SACW | April 15-17, 2007 | Bangladeshi Generals / Pakistan: Mullah Muscle / India: India: Morality - Culture police; Kashmir; Minorities, Nationalism, Faith

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | April 15-17, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2389 - Year 9

[1]  Bangladesh in the Generals' Grip (Editorial, The New York Times)
[2]  Pakistan: Reaping what we sowed (Irfan Husain)
[3]  "Climate change will devastate India" (Daphne Wysham and Smitu Kothari)
[4]  Morality and Culture Police:
       - Kashmir's Islamist puritans
       - Clinching evidence for morality mob
       - Morality police chasten young lovers in India
[5]  India: BJP's Kashmir position - Count the zigzags (AG Noorani)
[6]  India: Defining Minorities (Ram Puniyani)
[7]  Sociological Study of Religion: Colonial Modernity and 19th 
Century Majoritarianism (Sujata Patel)
[8]  History and Hindu nationalism: A call to arms (Andrew Leonard)
[9]  India: Keeping the Faith (Suhasini Haidar)
[10]  Books:
- Lines of the Nation: Indian Railway Workers, Bureaucracy, and the 
Intimate Historical Self by Laura Bear
- Dreams, Questions, Struggles: South Asian Women in Britain. Edited 
by Amrit Wilson
[11] Events:
A Public Discussion: Who sets the faith agenda in Britain? (London, 
May 10, 2007)

____


[1]

The New York Times
April 15, 2007

Editorial
BANGLADESH IN THE GENERALS' GRIP

Promoting democracy, especially in Islamic countries, is supposed to 
be a major goal of President Bush's foreign policy. But his 
administration has raised little protest as Bangladesh - until 
January the world's fifth most populous democracy - has been 
transformed into its second most populous military dictatorship. 
Washington is being dangerously shortsighted. Democracy can be messy, 
and in Bangladesh it was extraordinarily so. But military rule offers 
no answers to the grievances that fuel Islamic radicalism, as can be 
seen from nearby Pakistan (the world's most populous military 
dictatorship). By stifling authentically popular mainstream parties 
and their leaders, military regimes often magnify the political 
influence of religious extremists.

This year's democratic eclipse in Bangladesh did not follow the 
classic script for a military coup. A civilian caretaker has been 
nominally in charge since January, after troubled national elections 
were indefinitely postponed. Meanwhile, the generals consolidated 
power behind the scenes and began harassing and jailing many of the 
country's top civilian political leaders.

Last week, Sheik Hasina Wazed - who served as prime minister from 
1996 through 2001 - and top leaders of her 14-party alliance were 
charged with murder in connection with violent pre-election protests. 
Her longtime rival, Khaleda Zia, who both preceded and followed her 
in office, is now under virtual house arrest. More than 150 other 
senior politicians have been detained on corruption charges and the 
timetable for new elections keeps receding.

This concept of a militarily guided democracy without democrats is 
familiar in South Asia. Gen. Pervez Musharraf has followed the same 
script in Pakistan and his countrymen are still waiting, with 
increasing impatience, for the real democracy he promised them nearly 
eight years ago. Both former Bangladeshi prime ministers have much to 
answer for, including tolerance for corruption and a bitter personal 
rivalry that kept the country in permanent turmoil. But the answering 
should be done to Bangladesh's voters and, if called for, to an 
independent civilian judiciary - not to an unaccountable military 
dictatorship.  And President Bush, if he truly cares about democracy 
in the Islamic world, needs to say so.


______


[2]

Dawn
April 14, 2007

REAPING WHAT WE SOWED
by Irfan Husain

ALTHOUGH I am used to getting my share of fan mail and hate mail from 
total strangers, I was a bit taken aback to get an email from Maulana 
Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the head honcho of Lal Masjid in Islamabad.

Thoughtfully, the good cleric informed me that the mosque's website 
was now operational again at www.lalmasjid.com.

He went on to complain that it had earlier been blocked by the 
government, and that this step was "against the freedom of 
expression." I savoured the delicious irony of this complaint as I 
watched televised images of zealots from the Jamia Hafsa and the 
Jamia Fareedia - both involved in the long-running standoff with the 
government - burning DVDs and CDs in Islamabad. Ghazi, in a recent 
interview with Declan Walsh, the Guardian correspondent, expressed 
his opposition to democracy thus: "Democracy is about elections. 
Islam is about selection." He went on to elaborate that ignorant 
people did not know what was good for them, and therefore the 
educated elite had to show the way.This was in response to the 
reporter when he remarked that Islamic parties in Pakistan had never 
won over 13 per cent of the popular vote. And this is the paradox: 
fundamentalists benefit from democratic freedoms wherever they are 
available to them, and use them to impose their reactionary agenda on 
society. And wherever they do not get their way, they complain that 
they are being denied their democratic rights. If and when they 
achieve power, they deny their opponents these very rights at the 
first opportunity. For them, as Maulana Ghazi was frank enough to 
admit, democracy is irrelevant.

For weeks now, the drama of the two madressahs in Islamabad and their 
takeover of a children's library has gripped the country. Images of 
burqa-clad young women clutching staves are shown daily. For the 
West, this absurd situation is further proof of Pakistan's slide into 
violence and mediaeval anarchy. But for us, the standoff reveals the 
faultlines in our society, and the inherent contradictions that 
remain unresolved in a state created in the name of religion.

The price being demanded by the madressah students and their patrons 
is nothing less than the imposition of Shariah law, and the instant 
abolition of all "dens of vice". The fundamentalist definition of 
this term is a wide one, and includes all shops selling music CDs, 
videos and DVDs. Thus far, Musharraf's government of enlightened 
moderation has caved in on several other demands, including the 
reconstruction of all seven mosques that were illegally built on 
state land, and rightly demolished by CDA.

While the dictates of the law and plain sanity demand tough and swift 
action to end this open rebellion, Musharraf's political interests 
lie elsewhere. The fact is that this is an election year, and the 
general realises that he needs the support of the clerics and their 
reactionary parties to survive. And when it comes to choosing between 
survival and the national interest, we know all too well what the 
choice will be.

Among the many emails I have received on the subject are a 
substantial number supporting the demands of the Jamia Hafsa women. 
They ask why Shariah should not be the basis of the law of the land 
since Pakistan was created in the name of Islam. The authors of these 
diatribes are not interested in Jinnah's sophistry of Pakistan being 
a 'home for the Muslims of the subcontinent', rather than an Islamic 
state.

In truth, this is a tough argument to rebut. Perhaps the mullahs have 
it right. Maybe the demands that are being voiced by religious 
fanatics, seen in the context of the partition of India along 
religious lines, should be considered. Clearly, a return to the 
seventh century, something the zealots are adamant about, would be 
disastrous for the country. But that's a separate argument. If you 
are convinced that our brief stay on earth is transient, and that we 
will be rewarded or punished for the rest of eternity for our actions 
in this life, then obviously what happens in the here-and-now is 
unimportant.

