SACW | Jan. 9-10, 2008 / War gaames in Sri Lanka / US and dirty tricks in Pakistan / India : courts and the people; figuring Modi's victory in Gujarat / Racism and cultural relativism

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | January 9-10, 2008 | 
Dispatch No. 2486 - Year 10 running

[1] Sri Lankan govt prefers war to negotiations (Jehan Perera)
[2] Pakistan:
   (i) Poverty of American Policy in Pakistan (Zia Mian)
   (ii) The dirty tricks brigade (Beena Sarwar)
[3] Bangladesh: Dilemma of democracy (G. M. Quader)
[4] India: Courts and 'the Public'
   (i) Judicial Power - No Tinkering Please (Rajindar Sachar)
   (ii) Justice still a mirage for the poor and the illiterate
[5] India:  'Ram rajya' coming home to roost in Gujarat
   (i) Blame The Middle Class (Ashis Nandy)
   (ii) Gujarat's wounded psyche needs the right salve Ashok Mitra
[6] India in denial - cricket row in Australia 
illustrates the problem of entrenched racism in 
India (Mike Marqusee)
[7] UK: Dont allow cultural relativism to 
compromise women's human rights (Lily Gupta)
[8] Announcements:
- Inauguration - International Week of Justice 
Festival 2008  (New Delhi, 13 January 2008)
- Conference - South Asian Feminisms: Gender, 
Culture and Politics (University of Pennsylvania, 
28-29 March 2008

______


[1]

New Age
January 8, 2008


CEASEFIRE AGREEMENT WITH LTTE ABROGATED
Sri Lankan govt prefers war to negotiations

by Jehan Perera

If the masses of people felt that the 
continuation of the Ceasefire Agreement, even as 
an empty shell, gave some sort of guarantee 
against an all-out escalation of violence, this 
sentiment was not immediately apparent in either 
the media or the streets. Even at the time of the 
signing of the Ceasefire Agreement there were no 
mass demonstrations in support of it. Now with 
its demise there has been no mass action to mourn 
it.The international reactions to the abrogation 
of the Ceasefire Agreement, however, have not 
been muted, Jehan Perera writes from Colombo

The government of Sri Lanka has abrogated the 
Ceasefire Agreement with the LTTE. The 
government's decision to abrogate the Ceasefire 
Agreement was not unexpected. In the last several 
weeks it was evident that the government would 
have to arrive at a new accommodation with the 
JVP if it was to survive. The presentation of the 
budget in December highlighted the government's 
dependence on JVP support to maintain its 
majority in parliament. The JVP had publicly made 
it known that its support would come if the 
government was prepared to abrogate the Ceasefire 
Agreement, ban the LTTE and ensure the end of 
international intervention in the country's 
ethnic conflict.

    From the inception of the Ceasefire Agreement 
in February 2002 the JVP had been its most 
passionate critic. Using its skills of 
communication the JVP took the message that the 
Ceasefire Agreement endangered the unity of the 
country. One set of arguments that had a deep 
resonance with the ethnic Sinhalese majority was 
the point that the agreement conceded too much to 
the LTTE in terms of formal recognition. In 
particular the notion of lines of control with 
large chunks of Sri Lankan territory accepted to 
be under the LTTE, and the acceptance of two 
armies was denounced.

    Another set of arguments that the JVP devised 
was out of its own reading of international 
politics. They claimed that if an agreement 
lasted for more than five years it could become 
permanent. The JVP was also able to combine this 
bizarre theory with the accusation that the 
Ceasefire Agreement was a cunning device to 
facilitate negotiations between two countries, 
one existent and the other incipient. When this 
was combined with the LTTE's own violations of 
the Ceasefire Agreement, which were highlighted 
in the media and by the government, the case for 
continuing with it became weak in the eyes of 
most people.

    These are some of the factors that account for 
the widespread acceptance of the abrogation of 
the Ceasefire Agreement within the polity. So far 
the opposition to the abrogation has been muted 
and virtually drowned out by the acclamations. If 
the masses of people felt that the continuation 
of the Ceasefire Agreement, even as an empty 
shell, gave some sort of guarantee against an 
all-out escalation of violence, this sentiment 
was not immediately apparent in either the media 
or the streets. Even at the time of the signing 
of the Ceasefire Agreement there were no mass 
demonstrations in support of it. Now with its 
demise there has been no mass action to mourn it.
   
    International concern
    The international reactions to the abrogation 
of the Ceasefire Agreement, however, have not 
been muted. While the international response has 
so far been limited to statements, they have been 
strong. All of the international statements have 
expressed disappointment and regret, and 
highlighted the unfeasibility of the military 
option that the government appears to be relying 
on. So far the key international actors to have 
issued statements include the UN, the US, Canada, 
the Scandinavian countries, Japan, India, 
Australia and France. The joint statement issued 
by the five governments of the Scandinavian bloc 
made the most comprehensive analysis of the 
benefits of the Ceasefire Agreement.
    At the least, the expectation of these key 
international actors appears to be that the 
government needs to take decisive steps to 
re-activate the political process that could lead 
to a political solution. Perhaps with a view to 
mitigating an international backlash against it, 
the government itself has been taking pains to 
affirm that a political solution will soon be on 
offer. While such a positive step will be 
welcome, it is likely to be politically 
unfeasible. The JVP has already stated that if 
the government proposes a federal solution, which 
is the minimum that could satisfy Tamil 
aspirations, let alone the LTTE, the JVP will 
work to unseat the government.

    The irony of the present political situation 
is that the government, although it appears to be 
strong and determined at the level of its 
leadership, is in reality a structurally weak 
one. The government's majority in Parliament, and 
hence its survival, depends on a number of groups 
whose loyalty is in question. The most obvious of 
these is the JVP with its 37 members. Another big 
group is composed of the defectors from the UNP 
who number 27, most of whom crossed over to the 
government pledging to deal with issues of good 
governance and corruption. A third group is 
composed of an unknown number of members of the 
ruling party whose commitment to the present 
leadership of the party is not quite certain. A 
fourth consists of members of ethnic minority 
parties who remain with the government on 
sufferance, as they fear to be in opposition to 
the government.

    The ability of the government to steer this 
diverse array of groups and interests in the 
direction of a political solution is doubtful. 
The ethnic conflict is one which had defied a 
political solution for over six decades, spanning 
the entirety of the country's independence. It 
seems to be too much to expect a government that 
is so fragmented as the present one, and which 
does not enjoy a clear majority in parliament, to 
accomplish what more unified governments failed 
to do. In these circumstances, the easier course 
for the government to follow would be to 
accelerate the war against the LTTE and use the 
war and patriotism to unify the ethnic majority 
while silencing the opposition, at least for a 
while.
   
Potential sanctions

    The abrogation of the Ceasefire Agreement may 
therefore have a rationale that goes beyond the 
obvious one of catering to the JVP's agenda in 
order to retain its parliamentary support. One of 
the features of the present war that has earned 
international opprobrium has been the high level 
of human rights violations. In this context the 
abrogation of the Ceasefire Agreement will also 
make the prosecution of the war easier, because 
it will eliminate the presence of the Sri Lanka 
Monitoring Mission set up under the agreement to 
query the conflicting parties about their 
non-compliance with its provisions and which had 
a mandate to report on violations of the 
agreement.
    Although the international monitors were never 
able to actually put a stop to the acts of 
violence, their presence on the ground is likely 
to have had some sort of deterrent effect, as 
their reports were widely read by the 
international community. The dismantling of their 
monitoring apparatus can set the stage for an 
escalation of violence with an even greater level 
of impunity than at present. This would have 
catastrophic consequences to the people caught up 
in the conflict zones in particular, as both the 
government and LTTE have been effective in 
keeping out both media and other non-partisan 
monitors from those areas.

