SACW | Jan. 7-9, 2007

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | January 7-9, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2345 - Year 8

[1]  Sri Lanka: Civilians are Main Casualties in 
Escalation Strategies (National Peace Council)
[2]  Kashmir Resolution in Sight? (Praful Bidwai)
[3]  Pakistan: The great kidney bazaar (Irfan Husain)
[4]  India: Concern over Nandigram violence
[5]  India:  Long way to go - anti-trafficking 
with little to do with women's rights (Ratna 
Kapur)
[6]  India - Gujarat: Women & Children In Modi's Regime (Nalini Taneja)
[7]  The purpose behind the current Indian admiration for China (Achin Vanaik)
[8] Upcoming Events: 
  (i) an interaction with author, Baby Halder (New Delhi, 9 January 2007)
  (ii) Creative Commons, India to be launched (Bombay, 26 January 2007)
____


[1]


National Peace Council
of Sri Lanka
12/14 Purana Vihara Road
Colombo 6
www.peace-srilanka.org

08.01.07

Media Release

CIVILIANS ARE MAIN CASUALTIES IN ESCALATION STRATEGIES

The killing of civilians in the course of the 
ethnic conflict has taken a new turn for the 
worse with the two bomb explosions on board 
passenger buses on two successive days in the 
south of Sri Lanka far from the conflict zones. 
These acts of terror have claimed over twenty 
lives and
left over a hundred injured. The government has 
accused the LTTE of these attacks, which the LTTE 
has denied. The National Peace Council condemns 
the bomb attacks which have targeted adults and 
children without exception.

The deliberate targeting of civilians in the 
south follows military actions by both the 
government and LTTE in the north and east in 
which civilians have been casualties. Last week 
the LTTE and civic groups in the north accused 
the government of airforce bombing of a civilian 
settlement in
Mannar in which 14 people lost their lives, 
including children, and several more were 
injured. Prior to that there was an LTTE mortar 
attack in Trincomalee in the east that hit a 
school in which five civilians died, including 
school children.

Whether these killings of civilians were 
deliberately perpetrated or were in the nature of 
collateral damage is immaterial from the view 
point of the affected civilian population. The 
National Peace Council condemns the lack of 
regard for the safety of the civilian population 
and urges the two parties to desist from 
attacking each other in the vicinity of civilian 
settlements. As a civic organization we also 
appeal to the two parties not to go down the road 
of escalation and reprisal which will only worsen 
the situation for the general population, on 
whose behalf the war is purportedly waged.  Mass 
displacements, human rights violations, 
abductions, child recruitments and attacks on 
humanitarian workers are some of the cruel 
features of the present time that can only be 
overcome by a revival of the peace process.

There are many factors that could be brought 
together to revive the peace process. These 
include the political proposals for a new 
political framework put forward by the Panel of 
Experts on a constitutional solution to the 
ethnic conflict and the Memorandum of 
Understanding between the
ruling party and the main opposition party on 
bipartisanship in pursuit of the peace process. 
We also believe that the unwillingness of either 
the government or LTTE to formally renounce the 
Ceasefire Agreement is a positive indicator that 
both are prepared to accept a revival of the peace
process. We urgently call for these agreements to 
be activated to deal with the emerging crisis 
rather than perpetuate a further escalation of 
hostilities.


Executive Director
On behalf of the Governing Council

____


[2]

Inter Press Service
January 6, 2007

KASHMIR RESOLUTION IN SIGHT?

by Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI - A month after President Pervez 
Musharraf of Pakistan proposed a four-point 
formula to resolve the troubled question of 
Kashmir jointly with India, exploratory contacts 
between the two governments have gathered 
momentum.

Their efforts at reconciling mutual differences 
are likely to get a boost during a planned visit 
to Pakistan next week by Indian Foreign Minister 
Pranab Mukherjee. But the top leaders of the two 
countries will have to resolutely counter 
criticism from ultra-nationalists on both sides 
and take bold, imaginative initiatives if the 
efforts are to bear fruit.

Musharraf proposed a "four-point solution" to the 
Kashmir issue on Dec. 5 in an interview with an 
Indian television channel.

His formula envisions soft or porous borders in 
Kashmir with freedom of movement for the 
Kashmiris; exceptional autonomy or 
"self-governance" within each region of Kashmir; 
phased demilitarization of all regions; and 
finally, a "joint supervisory mechanism," with 
representatives from India, Pakistan and all 
parts of Kashmir, to oversee the plan's 
implementation.

The dispute over Muslim-majority Kashmir goes 
back to the decolonization and partition of 
British India, on the basis of religion, into the 
independent countries of India and Pakistan in 
1947. Kashmir, then a separate kingdom, was 
claimed by both countries and they proceeded to 
carve it up into two regions that are divided by 
the militarily fortified Line of Control (LoC).

India has been pushing for a conversion of the 
LoC, which has stood for almost 60 years, into an 
international border. But Pakistan has 
consistently rejected this plan and several wars 
have been fought between the two countries that 
have altered the contours of the original 
ceasefire line.

