SACW | Aug 10-12, 2006 |

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | August 10-12, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2280


[1]  Pakistan - India: Why We Light Candles at Wagah (Kuldip Nayar)
[2]  Pakistan:  Exclusion of the people (Tahir Mirza)
[3]  India: 'On proliferation of violence and of 
ethnic cleansing' (Arjun Appadurai)
[4]  India: Review of Documentary Film on Habib 
Tanvir - Rooted in theatre (Shayoni Mitra)
[5]  Petition by 'Concerned Indians and Friends 
of India' to recall Indian Ambassador to Israel
[6]  Upcoming Events:
   (i) 25 years of Saheli - celebration and discussion (New Delhi, August 12)
   (ii) Workshop on Combatting Communalism (Bicholim, Goa 12-15 August 2006)
     

___


[1] 

Tehelka
Aug 12 , 2006

WHY WE LIGHT CANDLES AT WAGAH

Diplomatic peace initiatives will remain 
insubstantial unless the people they affect are 
also allowed to engage with each other

by Kuldip Nayar

Whenever relations between India and Pakistan hit 
their lows, people ask me why we light candles at 
Wagah, does it work? I, at least, have found that 
when there were no candles burning, there was a 
lot more tension between the two countries. Even 
at the height of our present ensnarement, the 
tension is now very little. When we started 12 
years ago, there were only 15 people lighting 
candles, saying we want peace with Pakistan, 
nothing else. Last year, there were as many as 
half-a-million people, all saying the same thing. 
So the lighting of these candles is material only 
in the sense that we create a kind of awareness, 
a climate between the two countries.

When I took the first parliamentary delegation to 
Pakistan, you should have seen the faces there, 
as if people who had lost each other had been 
brought together again. People there talked about 
the same things that you hear in India, the same 
aspirations, and said that though our countries 
were different we must be friends. Even 
organisations like the Jamaat-e-Islami came to 
meet us.

There is nothing wrong with lighting candles. 
What is wrong is what fails to follow. We have 
been speaking not for greater political 
interaction but for things like more 
people-to-people contact. The government has 
started buses, opened new routes across the 
border, but when it comes to giving visas, there 
are more government staff in the way than 
visa-seekers can hurdle. So the buses are going 
empty. The governments of India and Pakistan have 
not followed up the gesture of opening up new 
routes of access by actually giving access.

We want the border between India and Pakistan to 
become soft one day - we want crossing to be so 
simple that people can just show their passports 
and get entry to the other side. Soft borders do 
not pose a threat to sovereignty. Both countries 
can keep their own identities. At present, all 
the peace buses regardless, contact has not been 
established at all and there is a lot of 
animosity and misunderstanding between the people 
of the two countries. We don't know about each 
other and the information we get in our 
newspapers is all through foreign news agencies. 
Reuters, AFP and AP cover Pakistan and India. We 
don't even cover each other's news, so our 
information is wrong and always motivated.

A Hand To A Hand: A Pakistani Ranger greets his Indian counterpart
AP Photo

There is nothing wrong with lighting candles. 
What's wrong is what fails to follow
With the process we have started, we hope the 
government will one day be convinced to relax 
visas. To start with, now, today, announce small 
changes. Instead of giving Pakistanis visas for 
three cities, as the practice is at present, give 
them visas for six cities. That itself will make 
a difference. Today, every Pakistani who comes to 
India is subjected to a harassing search, even a 
person like the human rights activist, Asma 
Jehangir. Do something to make this a less 
humiliating process. 

I agree that there has to be peace for there to 
be peace, but we should not be as quick as we are 
to jump to conclusions. There is a suspicion that 
Pakistanis were behind the Bombay blasts. Is it 
true? Is there a possibility that home-grown 
terrorists might have been involved? It isn't so 
unlikely. We've had the Babri Masjid. We've had 
Gujarat. What did we do? And do we not have the 
spectre of 1984, for which, till today, we have 
not found a single person guilty for the massacre 
of 3000 Sikhs? So, we have to answer the basic 
question: do we have an environment where we 
treat all Indians as equal Indians?

I think that when governments in India start 
pointing fingers at Pakistan, they do it because 
it is an easy way to divert attention from their 
own failures, of intelligence, of coordination. 
Pakistan is a readymade scapegoat. I am not 
saying that the Pakistani government is innocent. 
There may indeed be some Pakistani involvement. 
But let us find out the facts before we begin 
calling for blood. True we have gone to war 
thrice, but now we say 'Peace. Conciliation,' all 
the time. How do we achieve that? Take these 
peace talks, why should they suffer, let them go 
on. Nothing has come out of them so far - but 
that is not to say that something cannot come 
from them on a day that is not necessarily far 
off.

