SACW #2 | Oct. 22-23, 2006 | Women in Islam / India: Afzal's sentence and events of 13 Dec 2001 / AFPSA

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at mnet.fr
Mon Oct 23 03:33:05 CDT 2006


South Asia Citizens Wire - # Pack 2 | October 22-23, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2309


[1]  Clothes Aren't the Issue (Asra Q. Nomani)
[2]  India: 'And His Life Should Become Extinct' (Arundhati Roy)
[3]  India: Of military rule by other means (Jawed Naqvi)

____

[1]

Washington Post
October 22, 2006; B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/20/AR2006102001261.html


CLOTHES AREN'T THE ISSUE

by Asra Q. Nomani

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. When dealing with a 
"disobedient wife," a Muslim man has a number of 
options. First, he should remind her of "the 
importance of following the instructions of the 
husband in Islam." If that doesn't work, he can 
"leave the wife's bed." Finally, he may "beat" 
her, though it must be without "hurting, breaking 
a bone, leaving blue or black marks on the body 
and avoiding hitting the face, at any cost."

Such appalling recommendations, drawn from the 
book "Woman in the Shade of Islam" by Saudi 
scholar Abdul Rahman al-Sheha, are inspired by as 
authoritative a source as any Muslim could hope 
to find: a literal reading of the 34th verse of 
the fourth chapter of the Koran, An-Nisa , or 
Women. "[A]nd (as to) those on whose part you 
fear desertion, admonish them and leave them 
alone in the sleeping-places and beat them," 
reads one widely accepted translation.

The notion of using physical punishment as a 
"disciplinary action," as Sheha suggests, 
especially for "controlling or mastering women" 
or others who "enjoy being beaten," is common 
throughout the Muslim world. Indeed, I first 
encountered Sheha's work at my Morgantown mosque, 
where a Muslim student group handed it out to 
male worshipers after Friday prayers one day a 
few years ago.

Verse 4:34 retains a strong following, even among 
many who say that women must be treated as equals 
under Islam. Indeed, Muslim scholars and leaders 
have long been doing what I call "the 4:34 dance" 
-- they reject outright violence against women 
but accept a level of aggression that fits 
contemporary definitions of domestic violence.

Western leaders, including British Prime Minister 
Tony Blair and Italian Prime Minister Romano 
Prodi, have recently focused on Muslim women's 
veils as an obstacle to integration in the West. 
But to me, it is 4:34 that poses the much deeper 
challenge of integration. How the Muslim world 
interprets this passage will reveal whether Islam 
can be compatible with life in the 21st century. 
As Hadayai Majeed, an African American Muslim who 
had opened a shelter in Atlanta to serve Muslim 
women, put it, "If it's okay for me to be a 
savage in my home, it's okay for me to be a 
savage in the world."

Not long after I picked up the free Saudi book, 
Mahmoud Shalash, an imam from Lexington, Ky., 
stood at the pulpit of my mosque and offered 
marital advice to the 100 or so men sitting 
before him. He repeated the three-step plan, with 
"beat them" as his final suggestion. Upstairs, in 
the women's balcony, sat a Muslim friend who had 
recently left her husband, who she said had 
abused her; her spouse sat among the men in the 
main hall.

At the sermon's end, I approached Shalash. "This 
is America," I protested. "How can you tell men 
to beat their wives?"

"They should beat them lightly," he explained. "It's in the Koran."

He was doing the dance.

Born into a conservative Muslim family that 
emigrated from Hyderabad, India, to West 
Virginia, I have seen many female relatives in 
India cloak themselves head to toe in black 
burqas and abandon their education and careers 
for marriage. But the Islam I knew was a gentle 
one. I was never taught that a man could -- or 
should -- physically discipline his wife. Abusing 
anyone, I was told, violated Islamic tenets 
against zulm , or cruelty. My family adhered to 
the ninth chapter of the Koran, which says that 
men and women "are friends and protectors of one 
another."

However, the kidnapping and killing of my friend 
and colleague Daniel Pearl in 2002 forced me to 
confront the link between literalist 
interpretations of the Koran that sanction 
violence in the world and those that sanction 
violence against women. For critics of Islam, 
4:34 is the smoking gun that proves that Islam is 
misogynistic and intrinsically violent. Read 
literally, it is as troubling as Koranic verses 
such as At-Tauba ("The Repentance") 9:5, which 
states that Muslims should "slay the pagans 
wherever ye find them" or Al-Mâ'idah ("The Table 
Spread with Food") 5:51, which reads, "Take not 
the Jews and Christians as friends."