So far, India has not officially responded to 
Musharraf's proposal but Prime Minister Manmohan 
Singh has said he welcomes the "new ideas and 
thoughts expressed from Pakistan"; they can help 
"resolve all pending issues" which must be 
approached "with an open and friendly mind."

Addressing a meeting in Amritsar on Dec. 20, 
Singh said India and Pakistan "should forget the 
past"; "we need to think about our collective 
destiny, a destiny where both neighbors can work 
jointly towards a better future for their 
citizens."

During the past month, Musharraf and other senior 
Pakistani officials have offered to drop 
Pakistan's "claim" to Kashmir if the issue can be 
resolved through "self-governance" just short of 
independence on both sides of the Line of 
Control, which divides the former kingdom.

They have clarified that Islamabad has never in 
fact "claimed Kashmir to be an integral part of 
Pakistan"; its legal position is based on 
resolutions of the United Nations Security 
Council going back to the late 1940s. These call 
for a plebiscite in Kashmir to determine if its 
people want to accede to India or Pakistan. (The 
plebiscite never happened).

The officials quote Article 257 of the Pakistan 
Constitution: "When the people of the State of 
Jammu and Kashmir decide to accede to Pakistan, 
the relationship between Pakistan and that State 
shall be determined in accordance with the wishes 
of the people of the State ..."

Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri has 
further elucidated this by saying Pakistan has 
"no territorial claims" upon Kashmir.

"Clearly, bold sides have adopted a soft tone and 
indicated that they are willing to depart from 
stated positions," says Karamat Ali, a 
Karachi-based social activist and a 
founder-member of the Pakistan Peace Coalition, 
an umbrella group formed in 1999. "This, in and 
of itself, is a welcome development. It signifies 
that the peace process, which stalled after the 
July Mumbai train bombings, is likely to be 
resumed earnestly."

This change hasn't come about suddenly. It is the 
culmination of "back-channel" discussions over 
several months between Manmohan Singh's special 
envoy S.K. Lambah and Pakistan's National 
Security Adviser Tariq Aziz. These have narrowed 
mutual differences.

Thus, Singh and Musharraf could report "progress" 
on Kashmir when they met during the Non-Aligned 
Movement summit at Havana in September.

"Beyond the back channels," says Karamat Ali, 
"there is a deeper realization in both countries 
that losing the present opportunity for 
normalizing India-Pakistan relations will entail 
heavy costs. Musharraf knows he has to deliver 
something to the Pakistani public before the 
presidential elections due this year. His 
economic record isn't impressive enough. If he 
can achieve progress towards a Kashmir 
settlement, that will help him in the election."

Similarly, Indian leaders realize that Musharraf 
might be the best candidate for negotiating a 
Kashmir solution. The present moment is 
propitious. The India-Pakistan ceasefire across 
the LoC has held for three years. There has been 
a significant decrease in terrorist violence in 
Indian Kashmir. And the popular mood in the 
Kashmir Valley favors reconciliation.

Major parties of the Valley, such as the National 
Conference and the People's Democratic Party, and 
the moderate faction of the pro-separatist All 
Parties' Hurriyat Conference have applauded 
Musharraf's four-point solution.

Musharraf's proposal builds on the basic 
understanding reached recently between him and 
Singh: the Kashmir status quo must change; but 
there can be no redrawing of boundaries; and yet, 
the LoC should become irrelevant.

Of the four points, the last one (pertaining to a 
"joint supervisory mechanism" to oversee the 
implementation of a solution) is completely new 
and assumes a high level of cooperation between 
India and Pakistan.

The "joint supervision" issue is likely to prove 
the most contentious. The Hindu, right-wing 
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bitterly opposes it 
and says Pakistan cannot be trusted enough.

Last weekend, senior BJP leader and former home 
Minister L.K. Advani accused the Manmohan Singh 
government of entering into clandestine deals 
with Pakistan at the expense of "the national 
interest."

"The BJP would of course like, if it can, to 
wield veto power on foreign policy," says Kamal 
Mitra Chenoy, of the School of International 
Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. 
"But it mustn't be allowed such excessive power. 
Singh will have to stand firm on a deep dialogue 
on Kashmir with Pakistan and either ignore the 
BJP or blunt its opposition. He should know that 
Indian public opinion strongly favors dialogue."

In Pakistan too, right-wing and pro-jehadi 
parties oppose "dilution" of Islamabad's stated 
position on Kashmir. But it's relatively easy for 
Musharraf, a self-appointed president and 
military leader, to ignore them.

The other points in Musharraf's formula will also 
be bitterly contested in both countries. Each of 
them raises questions. What will be the content 
of "self-rule" or "self-governance"? Will the 
pattern vary from sub-region to sub-region?

Who will ensure the economic viability of the 
"self-rule" government? Which judicial tribunal 
can determine if the rules of self-governance 
have been followed?

How soon can the first step of troops reduction, 
eventually leading to demilitarization, be taken 
given the violence prevalent in Indian Kashmir?

