SACW | May 13-14, 2007 | Pakistan: Karachi carnage / Planning a New Nepal / Bangladesh Fatwa victims / India: Culture Police in art assault in Baroda ; UP elections; extra judicial killings

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | May 13-14, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2404 - Year 9

[1]  Pakistan: Carnage In Karachi - What's Next? (Pervez Hoodbhoy)
[2]  Listen to 'the people' while planning a new Nepal (Nimalka Fernando)
[3]  Bangladesh: Rising number of fatwa victims (Editorial, New Age)
[4]  Fundamentalists assault on freedom of 
expression. India's best art school held hostage !
(i) Fine Arts Faculty of M. S. University Under 
Siege (PUCL, Olakh, Vikalp, Sahiyar, Stree 
Sangathan)
(ii) VHP and Church [Jain and Kant] team up to slay art work in Baroda
(iii) Moral police vs artists
(v) Art Assault: Mumbai gathers support
(vi) Atreyee Gupta and Sugata Ray suggest -> Send 
letters of Protest to MS University, Baroda and 
to Indian authorities
(vii) Painting the art world red (Ranjit Hoskote)
(viii) State's artists and academicians condemn MSU episode in unison
[5]  India - UP elections: Hindutva slapped hard in the Face (I.K.Shukla)
[6]  India: Extra Judicial Killings:
   - Fake encounters & the nation (Harsh Mander)
   - Blame the police not the messenger   (Siddharth Varadarajan)
[7]  India: A Mature Response - Need Of The Hour (Rajindar Sachar)
[8]  India: Poaching for Bin Laden (Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark report)
[9]  Book Review: Thereby Hangs A Tale (Partho Datta)
[10] Events:
    (i) Conference - Secularism and Beyond (Copenhagen, May-June, 2007)
    (ii) Queer Diasporas' conference (Manchester 24-25 May 2007)
____

www.sacw.net - May 14, 2007
http://www.sacw.net/pakistan/WhatNextAfterKarachiCarnage.pdf

CARNAGE IN KARACHI- WHAT'S NEXT?
by
Pervez Hoodbhoy

General Pervez Musharraf is now a desperate man. 
Dozens were left dead in the horrific carnage on 
May 12, initiated by his violent political allies 
in Karachi, the MQM, in an attempt to stem the 
popular protests against Musharraf's dismissal of 
the chief justice of Pakistan. But this may still 
not buy him enough strength. Protests will 
continue. His "million man rally" in Islamabad, 
held on the same day, blatantly used the state's 
full organizational machinery and was widely 
ridiculed. It was seen as a sign of his weakness 
rather than strength.

So what is Musharraf likely to do next?

Military generals and fanatical clerics have been 
symbiotically linked in Pakistan's politics for 
decades. They have often needed and helped the 
other attain their respective goals. And they may 
soon need each other again - this time to set 
Islamabad ablaze. An engineered bloodbath that 
leads to the army's intervention, and the 
declaration of a national emergency, could serve 
as excellent reason for postponing the October 
2007 elections. Although Musharraf denies that he 
wants a postponement, a lengthy martial law may 
now be his only chance for a continuation of his 
dictatorial rule into its eighth year - and 
perhaps beyond.

This perverse strategy sounds almost 
unbelievable. A man who President George W. Bush 
describes as his "buddy" in the war against 
terror, and the celebrated author of an 
"enlightened moderate" version of Islam, 
Musharraf wears the two close assassination 
attempts on his life by religious extremists as a 
badge of honour. But his secret reliance upon the 
Taliban card - one that he has been accused of 
playing for years - increases as his authority 
and judgment weaken.

The signs of government engineered chaos are 
manifest. For many months now, here in the heart 
of Pakistan's capital, vigilante groups from a 
government funded mosque, the Lal Masjid, have 
roamed the streets and bazaars as they impose 
Islamic morality and terrorize citizens in full 
view of the police. Openly sympathetic to the 
Taliban and tribal militants fighting the 
Pakistan army, the two cleric brothers who head 
Lal Masjid, Maulana Abdul Aziz and Maulana Abdur 
Rashid Ghazi, have attracted a core of banned 
militant organizations around them. These include 
the Jaish-e-Muhammad, considered to be the 
pioneer of suicide bombings in the region.

The clerics openly defy the state. Since Jan 21, 
2007, baton wielding burqa-clad students of the 
Jamia Hafsa, the women's Islamic university 
located next to Lal Masjid, have forcibly 
occupied a government building, the Children's 
Library. In one of their many forays outside the 
seminary, this burqa brigade swooped upon a 
house, which they claimed was a brothel, and 
kidnapped 3 women and a baby.

PICTURE 1: Students of Jamia Hafsa (Women's 
University) in Islamabad demonstrate for Shariah 
law.

PICTURE 2: Victory for the Burqa Brigade

The male students of Islamabad's many madrassas 
are even more active. They terrorize video shop 
owners, who they accuse of spreading pornography 
and vice. Newspapers have carried pictures of 
grand bonfires made with seized cassettes and 
CDs. Most video stores in Islamabad have now 
closed down.  Their owners duly repented after a 
fresh campaign by militants on May 4 bombed a 
dozen music and video stores, barber shops and a 
girls school in the North West Frontier Province 
(NWFP).
PICTURE 3: Enjoying video burnings in Islamabad

The Pakistani state has shown astonishing 
patience. It showed its displeasure in Karachi 
with bullets, while other challengers have been 
hit with air and artillery power. But the Lal 
Masjid clerics operate with impunity. No attempt 
has been made to cut off their electricity, gas, 
phone, or website - or even to shut down their 
illegal FM radio station.  The chief negotiator 
appointed by Musharraf, Chaudhry Shujaat Husain, 
described the burqa brigade kidnappers as "our 
daughters", with whom negotiations would continue 
and against whom "no operation could be 
contemplated".

Soon after they went on the warpath, the clerics 
realized that the government wanted to play ball. 
Their initial demand - the rebuilding of 8 
illegally constructed mosques that had been 
knocked down by Islamabad's civic administration 
- transformed into a demand for enforcing the 
Shariah in Pakistan. At a meeting held in the 
mosque on April 6, over 100 guest religious 
leaders from across the country pledged to die 
for the cause of Islam and Shariah. On April 12, 
(also reported in The News, Islamabad, April 24) 
in an FM broadcast from the Lal Masjid's illegal 
FM station, the clerics issued a threat:

"There will be suicide blasts in the nook and 
cranny of the country. We have weapons, grenades 
and we are expert in manufacturing bombs. We are 
not afraid of death".

PICTURE 4: Confronting the state - with the state's connivance

The Lal Masjid head cleric, a former student of 
my university in Islamabad, added the following 
chilling message for our women students in the 
same broadcast:

"The government should abolish co-education. 
Quaid-e-Azam University has become a brothel. Its 
female professors and students roam in 
objectionable dresses. I think I will have to 
send my daughters of Jamia Hafsa to these immoral 
women. They will have to hide themselves in hijab 
otherwise they will be punished according to 
Islam. Our female students have not issued the 
threat of throwing acid on the uncovered faces of 
women. However, such a threat could be used for 
creating the fear of Islam among sinful women. 
There is no harm in it. There are far more 
horrible punishments in the hereafter for such 
women.

