SACW | June 6-7, 2007
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Wed Jun 6 04:26:57 CDT 2007
South Asia Citizens Wire | June 6-7, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2416 - Year 9
[Interruption Notice: Please note there will be
no SACW dispatches between 8-10 June 2007.]
[1] Pakistan: Musharraf at crossroads: American thunder (MB Naqvi)
[2] Pakistan: LGBT Rights - the case of Shehzina Tariq and Shumail Raj
- Recognise transsexuals (Editorial, The Post)
- Same-sex in the city Remediation (Huma Yusuf)
[3] Nepal: Supreme Court orders govt to form
probe panel on disappeared (Liladhar Upadhyaya)
[4] India: The Importance of Saving Binayak Sen (J. Sri Raman)
[5] Bangladesh: Congressman McDermott's support
for Mohiuddin (Mashuqur Rahman)
[6] India: Police And Minorities (Asghar Ali Engineer)
[7] India - The Garbage People: internally
displaced survivors of the 2002 genocide(Aveek
Sen)
[8] Book Review: The Fear and Loathing (Mushirul Hasan)
[9] Announcements:
(i) Book Launch: 'The Afzal Petition: A Quest
for Justice' (New Delhi, 6th June,2007)
(ii) India: National Bioethics Conference (Bangalore, 6-8 December 2007)
(iii) Florence Tan Moeson Fellowship
______
[1]
Deccan Herald
June 5, 2007
MUSHARRAF AT CROSSROADS: AMERICAN THUNDER
We shall soon know whether the American thunder
has any rain in it or is merely wind, writes M B
Naqvi.
Musharraf regime is propagating that the movement
launched by the lawyers against the President's
ham-handed attempt at forcing Chief Justice
Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to resign is now
losing momentum; it thinks that it would only be
a matter of time before it peters out. But that
is not what an ordinary person perceives. The
movement is as strong today after nearly ten
weeks as it was immediately after the gross March
9 faux pas by Musharraf.
The latest evidence came on Saturday, May 26,
when Supreme Court Bar Council held a seminar in
the Supreme Court building where some of the
defending lawyers of the CJP spoke as did the CJP
himself. Insofar as the CJP is concerned, he made
just one major point that can be stretched to
call it political: absolute power corrupts and
separation of powers is essential to democracy
among other similar subjects like independence of
judiciary. He was mainly apolitical.
But the other lawyers spoke what was pure
politics though also law: The supreme law is what
the people's needs are. Vast majority of the
country's lawyers appeared to be there. The
number of ordinary persons was also reasonably
large. They obviously could not be accommodated
in the Court building. They had to be provided
for with screens and loudspeakers to hear and it
was a lively crowd of commoners that was active
constantly shouting purely political slogans: "Go
Musharraf, go" and various others. The kind of
emotional outbursts that the people showed is not
an everyday affair; it happens but rarely.
Would this movement for change fructify? The
basis of the regime and its strength would seem
to make it a colossus. Way back in 1960s, Field
Marshal Ayub Khan had assembled a coalition of
interests in the society in his support: all the
economic and social elites were in it: feudals,
religious divines and tribal chiefs, the new
industrialists, bankers and rich and successful
professionals. It was a formidable array of
interests that has sustained many a military rule.
Over the years the military has expanded out into
the economy and it now virtually controls 24 per
cent of the total industrial sector. And is not
entirely absent from agriculture either, owning
large tracts of land for the institution and much
more for the retired military officers and men.
Army's tentacles in various economic spheres make
it a formidable force, having assembled a
coalition of economic interests behind it, it has
ruled Pakistan during most of its life as a
nominally independent country, half the time
directly and half the time from behind the
scenes. It still looks like a colossus. Can it be
moved out of the way?
"Not so easily" is the answer. While nothing is
impossible for an angry and aroused people, to
arouse the people to a pitch where they would
effect what is in fact a revolution is not an
everyday affair. It can't be ordered by someone.
It happens when it happens. The question is: Is
it the time when it may happen?
It was said half jokingly that Pakistan regime
rests on three pillars: Allah, Army and America.
Allah meant the support of the religious parties
and Jihadist groups because the Army had created
some of them and nurtured many. Army itself is a
powerful institution that has been in control of
government for most of the past 50 years. Insofar
as America is concerned, it is no news to say
that America is one of the strongest stakeholders
in the country.
For over long stretches of time, Pakistan has
been not only an ally of America but has also
been receiving a considerable amount of aid from
it. America has set up myriad linkages with this
Army that has thrown tentacles in most parts of
the economy and society, having assembled a
formidable coalition of interests. The influence
of America in the Army is a big factor. At some
stage, when the Americans do want a change, it so
happens that Pakistan military does produce a
change in the government. It is usually for the
benefit of Americans. There has been no
government change in Pakistan in which the
Americans were not involved in one indirect way
or the other.
The question is: Where do the Americans stand
vis-à-vis this movement? They are quiet. They
have neither supported it, nor approved it. But
they have been saying things that are saddening
to Musharraf personally. While the Bush
Administration continues to stand by him, it is
the American media that is going to town of him:
The serious American media report that with the
passage of everyday Musharraf is losing
authority. This American assessment is a damning
thing and becomes a factor in Army's own
calculations.
The taste of the pudding is however in eating; we
shall soon know whether the American thunder has
any rain in it or is merely wind. Needless to
say, Pakistan has travelled this road many times
before. The 1990s period is said to be the period
of civilian governments. But they were puppets in
the hands of the Army Chief of the day. Now that
the actual ruler is from the Army and is its
chief, the real test of the Army's behaviour
should soon be visible.
If the Army stands by Musharraf and the movement
loses steam without resulting in large-scale
chaos, the President will go through with his own
election from the outgoing assemblies and will
hold an election that his Army would "manage" as
during the previous five elections. Other
possibilities are mind boggling. If the movement
cannot be stopped and continues to grow, it will
become a popular revolution. But if the Army can
crush or somehow divert the movement, it can save
its rule. Which will it be is hard to say.
______
[2] Pakistan : LGBT Rights
Dear All,
Following is the text of the editorial published
in The Post today (June 4, 2007). It raises the
issue of transsexuals in the context of the
recent ruling of the Lahore High Court in the
case of Shehzina Tariq and Shumail Raj. Being in
a state of denial about transsexualism for the
sixty years of the existence of this country, I
think now is the opportunity we built a campaign
around this issue to get the most disadvantaged
community in our society their rights as
citizens of Pakistan.
Please forward this email to as many people as
you can to create awareness. I hope someone will
bring it to the notice of relevant authorities.
Best regards,
Ishrat Saleem
The Post
12-Lawrance Road Lahore
Editorial
The Post, June 4, 2007
RECOGNISE TRANSSEXUALS
The Lahore High Court took a very ungenerous view
of the situation in awarding three years
punishment to Shumail Raj and Shehzina Tariq on
the basis of a controversial medical examination
which declared Shumail Raj to be a woman. In a
very condescending tone, the court said that it
took a lenient view since the couple had tendered
an unconditional apology for making a false
statement. The court went so far as to ask if
doctors were permitted under the law to remove
body parts not warranted by medical necessity. In
doing so, the court ignored the fact that it is
not only biology, but psychology as well that
defines a human being. As per medical ethics, sex
reassignment therapy is not a crime and is
practiced the world over. Going by popular
perceptions, the court ruled that 'same-sex
marriage' was un-Islamic. It would be in order to
bring to light some important facts relevant to
this case.
