SACW | June 15-16, 2008 / Rebuilding in Bamiyan / Harassment of Ashis Nandy / Scapegoating of Bangladeshis / Hindu supremacist rhetoric

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at gmail.com
Mon Jun 16 01:50:32 CDT 2008


South Asia Citizens Wire | June 15-16 , 2008 | 
Dispatch No. 2525 - Year 10 running

[1]  Afghanistan's misdirected security-led aid - 
the troubled rebuilding of Bamiyan
[2]  Pakistan: Finding solution to growing obscurantism (Ishrat Hyatt)
[3] India: Statement by Academics and Activists 
on the Harassment of Ashis Nandy and a Demand for 
Withdrawal of Spurious Charges Levied Against Him
[4] India: Jaipur blasts: Bangladeshis, scapegoat for cops?
[5] India: He beats holy men at their own game (Jeevan Mathew Kurian)
[6] India: Has the BJP disowned this man? (Sitaram Yechury)
[7] India: RSS sees 'security threat' in Grameen [Bank] entry (Sanjay Basak)
[8] India: Peddling Sanskrit infused with Hindu 
supremacist rhetoric (Rama Laxmi)
[9] The Chieftain State of Gujarat - Where the Republic Ends (Badri Raina)
[10] India: Another Bakery, another Parzania (Harsh Mander)
[11] India: Declare a moratorium on 
statue-building: build schools, hospitals, 
bridges and roads instead (Namita Bhandare)

______


[1] AFGHANISTAN: ON THE TROUBLED REBUILDING OF 
BAMIYAN AND ITS NEGLECTED HAZARA PEOPLE

a recent video report from Al-Jazeera on aid and 
reconstruction efforts in the region of the 
Bamiyan Buddhas. It dosent sound too hopeful as 
many things Afghanistan get mired in the murky 
logic of security and international 
developmentalism:

Afghanistan's misdirected security-led aid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhtQlBVF8tU

______

[2]

The News International
9 June 2008

FINDING SOLUTION TO GROWING OBSCURANTISM

by Ishrat Hyatt

Islamabad

A play inspired by a short Urdu story 
prophetically written by Ghulam Abbas in the mid 
1960's and adopted by Shahid Nadeem, 'Hotel 
Mohenjodaro,' was staged at the National Art 
Gallery auditorium with a theme dealing with 
social issues. We read about what's happening in 
our daily papers and view the frightening events 
on television but need to be reminded again and 
again of these threats, with the hope that a 
solution will be found to the growing 
obscurantism and divisions in our society before 
it is too late.

The story is simple - Pakistan reaches a 
scientifically advanced stage, launching a rocket 
which lands successfully on the moon and the 
event is celebrated in 'Hotel Mohenjodaro,' with 
ambassadors of the US, China and Saudi Arabia 
lauding the achievement. On hearing the news, 
maulvis of different factions condemn the launch 
and start a movement, which gathers strength, 
spreading from the villages to the cities till it 
reaches the capital.

The Khateeb-e-Azam of the grand mosque condemns 
the satanic sciences, calls it a blasphemous act 
and warns the people of the consequences on the 
day of judgment. He urges his followers to 
overthrow the 'kafir' government and orders the 
promulgation of 'divine law.' The new regime is 
successful in enforcing Islamic law but soon 
sectarian differences crop up leading to conflict 
and internal strife. Pursuing its policy of 
self-righteousness the regime totally isolates 
itself from the comity of nations and eventually, 
a foreign country attacks Pakistan and defeats it.

In the final act, experts and archaeologists go 
in search of the location from where the 
ill-fated rocket was launched in the once 
advanced country, only to find another 
Mohenjodaro - a pile of bricks and stones that 
was once a city.

The play is dramatised in Ajoka style with a 
minimum of props and a video screening of actual 
events to highlight the action on stage. The 
rhetoric by the religious leaders sounded 
familiar, their actions looked chillingly 
realistic - though some people laughed at the 
wrong time during the performance, thus taking 
away from the impact of the scene - but the 
response from the 'full house' audience was 
positive as they applauded between scenes and 
after the play concluded.

The actors, many of whom had dual roles, did a 
good job of portraying their characters, while 
the music and songs gave a fillip to the 
storyline.

Speaking on the occasion, Madiha Gauhar thanked 
the sponsors - Sungi, SDPI - and the PNCA for 
permission to hold the play in the auditorium. 
She appealed to theatre lovers who asked her to 
come to Islamabad more often, to sponsor Ajoka as 
it was very expensive to move from one city to 
another with cast and crew, though they did 
manage to travel around the country to send out 
the message of their concerns on social issues. 
She also thanked her team, both on and off stage, 
by naming them individually and the audience for 
being responsive.

Shahid Nadeem said when Ghulam Abbas read his 
story 'Dhanak' at the Halqa Arbabe Zauq in Lahore 
it was greeted with stony silence but when it was 
thrown open for discussion it evoked a strong 
reaction, severely condemned by some as an attack 
on religion or a satire on the various sectarian 
divisions within religion. As he wanted to 
publish his work he had massive problems 
convincing the publishers, who feared some kind 
of a reprisal and a backlash.

Unfortunately the intellectuals and analysts of 
2008 are in the same state of denial - that 
society does not face a threat; the brainwashed 
and cold blooded suicide killers have a genuine 
grievance to rebel and a justifiable reason to 
cause death and destruction. They all claim that 
mysterious 'foreign hands' are behind terrorist 
attacks but the havoc created in the past few 
years in the name of jihad is pushing us over the 
precipice and before we know it we will be 
hurtling down into the abyss.

Noted poet and writer, Kishwar Naheed said she 
was happy that Ajoka had dramatised the story, 
which had been neglected for so many years. Even 
now when you pick up a collection or a section of 
Ghulam Abbas's works, particularly his short 
stories, more often than not this story is not 
included in the publication - it is more 
remembered for its translation done much later by 
Khalid Hasan, titled 'Hotel Mohenjodaro'.


______


[3]

[Available on Line at:
earlier version : http://www.hindu.com/nic/gujarathsign.htm
Latest version : http://www.sacw.net/FreeExpAndFundos/defendNandy16June08.html
---


STATEMENT BY ACADEMICS AND ACTIVISTS ON THE 
HARASSMENT OF ASHIS NANDY AND A DEMAND FOR 
WITHDRAWAL OF SPURIOUS CHARGES LEVIED AGAINST HIM

[Released on 16 June 2008]

We write to protest in the strongest possible 
terms against the charges of criminal offence 
levied against Ashis Nandy, a political 
psychologist, sociologist and an internationally 
renowned public intellectual of the highest 
caliber.  This is the latest case of harassment 
of intellectuals, journalists, artists, and 
public figures by antidemocratic forces that 
claim to speak on behalf of Hindu values 
sometimes and patriotism at other times, 
especially in Gujarat, but who have little 
understanding of either.  What is pernicious in 
this  case is that the charge of criminal offence 
against Nandy  levied under Section 153 (A) and 
(B) for his newspaper article "Blame the Middle 
Classes" ,  was brought by the head of the 
Gujarat Branch of the National Council of Civil 
Liberties.  The State Government of Gujarat by 
giving its permission for filing the case has 
shown its own complicity in the case.

It seems part of the strategy of the most 
intolerant sections of Indian society today to 
make a cynical use the language of civil 
liberties to achieve ends that are the opposite 
of what the aspirations to civil liberties and 
the struggles over them represent. The harassment 
of well-known intellectuals and artists hides we 
fear, the daily intimidation being faced by 
members of minorities and especially the Muslims 
in Gujarat. We demand that all the charges 
against Professor Nandy be immediately dropped. 
We understand that there is a great deal of 
anxiety in Gujarat today about its lost honour. 
It might help to remind ourselves that this 
honour or "asmita"  will not be gained by acts of 
violence and intimidation but by recovering or 
discovering the humanity of each other. Gujarat 
can and will regain its own destiny by 
remembering the politics of nonviolence, as one 
of its sons by the name of Mohandas Karamchand 
Gandhi once taught the nation and the world.