Things like GDP, life expectancy and literacy rates become 
irrelevant. What truly matters is that we obey the divine rules, as 
interpreted by various schools of Islamic jurisprudence. In this 
worldview, manmade laws, ethics, and boundaries are all of secondary 
importance. If our destiny is pre-ordained, we can only submit. 
Within this narrow frame of reference, it makes perfect sense for our 
cricket team to spend more time at prayer than at the nets. And if 
the team is sent crashing out of the World Cup in the first round, 
clearly this was the will of God.

It is easy to see that with this mindset, no society can progress. 
Countries that have blindly followed rigid dogmas have either had to 
relax their governing beliefs, as China has done, or implode, much as 
the Soviet Union did. India, for all the decades it stuck closely to 
the Fabian socialism of its founding fathers, limped along.

Pakistan today is in the grip of a fundamental contradiction that it 
seems incapable of escaping. On the one hand are the modernising 
impulses of a dynamic, striving people who flourish when they leave 
the stifling environment of their country. On the other is the 
retrogressive pull of a small minority of fanatics whose only claim 
to power and influence is the grip they exercise on an uneducated and 
conservative community. But since Pakistan was created in the name of 
religion, most politicians and generals feel they have to pay lip 
service to its form, if not its substance. Each time the mullahs 
increase their demands, the establishment makes concessions.

Nobody in power has had the courage to take the bull by the horns and 
tell the mullahs that while obviously, Islam is the faith of the 
majority, Pakistan will be governed as a democratic, secular country. 
Musharraf, instead of building a consensus around this central plank, 
has curried favour with the mullahs, while driving secular 
politicians into the wilderness. The current standoff with the Jamia 
Hafsa is the logical outcome of these self-serving policies.

Tailpiece: I still haven't been able to understand why the government 
has not cut off the electricity, water and gas to the entire Lal 
Masjid complex, with its two radical madressahs. Given the onset of 
the warm weather, the stifling head-to-toe clothing of the chicks 
with sticks, and the absence of deodorants, it wouldn't take long for 
the students to call it a day.

______


[3]

The Hindu
April 09, 2007

"CLIMATE CHANGE WILL DEVASTATE INDIA"

by Daphne Wysham and Smitu Kothari

In South Asia, millions of people will find their lands and homes 
inundated, according to a draft report of the Intergovernmental Panel 
on Climate Change.

A FINAL draft of a report leaked from the Intergovernmental Panel on 
Climate Change (IPCC) to the authors lays out shocking scenarios for 
India and the rest of South Asia. The summary for policy makers that 
was released by the IPCC on Friday is a call for urgent action 
globally. While shocking, the fuller final draft version of the 
Second Working Group of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, which 
may be watered down before final publication, makes for even more 
sobering reading: It lays out in explicit detail what lies ahead for 
India and the rest of Asia. It also presents an opportunity for the 
country to take the lead in defining a more secure and sustainable 
future for itself.

Here are some of the devastating consequences detailed in the 
provisional February 16, 2007, IPCC report on Asia: Sea levels will 
rise by at least 40 cm by 2100, inundating vast areas on the 
coastline, including some of the most densely populated cities whose 
populations will be forced to migrate inland or build dykes - both 
requiring a financial and logistical challenge that will be 
unprecedented. In the South Asian region as a whole, millions of 
people will find their lands and homes inundated. Up to 88 per cent 
of all of Asia's coral reefs, termed the "rainforests of the ocean" 
because of the critical habitat they provide to sea creatures, may be 
lost as a result of warming ocean temperatures.

The Ganga, Brahmaputra, and Indus will become seasonal rivers, dry 
between monsoon rains as Himalayan glaciers will continue their 
retreat, vanishing entirely by 2035, if not sooner. Water tables will 
continue to fall and the gross per capita water availability in India 
will decline by over one-third by 2050 as rivers dry up, water tables 
fall or grow more saline. Water scarcity will in turn affect the 
health of vast populations, with a rise in water-borne diseases such 
as cholera. Other diseases such as dengue fever and malaria are also 
expected to rise.

Crop productivity will fall, especially in non-irrigated land, as 
temperatures rise for all of South Asia by as much as 1.2 degrees C 
on average by 2040, and even greater crop loss - of over 25 per cent 
- as temperatures rise to up to 5.4 degrees C by the end of the 
century. This means an even lower caloric intake for India's vast 
rural population, already pushed to the limit, with the possibility 
of starvation in many rural areas dependent on rainfall for their 
crops. Even those areas that rely on irrigation will find a growing 
crisis in adequate water availability.

Mortality due to heat-related deaths will climb, with the poor, the 
elderly and daily wage earners and agricultural workers suffering a 
rise in heat-related deaths.

This grim future awaits India in the coming century. The irony is 
that much of this damage will be self-inflicted, unless the country 
is prepared to make a radical, enlightened change in its energy and 
transportation strategies.

We are truly at a crossroads: Either we can be complacent or wait for 
leadership from a reluctant United States, the largest greenhouse gas 
emitter in the world, or begin to take action now, regardless of what 
other countries do.

The path that India has taken thus far, of waiting until wealthy 
countries take action on global warming, is understandable if viewed 
in isolation. The U.S., the U.K., and other countries in the wealthy 
North, have developed their economies largely thanks to fossil fuels. 
It is only fair that India be allowed to attain the same standard of 
living before curbing its emissions.

But as the IPCC report makes clear, while it may be "fair" to do so, 
it is also suicidal for India to pursue any strategy but the least 
carbon-intensive path toward its own development. Wealthy, less 
populous countries in the North are very likely - and very unfairly - 
going to suffer fewer devastating blows to their economies, and may 
actually benefit with extended growing seasons, while India and other 
South Asian nations will dramatically and painfully suffer if action 
is not taken now.

Today, much of India's energy comes from coal, most of it mined in 
the rural areas of Orissa, Jharkhand, and Bihar with devastating 
consequences. Tribals and small and marginal peasants are being 
forced to resettle as these mines grow wider by the day. Inadequate 
resettlement plans mean more migration of landless populations to 
urban slums. The environment is being destroyed by these mines and 
their waste products - among them fly ash laced with heavy metals and 
other toxic materials. But the biggest irony of this boom in 
coal-fired power is that much of the power is going to 
export-oriented, energy-intensive industry. Look at Orissa's coal 
belt and you will find a plethora of foreign-owned and Indian 
aluminium smelters, steel mills, and sponge iron factories - all 
burning India's coal, at a heavy cost to local populations - then 
exporting a good share of the final product to the China, the U.S. or 
other foreign markets.

