek a mob-imposed ban 
on films made by anyone who mocks the idea of "development" through 
dams that drown people and demands that they sink without a trace or 
troublesome protest.

The writer is a journalist based in Chennai, India. A peace activist, 
he has contributed the main essay to "The Media Bomb," a study of 
Indian media responses to India's nuclear-weapon tests of 1998. He is 
also the author of a sheaf of poems under the title 'At Gunpoint'


____


[3]

The Observer
  May 28, 2006

YET AGAIN WE CAVE INTO RELIGIOUS BIGOTS. AND THIS TIME THEY'RE HINDUS

Nick Cohen

The Satanic Verses, Behzti, Theo van Gogh's Submission, Jerry 
Springer: The Opera, the Danish cartoons of Muhammad ... now we can 
add the London exhibition of the work of Maqbool Fida Husain to the 
rapidly expanding list of works of art and satire targeted by 
militant religion.

For readers interested in Indian culture, the show at the Asia House 
gallery in the West End's fine art district should have been 
essential viewing. Husain is the grand old man of Indian art. He 
began as a boy painting cinema hoardings for six annas per square 
foot before getting his first break at the Bombay Art Society in 
1947. His international appeal lies in his mixing of classical 
traditions with modern styles. Art from all over the world inspires 
him - Emil Nolde and Oskar Kokoschka were early influences - but you 
only have to glance at his pictures to know an Indian must have 
painted them.

The Indian High Commissioner, Kamalesh Sharma, claimed at the opening 
that Husain was India's greatest modern artist. The exhibition was to 
run until August, to allow visitors to decide for themselves if he 
was right.

They won't be able to now. Asia House closed the show on Monday after 
threats of violence from anonymous Hindu fundamentalists. Arjun Malik 
of the Hindu Human Rights campaign assured me they had nothing to do 
with him, but said his group had been willing to do everything short 
of violence to stop the public seeing two of Husain's works.

His supporters had already deluged the gallery with letters, phone 
calls and emails complaining that Husain's 'so-called art' offended 
the 'sentiments of the Hindu community of the UK'. (Whether it did is 
debatable, as no one has elected the Hindu Human Rights campaign to 
represent the Hindu or any other community.) The protesters also went 
for Hitachi, which had given Asia House plasma TV screens, and 
demanded public apologies from everyone involved, including the 
Indian High Commissioner.

They called off a planned demonstration in London yesterday because, 
like the managers of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre who closed 
Behzti after the demonstrations by conservative Sikhs and the 
national newspaper editors who refused to publish the Danish 
cartoons, Asia House buckled under the pressure to censor.

The apparently separate protests from different faiths are connected. 
What we are seeing is rival fundamentalists egging each other on in a 
politics of competitive grievance. Every time one secures a victory, 
the others realise they can't be left behind. If satirists are 
frightened of having a go at Islam because they believe they may be 
killed - and they are - why shouldn't Christian fundamentalists 
decide to become more menacing?

A comedian who takes a pop at the Pope sends the subliminal message: 
'We can deride your religion as despicable because we know you are 
not so despicable you will resort to violence.' There is a limit to 
how long the ultras for any religion will put up with that before 
they change the ground rules.

After abusive Sikh men closed Behzti, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's play 
about the abuse of Sikh women by Sikh men, Christian Voice upped the 
ante against Jerry Springer: The Opera. It had previously run at the 
National Theatre for months without attracting protest. But when BBC2 
came to broadcast it, London Christians imitated Birmingham Sikhs and 
BBC executives suddenly needed the protection of private security 
guards.

You can see the same pattern in the hounding of MF Husain. The 
paintings the demonstrators targeted were nudes of the Hindu 
goddesses Draupadi and Durga. Arjun Malik went into all kinds of 
verbal convolutions when I asked what he had against them, before 
coming out with the explanation that 'according to tradition, they 
should not be disrobed'. The reason for the tongue-twisting is that 
nude gods and goddesses have been a part of the Indian tradition for 
5,000 years. As Husain said: 'Here, the nudity is not nakedness; it 
is a form of innocence and maturity.'

It is no longer innocent because, after the state-sponsored violence 
of the Danish cartoon protests, Hindus from the religious Indian 
right looked around for a grievance of their own. They picked on 
Husain - the fact that he was born a Muslim made him a natural target 
- and began a confessional arms race. In February, a Muslim 
politician in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh offered a large 
reward to anyone who beheaded the Danish cartoonists. A Hindu 
politician responded by saying he would pay the same to anyone who 
would kill Husain.

