SACW | March 28-29, 2007 | Pakistan: silent majority, media, islamists / India riot victims, Parzania ban; jail for people, roses for capital
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Wed Mar 28 09:17:36 CDT 2007
South Asia Citizens Wire | March 28-29, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2384 - Year 9
[INTERRUPTION NOTICE: Please note that there will
be no SACW dispatches between the period 30 March
2007 - 5 April 2007]
[1] Level Playing Field - Historical echoes (Mike Marqusee)
[2] Pakistan's Silent Majority Is Not to Be Feared (Mohsin Hamid)
[3] In Pakistan, a media group cries foul over government advertising (CPJ)
[4] Pakistan: The rise of the 'new media' (Omar R. Quraishi)
[5] Pakistan: Islamist Students raid Islamabad 'brothel'
[6] India: 23 years too late - Will all '84
riots victims ever get justice?(edit, The Tribune)
[7] India: A Christian Testimony at the Peoples
tribunal on Fascisms rise . . .
[8] Gujarat: unofficial ban on film Parzania
- 'Screen Parzania' chorus gets louder
- Gujarat's theatre of the absurd (Pawan Khera)
[9] India: Guns, Jail for People and Roses for
Corporates Press Release ACTION 2007
[10] An International Non-violence day, but when? (Purushottam Agrawal)
[11] Public Events:
(i) Seminar on Bhutan Refugees (New Delhi, March 31, 2007)
(ii) Discussion - Ethnic and Religious Militancy
and the New World Order: Hindu Nationalism,
Islamism, and Regionalism (Washington DC, April
4, 2007)
(iii) Discussion: Prostitutes and Politics: the
Tolerated Brothels Debate in Colonial India (New
Delhi, 12 April 2007)
____
[1]
The Hindu,
25 March 2007
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
Historical echoes
by Mike Marqusee
THE more I travel, read and study the history of
peoples and societies, the more analogies I
discover, and at the same time the warier I
become of all analogies. History does not repeat
itself exactly, but it is full of echoes.
Some analogies are routinely abused, while some
are bitterly resisted. Today, the prime example
of the latter must be the angry clamour that
arises whenever Israel's treatment of the
Palestinians is compared to white South Africa's
treatment of black people under apartheid. In the
U.S., uttering the "A-word" in relation to Israel
elicits a surfeit of outrage, inevitably
accompanied by accusations of anti-Semitism. As
Jimmy Carter has found out, even being a widely
respected former President of the United States
does not shield one from the backlash.
It is true that people throw the word apartheid
around incautiously. I was guilty of this when I
referred in an article to the segregation of
business from economy class passengers at
airports as a form of "social apartheid". But
when it comes to Israel, the analogy is apt and
unavoidable. Crucially, it is a spontaneous
response from those black South Africans who have
visited the Occupied Territories. What they see
there — the Jews-only roads, the "security
fence", the confinement in camps and villages,
the checkpoints, the daily harassment — reminds
them graphically of the system they once suffered
under.
There is, however, at least one major difference,
though it's not one that favours Israel. Under
apartheid, the dominant whites used the black
population as a source of cheap labour; they
denied that population basic human rights, but
they needed it. In contrast, Zionism has aimed to
remove the Palestinian population, to replace
Palestinians with Jews. That was the meaning of
what Zionists called "the conquest of labour"
(when Jewish settlers campaigned for the
non-employment of Palestinians) and it is the
ultimate source of the current calls within
Israel for "transfer", the final expulsion of the
bulk of the Palestinian population.
In an article I published on the fifth
anniversary of the Gujarat pogrom, I referred to
the role played by "the stormtroopers of the
Hindu right" — and was rebuked by a correspondent
who said that he never trusted writers who
invoked the Nazi analogy, because it tended to
close rather than open debate. I have some
sympathy for his argument. The Nazi analogy is
indeed indiscriminately used, as is the word
"fascist", applied too readily to anyone who is
authoritarian and racist. It becomes a form of
name-calling, a substitute for analysis.
By the way, the prime culprit here is not the
left. In my lifetime, every U.S. military action,
from Vietnam to Iraq (and now the threat against
Iran), has been justified with analogies drawn
from World War II. Every enemy is a new Hitler
(Nasser, Qadaffi, Noriega, Milosevic, Saddam
Hussein, Ahmadinejad) and every call for peace is
Munich-style appeasement.
Nonetheless, I stand by my use of "stormtroopers"
in the Gujarat context. The Sturmabteilung or SA
(German for "Storm division", always translated
as "stormtroopers" ) was the paramilitary,
street-fighting wing of the Nazi movement, also
known as "brownshirts" because of the colour of
their uniforms. Claiming to be the guardians of
German national pride, they mounted aggressive
public actions whose aim was to spread terror
among minorities and political opponents. In
November 1938, they played a key role in
Kristallnacht, ransacking Jewish homes, beating
Jews to death, burning down synagogues,
destroying Jewish-owned shopfronts with
sledgehammers, leaving the streets covered in
broken glass from smashed windows (hence the
name). Given the similarities with what happened
in Gujarat in 2002, it takes an effort to avoid
the analogy, and the effect of that effort is to
downplay the horror of the Gujarat pogrom.
Of course, the Nazis and the holocaust represent
an acme of inhumanity, an evil so enormous that
any comparison seems dubious. Yet if we remove
them from history and treat them as sui generis,
we debar ourselves from learning and applying the
broader lessons. When the world discovered the
extent of Nazi barbarism in the wake of World War
II, the cry was "Never again!" We cannot turn
that cry into a reality; we cannot ensure that
nothing even remotely like this happens again,
unless we are permitted to draw appropriate
analogies from the experience.