We must understand one thing - relations between 
India and Pakistan are like the climate in the 
subcontinent. Hot, hotter, hottest. Sometimes it 
gets hotter, but the minimum is always hot.

I find it bizarre when people ask how long India 
can be charitable or generous with Pakistan when 
there is no reciprocation. When was India ever 
charitable? In issuing visas! They give three 
cities, we give three cities; they have police 
checks we have police checks. The only difference 
is that they have a military government in 
Pakistan and here we have an open, democratic 
society. But when it comes to peace initiatives, 
both our countries behave exactly the same way.

Recently, India hosted a South Asian conference 
on peace initiatives. Representative from all 
South Asian countries were present but only 
Pakistanis were searched and only they were 
questioned. It is a mindset, a bureaucratic 
mindset. Politicians are led by bureaucrats and 
that is why governments will never be able to 
make peace. We have to associate the people in 
the peace process. The peace process cannot 
succeed unless the people who are engaged in it 
are also associates on both sides.

Involve people who are not hawks, who don't start 
with the idea that Pakistanis are enemies. I 
reiterate that I am not exonerating Pakistan. The 
isi has been doing terrible things here. You can 
always find an intractable kind of Pakistani, but 
one can't deal with Pakistan by behaving the same 
way. Moreover, our Hindu-Muslim problem adds 
further complexities to Indo-Pak relations. I 
don't think that bringing Hindu-Muslim tension 
down is an unrealistic hope. We have the 
democratic set-up that gives equal importance to 
all citizens. But, at the same time, can it be 
denied that 140 million Muslims are not being 
treated as equal citizens? Although they are 
educationally and economically backward, what 
steps has the government taken so far to 
ameliorate their social status? The Indian Muslim 
deserves to be credited for being an Indian first 
and a Muslim later. Muslims from all over the 
world went to Afghanistan to join jehad; no 
Indian was among them. For that matter, no Indian 
Muslim from outside Kashmir has gone to Kashmir 
to fight against the Indian State.

It suits the Sangh Parivar, including the bjp, to 
foster hatred and distrust between Hindus and 
Muslims because it gets them votes. If India and 
Pakistan could achieve some thaw in relations 
during the bjp-led nda regime, it was because of 
Atal Behari Vajpayee. And here is where the role 
of civil society comes in. We have to keep trying 
to form a truly democratic and secular India 
where there is no communalism.

Lighting candles at Wagah symbolises peace. By 
transmitting a message for friendship, we are 
hoping that Indians and Pakistanis will one day 
shed their hostilities and misunderstandings. I 
even hope to see South Asia eventually become one 
economic unit, like the European common market. 
It's a dream that I believe will come true in the 
next generation's lifetime, if not in mine. It is 
only then that we will realise Gandhi's vision of 
Independence. Imagine what we will attain.

Nayar is a senior journalist

_____


[2] 

Dawn
August 11, 2006

EXCLUSION OF THE PEOPLE

by Tahir Mirza

TELEVISION stations donned green early in 
preparation for the country's 59th Independence 
Day on August 14. Discussions and talk shows have 
been the staple of programming over the past few 
days.

How many of us will bother to look at the past as 
we mark Independence Day? Will some of us count 
the number of independence anniversaries that we 
have celebrated under martial law or with 
military-led governments in power? Or even how 
most things have remained unchanged over the past 
many decades?

In an editorial marking the 10th independence 
anniversary of the country, which surely must 
have been seen as a great landmark, the old 
Pakistan Times wrote, inter alia: "In public and 
in private, inside homes and out in the market 
place, the speech of the people is sick with 
disgust and frustration, streaked with impotent 
anger. There are many reasons for this, but there 
is one basic cause which enters into them all. 
And this basic cause is the complete exclusion of 
the people from the power which should have 
devolved on them with the coming of independence, 
the power which has been rightfully theirs ever 
since this day ten years ago, but has been 
withheld from them by a succession of 
self-appointed coteries.

"For ten years, one person (or a group of 
persons) after another, with the help of few 
cronies, and camp-followers, has set himself up 
as the custodian of the people's political 
belongings, and each such regime has been 
speedily undone by the jealousies, intrigues, and 
machinations of rival pretenders.

"With the passage of time these conflicts in the 
ruling camp have sharpened, the methods of 
attaining or retaining power have become more 
ruthless and more corrupt, the contact between 
the ruler and the ruled becomes steadily more 
remote. Crisis, emergencies, deadlocks, 
enthronements and dethronements, squabbles and 
hand -- clasps, attachments and detachments, are 
all enacted within the same small group which 
changes shape and colour with every change of 
season and ever remains the same.

