SACW | Nov. 25, 2006 |

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | November 25, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2324

[1]  Open Letter to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (AHRC)
[2]  Sri Lanka: the politics of purity (Nira Wickramasinghe)
[3]  Pakistan: Protecting women (Asma Jahangir)
[4]  India: Sangh link singes BHU teachers
[5]  India - Gujarat:
  - Pleas against Modi: court decision on December 4   
  - Opposition to Modi's `unanimity' scheme
  - SC issues notices to Ashok Bhatt, Pathak in '85 riot case
  - SC pulls up Gujarat for lapses in '02 riot cases
[6]  India: To pee is to be (Amit Sengupta)
[7]  Books:
(i)  Uma Chakravarti's Everyday Lives, Everyday 
Histories (reviewed by Shonaleeka Kaul)
(ii) Cornelia Sorabji: Champion of women's rights 
(reviewed by Geeta Ramaseshan)
(iii) Ambedkar, Ayodhya aur Dalit Andolan
[9]  Upcoming Events: 
(i) Post-ISF reflection session on the World Social Forum (New Delhi, 29 Nov)
(ii)  Nandini Gooptu on Globalization, economic 
liberalization and the Indian bureaucracy
(iii) Eleanor Newbigin's Women, personal law and 
property rights: notions of modern citizenship in 
late colonial India


____


[1] 


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 24, 2006
AHRC-OL-065-2006

An Open Letter to the Pakistan Electronic Media 
Regulatory Authority by the Asian Human Rights 
Commission

Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed
Director General (Tech)
Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA)
6th Floor
Green Trust Tower
f-6/G-6, Jinnah Avenue
Blue Area, Islamabad
PAKISTAN

Fax: +92 051 9207419

Dear Dr. Ahmed

PAKISTAN: Serious issues remain over closure of radio station

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is 
writing to you concerning the closure of the Mast 
FM 103 radio station in Balakot, North West 
Frontier Province, in response to your letter of 
6 November 2006 (Ref. No. F-10-4[109] Gen-2006) 
informing us that "the matter is closed". We beg 
to differ.

You will recall that the radio station obtained a 
temporary licence to operate from Balakot after 
an earthquake struck the region in October 2005. 
The station operated on a non-commercial basis 
with the intention to assist in the recovery of 
the region. However, in August 2006 the Pakistan 
Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PERMA) 
declined to renew the licence. Your authority 
extended the temporary licences of other radio 
stations operating in Balakot; however, Mast FM 
was refused, without any reason being given.

In our letter of September 27 and a further 
letter of October 9, we raised serious issues 
about the closure of the station. In particular, 
we pointed out that there is reason to believe 
that the refusal to issue a licence was due to 
the station reporting on alleged misuse of funds 
and corruption in rehabilitation programmes 
carried out by the government agencies, 
especially the Earthquake Relief and 
Rehabilitation Authority. We also noted that Mast 
FM had previously been targeted by your 
authority, in two raids conducted on its offices 
in Lahore and Karachi in 2004.

On November 2 our staff person was contacted by 
Dr. Abdul Jabbar, the then Director General 
(Tech) of the PEMRA, who insisted that this is 
"not a human rights matter" but purely a domestic 
matter under his office's authority. Furthermore, 
he refused to give any clear explanation for the 
closure of the station.

We therefore see no reason that the matter should 
be "closed", as stipulated in your letter of 
November 2, because none of the serious issues we 
raised previously have yet been clarified. Nor 
has the licence of the radio station been 
restored or an investigation been conducted into 
the persons responsible for its refusal.

As to whether or not this is a human rights 
matter, may we remind you of article 19(2) of the 
International Covenant on Civil and Political 
Rights, that, "Everyone shall have the right to 
freedom of expression; this right shall include 
freedom to seek, receive and impart information 
and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, 
either orally, in writing or in print, in the 
form of art, or through any other media of his 
choice." This right shall be restricted only 
where provided by law for the purpose of 
respecting the rights and reputations of others 
or protecting national security. So far we see 
nothing to indicate that the closure of this 
radio station would fall into the latter 
categories.

Perhaps it is not surprising to find that the 
PEMRA is ignorant of this article 19, given that 
the Government of Pakistan has not yet joined the 
Covenant. However, article 19 of the constitution 
of your country also holds that, "Every citizen 
shall have the right to freedom of speech and 
expression... subject to any reasonable 
restrictions imposed by law in the interest of 
the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or 
defence of Pakistan or any part thereof, friendly 
relations with foreign States, public order, 
decency or morality, or in relation to contempt 
of court, or incitement to an offence." Again, 
there is nothing in this to explain the failure 
of your agency to renew the licence to Mast FM.

Your role is not purely administrative. Broadcast 
media is a matter of national interest. Please 
understand that the arbitrary delimiting of free 
expression is something with which millions 
throughout Asia are greatly concerned, and 
directly affected. It is for this reason that the 
Asian Human Rights Commission has taken a special 
interest in this case, and will continue to do so 
until in our opinion, not yours, "the matter is 
closed".

We again recommend that you take the following 
steps: first, review the decision to not renew 
the licence to Mast FM in Balakot; second, 
conduct an investigation to determine the reasons 
for the arbitrary closure of the station; third, 
put in place adequate safeguards to ensure that 
such incidents do not occur in the future.