Although Islamic historians agree that the 
prophet Muhammad never hit a woman, it is also 
clear that Muslim communities face a domestic 
violence problem. A 2003 study of 216 Pakistani 
women found that 97 percent had experienced such 
abuse; almost half of them reported being victims 
of nonconsensual sex. Earlier this year, the 
state-run General Union of Syrian Women released 
a report showing that one in four married Syrian 
women is the victim of domestic violence.

Much of the problem is the 4:34 dance, which 
encourages this violence while producing 
interpretations that range from comical to 
shocking. A Muslim man in upstate New York, for 
instance, told his wife that the Koran allowed 
him to beat her with a "wet noodle." The host of 
a Saudi TV show displayed a pool cue as a 
disciplinary tool.

Modern debates over 4:34 inevitably hark back to 
a still widely used 1930 translation of the Koran 
by British Muslim Marmaduke Pickthall, who 
determined the verse to mean that, as a last 
resort, men can "scourge" their wives. A 1934 
translation of the Koran, by Indian Muslim 
scholar A. Yusuf Ali, inserted a parenthetical 
qualifier: Men could "Beat them (lightly)."

By the 1970s, Saudi Arabia, with its 
ultra-traditionalist Wahhabi ideology, was 
providing the translations. Fueled by oil money, 
the kingdom sent its Korans to mosques and 
religious schools worldwide. A Koran available at 
my local mosque, published in 1985 by the Saudi 
government, adds yet another qualifier: "Beat 
them (lightly, if it is useful)."

Today, the Islamic Society of North America and 
popular Muslim Internet mailing lists such as 
SisNet and IslamIstheTruth rely on an analysis 
from "Gender Equity in Islam," a 1995 book by 
Jamal Badawi, director of the Islamic Information 
Foundation in Canada. Badawi tries to take a 
stand against domestic violence, but like others 
doing the 4:34 dance, he leaves room for physical 
discipline. If a wife "persists in deliberate 
mistreatment and expresses contempt of her 
husband and disregard for her marital 
obligations," the husband "may resort to another 
measure that may save the marriage . . . more 
accurately described as a gentle tap on the 
body," he writes. "[B]ut never on the face," he 
adds, "making it more of a symbolic measure than 
a punitive one."

As long as the beating of women is acceptable in 
Islam, the problem of suicide bombers, jihadists 
and others who espouse violence will not go away; 
to me, they form part of a continuum. When 4:34 
came into being in the 7th century, its 
pronouncements toward women were revolutionary, 
given that women were considered little more than 
chattel at the time. But 1,400 years later, the 
world is a different place and so, too, must our 
interpretations be different, retaining the 
progressive spirit of that verse.

Domestic violence is prevalent today in 
non-Muslim communities as well, but the apparent 
religious sanction in Islam makes the challenge 
especially difficult. Some people seem to 
understand this and are beginning to push back 
against the traditionalists. However, their 
efforts are concentrated in the West, and their 
impact remains small.

In his recent book "No god but God," Reza Aslan, 
an Islam scholar at the University of Southern 
California, dared to assert that "misogynistic 
interpretation" has dogged 4:34 because Koranic 
commentary "has been the exclusive domain of 
Muslim men." An Iranian American scholar recently 
published a new 4:34 translation stating that the 
"beating" step means "go to bed with them (when 
they are willing)."

Meanwhile, shelters created for Muslim women in 
Chicago and New York have begun to preach zero 
tolerance regarding the "disciplining" of women 
-- a position that should be universal by now. 
And some Muslim men appear to grasp the gravity 
of this issue. In Northern Virginia, for 
instance, an imam organized a group called Muslim 
Men Against Domestic Violence -- though it still 
endorses the "tapping" of a wife as a "friendly" 
reminder, an organizer said.

Yet even these small advances, if we can call 
them such, face an uphill battle against the 
Saudi oil money propagating literalist 
interpretations of the Koran here in the United 
States and worldwide.

Last October, I listened to an online audio 
sermon by an American Muslim preacher, Sheik 
Yusuf Estes, who was scheduled to speak at West 
Virginia University as a guest of the Muslim 
Student Association. He soon moved to the subject 
of disobedient wives, and his recommendations 
mirrored the literal reading of 4:34. First, 
"tell them." Second, "leave the bed." Finally: 
"Roll up a newspaper and give her a crack. Or 
take a yardstick, something like this, and you 
can hit."

When I telephoned Estes later to ask about the 
sermon, he said that he had been trying to limit 
how and when men could hit their wives. He 
realized that he had to revisit the issue, he 
told me, when some Canadian Muslim men asked him 
if they could use the Sunday newspaper to give 
their wives "a crack."

