SACW | Dec.8-9, 2007 / Bangladesh: Ever-shrinking space for freethinking / Pakistan under the emergency / India: Modi and extra-judicial killings
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Mon Dec 10 02:51:52 CST 2007
South Asia Citizens Wire | December 8-9, 2007 |
Dispatch No. 2474 - Year 10 running
[Citizens Challenge Emergency Rule in Pakistan
http://emergency2007.blogspot.com/]
[1] Bangladesh: Ever-shrinking space for freethinking (Editorial, New Age)
[2] Pakistan:
- Daughter of the West (Tariq Ali)
- A Student Movement (Faheem Hussain)
- Street protest (Beena Sarwar)
[3] India: Mixing religion with politics (Kuldip Nayar)
[4] India - Gujarat: Modi's Election Campaign and
crowd endorsement for extrajudicial execution
- Text of Election commission notice to Modi / Complaint by Teesta Setalvad
- What modi said in his letter to the Election Commission of India
- India: Gujarat Chief Minister Endorses Unlawful
Killings (Human Rights Watch Press Release)
- Communalism and Terrorism: Two Faces of the same Coin (Badri Raina)
- India: Don't mention the massacre (The Economist)
- Open Letter To Nero Modi (I.K.Shukla)
- For the leader from Gujarat, Hitler is too mild a rebuke (Jawed Naqvi)
- Modi vs India (J Sri Raman)
- Modi endorsement from the crowd for extra-judicial killings
[5] India: Recent Content at Communalism Watch:
- Sethusamudram under Emotive Waters by Ram Puniyani
- Real affirmative action for Muslims and not the
habitual Haj subsidies by Praful Bidwai
- Rakesh Sharma's Gujarat Documentaries - 'Khedu Mora Re' and 'Chet'ta Rejo'
- My freedom of expression is better than yours by Pamela Philipose
- Karnataka: Tiptur clash shows spread of Parivar
[6] Announcements:
(i) People's Resistance activities this coming week in Karachi (10 Dec on)
(ii) Public Meeting: "Corporate
Industrialisation & Democratic Rights" (New
Delhi, 12 December 2007)
(iii) Voices from the Waters: Call for Papers by Deep Focus
(iv) Convention For Sexual Self - Determination (Thrissur, 20 December 2007)
______
[1]
New Age
December 9, 2007
Editorial
EVER-SHRINKING SPACE FOR FREETHINKING
The conviction of four Rajshahi University
teachers on charge of instigating student
protests on the university campus on August 21
and 22 in violation of the Emergency Power Rules
has one ominous message: the space for
freethinking is fast diminishing, writes Mir
Ashfaquzzaman
THE Dhaka University Teachers Association, at an
emergency meeting on December 7, resolved that it
would 'take up tough action programme,' if the
teachers and students of Dhaka and Rajshahi
universities who had been detained over the
August 20-22 campus protests were not released by
December 12. The association also chalked up a
two-day programme - its members would wear black
badges to work on Sunday and bring out a silent
procession from Aparajeya Bangla on the Dhaka
University campus on Monday - to press home its
demand. The resolution was passed in the wake of
the conviction of four Rajshahi University
teachers - Moloy Kumar Bhowmik, Dulal Chandra
Biswas, Selim Reza Newton and Abdullah al-Mamun -
on charge of instigating student protests on the
university campus on August 21 and 22, in
violation of the Emergency Power Rules. The
association has drawn the battle line.
The military-driven interim government has
thus far shown little tolerance to any kind of
dissent, however genuine the reasons are and
whoever it comes from. When the farmers agitated
against unavailability of fertiliser during peak
cultivation season, the law enforcers were sent
in to disperse the 'unruly' crowd. When the
students at Dhaka University protested against
the manhandling of students and a teacher by some
members of the armed forces, the law enforcers
once again intervened, indiscriminately charging
batons, lobbing teargas shells and spraying
rubber bullets. And recently, it did not even
hesitate to have the police detain 12 persons for
demonstrating against shoddy relief operation in
the cyclone Sidr-hit areas in the coastal
district of Barguna. Then, of course, cases were
filed against the protesters on charge of
violating the Emergency Powers Rules.
Well, it will be naïve to expect a government,
which operates under a state of emergency, to
appreciate criticism. However, in case of the
government of Fakhruddin Ahmed, the expectations
were a bit different. After all, it did assume
power with the self-professed objective of
upholding and consolidating 'the democratic
system through ensuring a congenial political and
social environment.' The chief adviser has also
waxed eloquence when urging 'the people to carry
forward the beloved motherland toward the path of
peace and progress by working shoulder to
shoulder.' In a televised address to the nation
on August 22, he said: 'You [the people] are our
[the government's] source of inspiration. Your
spontaneous and absolute support and blessings
are our driving forces.'
Curiously, the government seems to have been
more eager to drive a wedge between itself and
the people. It has, on the one hand, slowly but
surely isolated itself from the public and
encroached upon, on the other hand, whatever
little space the people had to have their
concerns and grievances heard. Nothing seems to
have gone the way the interim government said it
would. More people are losing their homes and
jobs, crimes, both petty and serious, are rising,
the cost of living is going way out of the reach
of the common people; the list may go on and on.
All this while, the people have been reminded
time and again that, under the state of
emergency, their democratic rights to the freedom
of thoughts, conscience and expressions, to hold
meetings, to bring out processions, etc are kept
in abeyance indefinitely.
Are these reminders working? Perhaps not. At
least not as prohibitively as the interim
government would have wanted them to. Even after
the government's strong-armed tactics to rein in
the agitating farmers at Nachole, farmers are
still taking to the streets over shortage of
fertiliser. In fact, as recently as on November
29, farmers of Nabdiganj and Kalyani unions in
Pirgachha upazila blocked the Rangpur-Kurigram
highway for about two hours. It took intervention
by the police and the joint forces to clear the
road. And, now the Dhaka University Teachers'
Association has threatened the government with
'tough action programme' if the detained students
and teachers of Dhaka and Rajshahi universities
are not released by December 12.
To say the government has more often than not
gone about addressing public grievances the wrong
way would be stating the obvious. Its take on the
August 20-22 protests, which started from the
Dhaka University campus and later spread across
the country, could not have been any farther from
reality. The protests were an explosion of
pent-up public grievances. Period. Of course, it
started over what the government termed a
'trivial matter.' When the people are forced to
bottle up their resentment and frustration for so
long, even the faintest of provocation is enough
to trigger a wildfire-like protest. In this case,
the provocation was anything but negligible.