Yours sincerely


Basil Fernando
Executive Director
Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong

______


[2]

opendemocracy.net
17 November 2006

SRI LANKA: THE POLITICS OF PURITY

by Nira Wickramasinghe [*]

(This article draws on material in Nira 
Wickramasinghe's "Sri Lanka's conflict: culture 
and lineages of the past" (Journal of 
International Affairs, 60/1, 2007)

The exclusivist politics and mindsets of those 
who have drowned Sri Lanka in civil war must be 
challenged by a creative recovery of the island's 
hybrid identities, says Nira Wickramasinghe.

The delegations representing the Sri Lankan state 
and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) 
met on 28-29 October in Geneva for talks to 
thrash out a possible settlement to the civil war 
that has ravaged the island of Sri Lanka since 
1983. They did so against the background of 
military operations raging on both sides in the 
country. It was sadly predictable that the 
politician-warriors at the talks remained 
entrenched in their mutually irreconcilable 
positions, and returned empty-handed to their 
wounded land of 75,000 war widows, 25,000 child 
soldiers, 220,000 internally displaced people, 
and 1,000 people killed since April 2006 alone.
Yet had they stepped back from their political 
calculations for a moment, they would have found 
that they spoke the same language: a language of 
fear and difference, of force and exclusiveness; 
a language that could only end in insoluble 
contradiction.

The mirage of peace

Both sides attended the Geneva talks with 
ulterior intentions. The Colombo government was 
paying lip-service to an international community 
that had wanted the meeting as a sign of 
goodwill; the LTTE saw the event as an 
opportunity to highlight the humanitarian crisis 
in the north and east of Sri Lanka due to the 
closure by the government of the A9 highway. The 
civilians in Jaffna were once again sacrificed by 
the intransigent attitude of both parties.

Since 2004, the governments of successive 
presidents, Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda 
Rajapakse, have sought to undermine the ceasefire 
agreement reached in 2002 by Sri Lanka's then 
prime minister, Ranil Wickremasinghe. This 
created the room for a Sinhalese nationalist 
backlash. Rajapakse was elected on 17 November 
2005 promising a just peace, but the overtone was 
that a military solution was the only option to 
save the Tamil people from the clutches of the 
"fascist" LTTE and to protect the integrity of 
the nation.

In October 2006, government forces were badly hit 
in two attacks at Muhamalai and Habarana where 
more than 230 military personnel were killed. The 
government's response is a plan to double its 
defence expenditure in 2007 and prepare for a 
major assault against the Tamil Tigers. The LTTE 
too is busy rearming.

Thus, exactly a year after the presidential 
election, and three weeks after the abortive 
Geneva talks, it is clear that for both sides, 
the preferred option is war in order to gain 
unilateral military advantage; establishing a 
dynamic for peace in the present grim context is 
a remote prospect.

The only positive element in an otherwise 
depressing scenario is the signing of a 
memorandum of understanding between the two main 
political parties: the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom 
Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP), 
over working towards a political solution in the 
country that entails devolving power to the north 
and east. But by the time the military operations 
are over, it must be feared that the tired, 
battered and starved populations of the north and 
east will refuse even a reasonable offer put 
forward by a government that has shown little 
compassion for their suffering.

A discourse of purity

In Sri Lanka, where issues of history and 
territory have been at the heart of the claims 
and counter-claims of leaders of the Sinhalese 
and Tamil communities, it is useful to adopt a 
rhizomatic approach to history: that is, one 
where the future and past are constantly in the 
process of becoming each other.

The understanding of culture in Sri Lanka - of 
statesmen, rebels and practitioners of "conflict 
resolution" - has predetermined the type of 
resolution to the civil war in the country and in 
a sense precluded other frameworks for 
reconciliation.

Everyone in Sri Lanka - except those dismissed as 
"spoilers" and "un-liberal" forces - tends to 
accept that people "have" a culture with 
clear-cut boundaries and easily recognisable 
features. The way issues of inequity and 
difference have been addressed is deeply 
influenced by this approach.

Furthermore, people forget that the distribution 
of communities varies from one region to another. 
While there are areas with a majority of over 80% 
(Tamil in the far north, or Sinhalese in the far 
south), there are also areas with approximately 
25% minority populations, and areas with 
approximately equal representation between groups 
(such as the plantation district of Nuwara Eliya, 
and the Trincomalee and Amparai districts in the 
east).

The dominant belief is, however, in purity of 
cultures compounded by territorial exclusivity: 
ideas that acquired hegemonic status with the 
growth of nationalism and anti-colonialism and 
which have been further entrenched in recent 
decades. Colonial rule helped propagate the idea 
that identities were fixed and stable and that 
one could not jump from one to another.

For example, in the 1920s in his certificate of 
discharge YG Stephen, an engine-cleaner, had to 
state his race after his name, in this case 
Tamil. Nationalists did not contest the reading 
of society embodied in such requirements: one 
divided into well-defined and discrete 
communities. In the early 20th century the 
Sinhalese lay preacher Anagarika Dharmapala 
(1864-1933) promoted a national dress for the 
Sinhalese that would be devoid of external 
cultural influences: the Sinhalese man should not 
"show the entire body like the Veddas who wear 
only a loin cloth, not wear a trouser like the 
fair Portuguese."

There were of course subversive moments, which 
should be rekindled, where the power of 
definition was denied to the colonial power and 
the apparatus of value-coding displaced: many 
village tribunal presidents chose to wrap a 
sarong over their trousers, thus acknowledging 
both European and Ceylonese customs.

