SACW | Dec.13-14, 2007 / Flawed polls / Dark side of micro-credit / Silences on Gujarat 2002

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | December 13-14, 2007 | 
Dispatch No. 2476 - Year 10 running

[1]  South Asia: Flawed election systems (I.A. Rehman)
[2]  Pakistan:
     (i) Law of the land (M B Naqvi)
     (ii) Most Want Musharraf to Quit, Poll Shows 
(David Rohde And Carlotta Gall)
[3] Bangladesh: The dark side of micro-credit (Santi Rozario)
[4] India - Gujarat: Silences and the 
impossibility of confabulation after godhra 
(Amruth M)
[5] India: Ethnophobia in Guwahati: Reflections 
on Twentyfourth November (Prasenjit Biswas)
[6] India in the world: how we see ourselves (Meera Nanda)
[7] Announcements:
  (i) Save Democracy Rally in Mani Nagar (Ahmedabad,  13 December, 2007)
  (ii) Events at The Second Floor (Karachi, 14, 15, 16 December, 2007)
  (iii) Book Launch: Women Building Peace between 
India and Pakistan (New Delhi, 14 December 2007)
  (iv) Drama Competitions - Last date of entry (Bombay , 15 December 2007)

______


[1]

Dawn
13 December 2007

FLAWED ELECTION SYSTEMS

by I.A. Rehman

SOUTH Asians have many reasons to rue their 
condition. Prominent among them is a persistent 
failure to establish democratic electoral 
mechanisms. Several countries in the region are 
facing difficulties in holding free, fair and 
democratic elections, and nowhere has the task 
become as problematic as in Pakistan.

This became apparent as experts from the region 
recently debated the requisites of an 'inclusive 
electoral process' at the invitation of a South 
Asian human rights network. The experts were 
invited to share their experiences of holding 
elections and their reform plans with delegates 
from the region. The objective was to determine 
the essential features of an electoral process 
that would meet the highest possible standards 
and the result would reflect the pluralist 
society that each South Asian country is.

What made a Pakistani disconsolate, though the 
deliberations were both stimulating and fruitful, 
was the realisation that while different South 
Asian states were facing different sets of 
problems, Pakistan seemed to have gathered on its 
plate all of them and something extra.

Several Indian states are now in the grip of 
election fever, none more than Gujarat where a 
chief minister who has been universally condemned 
for the 2002 pogrom is threatening India's entire 
effort at establishing a secular democracy. 
Nothing causes the democrats there more anguish 
than the gnawing feeling that the more Narendra 
Modi's criminal record is exposed the better his 
chances of return to power seem to become. And 
this despite the existence of the most powerful 
of the national election authorities in the 
region, one that is known for speedily responding 
to challenges and holding its own against the 
executive. Unavoidable is the question: what good 
is an electoral process if it cannot offer the 
people safety and security against a communalist 
predator?

Pakistan's fledgling democrats may be facing a 
similar problem: how to devise an electoral 
framework that cannot be exploited by 
anti-democratic elements to make a mockery of 
democratic institutions.

Nepal claims to have mobilised people's power to 
establish a democratic order twice in less than 
two decades. Last year the people won their right 
to a new constitution to be framed by a 
democratically elected constituent assembly. The 
promised election has already been delayed by 
many months. Meanwhile extra-democratic attempts, 
some of them extra-legal too, are being made to 
ensure what General Ziaul Haq would have 
described as 'positive results'. Does this amount 
to pre-poll rigging?

Only a decade has passed since Bangladesh took 
the lead in providing in the constitution for an 
independent caretaker regime for holding a 
general election. The initiative was hailed in 
all neighbouring countries. Most of all in 
Pakistan where elections have been more suspect 
than elsewhere. But the result desired has not 
been achieved, thanks to the well-known South 
Asian genius for bending constitutional 
provisions to suit partisan interests. The 
present caretakers have been unable to hold 
elections within the stipulated period. These are 
now promised in 2008.

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh regime is trying to use 
legal instruments to root out political 
corruption, something all military rulers in 
Pakistan have done and failed. More promising 
perhaps are attempts to develop a foolproof poll 
system. Which merely shows that independent 
caretakers, if such angels can at all be found, 
are not enough to guarantee fair elections if the 
electoral system remains flawed. Unfortunately 
the Pakistan regime appears determined not to 
learn this lesson till some more time has been 
lost in debilitating misadventures.

The history of Pakistan shows that soon after 
independence the party in power developed such a 
dread of reference to the people that it moved 
farther and farther away from the minimum 
standards of free and fair elections. Worse, none 
of its successors has made any meaningful effort 
to break with the unholy tradition. As a result, 
no general election can be claimed to have been 
fair. The one or two elections that are popularly 
believed to have been relatively fair deserve the 
distinction because of a general impression that 
official manipulation was on a lower scale than 
usual.

Further, attempts at electoral reform have been 
largely limited to ensuring orderly polling or, 
latterly, to basing results on a correct count of 
the ballots cast. Important though these aspects 
of a general election are they do not meet the 
most decisive requirements of fair and democratic 
elections. The main defects and deficiencies of 
Pakistan's electoral system can be summarised as 
under:

* The franchise is still not wholly democratic. 
The Ahmedis continue to be denied, contrary to 
law, the benefit of the joint electorate system 
that was revived, after 17 years of deviation, in 
2002. In respect of other communities too the 
logic of a single voters' list is not fully 
respected.

* The fruits of the electoral system are not 
available in full measure to the people living in 
Fata and the Northern Areas.

* The government continues to resist the demand 
for an independent and efficient Election 
Commission. The mode of the Chief Election 
Commissioner's appointment, the system of forming 
the Election Commission only after an election 
has been notified and the initial part of the 
electoral process completed, the commission's 
lack of comprehension of democratic imperatives, 
and its failure to protect the democratic rights 
of the more vulnerable elements - women, the 
poorest sections, homeless nomads, the riverbank 
population, the prison population and 
non-resident Pakistanis - all imply institutional 
obstacles to fair election.

* Failure to eliminate exploitation of belief for 
electoral advantage and denial of the right to 
vote and contest election to women, both offences 
listed in the penal code, seriously undermine the 
sanctity and credibility of elections.

* The objective of registering all eligible voters remains unrealised.

* The government sees nothing wrong in the 
escalating costs of contesting elections which is 
increasingly limiting the field to people of 
doubtful credentials.

* A huge majority of the underprivileged is 
excluded from electoral contest, thereby making 
progress towards a pluralist democracy 
impossible. Even suggestions that some of the 
candidates' financial burden should be assumed by 
the Election Commission have gone unheeded.

* Successive regimes have sought to suppress the 
fundamental issue that democratic elections are 
impossible under a regime that can manipulate the 
Constitution and the law for personal or 
factional gain.

Unless the above-mentioned impediments to fair 
elections, some of which are institutional in 
character, are removed the crisis of legitimacy 
will not be over.

One of the painful conclusions from the South 
Asian experts' deliberations is the reluctance of 
states such as Pakistan to learn from positive 
initiatives within the region. For instance, the 
Bangladesh Election Commission claims to have 
found a way to eliminate personation or chances 
of anyone voting more than once by preparing 
biometric records of each one of the country's 90 
million voters. If this system works the problems 
caused by defects in voter lists, 
non-availability of polling agents and lack of 
identification papers (NIC, etc) may disappear.

The Indian Election Commission asserts that its 
electronic voting machines guarantee a fair 
count, and that no complaint of manipulating 
results has been heard for 11 years. Has Pakistan 
studied this process?

The only explanation for Pakistan's keenness to 
persist with a flawed electoral system and a 
moribund Election Commission could be its 
permanent establishment's contempt for the 
people's sovereign rights.



_____


[2]    [  Citizens Challenge Emergency Rule in 
Pakistan >  http://emergency2007.blogspot.com/]

(i)

The News International
December 12, 2007

LAW OF THE LAND

by M B Naqvi

Unending confusion grips the opposition parties 
over assessing the Musharraf regime Mark II, 
along with the scarcely neutral caretakers and 
the changes made under the emergency, the PCO and 
the new media ordinances. It is a continuation of 
the previous government; it is sure to do what 
Musharraf wants. Thus the country is basically 
polarised between Musharraf partisans and those 
who claim to be anti-Musharraf forces, while 
everybody knows that his regime now intends to 
rule through naked force, with a deceptive façade 
of democracy-seeming institutions.

This new Musharraf regime is a creature of the 
virtual martial law of Nov 3 - a logical reaction 
of his dictatorship when challenged - and is 
engaged in two major operations: first, to 
acquire ever more powers than before for the 
recently retired general to rule repressively for 
another five years while claiming to run a 
democracy. Secondly, he wants to keep all his 
foreign and domestic supporters happy - by his 
unchanged social, economic and foreign policies.