What will be the scope, functions, powers and 
composition of the "joint mechanism"? What if a 
dispute arises? Who will settle it?

"All these could prove deal-breakers," agrees 
Chenoy. "But obstacles to mutual cooperation 
created by conservative hardliners in the two 
establishments are an even bigger problem. They 
have now taken on a particularly unpleasant form, 
through restrictions on travel by diplomats."

In keeping with tough visa regimes, which are 
calculated to discourage people-to-people 
interaction, India and Pakistan do not allow each 
other's diplomats to leave the capital cities 
without prior permission.

A Pakistani diplomat posted in New Delhi can only 
visit neighboring suburbs like Gurgaon. And an 
Indian diplomat based in Islamabad can only visit 
Rawalpindi next door, or Murree in the hills 
close by.

In recent days, the two governments carried these 
restrictions to absurd lengths, insisting that 
diplomats obtain prior permission even for 
visiting these neighboring places.

"Indian and Pakistani leaders must not allow 
cussed bureaucracies and intelligence agency 
hardliners to dictate the agenda," says Chenoy. 
"Singh and Musharraf should personally take 
charge of the peace process and insulate it from 
hardline interference."

Adds Chenoy: "Conservative mindsets won't be easy 
to change, but change they must if India and 
Pakistan are to put behind themselves their 
half-century-long hot-cold war and reap the peace 
dividend by demilitarizing their relations and 
ending their arms race. A Kashmir solution 
represents a great bonanza. The must not squander 
the chance to reach it."


_____


[3]

Dawn
January 06, 2007

THE GREAT KIDNEY BAZAAR

by Irfan Husain

WE have officially entered the 'Visit Pakistan' 
year. No doubt government spokesmen will 
dutifully extol the delights of the Land of the 
Pure as a tourist destination. But although 
healthy foreigners might not fill our hotels, 
those with failing kidneys will continue to 
arrive in large numbers.

The way things are going, "transplant tourism" is 
going to be a growth industry in Pakistan for a 
long time to come. Last year, an estimated 2,000 
operations were performed, with foreigners 
shelling out around $15,000 (or Rs 900,000) each. 
Out of this, impoverished donors received a 
maximum of $1,500, with the hospitals getting the 
lion's share. Thus, nearly two billion rupees a 
year are being spent on these dubious operations 
in which rich clients, greedy doctors and shady 
hospitals join hands to exploit the poor.

Indeed, in certain areas, the medical fallout of 
this pernicious practice is reaching epidemic 
proportions. According to the Guardian, "most 
adults of Sultanpura, northern Punjab, have 
donated a kidney.... It is one of dozens of 
villages that provide the human stock for 
Pakistan's burgeoning cash-for-kidneys trade."

Apart from the demand for healthy kidneys, what 
is driving this ghoulish trade is the lack of any 
laws on the subject in Pakistan. For years, Dr 
Adeebul Hasan Rizvi, head of the Sindh Institute 
of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT), has been 
lobbying for the creation of a legal framework to 
regulate organ transplants. Time after time, he 
has tried to convince members of successive 
assemblies to push through the necessary 
legislation, all to no avail. Now, tired after 
all his attempts, he acknowledges the power of 
those involved in the trade: "There is just too 
much money involved."

Those benefiting from the current lack of 
regulation argue that a law permitting the 
transplant of organs from cadavers, even with the 
permission of the family, is somehow 
"un-Islamic". And yet nine Muslim countries, 
including Saudi Arabia and Iran, have laws that 
ban the sale of organs, while permitting 
transplants of organs that have been freely 
donated.

What such a law would do is to protect people 
like Nazar Mohammad, a rickshaw driver in 
Sultanpura. Talking to CNN, he said: "No one does 
this for fun. We have all sold our kidneys to pay 
off a debt so that we can save our families from 
indentured servitude. There is nothing here, not 
even water. The landowners keep us oppressed." He 
went on to say that more than 20 of his 
relatives, both men and women, had sold their 
kidneys.

And yet, despite the evidence that giving up a 
kidney can have hugely damaging effects on the 
donor's health, you can visit a number of 
websites where such procedures are advertised. At 
www.masoodhospital.com we learn that "The 
transplant team at Masood Hospital consists of 
some of the most experienced doctors in the 
field.... The most important fact to be 
considered is that patients are in absolutely 
safe hands."

Perhaps the patients are, but what about the 
donors? In India, a study found that the health 
of 86 per cent of kidney donors had declined 
after their operations. The sale of organs was 
banned in India 10 years ago, and this is one 
reason the trade is now booming in Pakistan. In 
fact, ours is one of the few countries in the 
world where no laws regulate transplants.

Although a bill was drafted as long ago as 1992, 
no government has pushed it through, ostensibly 
fearing a backlash from fundamentalists. However, 
given the fact that even a conservative country 
like Saudi Arabia regulates transplantation, it 
is clear that the doctors making millions through 
the trade are using religious sentiment to block 
any legislation that would upset the status quo.