1.Veena Das, Johns Hopkins University, USA.

2.Homi Bhabha, Harvard University, USA

3.Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Center for Policy Research, Delhi, India

4.Gananath Obeyesekere, Princeton University, USA

5.Pratiksha Baxi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India

6. Saurabh Dube, El Colegio de Mexico

7. Diana Eck, Harvard University, USA

8.Sanjay Subrahmaniam, University of California at Los Angeles, USA

9.Lawrence Cohen, University of California Berkeley, USA

10.Sasanka Perera,  University of Colombo, Sri Lanka

11. Jonathan Spencer, University of Edinburgh, UK

12.Flavia Agnes, Legal Center of Majlis, Mumbai, india

13. Harsh Mandar, Aman Biradari, Delhi, india

14. Uma Chakravarty, Independent Scholar, Delhi, India

15.Hent de Vries, Johns Hopkins University, USA

16. Ravinder Kaur, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India

17. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, University of California  Berkeley, USA

18. Akhil Gupta, University of California Los Angeles, USA

19.Ishita Bannerjee, El Colegio de Mexico, Mexico

20.Nivedita Menon, University of Delhi,  India

21.Deepak Mehta, University of Delhi, India

22. Nirja Gopal Jayal, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

23. Srimati Basu, University of Kentucky, USA

24. Pamela Reynolds, Johns Hopkins University, USA

25. Perveez Mody, University of Cambridge UK

26. Janaki Abraham, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India

27. Rajni Palriwala, University of Delhi, India

28. Kalpana Kannabiran, NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad

29.Stewart Motha, Kent Law School, UK

30. Anand Pandian, Johns Hopkins University, USA

31.Vikram Vyas, St. Stephens College, University of Delhi

32.Maria Pia de Bella, CNRS-IRSI-EHESS, Paris

33. Gil Anidjar, Columbia University, USA

34. Lawrence Liang, Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore

35 Ranendra K Das, Johns Hopkins University, USA

36. Stanley Samarsinghe, Tulane University, USA

37.Kavi Bhalla, Harvard Initiative for Global Health, USA

38.Naveeda Khan, Johns Hopkins University, USA

39 C K Raju, Center for Studies in Civilizations, Delhi, India

40. Asha Singh, Lady Irwin College, University of Delhi, Delhi.

41 Sanjay Barbora, Panos Institute South Asia, Guwahati, India

42.K. Tudor Silva, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

43. Ashok Xavier, Loyola College, Chennai, India

44. Rada Ivekovic, College international de philosophie, Paris

45. Vasuki Nesiah, Brown University, USA

46. Nermeen Shaikh, Asia Society, New York, USA

47. Mani Shekhar Singh, Independent Scholar, Delhi

48. Kavita Misra, Columbia University, USA

49. Christopher Stone, Hunter College, New York, USA

50.Arjun Appadurai, New School University, USA

51.Fredrique-Appfel Marglin, Smith College, USA

52. Ailli Trip, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

53. Nayanika Mookherjee, Lancaster University, UK

54. Sanjay Reddy, University of Columbia, USA

55.Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago, USA

56. Sanmay Das, Ransellier Polytechnic Institute, USA

57. Mohan Trivedi, University of California, San Diego, USA

58.Kamala Visweswaran, University of Texas at Austin, USA

59.Banu Subramaniam, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

60.Geeta Patel, University of Virginia, USA

61.Ajay Sakaria, University of Minnesota, USA

62.Gloria Goodwin Raheja, University of Minnesota, USA

63.Farah Aziz, Journalist, Mumbai, India

64.Pankj Mishra, Writer, New York, USA

65.Uday Mehta, Amherst College, USA

66.Qadri Ismail, University of Minnesota, USA

67. Rachel Dwyer, University of London, UK

68. Michael Dwyer, Publisher, London, UK

69.Bhaskar Sarkar, UC Santa Barbara, USA

70.Ashok Dhareshwar, Washington, DC, USA

71.Mahdi Almandrja, University Mohammad V Rabat, Morocco

72. Richard Falk, Princeton University, USA

73. Piya Chatterjee, UC Riverside, USA

74 Ann Grodzins Gold, Syracuse University, New York

75. Sunil Bhavsar, San Diego, California, USA

76.Simone Sawhney, University of Minnesota, USA

77.Gyanendra Pandey, Emory University, USA

78.Sabina Sawhney, Hofstra University, New York, USA

79.Vivek Dhareshwar, Center for the Study of 
Culture and Society,      Bangalore, India

80. Adel Wessell, Southern Cross University,  Australia

81. Baden Oxford, Southern Cross University, Australia

82. Indira Chowdhury, ARCH, Bangalore, India.

83. Jerry  Pinto, Journalist, Mumbai, India.

84. Andrea Pinto, Librarian, Mumbai, India.

85.Sruti Chaganthi, Center for the Study of 
Culture and Society, Bangalore, India

86.David Loy, Xavier University, Ohio, USA

87.Jan Obevg, Transnational Foundation, Sweden

88. Vrinda Grover, Marg, Delhi

89.Mahua Sarkar, Binghamton University, USA

90.Joseph Borocz, Rutgers University, USA

91.Megha Subramanian, University of Southern California, LA, USA

92. Nayanika Mookherjee, Lancaster University, UK

93.Pradeep Jeganathan, International Centre for 
Ethnic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka

94. Malathi de Alwis, International Centre for 
Ethnic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka

95.Ein Lal, Independent Film Maker, Delhi, India

96.Shastri Ramachandran, Journalist, the Tribune, Chandigarh, India

97. Rita Brara, University of Delhi, India.

98. V.Venkatesan, Journalist, Frontline, Delhi

99. Debamitra Kar, Pearson Education, Delhi, India

100.Maitreyi Krishnan, Alternative  Law Forum, Bangalore, India

101.Ponni Arasu, Alternative  Law Forum, Bangalore, India

102.Manoranjani Thomas, Alternative  Law Forum, Bangalore, India

103. Mayur Suresh, Alternative  Law Forum, Bangalore, India

104. Prashant Iyengar, Alternative  Law Forum, Bangalore, India

105. Namita Malhotra, Alternative  Law Forum, Bangalore, India

106. Clifton Rosario, Alternative  Law Forum, Bangalore, India

107. Arvind Narrain, Alternative  Law Forum, Bangalore, India

108. Jiti Nichani, Alternative  Law Forum, Bangalore, India

109. Usha R, Alternative  Law Forum, Bangalore, India

110. Siddhartha Narrian, Alternative  Law Forum, Bangalore, India

111. Anand Chokhwala, Surat, India

112. Nayana M Trivedi, Scripps Memorial Hospital, San Diego, California, USA

113. Munira A Basnai, NIH, Bathesda, USA

114. Attila Melegh, Corvinus University, Hungary.

115. Gauri Viswanathan, Columbia University, USA

116.Bhrigupati Singh, Johns Hopkins University, USA

117. Prerna Singh, Princeton University, USA

118. Saumya Das, Mass. General hospital, Cambridge, USA

119.Ranjini Obesesekera, Independent Scholar, Sri Lanka

120. Sithie Tiruchelvam, Tiruchelvam Associates, Colombo, Sri Lanka

121.Jonathan Parry, London School of Economics, London, UK

122. Manav Ratti, Oxford University, UK

123. Priyamvada Gopal, University of Cambridge, UK

124.Harsh Pant, King's College, London, UK

125. Keya Ganguli, University of Minnesota, USA

126. Joshua Castollino, Middlesex University, UK

127. Sudeshna Guha, Univeristy of Cambridge, UK

128. Debjani Ganguli, Australian National University, Australia

129.Kavita Daiya, George Washington University, USA

130. Jonathan Woolf, University of Liverpool, UK

131. Soumhya Venkatesan, University of Manchester, UK

132.Kriti Kapila, University of Cambridge, UK

133. Shirin Rail, University of Warwick, UK

134. Radmila Nakarada, University of Belgrade, Serbia

135. Gul Khattak, Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad, Pakistan

136. Suketu Bhavsar, Cal Poly, Pomona USA

137. Jishnu Das, Center for Policy Research, Delhi, India

138.Swati Chattopadhyay, UC Santa Barbara, USA

139.Dineshwar Tiwari, Deshkal Society, Delhi, India

140. Ranjeet Nirguni, Deshkal Society, Delhi, India

141.Mary JaJehanbegaloo, University of Toronto, Canada

142.. Imtiaz Ahmad, Dhaka University, Bangladesh

143. Shard Chandra Behar, Bhopal, MP, India

144.Arthur Kleinman, Harvard University, USA

145. Aamir Mufti, UC Los Angeles, USA

146.Nauman Naqvi, Brown University, USA

147. Steven Caton, Harvard University, USA

148. Ziauddin Sardar, City University, London, UK

149. Ohashi Masaki, Keisen University, Japan

150. Jessica Marglin Princeton University, USA

151. J. Mohan Rao, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

152. Sylvia Marcos, Center for Psycho-ethnological Research, Cuernavaca, Mexico

153. Jean Robert, Architect, Mexico

154. Partha Chatterjee, Columbia University, USA

155. Rajeev Bhargav, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi

156. Baber Johansen, Harvard University, USA

157. Srirupa Roy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

158. Fredrique-Apffel Marglin, Smith College, Northampton, USA

159. Shudana Yusaf, Princeton University, USA

160. Sudhir Kakat, Psychoanalyst and Writer, Goa, India

161.Daho Djerbal, University of Algeria, Algeria

162. Upendra Baxi, Warwick University, UK

163. Harsh Kapoor, South Asia Citizen's Web

164.Govinda Rath, G.B.Pant institute of Social Sciences, Allahabad, India

165.William Connolly, Johns Hopkins University, USA

166.Dipankar Gupta, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India

167.Indrani Chatterjee, Rutgers University, Delhi

168. Peter Ronald deSouza, Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Simla

169. Triloki Madan, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, India

170. Mira Kamdar, World Policy Institute, New York, USA

171.Ashutosh Kumar, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India.

172. Partha Ghosh, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India

173.Amiya Kumar Choudhuri, MAKAIS, Kolkata, India.

174. Rajaram Pande, The Japan Foundation, New Delhi, India

175. Lloyd I Rudolf, University of Chicago

176. Susanne H Rudolf, University of Chicago

177. Rosemary M George, UC San Diego

178.Shylashri Shankar, Center for Policy Research , Delhi


[I certify that emails indicating the consent of 
all persons to the statement are available with 
me. Veena Das, vdas at jhu.edu or 
veena.das at gmail.org]
cnnibnlive


______


[4]

JAIPUR BLASTS: BANGLADESHIS, SCAPEGOAT FOR COPS?

CNN-IBN

June 14, 2008


UNDER THE SCANNER: After the serial blasts, the 
police were instructed to deport illegal 
immigrants.

Bangladesh has emerged as the new ISI for Indian 
intelligence agencies. Attack on train station? 
Defused bombs? Bicycle bombs? Bag bombs? - It 
must be the ultra-efficient, tentacle spreading, 
just in time, always there, 'terrorist 
organisations based in Bangladesh'.

Of course there are many Bangladeshi immigrants 
inside India. The real question about Jaipur is: 
who are these people in the 'Bangali Para'. What 
were they doing all this time?

Working for middle class Indian families, as 
house help, cleaners, sweepers, cooks, maids, 
taxi drivers, tailors, weavers, jewellery makers, 
construction workers - yesterday, they were your 
convenient and easy source of cheap labour. Today 
they are looked at with suspicion and are being 
told to go back to their own country.

Arif, who was arrested in connection with the 
Jaipur blasts, is one such immigrant. Released 
almost a month after the blasts, police say, he 
was put in the prison for concealing his presence.

But what he went through in that month is nothing 
compared to 30 day of hunger and uncertainty for 
his family. His 64-year-old mother ran herself to 
exhaustion to get him released, and his wife 
unable to forgive herself for letting their son 
burn himself.

"There was no milk or rice in the house. My son 
felt hungry and came right near the stove. His 
chest got burnt. There was no one at home," 
Arif's wife Roma says.

Hundreds of Bangladeshi immigrants live in 
Jaipur's Bagrana Bengali Basti where most of them 
work as rag pickers.

Local police picked up as many as 400 of them 
after the blasts in the city. The immigrants 
allege the police and other local prisoners beat 
them up while they were in prison.

"Even the other prisoners in the jail would abuse 
us and say he's a Bengali, beat him up. They 
would just abuse us for no reason at all," 
Mohammad Arif, a resident of Bagrana transit 
camp, says.

After the serial blasts, the police were 
instructed to identify and deport illegal 
Bangladeshi immigrants.

"It's not possible to complete the whole exercise 
in 30 days. For several of them it just took us 
few hours of questioning to find out that they 
were Bangladeshis," ADG Planning and Welfare, 
Jaipur, MK Devarajan, says.

Arif's mother, however, says, "All my children 
were born here. The cops pick them up and say 
they are Bangladeshis. We may be Bangladeshis but 
they were born here. They're not Bangladeshis."

So far, a thousand illegal migrants have been 
identified and will soon be sent to transit camps 
in Sambhar and Alwar, but civil liberties 
activities allege Bangladeshis are being targeted 
because they are Muslims.

"The blast has become an opportunity for this 
government to quickly take on its agenda of 
profiling the Muslim as a terrorist, the 
Bangladeshi as a terrorist, and thus creating a 
divide between communities," Secretary, PUCL, 
Jaipur, Kavita Shrivastava, says.


______


[5]


http://www.thaindian.com
June 13th, 2008

HE BEATS HOLY MEN AT THEIR OWN GAME

by Jeevan Mathew Kurian

Kozhikode, June 13 (IANS) He walks barefoot over 
glowing embers, conjures up sacred ash with a 
wave of his hand or produces gold chains in the 
twinkle of an eye. But Narendra Nayak is no holy 
man professing magical powers - in fact he is 
their nemesis. Nayak is the current president of 
the Federation of Indian Rationalist 
Associations. Once a professor of biochemistry, 
he quit the job to devote his life to exorcising 
superstition from society.

"I demonstrate to people that many of the acts by 
holy men are just tricks and can be executed by 
anyone," says Karnataka-based Nayak who was here 
at the invitation of local rationalists. "It is a 
sleight of hand," he explains, showing the trick 
of producing a chain out of thin air.

Nayak, 58, a native of Mangalore, quit his job at 
the Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, in 2006. 
In the last 18 years, he has conducted around 
3,000 demonstrations across the country to expose 
witchcraft, black magic and fake godmen - the 
term commonly used in India for holy men who woo 
followers by doing the seemingly impossible.

His observations on "the relationship between 
beliefs and happenings" led Nayak to rationalism.

It was his association with famous rationalist 
Abraham T. Kovoor that gave him the first 
experience of the rationalist movement in the 
mid-1970s. Nayak has since travelled abroad 
extensively, giving interviews and taking part in 
talk shows.

"Superstition is there everywhere. Abroad it 
comes out in more subtle forms like colour 
therapy or numerology. You won't see a British 
prime minister falling at the feet of a godman.

"But in India, it is blatant. They produce sacred 
ash or a gold chain from thin air to fool people. 
Some of them even get away with crimes like 
murders," Nayak told IANS in an interview .

Nayak has been to villages where those accused of 
black magic have been lynched.

"The victims are mostly women. The attackers 
usually cut the victim's hair, break their teeth 
and smear them with human faeces to weaken their 
so-called magical powers. Sometimes the victims 
are even killed and burned."

On many occasions, he has gone to villages at the 
invitation of the police to enlighten people.

He says one of the reasons for superstition was 
wrong education. "We give only literacy but no 
education," he says.

"Nowadays, 21st century technology is being 
imposed on a 16th century mental set-up. We now 
have internet advertisements on 'ek mukhi 
rudrakhsa' (sacred bead) or 'vaastu' (Indian 
treatise on the construction of buildings)."