There are many ways in which the order of 
progress and reason, the implacable dichotomies 
of colonial thought - east/west, 
traditional/modern, primitive/civilised - were 
undone. But nationalism never claimed hybridity 
and instead reiterated and reinforced the 
colonial discourse of purity.

The state denies the option of straddling many 
identities. But in everyday life in border areas, 
and among coastal communities, men and women 
spoke (and still speak) two languages and 
continue to visit all places of worship - 
Catholic churches, Buddhist temples and Hindu 
devales. In the eastern province, Hindu and 
Muslim villages are commonly interspersed and 
there was probably a significant degree of 
intermarriage in the pre-colonial period. Until 
recently, Muslims participated in Hindu temple 
festivals, and some Hindu castes such as the 
Parayar drummers were given a customary role in 
the celebration of Muslim saints' festivals.

Beyond the federal argument

Colombo-based think-tanks, untouched by the 
complexity of the population distribution of Sri 
Lanka and by the overlapping of identities and 
cultural practices, continue to advocate a 
federal reorganisation of the state as the 
formula for solving the "ethnic problem". They 
are implicitly supported by aid donors and 
multilateral agencies.

But the formation of cultural enclaves as a 
solution to the demands for justice by the Tamils 
of Sri Lanka is both troubling in itself, and 
inadequate or insufficient. Since more than half 
of the Tamil-speaking people live outside the 
would-be devolved regions (i.e. the north and 
east) it is the Sri Lanka state in its entirety 
that needs to undergo a drastic change.

This would mean sapping the cultural 
exclusiveness of our schools - organised 
according to language/ethnic streams, offices, 
clubs, associations, and political parties. 
Unfortunately there seems to be no political 
formation capable of this type of innovative 
thinking. The possibility of a social-democratic, 
secular type of rule was closed from the 
mid-1950s; at that time, both main parties - the 
UNP and the SLFP - adopted policies that 
emphasised the majority culture and language, 
while the old left that harboured more secular 
values was decimated by the rise of the Janatha 
Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front 
[JVP]), a nationalist/populist new left.

Since then, the dominant Sinhala and Buddhist 
culture and language permeate all institutions 
and the everyday life of citizens, while minority 
religions and languages are permitted to exist as 
cultural forms rather than as political options. 
Multiculturalism exists only in law; in practice 
government circulars are rarely written in both 
languages and police stations are aggressively 
monolingual. The president of the country 
addresses his citizens in Sinhala only, wears the 
Sinhala national dress and is regularly seen on 
state TV worshipping in Buddhist temples together 
with his Catholic wife.

In 2006, as part of the Vesak festival that 
celebrates the birth, enlightenment and death of 
the Buddha, the state (for the first time in Sri 
Lanka) decreed an entire week of abstinence for 
all inhabitants and visitors to the country. Once 
again the stress was on preserving Buddhism in 
its purest form rather than accepting its 
modernity and allowing people to choose the life 
and mode of religious practice they wished.

The way forward

At a time when the state is openly and often 
aggressively promoting Sinhalese culture and 
Buddhism while paying lip-service to 
multiculturalism, the challenge today is to 
revitalise citizenship as an alternative to 
multiculturalism. Reconciliation is only possible 
within a state structure that recognises multiple 
identities through multiple acts of 
identification. Dividing territory according to 
"cultural identities" with the view to devolving 
powers should not be considered a panacea.
Sri Lankans deserve better than two federal 
units, mirror images of each other, each 
practicing similarly exclusivist policies, each 
fostering dreams of authentic cultures and pure 
"races". A parallel strategy is needed, aiming at 
radically transforming the existing state to 
ensure that common values of equity and justice 
for all its citizens are respected. Autonomy for 
the other can only happen in a state that 
nurtures pride in cultural mélange and hybridity, 
rather than in the fantasy of the purity and 
authenticity of cultures.

--
[*] Nira Wickramasinghe is a professor in the 
department of history and international 
relations, the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. 
She grew up in Paris and studied at the 
Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne and at Oxford 
University, where she earned her doctorate.

Among her books are Civil Society in Sri Lanka: 
New Circles of Power (New Delhi, Thousand Oaks/ 
Sage, 2001); Dressing the Colonised Body: 
Politics, Clothing and Identity in Colonial Sri 
Lanka (New Delhi, Orient Longman, 2003); and Sri 
Lanka in the Modern Age: A History of Contested 
Identities (C Hurst and University of Hawaii 
Press, 2006).


______


[3]

Daily Times
November 21, 2006

PROTECTING WOMEN
by Asma Jahangir

Zina remains an offence but the procedure for its 
complaint has been made stricter and those making 
an accusation of rape cannot be punished for 
zina. Thus, false accusations of zina will 
dramatically drop

The myth that the Hudood Ordinances cannot be 
touched without the wrath of the mullahs tearing 
the country asunder has finally been laid to rest 
with the passage in the National Assembly of the 
Protection of Women Act, 2006. That's good news.

The Bill has still to be passed by the Senate. 
The MMA has threatened to resign and the leader 
of the PMLQ has graciously offered to resign in 
case an un-Islamic element is discovered in the 
law. Meanwhile, the president of Pakistan is 
exhilarated.