If the truth be told, QAU resembles a city of 
walking double-holed tents rather than the 
brothel of a sick mullah's imagination. The last 
few bare-faced women are finding it more 
difficult by the day to resist. But then, that is 
precisely the aim of the Islamists. On May 7, a 
female teacher in the QAU history department was 
physically assaulted in her office by a bearded, 
Taliban-looking man who screamed that he had 
instructions from Allah. President Musharraf - 
who is the chancellor of QAU and often chooses to 
be involved in rather petty university 
administrative affairs - has made no comment on 
the recent developments.

PICTURE 5: Victory for the virtuous

What next? As Islamabad heads the way of 
Pakistan's tribal towns, the next targets will be 
girls schools, internet cafes, bookshops and 
western clothing stores, followed by shops 
selling toilet paper, tampons, underwear, 
mannequins, and other un-Islamic goods.

In a sense, the inevitable is coming to pass. 
Until a few years ago, Islamabad was a quiet, 
orderly, modern city different from all others in 
Pakistan. Still earlier it was largely the abode 
of Pakistan's hyper-elite and foreign diplomats. 
But the rapid transformation of its demography 
brought with it hundreds of mosques with 
multi-barrelled audio-cannons mounted on 
minarets, as well as scores of madrassas 
illegally constructed in what used to be public 
parks and green areas. Now, tens of thousands of 
their students with little prayer caps dutifully 
chant the Quran all day.  In the evenings they 
roam in packs through the city's streets and 
bazaars, gaping at store windows and lustfully 
ogling bare-faced women.

The stage for transforming Islamabad into a 
Taliban stronghold is being set. If at all it is 
to be prevented, resolute opposition from its 
citizens will be needed to prevent more Lal 
Masjids from creating their own shariah squads.

The responsibility for the current bout of 
religious terrorism in Islamabad falls squarely 
on General Musharraf's government, which has 
clearly chosen to secretly sanction it. It is a 
desperate stratagem but it will not work. 
Musharraf is already a lame duck. His three 
principal intelligence agencies are split among 
themselves on many issues, as is his political 
party. The Americans have finally wearied of his 
cleverness in fighting for their dollars while 
secretly supporting the Taliban. When he exits - 
which may be sooner rather than later - Musharraf 
will have left a legacy that will last for 
generations. All this for a little more taste of 
power.

The author teaches physics at Quaid-e-Azam 
University, Islamabad. Pictures courtesy of 
Ishaque Choudhry.


Pervez Hoodbhoy
Chairman, Department of Physics
Quaid-e-Azam University
Islamabad 45320, Pakistan.

______


[2]


Nepali Times
11 May 07 - 17 May 07

New country, old habits
LISTEN TO 'THE PEOPLE' WHILE PLANNING A NEW NEPAL

by Nimalka Fernando

In Kathmandu last week, I met friends from the 
human rights community in Nepal coming out of a 
class on federalism. Over a decade ago, when I 
was an election observer here, I, like other 
activists, was delighted to see the emergence of 
a robust human rights and democratic activism in 
Nepal. As part of the international rights 
community, we nurtured these forces, which we 
also saw as supporting the aspirations of SAARC 
citizens.

What we did not expect to see was these trends 
deteriorating slowly as political struggles took 
hold. What happened? Did the progressives became 
so state-ist that they removed themselves from 
the 'people' in order to sustain the regime?

This situation begs another question of the 
Nepali polity: who is setting the agenda now? Who 
is charting new territory, and what does it look 
like?

Nepal is going through an intense process of 
constitution-making. The crucial issue of dealing 
with the monarchy might have been resolved in the 
call for a constitution which, at its core, 
respects 'people's power'. In a legalistic sense 
the alternate to a unitary constitution obviously 
is 'federalist'.

Post-independence India and Sri Lanka have seen 
violence and blood-shed as communities and 
nationalities struggled for equality. I am in 
favour of federalism in Sri Lanka-where the 
monarchy was kicked out by colonial 
powers-because political power-sharing is the 
only way to resolve its raging ethnic conflict. 
The struggle for federalism together with the 
right to self-determination suggest homelands, 
distinct languages, territories, and cultural 
identities.

But this might not be appropriate for Nepal. 
Nepal today is at the threshold of giving birth 
to the diversity of its people, rather than 
making 'one nation'. Can its political future, 
the aspirations of its minority communities, 
janajatis, dalits, and other caste groups be 
enshrined in an effective and representative 
manner in a federalist project?

All constitutional pundits offer all countries 
coming out of armed struggle federalist options, 
and perhaps they are compelled by constitutional 
law to offer federalism as a structure for 
power-sharing. But one needs to begin from the 
fundamentals.

What are the core concerns of the Nepali people? 
Where in a federal structure would we place 
dalits and janjatis? Is geographical territory or 
non-territorial asymmetry more important? What 
will be devolved unit? If it is regional units, 
how can we find representation in that political 
establishment for discriminated-against 
communities?

Nepal has to face up to the crucial challenge of 
its democratic struggle and related reforms. It 
still has large unresolved issues related to land 
reform and has to engage in a public discourse 
regarding the equal rights of women and girl 
children. It has to find the best mechanism to 
facilitate equal representation of all minorities 
in the governing process and find modalities to 
combat discriminatory practices, whether 
traditional or recent.

It is of course an exciting experience to deal 
with the notion of power sharing immediately 
after a victory of this nature. But we must not 
forget the soul of this struggle. The strength of 
this resistance to monarchy and caste-based 
domination was drawn from those who risked their 
lives for a democratic and just Nepal. The cause 
for free and independent Nepal was nurtured by 
'the people'.

The formation of a New Nepal calls for a high 
level of representation of the people at all 
decision making levels in governance. And there's 
no way to facilitate this representation if we 
can't even agree on a state model.

And before state structures are formed, there has 
to be broad-based dialogue as to how unity can be 
forged within and among its numerous communities. 
Representation and participatory democracy are 
crucial issues for debate. Civil society and 
political forces need to take their task 
seriously and broaden their terms of debate 
before mapping the country's options.

Nimalka Fernando is a Sri Lankan attorney and 
founding member of Asian Regional Exchange for 
New Alternatives.


