SACW | Feb. 10-15, 2008 / Hopelessness on Pakistan (Kamila Shamsie) / India: Shrinking Freedom of Expression - Taslima Nasreen, MF Hussain
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at gmail.com
Thu Feb 14 19:26:23 CST 2008
South Asia Citizens Wire | February 10-15, 2008 |
Dispatch No. 2500 - Year 10 running
[1] Pakistan: This mood of hopelessness is
contaminating all of us (Kamila Shamsie)
[2] Sri Lanka: What's the LTTE's gameplan? (Rohini Hensman)
[3] India: Resentment Persists in Kashmir (Gautam Navlakha)
[4] India: Shrinking Freedom of Expression -
Taslima Nasreen, MF Hussain and a growing list of
victims
(i) Public Statement by Forum For The Protection
of Free Speech and Expression (9 February 2008)
(ii) SAHMAT Press Statement on Taslima Nasrin (13 February 2008)
(iii) Taslima lives somewhere in Delhi, Hussain in Dubai (Jawed Naqvi)
(iv) Why is Taslima Nasreen a prisoner? (Indira Jaising)
[5] India: Statements by Concerned Citizens
Protesting Disruption of Film Screening in Bhopal
[6] India: Museum from riot cinders (Basant Rawat)
[7] UK: Failed by religious law (Pragna Patel)
[8] Announcements:
Press Meet: Case of False Framing of Aftab Alam
Ansari and Justice Against Witch-Hunt of
Minorities (New Delhi, 15 Feb. 2008)
______
[1]
The Guardian,
February 14 2008
THIS MOOD OF HOPELESSNESS IS CONTAMINATING ALL OF US
Pakistan's electoral process has been stifled by
the spectre of suicide bombings and the long
shadow of Musharraf
by Kamila Shamsie in Karachi
Earlier this month in Pakistan, a popular
television show instructed viewers on the proper
method of casting a ballot in the coming
elections. The programme was the satirical 4 Man
Show, and the elections in question are being run
by a music channel to determine the people's
choice for best VJ. The subtext to the skit was
the listlessness surrounding those other
elections in Pakistan, scheduled for February 18.
On the streets of Karachi there are few visible
signs of campaigning, aside from banners
announcing various constituency candidates. But
many of those banners have been in place since
the run-up to the January 8 elections, which were
postponed following Benazir Bhutto's
assassination, and the slogans on the Pakistan
People's party banners - The Return of Benazir is
the Return of Hope - now sound a note of doom.
It's easy to find the reason for the absence of
the large-scale rallies that usually characterise
campaigns: suicide bombings. It hasn't been just
Benazir's rallies - first her homecoming rally on
October 18, then the election rally on December
27 - that have been targeted. Over the past
weekend, there was a suicide bombing at an Awami
National party rally in the volatile North-West
Frontier Province, killing 27.
The threat of suicide bombings has almost
entirely halted the big rallies, although Asif
Zardari relaunched the PPP's campaign on February
9 at a rally of thousands in Thatta, Sindh
province, after the 40-day mourning period for
Benazir Bhutto. It's worth mentioning that the
few rallies that have been held included one at
the weekend for the APDM, the inaccurately named
All-Parties Democratic Movement, which is in fact
boycotting the elections.
Necessity is opening up other avenues, too: in a
move either bizarre or ingenious, the Muttahida
Quami Movement, Karachi's most powerful party,
whose election symbol is the kite, held a
kite-flying festival that attracted large crowds
- though it remains in doubt how many people
listened to the speeches rather than simply
enjoying the kites and music. Largely, though,
candidates are using quieter methods, such as
door-to-door campaigning and local neighbourhood
meetings. Perfectly worthy ways of engaging
voters, but entirely lacking in pre-election buzz.
Many Pakistanis have long since stayed away from
the election process, believing no government
will change their lives of hardship and misery.
But this time the mood of hopelessness seems to
have extended outward, even to people who live
and breathe politics. No political conversation
I've heard in the last month has been without the
word "allow". As in: "Musharraf won't allow ...";
"the army will never allow ... "; but also "the
people won't allow".
This stand-off between what will and won't be
allowed is often portrayed as the real decider of
election results. So, the argument goes: on the
one hand, Musharraf-backed-by-the-army won't
allow the two parties that oppose him (the PPP
and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz) to make up the
two-thirds majority in the national assembly
necessary to impeach the president and reverse
his changes to the constitution. On the other
hand, the people of Pakistan - specifically the
supporters of the PPP and PML-N - won't allow a
result that brings Musharraf's supporters (the
Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam and the MQM)
back into power.
Asif Zardari has openly warned the government of
a "severe reaction" in the event of rigging, and
his party has made it clear that widespread
defeats for the PPP will be seen as evidence of
that. So, the chattering classes predict, the PPP
will probably emerge as the largest single party
in the National Assembly, followed by the PML-N,
but the PML-Q and MQM will also carry a
significant number of seats. Interestingly, the
most recent polling data suggests this would
accurately reflect the parties' actual level of
support. It seems possible that the wave of
sympathy for the PPP following Benazir's death
has been dented by the appointment of the
controversial Zardari as party leader. Certainly
there's no one who has anything approaching
Bhutto's crowd-pulling charisma.
And the party that made the most astonishing
gains in the 2002 elections - the religious
alliance, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal - is entirely
absent from political discussions. One of the
main sections of the MMA, the Jamaat-e-Islami, is
boycotting the elections; but in addition,
support for the MMA in the constituencies it won
in 2002 has sharply declined as a result of its
failure to deliver on promises after five years
in office. However, disturbingly, the fall in its
popularity may also signal that some of its
supporters have moved further into extremism and
now believe in backing or joining those who
operate outside the political process.
As for me, I'm going to cast my vote on February
18 to show support for a process which, however
flawed, is leagues ahead of any alternative. Who
I'll vote for - well, that's a question to which
I still don't have an answer.
· Kamila Shamsie's most recent novel is Broken Verses
______
[2]
The Island
12 February 2008
WHAT'S THE LTTE'S GAMEPLAN?
by Rohini Hensman
Carnage in the South
Scores of people have been killed in the South
just in the past month, most of them Sinhalese
civilians. The focus of the LTTE's offensive
seems to have shifted from the North-East to the
South. This is not just a matter of luring the
military away from the North, because there has
also been a shift from military targets to
civilian ones.
What is most worrying about this change of
strategy is that this kind of terrorist attack
can continue indefinitely, even if the LTTE is
defeated militarily in the North. We may recall
the relentless US bombing of the Tora Bora
mountains, which decisively wiped it out as a
military base and place of shelter for Osama bin
Laden. Some people even believe that Osama is
dead, and the videos of him that keep appearing
are fakes. But whether he is dead or alive, the
fact is that Al Qaeda continues to launch deadly
terrorist attacks, without having any military
base. There is no doubt that the LTTE could do
likewise. Sri Lanka is awash with arms and
ammunition, which the government is distributing
freely in the name of arming Home Guards, and it
would be the easiest thing in the world for the
LTTE to get hold of it and continue their attacks
on civilians. Nowhere in the world has military
might been able to stamp out terrorist attacks,
and Sri Lanka is no exception.