Then, to even suggest that it was part of 'a plan
to destabilise the situation and undermine the
government' is an affront to the people's
inherent urge to be heard in general and the
students' inherently dissenting nature.
What the people in the corridors of power
seemingly refuse to acknowledge is that a
university - any educational institution for that
matter - is a space for freethinking. Here,
teachers are expected to instil in their students
the sense of individual independence and
collective freedom. Naturally, therefore,
teachers are expected to rebel when the space for
freethinking is being infringed upon, be it in
the name of a state of emergency or otherwise. In
fact, they would have been doing injustice to
their profession had they not taken a stance
against the sustained infringement on the space
for freethinking during the campus protests
between August 20 and 22. Also, teachers are
custodians of their students. It would have been
morally unjustifiable had all of them looked on
as the law-enforces and security forces went
about indiscriminately beating up the students,
spraying rubber bullets and lobbing teargas
shells on them. The convicted teachers of
Rajshahi University and the detained teachers of
Dhaka University may have done just that.
Seemingly, the government is not conditioned
to the concept of freethinking and thus prefers
branding any protestations of dissent as 'plan to
destabilise the country and undermine the
government' and any protesters as 'conspirators,'
'instigators,' 'evil forces,' etc. Again, it
would be rather naïve to expect otherwise. What
is, perhaps, more worrisome is when a court of
law endorses such schizophrenia. The court of the
additional chief metropolitan magistrate, which
sentenced the four Rajshahi University teachers
to two years in prison and fined them Tk 1,000
each, displayed a complete lack of historical and
political perspective in passing its judgement.
In reinforcing the government's denial about the
existence of genuine grievances among the public
in general and the academia in particular over
the perpetuation of the state of emergency, it
may have paved the way for encroachment of
whatever space for freethinking that the people
are left with now.
In an educationally impoverished country such
as ours, teachers, especially those of the
universities, are the mainstay of public
intellectualism. They are the ones who, by and
large, significantly express the public will. The
four Rajshahi University teachers spoke, and
perhaps acted, against the perpetuation of the
state of emergency and the repression on their
students.
Regrettably, the court, a la the government,
misconstrued their genuine concern over an
increasing infringement by the state on the space
for freethinking, which universities and other
educational institutions represent, as a design
to destabilise the country. What can be more
crippling a blow to the very concept of public
intellectualism?
______
[2]
London Review of Books
13 December 2007
DAUGHTER OF THE WEST
by Tariq Ali
Arranged marriages can be a messy business.
Designed principally as a means of accumulating
wealth, circumventing undesirable flirtations or
transcending clandestine love affairs, they often
don't work. Where both parties are known to
loathe each other, only a rash parent,
desensitised by the thought of short-term gain,
will continue with the process knowing full well
that it will end in misery and possibly violence.
That this is equally true in political life
became clear in the recent attempt by Washington
to tie Benazir Bhutto to Pervez Musharraf.
[. . .]
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n24/ali_01_.html
o o o
A STUDENT MOVEMENT
by Faheem Hussain
http://emergency2007.blogspot.com/2007/12/faheem-hussain-student-movement.html
o o o
STREET PROTEST
The closure of a private news channel has
triggered outrage from all sections of the society
by Beena Sarwar
http://emergency2007.blogspot.com/2007/12/closure-of-private-news-channel-has.html
______
[3]
Dawn
December 7, 2007
MIXING RELIGION WITH POLITICS
by Kuldip Nayar
GUJARAT and Punjab are the two states in India
which are ill at ease most of the time. Their
problem is not economic but narrow thinking. Most
of the blame lies on the governments because they
do not allow people to rise above their limited
and personal agenda dinned constantly into their
ears. The result is that the two states are often
absorbed in non-issues and suffer the
consequences of mixing religion with politics.
When it comes to mixing politics with religion,
none is more adept in it than Chief Minister
Narendra Modi of Gujarat. It was generally felt
that he would leave the 1992 killings aside and
appeal to the voters in the name of development
which was impressive.
Instead, he has reignited the embers of communal
bias from the days of rioting. Once again his
agenda is Hindutva.
He has told even the few Muslim leaders who have
stuck to the BJP not to take part in campaigning
in the state. On the other hand, the BJP has
fielded no Muslim candidate in Gujarat. One
Muslim in the party's top leadership has recalled
how the minority leaders were also kept aside in
the UP assembly elections a few months ago.
This indicates how hypocritical was the BJP's
support to Taslima Nasreen, an author from
Bangladesh, for asylum in India.
If Modi manages to have a majority in the
assembly election later this month - reports are
that he may scrape through - he would have proved
that he has brainwashed the Hindus in Gujarat to
such an extent that despite their intelligence
and dynamism, they have not been able to overcome
the tug of religion.
If after five years of pogrom where thousands of
Muslims were murdered and looted and the bulk of
the Hindu community remains unrepentant, it is
more than a shame.
The situation is tragic because the centre does
not dare to move against Modi despite an array of
reports of his involvement. The Supreme Court has
also described him as Gujarat's Nero when the
state was burning. The inquiry committee, sitting
for the last five years, has not yet given its
report. It looks as if the commission does not
want to say anything about Modi's role before the
polls.
At least, the Central Election Commission,
independent as it is, should do something.
Granted it cannot take action against him, it can
at least see that Modi's campaign follows the
code of conduct in spirit as well. A campaign,
however regional in character, cannot degenerate
into a diatribe against the minority community
through innuendos, or indirect references.
The commission has to ensure free and fair polls.
That the BJP or Modi does not mention the Muslim
community directly is a technicality. The whole
tone and tenor of the campaign is against
Muslims. The commission should be able to see
through it. And what about the Muslims who are on
the electoral rolls but cannot be traced?
Yet the most objectionable part of Modi's
observation is his description of Gujarat as the
'Hindutva laboratory'. The BJP also rules in
Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, apart from being
the coalition partners in Bihar and Punjab. If
Gujarat is a laboratory, the BJP should be
pleased with the experiment of ethnic cleansing.
When does it duplicate it in the states of
Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh?
If the Centre remains a mute spectator in the
case of Gujarat, what is the guarantee that the
future of minorities in the other BJP-run states
would be in any way better?
The only redeeming factor is the media's
relentless effort to expose Modi's doings and to
insist on the state and the central governments
to rehabilitate the Muslim victims at the very
places where they lived before the planned
rioting. NGOs are also another hope. They have
done a tremendous job in the last few years.
