SACW | Dec. 30-31, 2006 | Secularism in Bangladesh; Sri Lanka's Displaced Northerners; India: Punjab's disappeared / Gandhi's journalism / Radiating Jharkhand; Indian history in British schools / Science vs Superstition
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Sat Dec 30 19:01:17 CST 2006
South Asia Citizens Wire | December 30-31, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2341 - Year 8
[1] Bangladesh: Secular democracy falls prey to
political opportunism (Nurul Kabir)
[2] Sri Lanka: Ensure Return of Displaced
Northern Muslims - Media release (National Peace
Council)
[3] India - Punjab: Justice Bhalla's mandate is limited (Ram Narayan Kumar)
[4] Gandhi's - ' Indian Opinion' (Sagari Chhabra)
[5] India: Jharkhand: Nuclear disaster in
Jadugoda - Toxic uranium tailings spill into the
river
[6] UK: A tale of two nations - teaching Indian
history in British schools. (Peter Robb)
[7] UK: Science vs Superstition (James Panton and Oliver Marc Hartwich)
[8] Upcoming Events: 18th Safdar Hashmi Memorial
( New Delhi, 1st January, 2007)
____
[1]
New Age
30 December 2006
SECULAR DEMOCRACY FALLS PREY TO POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM
by Nurul Kabir
The way the Awami League defines secularism is
misleading in the first place, which poses a
major impediment to secular growth of the
society, state and political culture. The party
claims that 'secularism is not non-religion'Š
Secularism is definitely non-religion when it
comes to running the affairs of a democratic
state while a secular democratic state endorses
the citizens' right to practise religious faiths
within the private sphere of life.
THE political scene remains quite depressing,
particularly as regards the fate of the January
22 parliamentary election, due mainly to the
caretaker government's visible reluctance to meet
its constitutional obligation to act in a
non-partisan way - the presence of the BNP
aspirant (for contesting
elections)-turned-election commissioner, Modabber
Hossain Chowdhury, being the glaring example.
Even if the election is eventually held in a
situation acceptable to the contesting political
camps led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and
the Awami League, the parliament that will be
constituted through the polls could hardly be
expected to make any substantive contribution
towards the democratic growth of the society and
the state. The reason is simple: The political
parties, while giving nominations to the
candidates, have visibly preferred the rich men
to the not-that-rich dedicated political
activists. Besides, the parties have clearly
chosen not to distribute the candidatures among
the huge marginalised sections of the population
such as women and religious and ethnic
minorities. The result is obvious: The next
parliament is going to be a club of rich
businessmen who have hardly any commitment to the
democratic aspirations of the vast majority of
the poor, the women and the minorities for
political and economic empowerment. What is,
however, more depressing is that the politically
active sections of civil society, which generally
preaches 'representative democracy and good
governance', has not even strongly criticised,
let alone creating effective pressure on, the
political parties in question for standing in the
ways of the democratic emancipation of the poor,
the women and the religious and ethnic minority
communities.
The only thing, a democratically significant
thing indeed, that some members of the mainstream
intelligentsia and a few social and political
groups have done on democratic direction is that
they have registered public protest against a
mediaeval agreement that the Awami League has
signed with an Islamist fundamentalist group
called Khelafat Majlish. The infamous accord,
signed on December 23, stipulates that the Awami
League, if voted to power, would not get any law
enacted which would be repugnant with the
dictates of the Qur'an, sunnah and shariah, and
its government would allow certified Islamic
clerics to issue fatwa [religious decrees] on the
citizens and consider a 'criminal offence' to any
criticism of the prophet of Islam and his
associates, etc. No doubt, the clauses of the
agreement sounds like the manifesto of an
Islamist theocratic state with the promise of an
Islamist legal regime, and it is only natural
that the secular democratic sections of the
intelligentsia would protest against such an
obscurantist manifesto.
But the way the intelligentsia in question has
reacted to the League-Khelafat accord was, and
still is, quite misleading, as many of them were
'shocked' or 'surprised' over the League's
action, as if the party has done something in
violation of the secular democratic spirit of our
war of national independence for the first time.