To be fair, the health ministry has been calling 
for a law to halt this trade. In a summary sent 
last year to the cabinet, it was pointed out that 
"Incidents of kidney selling by the poor is on 
the rise. Patients from certain developed 
countries visit Pakistan buy organs for 
transplantation at local kidney centres." Nearly 
a year later, there has been no movement on the 
ministry's proposal for legislation.

Despite the government's fears of opposition from 
religious quarters, as long ago as 1981, an 
Islamic Code of Medical Ethics was worked out, 
and which recommended: "The donation of body 
fluids or organs such as blood transfusion to the 
bleeding or a kidney transplant to the patient 
with bilateral irreparable renal damage is 'fardh 
kifaya', a duty that donors fulfil on behalf of 
the society and if the living are able to donate, 
the dead are even more so.... This is indeed 
charity."

This unambiguous and humane interpretation of 
Islamic doctrine should surely put to rest any 
reservations in the minds of our politicians. And 
yet, legislation remains stalled. Clearly, it is 
greed, and not faith, that is enhancing 
Pakistan's reputation as a "kidney bazaar".

Doctors who make a very good living out of 
transplants justify their actions by claiming 
that they are saving lives, while at the same 
time enabling poor donors to make some money. To 
hear them talk, it would seem they are saints who 
only perform these operations out of the goodness 
of their hearts. The reality is very different: 
the very fact that hospitals charge around 
$15,000 for the procedure, while giving donors 
only a tenth of this amount, indicates the level 
of exploitation.

Those involved in this racket are aware that if 
the government were to pass a law permitting 
transplants from cadavers, as well as from 
brain-dead people, while banning their sale and 
purchase, this lucrative business would end. As 
this is the law in most countries, including many 
Muslim ones, they are trying to use every trick 
in the book to block legislation.

And while this behind-the-scenes lobbying takes 
place, thousands of poor Pakistanis are being 
tempted to sell their organs to benefit rich 
foreigners and unscrupulous surgeons.

A law would not just protect the poor, it would 
make more organs available for transplants. 
Currently, only the rich can afford the operation 
because kidneys are unavailable. The poor simply 
die. Surely it is high time that we acted to 
protect our most vulnerable citizens from a 
handful of vultures. If foreigners want to visit 
our shores, we should welcome them, but not to 
raid the body parts of the poor of Pakistan.

_____


[4]

The Hindu
Jan 09, 2007

CONCERN OVER NANDIGRAM VIOLENCE

Eminent scholars and civil society members have 
issued a statement on the Nandigram issue in West 
Bengal. It says:

We are deeply concerned about the escalating 
levels of violence being reported from Nandigram 
in West Bengal, as a consequence of the State 
Government's policy of land acquisition for 
industrial use. TV reports from Calcutta indicate 
growing levels of tension and violence in the 
villages. This situation is likely to be repeated 
across the State if the policy continues to be 
executed as it has, without consideration for 
human rights, democratic procedures, and 
livelihoods.

We deplore the recent attack on the CPM office at 
Nandigram, but deplore even more strongly the 
policy of retaliation advocated by some 
constituents of the Left Front Government, and 
the use of armed elements against the villagers, 
already at the cost of several lives.

We urge the formation of an all-Party Peace 
Committee in West Bengal to ensure the cessation 
of hostilities against the villagers, and an 
immediate end to the forcible acquisition of 
land. While industrial development is necessary 
in many parts of the country, detailed, 
democratically accountable and transparent 
discussions about the categories of land to be 
allocated for acquisition are equally necessary 
prior to making a decision. The International 
Economic Covenant, which India has ratified, 
makes prior consultation and resettlement 
mandatory in all cases of displacement. The 
violation of human rights in the process of land 
acquisition that we have recently seen in West 
Bengal (and a number of other states) is 
completely unacceptable.

Signatories: Romila Thapar, Justice Rajinder 
Sachar, Jean Dreze, Arundhati Roy, Sumit Sarkar, 
Praful Bidwai, Kavita Srivastava (PUCL), Yogendra 
Yadav, Tanika Sarkar, Anil Chaudhary (PEACE), 
Achin Vanaik, Pradip Kumar Datta, Dilip Simeon 
and Colin Gonzalves.

_____


[5]

The Times of India
8 January, 2007

LONG WAY TO GO

by Ratna Kapur

The Standing Committee of the Rajya Sabha has 
submitted its views on the proposed amendments to 
the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Amendment Act, 
2006. The Bill constitutes part of the global 
effort to eradicate human trafficking.

There has been an extraordinary proliferation of 
law at the UN, European Union and SAARC countries 
to combat trafficking in the course of the past 
decade. These efforts have been assisted by human 
rights organisations, women's groups, and other 
social justice movements.

Yet the outward sense of progress, of a social 
justice project being pursued in the name of 
human rights especially of women and children, is 
emerging as disingenuous and illusory. Indeed, 
anti-trafficking is perhaps the most explicit 
example of how good intentions can boomerang.

Despite a decade of activism backed by millions 
of dollars, there is an increase in the human 
trafficking statistics and the level of 
prosecutions and convictions remain abysmally 
low. One primary reason is that anti-trafficking 
work is being used to pursue agendas that have 
little to do with women's rights.