Volatile mix

Add to the problem of export-oriented, energy-intensive industry the 
problem of carbon trades, and you have a volatile mix. India is one 
of the top destinations globally in the growing carbon market. In 
exchange for carbon trade projects in India, wealthy polluters in the 
North are able to avoid restrictions on their own emissions. Rather 
than financing "clean development" projects as promised, many of 
these trades are cheap, dirty, and harmful to the rural poor. 
Fast-growing eucalyptus plantations are displacing farmers from their 
land and tribals from their forests. Sponge-iron factories are 
garnering more money from carbon trades earned by capturing "waste 
heat" than from the production of the raw material itself. Toxic fly 
ash from coal-fired power plants is being turned into bricks, and the 
carbon that would have been released from traditional clay-fired 
brick kilns, is now an invisible commodity that can be sold as carbon 
credits. These carbon trades are not helping finance clean energy and 
development for India's rural poor.

Add to this the special economic zones or SEZs - forcing people off 
their land, where blood, often of the most vulnerable, is shed at the 
altar of development.

Global warming will tighten this growing squeeze to a noose, as huge 
areas of Bangladesh go underwater and environmental refugees flood 
across India's borders. The leaked final draft of the IPCC report 
shows that Bangladesh is slated to lose the largest amount of land 
globally - approximately 1000 square km of cultivated land - due to 
sea level rise. Where will all of those hungry, thirsty, landless 
millions go? Most will flock to the border looking for avenues to 
enter, exacerbating an already tense situation not only in the States 
contiguous to Bangladesh but in cities as far off as Mumbai and Delhi.

Undoubtedly, global warming is not fair. It is exacting the highest 
price on those least responsible for the problem. But India can show 
the world that there is another way forward: A self-interested, 
self-preserving way, focussed on clean energy such as solar and wind; 
on energy efficiency; on providing for its own population's energy 
needs ahead of foreign corporations; on public transportation plans 
that strengthen India's vast network of rail and bus transportation 
routes, rather than weakening it with public subsidies to massive 
highways and to automakers. The IPCC final draft report urges India 
and other Asian countries to prepare for the coming climate 
apocalypse with crop varieties that can withstand higher 
temperatures, salinated aquifers, and an increase in pests. It also 
advises better water resource management and better disease 
monitoring and control. While important, prevention is always the 
best medicine.

The IPCC final draft report should be seen as a conservative 
assessment of what lies in store. It clearly implies that incremental 
or palliative responses to reduce vulnerability are not the answer. 
India and the other countries of the region need to take a 
preventative approach by moving their economies away from fossil 
fuels and toward clean, renewable forms of energy. This is the only 
way of preserving a sustainable way of life that could be a model for 
the world. If it pursues what is "fair" in a warming world by 
continuing to argue that industrialised nation are to blame and need 
to take urgent action, it will be placing the noose around its own 
neck while the hangman looks on.

(Daphne Wysham is a Fellow, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington 
and Smitu Kothari is Director, Intercultural Resources, Delhi and 
Visiting Professor, Princeton University.)

______


[4]   MORALITY & CULTURE POLICE :


The Economist
Apr 12th 2007 | SRINAGAR

Kashmir
Lock up your daughters

KASHMIR'S ISLAMIST PURITANS

Reuters - Andrabi pulls a face

"IF MY son would kill Mr Bush," says the burqa-wearing head of an 
all-female Islamist organisation, "it would be a great honour for 
Asiya Andrabi." Those who threaten the leader of the free world and 
refer to themselves in the third person tend to be crackpots or 
dictators. Asiya Andrabi may be a bit of both. But Dukhtaran-e-Millat 
(Daughters of the Faith), which she founded in Indian-administered 
Kashmir in 1981, is no joke. Older than al-Qaeda and the Taliban, 
Dukhtaran supports terrorists, and was banned by the Indian 
government from 1990 until 2004.

One consequence of the 17-year-old insurgency against Indian rule 
that still simmers in Kashmir is that the region's centuries-long 
tradition of a moderate, tolerant Islam with its roots in Sufi 
mysticism, has been under threat. Many liberal Kashmiris blame 
Pakistani-financed militant outfits for blurring Islam and 
nationalism, and trying to turn the conflict into a jihad. Throughout 
the 1990s militants tried to enforce moral rectitude, bullying local 
women, for example, into wearing burqas. They had limited success. 
But now the puritans are on the march. Last month, for instance, a 
furious mob beat up customers and smashed furniture in a hotel in 
Srinagar, accusing the owners of operating a sex ring. A week later 
conservatives forced the black-out of "vulgar" English-language 
cable-television channels.

The turning-point was an earlier sex scandal, which shocked Srinagar 
last year. Civil servants and policemen were linked to a prostitution 
ring in which teenage girls had been drugged and abducted to a 
brothel. The scandal prompted days of mass protests, and the torching 
of the home of the accused brothel-keeper.

Leading the campaign against licentiousness, Dukhtaran helped found a 
Forum Against Social Evils. Its burqa-wearing members wrecked beauty 
parlours and liquor shops, ransacked dimly-lit restaurants for 
encouraging smooching and celebrated Valentine's Day by burning 
cards. Their cause has been bolstered by the uncovering of two more 
"sex rings". In one, young women were lured by a fake charity. In 
another, policewomen were allegedly coerced by male superiors.

Yet Kashmir's liberal traditions are proving stubborn. Kashmiri women 
continue to pursue further studies, hold professional jobs and move 
about alone, some without headscarves. Shutting cinema halls has led 
to a boom in satellite dishes and video-rental shops. Progressive 
locals winkingly refer to Ms Andrabi as the "Angel of Death" and on 
the streets of Srinagar burqas and long beards are still rare.

"Islam came to Kashmir not by the sword but through teaching, 
preaching, Sufis and saints," points out Umar Farooq, a separatist 
politician and mirwaiz, a hereditary spiritual leader. "You can't 
threaten people with Islam," he argues. "You have to educate them." 
Dukhtaran, however, is trying to do just that. It runs 75 part-time 
madrassas in Kashmir.

o o o

Hindustan Times
April 17, 2007

Editorial

CLINCHING EVIDENCE FOR MORALITY MOB

Hugs and kisses are suddenly evoking much passion in the 
subcontinent. Shilpa Shetty's self-appointed Big Brothers - mainly 
members of her fan club in Varanasi and the Shiv Sena - are in a 
frenzy over the kiss-and-tell show, featuring the actress and Richard 
Gere, that took place at an Aids awareness function for truck drivers 
in Delhi on Sunday. While Shetty was swept off her feet, her fan club 
is brandishing the broom to clean the supposed blemish on a "rich 
Indian culture". Meanwhile, in neighbouring Pakistan, Tourism 
Minister Nilofar Bakhtiar is the latest recipient of a fatwa from her 
country's clerics for apparently falling under the immoral Western 
spell and hugging a male paraglider in Paris. (It wasn't too long 
ago, you'll remember, that their malice was directed towards the 
Pakistan High Commissioner's daughter, who received a grandfatherly 
peck on her cheek from Khushwant Singh.) Does it surprise anyone that 
all three incidents brought out the patriarchal fervour of these 
self-appointed custodians of our morality?