He says influential godmen are seemingly above 
the law. To stop superstitions and godmen, laws 
should be applied equally to all. "The country 
also lacks comprehensive laws to control these 
practices."

Before the Karnataka assembly elections last 
month, Nayak offered Rs.200,000 each to five 
people who could predict the results. The 
challenge was mainly intended for astrologers.

"I got 200 entries. The contestants were to 
answer 25 questions. To win the prize at least 21 
of them had to be correct."

He even allowed a 10 percent margin of error on 
the number of seats for political parties and 
votes polled by important candidates.

"The maximum number of correct answers was nine. 
That was done by a woman who is not an 
astrologer. She said she used the results of 
opinion polls to answer the questions. However, 
the maximum scored by an astrologer was only 
four," said Nayak.

He is happy that the tide of fortune has turned 
against godmen in Kerala who face action from the 
government.

On May 13, Santhosh Madhavan alias Swami 
Amrithachaithanya was arrested in Kochi for 
alleged rape and possession of narcotics and 
pornographic films. After the incident, 
complaints against godmen started pouring in from 
various parts of the state, prompting the 
government to initiate a statewide crackdown.

"The momentum of this drive should remain and 
cleanse society of godmen as well as 
superstitions," says Nayak.

______


[6]

HIndustan Times
June 15, 2008


HAS THE BJP DISOWNED THIS MAN?

by Sitaram Yechury

Once again, a BJP President has called for a 
national debate on secularism. This is an ominous 
sign. On an earlier occasion, when the then BJP 
President, L.K. Advani, called for a similar 
debate, what followed was the 'rath yatra' that 
led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

At the recent national executive meet of the BJP 
that was held in the afterglow of its electoral 
victory in Karnataka, Rajnath Singh asked for the 
replacement of dharmanirpekshata (the Hindi 
translation in the Constitution's preamble for 
'secularism', which means equality of all 
religions) with panthnirpekshata (equality of all 
sects). This is nothing else but the old RSS view 
that only Hinduism qualifies as a religion, while 
all other religions merit recognition as sects.

It is, therefore, only natural that the RSS has 
endorsed this view. The presidential address 
continued in the similar vein to restate that the 
RSS demands for the abrogation of Article 370 and 
the imposition of an Uniform Civil Code. It is, 
therefore, clear that in the run-up to the 2009 
general elections, the BJP is gearing up to 
further sharpen communal polarisation by bringing 
the hardcore 'Hindutva' agenda to centrestage.

On the last occasion, when Advani gave the call 
for a debate on secularism, he outlined the BJP's 
conception in a set of two articles (The Indian 
Express, December 27 and 28, 1992). Though these 
were painfully laboured attempts to whitewash the 
party's brazen violation of law, the capitulation 
of the assurances given by it to the Supreme 
Court and the National Integration Council, and 
to disguise the pre-planned and rehearsed 
destruction of the Babri Masjid on the previous 
day, three 'covenants' of BJP's definition of 
secularism were advanced:

- Rejection of theocracy: This means the 
automatic upholding of not only democracy but 
also of secularism. However, does the BJP today 
repudiate what M.S. Golwalkar had said: "In 
Hindustan exists, and must exist, the ancient 
Hindu nation, and nought else but the Hindu 
nation. All those not belonging to the national, 
i.e. Hindu race, religion, culture and language, 
naturally fall out of the pale of real national 
life."

The BJP has not disowned this till date. This 
only means that they are, once again, misleading 
the people and attempting to camouflage the real 
RSS intention of transforming the modern secular 
democratic Indian Republic into a rabidly 
intolerant 'fascistic' 'Hindu Rashtra'.

- Equality of all citizens irrespective of faith: 
The BJP's commitment to this concept can be 
understood only if they, once again, repudiate 
what Golwalkar said: non-Hindus "have no place in 
national life, unless they abandon their 
differences, adopt the religion, culture and 
language of the nation, and completely merge 
themselves in the national race. So long, 
however, as they maintain their racial religious 
and cultural differences, they cannot but be only 
foreigners." Does the BJP repudiate this today?

- Full freedom of faith and worship: It is ironic 
that the BJP's 'PM-in-waiting' had advanced this 
precept of the BJP's concept of secularism the 
morning after the destruction of the Babri 
Masjid. After the Gujarat carnage of 2002 and its 
current return to 'RSS basics', it is unlikely 
that Rajnath Singh will repeat this. However, if 
he does, the BJP's sincerity can be understood, 
once again, if only they are willing to repudiate 
what Golwalkar said:

"The foreign races in Hindustan must either adopt 
the Hindu culture and language, must learn to 
respect and hold in reverence the Hindu religion, 
must entertain no idea except the glorification 
of the Hindu religion and culture, i.e. of the 
Hindu nation, and must lose their separate 
existence to merge in the Hindu race, or they may 
stay in the country wholly subordinated to the 
Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no 
privileges, far less any preferential treatment - 
not even citizen's rights. There is - or, at 
least,  should be - no other courses for them to 
adopt. We are an old nation, let us deal as old 
nations ought to and do deal with the foreign 
races who have chosen to live in our country."

The BJP's call for a national debate on 
secularism has no meaning unless it clarifies 
unequivocally its position on these issues that 
Advani had advanced as the BJP's concept of 
secularism 16 years ago.

Not too ingeniously, Advani had then deliberately 
left out of his definition of secularism, its 
scientific foundation, the separation of religion 
from politics and the State. As long as this is 
not adhered to, secularism, in the sense of equal 
rights to all belonging to different faiths, 
cannot be ensured. In evading this, Advani is 
only echoing Golwalkar: "With us, every action in 
life, individual, social or political is a 
command of religion... Indeed  politics itself 
becomes... a small factor to be considered and 
followed solely as one of the commands of 
religion and in accord with such commands. We in 
Hindustan have been living such a religion 
(Hinduism)."

Religion is the sacred private relationship of 
every individual with his God. Unless equal 
rights exist for those believing in different 
religions or atheists, secularism cannot be 
secured. Remember, Charvaka, the atheist, is as 
integral to the Indian tradition as is the 
Saraswati Vandana. Thus, the BJP's latest call 
for a debate on secularism appears as a ruse to 
advance its core communal agenda. The BJP is, 
once again, confirming that it is the political 
arm of the RSS, a pseudo-Hindu party that misuses 
religion for its electoral gains.

Sitaram Yechury is CPI(M) Politburo member and MP.

______


[7]

Asian Age
June 16, 2008

RSS SEES 'SECURITY THREAT' IN GRAMEEN ENTRY

by Sanjay Basak

New Delhi

June 15: Bangladeshi Nobel Prize-winning icon 
Muhammed Yunus' Grameen Bank, which has 
transformed the lives of the poor in that country 
with its innovative micro-financing schemes, is 
the latest target of the RSS.

The Sangh's mouthpiece Organ-iser has launched a 
strong attack on Assam's Congress CM Tarun Gogoi 
for facilitating the entry of Grameen Bank into 
the state, as it feels the bank's branches will 
open "channels for legitimate financial 
transactions for subversive and terrorist 
activities."

The RSS sees this as a "conspiracy" by the 
Congress and the CPI(M) to build a "formidable 
votebank" at the cost of the country's "national 
security and territorial integrity." Organiser 
states: "The Bangladeshi bank officials have 
visited a number of times... If providing rural 
credit to poor people is the priority, then 
Indian banks could be asked to open branches." 
But "Tarun Gogoi has other ideas in mind," it 
adds.

The article goes on to discuss the danger of 
unchecked "Banglades-hi infiltrators" and warns 
that they have caused a major demographic change: 
that "a large (chunk) of Northeast India has 
become Muslim." It goes on to quote external 
affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee as saying: 
"Illegal migration is a genuine problem, but 
Bangladesh refuses to recognise it."

