SACW | August 10-11, 2007

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at mnet.fr
Fri Aug 10 19:51:43 CDT 2007


South Asia Citizens Wire | August 10-11, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2433 - Year 9

[1] Pakistan: Underdeveloped at 60! (I. A. Rehman)
[2] Sri Lanka: Return to War: Human Rights Under Siege (Human Rights Watch)
[3] It was like seeing Kashmir in Washington (Z G Muhammad)
[4] India: Appeal: Save Gandhian institute from takeover by RSS
[5] 'Soon India's jails will be choc-a-block with Muslims' (Jawed Naqvi)
[6] India: The Muslim right's latest assault on 
Taslima Nasreen: reports, statements and opinions
   (i) Taslima Nasreen attacked in Hyderabad during book launch
   (ii) Andhra MLAs lead mob attack on Taslima
   (iii) Sahmat Press Statement to Condemn Attack on Tasleema Nasreen
   (iv) The secular silence (Barkha Dutt)
[7] India: Riots and bomb blasts: Two faces of justice (Teesta Setalvad)
[8] India: Now, Do Something (Editorial, The Times of India)
[9] Announcements:
  (i) Zuban announces Partition & "dark side of 
independence" events (New Delhi, 14 August 2007 
to August 2008)
  (ii) SANSAD Public Forum - India and Pakistan: 
Sixty Years Later (Burnaby, 11 August
  (iii) On Partition and birth of Pakistan 
-"Shanaakht - The Identity Project" a Festival 
(Karachi, 11-14 August 2007)
  (iv) Day Long Interactive Session on 'Role of 
Youth in Social Change' (Ahmedabad, 12 August 
2007)
  (v) Open Invitation To Artists - 60 One-minute 
Film Commissions - 360º Britain  India  Pakistan 
(2007-2010)


______


[1]

Dawn
August 09, 2007  

UNDERDEVELOPED AT 60!

by I. A. Rehman

FREEDOM, even when limited and facile, is a 
thousand times preferable to bondage, and there 
can be no reservation on thanksgiving by the 
Pakistani people on their state's 60th birth 
anniversary. The feeling of jubilation could, 
however, have been infinitely stronger if it were 
possible to dismiss the thought of Pakistan's 
being an under-developed collectivity even at the 
age of 60.

Statisticians, especially those who cook up 
figures for official reports, will disagree and 
protest. They have for long maintained that 
Pakistan is a rapidly developing country and 
should soon join the developed elite. This claim 
is based on the rate of GDP growth, the 
burgeoning numbers of cell phones and automobiles 
in the country, the mushrooming of high-rise 
plazas and the presence of rich and powerful 
rulers. Perhaps Islamabad's role in fighting 
terrorists by subduing large parts of the 
country's population will also be cited as 
evidence of success in achieving development 
goals.

Regardless of the value one may put on these 
indicators of development, we are concerned here 
with three main indicators of under-development. 
These are: a lack of maturity in the collective's 
thinking, a high level of poverty in the country, 
and the people's exclusion from decision-making.

The assumption here is that besides computation 
of material progress, development must be 
measured by a country's ability to take 
decisions, especially on critical issues, that 
prove to be wise, timely, and in public interest; 
by guarantees of a decent and fulsome standard of 
living for all citizens, especially the poorest 
and the weakest among them; and by the 
opportunities the people have of contributing to 
decisions affecting their lives, both 
individually and collectively. Pakistan tests 
positive on all three of the indicators of 
under-development.

The grievous setbacks and debilitating crises 
Pakistan has had to face over the past six 
decades make a pretty long list. The more 
consequential are: failure to realise for nine 
years the most vital need for a constitution for 
the new sate and the compulsions of a democratic, 
federal and equitable constitution till today; 
use of unfair means to escape democratic 
obligations and frequent resort to force to 
suppress the aspirations of the federating units, 
especially of the majority population in East 
Bengal; deliberate and hypocritical exploitation 
of belief for narrow political interests; neglect 
of permanent neighbours for the sake of distant, 
temporary and fickle-minded patrons; reliance on 
profitless borrowing and disregard for national 
human capital; and, finally, an incredibly strong 
devotion to a praetorian polity.

Throughout the years of independence the people 
have paid heavily for the collective's lack of 
capacity to wisely deal with critical issues, to 
address crises before they become irresoluble. 
The most frightening aspect of reality today is 
our apparently firm resolve to prove that the 
mindset governing Pakistan's actions and 
behaviour betrays not only a state of 
under-development but also suicidal traits of a 
most dangerous variety.

Nearly 40 per cent of the population of Pakistan 
lives in abject poverty. What makes the situation 
more unbearable is that while efforts to enable 
the poor to move out of the abyss of dehumanized 
existence have had limited effect, attempts 
continue to be made to inflate success in 
fighting poverty by debating and controverting 
the size of the wretched population. As it is, 
the criteria used to determine the number of the 
absolute poor seems quite inadequate.

If lack of opportunity to realise oneself and 
denial of basic freedoms and fundamental rights 
are taken into account as determinants of 
poverty, and there is no earthly reason why these 
matters should be ignored, an overwhelming 
majority of the population is likely to be 
classified as poor. That is under-development 
writ large and bold.

The least controversial fact about Pakistan is a 
progressive reduction over the decades of the 
people's say in the management of the collective. 
We began with rule by representatives elected on 
a narrow franchise and in a pre-Pakistan context. 
They were inherently incapable of respecting the 
aspirations of the people, of acting as a 
responsible outfit. Adult franchise came in 1951 
and with it the tradition of avoiding elections 
or fudging them if they had to be held.

Either way the people's sovereign rights came 
under the axe. A decade after the people had 
created Pakistan by their democratic choice, they 
were told they were incapable of democratic 
management of their affairs. For seven years the 
country suffered the ignominy of living under a 
constitution 'given' by a single man at his 
discretion. What has followed, except for a short 
interlude, is autocracy under different masks.

A little deliberation will reveal that the third 
factor of under-development mentioned above, 
namely, the exclusion of the people from 
decision-making, has been the most decisive cause 
of Pakistan's unending travail. In almost all 
crises the state's destiny was in the hands of 
small groups whose claims to represent the people 
could convince their members only or in the hands 
of individuals who could not even make such 
claims.

The collective mind's lack of maturity in the 
face of crises could possibly have been overcome 
if larger bodies of citizens had been taken into 
confidence. In that event a search for strategies 
to fight poverty might have begun in the 1950's 
and not forty years later. An enquiry into the 
people's exclusion from decision-making is 
necessary because Pakistan's future will not be 
any better than its past unless matters begin to 
be decided by the will of the people.

The myth relied upon by the advocates and 
apologists of autocracy is that the people have 
no understanding and tradition of democratic 
politics and therefore the maximum concession to 
them can be guided/controlled democracy. But the 
statement that Pakistan did not have an 
indigenous tradition of parliamentary democracy 
that was sought to be implanted here is more true 
about the traditional ruling elite, both of its 
civilian and military wings included, than about 
the masses.

It is this ruling elite that has consistently 
been found wanting in ability to base decisions 
on public consensus, partly because of its 
incapacity to appreciate the dynamics of a 
democratic process and partly out of fear of 
losing not only its material possessions and 
privileges but also, and more importantly, its 
monopoly over power.

A common reason advanced by the country's 
permanent establishment for curtailing and 
shutting off the process of reference to the 
people is that they lack formal education. 
Statements to this effect are quite shamelessly 
made by the establishment's theorists without any 
hint of remorse at its own culpability in the 
matter.

Nobody will deny the part education can play in 
helping a society manage its affairs. From 
measuring land and collection of taxes to 
building of roads and dams and generation of 
electricity, to running of hospitals and 
parliament's secretariat you need adequately 
educated and trained professionals. But politics, 
especially democratic politics, is a matter of 
making choices on the basis of people's needs so 
as to ensure the greatest good of the greatest 
number. No formal education is required for 
making such choices, as we shall presently see.