______


[3]

New Age
May 13, 2007

Editorial
RISING NUMBER OF FATWA VICTIMS

A survey by Bangladesh Mahila Parishad reveals 
that the number of victims of fatwa is on the 
rise. Over the last four months alone, 50 women 
in seven districts fell victim to the 
obscurantist religious decree. Needless to 
mention, the unfortunate ones are mostly poor 
women of rural areas. In the year 2006, the 
number of such cases stood at 66. The survey is 
based on newspaper reports and so one cannot be 
sure that the number is exhaustive, as many cases 
may have gone unreported. Set against this rising 
incidents of fatwa is the rarity of the instances 
of prosecution of perpetrators. As the president 
of the Parishad said, very few cases have been 
filed against those who have issued fatwas. The 
main obstacle is that under existing laws the 
issuing of fatwa is not treated as a crime.
    Democracy and human rights lose their 
significance when religious bigots are allowed to 
run a parallel system of awarding punishment in 
defiance of law and governmental authority. Many 
families have been ruined, many women have been 
driven to desperation, some even to suicide, and 
yet, there are no signs of the evil abating. The 
social progress attained through decades of 
struggle and effort is in danger of being negated 
due to the doings of the self-appointed guardians 
of religion and morality. They have also 
arrogated to themselves the role of prosecutor 
and judge.
    With the steeply rising incidences of fatwas, 
these can no longer be dismissed as isolated 
instances. It is clear that the government's 
attitude of acquiescence has emboldened the 
authors of these unauthorised, arbitrary and 
cruel religious rulings. Also, in 2001, a High 
Court bench gave a ruling prohibiting the 
issuance of fatwa and terming it an unlawful act. 
An interested quarter preferred an appeal against 
the High Court ruling and the matter rests there 
all these years due to absence of positive action 
on the part of the government. Government 
inaction can easily be construed as acquiescence 
and support. This is perhaps the reason that they 
are undaunted by the emergency powers of the 
present government
    The government must come out with a clear 
decision over a matter that amounts to erosion of 
its legal jurisdiction. Every momentous problem 
cannot be swept under the carpet on the plea that 
it is a 'sensitive issue'. It becomes sensitive 
when it is not dealt with firmly at the initial 
stage. Appeasing obscurantism has never proved 
happy and in matters of fatwa the perpetrators 
are not merely obscurantists but local 
persecutors out to challenge the prevailing law, 
delivery of justice and governmental authority.


_____


[4]

FUNDAMENTALISTS ASSAULT ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION.
INDIA'S BEST ART SCHOOL HELD HOSTAGE !
http://www.sacw.net/FreeExpAndFundos/index.html


(i)
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/05/fine-arts-faculty-of-m-s-university.html
http://membres.lycos.fr/sacw/spip.php?article101

FINE ARTS FACULTY OF M. S. UNIVERSITY UNDER SIEGE

The Fine Arts Faculty of M.S. University, 
Vadodara is one of the best institutions of its 
kind in the country. It has maintained high 
academic standards and has rightly earned an 
impressive reputation both nationally and 
internationally. Apart from the Baroda School of 
Art which originated in this Faculty, it has also 
nurtured some of India's most acclaimed artists. 

Today, the Faculty is under siege by obscurantist 
forces that claim to work in the name of 
religion. Since 9 May 2007, the students and 
teachers of the Fine Arts Faculty, Vadodara have 
been the target of the wrath of religious 
fundamentalists.

We, the undersigned, condemn the recent attempts 
by religious fundamentalist forces to gag the 
freedom of expression and the blatant violation 
of democratic rights at this prestigious Faculty. 
We further condemn the connivance of the 
University authorities with these forces. It is 
clear that the authorities have acted at the 
behest of these political forces, rather than in 
the interests of the students and teachers of the 
Faculty.

As has been reported in the media, BJP leader 
Neeraj Jain and his group illegally entered the 
campus on 9th May 2007 and vitiated the 
atmosphere in the Faculty, where students had put 
up their works on display, as part of their 
examination procedure. These works were to be 
assessed by external examiners. 

However, that was not to be. Neeraj Jain and his 
accomplices barged into the campus on the pretext 
that some graphic prints and paintings by a 
student, Chandra Mohan, were offensive to their 
religious sentiments. So saying they mouthed 
abuse and threatened the students and teachers 
with dire consequences. 

At their behest, the police entered the campus 
illegally, without seeking permission from the 
Dean or from other University officials, as is 
the rule. Chandra Mohan, the student-artist was 
arrested without a warrant or due procedure. This 
is in flagrant disregard of the Mr. D. K. Basu 
guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court, which 
stipulate that the arrestee has to be informed 
about both the complainant and the nature of the 
complaint.       

Subsequently, the University authorities have 
displayed complete complicity with the 
perpetrators of this unfortunate event. Far from 
initiating any action against them, as demanded 
by the students and the teachers or making any 
efforts to secure the release of the student, the 
University authorities turned on them. It is 
unconscionable that the University authorities 
asked the acting Dean of the Fine Arts Faculty, 
Dr. Shivji Panikkar, to issue a statement that 
was tantamount to an apology for displaying such 
works. It is deplorable that subsequently, the 
authorities ordered him to shut down an 
exhibition organized by the students where they 
displayed erotic art in traditional and Indian 
Art. It is shocking that upon Dr. Panikkar's 
refusal to do so, Senate members and the pro Vice 
Chancellor were directly involved in sealing the 
archives and confiscating the objects on display.

We condemn the suspension orders against the 
Acting Dean, Dr. Shivji Panikkar. It clearly 
compromises the autonomy of the University and 
the authorities seem to be handing over the reins 
of the University to outside elements whose main 
aim is to create fear and terror in the minds of 
the students and teachers of the entire 
University.

We strongly uphold the right of every citizen to 
express his or her opinions on any matter. 
However, this cannot take the form of coercion, 
intimidation, and interference in the functioning 
of an autonomous and democratic institution like 
the Fine Arts Faculty.

We strongly condemn the actions of Neeraj Jain 
and his associates, as well as the police. We 
express shock and dismay at the role played by 
the University authorities, which is equal to 
abdication of their primary responsibilities that 
is defending the students and teachers and the 
integrity of each Faculty within the University.

We demand:

1.    Unconditional and immediate release of the student Chandra Mohan
2.    A complaint be registered against Neeraj 
Jain by the University authorities
3.    Immediate withdrawal of the suspension orders against Dr. Shivji Panikkar


Dr. J. S. Bandukwala, Bina Srinivasan, Maya 
Valecha,  Chinu Srinivasan, Tapan Dasgupta, Ashok 
Gupta, Renu Khanna, Rohit Prajapati (PUCL, 
Vadodara)
Nimisha Desai (Olakh - feminist group)
Maya Sharma (Vikalp - women's group)
Trupti Shah,   Deepali Ghalani (Sahiyar, Stree Sangathan)

o  o  o

(ii) [VHP and Church team up to slay art work in 
Baroda; Jain and Kant lead the game !]

Ahmedabad Newsline
May 14, 2007

WARRING GROUPS FLEX MUSCLES

BJP and saffron groups take to streets with 
slogans and memorandums; artists mobilise support 
of art fraternity through blogs, emails, 
opinion-building
Express News Service

Vadodara, May 13: It was a busy Sunday in 
Vadodara, as warring groups got busy mobilising 
support for an expected showdown at MSU's fine 
arts department on Monday, when the art 
fraternity from across the country is expected to 
hold a protest meet on the campus.

The day also saw one strange alliance between 
former VHP leader Niraj Jain and Christian 
associations to devise an action plan to counter 
the support garnered by the artists' group. While 
the BJP and the saffron groups took to streets 
with slogans and memorandums, the artists' group 
mobilised support through blogs, emails and 
opinion-building among the country's art 
fraternity.

Amidst all this, the Vadodara police is on 
tenterhooks to ensure peaceful protests on 
Monday, more so as the hearing on jailed student 
Chandramohan's bail plea is also slated for the 
day.