It is an established scientific fact that a
certain percentage of children is born with
ambiguous sex. On reaching puberty, they start
developing characteristics of the opposite sex
due to hormonal deviations. Like in the present
case, Shumail grew a beard at the age of 15, and
decided to go for a mastectomy and later a
hysterectomy. Shumail however had not yet
undergone reconstruction surgery. Research by
Dutch scientist Peggy Cohen-Kettenis shows that
nearly 40 percent of untreated transsexuals are
either institutionalised or die prematurely.
However, if properly treated, they can become
fully functional members of society.
One must not forget the large presence of the
hijra (eunuch) community, who are mostly
transsexuals. They do not have any of the rights
of a normal citizen and are condemned to a
miserable existence because of society's
attitude. Because of being unprivileged and
disadvantaged, they cannot raise an organised
voice for their rights. Therefore it is for us,
the intelligent, humane, educated and advantaged
people to advance their case.
We have a healthy precedent in the example of
Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini first issued a fatwa
declaring it not only Islamic but advisable to
undergo sex reassignment therapy, so that a
transsexual does not live the life of an invalid.
Iran has not only passed legislation based on
social and scientific evidence to make sex change
legal, such individuals are financially assisted
by the state to have surgery for the purpose.
Iran has gone so far as to achieve scholarship in
social and legal issues arising from such
sex-change. Hojatulislam Kariminia, a leading
expert on the issue, did a PhD on the
implications of sex-change operations for Islamic
law and addresses questions such as whether or
not the husband or wife needs the permission of
their spouse before sex reassignment therapy, or
issues of inheritance and a woman's dowry.
The courts and the government should recognise
this phenomenon and take affirmative action to
accommodate such individuals in society rather
than shunning them in ignorance. It is the first
time this issue has attained prominence at the
national level. We as a society need to rethink
our attitudes and sensitise everyone from
legislators, courts, educators and society in
general about this phenomenon. Rather than
condemning such individuals to live the life of
an invalid, society and the government should
treat such people as special persons, who can
become normal human beings with a little
assistance and effort. Not only should
legislation be passed in this regard, the
government should make arrangements to
rehabilitate transsexual communities. The case of
Shehzina Tariq and Shumail Raj should be
reconsidered in the light of above facts.
Last but not the least, the court should also
have given due consideration to the circumstances
in which the couple contracted 'marriage'. In
their statement, they said that Shehzina's father
wanted to sell her off into marriage to a man
much older than her and that Shumail married her
in order to save her from this fate. It was in
order that the court should have ordered an
investigation into this allegation and, if found
true, awarded punishment to the father of
Shehzina.
o o o
The News International
May 30, 2007
SAME-SEX IN THE CITY REMEDIATION
by Huma Yusuf
Somewhat titillating yet exceedingly tragic, the
story of Shumail Raj and Shahzina Tariq -- the
couple who have brought the gay marriage debate
to Pakistan -- has already made headlines and
generated endless blog posts across the world. On
Monday, the Lahore High Court sentenced the
forlorn couple to three years' imprisonment and
fined them ten thousand rupees for perjury. The
sentence was passed after the courts ruled that
the husband Shumail was, in fact, a woman,
despite two sex-change surgeries to remove
breasts and uterus. As such, Shumail and
Shahzina's was a same-sex marriage and thus
un-Islamic. Affidavits, the couple's marriage
certificate, and Shumail's medical records were
all examined before it was ruled that the couple
had made false statements about their sex and
marital status to the courts. Although this is
the first case of its kind in Pakistan, Judge
Khawaja Mohammad Sharif chose to be lenient when
issuing his sentence because he believed that the
couple was remorseful about being deceitful.
Moreover, in a throwback to centuries past, the
court recommended that a team of psychiatrists
tend to Shumail to address any trauma that the
situation might have provoked.
As it currently stands, Shumail and Shahzina's
case is remarkable for several reasons. Firstly,
the open acknowledgement by Pakistan's judiciary
and media that a same-sex liaison can exist is a
step in the right direction towards acknowledging
that human sexuality is a complicated issue. No
doubt, our culture has always made accommodations
for transvestites, but their treatment by society
and representations within the media reek of
ignorance, disgust, fear, fetish, and
supernatural elements. Their psyche and
biological make-up are rarely discussed in a
thoughtful or scientific manner. Instead,
transvestites are merely glamorised through film
and photography and exoticised through folklore
and ritual. On the other hand, considering a
trans-gendered person and same-sex couple's
predicament in the nation's high courts lends the
sexuality debate in Pakistan some gravitas and
deference.
It is also remarkable that the courts have jailed
Shumail and Shahzina for perjury, rather than
'unnatural offences'. Even if that was not the
intention, the court's decision has emphasised
the technicalities and fine print of the couple's
marriage rather than the implications of their
sexuality. During court proceedings, the couple
has had to explain that their marriage was
motivated by a desire to save Shahzina from an
unfavourable arranged marriage. The bride's
father believes a marriage between two women
should be annulled. The couple's lawyer, on the
other hand, describes the union as a bond of
friendship and affection, an attachment forged
under the guise of a marriage owing to societal
pressures.
These tangled definitions of marriage imply an
acknowledgement that human sexuality and its
expression exist across a diverse spectrum that
cannot neatly fit under categories such as
'marriage'. Since their sentencing, Shumail and
Shahzina have asserted that they are not
homosexuals yet have openly and repeatedly
professed their love for each other. More
interestingly, they have appealed to President
Musharraf to intervene in their case so as to
bolster his own doctrine of enlightened
moderation. That Shumail and Shahzina believe
some enlightenment is required to feel empathy
for their situation suggests that their
relationship is a tad more intricate than a close
friendship. In any case, the contradictory,
dramatic, jargon-filled vocabulary being used to
describe the couple's relationship indicates the
beginnings of a difficult conversation about
human sexuality and desire.
Yet another aspect of Shumail and Shahzina's
same-sex marriage is how contemporary the issue
is. After all, gay marriage is one of the hottest
issues that will make or break the fates of
candidates during the US presidential election in
2008. Just earlier this month, the state of
Oregon passed a domestic partnership act
providing same-sex couples the same state-granted
privileges, rights, and benefits that married
couples enjoy. With the act, Oregon became the
tenth American state to provide significant
protections to homosexual couples and so renewed
the conversation about gay marriage in Washington.
Interestingly, American presidential candidates
resort to the same vague, circular, contradictory
language used by the legal officials involved in
Shumail and Shahzina's case when quizzed about
their stance on the issue. Democrat Senator
Barack Obama, for example, has stated that while
marriage is not a human right, non-discrimination
is. For his part, Democrat campaigner John
Edwards insists that marriage is a contract
exclusively between men and women, but is in
favour of gay and lesbian 'partnerships' and aims
to treat them much like heterosexual marriages.
Republican Governor George Pataki, on the other
hand, opposes same-sex marriage, but champions
gay rights. Meanwhile, Senator Hilary Clinton is
in favour of domestic partnership benefits,
whatever those might be. Inadvertently, then,
Shumail and Shahzina have thrust Pakistani
legislature into the midst of a global
conversation that is complicated, embarrassing,
and interrupted with much humming and hawing.