Organiser criticised Mr Gogoi's recent meeting 
with Mr Yunus, and alleged that the places 
selected by the CM for Grameen branches were 
"infiltration-affected areas" like Sonitpur in 
northern Assam. Spelling out why the country's 
security was threatened, it said: "A bank account 
is a proof of residence ... and an automatic 
passport (to) citizenship." The Congress and the 
CPI(M) had "systematically built up a formidable 
votebank in the Northeast and in West Bengal by 
encouraging and facilitating illegal migration," 
it added. Mr Gogoi's move, it went on, "should be 
seen in this light: yet another sinister move to 
destroy the national economy at the altar of 
nefarious votebank politics." It added: "These 
banks are bound to become legitimate channels of 
illegitimate financial transactions, most likely 
for subversive and terrorist activities."


______


[8]

Summer Camps Revive India's Ancient Sanskrit
Language Effort Is Part of Bitter Debate

by Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, June 14, 2008; Page A01

NEW DELHI -- Hemant Singh Yadav, a lean and 
sprightly 15-year-old, was sent by his parents to 
a summer camp to learn to speak Sanskrit, or what 
he calls the language of the gods.

He had studied the 4,000-year-old classical 
Indian language at school for six years. He knew 
its grammar and could chant the ancient hymns. 
But he could not converse in it. During a 
two-week course at the camp, Sanskrit Samvad 
Shala, he had no choice: He was forbidden to 
speak any other language.

"At first I thought it was impossible. The 
teachers and attendants spoke to us only in 
Sanskrit, and I did not understand anything," 
said Hemant, one of the 150 students gathered 
inside a Hindu temple on the outskirts of New 
Delhi. "I knew big, heavy bookish words before, 
but not the simple ones. But now Sanskrit feels 
like an everyday language."

Such camps, run by volunteers from Hindu 
nationalist groups, are designed to promote a 
language long dismissed as dead, and to instill 
in Hindus religious and cultural pride. Many 
Sanskrit speakers, though, believe that the camps 
are a steppingstone to a higher goal: turning 
back the clock and making Sanskrit modern India's 
spoken language.

Their endeavors are viewed with suspicion by many 
scholars here as part of an increasingly 
acrimonious debate over the role of Sanskrit in 
schools and society. The scholars warn against 
exploiting Indians' reverence for Sanskrit to 
promote the supremacy of Hindu thought in a 
country that, while predominantly Hindu, is also 
home to a large Muslim population and other 
religious minorities.
ad_icon

"It is critical to understand Sanskrit in order 
to study ancient Indian civilization and 
knowledge. But the language should not be used to 
push Hindu political ideology into school 
textbooks," said Arjun Dev, a historian and 
textbook author. "They want to say that all that 
is great about India happened in the Hindu 
Sanskrit texts."

One of the oldest members of what is known as the 
Indo-European family of languages, Sanskrit is a 
beleaguered language in India today, caught in a 
web of widespread apathy and questions about its 
utility.

Mainstream Indian schools teach the 49-letter 
language unimaginatively through tedious grammar 
lessons, and children learn by rote. Many parents 
see little use in encouraging their children to 
pursue a language that is not in any official use.

"Some people are constantly saying that Sanskrit 
is a dead language. It cripples our psyche to 
hear that, because we are nothing without 
Sanskrit," said Vijay Singh, 33, a teacher at 
Sanskrit Samvad Shala. "In the name of so-called 
secularism, it has become fashionable to attack 
any attempt to promote Sanskrit."

In January, government funding for a major 
Sanskrit program in schools was abruptly cut, 
prompting the program's managers to allege that 
officials were biased against the language.

The program, which encouraged immersive methods 
and developed computer-aided teaching tools and 
games, had been set up in 2003 by a Hindu 
nationalist government. One of the 
recommendations of the project included 
translations of English nursery rhymes such as 
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and "One, Two, 
Buckle My Shoe" into Sanskrit.

When a new government was sworn in two years 
later, it ordered a massive review of the 
program, as well as other initiatives that were 
seen as being infused with Hindu supremacist 
rhetoric.

"The Sanskrit project was initiated by the 
previous government. They had their own 
priorities. The project was so-so. How many 
people really speak Sanskrit in India?" said 
Ramjanam Sharma, head of languages at the 
National Council of Educational Research and 
Training, a government body that designs school 
curriculums. Defending the decision to cut the 
funding, he said it was not appropriate for 
schools to teach children how to converse in 
Sanskrit. "We cannot replicate the teaching 
methods of traditional religious schools in our 
mainstream schools."

Although Sanskrit is one of the 22 official 
Indian languages, census figures show that only 
about 14,100 people speak it fluently, in a 
nation of more than a billion people. Still, it 
is prevalent in the hymns and chants at Hindu 
temple rituals, as well as at birth, marriage and 
death ceremonies. Not unlike Latin in the West, 
Sanskrit was long the language of intellectual 
activity in ancient India.

"Some people oppose anything that promotes 
Sanskrit because of its association with 
Hinduism. We were just trying to make the 
language a fun experience for students," said 
Kamla Kant Mishra, a Sanksrit professor and a 
member of the government project.

"To talk about Sanskrit is very political in 
India today," Mishra added. "That is the plight 
of the language."

The Indian government funds many colleges and 
universities that teach Sanskrit literature and 
scriptures, but it is not uncommon for even PhD 
students in the language to be unable to speak 
it. State-run schools offer a choice between a 
regional Indian language and Sanskrit. Many 
private schools offer Sanskrit, French, German 
and Spanish.
ad_icon

"I tell my students to opt for French, because it 
is useful if they choose to work in the hotel 
industry, or fashion or legal field. But there is 
no tangible use for Sanskrit except that they 
will learn an important part of our culture," 
said Vishakha Sharma, 40, a French teacher who 
teaches fifth- through eighth-graders in a 
private school. She said her school begins each 
morning with a Sanskrit chant. "It feels good to 
the ear, but students don't understand the 
meaning."

Meanwhile, some scholars are developing computer 
programs for Sanskrit and translating its rich 
repository of children's stories online. Last 
month, an alliance of international scholars from 
the United States, France and Germany was formed 
for Sanskrit computing.

"Sanskrit is very suitable for computing, because 
its grammar is complete with 4,000 rules and has 
a regular structure," said Girish Nath Jha, 
assistant professor of computational linguistics 
at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. 
His students blog in Sanskrit, and he hopes to do 
away with programming languages such as Java and 
make Sanskrit a computer language someday.

At Sanskrit camp, a 19-year old undergraduate 
said that Sanskrit is in her blood.

"When I learn any language, I learn about its 
history and its literature," said Jaya Priyam. 
"But when I study Sanskrit, I learn who I am. It 
is my identity."


______


[9]

Z Mag
June 14, 2008

The Chieftain State of Gujarat
WHERE THE REPUBLIC ENDS

by Badri Raina

When, after the massacre of Muslims in 2002, the 
electorate in Gujarat voted the butcher of 
Gandhinagar-the Capital city of Gujarat; but 
think of the enormous irony of that oxymoron-back 
to power, they effectively declared their 
secession from the Republic of India. If the 
founding principles of the Republic are 
"secularism" and "democracy," Modi's victorious 
constituency used the latter to spit at the 
former.

Just as the Germans had done in 1933-use democracy to install dictatorship.

Always to remember when we speak of Gujaratis 
that nearly a half of the electorate voted 
against him as well. Such are the ways in which 
franchise makes or unmakes, especially in an 
electoral system where all you need to do is to 
first pass the post. Much of the time, indeed, in 
such a dispensation it is the minority that rules 
the majority! Yet it is all we have for now.

Employing a diabolical double-speak, Modi berated 
the secularists for feeding off the Muslim 
"vote-bank" while simultaneously consolidating 
first a Hindutva constituency and then a 
regional/Gujarati one.

Effectively, Gujarat has come to be reconstructed 
as an alterity to the Indian nation-state. Not 
Kashmir, but Modi-led Gujarat.
And not just as a rhetorical flourish.