League tables of atrocities serve no purpose, or
rather, the only purpose they serve is to allow
scope for the apologists for atrocities. The
holocaust, the enslavement of Africans, the
genocide of Native Americans and Australians, the
centuries of `untouchability' in south Asia, the
Belgian Congo (where, according to Adam
Hochschild's revelatory book King Leopold's
Ghost, some 10 million Africans may have perished
in little more than a decade), Stalin's Gulag.
All these are distinct historical phenomena, but
share in common an institutionalised inhumanity
on a mass scale. All are unspeakably,
irredeemably horrific; they exemplify that which
every human being has an absolute obligation to
resist and not to aid, in any way, even by
omission.
Which brings me back to the Palestinians. Their
suffering is not only analogous to black
suffering under apartheid but also to Jewish
suffering, and specifically the experience of
exile and diaspora. "We travel like everyone
else, but we return to nothing," writes the
marvellous Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, "We
travel in the chariots of the Psalms, sleep in
the tents of the prophets, and are born again in
the language of Gypsies... Ours is a country of
words. Talk. Talk. Let me see an end to this
journey."
_____
[2]
The New York Times
March 27, 2007
PAKISTAN'S SILENT MAJORITY IS NOT TO BE FEARED
by Mohsin Hamid
I WAS one of the few Pakistanis who actually
voted for Gen. Pervez Musharraf in the rigged
referendum of 2002. I recall walking into a
polling station in Islamabad and not seeing any
other voter. When I took the time required to
read the convoluted ballot, I was accosted by a
man who had the overbearing attitude of a soldier
although he was in civilian clothes. He insisted
that I hurry, which I refused to do. He then
hovered close by, watching my every action, in
complete defiance of electoral rules.
Despite this intimidation, I still voted in favor
of the proposition that General Musharraf, who
had seized power in a coup in 1999, should
continue as Pakistan's president for five more
years. I believed his rule had brought us
much-needed stability, respite from the venal and
self-serving elected politicians who had
misgoverned Pakistan in the 1990s, and a more
free and vibrant press than at any time in the
country's history.
The outcome of the referendum - 98 percent
support for General Musharraf from an astonishing
50 percent turnout - was so obviously false that
even he felt compelled to disown the exercise.
Rigged elections rankle, of course. But since
then, secular, liberal Pakistanis like myself
have seen many benefits from General Musharraf's
rule. My wife was an actress in "Jutt and Bond,"
a popular Pakistani sitcom about a Punjabi folk
hero and a debonair British agent. Her show was
on one of the many private television channels
that have been permitted to operate in the
country, featuring everything from local rock
music to a talk show whose host is a transvestite.
My sister, a journalism lecturer in Lahore, loves
to tell me about the enormous growth in recent
years in university financing, academic salaries
and undergraduate enrollment. And my father, now
retired but for much of his career a professor of
economics, says he has never seen such a dynamic
and exciting time in Pakistani higher education.
But there have been significant problems under
General Musharraf, too. Pakistan has grown
increasingly divided between the relatively urban
and prosperous regions that border India and the
relatively rural, conservative and violent
regions that border Afghanistan. The two
mainstream political parties have historically
bridged that divide and vastly outperformed
religious extremists in free elections, but under
General Musharraf they have been marginalized in
a system that looks to one man for leadership.
What many of us hoped was that General Musharraf
would build up the country's neglected
institutions before eventually handing over power
to a democratically elected successor. Those
hopes were dealt a serious blow two weeks ago,
when he suspended the chief justice of Pakistan's
Supreme Court, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.
For General Musharraf, Justice Chaudhry had
become a major irritant. He had opened
investigations into government "disappearances"
of suspects in the war on terrorism. He had
blocked the showcase privatization of the
national steel mill. He had, in other words,
demonstrated that he would not do General
Musharraf's bidding. With elections due later
this year, and challenges to irregularities like
the rigging that took place in 2002 likely to end
up in the Supreme Court, an independent chief
justice could jeopardize General Musharraf's
continued rule.
Like many Pakistanis, I knew little about Justice
Chaudhry except that he had a reputation for
being honest, and that under his leadership, the
Supreme Court had reduced its case backlog by 60
percent. His suspension seemed a throwback to the
worst excesses of the government that General
Musharraf's coup had replaced, and it galvanized
protests by the nation's lawyers and opposition
parties, including rallies of thousands in
several of Pakistan's major cities yesterday.
More troubling still was the phone call I
received recently from a friend who works for
Geo, one of Pakistan's leading independent
television channels. The government had placed
enormous pressure on Geo to stop showing the
demonstrations in support of Justice Chaudhry,
and the channel had refused to comply. When my
friend told me that policemen had broken into
Geo's offices, smashed its equipment and beaten
up the staff, I felt utterly betrayed by the man
I had voted for.
Despite his subsequent apology for the Geo
incident, General Musharraf now appears to be
more concerned with perpetuating his rule than
with furthering the cause of "enlightened
moderation" that he had claimed to champion. He
has never been particularly popular, but he is
now estranging the liberals who previously
supported his progressive ends if not his
autocratic means. People like me are realizing
that the short-term gains from even a
well-intentioned dictator's policies can be
easily reversed.