The approach is misleading because it stands in
the way of making the fact clear before the
people that no major political party of the
country these days is committed to secular
democratic principles, and the fact that the
marginalised left, the only force which has
consistently fought for secular democracy over
the decades, has started negotiating the
principle for the sake of crude state power.
The fact remains that the way the Awami League
defines secularism is misleading in the first
place, which poses a major impediment to secular
growth of the society, state and political
culture. The party claims that 'secularism is not
non-religion'. The claim is historically
baseless, as the concept of democracy originally
evolved in Europe through bourgeois' movement of
the 'enlightenment' against monarchical rule
backed by the Christian church system, while the
foremost political agenda of the democratic
movement was separation of church from the state.
Secularism is definitely non-religion when it
comes to running the affairs of a democratic
state while a secular democratic state endorses
the citizens' right to practise religious faiths
within the private sphere of life. The members of
the intelligentsia in question did hardly make
any attempt, or failed, to take an unambiguous
stance on the intellectual proposition of
secularism.
There are some among the local intelligentsia
who love to defend secularism as 'not
non-religion' by providing examples of the
present-day American and European states that
back, some officially and some unofficially,
Christianity as the religion of the state. This
section of the intelligentsia, one must say, has
developed the bad habit of arguing for argument's
sake, ignoring a simple adage that one does not
have to indulge in a bad practice because the
other is not doing a good job. Besides, these
people seem unaware of, or unwilling to state,
the fact that there are strong social and
intellectual movements in these American and
European countries concerned against the practice
of providing state support to any religion. What
one actually needs to consider in this case is
whether or not it is better for all the citizens
to run the affairs of the state without being
bias to any particular religion, with all the
religions remaining within the private sphere of
the citizenry. If it is considered better, the
honest responsibility of the democratic
intelligentsia is to stand by the proposition.
However, the Bangladesh state's deviation, as
far as secularism is concerned, began soon after
it came into existence, with the government of
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman defining secularism as 'not
non-religion' and subsequently allowing the state
to create, sponsor and finance different
religious organisations on the one hand and
perpetuating the Pakistan-style non-secular
education curricula on the other. Notably,
retention of the anti-Hindu enemy property law of
Pakistan under the name of vested property act in
Bangladesh does not reflect on the League's
commitment to secular/non-communal politics.
However, the secular democratic state then
received a decisive blow with the government of
Ziaur Rahman getting the constitution rewritten
on Islamic direction with the incorporation of
Bismilahir Rahmanir Rahim at the top of the
preamble of the constitution on the one hand and
lifting constitutional ban on religion-based, and
therefore communal, politics on the other. The
final blow, however, came from the government of
HM Ershad, when it made Islam 'state religion',
virtually relegating all the people of non-Muslim
faiths to second-class citizenry.
Since then, the BNP has persistently played
the Islam card in politics, creating a political
environment conducive for anti-secular forces to
grow in society and state. Finally, the party
forged a political-ideological coalition with
Jamaat-e-Islami and some other political groups
who loudly profess their political objective to
set up an Islamist theocratic state in Bangladesh.
The Awami League, in the meanwhile, has given
some lip-services to secular democracy while
meddling Islam in politics, particularly in its
electoral politics to outsmart the rival BNP,
sometime with and sometime without success. The
party's hobnobbing with Jamaat-e-Islami in the
early-1990s is not too distant a past. This time
around, the party has finally decided to abandon
even its rhetorical commitment to secularism,
which took first expression in its electoral
negotiation with Taliban-style Islamist leader
Mufti Shahid, who reportedly runs an Islamist NGO
called Al Markazuk and is named by the US
government persona non grata. The party then
negotiated with the fundamentalist groups like
the Islamist Constitution Movement that
frequently vows to do away with secular democracy
for the sake of establishing an Islamic state in
the country. And finally came the League's
agreement with Khelafat Majlish to pledge
legitimisation of fatwa and laws not inconsistent
with the Qur'an, sunnah and shariah. Clearly, the
League has proceeded gradually, making one
compromise after another, over the years, without
leaving any scope for its so-called secular
democratic intelligentsia to get shocked or
surprised. That the intelligentsia got shocked
and surprised is their problem - not the League's.