What is depressing is that, apart from a letter to the Guardian, from 
Lord Meghnad Desai, the closure of a major exhibition by fanatics has 
passed without comment. British troops are fighting against forces 
motivated by the religious fervour of the ultra right. British police 
officers arrest suspects they claim are inspired to kill because 
they, too, have a psychotic religious mission. Yet every week, 
comedians, art gallery owners, TV producers, newspaper editors and 
Home Office ministers give in to religious extremists. This is no way 
to win a war.

o o o

The Guardian
May 30, 2006
Letters

REINSTATE INDIAN ART EXHIBITION

As scholars of south Asia and its rich traditions of artistic, 
social, religious
and political expression, we condemn the forced closure of the exhibition of
works by renowned Indian artist MF Husain at Asia House in London,
following harassment by groups claiming to represent Hindus (Letters, May
26). Groups such as Hindu Human Rights and the Hindu Forum of Britain
are wielding the same tactics used by organisations in India. These groups
are known for repeatedly attacking the works of artists and intellectuals,
undermining India's constitutional right to freedom of thought and
expression.

The Hindu Forum of Britain and Hindu Human Rights accuse Asia House of
not "consulting" with them before putting on the exhibition. Consultation
should not be a requirement for artistic expression.

These are unelected groups, not known for consulting democratically with
the community before putting pressure on others in the name of Hinduism.
Their actions would not be sanctioned by most Hindus. Hindu traditions
have an extensive history of diverse representations of deities, include
nude and erotic images of gods and goddesses. Hinduism has never
possessed a concept of censorship of the kind that these authoritarian
groups wish to promote. We urge Asia House to reopen this exhibition - by
doing so it will honour the rich and diverse traditions of expression arising
from Hinduism and from India.

Dr Chetan Bhatt
Goldsmiths College, London

Prof Rajeswari Sunderrajan
Oxford University

Dr Priyamvada Gopal
Cambridge University

_____


[4]

CHOBI MELA IV
INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY 2006

This Year's Theme
BOUNDARIES
Call For Entry
Submission Deadline: 22nd July 2006

She packed her load of firewood onto the crowded train in Pangsha. 
The morning sun peered through the lazy winter haze. The vendors 
called 'chai garam, boildeem' and the train slowly chugged out of the 
station, people still clambering on board, or finishing last minute 
transactions. Some saying farewell. The scene had probably not been 
very different a hundred years ago. Maybe then, they carried pan in 
place of firewood, or some other commodity that people at the other 
end needed. She would come back the same day, bringing back what was 
needed here. Only today she was a smuggler. The artificial and 
somewhat random lines drawn by a British lawyer had made her an 
outlaw. She was crossing boundaries. There were other boundaries to 
cross. The job a woman was allowed to do, the class signs on the 
coaches that she could not read but was constantly made aware of. The 
changing light and the smells as sheet (winter) went into boshonto 
(spring). The Ashar clouds that the photographers waited for, which 
seemed to wait until the light was right.

Rickshaw wallas find circuitous routes to take passengers across the 
VIP road. Their tenuous existence made more difficult by the fact 
that permits are difficult to get, and the bribes now higher. Hip hop 
music in trendy discos in Gulshan and Banani with unwritten but 
clearly defined dress codes make space for the yuppie elite of Dhaka. 
The Baul Mela in Kushtia draws a somewhat different crowd. Ecstasy 
and Ganja breaks down some barriers while music creates the bonding. 
Lalon talks of other boundaries, of body and soul, the bird and the 
cage.

Photography creates its own compartments. The photojournalist, the 
fine artist, the well paid celebrity, the bohemian dreamer, the 
purist, the pragmatist, the classical, the hypermodern, the uncropped 
image, the setup shot, the Gettys and the Driks. The majority world. 
The South. The North. The West. The developing world. Red filters, 
green filters, high pass filters, layers, masks, feathered edges. No 
photoshop, yes photoshop. Canonites, Nikonites, Leicaphytes, digital, 
analogue.