In none of these transactions have the people 
ever had a hand and in many of them even the 
present hand-picked legislators are allowed 
little voice. And this is the cause -- this 
arrogation of power by an apparently irremovable 
few, this forcible suspension of the peoples' 
right to choose their own governments and call 
them to account through popular institutions -- 
for all our ills, political, economic, moral, and 
psychological." *

This was just a year before the country's first 
martial law that formally inducted the military 
into the "same small group which changes shape 
with every change of season and ever remains the 
same". Now of course the military dominates this 
elitist power group, and the people continue to 
be confronted with the arrogation of power by an 
"apparently irreplaceable few". If in such 
circumstances, there is a sense of despair rather 
than joy, cynicism rather than faith at national 
anniversaries, should anyone be surprised?

If in 1957, when the country had seen only 
civilian, political governments, however venal 
they may have been, there was so much frustration 
as reflected in the rather longish Pakistan Times 
excerpt above, what can be the level of popular 
alienation at the present time? We continually 
alternate between political parties with selfish 
agendas and the armed forces whose passion for 
governance and for reforming and civilising us 
remains undimmed despite all the previous 
experiences.

If military governance was a factor that was not 
applicable then, another element that was 
non-existent in the form in which we know it 
today was the dominance of the political agenda 
by the conservatives and the religious parties. 
Both elements had made their appearance by that 
time in one form or another -- the 
fundamentalist-driven anti-Ahmadiya agitation in 
1953, leading to the imposition of limited 
martial law. But neither the military nor the 
maulvi had become such an imposition as now. 
Religious revivalism had not come to permeate 
every level of society as it does now, thanks 
again to a military dictator, Gen Ziaul Haq.

So, in other words, the political situation may 
have become worse and more complicated since 1957 
even if the country has advanced on the economic 
front. The tragedy is that there doesn't appear 
to be much realisation of this sad reality either 
by the political parties or civil society. Our 
failure to develop vibrant institutions, 
including political organisations, and to 
preserve and strengthen the existing ones has 
been abysmal. Our responses to political 
developments at home and abroad remain retarded. 
Rule of law and constitutional proprieties win 
only the most perfunctory of nods from ministers 
and officials. The checks and balances considered 
necessary in an accountable democracy are seen 
here more as irritants that prevent a dynamic 
leadership from getting ahead and getting work 
done. The representative character of governments 
fashioned by the military such as the present PML 
government remains questionable.

You can continue to point out things like this 
till you are blue in the face, and the official 
reaction remains the same: one of indifference. 
Even small irritants never get addressed: Mr 
Sharifuddin Pirzada remains part of governments 
as a minister or adviser, and so far his advice 
has only led us into even murkier constitutional 
eddies. Enjoying the status of a federal minister 
in the present set-up, he was yet hired by the 
Privatisation Commission to defend it in the 
Steel Mills case in the Supreme Court -- and was 
reportedly paid a handsome fee for the brief. The 
case was lost for the government. The chief 
election commissioner says that a president who 
is also chief of the army staff cannot canvas for 
a political party. But does that persuade our 
president to follow the straight and narrow?

We could have in all these years since 
independence at least attempted to attack some of 
the social evils that have dogged us because of 
the powerful influence of backward feudal and 
tribal leaders and religious charlatans. But here 
too we have stood still, the current onfusion 
about amendments to the Hudood Ordinances being 
one instance, with Federal Law Minister Sher 
Afgan proving himself to be the typical loose 
canon in parliament, debating whether or not it 
is religiously just for husbands to beat their 
wives. Everyday brings some new example of such 
juvenile utterances or behaviour.

Our air chief, in a statement the other day, has 
neatly reduced the Israeli aggression against 
Lebanon and the Palestinians to a matter of 
military strength and prowess. After meeting the 
Punjab governor in Lahore, he told reporters that 
the Lebanese prime minister was forced to cry 
before the media because of the weak defence 
capability of his country (Dawn, page 12, Aug 9). 
Which shows the necessity of keeping Pakistan 
well armed. Ergo. That's how depoliticised we 
have become -- and yet military officers who have 
done PhDs and MScs are considered to be absolute 
whiz kids and masters of political strategy and 
suitable to be appointed as members of the 
Federal Public Service Commission.

The editorial ferred to at the beginning 
concluded by saying: "And yet these abuses, and 
the state of mind they have engendered among our 
people, are by no means native to our national 
genius or national temperament, as many prophets 
of doom would have us believe. They are as 
artificial and as hand-made as the arbitrary 
political structure which has given them birth. 
They will endure as long as the present 
irreparable political structure endures."