The franchise for the elections of 1945-46 that 
clinched the argument in favour of Pakistan was 
extremely limited. All the voters had not had the 
benefit of formal education. Many among them - 
owners of property, tax-payers, ex-servicemen - 
were illiterate. Yet they were considered 
sufficiently qualified to join the most momentous 
consultative process in the history of British 
India.

Much before these elections the Quaid-i-Azam had 
been demanding a plebiscite to determine Indian 
Muslims' support for the demand for Pakistan on 
the basis of a broader franchise, that is, he 
wanted more uneducated people to be brought into 
decision-making (because all the 'educated' were 
voters already).

After partition, plebiscite was demanded to 
decide Kashmir's future, although a vast majority 
of the people to be consulted was uneducated. 
Above all, none among Pakistan's rulers whose 
decisions over six decades have been held to lack 
maturity of mind was uneducated. No, Pakistan's 
trials as a consequence of the exclusion of the 
masses from decision-making cannot be ascribed to 
their low educational achievements..

Instead, the people have been unable to 
participate in decision-making, thus condemning 
the state to be governed by an immature elite and 
condemning themselves to poverty, because the 
social structures established before independence 
were not conducive to democratic governance. And 
all governments have been guilty of failing to 
demolish the socio-economic barriers to the 
people's empowerment, though a few of them did 
try to tinker with them. The largest groups of 
people barred from decision-making councils are: 
peasants (including their womenfolk), women 
(outside the agriculture sector), and working 
people (industrial and trade employees, workers 
in the informal sector, and self-employed hordes).

Taken together they constitute an overwhelming 
majority of the people. They are not incapable of 
contributing positively to decision-making 
institutions and processes, but they have been 
prevented from doing so by 
socio-economic-cultural constraints. Where do 
these large chunks of population stand 60 years 
after independence?

* Pakistan was an agricultural country to begin 
with. The share of agriculture to GDP may have 
fallen sharply but a majority of the population 
still depends on it. The state has largely been 
concerned with raising agricultural output and to 
some extent with marketing. The rights of the 
tillers were half-heartedly addressed vide three 
inadequate and insincerely implemented land 
reform packages. Despite the fact that the ILO 
Convention on farm workers' right to form trade 
unions was ratified before independence, the 
state has not encouraged peasant mobilisation.

The bonded haris in Sindh and at some places in 
Punjab and the Frontier may present extreme 
instances of exploitation but tillers of the soil 
by and large are not free anywhere in the country 
in social and political terms. All women in 
peasant families are exploited even more than 
their men. To a large extent, the nature of 
tenant-landowner relationship and the social 
resourcelessness of the small proprietor bar the 
peasantry from entering the area of 
decision-making.

* Pakistan's women outside the farming sector 
have an impressive record of struggle and success 
but the beneficiaries of their achievements in 
the political (seats in elective bodies) and the 
service sectors (jobs in government and private 
establishments) constitute a small percentage of 
their total number. The feudal, male patriarchs 
continue to decide whether a girl can go to 
school or an adult woman can choose her spouse.

Their right to inheritance is disputed, to say 
nothing of their broader right to economic 
independence. Across a large part of the country 
they are not allowed freedom of vote and many of 
those elected to local councils are not permitted 
to perform their functions. It can safely be 
asserted that a vast majority of women continue 
to be excluded from decision-making.

* The plight of Pakistan's working people is 
particularly pathetic because theoretically they 
are supposed to be freer agents than peasants and 
women. They are not. Since 1959, when the Ayub 
regime began the series of anti-labour policies, 
and right upto the Industrial Relations Ordinance 
of 2002, labour has been progressively stripped 
of the rights it had won after nearly two 
centuries of struggle.

The right to unionise and the rights of organised 
workers both have been curtailed. Partly under 
pressure of economic needs and partly because of 
union leaders' short-sightedness, the working 
people have opted out or have been pushed out of 
decision-making processes.

What has been discussed here is not Pakistan's 
past, the subject is future. The issue is major 
obstacles to genuine development. Pakistan will 
remain an underdeveloped nation with an immature 
mindset in command so long as its peasants remain 
bonded to absentee landlords (or corporate 
barons), its women remain in the clutches of male 
feudal tormentors, and its working people are 
left to rot as galley-slaves of merciless 
exploiters.

______


[2]

Human Rights Watch Press Release

SRI LANKA: GOVERNMENT ABUSES INTENSIFY
Killings, Abductions and Displacement Soar as Impunity Reigns

(New York, August 6, 2007) – The Sri Lankan 
government is responsible for unlawful killings, 
enforced disappearances and other serious human 
rights violations since the resumption of major 
hostilities with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil 
Eelam (LTTE) last year, Human Rights Watch said 
in a report released today.
Human Rights Watch documented a dramatic increase 
in abuses by government forces over the past 18 
months, and called on the country's donors and 
concerned governments to support a United Nations 
monitoring mission in Sri Lanka.
The LTTE, an armed Tamil secessionist group, is 
responsible for serious crimes such as targeted 
civilian killings, extortion and the use of child 
soldiers, which Human Rights Watch has repeatedly 
documented and condemned.
The new 129-page report, "Return to War: Human 
Rights Under Siege," uses accounts by victims and 
eyewitnesses to document the shocking increase in 
violations by government forces. Ethnic Tamils 
have borne the brunt of these violations, the 
report said, but members of the Muslim and 
majority Sinhalese population are not immune to 
government abuse.
"The Sri Lankan government has apparently given 
its security forces a green light to use ‘dirty 
war' tactics," said Brad Adams, Asia director at 
Human Rights Watch. "Abuses by the LTTE are no 
excuse for the government's campaign of killings, 
‘disappearances' and forced returns of the 
displaced."
A 2002 ceasefire agreement between the government 
and the LTTE technically remains in force, but 
major hostilities resumed in mid-2006. President 
Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother, Defense 
Secretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa, have pursued 
military operations in the country's north and 
east, with little regard for the security of the 
civilian population, Human Rights Watch said.
Security forces have subjected civilians to 
indiscriminate attacks and impeded the delivery 
of humanitarian aid. Some 315,000 people have had 
to flee their homes due to fighting since August 
2006, the vast majority Tamils and Muslims. About 
100,000 were displaced in March alone. 
Government authorities have forced some to return 
to areas that remained insecure.
Human Rights Watch documented a disturbing rise 
in abductions and "disappearances" over the past 
one-and-a-half years. More than 1,100 new cases 
were reported between January 2006 and June 2007, 
the vast majority of them Tamils. While the LTTE 
has long been responsible for abductions, the 
majority of recent "disappearances" implicate 
government forces or armed groups acting with 
governmental complicity.
On the northern Jaffna peninsula alone, an area 
under strict military control, more than 800 
people were reported missing between December 
2005 and April 2007, 241 of whom were 
subsequently found. In the vast majority of 
cases, witnesses and family members allege that 
security forces were involved or implicated in 
the abduction.
In August 2006, the government reintroduced 
Emergency Regulations, which criminalize a range 
of peaceful activities protected under Sri Lankan 
and international law. The government has used 
the regulations to prosecute political opponents 
and members of the media.
The report documents the deterioration of media 
freedom in Sri Lanka, where 11 media workers have 
been killed since August 2005. Tamil journalists 
in particular work under severe threat from both 
the LTTE and government, but the government has 
also pressured Sinhala-language outlets that 
present critical news and views.
The government has tried to silence those who 
question or criticize its approach to the armed 
conflict or its human rights record. It has 
dismissed peaceful critics as "traitors," 
"terrorist sympathizers," and "supporters of the 
LTTE."
"The government is using its conflict with the 
LTTE and the rhetoric of counterterrorism to 
suppress dissent in Sri Lanka," said Adams. "This 
is an extremely disturbing turn in a country with 
a long tradition of free speech even during times 
of conflict."
Human Rights Watch found that the Karuna group, a 
Tamil armed group that split from the LTTE in 
2004 and now cooperates with Sri Lankan forces 
against the LTTE, continues to abduct and 
forcibly recruit children and young men into its 
force with the complicity or acquiescence of the 
Sri Lankan government. UNICEF has documented 145 
cases of recruitment and re-recruitment of 
children by the Karuna group since December 2006, 
and
the real number is most likely higher.
The Karuna group has also kidnapped for ransom 
scores of Tamil businessmen in Batticaloa, 
Vavuniya, and the capital Colombo. Despite 
repeated promises to investigate state complicity 
in Karuna group abductions, the government has 
thus far not indicated that it has taken any 
steps to investigate, and the abductions have 
continued unabated.
In a January 2007 report, Human Rights Watch 
documented the pattern of Karuna abductions with 
the complicity or willful blindness of the Sri 
Lankan government.
Impunity for human rights violations by 
government security forces, long a problem in Sri 
Lanka, remains a disturbing norm. As the conflict 
intensifies and government forces are implicated 
in a longer list of abuses, the government has 
displayed a clear unwillingness to hold 
accountable those responsible for serious 
violations.
A Presidential Commission of Inquiry created in 
2006 to examine specific cases of serious human 
rights abuse by the government and the LTTE has 
proven inadequate to handle the deteriorating 
human rights situation in the country, the report 
concludes. The commission seems an effort to 
stave off domestic and international criticism 
rather than a sincere attempt to promote 
accountability and to deter future abuse.
"The government has repeatedly promised to end 
and investigate abuses, but has shown a lack of 
political will to take effective steps," Adams 
said.  "Government institutions have proven 
unable or unwilling to deal with the scale and 
intensity of abuse."
Human Rights Watch called on Sri Lanka's 
international donors to use their leverage with 
both the government and the LTTE to encourage 
respect for international law, including the 
protection of civilians during hostilities. 
International aid is one lever, and governments 
such as the United Kingdom and Germany have 
recently elected to limit aid until government 
practices improve.
Concerned states should also work within the 
United Nations Human Rights Council to initiate 
and support strong Council resolutions on Sri 
Lanka to encourage a change in practices of both 
the government and the LTTE, the report said.
Most importantly, concerned countries and the Sri 
Lankan government should work to establish a UN 
human rights monitoring mission in Sri Lanka with 
a mandate to monitor, investigate and report on 
abuses by the government, the LTTE and the Karuna 
group.
"A UN human rights monitoring mission in Sri 
Lanka would help protect civilians, end impunity 
and promote a resolution to the conflict that 
respects human rights," Adams said.