The digital divide. The haves, the have nots. Vegetarians, vegans, 
carnivores. Heterosexuals, metrosexuals, transsexuals, homosexuals. 
The straight, the kinky. The visionaries, the mercenaries, the crude 
the erudite, the pensive the flamboyant. Oil, gas, bombs, immigration 
officials. WTO, subsidies, sperm banks, kings, tyrants, presidents, 
prime ministers, revolutionaries, terrorists, anarchists, activists, 
pacifists, the weak, the meek, the strong, the bully. The good the 
evil. The hawks the doves. The evolutionists, the creationists. The 
crusaders the Jihadis. The raised fist, the clasped palms. The 
defiant, the oppressive, the green, the red. The virgin.

Whether cattle are well fed, or children go hungry, whether bombs are 
valid for defence, or tools of aggression, boundaries - seen and 
unseen - define our modes of conduct, our freedoms, our values, our 
very ability to recognise the presence of the boundaries that bind us.

Shahidul Alam
Festival Director
_______________________________________

Photo practitioners are invited to submit work on the theme 
"Boundaries" for Chobi Mela IV, and encouraged to explore the 
boundaries of their medium.

Submissions are invited for Chobi Mela IV. Last date for submissions 
22th July 2006. Participants will be notified by email on the 7th 
August 2006.

GUIDELINES

Chobi Mela IV will be launched on the 9th November 2006. The theme of 
the festival is "Boundaries".
   
Following are guidelines for submission:

Apart from the group exhibitions where work from a number of 
countries will be included, collective works from other countries are 
also welcome, some work has already been commissioned for the 
festival. Photographers, whether they be fine artists, documentary 
photographers, or from any other field of photography can participate 
individually or in groups. Non-photographic work that has a direct 
relevance to the theme of the festival may also be acceptable. The 
festival will feature:
   
Exhibitions (solo/collective):
  Audio-visual presentations

Workshops:
  Discussions/Seminars/Lectures

Lectures:
  Presentations by Picture Libraries/Agencies

Review of image-related publications:
  Publication ceremony

Product Demonstrations:
  Film-shows

Video Conferences:
  Display/ Sales stalls


Chobi Mela retains the right to publish photographs and text from 
shows selected for exhibit in promotional material relating to the 
festival. Such content will not be used in any other form, unless 
specifically authorized by the artist as in the case of the calendar.

People interested in participating can apply in the following methods:

Analogue Submission
(Submissions by mail to be sent to:
Secretariat
Chobi Mela IV
Drik Picture Library Ltd.
House 58, Road 15A (New)
Dhanmondi Residential Area
Dhaka 1209, Bangladesh)

or, Online Submission (http://www.chobimela.org/artistlogin.php).

Further Information:

Selections will be completed and selected participants informed (by 
email) on the 7th August 2006. Participants will be able to continue 
working, but will need to submit camera ready artwork or high 
resolution digital files suitable for printing, by the 21st August 
2006.

Chobi Mela does not sponsor shows and no fees are paid to artists. 
However for work that is selected, Chobi Mela will organize gallery 
space and an opening reception. Chobi Mela will also publish a 
catalogue and poster for the entire festival which will feature all 
participating artists. It will also organize advertising in print and 
electronic media. Selected exhibitions will be toured 
internationally.  Through our partnership with the global television 
company PEN, Chobi Mela will receive extensive coverage worldwide. 
The presence of local media partners also ensure extensive coverage 
in local media.
Please let us know whether you would be interested in:

Your exhibition (if selected) to be toured internationally
Your photographs (if selected) to be featured in the Drik Calendar 
2007, featuring work by Chobi Mela artists. You will be provided 10 
complementary copies of the calendar as honorarium.

____


[5]   PUBLICATIONS

o o o

(i)

Dear All,

Zubaan is planning to produce an anthology of short fiction 
showcasing new, young women writers from South Asia. Given below are 
the details.

We look forward to receiving your stories!