In the Gere-shifts, they saw Shetty's new-acquired 'Goody' image 
crumbling. In Miss Bakhtiar, a defiance that needed to be broken 
down, never mind how innocent her action. And in condemning Khushwant 
Singh, they showed themselves to be possessed of petty, frustrated 
minds.

Now, if they would only stop playing with their effigies and focus on 
making the streets a safer place for women. That is the kind of 
policing that we would really appreciate.

o o o

reuters.com

MORALITY POLICE CHASTEN YOUNG LOVERS IN INDIA
Wed Apr 4, 2007 12:42 PM IST14

by Krittivas Mukherjee

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Police in India's most cosmopolitan and liberal 
city are cracking down on young lovers enjoying passionate embraces 
in public in a drive to instil moral values.

Acting on complaints made by residents of a smart seafront 
neighbourhood, police in Mumbai are hauling up embarrassed young 
lovers caught doing anything from kissing to having sex behind trees 
and on beaches.

India, a traditionally conservative country, is becoming more open 
about sex and dating, with attitudes changing fastest among young 
people living in cities.

But having romantic liaisons before marriage is often frowned upon 
and talk of sex in public is considered rude. Even holding hands or 
kissing in public can draw stares and jeers.

At least 40 couples have been fined on charges of public immorality 
and indecent exposure, or had their parents called in by the police 
over the past week, and hundreds have been warned and given a lecture 
on moral values.

"We are not cultural vigilantes," said Vinay Kumar Choube, the police 
officer overseeing the drive against indecency. "We are acting on 
specific public complaints."

Residents of the posh Bandra locality say they are not against 
"decent lovers", but are worried when they see many couples doing 
things that they say should be done in the bedroom.

"It is nothing short of watching an adult film," said an elderly 
resident, who said he is distracted by the amorous sights on his 
evening walks.

Mumbai, India's business and entertainment capital, is considered to 
be one of the most liberal cities in the country. It's known for its 
nightclubs, fashion shows and glamorous parties as well as 
jet-setting Bollywood stars.

But local officials declared war on risque nightlife in 2005, 
shutting hundreds of popular dance bars and saying they bred crime 
and prostitution.

Some hardline Hindu groups, part of a growing band of cultural 
vigilantes opposed to what they see as increasing mimicry of the 
West, also often try to chasten couples.

Such groups have stopped young people from celebrating Valentine's 
Day and prevented the screening of films dealing with homosexuality, 
saying they denigrated India's ancient traditions.

Mumbai police say "decent lovers" have nothing to fear from the new 
moral crackdown.

But one couple, who refused to give their names, said their al fresco 
trysts were a necessity.

"We can't meet at home. We can't go to restaurants everyday. So we 
come to Bandra," said the young man. "Didn't any of these police men 
ever love in their life?"


______


[5]

Hindustan Times
April 15, 2007

COUNT THE ZIGZAGS
by AG Noorani

There is no precedent in history for an Opposition party to ask a 
foreign State not to settle a dispute with its own country's elected 
government but await the party's return to power. Yet, on February 
20, LK Advani, and the next day, AB Vajpayee warned Pakistan's 
Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmud Kasuri against "any haste" in the 
peace process. Advani explained that while Indian politics revolve 
mainly around domestic, and not foreign, policy, issues relating to 
Indo-Pak relations were "totally different". He had boasted on March 
14, 2004, "The BJP alone can find a solution to our problems with 
Pakistan because Hindus will never think whatever we have done is a 
sell-out." Admittedly, the BJP is a communal party. It invests 
Indo-Pak relations with communal colours.

It can neither absorb the shock of its defeat in the Lok Sabha polls 
in May 2004 nor that of the visible success of Prime Minister 
Manmohan Singh's policy. He not only rules out J&K's "secession" and 
"redrawing boundaries", but has secured Musharraf's concurrence to 
these. The BJP is disturbed by his success and goes about screaming 
'sell-out' and 'cross-border terrorism'.

Both Vajpayee's letter to the PM on June 16, 2005, and Advani's 
letter to the PM on March 13, 2007, were leaked to the press by the 
BJP, as were their remarks to Kasuri. The subtext is: "Wait till we 
return to power and settle with us." Vajpayee successfully wrecked 
I.K. Gujral's initiative, on June 23, 1997, to set up working groups 
with Pakistan. He revealed on May 24, 1998, that Gujral's offer at 
Dhaka on January 14, 1998, to discuss all subjects in one go in order 
to avoid discussing Kashmir specifically, was worked out in 
consultation with him. This had been on for over a year. Vajpayee 
wrecked the 1997 accord. Singh is of stronger moral fibre than 
Gujral. But Vajpayee cannot forget the taste of the blood he drew in 
1997-98.

The BJP will act dirty everywhere - in Parliament, at the polls and 
on foreign policy. Its own zigzags when in power would make a drunk's 
walk seem an exercise in fidelity to a straight line. At the very 
outset, it revived the UN's concern for Kashmir.  On May 18, 1999, 
immediately after Pokhran II on May 11 and 13, Advani threatened "hot 
pursuit" across the LoC and spoke of a "qualitative new stage in 
Indo-Pak relations, particularly in finding a lasting solution to the 
Kashmir problem". Its existence was admitted; but the 'solution' was 
to be based on superior force. And the people of the state mattered 
not. Pakistan's tests followed on May 28 and 30, 1998.

The UNSC passed on June 6, 1998, Resolution 1172, urging the two 
countries "to find mutually acceptable solutions that address the 
root causes of those tensions, including Kashmir". Its last 
substantive Resolution (211) on Kashmir, passed on September 20, 
1965, had a weaker formulation - "a settlement of the political 
problem underlying the present conflict". The harsher 1998 
formulation was based on the P-5's joint statement on June 4 and was 
adopted by the G-8 on June 12, 1998. This was the BJP's first 
'achievement' after it came to power in March 1998.

Thrown off balance, Jaswant Singh was instructed to offer an accord 
on the basis of the LoC; not to Pakistan but to the US. The Shimla 
commitment to bilateralism was abandoned. It was offered to US Deputy 
Secretary Strobe Talbott on July 9, 1998, repeated to Secretary of 
State Madeleine Albright in Manila on July 26 and at the State 
Department the next month.