o o o

Full text of the report 'Return to War: Human Rights Under Siege'.

is available at:

http://hrw.org/reports/2007/srilanka0807/

______


[3]

IT WAS LIKE SEEING KASHMIR IN WASHINGTON
by Z G Muhammad

30 July 2007

It was the day of Kashmir in the Capitol Hill 
Washington D.C. Congressmen, academics, 
attorneys, columnists, professionals and 
journalists had gathered in the Rayburn House 
office Building, just few hundred yards from the 
centre of global power the White House to debate 
on innovative methods for resolving the Kashmir 
dispute. It was seventh conference organized by 
the Association of Humanitarian Lawyers and 
Kashmir Centre of the Kashmiri American Council. 
Twelve important Congressmen associated with 
South-Asia policy making were the key speakers in 
the Conference and many others participated in 
the deliberations.  The Congressmen Joseph Pitts, 
Dana Rohrabacher, Mike Honda, Danny  Davis, Nick 
Rahall,  Tom Davis,  Dan Burton, Jim Mc' 
Dermorit  belonging to both Democratic and 
Republican  parties who were the  speakers in the 
morning session of the two day conference seemed 
all expressed their urgency for resolution of 
Kashmir problem as it continued to be a 
flashpoint in the South-Asian nation.

It was an amazing experience to hear these 
American Congressmen in as much as their intimate 
knowledge about the genesis of the Kashmir 
problem and the situation as obtains in the State 
was concerned. Clarity of their ideas about the 
Kashmir situation was suggestive that many of 
them had far deeper understanding about finding a 
lasting solution to this problem than many 
Kashmir leaders who are lost in the maze of 
borrowed ideas. Star speaker in the conference 
was not a Kashmir leader or intellectual from 
either side of the Ceasefire Line but a young 
woman Bengali scholar and researcher Prof. Angana 
Chatterji from California Institute Studies. Her 
presentation not only exuded impartiality and 
objectivity but incisiveness. Her study was not 
based on archival materials but her in-depth 
study of situation of human rights, plight of 
women and children in Kupwara districts during 
June 2007. The details in the presentation made 
by the Indian scholar with a strong background 
were so amazing that it would dwarf any scholar 
and social scientist in the Kashmir University.

The ongoing India-Pakistan peace process remained 
main focus of majority of the scholars and 
intellectuals who made their presentation in the 
conference but the theme song that emerged from 
most of them was that for 'lasting peace between 
two countries Kashmir solution is sine qua non. 
Some new dimensions of the Kashmir dispute 
hitherto to unknown were the thrust areas of some 
of the presentations made in the conference. 
Prof. Robert G Wirsing of Asia-Pacific Centre for 
Security Studies Honloloulu, Hawaii in his 
presentation titled Kashmir Resolution: A River 
Runs Through It, came up with a newer dimension 
of 'water' that would possibly more significant 
role in India-Pakistan Kashmir policy. In his 
4931 word presentation has come up with a thesis 
as how rivers having their origin in Kashmir 
would play a significant role in coming years in 
India and Pakistan relations. One may not agree 
with the ideas put forth by Prof. Wirsing about 
Kashmir problem but it would not be at the same 
time fair to him not to deliberate upon his point 
of view that 'nevertheless water's exclusion from 
any plan of conflict resolution pertaining to the 
India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir would kill 
the plan at its birth.' It may not have even 
crossed India-Pakistan foreign affairs experts 
that the 'water resources issues were moving 
rapidly to the centre-stage in the India-Pakistan 
bilateral relations.'

One may not agree with American scholar that 
ignoring importance of 'water resources' 
connectivity to Kashmir dispute would be 
'self-defeating.' And his assertion that 'unless 
river resources are given their due, Kashmir's 
political liberation and peaceful development 
will remain permanently elusive' but it should 
engage the attention of academics, scholars and 
politicians in Kashmir to prevent this dimension 
taking over the fundamental issue thus delaying 
further a peaceful settlement of the dispute.

There was an important message for India and 
Pakistan leadership in the presentation made by 
Dr. Rodeny W. Jones of Policy Architects 
International Reston that 'Kashmir conflict has 
had deleterious effects on both Pakistan's and 
India's society at large'. Dr. Jones was not 
alone in his assertions that 'for a genuine and 
lasting peace in the region the Kashmiris had to 
be integrally linked in the out come of the 
settlement process' but this assertion in fact 
provide rhythm and heart beat to the Conference 
in the capital of  the only super-power.

It was a conference distinct from previous ones 
not because of there being hardly any politician 
of consequences in India and Pakistan but for the 
larger presence of United States Congressmen from 
different parts from different states with 
diverse opinions on other matters but surprising 
converging at one point that the resolution of 
Kashmir problem was not only in the interests of 
India and Pakistan but in the interest of the 
United States in South Asian region. It was not 
only American opinion that found a place in the 
conference but India's divergent views on 
Kashmir were also sufficiently articulated by Dr. 
Ved Partap Vedik Chairman Council for Indian 
Foreign Policy and Columnist Praful Bidwai 
columnist and scholar. Dr. Vediak known for his 
proximity with corridors of power in New Delhi 
sounded more eloquent on third option than on the 
importance of CBMS between India and Pakistan for 
third option. The Pakistan's point of view was 
conspicuous by the absence of Ambassador of 
Pakistan in Washington Mahmud Ali Durrani in the 
Conference despite being listed in the work 
schedule of the conference at a higher place. 
The Pakistan's view point was however presented 
by grand daughter of famous Kashmir historian and 
journalist Muhammad Din Fauq Dr. Attiya 
Inyatullah Chairperson of Pakistan Muslim League 
Foreign Affairs Committee.