    At least in the propaganda and psychological 
war, the ground is being set for a fight to the 
finish. A considerable amount of optimism has 
been generated that the LTTE can be effectively 
defeated in the course of the year. Such 
sentiment is neither new nor novel, and it has 
surfaced on many occasions in the past, although 
on this occasion the LTTE has taken the most 
severe battering ever. On the other hand, the 
organisation has been around for over three 
decades during which they have taken control over 
large tracts of territory. Whether an 
organisation that has created a military and 
administrative machinery strong enough to survive 
for nearly three decades will be eliminated in a 
matter of months is open to question.

    The success of the present government is that 
it seems to have convinced the majority in the 
country that what was not possible in the past 
will be possible today. The LTTE's recalcitrance 
and the government's recent military victories 
have combined to change a 70 per cent level of 
support for the peace process in which the 
Ceasefire Agreement was the key component into 
one of 80 per cent support for war. But the 
international community has stood by a negotiated 
political settlement. The main challenge that the 
government faces in the short term is the 
reaction of the international community. The 
statements by Sri Lanka's main donors, including 
Japan, indicating concern about abrogation of the 
Ceasefire Agreement can change into actions in 
the event of escalated war sans political reform.

    Jehan Perera is media director of the National 
Peace Council in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

______


[2]

(i)

Economic and Political Weekly
January 5, 2008

POVERTY OF AMERICAN POLICY IN PAKISTAN

by Zia Mian

From being someone the us  had no time for, 
Benazir Bhutto turned during the course of 2007 
into a crucial player in Pakistan for American 
policy. Yet, like everything else of us foreign 
policy, this too was to have disastrous 
consequences for the people of Pakistan. The US 
claims a right to be a player in the domestic 
political system; the people of Pakistan are 
paying a price for that.

The murder of Benazir Bhutto is a tragedy for 
Pakistan in many ways. It also offers perhaps the 
clearest example so far that everything the Bush 
administration touches in Pakistan turns into 
dust.
After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the 
United States needed and demanded Pakistan's 
help. General Musharraf, who had seized power in 
a coup in 1999, went from being a military 
dictator to being a man president Bush described 
as a "leader of great courage and vision", "a 
courageous leader and friend of the United 
States". The US  provided over $10 billion of aid 
(there may be as much again in the form of 
covert aid).

But Musharraf could not and did not  deliver. Al 
Qaida and the Taliban fled from Afghanistan to 
Pakistan, and made common cause with Pakistani 
radical  Islamist groups, cultivated for years 
by the Pakistan's army for its proxy  war in 
Kashmir. The Musharraf regime preferred to 
appease Islamist political  parties and militants 
rather than confront them. Under pressure, the 
army would sporadically resort to a show of force 
against the militants. Even in the army,  it came 
to be seen by many as an  American war and there 
was a reluctance to fight it.
Musharraf became deeply unpopular. 

A June-July 2007 poll by the International 
Republican Institute found that almost 60 per 
cent of Pakistani voters felt the country was 
"headed in the wrong  direction" and 58 per cent 
said that the Musharraf government did not 
deserve re-election. Even more were opposed to 
Musharraf continuing as president - 63 per cent 
thought Musharraf should  resign. The polls also 
showed that Benazir Bhutto was more popular than 
Pervez Musharraf.

The New York Times reported in late 2007, "The 
administration concluded over the summer that a 
power-sharing deal with Ms Bhutto might be the 
only way that  General Musharraf could keep from 
being toppled". Benazir would provide the demo- 
cratic legitimacy that Musharraf lacked, and it 
was hoped, build public support for the "war on 
terror" in Pakistan. The Times explained how "Two 
years ago, Ms Bhutto could not even get the State 
Department's top official for South Asia to show 
up  at a dinner party in her honour... But in 
recent months that began to change.  The American 
courtship of Ms Bhutto  included a private dinner 
and a jet ride with Zalmay Khalilzad, the 
American  ambassador to the United Nations, and, 
over the last month, several telephone  calls to 
Ms Bhutto from Secretary of State Condoleezza 
Rice."

Plan Gone Awry

The whole plan hinged on general Mushar- raf 
becoming president Musharraf. But  this was 
challenged in Pakistan's Supreme Court. The court 
was expected to rule that the general could not 
be or become presi- dent. Musharraf staged his 
second coup, declared martial law, suspended the 
constitution, and dismissed the Supreme Court. 
Washington was alerted in  advance. Admiral 
William Fallon, the  head of US central command 
which  controls US forces in west Asia and in- 
cludes Pakistan in its area of operations, met 
Musharraf in Islamabad the day before the coup.

Musharraf's second coup triggered pro- tests 
across the country, led by lawyers' groups, human 
rights and other civil society organisations, and 
students. Many of these middle class, educated, 
urban profession- als saw the US as backing 
Musharraf and his assault on the rule of law in 
Pakistan.  Now, many supporters of Bhutto's 
Pakistan People's Party hold the Musharraf 
govern- ment, and by association, the US, 
responsible for her death. Wendy Chamberlin, a 
former US ambassador to Pakistan, recently said 
that "We are a player in the Pakistani political 
system". Pakistan is now paying the price.

Zia Mian (zia at princeton.edu) is a physicist with 
the Program on Science and Global Security at 
Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School for 
Public and International Affairs.



(ii)

Dawn
January 9, 2008

THE DIRTY TRICKS BRIGADE

by Beena Sarwar

IMMEDIATELY following Benazir Bhutto's tragic 
assassination on Dec 27, speculation began on who 
would head the party. There was barely time to 
grieve.

Pressures on the party leadership included 
insistent questioning by journalists, 
particularly the insatiable 24/7 broadcast media, 
the forthcoming elections then barely two weeks 
away, and crucially, the disinformation campaign 
started by the dirty tricks brigade that is 
always quick to swing into action.

Some journalists pushed the Fatima Bhutto versus 
Bilawal Zardari angle. Others pounced on the even 
younger Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ("Junior") as the 
probable head of the party. Some rushed for 
quotable quotes to Benazir's disgruntled uncle, 
Mumtaz Bhutto, known for his running feud with 
her. Hard-headed reporters, noses to the ground, 
understood the popular sentiment of the party - 
whoever next headed the PPP had to be a Bhutto. 
At the funeral, party workers raised slogans for 
Sanam Bhutto, Benazir's last remaining sibling, 
to lead the party despite Sanam's clear 
disinterest in these matters.

Cyberspace and drawing-room chatter, meanwhile, 
buzzed with the hopeful comments of the 
intellectual elite in Pakistan and abroad. 'Civil 
society' was excited at the prospect of the PPP 
finally 'democratising' - perhaps now a 
non-Bhutto would head the party. Perhaps now they 
would hold intra-party elections. Perhaps now 
some respected leader like Makhdoom Amin Fahim 
or, even better, Aitzaz Ahsan would be asked to 
don the mantle.

Not surprisingly, this well-meaning debate 
primarily took place among elitist groups who are 
not party members, and who reviled the PPP for 
its insistence on electoral politics. The polls 
boycott lobby held that participating in 
elections would 'legitimise' the Musharraf 
regime. The boycott move is believed to have 
originated with the dirty tricks brigade, known 
for its tactic of initiating "a cute slogan that 
raises an emotive response" as one political 
activist put it. Besides the fact that the 
president in any case claims legitimacy, they 
were unable to answer the question Benazir Bhutto 
had raised when pressurised to boycott: "Boycott, 
and then what?"

These people had also rejected, even vilified, Ms 
Bhutto for her 'deal' with President Gen (as he 
was then) Musharraf. She saw no way to proceed 
except through politics and defended herself in 
an email of Dec 3, 2007, made public after her 
death: "I still remain committed to the freedom 
and vitality of democracy, as [sic] the great 
Quaid-i-Awam had dreamt of. Yes, it is true that 
you have to deal sometimes with the Devil if you 
can't face it, but everything is a means to an 
end."

The dirty tricks brigade was quick to capitalise 
on the elite indignation when the PPP ended 
speculation with the announcement that Benazir 
Bhutto had left a will nominating as the party 
head her husband Asif Ali Zardari, the much 
maligned 'Mr 10 per cent' (a term known to have 
been coined by the dirty tricks brigade, although 
there is no shortage of contenders for such 
labels). There was further indignation at 
dynastic politics when Zardari was smart enough 
to pass the PPP's leadership mantle on to 
19-year-old Bilawal.