How strong is this regime? Musharraf's strength 
should not be underrated. He is supported 
formally by PML-Q grandees, the MQM, the PPP (S), 
the PPP (Patriots). Those who participate in the 
Jan 8 election - being organised and managed by 
him in conditions created by the emergency, the 
PCO and the muzzling of the media - should be 
counted as his supporters, their 
opposition-sounding noises notwithstanding. The 
JUIs of Maulanas Fazlur Rahman and Samiul Haq 
come under this category, as does Ms Benazir 
Bhutto's PPP. For all the ballyhoo about 
reserving the right to boycott, her party's 
dogged resistance to making the restoration of 
pre-Nov 3 conditions, especially the Supreme 
Court judges' restoration, a precondition for 
participating in the polls shows her anxiety to 
strengthen Musharraf in accordance with the 
putative deal the US had brokered, if Musharraf 
does not renege on it.

So, who remains in the boycott camp? Under the 
mean and opportunistic principle of not leaving 
the field to "others," the Jamaat-e-Islami will 
participate because the JUI is doing so, the 
PML(N) has also decided to play the game because 
the PPP is doing it. Maybe a few small parties 
might finally remain in the boycott camp, though 
even that is not certain.

A via media has emanated from the interned Aitzaz 
Ahsan of all people: let all opposition parties 
compel their candidates to sign a piece of paper 
pledging support for reinstating all PCOed judges 
in the new Parliament being elected by 
Musharraf-nominated caretakers. One was aghast at 
this: Aitzaz forgot the disconnect between the 
ongoing lawyers' and civil society's campaign to 
realise, as a precondition to participation, the 
reversion to pre-Nov 3 (2007) Pakistan, though 
later he returned to his original loyalty to the 
lawyers' movement.

What the parties have done risks the ending of 
the momentum of the lawyers' movement. The shape 
of politics and immediate issues will look vastly 
different in the post-election period. Politics 
will be all about government-making, deals and 
alliances under the smiling visage of the 
ex-general. Reviving the previous year's issues 
will be so much more difficult. To recall, the 
Aitzaz proposal was a testimony of his loyalty to 
Benazir Bhutto and his readiness to sacrifice 
personal ambition for her uncertain favours.

But all this is superficial. Look closely. All 
Pakistan's social and economic elites support 
Musharraf. A large number of bigger landlords 
simply love Musharraf - so long as he is in 
power. All big industrialists, bankers, big 
business magnates and conscienceless successful 
professionals have always been on the side of 
military dictators. This is an awesome array of 
forces.

Who else is a supporter of dictatorship? Well, 
why forget the only hyper power there is. Look at 
the crowded drawing rooms of political leaders in 
Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar, waiting 
to be graced by western ambassadors and CJs. The 
latter group is rooting for Musharraf: "Be 
responsible transitionists, take part in 
elections and jointly build democracy." What the 
west wants is obvious: "War on Islamic terrorists 
is on; horses cannot be changed midstream; let 
Musharraf lead the side but go and join him to 
prosecute the war more effectively; this election 
will lead Pakistan to democracy's goal; and that 
is where you and we want to be."

Finally, the strongest supporter of Musharraf was 
his military constituency. The Army is tightly 
united and it was the Army, qua Army (in the 
absence of Gen. Musharraf) that seized power on 
Oct 12, 1999. It has sound professional, economic 
and even political reasons not to desert 
Musharraf: the entire officers' corps stands to 
lose (some) perks and future opportunities if the 
people of Pakistan manage to overthrow Musharraf. 
Hence, the Army is likely to remain loyal to 
Musharraf - for some time anyway.

Those who want undiluted democracy, made by the 
people with independent judiciary, free media and 
the citizens' rights made enforceable, have to 
replace this regime by a more popular one without 
giving up their vigil. This is a challenge to a 
formidable foe. History shows that phenomenally 
powerful and cruel regimes can be overthrown by a 
people - provided they become aware of both their 
rights and are prepared to fight for them. 
Nothing is more powerful than an aware and united 
people.

This is a simple truth, but it is not the whole 
truth. A people's awareness needs leadership - 
not for hero-worshipping but for functional 
purposes. This role is normally played by a host 
of factors: political parties, intelligentsia, 
media, especially press, blogs and what is now 
the worldwide explosion of knowledge, creating 
the climate of the time. In Pakistan, one says 
with a heavy heart that political parties have 
been too venal, too opportunistic (misusing the 
term pragmatism) and have hardly ever risen to a 
situation. One is aware that all the military 
dictators have demonised political leaders as 
corrupt, inept and inefficient. Much of it was 
self-serving. But not all of it was false. 
Anyway, how are they behaving today? Do they show 
any awareness of where they are being used by 
foreign powers and misled by their own 
opportunism?

The year 2007 saw a new star rising and a new 
saga was written after March 9. The show of force 
was necessitated by Mr Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry 
having already proven to be a tough nut to crack. 
He stood his ground and demanded an open trial. 
Pakistanis were startled and saw in him a symbol 
of resistance to tyranny. The lawyers' community 
- led by men like Aitzaz Ahsan, Munir Malik, Ali 
Ahmad Kurd, Hamid Khan - rose to the occasion. 
The people were electrified and poured out of 
their humble homes to shower love and respect for 
the cause represented by the lawyers and the 
chief justice. Where does this authentic 
leadership stand vis-à-vis the people's struggle 
for what is their liberation? It is all about the 
latter. It must continue and gather strength.

Well, it is nowhere being acknowledged. Because 
no big party in the ARD and the APDM insists on 
returning to the pre-Nov 3 position or a really 
independent judiciary as a precondition to an 
election intended to renew Musharraf's presidency 
through an election that is meant to achieve a 
given result. Most of these parties will take the 
Musharraf-laid-down path to sanctify his Oct 6 
"re-election" and to work under a Constitution 
that will emerge after he has made all the 
changes he wants.

This will be a clear regression. Instead of 
taking up the cause of the lawyers, judges and 
journalists and to accept the leadership of the 
new icons of the people, which would have 
enhanced their own, they have responded to 
Musharraf's cause and George Bush's message. They 
deserted their own people's cause, as if 
Musharraf Mark II can be any better. Why lawyers 
cannot form a party of a new kind to offer a new 
leadership for attaining democracy to save 
Pakistan, as Justice Wajihuddin has said.


o o o

(ii)

[The IRI poll mentioned in tthe article below is 
available online at 
http://www.iri.org/mena/pakistan/pdfs/2007-12-12-pakistan-poll.pdf 
]

--

New York Times
December 13, 2007

MOST WANT MUSHARRAF TO QUIT, POLL SHOWS
by David Rohde And Carlotta Gall

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The first comprehensive 
public opinion poll conducted in Pakistan since 
President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of 
emergency last month has found that 67 percent of 
Pakistanis want him to resign immediately and 
that 70 percent say his government does not 
deserve re-election.

The poll suggests that Mr. Musharraf will have to 
engage in substantial vote rigging to have the 
government of his choice win national elections 
on Jan. 8.

The survey also calls into question the view in 
the United States of Mr. Musharraf as a leader 
who can effectively rule Pakistan and deliver in 
the campaign against terrorism. And it suggests 
that civil unrest could erupt if Mr. Musharraf 
were to win the election.

The poll was conducted by the International 
Republican Institute, a nonprofit group based in 
Washington that is affiliated with the Republican 
Party and promotes democracy abroad. The results 
were provided to The New York Times before their 
release on Thursday.

Pakistan's two main opposition leaders, Benazir 
Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, each a former prime 
minister, are already accusing Mr. Musharraf of 
fixing the vote in advance and vowing protests if 
he prevails.

"If elections are rigged, we are going to need to 
be in a position like the people of Ukraine were, 
to protest those elections," Ms. Bhutto said at a 
news conference last week. "A plan is under way 
to rig the elections, and to stop progress 
towards democracy."

On Nov. 3, Mr. Musharraf declared a state of 
emergency, abrogated Pakistan's Constitution, 
fired the Supreme Court, blacked out the 
independent news channels and arrested more than 
5,000 of his opponents. Since then, most 
prisoners have been released and Mr. Musharraf 
has resigned from his post as army chief, but his 
actions have "polarized" Pakistani society, 
according to the poll.

Two-thirds of those surveyed "expressed anger at 
the current state of affairs, desired change and 
were anti-Musharraf," the institute said. And one 
third "remained supportive of President Musharraf 
and were positive about the condition of the 
country."

An American-backed proposal that Mr. Musharraf 
form a government with Ms. Bhutto also appears to 
be deeply unpopular. Sixty percent of Pakistanis 
polled opposed such a deal, which American 
officials had hoped would bolster support for Mr. 
Musharraf.

Instead, 58 percent said they would support a 
"Grand Opposition Alliance" among Ms. Bhutto, Mr. 
Sharif and other parties against Mr. Musharraf, a 
former general who seized power in a 1999 coup. 
Fifty-six percent said the army, which has 
intermittently ruled Pakistan since it won 
independence from Britain 60 years ago, should 
have no role in civilian government.

If Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Sharif do not form an 
alliance, the country appears to be headed toward 
a hung Parliament, according to the poll. Asked 
which party they would support in elections, 30 
percent of those polled said they would support 
Ms. Bhutto's party, 25 percent named Mr. Sharif's 
and 23 percent favored Mr. Musharraf's.