Notwithstanding her presentation revolving around 
the CBMS she very vehemently pleaded for the 
implementation of the United Nation's Security 
Council Resolutions on Kashmir and saw that the 
best settlement of the Kashmir issue rested in 
these resolution. It was not only host of the 
Conference Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai but even the 
co-host Dr. Karen Parker chairperson of 
Association of Humanitarian lawyers who very 
strongly advocated for Right to 
Self-Determination. He seemed highly objective in 
his statement that any peace process on fragile 
platform was bound to collapse if wishes of the 
people of Kashmir are not respected. And any 
process that is designed to sidetrack the United 
Nations will not only prove to be an exercise in 
futility but can also cause incalculable human 
and political damage.How better the conference is 
going to help the US policy planner to reassess 
its Kashmir policy and de-link it from its 
nuclear interests in India will be too early to 
say. The presence of members of many think tanks 
in the Conference taking profuse notes was an 
indicator about the renewed interests of the 
United States in Kashmir outside its growing 
equation with India.

(Send your views at zahidgm at hotmail.com)

______


[4]

APPEAL: SAVE GANDHIAN INSTITUTE FROM TAKEOVER BY RSS

The Sangh Parivar has been trying to takeover the 
Gandhian Institute of Studies in Rajghat, 
Varanasi for some time through an expelled 
employee of the Institute Smt. Kusum Lata Kedia. 
The Institute was founded by late Jayaprakash 
Narayan (JP) in 1960 with the purpose of building 
a closer relationship between grassroots 
movements and academia so that both would benefit 
from each other.  The land was given on lease by 
Sarva Sewa Sangh and support for construction 
provided by U.P. Gandhi Smarak Nidhi. JP ran the 
Institute without any government support from its 
inception till 1977.  It was only during the 
Janata Party regime that it was decided that 
Institute would meet its running expenses with 
support from ICSSR and the UP Government.
K.L. Kedia, with affiliations to RSS, joined the 
Institute and initiated the downfall of this 
prestigious Institute.  She had to be expelled 
from the Institute in 2002 by its Board of 
Management after recommendations given in by a 
committee headed by late Usha Mehta, on 
disciplinary grounds. However, she schemed with 
then HRD minister Murali Manohar Joshi and got 
the funds from ICSSR to the Institute stopped. 
She got herself declared as the 'acting director' 
by the ICSSR. It was when she had started abusing 
the Institute's property that a dharna was 
organized by the Board of Management, now headed 
by legendary Gandhian Acharya Ramamurti, in 2003 
to ask the administration to step in to prevent 
her from doing so. The local administration put a 
lock on the main building.  Meanwhile, she 
continued to occupy the director's residence.
With the coming into power of Congress led 
government at the centre, funds from ICSSR 
resumed. Arjun Singh described this as a 'test 
case' for freeing an academic institution from 
saffronization. Sarva Sewa Sangh allowed the 
Institute to function from its adjacent premises 
with a Professor of BHU, Prof. Dipak Malik as its 
new Director and Muniza Rafiq Khan as its acting 
Registrar. However, the Mulayam Singh government 
was unable to get the Institute begin functioning 
from its main premises. In fact, a minister in 
his government, Omprakash Singh, was instrumental 
in getting the application for renewal of 
registration of the Society which runs the 
Institute rejected.
With the coming of Mayawati Govt. we expected 
quite rightfully that it will announce final exit 
of the RSS led conspiracy managed by Ms.
K.L. Kedia but in a queer turn of events here too 
a former RSS functionary and currently higher 
education minister Rakesh Dhar Tripathi a close 
disciple of Murli Manohar Joshi taking pretext of 
a District Court order while the case is already 
subjudice in the High Court at Allahabad has 
forced the Principal Secretary, Education, UP 
Government, to form a committee headed by K.L. 
Kedia, who was given the highest honour in the 
Sangh Parivar "Hedgewar Award," to oversee the 
running of the Gandhian Institute of Studies. The 
rest of the committee is also packed with people 
close to RSS.  This is an ill omen for newly 
formed Govt. in U. P. where RSS infiltrators are 
trying to sabotage the agenda of the newly 
elected Govt.
This is a momentary defeat for the Gandhian and 
secular community in saving the Institute from 
falling into the hands of Sangh Parivar which has 
been responsible for Gandhi's murder as well as 
assault on his ideology from time to time.
Gandhian Institute of Studies must be saved from 
takeover by RSS. It has to be restored to its 
original mission as envisioned by JP.
Please call the UP C.M. at 0522-2236181, 2239296 
(o), 2236761, 2750458 (h) or send a fax at 
0522-2223000 to register your protest.

Akhil Bhart Sarva Seva Sangh, Gandhian Institute 
of Studies, Lok Vidya, Sarnath Varanasi, Prarana 
Kala Manch, Asmita, Mahila Chetana Samiti, Lok 
Samiti, VISION, Manawa Adhikar Jan-Nigarani 
Samiti, Path, Mitra, Varanasi.
Gandhi Smarak Nidhi, New Delhi Gandhi Smarak 
Nidhi, Uttar Pradesh Shram Bharti, Khadigram, 
Jamui (Bihar) Asha Parivar, Lucknow.
National Alliance of People's Movement
Center for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai
Gandhi Peace Foundation, New Delhi
AIPSO, Uttar Pradesh
Ramanand Pustakalay, Aazamgarh
Sajha Sanskriti Manch, Samanvaya,


______


[5]

DAWN
August 06, 2007 

'SOON INDIA'S JAILS WILL BE CHOC-A-BLOCK WITH MUSLIMS'
by Jawed Naqvi


TV JOURNALIST Sagarika Ghose said those worried 
words in a column last week. She was referring to 
a controversial verdict in which a hundred 
persons were handed stiff sentences, including 
death, by an anti-terror judge for alleged 
involvement in a string of blasts, which killed 
257 people in Mumbai in 1993.

It must be a record of sorts. Of the 123 actually 
accused, 100 were sentenced, 12 to death, 20 
given life terms, 15 of them with rigorous 
imprisonment. And what are the names of those who 
will die? The question was vestigial. Ghose and a 
majority of Indians who have followed the murky 
trial know the answer. In her own words: "Among 
others, Memon, Turk, Tarani, Shaikh, Mukadam, 
Ghansar, Malik, Pawle, and Khan. What are the 
names of those who will serve life terms with RI? 
Among others, Shaikh, Khairulla, Qureshi, Memon, 
Rehman and Kadar. In the 1998 Coimbatore blast 
verdict this week, the main accused Abdul Nazar 
Mahdani has been acquitted, but SA Basha, founder 
of al-Umma has been found guilty, along with 157 
others. Muslim after Muslim has stepped up to be 
convicted and sentenced. Soon India's jails will 
be choc-a-block with Muslims."

One of the convicts in the Mumbai case was 
popular film star Sanjay Dutt. He got six years 
RI, admittedly for possessing a gun to protect 
himself from a nightmarish communal carnage, 
which preceded the blasts. Shiv Sena hordes and 
policemen owing allegiance to their leaders had 
summarily killed most of the 900, mostly Muslims. 
The Justice Srikrishna Commission investigated 
the carnage and specifically named 31 policemen 
and Shiv Sena activists, all based on eye-witness 
accounts. It was to be in vain.