Until recently, it was only the leftwing
political parties that had fought for secularism
consistently. They even reacted rightly to the
League-Khelafat agreement by way of issuing a
threat to the League, on December 24, to quit the
League-led alliance in case of the latter's
failure to scrap the deal. But the left gave a
second thought the next day, and decided to stay
back - thanks to its lately developed aspiration
for power devoid of democratic political
principles.
Understandably, the nation is now politically
destined to await a parliament, whichever
political camp get the victory in the ensuing
polls, an 'elected' Legislature which could
hardly be expected to work for the democratic
rights of the poor, the women, the religious and
ethnic minority communities and the secularists -
rich or poor, men or women, Muslims or Hindus,
Bengalis or Chakmas.
The solution, distant though, lies primarily
with the democratic sections of intelligentsia
realising that Bangladesh lacks the existence of
any formidable secular democratic force at the
moment and then making attempts to start working
afresh to begin a new struggle - intellectual and
political - for secular democracy
_____
[2]
National Peace Council
of Sri Lanka
12/14 Purana Vihara Road
Colombo 6
Tel: 2818344, 2854127, 2819064
Tel/Fax:2819064
E Mail: peace2 at sri.lanka.net
Internet: www.peace-srilanka.org
30.12.06
Media Release
ENSURE RIGHT OF RETURN OF DISPLACED MUSLIM POPULATION IN NEW YEAR
The coming year will be the 17th since the
forcible expulsion of the Muslim population
living in the north by the LTTE. This community,
which amounted to about 75,000, was ordered to
leave their homes with only a few hours notice.
They left without nearly all their property. Most
of them, and their natural increase, continue to
live in other parts of the country as internally
displaced persons to this day.
The Ceasefire Agreement of 2002 led to the return
home of most of the internally displaced persons
living in the country. But those displaced for
strategic purposes could not return to their
homes. The two major groups of people victimized
by military strategy include both the Muslims
evicted by the LTTE, as well as the Tamils
evicted by the government from the High Security
Zones that surround the military camps.
With the outbreak of major fighting between the
government and LTTE in the east large numbers of
people have once again been displaced. The
government has been pledging that it will
resettle those displaced as soon as the fighting
ceases. While most of the people displaced in the
east are Tamils, there are substantial numbers of
Muslims and Sinhalese also. However, there have
been no similar pledges or efforts with regard to
the displaced Muslims in the north.
Recently there were media reports that
representatives of the displaced northern Muslims
have sought a meeting with President Mahinda
Rajapaksa. Over the past several years, they
have had several meetings with the leadership of
the government and LTTE, but have not been
successful in gaining the guarantees for safe
return that they seek.
The failure to give adequate attention to the
problems of the Muslim displaced priority
provides justification to the demand for a
separate delegation for the Muslims. The National
Peace Council calls for the government and LTTE
to make the right of return of these displaced
persons an agenda item at future peace talks. As
in the case of the Balkans, the international
community has to play a major role in
facilitating such an agreement, and to ensure its
effective implementation.
Executive Director
On behalf of the Governing Council
_____
[3]
The Tribune
31 December 2006
Human rights
JUSTICE BHALLA'S MANDATE IS LIMITED
by Ram Narayan Kumar
THE matter of enforced disappearances leading to
mass cremations in Punjab epitomises a unique
combination of the legal process, under the
fundamental rights jurisdiction of the Supreme
Court, and a rigorous documentation of facts of
human rights abuses, which the human rights
community involved with the case has managed to
develop.
Yet, the objectives of truth, justice and
reparation remain unrealised. Though the facts of
abuses have been established and partially
acknowledged, the state agencies have found ways
to evade the binding obligations of justice under
the law and the imperatives of reform.
The matter has been pending before the National
Human Rights Commission for a decade after the
Supreme Court, in December 1996, mandated it to
adjudicate all the issues and to award
compensation following a report by the CBI, which
disclosed "flagrant violations of human rights on
a mass scale" and 2097 illegal cremations at
three sites in Amritsar district alone.
After 10 years of litigation, exhausted mainly in
futile legal wrangling and denials by the state
agencies, the NHRC has effectively disposed of
the matter with its October 10, 2006 order that
awards arbitrary sums of monetary compensation to
1,245 victims.