They either adopt a paternalistic attitude 
towards migrant women, feed anti-immigrant 
policies in destination countries, or support 
sexually conservative agendas led by faith-based 
groups in the US and anti-sex work groups in 
India and elsewhere.

These competing agendas are present in the 
current Bill. As defined in the UN Trafficking 
Protocol, trafficking involves the recruitment, 
movement or transportation of a person through 
force, deception, fraud or violence into a site 
of exploitative work.
Recruiting a person by deception into domestic 
work or forcibly transporting somebody to a bar 
where she is made to perform sexual services 
constitutes trafficking. The central problem with 
the proposed law is that it collapses the issue 
of sex work with sex trafficking and equates all 
trafficking with sex trafficking.

  The committee has honed in on this confusion, 
recognising that trafficking takes place into a 
broad range of sectors, such as construction, 
agriculture, or domestic work. Secondly, it 
clarifies that trafficking should be 
distinguished from consensual commercial sex 
work, and that not all sex workers are trafficked.

Yet the committee does not take the logical step 
of recommending a comprehensive law on human 
trafficking, and a separate law to address the 
concerns of sex workers.

The committee recommends some major amendments. 
It strongly criticises the proposal to 
criminalise clients, recognising that such a 
provision would be used to further harass sex 
workers, and do little or nothing to stop 
trafficking.

The recommendation goes some way in recognising 
consensual sex work and the need to protect the 
rights of sex workers. Yet it still fails to 
delink the issue of trafficking from sex work, 
thus making any effort to seriously tackle human 
trafficking unworkable.

Similar tensions have plagued efforts made by 
government since 1993 to reform the law. Given 
these inherent tensions, why is the government 
supporting such a flawed law? The answer lies 
partly in pressure being exerted by the US.

In 2000, Christian evangelicals successfully 
lobbied for the enactment of the Trafficking in 
Victims Protection Act, with the support of the 
Bush presidency and anti-sex work groups.

Under the Act, a task force annually evaluates 
the anti-trafficking efforts of over 150 
countries and classifies them into three tiers: 
Tier 1 for those who have met the minimum 
standards for fighting trafficking; Tier 2 for 
those who have not met the standard but are 
trying; and Tier 2 Watch List for those who 
better shape up or else they will be pushed into 
Tier 3, a category that triggers the withdrawal 
of non-humanitarian aid from the US as well as US 
opposition to non-humanitarian assistance from 
institutions such as IMF and World Bank.

India is the only South Asian country to be 
placed in the Tier 2 Watch List for the third 
consecutive year because of its apparent 'failure 
to show evidence of increasing efforts to address 
trafficking in persons'. While India has a range 
of legal provisions on trafficking, kidnapping 
and slavery, it does not have a law outlawing 
prostitution.

USAID, which sits on the task force, has an 
explicit policy of refusing funding for HIV/AIDS 
or anti-trafficking projects to "organisations 
advocating prostitution as an employment choice 
or which advocate or support the legalisation of 
prostitution".

Yet opposition to prostitution is not the central 
criterion for tier placements. Pakistan has been 
placed in Tier 2 though it has not enacted a 
single significant law against trafficking. Nepal 
was placed in Tier 1 in 2005 after the monarchy's 
grab for power, but pushed into Tier 2 in 2006 
after the Maoists victory.

Bangladesh provides the death penalty for certain 
forms of trafficking and bans unskilled and 
semi-skilled women from working abroad. It is in 
Tier 2.

The committee recognises that the proposed 
reforms serve as only a 'half-hearted' effort to 
combat trafficking. US bullying and the threat of 
sanctions should not push India in a direction 
that will harm more women than it will help.

India should draft a comprehensive human 
trafficking law that is human rights oriented. 
And this law needs to be framed against a 
comprehensive policy on migration and rights of 
migrant workers.

Otherwise, the security of migrants, especially 
female migrants, may end up less threatened by 
people smugglers and traffickers than by the 
system of protection offered by anti-trafficking 
laws.

The writer is director, Centre for Feminist Legal Research.

_____


[6]


People's Democracy
January 07, 2007

GUJARAT 2006
Women & Children In Modi's Regime

by Nalini Taneja

WOMEN have been special targets of communalist 
ideology and communalist violence. Most scholars 
engaged in gender studies and activists of 
women's movements have emphasised the role of 
communalist ideology in strengthening patriarchy 
and have shown how women have been specially 
targeted in communal violence. The Gujarat 
genocide of Muslims in 2002 seemed, in many ways, 
an unprecedented and culminating stage in this 
trend: the incidence and scale of rapes pointed 
towards deliberate barbarism, having mass 
complicity and approval of a very large section 
of Gujarat society, and not just an aberration on 
the part of some depraved, individual men. The 
acts were committed in full public gaze, often in 
front of the children of the women concerned. 
There is no guarantee by the state and no system 
in place to ensure that it does not happen again. 
No public regret has been voiced to date in 
Gujarat or elsewhere despite the data and 
concrete evidence provided by women's and other 
concerned citizens' groups.