One possible aim of these attacks is to provoke a
backlash against Tamil civilians by Sinhala
chauvinists. This is the fear of a group calling
itself the 'Vanni United Tamil Association for
Peace', which put up posters in Vavuniya
appealing to the LTTE to stop killing Sinhalese
civilians and thereby endangering the lives of
Tamil civilians. Indeed, it is only a matter of
time before the goons who believe 'Me rata
Sinhala rata' retaliate by staging pogroms
against Tamil civilians; they have already
attempted to do so on a couple of occasions. Then
the LTTE, which is already using the fiasco of
the 23 January Rajapaksa-JHU proposals
masquerading as APRC proposals to argue that the
government is not serious about a political
solution to the conflict, can in addition argue
that Tamils are not safe in a Sinhala-dominated
Sri Lanka, and need a separate state of their own.
If the pogroms against Tamils are serious enough,
the Indian government would be forced to act, and
the international community might at that point
step in to establish a separate state in the
North-East. Anyone who doubts that this is
possible should take a good hard look at what is
happening in Kosovo right now. The Serbian
nationalists were just as determined that Kosovo
(which was crucially important to their national
identity) should remain in Serbia as the Sinhala
nationalists are determined that the North-East
should remain part of Sri Lanka. But their
attacks on Kosovo's ethnic Albanian civilians
ensured the opposite outcome. Contrary to the
belief of ignorant Sinhala nationalists,
sovereignty has an external as well as internal
aspect. If the international community is
convinced there is a compelling case for a
separate state where Sri Lanka's Tamil civilians
are safe, they could recognise the sovereignty of
such a state.
Punishing the LTTE for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
How can such an outcome be avoided? It is not
difficult. The majority of Tamils, horrified and
repelled by the LTTE's brutal attacks on
civilians, do not accept the LTTE as their
representative, and the international community
too now recognises that the LTTE does not
represent the majority of Tamils. The LTTE's
attacks on Sinhalese, Muslim and Tamil civilians
are all defined in international law as war
crimes or crimes against humanity, for which the
LTTE leaders could be tried, convicted and put
behind bars for the rest of their lives, their
followers disarmed and their conscripts released.
That would be the end of the LTTE as a military
force and terrorist group: no more war, no more
terrorist attacks.
This would require two things. One is collecting
enough evidence to convict the LTTE leaders in a
court of law. The LTTE denies that it carried out
the attacks: how can we prove that they were
involved? The failure to convict LTTE operatives
even for such high-profile killings as that of
Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar shows that
the investigative capacity of Sri Lankan
government agencies is simply not up to the task.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise
Arbour has offered to help by setting up a UN
field operation in Sri Lanka to investigate and
report on human rights violations. The evidence
collected by this mission could certainly be used
to convict the LTTE leaders. Moreover, the
presence of the mission would help to deter it
from intimidating and killing witnesses, as it
routinely does. The second requirement is a trial
of LTTE leaders for these crimes under
international law. This could be done by an
International Criminal Tribunal for Sri Lanka set
up by the UN Security Council, or, more simply,
by Sri Lanka signing and ratifying the Rome
Treaty of the International Criminal Court. It
would then be the task of the international
prosecutor, working with law enforcement agencies
in Sri Lanka, to collect evidence, call
witnesses, and try those accused of war crimes
and crimes against humanity. There can be no
doubt that there would be enough evidence to put
the LTTE leaders behind bars for the rest of
their lives. And the entire international
community would support the effort.
The LTTE's Friends in the South
The chief obstacles to this course of action are
the LTTE's powerful backers in the South. For
example, Somawansa Amarasinghe of the JVP warned
that if any political or military leader from Sri
Lanka was taken before an international court, it
would be over the dead bodies of the JVP cadre.
Paradoxical, isn't it? The JVP leaders are
willing to lay down the lives of their followers
to defend the right of the LTTE to kill Sinhalese
civilians! Of course, the reason is that they
want the government forces to go on being able to
kill Tamil and Muslim civilians with impunity.
But the net result is that they support the
LTTE's right to go on killing Sinhalese
civilians, which no military victory is going to
be able to stop.
Similarly, Louise Arbour's repeated offers to set
up a UN human rights monitoring mission in Sri
Lanka have been rejected by the president and UN
ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka. Again, their
purpose is to allow the armed forces and their
commanders the freedom to commit war crimes and
crimes against humanity with impunity, but an
inevitable consequence is that LTTE too is able
to get away with mass murder.
As the death toll of civilians in the South
climbs higher, it is important to remember that
it is these powerful forces in the South who are
shielding the LTTE from punishment for their
crimes, and thus also helping the LTTE to divide
our country by provoking a backlash. They shield
the LTTE because they want to behave like the
LTTE. This is bad news not only for minority
communities but also for the majority community.
Let us not forget that during the JVP insurgency
and government counter-insurgency, in the late
1980s Sinhalese killed almost as many Sinhalese
in the space of three years as the combined death
toll of Sinhalese and Tamils in three decades of
the LTTE's armed struggle!
Fighting for a United Sri Lanka
Those of us who are opposed to the continuing
terrorist attacks and the division of our country
therefore need to fight on two fronts: on one
side against the Tamil war criminals, on the
other side against their backers in the South. We
need a government that is ready to abide by
international law and use it to get rid of the
LTTE as a military/terrorist group once and for
all. And we need a democratic constitution that
will put an end to any legitimacy that separatism
now enjoys. So long as people belonging to
minority communities do not have security and
equal rights in a united Sri Lanka, they have a
right to demand a separate state where their
democratic rights are respected. Only a
democratic constitution which guarantees their
fundamental rights can put an end to separatism
permanently.
A democratic constitution is not just in the
interest of minority communities; it is also in
the interest of the majority community. For
example, under our present constitution, citizens
do not have the right to life. On the other hand,
the executive president has enormous powers which
amount to the right to kill any citizen. This
imbalance between the lack of rights on one side
and absolute power on the other was used to kill
tens of thousands of Tamils in the early 1980s.
Sinhalese people who thought they had nothing to
fear got a rude shock when a few years later the
same powers were used to kill tens of thousands
of Sinhalese. No one is safe until everyone's
democratic rights are safeguarded, and for that
we need a new constitution.
Defeating the LTTE's gameplan is not difficult;
all it requires is a government determined to
take the steps outlined above to achieve that
goal. Until we get that government, civilians
will continue to pay with their lives.