Why could the party not rise above negative 
traditions and do the 'right' thing? Perhaps its 
leaders felt constrained by their constituency - 
which is not the intellectual elite. This 
constituency of PPP workers was on the whole 
relieved at the quick decisions announced at the 
soyem (all of which, incidentally, counter the 
patriarchal model): Bilawal made the party's 
symbolic head; Benazir and Zardari's children 
taking on the Bhutto name; Benazir buried by her 
father's grave as she had wished; her husband's 
stated desire to also be buried there rather than 
at his own ancestral graveyard. Whatever the 
motivations behind these steps, their symbolism 
in perpetuating the 'Bhutto factor' and satiating 
the desire to atone for the martyrdom cannot be 
underrated.

The dirty tricks brigade, whose efforts to rig 
the elections Ms Bhutto had been about to reveal, 
continued undeterred. By Jan 1, in tactics 
reminiscent of the whispering campaign started 
against Benazir herself after Murtaza's murder, a 
message was being circulated via SMS and on the 
internet implying that Asif Zardari was behind 
his wife's death as the chief beneficiary - "all 
wealths [sic] of hers and her political power is 
now in Zardari's hands".

The unsigned message demanded that he be 
interrogated along with Rehman Malik "who used to 
manage Benazir [sic] foreign investment 
portfolio". Those close to Benazir Bhutto scoff 
at these allegations, noting that she was too 
intelligent a woman to leave her "wealths" 
accessible to anyone other than her children.

On Jan 2, an Urdu newspaper in Karachi 
distributed free supplements with the (false) 
report that Fatima Bhutto had announced herself 
as the 'real Bhutto', suggesting that she should 
be leading the party. Such attempts to fan 
discord are of course not limited to Pakistan. 
PTI leader Imran Khan's ex-wife Jemima Khan, who 
has developed into a political analyst since 
returning to the UK, wrote in the Telegraph, "If 
a Bhutto must run Pakistan, why not Fatima?"

Is Bilawal about to run the country? Aren't there 
other more important issues at hand than who 
heads the PPP? Fatima Bhutto doesn't even belong 
to the party. Neither does Ms Khan, although this 
hasn't stopped her or others from nominating its 
leadership. Such presumption when it comes to the 
PPP is in sharp contrast to the restraint 
regarding other political parties.

Such efforts to deepen existing rifts are not 
just dishonest but downright dangerous at this 
point. The establishment delayed the elections 
that were to have been held on Jan 8 without 
taking the major opposition parties into 
confidence. The interim provides an opportunity 
for them to further target and weaken the 
opposition.

Already stunned at the loss of their leader, the 
PPP is now reeling from the registration of tens 
of thousands of FIRs against its workers. Its 
electoral candidates face charges that include 
attempted murder. All this only contributes 
towards the existing uncertainty and may generate 
more violence that could provide the 
establishment a pretext to further postpone 
elections. This must not be allowed to happen.

Although some go as far as to say that character 
assassination is the first step towards physical 
assassination, it is clear that political 
engagement and organisation are necessary for 
change. Those who vilified Ms Bhutto for pursuing 
these politics are now making her into an icon 
while continuing to vilify her party. It is time 
to make some choices: continue perpetuating the 
vilification campaign or focus on the more 
fundamental issue of taking politics in Pakistan 
beyond military interference.

The writer is a journalist and documentary film-maker based in Karachi.

beena.sarwar at gmail.com

______


[3]

The Daily Star
January 10, 2008 06:49 AM GMT+06:00  
  	 
DILEMMA OF DEMOCRACY

by G. M. Quader

SINCE independence, the people of Bangladesh had 
always held the aspiration of practicing 
democracy. The Constitution of Bangladesh says in 
the preamble: "Further pledging that it shall be 
the fundamental aim of the state to realise the 
democratic process, a socialistic society, free 
from exploitation -- a society in which the rule 
of law, fundamental human rights and freedom, 
equality and justice, political, economic and 
social, will be secured for all citizens." The 
aim had been to achieve an ideal society 
fulfilling all the elements of social justice 
through practice of democracy.

The country started with parliamentary or 
ministerial form, changed to presidential form, 
to one party rule, to extra-constitutional rule 
through proclamation of martial law, to 
multi-party presidential form again, to 
extra-constitutional rule through proclamation of 
martial law again, and finally to parliamentary 
or ministerial form.

The latest was parliamentary form, which 
continued from 1991 till October 28, 2006. During 
this time four general elections were held, 
forming four parliaments -- the fifth, sixth, 
seventh and eighth parliaments. Out of these, the 
sixth parliament was formed as a result of 
election on February 15, 1996, under the 
government of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). 
Almost all the political parties including the 
major ones boycotted this election.

There were allegations of widespread rigging, and 
the election results were perceived at home and 
abroad as totally manipulated. Under the mounting 
pressure, as a result of people's movement, the 
said parliament had to be dissolved within eleven 
days of its inception. The other three 
parliaments completed their full term of five 
years each.

The eighth parliament was dissolved on October 
28, 2006, after completion of its tenure of five 
years. National election for the 9th Parliament 
was scheduled for January 22, 2007, to be 
conducted under a caretaker government (CTG) 
formed for that purpose. But, before the election 
date, it became obvious to all that the BNP-led 
four parties alliance in power had set the stage 
for a manipulated election to come back to power 
through fraudulent practice.

Nationwide protest continued under the leadership 
of the combined opposition parties (all parties 
other than parties in the ruling alliance in 8th 
Parliament), with widespread violence for 
stoppage of that election.

Ultimately, the armed forces had to intervene, 
and that election had to be postponed, on January 
11, 2007. A fresh CTG was sworn in to arrange 
conducting of a free and fair election for the 
9th Parliament and handing over power to the 
elected government. The reconstituted Election 
Commission (EC) of the new CTG declared a road 
map covering a period of about two years for 
holding of the national election. As per the 
same, the election is to be completed within 
December 2008.

The practice of democracy, which continued 
uninterrupted from 1991 to October 2006, could 
not be sustained. Under the new arrangement, an 
unelected CTG would govern the country till the 
next government could be elected.

The question is, why, and under what 
circumstances, did democracy fail? Judging from 
different political activities during the period 
from 1991 till postponement of election for the 
9th Parliament on January 11, 2007, it became 
obvious that there had been a continuous 
downslide of values in our political culture.

An ever-increasing gap was created between 
political parties and the people. Political 
parties, instead of becoming the people's 
property, became the property of an individual or 
a group of individuals. The parties, instead of 
working for the people, were devoted more towards 
personal and group interest, even in most cases 
at the cost of public interest.

In a way, it might have been termed as corporate 
culture in politics. Political parties took on 
the hue of a business enterprise, with ownership 
of a person or a group of persons. Offspring or 
family members could inherit the ownership of the 
party. The situation in some political parties 
was such that the ownership could be sold. 
Different positions, including policy-making 
positions, of a party could also be purchased.

Like a business house, the party used to be run 
by the party chief as chief executive, with the 
rank and file as employees. The aim of politics 
became financial profit. Winning an election by 
hook or by crook to go to power and earn money 
through corruption and by abusing official 
authority became the natural consequence of the 
said corporate political culture.

Power oriented politics led political parties to 
a rush for grabbing state power, where the 
interest of the people and future of the nation 
bore no consequence at all. All mechanisms for 
manipulation of election results by use of money, 
muscle, official authority, bribe, politicisation 
of administration etc., became part of the game 
of politics. The other consequence was refusal to 
accept defeat in the election because of 
irregularity, as that was more or less there in 
almost all cases.

One of the prime causes for existence of 
corporate political culture in our political 
system is the election and, to be precise, the 
way it is conducted in Bangladesh. There are 
sufficient election laws, regulations, codes of 
conduct etc. for conduct of a free and fair 
election. But, unfortunately, in reality, there 
are no effective means for implementation of 
those laws. There exists enough scope to 
influence election results with use of money and 
muscle power.