What depresses me is that the Gujaratis, outside
Gujarat, have done little to put those living in
the state to shame. Nor have they contributed to
help rehabilitate the state Muslims. They too are
Gujaratis.
Politics in Punjab has been caught for years in
the battle that controls the gurdwaras which have
offerings of millions of rupees, with a retinue
of employees who come in handy during elections.
The ruling Akali Dal has never abandoned its
control of gurdwaras, however indirect.
The management of the gurdwaras is by the
Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC),
an elected body by the electoral college of
Sikhs. Yet it is an open secret that the Akalis
have their own men elected to the SGPC and use
the body as an instrument of agitation for its
demands - political, religious or social. In
return, the Akali Dal gives the SGPC members many
facilities, a vicarious satisfaction to govern.
Recently, the state government gave every member
two gunmen and beacon light on their vehicles,
symbols of authority.
The installation by the SGPC of militant Jarnail
Singh Bhindranwale's portrait at the Golden
Temple cannot be without the knowledge of the
Akali Dal. Was the party forced by the hardliners
to do so or was it meant to frighten the Centre
to cough up more money in the name of fighting
terrorism? Such questions are difficult to
answer. But they reflect a particular outlook
which had embraced Punjab by militancy some 10
years ago.
The hanging of the portrait on a wall of Sikh
museum within the gurdwara cannot be considered a
relic of an unhappy past and dismissed lightly.
Some in the Akali Dal and the SGPC may have a
nefarious plan but they do not realise that both
Sikhs and Hindus in Punjab have moved away from
1984 when the misunderstanding between the two
was at its peak.
However, more debatable than the portrait is the
text written below it: "The great Sikh General of
the 20th century and the 14th chief of the
Damdami Taksal, Sant Giani Jarnail Singh
Bhindrawale, who along with numerous valiant
Sikhs, attained martyrdom on Wednesday, June 6th,
1984, fighting against the Indian Armed Forces
for the honour and prestige of Sri Harminder
Sahib and Sri Akal Takht Sahib."
The wordings are unfortunate because the Indian
armed forces represent India. The government and
India are two separate entities. What happened at
the Golden Temple was at the instance of the
government which can be defeated at the polls.
India is a different, independent, a cumulative
entity which has Sikhs as much citizens as people
from other communities.
What is unfortunate is that Bhindranwale
representing fundamentalists has been honoured.
This is yet another instance of mixing religion
with politics. Punjab cannot progress unless the
two are separated. Nor can it attract the
much-needed investment until secularism prevails.
The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.
______
[4] NARENDRA MODI ELECTION CAMPAIGN SPEECH AND
CROWD ENDORSEMENT FOR EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTION
TEXT OF ELECTION COMMISSION NOTICE TO MODI / COMPLAINT BY TEESTA SETALVAD
http://www.eci.gov.in/press/current/NOTICETO%20CM%20GUJARAT.pdf
WHAT MODI SAID IN HIS LETTER TO THE ELECTION COMMISSION OF INDIA
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/dec/08gujpoll5.htm
o o o
Human Rights Watch - Press Release
INDIA: GUJARAT CHIEF MINISTER ENDORSES UNLAWFUL KILLINGS
Government Should Investigate Narendra Modi for Seeming Incitement to Violence
(New York, December 7, 2007) The Indian
government should immediately order an
investigation of Narendra Modi, the chief
minister of Gujarat, for statements apparently
endorsing the extrajudicial execution of a
terrorism suspect by the police, Human Rights
Watch said today.
Gujarat's antiterrorism squad in November 2005
gunned down Sohrabuddin Sheikh, whom police
claimed was a militant conspiring to kill Modi.
The Gujarat government has since admitted that
there is no evidence Sheikh was a terrorist and
that he had been executed in a fake "encounter,"
one in which police falsely claimed that he had
been killed in an exchange of fire. In July, the
government filed charges against several police
officials. In a speech on December 5, however,
Modi suggested that people like Sheikh deserved
to be killed.
"Modi's remarks send a green light to the police
that executing terrorism suspects is fine with
his administration," said Brad Adams, Asia
director at Human Rights Watch. "The government
in Delhi should immediately investigate this
seeming incitement to violence."
At a rally in his campaign for re-election as
chief minister, Modi said that Sheikh "got what
he deserved." Modi asked the crowd, "What should
have been done to a man from whom a large number
of AK-47 rifles were recovered, who was on the
search list of police from four states, who
attacked the police, who had relations with
Pakistan and was eyeing to enter Gujarat?"
The crowd replied "mari nakho-mari nakho" (kill
him, kill him), to which Modi said, "Does my
government need to take permission of Soniaben
[Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi] for this?
Maut na Saudagar [merchants of deaths] will be
dealt in the same fashion on the land of
Gujarat."
After widespread criticism of his remarks, the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politician explained
that he had been provoked and was responding to
the allegation by Congress Party leader Sonia
Gandhi that his government was a "merchant of
death."
"Modi cannot hide behind accusations of
provocation to justify remarks endorsing a
murder," said Adams. "He used similar excuses
after the police participated in a killing spree
of Muslims in 2002, but his pretexts were as
hollow then as they are today."
After Sheikh's killing, his family filed a
petition with the Supreme Court requesting an
independent investigation. In its response to a
Supreme Court notice, the state government
admitted that Sheikh had been murdered in a false
armed "encounter." The Supreme Court ordered the
Gujarat government to create a special police
team to investigate the case and submit status
reports. In July, the Gujarat police filed
charges against 13 police officials, including D
G Vanzara, who headed the anti-terror squad.
In its charge sheet, the police said that Sheikh
and his wife Kausar Bi were pulled out of a bus
by members of the Gujarat antiterrorm squad on
November 22, 2005. They were secretly detained
for four days. (They were not carrying any
weapons as alleged by Modi in his speech).
According to an eyewitness, early in the morning
of November 26, Sheikh was taken to the outskirts
of Ahmedabad, where he was shot by police
officers. His body was then taken to the hospital
and a police report filed which claimed that he
had been killed in an exchange of fire.
The whereabouts of Kausar Bi remains unknown.
Police investigations suggest that she was killed
and her body burnt.
In response to Modi's comments, India's Election
Commission has served notice to Modi saying that
it is of the view that the speech "amounts to
indulging in activity which may aggravate
existing differences, creating mutual hatred and
causing tension between different communities."
Modi has until December 8 to respond.