The poll was based on the responses of 3,520 
randomly selected men and women from across 
Pakistan, according to the institute. It has a 
margin of error of plus or minus 1.69 percentage 
points.

"If they did unite, they would put themselves in 
a much stronger position," said Robert Varsalone, 
the institute's country director, referring to 
Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Sharif.

But the two are bitter personal rivals and, 
according to Pakistani political analysts, 
unlikely to be able to form a government 
together. They predicted continued political 
instability if no party wins the vote decisively, 
with Mr. Musharraf, Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Sharif all 
vying to cobble together governing coalitions 
with smaller parties.

The poll also identified several worrying trends 
for Mr. Musharraf's party. Seventy percent of 
Pakistanis said they felt the country was headed 
in the wrong direction and 51 percent said their 
personal economic situation had worsened. And Mr. 
Sharif, who returned to Pakistan from exile two 
weeks ago, appears to be drawing center-right 
voters away from Mr. Musharraf, a key source of 
his support.

Pakistani and Western observers warn that clear 
signs already exist that Mr. Musharraf and his 
supporters are manipulating the election. They 
fear a repeat of nationwide elections won by Mr. 
Musharraf's party in 2002.

  "It was Pakistan's most rigged election," said 
Ijaz Gilani, chairman of Gallup Pakistan, an 
Islamabad-based polling and research firm. "Never 
in our history have we had so much pre-poll and 
post-poll rigging."

The irregularities were numerous, according to 
the opposition and observers, including education 
requirements that knocked opposition candidates 
off the ballot and the severe gerrymandering of 
districts in favor of Mr. Musharraf's supporters. 
Long before the race, Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Sharif 
had been forced into exile, weakening the ability 
of their parties to function.

As the race approached, Mr. Musharraf took over 
much of Mr. Sharif's party, the Pakistan Muslim 
League. He also passed a requirement that all 
candidates have a university degree, a measure 
that knocked some of Ms. Bhutto's and Mr. 
Sharif's strongest candidates off the ballot.

Ikram Sehgal, a defense analyst and retired army 
pilot who runs a security company, said 
government and intelligence officials also 
engaged in "post-poll rigging," pressing 
successful candidates from other parties to 
defect.

"They would say: 'You have not paid your taxes, 
here are the bills. These are the corruption 
cases against you,' " he said.

This year, the country's election commission, 
judiciary and local governments are all run by 
officials loyal to Mr. Musharraf. Analysts say 
the president has used the state of emergency to 
create an electoral playing field that favors his 
candidates, constraining media coverage, public 
rallies and the length of the campaign.

The dismissal and continued detention of Supreme 
Court and High Court judges "sent a very strong 
signal" that election results could not be 
appealed, according an election observer who 
spoke on condition of anonymity.

Instead of the standard 60-day campaign, 
candidates will have only three weeks after 
emergency rule, which is expected to end this 
weekend. Restrictions will remain against rallies 
and processions, which are only permitted in 
proscribed places.

And Mr. Musharraf has muzzled the country's news 
media, barring live coverage of election rallies 
and popular political talk shows. Under a new 
ordinance unilaterally enacted by Mr. Musharraf 
under emergency rule, television journalists face 
up to three years in jail for broadcasting 
"anything which defames or brings into ridicule 
the head of state."

In a letter to stations on Monday, government 
officials accused them of airing live telephone 
calls from the public that contained "baseless 
propaganda against Pakistan and incite people to 
violence." If the practice continued, they said, 
station owners and journalists could be jailed.

Fears also exist that government resources are 
being used in favor of election candidates. The 
nazim, or district mayor, who controls the local 
government officials running polling stations, 
can oversee rigging, Mr. Sehgal said. Opposition 
parties have demanded they be replaced by neutral 
officials during the election campaign.

Mr. Sehgal also said law enforcement agencies 
could shutter polling stations where opposition 
candidates were expected to do well on the 
pretext that there were disturbances. "The police 
find out where they could lose a polling station 
and they close it early," he said. "And they put 
the votes of their party in the box."

And after ballots are cast, there are concerns 
about how the vote will be tallied, according to 
the election observer. Political party observers 
may be barred from election centers where results 
from across the constituency will be totaled. 
"It's a huge deficiency," he said.

On Wednesday, Aitzaz Ahsan, a top lawyer who has 
been under house arrest during the state of 
emergency was imposed, announced that he was 
pulling out of the election, in deference to the 
lawyers who have sought a boycott of elections 
until the former Supreme Court is restored.

He and other lawyers predict the vote will be 
rigged. Mr. Sehgal estimates that Pervez Elahi, 
the former chief minister of Punjab Province and 
the leading candidate from Mr. Musharraf's party, 
can secure 100 seats in Punjab by virtue of his 
control of government machinery there.

Without rigging, he would only get 45 to 50 
seats, he said. Mr. Gilani said his polling has 
shown 20 percent support for Mr. Musharraf's 
party after the emergency.


______



[3]

opendemocracy.net
10 december 2007

THE DARK SIDE OF MICRO-CREDIT

by Santi Rozario

Bangladesh's pioneering micro-finance revolution 
is also helping to fuel the twin abuses of dowry 
and domestic violence. Santi Rozario investigates


Over the last two to three decades rural 
Bangladeshi society has experienced a complex 
range of developments. Among these, NGOs, 
micro-finance institutions and garment industries 
have become the major agents of change in the 
lives of rural Bangladeshi women.  Women's 
increased access to independent sources of 
finance, through participation in outside paid 
employment or through micro-credit, is usually 
taken as one of the main indicators of the 
improvement of women's status and of women's 
empowerment.

However, a puzzle remains: if these positive 
changes have resulted in women's "empowerment", 
why has there not been the kind of improvements 
in women's position that might be expected, such 
as the reduction or abolition of dowry payments, 
or a reduction in domestic violence?  Indeed, if 
anything these tend to be going in the opposite 
direction.  Dowry amounts continue to rise, as 
does the associated violence against women.
Also on micro-finance in Bangladesh:

Farida Khan, "Muhammad Yunus: an economics for peace"

It is true that individual women, women's 
organisations and other NGOs continue to struggle 
against these problems. Yet, despite all this 
effort, women continue to be subject to demands 
for large amounts of dowry as a condition for 
acceptance by their groom's family. Married women 
are also frequently subjected to physical and 
psychological violence by their husbands and 
in-laws if they cannot keep bringing in more and 
more dowry, especially within the first few years 
of their marriage.

Understanding dowry

To understand the seemingly intractable problem 
of dowry, we need to understand the rationale 
behind the practice. Dowry practices in 
Bangladesh (the demand or dabi from grooms' 
families) are a relatively new phenomenon. Their 
rise is linked to the capitalist transformation 
of the Bangladeshi economy since the late 1960s 
and the resultant disjunction between the demands 
of the economy and the system of values in 
Bangladeshi society.

This has led to a valorization of men and 
devalorization of women, legitimated both by a 
socially created surplus of marriageable women 
compared to men, and also by the threat posed to 
ideas of women's purity and honour by women's 
increasing physical mobility. All this in turn 
has made it possible for dowry to become a 
critical source of capital for families with 
sons, who are an increasingly prized commodity.

These new negative developments in relation to 
women and dowry can be understood better by 
appreciating that in Bangladeshi culture marriage 
and dependence upon your husband is thought 
essential for women. By 'dependence' I mean both 
perceived and real economic dependency as well as 
the moral or cultural dependency of all women on 
one or another adult man of their family. The 
necessity for all women to be married, along with 
the perceived 'risks' posed by an unmarried woman 
to her family's honour, means that families feel 
pressured to marry off their daughters as soon as 
possible after puberty. This lowers the marriage 
age for women, so creating a perceived surplus of 
women in relation to men, who are not under the 
same pressure to marry and so generally marry 
later in life. This again leads to further 
inflation of dowries and to the further devaluing 
of women - economically, culturally and morally - 
in relation to men.

Beyond the law

Dowry was declared illegal in Bangladesh in 1980. 
However, like many other laws in Bangladesh this 
has had little or no impact. When faced with 
demands for large dowries, families are reluctant 
to take legal action for fear of losing suitable 
grooms. Thus villagers will say that if one 
family takes legal action, no other potential 
grooms will come forward to ask to marry a girl 
from that village in future. While there are 
para-legal staff in some rural villages, poor 
people only seek their assistance when a woman 
has been divorced after repeated demands for more 
and more dowry, combined with extensive violence. 
Families never report cases when dowry is 
demanded during marital negotiations.
When I asked several groups of poor women what 
was their biggest problem during some recent 
research for CARE Bangladesh, their almost 
unanimous answer was "dowry". When I asked about 
violence, I heard numerous stories about how most 
of the violence against women was related to 
their parents' inability to meet the demands of 
husbands and their families for more and more 
money or other goods.
Dowry has come to be one of the most critical 
sources of capital for all families. It is not 
only practiced as a one-off payment during 
marriage, but many families continue to use their 
newly-married incoming wives as an ongoing source 
of capital, by sending them back to their natal 
home again and again to bring back more capital. 
If the wives' families cannot oblige, the wives 
are subjected to violence, or even divorce.
One such woman I spoke to, Ruksana, is the second 
of four sisters from a poor family. She was 
married to her cousin Ataul, and her parents paid 
80,000 Bangladeshi Taka as dowry. After the 
marriage her mother-in-law mistreated her and 
demanded a bicycle, some jewellery and additional 
Tk30,000. Ruksana's mother took a Tk7000 loan 
from Grameen Bank, bought a cycle and made some 
ear-rings in the hope that the mother-in-law (her 
own brother's wife) would treat her daughter 
better, but Ruksana was pressured for more money. 
Ruksana did not want to tell her parents since 
they were already struggling to keep up payments 
on the first loan and could not afford enough 
food. Her mother-in-law then tricked her into 
signing divorce papers (she was told the papers 
were to obtain another loan), forced her to 
return to her parents' house, and arranged a new 
marriage for Ataul.