The fact is, there is a 'first things first'
mentality in Pakistan that falsely believes that
we should deal with fundamental issues -
democracy, terrorism, poverty, illiteracy,
Kashmir, nukes, and land reforms - before getting
embroiled in the grubby details of civil rights,
social issues, culture and lifestyle trends. No
doubt, the building blocks of a democratic nation
must be in place before a society can function
properly. But Pakistan must learn how to tackle
its political, economic, and social issues
simultaneously if it hopes to participate in the
global village of the new millennium. In today's
media environment, it is unrealistic to set aside
an issue until a government is ready to deal with
it. If the world is worrying about gay marriage,
Pakistan should be thinking through the issue as
well, albeit in a way that conforms with the
nation's particular culture and political
maturity.
Interest groups in Pakistan can also learn how
best to leverage a case such as Shumail's and
Shahzina's by observing American politics. Touchy
as the subject is, gay marriage circuitously
allows politicians to address issues such as
equality, racial discrimination, states' rights
versus federal control, the separation of church
and state, and the increased partisanship evident
in American public debate. Similarly, feminist
politicians and women's rights groups in Pakistan
could seize on Shahzina's narrative about needing
to escape from an arranged marriage to advocate
for more freedom for women. Similarly, doctors'
lobbies and medical universities could use
Shumail's botched sex-change operations as an
excuse to seek funding for medical research. And
someone should certainly point out how sexuality
- much like almost everything else in Pakistan -
is a privilege afforded to the elite classes, and
no one else. In a turbulent country like ours,
any opportunity to engender debate or highlight
an oft-neglected issue should be availed of.
Interestingly, at the exact same time that
Shumail and Shahzina were clinging to each other
and awaiting their verdict in the Lahore High
Court, "Nigah QueerFest '07", India's first gay
arts festival, was kicking off with a film
screening in New Delhi. The festival organisers
see QueerFest as a venue where closeted Indians
can celebrate their sexuality. More importantly,
the festival is a platform from which to campaign
against India's anti-gay law, enshrined in the
infamous Section 377. Although QueerFest did not
have the same verve, bombast, and audacity as a
pride parade in the western world, it did foster
an opportunity for debate about equal rights in
the world's largest democracy. If that
conversation is unfolding next door, perhaps it
is time for us to start eavesdropping. Shumail
and Shahzina may yet find that their plight is
not as unusual as it seems.
The writer is a media analyst currently pursuing
a master's degree at MIT's Comparative Media
Studies programme. She was previously features
editor at an English monthly. Email: huma.yusuf
@gmail.com
______
[3]
Gorkha Patra / The Rising Nepal
SC ORDERS GOVT TO FORM PROBE PANEL ON DISAPPEARED [ 2007-6-2 ]
by Liladhar Upadhyaya
KATHMANDU, June 1: The Supreme Court (SC) Friday
ordered the government to form a high level probe
commission to investigate about persons, who were
disappeared by the state during decade-long armed
conflict.
The court order states that the norms of the
international treaty on disappearance must be
followed while forming the commission.
The Court also ordered to formulate the related
laws to investigate into the cases of
disappearances to end the state of impunity
during the conflict. There is no law in the
nation as yet to investigate on 'disappearance'
of persons by the state and to punish those
charged of such offences.
The court has instructed the government to
provide interim release (portion of the
compensation to the victim's family) to the
families of those disappeared even in cases of
disappearances yet to be completely verified.
The interim immediate release as compensation
would not effect the final decision in favour of
the disappeared in the future, according to the
court.
A division bench of justices Khil Raj Regmi and
Kalyan Shrestha ruled to provide immediate
'interim release' of Rs 150,000 each to the
families of three disappeared persons- Bipin
Bhandari, Dil Bahadur Rai and Rajendra Dhakal,
and Rs 100,000 each to the families of 79 other
missing.
The bench also asked the authorities to pay Rs
200,000 to the family of Chakra Bahadur Katuwal,
a schoolteacher in Okhaldhunga, whose death in
custodial detention has already been verified.
The SC, as part of its judicial activism, had
formed study team under the coordination of the
Appellate Court judge Lokendra Mallik to
investigate into the situation of disappeared
persons during insurgency. The members of the
taskforce were joint attorney Saroj Prasad Gautam
and advocate Gobinda Prasad Sharma 'Bandi'.
The panel had submitted its report to the court
after its five-month-long investigation on April
8.
The panel had confirmed in April that the then
security apparatus were involved in massive
arbitrary detention, torture and finally
disappearing the citizens.
Talking to The Rising Nepal, 'Bandi' termed the
order of the court as unprecedented in favour of
human rights and the rule of law.
The reason behind the illegal detention and
disappearance was the dearth of law against acts
related to disappearance of general citizens and
state of impunity that prevailed in the nation
during the period of conflict, the report stated.
These kinds of activities are crimes against
humanity and against the international
humanitarian law, according to the report.
The team brought out the report after observing
30 government offices including army barracks and
interviewing more than 80 individuals. The team
has recommended those guilty be prosecuted under
the existing criminal law.
Separate benches of justices Regmi, Shrestha,
Anup Raj Sharma and Sharada Shrestha had issued
orders to form a team to study the situation of
the disappeared persons in response to separate
petitions filed on behalf of advocate Rajendra
Dhakal, student leaders of All Nepal National
Free Students Union (Revolutionary), Bipin
Bhandary and Dil Bahadur Rai and a school teacher
Chakra Bahadur Katuwal.
The then government headed by the king did not
bear the responsibility to stop such kind of
crimes during the period despite being a
signatory to the international treaties of
humanitarian laws, the report said.
The then government had ignored the mounting
pressure of the organisations like United Nations
to stop such kind of unlawful detention and
disappearances by formulating criminal laws and
the nation is yet to declare the act of forceful
and arbitrary disappearance a serious crime,
according to the report. "There was no legal
mechanism to listen to complaints against
arbitrary detention and disappearance during the
period of conflict."
The investigation team had found that the rule of
law and civil administration were as good as
defunct after the state declared state of
emergency in 2058 BS.
The then security mechanism was involved in
secret detention of the citizens, giving inhumane
torture to them and even submitting fake report
about the detainees and disappeared people when
asked by the court, the report states.
Some detainees died due to inhumane torture in
custody and the security forces did not hand over
the dead bodies to the concerned relatives of the
victims, the report has said.
The panel had demanded directive order from the
Bench to the government to form a high level
commission to investigate into the overall
situation of the disappeared people during the
period of conflict.
It also had suggested the bench to issue order to
the government to form and enforce a
'retrospective law' to punish those involved in
disappearing the people, as there is no law to
take action against the guilty involved in
disappearing the citizens.
It had demanded for judicial order to the
government to manage compensation to the families
of the victims. The team had also demanded for a
court order to suspend those officials charged of
being involved in disappearing people.
According to different reports of the human
rights organisations including National Human
Rights Commission and International Commission of
the Red Cross the whereabouts of more than 1000
persons missing during the insurgency is still
unknown
______
[4]
truthout.org
3 June 2007
THE IMPORTANCE OF SAVING BINAYAK SEN
by J. Sri Raman
In January 1999, Australian missionary Graham
Steines was burnt alive, along with his sons
Timothy, 7, and Philip, 9, while sleeping in an
open jeep in a tribal village in India's eastern,
and probably the poorest, state of Orissa. Graham
(and his wife Gladys) had been tending to lepers
in the area for over three decades. The murder
most foul hit the world headlines and caused a
great outrage among governments and countries
across the globe.