General Musharraf must recognize that his
popularity is dwindling fast and that the need to
move toward greater democracy is overwhelming.
The idea that a president in an army uniform will
be acceptable to Pakistanis after this year's
elections is becoming more and more implausible.
The United States has provided enormous financial
and political support to General Musharraf's
government, but it has focused on his short-term
performance in the war on terror. America must
now take a long-term view and press General
Musharraf to reverse his suspension of the chief
justice and of Pakistan's press freedoms. He
should be encouraged to see that he cannot cling
to power forever.
Pakistan is both more complicated and less
dangerous than America has been led to believe.
General Musharraf has portrayed himself as
America's last line of defense in an angry and
dangerous land. In reality, the vast majority of
Pakistanis want nothing to do with violence. When
thousands of cricket fans from our archenemy,
India, wandered about Pakistan unprotected for
days in 2004, not one was abducted or killed. At
my own wedding two years ago, a dozen Americans
came, disregarding State Department warnings.
They, too, spent their time in Pakistan without
incident.
Yes, there are militants in Pakistan. But they
are a small minority in a country with a
population of 165 million. Religious extremists
have never done well in elections when the
mainstream parties have been allowed to compete
fairly. Nor does the Pakistan Army appear to be
in any great danger of falling into radical
hands: by all accounts the commanders below
General Musharraf broadly agree with his policies.
An exaggerated fear of Pakistan's people must not
prevent America from realizing that Pakistanis
are turning away from General Musharraf. By
prolonging his rule, the general risks taking
Pakistan backward and undermining much of the
considerable good that he has been able to
achieve. The time has come for him to begin
thinking of a transition, and for Americans to
realize that, scare stories notwithstanding, a
more democratic Pakistan might be better not just
for Pakistanis but for Americans as well.
Mohsin Hamid is the author of "Moth Smoke" and
the forthcoming novel "The Reluctant
Fundamentalist". This article was originally
written for the New York Times
______
[3]
Committee to Protect Journalists
330 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001 USA
Phone: (212) 465-1004 Fax: (212) 465-9568
Web: www.cpj.org E-Mail: media at cpj.org
IN PAKISTAN, A MEDIA GROUP CRIES FOUL OVER GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING
New York, March 27, 2007- The Committee to
Protect Journalists is concerned about a
deteriorating media environment in Pakistan that
includes both business retaliation and outright
attacks on media companies.
Pakistan's largest independent English-language
media group, the Dawn Group of Newspapers,
distributed a letter on Friday from Publisher
Haroon Hamid, who said President Pervez Musharraf
"has become increasingly intolerant toward
criticism in the press and toward the publishing
of news that reflects poorly on the performance
of his government on security matters."
In the letter, Hamid said authorities have
punished his company by withholding government
advertising, a revenue source on which Pakistani
papers rely heavily. "Since December 2006, the
Dawn Group is facing massive advertising cuts
equivalent to two-thirds of total government
advertising," he said.
Hamid said the government has also withheld a
television broadcast license from the Dawn Group,
even though the application has gotten requisite
approvals from the Pakistan Electronic Media
Regulatory Authority and the Ministry of
Information.
"We are very concerned by threats to the
independent Pakistani press," said CPJ Executive
Director Joel Simon. "When the government pulls
advertising and holds up licenses, it sends the
unmistakable signal that it wants critical
coverage to be toned down."
At least one other media group has come under
attack this month. On March
16<http://www.cpj.org/news/2007/asia/pak16mar07na.html>,
riot police fired tear gas and roughed up staff
inside the Islamabad office of the Jang Group,
which houses Geo TV, the Urdu-language Daily
Jang, and English daily The News. The raid came a
day after authorities ordered Geo to stop airing
its daily news program, "Aaj Kamran Khan Ke
Saath" (Today with Kamran Khan).
Minister for Information and Broadcasting
Mohammad Ali Durrani announced today that
Pakistani authorities will work with media groups
to form a press council to address numerous
complaints from local media houses hit with
reprisals after critical coverage of the
government.
CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit
organization that works to safeguard press
freedom worldwide. For more information, visit
www.cpj.org.
______
[4]
The News
March 25, 2007
THE RISE OF THE 'NEW MEDIA'
by Omar R. Quraishi
The events of the past couple of weeks suggest
that the so-called 'new media' has well and truly
arrived with a bang in Pakistan, and that's
perhaps the positive thing to have emerged out of
the current crisis. By new media, one obviously
is referring to the electronic media, to cable
television and more importantly to the Internet
and the various ways in which it allows users to
provide and access information.
The rise of the new media is important because it
provided a platform for the many disparate
segments of civil society who all came together
through experiencing it (either in the form of
watching live coverage of the police
lathi-charging unarmed defenceless lawyers or
plainclothes intelligence sleuths posted at the
gate of Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry's residence
stopping visitors). Perhaps the best example of
this (and one doesn't want to come across as
blowing one's trumpet) was the live coverage
shown by various TV channels, particularly GEO
and followed closely by AAJ TV and others of the
happenings in Islamabad in and around the Supreme
Court building on March 16. This of course led to
the unbridled assault on the offices of the TV
channel and of this newspaper in a building that
couldn't be a few hundred yards away from the
seat of government and parliament. All this was
shown live on television -- and one can imagine
the impact that it would have made if it were not
sh
own live in real time.