The dark side of micro-credit

This is where micro-credit has contributed to the 
escalation of dowry.  While micro-credit has 
benefited large sections of the rural population 
in many ways, it has also worked against women's 
solidarity and contributed heavily to the 
inflation of dowry. Grooms' families are aware 
that money is available to brides' families more 
easily now, through Grameen Bank, the Bangladesh 
Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) or other NGOs. 
I have often heard of women being sent home to 
persuade their parents to borrow money from an 
NGO for their husbands to invest in business, 
including buying items such as rickshaws, vans, 
grocery shops or irrigation pumps.

Although in theory micro-finance institutions do 
not lend money for the purposes of dowry payment, 
in practice it is common knowledge among the 
barefoot bankers (micro-finance institution 
employees distributing and collecting loans among 
village people) that most village families depend 
on micro-credit to meet dowry demands.

It is because of such near universal dependence 
of men on their wives' families for capital that 
dowry has come to be perceived by women's 
organisations as intractable and as 'too 
political' a problem to tackle directly.

Dismantling the hierarchy

Notwithstanding certain structural constraints, I 
still believe there are ways to arrest the 
problem of dowry, and in my work for CARE I made 
a number of recommendations. They include; 
collaboration between institutions working for 
women's rights to campaign on dowry, inheritance 
rights and domestic violence; development of a 
large-scale rural legal aid service following the 
model already developed by Ain o Salish Kendra 
(ASK) and the Bangladesh Rural Advancement 
Committee (BRAC); working with religious 
authorities; use of media, education and role 
models to contest village stereotypes of women.

Another key point to consider is that the 
perpetuation of dowry and violence against women 
cannot only be blamed on men, particularly poor 
men. It is actually the middle-class families, 
who keep their women relatively sheltered in 
order to protect their purity and honour, and 
compete most heavily for status hierarchy through 
dowry displays, who are most responsible for 
perpetuating both dowry practices and gender 
domination.
Middle-class women too gain from this status 
hierarchy. They demand dowry for their sons, are 
relatively able to pay large dowry for their 
daughters, and play active roles in maintaining 
their superior status in relation to less 
well-off women. As a result, they are often the 
people least willing to reject the dowry system. 
It is hard to see how things will change for poor 
village families when they are taken for granted 
by the rural and urban middle classes, who act as 
moral arbiters for the society as a whole.

In tackling the problem of middle class 
attitudes, a piecemeal approach may work. In the 
shorter term, the younger middle class 
generation, who might have studied abroad and 
returned to Bangladesh, and do not necessarily 
share the same values to their parents, could be 
targeted. They are more often prepared to 
challenge familial values, for instance by 
marrying someone of their own choice without 
involvement of dowries.
There also needs to be a dialogue between the 
women's organisations - especially legal ones 
such as Ask and the Bangladesh National Women 
Lawyers' Association (BNWLA) - and religious 
leaders. I believe if there is the political will 
on the part of the government, women's 
organisations, religious leaders, large NGOs and 
civil society in general, religious leaders can 
be used quite effectively in addressing the 
problem of dowry and violence against women. 
There is some precedence for this; in recent 
years religious leaders have been used very 
successfully in motivating large sections of the 
village people into accepting contraceptives 
within a relatively short space of time.
Finally, education is frequently recommended as a 
solution to all sorts of problems in Bangladeshi 
society. I would recommend the same, but with 
less emphasis on rote learning and more on 
educating the young so they begin to question 
gender and other structural hierarchies very 
early in life.

______


[4]


Economic & Political Weekly
December 8, 2007

SILENCES AND THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF CONFABULATION AFTER GODHRA

by Amruth M

The silence on Tehelka's exposure of the state 
machinery's connivance in the anti-Muslim carnage 
in Gujarat is not as telling as the creation of 
an atmosphere where such silence is acceptable. 
And the opposition has let Narendra Modi set the 
agenda by arguing about development rather than 
his government's complicity in the post-Godhra 
murders and rape.

What follow are thoughts on a congealing paradigm 
of government in Gujarat. These are in resonance 
with a recent commentary in the EPW that 
challenged the validity of the "Vibrant Gujarat" 
electoral campaign by the Narendra Modi regime.1 
While it is on grounds of the state's blatant 
refusal to treat victims of the 2002 carnage as 
citizens (let alone as internal refugees) that 
the authors countered the claims of develop- ment 
in the state, here the focus is on yet another 
symbol of the state's hegemony.  This is posed in 
the aftermath of the weekly Tehelka bringing out 
new and tell-tale evidence of state connivance in 
the post-Godhra carnage and in the context of the 
ongoing electoral cam- paigns in the state.2 It 
is the near-total absence of discussions, or as I 
would prefer to call it, the impossibility of 
con- fabulation on the issue, that strikes an 
observer of these campaigns and func- tioning of 
the mass media in the state.3 Here effort is not 
to unearth the complex roots of this benumbing 
scenario, but rather to point out the tendentious 
nature of this void and its consequences.

Though Gujarat has a record of recurrent riots, 
the post-Godhra carnage remains distinct due to 
the unprecedented phenomenon of the connivance of 
state machinery in the killings.4 Pieces of 
evidence affirming the state's proactive role in 
the massacre have been accumulating over the last 
five years; the Tehelka account is the latest 
among them. It assumes special significance as it 
was released less than seven weeks before the 
first phase of the assembly polls.5

With the polls approaching, the manner in which 
the public, politicians, media and the regime 
have (dis)engaged with this disclosure defies 
simple explanation. The near-total refusal of the 
media and politicians (including the engineers of 
the carnage and the political opposition) even to 
acknowledge its gravity has been glaring. Many 
justify this as a strategic silence lest the 
issue potentially polarises votes in favour of 
the ruling regime. But this deafening silence, 
laying bare the inability to sustain a discussion 
on the injustice, is symptomatic of a disturbing 
pattern in society. For, this silence 
demonstrates an impossibility of critical public 
discourse on the topic. And for me, it is this 
impossibility that defines the problematic for 
the moment.6

silences, Meanings and Memories

Silence has the potential to assume multi- ple 
meanings (hence, silences). Here, on the one 
hand, the refusal to discuss the carnage in the 
context of the Tehelka ex- posure by the ruling 
regime clearly implies a shying away from 
acknowledging its role in the carnage and 
wrongfulness of the act. On the other, this 
amounts to hegem- onic valorisation of the 
violence and thus the creation of a fear factor. 
The ruling re- gime, instead, wants to project 
itself as a deliverer of development. It is 
obvious that the Modi regime is keen on filling 
the void it created with the claims of 
development.  Thus, development has come to be a 
boldly written placard to cover its own blood- 
stained face for the regime.

Pitifully, even the opposition, while 
acknowledging its inability to sustain the issue 
of genocide or the criminality of the act as a 
central issue of campaign, has ended up reacting 
to the claims of the rul- ing regime and its 
failure to deliver devel- opment.7 This 
hesitation in speaking out with that of Modi's 
refusal to discuss the issue (he walked out of an 
interview on a national TV channel and has 
refused to discuss the carnage in interviews)8 
and his contrasting eloquence on development and 
Gujarati provincialism, is not acciden- tal but 
foundational in the constitution of a particular 
mode of silence in society.  While Modi's 
taciturnity may be easily interpreted as his 
losing ground on the issue, the very fact that 
his opponents were compelled to discuss the 
agenda set by him (development) proves that the 
con- verse is true. For the opposition, this 
amounts to adopting given idioms and figures of 
speech and, thus, the rules of the game itself.

It is disheartening to note that the situation 
renders true the fears aired by Tarun Tejpal 
(Tehelka editor) in his prophetic "Read, and Be 
Afraid" remarks on the issue, where he observed 
that soci- ety and politicians are indifferent 
and hesitant to keeping alive the memory of this 
injustice, the carnage.9 The current vicissitudes 
in the larger public morality making discussion 
an impossibility are a clear indication of the 
trend. Here, what is signi ficant is not "the 
silence" that is de- sired by the ruling regime, 
rather the created context in which the silence 
is perpetuated among the contesting and 
contending agencies on a serious issue pertinent 
to justice.  silencing the Media The incidence of 
blackout of cable televi- sion networks during 
the broadcast of the Tehelka exposure (following 
directions by a senior civil servant) on grounds 
of the programme's conceived potential to create 
a communal flare-up and a sub- sequent ban on 
four television channels are instances of 
silencing the media.10 Jamming the cable network 
is being justified on the pretext of censoring 
the sensitive contents of the programme.  What is 
invoked here is the idea of exist- ence of a 
delicate communal situation that is susceptible 
to a flare-up even at the slightest of 
provocations. This act of si- lencing, the 
silence thus sustained and the near-total failure 
of resistance are a clear reflection of the 
state's role in dampening critical discourses.