The order also appoints Justice K. S. Bhalla, a
retired judge of the Punjab and Haryana High
Court, to ascertain, over the next eight months,
the identities of the remaining persons cremated
in the district. It is ironical that the NHRC
should appoint a retired judge of the Punjab and
Haryana High Court to do over the next eight
months what it has not been able to accomplish
over a decade, that too, without providing clear
methodological principles and the necessary
powers of discovery.
The appointment is ironical also for the reason
that in course of a decade-long engagement with
the matter, the NHRC has failed to record the
testimony of a single victim family. It refused
to go into the systemic patterns of violations
and declined to investigate the issues of rights
to life and liberty.
Yet, the NHRC's October 2006 order affirms faith
that Punjab and the Union Government will take
appropriate steps to ensure that violations do
not recur. How can there be a guarantee of
non-recurrence when there is no knowledge of what
occurred?
Despite this history, this writer will appear
before the Justice Bhalla Commission at Amritsar
on January 2, 2007 and try to assist it with
information and evidence that it will need to
resolve the remaining unidentified cremations
listed in the CBI's report.
The state government officials are on the record
saying that more than 300 "militant
collaborators" who had publicly been killed and
cremated got rehabilitated under assumed
identities and that they will not reveal further
details on how and where these forgeries were
actually affected or who were the actual persons
killed and burnt in lieu of such "militant
collaborators".
The requirements to fix the true identities of
remaining anonymous cremations carried out in
three crematoria of Amritsar district oblige the
Bhalla Commission to call for information on
these admitted forgeries and to clearly determine
the cremation grounds at which they were actually
carried out.
Other source of information that this commission
should avail itself of is in the incident reports
of such police abductions and enforced
disappearances that occurred outside Amritsar.
This writer is able to clearly demonstrate that
the police agencies in Punjab operated without
respect for the norms and regulations of their
territorial jurisdictions and that persons
abducted and disappeared in one district were
often confined, interrogated and killed in other
districts. Many who belonged to Amritsar were
abducted, killed and cremated outside Amritsar.
Likewise, many shown to have been cremated as
unidentified bodies in the crematoria of Amritsar
came from other areas. The task of resolving
their true identities requires the commission to
investigate and analyse all reports of police
abductions resulting in enforced disappearances
throughout Punjab and we will be able to assist
the commission with methodology and the field
work if it is able to take on the challenge.
This writer must also remind the Commission about
the cases of 18 persons who Punjab had, in
January 2000, categorised as qualifying to
receive compensation without admitting liability
or the merits of their claims. The families of
all the 18 had rejected the offer on the ground
that it came without the admission of wrongdoing
and was fixed without any reference to the
fundamental rights violations they had suffered.
These 18 cases were out of a total of 88 claims
that the NHRC had received in response to a
public notice inviting complaints. Their claims
and their objections to the terms of compensation
being offered have remained unresolved.
The expert literature on the subject is unanimous
in the view that for the concept of reparation to
be meaningful, victims must be able to return to
the state of being, as close as possible, at
which they were before violations occurred. They
must receive compensation for physical and mental
injury, including lost opportunities, emotional
and moral harm and legal costs. Their
rehabilitation must include medical care,
including psychological and psychiatric treatment.
Justice Bhalla's mandate is limited and he cannot
be blamed for the perversions of the process that
have interfered against the case becoming an
experiment in social reconciliation through a
judicial affirmation of accountability. However,
Justice Bhalla can make a difference if he is
able to approach his limited but important
mandate with attention to the principles and the
potential of the case, with the Supreme Court
mandating the NHRC to marshal the powers of
Article 32 to "forge new tools" in order to do
"complete justice".
If this opportunity is not to be frittered away,
under the culture of impunity that prevails, it
is also important that the civil society in
Punjab, across social divisions, gets involved in
developing a climate of receptive dialogue and
informed public opinion on the issues at stake.
The writer is a human rights researcher.
_____
[4]
Times of India.