A lot has already been written on the attack and
on the possible motives -- the president has
apologised and the prime minister even visited
the offices of the TV channel and the newspaper
but the question still remains: how could the
police have done this on their own, and who were
they receiving orders from on their
walkie-talkies, as reported by many eyewitnesses,
and if they didn't do it on their own, who are
the people behind the attack? Also, will a
tribunal formed at the additional sessions judge
level have the requisite courage and authority to
come to a fair assessment as to the possible
identities of those who ordered the attacker.
One thing that I would like to say here is that
some people in cyberspace and in online web
forums have actually tried to justify the attack
by saying that the channel should have known
better than to be broadcasting what it did. This
is probably the view of the government and its
apologists as well. The fact of the matter is
they should know that the job of the media --
anywhere and not just in Pakistan -- is to try
and show events and incidents, and clearly the
police engaged in a street battle with civilian
protesters qualifies as extremely newsworthy
footage. After all, the footage showed policemen
picking up stones and throwing them at random at
the protesters -- so the people of this country
finally got to see for themselves their conduct
for themselves (perhaps the attack on GEO showed
this in more stark fashion).
Of course, in all of this, one shouldn't forget
the blogging world, which though still small
seems to have matured in Pakistan. There are
several sites -- my personal favourites have been
www.pakistaniat.com and www.karachi.metblogs.com
-- which have been carrying lively discussions
and exchanges regarding the current crises. Both
these have also been carrying footage of the
lathi-charges, of the attack on GEO and The News
and also the now famous (or should one say
infamous) exchange between Ansar Abbasi and Law
Minister Wasi Zafar on a Voice of America radio
show where the minister proceeded to tell the
journalist what he would do with his (the
minister's) 'big arm'. There is the medium of the
SMS (short message service) as well, which has
now become a handy means of communication in most
Pakistani cities and used by people regardless of
financial standing.
It can't be said that the advent of the new media
was the reason for the near unanimity that has
been seen in the response by Pakistanis in
general to the 'suspension' of the chief justice
and the attack on the press and media, but it has
certainly helped crystallise it. Clearly, from
the point of view of those in the government and
the establishment who would like to see the media
be put in its place (read submissive and
deferential to the government's wishes) had not
envisaged that new technology brings with it its
own democratising possibilities and
opportunities. That has been particularly true in
the case of the Internet since it isn't known as
the Great Leveller for nothing -- a truly
democratic way for people to communicate and to
provide and access information.
And the best part of this all is that the new
media is very much here to stay. Perhaps,
newspapers and TV channels (though none have done
this so far in Pakistan) need to begin their own
blogs soon.
The writer is Op-ed Pages Editor of The News.
______
[5]
BBC News
28 March 2007
STUDENTS RAID ISLAMABAD 'BROTHEL'
Female students at the Jamia Hafsa religious
school beside a banner reading "Enforce Islamic
law "
The girls also demand that video owners close their stores
Dozens of young women from a religious school in
the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, have broken
into an alleged brothel and kidnapped the manager.
The students from the Jamia Hafsa madrassa burst
into the building late on Tuesday, demanding it
be shut down.
The students say they have a right to end immoral activity under Islamic law.
The BBC's Navdip Dhariwal in Islamabad says it is
the first time such bold Taleban-style activity
seen elsewhere in Pakistan has occurred in the
city.
Police have not stepped in to rescue the alleged
madam, who was taken by the women back to the
madrassa after refusing to close her premises.
She is still being held against her will.
The girls have also demanded that video owners close their stores.
Our correspondent says it appears the
administration is reluctant or helpless to take
action against the students.
Taleban-style activity has been seen in
Pakistan's tribal areas and in North West
Frontier Province, where religious groups have
tried to clamp down and impose Islamic law on
local people.
______
[6]
The Tribune
28 March 200è
Editorial
23 YEARS TOO LATE
Will all '84 riots victims ever get justice?
THE phrase "better late than never" becomes a
meaningless jumble of words when the woman who
saw her husband, son and son-in-law murdered
brutally in the 1984 riots has to wait for 23
years to see three of the killers convicted.
Harminder Kaur has relived the horror of that
lynching all these years. The consolation that
she has at least been alive to see this day is
too meagre to be of much value. In this long long
time, a whole generation has come and gone. Her
daughter Harjinder had become a widow on that
dark day during the holocaust at the age of 23.
She had a daughter only two years old who became
an orphan. The child has grown into a woman who
has never known her father. We know that justice
is not dispensed in a hurry in India. But this
case went much further than that. After all, it
took Harminder Kaur all of 12 years just to get
an FIR registered. What a fight against the
irresponsive system it has been for the
traumatised widow!
It is not only a classic example of too late, but
also of too little. Imagine nearly 3,000 persons
being killed and conviction coming in only a
handful of cases, like this one and the earlier
life sentence passed on five persons in May 2005
for killing Baba Singh. And it is only the foot
soldiers who are being served just desserts.
Politicians who masterminded the horror have as
good as escaped punishment. Everyone knows their
role but they have managed to ensure that the
trail goes cold and there is not "sufficient
evidence" against them.
The 1984 riots were among the worst nightmares
that Independent India has had to suffer, the
others being the Babri mosque demolition and the
Gujarat riots. Till all the guilty are accounted
for, such incidents will continue fostering
disillusionment, embarrassment and misgivings.
The sooner the shame-faced country comes clean,
the better.
______
[7]
Communalism Watch
March 27, 2007
GRIM BUT TRUE :INDIAN CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY AT PEOPLE'S TRIBUNAL
Justice Rare for Victims of Christian Persecution in India
New Delhi, March 26 (International Christian
Concern) - Victims of Christian persecution from
across India shared their horrific stories and
highlighted the denial of justice to them before
an independent people's jury.