This, however, is only the tip of the pro- 
verbial iceberg, where the invisibility of the 
state's role in engendering these silences has 
wider implications for society.  For instance the 
unofficial and off-the- record ban effected on 
the movie Parzania is a telling incident;11 a 
clear indication of the progressive muting in 
Gujarat's society. Strategies of silencing have 
now shifted from the visible to the invisible, 
record to off-the-record, vocal to silent, 
pre-empting and defying any attempts to bring it 
in front of the judiciary. This process is 
symptomatic and reveals the nature of the power 
structure and hege- mony that makes vocalising 
those topics for discussion impossible. How was 
this hegemony made possible? It is not only 
through the state police. The saffron cadre too 
functions as perpetuators of insecurity and 
threat and who have the ability to hold the 
minority to ransom. In short, the totalitarian 
potential of the state is decentralised to a near 
complete level of saffron foot soldiers. The 
result is an off- the-record regime of terror. 
Here is not a case of the state failing but a 
case of ex- treme consolidation of state 
machinery for cover-ups and rebuffs - in short, 
transmutation to an off-the-record para- digm of 
government where there is no hope for justice. 
state of exception The Tehelka exposure is said 
to have "revealed" nothing hitherto unknown to 
the public.12 The involvement of the state has 
been a public secret in Gujarat's society. This 
public secret has deeper implications as this 
public knowledge has been silenced, making 
society unforth- coming and hesitant to engage 
with the matter in discussions. This also 
constitutes a kind of insecurity - perpetuated 
through awareness of the state's ability to 
legiti- mise terror, persecution and yet another 
carnage and get away with it. All are aware of 
these capacities of the ruling regime either as 
witness, prey or predator of the pogrom. In this 
sense the 2002 carnage, the subsequent act of 
protecting the accused and trivialisation of the 
victims was stage-managed to produce a 
demonstrative effect on not only the spectators 
but also the predators and prey. This "real 
drama" turned out to be enormously successful in 
producing intended results such as production of 
fear and silence.

Another strategy of manufacturing fear and 
imposing silence involves perpetuation of a sense 
of impending insecurity in the state. A sense of 
existence of such a "state of exception" or 
"state of possible siege" is enabled by 
disproportionate pub- licity to the possibility 
that episodes similar to the 2002 carnage would 
be repeated by events of (false) encounters with 
"militants" in the state. We know very well that 
the declaration of a state of exception is a 
strategic excuse made by modern states to 
legitimise freezing of fundamental rights of 
their subjects by imposing special rules of 
law.13 Creation of such twilight zones in 
democracy has come to stay as a paradigm of 
government in the state.

The claims of development in Gujarat, (in 
references to Chandhoke et al (2007)), should 
necessarily invite the question of who are 
included and who are excluded from the process. 
Or more precisely one should ask, "development 
for whom"? For the victims of the carnage and the 
displaced this development signifies denigration 
to a second-class citizenry, and worse still, 
losing citizenship itself. These victims are 
unqualified by birth for the best manifestations 
of governance, the national destiny - 
development. If development here means also 
social justice and equality, they are ineligible 
for these too. The state machinery's refusal to 
provide the victims access to customary services 
such as power, water, public distribution system, 
education, healthcare, justice, etc, signifies 
denial of their rightful citizenry.

We hear of the plights of victims stripped of 
even the last remnants of legal and political 
privileges and becoming a legal and political 
non-entity.14 In other words, these are bare 
lives dumped along
with the wastes of galloping urban consumption in 
India's "most prosperous state" where the ruling 
regime projects itself as the messiah of 
development.15

They are also bare lives whose extermination the 
state would not care to stall or lament. It is a 
paradox which society has already come to terms 
with. And the silences and silencing function as 
an effective mechanism to engineer social 
exclusion once again demonstrates how development 
as an empty signifier can contain so many 
contradictory meanings.

controlling grammar

The silence also points to the perpetuation and 
reinforcement of an existing structure of 
hegemony that is effected through violence. The 
basic features of these structures of hegemony 
are mutual exclusion or segregation and extreme 
imparity in accessing facilities and amenities 
among communities. This gradually leads to the 
production of different contexts of experiences 
and meanings. By structures, here we refer not 
only to urban life, work and commercial spaces, 
public services, and financial institutions but 
also to discourses such as development, justice, 
citizenship, and equality. For instance, the 
spatial segregation of urban living, work and 
commercial spaces is extreme between the Hindu 
and Muslim communities in Ahmedabad. And this 
divide is not limited to the material realm 
alone, but extends to the symbolic realm as well, 
i e, there are walls of segregation everywhere 
dividing the meanings and experiences between 
communities.

The structures of everyday experience of the 
communities have become so segregated that a 
particular kind of normalisation has been taking 
place.  And this segregation is productive of 
majority and minority subjectivity or a "majority 
becoming" of the Hindu community and a "minority 
becoming" of the Muslim community.

This polarisation has, thus, simply enabled 
production of often diametrically opposite 
meanings, so much so that it is impossible to 
hold a shared discourse.  This divide cannot be 
seen separately from the silences we are 
referring to but these are integral to the divide 
itself.  This particular silence and silencing 
undercuts preconditions for viable civil society 
discourses, validity of representational 
electoral process, and efforts to create a more 
inclusive society. Instead, here the 
impossibility of shared experiences becomes an 
instrument for a vocal mode of social exclusion.

Making the cry Heard

Given these conditions, elements of civil society 
discourse in existence in Gujarat are but too 
fragmented and unable to generate a coherent 
grammar for sustaining counter-discourses.16 This 
is at the same time cause and consequence, 
constituting and constitutive, mutually 
reinforcing of the silence and silencing. So the 
effort here should be to create a space for 
viable civil society discourse. The modalities 
with which such a space can be created would 
necessarily mean adoption of a variety of 
strategies from reclaiming of the subsumed 
biographies, giving voices to erased minority 
subjecthoods to recre- ating new structures of 
experiences. Any such effort should also include 
founding institutions to keep alive those painful 
memories of the injustice and suppression of 
voices. And it is time to discuss the modalities 
with which we should go ahead. For we know 
adequately that the absence of viable civil 
society dis- course is one of the preconditions 
for failing "programmes to improve human 
conditions"; it is no surprise that such a 
failure would worsen human conditions under an 
oppressive regime.17 Because in Gujarat, with 
suppression of discussion on carnage, now 
development is going to be the new rhetoric 
demanding human sacrifice.

Here, one feels terrorised at the pros- pects of 
this particular assortment of situ- ations - 
national security and develop- ment forming the 
hollow buzzwords of the regime, simplification or 
levelling of society by ignoring its inherent 
heterogeneity, conception of the social change 
and deve lopment as an instant mix concoction 
(for selected sections of society), weak- ening 
of the civil society institutions,18 and a regime 
that denies possibilities of polyphony and 
refuses to engage with the dissenting voices. As 
James Scott candidly explains to us through cases 
quoted from histories of modern western nations, 
here we have all these potencies ready in Gujarat 
and the warning of Tarun Tejpal looms large - "Be 
Afraid"!


I am thankful to Viswanathan, Sunny Jose, Amita 
Shah, Jharana Pathak, Tommasso and Ghanashyam 
Shah who shared with me their observations on 
Gujarat and especially to Keshab Das and Sanal 
Mohan who patiently went through a previous draft 
and made many suggestions for improvements; 
however, any shortcomings are entirely mine.

Amruth M (amruth at gidr.ac.in) is a social 
scientist with the Gujarat Institute of 
Development Research, Ahmedabad.

Notes

1 Neera Chandhoke, Praveen Priyadarshi, Silky 
Tyagi and Neha Khanna, 'The Displaced of 
Ahmedabad', Economic and Political Weekly, 
October 27, 2007, 10-14.

2 A set of stealth video accounts of vainglories aired by
predators about their role in the 2002 carnage, re-2002 carnage, re-
leased by the Tehelka weekly (on internet see: 
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=
Ne031107gujrat_sec.asp) and telecasted on Aaj Tak 
television channel (on October 25).

3 Voters in Gujarat's 182 legislative assembly 
constitu- encies are to vote on December 11 and 
16.

4 Observers of the Gujarat society have pointed 
this out. Another distinct feature of the 2002 
killings was lack of spontaneity and these 
killings were virtually one-sided, in which the 
attackers and causalities were almost completely 
communally segregated so much so that to describe 
it with any word that would mean "riot" involving 
two communal groups would be totally misleading.