Cheers,

JAYA BHATTACHARJI
For ZUBAAN


The Zubaan Book of New Writing by Young Women
(working title only)
Concept note

Zubaan is planning to produce an anthology of short fiction 
showcasing new, young women writers from South Asia.
The criteria

* The focus of the book will be on young writers in the 20s and 30s.
* The writers should be women of South Asian extraction, but may be 
based anywhere in the world. We are interested in non-resident Indian 
writers as well as those based in India.
* Stories can be of any length up, ideally anywhere between 2-5,000 
words and should be complete stand-alone narratives.
* All submissions must be in English.
* The anthology will be of fictional writing, and we are keen to 
include a variety of genres - from humourous pieces to science 
fiction, fantasy, detective stories, and other forms which may fall 
under the general rubric of 'speculative fiction'.
* Preference will be given to unpublished stories. Please submit only 
one story.
Selection

Selection will be on merit, and the stories would be read by Zubaan's 
in-house editorial team. The final selection for inclusion would rest 
with the Editor.
Submission

Complete stories should be sent as word attachments to:
zubaanwbooks at vsnl.net

contact at zubaanbooks.com
anitaroy1000 at yahoo.co.uk
with the subject line Submission for Young Writers Anthology.
Along with the story, writers should email a short biography about 
themselves, including details of their published writings (if any).
Publication

Responsibility for the editing, design, production and sales of the 
book rests with the Publishers.
Copyright for individual pieces would rest with the respective 
authors, but rights in the anthology as a whole would rest with the 
publishers, who will actively pursue the sale of translation and 
co-publication rights for the book.
Payment

All writers selected will receive a modest fee for their work.
Deadline

All submissions should be received by July 31 st 2006
About Zubaan

Zubaan is a small independent feminist publisher, based in New Delhi. 
Headed by Urvashi Butalia, who co-founded India's first feminist 
press, Kali for Women, Zubaan is committed to publishing books by, 
for, on or about women - and women's issues - in South Asia for an 
international market. For further details, and a list of books 
published thus far, please refer to: www.zubaanbooks.com.

o o o

(ii)

The Telegraph
May 12, 2006

HOME AGAIN
- Remembering Telinipara

As a young man

Blood Brothers By M.J. Akbar, Roli, Rs 395

Heart-rending, heart-warming fiction, or hard history? Telinipara, 
around which this moving family chronicle unfolds, is of course no 
imaginary spot. It is in West Bengal, a couple of miles off 
Chandernagore, abutting the river Hooghly. The story begins with the 
famine in Bihar in the 1870s. It wipes off an entire village. A 
teenager, Prayaag, somehow survives the blight and takes an 
east-bound train. He lands in Telinipara, mostly consisting of ragged 
dwellings of workers employed by the Victoria Jute Mills. The 
workers, mostly from Bihar and the United Provinces, belong to both 
communities. The boy is taken in by Wali Mohammad, who runs a small 
eatery-cum-tea stall. Wali's wife is childless, and mothers the 
orphan; she becomes Mai to him. Wali's business looks up, Prayaag 
learns the tricks of the trade, he is diligent and loyal. When Wali 
dies, Prayaag assumes charge of the business, expands it and 
gradually discovers prosperity. Mai has chosen a Muslim girl for him. 
Prayaag agrees to conversion and marriage. He is now Rahmatullah.

Rahmat quietly takes to Muslim religiosity. It could be because of 
his growing affluence, or his piety, that he draws around him friends 
and admirers from both communities. As the narrative proceeds, 
characters jostle for attention. Rahmat is intensely devoted to a 
wisdom-laden ascetic, who emerges as a sort of guardian angel for 
Telinipara. Others in Rahmat's circle include a gatekeeper, a coolie 
sardar, a greengrocer, a school teacher, a part-time intellectual who 
is a great lover of poetry too, the owner of a sweet shop, a milkman, 
similar types who are attracted to goodness because they themselves 
are of innate good nature.