The majority of the population is poor and still 
illiterate. Moreover, there are lapses in 
providing security to the lives and property of 
common people. This added to inefficiency, 
corruption, and partisan attitude of the 
conducting officials made it possible for people 
with big money and muscle power to snatch the 
result in their favour by influencing through 
fear and favour.

If a person having muscle power could earn enough 
money using the same, he could become a potential 
candidate with high prospect of success. So could 
corrupt businessmen and corrupt bureaucrats with 
sufficient money. Violent and corrupt criminals 
became the target for recruitment by the 
political parties, as they were good at wining 
elections.

When they were recruited in a party in key 
positions, they took control of the party in 
time. It was they who inducted corporate 
political culture in parties, with an aim to gain 
financial profit. Ascending to power is, for 
them, creation of scope to achieve that goal. 
These people never had any scruples, so they did 
not see reason not to use illegal or unethical 
means to win election for going to power. They 
also see no reason not to abuse state power, once 
acquired, to earn personal profit through 
corruption and irregularities.

This new breed of so-called politicians may be 
good in winning elections, but lack background 
and education to perform as good 
parliamentarians. They could never be expected to 
perform in government positions to serve the 
people properly with honesty and dedication.

So, the dilemma of our democracy at the moment is 
that the person who manages to be elected to 
parliament is not fit to perform in parliament or 
in government. On the other hand, a person who is 
capable of becoming a good parliamentarian and 
could serve the government efficiently is not 
good at wining elections. To have sustainable 
practice of democracy associated with good 
governance a solution must be found to break the 
deadlock created by the said dilemma.

The Election Commission should be strengthened. 
The EC has to ensure that the election is free 
from the influence of fear and favour, and is 
conducted as fairly as possible.

Reforms are to be carried out in political 
parties so that those are not owned and guided by 
political businessmen (who trade with politics) 
of corporate culture. Instead, parties should 
belong to the people; the members are to run the 
party democratically. The objective of the party 
should not be going to power at any cost to reap 
benefits. The priority should be to serve the 
interest of the people, whether in power or out 
of it.

Proportionate representation of political parties 
in parliament, as per the proportion of total 
number of votes cast in their favour, may be 
considered as an alternate to the existing 
constituency based election. Political parties 
would declare list of candidates for election in 
order of preference.

People would have scope to vote for the party on 
the basis of quality of the people in the list. 
As per the proportion of votes received, the 
party would get proportional number of seats in 
the parliament. These seats would then be filled 
up serially out of the declared list of 
candidates.

G.M. Quader is a former Member of Parliament.

______


[4]  Courts and 'the Public'

(i)

JUDICIAL POWER - NO TINKERING PLEASE

by Rajindar Sachar (New Delhi, 21 December 2007)

	Self inflicted wounds are the worst and 
take longest to heal -and some never heal - that 
may be said appropriately of the two judge 
Judgment of Supreme Court speaking through Katju 
J. delivered recently setting aside High Court 
judgment which had directed the state to 
regularize the plaintiff gardner as a truck 
driver to which post be had been working for 10 
years.

But then the court went on to pronounce on the 
supposed limitations of PIL a question not 
arising in the case, an exercise frowned upon by 
Supreme Court almost 40 years back thus; "Obiter 
observations and discussion of problems not 
directly involved in any proceeding should be 
avoided by courts in dealing with all matters 
brought before them, but this requirement becomes 
almost compulsive when the Court is dealing with 
constitutional matters". (though I may agree with 
some observations regarding High Court matters)

	But it is embarrassing when it says about 
3 judge Bench judgments in "Jagadambika Pal's 
case of 1998, and the Jharkhand Assembly case of 
2005, that they are two glaring examples of 
deviations from the clearly provided 
constitutional scheme of separation of powers".

Bench observation that constitutional trade off 
for independence is that judges must show 
judicial restraint  is hurtful if it suggests 
that judges must look over their shoulders lest 
the executive feel annoyed at their decisions. 
Independence of judiciary and judicial Review is 
the mandate and very life blood of the 
Constitution - it is not dependant on the 
creature of the constitution like the legislature 
or the Executive. Judiciary has always followed 
the hallowed maxim ' Let Heavens fall - but 
justice must be done' Judiciary is not weak, nor 
the people at large so spineless that the 
arrogant empty threats of temporarily elected 
Executive and Legislature can deflect the 
judiciary from its path of Constitutional 
rectitude and duty.

Chief Justice Earl Warren of United States 
Supreme Court quoted the observations of Daniel 
Webster wherein he said, 'the maintenance of the 
Judicial power is essential and indispensable to 
the very being of this Government. The 
Constitution without it would be no Constitution, 
the Government no Government.'

Let us recollect the wise words of Alexander 
Hamilton one of the framers of the American 
Constitution stated, "that the courts were 
designed to be an intermediate body between the 
people and the Legislature in order among other 
things to keep the latter within the limits 
assigned to their authority. Judges, though they 
may not be omniscient or for that matter 
philosopher - kings, are better   equipped  for 
the  task   so  long  as they  are aware of their 
limitations."

The criticism of judicial activism as  such is 
untenable.  Courts have since long been 
judicially active in giving relief in social 
action litigation to Labour, to victims of 
custodial violence, to the excesses committed by 
the Executive.  But as previously judicial 
targets were comparatively junior  officials and 
certainly never involving politicians, issue of 
judicial activism was not raised by the 
executive.  This charge of alleged interference 
by the Courts has only now been put in issue 
because the fire of judicial activism is coming 
nearer home to the high officials and politicians 
who had falsely hypnotized themselves into 
believing that they were above the law even 
though as far back as over 300 years Chief 
Justice Coke of England had said "Be you ever so 
high, the law is above you."
It will thus be amply clear that judiciary 
(barring some rare escapades) like mentioned in 
two judge judgment is aware of its precise role 
in the constitutional set up. So when seemingly 
interested people mostly politicians accuse it of 
overstepping its constitutional limits, the anger 
is borne more out of frustration at their 
partisan actions being challenged before the 
judiciary rather than the usurpation of power and 
jurisdiction by the courts.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down several 
legislations made by U.S. Presidents and Senate. 
There were severe uproars, but the orders of the 
Court were enforced. This was illustrated in the 
case of Brown v. Board of Education which 
attracted the ire of the white majority and even 
federal troops were called to enforce Court 
decision - incidentally Bench has praise for 
Brown decision.

The bald assumption that judges are not aware of 
their limitations has been succinctly answered by 
the wise observations by Patangli Shastri C.J. in 
1953 Judgment thus. "If  then, the Courts in this 
country face up to such important and none too 
easy task, it is not out of any desire to tilt at 
legislative authority in crusader's spirit, but 
in discharge of a duty plainly laid upon them by 
the Constitution  -  and that while the Court 
naturally attaches great weight to the 
legislative judgment, it cannot desert its own 
duty to determine finally the constitutionality 
of an impugned statue".

	Frankly I do not think a reference to a 
larger bench would in any way help. Public 
interest litigation is not a civil or criminal 
jurisdiction, PIL is an innovating mechanism 
evolved by judiciary, sanctified as it is by the 
very compulsions and jurisprudence of written 
constitution.

	There is no gainsaying that ; "Judges' 
decisions are influenced by what writers like 
Pound and Frankfurter called 'sociological 
jurisprudence' and the Justice Holmes called the 
"major inarticulate premise". Therefore reference 
to a larger bench would only get an answer that 
it will depend on facts of each case.

	I remember that in 1983 a two Judge Bench 
referred to the constitutional Bench various 
questions, arising out of Public Interest 
Litigation. So as to give proper guidelines. In 
1995-96 when this matter came up before the 
Constitutional Bench, it was disposed of with the 
remarks that much case law has already laid down 
various guidelines and it was not necessary to 
have a regular hearing. I feel the same history 
will be repeated, if a matter is referred to a 
larger Bench now. So it will be an exercise in 
futility.