The depositions were part of "The Independent
People's Tribunal against the Rise of Fascist
Forces in India and the Attack on the Secular
State," a three-day program which concluded here
on March 22.
The independent jury was organized by non-profit
organizations Anhad and Human Rights Law Network,
and supported and attended by a plethora of
rights groups, including Christian organizations,
like the All India Christian Council (AICC) and
the Christian Legal Association. Of the 100
victims who submitted their statements, about 40
were Christian. The rest were mainly were from
Gujarat state, which witnessed a wide-scale
killing of members of the Muslim minority
community in 2002.
[. . .]
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/03/grim-but-true-indian-christian.html
______
[8]
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/03/screen-parzania-chorus-gets-louder-in.html
Ahmedabad Newsline
March 27, 2007
'SCREEN PARZANIA' CHORUS GETS LOUDER
People speak out against unofficial ban on film in contest held by NGO
Express News Service
Vadodara, March 26: AFTER a Delhi-based NGO ANHAD
recently carried out an SMS/E-mail contest on
'Screen Parzania in Gujarat', the chorus against
the 'unofficial' ban on the film in the state, is
getting clearer and louder. ANHAD's contest had
99.5% respondents demanding that the film be
screened in the state, and those who sent the 10
best entries condemning the 'unofficial' ban on
Parzania, had a chance to meet the film's cast.
Seven of 10 winners from across the state met
Parzania lead actors Naseeruddin Shah and Sarika
in Mumbai on March 25 and interacted with them at
length.
The 'Screen ParzaniaŠ' contest received a total
437 responses from across the state, of which two
were in support of the ban. The contest was
declared open for 15 days after advertisements in
local newspapers.
Shabnam Hasmi from ANHAD said, "Gujarat is
showing signs of growing dictatorship, which is
taking away citizens' basic rights of
expression." A contest winner, Nayan Patel, a Jan
Vikas activist, said, "It is not just an issue of
freedom of speech but there is much more at stake
and we need to fight it out before it gets too
late." He said Parzania is a movie which will
make sensitive people realise their guilt.
He said, "Who are they to decide what I should
watch or not? Gujarat is a part of democratic
India and it is the Censor Board that decides."
He said it was sad that the Modi establishment
did not make a single statement publicly on
providing security cover to those who wanted to
watch the movie.
Another winner, Sanita Xalxo, a second-year LLB
student at Gujarat University, said, "When films
related to riots and other communal issues can be
screened in Mumbai then why not Gujarat."
Govind Desai from Rajkot, again a contest winner,
said, "We had enriching interaction with Sarika
and Shah. It was all about how the 2002 riots
affected one community and how basic human rights
are being violated on a day-to-day basis across
the nation." He said politicians should not use
muscle power against any film, which are a strong
medium to take any issue to the peoples. He said
that Parzania has the capability of shaking
Gujarat's conscience.
Another winner from Vadodara, Szar, said, "It was
good to see that youngsters really went out of
their way to try to get the film screend. We live
in a democratic state and cannot see fascism
coming back." He questioned as to why people
should obey a ban which was called by Babu
Bajrangi, an expelled member of a political
group. However, Szar said while he had lost some
friends when he wrote against the ban.
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/03/gujarats-theatre-of-absurd.html
The Asian Age
(26 March 2007
GUJARAT'S THEATRE OF THE ABSURD
by Pawan Khera
Another move by Bajrang Dal to assert themselves,
another meek acceptance by the people of Gujarat.
And yet another, hopefully the last, question
mark added to Narendra Modi's much-touted Gujarat
ka gaurav.
The ban on the screening of Parzania by the
multiplex association of the state, reportedly
under pressure from the Bajrang Dal, raises
serious doubts about the fragility of the gaurav
of the state - especially so when this pride
seems to be under threat from every free
expression of speech or opinion in various forms
of popular culture.
Parzania is an emotionally powerful film with a
potential to shake if not stir and thus
depolarise the Gujarati society ahead of
elections this year. That is the worst fear of
the Bajrang parivar.
The bullies of the Bajrang Dal shall do what is
their wont, only some have the suicidal courage
to fly in the face of history asking it to repeat
itself. But the docile acceptance of the decision
by the people may not be healthy for the people
themselves in the long run. It is bound to
further embolden such elements in our society
that use fear to suspend the fundamental right to
choose.
Fear as an instrument to get institutional
legitimacy is not new to Gujarat, or to any part
of the country where submission to such tactics
has been found easy. But Gujarat has the gaurav
of being one of the states with the largest
number of NGOs and activists. Then why does its
civil society repeatedly fails, and only
sporadically succeeds, in showing the way how to
win these crucial conflicts?
On the face of it, the villains of the piece are
the Bajrang Dal and the Multiplex Association of
Gujarat. Not on the face of it, however, not in
the same order. By now, even the most uninitiated
would not be surprised at the Bajrang Dal and its
various country cousins following their brief. As
theatres are meant to be vehicles of expression,
outfits like the Bajrang Dal must find it irksome
to let them do their job unhindered. The fact
that they hinder the job so often, and so
successfully, should worry everyone interested in
freedom as a concept. We must believe that
democracy as a dream is close to being lost when
fear, coercion and perhaps even political
pressure take precedence over free voice. The
threat to democracy appears fatal when one finds
the elected chief minister of Gujarat totally
helpless to the diktat of the Bajrang Dal et al.