Vajpayee met PM Nawaz Sharif in New York on September 24, 1998, and 
agreed on "operationalising" the 1997 mechanism for a composite 
dialogue, which he himself had wrecked. Accordingly, foreign and 
defence secretaries met in New Delhi in November, when, abandoning 
the basis accepted by both sides for over a decade, the BJP regime 
rejected the agreed principle of withdrawal of troops from Siachen. 
The Lahore summit, conceived in New York, was held on February 21, 
1999. Officials were rushed to Lahore to drum up accords. A hilarious 
back channel was set up - Niaz Naik and R.K. Mishra. Kargil followed. 
Vajpayee rightly told Sharif on June 13, "You withdraw your troops 
and we are prepared for talks." Pakistan's troops quit but New Delhi 
refused to hold direct talks. It suppressed from the public the US' 
active mediation and the 'Kashmir-centric' talks in the back channel 
even while Pakistan's troops were in Kargil.

Keep counting the zigzags. On July 24, 2000, the Hizbul Mujahideen 
declared a unilateral ceasefire in Kashmir, which India accepted 
immediately. Called off on August 8 by the  HM, Vajpayee nonetheless 
offered "non-initiation of combat operations" on November 19, 2000. 
He ended it six months later. On May 24, 2001, he suddenly invited 
Musharraf for talks though he had ruled out talks with Pakistan the 
year before.  Documents of the Agra summit in July 2001, published in 
2005, exposed the falsehoods the BJP had retailed in Parliament. On 
July 17, 2001, the public was told that the "threads" would be picked 
up from where they were left. As in 1999, the very next day, the 
government insisted on a total end to "cross-border terrorism".

Capitalising on the US mood after 9/11, it launched Operation 
Para-kram on December 18, 2001, only to call it off on October 16, 
2002. Vajpayee told the three service chiefs on December 18, when 
they asked for a directive, "Woh baad mein batayengey" (that will be 
told later). It cost Rs 8,000 crore, 387 lives and colossal damage to 
equipment. It was intended to pressure the US to put pressure on 
Pakistan. Paramvir Das, former DG, Defence Planning Staff, criticised 
the "vested political interests sadly using the armed forces as a 
conventional pawn".

The Opposition, like the Democrats in the US, hesitated to censure, 
fearing the charge of 'unpatriotic' behaviour. To his credit, Pranab 
Mukherjee publicly censured the operation at its height: "We are not 
in 1914... They shouldn't have created this war hysteria. Both India 
and Pakistan are nuclear weapon States".

As before, the West chipped in. "We don't want to go through this 
again," the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said in June 2002. 
His Deputy Richard Armitage said on June 10, "The recent crisis has 
put Kashmir on the international agenda in a way it has never been 
before." Another BJP achievement.

On March 27, 2003, the US and Britain laid down a roadmap in a public 
statement that Vajpayee followed - "a ceasefire and... active steps 
to reduce tension, including moves within the Saarc context". 
Vajpayee attended the Saarc summit in Pakistan, after a ceasefire 
went into force on November 25, 2003, on the LoC, the international 
border and in  Siachen.

The Vajpayee-Musharraf joint statement of January 6, 2004, after the 
Saarc summit, revived the composite dialogue and recorded Musharraf's 
assurance not to "permit" Pakistan's territory "to be used to support 
terrorism in any manner", a formulation Musharraf had offered two 
years earlier. But Vajpayee dropped his condition - "wind up 
terrorist camps".

Defeat in the May 2004 polls and progress in the talks since have 
unsettled the BJP. Advani is desperate.  The year 2009 will be the 
gambler's last throw. He will try to wreck the talks consistently 
with the BJP's incompetent and insincere Pakistan policy. But the 
country is aware that for the first time in the six-decade-old 
dispute, Kashmir can now be settled in a manner acceptable to all - 
India, Pakistan and the people of the state.

It is also aware of the fact that while on New Year's Day, 2001, 
Vajpayee promised to depart from "the beaten track of the past", not 
once did he make any creative proposal. He could not. The RSS would 
never let its child, the BJP, settle with Pakistan. Unable to 
deliver, he decided to leave. A Mumbai phrase aptly describes his 
technique - Haath par chand batana (show the moon in the hollow of 
the palm).


______


[6]

Issues in Secular Politics, April 2007

Defining Minorities

by Ram Puniyani

Allahabad High Court ruling (April 2007) that Muslims have ceased to 
be a minority in UP as their percentage in population is 18.5% 
totally defies the logic of Indian Constitution, the legislatures 
understanding and the pronouncements of the Supreme court on the 
issue. No wonder it has been stayed by a two judge bench. This 
verdict gave a lot of ammunition to many to feel jubilant, and pen 
pushers of right wing ideology got extra boost to spew their anti 
minority sentiments. It is argued that by retaining the concept of 
minority these sections are reminded about their being 'different' 
and that sows the seed of divisiveness. They even point out that 
Africans-Americans were/are considered a minority as there was 
systematic injustice against them, they were discriminated against. 
But in India there is no such case for Muslims so they should not be 
considered as minorities, neither should there be any affirmative 
action for them.

There have been similar sentiments by a large section of ideologues 
that belong to Right wing politics. It is also noteworthy, that these 
are precisely same sections who celebrate when the quota for OBC is 
questioned and reservations against dalits are opposed.

Is there a place for minority concept in democracy, and who should be 
called a minority? These questions were settled by the Constituent 
assembly and samples of the debates around these issues indicate the 
national thinking on that. The attitude of the founders of Indian 
Constitution, who were themselves echoing the values of freedom 
movement, indicates a lot on the matter. It was pointed out in 
Constituent assembly debates that numerical weakness and 
soci-economic vulnerability should be the major criterion in defining 
the minority. Even the United Nations charter of Human rights went on 
to recommend the affirmative action towards minorities of all types. 
India is a signatory to many a UN declarations on minority rights.

All minorities are not disadvantaged. We can see that Brahmins are 
also a minority within Hindu religion, but the prevalent caste system 
gave them inherent advantage. There are people who try to find a 
'poor' Brahmin as a ground to show that caste based reservations are 
not valid. But surely the social connections of Brahmin minority, 
ensures that poor and deprived Brahmins, is more a matter of 
exception. In India the minority generally boils down to religious 
minority. This is more of a legacy of the India's the policies and 
politics which were prevalent before Independence, and this, while 
prevalent all through, has got re-strengthened after the rise of 
religion based politics from the decade of eighties. This identity 
politics has rolled back many a conceptual developments which were in 
progress during the decades immediately after the independence.

The affirmative action for dalits and OBC itself has come under heavy 
criticism from the same social sectors. Also the thought of 
development programs for Muslim sends shivers of discomfort amongst 
many. We have witnessed that a particular ideology which is solidly 
against this affirmative action for dalits and minorities, was at the 
root of riots against dalits and OBCs, in Gujarat in the decade of 
1980s. This ideology suits those whose children are in the category 
of 'economic reservation' as they can openly 'buy' education, 
knowledge and degrees by shelling out the bagfuls of money.