Local activists and Muslim organizations have
long accused Modi of responsibility for the
anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in February and
March 2002, which left at least 1,000 dead. After
59 Hindu pilgrims died during a mob attack by
Muslims on their train in Gujarat in 2002, Hindu
militant groups carried out widespread and
coordinated attacks on Muslims in which thousands
were killed, hundreds of women were raped and
Muslim properties destroyed.
Human Rights Watch found that the attacks on
Muslims were planned and organized with extensive
police participation and in close cooperation
with supporters of Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata
Party and the state government. Modi had
justified those attacks at the time, saying that,
"Every action has an equal and opposite
reaction," referring to the Godhra incident.
"Modi's defenders say that his speech is being
misrepresented, and that politicians make
exaggerated remarks during election campaigns,"
said Adams. "But endorsing a police killing sends
the wrong message at all times, and especially
during an election."
o o o
ZNet
COMMUNALISM AND TERRORISM: TWO FACES OF THE SAME COIN
by Badri Raina
December 06, 2007
I write this on the fifteenth anniversary of the
demolition of the Babri mosque by fascist hordes
of the Sangh Parivar, consequent upon the pogrom
set in motion by Advani's infamous rath yatra.
Few events in the post-independence history of
India have outfaced the founding principles of
both the Freedom Movement and the Republic as
decisively as that wanton and blood-thirsty
challenge to the secular state. That was the day
on which Mahatma Gandhi was buried ten fathoms
deep, and when majoritarian terrorism came to be
installed as the new operative version of
'nationalism.'
It was also the day when the party that led the
Freedom Movement lost its raison d etre. Not to
be forgotten that the then Congress prime
minister twiddled his pout while fascist pickaxe
took the mosque apart brick by brick in full
glare of television crews in a day-long operation.
The coercive influence of that terror may be
gauged from the fact that fifteen years to the
good, the major political formations and
institutional mechanisms of Indian democracy have
failed to this day to bring a single culprit to
book, either from a cloaked complicity or fear of
consequence.
Nor indeed has the state found its way yet to
implement the findings of the Justice Srikrishna
Report on the communal terror that was unleashed
by Hindutva forces in Mumbai subsequent to the
demolition-a Report that has held the highest of
the high among the saffronites guilty of
marshalling the killings like 'Generals' in
combat.
All that in stark contrast to the avidity with
which judgements have been pronounced against
muslims deemed guilty of involvement in the bomb
blasts that took place in Mumbai subsequent to
the communal terror mentioned above.
Taken all together, the pogrom that began with
the Advani yatra yielded a crop of some two
thousand or so human lives.
When, therefore, Sonia Gandhi at a campaign
rally in Gujarat made the formulation that
'communalism and terrorism are two sides of the
same coin' she gave voice to a thesis that Indian
sociology has long needed but been too timid to
acknowledge or flesh out. For fifteen years no
single event has struck as petrifying a terror in
the heart of india's muslims-and, by extension,
its pluralism-as that evil deed in Ayodhya on the
6th of December, 1992. A deed that also made
possible Narendra Modi's Gujarat and the massacre
of 2002.
II
And now, as if to ratify the validity of Sonia's
formulation, Modi, putting his fascist foot in
his fascist mouth, has thumpingly endorsed two
days after-- among a thinly attended saffron
rally-- the murder of one Sohrabuddin in a fake
encounter (acknowledged as fake by the Gujarat
government in a court of law in the the face of
irrefutable evidence) meticulously and
conspiratorially planned by Modi's chief satraps
among his police force some years ago.
It is to be noted that the Modi government is
currently prosecuting those officers for the
murders in a case supervised by the Supreme Court
of India!
In saying what he has said Modi has clearly admitted to the following:
--that the killing had his blessings; (a recent
sting operation conducted by the Tehelka group
has conclusively shown of course that the entire
carnage of 2002 had Modi's blessings-this from
the horses' mouths.)
--that the cases filed against his officers
amounted to nothing more than bowing expediently
to the undeniable exposures that were made on
hidden camera, and to the consequent pressure
from the judicial wing of the state;
--that regardless of those cases being now
sub-judice under Supreme Court supervision, his
sway among saffronite voters renders him above
the laws of the land, and fully justifies him
in cocking that public snook at the highest court
that is seized of the matter, not to speak of the
Election Commission charged with the conduct of
the forthcoming Gujarat elections;
--and, as the lawyer, K.T.S. Tulsi, prosecuting
the arraigned Gujarat police personnel on behalf
of the Modi government has been ruefully obliged
to say, not only is Modi now in contempt of the
Supreme Court but guilty of inciting the polity
to engage in extra-judicial murders of people
(read muslims) whom they suspect of being
terrorists. Note that during his brazen
confession, Modi posed the rhetorical question to
the crowd: 'what should be done with the likes of
Sohrabuddin?' Promptly receiving the answer from
cronies in the front rows. 'kill, kill.'
This of course is a dimension to Modi-speak that
confirms the justice of that other epithet used
by Sonia Gandhi for Modi and his killer
squads-'merchants of death.'
Little wonder that Shri Tulsi has decided to
disassociate himself from the brief he has been
holding on behalf of the Modi government.
III
So, will there be consequences?
Now that the concerned District Collector has
handed in his report on the Modi rally alongwith
a CD to the Election Commission, will the latter
do the right and proper under the People's
Representation Act that forbids inciting
sectarian passions during election time, and
debar Modi from the elections, not for now but
the next many years, as the late Indira Gandhi
was once debarred?
Will the so honourable Supreme Court of India
take suo motu notice of the occurrence and
proceed under the law to charge-sheet Modi as an
accomplice in the murder of Sohrabuddin and his
wife?
Will the Human Rights Commission of India take
cognizance of the matter and issue showcause to
Modi?
Will the Ambanis, the Tatas, and other industrial
tycoons that underwrite Modi withdraw their
favours, let go their greed, and exercise their
clout on behalf of secularism and the rule of law?
And most importantly, will the people of Gujarat
stand up and deny Modi his self-proclaimed right
to liquidate all and sundry (all muslims) whom he
designates terrorists? Will they rethink Gujarat
and vote to reclaim the region for the
Constituion and the Republic?
Alas, such is the state of the nation that nothing may be said with confidence.
It is nonetheless certain that until such time as
the state picks up the will and the courage to
bear down on communalism with the same resolve
as it does on terrorism, there will be no end to
either. Although there may well be an end to the
Republic in consequence of that failure.