It was in 1998 that Jain, who owns the Hill 
Memorial School, had hit a Christian priest for 
allegedly converting Hindus. But on Sunday, Jain 
met a group of Christians to chalk out a strategy 
to counter the artists' protest. Both Jain and 
the Christian group claim that they have been 
offended by the art works of Chandramohan. When 
asked, Rev Emmanuel Kant, who is representing the 
Christian group said that they were not entirely 
siding with Jain as they did not approve of his 
aggressive approach, and have decided to mount a 
passive opposition.

Kant said the Protestant and Roman Catholic 
groups had united against the paintings. The 
Christian group is planning to include 
memorandums to the President of India, the prime 
minister, Gujarat chief minister and the Governor.

Jain and his associates, the Akhil Bharatiya 
Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and Hind Rakshak Samiti 
also demonstrated in front of incharge, dean of 
fine arts faculty Shivaji Panikkar's residence on 
Sunday.

So far, the art fraternity has begun at least two 
blogs about Chandramohan's controversial arrest 
for his "objectionable" works of art.

Also, several chain emails started by renowned 
artists have been doing the rounds, while the 
topic is also being discussed on many art forums.

o o o

(iii)

MORAL POLICE VS ARTISTS
Mansi Sharma
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/05_2007/moral-police-vs-artists-in-baroda-40512.html

o o o

(iv)
ndtv.com
ART ASSAULT: MUMBAI GATHERS IN SUPPORT

" Whatever is happening is totally unacceptable! 
You can't use Hinduisim as a basis for your 
actions. "
- Kitu Gidwani, model and actor

NDTV Correspondent
Sunday, May 13, 2007 (Mumbai)
Protests are spreading to other parts of the 
country after the arrest of an art student by the 
police in Baroda.

Artists and art lovers in Mumbai got together to 
express solidarity for the student of one of 
India's best known fine arts colleges.

The student Chandra Mohan is still in jail after 
being arrested by the Gujarat police for the 
portrayal of Hindu Gods, in so called obscene 
manner, while the Dean of the Faculty has been 
suspended after protesting the arrest of the 
student.

Fight for freedom

From painting canvases to preparing protest 
posters, for students at Baroda's faculty of fine 
arts the last two days have been a lesson.

They are learning what the fight for artistic 
freedom is all about. ''You can't be dictated and 
told what is art and what is not,'' said one. 
''The person who should be punished is still 
outside,'' said another.

''Today it was students, yesterday Parzania. How 
long can we tolerate this? We have to raise our 
voice,'' said another protestor.

These voices found an echo in Mumbai, where 
artists and others gathered to show their support 
to the students of Baroda.

''I find it a very sorry and sad situation. I 
think freedom has to be guarded,'' said Jehangir 
Sabavala, Artist.

''Whatever is happening is totally unacceptable! 
You can't use Hinduism as a basis for your 
actions,'' said Kitu Gidwani, model and actor.

''I think this is something very disturbing. It's 
bamboozling the freedom of expression,'' said 
Govind Nihalani, Filmmaker.

''It's got to do with politicians who try to 
rabble rouse and take advantage of such 
situations,'' said Alyque Padamsee, Adman and 
theatre-person.

As the country speaks up against moral policing 
and curbs on artistic freedom, artists in Mumbai 
hope their voice will also be loud enough to free 
Chandra Mohan, the art student who under arrest 
in Baroda. (With inputs from Supriya S, Yogesh P, 
Laxman J, Ramesh S, Vasudevan)

o o o

ATREYEE GUPTA AND SUGATA RAY SUGGEST WE SEND 
LETTERS OF PROTEST TO MS UNIVERSITY, BARODA AND 
TO INDIAN AUTHORITIES
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/05/send-letters-of-protest-re-ms.html

o o o


PAINTING THE ART WORLD RED

by Ranjit Hoskote
(Hindustan Times, May 13, 2007)

The outrageous arrest of Chandramohan, a 
final-year fine arts student at the Maharaja 
Sayajirao University, Baroda, on May 9, has 
confirmed that the only right that is taken 
seriously in India today is the right to take 
offence. The right to take offence is not a 
fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution, 
but all the same, it is the most easily enforced 
of all rights. All you need is a local demagogue 
with a taste for publicity, a few rampaging 
goons, policemen who favour the violent over the 
reasonable, and a lower judiciary that is 
reluctant to defy the mob.

Chandramohan, who was taken into custody by the 
Baroda police without a proper warrant, after he 
had been roughed up by a gang of Vishwa Hindu 
Parishad (VHP) activists, has been charged with 
public obscenity and an attempt to incite 
communal disharmony. The images to which such 
turbulent opposition has been mounted show a 
woman, perhaps a goddess, birthing a man (which 
is no more fearful than the Lajja-gouri of Hindu 
sacred art), and a crucifix with a penis (this, 
an obvious homage to Robert Mapplethorpe). Both 
images retrieve the passionate human dramas that 
lie at the core of sacred narratives. Both images 
insist upon the artist's right to revisit 
inherited lore, to reinvent images and 
narratives, to integrate the sacred as an element 
of secular experience.

The treatment meted out to this young artist 
follows a pattern of violations against cultural 
freedom in India over the last two decades. The 
programmatic persecution of MF Husain is the most 
visible of these violations. But many artists, 
writers, film-makers, scholars and other cultural 
practitioners have suffered the attentions of the 
State, of pressure groups, and of informal 
alliances between these forces: Anand Patwardhan, 
Surendran Nair, Sheba Chhachhi, Rekha Rodwittiya, 
to name just four. Galleries, research institutes 
and bookstores have been attacked, paintings and 
manuscripts have been burned, concerts have been 
disrupted, and films refused screenings, all in 
the name of the right to take offence.

The group is everything, even if it is a fiction 
or a fraction; the individual is nothing. 
Paradoxically, in a Republic built to safeguard 
individual rights, one can bargain with the State 
and even force State action (or secure State 
inaction) by citing the sensitivities of a group. 
But one cannot make the same effective claim on 
behalf of an individual's cultural freedom. Thus, 
for example, Laine's study of Shivaji was banned 
instantly when Maratha organisations agitated 
against it. But Anand Patwardhan must fight legal 
battles for years before Doordarshan agrees to 
screen one of his critical documentaries.

Champions of the right to take offence assume 
that they alone have the right to speak of 
certain issues, that their imagination has 
primacy over that of others. Thus, for instance, 
the VHP assumes that Hindu icons can exist only 
as objects in a Hindutva discourse. This 
explicitly denies the right of other discourses 
to construct them in different ways, as the 
objects of scholarship, of art, of good-natured 
humour, or of open-ended faith.

This explains the grimly ironic turn of events 
following Chandramohan's arrest, when the 
self-appointed custodians of Hindu culture 
demanded the closure of an exhibition showing the 
vital role of the erotic in Hindu sacred art. On 
11 May, in silent protest, some of Chandramohan's 
fellow students put up an exhibition of 
reproductions of images drawn from across 2500 
years of Indian art. These included the 
Gudimallam Shiva, perhaps the earliest known 
Shiva image, which combines the lingam with an 
anthropomorphic form of the deity; a Kushan 
mukha-linga or masked lingam; Lajja-gouris from 
Ellora and Orissa, resplendent in their fecund 
nakedness; erotic statuary from Modhera, Konark 
and Khajuraho; as well as Raga-mala paintings 
from Rajasthan. All these images, which rank 
among the finest produced through the centuries 
in the subcontinent, celebrate the sensuous and 
the passionate dimensions of existence - which, 
in the Hindu world-view, are inseparably twinned 
with the austere and the contemplative.