Ghose has written a brave column. She knows the 
consequences. "To voice any doubts about the long 
delayed (blasts) trial is considered 
'anti-national', 'unpatriotic' or 
'pseudo-secular'." Yet she and senior lawyers she 
has quoted have cast doubt on the blast case and 
how it is a shame on the judiciary. "How can 
justice be thoroughly done through the mountains 
of documentation, the sheer bulk of facts and 
contradictions, the long delayed trial and lapses 
in human memory that must have faced poor Justice 
PD Kode?" Lawyers have called the case a 
"mistrial" and a case of "playing to the gallery".

Writing in the Sunday Express, respected 
journalist Maseeh Rehman recalled how several 
members of the convicted Memon family had in fact 
returned from Karachi, where they had reportedly 
fled, to prove their innocence. The father of 
Tiger Memon, the man who actually masterminded 
the blasts, was livid over the cold-blooded 
murder of fellow Indians by his son.

Rehman was the chief correspondent for India 
Today in Mumbai when the blasts occurred. He 
recalls how Tiger Memon, who had fled to Dubai 
had become an outcast in his own family after 
they learnt of his involvement in the serial 
blasts. "After the bombings, Tiger turned 
evasive, and it gradually dawned on them that the 
reports from Mumbai were true - a Memon was 
behind the outrage.

"This provoked father Abdul Razzak to physically 
thrash Tiger in front of the others soon after 
they landed in Karachi. The strongly built, 
hot-tempered Tiger took the beating quietly (just 
as he later accepted their decision to return to 
India), though, as Yakub said in court, Tiger 
warned him: "Tum Gandhiwadi ban ke ja rahe ho, 
lekin wahan atankwadi qarar kiye jayo ge (You are 
going as a Gandhian, but over there you will be 
labelled a terrorist)." The upshot is that Yakub 
Memon faces the hangman's noose for keeping his 
faith in India's fabled democracy and judiciary.

A dozen death sentences in one trial is not a 
joke. Has India become a more bloody-minded state 
than its founders had envisaged? An Indian judge 
perhaps sought to correct this nagging perception 
in his own awkward way. He had to order the 
deportation of a suspect wanted by the British 
police for raping and killing an English girl. 
The judge set an implausible condition. The 
deportation, he declared, should not lead to the 
man's execution in UK! Now either the judge is 
not aware that unlike India, Britain abolished 
the last remnants of death penalty in 1998, or 
the reports quoting his condition for deportation 
were wrong.

Actually, there is a persistent trend 
internationally to abolish the death penalty and 
India is among the countries that retain it. A 
pity in Gandhi's land. Studies cited by Amnesty 
International suggest that death penalty is more 
likely to be imposed on those who are poorer, 
less educated and belong to the marginalised 
segments of society. Moreover, since death 
penalty is irrevocable, there is an inherent risk 
of error in its application.

In the 1983 India's Supreme Court ruled that the 
death penalty can only be applied in the "rarest 
of rare" cases. Since this is not further defined 
and no clear guidelines exist, the use of capital 
penalty is largely dependent on the 
interpretation of this phrase by individual 
judges.

There is room for bias too. Indian authorities 
have opposed the death penalty in some cases but 
condoned it in others. In 2004, the government 
requested mercy for Indian national Ayodhya 
Prasad Chaubey, who was executed in Indonesia on 
August 5, 2004 on drug-trafficking charges, but 
the government is understood to have condoned 
other executions of Indian citizens.

Even more seriously, Amnesty says the number of 
executions carried out in India is unknown. PUDR, 
an Indian human rights group, called on the 
government in 2005 to make public all information 
on executions since independence in 1947. Indian 
media have reported that there have been 55 
executions since independence. PUDR has 
challenged this figure, stating that according to 
a 1967 Law Commission report, at least 1,422 
people were executed between 1953 and 1963. Who 
were these people? It would be interesting to 
find out.

There is no consistency across Indian states with 
regard to disclosure of death penalty statistics. 
The Delhi Deputy Director General of Prisons 
stated it was not "in the public interest" to 
publish such figures. Well-known death sentences 
in India are of persons convicted of 
assassinating major political leaders, as in the 
killings of Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and 
Rajiv Gandhi, or for crimes under 'terrorist' 
laws, as in the attack on the Indian Parliament 
in 2001. These sentences were by their nature 
very well known throughout the country but 
hundreds of other sentences have been awarded 
without considerable attention.

The recently published legal casebook, Can 
Society Escape the NooseŠ? The Death Penalty in 
India, contends that of the thousands of murders 
committed each year in India, it is the poor and 
underprivileged and persons belonging to minority 
groups who eventually receive the death sentence 
and are executed for their crimes.

The point raised by Sagarika Ghose appears to 
blend with the overall state of affairs. But 
neither she nor Maseeh Rehman seemed to be 
perturbed by the fact that India is a rare 
democracy to retain capital punishment. Even its 
mistaken role model in the controversial war on 
terrorism - Israel - had declared capital 
punishment illegal way back in 1954.

The important question raised by Ghose about the 
inequality of justice and implied communal bias 
can be addressed without being bloody-minded in 
our own version of retribution. She herself asks: 
"As Muslim after Muslim has walked to his death, 
as 'terrorist' after 'terrorist' has been taken 
away for life, what about the Hindu mobs and 
Hindu police officers who were named and indicted 
by the Justice Srikrishna Commission that 
inquired into the bloodcurdling 1992-93 riots of 
Mumbai in which 900 died?" It's a valid question. 
Justice Srikrishna indicts 31 "trigger-happy" 
policemen: among others, the names here are 
sub-inspector Vasant Madhukar More, police 
inspectors Patankar and Wahule, Jt Commissoner of 
Police RD Tyagi, not to mention political names 
like Gopinath Munde, Madhukar Sarpotdar and Ram 
Naik of the BJP, all accused of inciting mobs. 
Aren't riots too not an act of terror? A 
terrorist is defined as one who kills innocent 
civilians for a political purpose. So aren't 
those Hindu rioters too not 'terrorists' and 
shouldn't they too face the same law as Muslim 
'terrorists'? To answer the key question raised 
by Ghose, yes, riots too are an act of terror. 
But can they be addressed by spilling more blood 
even if by supposedly legal means?


______



[6]  INDIA: THE MUSLIM RIGHT'S LATEST ASSAULT ON 
TASLIMA NASREEN: REPORTS, STATEMENTS AND OPINIONS

(i)

The Times of India
9 August 2007

TASLIMA NASREEN ATTACKED IN HYDERABAD DURING BOOK LAUNCH

HYDERABAD: Taslima Nasreen, the controversial 
Bangladeshi novelist, was attacked on Thursday by 
Majid-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (MIM) activists in 
Hyderabad Press club.

The attack took place during the launch of her latest book.

TV grabs showed MIM activists throwing chairs at the controversial writer.

However, no injuries have been reported. The 
police and journalists came to her rescue and 
avoided any major mishap.

Taslima is facing fatwas which were issued 
against her for her radical views against Islam.

The author has been living in India due to 
Islamic backlash in her native country.

o o o

(ii)

CNN-IBN
August 09, 2007 at 14:13

ANDHRA MLA's LEAD MOB ATTACK ON TASLIMA

Hyderabad: Local political activists in Hyderabad 
on Thursday attacked the car of author Taslima 
Nasreen when she was attending the book release 
of the Telugu translation of her latest novel 
Shodh.

A group of 20 MIM workers, led by MLAs Afsar 
Khan, Ahmed Pasha and Mozum Khan, stormed the 
Press Club premises and raised slogans against 
the author.

At the concluding session of the book release, 
the MIM activists barged into the conference 
hall, attacked the press photographers, damaged 
the furniture and glass panes and some of them 
reached the dais and roughed up the novelist.

The police later took the legislators and their supporters into custody.

Later on, she was safely escorted to the airport 
with the help of journalists and the organisers 
of the function.

Nasreen is a controversial figure in the world of 
Literature. Her books Lajja and Dwikhondito are 
banned in Bangladesh.