Yet even those doing the 4:34 dance seem to 
realize that there's a problem. When I went back 
to listen to the audio clip later, the offensive 
language had been removed. And when I asked Estes 
if he had ever rolled up a newspaper to give his 
own wife a crack, he responded without hesitation.

"I'm married to a woman from Texas," he said. "Do 
you know what she would do to me?"

<mailto:asranomani at muslimsforpeace.net>asranomani at muslimsforpeace.net

Asra Q. Nomani is the author of "Standing Alone: 
An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of 
Islam" (HarperSanFrancisco).


____


[2] 


Outlook Magazine Oct 30, 2006

Afzal Hanging
'AND HIS LIFE SHOULD BECOME EXTINCT'
THE VERY STRANGE STORY OF THE ATTACK ON THE INDIAN PARLIAMENT

by Arundhati Roy

We know this much: On December 13, 2001, the Indian Parliament was in
its winter session. (The NDA government was under attack for yet another
corruption scandal.) At 11.30 in the morning, five armed men in a white
Ambassador car fitted out with an Improvised Explosive Device drove
through the gates of Parliament House. When they were challenged, they
jumped out of the car and opened fire. In the gun battle that followed, all the
attackers were killed. Eight security personnel and a gardener were killed
too. The dead terrorists, the police said, had enough explosives to blow up
the Parliament building, and enough ammunition to take on a whole
battalion of soldiers. Unlike most terrorists, 
these five left behind a thick trail
of evidence-weapons, mobile phones, phone numbers, ID cards,
photographs, packets of dry fruit, and even a love letter.

Not surprisingly, PM A.B. Vajpayee seized the opportunity to compare the
assault to the September 11 attacks in the US that had happened only
three months previously.

On December 14, 2001, the day after the attack on Parliament, the Special
Cell of the Delhi Police claimed it had tracked down several people
suspected to have been involved in the conspiracy. A day later, on
December 15, it announced that it had "cracked the case": the attack, the
police said, was a joint operation carried out by two Pakistan-based terrorist
groups, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. Twelve people were
named as being part of the conspiracy. Ghazi Baba of the Jaish (Usual
Suspect I), Maulana Masood Azhar also of the Jaish (Usual Suspect II);
Tariq Ahmed (a "Pakistani"); five deceased "Pakistani terrorists" (we still
don't know who they are). And three Kashmiri men, S.A.R. Geelani,
Shaukat Hussain Guru, and Mohammed Afzal; and Shaukat's wife Afsan
Guru. These were the only four to be arrested.

In the tense days that followed, Parliament was adjourned. On December
21, India recalled its high commissioner from Pakistan, suspended air, rail
and bus communications and banned over-flights. It put into motion a
massive mobilisation of its war machinery, and moved more than half-a-
million troops to the Pakistan border. Foreign embassies evacuated their
staff and citizens, and tourists travelling to India were issued cautionary
travel advisories. The world watched with bated breath as the subcontinent
was taken to the brink of nuclear war. (All this cost India an estimated Rs
10,000 crore of public money. A few hundred soldiers died just in the
panicky process of mobilisation.)

[. . .]

In its August 4, 2005, judgement, the Supreme Court clearly says that there
was no evidence that Mohammed Afzal belonged to any terrorist group or
organisation. But it also says, "As is the case with most of the conspiracies,
there is and could be no direct evidence of the agreement amounting to
criminal conspiracy. However, the circumstances, cumulatively weighed,
would unerringly point to the collaboration of the accused Afzal with the
slain 'fidayeen' terrorists."

So: No direct evidence, but yes, circumstantial evidence.

A controversial paragraph in the judgement goes on to say, "The incident,
which resulted in heavy casualties, had shaken the entire nation, and the
collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital
punishment is awarded to the offender. The challenge to the unity, integrity
and sovereignty of India by these acts of terrorists and conspirators can
only be compensated by giving maximum punishment to the person who is
proved to be the conspirator in this treacherous act" (emphasis mine).

To invoke the 'collective conscience of society' to validate ritual murder,
which is what the death penalty is, skates precariously close to valorising
lynch law.It's chilling to think that this has been laid upon us not by
predatory politicians or sensation-seeking journalists (though they too have
done that), but as an edict from the highest court in the land.

[. . .]
So: Should Mohammed Afzal's life become extinct?

A small, but influential minority of intellectuals, activists, editors, lawyers
and public figures have objected to the Death Sentence as a matter of
moral principle. They also argue that there is no empirical evidence to
suggest that the Death Sentence works as a deterrent to terrorists. (How
can it, when, in this age of fidayeen and suicide bombers, death seems to
be the main attraction?)