On May 14, 2007, an Indian doctor, a medical
missionary of no religious denomination, was
taken away by police from his home in a tribal
district in the central state of Chhattisgarh. No
one has heard from him since then. Binayak Sen
had been a heaven-sent healer for the poor of the
place for the past 17 years, yet the arrest has
not led to protests of the kind that can move
powers-that-be.
The Steines murder, of course, was the more
savage crime. But that is not why the Binayak
case is causing barely any concern, even inside
India. The fact is that, while the Orissa murder
was the more terrible expression of its politics,
Binayak's arrest marks a bigger tactical victory
for India's far right.
In 1999, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee of the Bharatiya Janata Party was
forced, in the face of international opinion, to
affect a flush and say that the crime had made
the country "hang its head in the comity of
nations."
In 2007, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and
his Congress Party, heading the central
government in New Delhi, have remained totally
silent in response to the feeble outcry over the
happenings in Chhattisgarh under the BJP
government of Chief Minister Raman Singh.
The far right defended, and indeed glorified,
the grisly Steines killings as part of a campaign
against religious conversions. This made it
comparatively easier for the Congress and the
left to mobilize public opinion against the
religious-communal crime associated with the
rabid politics that split the subcontinent into
India and Pakistan in 1947 and have made South
Asia a strife-torn region ever since.
The far right has, this time round, scored a
tactical gain by associating Binayak's arrest
with an "antiterrorist" campaign. The doctor is
being projected as an associate and accomplice of
Maoist desperados active in the tribal tracts of
semi-feudal Chhattisgarh (named after the
'Thirtysix Forts' dotting the inhospitable
terrain). The "terrorist" tag was pinned upon him
soon after he took up, as a human rights activist
and leader of the People's Union for Civil
Liberties, the case against a state-sponsored
outfit called Salwa Judum.
The name means Peace Mission or Peace
Festival in the tribal Gondi language. Floated by
the landowners and forest contractors, and funded
as well as armed by the Raman Singh regime, the
Salwa Judum has, in fact, pitted tribesmen
against tribesmen, village against village, and
engaged in a wide range of crimes, including
extortions, looting and much worse.
A 14-member team of five human rights
organizations, including the PUCL, conducted an
investigation between November 28 and December 1,
2005, in certain Judum-infested areas and came
out with three major findings. It found, in the
first place, that Salwa Judum was "not a
spontaneous people's movement, but a
state-organized, anti-insurgency campaign."
Secondly, the team rejected the official claim
that the villagers were "caught between the
Maoists and the military." In most cases, to the
team, the Maoists seemed to enjoy popular
support. The team also found that the Peace
Mission, ironically, had led to an escalation of
violence and an increase in human rights
violations, especially by the establishment's
"antiterrorist" army.
The tribal women were among the worst
sufferers. A survey by a Committee Against
Violence on Women found that, over the recent
period, 21 women had been killed (three after
mutilation of breasts and genitals) and 37 raped
(23 of them gang-raped). The criminals were
members of the allegedly "antiterror" Judum.
Opposition to the Judum is not something that
the rulers in New Delhi can readily support. Not
after Prime Minister Singh's description of the
Maoist insurgency in parts of India as the most
serious terrorist threat before the country. Not
after the dispatch of paramilitary forces under
the Singh government's control for anti-Maoist
operations in Chhattisgarh.
The left, for its part, does not share the
far right's "antiterrorist" fervor. But the
mainstream left parties can make no common cause
with the Maoists either. They have even less
sympathy for the extreme left in India, engaged
in what may at best be described as an experiment
in armed struggle, after the Maoists in
neighboring Nepal opted for mainstream democratic
politics. Hopes that the Nepalese example would
find extreme-left emulation here have been
belied. The Indian Maoists, in fact, have
denounced their Nepalese counterparts for their
alleged display of "opportunism."
All this, unfortunately, has given the far
right a new weapon, which they have grasped with
alacrity. "Antiterrorism" had thus far only
provided the BJP and the Parivar (the far-right
family) with anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan
ammunition. They can now employ it against their
adversaries, and even expect to enlarge the area
of support for themselves.
The Chhatisgarh police now claim to have
found "incriminating evidence" against Binayak
and, say some reports, even his wife Ilina Sen of
India's Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and
Peace (CNDP). Considering the couple's
involvement in the anti-nuclear weapons cause,
the time may come when the far right cites an
expression of opposition to atomic militarism as
firm evidence of "terrorism."
______
[5]
The Daily Star
June 05, 2007
CONGRESSMAN MCDERMOTT'S SUPPORT FOR MOHIUDDIN
by Mashuqur Rahman
On May 31, the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
issued the mandate that ended convicted killer
AKM Mohiuddin Ahmed's asylum appeals and made him
deportable from the United States. However, the
long saga has moved from the courts to the
political arena after a congressman introduced a
private bill to issue Mohiuddin a green card.
The rationale presented in the bill needs
discussion both in the United States and
Bangladesh; and it is time to explore whether the
United States government should be actively
sheltering a convicted murderer.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was set
to deport Mohiuddin to Bangladesh on or around
June 2. However, Mohiuddin's lawyers managed to
get a temporary stay of deportation from a lower
court judge until Tuesday, June 5. A US District
Court judge has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday
June 5 to consider a stay of deportation.
The hearing will not reconsider the asylum case
since the lower court does not have jurisdiction
and cannot overrule the Court of Appeals
decision. Mohiuddin's lawyers have, instead,
asked the District Court to consider whether
Mohiuddin could be deported while there was a
private bill on his behalf pending in the US
Congress.
On May 3, while the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
was still considering Mohiuddin's last petition,
a Democratic congressman from Washington State,
Jim McDermott, introduced a private bill in the
US House Judiciary Committee on his behalf. A
private bill is a rare legislative procedure in
the United States used to pass a law that
benefits only one person rather than a class of
individuals.
Private bills are sometimes used in immigration
cases by members of Congress to grant relief to
individuals who, because of an unusual set of
circumstances, may be facing deportation from the
country. For example, they are sometimes used to
give relief to family members who would otherwise
be separated if one member were to be deported,
causing severe hardship to the rest.
Private bills rarely become laws. To become a
law, the bill must first be passed by the US
House Judiciary Committee, then by the US House
of Representatives, then by the US Senate, and
finally must be signed into law by the president
of the United States.
The private bill introduced by congressman
McDermott, known as H.R. 2181, aims to help
Mohiuddin in a number of ways. First, it aims to
stay the deportation order against him
indefinitely. Second, it aims to release him from
custody and bars the DHS from deporting him to
Bangladesh, or to any country that has an
extradition treaty with Bangladesh.
Third, it aims to grant a green card to
Mohiuddin, which would allow him to get
preferential treatment before all other green
card applicants from Bangladesh. It also aims to
grant him the card by reducing the number of
green cards available to other Bangladeshis by
one. Finally, it states that Mohiuddin will be
allowed to seek asylum in any foreign country of
his choosing.