29 December 2006
GANDHI'S - ' INDIAN OPINION'
by Sagari Chhabra
( Film-director & author)
The National Gandhi museum just released a
gold-mine - a cd collection of 1420 issues of
Mahatma Gandhi's 'Indian Opinion' launched in
South Africa on 4th June 1903. Gandhi had
written, "a struggle that relies chiefly on
internal strength, cannot be carried on without a
newspaper" and so the 'Indian Opinion' was
launched primarily to articulate the status of
the largely marginalized and racially oppressed
Indian community in South Africa.
While the term 'nine eleven' today
conjures up visions of violence and the
destruction of the 'Twin Towers', it was
ironically on this very day in 1906 that Mahatma
Gandhi launched the first 'satyagraha' in South
Africa! The columns of the 'Indian Opinion' are a
rich source of historical evidence, both in terms
of his thought and strategy. The desire to seek
truth and express it through journalism is
documented in issue after issue. In fact the
'Indian Opinion' had launched a competition to
find an appropriate Indian word for foreign
terms, such as passive resistance and civil
disobedience. Mahatma Gandhi wrote under the
title 'Gujarati Equivalent for Passive
Resistance' ; "only four persons took the trouble
of sending suggestionsŠŠŠŠ we have only one word
available to us for the present,
'satyagraha'ŠŠŠŠŠŠŠ the person who suggested this
word, does not want his name published, nor does
he want the prize." And who actually was this
nameless person who gave arguably the most
lasting word of the twentieth century? It was
Maganlal Gandhi a nephew of the Mahatma, a
selfless team worker of the 'Indian Opinion' .
Madanjit Vyavharik a political co-worker
of Gandhi had launched the 'International
Printing Press' in Durban and was persuaded by
Gandhi to be the first publisher. It was Gandhi's
insistence that the paper not be used for
commercial purposes and so it started with a
resistance to carrying advertisements of all
sorts, while simultaneously publishing columns in
English, Gujarati, Hindi and Tamil. Rising debts
and a financial crisis had Gandhi rush to Durban.
On the journey he read 'Unto This Last' by John
Ruskin, given to him by his friend Pollack. The
book had a lasting impact on him and on reaching
Durban he informed them of his decision to move
the press to Phoenix settlement, where everyone
would get a living wage, live simply and work on
the paper. Phoenix settlement is the first
'ashram' - experiment in collective living,
started by Gandhi followed by Kochrab ashram,
Sabarmati ashram from where he launched the salt
march and finally Sewagram in Wardha. So Gandhi
became the publisher, placing his personal
savings, although the losses were initially
shared by the Natal Indian Congress, the British
Indian Association and himself. However, the
Natal Indian Congress withdrew its support in
1906. The paper carried on with peculiar twists
and turns - the type-setter admonishing them not
to use the Gujarati letter 'a' as he did not have
enough type!
On printing the first issue at Phoenix, the
engine failed and Gandhi along with the others
had to put his shoulder to the wheel to bring it
out by hand-power. Gandhi calls those days, "high
moral power". The first issue of the 'Indian
Opinion' deals with 'Police Zulum In Transvaal',
'A Plea For India', 'The British Indian in South
Africa' and other such items. To begin with,
Gandhi believed that the British Empire would
respond to appeals and petitions and so the
columns were pointing out injustice - 'British
Indians Not Allowed To Use Healing Water' (1st
October 1904) and other forms of racial
discrimination against the Indians.
Later, the tenor of the 'Indian Opinion' changed
as Gandhi's own political understanding of
imperialism evolved. The 'Indian Opinion' carried
a strong protest against the partition of Bengal
in 1905. Many of his articles were unsigned or he
wrote a column simply called 'Ourselves'. The
newspaper carried his articles on Tolstoy,
Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale, 'Duty Of
Civil Disobedience' based on Thoreau, paraphrased
his Gujarati translation of John Ruskins 'Unto
This Last' and serialized 'Hind Swaraj',
containing his philosophy of satyagraha. Indian
Opinion's first honorary editor was Hiralal
Nazar, followed by Herbert Kitchin and Henry
Polak. The latter were Englishmen who Gandhi
recorded were "of selfless character to the best
of my knowledge".