Blood Brothers leads us through the late decades of the 19th century 
and the early decades of the 20th: the plague of 1890, the First 
World War, the Khilafat movement and Gandhiji's arrival on the scene, 
the hopes and frustrations over the Gandhi-Jinnah parleys. The 
ripples of big events reach Telinipara in slow motion but fail to 
disturb its equilibrium. Evil elements from both communities are on 
the prowl; Rahmatullah and his group, ever on the alert, fight back, 
more or less successfully. Things look hunky-dory till the late 
Forties. Mai's adopted son has meanwhile become a substantial man of 
property, and builds the first pucca structure in Telinipara. His 
son, Akbar Ali - the answer, Rahmat firmly believes, to his prayer at 
Nizamuddin Aulia's shrine - learns English, is fond of English 
clothes and is friendly with the young Scot sahibs working for the 
jute mill. The narrative is a little vague regarding Akbar Ali's 
professional interests; his father, one has to assume, grooms him in 
the family business. A police superintendent of Kashmiri stock finds 
a beautiful Kashmiri bride from Punjab for Akbar Ali. Level-headed 
Rahmatullah and his god-fearing friends try hard to ensure that 
Telinipara remains an abode of peace. But rough times arrive, 
Rahmatullah and his family go through a series of nightmarish 
experiences. The mill is sold to a Marwari. Akbar Ali's Scot friends 
return home and their concubines go their separate ways; one of them 
is given shelter by Rahmatullah's wife. Communal passion rises to a 
crescendo, close friends, belonging to both communities, get 
murdered; Muslim blood is spilled to save Hindu lives, and Hindu 
blood spilled to save Muslim lives. At a point of time, the family is 
forced to flee to East Pakistan. But Rahmat and his son do not give 
up their faith in India. As madness recedes, they return to 
Telinipara. Akbar Ali's son, Mubasher, enjoys kindergarten life in 
convent school and is admitted to Calcutta Boys' School, where he 
learns to play pranks and develops a love for English literature. His 
occasional visits to Pakistan, where he meets relatives on the 
mother's side, cause a further broadening of experience. He proceeds 
to Calcutta's Presidency College, and from there to celebrity status 
as journalist and author. M.J. Akbar is Sheikh Rahmatullah's grandson.

Akbar's prose is crisp and sparkling. He has, besides, the knack of 
injecting dynamics into the narrative at appropriate moments so that 
the tension does not sag. A moral flows from the story, belonging to 
the we-shall-overcome genre: living and toiling under the humble sky 
of Telinipara, a pious converted Muslim preserves and prospers in 
life, he grows influential in the neighbourhood. Malevolent 
characters attempt to tear asunder the texture of daily routine of 
the simple, god-fearing residents of the area. Akbar describes some 
of these cruel, scheming people bent on mischief. But they cannot 
kill the soul of Telinipara; the dream of an integrated India bathed 
in communal harmony survives the arson and killings.

Considered as a fictional paradigm of economic development, social 
mobility and Hindu-Muslim relations, Blood Brothers cannot but induce 
empathy. Akbar crafts his tale with impressive skill and throws in 
references to passages from both the Quran and Hindu puranas to 
explain the psyche of particular characters - or perhaps to slyly 
make fun of them.

There is a problem, however. Akbar would perhaps like to claim Blood 
Brothers to be an authentic biography of three generations of his 
family ending with himself. To sustain that claim, the narrative 
should not have strayed from facts. It has. For example, the person 
Akbar regards as the principal malefactor of his family was not ever 
elected to the state assembly on a Congress ticket; his affiliation 
was always with another party. The sub-story of how Atulya Ghosh 
wangled a ticket for him is, it follows, pure fiction. If liberty is 
taken with facts in one instance, might it not have been taken, the 
query is inevitable, in some other instances too? Blood Brothers 
therefore does not quite qualify as contemporary history; it is at 
most a romanticized version of it.

The caveat notwithstanding, this family saga is outstandingly 
marvellous stuff. It also helps to explain much about the genealogy 
of the man M.J. Akbar is: brilliant and naughty, a hint of steel 
inside, yet generous to a fault.
ASHOK MITRA


o o o

(iii)

INSAF Bulletin 50 - June  2006

International South Asia Forum (254 Kensington Ave, Westmount., QC,
Canada H3Z 2G6 (Tel. 514-9374714; e-mail; insaf at insaf.net
http://www.insaf.net


Editors, Daya Varma (Montreal) and Vinod Mubayi (New York).
circulation/website: Ramya Chellappa (New York).

1. The  fury of the  Haves and the Intellectualism of the Liberals
against Reservation -Daya Varma

2. Exit of Nepal king is a half victory; disbanding of the Royal Nepal
Army is urgently needed to preserve democracy -Daya  Varma

3. Key changes in Nepal

4. The making of a democracy - Siddharth Varadarajan

5. The king is down but not out-  Baburam Bhattarai  interviewed by
Siddharth Varadarajan

6. Press release: the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)  May 13, 2006

7.India divided 1947: who did it? why? how? and what now?' Ed. by
K.C.Yadav , Reviewed by Y. Sikand

8. Muslims in Bahraich, UP's most marginalised district by Azim A. Khan
Sherwani and Yoginder Sikand


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

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.