_______
[3]
Economic & Political Weekly
February 9, 2008
RESENTMENT PERSISTS IN KASHMIR
by Gautam Navlakha
Despite the (stop-start) peace process in Jammu
and Kashmir and the decline in infiltration, it
would be a mistake to infer that people's anger
has subsided in the state. Faced with a public
demand for troop reduction in Jammu and Kashmir
(J&K), the government had consti- tuted three
committees in March 2007. An expert committee
headed by the defence secretary to look into the
question of troop reduction, a review committee
headed by M A Ansari to study the Armed Forces
(Special) Powers Act (AFSPA) as well as the
Disturbed Area Act (DAA), and a high powered
committee headed by the union minister of defence
to study the recom- mendations of the two panels.
It is evident that as long as Indian security
forces are engaged in fighting a "low intensity
war", the likelihood of reducing troops and
revoking AFSPA and DAA was ruled out. Therefore,
in April 2007 when the review committee sub
mitted its report and called for revok- ing AFSPA
and DAA, it was not taken too seriously because
it was the recommenda- tion of the "expert"
committee which mattered most. On December 5,
2007 in response to an "unstarred" question
number 1672 in the Rajya Sabha, which asked the
minister of defence to state "whether the
committee headed by Defence Secretary...to look
into demand of troops reduction in J&K has
submitted any report and if so the salient
features thereof", a terse answer was provided:
The main recommendations pertain to reconciling
of the details of the properties
occupied by the security forces and the rentals
paid as also to resolve old cases that have
remained unsettled for many years; vacation of
public utility services by the security forces
such as school buildings, hospitals; the timings
of the convoys of the security forces may be
reworked so as to cause least inconvenience to
the local population; dos and don'ts issued by
the security forces need to be strictly followed.
Implementation of the recommendations is an
ongoing process...
The conspicuous absence of any refer- ence to
"troop reduction" speaks for itself. Also
missing are terms such as "relocation" (moving
forces from one place to another) and/or
"restructuring" (replacing army with paramilitary
formations). Instead no more than cosmetic
changes are recom- mended by way of resolving old
cases, vacating some buildings and reworking of
convoy timings. Besides, the "ongoing process" of
implementation reveals its own drawback. For
instance, out of the 1,572 buildings occupied by
security forces, only "public utility service
build- ings" (such as schools, hospitals) would
be vacated. The total number of such build- ings
is less than a hundred. And even these are being
vacated half-heartedly. Accord- ing to the state
government education secretary "in certain cases
they (security forces) have vacated (school)
buildings but are still holding the schools'
grounds that makes not much difference in the
problems we face" (Economic Times, November 26,
2007). All this amounts to trivialising a popular
demand and raises serious concern over Indian
government's sincer- ity to address real issues.
Land Question
There are reportedly 671 security forces camps in
J&K (excluding those in Jammu, Kargil, Leh,
Akhnoor and Udhampur) and these occupy 90,000
acres of farm and orchard land and 1,500
buildings. But the quest for land continues to
grow.1 For instance, in saffron rich Lethapora in
Pampore tehsil the central reserve police force
(CRPF) has demanded 5,000 'kanals' (one-eighth of
an acre) for its group headquarters. The army is
demanding 10,000 kanals for expansion of its
Kundru Field Ammunition Depot (FAD).2 Besides,
the air force, which is in possession of 850
acres in Awantipora, has asked for an additional
763 acres. Such is the demand for land that the
army, which was given 212 acres in Sharifabad, in
exhange for vacating 139 acres of Tattoo grounds
Garrison in Srinagar, has taken possession of 100
acres at Sharifabad but refuses to vacate Tattoo
ground. In the Cattle Research Centre at
Manasbal, spread over 352 acres, the army first
asked to set up a few bunkers in 1990. Then it
built barracks and in 2005 laid claim to 252
acres!3
Moreover, the annual Landmine Report 2007 states
that about 160 sq kms in Jammu and 1,730 sq kms
in Kashmir remain mined. The speaker of J&K
assembly recently pointed out that 3,500 acres of
agricultural land in his constituency
Chamb (Jammu) have been mined and 6,000 families
displaced. The J&K tourism minister told the
media on October 19 that the army violated the
master plan for Gulmarg and without requisite
permission "(t)hey have occupied 400 acres of
land on which they have raised huge concrete
structures" (The Asian Age, October 20, 2007).
It is obvious that involuntary alienation of land
in general, cultivable tracts in particular, will
arouse passions. This turns into fury when land
is acquired for armed security personnel, who
maintain an intrusive presence among civilians
designed to control their public and private
lives, and indeed even "transform their will and
attitude".4 Why is this ground reality so
difficult to comprehend? And why is the
government unwilling to reduce troop levels or
with- draw 6,67,000 security force personnel to
the barracks? After all, the new army chief
Deepak Kapoor recently stated that the situation
in J&K "starting from 2004 onwards has improved"
(Statesman, December 10, 2007). So much so that
the government now claims that there has been a
70 per cent decline in militancy- related
incidents between 1990 and 2007, from 3,500 to
1,000 incidents. Firing inci- dents came down
from 671 to 183. Bomb explosions declined from
1,000 to just 50.
Killings of civilians declined from 914 to 153
(Tribune, December 12, 2007). Besides, the
ceasefire is being observed by India and
Pakistan along the line of control since November
2003 resulting in an end to mortar shelling and
a fall in infiltration.
In any case infiltration is said to have peaked
in 2001 when an estimated 2,706 persons allegedly
entered the state illegally. The estimates
tabled by the ministry of home affairs in the Lok
Sabha on Novem- ber 27, 2007 show that their
numbers declined to 597 in 2005, 573 in 2006 and
499 up to October 2007. As final proof it is
being claimed that non-militancy related crimes
have shot up. Granted that statistics can be
manipulated any which way, the point is, if the
government is itself downplaying militancy, then
why are they fighting shy about troop reduction?
Evidently, 18 years of military control have
enabled the government to restore its authority
over a recalcitrant people. But the government
does not enjoy the confidence of the people. It
is naïve to believe that presence of a military
armed with "unrestricted and unaccounted
powers",5 would be a source of comfort to the
Muslims of J&K, who have borne the brunt of
atrocities. Unfortunately, this reality has
escaped public perceptions of J&K.
While crimes by government forces occur in other
parts of India as well the difference is that in
J&K it is the scale, simultaneity and sustenance
of which set them apart. A death toll over two
decades of 70,000, detention of more than 60,000,
torture of at least 20,000 detainees, enforced
disappearance of 8,000, denial of passports to
60,000 persons are evidence of this. As an aside,
it is worth noting that when Nandigram hogged the
limelight the local media contrasted the outcry
over the incidents there with the muted response
of India's democratic minded people to 18 years
of repression in J&K.
Limits of Peace Process
What perpetuates a narrow minded perspective is
the belief that with Pakistan and India now
engaged in working out a deal between themselves
and imposing it on the people of J&K the
situation is on the mend. What is missed out is
the fact that precisely for this reason no longer
does the militancy depend on outside assistance
for training nor has the resist- ance wilted. And
however much infiltra- tion is cited to whip up
public support outside J&K, even the security
forces are split on its importance. The Deputy
Inspector General of Border Security Force once
said that more than infiltration it is an
estimated 1,000 militants already present in J&K
who pose a bigger problem (Indian Express, June
29, 2007). Be that as it may, to this day6 people
come out in large numbers to mourn the death of a
militant. In owning the militants as their own
there is a message not to write off the
resistance.