But I do believe there is easier and responsive 
alternative. I would therefore hope that the 
Bench now having been made aware of 
misapprehensions troubling undoubted friends of 
judiciary, though at the same time appreciating 
also the genuine concern of the Bench about 
judiciary not over relating its jurisdiction 
would in order to give quietus to this 
controversy themselves recall their observations 
though on ments retaining the decision. This 
would show their appreciation of sentiments 
expressed by members of public, and  legal 
fraternity. Once it is done judiciary would be 
freed from the flurry of market place gossiping 
and an easy target of ridicule by the Executive 
and Legislature. Let no one talk disparagingly of 
judiciary.   

(ii)

Deccan Herald
January 9, 2008

The Reach
JUSTICE STILL A MIRAGE FOR THE POOR AND THE ILLITERATE

by Deepak K Upreti
Despite the faith many have in our justice 
system, ground reality suggests that it too 
favours the rich and the famous.


The jail factsheet shows that out of 1,08,572 
convict prisoners all over the country 31,775 are 
illiterate and 49,977 had education only up to 
class 10. Needless to say that a majority of them 
are also poor and can ill-afford "the quality and 
high cost lawyers" to fight their cases. A huge 
number of 1,13,885 under-trial jail inmates have 
just managed to grab education up to class 10.

"The rich, powerful and the famous file petition 
within minutes and bail themselves out. But that 
is not the case with the poor and illiterates. 
Hence they languish in jails for years", said 
former CBI director Joginder Singh. He pointed 
out that former Uttar Pradesh chief secretary 
Akhand Pratap Singh had managed bail with the 
help of "the best of the lawyers". Former UP 
minister Amarmani Tripathi, convicted for life 
for the murder of Madhumita Shukla, still hopes 
to wriggle out of the conviction with the help of 
a battery of 17 lawyers.

Famous lawyers, who charge astronomical amount to 
fight cases, are hardly expected to fight for 
"justice" involving poor unless it gets them 
positive publicity. A case in point is that of 
senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani, who had come to the 
help of Manu Sharma convicted in the Jessica Lal 
Murder case, is now in the defence of those 
accused in "Uphar cinema fire" in New Delhi on 
June 13, 1997, which had left 59 people dead due 
to asphyxia.
Former Delhi police Commissioner Ved Marwah 
agrees that a number of poor persons land up in 
jail for petty crimes, "and rot there as they do 
not have good legal assistance".

A look at the country's prison profile shows that 
a majority of poor and illiterate inmates 
languish in jails for years, even for decades, 
awaiting justice. Many can't pay security money 
for bail and several others have been behind bars 
since they have none outside to stand for them. 
"An under-trial had spent 33 years in jail before 
the Human rights commission identified him and 
put up his case", says Marwah.

The political mafia turned prison convicts like 
Tripathi, RJD's Bihar MP Shahabudeen Ahmed, SP's 
MLA Mukhtar Ansari and others lead as much 
comfortable a life inside the jail premises as 
money power can buy. But in any case rich and 
powerful are still few and far between in the 
country's jails as under-trials or convicts. The 
law, most of the time, seem to catch only the 
economically unprivileged class.

Film star Sanjay Dutt, who was awarded six years 
jail term  by a TADA court for violating the 
provisions of the Arms Act is now on bail as the 
best of the legal assistance was available to him 
to present his case. The deferential treatments 
of the accused by the authorities in the country 
also showed up with Dutt, soon after his 
conviction, was seen in the company of Prime 
Minister and home minister at a function.

A scrutiny of jail inmates as provided by 
National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reveal that 
1,328 jails the number of convicted prisoners 
with higher education go down with their literacy 
level and increases with the slide in their 
education.

The figures provided by NCRB point out that 
19,450 prison convicts had education above Class 
X. The figure dips down further with 5,359 
convicts educated below graduation, 1,268 post 
graduates and 743 convicts holding technical 
degrees.

The story concerning undertrial prisoners in the 
country is more or less similar, with the largest 
segment of 1,13,885 just managing to grab 
education up to 10th class while 82,628 
under-trials again being completely illiterate 
with 28,763 having education above Class X but 
below graduation and 8,398 were graduates.
As in the case of convicts, post-graduate 
under-trials and those under-trials having 
technical degrees were lesser in number in jails 
with 1,600 and 1,802 respectively.

There are 2,37,076 under-trials in the country's 
prisons, which is 66.2 per cent of the total 
inmates in all the jails. The total number of 
inmates in jails across the country is to the 
tune of 3,58,368.

Prisons with a total capacity of 2,46,497 have 
already exceeded it by at least 1,11,871 
prisoners. The under-trial and convict ratio 
which was 1:2 during pre-independence era has now 
reversed to about 7:1.

The reason officially attributed for the large 
number of under-trials in jails is the shortage 
of judges required to speed up the trials and 
convictions. "The law commission has recommended 
50 judges per million whereas we have still only 
nine judges per million", said officials dealing 
with law and justice.

------


[5]  GUJARAT DRENCHED IN HINDUTVA:

(i)

The Times of India
8 Jan 2008

BLAME THE MIDDLE CLASS

by Ashis Nandy

Now that the dust has settled over the Gujarat 
elections, we can afford to defy the pundits and 
admit that, even if Narendra Modi had lost the 
last elections, it would not have made much 
difference to the culture of Gujarat politics. 
Modi had already done his job. Most of the 
state's urban middle class would have remained 
mired in its inane versions of communalism and 
parochialism and the VHP and the Bajrang Dal 
would have continued to set the tone of state 
politics. Forty years of dedicated propaganda 
does pay dividends, electorally and socially.

The Hindus and the Muslims of the state - once 
bonded so conspicuously by language, culture and 
commerce - have met the demands of both V D 
Savarkar and M A Jinnah. They now face each other 
as two hostile nations. The handful of Gujarati 
social and political activists who resist the 
trend are seen not as dissenters but as 
treacherous troublemakers who should be silenced 
by any means, including surveillance, censorship 
and direct violence. As a result, Gujarati 
cities, particularly its educational institutions 
are turning cultural deserts. Gujarat has already 
disowned the Indian Constitution and the state 
apparatus has adjusted to the change.

The Congress, the main opposition party, has no 
effective leader. Nor does it represent any 
threat to the mainstream politics of Gujarat. The 
days of grass-roots leaders like Jhinabhai Darji 
are past and a large section of the party now 
consists of Hindu nationalists. The national 
leadership of the party does not have the courage 
to confront Modi over 2002, given its abominable 
record of 1984.

The Left is virtually non-existent in Gujarat. 
Whatever minor presence it once had among 
intellectuals and trade unionists is now a vague 
memory. The state has disowned Gandhi, too; 
Gandhian politics arouses derision in 
middle-class Gujarat. Except for a few valiant 
old-timers, Gandhians have made peace with their 
conscience by withdrawing from the public domain. 
Gandhi himself has been given a saintly, Hindu 
nationalist status and shelved. Even the Gujarati 
translations of his Complete Works have been 
stealthily distorted to conform to the Hindu 
nationalist agenda.

Gujarati Muslims too are "adjusting" to their new 
station. Denied justice and proper compensation, 
and as second-class citizens in their home state, 
they have to depend on voluntary efforts and 
donor agencies. The state's refusal to provide 
relief has been partly met by voluntary groups 
having fundamentalist sympathies. They supply aid 
but insist that the beneficiaries give up 
Gujarati and take to Urdu, adopt veil, and send 
their children to madrassas. Events like the 
desecration of Wali Gujarati's grave have pushed 
one of India's culturally richest, most diverse, 
vernacular Islamic traditions to the wall. Future 
generations will as gratefully acknowledge the 
sangh parivar's contribution to the growth of 
radical Islam in India as this generation 
remembers with gratitude the handsome 
contribution of Rajiv Gandhi and his cohorts to 
Sikh militancy.