5 There is widespread disagreement about the 
appropriateness of the timing of the exposure, 
but our concern is not the appropriateness of the 
timing of the exposure but rather to look at its 
impact/ reception.

6 These observations are based on the author 
validat- ing his experiences with observations on 
Gujarat so- ciety by academicians from the state. 
Besides obser- vations by journalists are also 
consulted. For instance see Prashant Jha, 
'Gujarat as Another Country: The making and 
Reality of a Fascist Realm', cover story, Himal 
Southasian, October 2006.

7 Times of India, 'Congress Wary of All-out Attack', October 27, 2007.

8 He walked out of an interview on October 19, 
2007 after having been asked questions pertaining 
to post-Godhra carnage. For more details on the 
interview please visit the following web page: 
http://www.hin- 
duonnet.com/2007/10/22/stories/2007102254891100.htm. 
It is known that one of the conditions for grant- 
ing an interview with the chief minster is that 
no questions on the post-Godhra carnage will be 
asked. 

9 Tarun Tejpal, Tehelka internet edition: 
http://www. 
tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107 
Tarunspiece.asp

10 The district collector of Ahmedabad, who also 
holds judicial powers, ordered four TV channels 
off the air on October 25, 2007. The channels 
were: CNN-IBN, IBN7, NDTV and Aaj Tak - 
CNN-IBN.2007. "Govern- ment to meet on news 
channel blackout in Gujarat.  On Tuesday, October 
30, 2007 at 07:56 in Nation sec- tion CNN-IBN, 
published on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 07:56 
in Nation section.

11 The release of the movie was effectively 
torpedoed by Hindutwa outfits without there being 
any official ban against it as different from the 
case of Fanaa where the state officially banned 
the movie. See Urvish Kothari, 'Parzania and the 
Dictator, of Gujarat: Who Was Responsible for the 
Ban on the Release of Parzania in Gujarat? 
Apparently Nobody', Himal South Asian, March 
2007. For the mechanism of effecting such 
censorship see Amardeep Singh, 'The Communalisa- 
tion of Censorship', Himal SouthAsian, August 
2007.  12 As early as March 2002, when the 
post-Godhra killing was still on, political 
observer and columnist Praful Bidwai had 
explicitly alleged state collusion in the 
killings. See article: Praful Bidwai, 'End the 
Butchery, Sack Modi', Frontline: Volume 19-Issue 
06, March 16- 29, 2002. Also see Concerned 
Citizens Tribunal - Gujarat 2002. Crime against 
Humanity:
An Inquiry into the Carnage in Gujarat, List of 
Incidents and Evidence, three vols, published by 
Anil Dharkar, for Citizens for Justice and Peace, 
Mumbai.  Many reports in the print as well as 
visual media also explicitly brought out 
evidences in the same direction.

13 Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception, tr Kevin 
Attell, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 
2005. In India a variety of constitutional 
provisions and special laws such as 'Prevention 
of Terrorism Act' (POTA) has been the latest 
among the special laws that has been in force 
with provisions to detain and suspend the 
fundamental rights in the pretext of pro- tecting 
of National security.

14 Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power 
and Bare Life, tr Daniel Heller-Roazen, Stanford 
Univer- sity Press, Stanford, 1998.

15 See the relevant portion Neera Chandhoke et 
al, 'The Displaced of Ahmedabad', Economic and 
Political Weekly, October 27, 2007, where the 
internally dis- placed is shown to be forced to 
live beside the urban waste dump in Ahmedabad.

16 This is not to ignore the significant role 
played by a handful of concerned groups, 
individuals and NGOs.  But for their efforts many 
a victim could not have accessed the judicial 
system, and society outside Gujarat would not 
have known the carnage. But here it is to state 
their state-crafted structural constraints in 
reaching to a wider public.

17 James C Scott, Seeing Like a State: How 
Certain Schemes to Improve Human Condition Have 
Failed, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1998. 
18 For instance see Express News Service, 'Sibal: 
Modi to be Booked If Cong Comes to Power', The 
Indian Express, posted online: Friday, November 
02, 2007.  which accuses that the "...post of 
Lokayukta is lying vacant since 2003; the Deputy 
Speaker has not been appointed since 2002; the 
State Human Rights Com- mission is headed by a 
Chairman but no members have been appointed".



______


[5]

ETHNOPHOBIA IN GUWAHATI: REFLECTIONS ON TWENTYFOURTH NOVEMBER
by Prasenjit Biswas

A new metro dotted with a swanky skyline shows a 
potent underbelly for the crimes of passion on 
the street! An Adivasi women, Mandini, being 
outraged on its street in the presence of a 
cheering crew of camera wielding mob gives a mix 
of virile pleasure with an aesthetic of crime. On 
this obstreperous note, one sees the extent of 
criminal retaliation on emaciated menfolk of the 
Adivasis by the urban bred mob of post graduates, 
restaurant waiters and even young men from 
respectable middle class homes.

Adivasis came for justice and recognition on this 
ominous day of twentyfourth of November to this 
new metro. Being bruised, tortured and killed, 
they all were kept holding their ears by the 
police as a symbolic admission of their guilt. 
They are the marginalized and bone-turned-white 
arkati labourers who currently are the pluckers 
of leaf in the gardens of flamboyantly proud 
estate owners of Assam. It is a pride built on 
the shame of the dehumanized Adivasis, now 
re-enacted in the assaults on their men and 
women. Official statements indeed say it as 
'retaliation after the Adivasis went berserk'! 
The wounded and the dead tell it all- who bore 
the reckless beating by these retaliators. The 
emaciated, malnourished and bucolic menfolk of 
the Adivasi protestors were surrounded, stoned, 
kicked and thrown into gutters by these 
retaliators. The Adivasi women rallyists were 
subjects of lewd comments from this set of 
tormentors. Still they are held guilty of their 
shame and harassment. The culpable homicide of 
Samson Naguri and the pronominal 'she' called 
Mandini instantiate a systematic collusion 
between the State and the retaliators. After the 
shrill mayhem, the State now atones by a series 
of commissioned inquiries, transfers and 'sack' 
of some bureaucrats and police officers.

In the domain of the civil society a there is an 
orchestrated attempt to portray the lack of shame 
on twentyfourth November as a legitimate 
expression of 'animosity' against the 
transgressors on the street, the Adivasis. One is 
appalled to hear a neo-Nietzschean vein of 
ressentiment from among the silent majority of 
Assam's intellectuals, elites and politicians 
about a historic sense of being the target of 
Adivasi anger. The projection of Adivasis being a 
mob of angry drunken lot is a schematic inversion 
of ethnic rage on any claim of recognition by 
anyone whom they consider 'other' within the 
layered and nuanced contours of Assam's language 
and culture.

The rage went in disciplining the Adivasi 
protestors as they could not take the abuses 
hurled at their womenfolk on their march to the 
State headquarters. What the great existentialist 
thinker Sartre called 'crime of passion', that 
is, a crime of lust, consternation and contempt 
that arises from a deeper sense of alienation 
found its expression. Politically speaking, 
constant harping on the theme of identity crisis 
among the ethnic elites of Assam from their 
non-ethnic others such as tribals, 
minorities-religious and linguistic, Adivasis and 
immigrants has already become a paranoia. The 
influence of ethno-nationalism cuts deep into the 
democratic sensibilities of self-righteous 
sections of Assam's civil society, who are yet to 
raise its voice against street hoodlums 
conducting mayhem on Adivasi rallyists. The 
result is that a vicious cycle of violence now 
touches Adivasi hamlets and they now too become 
revengeful on their counterpart. The human right 
groups, the conscience keeping intellectuals and 
the culture personalities suddenly fell silent 
when the instigators and the organizers of such 
dastardly outrage and killing are trying to speak 
in the name of Adivasi rage on the Assamese 
elites. Those who inquisitioned the Indian State 
for Kakopatahar, secret killings and monopoly of 
violence are now numbed by a passionate 
ethnophobia, the phobia of the other, even if the 
other is weak. Acts of retaliation, to say the 
least, is now condoned by these self-respecting 
individuals and groups. In effect, this 
pragmatically silent crew of opinion makers of 
Assam is now recovering from the shock of being 
caught in a narrow ethnic chauvinism as 
littérateurs are slowly penning down the 'swirls 
in the heart' generated by Mandini's rape. In 
this catharsis of victors, the Adivasis as 
transgressors within the civic space of Guwahati 
( they were not given permission to hold the 
rally) are continued to be paid back in a 
punishing coin. Home minister Shivraj Patil 
declared in the Lok Sabha that the Adivasis of 
Assam have lost their tribal characteristics and 
in effect, they are neither included in the list 
of tribes nor they become a part of the Assam's 
ethnic mosaic. They are just there in Assam as an 
exterior of both the State and the civil society. 
Guwahati, if described as the cosmopolis of the 
proud tea producers of Assam, cleans up the wound 
that it inflicted on the Adivasis by boasting its 
eligibility to host the first India international 
tea convention.