So that's something else from the past that 
applies to the present and which should be kept 
in view as we move towards Independence Day.

* From"Pakistan: The First Twelve Years",

The Pakistan Times editorials of Mazhar Ali Khan (OUP), 1996

_____


[3]


Rediff.com
August 04, 2006

THE AVERAGE INDIAN MUSLIM WANTS ROOM TO SURVIVE
The Rediff Interview | Dr Arjun Appadurai, anthropologist


It is not always that an academic book published 
by a university press gets national attention 
across America, and leads its writer to speak on 
National Public Radio and appear on several 
well-regarded television shows.

Unless, of course, the author is Mumbai-born 
Arjun Appadurai, whose book Fear of Small Numbers 
discusses why, in the age of globalisation, there 
has been a proliferation of violence and of 
ethnic cleansing on the one hand and extreme 
forms of political violence against civilian 
population on the other.

Dr Appadurai, John Dewy Professor in Social 
Sciences at New School University in New York, 
tells Rediff India Abroad Managing Editor 
(Features) Arthur J Pais that there seems to be 
an increasing and irrational fear of the 
minorities around the world and minorities, 
including in India, confront greater hostilities 
than ever before.

Your book has an intriguing title. Could you discuss its significance?

Minorities throughout the world are, somehow, the 
subject of anxiety. And in the last decade, 
despite the opening of markets, the free flow of 
capital and liberal ideas, minorities in many 
countries including India are facing greater 
hostilities than ever before, and in some cases, 
they face genocide.

There seems to be an increasing and irrational 
fear of the minorities. I have been interested in 
census statistics, how populations are actually 
enumerated. Apart from the question of being weak 
or subordinate, official enumeration is one of 
the ways minorities are created in the modern 
world.

The point here is that the idea of minority and 
majority was not always a part of human society. 
Human societies always had different groups; some 
were larger and some smaller; but the twin 
categories of minority and majority are modern 
phenomena.

The idea of majority and minority are intimately 
connected. The two arise together. And in the 
book, I observe that the idea of majority and 
minority in India emerges out of a procedural 
consideration having to do with minority opinions 
in key administrative committees under British 
rule. The idea of minority opinion did not arise 
in the first place out of national enumeration of 
population, but from this other administrative 
and procedural root.

But soon after this administrative concept came 
into play, the idea of minority and majority 
began to apply to core social groups and began to 
be institutionalised in the census.

How does the recent serial bomb blasts in Mumbai play into your broader theme?

The Mumbai blasts are part of a history that 
clearly involves several factors. One is the 
worldwide illicit arms trade that underlies 
everything from the Mumbai blasts to Hezbollah's 
rocket capacities in Lebanon, and has 
strengthened many other groups like the Basques 
and the Tamil Tigers that have nothing to do with 
Islam.

We should remember that it is not the Muslims 
only that are the beneficiaries of worldwide 
deregulated arms trade.

Second, in the South Asian story we have the 
bitterness of Partition. Especially in North 
India, and especially among Hindu nationalist 
groups, Partition is a wound and insult to the 
integrity of India, which created a perennial 
enemy, the state of Pakistan, and its supporters 
and sympathisers in Kashmir and in the rest of 
India.

That story could have been forgotten -- but it is 
never forgotten; it is kept alive and kept active 
by politicians, by religious leaders, by party 
ideologues and by parts of the media.

Thirdly, in Pakistan you have a society that is 
in fact theocratic, and there is no question that 
Pakistan as a State has pursued a variety of 
official, unofficial and individual activities 
calculated to unsettle India. However open-minded 
one is, one has to recognise it. It is also true 
that India has done its part to keep up the 
competition with Pakistan, to outdo its military 
capacities, to exceed its nuclear capabilities 
and to limit Pakistan's influence in Asia as a 
whole.

But there is no denying that as a theocratic 
State under military rule, Pakistan has pursued 
anti-democratic policies at many levels, and has 
been unable to free itself from using Kashmir as 
a distraction from its own internal crises as a 
civil society and a buffer state in the Great 
Game of Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia and the United 
States.

Some secularists find it difficult to accept that 
in certain areas of India where the Muslims are 
dominant, they can create a feeling of terror 
among the Hindus. Do you share those reservations?

We have to accept that reality, and the fact that 
violence for political and religious gains is not 
confined only to the Hindu Right. We must also 
acknowledge that Pakistan is not something 
invented by the imagination of the Hindu Right. 
It is real. It is authoritarian. It is 
theocratic. And Pakistani civil society has moved 
closer to the Islamic right.