If opinion polls, letters-to-the-editor and the reactions of live audiences in
TV studios are a correct gauge of public opinion in India, then the lynch
mob is expanding by the hour. It looks as though an overwhelming majority
of Indian citizens would like to see Mohammed Afzal hanged every day,
weekends included, for the next few years. L.K. Advani, leader of the
Opposition, displaying an unseemly sense of urgency, wants him to be
hanged as soon as possible, without a moment's delay.

Meanwhile in Kashmir, public opinion is equally overwhelming. Huge angry
protests make it increasingly obvious that if Afzal is hanged, the
consequences will be political. Some protest what they see as a
miscarriage of justice, but even as they protest, they do not expect justice
from Indian courts. They have lived through too much brutality to believe in
courts, affidavits and justice any more. Others would like to see
Mohammed Afzal march to the gallows like Maqbool Butt, a proud martyr to
the cause of Kashmir's freedom struggle. On the whole, most Kashmiris
see Mohammed Afzal as a sort of prisoner-of-war being tried in the courts
of an occupying power. (Which it undoubtedly is). Naturally, political parties,
in India as well as in Kashmir, have sniffed the breeze and are cynically
closing in for the kill.

Sadly, in the midst of the frenzy, Afzal seems to have forfeited the right to
be an individual, a real person any more. He's become a vehicle for
everybody's fantasies-nationalists, separatists, and anti-capital
punishment activists. He has become India's great villain and Kashmir's
great hero-proving only that whatever our pundits, policymakers and
peace gurus say, all these years later, the war in Kashmir has by no means
ended.

[. . .]
If Afzal is hanged, we'll never know the answer to the real question: Who
attacked the Indian Parliament? Was it the Lashkar-e-Toiba? The Jaish-e-
Mohammed? Or does the answer lie somewhere deep in the secret heart
of this country that we all live in and love and hate in our own beautiful,
intricate, various, and thorny ways?

There ought to be a Parliamentary Inquiry into the December 13 attack on
Parliament. While the inquiry is pending, Afzal's family in Sopore must be
protected because they are vulnerable hostages in this bizarre story.

To hang Mohammed Afzal without knowing what really happened is a
misdeed that will not easily be forgotten. Or forgiven. Nor should it be.

Notwithstanding the 10% Growth Rate.

FULL TEXT AT:
Alternative India Index
http://membres.lycos.fr/sacw/article.php3?id_article=29

(originally at:
http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20061030&fname=Cover+Story+%28F%29&sid=1 
)

____


[3]

Dawn
October 23, 2006

OF MILITARY RULE BY OTHER MEANS

by Jawed Naqvi

THE Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee was set up 
recently to review India's Armed Forces Special 
Powers Act, (AFSPA, 1958) -- a law that has been 
inflicting a heavy toll on democracy and civil 
liberties in border states like Jammu and Kashmir 
and across the northeastern swathe of primarily 
tribal provinces.

The committee's report has been lying with the 
government for days and human rights groups now 
want it to be made public and discussed in 
parliament. A "leaked" copy was distributed to 
the press last week by rights NGOs, especially 
those engaged in the troubled state of Manipur. 
Incidences of frequent rape and killings in this 
state, allegedly by security forces, have 
triggered a wave of protests there.

According to the committee's findings "... the 
(AFSPA) Act, for whatever reason, has become a 
symbol of oppression, an object of hate and an 
instrument of discrimination and 
high-handedness." Giving other similar arguments, 
the Reddy Committee has recommended that it would 
be desirable to repeal the Act altogether. We'll 
discuss the caveat entailed in this generosity.

In its initial comments on the proposed repeal of 
the Act, Manipur's Human Rights Alert welcomed 
the move, albeit cautiously. But some other 
activists led by senior Supreme Court lawyer 
Colin Gonsalves warned that the recommended 
repeal could really be another way of bringing 
the law back through the back door to encompass 
not just the border states but the entire 
country. "Remember that we could be preparing the 
grounds for Martial Law in India," Gonsalves 
warned his audience at the Delhi Press Club.

The Reddy Committee's report coincides with what 
is seen as an apporaching change in India's 
neighbourhood policy, particularly the "Look East 
Policy". There is an aim here to link the country 
to South East Asia, by a network of roads and 
railways. The Human Rights Alert sees the move as 
part of a wider globalization process that 
offered a window of opportunity to the 
historically ignored region. "But this is 
contingent on whether and how far are the people 
of the Northeast empowered and prepared enough to 
leverage this opening promised by the Look East 
Policy."