These militants are maligned as "cross border
terrorists" or "Islamic terrorists", although it
is the government and the judiciary, going by
the Masooda Parveen case,7 which remains innocent
of the Rome statute, Geneva conventions and
protocols.
Significance is also attached to recent incidents
of clashes between people and soldiers. It
appears that resentment is now spilling over into
the public sphere. This overcoming of fear of
security forces is in many ways the defining
feature of 2007. Soldiers have been detained,
paraded and in some cases beaten by villagers and
even by residents of towns. The presence of the
armed CRPF soldier in cities is also no longer as
intimidating as it once was. On Srinagar's
Residency Road on December 13 a scuffle between
the CRPF and people saw one jawan being beaten.
On June 26 two army soldiers were detained and
paraded by people in Gujjar Patti, Kunan
(Bandipora) who suspected they were behind the
attempt to molest a young woman. More recently in
Kakroosa (Handwara dist) on Decem- ber 15 and
Panzgam (Kupwara dist) on December 14, personnel
of the special operations group were detained by
villagers for attempting to set fire to build-
ings. There have also been a spate of incidents
when young boys and girls have protested frisking
and misbehav- iour by personnel of security
forces. Consequently, scepticism mounts over the
legitimacy of the "peace" process which does not
address the issue of the presence of hostile
security forces among civilians and instead has
turned into an excuse for doing nothing. It is,
therefore, misplaced enthusiasm to believe that
we are anywhere close to a just solution, let
alone a democratic closure, to a six-decade-old
dispute.
Notes
1 A remarkable comprehensive four-part study on
the issue of land occupation by Indian security
forces in J&K and its consequences is provided in
Hilal Ahmad's articles in Greater Kashmir of
December 7, 12, 16 and 24.
2 Khundru was in the news on August 11, 2007 when
an accident caused explosion in which 40 persons
died and affected 54,000 kanals of agricultural
and horticultural land in 13 villages. The
presence of FADs across J&K, particularly in the
densely populated valley, is akin to placing a
weapon of mass destruction, as indeed was the
case in the Kundroo blast, which affected 30,000
people in a 225 sq km area. Now in the name of
modernising the FAD the army has asked for more
land.
3 Hilal Ahmad, op cit.
4 See Gautam Navlakha, 'Doctrine for Sub-Conven-
tional Operations: A Critique' (EPW, April 7,
2007). While assembly elections are a good 10
months away, senior police officers in their
respective areas have reportedly begun warning
political activists who are likely to campaign
for election boycott, to desist from such
campaigns or else face preventive detention under
Public Security Act for two years.
5 To borrow the description of the new
chairperson of the J&K State Human Rights
Commission. 6 Hundreds of villagers staged a
dharna in front of Bandipora police station on
December 23, to demand that the bodies of the two
militants killed in Papachan village of Bandipora
district be given to them for a burial befitting
a martyr. In the siege of the Mosque at village
Palan Yaripora in Kulgam district on December 24,
three militants died. The next day thousands
gathered to complain against security forces and
demanded the bodies of the militants and then
joined in the last rites.
7 See Missing in Action: A Report on the
Judiciary, Justice and Army Impunity in Kashmir
by Public Commission on Human Rights (J&K) and
People's Union for Democratic Rights (Delhi),
November 2007. It is worth noting that in
contrast to the muscular tone of national
security employed by the government, the language
of resistance in J&K has become acutely
political. This change among other changes have
yet to be noted by commentators.
_______
[4] INDIA: SHRINKING FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION -
Taslima Nasreen, MF Hussain and a growing list of
victims
[As this SACW compilation goes out the Indian
media has reported that Taslima Nasreen's visa
which was due to expire on the 17th February 2008
has been extended for a period of six months, but
that she will remain confined to her state run
'safe house' somewhere in Delhi. All SACW
subscribers are requested to keep writing to the
Indian authorities to grant here Indian
citizenship and to remove all restrictions on her
freedom of movement. ]
o o o
(i)
[February 9, 2008]
PUBLIC STATEMENT BY FORUM FOR THE PROTECTION OF FREE SPEECH AND EXPRESSION
At a time when India is projecting itself on the
world's stage as a modern democracy, while it
hosts international literary festivals and book
fairs, the Government of India, most mainstream
political parties and their armed squads are
mounting a concerted assault on peoples' right to
Free Speech.
It is a matter of abiding shame that even as some
of the world's best-known writers were attending
the Jaipur literary festival and prestigious
publishers were doing business at the World Book
fair in Delhi, the exiled Bengali writer Taslima
Nasrin was (and is) being held in custody by the
Government of India in an undisclosed location
somewhere in or around Delhi in conditions that
amount to house arrest. Contrary to misleading
press reports stating that her visa has been
extended, her visa expires on the 18th of
February, after which she is liable to be
deported or remain confined as an illegal alien.
Taslima Nasrin is only one in a long list of
journalists, writers, scholars and artists who
have been persecuted, banned, imprisoned, forced
into exile or had their work desecrated in this
country. At different points of time, different
governments have either directly or indirectly
resorted to these measures in order to fan the
flames of religious, regional and ethnic
obscurantism to gain popularity and expand their
'vote-banks'. Every day the threat to Free Speech
and Expression increases.
In the case of Taslima Nasrin it was the CPI (M)
and not any religious or sectarian group who
first tried to ban her book Dwikhondito some
years ago. The ban was lifted by the Calcutta
High Court and the book was in the market and on
bestseller lists in West Bengal for several
years. During those years Taslima Nasrin lived
and worked as a free person in Calcutta without
any threat to her person, without being the cause
of public disorder, protests or demonstrations.
Ironically, Taslima Nasrin's troubles in India
began immediately after the Nandigram uprising
when the people of Nandigram, mostly Dalits and
Muslims, rose to resist the West Bengal
Government's attempt to takeover their land, and
tens of thousands of people marched in Calcutta
to protest the government's actions. Within days
a little known group claiming to speak for the
Muslim community asked for a ban on Dwikhondito
and demanded that Taslima Nasrin be deported. The
CPI(M)-led government of West Bengal immediately
caved in to the demand, informed her that it
could not offer her security, and lost no time in
deporting her from West Bengal against her will.
The Congress-led UPA Government has condoned this
act by holding her in custody in Delhi and
refusing, thus far, to extend her visa and
relieve her of her public humiliation. They have
once again played the suicidal card of pitting
minority communalism against majority
communalism, a game that can only end in disaster.