One wonders how the condition of Indian Muslims is different from 
that of African Americans for whom affirmative action is being 
accepted and recommended. Have Muslims found a decent, tolerant 
atmosphere here? Let's recall that 'social common sense' has been 
against them all through. The policy of subtle discrimination against 
them was in operation all through. Private sector dominated by the 
non Muslims kept them out deliberately. As communal violence was 
unleashed from sixties, it went on rising and went to critical limits 
from the decades of 80s. Various statistics coming from Home ministry 
Government of India, compilation of data on riot victims shows that 
over 80% of riot victims are Muslims. The violence has ghettoized 
large section of this community. The progressive norms which were 
being picked up by the community despite economic odds got a set back 
after the Babri demolition and massive anti Muslim violence which 
followed. Later after the Gujarat carnage, this process of 
ghettoization got intensified. Today irrespective of whether 
communalism, communal violence is visible or not, most of the states 
are witnessing an atmosphere where minorities feel intimidated and 
stifled.

It is true that minorities should not perpetuate their condition and 
try to come out of minority psyche and feel like anybody else. But 
what happens if the political climate is very adverse to your 
progress. What happens when the social thinking demonizes you times 
and over again, in every aspect of social existence, on any or every 
pretext? The earlier slogan of Jan Sangh, the previous avatar of BJP, 
had launched campaign called "Indianize Muslims"; giving a clear 
message that they are not Indians and so they must be Indianized. 
This is a 'catch twenty-two'. On one hand minorities are excluded 
from the process of social development, as they are the 'other' and 
at the same time a demand is made to them to subordinate to the 
dictates of dominant political stream which is trying to assert as to 
what should be the social norms. This exclusionary religious tendency 
is presenting their religious symbolism as the national symbolism.

Every study and data has been pointing to the worsening position of 
Muslim community. First the Gopal Singh Committee and now the Sachar 
Committee has shown this marginalization and exclusion. How does one 
become part of so called mainstream when one feels excluded and 
jeered upon? And if for bringing them on par with others, if some 
efforts are undertaken to protect their interests, to support them 
breathe freely, is it divisive factor or is it only way to strengthen 
our society? Some ideologues are used to the image of society in the 
past 'glories' where the Shudras, in their ghettoes, lived to serve 
the upper caste masters. Is it that which is being presented as the 
ideal nation? The tendency which is trying to dominate in the name of 
religion, essentially wants to bring back that state of society and 
so the opposes the efforts which will empower the ghettoized masses.

The criticism against Sachar committee is that it is creating myth 
that Muslims are disempowered, and so this committee report should be 
ignored and bypassed. What are the parameters for assessing the level 
of empowerment or otherwise of a social group? Surely the socio, 
economic and political representation should be the main parameter. 
One knows that not only that Muslim community has seriously been 
excluded from the development process, they were also forced into low 
level self employment, that's why some surveys may find that rate of 
their employment is better than others. Here the definition of 
employment has to be kept in mind. As such the type of self 
employment which a large section of Muslim community had to resort to 
was the last option and not a preferred choice. It has become the 
norm because of the exclusionary policies adopted by the sections of 
society, who have a powerful say in the matters, and in the running 
of the state. It by no means is a symbol of empowerment of minorities.

One is sure that the two judge bench's superseding the 'Muslims are 
not a minority judgment' will be upheld by the due process of law. In 
the overall political scenario and the economic perspective, a 
radical change has to take place where suitable employment for every 
person is the norm. The size of cake is also a problem. The type of 
economic development being pursued has to be superseded by one which 
aims at giving employment to all, and in the interregnum the 
affirmative action for different disadvantaged sections has to be 
pursued to unite the society. The definition of minorities needs to 
be recalled from the Indian constitution and understood in the 
context of constituent assembly debates.

______


[7] 

Economic and Political Weekly
March 31, 2007

SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY OF RELIGION: COLONIAL MODERNITY AND 19TH CENTURY 
MAJORITARIANISM

This article explores and critiques the semblances between the 
discourse on sociology of religion and that of ideology of Hindu 
majoritarianism. Both were fashioned in late 19th century and drew 
from the binaries inherited through colonial modernity. Sociologists 
of religion in India have asserted similar propositions regarding the 
discrete cultural practices of groups in India, and thereby 
implicitly propounded a theory of majoritarianism. We need to develop 
an alternate sociological language and free ourselves from the 
language of colonial modernity in order to evaluate the processes 
that make majoritarianism a dominant ideology today.
by Sujata Patel

http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?root=2007&leaf=03&filename=11233&filetype=pdf

______


[8]

http://www.salon.com/
April 11, 2007

HISTORY AND HINDU NATIONALISM: A CALL TO ARMS

by Andrew Leonard

On Monday, India's Supreme Court ordered the Maharashtra state police 
to drop all charges of inciting "racial hatred" against an American 
professor of religious studies, James W. Laine, author of a book 
about the 17th century Maharashtra warrior-king Shivaji. (Thanks to 
the wonderfully named Pass the Roti on the Left Hand Side blog for 
the alert.)

In Maharashtra, home to the Indian cities Mumbai and Pune and about 
90 million people, Shivaji is a figure of near demi-god status, 
revered by Hindu nationalists for establishing an independent kingdom 
in a region dominated by Muslim rulers. His portrait is ubiquitous 
and his life story a staple of children's history textbooks.

The Oxford University Press published Laine's book, "Shivaji: Hindu 
King in Islamic India," in 2003. It was initially well-received, 
generating a few "bland and positive" reviews, according to Laine's 
own account. But then some Hindu nationalist firebrands, possibly 
seeking a campaign issue to rally voters around, seized upon one 
specific sentence, in which Laine recounted, presumably from his 
personal experience, that Maharashtrians occasionally joked about 
Shivaji's parentage, speculating as to whether the person 
historically known as Shivaji's father was in fact his biological 
parent.

It is no understatement to say that from that point on, all hell 
broke loose, kind of like the recent 
http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/misc/2007/03/29/chocolate_jesus/index.htmlchocolate 
Jesus debacle in New York, only amplified by about a trillion orders 
of magnitude. Laine's book became ammunition in a multifronted war 
that crossed caste, ethnic, political and religious lines. Scholars 
who had been thanked in Laine's acknowledgments were physically 
attacked by Hindu fundamentalist extremists -- one had his face 
blackened with tar. A group calling itself the Sambhaji Brigade 
ransacked the research library in Pune where Laine had spent years, 
destroying, in the process, irreplaceable historical documents and 
artifacts.

Laine's own account of the turmoil, published in the Los Angeles 
Times in 2004, stated, somewhat plaintively:

     The vast majority of Indians are appalled at what happened in 
Pune. And yet no one has stepped forward to defend my book and no one 
has called for it to be distributed again. Few will read it for 
themselves. Instead, many will live with the knowledge that India is 
a country where many thoughts are unthinkable or, if thought, best 
kept quiet.