DOMINANT FEELING: FEAR

A very great many of those women and children 
were burnt alive after these horrendous acts, but 
a great many continue to live equally horrendous 
lives: having survived the experience, and yet 
not having survived it. They live haunted lives, 
still fearful, and without hope of getting back 
to normalcy: neither the state nor the larger 
society in the state has done anything about it. 
Gujarat 2006 is therefore not much better for 
them than 2002 was. Most reports on the situation 
in Gujarat, and testimonies of survivors at 
various conventions, show that fear is the 
dominant emotion in the life of Gujarati Muslims, 
particularly Gujarati Muslim women. An Amnesty 
International report of 2005 says: "They tread 
quietly and try to keep a low profile, because 
even small altercations with members of the 
majority community can easily become seriousŠ 
verbal abuse has the danger of becoming physical 
at any timeŠThere is no provision for security." 
The situation is not any different a year later 
in 2006.

On its part, the UPA government cannot claim that 
it has done anything to rehabilitate or in any 
way improve the life for the women and children 
survivors of 2002 atrocities, while the Modi 
government does not think they even merit being 
considered for any special help, rehabilitation 
or compensation. "For us all are equal," declares 
Narendra Modi, as brazen as ever.

The economic boycott of Muslims and destroyed 
sources of livelihood have placed a double burden 
on women. Loss of jobs for men has meant that 
women have even less to eat in the family. Losses 
of assets in the form of land in villages (most 
have not been able to return) and shops etc in 
urban areas have not been compensated for. Fear, 
with lack of security, has led to women being 
forced to stay home, girl children remaining 
withdrawn from schools, and a tremendous rise in 
the number of women headed households in cases 
where the men of the concerned families were 
killed in 2002. Those who have not been able to 
return home have lost their traditional support 
system of family and the larger kinship networks. 
Most are in no position to find suitable work, in 
terms of skills, or in the given political and 
social situation in terms of self-confidence. 
Destitution among women and children is on the 
increase, and an unusually large number are 
surviving on charity from the community or from 
NGOs. They can hardly use their old ration cards, 
far way as they are from their earlier places of 
residences. Many have no documentation of 
identification left with them. The few who have 
managed to return find it difficult to use the 
public services such as community taps, wells or 
electricity. They are forced to give precedence 
to others.

GREATER BURDEN ON HINDU WOMEN

One can give a thousand and one details of how 
life is so terrible for them, and we are not even 
speaking of the impact on health, psyche and life 
choices. Protectiveness has led to curtailment of 
their rights, greater exclusion from public life, 
and conservatism within the community which 
impacts adversely on women.

The UPA government has not taken the trouble to 
even tabulate the data, leave alone take any 
remedial action.

The Hindu women have not gained in all this. The 
violence against Muslims has contributed to an 
increase in violence in general, and there are 
reports of trishuls (tridents) obtained at the 
arms training camps of the Bajrang dal being used 
on Hindu women back home. The atmosphere of 
aggression and communal campaigns has resulted in 
a general feeling of insecurity, while Hindutva 
propaganda has placed the heavy burden of 
tradition on Hindu women, as builders of home and 
family primarily, and as trainers of future 
Hindutva activists as nurturers.

The participation of Hindu women in the 2002 
killings was particularly noted by women's 
organisations. For several years women are being 
activated along lines of religious affiliation by 
the Sangh Parivar, and their influence through 
social and religious community functions and 
celebrations has made possible extensive 
organisational networks among women, especially 
among middle class Hindu women. Population myths 
like 'hum paanch, hamare pachees' has helped 
mobilise women as well as ensured household 
chores, defence of tradition and motherhood as 
primary roles for Hindu women --- with the 
acquiescence of these women themselves.

This has also created strong polarisation along 
class lines, as tribal, dalit and other poor 
women cannot afford to subscribe to the values of 
family and motherhood alone. Communalism is thus 
a tool for restricting women's roles as well as 
making them active agents for the values the RSS 
stands for. Everyday social existence, as 
determined by the Sangh Parivar, has increased 
the distance among women of different 
communities, with no scope for meeting one 
another and questioning their own prejudices, or 
those being deliberately inculcated among them by 
the Sangh propaganda machinery. The inculcation 
of Hinduised religious rituals among tribals has 
meant greater subjugation of women in many cases, 
although this is not to suggest that women enjoy 
equality with men in tribal society.

Globalisation and its impact too has contributed 
to the increased social distance between 
different sections of women and created differing 
perceptions of what is good for the society and 
for the nation.

CHILDREN LOSING CHILDHOOD

In such an atmosphere one can hardly expect 
children to grow up as children should. Muslim 
children are actually losing out on childhood, 
and all children are losing out on a composite, 
expansive, democratic vision of the world and 
society they live in. Muslim children who lost 
admissions during riots have by and large not 
been able to return to schools, and destitution 
makes the return almost impossible for a great 
many of them. Again, the UPA government has not 
bothered to obtain data on this, and the 
situation is worse than what most of the people 
imagine. The school curricula, particularly 
social science textbooks, are contributing to 
distortion of the psyche of children of all 
communities, and the general dominance of the 
Hindutva discourse in society and Hindutva 
propaganda on the streets in Gujarat holds 
greater dangers for the country than what most 
people realise.