Inevitably, hoping to make political capital out
of the situation, the BJP is publicly shedding
crocodile tears over Taslima Nasrin, going to the
extent of offering her asylum in Gujarat. It
seems to expect people to forget that the BJP,
VHP and RSS cadres have been at the forefront of
harassing, persecuting, threatening and
vandalizing newspaper offices, television
studios, galleries, cinema halls, filmmakers,
artists and writers. Or that they have forced
M.F. Husain, one of India's best-known painters,
into exile.
Meanwhile, in states like Chattisgarh, Andhra
Pradesh and Karnataka, away from the public glare
of press conferences and television cameras,
journalists are being threatened and even
imprisoned. Prashant Rahi from Uttarakhand,
Praful Jha from Chattisgarh, Srisailum from
Andhra Pradesh, P. Govind Kutty from Kerala are a
few examples. As we speak Govind Kutty, who is on
a hunger strike in prison is being force-fed,
bound hand and foot. Scores of ordinary people,
including people like Binayak Sen have been
arrested and held illegally under false charges.
We the undersigned do not necessarily agree with,
endorse or admire the views or the work of those
whose rights we seek to defend. Many of us have
serious differences with them. We agree that many
of them do offend our (or someone else's)
religious, political and ideological
sensibilities. However, we believe that instead
of making them simultaneously into both victims
and heroes, their work should be viewed, read,
criticized and vigorously debated. We believe
that the Freedom of Speech and Expression is an
Absolute and Inalienable Right, and is the
keystone of a modern democracy.
If the Indian Government deports Taslima Nasrin,
or holds her as an illegal alien, it will shame
and diminish all of us. We demand that she be
given a Resident's Permit or, if she has applied
for it, Indian citizenship, and that she be
allowed to live and work freely in India. We
demand that the spurious cases filed against M.F.
Husain be dropped and that he be allowed to
return to a normal life in India. We demand that
the journalists who are being illegally detained
in prison against all principles of natural
justice be released immediately.
Signed:
Mahashweta Devi, Arundhati Roy, Ashish Nandy, Girish Karnad
o o o
(ii)
SAHMAT
8, Vithalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg
New Delhi-110001
Telephone-23711276/ 23351424
e-mail-sahmat at vsnl.com
13.2.2008
PRESS STATEMENT ON TASLIMA NASRIN
It is a matter of great anxiety that the exiled
Bengali writer Taslima Nasrin is still being kept
in an undisclosed place by the Government of
India. It is learnt that she is not allowed any
visitors and cannot move freely. Her visa expires
on the 18th of February, after which she is
liable to be deported. While we may or may not
agree with the views or the work of Taslima
Nasrin, we believe that her right to freedom of
speech and expression is inviolable. We demand
that her visa be extended with immediate effect
and she be provide a congenial atmosphere to live
and work.
Ashok Kumari
For
SAHMAT
o o o
(iii)
Dawn
February 11, 2008
TASLIMA LIVES SOMEWHERE IN DELHI, HUSSAIN IN DUBAI
by Jawed Naqvi
Raj Thackeray doesn't like Bihari migrants in
Mumbai to practise their way of worship, for
example their native Chhat Puja or water worship.
His mentor Bal Thackeray had similar issues with
ethnic Tamil immigrants. That was way back in
time, before he turned his benign gaze upon the
Muslim and Christian communities of Mumbai even
if they happened to be Marathi speakers.
Narendra Modi in Gujarat too doesn't like Muslims
or Christians in his state. In fact he doesn't
like secular Hindus either. Renowned artist MF
Hussain whose studio in Ahmedabad was destroyed
under Modi's watch now lives in exile for fear of
his life and danseuse Mrinalini Sarabhai is
stoically coping with the full blast of the
state's ire. Any Hindu would face it in Gujarat
if they spoke for an equal law for the minorities
as Sarabhai did.
But minority groups are not far behind in
championing their own narrow mindsets. They have
played havoc with Muslim women's rights. They
have hounded Bangladeshi fugitive writer Taslima
Nasrin, on at least one occasion physically
assaulting her and threatening to have her killed
for alleged blasphemy. The state has done one
better. It has put Taslima Nasrin under an
undeclared house arrest. Women writers who spoke
to Taslima say she fears she would be deported.
Her visa expires on 18th February. The government
it seems has falsely claimed that it has been
extended. If the virtual house arrest is the
state's way of keeping her secure from rightwing
Muslim rabble-rousers who could harm her, it is
tantamount to the cure being worse than the
ailment. If Taslima has written something
blasphemous, as perhaps she has in one of her
books, a democratic state should be able to
intervene to deliver fair justice without
compromising on its commitment to either free
speech or religious freedom.
The idea of India as the founders envisaged it
was to have such a complete democracy in this
country that it would give every single citizen,
or a fugitive, or the casual visitor each and
every freedom conceivable in a civilised world.
That idea was enshrined in the Constitution of
India. It remains the only bible the state is
authorised to consult to resolve a substantive
difference of opinion it may have with the people
or to end a dispute about a matter of principle
between them.
The founders neither desired nor offered room, in
their delicately crafted idea of a nation state,
for religious, regional, linguistic or ethnic
mindsets to be entertained by the state's
representatives. This of course did not mean that
they had failed to observe a few of these slants
blossoming and flourishing in their time, but
these were not given any space in what we
generally know as public affairs. Of course the
founders were aware that with a surfeit of
regions, religions, languages and ethnicities
co-existing cheek by jowl there would be
differences or disputes that needed to be handled
with care and special firmness.
Most of the biases India has inherited are
chronic and cultural in their origin with a
history of at least a few hundred years. In some
cases, tendencies bequeathed by the hidebound
caste system go back a few thousand years in
history. All these have been found difficult to
wish away. However, other forms of mistrust
evolved meanwhile from modern classes and social
groups thrown up by colonial and post-colonial
economic quests. Consequently, India is currently
divided between the worldview cherished by 20 to
30 per cent of its citizens who are destined to
enjoy the fruits of its economic policies and the
70 to 80 per cent of those who are condemned to
wait with fading hope for their space under the
shining sun since 1991. The tussle of the rich
and the have-nots acquires the form of irrational
prejudices too which erupt occasionaly like in
Raj Thackeray's sermon to the Biharis who are
otheriwse a poor hardworking lot.
The main political parties who had hitherto lived
by taking money from the rich and the vote from
the poor with the promise to protect them from
each other are being compelled to consider more
surgical methods to keep the 30:70 apartheid
intact. Since in a democracy 70 per cent can
easily vote out all policies that favour a mere
30 per cent, a method had to be evolved to break
the brute majority of the have-nots. The staple
so far has been to woo votes from among the 70
per cent by playing up their parochial
prejudices. Muslims make a large and readymade
vote bank here. Hindus are a lot more difficult
to weld together as a voting lobby. We know of
'AJGAR' and 'MY' factors in Indian elections,
representing Ahir, Jat, Gujar, Adivasi and Rajput
in parts of north and western India and
Muslim-Yadav in Bihar. These are all
predominantly Hindu groups but usually at
loggerheads with each other. Yet the overwhelming
majority of India's Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists
and Christians belong to the 70 per cent of the
have-nots. This should ideally pit them against
the 30 per cent predominantly Hindu interest
groups who are ruling the roost. Such a
democratic coup would be unacceptable to the
Indian state as it has evolved. Therefore, Messrs
Thackeray and Modi are assigned a pivotal role to
sort out the mess.