Congressman McDermott's bill also makes some
extraordinary "findings." The bill claims that
Mohiuddin is an "innocent Bangladeshi citizen."
It also claims that the Bangladesh court
"erroneously convicted Mr. Ahmed of murder and
sentenced him to death." It further claims that
the trial and conviction are "sufficiently
suspect as to warrant the immediate intervention"
by the US government to prevent his deportation.
However, the claims in the bill directly
contradict the ruling of the 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals. In its decision denying Mohiuddin's
petition the court wrote: "Ahmed failed to prove
by a preponderance of the evidence that his in
absentia murder trial and conviction in
Bangladesh was fundamentally unfair and, thus,
deprived him of due process of law. Therefore,
the IJ properly relied on the conviction."
Mohiuddin failed to convince the US court that
his trial was unfair.
The court did not find that Mohiuddin was
"erroneously convicted," or that the trial was
"sufficiently suspect." It felt that it was
proper to rely on the conviction in the
Bangladeshi court.
Therefore, the congressman's claim that Mohiuddin
is an "innocent Bangladeshi citizen" is not
supported by the facts, and is also not something
that Mohiuddin was able to convince any court of.
Furthermore, the US State Department has stated
that Mohiuddin"s trial -- a high profile trial
observed by the world community and human rights
organizations -- followed due process.
The bill also claims that Mohiuddin was merely
manning a roadblock on August 15, 1975, and that
he "had no knowledge of, nor did he support, the
violent coup that erupted that night."
Again, this claim in the bill directly
contradicts the 9th Circuit's ruling. In the
ruling the court wrote: "Ahmed is ineligible for
asylum and withholding of removal for two reasons:
* Because he engaged in terrorist activity,
* Because he assisted or otherwise
participated in the persecution of others on
account of their political opinion. Even his own
account of his actions established that he
assisted or otherwise participated in the
persecution of persons on account of their
political opinion."
Perhaps the most inexplicable part of the bill is
its reference to the Indemnity Act. The bill
states "...when Sheikh Hasina Wajed, daughter of
the assassinated prime minister, came to power,
and then broke her promise to respect the
Bangladeshi constitutional amendment which
provided immunity to officers involved in the
1975 coup. Rather, Sheikh Hasina Wajed
orchestrated the repeal of the constitutional
amendment."
The congressman, in the bill, seems to be
advocating immunity for the murderers of
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family.
It is difficult to understand why a US
congressman would suggest that repealing of a
grant of immunity to murderers of children and
pregnant women should be called into question.
Congressman McDermott's bill is based on false or
misleading information. It claims as facts the
many arguments Mohiuddin and his supporters have
been publicly making, but failed to prove them in
US courts of law where facts and evidence count.
By introducing the private bill, congressman
McDermott has staked his reputation on the word
of a convicted murderer who has been found to
engage in terrorist activity by US courts of law.
At a time when the United States is engaged in a
global war on terror, a Congressional
intervention on behalf of an individual deemed to
have engaged in terrorist activity is an
extraordinary step.
Given the political sensitivity of the bill, and
its awkward position within the war on terror, it
is highly unlikely that the bill will ever become
law. However, for Mohiuddin to get a stay of
deportation the bill does not have to become law.
If the House Immigration Subcommittee takes up
the bill and requests a report from the US
immigration authorities, it would result in a
stay of deportation. All indications are that the
Subcommittee has not taken up Mohiuddin's private
bill -- if it had, a stay of deportation would
have already occurred.
Without such action it will be an uphill battle
for Mohiuddin's lawyers to convince the judge at
Tuesday's hearing to order a stay of deportation.
It is almost a certainty that the subcommittee
chairwoman will be lobbied hard on behalf of
Mohiuddin in the coming days.
Having lost his asylum bid in the US courts,
Mohiuddin is now appealing to American
politicians to continue to evade justice.
American politicians, such as congressman Jim
McDermott, are now confronted with a choice
between the rule of law and the word of a
convicted killer.
By introducing the private bill on behalf of
Mohiuddin congressman McDermott may have bought
Mohiuddin a few more days of evading justice. But
at what cost?
Mashuqur Rahman is a Virginia-based blogger and a
member of the Drishtipat Writers' Collective.
______
[6]
Secular Perspective
June 1-15, 2007
POLICE AND MINORITIES
by Asghar Ali Engineer
The police as such is unfriendly, even
antagonistic to people and much more so when it
comes to minorities. The police act was drafted
by Britishers in 1961 and its main purpose at the
time was to suppress people and to enforce
British rule. Thus the police act was meant to
suppress people and make them obedient to the
British rulers. It was understandable that any
foreign rulers would do that.
However, what is most surprising is that even
sixty years after independence from British rule
our democratic rulers have not made any change in
the police act. Not only that our rulers are not
even prepared to implement recommendations of 5th
police commission for some reforms and that too
despite the Supreme Court directive to do so. The
reason is obvious. Our rulers also want to use
police for their political end. They do not want
police to be people friendly. If police becomes
people friendly politicians cannot use them for
their personal end.
If police is anti-people in general, it is much
more so anti-minorities, particularly anti-Muslim
and anti-Christian. In riot after riot police
behaves partially and does not hesitate to kill
Muslims in firing. Latest example is of Hyderabad
Mecca Masjid bomb explosion. The police fired
ruthlessly on the protesting mob and killed six
persons. It fired even on injured persons who
were being taken to hospitals after bomb
explosion. And what is worse they fired to kill
and that is why six lives were lost.
Here I am reminded of terrible tragedy of
Hashimpura of May 23, 1987. Hashimpura is near
Meerut, which was rocked by communal violence in
May 1987. The police as usual thought that
Muslims are mainly responsible for communal
disturbances in Meerut and decided to teach
Muslims a lesson. The PAC (Police Armed
Constabulary) went to Hashimpura and pulled out
some 50 persons mostly young and some elderly.
Most of them were poor.
They were loaded on trucks, taken outside city
premises and shot dead and then their bodies were
thrown into a nearby canal. Some two or three
persons somehow survived, (the police had taken
them to be dead), hid themselves in shrubs and
escaped and told the whole story. It is twenty
years since this terrible tragedy happened no
action has been taken against the murderers. They
are roaming free. Some activists worked hard to
bring these policemen to justice but nothing
happened. The state machinery was totally
indifferent to this and not even summons were
served to them.
Mulayam Singh Yadav who always claimed that he is
sympathetic to Muslims and had an eye on their
votes, did not do anything at all. Even today
matter is pending and relatives of those killed
are running from pillar to post for justice and
the culprits roam freely. The reason is obvious:
those killed were poor and also Muslims. Thus
they were doubly disadvantaged. Recently on 23rd
May on completion of twenty years of the massacre
in Hashimpura, mothers, sisters and fathers of
those killed demonstrated in Delhi holding
photographs of their loved ones. One does not
know whether the authorities took any notice of
this grim tragedy or not.
The Gujarat police is of course notorious in this
matter and they seem to get away with anything
under the patronage of Narendra Modi. Sohrabuddin
and his wife and another witness of the crime of
fake encounter Koli were eliminated. All papers
were faked under instructions of Chief Minister’s
Office of which Tehelka in its issue of 19th May,
2007 has given gory details. DIG police Vanjara
called these fake encounters as ‘Desh Bhakti’.