Gujarat needs more than mere compensation and 
rehabilitation for victims of 2002. But, sadly, 
even this minimum is not forthcoming: we cannot 
expect Narendra Modi to provide justice if the 
UPA government is not even demanding it. There is 
a need to hold the UPA accountable for Gujarat 
2006, just as Modi is accountable for Gujarat 
2002.

______


[7]

The Telegraph (Calcutta)
January 09, 2007

NOT THE RIGHT MODEL
- The purpose behind the current Indian admiration for China

Achin Vanaik
The author is professor of international 
relations and global politics, Delhi University

Even before Hu Jintao's visit to these shores, we 
had got used to the constant extolling of China's 
economic performance. There is method and purpose 
behind such admiring accounts. Rarely, if ever, 
is the long view taken, as Amartya Sen repeatedly 
insisted that it should. From 1949 to the first 
stage of reforms in 1978, whatever the horrors of 
China's undemocratic political system, its 
command economy carried out a more fundamental 
land redistribution programme than in India on 20 
per cent less arable land, provided a basic 
minimum of food, shelter, clothing, employment, 
more-or-less complete public-health coverage, 
primary and secondary education for all children 
and social security for the elderly.

This silence about China's 1949-78 economic and 
social experience is demanded by the purposes 
which the contemporary admiration of China's 
post-1978 performance is meant to serve. One can 
discern three main purposes. First, it is 
necessary to egg India on to try to match, even 
surpass China. Only then will India achieve its 
'rightful' place as a 'great power'. This is 
psychologically of great importance to an Indian 
elite that identifies its own sense of self-worth 
with that of the Indian State. The goal is 
greatness via 'strength'. Poverty eradication is 
therefore necessary because its continuing 
existence would be an embarrassment, a public 
refutation of 'greatness'. This stated commitment 
does not betoken the emergence of a more humane, 
kinder, more moral and sensitive Indian elite - 
far from it.

Second, highlighting China's economic success 
serves the purpose of affirming the supposedly 
general and enduring virtues of neoliberal 
economic policies, thereby justifying India's 
acceleration on a neoliberal path of reform with 
further privatization and commodification of 
ever-more spheres of human activity and 
existence, ever-freer capital flows, 'labour 
market flexibility' (shorthand for promoting 
greater job insecurity), de-unionization and more 
contract work, less regulations about maintaining 
proper work and environmental conditions, a 
longer working week, and so on.

China has embarked (as has western Europe and 
Japan) on a neoliberal trajectory. But because 
the starting points and the socio-economic 
character of western Europe and east Asia (Japan, 
China, South Korea and Taiwan) were so different 
from that of Britain and the United States of 
America, the impact of neoliberalism on these 
societies remains very different. The role of the 
State in western Europe and Japan, for example, 
with respect to macro-economic management, 
distributive arrangements and provision of 
welfare remain very different and generally 
superior to the American model. Since, in India, 
the American theoretical model of neoliberalism 
dominates discourse, there is invariably a 
misreading of the lessons that the Chinese 
experience are meant to provide.

Third, India is one of the few countries where 
there continues to exist a politically 
significant left able to influence national 
policies. The left's main bastions are more 
social-democratic than radical, but in these 
right-wing times this is bad enough. China's 
openness to foreign direct investment and its 
anti-democratic restrictions on labour are a 
stick with which to beat the 'pro-China' Indian 
left for not learning from its 'hero'. But at 
other times, its 'pro-China leanings' can be 
highlighted to attack its 'inadequately 
nationalist' credentials. A more sober 
balance-sheet of the Chinese economic performance 
over the last decades is therefore always of some 
value.

The first wave of reforms began in 1978 and 
started in agriculture. The commune system was 
dismantled through the establishment of the 
'household responsibility system', allowing 
long-term land leases and freedom to market 
surpluses greater than State-demanded quotas of 
produce. The town and village enterprises were 
also created out of assets held by the 
communes.The TVEs became centres of 
entrepreneurship, producing inputs for 
State-owned enterprises and markets for the 
outputs of SOEs and other TVEs. Credit finance 
for TVEs, SOEs and the growing private sector was 
provided by the state banking system. Between 
1978 and 1984, rural incomes grew by an 
astonishing 14 per cent per annum.

In the late Eighties and Nineties, market 
mechanisms expanded to cover more and more areas 
of production in town and country, foreign 
capital came in massively in the Nineties, while 
'labour market flexibility' increased 
dramatically with urban dwellers being favoured 
with 'residency permits' assuring them of certain 
welfare benefits. Those without such permits 
became part of an ever-growing pool of internal 
mass migrants, now numbering over 100 million and 
estimated to reach 300 million by 2020. Rural 
incomes, since the beginning of the Nineties, 
have stagnated with remittances from the towns 
having become crucial for the survival of much of 
the rural population, and the income disparity 
between town and country now being one of the 
worst in the world.