In India, there are some Muslims who sympathise 
with Pakistan. It is hard to tell whether it is 
the product of their being driven out of India, 
mentally speaking, or whether they had a prior 
affiliation to Pakistan. The more you are pushed 
out, the more you are going to identify with some 
place where you might be a first class citizen.

And yet, I believe that the radical, terrorist 
voices one hears in the Muslim communities in 
India are few and small. The average Muslim in 
India today has this request to the majority 
community: Give us the room to survive. Muslims 
in rural and urban India are not thinking of 
taking over India, but are asking whether they 
can live there at all.

Sure, there is a rise in the anti-Muslim 
sentiments across India. What has been especially 
worrisome is that this anger has been adopted by 
the middle class, the educated and the 
professionals across India. The very classes and 
groups who would have been ashamed to express 
strong radical religious sentiments in the 1950s 
and 1960s are proudly pro-Hindu today.

How did that transformation come about?

We must not just ask what Hindutva is about, you 
must also ask the question how it has changed in 
the last few decades. In the 1950s and 1960s, 
many middle class, educated professionals talked 
as if India's secularism belonged to everyone, 
and was not a favour handed out by Hindus to 
other groups.

In the 30 to 40 years since the high period of 
Nehru's secularism, the other trend in Indian 
politics, the pro-Hindu strand has become 
prominent. For me as an anthropologist, it is 
painfully obvious that it has become culturally 
respectable to run down and suspect the Muslim 
community.

You can now publicly question the political 
loyalty of the minorities, you can publicly 
question Muslims at all times, Christians at 
various times and Sikhs intensely in the 1980s, 
as you recall. Fortunately, the tide of anti-Sikh 
sentiments has turned, and their loyalty is not 
questioned now.

There seems some evidence to suggest that at 
least in some instances, minorities triggered the 
violence...

In that case, the state agencies can look into 
the problem. But when mobs take the law into 
their own hand and unleash violence, terrible 
things unfold. Study after study has shown that 
the retaliatory violence against the minorities 
is hugely disproportionate to the alleged crimes 
attributed to them.


_____


[4]


Frontline
July 29-Aug. 11, 2006

FILM [REVIEW]

Rooted in theatre

Shayoni Mitra

'Gaon ke naon theatre, mor naon Habib' is an 
insightful and lively documentary on Habib Tanvir 
and his Naya Theatre.

SUDHAVANA DESHPANDE

HABIB TANVIR, DURING a rehearsal of 'Zahareeli Hawa'.

INDIAN documentary film-making has by now a dense 
history since Independence. Yet it has seldom 
intersected with another rich tradition - Indian 
theatre. The past few years have seen an 
increasing interest in capturing live 
performances on celluloid, not just from an 
archival impulse of documenting productions, but 
in a genuine attempt to add to the historical 
processes that engender social-dramatic 
expression. Gaon ke naon theatre, mor naon Habib 
(`My village is theatre, my name is Habib', 75 
minutes, Hindi, English, Chhattisgarhi with 
English sub-titles, Sanket Productions, 2005) is 
one such. It is an insightful and lively 
documentary by Sanjay Maharishi and Sudhanva 
Deshpande on Habib Tanvir, one of the greatest 
innovators on the Indian proscenium since 
Independence, and his troupe - Naya Theatre. The 
film chronicles Tanvir's involvement with the 
Indian stage for over five decades, playing 
concomitantly the roles of playwright, director, 
designer, singer, composer and occasional actor. 
It is as much a salute to the others of the group 
- the indefatigable resources of his wife Monika, 
the incomparable voice of Bhulwaram and the 
myriad talents of his daughter Nageen have made 
Naya Theatre so exceptional. In a year where we 
mourn the demise of a faithful partner in theatre 
and life, it is well worth revisiting, if only 
through film, the contribution Habib Tanvir has 
made to the cultural consciousness of our times.

Habib Tanvir's work has attracted the attention 
of many before these intrepid film-makers. 
Scholars of modern Indian drama will make the 
obligatory nod to his contribution. And while the 
modernity of the post-Independence Indian stage 
is demonstrable enough, it is often confounded by 
the frequent revivalist argument. `Theatre of 
roots' is one such logic of post-colonial 
scholarship. It can loosely be defined as the 
mixed dramatic idiom developed by certain 
post-Independence playwrights and directors, 
which modified aspects of `traditional' Indian 
genres to the modern proscenium stage. `Theatre 
of the roots' was not so much a cohesive 
aesthetic formulation, but rather, common 
features in the individual doctrines of theatre 
stalwarts like K.N. Panikkar, Ratan Thiyam and 
Habib Tanvir to name a few, whose contemporeneity 
made for a misapprehension of shared intent.