This treasure of Hindu sacred art did not win the 
favour of the establishment, which ordered the 
exhibition hall to be sealed. It appears that the 
champions of a resurgent Hindu identity are 
acutely embarrassed by the presence of the erotic 
at the centre of Hindu sacred art. As they may 
well be, for the roots of Hindutva do not lie in 
Hinduism. Rather, they lie in a crude mixture of 
German romanticism, Victorian puritanism and Nazi 
methodology. What happens next, we wonder? Will 
the champions of Hindutva go around the country 
chipping away at temple murals, breaking down 
monuments, whitewashing wall paintings, and 
burning manuscripts and folios? Perhaps they will 
not stop until they have forced the unpredictable 
richness of Hindu culture to conform to their own 
tunnel vision of life, art, image and narrative.

The first move in the establishment of a fascist 
system is thought-policing, the curtailment of 
the liberal imagination. We see this in the 
breaching of the sanctity of academia, with goons 
ransacking the Bhandarkar Oriental Research 
Institute, Pune, in January 2004, or police 
entering the M S University campus last week.

And physical attack or arrest has become the 
first response to any criticism or departure from 
convention. If anyone had a problem with 
Chandramohan's images, for instance, surely they 
could have resorted to the old-fashioned option 
of talking to the artist? But conversation has 
long ago vanished from the menu of 
problem-solving devices, as India turns into an 
illiberal democracy.

Periodic elections do not, by themselves 
guarantee a liberal democracy; they only 
guarantee periodic changes of government. A true 
democracy demands constant revitalisation of the 
spirit of openness, generosity and liberality of 
opinion. Democracy is not an achieved set of laws 
or a manual of instructions; it is a work in 
progress. It is a space that allows diverse 
imaginations to interact, it is a community of 
conversations. Given the direction in which we 
are heading, can we recover democracy as a 
community of conversations, rather than as a 
space segmented and partitioned by communitarian 
claims? Can we allow for the interplay of diverse 
imaginations, with none exerting a monopolistic 
claim on experience? Can we productively 
reconstitute the same objects in different 
discourses, without inviting assault on our civic 
and cultural freedoms? Can we preserve nuance, 
detail and polychromy in our accounts of 
ourselves - as complex selves in a complex 
society - without being coerced into subscription 
towards one group identity or another by 
colour-blind demagogues? Can we protect the right 
to artistic truth and the right to critique?

And indeed, why must the artist be called upon to 
defend his or her work, while the agitator goes 
free? The legal onus of proving that an art-work 
can cause offence should weigh down the agitator. 
After all, there is a strong structural 
similarity among all these incidents: while the 
great public has no problem, a lunatic fringe 
that claims to speak for the majority monopolises 
public space, and claims the right to scrutinise 
the work of cultural practitioners. The crisis is 
manufactured, not from spontaneous feeling, but 
in a motivated and well-planned fashion.

In the Chandramohan case, the VHP activists knew 
exactly what they were looking for, entering the 
display and heading straight for his work. 
Perhaps it is time to add another minority to 
India's social fabric: the vulnerable minority of 
cultural practitioners.

Ranjit Hoskote is an art critic and curator

o o o

(viiii)

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=236116
Ahmedabad Newsline
May 13, 2007

NEWS

STATE'S ARTISTS AND ACADEMICIANS CONDEMN MSU EPISODE IN UNISON
Express News Service

Ahmedabad, May 12: ARTISTS and academicians have 
come together to denounce the move by Vadodara's 
M S University authorities to seal the famed 
Faculty of Fine Arts and suspend its incharge 
dean Shivaji Panikkar for "disobeying" orders of 
the University.

Calling it "goonda raj" and "an attack on 
democracy", danseuse Mallika Sarabhai said this 
kind of "moral policing" by the right-wing 
fundamentalists was no different from the fatwa 
on the Danish cartoonist some time ago. "They are 
completely against Hindu culture and Hindu 
values," she said.

Advertisement
Sarabhai, herself a target of fundamental 
elements, said that the perpetrators didn't know 
that not a single sculpture of our ancient 
temples is clothed. "I want to challenge them to 
show me a single sculpture which is clothed," she 
asked.

Literary critic and cultural activist Ganesh 
Devy, former faculty of M S University, also 
condemned the incident by saying that it was 
"avoidable" and "unnecessary." He said that there 
should not be censorship on the expressions of 
the students and paintings are their expressions. 
He added that M S University is known because of 
the faculty of fine Arts and ih has been targeted 
by none other than the university authorities 
themselves.

Former acting vice chancellor of South Gujarat 
University, Kalpana Shah described the incident 
as "disgusting" calling it an attack on the 
artistic freedom. "Those who were supposed to 
protect the students from outside elements have 
turned against the students and faculty members. 
It is very unfortunate," she lamented.

However, the most moving reaction came from 
suspended dean Shivaji Panikkar, who has served 
for 27 years at the department. "I am deeply 
pained because they have not valued the work I 
have done here. I have dedicated my life for the 
service of the department," he said.

_____


[5]

HINDUTVA SLAPPED HARD IN THE FACE

by I.K.Shukla

The RSS and others are delusional and damn wrong 
to certify BSP's win as Hindu Social Engineering.

First and foremost, it was they who pioneered and 
profited from Hindu Social Engineering in 
philistine and perverse ways in state after 
state. The credit of invention goes to them and 
the right to intellectual property (patent) is 
entirely theirs.

What Mayawati (BSP) has done in UP, what has 
caused shudders in the status quoist usurpers of 
power, and fiercely fluttered the saffronazi 
dovecotes , is farthest from the Hindu Social 
Engineering, the diabolical project to which 
Hindutva is religiously tied.

Embarrassed in being shown the door with a 
massive boo by the perceptive electorate in Uttar 
Pradesh so unceremoniously, close to wholesale 
eclipse, and kicked hard in the rump, the shell 
shocked Hindutva hegemons are desperately seeking 
to save face by explaining away their humiliating 
rejection.

Hindu Social Engineering is a sour and bitter 
ascription of the BSP win, cooked malefically by 
the media and political punters, which is owned 
by and is pledged in perpetuity to the minority 
of elitist power grabbers, presumed to be 
divinely enthroned.

Mayawati rejected Hindutva and its malevolent 
agenda of Hindu Social Engineering, another 
pompous synonym of Hindutva, deceitfully coined 
in desperation.

She is not pandering to Hindutva soft- or 
hardcore which, in any form, is a criminal cult, 
a predatory enterprise, and a political 
conspiracy of Manu's progeny and Methuselah's 
brittle remains. She has rejected Hindutva as a 
national disgrace and a social pathology.

What she has done is, in terms of electoral 
strategy, a shrewd and timely political 
engineering of a very inclusive and democratic 
kind, nationally necessary and socially desirable.