The Justice Liberhan Commission has been
enquiring into the culpability of the BJP/Sangh
stalwarts in the Babri crime for some twelve
years or more. Would you believe that it is
after fifteen years of the demolition, that the
first witness against Advani and others has
finally testified in a court!
Does the state now piloted by the UPA government
mean to bring these procedures to conclusion? Or
is it intended that the cases remain in pendency
till some of the chief culprits live out their
natural lives?
IV
In the meanwhile, nothing underscores the
unacceptable impotence of the Indian state as
starkly as the fact that a self-proclaimed
monster should rule the roost in the land of
Gandhi on the pretext that he alone can guarantee
the well-being of five and a half crore
Gujaratis. Did not Hitler think likewise of
Germany, believing that the extermination of
the jews was, after all, only one necessary step
in guaranteeing that well-being.
What Modi has now said clearly suggests that he
continues to have a similar use for the muslims
towards the well-being of Gujarat.
o o o
The Economist
INDIA: DON'T MENTION THE MASSACRE
Dec 6th 2007 | AHMEDABAD
From The Economist print edition
But it still colours Narendra Modi's campaign for re-election in Gujarat
AFP
AS A cheerleader for the emerging India, a giant
democracy with-at last-an economy to match,
Narendra Modi is a disgrace. His six-year
leadership of Gujarat, a booming western state,
is widely cited as a paragon of economic
management. But double-digit growth is not all
that Mr Modi-who is seeking re-election in a poll
due to begin on December 11th-is alleged to have
orchestrated.
There is also the small matter of 2,000 murdered
Muslims, victims of a 2002 pogrom carried out by
his Hindu-nationalist followers with the
collusion of Gujarat's bureaucracy and police.
This week the widow of a Muslim politician called
Ahsan Jafri, whose limbs and genitals were hacked
off and the rest of him burned alive, was due to
file a petition in the Supreme Court, accusing Mr
Modi of mass murder. There is little justice for
Muslims in Gujarat. Only eight people have been
convicted over the pogrom, mostly in neighbouring
states. In Gujarat, some 2,000 cases remain
pending.
A small matter, however, is just how the pogrom
is viewed in Gujarat, the birth-place of Mahatma
Gandhi, and a bastion of prohibition,
vegetarianism and gnat-respecting Jains. Its last
election, later in 2002, gave Mr Modi a thumping
majority, biggest in those districts where the
bloodshed was worst. Mr Modi's campaign that year
exploited anti-Muslim sentiment. He foamed and
raved against Pakistan's leader, Pervez
Musharraf-meaning, his audiences knew, scheming
Muslims in their midst. Many considered-and
consider-the pogrom to be a legitimate act of
revenge against a poor minority making up 9% of
Gujarat's population. It was organised by
supporters of Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP) after 58 Hindu activists were killed in a
fire on a train for which, on scant evidence,
Muslims were blamed.
This time Mr Modi's campaign has been more sober.
He has unleashed the odd rant against
"terrorists", and a few barbs at Mr Musharraf.
But the BJP'S leader has been much keener to
trumpet Gujarat's recent economic
performance-including growth of 11.5% last year.
The change of tack may be because he is chary of
the contempt the outside world holds for him. In
2005 America revoked his visa. EU countries have
also denied him diplomatic status. This has been
damaging to his ambitions to lead the BJP, and
India. Mr Modi is already its most globe-trotting
state boss. This year he has visited China, South
Korea, Japan and Switzerland.
But elections in India are not won by leading
trade delegations-even in Gujarat, which has 24%
of India's coastline and a proud commercial
tradition. Moreover the slogan Mr Modi is most
associated with, "Vibrant Gujarat"-the name of a
biennial trade fair he has staged-recalls the
ill-fated "India Shining" campaign run by India's
last BJP-led government for the general election
in 2004. It was turfed out by the masses for whom
India did not shine. Many in the Congress party,
which leads the coalition that won that election,
predict that Mr Modi will suffer the same fate.
His camp is certainly unhappy. Leaders of two
powerful castes, the Patels and Kolis, which
usually vote BJP, have rebelled against Mr Modi.
They dislike his autocratic ways-and, perhaps,
his intolerance of corruption. A total of 50
former BJP members of the outgoing assembly have
refused or been denied the party's ticket. Eight
are instead standing for Congress. The Vishwa
Hindu Parishad, a Hindu group heavily implicated
in the 2002 slaughter, is also upset with Mr
Modi. Indeed, there are many in the BJP who would
like to see him fall. With a general election due
by May 2009, India's main opposition party is
suffering a crisis of ideology and leadership.
Another thumping win for the divisive Mr Modi
would strengthen his claim to supply both.
These divisions have given Congress hope. Its
supporters also point out that Congress did
better in Gujarat in the 2004 general election
than in 2002. Its leader, Sonia Gandhi, has
campaigned hard in Gujarat. A strong showing by
Congress would be a bitter blow to the BJP. It
might even embolden Mrs Gandhi to call a general
election early next year, or at least to push
through a controversial nuclear co-operation deal
with America over the objections of the
government's Communist allies. As the Communists
have said they will forsake the government if the
deal survives, this might come to the same thing.
The BJP, however, remains the favourite. In 2002
it won 126 out of 182 seats. Gujarat's illegal
bookmakers, famed for their prescience, expect it
to win again, with a smaller majority. Betting
has been heavy. Meanwhile, few commentators have
dwelt on the poll's most depressing aspect:
Congress's own careful reluctance to mention the
2002 massacre-let alone Mr Modi's alleged part in
it. This makes electoral sense. Attacking Mr Modi
for failing to protect Muslims might remind
Gujaratis why they used to like him so much.
After all, last month, in a brave investigation
into the pogrom, an Indian magazine, Tehelka,
published transcripts of Gujarati
Hindu-nationalists confessing to hideous murders
and rapes. One alleged that Mr Modi had granted
them three days to do this work unimpeded by the
police-which is in fact what happened. No action
has been taken against them. Instead, senior
Congress figures have accused Tehelka of being in
cahoots with the BJP. Gujarati bookies responded
to its report by shortening the odds on Mr Modi.
o o o
OPEN LETTER TO NERO MODI
by I.K.Shukla
Dear Modi Maharaj:
From a tea vendor to a chief minister is quite a
staggering rise. These days you strut and stalk
decked out in the regalia of a sword-wielding,
turban-domed tribal chief. That is called a
designer warrior. That goes well with your plush
poll van fitted with gaudy gizmos of assorted
kind. Maharaj is also the popular appellation of
a cook. It fits you so well. You never ceased
cooking. What you cook is well and widely known.