The secularist dogma of many fighting the sangh 
parivar has not helped matters. Even those who 
have benefited from secular lawyers and activists 
relate to secular ideologies instrumentally. They 
neither understand them nor respect them. The 
victims still derive solace from their religions 
and, when under attack, they cling more 
passionately to faith. Indeed, shallow ideologies 
of secularism have simultaneously broken the back 
of Gandhism and discouraged the emergence of 
figures like Ali Shariatis, Desmond Tutus and the 
Dalai Lama - persons who can give suffering a new 
voice audible to the poor and the powerless and 
make a creative intervention possible from within 
worldviews accessible to the people.

Finally, Gujarat's spectacular development has 
underwritten the de-civilising process. One of 
the worst-kept secrets of our times is that 
dramatic development almost always has an 
authoritarian tail. Post-World War II Asia too 
has had its love affair with developmental 
despotism and the censorship, surveillance and 
thought control that go with it. The East Asian 
tigers have all been maneaters most of the time. 
Gujarat has now chosen to join the pack. 
Development in the state now justifies amorality, 
abridgement of freedom, and collapse of social 
ethics.

Is there life after Modi? Is it possible to look 
beyond the 35 years of rioting that began in 1969 
and ended in 2002? Prima facie, the answer is 
"no". We can only wait for a new generation that 
will, out of sheer self-interest and tiredness, 
learn to live with each other. In the meanwhile, 
we have to wait patiently but not passively to 
keep values alive, hoping that at some point will 
come a modicum of remorse and a search for 
atonement and that ultimately Gujarati traditions 
will triumph over the culture of the state's 
urban middle class.

Recovering Gujarat from its urban middle class 
will not be easy. The class has found in militant 
religious nationalism a new self- respect and a 
new virtual identity as a martial community, the 
way Bengali babus, Maharashtrian Brahmins and 
Kashmiri Muslims at different times have sought 
salvation in violence. In Gujarat this class has 
smelt blood, for it does not have to do the 
killings but can plan, finance and coordinate 
them with impunity. The actual killers are the 
lowest of the low, mostly tribals and Dalits. The 
middle class controls the media and education, 
which have become hate factories in recent times. 
And they receive spirited support from most 
non-resident Indians who, at a safe distance from 
India, can afford to be more nationalist, 
bloodthirsty, and irresponsible.

The writer is a political psychologist.


(ii)
                                                                              
The Telegraph
January 4 , 2008

BEYOND INVECTIVES
- Gujarat's wounded psyche needs the right salve
Cutting Corners -Ashok Mitra

Himachal Pradesh is small beer, Gujarat is not. 
To describe the poll outcome in Gujarat as a 
triumph of religious bigotry over secular 
principles is a cliché almost bordering on 
tautology. Tautologies advance the frontiers of 
neither knowledge nor understanding. The 
Bharatiya Janata Party and Narendra Modi, despite 
the net loss of 10 assembly seats, have this time 
actually increased their share of the total votes 
cast over what they obtained five years ago. More 
than one half of the voting electorate has chosen 
the BJP, and this despite the horror of the 2002 
pogrom and its grim aftermath. Factors underlying 
this vigorous re-endorsement of faith in those 
preaching a lurid sectarian doctrine need to be 
analysed with some care.

Is not the BJP victory as much a crushing defeat 
for the Congress? The Congress was the most 
powerful party - overwhelmingly so - in the state 
during the first few decades following 
Independence. Gujarat is Mahatma Gandhi land. It 
is territory where Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's 
writ was law to the people. The Sardar from 
Karamsat had built the Congress party 
organization in the state brick by brick. He was 
hailed as the man of iron who commandeered the 
native princes to integrate with the Union of 
India. His advocacy of a no-nonsense approach 
while dealing with Pakistan, the new country born 
out of the womb of India, was appreciated by a 
considerable number of so-called 'nationalists', 
and not just in Gujarat. Many Gujaratis continue 
to nurse a grievance that the Mahatma picked 
Jawaharlal Nehru over Vallabhbhai as India's 
first prime minister. Nehru, they are convinced, 
was a namby-pamby Anglophile who impressed 
Gandhiji by his airy-fairy ways; in their view, 
the strong-willed Sardar would have been a far 
superior choice. This sense of dissatisfaction, 
howsoever mute, has been a part of the Gujarati 
ethos all along.

Vallabhbhai, instead of heading the government, 
became the nation's first home minister, which 
did not much assuage Gujarat's hurt pride. He 
died within three years, but Gujarat could still 
claim to have provided the steel frame of Indian 
administration because men from the state 
remained in charge of the home portfolio at the 
Centre for long years. First it was Kanhaiya Lal 
Munshi and, after an interregnum, Gulzarilal 
Nanda. The Sardar's daughter, Maniben Patel, was, 
during this period, a member of the Congress 
working committee. Meanwhile, another favourite 
son of Gujarat, Morarji Desai, also carved a 
niche for himself in national affairs. A fairly 
successful Union finance minister, he had to be 
accommodated by Indira Gandhi in the slot of 
deputy prime minister as well for some time. Yet 
another Gujarati, Khandubhai Desai, held, for 
more than a decade, the reins of the Indian 
National Trade Union Congress, which claimed to 
be the major organization of the working classes 
in the country. During this period, resources 
made available by public financial institutions 
under the control of the Centre helped Gujarati 
capitalists to ensure the state's rapid 
industrial advance. In agriculture too, big 
farmers prospered on account of bounty from the 
Cotton Corporation of India and export subsidies. 
Everything taken together, it was a comfortable 
state of being for Gujarat, at least for those 
who formed the upper strata of its society.

The split of the Congress in the late Sixties and 
Indira Gandhi's ruthless assertion of power 
marked the beginning of the end of Gujarati 
dominance in national politics. The Congress 
(Organisation), to which the bulk of Gujarat's 
more eminent Congressmen - conservative by 
instinct - had transferred their loyalty, got 
rapidly enfeebled. The denouement of the 
Bangladesh war decisively shifted the centre of 
gravity of political power. Morarji Desai, eased 
out of New Delhi, was fuming and discontented, 
but did not know quite which way to turn. His 
opportunity came with Jaya Prakash Narayan's Nava 
Nirman movement. Not the imposition of the 
Emergency alone, Indira Gandhi began to commit 
one blunder after another. It was, for the former 
adherents of the Congress (O), the regaining of 
paradise in 1977. With Jaya Prakash Narayan 
nominating Morarji Desai as prime minister of the 
Janata Party regime, Gujaratis had good reason to 
feel that their kingdom had finally come.

It was a very brief Gujarati summer though. The 
disparate ele- ments constituting the Janata 
Party fell out amongst themselves and Morarji's 
tenure as prime minister ended abruptly. Indira 
Gandhi made a famous come-back. Gujaratis lived 
through the emotions of a lost tribe even as the 
self-righteous man, who had once lectured to 
Kosygin and Bulganin on the virtues of 
prohibition, retreated to his sullen heritage in 
Mumbai's Marine Drive.

Indira Gandhi sought to build a patchwork of a 
base for herself in the state by herding together 
flocks from Rajputs, Dalits, tribals and Muslims. 
The nitty-gritty of power nonetheless ceased to 
be the inheritance of Gujarat. The Congress, at 
present reduced to family property of the 
Nehru-Gandhis, has none from Gujarat occupying a 
place of prominence in its hierarchy, nor, for 
the matter, in the government presided over by it 
in New Delhi; few know Ahmad Patel outside the 
precincts of 10 Janpath. To add insult to injury, 
Indira Gandhi at one time got elected from 
Gujarat a Bengali, with not a word of Gujarati in 
him, to the Rajya Sabha and named him her finance 
minister. Quite understandably, the arrival of 
her daughter-in-law and grandson in the campaign 
trail last month was red rag to the Gujarati bull.