In the short term, for the myopia-handicapped, it 
may appear to be electoral engineering with 
immediate reference to UP elections. But spread 
India-wide, and marching on, as it must, it would
assume its full stature in not too distant a 
future, as nothing less than monumental 
Socio-political Engineering, which is what it 
aims at.

Is she an opportunist? Yes, unambiguously. Recall 
her visit to Gujarat stumping for Modi, a 
well-known fascist, an odious figure, who is a 
disgrace to India. She did not hesitate joining 
hands with Manuvadi BJP and with Lohiaite SP, and 
phase by phase, stage by stage, it is she who 
rose to heights she had envisioned for herself. 
And they - BJP and SP - were all thrown into an 
abyss progressively deeper. Her touch shrank 
them, dwarfed them into pitiable creatures.

Why cavil at her victory so shrewdly planned and so patiently pursued?

Unltil Bahujan Samaj is given due recognition and 
accommodation in social and political terms, just 
by dint and in consequence of its numerical 
majority, until this age-long iniquity is buried 
deep in history's trash heap, and substantively 
atoned for, the diversionary solicitude suddenly 
being shown for Sarvajan would sound hollow and 
disingenuous.

Hadn't we had enough already of Sarvodaya, the first incarnation of Sarvajan?

Bahujan must not be trusted chronically to suffer 
from short memory, ever amenable to manipulation, 
and vulnerable to crocodile tears.
IKS/13May07



_____


(6)  India: Extra Judicial Killing Circuit

Hindustan Times
May 13, 2007

FAKE ENCOUNTERS & THE NATION

by Harsh Mander
May 12, 2007

The current wave of outrage in the country over 
the horrific murders by the men in khaki in 
Gujarat is likely to be transient, a passing 
squall. The dust that it has raised will rapidly 
settle, and we will forget, in the same way as we 
have expelled from memory so many similar 
inequities of the recent past: the women who 
stripped themselves naked in anguish in Manipur 
to protest the violations of security forces, the 
staged killings of innocents as militants in 
Kashmir, the mass cremations of thousands of 
young men who were abducted by the police and 
later dubbed Khalistani extremists in Punjab in 
the troubled 80s, counterfeit  encounter killings 
of alleged  Naxalite sympathisers in backwaters 
of rural ferment and oppression for decades in 
Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Chhattisgarh, and bogus 
encounters of alleged terrorists  in the 
country's capital, to name just a few.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), in 
1996, submitted a report to the Supreme Court 
that established that in just three crematoriums 
of Amritsar, as many as 2,097 illegal cremations 
were carried out by security forces between 1984 
and 1995.  An independent human rights 
investigation established that illegal disposal 
of bodies by security forces were not confined to 
the three crematoriums of Amritsar. 
Disappearances occurred in all the districts of 
Punjab. In nearly 60 per cent of the cases, the 
persons who 'disappeared' were subsequently 
reported to have died in police 'encounters'. The 
victims included doctors, lawyers, journalists, 
students, businessmen, even government civil and 
police employees. In over 25 per cent of the 
cases, the police not only took away the victim, 
but also destroyed, damaged or confiscated the 
family property. In an equal number, police 
abducted and killed more than one member of the 
same family. The police routinely refused to 
inform the victims' families, and extorted money 
from them.

The Supreme Court referred the matter to the 
National Human Rights Commission, and did nothing 
when the Commission took a minimalist 
interpretation of its ambit. After around 10 
years of tortuous proceedings, pursued resolutely 
by brave and devastated families of the victims 
and supported by dedicated human rights defenders 
like Indira Jaising, Ram Narayan Kumar and Ashok 
Agrwaal, the Commission refused in the end to 
hold any officer or agency accountable for the 
violations, and declined to investigate 
disappearances, extra-judicial executions, 
custodial deaths and illegal cremations 
throughout Punjab.

In Andhra Pradesh, again for a decade, a 
committee of concerned citizens convened by SR 
Sankaran has tirelessly pressed for the 
deployment of moral, democratic and legal 
instruments to  stem the unending brutal spiral 
of violence that has seized many impoverished 
districts of Telengana.

But there are not many people who heed these 
voices of humanity. In Gujarat, in response to a 
question from a member of the assembly, as many 
as 21 encounter killings by the state police were 
reported between 2003 and 2006. But the list 
submitted by the Gujarat government did not 
include the names of Sohrabuddin and Kauserbi, 
which is a grave breach of privilege. A 
deliberate murky cloud of official secrecy 
continues to hide the numbers and circumstances 
of encounter deaths by the Gujarat state police.

However, even this limited official report again 
raises disturbing questions. Six of those killed 
were already in police custody, and it is 
incredible that they could possess firearms in 
custody to warrant killing by the police in self 
defence. In one case, the police claim that two 
policemen fired six rounds to kill a man with a 
dummy revolver. There was no  post-mortem, or the 
statutory magisterial enquiry in any of the 
cases. There is no material to even subsequently 
justify the inference that they were terrorists 
or grave offenders. All these facts were brought 
to the notice of the Supreme Court in a petition 
earlier this year by BG Verghese and lawyer Nitya 
Ramakrishnan, but the court  did not find enough 
basis to order an enquiry into the encounter 
killings.

Each nation must strike a fine ethical and 
political balance between protecting its security 
and the rights of its people. In India, the 
choice of the Executive, and even the Judiciary, 
have tilted mostly in favour of permitting the 
uniformed forces to break the law of the land 
with impunity, even to kill, especially in times 
of perceived threats to national integrity - 
cheered along by most segments of the middle 
classes. Policemen often claim that they are 
motivated by a higher love for the nation. Many 
of them are, but not those who kill unarmed 
people in defiance of the law of the land. KPS 
Gill, who led the security forces in Punjab in 
the decisive 'bullet for bullet' bloody combat 
against militancy in the late 1980s, describes 
his forces as men who 'fight and die for India' 
and 'who risked their lives in defence of the 
State'. The disgraced Gujarat police officer DG 
Vanzara also fashions his encounter killings as 
deshbhakti (patriotism), and claims that with his 
arrest, 'the battlelines are drawn', presumably 
in his war against the Muslim community, which is 
of course viciously demonised as terrorists 
implacably unfaithful to their motherland. LK 
Advani, as the union home minister in 2001, 
announced in Punjab that his government was 
'contemplating steps to provide legal protection 
and relief to the personnel of the security 
forces facing prosecution for alleged excesses 
during anti-insurgency operations' in Punjab, 
Kashmir and the north-east.

A fake killing is not an aberration of a few 
runaway miscreant police officers; it is an 
integral if shadowy element of the system itself, 
one in which the state eliminates people outside 
the process of the law, as an instrument to tame 
civic dissent. These bullets indeed crush with 
state terror and lawlessness, the weakest and 
most disenfranchised of our people, particularly 
if they are restive, religious and ethnic 
minorities, Dalits and tribal people, 
agricultural workers and slum dwellers. These are 
the very people who are excluded from that 
'nation' which the trigger-happy police forces 
claim to defend. 