Surely this isn't good news for the kind of
no-nonsense image the CM has so carefully
cultivated, nor also for the kind of confidence
he would want investors to have in the
institutional stability of the state. Not many
interpretations are possible for his silence over
the matter. The only one which is evident does a
serious damage to the pride of the state he
heads. His silence certainly lends sanctity to
the bullies.
There have, however, been other silences which
are more difficult to fathom. For instance, the
silence of the other stakeholders of the system,
particularly the media, on this issue is
deafening. Those loud votaries of "freedom of
expression" ought to know there is buried
somewhere in this entire din, the right of people
to be able to see cinematic expressions that have
been duly cleared by the Censor Board. Will any
of these so-called "fearless" television channels
show the courage to air the film across the
state? This would be the most befitting riposte
to both the Bajrang Dal and the Multiplex
Association. At best the channel would be forced
off the air from the state for a while. Imagine
what such a ban can do to the TRP of the daring
channel!
When all other institutions, including the worst
critics of political institutions, fail to
deliver, the onus of restoring the rights of the
people comes back on a political party. Recently,
the Gujarat unit of the Congress party has
decided to hold special screenings across the
state. For those of us who can afford the
commonplace luxury of cynicism, we may dismiss it
as a political stunt. But what else is a
political party there for, if not to lend
legitimate political muscle to those who are held
to ransom by anti-Constitutional and anti-social
ideologies and organisations? Unlike other
institutions, including the otherwise vocal civil
society, that abdicated their responsibility in
this case, the Congress showed the sensitivity
towards the cause of the people.
And what are the MPs from the film industry
doing? Will Ms Hema Malini, Mr Dharmendra, Mr
Navjot Sidhu, Ms Jaya Bachchan, Mr Vinod Khanna,
Mr Govinda, Ms Jaya Prada and Mr Shatrughan Sinha
rise up to the occasion and speak for the
industry which has given them all that they
deserve, and much more?
It was the same multiplex association of the same
Gujarat which had refused to screen Fanaa last
year fearing attacks by angry groups reacting to
Aamir Khan's support to Medha Patkar on the
Narmada issue. By failing to protect the freedom
of speech and expression, the state government
has supported the culture of intolerance towards
voices of dissent.
Even the most illiberal societies like Saudi
Arabia do not disallow broadcast of the Radio
Sawa or the Al-Hurra TV - both supposed to be
vehicles of American propaganda targeted towards
Arab youth.
The aggressive media campaign by the United
States in West Asia in the form of the Hi
magazine in response to the anti-American
sentiment following its Armageddon in Afghanistan
and Iraq, has not been blocked by local
governments, even if it is offensive to the
cultural and also political sensibilities of West
Asian societies. The Hi Magazine is sponsored by
the US state department.
There have been powerful depictions of emotive
issues. Fearing their disruptive potential the
state often banned them. Sergei Eisenstein's
Battleship Potemkin, although banned in Nazi
Germany for fear of evoking revolutionary zeal,
was considered by Joseph Goebbels as "a
marvellous film without equal in the cinemaŠ
Anyone who had no firm political conviction could
become a Bolshevik after seeing the film."
At the end of this debate, unlike other such
similar ends and similar debates, one needs to
look for the reason for the insecurity that
forces films like Parzania off the screens. It
must be to make sure that the issues the film
raises, the emotions it kindles, the humanity it
questions are kept beyond the realm of a common
Gujarati, so that he or she can continue to feel
the gaurav they have been promised.
An entire state's political thought, manoeuvred
into position of power after an infamous
bloodbath, cannot be allowed to delve into the
cinematic expression of a true story of pathos of
a Parsi family that lost its child in the riots.
For those who deal in numbers, what is one
missing child? Parsis are a dwindling race in any
case. After all, the rioters did not have time to
find out whether Azhar was a Parsi or a Muslim.
Will be more careful next time around, with the
religious census in place nowŠ
Until then it is Bajrang bully ki jai in Gujarat:
Victory to the bullies of Bajrang Dal.
Pawan Khera is political secretary to the chief minister of Delhi
______
[9]
Action 2007, Jantar Mantar, New Delhi
Press Release - 27th March 2007
Guns, Jail for People and Roses for Corporates;
Policies like SEZ Can Only Be Implemented By Resorting to State Repression
A collective of people's movements and
organisations from all across the country, under
the banner of Sangharsh 2007 has been sitting in
protest at Jantar Mantar since the 19th of March.
Planned as an indefinite struggle in Delhi, till
UPA government listens to the concerns of the
majority of India's population, Action 2007 has
conducted a Jan Sansad on a number of key issues
that the Parliament of India does not deem fit to
engage in serious discussion about. Wide range of
issues, largely placed under 11 categories were
discussed in the Jan Sansad. However,
unfortunately any of the ministers of or many of
the bureaucrats did not feel necessary to attend
the People's Parliament or to take account of the
concerns raised °V after repeated invitations.
The Jan Sansad organized detailed discussions on
many issues as every major and minor policy and
projects cause large scale displacement,
dispossession, dis-employment and de-humanisation
in India and the political establishment and
ruling classes refuse to even recognize these as
problems.