Indeed, `theatre of roots' was never a movement. 
Instead, it was a label used by some theatre 
scholars and administrators (none of them 
practitioners themselves) to describe the works 
of a few Indian playwrights and directors. The 
term itself was coined by Suresh Awasthi, a 
cultural policy administrator, in 1984 and over 
the years, it has found its way into the 
vocabulary of scholars like Kapila Vatsayana and 
Nemichandra Jain. Yet, in one of the many 
paradoxes of Indian theatre, it is not an 
appellation that the playwrights or directors, so 
readily identified under this genre, will ever 
adopt in self-description. It should also be 
noted that `theatre of roots' itself can be 
broken up into at least two trends - a conscious, 
intellectual Sanskritisation of the theatre that 
is perhaps best demonstrated in the works of K.N. 
Panikkar, and a more exigent use of local folk 
idioms. The debate on whether Indian folk forms 
are a corrupt dissemination of the principles of 
Natyashastra remains largely outside the roots 
rhetoric since few directors lay rigid claims to 
an antiquarian Classicism.

The above debate is at one level purely academic.

Gaon ke naon theatre, mor naon Habib excels in 
that it renders the above discussion irrelevant 
and takes a steadfast look at the theatre of 
Habib Tanvir and his relations with his actors. 
Even the most casual viewer of the film will 
realise that any essentialist dichotomy between 
urban and rural, modern and ancient, formal and 
folk is impossible to maintain. This cinematic 
exegesis then shows `theatre of the roots' to be 
simply untenable as an actual theatrical 
phenomenon of the post-colonial era. The film 
refuses the choice of identifiable roots that the 
cast and crew of Naya Theatre can stage a 
glorious return to. And indeed, even in the case 
of the director such an easy linear narrative is 
simply impossible. As the film-makers annotate in 
the DVD, Habib Tanvir's work is "a theatre born 
of a sensibility seeped in subaltern cultures". 
It is unshakably multiple.

Habib Tanvir started his career in the theatre in 
his student days as a member of the Mumbai IPTA 
(Indian People's Theatre Association), an 
involvement which many claim was the crucible for 
all his later work. Tanvir then moved to Delhi 
and forever changed its theatrical landscape with 
his seminal production Agra Bazar (1954). Created 
with students of Jamia Milia Islamia and 
residents of the Okhla Industrial Area, it 
already foreshadowed the continual class mix that 
was to define Naya Theatre later. Tanvir then 
went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in 
Great Britain for three years. But more memorable 
in his stint abroad was his watching the Berliner 
Ensemble do their hallmark plays a few months 
after Bertolt Brecht's death, when his 
leading-lady wife Helen Weigel was still very 
much at the helm of Brechtian affairs. In 1958, 
Tanvir started working with six actors from his 
native Chhattisgarh trained in nacha, the folk 
narrative dance style of the region, a move that 
many hail as the authentic progenitor of the 
`theatre of roots' impulse. The allegation is 
simply not true. It took Tanvir many years, much 
experimentation and astute dramaturgy to arrive 
at the unique idiom that he operates from and 
continually refines even today.

Gaon ke naon theatre, mor naon Habib is precisely 
a paean to the inexhaustible curiosity and 
devotion Tanvir has towards his theatrical work. 
The title itself is a reworking of Tanvir's play 
Gaon ke naon Sasural, mor naon Damand, a 
production that blends three traditional nacha 
performances around marital themes, but then 
imprints them with an aesthetic that is uniquely 
Tanvir. The documentary is an attempt at 
capturing these directorial interventions that 
are impossible to codify.

Indeed, for much of the film, nothing is 
happening on stage, and even when there is it is 
usually observed on camera from the wings. The 
focus instead is on the endless minutiae that 
comprise a dramatic production. There is much 
hammering, humming and hemming throughout the 
film, and not one nail, tune or stitch escapes 
Tanvir's eye. His meticulous aesthetic is 
evidenced in scenes where he asks for minor 
realignment of a stage set piece or nuances 
Nageen's superb singing in a very particular way. 
Then there are his actors' accounts of his 
direction. His unerring director's eye is often 
applied to capturing and `fixing' an effective 
moment in improvisation. And perhaps, like never 
before the actors of Naya Theatre are brought 
into focus in this film. It is not on stage but 
from their homes in their villages that they tell 
us of their journey in the theatre. It is not 
just a literal listing of destinations visited 
that we get (1982 - London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, 
Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg, 1983 - Belgrade, 
Dublin). But sitting there amidst fields that 
they come home for a fortnight a year to plough, 
we see the mud walls pasted with their 
photographs of their city theatre company.