In his statement to the press, he has claimed to 
do away with the requirement for a victim of rape 
to bring four witnesses "otherwise she is 
imprisoned". In similar fashion, he has asserted 
in his book that under his rule the national 
assembly passed a law banning "honour killings". 
Such killings were always banned; but like all 
murders could be compromised unless the court 
specifically overruled it.

The president is either misinformed or 
deliberately misleading his constituency. The 
Hudood laws did not require the evidence of four 
male adult Muslim witnesses to punish a rapist 
under tazir, which prescribes for punishment of a 
maximum 25 years of imprisonment. All trials of 
zina and rape are carried out under tazir with 
regular rules of evidence applying during trial. 
Medical evidence, the victim's testimony, and any 
other forms of proof are all taken into 
consideration. However, since zina (all sex 
outside marriage) is also an offence, the risk 
remained that during investigation if a woman 
were suspected of having consented to the rape 
the victim was arrested on charges of zina.

This has largely been taken care of by the new 
amendments. Zina remains an offence but the 
procedure for its complaint has been made 
stricter and those making an accusation of rape 
cannot be punished for zina. Thus, false 
accusations of zina will dramatically drop. The 
Select Committee of the National Assembly and the 
President has taken a positive first step. At the 
same time it is critical to realise that a clear 
vision is needed while legislating.

Laws cannot discriminate on the basis of sex or 
religion and the objective of criminal legal 
system is to enhance the principles of justice. 
Orthodox interpretation of Islamic law cannot 
come in the way of principled norms of justice. 
The remaining portions of the Hudood laws are 
discriminatory against religious minorities, 
women, and the poor. Islamisation of the criminal 
legal system has paved the way to serious forms 
of injustices. An important example is the law of 
qisas and diyat. Murder can be waived or 
compromised but zina can still be punished with 
stoning to death. A person who can pay his way 
out of death penalty or manoeuvre a compromise 
can be set free but lesser offences can beget 
imprisonment.

The present Bill on the Protection of Women has 
made some amends and resisted the temptation of 
introducing a controversial clause bordering on 
censorship. Initially, it was recommended to 
punish anyone disclosing the identity of the 
victims or their families, involved in zina or 
rape cases. In most cases the press needs to 
exercise restraint but a number of victims want 
to be heard and it is their right to do so. 
Moreover, a number of incidents make news purely 
because of the identity of the actor. Indulgence 
in immoral acts by those who profess to act as 
its custodians is news worthy.

The parliamentary debate in the national assembly 
on the Bill was quite revealing. All sides vowed 
to abide by Islamic norms, yet had different 
approaches in resolving the issue. The speakers 
from MMA including Saad Rafiq of the PMLN called 
the Bill - a fahashi Bill. In particular, the 
women parliamentarians of MMA were most 
disparaging of Pakistani society. In their view, 
a softer law on zina would open the floodgates to 
immorality. They argued that Pakistan was created 
to be a theocratic State. They often referred to 
the dreams of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah 
and appealed for the Hudood Ordinances to remain 
intact. Their leaders lamented that like many 
Western countries people would start living out 
of wedlock and have illegitimate children. In 
addition, they asserted that there were fewer 
women arrested under zina than was being alleged.

Those who are now convinced that Pakistan was 
designed to be a theocratic state were the very 
elements who opposed its creation precisely 
because they feared it was not to be so. The 
Quaid or any of his followers never promoted laws 
similar to the Hudood Ordinances. The level of 
morality in Pakistan was better prior to the 
promulgation of the Hudood laws in 1979. The 
temptation to commit immoral sexual acts is not 
dependant on penal sanctions but upon the leading 
values of the times. Figures on the number of 
reported cases show that there were only two 
cases of adultery before the promulgation of the 
Offence of Zina Ordinance. Since then there have 
been hundreds of such cases. As far as the 
numbers of affected women are concerned, it is 
vital to recall that these were far greater in 
the early days of the enforcement of the zina law 
and that hundreds are bailed out every week. The 
total exceeds the few hundred that were recently 
granted bail. The zeal with which the Jama'at 
women pleaded for morality is never expressed 
when scandals of people belonging to their own 
ideological beliefs appear so prominently in the 
press.

The passage of the Women's Protection law is no 
victory for anyone. It is a great sense of relief 
that fewer women will end up being imprisoned on 
trumped up charges. The present amendments have 
virtually reduced the Zina Ordinance to only a 
few sections. At the same time a more fundamental 
issue has to be resolved - the fate of law 
making? Is it going to be based on principles of 
equality or politicized in the name of Islam?

While there is respite in one area, there are 
dark clouds in another. The passage of the Hasba 
law has allowed the mullah a free hand in setting 
up a network of morality enforcers in the NWFP. 
There has hardly been any resistance to it by the 
government. It indicates that Pakistan is 
following a dual policy, a politics of 
give-and-take. A position based on principles is 
often seen as extreme, perhaps because it cannot 
be whimsical. Instead, politics of convenience 
has been the vogue in Pakistan, based as it is on 
pure opportunism.

Such enterprise is bound to falter because it lacks clarity and sincerity.

Asma Jilani Jahangir is a Pakistani lawyer and human rights activist

______


[4] 

The Telegraph
November 25, 2006

SANGH LINK SINGES BHU TEACHERS
Our Special Correspondent

Lucknow, Nov. 24: Over 100 Banaras Hindu 
University (BHU) teachers have locked horns with 
Union HRD minister Arjun Singh after they were 
served a showcause notice for attending an RSS 
seminar in Varanasi.