Colin Gonsalves is evidently not so sanguine 
about the future. In a detailed critique of the 
Reddy report he listed concerns, primarily the 
suggestion that the key provisions of the AFSPA 
could be transferred to beef up already existing 
Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAP Act, 
1967). To begin with, the Reddy report suggests 
that even if a new law is not made, the Central 
Government can nevertheless order the Army into 
any particular state under Article 355 of the 
Constitution to protect the State against 
"internal disturbances". It can do so even 
without there being a request from the state 
government.

Gonsalves points to other troublesome 
implications. The Reddy report, for example, says 
that "it is highly advisable to repeal this Act 
altogether, without of course, losing sight of 
the overwhelming desire of an overwhelming 
majority of the region that the Army should 
remain." In other words, the Act can go but the 
army should stay under different heads. "For this 
purpose an appropriate legal mechanism has to be 
devised."

To justify the transfer of the powers of the 
AFSPA to UAP, the Committee presents arguments. 
It says that a major consequence of the proposed 
course would be to erase the feeling of 
discrimination and alienation among the people of 
the north-eastern states that they have been 
subjected to, what they call "draconian enactment 
made especially for them. The UAP Act applies to 
entire India including to the Northeastern 
States. The complaint of discrimination would 
then no longer be valid."

Now that's a brilliant way of arguing against 
discrimination. In other words, let's share the 
same draconian laws with everyone and make it 
equitable throughout the country. As Gonsalves 
notes, the Reddy Committee is aware that the UAP 
Act "does not provide for an internal mechanism 
ensuring accountability of such forces with a 
view to guard against abuses and excesses by 
delinquent members of such forces."

The committee has proposed Grievances Cells to 
address this problem. However, a cursory look at 
the constituents of these cells makes the 
proposal look laughable. The cells "should be 
composed of three persons namely, a senior member 
of the local administration as its chair, a 
captain of the armed/security forces and a senior 
member of the local police."

Not only are the cells going to be dominated by 
the security forces and the police, but they 
would also have no power to punish at all. All 
they can do is to enquire into an allegation and 
provide information. Gonsalves suggests an 
alternative -- a Civilian Oversight Commission 
along the lines prevalent in Britain. "This is 
obvious from the principal grievance against the 
security forces in India. No enquiry has ever 
come to light where the security forces have been 
severely punished."

Further, after setting out the principles that 
the use of the armed forces ought to always be 
for a limited period, the Reddy Committee 
suggests an open-ended time schedule. It says 
that while the Central Government should desist 
from extending the period for calling in the army 
beyond six months, there were circumstances when 
it could do so.

"At the end of the period so specified, the 
Central Government shall review the situation in 
consultation with the State Government and check 
whether the deployment of forces should continue 
and if it is to continue, for which period. The 
review shall take place as and when it is found 
necessary to continue the deployment of the 
forces at the expiry of the period earlier 
specified."

Another proposed amendment to the clauses of the 
AFSPA that may be co-opted into the UAP Act has 
raised serious concern. The Reddy Committee 
qualifies its suggestion that the armed forces 
act in aid of the civil power by saying that the 
forces will do so "to the extent feasible and 
practicable... However, the manner in which such 
forces shall conduct their operations shall be 
within the discretion and judgment of such 
forces." Worse, the Committee also suggests that 
the deployment of the security forces in any 
states can happen "notwithstanding that no 
request for such force is received from the State 
Government concerned." In the opinion of Colin 
Gonsalves and others all this adds up to a 
proposal to pave the way for martial law in the 
country as and when that is found feasible to 
have it. But many Manipuri activists are too busy 
celebrating the proposed repeal of the dreaded 
law to notice the warning. And given their long 
ordeal, they can't be blamed.

* * * * *


We all know that American diplomats often 
interfere with the most private matters of state 
of the countries they are stationed in. Some half 
a century ago the boot was on the other foot. 
Here's a vignette from The Hindu of October 21, 
1956.

"India's Ambassador to the United States, Mr. 
G.L. Mehta, was on October 18 spotted by a 
reporter as he (Mr. Mehta) was standing far back 
in the rear of a crowd at the railway station at 
Elyria (Ohio) to watch the Democratic 
Presidential candidate, Mr. Adlai Stevenson. The 
reporters called out from the train "Hi 
Ambassador" to Mr. Mehta, who was standing with 
his hat brim lowered firmly over his eyes.

The Ambassador then dropped his "disguise" and 
was greeted by Mr. Stevenson. Mr. Mehta had just 
delivered an address to students at the Oberlin 
College at Elyria.

He said he had not planned to attend the 
"whistle-stop" meeting as he did not want to get 
mixed up in American politics but was persuaded 
that the disguise would work. Evidently, it did 
not, he added."


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

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/

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