The imageries of Taslima and Husain are useful in
this respect. Taslima, it is said, has hurt
Muslim sentiments with her blasphemous writings
and Hussain, we are told, has hurt Hindu
sentiments with his supposedly offensive
paintings of goddesses. But Taslima has been in
Kolkata for years after she wrote Dwikhandita,
the evidently objectionable book. So what has
happened suddenly to bring her alleged apostasy
into the mainframe of Muslim ire? The answer
comes from a direction that is surprising. It has
been suggested by a growing number of respected
intellectuals that the communist government in
West Bengal, hitherto regarded as the repository
of secular virtues, is quite a lot responsible
for targeting Taslima. Her criticism of the
violence, which communist cadres had unleashed on
the impoverished Dalit and Muslim residents of
Nandigram is said to be a key reason for
Taslima's current misery. So it is a sad day
indeed that the left also appears to have
acquired the methods of "bourgeois" rule it had
so far fought tenaciously. The left's apparent
culpability in the Taslima affair, and its
willingness to use Muslim communalism even though
it has been the target of Muslim obscurantist
groups in the past, is a new development in the
equation.
The anger, if not complete disillusionment, with
the left seems to have outraged large swathes of
left sympathisers and ordinary democratic
opinion-makers across India. Implied in their
criticism is the call to the left: stop behaving
like the Congress and the BJP. Eminent writers
such as Mahashweta Devi, Arundhati Roy, Ashish
Nandy and Girish Karnad have called a major
meeting this week to demand the release of
Taslima Nasrin and the safe return of Hussain
from Dubai, among other issues. But the most
interesting message in this meeting to my mind
will be a word of caution to the Left Front to
distance itself from the brand of politics that
breeds mediaeval prejudices.
The writers have taken measures of course to
ensure that the BJP gets no succour from their
ire against the Congress and the left. They
released a statement on Sunday ahead of a public
meeting on Wednesday. It says: "Inevitably,
hoping to make political capital out of the
situation, the BJP is publicly shedding crocodile
tears over Taslima Nasrin, going to the extent of
offering her asylum in Gujarat. It seems to
expect people to forget that the BJP, VHP and RSS
cadres have been at the forefront of harassing,
persecuting, threatening and vandalising
newspaper offices, television studios, galleries,
cinema halls, filmmakers, artists and writers. Or
that they have forced MF Hussain, one of India's
best-known painters, into exile."
The writers also raised an alert about the little
known incarceration of journalists in states like
Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. "Away
from the public glare of press conferences and
television cameras, journalists are being
threatened and even imprisoned. Prashant Rahi
from Uttarakhand, Praful Jha from Chattisgarh,
Srisailum from Andhra Pradesh, P Govind Kutty
from Kerala are a few examples."
o o o
(iv)
Rediff News
WHY IS TASLIMA NASREEN A PRISONER?
by Indira Jaising
February 12, 2008
Taslima Nasreen's incarceration, by the
government of India is now an established fact.
In a recent article in the Times of India, she
describes herself as a 'prisoner'. The truth
seems to be, she is being held as a detainee
under Section 3 of the Foreigners Act 1946.
Strange as it may seems, the government does have
the power to hold her in custody under Section
3(e) of the Foreigners Act. However, one would
have thought that for a person lawfully in the
country, as Taslima is, no such powers could be
exercised.
The power is meant to deal with foreigners who
commit crimes and are for some valid reason,
wanted or needed by the law for extradition or
deportation. Taslima is not in that situation and
yet she has been in the custody of the government
of India since November 2007. Taslima has
committed no crime nor has she violated the terms
of her visa. On the contrary, crimes have been
committed against her.
Her deprivation of liberty is therefore not
capable of any rational explanation. Perhaps, the
only explanation that could be offered is that
she is being held in custody in her own interest,
as a measure of protection against criminal
elements who assault her for her writings. The
question then would be does providing security
require her to be in custody at an unknown
destination?
She has been in the country for a long time now,
with no security problems. Why then this sudden
concern for her security, such that it warrants
her being at an unknown location? Could it be
that the idea of the detention is to make her
wait till her visa expires and then deport her?
Or perhaps to tire her out to the extent that she
leaves 'voluntarily'. Both options are deplorable.
Taslima has a right to know well in advance
whether she is being granted an extension of her
visa or not, to enable her to make an effective
representation against a possible deportation.
She and the rest of the nation are being kept in
the dark about her legal status in this country.
She has been prevented from disclosing her
whereabouts or from seeking legal advice. It is
true that she has not taken any legal action
against her situation, but she is after all, in
this country on a visa which can be cancelled at
any time and she can be deported. And she lives
on hope that the Indian government will honour
its commitment to her and grant an extension.
It is not often understood that foreigners too
have constitutional rights, one of most important
of them being the right to life and personal
liberty. Clearly Taslima's right to life and
liberty have been violated by her detention.
Unless the government has good reasons to justify
her detention, she must be set free. Taslima has
been wronged against. She has the right to be
informed about her visa status, it is of vital
important to her to know if she is a legal
immigrant. After February 17 she is liable to be
an illegal immigrant, if her visa is not
extended. She has a right to meet people of her
choice, her publishers, her lawyer and her
friends, all of which have been denied.
We as Indian citizens have a right to meet her as
much as she has a right to meet us. Many years
ago, the Supreme Court held that a journalist has
a right to meet people in prison to write about
their conditions of detention. We seem to
forgotten those rights.
Taslima has applied for Indian citizenship and
she has a right to know the status of her
application. Her parents were born in undivided
India and that makes her eligible for Indian
citizenship. She has not been given any
information on the status of her application.
Taslima is a refugee from her own country and has
been in exile for the last 12 years and more. It
is true that she has a Swedish passport which
enables her to travel but that does not make her
any less a refugee. She has repeatedly said that
she has no links with Europe and would much
prefer to be in India, a country with which she
and her country share a history, culture and
language. She is no less an exile or a refugee
who is entitled to be treated by India as a
refuge and entitled to refuge in the country of
her choice.
Indira Jaising is a senior Supreme Court lawyer
_______
[5] INDIA: STATEMENTS BY CONCERNED CITIZENS
PROTESTING DISRUPTION OF FILM SCREENING IN BHOPAL
Copy of the Memorandum submitted to the Resident Commissioner
Dated 13 th February 2008
To
The Resident Commissioner
Government of Madhya Pradesh
Delhi
Sub : Assault on freedom of expression
Greetings !