State Repression & Shrinking Democratic Space
As many of those invited from ministries and
other constitutional authorities did not dare to
be present with people to discuss issues, women
from Action 2007 had approached the planning
commission on 22nd March 2007 (World Water Day)
to demand a meeting with the planning authority
of the country. However, the brutal state
repressions that was carried out through the
Rapid Action Force and Delhi Police only proved
the apprehensions about state intent to implement
anti-people policies with police protection.
Including Medha Patkar, Gautam Bandopadhyay,
Simpreet Singh, Sanjeev and Sr. Celia, as many as
62 people were given 15 days of judicial remand
in Tihar Jail for demonstrating outside a
government office.
Due to an intervention from higher judiciary, all
those accused have been granted bail by the 26th
March 2007. However, the government has shown no
willingness to withdraw the false cases charged
on peaceful demonstrators.
It is now crystal clear that people across the
country, both affected and those concerned about
public policy, are rising in revolt be it the SEZ
Policy & Act, the JNURM, the issue of slum
demolitions, or of hawkers' dis-employment. The
Dalits, Adivasis and other marginalised sections
are on the verge of boycotting the state, which
has only been an oppressor. In face of such
strong opposition the Government can only push
these policies only by recourse to violent
repression as witnessed in Delhi on 22nd March
with ACTION 2007 activists, and with the Kuki
students on 23rd March'07. Given the State &
Police attitude to people's resistance Nandigram
is only a logical culmination, no matter how much
blood flows. When the State and its other arms
resort to violence the issue is not only the
overt repression but also the constant effort to
prevent people from expressing themselves, and
shrinking democratic space. It will have to be
concern of every conscientious citizen and
particularly peoples' movements to challenge and
prevent that.
SEZ & Issues
Representatives from people's organizations and
communities across the country marched from
Jantar Mantar yesterday, 26th March to protest
against the Special Economic Zones being set up
in the country.
- The large scale forced acquisition of
land (for the 'public purpose' of promoting
private profit), the loss of agricultural land
for real estate speculation which is an assault
on the nation's farmers as well as food security
has been the most critical concern
- The SEZ Act compromises severely on
sovereignty of the country by making thousands of
hectares of land 'foreign territory'.
- Fishworkers movements from Maharashtra,
Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh have raised
issues of destruction of the coastline by SEZ
projects.
- Unprecedent Environmental destruction and
usurpation of natural resources by SEZ projects.
For instance, 33 projects are coming up in Konkan
region alone leading to a complete destruction of
the Western Ghats forests.
- Scarcity of water and power, especially
due to SEZs coming up close to Urban Centres has
been raised as an issue.
- The problem of unregulated labour
exploitation has been seen in existing SEZs and
will worsen further with the dilution of labour
legislations.
- The Ministry of Finance itself has raised
the issue of huge revenue losses to the state
exchequer.
A veritable double faced policy
On the one hand people are told that the market
and the invisible hand will determine this and on
the other, the State acquires land for
corporates. Since the past one year communities
have issued memorandums and appeals consistently
raising these concerns about the establishment of
SEZs. But instead of having a dialogue the state
machinery has resorted to violently suppressing
people's protests, as the entire world witnessed
through the media coverage of the merciless
killings of the peasants in places like
Nandigram. This will remain a shameful scar
imprinted on the memory of the public.
We are aware that the Empowered Group of
Ministers under the chairmanship of Shri Pranab
Mukherjee is reviewing the SEZ policy and
legislation. However, we do not see any of the
issues being raised by the people's groups
addressed in the government's review process. In
this dismal scenario, the consensus emerging is
for a country-wide intensification of the
struggle against SEZs and scrapping of the SEZ
Act 2005.
Action °V Next Phase
As part of our efforts to hold the state
accountable for its policies and to make
transparency in governance, different delegations
from the movements represented in Sangharsh will
meet with different ministries, concerned
citizens and political parties in the coming
days. The political dialogues will focus on
issues relating to land acquisitions, SEZ,
unorganised sector legislation and issues, Dalit,
Adivasi and women's rights issues, issues of
urban poor, hawkers, etc.
Co-ordination Committee ACTION 2007
For further details please visit-www.action2007.net
Delhi Office: Action 2007, 1-A, Goela Lane, Under
Hill Road Civil Lines, Delhi °V 54 Tel.:
011-23933307
Rajendra Ravi (0-9868200316), Vijayan MJ
(0-9868165471) E-Mail: action2007 at gmail.com
Mumbai Office: Action 2007, C/0 Chemical Mazdoor
Sabha, 28-29, First Floor 'A wing' Haji Habib
Building,
Naigaon Cross Road, Dadar (East), Mumbai-400014
______
[10]
Hardnews
March 2007
AN INTERNATIONAL NON-VIOLENCE DAY, BUT WHEN?
by Purushottam Agrawal
The idea of Satyagraha, non-violent civil
disobedience, is now a hundred years old. The
centenary was celebrated with gusto a few days
ago in Delhi. This is the century that historian
Eric Hobsbawm calls the Age of Extremes. In this
age, humanity dreamt the loftiest
of dreams and faced the most terrible realities.
Dreams of radically transforming societies, of
eradicating violence, exploitation and injustice
forever. And the reality of dream projects
turning into the worst nightmares. Social systems
claiming to have freed men from chains turned
entire societies into prisons. It was an age of
wars, each claiming to be the war to end all
wars, a cause that justified its own mass
violence and cruelty. The violence was on a scale
that made
epic wars of different traditions seem like the
bickering of naughty children.
The same century witnessed the unprecedented
accomplishments of science - rooting out several
killer diseases, but afflicted by the rise of
new maladies, notably the modern "lifestyle"
diseases.