Operating as the endorsed Chieftan of a 
triumphalist tribe, the Modi "government"-for 
want of another word-has, since that ineffaceable 
butchery in 2002-sought, every single step of the 
way to shield the Hindutva satraps (who were 
knee-deep in blood at the behest of the Chieftan) 
from the operations of the law, and brazenly to 
bring back into positions of authority publicly 
implicated high-ranking police officers, and 
atleast one judge, name of Mehta, who was spoken 
of by the ripper- in- chief, Babu Bajrangi, in a 
sting tape as the judge that Modi brought back to 
secure the self-confessed ripper from the 
hangman, after two other judges had honourably 
refused to do the dirty work of granting him 
bail. Indeed the same "Justice" Mehta has now 
been drafted by Modi as part of the Special 
Investigation Team (SIT) that the Supreme Court 
of India has assigned to look into the merit of 
some cases that are asking to be opened and 
reinvestigated!

As a result, lawyers working for the victims of 
the massacre have taken the only recourse of 
opting out of the proceedings in protest against 
the inclusion of Mehta and challenging his 
inclusion in the Supreme Court.

Among these worthies who have been recalled not 
just to life but to brazen authority is the 
police officer, Mathur, reinstated as the Police 
Commissioner of Ahmedabad.

And what could be a more ringing declaration of 
separate nationhood on behalf of the Chieftan 
state of Gujarat than that this same Mathur 
should now have instituted a charge of "sedition 
and treason" against the editor of the local 
edition of the Times of India (by any reckoning, 
one of the country's most widely read and 
puissant corporate English Dailies) for a story 
it did on him.

It must be understood that the charge of 
"sedition" may be brought against a citizen of 
the Republic only by the highest 
political/constitutional authority of the land, 
and only for actions provenly prejudicial to the 
security of the state. In post-independent India, 
such charge has been brought, as far as we can 
ascertain, only against some officers in the 
military for allegedly leaking Intelligence to 
the "enemy."

Clearly, therefore, Mathur could not have been 
the sanctioning brain/authority behind such a 
charge. By no stretch even of the fascist 
imagination could a police commissioner be deemed 
the equivalent of the State. The defiance and the 
daring must belong to the Chiefton whose dirty 
work he has been brought back to do. Ergo, 
"sedition" not against India, but against " 
Modiland." Since Modi alone may say with Louis 
xiv of old, "I am the State."
And basis for the charge?

True to the ethics and oath of the Fourth Estate, 
the TOI story drew attention to evidence that 
this Mathur has had links with the criminal 
underworld, and thus cannot be deemed eligible 
for the responsibility bestowed upon him by his 
obliging Chieftan.

As reported in The Hindu of June 2, '08, the 
basis of the TOI story on Mathur's antecedents 
was a statement given by an underworld denizen 
that the Commissioner was at one time on the 
"Don's payroll."

Whereas Mathur may well have instituted a case of 
libel/defamation against the TOI, remarkably the 
case filed accuses the newspaper editor of 
"sedition and treason" against the state.

Not even during the dark days of the state of 
Internal Emergency imposed by the then Indira 
Gandhi government (1975-76) was, to the best of 
our knowledge, any member/organ of the Fourth 
Estate charged with "sedition and treason."

Indeed, two infamous instances that come to mind 
both pertain to the days of colonial rule.

I refer to the charge of "sedition" brought 
against Lokmanya Tilak and then Mohandas 
Karamchand Gandhi, in both cases for writing 
articles calculated to cause "disaffection" 
against the "legitimate government of the day." A 
charge which both those honourable men proudly 
acknowledged.

In Gujarat of our day, however, "sedition" has 
come to mean any word or act that contradicts the 
myth of "good governance" cheekily floated by 
Modi and gladly bought by his constituency, or 
any attempt to use public institutions to hold 
the Modi government to account.

Only two years ago, the editor of Surat Samna, 
Manoj Shinde was charged under section 124 A 
("sedition") for commenting on the ineptitude of 
the authorities in handling the waters of the 
Ukai dam, which caused flooding in the city of 
Surat. The charge spelt out was that Shinde had 
instigated people against a duly elected 
government! (The Hindu, 30/08/2006).

Animal Farm? 1984? Take your pick.

And to think that Orwell imagined that 
totalitarian habits of mind existed only in 
"totalitarian" states. Consider in passing that a 
Tory Member of Parliament in Britain, name of 
David Davis, has resigned his membership 
following the adoption of the new draconian law 
that will allow the state there to hold in 
custody anyone for 42 days without trial. The 
vote may have passed by a majority of just nine, 
but many in Britain are alarmed that with a 
plethora of draconian laws in place, including 
the world's largest data base of citizens's DNA , 
an I-Card dispensation, and CCTV cameras reaching 
literally into bedrooms, liberty in that mother 
of democracies is losing out to the State. David 
Davis now goes into a bye-election of his 
choosing to test how Britains feel on these 
issues. We, on behalf of those who wish the world 
to be free, also wish him luck.

Alas, no such prospects in Gujarat.

II

You can be sure that nothing that has been said 
thus far qualifies as hyperbole. The Gujarat 
Chiefton has now ventured a bolder leap forward 
in announcing that his realm, after all, may 
remain autonomous of the Union and the 
Constitutional regime of laws that govern its 
operations.

He has dared the Indian government at the Centre 
to withhold grants to his state, and be prepared 
to suffer the loss of tax revenues due to it from 
Gujarat. Any student of india's pre-Independence 
history will recognize that such indeed used to 
be the nature of hostile discourse among the then 
autonomous Princely States and Subbas and between 
them and any central authority that might exist 
for the time being.

As has been rightly pointed out by some political 
and constitutional spokespersons, if there be any 
smell of "sedition" in the air, this must be it. 
So what does anybody do ?
III

The central government of course can always take 
recourse to the provisions of article 356 of the 
Constitution, declare the Modi government in 
violation of Constitutional governance, and 
lawfully sack it.

This was something that many well-wishers of the 
Republic would have gladly endorsed had such a 
recourse been taken to at the time of the 
Modi-endorsed Gujarat massacres.

But ofcourse with a friendly NDA regime, led by 
Modi's own BJP, then in power in Delhi, nothing 
could have been farther from expectation. 
Famously, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then prime 
minister, went the length of recommending that 
Modi in Gujarat follow Raj Dharam, i.e. the 
ethics of good rule. It was a good laugh, 
streaked in many places with the blood of 
innocents.

Since that time the politics of the country has 
taken several new twists, but chiefly a lurch to 
the right in which Modi's BJP and the Congress 
party are equally complicit.

The Congress particularly has been rendered weak 
by a string of electoral losses especially to the 
BJP, as the country's middle sections, in town 
and country, viewing market 'reforms' with a 
gluttonous eye, draw away from the Congress for 
initiating a string of social programmes directed 
at the welfare of the minorities, Muslims in 
particular, and other weaker sections of Indians.

The proverbial idealism of the young- especially 
those that have any saleable value-directs itself 
increasingly and rather exclusively to what 
"packages" the corporates have on offer, or what 
opportunities are to be exploited in the western 
world. Those that can play cricket look to the 
IPL (Indian Premier League in which each side 
plays just a quick-fire twenty overs each against 
enormous sums of money paid) as the possible high 
point of a successful life. Conversely, many 
young students who fail their examinations or do 
not do to "expectations" commit suicide, thinking 
that life can have no success to offer.

Cannily, Modi has during the last assembly 
elections especially (2007) cast himself as the 
messiah of "development", never mind that such 
development leaves the bulk of Gujaratis as out 
of reckoning as ever. For those that wield social 
and economic clout, the admixture of lucre and 
Hindu pride-visible everywhere in the shape of a 
sock-in-the-eye display of religiosity, is the 
winning formula, one that seems to promise 
salvation both here and in the hereafter. All 
mightily bolstered by the tribe of NRIs abroad 
(some 40% of the American ones are Gujaratis) who 
see this fusing of money and mantra as the way to 
hegemonise all of the Indian middle classes 
generally.

No time then would seem more 
inappropriate/inauspicious for the Centre than 
now to take recourse to dismissing the Modi 
government.
IV

If Gujarat is to be reintegrated with the 
Republic there is only but one way to go: the 
hard way.