Mr Biswas is Reader,
Dept. of Philosophy
North Eastern Hill University
Shillong-793022
Meghalaya,India.
He is is also a part of Barak Human Rights Protection Committee,
Sadarghat Road, Silchar-1, Assam, India holding 
the position of Director, Research and 
Publication.

[See Also]

Peace in India's North-East : Meaning, Metaphor 
and Method: Essays of Concern and 
Commitment/edited by Prasenjit Biswas and C. 
Joshua Thomas.Peace in India's North-East : 
Meaning, Metaphor and Method: Essays of Concern 
and Commitment/edited by Prasenjit Biswas and C. 
Joshua Thomas. New Delhi, Regency, 2006, xxxii, 
480 p., tables, $55. ISBN 81-89233-48-3.

     Contents: Acknowledgements. Preface. 
Inaugural address. Presidential address. Editor's 
introduction/Prasenjit Biswas and C. Joshua 
Thomas. I. Meaning of peace: 1. Structure, 
processes and conflict discourses: problems and 
prospects of conflict-resolution and peace 
building with a focus on North-East 
region/Karunamay Subuddhi. 2. The idea of 
peace/Sujata Miri. 3. Indian 'Nation State' and 
crisis of the 'Periphery'/Bhagat Oinam and Homen 
Thangjam. 4. Sociological reflections on peace 
process in North-East India/C. Nunthara. 5. 
Ghosts of colonial modernity: identity and 
conflict in the Eastern Frontier of South Asia/A. 
Bimol Akoijam. II. Metaphor of peace: 6. The cry 
of the Naga people/V.K. Nuh. 7. Politics of peace 
process in North-East India: a case of 
Nagaland/Girin Phukon. 8. Redefining peace in 
India's North-East/Patricia Mukhim. 9. On peace 
as a metaphor: an existential-phenomenological 
perspective/Dipankar Kar. 10. Institutional 
designs and ethnopolitical conflict 
transformation: assessing peace-building 
initiatives in North-East India/Rajesh Dev. 11. 
Her masters' voice: Women, peacemaking and the 
genderisation of politics/Sajal Nag. 12. Just 
development key to peace process in Tripura/Subir 
Bhaumik. 13. Poetics of peace: orality in the 
Khasi context/Esther Syiem. 14. Peace without 
peace: metaphor without a method in the 'State of 
Exception' called 'North-East India'/Prasenjit 
Biswas. 15. Ka suk ka sain: an examination of 
peace process in Khasi context/Basil Pohlong. 16. 
Road to peace: untying the Assam Bind/Wasbir 
Hussain. 17. Reflections on the peace process in 
Assam/Udayon Misra. III. Method of peace: 18. War 
and peace in India's North-East: issues, 
complexities and options - a plea for 
strengthening the civil society/Gurudas Das. 19. 
Role of various agencies in the peace process 
leading to the signing of Mizo Accord 
1986/Sangkima. 20. Naga Resistance Movement and 
the peace process in North-East India/H. Srikanth 
and C.J. Thomas. 21. Indo-Naga Political Conflict 
Resolution and agenda for change/A. Lanunungsang 
Ao. 22. Peace accords in Tripura - background and 
analysis/Sukhendu Debbarma. 23. Evolution of the 
peace process in the context of Hmar 
Struggles/Jishnu Dutta. 24. Peace process in 
North-East India: the Arunachal scenario/Pura 
Tado. 25. Ethnic struggles in Assam: an 
observation/Shakuntala Bora. Appendices: 1. 
Rapporteur Report. 2. Resolution.


______


[6]

The Hindu
Dec 11, 2007


INDIA IN THE WORLD: HOW WE SEE OURSELVES

by Meera Nanda

As many as 90 per cent of us told the Pew 
pollsters that religion must be kept separate 
from government policy. But in reality, how many 
of us stand up for God-government separation, 
something we say weare committed to?

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest 
of us all?" A modern version of the Snow White 
question was recently asked of people in 47 
countries across the world by the United 
States-based Pew Foundation for its 2007 Global 
Attitudes survey.

Guess who is the most bewitched by their own 
self-image? We are. Indians rank number one in 
the world in thinking that they are number one in 
the world, at least when it comes to their 
culture.

The Pew poll asked people in 47 countries if they 
agreed or disagreed with the following statement: 
"our people are not perfect, but our culture is 
superior to others." Indians topped the list, 
with a whopping 93 per cent agreeing that our 
culture was superior to others, with 64 per cent 
agreeing completely, without any reservations.

Now all people have a soft spot for their own 
culture. But to see how off-the-charts our vanity 
is, let us compare ourselves with the other 
"ancient civilisations" in our neighbourhood. 
Compared to our 64 per cent, only 18 per cent of 
the Japanese and only 20 per cent Chinese had no 
doubt at all that their culture was the best. 
Indeed, close to one quarter of Japanese and 
Chinese - as compared to our meagre 5 per cent - 
disagreed that their ways were the best.

The U.S. - a country universally condemned for 
its cultural imperialism - comes across as 
suffering from a severe case of inferiority 
complex when compared with us. Only 18 per cent 
Americans had no doubts about the superiority of 
their culture, compared with our 64 per cent. 
Nearly a quarter of Americans expressed 
self-doubts, and 16 per cent completely denied 
their own superiority. The corresponding numbers 
from India are five and one per cent.

The strange thing is that for a people who think 
so highly of our own culture, we are terribly 
insecure. A startling 92 per cent of Indians - 
almost exactly the same proportion who think we 
are the best - think that "our way of life needs 
to be protected against foreign influences." 
Here, too, we beat the Japanese, the Chinese, and 
the Americans by about 25-30 percentage points. 
When it comes to feeling embattled and needing 
protection, we are closer to our Islamic 
neighbours, Pakistan (82 per cent) and Bangladesh 
(81 per cent). Indeed, we feel so embattled that 
84 per cent of us want to restrict entry of 
people into the country, compared with only 75 
per cent of those asked in the U.S., a country 
where legal and illegal immigration is of a 
magnitude higher than anywhere in the world.

So, paradoxically, our vanity is matched only by 
our persecution complex. The Pew survey did not 
probe deeper into what exactly we are so proud 
of, and what we are so scared of. But given that 
almost all of us grow up hearing how "spiritual" 
our culture is, it is quite likely that we worry 
that foreign cultures will corrupt our spiritual 
values with their crass materialism.

Well, we need not worry. When it comes right down 
to it, we are as materialistic as the worst of 
them. Indians turn out to be among the most 
gung-ho when it comes to support for "free" 
markets. The Pew poll asked this question: "most 
people are better off in a free market economy, 
even though some people are rich and some poor." 
The enthusiasm for the market economy in India 
exceeded that in the U.S., the bastion of 
unrestrained capitalism: 76 per cent of Indians, 
as compared with 70 per cent of Americans, are 
pro-market despite the problem of inequality. A 
solid 40 per cent of Indian respondents had no 
reservations and no doubts about the desirability 
of markets, while only 25 per cent of Americans 
were so unreserved.

A comparison with China and Russia - two 
countries with memories of a communist past - is 
instructive. While China and Russia are as much, 
if not more, integrated into the global economy 
as us, only 17 per cent of Russians and 15 per 
cent of Chinese supported the markets without any 
reservations and doubts.
More complicated

But we are actually more complicated than these 
numbers indicate. While we say we like free 
markets, 92 per cent of us also want the state to 
step in and take care of the poor. Our level of 
support for a welfare state is, commendably, much 
higher than in the U.S. (70 per cent) and is 
comparable to support for public welfare in 
Russia (86 per cent) and China (90 per cent). 
Indian support for state intervention on behalf 
of the poor is actually higher than it is in 
France (83 per cent), Germany (87 per cent), both 
of which have highly developed state welfare 
economies.

On the whole, Indian public opinion appears to 
support a benign capitalism where the state 
ensures the welfare of the poor. At least this is 
what we tell the pollsters. This would be great 
if our actions matched our words. While we say 
that we are for state intervention on behalf of 
the poor, our upper and middle classes (the kind 
of people foreign pollsters talk to) have always 
preferred privatised services in schools, 
hospitals, transportation, and garbage collection 
and, down the list, over public goods that the 
poor can also benefit from. The haves in India, 
on the whole, do not extend a sense of solidarity 
to the poor. While the educated professionals who 
are reaping the gains of globalisation have 
gained enormously from state-subsidised education 
and other urban privileges, they see their 
success as the fruit of their own good karma and Š

Š the grace of God, of course. In the God 
department, we Indians simply leave others in the 
dust. We topped the list at 80 per cent agreeing 
with the statement that "success in life is 
pretty much determined by forces outside our 
control." No other country came even close: the 
U.S. stood at a mere 33 per cent, China at 65 per 
cent, Russia at 59 per cent, and Japan at 47 per 
cent.

Granted that God or Fate are not the only forces 
outside our control: indeed, sometimes even a 
babu in an office can become a "force outside 
your control" if you don't have enough money to 
bribe him. But considering how much time, money 
and effort we spend on placating the gods and the 
stars, it is quite likely that our respondents 
had these supernatural forces in mind.