We may forget and move on, but for those whose 
loved ones were felled by furtive bullets fired 
by agents of a democratic state that functions 
lawlessly, there will be no closure or healing. 
It is only truth, however ugly, told with 
unflinching honesty, which would heal their 
unassuaged agony. For this to happen, the 
leaders, the courts and the people of this land 
need to stand tall on the side of justice. No 
state is genuinely secure on foundations of 
injustice.

(The writer is founder member of Aman Biradri, a social organisation)



o o o

Police harassment and intimidation in Chhattisgarh
- PUCL's Vice President Dr. Binyan Sen under threat
- Enquire into encounter Deaths
http://membres.lycos.fr/sacw/spip.php?article100

______


(7)

28.04.2007

A MATURE RESPONSE - NEED OF THE HOUR

by Rajindar Sachar

The threat held out to judiciary by some 
politicians because of interim stay of OBC quota 
shows lack of maturity and understanding of the 
role of judiciary in our constitutional set up. 
Is it advisable to raise the pitch, however, 
important the issue may be. After all we are a 
civilized constitutional democracy and must 
proceed on the basis of bonafide action by each 
instrumentality of the State, however we may 
disagree with it.

The charge that courts do not understand the 
sensitivity of the matters affecting the masses 
is a bogey politicians tend to put forward to 
conceal their own inaptness.

May one query the politician as to why while 
introducing reservation in services for OBC in 
1990, the quota in higher education was not 
included at that time.

In 1951 the SC held that reservations could also 
be given in promotions but in 1992 the SC took 
the contrary view. The Parliament amended the 
Constitution to facilitate reservations in 
promotions. The Supreme Court upheld the 
amendment thereby accepting that this was a 
policy matter (not forbidden by the Constitution 
and the court therefore respected the mandate of 
the Parliament. No scope of over reaching was 
even attempted.

Again when the Supreme Court held illegal 
accelerated seniority given to Scheduled Castes, 
the Parliament amended the law to reverse that 
view. Challenge to that amendment was negative by 
the court.

Again the Supreme Court conceded to Parliament 
the exclusive right to expel members of 
Parliament for any alleged misbehavior within the 
precincts of Parliament.

But now suddenly when Supreme Court stayed as an 
interim measure the implementation of OBC quota 
for this session, the court has been lampooned as 
indulging in adventurist incursion. So much was 
the political gimmickery and arrogance of the 
executive that it was not willing to exclude the 
creamy layer segment even for this academic year 
(and which, many impartial court observers feel, 
may have persuaded the court to relax its total 
stay and allow amendment to operate for 
non-creamy OBC students. Is it that OBC 
leadership is in the hand of creamy layer and 
hence a stand which might have found acceptance 
by the court, and helped non-creamy poor OBC was 
not even considered, even when urged by Non-OBC 
parties from within the front. And yet the chorus 
of aggressive blaming game against the Supreme 
Court is acquiring shriller tone.

Politicians seem to think that the courts ought 
to give to all the Parliament’s decisions 
automatic seal of approval. But that would mean 
being false to the oath by the judge who can only 
uphold the lawful decisions, and can not keep 
silent in face of illegality.

In this enunciation of respective jurisdiction of 
different instrumentalities of State, it worth 
quoting the observations of French Philosopher 
Baron De Montesquieu who said that "when the 
legislative and executive powers are united in 
the same persons or body, there can be no liberty 
because apprehensions may arise lest the same 
monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws to 
enforce them in a tyrannical manner . Were the 
power of judging joined with the legislature the 
life and liberty of the subject would be exposed 
to arbitrary control, for the judge would then be 
the legislature. Were it joined to the executive 
power, the judge might behave with all the 
violence of an oppressor".

Judicial activism has always invited controversy 
from the Executive, but at the same time it has 
invited kudos from the public who being so 
callously sidelined by the Executive find some 
solace from restraining hand exercised on them by 
the judiciary. But judiciary also evidently can 
not run riot. It needs to be remembered as said 
by Alexender Hamilton one of the founding fathers 
of the American that "the exercise of judicial 
review "only supposes that the power of the 
people is superior to both (court and 
legislature).

But then as Chief Justice Rehnquist of USA 
Supreme Court said "Judges, so long as they are 
relatively normal human beings can no more escape 
being influenced by public opinion in the long 
run than can people working at other jobs".

As aptly put by Chief Justice Patanjali Sastri, 
(1952) where he said “Before proceeding to 
consider this question, we think it right to 
point out, what is sometimes overlooked that our 
constitution contains express provision for 
judicial review of legislation as to its 
conformity with the constitution. If, then, the 
Courts in this country face up such important and 
none too easy task, it is not out of any desire 
to tilt at legislative authority in a crusader’s 
spirit, but in discharge of a duty plainly laid 
upon them by the Constitution. This is especially 
true as regards the 'Fundamental Rights', as to 
which this court has been assigned the role of a 
sentinel on the 'qui vive' While the court 
naturally attach great weight to the legislative 
judgment, it can not desert its own duty to 
determine finally the constitutionality an 
impugned statute. We have ventured on these 
obvious remarks because it appears to have been 
suggested in some quarters that the courts in the 
new set up are out to seek clashes with the 
legislatures in the country.

Now that matter is to be heard shortly and hoping 
it will by a constitutional bench, we must 
withhold our comments till after the decision.

It should be noted that the present judicial 
activism has been brought about as a consequence 
of the misfeasance of politicians. It will be a 
pity if ever a climate was created against the 
exercise of judicial activism, because such 
eventuality may lead to the loss of faith in law 
as an instrument of social change and justice.

But I can take solace that this will not happen, 
because as the injunction of 'The Holy Quran' 
says "justice is an unassailable fortress, built 
on the brow of a mountain which can not be 
overthrown by the violence of torrents, nor 
demolished by the forces of armies".



_____

[8]

The Guardian
May 5, 2007

POACHING FOR BIN LADEN

In the jungles of India, local animal trappers 
have a new breed of client: Islamic militants 
using the trade in rare wildlife to raise funds 
for their cause. Adrian Levy and Cathy 
Scott-Clark report from Assam

http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,,2073168,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1


______

[9]


Outlook Magazine
May 14, 2007

REVIEW
Thereby Hangs A Tale
This edition reproduces many essays and court 
testaments, including the famous and iconic ones.
Partho Datta


BHAGAT SINGH: THE JAIL NOTEBOOK AND OTHER WRITINGS
by Compiled with an Introduction by Chaman Lal
LeftWord
Pages: 191; Rs: 350

	In September 1928, the Hindustan 
Socialist Republican Army was born in the ruins 
of Delhi's Ferozeshah Kotla. In the motley group 
were Bhagat Singh and Ajoy Ghosh, future general 
secretary of the CPI. The HSRA marked a decisive 
shift from the romantic cult of the bomb and 
individual heroism to Marxian socialism, which 
promised a more convincing understanding of 
politics, especially colonialism.

Within a year Bhagat Singh was in jail.
He was there for two years till his execution in 
1931. He was 24. His jail notebook contains notes 
on his wide reading of European thinkers and 
about socialism and literature. These were 
preparation for the books he planned to write: on 
the history of the state, the revolutionary 
movement and an autobiography. Apparently some 
preliminary drafts were smuggled out of jail but 
destroyed after his death by a cautious comrade.