In this light, the decision of the Indian Supreme Court is to be 
applauded, at least by anyone who believes that scholarly inquiry 
should be combatted with battling footnotes, and not mob violence. 
But perhaps the most fascinating part of the whole story is how the 
reaction to Laine's book can be seen as an integral part of the very 
narrative he was trying to explicate.

Laine's goal was not a traditional biography, but a deconstruction of 
how "the Shivaji story" had evolved over 300 years; how the facts of 
his historically verifiable existence had been manipulated and 
massaged and morphed in ways that served emerging political, 
ideological and religious needs. It should go without saying that in 
a country where "communal" tensions are as intense as they are in 
India, such an investigation, by an outsider, of one of India's most 
legendary Hindu "heroes" could be inflammatory. Indeed, it seems 
almost as if Laine expected something to happen. Witness these words 
from the introduction to "Shivaji":

     The task I have set myself is not that of providing a more 
accurate account of Shivaji's life by stripping away the legends 
attributed to him by worshipful myth makers or misguided ideologues, 
but rather to be a disturber of the tranquility with which synthetic 
accounts of Shivaji's life are accepted...

The italics are mine. Laine succeeded. Tranquility was disturbed. The 
reaction to the book serves as a perfect afterword flowing directly 
from the main narrative, as the very same cultural impulses that 
shaped the evolution of Shivaji's cultural significance also formed 
its critical reception.

For example: One pair of reviewers could barely contain a mounting 
sense of outrage as they deconstructed Laine's deconstruction. They 
called it "vicious," "willful, calculated sensationalism," and "an 
exercise in skullduggery" that "might well qualify as yet another 
attempt at fragmentation of the steadily developing strength of a 
society that is waking up to a realization of the many historical 
frauds perpetrated on itself for centuries."

For them, any attempt to recontextualize the popular conception of 
Shivaji betrayed a profound misunderstanding of how important the 
warrior king was to Hindu Maharashtrian identity.

     The learned author, in spite of his protracted contact with the 
region since 1977, failed to realize that the "Shivaji story," as 
narrated in every Maharashtrian home, has far more significance and 
enjoys immensely greater credibility than all history taught in 
academia...

But another reviewer, revealing his own antipathy to the politics of 
Hindu fundamentalism by noting that Shivaji is "a key cultural idol 
in the chauvinistic repertoire of contemporary Hindu nationalism," 
applauded Laine for raising "fundamental questions about a range of 
identities -- religious, linguistic, economic, caste, moral, 
regional, national and political -- relevant to contemporary 
Maharashtra, India and Hindus." Moreover, the reviewer lambasted "a 
myopic state that has routinely created purist superhuman icons out 
of historical figures for the sake of particular populist ends. In 
the process, the state, in deference to the radical end of the 
citizenry, has produced a socio-political culture accommodative of 
violent public displays of disregard for scholarly plain-speak about 
those icons."

This is identity politics on a mind-boggling scale. The telling of 
history is often -- some cynics might say always -- an exercise in 
propaganda, shaped as much by the attitude and ideology the scholar 
brings to the archives as by the facts and data unearthed there. And 
it is certainly not unusual for a work of history that explores a 
politically and religiously fraught topic to be caught up in those 
currents itself.

But when scholars thanked in acknowledgments are physically attacked 
and research libraries are ransacked and historians are brought up on 
charges of inciting racial hatred, the stakes seem a bit greater than 
with your run-of-the-mill monograph. And that brings out its own 
moral imperative: The singular intensity of "the Laine controversy" 
is a call to arms, a clear mandate for the practice of more history, 
more deconstruction of how identity is inculcated and manipulated in 
the modern world, and more unraveling of the threads that make up the 
warp and woof of contemporary Indian society.

______


[9] 

IBN Blogs > Head to Haid-ar
April 15, 2007

KEEPING THE FAITH
by Suhasini Haidar

"I wish to inform you that your daughter is registered to marry a 
Muslim" said the postcard addressed to my father, "If you are aware 
of it, please accept my congratulations. If you aren't please take 
necessary action." Other letters we received in the run-up to my 
wedding weren't as polite.

It's a well known fact that the moment an inter-religious (read 
Hindu-Muslim) couple registers an intention to marry under the 
special marriages act at the local court- and their names go up on 
the board, a series of organizations go into action. United in the 
belief that an inter-religious marriage is about much more than the 
couple involved, and a destruction of religion itself, they find ways 
of contacting and intimidating the bride and groom to be, their 
families, and anyone else they can find.

We were lucky to get just letters of intent- a cameraman friend of 
mine and his wife faced goons at their own house on the day of their 
wedding.

So Priyanka and Umar's case was predictable in everything but the 
fact that they conducted a Hindu ceremony after the civil wedding- a 
fact that ensured they upset the Majlis-e-shoora of the All India 
Muslim Tyohar Committee (AIMTC) as well as the Hindu Kanya Suraksha 
Samiti, the Sindhi Panchayat, and the local chapters of the 
RSS-VHP-Bajrang Dal.

The act spurred violent agitations from the saffron brigade- and 
spurred the Sindhi Panchayat into a new code of conduct for Sindhi 
girls- no driving two wheelers, no covering your face, no using cell 
phones (not far from the Saudi no driving cars, enforcing the hijab, 
and barring the use of many other things by women).

And despite a Bombay High Court order protecting them from police 
harassment (funny that it should even be required), it is the young 
couple and siblings who are on the run, especially after the 
detention of Umar's brother Shakeel by police in Bhopal. Clearly all 
the men in uniform working very hard on protecting the religion. All 
of them great repositories of faith.

It was on my first out of town assignment exactly twelve years 
ago,though, that I figured out what it was really all about. I was 
covering angry reactions to the film 'Bombay', Mani Ratnam's 
hindu-muslim love story, a film that had been previewed and censored 
by Bal Thackeray- and was now under fire from Muslim groups. The 
film's release had been put off several times already by threats of 
violence. And as I interviewed a Bohra leader on a rooftop several 
floors above the narrow and bustling alleyways near Mohammed Ali 
Road, I waited to hear what I thought would be his reasons for being 
offended by the Manisha Koirala- Arvind Swamy starrer. That Muslims 
are shown starting the 1992 riots, that Koirala's Muslim character 
stereotypically has a butcher for a father, even that the Holy text 
is seen being flung in the air. But here it was. "We would not 
object," he said, "If the film showed a Hindu girl marrying a Muslim 
boy- why must it always be the other way around?"

And that's all it ever comes down to- it's why the letters to came to 
my family not to my husband's, or the clampdown on covering your face 
is effected by the Sindhi panchayat on Sindhi girls.

The outrage over faith is more about control and domination of the 
female. It isn't about the religion being subsumed- anyone can tell 
you they learn their concept of ethics, honour, and yes religion from 
their mother.