After Gandhi's departure to India in 1915, the
work and responsibility fell on Gandhi's son,
Manilal's shoulders. Gandhi instructed Manilal to
continue, but there was a dialectic at work.
Gandhi would not allow him to move to town for
Sita (Manilal's daughter's) education, but wanted
him to continue bringing out 'Indian Opinion' as
a social service. Manilal struggled and
valiantly kept it going till his death in 1956,
after which his wife, Sushila renamed the paper
'Opinion'. The paper was officially re-opened by
Nelson Mandela in 2000.
Most significantly, the c.d collection, provides
historical evidence of journalism being used as a
tool in satyagraha. To search for and publish
truth, is a reality that Gandhi as editor, set
out to relentlessly accomplish. While the
dynamics of journalism have certainly changed,
Gandhi's words, "I will give you a talisman, when
in doubt, shut your eyes and think how the
poorest of poor, will be affected," still remains
a valuable touchstone.
______
[5] [India's national media networks have failed
to report and the India's nucleocrats are
maintaining a pin drop silence. Environmental
activists must investigate and force the
authorities to intervene.]
India: Jharkhand: TOXIC URANIUM TAILINGS SPILL INTO THE RIVER
http://perso.orange.fr/sacw/saan/2006/jadugodaDec2006.html
o o o
Hindustan,
Tatanagar Edition,
26 December 2006,
(web site: www.hindustandainik.com)
UCIL's Uranium sludge mixes with Creek water, after a pipe carrying it bursts
[translation in English by Sanjeev Mahajan].
Uranium waste has started to flow in a nearby
creek, after a pipe belonging to UCIL's [Uranium
Corporation of India Limited] tailing pond in
Tilaitand burst. As a result, fish, frogs and
other riparian life in the creek are starting to
die and are washing up to the surface. Tribals
from Dungaridinh allege that they informed the
the Central Industrial Security Force about this
disaster Sunday morning, but that even after 9
hours, no officer from CISF bothered to even show
up at the disaster site. It was only around 4 pm
that the flow of Uranium sludge into the tailing
pond from the Mill House was arrested, and the
villagers could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Scared and angry villagers have stopped all work
in the area and no dumpers or trucks are now
allowed in or out of the area. Although workers
from UCIL have started to repair the pipe since
Monday morning, the villagers say this is not
enough. They say that UCIL is also obliged to
clean up the toxic sludge which has formed a
thick layer on the surface of the creek. Unless
this is done, they will continue to agitate and
will not allow further work. Ghanshyam Biruli,
the president of Jharkhand Organization against
Radiation(JOAR), has also arrived at the disaster
site. He says that people bathe and wash clothes
in the creek water. Since the pipe burst on
Sunday, the villagers have been quite distraught
and fearful.
According to Biruli, the creek water has stopped
flowing because a thick layer of Uranium sludge
has formed on the surface of the creek starting
from Dungaridinh and ending at the colony temple.
It is quite likely that the Gurra and Svarnalekha
rivers will also be adversely affected by this
environmental disaster. This Uranium sludge is
dumped from the Jadugoda unit of the UCIL though
a pipe into the tailing pond. After the pipe
burst, and the Uranium sludge started to flow
into the creek, fish, frogs, snakes and other
riparian life forms have begun to die and are
washing up to the surface. P Soren, Shripati
Patro, Sukhlal Bahumik, Dubri Devgan, Sanjay
Murmu, Bolay Majhi, Duli Kutiya, Prem Majhi and
Sunil Murmu, all residents of Dungaridinh say
that even if UCIL does clean up the mess it
created, the water in the creek will still not be
usable for at least 3 to 4 days. It is only after
that the villagers will be able to bathe and wash
clothes in the creek.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shri Prakash <prakash.shri at gmail.com>
Date: Dec 26, 2006 9:10 PM
Subject: tailing pipe burst - paper cutting
Dear all
Johar from Jharkhand India and marry Xmas
please find a paper cutting in Hindi of a radiation disaster.....
the pipe which brought uranium mill tailing to tailing dam no-3
burst out yesterday and tailing spread to a water source which ultimately
meet in subsidiary of river Subranarekha.