Given that the Congress, the main political 
opposition in Gujarat, has been effectively 
reduced to impotence as the constituency for 
secular politics has shrunk, in no small measure 
owing to the complicity of the Congress itself, 
and to the extent that the Congress has long 
forgotten the culture of mass mobilization 
through effective organization on the ground and 
sweat in the doing, there is little to be looked 
for there as of now.

That fact indeed brings into sharp and admirable 
focus the toils of those in Gujarat who have 
through these six years sought on the basis of 
relentless home work and fearless conviction to 
bring the Modi dispensation to book-civil society 
groups and a configuration of socially sensitive, 
journalists, artists and other intellectuals for 
the most part. Aided, no doubt, by the highest 
court in the land.

Working through the Supreme Court and the 
media-some sections of it-their achievements in 
unraveling the horrendous excesses and 
transgressions of Modi-rule constitute the 
high-watermark of the history of human rights 
struggles of the last decade or so.

Yet, this is only a resource; the antidote to the 
misuse of democratic franchise and legitimacy by 
Modi can only lie in mounting a more cognizant 
polity in and outside Gujarat.

Unless, beginning now, for a whole year or more, 
an integration and consolidation of media power, 
social service resources, labour power, and 
party- political rethinks happen, such as are 
able to produce a questioning centre-left 
transformation on the ground on the concrete 
issues of livelihood and equity, and so long as 
Modi remains at the helm of the BJP in Gujarat, 
the secession of the state from the Repubnlic 
will only deepen.

Gujarat, after all, has come to represent for the 
RSS the possibility that the more the Congress 
goes into somnambulant and aristocratic dotage, 
the more unable it is to distinguish itself from 
the ideological contours of the BJP, the more 
reluctant it remains to ally with the Left in 
launching mobilization against fascist formations 
without thought to party constituencies, the more 
Hindutva fascism can forge ahead towards 
reconstituting India into an erstwhile Nepal-a 
Hindu Rashtra (Theocratic Hindu State). Recall 
that it has been in the past the position of the 
RSS that the best thing to happen to Bharat would 
be for the Hindu Kingdom of Nepal to take the 
country into an amalgamated oneness!
V

For now, the charge of "sedition" leveled against 
the TOI in Gujarat-and another case under section 
153 (A) (B) of the IPC-causing schism among 
communities-- against the well-known sociologist, 
Ashish Nandy, for an article he wrote, also in 
the TOI bemoaning the character of the middle 
class with respect to Gujarat, an experience that 
might help this particular intellectual to 
rethink some of his favourable consideration of 
Hindu religious identity and distaste for left 
politics-do provide an opportunity for wide 
sections of the polity to launch a campaign for 
the restoration of secularism and fundamental 
freedoms in Modi's Gujarat.

It is a circumstance that could assist media 
corporates who have habitually held up Modi as 
the ideal future Indian hero (for three 
understated reasons, it might be noted: his 
friendliness to big business, his rabid hatred of 
the Left, and his ability to galvanise 
Hindu-communal politics to ward off both labour 
consolidation and keep potential "terrorists" in 
fear and trembling, leaving the local terrorisers 
under his command to do their work unfettered) to 
cry off a bit, and suggest to Modi that secession 
on his behalf is as unacceptable as anywhere else 
in the country, if not more. Having now added 
draconian daring to fundamentalist/communalist 
politics, the media ought to make it known that 
Modi may not after all be such a darling.

After all, for many of them it is still in 
fashion to revile the late Indira Gandhi for her 
"authoritarianism"; who more so, she or Modi? She 
did not cry "sedition" even when the draconian 
Emergency regime could have legally allowed her 
to do so; he it seems can do it in broad daylight 
and with fearless impunity against those whose 
job it is to keep democracy and the rule of law 
in place.

If Modi can haul up something like the TOI with a 
charge of "sedition", pray who is safe?
VI

Note that in Maharashtra one of the most 
respected and fair-minded senior journalists, 
editor of Loksatta, Kumar Ketkar, was attacked in 
the privacy of his home by fascist hordes who did 
not like his advice to the local government that, 
rather than spend hundreds of crores on erecting 
a statue of Shivaji somewhere in the sea, the 
moneys could be better spent on relieving misery 
among the people.

Subsequently, the Editors' Guild of India took up 
the issue and made out a decent statement.

Yet, why the "sedition" charge leveled against 
the TOI in Gujarat seems a rather muted item is 
tough to understand. It is ofcourse possible that 
unbeknown to this writer some strong things are 
afoot.

One certainly hopes so; and afoot in many places and conclaves.

______


[10] 

The Hindu-Sunday Magazine
June 15, 2008


BAREFOOT

Another Bakery, another Parzania

by Harsh Mander

The carnage of 2002 changed everything for 
Abdulbhai and Noorie.... This fortnightly feature 
introduces us to people in the margins, and their 
unheard voices.

The camp organisers arranged vehicles for 
families to search for their lost loved ones. 
Hundreds went feverishly from camp to camp.

PHOTO: A. ROY CHOWDHURY

Going up in flames: Even as faith and courage hold no answer....

Today, more than six years after it was charred 
in the flaming carnage of 2002 in Ahmedabad, 
their small cottage bakery remains shut. The 
rebuilt furnace stands forlorn and empty, the 
metal trays and moulds piled unused and rusting 
in a corner, like the skeletons of the dead. None 
of their former clients agrees any more to buy 
their flour biscuits, cakes and bread, although 
these were popular in the past.

When they had built their bakery a decade 
earlier, they had proudly named it Jai Hind. 
"Others name their shops after gods and 
goddesses. But we wanted to name our bakery in 
honour of our country," they would tell their 
neighbours proudly. When Abdulbhai and Noorie 
Bahen had bought the land for the bakery and 
their home in 1992, they had not worried for a 
moment that theirs would be the only Muslim home 
and establishment in the Hindu settlement Thakkar 
Nagar. "There was no discrimination, no hate, no 
suspicion at all in the hearts of our neighbours 
at that time, and there was none in ours." But 
then came 2002, with its tempests and fires of 
loathing, and it changed everything.

When the couple had returned from six months in 
the relief camp to the ruins of their home, part 
of their family missing, and their life's 
earnings scorched, they were still not defeated. 
They first rebuilt a makeshift earthen furnace, 
borrowed money for working capital, and reopened 
Jai Hind Bakery. But their goods remained unsold, 
as consequence of a still pervasive city-wide 
boycott of Muslim products, enforced not just 
through a shadowy network of communal 
organisations, but also through large mass 
consent.

Abdulbhai set out his wares on a wooden cart to 
sell in parts of the city where people do not 
know his Muslim identity, shamed by the fall in 
his economic status, distraught that he needed to 
hide who he was. They earned a small fraction of 
what they did in the past.

For years after the slaughter, they held firm to 
hope and the belief that the trails of hate would 
one day end. But Abdul and Noorie are now 
defeated and dispensable in Modi's resurgent, 
triumphant Gujarat. The state has no place any 
longer for people like them, people who worship 
an 'alien' God.
Material destruction

They have still not been able to rebuild the roof 
over most of their destroyed house. Noorie's 
voice quivers as she takes us on a conducted tour 
of what their home used to be, but is no longer. 
They are now resigned and vanquished, desperate 
to find a buyer of their properties, so they can 
move to the safety (and penury) of a Muslim 
ghetto. But people know their desperation, and 
are unwilling to pay more than a small fragment 
of the market price.

They have lost a lot in 2002: their business, 
their home, the money they had saved and stored 
away in crevices of their home to marry off their 
children, but even more importantly the 
friendship of their neighbours, their faith and 
their spirit. However, most tragically of all, 
they have lost two children, for whom they still 
wait with throbbing longing and with long-frayed, 
decayed but stubborn hope.

From the morning of February 28, 2002, relatives 
started pouring in from various corners of 
Ahmedabad weighed down with terrifying stories of 
mass murder, rape, arson and pillage.

Abdul's old friend, Rajendra, a Hindu lawyer, 
also dropped by to warn them, but the couple was 
convinced that their neighbours would never allow 
them to be harmed. Rajendra still insisted on 
taking one of their sons Zahid who was at the 
bakery at that time to his own home, to protect 
him from any danger. This eventually saved this 
boy's life.