Nasreen talks about the torture of Hindu 
minorities in Bangladesh. She has been living in 
exile for more than 10 years now.

o o o

(iii)

SAHMAT
8, Vithalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg
  New Delhi-110001, India
Tel- 23711276/ 23351424
e-mail-sahmat at vsnl.com
9.8.2007

PRESS STATEMENT TO CONDEMN ATTACK ON TASLEEMA NASREEN

SAHMAT strongly condemns the violent attack on 
Bangladeshi Novelist Tasleema Nasreen in 
Hyderabad on August 8, 2007 at a function to 
release the Telugu translation of the novelist's 
latest novel Shodh.

It is reported that around 20 MIM workers led by 
MLAs Afsar Khan, Ahmad Pasha and Mozum Khan 
stormed the Press Club premises and raised 
slogans against the author. They attacked her 
with bouquets, flower pots and virtually anything 
they could lay their hands on at the concluding 
session of the book release.

Tasleema Nasreen has been a target of attack from 
fundamentalist forces both in India and 
Bangladesh and SAHMAT has always defended her 
freedom of expression.

We appeal to the democratic minded people in 
India to join in the condemnation of such attacks 
and isolate those who preach intolerance and 
violence.

Ram Rahman
M.K.Raina

o o o

(iv)

Hindustan Times
August 10, 2007

THE SECULAR SILENCE

by Barkha Dutt

Where are the placard-waving protestors this 
time? What happened to the street marches, the 
irate editorials and the lament for creative 
freedom? Does our outrage choose sides this 
selectively? Three legislators and a sundry 
assortment of political workers from a right wing 
Muslim party force their way inside the Press 
Club of Hyderabad, assault Bangladeshi author 
Taslima Nasreen, vandalise the venue, and then 
defiantly refuse to apologise, because after all 
they were God's own warriors, or so they claim. 
And yet, apart from the media's clichéd fallback 
on interviews with the usual array of "moderate" 
Muslims, there's no real evidence of anger or 
disgust.

So, does the fight against fundamentalism go into 
battle mode only when the enemy is the Hindu 
Right?

Yaqoob Qureshi or Akbaruddin Owaisi are no 
different from Praveen Togadia or Bal Thackeray. 
All of them represent the dangerous politics of 
intolerance and bigotry.
This isn't really about the author or her 
literary worth. Every time that zealots clash 
with the zany and Religion and Freedom take 
opposite positions across the trenches, the issue 
becomes larger than the individual. So, yes, 
perhaps Taslima Nasreen is a somewhat overrated 
writer, more famous for her contrarian politics 
than her turn of phrase. And yes, there are those 
who argue, with good reason, that she is shrill, 
clamorous of attention and somewhat obsessed with 
writing kiss-and-tell accounts of her sexual 
history. But none of that is really the point.

At the heart of the matter is a larger debate on 
whether political correctness has twisted our 
response to the principle of individual liberty. 
Have our politicians in particular been shaped by 
a kind of hypocrisy that makes their utterances 
on creative freedom just humbug and little else?

To compare the difference, think back to how the 
secular and liberal establishment reacted when 
goons from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang 
Dal attacked the faculty of arts in Vadodara. A 
young student was arrested for painting Jesus 
Christ and Lord Vishnu in a style that employed 
sexually explicit visual metaphors. The dean of 
the school was suspended, but no action was taken 
against those who trespassed the university, 
infiltrated a private exhibition and used brute 
force to gag artistic expression. The opposition 
and outcry at that time was spontaneous, vocal 
and unrelenting. Most of us protested against the 
idea of fettering imagination with do's and 
don'ts. We didn't really care or even know 
whether the art in question was of a commendable 
quality. It's the principle we stood up for.

Yes, fear and repression may be permanent 
citizens in Narendra Modi's Gujarat. But the fact 
is that this attack on Taslima Nasreen doesn't 
get to be played by different rules just because 
it took place on Congress turf or because the mob 
was led by Muslims instead of Hindus. The two 
incidents are inarguably mirror images of each 
other. Like in Gujarat, here too, the 
perpetrators of violence are not just out of 
jail, they have already issued fresh threats to 
the writer to get out of India or face the 
consequences. If a political party was seen to 
sanction the assault on art in Gujarat, in this 
case the mobsters belong to a political party 
that is an ally of the UPA at the centre. Yes, 
unlike the BJP, which was brazen enough to defend 
the use of violence in Gujarat, the Congress and 
the Left have been quick with their condemnation. 
But over the years both parties have tiptoed 
their way around the many issues that Taslima 
Nasreen represents. They have looked for covert 
exits from the controversies that trail her and 
have sometimes succumbed when it all gets too hot 
to handle. The UPA, for example, seems unable to 
decide whether Taslima Nasreen should get 
permission for long-term residency in India. For 
now, she survives on a piecemeal arrangement 
whereby she counts on a six monthly extension of 
her visa (the latest extension was announced on 
the same day she was assaulted.) And it was the 
'progressive' Marxist-ruled state of West Bengal 
that first banned her autobiography in 2003 
because it feared that the book "slandered Islam 
and would incite communal violence." The Chief 
Minister, known for his love of literature said 
he reached the decision after he himself read the 
book "several times over." The state unit of the 
Congress branded the book a "piece of 
pornography," and supported the ban. Ironically, 
but not surprisingly, the only party that called 
the censorship of Nasreen's work "undemocratic" 
was the BJP. A party that has unapologetically 
hounded artist M.F. Husain out of India for 
"hurting Hindu sentiments" saw no contradiction 
in suddenly playing the torchbearer for artistic 
liberty.

But this is exactly what happens when political 
double standards define the clash between 
religious sensitivities and democratic rights. We 
have seen the hypocrisy play out before when a 
state Minister in Uttar Pradesh called for the 
controversial Danish cartoonist's head and even 
announced a bounty of Rs 50 crore for whoever 
delivered it to him. The man in question (Haji 
Yaqoob Qureshi) is no longer a minister after the 
change of regime in the state, but is still an 
elected member of the assembly and seems to face 
neither political nor social ostracisation. And 
in keeping with the pattern, his party, the 
self-appointed messiahs of Muslims in UP has gone 
as far as defending the outrageous and obnoxious 
behaviour of the MLAs in Andhra Pradesh.

As far as I'm concerned, Qureshi or Akbaruddin 
Owaisi (the Hyderabad MLA who led the attack on 
Taslima) are no different from Praveen Togadia or 
Bal Thackeray.  All of them represent the 
dangerous politics of intolerance and bigotry. 
The fact that some of them have popular support 
doesn't give them legitimacy; it makes them even 
more frightening and insidious. And to treat them 
differently is to embolden intolerance on either 
side.

So, protest peacefully by all means against the 
writings of Taslima Nasreen. Let there even be a 
genuine debate over whether India should get 
entangled in giving her political asylum. After 
all, the right to dissent is as sacred as the 
right to express. Call her lowbrow, offensive, 
inflammatory and an incendiary agent if that's 
what you think she is. But draw the line at both 
assault and censorship.

And let's make sure we tell those who treat human 
beings like fatwa fodder that they have no place 
in a truly secular society.

Barkha Dutt is Managing Editor, NDTV 24x7

______


[7]

Deccan Herald
August 10, 2007

RIOTS AND BOMB BLASTS: TWO FACES OF JUSTICE
by Teesta Setalvad

The uncomfortable reality of discriminatory 
justice has raised its ugly head in riot cases.


Acknowledgement, remorse, justice and 
reconciliation are the accepted steps required 
for collective healing when wounds of an 
indescribable nature have been inflicted on a 
whole population.

In Gujarat, five years after independent India's 
worst genocide, there has been little or no 
acknowledgement of the crimes and no question 
therefore of any expression of remorse by 
perpetrators and masterminds. Justice, except in 
a few isolated cases, dodges Gujarat's survivors. 
It must, therefore, be a while before we talk of 
reconciliation.