University sources said 116 teachers were asked 
to explain in two weeks why disciplinary action 
should not be taken against them. They are 
planning to contest the notice.

The RSS had organised a seminar at Viswa Sanvad 
Kendra in Varanasi on cultural nationalism on 
November 11. A local newspaper reported that 116 
BHU faculty members - the university has more 
than 1,000 teachers - had spoken at the meet.

This morning, vice-chancellor P. Singh served 
notices to these teachers, quoting the reports. 
The notice said they had violated the Central 
Civil Service Conduct Rules of 1964. "Under the 
present circumstances of the country, teachers of 
a central university are supposed to have a 
secular attitude," it added.

Professor Kaushal Kishore Mishra said he had 
received the notice. "I am shocked to see how a 
prestigious university is being run by the 
dictates of one politician (Arjun). I am a free 
man and I have the right to attend any seminar on 
any subject of my choice. I cannot be slapped a 
notice because I did not attend the seminar 
during class hours."

Viswanath Pandey, the university's PRO, confirmed 
the notices were sent. "Serving notice does not 
mean taking actionŠ. We believe it is not in the 
best interest of the nation to fall in line with 
RSS theories. What will the teachers impart to 
the students if they show their bias?"

BJP leaders in Lucknow were quick to protest. "It 
is not a crime to attend any RSS meet. It is 
highly condemnable the way the professors are 
being harassed," former chief minister Kalyan 
Singh said.

_____


[5]  Gujarat

Pleas against Modi: court decision on December 4 
http://www.hindu.com/2006/11/24/stories/2006112415711300.htm

Opposition to Modi's `unanimity' scheme
http://www.hindu.com/2006/11/23/stories/2006112319091400.htm

SC issues notices to Ashok Bhatt, Pathak in '85 riot case
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=210770

SC pulls up Gujarat for lapses in '02 riot cases
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/534603.cms

_____


[6] 

Hardnews
November 2006

TO PEE IS TO BE

That's what we are, Hoo Ha India, superpower 
nuclear India, floating on public spectacles of 
yellow swimming pools of male piss, with 
condemned rivers of chemicalised filth and tonnes 
of garbage scattered like testimonies of greatness

Amit Sengupta Delhi

So what was wrong when a Dutch embassy official 
said that Delhi looks like a garbage dump? Why 
did our patriotic instincts get so aroused that 
we almost condemned this frank, free speech? 
Delhi is a non-biodegradable, backward 
capitalist, semi-feudal, patriarchal, uncultured 
garbage dump, why shy away from that? Not only 
that, Delhi has turned into a vast, sprawling, 
ever, macho public urinal, a shit hole, a 
faceless ghetto, an architect's black-hole 
nemesis, an octopus without a soul or belonging 
or sensitivity or civic sense. So what is so Mera 
Bharat Mahan about Delhi being a damned garbage 
dump? Can't you see it all over the place, from 
the posh, palatial south zones to the twilight 
zones of the east and west, with the demolished 
slums in between? Surely, even tinted windows of 
swanky cars are transparent, aren't they? So why 
hide the gaze?

And where do the women go? The mother, the 
housewife, the working women? On the streets, in 
marketplaces, public parks, public transport, 
long distance roadways buses, flyovers, national 
highways -why are they condemned to hold on while 
men are all over pissing in stark daylight as if 
it's a tide on a full-moon night. And where do 
you walk? The slimy, stagnant, fragrant pavements 
are full of pissers in full public glory. The 
roads and highways are full of pissers. Not only 
the nooks and corners, they are all over the 
ideal city-state. The entire city has become a 
virtual reality of a public urinal-the stench 
floating like a cliché.

Except that the Delhi and central governments, 
the MPs, the MLAs, the opposition politicians, 
the ruling party politicians, the police, the 
mandarins in the municipalities, the Union 
ministers, the ex-ministers, the bureaucrats and 
babus, the elite- eyes wide shut, the page 3 
party-types with colonial hangovers, the upwardly 
mobile and the middle mobile, the fourth estate, 
the real estate-no one is willing to see this 
masculine display of public patriotism. Mass 
urinals as a tourist delight-welcome to this 
machismo capital of the power elite, the special 
dirty zone of organised filth and muck and 
gaseous, fungus-ridden waste and dirty waters. 
When the masses are against hygiene and 
aesthetics, and when the men have no shame, and 
when the government wears a sanitised chastity 
belt of cold-blooded ignorance, who can stop this 
great pissing nationalism of our nationhood 
defined, even while we put pictures of gods on 
walls, stairs, pavements, residential areas to 
stop people peeing and spitting?

And if you think this is because Delhi is flooded 
by the unwashed, the slum dweller, the landless 
poor and urban worker, the low-middle class 
uncultured vulture, and that it is a demographic 
paradigm shift that is polluting its geography, 
think again, and look back with originality, if 
not anger. That SUV, and not only with a UP or 
Haryana nameplate, its door half-open, its owner 
in a safari suit, doing it in the open courtyard 
of Pragati Maidan. Sometimes wife and daughter 
wait in the car till the man gives way to the 
basic looing instinct. This fascinating 
phenomena, truly, has broken all class 
barriers-the State has withered away and this 
philistine public piss joint is the only and 
ultimate utopia.