This is to convey to you our deep sense of
anguish at the recent developments in Madhya
Pradesh where the connivance of the 'lunatic
fringe' of the Sangh Parivar with the different
levels of state administration have created a
situation where right to freedom of expression is
being trampled with impunity.
The manner in which private screening of
Shubhradeep Chakravorty's recent documentary on
encounter killings in Gujarat titled 'Encountered
on Saffron Agenda' was disrupted and the
participants to the programme were humiliated and
brutalised by the combined might of the police
and the Bajrang Dal goons is a case in point.
Yuva Samvad, an informal organisation of Youth
had organised the screening of the documentary on
7 th February at AICUF Ashram, Bhopal.
Shubhradeep a New Delhi based documentary
filmmaker and the director of the film, who has
received critical acclaim with his earlier
documentary on Gujarat genocide 2002 named
'Godhra Tak' , was also present on the occasion
to participate in the ensuing discussion.The
screening of the documentary was supposed to
start at 7 p.m. but before it could happen a
horde of Bajrang Dal activists numbering around
70 came to the venue and disrupted the show . The
police instead of nabbing the miscreants forced
the organisers of this screening to cancel the
programme itself.
It may be told that the latest documentary which
was shot in seven states, is based on
investigative documentation of few encounter
killings in Gujarat in recent times. A
significant commonality between all these
encounters was that those killed in these
encounters were said to have on a mission to kill
the Chief Minister Narendra Modi who had
allegedly organised the 2002 genocide of Muslims
in the state after Godhra train burning incident.
It was widely reported that in its recent
National Executive meeting Mr Rajnath Singh,
President of BJP exhorted BJP ruled states to
follow the 'Gujarat Model' . Can one then say
that the organised attack is a precursor to
bigger attacks to make M.P. a new citadel of
Hindutva. Or it should be seen as the last ditch
attempts by saffron brigade which is loosing
popular support and where its ministers
themselves have no qualms in complaining about
the growing corruption of the administration, to
suppress any voice of dissent and difference.
Whatever might be the case , we would like to
emphasise that the MP state government led by Mr
Shiv Raj Singh Chauhan has utterly failed in its
constitutional duties to protect the right to
freedom of expression. It is high time that state
takes corrective action.
We demand
i) The policemen involved in this act be immediately punished.
ii. The miscreants belonging to the Bajrang Dal
be immediately nabbed and cases are filed against
them.
iii. The government should henceforth take extra
care that there such incidents do not recur
Anand Patwardhan, Simantini Dhuru, Rakesh Sharma,
Shyam Benegal, Ali Kazimi, Meena Manji, Nirmala
Nair, Prashant Kadam, Joseph Joshi, Vidyarthi
Chatterji, S.Kuwalekar, Anjali Monteiro,
K.P.Jayshankar, Rajashree, Pinaki Chatterjee,
Nilanjan Bhattacharya, Meghnath, Biju
Toppo,Vijaya Mulay, Aruna Raje Patil, Neela
Bhagwat, Amarendra Dhaneshwar, Rani Day Burra,
Mahnoor Yar Khan, Amudhan, Jabeen Merchant,
Chandita Mukherji, Sunil Shanbag, Shohini Ghosh,
Prasad Chacko, Javed Ameer, Ashfaq Mohammed,
Bharat Parmar, Bharatsinh Jhala, Sushila
Prajapati, Beena Jadav, Khalid Chaudhary, Charu
Pankaj Gargi, Pankaj Butalia, Shoma Chatterji,
Nilosree Biswas, K.S. Sudeep, Yousuf Saeed, Ajay
Bhardwaj, Krishnendu Bose,
o o o
Progressive Students Union (PSU)
Pragatisheel Yuva Sangathan (PYS)
Delhi
(Contact : 9868567425 / 9868663932)
Dharana at M.P. Bhavan
To Protest Assault on Freedom of Expression
Press Release : Delhi - 13 th February 2008
A joint dharana of intellectuals, cultural
activists and members of mass organisations of
students, youth and women was held today at M.P.
bhavan today to protest the growing assaults on
freedom of expression in the state. Protesters
were specially agitated over recent developments
in Madhya Pradesh where the connivance of the
'lunatic fringe' of the Sangh Parivar with the
different levels of state administration have
created a situation where right to freedom of
expression is being trampled with impunity. A
memorandum duly approved by leading documentary
makers and signed by other participants was also
submitted to the resident commissioner to convey
the demands of the protesters to the M.P.
government.
Addressing the meeting speakers underlined the
manner in which private screening of Shubhradeep
Chakravorty's recent documentary on encounter
killings in Gujarat titled 'Encountered on
Saffron Agenda' was disrupted and the
participants to the programme were humiliated and
brutalised by the combined might of the police
and the Bajrang Dal goons.
It was told that Yuva Samvad, an informal
organisation of Youth had organised the screening
of the documentary on 7 th February at AICUF
Ashram, Bhopal. Shubhradeep a New Delhi based
documentary filmmaker and the director of the
film, who has received critical acclaim with his
earlier documentary on Gujarat genocide 2002
named 'Godhra Tak' , was also present on the
occasion to participate in the ensuing
discussion.The screening of the documentary was
supposed to start at 7 p.m. but before it could
happen a horde of Bajrang Dal activists numbering
around 70 came to the venue and disrupted the
show . The police instead of nabbing the
miscreants forced the organisers of this
screening to cancel the programme itself.
Underlining the failure of the MP state
government in protecting the right to freedom of
expression it was demanded that the
policepersonnel involved in this act be
immediately punished, the miscreants belonging to
the Bajrang Dal be immediately nabbed and cases
are filed against them.
_______
[6]
The Telegraph
February 14 , 2008
MUSEUM FROM RIOT CINDERS
by Basant Rawat
(Top)The Gulbarg Society building and Jafri's widow.
Ahmedabad, Feb. 13: Out of the charred remains of
Gulbarg Society's riot-wracked homes will rise a
"museum of resistance", if Teesta Setalvad has
her way.
The Mumbai-based rights activist is planning to
turn the Ahmedabad housing society where Congress
MP Ehsaan Jafri was burnt alive and 67 killed by
Godhra rioters in 2002 into a world-class museum.
The idea is to build a memorial to the innocent
people who lost their lives during the mindless
carnage and make it a rallying point for the
movement against communal violence.
"For those of us at Citizens for Justice and
Peace who have devoted the better part of
two-and-a-half decades battling the forces of
communalism, hatred and division, this will be an
effort to institutionalise resistance and
energise survivors and human rights defenders,"
Teesta said.
Since the carnage six years ago, Gulbarg Society
in the heart of the city has been like a mini
ghost town. None of the residents of the
once-prestigious minority complex - it has 19
bungalows and eight flats - has dared to return,
opting for safety rather than their former homes.
Most of the violence-scarred residents are
willing to give up their homes and make way for
the museum, provided they get the market price
for their property, Ehsaan Jafri's son Tanvir
said.