In the midst of the struggle for reparation and 
justice, this year brings an electoral battle to 
the battered state.

In the past few months, Chief Minister Narendra 
Modi has utilised most of his energies and much 
of the taxpayer's money to sell the "normalcy" 
jingle and the "vibrant Gujarat" pipe-dream. But, 
the aura around Modi appears a trifle less 
bright, a little less shining.

Electoral predictions apart, what are the issues 
that will be brought before the electorate, an 
autocratic chief minister and his failed 
electoral promises on the development front or 
the fallout of post independent India's worst 
genocidal violence?

Will and can the issues of mass murder, 
mutilation and gender violence be issues that 
resonate in mainstream politics? Will issues of 
impunity to mass crime figure not just in party 
manifestos but action plans for governance?

Will the rule of law and good governance be the 
stuff that the Gujarat 2007 state election 
campaign is made of?
This could well be a pipe-dream. Switch to nearby 
Maharashtra, where in 1992-1993, after the Babri 
Masjid demolition, a communal pogrom led by the 
Shiv Sena ripped Mumbai of its essence, its 
cosmopolitan fabric.

Two years later, the perpetrators, the Shiv 
Sena-BJP romped home to a calculated electoral 
victory, riding high on hatred and division among 
the people. Two governments have since come to 
power, in 1999 and 2004, both "secular," and a 
combination of the Congress and the NCP who 
promised punishment of the guilty but failed to 
deliver.

In February 1998, when the SS-BJP government was 
in power that Justice B N Srikrishna submitted 
his historic report on the Bombay violence, 
making detailed recommendations for punitive 
actions and remedial measures.

It was expected that the perpetrators, the SS-BJP 
would junk the report but what of the "secular" 
parties who promised its implementation? 
Perpetrators have not been punished and memories 
of the pogrom lie buried.

In stark contrast, the system has meted out harsh 
punishment if not speedy justice to those 
convicted of "involvement" in various degrees in 
the serial blasts of 1993. 64-year-old Zehbunissa 
Qazi given five years for keeping a "bag" 
unknowingly. Eleven accused have been given death 
penalties normally a sentence meted out in the 
"rarest of the rare cases."

The soul of Mumbai was forever scarred with the 
brute mob violence that held us to ransom from 
December 8 to January 20, 1993. Mobs stalked 
streets that were likened to Nazi Germany. The 
Mumbai police connived with mobsters in mass 
arson, murder and even rape. Worse still, our 
political leaders watched as Mumbai burned.

Justice Srikrishna, who conducted an official 
probe into the violence, had this to say, "One 
common link between the riotsŠ and bomb blasts of 
12th March 1993 appears to be that the former 
appear to have been a causative factor for the 
latterŠ

The serial bomb blasts were a reaction to the 
totality of events at Ayodhya and Mumbai in 
December 1992 and January 1993Š..The resentment 
against the government and the police among a 
large body of Muslim youth was exploited by 
Pakistan-aided anti-national elements...The 
common link between the riots and the blasts was 
that of cause and effect."

Justice Srikrishna, had recommended stringent 
action against the criminals, in and out of 
uniform. Despite assurances in public and 
statements in court, the state of Maharashtra has 
failed to deliver. Using the Right to Information 
Act, the author of this article, accessed 
detailed information from the state home 
department and the police on case by case details.

They reveal a shocking state of affairs. Of the 
31 policemen recommended for prosecution by the 
judge, one was dismissed, the rest escaped 
lightly, many being promoted. Political bigwigs 
from the  Sena named as leading the mobs to 
killing and arson have been allowed by a 
convenient political arrangement, to go scot free.

The convictions, many extremely harsh, to the 
accused in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case are seen 
as a form of redress for the 200 families who 
lost dear ones in the serial blasts - a message 
that the Indian system delivers justice if 
delayed to some for crimes of brutality. The 
uncomfortable reality of discriminatory justice 
has, however, raised its ugly head. Each of those 
accused of the Mumbai 1992-1993 pogrom roamed 
free, escaping arrest or getting uncontested bail.

The bomb terror of March 12, 1993 must be 
recalled with the same horror as the mob terror 
of December 6, 1992 in Ayodhya that unleashed 
premeditated violence in Mumbai and many other 
parts of the country, resulting in the loss of 
hundreds of lives all over the country. The cause 
as much as the effect must be rehauled and firmly 
located in public memory.

(The writer is co-editor, Communalism Combat.)

______


[8]

The Times of India
10 August 2007

EDITORIAL: NOW, DO SOMETHING

The Maharashtra chief minister has promised to 
reopen the riots cases mentioned in the Justice 
Srikrishna Commission report. It is a welcome 
step, even if similar promises have been made in 
the past. Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh is 
under pressure to act since the Supreme Court has 
asked a groups of NGOs to file an affidavit on 
the lapses of the state government in 
implementing the report. Predictably, Shiv Sena 
has warned that reopening the cases will be 
treated as an attack on Hindus.

Justice Srikrishna, who investigated the riots in 
Mumbai after the demolition of Babri masjid, held 
many Sena leaders guilty of rioting. Srikrishna 
alleged that Bal Thackeray acted like a veteran 
general and directed Sena cadre to attack 
Muslims. The commission also held Sena leaders 
like Madhukar Sarpotdar guilty of inciting and 
aiding rioters. No action has so far been taken 
against these leaders. The move to revisit the 
Srikrishna report will necessitate filing fresh 
cases against Sena and BJP politicians. With the 
apex court on its heels, the Maharashtra 
government may not be able to avoid action for 
long.

The Sena argument that action on riots cases 
amounts to injustice against Hindus and 
appeasement of Muslims is perverse. The riots 
were a criminal act - much as the blasts that 
followed were - which resulted in the death of 
more than 900 people. The perpetrators of the 
crime, including in this case politicians and 
policemen, have to be punished. The threat of mob 
violence in the event of action against Sena 
leaders should not become an excuse for inaction. 
The government can plead the strictures of the 
apex court as cover. The message should go out 
that no individual is above the law or can evoke 
the threat of mob fury to evade the law. This 
applies to the policemen indicted by Srikrishna 
and later exonerated after departmental 
inquiries. Charges against them should be freshly 
probed, perhaps by a central agency. It is 
appalling that none of the 31 police officials 
hauled up by the commission was convicted.

Now that many of the guilty in the Mumbai blasts 
cases have been convicted, and rightly so, the 
government can move towards closure by acting on 
the Srikrishna commission report. Mumbai, the 
country's financial capital and arguably its 
premier city, cannot live with the perception 
that it allows lawless mobs to get away with 
murder.


______



[9] Announcements:

(i)

From: Zubaan Books <contact at zubaanbooks.com>

Hello Everyone!

[. . .]
We're approaching the 60th anniversary of India's 
Independence as well as the Partition of India. 
As an event, Partition remains seminal in the 
history of the subcontinent, and its legacies are 
still present in daily life, in culture and in 
politics not only in India but also in Pakistan 
and Bangladesh. In many ways, however, in all 
three countries, it has taken historians and 
ordinary people some time to come to grips with 
the traumatic history of violence and dislocation 
of Partition. Because it has been seen as the 
"dark side of independence" Partition and its 
human histories have not, until recently, 
received much attention. While its political 
history has received considerable attention, its 
human histories have been relatively neglected. 
Even when the fiftieth anniversary of Partition 
took place a decade ago, little was done to mark 
that time.

To mark this history, Zubaan, the Heinrich Boll 
Foundation, Max Mueller Bhavan, and the India 
Habitat Centre, are organizing a year-long 
programme of lectures, dialogues, and readings 
from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. These will 
take place at the India Habitat Centre every 
month, starting in August 2007, and will go on 
for a full year.

The inaugural event of the series entitled 
Partition: The Long Shadow will take place at 
6:00 pm on 14 August 2007 in the Stein Auditorium 
at India Habitat Centre.