That's why they are pissing on the Lodi 
crematorium walls even as the dead depart for 
their final journey, inside public parks 
post-Pranayam, outside schools even as children 
cross the footpath, on the Yamuna bridge, car and 
scooter waiting, as a mother walks away quickly 
with her daughter; outside the gates of the 
palatial homes of our MPs and ministers in 
Lutyens' Delhi, outside hospitals like the All 
India Institute of Medical Sciences, where 
harried patients and their equally harried 
relatives wait for buses on the road under the 
sun because the state has chosen to build no bus 
shelters here since the last 20 years, on 
flyovers, parking lots, pavements and bus stops, 
talking on cell phones, bang in front of 
thosewaiting for a bus, while the bus waits and 
the pissers zip it up and walk into the 'ladies 
only' seats, proud and ugly like  pea-cocks.

In any case, most clean, new pay-and-use toilets, 
barring a handful, are loaded in favour of 
advertisers in prime locations. Good planning, as 
they say.

In any case, Delhi has no public space culture, 
no benches where you can write a letter, no 
open-air modest restaurants where you can read a 
book and drink a black coffee or beer, no 
footpaths or stairs where a young couple can hang 
out and smoke. Delhi hates its women, unlike 
Mumbai and Kolkata; women here are forever in 
danger of assault, physical, invisible, 
objectified, uncensored violence. Delhi is for 
the obscenely super rich, male and female, in 
affluent,

sanitised, enclosed, air-conditioned, cocooned, 
protected zones, here they don't smell the 
stench; Delhi is also for the male masses, lower, 
middle, upwardly mobile, downwardly mobile, the 
poor, the migrant, the exiled, the conquerors of 
the golden city, the pissers of paradise.

A swank car stops at Nizamuddin crossing. The 
door opens as a window rolls down, a prosperous 
man puts his chubby face out, and out flows from 
his mouth a huge chunk of red liquid, a paan's 
remnants, and runs like a Persian carpet on the 
road. They are spitting everywhere, from bus 
windows on bikers, from truck windows on 
cyclists, from cars on pedestrians. If they 
could, they would piss from the windows.

They throw beer and coke cans, wafer packets, 
wrappers, plastic everywhere-the entire city is a 
bin. The city belongs to no one. No one belongs 
to the city. If you cheat me, I will cheat 
someone else. Me, mine, myself, who cares for 
Bhagidari?  So why say, I love Delhi? Because 
Delhi is a sucked-up lollipop. Delhi is 
polythene, all over, on trees, dhabas, shops, 
inside the choked-up intestines of our homeless, 
holy cows eating polythene with glass, plastic, 
leather, shoes, tin, aluminium, metal, used 
crackers, matchboxes, gutka packs in the garbage 
dumps. Gai hamari mata hai-the cow is our mother! 
So who will ask the Hindutva Godse Genius, if 
this is not cow slaughter, what is?

And where has the river gone? The pristine Yamuna 
at Yamunotri in the Himalayas, its magical 
origin, finds a magical metamorphosis at 
Wazirpur, in West Delhi, and becomes a divine 
nullah, a stagnant shitpot of millions, 
poisonous, full of effluents, garbage and 
chemicals. The river disappears, the dirty nullah

resurrects everyday, even as Delhiites stop their 
cars and throw polythene packets full of 
ritualistic Hindu flowers into the abyss of this 
abysmal degradation. As I write this, thousands 
of Biharis are jumping into the half-white foam 
of this utterly filthy stagnation and

celebrating Chatt in trans-Yamuna. So where did 
the crores of rupees spent on cleaning the river 
disappear? And what reflection can a 
narcissistic, consumerist, unaesthetic society 
find in the waters when it looks for its 
self-image? Shit. Our own shit.

Inside the water. Inside the ground water. Inside 
earth. Inside the food cycle. Inside the drinking 
water. Inside the intestines. Inside the mind. 
Shit. Our  own shit.

Across Delhi, the new, green garbage containers 
designed by a genius dot the landscape like 
memorials. Except that dogs and pigs have found 
new homes, with the garbage spilling over and 
people jumping over them, like long jumpers in a 
nation with one Olympic bronze. So why spend 
crores on full-page ads asking people to protect 
themselves against the Aedes mosquito? The Aedes 
factory is right here, breeding, State-sponsored, 
all for free.

That's what we are, Hoo Ha India, the superpower, 
nuclear power capital, floating on yellow 
swimming pools of male piss, with a condemned 
river of  fossilised shit and chemicalised filth, 
and thousands of tonnes of garbage scattered 
everywhere, like grand testimonies of a clean, 
happy, healthy society. Like philistines becoming 
reformers. Like reformers becoming philistines.
Welcome to the capital city of power and pelf. The ideal State's public urinal



_____


[7]  Books:

Frontline
Volume 23 - Issue 23 :: Nov. 18 - Dec. 01, 2006

PEOPLING HISTORY

Shonaleeka Kaul

A lively and insightful history of early India 
from the margins whose merit lies in the creative 
analysis of early Indian literature.

Uma Chakravarti's EVERYDAY LIVES, EVERYDAY 
HISTORIES: BEYOND THE KINGS AND BRAHMANAS OF 
`ANCIENT' INDIA is a compilation of 14 essays 
from the author's considerable work on the 
history and historiography of early India. Though 
it brings together articles written by the 
historian-activist over two decades and published 
in various journals and collections, no element 
of staleness attaches to the book.
[. . .].
http://www.flonnet.com/stories/20061201000307200.htm

___

(ii)

Book Review / The Hindu
21 November 2006

Champion of women's rights

Geeta Ramaseshan

An insightful biography of the first woman to 
study law at Oxford and pursue the legal 
profession in India

CORNELIA SORABJI - India's Pioneer Woman Lawyer, 
A Biography: Suparna Gooptu; Oxford University 
Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New 
Delhi-110001. Rs. 495.