JOAR along with villagers
blocked the road and transportation of Uranium company then company
started cleaning up the tailing from the water source......
the entire day UCIL was busy with cleaning ... they did not allow
locals to take photo... one friend went today morning to document
visual it so either tonight or tomorrow i will have clear picture....
also i am waiting the result of the meeting of JOAR and villagers fro
further action, as Shalini ji talked on telephone what should be the
action......
i asked the organisation to consult with the effected people and local
as it is very important that all action match with the mood of local
so that movement or debate will have grassroots support... as we want
to send a letter of demand on this accident.......
what will be the demand we want to to know from the villagers and as
well from you, and plan of action.....
i hope i will send you more information today afternoon or tomorrow....
please spear some time for us and suggest us what we can do in this matter.....
shripraksh
JOAR
94315 80434
o o o
Scanned news report in Hindi
http://perso.orange.fr/sacw/saan/images/scan.jpg
______
[6]
EducationGuardian.co.uk
December 27, 2006
A TALE OF TWO NATIONS
From today, schools in England will be required
to teach those aspects of Indian history the
British have preferred to forget. Peter Robb
examines the pros and cons of studying the legacy
of British rule in India
In April 1919, Brigadier-General Dyer, commanding
a body of Sikh and Gurkha troops, arrived at an
enclosed area of wasteland in Amritsar in the
Punjab, the Jallianwala Bagh, where people had
gathered in large numbers. It was a festival day,
but public meetings had been banned by Dyer in
the aftermath of riots and attacks on property
and Europeans in the city. He ordered his men to
open fire without warning, and they continued
firing until their ammunition was almost
exhausted. Hundreds of people died. No help was
provided to the victims. Dyer marched his troops
away, believing he had saved the Punjab from
mutiny. Thus occurred a crucial event in the
struggle for Indian independence, almost as
potent in today's memories as the far greater
conflagration in 1857.
Now, once again, India is in the news, while
Britain is reassessing the meaning of
'multiculturalism'. And the Qualifications and
Curriculum Authority has produced a welcome new
unit on 20th century India for Key Stage 3
history.
Will it "foster understanding through learning"
as claimed by Ken Boston, the QCA's chief
executive? Will it introduce students to "a group
of culturally rich countries"? Will it help them
comprehend the impact of the British empire that
so affected the lives of many of their parents
and grandparents both here and abroad?
India and Pakistan were created as independent
countries nearly 60 years ago. The unit's
curriculum covers that history, and that of India
(not Pakistan or Bangladesh) in the years that
followed. Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru
(India's first prime minister) are the 'great
men' as usual, with Muhammed Ali Jinnah also
mentioned as the founder of Pakistan.
The Jallianwala Bagh massacre is ubiquitous: the
only event mentioned in all three of the
paragraphs on the outcomes expected from the unit
at different levels of achievement, and the only
event singled out for detailed comment among 19
listed on the road to independence.
This is predictable and not what is meant by
warnings that the unit may evoke strong feelings
in some pupils. Yet it seems a wrong emphasis.
True, the massacre provides an excellent
historiographical exercise. Some 30 years ago, I
used it in an evidence-based methods course for
all SOAS history undergraduates.
True also, it was a defining event, especially
for the following decade, because it aided
Gandhi's rise to leadership of the largest
national movement, the Indian National Congress,
and convinced Indian politicians of Britain's bad
faith in its recent promises of self-government.
Official repudiations of Dyer were given little
credence in the face of British public support
for him. The immediate effect wore off during the
1920s, and cooperation and negotiations resumed;
but the moral effect remained.
However, was it definitive of British rule?
Official violence could be severe in colonial
India as in Britain or independent India, but it
was not the norm. Rather than focusing on
repression alone, it would be worthwhile to
compare it with support, consent and complicity,
and with coercion in different states (Britain in
the 1930s, Germany under the Nazis, Stalin's
Russia, Mao's China, Kenya during Mau Mau, and so
on).
More than this, should the main narrative even be
about confrontation between nationalism and
imperialism, with nationalism the hero and the
victor? That is certainly part of the story, but
not the only part to be remembered.
The key is that Britain and India were (and are)
involved with each other. India helped shape
Britain not just in its economic and strategic
power, but intellectually, socially and
politically; while British rule in India was
largely conducted by Indians, and many so-called
western institutions, and ideas were adopted and
adapted by them.