Indeed, 92 per cent of Indian respondents told 
the Pew pollsters that "religion was very 
important" to them. Only Senegal beat us at 97 
per cent. But we came out ahead of our South 
Asian neighbours, with Pakistan at 91 per cent 
and Bangladesh at 88 per cent. Japan is 
practically atheist at 12 per cent, while the 
Chinese simply did not allow the question to be 
asked. The U.S., fabled for its religiosity among 
the richer countries, trails far behind us at a 
mere 59 per cent.

Not only do we think God is "very important," we 
hold belief in God as an indicator of personal 
morality. As many as 66 per cent of us think that 
"it is necessary to believe in God in order to be 
moral and have good values." In other words, a 
majority of us believe that atheists cannot be 
moral. We are closer in this to our Islamic 
neighbours, with Pakistan at 88 per cent and 
Bangladesh at 90 per cent, than to the Chinese 
(17 per cent) and the Japanese (33 per cent).

Another striking feature of our views regarding 
religion is the gap between what we say and what 
we do. As many as 90 per cent of us told the 
pollsters that "religion is a matter of personal 
faith and must be kept separate from government 
policy." In this, we are ahead of the U.S. (80 
per cent), the country which swears by the "wall 
of separation" between church and state. Our 
numbers are right up there with the most 
secularised countries in the world, with Britain 
and France at 91 per cent and Germany at 88 per 
cent.

So we want religion to be kept separate from the 
government. But when did you last hear anyone 
protesting when our presidents and prime 
ministers, in their official capacities, bow 
before gurus and sants? Idols and pictures of 
gods and goddesses openly and routinely adorn 
government offices - from police thanas to 
libraries in public universities. How many of us 
stand up for God-government separation, something 
we say we are committed to?

All said and done, we have many miles to go 
before we can match the high expectations we have 
of ourselves. The good news, of course, is that 
we have such high expectations of ourselves.

(The complete survey can be found at http://pewglobal.org).



______



[7] Announcements:

(i)

Subject: December 13 , 2007 4pm Save Democracy Rally in Mani Nagar, Ahmedabad


Save Democracy Rally
Bhagat Singh Chawk, Hadkeshwar Circle, Mani Nagar, Ahmedabad

Time: 4-4.30pm arrival of participants , Flower 
tribute to Bhagat Singh and movement songs
4.30pm Rally Starts

Route: 4.30pm-Hadkeshwar circle- Khokhra Cicle- 
Khokhra Village, Mani Nagar Railway Crossing, 
Mani Nagar Railway Station, AMTS Bus Stand-6.00pm

Anhad has been campaigning in Mani Nagar( Modi's 
Constituency) for the past one week. Our 
volunteer teams have reached out Anhad material 
exposing the myth of Vibrant Gujarat and the 
divisive policies of the present govt. to 80,000 
households in our door to door campaign. We have 
organised 5 public meetings so far and one 
cultural evening.

Please do join us.

Dil Main Jo Dar Ka Qila Hai, Tod do Andar Se tum
Ek Hi Dhakke Main Apne Aap Yeh Dheh Jayega
Aao Mil Kar Ham Chale Adhikar Apne Cheen Len
Karwan Jo Chal Pada hai Ab Na Roka Jayega         ----Safdar Hashmi

Anhad Collective

PS: We found that majority of the people( urban 
poor) in Mani Nagar live under extremely poor and 
unhygienic conditions. Media ,both local and 
national ,which leaves no opportunity to talk 
about vibrant Gujarat has not bothered to see 
what is happening in Chief Minister's own 
constituency.

- - -

(ii)

Thalassemia: A Dire Social Issue

Over 8 million Pakistanis suffer from 
thalassemia, a genetic blood disorder. Join us at 
t2f for a mini awareness workshop conducted by 
Concern for Children Trust.

Date: Friday 14th December, 2007
Time: 7:00 pm

An Audio Visual Dialogue

This Saturday night, t2f presents a unique gig 
featuring The Experience and Kohi Marri. Kohi's 
visual compositions based around themes of 
violence, pacifism, and hope will challenge the 
band to interpret art in real time. Join us for 
an evening of experimental multimedia and an 
entirely new sound.

Date: Saturday 15th December, 2007
Time: 10:00 pm
Minimum Donation: Rs. 200. Please support the 
PeaceNiche platform for open dialogue and 
creative expression generously.

Celebrating Urdu Poets: Habib Jalib

A free spirit and a poet of the people, Habib 
Jalib spent most of his life on the streets and 
behind bars. He never compromised, never gave in, 
and never gave up. Jalib lived through one 
dictatorial regime after another and despite bans 
and threats to his life, he remained a daring 
revolutionary, inspiring the masses with his 
impassioned verse. Join us at t2f as we celebrate 
the life, times, and work of the legendary Habib 
Jalib.

Date: Sunday 16th December, 2007
Time: 6:30 pm
Minimum Donation: Rs. 100. Please support the 
PeaceNiche platform for open dialogue and 
creative expression generously.

Venue: The Second Floor
6-C, Prime Point Building, Phase 7, Khayaban-e-Ittehad, DHA, Karachi
Phone: 538-9273 | 0300-823-0276 | info at t2f.biz
Map: <http://www.t2f.biz/location>http://www.t2f.biz/location

----

(iii)  BOOK LAUNCH

Dear Friends:

Women's involvement and participation in 
peacemaking and peace building as well as in 
other areas of security was formally accepted by 
the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 
1325 on Women and Peace and Security, adopted in 
October 2000. However, in the seven years since 
UNSCR 1325, there has been barely nominal 
participation of women in peace processes, no 
women mediators and only minimum roles for women 
in peace building. This highlights the fact that 
these legal instruments will be confined to the 
archives unless there is a concerted effort to 
support these initiatives in practice.

The South Asia Regional Office of IDRC invites 
you to a panel discussion on women's role in 
building peace to mark the 7th anniversary of 
UNSCR 1325 and to celebrate the launch of a new 
book "Women Building Peace between India and 
Pakistan" co-edited by Shree Mulay and Jackie 
Kirk.

Speakers:

Shree Mulay, Ph.D., Professor at McGill 
University's Department of Medicine and former 
Director of the McGill Centre for Research and 
Teaching on Women (MCRTW)

Richa Singh, Ph.D., Feminist Researcher 
associated with Aman Trust, Delhi, working in the 
area of gender and conflict

Panel discussion will be followed by High Tea.

Time: 3:30 - 5:00 PM
Date: Friday, December 14, 2007
Place: IDRC Conference Room, 208 Jor Bagh [New Delhi]

Please RSVP to 
<mailto:jmalik at idrc.org.in>jmalik at idrc.org.in at 
2461 9411 ext. 107

Kind regards,

Navsharan Singh

_____


(iv)

13th Inter-School Drama Competition
The Kaifi Azmi Trophy


4th. Inter Collegiate Drama Competition
The P. L Deshpande Trophy 

   
Dear Sir

Indian Drama and Entertainment Academy(IDEA) has 
been working for the promotion of Hindustani 
Theater for many years and has been staging plays 
on relevant social issues from time to time 
mostly topical and which have relevance to the 
people in general and effecting the day to day 
activities.

IDEA has been actively involved in staging plays 
written by the legendary writer SHRI PREM CHAND 
from August 2005 in remembrance and the occasion 
of 125 years of his birth anniversary which fell 
on 31st July 2005. We (IDEA) began staging plays 
based on the stories of the legendary writer and 
have performed about 122 stories as plays till 
date and further desire to stage another 168 
stories during the next two years. In this way, 
we (IDEA) have paid homage to this great writer 
in a unique way and have also succeeded in 
spreading his message in form of plays, which 
were penned over 100 years back. In our above 
endeavor we (IDEA) have received very warm, 
unending and unconditional support from the 
media, print as well as electronic, and other 
individuals who have appreciated the values of 
these writings? We (IDEA) humbly submit that 
nobody has ever paid homage to any writer as it 
has been done for SHREE PREM CHAND. We have been 
performing regularly
every Saturday at Keertan Kendra, Juhu, and we 
also perform at various other venues at the 
invitation of several N.G.Os.

DATE OF EVENTS: 27th December at Mysore 
Association Hall, Kings Circle [Bombay] from 9.30 
a.m to 10 p.m.

MOTIVE BEHIND THESE EVENTS:  To hunt talent at 
the school and college level and create a 
platform for talented youths. To encourage them 
and make them aware of the vast and golden 
culture of their country.

Expected Colleges: 10 Schools and 5 Colleges from Mumbai and Suburbs.

Target Audience: Students, housewives, 
businessmen, people from corporate sector, 
Doctors, Lawyers, Teachers, people from the 
literary world, Media person, Politicians etc.

Last Date for submission of Entry Forms: is 15th 
December between 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. at 
Keertan Kendra, Juhu, Schools and Colleges who 
have not received entry forms may contact on 
9821044429. Entries accepted on first come first 
basis before the last date. Limited entries will 
be accepted (10 Schools, 5 Colleges)

Regards,
Yours truly,

Mujeeb Khan
(President- IDEA)

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

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