This edition reproduces many essays and court 
testaments, including the famous 'To Make the 
Deaf Hear', the leaflet he and Batukeshwar Dutta 
hurled into the Central Assembly in '29, as also 
'Why I am an Atheist', written as a response to 
the devout Ghadar prisoner Bhai Randhir Singh in 
Lahore Central Jail. But this riposte, which 
compares God to Nero and Genghis Khan, is a 
powerful plea for rationalism which makes it one 
of the foundational texts of secular 
republicanism in modern India.


______


[10]  EVENTS

(i)

SECULARISM AND BEYOND
International Conference, May 29th to June 1st 2007

The research priority area, 'Religion in the 21st 
Century' at the University of Copenhagen invites 
to the international conference, 'Secularism and 
Beyond - Comparative Perspectives':

The relationship between religion and politics 
has attracted increased interest in public as 
well as academic discourse, especially within the 
humanities, legal studies and social sciences. 
The dominant way of conceiving this relationship 
in the Western world is through the lens of 
secularism. In that sense, the conception of 
secularism is the focal point for studying and 
analysing the relationship between religion, 
politics, law and public life and the separation 
of the public as a distinct sphere different from 
and independent of religion and a religious 
sphere.

In general, secularism refers to this separation 
in terms of institutional arrangements and 
individual reasons. In a normative sense 
secularism has become articulated as a political 
doctrine giving priority to principles of 
toleration, impartiality and neutrality aiming at 
universality on the basis of conceptions of 
secular or public reason.

The question to be addressed in this conference 
is whether secularism as political doctrine 
provides an adequate perspective for approaching 
the contemporary challenges of religion in 
politics, law and public life, at both a macro- 
and micro-level.

The conference will address this question of 
secularism from a comparative and 
interdisciplinary point of view, following the 
recent tendencies to go beyond secularism within 
the humanities, legal studies and social sciences.

The aim of this comparative approach to 
secularism is to go beyond secularism as a 
political doctrine and to understand secularism 
in the plural in terms of the diverse national 
institutional arrangements and practices 
regulating the separation of religious and public 
spheres and the different conceptions of 
secularism embedded in political and legal 
institutions. In addition to such structural 
issues, the conference will seek to develop a 
clearer analysis of the ways in which secularisms 
are articulated in national public discourses and 
political cultures, and in the worldviews and 
everyday practices of ordinary people.

The conference will not seek, so much, to return 
to debates about the secularization of modern 
society, but to develop a critical understanding 
of the cultural roots, content, and social, 
political and institutional significance of 
doctrines of secularism in different national 
contexts. Through its comparative approach to 
this subject, the conference seeks to make 
explicit and to problematise assumptions within 
particular national contexts, and to open up the 
possibility for critiques of existing 
institutional arrangements and cultural 
assumptions that regulate the relationship 
between religion and politics.

Beyond this, the conference aims to raise further 
questions about the nature of viable democratic, 
multi-faith societies, and the nature of 
citizenship within these. The comparative 
analysis of secularisms thus leads back into more 
normative discussions about secularism as a 
political doctrine - opening up possibilities for 
new questions, conversations and approaches to 
personal and public life.

The conference is organised around a) Keynote 
Speakers, b) Plenary Panels and discussions 
addressing the different dimensions of secularism 
studies mentioned above and c) Workshop sessions 
with paper presentations and discussions.
Københavns Universitet	Webredaktør:
Kommunikationsafdelingen	Kirsten Baltzer Kahr
Nørregade 10, Postboks 2177	+45 35 32 42 65
DK-1017 København K	kbk at adm.ku.dk

o o o

(ii)

CONFERENCE: AHRC-Migration and Diaspora Cultural 
Studies Network, University of Manchester, 'Queer 
Diasporas' conference, 24-25 May 2007, 
Manchester, UK. Programme:

Thursday, May 24, 2007, Martin Harris Building, Bragg Lecture Theatre

     * 3.30 - 4.00 Welcome
     * 4.00 - 5.30 Diaspora of Thought
           o  Panel: 'Migrating Theories? Thinking 
about queerness in South and South East Asian 
contexts'; Chair: Margaret Littler
           o Paul Boyce (TCRU), On (non) 
male-to-male sexual subjectivities in India and 
in trans-national context
           o Caroline Osella (SOAS), On 
'cinematic' ['Bollywood'] dance, gender 
segregation, and the expansion of female gendered 
and erotic ranges
           o Martyn Rogers, On young men's 
negotiations of mixed and segregated spaces on 
college campuses
           o Mark Johnson (Hull), On why gender 
theory has always been mobile and labile
     * 5.45 - 6.30 Film Screening; Chair: Rajinder Dudrah
           o Milind Soman Made Me Gay (30 
mins/2007/In-Post Production), written and 
directed by Harjant Gill

Friday, May 25, 2007, Martin Harris Building, Bragg Lecture Theatre

     * 9.30 - 10.30 Chair: Rajinder Dudrah
           o Key Note Lecture by Professor Gayatri 
Gopinath (University of California at Davis), 
Rethinking Space and Sexuality in Transnational 
Times
     * 10.30 - 10.45 Coffee Break
     * 10.45 - 12.15 Stories of Displacement, 
Chair: Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez
           o Carrie Hamilton (Roehampton 
University, London), Moving In: Queer Migrations 
Inside Cuba
           o Bettina Büchler (University of Bern, 
Switzerland), A Sense of (Un)belonging - Real and 
Imagined Spaces of Women-Loving Migrant and 
Refugee Women in Switzerland
           o Adi Kunstmann (University of 
Lancaster, Lancaster), Genealogies of Hate, 
Metonymies of Violence: Immigration, Homophobia, 
Homopatriotism
     * 12.15 - 01.30 Lunch Break
     * 1.30 - 3.00 Queer Identities, Chair: Shirley Tate
           o Michela Baldo (University of 
Manchester, Manchester), Queering Femininity in 
Italian-North American female writers
           o  Christian Klesse (Manchester 
Metropolitan University), On the Limits of 
Community Discourses: Gay and bisexual British 
South-Asian men and the question of non-monogamy
           o Sanaz Raji (SOAS, London) and 
Michelle S. Davis (SOAS, London), Queer Iranian 
Diaspora Through the Pages of Literature and the 
Vision of Film
     * 3.00 - 3.30 Coffee Break
     * 3.30 - 5:00 Queer Performance, Chair: Chris Perriam
           o Alpesh Patel (University of 
Manchester, Manchester), Queer "Desi" Art 
Criticism
           o Humaira Saeed (University of 
Manchester, Manchester), Fixity, Fluidity, and 
Queer Diasporic Subcultures
           o Harjant Gill (American University, 
Washington DC), On The Significance of Salting & 
Peppering Mangoes - Music, Performance and 
Transgression of MIA in the South Asian Diaspora
     * 5.00-5.30 Concluding Comments

For further information, please contact 
Encarnacion Gutierrez- Rodriguez at 
e.gutierrez at manchester.ac.uk or Margaret Littler 
at Margaret.Littler at manchester.ac.uk

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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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