It's about keeping women in their place- as immovable as property- 
leased or sold only by those that own her. Its one more excuse to 
keep the girl child from getting an education (or as the case may be, 
a two-wheeler and a cell phone). And it's about keeping status quo- 
with men firmly on top.

It isn't a question of faith after all- the opposition to an 
inter-religious marriage is just plain feudal.


______


[10]

PUBLICATION ANNOUNCEMENTS:

(i)

Lines of the Nation:
Indian Railway Workers, Bureaucracy, and the Intimate Historical Self

Laura Bear

     "Lines of the Nation is a beautifully crafted ethnographic 
history, steeped in personal and railway archives and in the oral 
accounts of Anglo-Indians who live the racial predicaments of 
colonial and contemporary India. Laura Bear shows deftly the 
potencies of a colonial past that emerges in the pedigrees they seek 
to establish and in the intimate interstices of Anglo-Indians 
families whose anxieties about national and racial belonging shape 
the ways they draw on colonial differences as they draw away from 
them. This is a story of an unruly colonial past that permeates their 
relationship to the documentary state and to the living archives 
through which they make their precarious place in the present."
     -- Ann Laura Stoler, Willy Brandt Distinguished University 
Professor of Anthropology and Historical Studies, New School for 
Social Research

Indian railway institutions have had a profound effect on the 
political and domestic lives of railway workers. Drawing on 
historical and ethnographic research in the company town at Kharagpur 
and at the Eastern Railway headquarters in Kolkata (Calcutta), Laura 
Bear recasts the history of India's railways, long regarded as 
vectors of modernity and economic prosperity. In its classification 
of workers by caste, race, gender, and nationality, railway 
bureaucracy played a pivotal role in the creation of idioms of family 
history, kinship, and ethics, and its special categorization of 
Anglo-Indian workers still resonates today. From the design of 
carriages to the architecture of stations, racial employment 
hierarchies, and the construction of employee housing, Bear traces 
the impact of the railways on the formation of Indian nationalism, 
intimate sentiments, and popular memories.

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1
1. The Indian Railways and the Management of the Material and Moral 
Progress of Nations, 1849-1860
2. An Indian Traveling Public, 1850-1900
3. Governing the Railway Family, 1860-1900
4. Industrial Unrest and the Cultivation of Railway Communities, 1897-1931
5. An Economy of Suffering: The Ethics of Popular Nationalism in 
Petitions from Railway Workers, 1930-1947
6. Public Genealogies: Anglo-Indian Family Histories and the Railway 
Archive, 1927-1950
Part 2
7. Uncertain Origins and the Strategies of Love: Portraits of 
Anglo-Indian Railway Families
8. Traces of the Archive: Documents, Bodies, and Nations in 
Anglo-Indian Family Histories
9. Railway Morality: Status and Authority in the Postcolonial Railway 
Bureaucracy
10. Ruins and Ghosts: The Uncanny and the Topography of the Colonial 
Past in the Railway Colony
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Laura Bear is lecturer in anthropology at the London School of 
Economics and Political Science.

 From the series The Cultures of History

June, 2007
cloth
416 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-14002-7
Columbia University Press

o o o

(ii)

JUST PUBLISHED by ORIENT LONGMAN PVT LTD

Title: Dreams, Questions, Struggles: South Asian Women in Britain
Editors: Amrit Wilson

About the book:

This book testifies to a multiplicity of struggles, individual and 
collective, through which South Asian women, across divisions of 
class, community, age and religion, are seeking to take control of 
their lives. It looks at the role of the British state, of relentless 
pressures of the market, and of the politics of South Asia on shaping 
gender relations over the last thirty years; and discusses how South 
Asian masculinities have been reconfigured by multicultural policies 
and by politicised religion.

It explores the interaction of institutionalised racism and South 
Asian patriarchy in the context of immigration policy, state 
interventions such as Forced Marriage Initiative, and psychiatry. It 
analyses the experiences of low-paid Asian women workers in the 
global market; deconstructs contemporary British South Asian 
weddings; and looks at how dominant representations of South Asian 
women have and have not changed.


The author:

Amrit Wilson is writer and activist on issues of gender and race in 
Britain and South Asian politics. Her books include Finding a Voice: 
Asian Women in Britain which won the Martin Luther King award. She is 
currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of 
Huddersfield.


Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. The New 'Good Woman': Reconstructing Patriarchal Control
3. A Thing of Beauty and a Boy Forever - Changing Masculinities
4. 'Mercy and Wisdom of a Government'? Race, Culture and Immigration Control
5. Making a Spectacle of Oneself - South Asian Weddings in Britain
6. Psychiatry, Violence and Mental Distress
7. Contesting (mis)Representations
8. Still Fighting for Justice - Low-paid Workers in a Global Market
9. Dreams, Questions and Struggles - Reflections on a Movement
Notes
References
Index

(Paperback/ pp 200/ ISBN 81-250-3196-0/Rs 325/-)
Rights: India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, 
Myanmar and the Maldives only
Distributed by: Orient Longman Ltd

Also available through

The Bookpoint <the.bookpoint at gmail.com>
Manohar Books <manbooks at vsnl.com>
DK Publishers and Distributors <dkpd at del3.vsnl.net.in>
Ram Advani Bookseller <radvani at sancharnet.in>

Contact us on <the.bookpoint at gmail.com>

Orient Longman Pvt Ltd.
3-6-752 Himayatnagar,
Hyderabad 500 029

Telephone number: +91-40-2766-5446/5447
Facsimile number: +91-40-2764-5046
email: <the.bookpoint at gmail.com>

______


[11]  UPCOMING EVENTS:


WHO SETS THE FAITH AGENDA IN BRITAIN?

An Awaaz - South Asia Watch Public Forum

10 May 2007
Registration 6.30pm
7.00pm - 9.00pm

Room B102, Brunei Gallery Building
School of Oriental & African Studies
University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square
London, WC1H 0XG
Nearest tube
Goodge Street / Russell Sq

You have to register online for this event at: www.awaazsaw.org

. Has Britain's multiculturalism become multi-faithism?
. How are Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and other fundamentalist groups
influencing government policy?
. How is the faith agenda affecting communities?
. Is there anything in the faith agenda for progressive politics?

Speakers
Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, Muslim Parliament
Sukhwant Dhaliwal, Working Lives Institute
Julia Bard, Jewish Socialist Group
Arun Kundnani, Institute of Race Relations

Respondents
Prof. Nira Yuval-Davis, University of East London
Dr Emma Francis, University of Warwick
Ansar Ahmed Ullah, International Forum for Secular Bangladesh

Awaaz - South Asia Watch is a project of The Monitoring Group, 14
Featherstone Road, Middlesex, UB2 5AA, 0208 843 2333


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

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.