The following is the sequence of events:

Readings by Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhter
The two well-known actors will read from stories/ 
plays of several authors who wrote on the 
Partition. The readings from the works of Anis 
Kidwai, Kishen Chander and others will be in 
Urdu, Hindi and English.

Story telling by Dastaan Goi
Mahmood Farooqui and Danish Husain, story-tellers 
in their own right, will re-create the lost era 
and art of story-telling.

Toba Tek Singh, performed by the Ajoka Theatre group, Pakistan
This famous short play by Manto is about a 
mentally challenged person who, when asked to 
choose between India and Pakistan, chooses to 
dies on the border of the two countries.

An exhibition of photographs by Margaret Bourke 
White, sponsored by Roli Books, along with texts 
from Khuswant Singh’s book Train to Pakistan will 
also be on display.

As seating is limited, it will be on a first come 
first served basis. Please come early - the doors 
open at 5:30 pm. Passes are available at the 
Zubaan office, Max Mueller Bhavanand the India 
Habitat Centre.

The Partition Lecture Series will begin on August 17 with a lecture on

"The Contradictions of National Space: Contested 
Legality and Citizenship Practices in 
Post-Partition Northeast India"
by Dr Sanjib Baruah
at 6:30 pm, Gulmohar, India Habitat Centre

On the one hand, the new international border 
dividing India and East Pakistan/Bangladesh is 
seen as inviolable. On the other hand, the 
partition could not change the position that the 
region acquired in colonial times as a frontier. 
The flow of people from one of the subcontinent’s 
most densely populated areas, to a relatively 
sparsely populated region open to new 
settlements, could not suddenly be turned off. 
The border remains extremely porous till this 
day, and there is an extensive blurring between 
citizens and non-citizens. Viewed through the 
lenses of actual practice of citizenship, rather 
than legal fictions, what we have in many parts 
of Northeast India arguably, is a flexible 
citizenship regime -- a flexible approach to 
voting where people can vote despite 
indeterminate citizenship status. Focusing on 
Assam, the paper will examine the politics of how 
this regime has come about.

For invitations to both the events, please get in 
touch with Elsy at the Zubaan office.

Warm, good wishes

The Zubaan Team

o o o

(ii)

South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy
(SANSAD)

invites to you to a Public Forum

INDIA AND PAKISTAN: SIXTY YEARS LATER

To take stock. To see where the two countries are, where they are going.
What lies ahead for the people

The Quest for Democracy in Pakistan:
The American Shadow, Talibans, Lal Masjid,
the entrenched Military Establishment, and
President Parvez Musharraf's Options and Future

Discussion Facilitators

Mr. Naveed Waraich (Pres., Pakistan-Canada Cultural Association)
Dr. Haider Nizamani
Mr. Zahid Macdoom


India: Struggles for Sovereignty, Genuine Independence,
and People's Power
The Multitude of Modern "East India Companies", Nandigram and After

Discussion Faciltators

Mr. Harjap Grewal
Dr. Hari Sharma

Saturday, August 11, 2007
2:00 - 5:00 p.m.

Bonsor Recreation Complex (Arts Room)
6550 Bonsor Ave., Burnaby [Canada]
(near Metrotown, behind the Bay)

o o o

(iii)

To celebrate 60 years of our nation, The Citizens 
Archive of Pakistan presents "Shanaakht - The 
Identity Project". Shanaakht is a multimedia, 
visual arts festival that documents and shares 
the incredible experiences of partition and the 
birth of Pakistan.

Shanaakht is a free festival that will unfold 
over 4 days from the 11th to the 14th of August, 
at the Arts Council, in the heart of old Karachi. 
The festival features a photography exhibit by 
Amean J and other well-known photographers, 
theatrical performances by Sheema Kermani as well 
as Anwar Maqsood and Moin Akhtar, discussions 
about Pakistan's history with Ayesha Tammy Haq, 
an interactive art exhibit created by VASL 
featuring 16 prominent Pakistani artists, 
audio/video booths for recording personal 
narratives, murals depicting Pakistan's history, 
and much more, including musical performances by 
upcoming bands.

Venue: Arts Council of Pakistan [M.R.Kayani Road, Karachi]
Dates: 11th - 14th August 2007
Hours: 11 am - 8 pm
FREE and OPEN to the Public (Families Only)

All theatrical performances taking place in the 
closed auditorium are free but with limited 
seats. You can pick up your passes at the Arts 
Council on the day of the performance between 
11:00 am and 5:00 pm. Passes are available on a 
first come, first served basis.

Download the Shanaakht Festival schedule from our 
website: www.citizensarchive.org


o o o

(iv)

Anhad Yuva Manch

  Invites you to a

  Day Long Interactive Session

  On the Topic: Role of Youth in Social Change

  With Prof. Ram Puniyani

  Date: Sunday August 12, 2007

Time: 10am to 6pm

Venue: Dalal Hall,Opp. Police Post, Paldi Char Rasta, Paldi, Ahmedabad

Please register your name if you want to attend 
the programme at : 
<mailto:anhadyuvamanch at gmail.com/> 
anhadyuvamanch at gmail.com/ 079-25500844

   Note: The programme is open and entry is free 
but we will not be able to arrange for lunch for 
those who do not register by August 10, 2007.

Dr Ram Puniyani is a medical doctor. He taught at 
the IIT Mumbai as a Professor for over 20 years 
before taking voluntary retirement. He is the 
author of more than 20 books. He was awarded the 
Maharshtra Foundation Award for Social Work.


o o o

(v)

motiroti
360º
Britain  India  Pakistan (2007-2010)

OPEN INVITATION TO ARTISTS
60 One-minute Film Commissions

360º is motiroti's three-year programme of 
exchanges that will bring to light a rounded and 
contemporary picture of the cultural dynamics 
between Britain, India and Pakistan. Sixty films, 
several international artists' residencies, 
numerous publications and a new collaboration 
will bring artists together, to excite 
imaginations and explore the role that art can 
play in shaping communication and insight, across 
boundaries of culture and geography. 60x60 Secs 
is the first project of this programme.

60x60 Secs
60 one-minute film commissions are offered to 
sixty artists living in Britain, India and 
Pakistan, who define themselves as coming from 
the South Asian Diaspora. Both established and 
emerging artists, working in a variety of mediums 
and spanning a wide age range, are invited to 
present their unique views on how their 
identities are informed in an age of 
globalisation.

Nila Madhab Panda and Shalalae Jamil, artists 
specialising in new media from India and 
Pakistan, are appointed as Creative Associates to 
act as curators and mentors. They will be called 
upon to build alliances and open up possibilities 
for intercultural dialogue and engagement.

All sixty films will be launched and premiered in 
Britain, and via the web in March 2008. Following 
the launch 60x60 Secs will tour in all three 
countries. These films will work as effectively 
on TV as in digital arts festivals, in art 
galleries or within shopping malls and feed into 
the National Curriculum, translating equally well 
in Delhi as they do in Lahore and London.

ARTISTS APPLICATION DEADLINE
Friday 14 September 2007

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE
Artists and filmmakers living in Britain, India 
and Pakistan, who define themselves as coming 
from the South Asian Diaspora and are interested 
to unravel complex identities and stories, and in 
the telling, to contribute and redefine cultures 
that are evolving.

FURTHER INFORMATION
To download 360° Overview, 60x60 Secs Artists 
Criteria and Application Form, please follow the 
link:
http://www.motiroti.com/work/projects/current.php?data_id=61

For over ten years motiroti has made 
internationally acclaimed and award winning art 
that transforms relationships between people, 
communities and spaces. The company works at the 
forefront of ever-changing global social 
realities, challenging and teasing perceptions of 
artists, institutions and audiences alike.
www.motiroti.com

Ali Zaidi
Artistic Director
motiroti
1 Whitehorse Yard
78 Liverpool Road
London N1 0QD
UNITED KINGDOM

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

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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