This fertile and continuing exchange in some
senses has always been more equal than the
colonial relationship would imply, with varied
effects - some benign, some not - in both Britain
and India: new forms of administration;
western-dominated categorisations of knowledge
and people; ideas of economic progress and
scientific advance; the rule of law; concepts of
rights, as for women and dalits (oppressed
people); representation and democracy; and of
course chicken tikka masala.
A focus on the independence struggle and high
politics is bound also to reduce the emphasis on
religion and on socio-economic classes, following
the example of the Indian National Congress as it
sought unity against the British. That effort
obviously failed in some degree. Some say it
contributed to the partition of India. Some
believe it furthered the social and economic
oppression of many millions by their social and
economic 'superiors'.
A study of nationalism - in regard to one of the
most important examples - raises issues to be
confronted critically in this unit, not left to
other ones. Nationalism helped produce Nehru's
highly managed, largely closed economy; but did
that hasten or hinder India's advance?
Nationalism may imply repudiating so-called
western legacies - for example in Islamic law, or
Hindu chauvinism - and British students should
understand these issues too. More on Pakistan and
Bangladesh would be useful here, and obviously
important for Britain today.
That raises a final concern: underplaying
continuities. What ideas and practices shaped
south Asia? Even Gandhi, seen as an Indian mentor
for the world, drew heavily on western and even
colonial discourse as well as many indigenous
influences while inventing his clever middle way
between passivity and violence (satyagraha or
truth-force, non-violent agitation based on
self-control), let alone his broader critiques of
society and human nature.
Nehru's economic modernisation too is implied to
have started after independence, but its roots
were deeper, as were those of India's
administration, army, political parties, and many
of the ever-evolving, inevitably syncretic
institutions and values of society. The Hindu
right, too, had complex origins. Again,
comparisons with Pakistan are instructive.
Most important, a tale of divisions and
discontinuity misses how much this is a history
of Britain as well as India.
· Peter Robb is Pro-Director and Professor of the
History of India at SOAS, and author of A History
of India (2002).
______
[7]
SCIENCE VS SUPERSTITION
Science vs Superstition - the case for a new
scientific enlightenment challenges the common
belief that scientific progress in today's world
inevitably entails an element of danger or moral
uncertainty. While many people seem to lack the
vision of a genuinely better future, the authors
of this collection of essays believe that it is
time to make the case for a more positive
attitude towards the future - a future that is
made better through science. In eight chapters,
edited by James Panton and Oliver Marc Hartwich,
Science vs Superstition shows how our perception
of science has changed in recent decades and
examines several case studies of the battle of
scientific progress against unsubstantiated fears.
http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/libimages/219.pdf
______
[8]
SAHMAT
8, Vithalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg
New Delhi-110001
Telephone-23711276/ 23351424
e-mail: sahmat at vsnl.com
25.12.2006
The 18TH SAFDAR HASHMI MEMORIAL is being observed
on Monday, 1st January, 2007 at Vithal Bhai Patel
House Lawns from 1.30 p.m. onwards. This year the
50th anniversary of the 1857 Revolt will be
commemorated.
An exhibition on the 1857 Revolt will be
inaugurated which will travel to different parts
of the country through the year. The theatre
group Act One will perform a street play on 1857
Revolt and celebrated modern dancer Astad Deboo
will choreograph a special piece for the
occasion. Anees Azmi and his colleagues will
recite from Rahi Masoom Raza’s long, forgotten
poem on 1857 written in 1957 as well as read from
Ghalib’s letters on the Revolt.
A special planner for the year 2007 and a
specially designed booklet on 1857 will be
released.
Other artists who will perform include Navtej
Johar, Meeta Pandit, Sunanda Sharma, Rekha Raj,
Vidya Shah, Ruchika and Deepak Castelino,
Anupriya, Jasbir Jassi, Madan Gopal Singh and
Rabbi Shergill.
Dhawal Mudgal’s band of young performers will also be participating.
A calendar for the year 2007 on Revolutionary
icon Che Guevera will be a special release.
SAHMAT
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
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