Apart from Sohrabuddin and his wife Kausarbi,
another Muslim youth Samir Khan was also
eliminated in 2003. Ishrat Jahan and her
colleague were also eliminated describing them as
members of Lashkar-i-Tayyiba.
All these fake encounters were carried out saying
they wanted to kill Narendra Modi. Thus Narendra
Modi was trying to project himself as a martyr
and a brave fighter against terrorism. He himself
said in one of his speeches that he will lay down
his life for the sake of the country and for
fighting against terrorism. He said, challenging
“the powers in Delhi” to “hang him till death”
but has reiterated that he would continue his
efforts and wipe out terrorism from Gujarat. “I
challenge the UPA (government) to hang me till I
die. If they plan to do this tomorrow, I request
them to do it today, I will give up life. But I
will not give up my fight against terrorism.”
This is how Modi is trying to extricate from the
fake encounter imbroglio. He wants to wipe out
terrorism by getting innocent people killed. He
wants to project himself as martyr by killing
people from minority communities. All this is
happening in a secular democracy. Of course
Gujarat is a Hindutva laboratory and already has
declared itself as part of Hindu Rashtra. Modi is
showing all his efficiency in bringing about
reality of Hindu Rashtra in Gujarat.
This clearly shows how politicians misuse police
for their own personal ends. It is thanks
to the Supreme court that Vanjara and other
police officers are being brought to justice.
Sohrabuddin’s brother filed a petition in the
Supreme Court and on being issued notice to the
Gujarat Government, it admitted that Sohrabuddin
and his wife were killed in fake encounters.
However, Modi Government washed its hands off the
whole affair and put entire blame on DIG CID
Vanjara and others.
It is also true that there are some honest police
officers who try to do their duty. Ms. Gita
Johari, IG CID stubbornly refused to bow down to
political pressures. Supreme Court had issued
instructions to make her answerable to the Court
only. But political establishment put pressure on
her to report to her immediate boss Shri Mathur
but she refused. However, such officers are very
few. Most others are politically pliable.
There should be zero tolerance for encounter
deaths and any police officer who has killed
anyone in so called encounter should be treated
as murderer unless he proves in the court of law
that he fired in defense and that there was
casualty on the part of police also. All details
about how many rounds were fired and bullets
fired should also be accounted for. Recently the
Government of Maharashtra has issued instructions
that there would be a CID enquiry after every
encounter death. It is a welcome step. But one
has to see whether this is strictly implemented.
Many such instructions are issued but never
followed in practice.
No other country ever tolerates such killings by
the police. Encounter deaths were unheard of even
in India few decades before. First encounter
deaths were reported during emergency (1975-77)
when some Naxalites were killed by Andhra and
Kerala police. Mr. Tarkunde, (retired judge of
the Bombay High court) the noted rationalist and
human rights activist held inquiry in encounter
killing and exposed those police officers who
killed people. There was much debate in the
country at a time and such encounters had almost
stopped.
But soon these encounters began and many mafia
dons were killed. But such killings were also not
so genuine. Some policemen who became ‘encounter
specialists’ were killing at the instance of
rival mafia dons and making money. These
encounter specialists accumulated wealth much
beyond their known sources of income. Despite all
this they acquired political influence and had
direct access to political bosses over their
immediate bosses.
Thus encounter deaths should not be tolerated in
a democratic set up. In democracy human rights
play very important role and police should be
sensitivised to human rights issues. However, our
police is still being used for suppression of
people’s rights and specially those of
minorities. In most of the communal riots police
hardly brings those responsible for killings of
minorities to book. They do not investigate cases
properly and even forge records.
One has to go through various inquiry commission
reports to realize this. The Madan Commission
Inquiry Report into Bhivandi and Jalgaon riots of
1970 lambasted the police officers for forging
records in order to implicate some members of
minority communities. However, state took no
action against such officers. Instead many of
them were promoted. Similarly the Srikrishna
Commission Report which inquired into Mumbai
riots of 1992-93 passed strong remarks against
communalization of Mumbai police and named more
than 30 officers for their crimes of omissions
and commissions but the congress Government of
Maharashtra took no action against these guilty
officers and even where it did it was mere
symbolic. And one such officer was promoted to
the highest coveted post of Mumbai commissioner
of Police, a person who was named for killing
nine Muslims in Modern Bakery near Zakaria
Masjid. Of course he was promoted by the Shiv
Sena-BJP Government which came to power in 1995.
Thus the police force is both criminalised and
communalised and is trigger happy when it comes
to poor and weaker sections in general and those
belonging to minorities. This is indeed a matter
of shame and the state should make all possible
efforts to secularise the police and sensitise it
to democratic values. The police should not be
used as a repressive force as during colonial
times but as people friendly institution in a
democratic and secular country.
There is urgent need to implement police reform
and change the outdated colonial police act.
Earlier it is done better it is to uphold
democratic secular values of our Constitution.
================================
Centre for Study of Society and Secularism
Mumbai.
E-mail: <mailto:csss at mtnl.net.in>csss at mtnl.net.in
______
[7]
The Telegraph
June 5, 2007
THE GARBAGE PEOPLE
The Gujarat government continues to deny the
existence of the internally displaced survivors
of the 2002 genocide, writes Aveek Sen
There are two words that come up frequently if
you talk at any length to the survivors of the
2002 genocide in Gujarat - tufaan or a storm, and
mazaak or a joke. The first is a memory-word. It
provides an image, or story, for the immediate
purpose of remembering and talking about a series
of events that both compels and eludes the grasp
of words. The second is a colder, grimmer word.
It stands for the dawning of a post facto sense
of things - the five-year-long unfolding of a
design, more persistent and rooted than just a
storm that comes from somewhere else, devastates,
and then runs itself out.
"Un logo ne mazaak kee Musalmano ke saath,"
Mukhtar Muhammad told me with a bright-eyed grin
that seemed to relish, for a moment, the
devilishness of this mazaak. We were eating brain
curry and chapatis for lunch, while his two
little sons played Tiny Toon with the sound
politely turned off. This was in Mukhtar's
sparsely-furnished, month-old house in the more
middle-class part of Juhapura, one of Ahmedabad's
less noticeably backward, though quite as
segregated, Muslim neighbourhoods. After the 2002
riots, Mukhtar moved to Ahmedabad, from the small
town of Kaalol in the Panchmahal district, where
he was a successful hardware manufacturer.
During, and for months after, the violence, he
ran a relief camp in his area where he got the
government to provide rations, from March to May
2002. He had also arranged for free medical
treatment for the 3,500 people who took refuge in
his camp with help from his friend, a local Hindu
doctor, whose courage, in the face of threats
from other Hindus, did not last very long.
After the doctor backed out and the state
government abruptly stopped rations, Mukhtar ran
the camp on his own resources until December,
2002. Then, as things started 'coming back to
normal', he found himself getting increasingly
involved in the legal work of claiming
compensation and rehabilitation support for those
Muslims - mostly poor, illiterate rural folk -
who were left homeless, bereft, and severely
injured or traumatized by the carnage. And it was
only when he started figuring out the
diabolically complicated bureaucracy and
loopholes of the entire compensation and
rehabilitation process, and those entitled to Rs
50,000 for loss of property were being sent away
with cheques for Rs 300, that the nature and
scale of the joke being played on the survivors
began to dawn on him.