In fact, so well known that BJP rotates you among
the states that it seeks to bring to the boiling
point.
As the designer emperor of Hindu terrorists,
spawns of RSS and its multiple acronyms, you can
feel flattered to be anointed as Nero, ensconced
in your own Rome, the designer capital that you
so fancifully call Karnavati.
Your rhetoric is the acme of designer variety.
Why should it not be when you have employed Apco,
an American PR firm, at an astronomical price, to
design your poll persona? Your image makeover
does tons of credit to Apco's expertise. The
designer retooling of your appearance makes you
look fiendish but also more entertaining, as if a
dug out relict from ages buried in history. Now
that takes some doing. From the Butcher of
Gujarat, as you have been popularly known all
over the world, now you are being dished out, of
course well designed, as a development man,
thanks to Apco.
As to your designer slogans. They are way far
beyond the usual humbug of vocal graffiti
evident at poll times. Your triad of slogans is
impressive. It is breathtakingly false, and as
bald as it is brazen. Take a look:
Salamati-Samruddhi-Swabhiman
(security-riches-pride in self).
Whatever your quixotic claims, it is exactly the
reverse of all three that you inflicted on
Gujarat relentlessly, remorselessly. You
immunized (contrived illicit salamati for) the
saffronazi terrorists who, enabled and instigated
by you, had robbed, killed, raped, and burnt over
2000 Muslim men, women and children in your well
designed pogrom of 2002 which you persist in
calling riots, cravenly and crookedly. This is
criminally crafted impunity for terrorists and
anti-national savages. In fact, an arch
terrorist, you endangered and violated the
security of millions. You covered up your crimes
by having the witnesses murdered, and upright
officers transferred and penalized. Your idea of
security meant denial of security for Indian
citizens whose forefathers had built this nation
over a thousand years and made it the envy of the
world because of its riches material and cultural.
Riches (samruddhi) for fat cats and
carpetbaggers. At the expense of hapless people!
This is your idea of development. What it means
in real terms is too sordid and abysmal a
reality: 500 peasant suicides, mega theft of
relief and rehabilitation funds, non-utilization
- and discrimination in distribution - of relief
money and materials, privatization of education -
ensuring spread and perpetuation of illiteracy,
no health clinics, rise in the incidence of death
of pregnant women for lack of medical facilities,
vast areas and regions bereft of water, schools,
roads, electricity, and clinics etc., etc. This
is your second leg of the tripod, your designer
Samruddhi which entails destitution and subhuman
immiseration for the majority of the populace.
As to the vile third leg of your troika of
shameless lies, Swabhiman. This is old wine
(Asmita) in the new bottle of your coded call for
violence against the minorities, chiefly Muslims,
to which you as an initiate of RSS were sworn
long ago and to which you have always paid your
total fealty. You have persistently called the
rape, robbery, mass murder and arson that
saffron-fascists perpetrated on Muslims as the
assertion of Gujarati Asmita. Trashing and
destroying the dignity and Asmita of a whole
community is your idea of Asmita, which even
thugs would not buy.
You have signally succeeded in turning a state
into a tribal enclave of reprobates and
recidivists. You have shredded not just the
Constitution of a republican India and dishonored
the builders of India ancient and modern in the
most flagrant fashion, but also made crime the
religion of a state. This makes you non pareil.
For crimes lesser than these no democracy would
have flinched from sending the traitors to
gallows. You are the only ungrateful of history
that keeps hacking at the democracy that gifts
you, a notorious irredeemable, life and liberty,
despite your countless crimes.
For all your mendacity that you spout in the name
of Hindutva day in and day out, you are pitiably
unaware that you and your cohort are NOT Hindu by
any stretch, but just on sufferance and via
subterfuge, merely and reluctantly, deemed to be
Hindu, i.e., manufactured and fabricated virtual
Hindu, in short, designer Hindu.
Only designer Hindus could be capable of so much evil.
You have done enough damage, brought humongous
infamy to India, plotted and presided over the
biggest mass slaughter of Gujarat minorities in
post-47 India, and then kept shamelesly lying
about it.
You have desecrated a nation unique in history
for embracing and celebrating diversity.
You have torn India to shreds, impudently
repudiated its Constitution, abolished its
reputation, scorched its heritage, insulted its
time-honored culture, and pulverized its enviable
and inimitable ethos. The devil will be proud of
you. This is achievement enough.
But, pray, desist now and disappear. Let that be
your last favor to the land you permanently
scarred with your inhuman and arrant crimes. Be
for once in your life a little courageous, a puny
humanoid, and your natural self - a designer
human, and vanish.
Since I do not count you among humans I cannot
wish - may your soul rest in peace.
7Dec.07
o o o
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http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/12/modi-vs-india.html
Modi endorsement from the crowd for extra-judicial killings
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/12/modi-endorsement-from-crowd-for-extra.html
______
[5] Recently added Content at Communalism Watch
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Real affirmative action for Muslims and not the
habitual Haj subsidies by Praful Bidwai
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/12/real-affirmative-action-for-muslims-and.html
Rakesh Sharma's Gujarat Documentaries - 'Khedu Mora Re' and 'Chet'ta Rejo'
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/12/rakesh-sharmas-gujarat-documentaries.html
My freedom of expression is better than yours by Pamela Philipose
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/12/my-freedom-of-expression-is-better-than.html
Karnataka: Tiptur clash shows spread of Parivar
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/12/karnataka-tiptur-clash-shows-spread-of.html
______
[6] ANNOUNCEMENTS:
(i) PEOPLE'S RESISTANCE ACTIVITIES THIS COMING WEEK IN KARACHI (10 DEC ON)
Please note time/date of People's Resistance
activities this coming week in Karachi:
MONDAY, Dec 10 - Human Rights Day being observed
as a 'black day' by HRCP, PFUJ/KUJ and People's
Resistance
4 pm, Karachi Press Club - wear black.
TUESDAY, Dec 11 - - 'Live with Talat' - featuring
Talat Hussain, & Nusrat Javeed & Mushtaq Minhas
(Bolta Pakistan)
Karachi Press Club - 2.00- 4.00 pm sharp
(Confirmed guests include Justices (r) Wajihuddin
Ahmed, Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, Majida Rizvi &
Rasheed Rizvi (Prez. SHCBA) and Noor Naz Agha.
FRIDAY, Dec 14 - The big rally - Join us to
demand the Restoration of the Judiciary & the
Media and Revoke the PCO.