SUDHAVANA DESHPANDE

IN PERFORMANCE, WITH daughter Nageen.

It is also because of these rich testaments that 
one should not watch Gaon ke naon theatre, mor 
naon Habib for the plays but for the people who 
make them. Of Tanvir's expansive oeuvre we get 
the most glimpses of Charandas Chor.

The play is an exemplar of the satirisation of 
autocratic power. Habib Tanvir took a Rajasthani 
folk tale told to him, Vijaydan Detha, in 1972 
and turned it into one of the most popular plays 
of his repertoire. The story is about a petty 
thief who makes four simple vows to his guru - 
never to eat in a gold plate, never to lead a 
procession that is in his honour, never to become 
a king and never to marry a princess. His guru 
makes him add a fifth - never to tell a lie. As 
events unfold, Charandas becomes famous, is 
offered the seat of political power, and has an 
enamoured princess intent on marrying. For his 
refusal he is put to death, a powerful parable of 
the fate of truthful existence under repressive 
power regimes. The play uses many elements of 
nacha - a chorus that provides commentary through 
song, stage is devoid of all sets, minimal props 
are used, and panthi tunes of the satnami 
religious sect are incorporated.

Lest one should think that Tanvir's work is 
artistic enterprise alone, a mere process of 
endless theatrical experimentation, the film 
shows the political effects of the fraught 
relation between life and art.

Alarming footage shows Tanvir, upon his entry 
into his eighth decade of life, as a target of 
the Sangh Parivar. Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh 
(RSS) cadre disrupt his shows, empty out his 
auditoria with threats to his audiences and 
endanger his travel with blockades from which 
they shout rabid slogans - often without having 
watched a single play of his. For if one were to 
see, one would, however unwittingly, be 
entertained. The social commentary too never 
vitiates.

In 2002, Habib Tanvir, even by his own standards, 
ventured into unchartered territory with 
Zahareeli Hawa. It was the translation of a play 
by the Canadian-Indian playwright Rahul Varma on 
the Bhopal gas tragedy. The cast included an 
American, a Canadian, a Delhiite, several Bhopal 
residents who are not regular members of Naya 
Theatre and, of course, the regular Chhattisgarhi 
actors. But more remarkable was the creative 
envisioning of this project.

On an Indian stage where our contemporary 
tragedies are seldom portrayed, let alone 
sustained social engagement sought, Tanvir and 
Varma use the theatrical idiom to ask important 
and uncomfortable questions about culpability, 
redress and the brevity of social memory. The 
play will perhaps eventually be staged with only 
members of the Naya Theatre, but that is an 
artistic challenge that Tanvir keeps himself 
thoroughly open to.

Habib Tanvir modifies anything from Shakespeare 
to Brecht to Asghar Wajahat to focus on the 
exceptional in the mundane, the poetic potential 
of the prosaic. And Gaon ke naon theatre, mor 
naon Habib shows beautifully this gentle humour 
combined with a razor-sharp sensibility that 
permeates from Tanvir and infects everyone he 
lives and works with.

Shayoni Mitra is a PhD candidate at the 
Department of Performance Studies, New York 
University.

_____


[5] 


PETITION BY 'CONCERNED INDIANS AND FRIENDS OF 
INDIA' TO RECALL INDIAN AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL,

http://www.petitiononline.com/GOIpeace/petition.html

Praful Bidwai's column effectively addresses a 
disturbing national trend. GOI needs to hear that 
many Indians, and friends of India around the 
world believe that the country must assert moral 
leadership, and must respect its non-aligned past.

_____


[6]  Upcoming Events

(i)

25 years of Saheli
celebration and struggle: strengthening autonomous politics

In the morning, we will journey down memory lane 
together with women's groups, supporters and 
co-travellers, old friends and new. Retelling our 
common histories, celebrating our struggles, 
sharing our visions.

In the afternoon, presentations from other 
autonomous movements will hopefully spark off a 
vibrant discussion on our relevance and 
challenges, and strategies for the future, 
together.

Speakers will include:

Chayanika Shah, Forum Against Oppression of Women 
and Labia, Mumbai, on the queer movement.
Uma Chakravarti, Delhi, on the democratic rights’ movement.
Arti Sawhny and Kiran Dubey on the Sathin Union, Rajasthan.
Saraswati on organising Dalit women workers in Karnataka
Shamim, Shramik Adivasi Sanghathan, M.P, on mass 
organising and political mobilisation.
Date: Saturday, 12 August, 2006

Time: 9.30 am - 5.30 pm

Venue: Mekhala Jha Auditorium, Bal Bhawan, Kotla 
Road, New Delhi - 2(turn right past Gandhi Peace 
Foundation, ITO)

Do come!