Mukhtar's relative affluence, good sense and
robustness helped him negotiate with the
separatist kattarwadis in his own community who
did not want the displaced to return to their own
homes. He and his wife, Anisa, then started
getting serious threat calls, and that is when he
decided to move to Ahmedabad, from where he
continues his work with the survivors, with some
valued training and support from an NGO called
Centre for Social Justice. Yet, he cannily
resists the label of 'community leader' and
eludes most Islamist stereotypes, keeping a
mischievously-smiling, unillusioned distance from
fundamentalists, politicians and celebrity social
activists alike.
With his sons and daughter in a mixed-community,
English-medium school, his spacious, new house,
and his relocated business evidently looking up,
Mukhtar, together with Anisa, is a survivor whose
painstakingly reconstituted world could not have
provided a greater contrast to what I had seen of
human survival the day before, in the rapidly
industrializing wildernesses outside Ahmedabad's
city-limits. It was Jumma-baar that day, and
around mid-day, Khairunnesa and Usha, two social
workers from a local NGO, took me with them to
visit the Bombay Hotel area miles outside the
city. There was a cluster of colonies there,
where "riot victims", as they are now
collectively referred to, have been "resettled"
after they found it impossible to return to their
original homes - because these homes did not
exist any more and they got no help from the
state to rebuild them, or because they were still
too afraid to return and live among their Hindu
neighbours.
As you approach Bombay Hotel, first the stench
hits you - of rotting waste and burning plastic.
And then you see the huge mountain range of
garbage, silhouetted, all the refuse of the city
dumped high, with wisps of smoke rising from here
and there. And nestling in the foothills,
surrounded by sulphurous pools and swamps, are
the little colonies of single-storied,
flat-roofed pukka houses. The first one we went
to - far off the highway, connected to it by a
winding, bumpy, kutcha lane - was called Citizen
Nagar. The jokes are at their blackest here, I
realized. Another colony, a little way away, was
called Ekta Nagar.
Citizen Nagar, built by the Islamic Relief
Society and the Kerala State Muslim League Relief
Committee on land privately acquired, houses
about 400 people in 60-odd families. They have
been displaced from such places as Naroda Patia
and Gulberg Society, which had seen some of the
worst massacres in 2002. Nothing I had read of
the various reports and newspaper articles about
these colonies had prepared me for the bleakness
and degradation I saw here. There is no drinking
water, no sewerage, no health centre, no school
within miles, no street lighting. Every facility,
from electricity to water, has to be paid for.
Because of the vast dumping ground nearby, the
ground water, accessed by bore wells, is
dangerously polluted. So is the air, by fumes
from the burning garbage that waft in continually.
When it rains, the whole place is flooded by
water mixed with chemical waste from the
neighbouring factories. Most people suffer from
skin and gastric diseases, and some children from
a peculiar type of crippling, polio-like illness.
Because the hospitals are so far away, women in
labour deliver or die on their way to them. After
dark, the whole area is unlit and unsafe.
Children have to walk miles to go to school, and
attendance levels are abysmal.
These are people who have not only experienced
extreme brutality and loss, but have also lost
all their official papers: ration cards, birth
certificates, BPL cards. Many of them have been
given voter ID cards, but their ration cards have
been re-issued with their BPL status changed to
APL. This is only one of the many sleights of
hand denuding them of their most basic human
entitlements from the State. The men find it
impossible to find jobs, and when they do, are
paid pittances.
Many of these men have been unable to save their
wives, sisters, daughters, and mothers from being
raped, tortured or killed or, in many cases, all
three. The mix of trauma, outrage, fear and the
sense of profound ineffectuality and
emasculation, made worse by the lack of
employment, breeds a feeling of irredeemable
victimhood - easily handed down to the children
or taken out on the women - that hangs like a
miasma over the place. The men look hopeless and
passive, lying around in the afternoon heat on
khatias with blank eyes. The women, in contrast,
seem bustling with energy, articulate and better
organized together. They recount their
experiences vividly and are very clear about what
is happening, or not happening, to them. Yet,
after a while, you begin to sense a different
kind of incapacitation in them too, born out of
persistent fear and a long history of
disempowerment, that makes them unwilling, for
instance, to go out and look for work outside the
home.
This sense of victimhood and the scramble for
getting most out of a system determined to make
nothing easy result in another peculiar
phenomenon: the battle for evidence. It is fought
against an inhuman machinery that is geared to
strategic denial and forgetting. Apart from
personal papers and testimonies, photographs are
crucial here. Every survivor carries around a
personal portfolio of photographs - of damaged
property, dead family members and, most
unforgettably, of terrible physical wounds. These
last are often well-lit studio photographs with
fancy backdrops. You will be made to sit and look
closely at these photographs and listen to the
accompanying tales.
Most of the time, several individuals will be
doing this together with a bizarre combination of
desperate urgency and profound mistrust. Even as
they trust you with their stories and images,
with half a mind they wonder if you have come to
conduct another survey of the sort that was done
before the tufaan, when innocuous-looking
surveyors came to their homes to see where and
how they lived. Every survivor tells, over and
over again, of the signs of systematic planning,
with constant help from the police, in the months
before the violence erupted.
From siesta-time at Citizen Nagar to the late
evening azaan at Naroda Patia, we saw about ten
of the 69 colonies that exist all over Gujarat
today. Citizen Nagar is more or less
representative of them all. The latest survey of
2007 shows 4,473 internally displaced families -
23,081 men, women and children - living in them.
None of the land they are built on has been
provided by the government, and most of the
inhabitants do not yet have proper ownership
papers. The state government denies that these
people exist at all, and claim that they have
chosen to remain in the colonies because it
happens to be a better option for them
economically.
Mukhtar believes that victimhood, together with
the rehm-o-karam mentality that comes with it,
has spread like a disease among them, exploited,
in different ways, by the State and by
organizations that believe building mosques in
these colonies is more important than building
schools or health centres. "So why shouldn't 2002
happen again?" he asks.
______
[8]
Outlook Magazine
June 4, 2007
Book Review
The Fear And Loathing
New narrative vigour and fresh insights into a
theme that's been reduced to a static tale of
suffering
[Review by ] Mushirul Hasan
SINCE 1947: PARTITION NARRATIVES AMONG PUNJABI MIGRANTS OF DELHI
by Ravinder Kaur
Oxford University Press
Pages: 277; Rs: 550
Nobody knows how many died during Partition violence; G.D. Khosla, a civil
servant, estimates the death toll at half a million. Nobody knows for sure how
many were displaced and dispossessed. Roughly speaking, between 1946 and 1951,
nearly nine million Hindus and Sikhs came to India, and about six million
Muslims went to Pakistan. Of the nine million, five million came from what
became West Pakistan, and four million from East Pakistan.
For three months, between August and October 1947, Punjab was engulfed in a
civil war.
By 1951, nearly 3,29,000 Muslims in Delhi had headed off to Karachi. The city’s
Muslim population was thus reduced from 33.22 per cent in 1941 to 5.71 per cent
a decade later. Most who stayed sought shelter in refugee camps. Thousands were
herded within the walls of the Purana Qila with no proper shelter or sanitary
arrangements. Nirad C. Chaudhuri, then living in Old Delhi, saw Muslims
"waiting for the evacuating lorries with vacant looks in their eyes,
disregarding the rain and the storm, as if their only thought were to escape
the spectre that was treading at their heels".