But what if the lifestyle itself were the malady?
A socially institutionalised disease which
ensures that once you are in its grip, you are
condemned to succumb to its poison. What then
calls for
a cure, the lifestyle or its pathological symptoms?
http://www.hardnewsmedia.com/portal/2007/03/820
______
[11] EVENTS:
(i)
BHUTAN SOLIDARITY
N-1/2, MLA Rest House, Bhopal 462003 (M.P.)
A-124/6, Katwaria Sarai, New Delhi 110016
Dear friend,
You might be aware with the plight of Bhutanese
refugees who are languishing in 7 camps in Jhapa
and Morang districts of Nepal since 1991. They
are more than 1 lakh in numbers. Apart from this
some were forced to live in insecure hideouts
across the Indo-Bhutanese borders. They don't
enjoy even the refugee status.Their only crime is
that they launched a peaceful movement in favour
of human rights and against monarchy. In response
the king of Bhutan showered bullets on these
Bhutanese citizens, put them behind the bar and
depriving a large chunk of Bhutanese population
of their citizenship expelled them from the
country. Having been expelled from Bhutan, these
hapless people reached the Indian territory, from
where they were dumped in trucks by the Indian
security forces and were dropped in Nepal. Since
then they are living in refugee camps and UNHCR,
the UN organisation, is taking care of these
camps.
But the Indian Government had shown utter cruelty
by calling the problem as a bilateral one between
Bhutan and Nepal and washed its hands off from
the problem.Not only that, the Indian Government
has consistently developed its good relations
with Bhutanese Government.
Though 17 round ministerial level talks have been
organised between Nepal and Bhutan in last 16
years, without any fruitful outcome. In the
context of geo-political power balance within
South Asia and in the context of inability of
Nepal and Bhutan to resolve the issue it is
acknowledged that this problem is not a bilateral
one, but tripartite involving Nepal, Bhutan and
India and as long as India won't take interest in
it, no solution could be possible.
There is a demand that India should take
initiative in solving this problem, and to raise
this demand effectively and efficiently we have
decided to organise a convention, which will be
attended by all the political parties, human
right organisations, peoples' organisations,
intellectuals and prominent individuals of India.
We have also invited the representatives from
refugee camps as well as the the representatives
of SPA (Seven Parties' Alliance) and Maoists from
Nepal.
We hope that you will be present and participate
in this convention and pressurise Indian
Government to take an initiative in this regard.
Date: March 31, 2007
Time: 10 A.M. onwards
Venue: Gandhi Peace Foundation,
Deendayal Uppadhyay Marg, New Delhi-110001
Dr. Sunilam (MLA, Madhya Pradesh)
Convenor
l N-1/2, MLA Rest House, Bhopal 462003 (M.P.)l
A-124/6, Katwaria Sarai, New Delhi 110016
o o o
(ii)
ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS MILITANCY AND THE NEW WORLD
ORDER: HINDU NATIONALISM, ISLAMISM, AND
REGIONALISM
Time: 3:30-5:30 pm
Date: April 4, 2007
Location: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Speakers: Arvind Rajagopal, Woodrow Wilson Center
and New York University; David Ludden, New York
University; Fasial Devji, The New School
University; Engseng Ho, Harvard University
Woodrow Wilson Center
One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20004-3027
o o o
(iii)
The South and Southeast Asia Resource Centre on
Sexuality is hosting a discussion on
PROSTITUTES AND POLITICS: THE TOLERATED BROTHELS DEBATE IN COLONIAL INDIA
12 April 2007 (Thursday), 3:00 - 4:30 pm
TARSHI, 11, Mathura Road, First Floor, Jangpura B, New Delhi
In 19th century colonial India the reaction to
the threat (both social and biological) of the
prostitute was to forcibly confine infected women
in "lock hospitals". An international backlash
against these measures left the government in
need of a method of regulating prostitutes
without seeming to impinge upon their liberty.
Steve Legg, PhD will make a presentation for 45
minutes, tracing the 20th century evolution of
the legislative machinery that allowed the state
to exert some authority over female prostitutes.
This involved a shift from initial policies of
segregating women into certain quarters of a
town, to the later targeting of brothels under
the Suppression of Immoral Traffic Acts, both of
which the prostitutes resisted and challenged in
various ways.
Steve attained BA and PhD from the University of
Cambridge and spent three following years as a
Research Fellow. He is now a Lecturer in
cultural and historical geography at the
University of Nottingham and has a book out in
March/April entitled Spaces of Colonialism:
Delhi's Urban Governmentalities to be published
by Blackwells (in the UK, America and Australia)
and Rawat Publishers (in India). He is currently
expanding this work on urban politics to look at
the regulatory policies applied to prostitutes in
20th century colonial India. This entails
situating the local history of Delhi's
prostitutes in the national politics of the
Suppression of Immoral Traffic Acts and the
international politics of social hygiene
campaigners and the League of Nations.
The presentation will be followed by an open discussion.
Please stay for tea /coffee and biscuits from 4:30 - 5:00pm.
RSVP:
Sumit Baudh
Senior Programme Associate
The South and Southeast Asia Resource Centre on Sexuality
TARSHI, 11 Mathura Road, 1st Floor, Jangpura B, New Delhi-110014
tel: +91 11 2437 9070, +91 11 2437 9071
fax: +91 11 2437 4022
eml: sumit at tarshi.net
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
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