Cornelia Sorabji, the first woman to study law at 
Oxford in 1889 and the first woman to practise at 
the Calcutta High Court was a pioneer in many 
ways. At a time when Cornelia received her 
training at Oxford, women students were treated 
as guests and denied the right to receive 
degrees. When she tried to practise as a `vakil' 
in Bombay, she was refused enrolment as she could 
not cite a precedence of a woman `vakil'. The 
chief justice told her that a woman should not 
have anything to do with law. The Allahabad High 
Court refused to permit her to practise law 
holding that it would be impertinent of an Indian 
high court to admit women on its rolls before 
England had given the lead.

Pioneer woman lawyer

Undeterred and wanting to prove that there was a 
need for a woman lawyer even outside the court 
room Cornelia presented a scheme for extending 
help to `purdahnashin' women who because of their 
social seclusion were deprived the benefits of 
law. The proposal met with severe objections and 
criticisms from men in the legal profession both 
Indian and British but it was approved in 1904 
when Cornelia was permitted to provide legal 
assistance to the `purdahnashins' in Bengal. She 
started her practice as a lawyer only after 1920 
at Allahabad and played a pioneering role in 
trying to open the legal profession to women.

Displeased with the political and cultural 
transformation of Indian life in the 20th 
century, Cornelia became a defender of the Empire 
and Hindu orthodoxy. Her association with 
Katherine Mayo's Mother India contributed to her 
marginalisation from the mainstream of Indian 
political, social and professional life. She died 
in 1954 in England a lonely and distressed woman.

Struggles

Gooptu's biography skilfully draws a canvas of an 
individual who was in many ways ahead of her 
times and places Cornelia in the intersection of 
gender, class and racial politics. While tracing 
Cornelia's education, Gooptu narrates the complex 
way in which Oxford provided an ideological 
justification for the notion of the Empire. 
Gooptu argues that Cornelia's struggles were 
located within the matrix of imperial politics 
where the woman's question was also subsumed 
within the Tory imperial ideology. "Even when 
British women were provided a public space, they 
had to work within the parameters of the Empire." 
Exposed to this complex English political 
atmosphere of the late 19th century, Cornelia 
disagreed with Ramabai and felt that social 
change in India could not be brought through 
legislation because India was unprepared for it.

Gooptu's analysis and case studies of Cornelia's 
interaction with `purdanashins' and Cornelia's 
fight against male bias in the legal profession 
makes fascinating reading drawing as it were from 
Cornelia's own struggles in establishing herself 
as a lawyer and the problems faced by 
`purdanashins'. `Purdahnashins' could not 
publicly participate in the management of their 
estates.

Private self

The male agent, who was her sole trustee, 
undertook the administration of the trust. Cases 
of abuses and betrayals of trust were in plenty. 
Even in such cases a `purdanashin' could complain 
only through her trustee due to her seclusion. If 
she was a guardian of a male heir to the estate 
she and her minor children became wards of the 
court in British India or the collector. 
Emphasising the denial of justice for such women 
Cornelia proposed the appointment of a lady legal 
adviser to the court of wards for each province 
who would be able to serve their needs.

The book draws a lot of materials from Cornelia's 
private papers and correspondence that reveal 
crucial dimensions of her private self. The 
author places Cornelia in context while providing 
a rich analysis of the negotiations she chose in 
her professional life, the choices she made in 
her personal life and the ideological beliefs to 
which she held on. Gooptu provides an insightful 
biography of a remarkable woman who has remained 
neglected in studies on India's transition to 
modernity and also in the historiography of women 
and gender.

___

(iii)

AMBEDKAR, AYODHYA AUR DALIT ANDOLAN

Dear friends,

A compilation of my articles in Hindi on various 
issues of Dalit rights during the past 15 years 
have been published by Daanhish Books, Delhi.

After the demolition of Babari mosque in 1992 and 
later in 2002 when Gujarat burnt resulting in 
massacre of Muslims, the question of Hindutva in 
the Dalit Bahujan Discourse came prominently. 
There were charges by the upper castes including 
those claiming secular, against the Dalits for 
participating in these crimes. Those charges are 
not new as every time such charges takes place. 
Rather than maligning the entire community, we do 
not ponder over the situation as how this happen.

Dalits have become important in the Hindutva 
discourse also. The 'Samarasata' principle of the 
Hindutva is to 'coopt' the Dalits into their fold 
without challenging the existing social order. 
The matter of fact is that the Hindutva and its 
ideolouges never ever made an effort to fight 
against the this social exclusion of Dalits.

The book covers a large number of issues like 
separate electorate, fascism, idolatory, identity 
politics with in the Dalits,impact of the new 
economic policies on Dalits, issue of 
reservation, issues related to violence on Dalits 
including several case studies which the author 
has been actively involved in. It also travel to 
some unknown tarrain like issues of Mushahars, 
issue of Dalits in Bengal, issue of Dalits in 
Tsunduru, Andhra Pradesh who were brutally 
massacred.

The book contain 148 pages and the paper back edition of it cost Rs 100/-.