Another painful process was at work—the forced migration of nearly 4.75 million
refugees from the North West Frontier Province and West Punjab to Delhi.
Step by step, Kaur questions existing theories. Step by step, she opens up her
inquiry to uncharted territory.
Ravinder Kaur, a post-doctoral fellow at Roskilde University, Denmark, has
produced an excellent study of "displacement, loss, resettlement, and
restoration". She has introduced fresh vigour into a theme that has been
reduced to a tale of woe and suffering. Although
her story is also woven with memories of personal
and inherited experiences, she offers fresh
insights into the narratives, on the social
background of the migration, on government
policies on resettlement, on the migrants’
claiming a new place as
one's own, and on the making of a Punjabi Hindu identity. Step by step, she
questions existing theories and assumptions. Step by step, she opens up her
inquiry to uncharted territory.
Most existing works limit themselves to, say, a decade after Partition; this
book explores the period between 1947 and 1965, the year the ministry of relief
and rehabilitation merged into the ministry of
home affairs as a department. So,
Kaur covers the twin processes of transformation that turn (1) ordinary people
into refugees and (2) refugees into citizens and then into locals. Earlier
studies focused on the resettlement process; the eight chapters of her book go
a step further and bring alive the hardships of the migrants, their everyday
life, and their strategy of coping with a new world. Again, earlier studies
based their conclusions on the upper-caste/middle-class narrators and left out
the lower-class/untouchable migrants.
Ravinder Kaur reminds us that the process of migration and resettlement was
experienced by different sections of society at multiple levels, and that no
single narrative can therefore claim to represent the Partition reality. Thus,
the experience of those who flew across the turbulent borders was different
from that of the foot traveller. And yet "air travel has never been part of the
national narrative of Partition, in which the
birth of the nation is linked with
traumatic territorial dismemberment and loss, followed later by rejuvenation
attained through clear political vision..." It is Khushwant Singh’s Train to
Pakistan or Krishan Chandra’s Peshawar Express that fits the national narrative
on the struggle, sacrifice and the indomitable spirit of the refugees.
Of the many insights in this well-crafted book, here are just three. First, the
master narrative of Punjab’s partition is told by the Punjabi elite, though
their own experiences often differ from the general experiences they
narrate.Second, women and poor refugee men do not author their own history;
"they exist only as a mass of refugees" whose individual experiences are
condensed as collective stories essential to the larger narration of the
Partition drama. Third, why do you think the untouchables are excluded from the
narrative on refugees? It is because of the assiduously cultivated myth of
upper-caste, middle-class Punjabis emerging as heroic survivors who
successfully reconstruct their lives. "The purity of this myth cannot be
polluted by opening it to the experiences of untouchables," Kaur concludes, on
this chilling note.
Even though there is no commemorative memorial for Partition survivors in free
India, the memories of the past continue to live in everyday forms. Over six
decades later, Palestinians living in refugee camps and victims of US
occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq may have many common tales to tell.
_____
[10] ANNOUNCEMENTS:
(i)
Champa -The Amiya & B.G.Rao Foundation,
25, Nizamuddin East, New delhi.
Re: Launch of the Afzal Petition : A Quest For Justice.
6th June,2007 at 4.30 PM
Dear friend,
We would like to cordially invite you to the launch of our book :
'The Afzal Petition: A Quest for Justice'.
Much controversy has been generated by the
death sentence awarded to Mohammed Afzal Guru,
convicted in the Parliament attack case.
Unfortunately, much of it has generated more heat
than light. The real political and human rights
issues have got lost.
Here for the first time you can
read Afzal's petition to the President of India.
The Annexures to the petition consist of court
records, submission made by the prosecution and
extensive quotes from the Supreme Court
Judgement. A reading of the Afzal Petition will
reveal the shocking fact that the Afzal was
awarded a death sentence not on legal grounds but
on political grounds, to "satisfy the collective
conscience of the society."
The Afzal Petition raises the
disturbing question whether the collective
conscience of any people can ever be satisfied if
a fellow citizen is hanged without being given an
opportunity to defend himself.
The book will be released by Shri Surendra
Mohan on June 6,2007 at 4.30 PM at
the Indian Women's Press Corps (IWPC), Windsor Road, New delhi-110001.
With kind regards,
Uma Chakravarti
Champa-The Amiya & B.G.Rao Foundation,
New Delhi-110013.
Tel: 981109952
o o
(ii)
Hello,
Warm greetings from Bangalore! The Indian Journal
of Medical Ethics is organising the Second
National Bioethics Conference on 6, 7 and 8
December 2007 at the Convention Centre at the
National Institute for Mental Health and
Neurosciences in Bangalore. This is organised in
collaboration with 38 institutions from various
parts of the country. We take this opportunity to
invite you to participate in the conference and
urge you to submit abstracts and papers for the
conference before the deadline of 15 June.
The Conference theme
MORAL AND ETHICAL IMPERATIVES OF HEALTH CARE TECHNOLOGIES:
Scientific, legal and socio-economic perspectives on use and misuse
Sub-themes
Technologies in medical practice
Research on health care technologies
Health care technologies, public health and policies
The deadline for submission of abstracts is the 15 June, 2007.
Kindly find enclosed the call for abstracts, the
poster, and the brochure of the conference.
Please visit http://www.ijme.in/ for further details/online submissions/and/ .
Thank you for your kind consideration.
Sincere regards
Abraham Thomas
---------------------------------------------------------------
Secretariat, National Bioethics Conference
C/O -- IMB-Samata Project
No.42 (Ist Floor)
Muniga Layout, M.S.Nagar,
Banaswadi Main Road,
Bangalore. 560033 Karnataka
o o
(iii)
The Asian Division of the Library of Congress is
pleased to announce the annual Florence Tan
Moeson Fellowship (URL:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/asian/FTM.html). This
fellowship is made possible by the generous
donation by Mrs. Florence Tan Moeson, a former
cataloger in the Chinese Team of the Regional and
Cooperative Cataloging Division for 45 years.
The purpose of the fellowship is to provide
individuals with the opportunity to pursue
research on East, Southeast, and/or South Asia
(including the overseas Asian communities), using
the unparalleled collections of the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C. The grants are for a
minimum of five business days of research and are
to be used to cover expenses incurred while
engaging in scholastic research at the Library of
Congress, in the area of Asian studies (e.g.,
travel to and from Washington, overnight
accommodations, photocopying). Up to 15
fellowships, with amounts varying from $300 to
$2,500, will be awarded. Graduate students,
independent scholars, community college teachers,
researchers without regular teaching
appointments, and librarians are especially
encouraged to apply.
Further application details is described in the
attached Florence Tan Moeson Fellowship brochure.
Applications are accepted online only at
http://lcasianfriends.org/application/index.php?sid=4
and must be submitted between June 1st and
September 30th every year. The awards will be
announced later in December.
Anchi Hoh, Ph.D.
Co-Chair
Florence Tan Moeson Fellowship Committee
The Asian Division
Library of Congress, LJ 150
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540-4810
Tel: (202) 707-5673
Fax: (202) 707-1724
Email: adia at loc.gov
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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