Elephants do not forget; nor do apparently the 
people of Gujarat. Come the Nineties, large 
sections of Gujaratis had already made up their 
mind. The BJP gave back to Gujarat the 
stewardship of the ministry of home affairs at 
the Centre; Lal Krishna Advani, representing 
Gandhinagar, filled the position. No point in 
refusing to recognize the reality; Vallabhbhai 
Patel's legacy, the largest chunk of it, now 
belongs to the BJP. It is not for nothing that 
Narendra Modi took his fresh oath of office as 
chief minister on Christmas Day at the Sardar 
Patel stadium in Ahmedabad. From Pakistan-phobia 
to rabid Muslim-baiting has indeed proved to be a 
relatively short haul.

Not to take cognizance of the other reality would 
be equally unwise: rustic, simple-minded 
Gujaratis, Dalits and tribals to the fore, are 
unable to make much of a distinction between 
Mahatma Gandhi's Ram rajya and the version of it 
preached by fanatics of the Vishwa Hindu 
Parishad. The perils of using, once upon a time, 
a religious metaphor to rouse the masses for a 
great national cause are coming home to roost.

A third factor working for the BJP and Narendra 
Modi can hardly be underrated either. The state 
administration in Gujarat has succeeded in 
organizing, in the course of the past 15 years or 
thereabouts, a delivery system for social and 
economic welfare for implementing policies and 
programmes specifically intended for 
disadvantaged groups. Nothing else explains why 
voters in such once-strong bastions of Congress 
influence as Sabarkantha, Banaskantha and the 
Panchmahal region have switched over to the BJP. 
And should one be dubbed as naughty if it is 
pointed out that while Muslims form less than 
one-tenth of the population in Gujarat as against 
more than a quarter in West Bengal, the 
proportion of state government employees 
belonging to the community is significantly 
higher in the west coast state than in Left-ruled 
West Bengal?

It would be a tragedy of epic dimensions if 
religious bigots come to occupy a permanent lease 
in Mahatma Gandhi's Gujarat. But mere hurling of 
invectives at the bigots will not reverse the 
situation. Gujarat's wounded psyche, currently 
holed up in the anger chamber, needs to be 
offered the appropriate salve.

______


[6]

The Guardian
January 8, 2008

INDIA IN DENIAL

The response of the BCCI to the cricket row in 
Australia illustrates the problem of entrenched 
racism in India

by Mike Marqusee

Harbhajan Singh's three-Test ban from cricket for 
his alleged on-field racist abuse of Australian 
Andrew Symonds has elicited howls of outrage from 
Indian cricketers, the Indian cricket board 
(BCCI) and the Indian media. The story has been 
the subject of banner headlines in newspapers 
around the world. In the most recent development, 
umpire Steve Bucknor has now been relieved of his 
duties.

It's been widely noted that the Australians are 
no innocents when it comes to dishing out 
hard-edged personal insults in the course of a 
cricket match. Both Sunil Gavaskar and Tony 
Greig, among others, have accused them of 
double-standards, of turning from sledgers to 
whingers as soon as the verbal fire is directed 
back at them.

But as the laws of cricket now recognise, racist 
abuse is an offence of a special magnitude. If 
Harbhajan did call Symonds a "monkey", then it 
was absolutely necessary for Australian captain 
Ricky Ponting to make a formal complaint, and for 
International Cricket Council (ICC) referee Mike 
Proctor to punish Harbhajan accordingly.

Racist insults poison the game for players and 
spectators alike. They demean not only the 
opponent but an entire branch of the human 
family. Crucially, they have repercussions beyond 
the playing field. When one player abuses 
another's racial or ethnic origins, he both 
expresses and legitimises one of the most potent 
anti-social toxins at work in the modern world.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India's 
(BCCI) statement on the Harbhajan ban read more 
like an emotional defence of Indian cricket and 
India as a whole than a considered response to 
the referee's ruling.

     "It is an avowed policy of the Indian 
government to fight racial discrimination at 
every level and the India board has been at the 
forefront to eradicate it from the game of 
cricket. For the Indian board, anti-racial stance 
is an article of faith as it is for the entire 
nation which fought the apartheid policies. The 
board has always fought the racist sledging of 
players and spectators and it will continue to do 
so."

It's true that the Indian board acted promptly 
and firmly in response to the monkey chants that 
greeted Symonds at various Indian grounds when 
Australia toured there last year, identifying and 
expelling the perpetrators. But in the strident 
Indian reaction to the Harbhajan-Symonds affair 
there is a large element of nervous denial. 
Racism, towards people of African origin and and 
more broadly towards people with darker skins, is 
commonplace and vivid in south Asia, yet rarely 
acknowledged.

Back in the 1990s, I heard West Indian players 
harangued by loud, long, derogatory chants of 
"Bhoot!" - meaning "ghost", a common derogatory 
label for black-skinned people.

Visit Indian offices and factories, hotels, 
cricket grounds or airports, and the colour 
hierarchy leaps out at you. The higher up the 
managerial scale you go, the more likely you are 
to find lighter-skinned people. As a 
white-skinned visitor from the west, I can't 
count how many times strangers have boasted to me 
with pride of their offspring's fair complexion. 
Children with darker skins are often teased as 
"blackies". Matrimonial adverts frequently 
emphasise fairness.

Skin lighteners are sold in vast quantities. 
Advertisements for "Fair and Lovely" skin 
whitener adorn cricket grounds and intrude 
endlessly on TV cricket coverage. In one of them, 
an earnest, dusky-coloured young female cricket 
fan is transformed by the application of skin 
lightener into a star cricket commentator.

Colour hierarchy in south Asia is rooted in the 
history of caste and labour. (Incidentally, seven 
of the 11 who played for India at Sydney were of 
Brahmin background, though Brahmins make up only 
about 7% of the Indian population.) Colonialism, 
in which all Indians, however elite, found 
themselves on the wrong side of the colour bar, 
entrenched the value of whiteness and its 
associations with power and privilege. As the US 
shows, modernisation and GDP growth do not 
necessarily dissolve colour distinctions, and in 
their much-vaunted upward mobility, the Indian 
middle classes do not appear to have abandoned 
the old prejudices. Indeed, since so many now 
prefer to identify with their western 
counterparts rather than their impoverished 
compatriots, these prejudices are likely to be 
strengthened.

The value attached to whiteness is a sickness in 
south Asian society, which badly needs the 
antidote of a "black is beautiful" movement. 
There are precedents in the lower caste 
insurgencies associated with Periyar (founder of 
Dravidian movement in south India) and Ambedkar 
(the Dalit, ie "untouchable" liberator). The skin 
colour hierarchy can in the end only be uprooted 
by a transformation in attitudes towards caste, 
marriage, the female and male bodies, and social 
stratification in general. But the first step has 
to be breaching the widespread reluctance to 
acknowledge or discuss the realities of racism in 
Indian society. The Indian response to the 
accusation against Harbhajan indicates that this 
will be an uphill battle.


______


[7]


The Guardian
January 9, 2008

FORCING THE ISSUE

What we should learn from forced marriages and 
'honour' killings is that we cannot allow 
cultural relativism to compromise women's human 
rights

by Lily Gupta

     Multicultural sensitivity is no excuse for moral blindness ...

So said the Home Office minister Mike O'Brien in 
1999 when talking about forced marriages. Today, 
at the beginning of 2008, the same statement can 
be applied to the condition of women's lives, and 
the lack of human rights that they experience.

Take the case of Shafilea Ahmed. The 17-year-old 
had experienced domestic violence at home, and 
had voiced concerns to friends and professionals 
that she may be forced into marriage, an inquest 
heard yesterday. She went missing and was 
discovered dead by a Cumbrian river in 2004. At 
the time of her disappearance, a teacher who had 
overheard her siblings talking reported her 
missing. Yesterday, at the inquest into 
Shafilea's death, Detective Superintendent 
Geraint Jones spoke of how she had told several 
people that she was "frightened of being forced 
into marriage".