"A museum will be a genuine tribute to those
innocent people who were killed not just in
Gulbarg but elsewhere in Gujarat," Tanvir said.
He said he had once wanted to turn his house into
a museum and install his father's statue in it.
But he junked the idea because friends told him
the idea was "un-Islamic".
Teesta said she anticipated the Narendra Modi
regime to block the proposal as the BJP and the
Sangh would naturally prefer to bury the ghastly
memories of the riots that bled Gujarat, which
was under BJP rule then, too.
"Even if I have to approach the Supreme Court, I
will not give up the idea. The movement for the
museum is part of our battle against the
vindictive state," she said.
Teesta plans to go to the public to raise money
to pay off the residents willing to give up their
abandoned homes.
A former resident, Sharif Sheikh, said he was a
little sceptical because a museum would enshrine
memories of the massacre and force him to relive
the trauma of losing his loved ones.
Besides, visitors to the memorial would try to
seek out survivors for a first-hand account of
what happened. "We cannot go on narrating the
same old story again and again," he said.
But of late, he and most other survivors who stay
in Juhapura, a minority ghetto of sorts, and do
odd jobs for a living had come round to the idea,
he said.
"I am least bothered about anything. I'm only
interested in selling my house where I cannot go
back to live. If I get the market price for my
house, I will be happy," he said.
The museum will be put in place with help from
architects, historians, artists and writers.
Every year on February 28, the day of the
carnage, a programme will be held to commemorate
the horrors of communal violence and stress the
need to eradicate it.
All related literature, documents, art, posters
and film graphics will be on display, Teesta said.
"From the ashes of these memories will emerge the
understanding that will give shape to the
resistance we are trying to build," she said.
______
[7]
The Guardian,
February 14, 2008
FAILED BY RELIGIOUS LAW
The Archbishop of Canterbury's comments have
opened the closet on those most let down by faith
community justice - women
by Pragna Patel
By calling for a debate on the place of personal
(religious) laws in a modern democratic legal
system, the Archbishop of Canterbury has done us
all a big favour. Much of what goes on behind
closed doors involves powerbrokers from the state
and minority communities sitting together to
shape a social contract, devoid of any notion of
social justice and democratic accountability. So,
as a member of a long-standing black women's
group, I for one am thankful that he is making
transparent views that we believe are more widely
shared.
We have often encountered such views when seeking
to assert the human rights of some of the most
vulnerable sections of our communities. The
sentiments expressed by the archbishop are
indicative of those who call themselves
"progressive" or "liberal" but who are often the
most insidious. Why? Because in the rush to be
tolerant or sensitive to religious difference,
they have created the space for the most
authoritarian and even fundamentalist religious
leaders to take control of our communities. We
are witness to the consolidation of the "faith
agenda" promoted by the government in the name of
"cohesion and integration", a process in which
the undemocratic power of "moderate"
(authoritarian if not fundamentalist) religious
leaders has come to be institutionalised at all
levels of society. They have been actively
encouraged to take over spaces once occupied by
the secular welfare state or progressive secular
groups committed to challenging structural
inequality.
The painful everyday realities of many minority
women and children show that there is nothing
"moderate" about the way in which such leaders
have dictated the social agenda. A glance at
their demands will show that most are about the
need to retain "purity" of religious identity,
through the control of women's minds and bodies.
Many promote violent forms of sharia and
religious laws both here and abroad. These same
leaders have created a climate of intolerance and
fear against those who seek to question or
dissent from prevailing religious or cultural
norms. That is why demands for blasphemy laws,
separate schools and personal laws to govern the
family affairs of the community are at the
forefront of their agenda.
But I am not just talking about extreme examples
of control. I refer also to the everyday
experiences of abuse and violence to women and
children in which religious community leaders are
implicated. Over some 30 years, we have never
known of women resorting to the civil law for
divorce, injunctions and custody of children
without first having exhausted internal methods
of resolution through community and religious
structures. It is only when they are failed at
every turn that they seek justice from the wider
legal system. Most when listened to, are
encouraged to return to abusive families, having
first been castigated for being disloyal to their
religion and culture. (The experiences of the
many Jewish women who have had to endure the Beth
Din system also confirms the unequal status
accorded to women in these undemocratic community
arbitration schemes.)
The idea that civil law should to a greater
degree, accommodate cultural and religious
difference in family matters is equally
vulnerable to challenge. Such accommodation is
problematic because in many instances it would
necessarily involve shoring up patriarchal and
caste power, resulting in the violation of
fundamental human rights, especially the right of
choice and autonomy for women and girls in
particular.
It is true, as Ayesha Khan pointed out earlier
this week in the Guardian, that most minority
(not just Muslim) women, harbour a strong
instinct to fight for their rights. This is
precisely why any move to limit their rights by
institutionalising discriminatory value systems
within the wider legal system will be dangerous.
Those who need our help the most are those who
are the most powerless to determine their
choices. Women approaching religious councils
which have no formal legal value in any country
(including Muslim countries) are not exercising a
right, but merely demonstrating to their
communities that they are not defying their
norms. Our experience shows that what many
eventually want the most, is the right to opt out
of those aspects of their religion and culture
that they consider oppressive, without fear of
repercussions.
If the archbishop wished to do so, he would also
avoid framing this debate as if black and
minority people can't claim ownership of the
human rights principles and norms that now
underpin the English legal system. At best, the
archbishop is dangerously misguided in his
attempt to assert a tolerant liberalism. At
worst, he seeks to shape a larger agenda in order
to privilege all religionists.
______
[8] Announcements:
PRESS INVITE
JNUSU and Forum for Democratic Initiatives (FDI) invite you to a
Press Meet
Case Of False Framing Of Aftab Alam Ansari and
Justice Against Witch-Hunt Of Minorities
Date: 15.2.08 Venue: IWPC Time: 2.00pm
Speakers:
Aftab Alam Ansari,
the victim of false terror charges and torture.
An employee of the Calcutta Electric Supply
Corporation (CESC), Aftab, was arrested and
tortured on false charges of being a 'terrorist'
by the STF of UP in conjunction with Kolkata
Police on 27 Dec 07. After being tortured for 20
days he was eventually released and proved
innocent due to the efforts of his mother.
Md. Sohaib Aftab's Lawyer
Piyush Shrivastava Journalist (Mail Today) who first made
Aftab's story public
Manoj Kr. Singh ( Dainik Hindustan, Gorakhpur Correspondent)
Prashant Bhushan, Supreme Court advocate
Prof. Tanika Sarkar, JNU
and Office Bearers of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union
and Forum for Democratic Initiatives.
The meeting and the Press conference are being
organized to highlight the atrocities on Aftab
Ansari, demand due justice and compensation, and
also to emphasize the rampant witch-hunt against
minorities that
is going on in UP at this juncture in the name of "war on terror".
Please ensure your presence and support by
sending your correspondent and
photographer/cameraperson to cover the event.
Sandeep Singh,
President, JNUSU,
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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
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