In the early Nineties, it was the TVEs that 
provided the real dynamism of the Chinese 
economy, employing 128 million people by 1995. 
They set the model, producing light manufactures 
for export. In contrast, the SOEs fell into debt, 
were bailed out by non-performing loans from the 
state banking system and from 1993, large and 
medium SOEs were being turned into 
limited-liability or shareholding companies. SOEs 
that had accounted for 40 per cent of total 
manufacturing employment in 1990 accounted for 
only 14 per cent of such employment in 2002. Now 
TVEs and SOEs are open up to full foreign 
ownership. By the early Nineties, more than 
two-thirds of FDI was being brought in by the 
Chinese who lived overseas. By the end of the 
millennium, the 'efficiency' of market 
competition, far from generating massive 
employment opportunities, created huge labour 
surpluses, not least through waves of 
bankruptcies in the TVEs and SOEs.

The way the Chinese government has sought to deal 
with this social and economic time-bomb is 
through debt-financed mega-infrastructural 
projects - huge dams, subway and railroad 
networks, a highway system that in 20 years will 
exceed that of the US, and frenetic real-estate 
and construction activities in urban China. Since 
all this is debt-financed (Keynesian style), 
there will be an acute fiscal crisis if the 
investments do not pay off. None of this would 
even have been possible without a massive 
expansion of its financial system (doubling of 
bank branches to over 140,000 in less than a 
decade) and capital and exchange rate controls.

China's growth pattern is much more heavily 
reliant on FDI than that of South Korea, Taiwan 
or Japan (the least reliant, of all advanced 
economies, on FDI). Inter-regional trade (despite 
massive investments in communication systems) is 
underdeveloped, with the Guandong province 
trading much more externally than within China. 
China now relies on taking in 30 per cent of the 
world's coal production, 36 per cent of the steel 
production, 55 per cent of the cement production, 
and is the second largest oil importer after the 
US. Besides such external dependence, China faces 
increasing over-accumulation of fixed capital and 
ever-growing over-capacities in sectors like 
electronics and autos, as well as a boom-bust 
cycle in urban development.

If it has coped so far, it is because of a system 
of macro-economic management that is still 
Keynesian, provided by China's strategic control 
over capital flows and exchange rates. But 
Chinese integration into the world economy via 
the World Trade Organization, though still able 
to benefit from the allowed transition period of 
adjustment, means it will eventually become 
impossible to pursue such counter-cyclical 
measures. Its banking system is gravely 
threatened by having half of its loan portfolio 
non-performing. Only its huge trade surpluses 
protect it financially. The other side of the 
US's dependence on Japanese and Chinese lending 
is the Chinese dependence on the US's fiscal and 
monetary policies. China is now one of the most 
unequal and labour-repressive societies in the 
world, with one of the most rapidly deteriorating 
public health and ecological situations.


_____


[8]  Upcoming events:

(i)

Hi!

The Bookshop, Jorbagh announces Meet the Author 
evening to be held every second tuesday of the 
month. Inaugurating the series on Tuesday will be 
an interaction with author, Baby Halder - 9 Jan 
2007 at 7 pm. Her memoir,   A Life Less Ordinary 
has been published by Zubaan/Penguin. It has been 
translated into several languages including 
Malyalam, Hindi, French, Arabic, Spanish, 
Chinese, Korean etc. As the space is limited  we 
request that you confirm your interest with Mr. K 
D Singh, The Bookshop. The address is:

13/7 Jorbagh Market, NEW DELHI 110003 Tel: 
24697102 Email: 
<mailto:thebookshop at hotmail.com>thebookshop at hotmail.com

Coffee, Soft Drinks and Cookies will be served.

With best wishes,

JAYA BHATTACHARJI
For ZUBAAN

---

(ii)

Creative Commons Launch

Creative Commons, India will be launched on 
January 26th [4:00 pm to 6:00 pm] at KReSIT 
auditoriurm at IIT Bombay, Mumbai.

See IIT B Map for directions: 
www.iitb.ac.in/campus/howto/iitblayout.html 
[Building No. 37]

Confirmed speakers at the launch event:

Mr. Joichi Ito [Chairman, Creative Commons]
Dr. Catharina Maracke [Creative Commons, Global Coordinator]
Mr. Nandu Pradhan [President and Managing Director, Red Hat, India]
Mr. Shuddhabrata Sengupta [Sarai-CSDS]
Prof. Deepak Phatak [KReSIT, IIT Bombay]
Lawrence Liang [Legal Lead, Creative Commons, India]

Other Events:

Two parallel workshops on Creative Commons: 
January 26th, 27th [see www.techfest.org]

Please contact Shishir K. Jha, Project Lead, CC-India for further details:

Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management
IIT Bombay
Powai
Mumbai - 400 076
E-mail: skjha[at]iitb.ac.in
Tel: 022-25767845


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

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), 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.