In her speech at Chatham House in October, Cherie 
Booth QC delivered a powerful discourse about 
women's human rights in the 21st century, and in 
particular the "twin distortions of culture and 
religion". Later, I asked Ms Booth how she 
thought religious and cultural traditions could 
be challenged bearing in mind issues of cultural 
sensitivity. She acknowledged that it was hard to 
change culture from the outside but felt that 
international pressure and disapproval had some 
effect. She also said, "We should not 
underestimate the value of practical and moral 
support and friendship to the brave people 
struggling against the odds in various parts of 
the world."

I am not sure that is enough.

At a conference on forced marriage in London last 
year, the Forced Marriage Unit highlighted some 
of the horrors, which include kidnapping, 
violence, rape and even murder, experienced by 
the victims and survivors of forced marriages. It 
is true that men as well as women are forced into 
marriage, but undoubtedly, it is women who are 
most often the victims. It is also generally 
women that are victims of so-called honour 
killings.

The increase in the numbers of forced marriages 
and "honour killings" is mirrored in the growing 
numbers of young British men from various ethnic 
minorities that are involved in forcing a woman 
to marry against her will, or are involved in the 
crime of "honour" killing (forcing someone to 
marry is not a criminal act!). A BBC survey 
carried out in 2006 found that 1 in 10 young 
Asians said that they could justify the murder of 
someone who supposedly dishonoured their family.

Nazir Afzal OBE from the Crown Prosecution 
Service is a leading criminal lawyer in the field 
of so-called honour crimes. He highlighted the 
problem of young men's attitude towards women by 
quoting a young man he had met in a focus group 
addressing violence in the Asian community. The 
young man explained he would go to great lengths 
to defend his family's honour, and that honour 
revolved around the women in his family. Asked 
why women were so important to honour he said, 
"man is a piece of gold, and woman is a piece of 
silver. If gold falls in the dirt, you can wipe 
it clean. When silver falls to the ground, it is 
dirtied."

Rather like the "home-grown terrorist" 
phenomenon, it is shocking to think that that a 
young man who has gone through the British 
education system, and lived in British society, 
could hold such views, or be involved in the 
murder or abduction of his sister. How do you 
challenge such deep disregard for one-half of the 
world's population?

I want to say that the world is generally sexist, 
but I am finding it hard. I fear that most women 
live in a misogynist world where they are seen as 
a liability or their bodies are a battlefield for 
warring men. Look at Darfur, Pakistan, India or 
gang wars in the UK or the US, for example. This 
misogyny is so established in our collective 
cultural psyche that some women, maybe out of 
their own need to survive, have become part of 
the oppressive system - instilling in both female 
and male children the ideology that girls are 
worth less than boys.

I think that Cherie Booth is right to some 
extent. Change sometimes has to come from 
outside. It is through education, and 
particularly the education of children, that the 
change will come. Human rights and women's rights 
should be taught at school. Single-sex religious 
schools should be challenged on their curriculum 
- looking in particular at what they teach the 
young about their gender roles in society. Often, 
religious schools - single sex or mixed - are 
problematic in that indoctrination (usually of 
girls) starts at a young age.

All countries need to start educating their 
citizens from a young age. When children are 
being taught in schools about right and wrong, or 
citizenship, they should be taught about what 
makes up the human rights act and the rights of 
women.

Agencies such as social workers, police and 
support groups cannot be afraid to intervene in 
what might be seen as a "cultural" matter. To 
quote the findings of the Victoria Climbie 
inquiry, "this is not an area in which there is 
much scope for political correctness". 
Intervention from the police or social workers 
may have prevented the horrific deaths of Banaz 
Mahmod and Victoria Climbie.

The forced marriage protection order, which comes 
into force later this year, allows third-party 
intervention against a forced marriage. Social 
workers, teachers and women's right groups (among 
others) will have the authority to ask courts to 
stop families forcing children and young adults 
into marriage in the UK and abroad. The act is an 
essential piece of legislation in the fight 
against the silent human rights abuses of women. 
The protection order provides a safeguard for 
women who do not have access to information about 
their rights or might not have the confidence to 
search for help.

If, as a country, we are truly committed to the 
equality of women, and to the rights of all 
humans, then that commitment has to filter 
through to all its citizens, and not just the 
educated articulate elite. Only then can we move 
from a state of confusion where women, in all 
strata of society and cultures, can cease to be 
seen as chattel.

As Nazir Afzal said: "Human rights should outweigh cultural rights every time".

______


[8]   Announcements:

(i)


Amnesty International India

Invites you to the Curtain Raiser of
International Week of Justice Festival 2008

Inaugural Film: Khuda Ke Liye
Directed By Shoaib Mansoor, Pakistan

Photo Exhibition on Voices of Dignity
Curated by Parthiv Shah & Centre for Media and
Communication

Musical Performances by Advaita & Sajid Akbar
Lamp-lighting and Newsletter Release: Guests of Honour

Felicitations: Presentation of Mementos

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Time: 4.00 p.m. onwards

Venue: Siri Fort Auditorium II, New Delhi.
Siri Fort Cultural Complex, August Kranti Marg
New Delhi

Commemorating the 60th Anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights

RSVP
Amnesty International India
C-1/22, SDA, Hauz Khas
New Delhi-16

Ph. 011-41642501, 26854763
Fax -011-26510202
carafest at amnesty.org.in
www.amnesty.org.in

In association with
CMAC
Film South Asia
Screen
Magic Lantern
PVR

_____

(ii)

SOUTH ASIAN FEMINISMS: GENDER, CULTURE AND POLITICS

An International Conference at the University of 
Pennsylvania, March 28 and 29, 2008


This interdisciplinary international conference 
on South Asian Feminisms will bring together 
distinguished scholars/activists both within and 
outside the academy, from the subcontinent 
(Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka) 
as well as the US, UK, and Canada.  Our focus 
will be the contemporary dynamics of feminist 
activism and theorizing in the region, with 
particular emphasis on violence, human rights, 
and minorities. These are issues of vital concern 
across the region and within the South Asian 
diaspora. We envision stimulating discussions 
about the promises and difficulties of feminist 
legal activism and of human rights discourse for 
feminist concerns, especially as they engage 
issues of caste, religion, ethnicity, sexuality 
and class; the relationship between feminism and 
movements for democracy; forms of gendered 
violence; and the impact of transnationalism and 
globalization on feminist movements within and 
outside the region.

The conference will pay sustained attention to 
the specificities of these issues within 
different contexts that constitute "South Asia", 
but also encourages conversations across these 
contexts, reaching out to the shared, unequal, 
and overlapping histories of the region. 
Distinguished participants will include: Ratna 
Kapur, Director of the Centre for Feminist Legal 
Research in New Delhi, India and Senior Gender 
Advisor to Nepal, United Nations; Malathi De 
Alwis, International Centre for Ethnic Studies, 
Colombo, Sri Lanka; Flavia Agnes, leading 
feminist scholar, women's rights lawyer, 
co-founder of Majlis, Mumbai, India; Firdaus 
Azim, Professor, BRAC University and activist, 
Nari Pokko, Dhaka, Bangladesh; Angana Chatterjee, 
Associate Professor, California Institute of 
Integral Studies;  Amina Jamal, Assistant 
Professor, Ryerson University, Toronto, CA; 
Anjali Arondekar, Associate Professor, University 
of California, Santa Cruz; Dina Siddiqi, 
Independent Scholar, New York/Dhaka, Bangladesh; 
Priyamvada Gopal, cultural analyst and literary 
critic, Cambridge University, UK; Annanya 
Bhattacharjee, co- founder, Sakhi (New York) and 
International Organizer for Jobs with Justice 
(New Delhi, India/Washington, DC, US).

The Conference Committee gratefully acknowledges 
support and sponsorship from the following: the 
Provost's Global Initiatives Fund, the South Asia 
Center, the Alice Paul Center/Women's Studies 
Program, the University Research Fund, the School 
of Arts and Sciences Dean's Office, the Graduate 
School of Education, the Department of English, 
the Center for the Advanced Study of India, and 
the Department of Anthropology.


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

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
SACW archive is available at: http://insaf.net/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.