In Solidarity,

Vani... on behalf of all of us at Saheli

Saheli Women's Resource Centre
Above Shop Nos. 105-108
Under Defence Colony Flyover Market (South Side)
New Delhi 110 024
Phone: +91 (011) 2461 6485

____

(ii)

CITIZENS' INITIATIVES FOR COMMUNAL HARMONY
                                 c/o Ramesh Gauns, Pajwada, Bicholim, Goa

Subject: Workshop on Combatting Communalism from 12-15 August 2006

Dear Friends,

There has been considerable concern in Goa over the rising
communalisation of Goan society and politics. The seriousness of the
situation was driven home by the recent communal violence in
Sanvordem-Curchorem, but the ominous signs have been all too obvious for
quite some time.

For some years now, Goa has been seeing a systematic communal
mobilization. To counter this, it is necessary to strengthen democratic
and secular forces.

As a step towards this, Citizens' Initiatives for Communal Harmony, Goa,
and Anhad (Delhi) are organising a four-day residential camp at Peaceful
Society, Madkai, Goa, from 12-15 August. This camp is meant to sensitize
activists and citizens about secular values and strategies and enable
the formation of a broad secular initiative in Goa. The camp will have
space for about 50-60 participants.

You can get further information about Anhad at www.anhadindia.org.

We are looking forward to participation from various sections of Goan
society that are interested in combating communalism. If you are
interested in participating in this programme, please get in touch with
any of the contact persons listed below. The fee for participation is at
least Rs. 50 (higher amounts and donations towards meeting the expenses
for the programme are welcome).

The tentative schedule of the camp is attached to the end of this note.

Yours sincerely,

Albertina Almeida       Ramesh Gauns
                 (Convenors)

For further details and donations, please contact:

Vidyadhar Gadgil                Albertina
Almeida                       Ramesh Gauns
Email: vgadgil at gmail.com        Email: alal_goa at sancharnet.in   Tel:
9226443139
Tel: 2293766                    Tel:
2438840                                   


TENTATIVE SCHEDULE FOR WORKSHOP ON COMBATTING COMMUNALISM

August 12-15, 2006


Saturday, 12 August 2006

9.00: Secular Perspective on Goa: Presentation by a Panel
11.00 - 11.30: Tea
11.00 - 1.00: The Need and Urgency of Resisting the Rise of Fascist
Forces in India :Defending Secularism (Resource Person Rakesh Sharma,
Film-maker)
1.00 - 2.00: Lunch
2.00 - 3.00: Formation of the Indian Identity (Resource Person Sohail
Hashmi)
3.30 - 4.00: Tea
4.00 - 5.00: History of the Sangh Parivar (Resource Person Rohit
Prajapati, PUCL, Baroda)
5.00 - 6.00: Citizens' Rights, Secularism as a Constitutional Right
(Resource Person Mihir Desai, Human Rights Lawyer)
6.00 onwards: FILM: 'Final Solution' by Rakesh Sharma followed by
discussion with the film-maker

Sunday, 13 August 2006

9.00 - 11.00: Globalisation, Culture and Communalism (Resource Person
Prof. K.N. Panikkar)
11.30 onwards: (Ram Puniyani, Resource Person) Facts vs. Myths on 
·       Appeasement of Minorities
·       Anti Nationalism of Minorities
·       Demography of the nation (Population of the Minorities)
·       Conversion of Christian Missionaries
·       Ayodhya
·       Kashmir
·       Gujarat

Evening: FILM: 'Men in the Tree' by Lalit Vachani followed by
discussion.

Monday, 14 August 2006

9.30 - 11.00: Communalisation Of Media (Resource Person Sujay Gupta,
Editor, Gomantak Times)
11.00 - 11.30 Tea
11.30 - 1.00: Communalisation Of Education (Resource Person, Prof. K.N.
Panikkar)
1.00 - 2.00: Lunch
2.00 - 3.30: Gender And Communal Politics (Resource Person Beena
Srinivasan)
3.30 - 4.00: Tea break
4.00-5.30: Myths, Relief And Scientific Temper (Resource Person Gauhar
Raza, Poet and Film-maker)
6.00 onwards: FILM 'In Dark Times' followed by discussion with the
film-maker Gauhar Raza

Tuesday, 15 August 2006

9.00 - 11.00: Follow-Up Actions Towards Secular Community Building:
Possible Secular Actions & Initiatives
11.00 - 11.30: Tea
11.30 - 1.00: Morning programme continued
1.00 - 2.00: Lunch

Workshop closes

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

Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
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