4.00 pm - Meet at Regal Chowk, end at Press Club.
All organisations, parties and individuals who
support these demands are welcome. Bring your
friends. Register your protest.
Thank you & see you there.
In solidarity, and on behalf of People's Resistance
Sophia, Awab, Sabeen, Noman, Urooj, Yasir, Uzma,
Anis, Asad, Afiya, Naeem, Beena, .... (please add
your name here and pass this email on to your
friends - thank you)
_____
(ii)
CHAMPA-
THE AMIYA & B.G.RAO FOUNDATION
25, NIZAMUDDIN EAST, NEW DELHI-110013
Ph.24351359
Dt.30th Nov.2007
CHAMPA MEMORIAL MEETING:
"CORPORATE INDUSTRIALISATION & DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS"
12TH DECEMBER,2007
Dear friends,
The last few years have seen the relentless and
unmasked grabbing of land and resources for
Special Economic Zones which will be run by
Multinationals as enclaves outside Indian
jurisdiction. This clearly has echoes with the
colonial period, although this time round,
fertile agricultural land is not being used to
grow cash crops but for industrial hubs, mining
for military requirements as in Orissa, and also
for shopping malls and gated housing for the
super-rich. The massive resistance to these
policies has been met with extreme repression.
Government-backed killer squads have been
unleashed on men women and children whose only
'crime' was to refuse to give up their land.
This year the Champa meeting will look at the
nature of this new phase of imperialism and also
at alternative visions of development to those
being pursued by ruling parties.
Programme:
5 PM, WEDNESDAY, 12TH DECEMBER, 2007
at
HINDI BHAWAN
(Meeting Hall at 3rd Floor)
Vishnu Digambar Marg, (on the
lane in front of Gandhi Peace Foundation)
Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, New Delhi-110002
SPEAKERS :
1. Prof. Amit Bhaduri
2. Mrs. Ilina Sen
Prof. Tanika Sarkar will preside.
You are cordially invited to participate.
Uma Chakravarti
N.D.Pancholi (M) 9811099532
Convenors
CHAMPA-
THE AMIYA & B.G.RAO FOUNDATION
25, NIZAMUDDIN EAST, NEW DELHI-110013
Ph.24351359
Dt.30th Nov.2007
CHAMPA MEMORIAL MEETING:
"CORPORATE INDUSTRIALISATION & DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS"
12TH DECEMBER,2007
Dear friends,
The last few years have seen the relentless and
unmasked grabbing of land and resources for
Special Economic Zones which will be run by
Multinationals as enclaves outside Indian
jurisdiction. This clearly has echoes with the
colonial period, although this time round,
fertile agricultural land is not being used to
grow cash crops but for industrial hubs, mining
for military requirements as in Orissa, and also
for shopping malls and gated housing for the
super-rich. The massive resistance to these
policies has been met with extreme repression.
Government-backed killer squads have been
unleashed on men women and children whose only
'crime' was to refuse to give up their land.
This year the Champa meeting will look at the
nature of this new phase of imperialism and also
at alternative visions of development to those
being pursued by ruling parties.
Programme:
5 PM, WEDNESDAY, 12TH DECEMBER, 2007
at
HINDI BHAWAN
(Meeting Hall at 3rd Floor)
Vishnu Digambar Marg, (on the
lane in front of Gandhi Peace Foundation)
Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, New Delhi-110002
SPEAKERS :
1. Prof. Amit Bhaduri
2. Mrs. Ilina Sen
Prof. Tanika Sarkar will preside.
You are cordially invited to participate.
Uma Chakravarti
N.D.Pancholi (M) 9811099532
Convenors
____
(iii)
Voices from the Waters
Call for Papers
The brewing storm of Pather Panchali, love,
drizzle, umbrellas and sidewalks of Shri 420, the
constant downpour of the industrial future in
'Blade Runner'Š the liquid grace of water has
always fine tuned the iconic scenes of cinema.
Cinema owes this blue elixir heightened emotions
and delicate charm. As this magical resource
increasingly becomes scarce, as the drought sets
in, as it is tagged with a price, Deep Focus Film
Quarterly proposes to dedicate the April 2008
edition to the cause and celebration of that
precious bounty, WATER.
We invite well-researched articles on the theme
of water in cinema. These may include articles on
short and full length feature films and
documentaries based in the context of water
issues- water scarcity, dams, droughts, floods,
global climate change, deforestation,
conservation and water as culture and life,
interviews with filmmaker-activists working in
the field of water and articles tracing the
relationship of water and cinema over the ages.
Articles having a word-count of between 2000 to
4000 should be neatly typed with double spacing
and should reach us by 28th February 2008. It is
very important to include film stills to
illustrate your article.
Please mail in your articles at deep.focus at rediffmail.com,
bangalorefilmsociety at gmail.com
The Editor,
Deep Focus Film Quarterly,
33/1-9, Thyagaraja Layout,
Jai Bharath Nagar,
M.S. Nagar P.O.,
Bangalore- 560 033.
______
(iv)
CONVENTION FOR SEXUAL SELF - DETERMINATION
10 AM
December 20, 2007
Sahitya Academy Hall,
Thrissur, Kerala (state)
India
Sexuality, Left and The Kerala society
Chair: K.M.Venugopalan
Topic presentation: J. Raghu
Participants: K.Venu, Sara Joseph, M.A.John,
Civic Chandran, P.T.Thomas,
Dr.K.Gopinathan, Sunny Kapikad,
2.30.PM
Sexuality, Mores, Law and The Society
Chair: T.Muralidharan
Topic presentation: S.Maya, Adv.Tito Thomas
Participants: Reshma Bharadwaj,
Adv. Rajasree, V.C.Haris, A.K.Ramakrishnan,
Deepa V.N, K.C. Sebastin, Shamsad hussain, Adv.Asha.
Organized by
Sexual rights forum
Sahayathrika
Convener: Jonson Joseph
Joint Conveners: I Gopinath, Neethu
Supported by
Firm, Cense, Gargi
email: groupforliberation at gmail.com
In recent decades, there has been sweeping change
world over in ways of addressing sexuality. For
example, in many countries laws have been
reformed with a view to ending social
discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender (LGBT). Rights of LGBT have even
become part of agenda of the left, albeit with
serious limitation imposed by rigid conceptual
paradigms. Further, the UN has recognized the
right of sexual self-determination and sexual
orientation among important human rights. Ending
stigmatization of sex work has lately been among
the agenda of reforms in many countries.Yet
another area where the taboos have disappeared is
that of imparting scientific sex education to
children right from their schooling age.