It could be useful for social activists who are 
keen to understand the Dalit issues and its 
linkages to communalism, economic globalisation 
and identity politics.

You can order your book from M/s Daanish 
Publications by writing them at 
<mailto:daanishbooks at gmail.com>daanishbooks at gmail.com
or Daannish Books, B-802, Taj Apartments, Gazipur, Delhi-110096
Tel : 011-65785559, 22230812

You can also contact us for the same. A discount 
could be given on the bulk sales.

With regards,

Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Visit my blog at
<http://www.manukhsi.blogspot.com/>www.manukhsi.blogspot.com

[. . .].

_____


[9]   EVENTS:

For news, Views and reports on ISF visit
<http://www.openspaceforum.net/twiki/tiki-index.php?page=WSF2006%3AISFArticles>http://www.openspaceforum.net/twiki/tiki-index.php?page=WSF2006%3AISFArticles

Audio reports on <http://www.forumradio.cacim.net/>www.forumradio.cacim.net

New Delhi, Monday, November 24, 2006

Post-ISF reflection session on the World Social Forum
Wednesday, November 29, 3:30 - 6 pm
@
India Social Institute
10 - Institutional Area, Lodhi Road, New Delhi - 110003 (INDIA) 
Phone:24622379/ 24625015

Come and join us !

Dear friends,

             I am writing on behalf of CACIM 
(India Institute for Critical Action : Centre in 
Movement), to cordially invite you to a post-ISF 
reflection session this coming Wednesday, 
November 29 2006, at ISI (India Social 
Institute), at 3:30 pm.

The November 29, 2006 meeting
            We are calling this meeting to take 
full advantage of fresh memories on the part of 
those who attended the India Social Forum from 
November 9-13.  This becomes even more important 
in view of the fact that the event was held in 
Delhi and a large number of us were closely 
involved with the organising the event itself or 
events at ISF in some way or the other.

             The meeting on November 24 2006 will 
have participation from those who were closely 
involved in the ISF process, have engaged with 
the process for long and continue to do so and 
come from a wide range of backgrounds and points 
of view to reflect on the ISF and on the World 
Social Forum process more generally and as an 
idea. We would also like to invite those who 
could not attend the ISF due to one reason or the 
other but are keen to know what happened at the 
Forum.

             We have planned the meeting not as a 
lot of speeches but as some brief presentations 
on the basis of which we will draw out certain 
particular issues and where all those present 
will then have a chance to take part in breakout 
groups (smaller group discussions).  We want to 
make the meeting as common and participatory as 
possible.

             While we want anyone who is 
interested to come, once again we especially 
invite all those who have attended the ISF to 
please join us and to come prepared to briefly 
share with us your reflections on what took place 
there.  And we also invite all those who may have 
been at any of the other world meetings this 
year, either Karachi, Bamako or Caracas, and all 
those who have been at other Social Forums, 
either the World Social Forum at Mumbai in 
January 2004 or the Asian Social Forum in 
Hyderabad in January 2003, or any of the other 
regional or national events over these past years.
             ISF at New Delhi is the third Social 
Forum in India after Hyderabad (2003) and Mumbai 
(2004) and the process would be entering in its 
5th year. We hope it would be an interesting 
session on Wednesday.  Please do come.  We look 
forward very much to having you with us.

             With warm greetings –
             Madhuresh
             For CACIM

Some of the pointers for reflections :
1.     What do you feel has been the value of the 
India Social Forum, and of the World Social Forum 
process in general, in contributing to 
strengthening a process of putting forward 
alternatives to neoliberal globalisation, war, 
patriarchy, casteism, and communalism ?
2.     What has been the specific value of 
organising the India Social Forum in Delhi, the 
political centre of the country at this 
particular juncture when UPA government is in 
power in the name of aam aadmi agenda.
3.     How has holding the WSF events in 
Hyderabad 2003, Mumbai in 2004 and now in Delhi 
2006 strengthened social movements and civil 
processes in India, South Asia, and the region 
more generally ? How do you see this journey of 
WSF in India ?
4.     What are the lessons we can learn from 
this edition of the Forum, for the forthcoming 
events and such initiatives and for work related 
to the World Social Forum process more generally ?
5.     Do you agree with the observation made by 
some people who were at Delhi, and also in 
relation to Social Forums held elsewhere in the 
world, that the WSF is becoming just one big talk 
shop ?  If so, why and how do you agree ?  And if 
you do not agree, then why not ? And in either 
case, what future do you see for the WSF ?
6.     How was attending the India Social Forum 
in Delhi important for the work that you do ?
7.     Hyderabad, Mumbai, New Delhi, WHAT NEXT ???
*********************************
CACIM - India Institute for Critical Action : Centre in Movement
A-3, Defence Colony, New Delhi 110 024, India
Ph : 91 11 4155 1521 and 2433 2451 / Mobile 91 98 1890 5316
e-mail : <mailto:madhuresh at cacim.net>madhuresh at cacim.net

o o o

Dr Nandini Gooptu
Globalization, economic liberalization and the Indian bureaucracy
29 November 2006, 02:00 PM, Russell Room, Balliol College, University of Oxford

o o o

Ms Eleanor Newbigin
Women, personal law and property rights: notions 
of modern citizenship in late colonial India

South Asian Studies Seminar - 29 November 2006 
at 5 p.m. in the Director's Room, Centre of South 
Asian Studies, Laundress Lane, Cambridge

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

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.