The question of sexual rights has come to occupy
limited spaces of socio-political discourse
recently in Kerala. Yet, the mainstream political
movements here view such demands of sexual rights
either as symptoms of moral decadence or cultural
imperialism. Hence, political parties and
cultural discourses here continue to avoid
discussion of sexuality, making it a taboo.
Moralism has become an obsession with Kerala's
societal attitude to sex, cutting across the
divides of class, gender, caste and religion.
Fear, inconsistency and duality in standards,
hypocrisy, opportunism and violence form the
hallmarks of this moralism. We find newspapers
celebrating moralistic gazes on peoples' private
lives, which stop at nothing short of trampling
upon legal rights of individuals quietly leading
their peaceful lives. Stories brought out in the
name of news are many often designed for
reproducing the status-quoist norms of morality,
apart from catering to sensationalism. Though at
one end of this morality spectrum one finds
cowardice, proceeding to the other end, one will
surely see a diabolic propensity for mob-
violence to visit upon all categories of minority.
Kerala's social life is dominated by a variant of
medieval concept of morality, which considers any
discourse on pleasure and body a sin. It
underlines a heterosexual normativity confined
within the limits of matrimony. Hence, human
rights in contexts of sexuality become virtually
denied to large sections of people outside
heterosexual family. For example, to the
unmarried, widower, widow, divorcee, homosexual,
transgender, lonely, sex worker, differently
abled, and so on.
There is certainly no disagreement in that we
should oppose all forms of sexual behavior
leading to aggression and violence. But the
imperative, however, is to realize that sex
related atrocities are not same as demanding
sexual freedom. Even while it is clearly
understood that patriarchal and status-quoist
normativity in sex is most often the root cause
of sexual violence, many fundamental questions
are not being raised. Despite elaborate
discourses on patriarchy, many a feminist fails
to take note of the reality that sexuality itself
is a social construct that rests on structures
built around a gendered society. Most of the
assumptions made by the so-called progressive
discourse on sexuality do not just result from a
shameful ignorance, but they also constitute
criminal neglect in the political sense.
This criminal disregard for the lived experience
of people in sexuality has played a major role in
suppressing creativity. Kerala has been virtually
made into a land inhabited by people with
unspeakable mental stress and neurotic disorders,
thanks to the extremely intolerant and
insensitive attitude toward the changing
perceptions of sexuality elsewhere. Absolute lack
of creative celebration of pleasures of life has
lead youths to take recourse in excessive
consumption of alcoholic liquors or to gravitate
themselves towards fascist agendas characterized
by visible projections of vent up ire toward the
others.
It is not possible for a workingwoman to avail of
lodging or to travel as single after sunset,
anywhere in Kerala, without being closely
purveyed by the moral brigade. A person's right
to privacy is most likely to be taken away by the
custodians of law and order in such occasions
under the pretext of giving protection, or
safeguarding morality. As a consequence, any
healthy relation between individuals becomes
impossible when the incumbents be suspects of
subverting the normal. While in a majority of
countries women can work and live as singles and
contribute to social production, in Kerala, they
are largely kept aloof from the public sphere to
end up as bonsais, with every aspect of
creativity destroyed in their pursuits of
home-making.
In most countries in the West, discriminating
provisions of law relating to the practice of
homosexuality have been removed from the statute
books. The Psychiatric Association of America, as
early as a quarter centaury ago, had called for
understanding homosexuality less as a mental
disorder than at par with other patterns of
sexual behavior (heterosexuality). Gay politics
has now become part of the antiwar and human
rights movements. One of the stipulations for any
country to become a member of the European
Economic Community is that the aspiring state
should decriminalize homosexuality.
Paradoxically enough, the Indian Penal Code has
section 377 intact even now with the effect that
homosexual love relations are an offence
punishable under IPC. It may be recalled that the
law had come to effect in 1860s under colonial
rule and against the background of the Semitic
theology and the Victorian morality of the
colonial rules.
The pervasive attitude of concerned ruling
classes towards the Black, Dalit and Adivasi is
largely characterized by hatred and cynicism.
Similar hatred is seen embedded in The
contemporary attitude to homosexuals in our
society. Even the people who talk high on
fighting fascism tend to forget the dark side of
history where Nazis were seen running after
homosexuals to herd them together and to kill en
mass.
Any societal attitude/law that refuses to treat
people of the sexual minorities as human beings
would only justify unspeakable violence and
discrimination against them. Homosexual love
relationship certainly raises questions about the
normative stereotypes, which in turn helps
devastating deconstruction of the status quo of
power relations as such.
Human sexuality has tremendous potential for
dynamism. Therefore revolution in attitude to
sexuality is inseparable from the agenda of
social revolution itself. The social reform
movements, that said to have caused many
upheavals in our society in the first half of
last century, have failed to address the politics
of sexuality. The conservative left here has
added to the failure by holding a ridiculous view
that the sexual politics itself is an import of
imperialism. While they might hold that 'love' is
but one possibility for liberation, they would
never accept that love and sexuality comprise
umpteen possibilities. Hence, they would never
consider instances where people are taken to task
on the basis of their differing sexual
orientation as violations of human right. They
would even go to the extent of idealizing the
heterosexual family to the exclusion of all other
human bonds. They would also join the ranks of
core reactionaries to oppose sex education. By
patronizing a moral mafia, the political parties
generally oppose any positive change. It is
precisely thanks to their criminal silence about
the politics of sexuality rather than due to
honestly addressing it that their theory of class
struggle emerges in our age as a big question
mark.
What kind of democracy are you talking about,
when you deny the freedom to love and to live
together? Any politics ill equipped to comprehend
the politics of sexuality deserves to be rejected
out rightly. Let us cure the Malayalee attitude
that has stunted in growth due to lack of
compassion for human experience, rather than we
go hunting after loving couples. It is not the
homosexuals who deserve treatment, but the heads
with progressive pretensions, unaware of the
truth that time has quietly passed over them.
We seem to have reached a point that no political
movement can move an inch ahead unless the
conspiracy of silence about sexuality is broken.
The politics of sexuality cannot wait till all
the problems related with globalization and
unemployment are solved forever. We need to talk
about sexual rights as we do about any other
fundamental rights. Sexuality is an important
arena of struggle like any other where we need to
fight for our rights. It is precisely for this
reason we consider this convention an essential
engaging on the political front.
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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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