Evening fell, and Abdul was baking biscuits and 
Noorie cooking food for the frightened relatives 
who had gathered at their home, seeking haven 
after fleeing desperately from the massacres at 
Naroda and elsewhere. It was then that mobs 
converged from two directions to the lone Muslim 
home and commercial establishment in the 
neighbourhood, baying for their blood. Some 
neighbours dissuaded the leaders of the mob, but 
shortly after, police vans gathered, further 
inciting the mobs. The relatives and family ran 
in different directions in the frenzied confusion 
that followed.
The fire

Two sisters Salma and Sanno, both barely in their 
teens ran to the inter-state bus terminal. Abdul 
screamed to them to wait there, until they 
reached them. Noorie grabbed their youngest son 
Allah Deen, barely five, and hid trembling in a 
ditch behind their home, her palm clasped over 
his mouth all the while, petrified that he would 
scream and give them away. They watched in secret 
the mob loot their home and bakery, and set it on 
fire.

They also saw their oldest son, teenaged Wahid 
run in another direction with his youngest sister 
Saira. This was the last time any of them have 
seen the two children alive, or deadŠ.

Late at night, after the laggards in the mob 
dispersed and the flames that razed their home 
were still smouldering, Abdul and Noorie, with 
their little son Allah Deen, escaped in the 
shadows to the highway and eventually to the bus 
stand, in cold dread of the fires blazing 
everywhere, the calls for assault, and the smoke 
and the screams that crowded the gathering 
darkness. At the bus stand, they found to their 
great relief their two girls who sat waiting for 
their parents in a corner.

Luckily Noorie was wearing a sari that day, and 
people took them to be Hindus. They went first to 
the home of a Hindu friend Thakur, pleading that 
they take in their two daughters. But the man was 
out, and the woman refused to open the door, 
frightened that the mobs would avenge this by 
torching their home. Noorie does not blame her. 
"Those were terrible times," she recalls. "People 
were too frightened to even offer us a cup of 
water."
Chaos rules

But they had more luck when they reached their 
other Hindu friend Rambhai. He readily - and 
hastily - took them in, but worried that the mobs 
would find them before long, as many knew of 
their friendship. He went out and found a 
para-military contingent, on whom he had more 
faith than the local police. The armed men in 
uniform escorted the family to a junior school 
building in a Muslim area, which the community 
had converted into a relief camp.

Their first task was to bring together again 
their family, scattered by the catastrophe. Two 
girls were with them. They were reassured about 
Zahid's safety, as Rambhai spoke on the telephone 
to Rajendra, the lawyer who sheltered Zahid at 
his home for eight days. He finally dropped the 
boy at the camp, to be reunited with his grieving 
family. But Wahid and Saira were still nowhere to 
be found.

As the days and nights in the camp followed each 
other, laden with sorrow and loss for the 
thousands sheltered there, the camp organisers 
arranged vehicles for families to search for 
their lost loved ones. Hundreds went feverishly 
from camp to camp. Some like Shah Alam had more 
than 12,000 residents, and they had set up a unit 
near the large gate of the dargah to assist 
separated families to locate lost loved ones. The 
desperate Abdul and Noorie scoured the faces of 
several thousand children who were gathered 
there, but their own children were nowhere to be 
found.

The estranged parents finally accepted advice 
from the camp organisers to search among the 
unclaimed bodies at the mortuaries of government 
hospitals. There were rotting bodies piled one on 
top of the other, spilling out on to the 
corridors, and many frantic family members 
searched the faces of the dead, several burned or 
badly scarred by knife wounds. "In our 
desperation, we started tossing bodies aside, 
forgetting that they were bodies of loved ones of 
other people like us." But they still could not 
find their children anywhere.

Their quest has not ended even after six long 
years. And who can say when their search will 
end, if ever? They do not have a single 
photograph of their children, as these too were 
burned down with the fire that the mob lit in 
their home, so they cannot advertise on 
television or the newspapers. People tell them 
that a child was spotted who looked like their 
children in some corner of this vast country, and 
they rush there, only to be disappointed. They 
have journeyed to Mumbai, Delhi, and their 
ancestral village in Uttar Pradesh, and always 
returned with empty hands and full aching hearts.

But who can ask a father and mother to abandon 
their search for their missing children, and by 
doing so affirm that they are slaughtered, never 
to return to them? They weep still inconsolably: 
"We do not know whether to hope any longer, or 
not to hope Š"

Harsh Mander is human rights worker and writer 
based in Delhi. He is convenor of Aman Biradari, 
a people's campaign for secularism, justice and 
caring.

______


[11]

livemint.com
Jun 9 2008

DECLARE A MORATORIUM ON STATUE-BUILDING
Let's build schools, hospitals, bridges and roads 
and name these after people whose legacy we wish 
to honour and emulate
Looking Glass | Namita Bhandare


How wonderful it is to harbour ambitions to build 
edifices taller, bigger, better than the Statue 
of Liberty. But has the irony of the fact that 
Lady Liberty represents welcoming freedom to 
struggling immigrants escaped our elected 
representatives in Maharashtra?

The Maharashtra government's grand plans to 
construct a 309ft-high statue of the state's most 
iconic figure, Chhatrapati Shivaji, in the 
Arabian Sea will cost taxpayers Rs100 crore, 
probably more. For that price we will have a 
statue in the sea that is taller than even the 
Statue of Liberty. Imagine that!
It's a colossal plan in hubris. Statues are 
symbols that represent a value system. When you 
construct a mammoth statue of a man who is 
without doubt the state's most iconic figure, 
regardless of cost, regardless of ongoing farmer 
suicides, regardless of malnutrition deaths and 
regardless of pathetic infrastructure, you are 
sending out a message: This is a government that 
stands for cosmetic change; if it cannot rival 
the infrastructure and liberalism of New York, it 
can at least have a statue that is taller than 
its most enduring symbol.
Maharashtra goes to the polls next year. For 
years, Shivaji has been appropriated by the Shiv 
Sena party-Maharashtra's principal opposition 
party-that makes divisiveness and parochial pride 
its chief plank. Now, Bal Thackeray's rebellious 
nephew, Raj Thackeray, has taken up that clarion 
call, decrying "outsiders", reaffirming that 
Maharashtra and Mumbai is for the "Marathi 
manoos" and deriding strange north Indian 
festivals and customs. For his pains, he has 
become a national figure.
For the ruling Congress-National Congress Party 
(NCP) combine, a reversal of this sentiment would 
be no small achievement. But more, it seems to 
have decided that Shivaji is not the personal 
domain of the Shiv Sena or Raj Thackeray's 
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.
Worse, are the NCP's supporters subscribing to 
the sort of hooliganism that the Shiv Sena has 
been notorious for? On 5 June, a mob led by the 
pro-NCP Shivsangram Sanghatana attacked the house 
of Loksatta editor Kumar Ketkar. Ketkar's crime? 
He had written an editorial criticizing the plans 
to install the statue.
Ironically, the home ministry is held by the NCP 
and, despite being warned in advance by Ketkar's 
assistant, the police arrived at the scene 40 
minutes after the mob had begun its rampage.
So, what would the new colossus, the Shivaji 
statue, stand for? In Mumbai there is no shortage 
of monuments and statues that honour the Maratha 
warrior king, from the Chhatrapati Shivaji 
Maharaj Terminus (formerly known as the Victoria 
Terminus) to the international airport, from the 
museum once known as the Prince of Wales Museum 
to a magnificent statue adjoining the Gateway of 
India.
For years, Mumbai was known as the "Manhattan of 
India". Dreams of building a world-class 
metropolis were reiterated in 2004 when Prime 
Minister Manmohan Singh declared that Mumbai 
would be transformed into another Shanghai by 
2010 as part of a larger plan for urban renewal.
Nothing of the sort has happened. Nearly 60% of 
the city's 16 million people continue to live in 
slums. The monsoon has just hit the city, 
flooding has begun-and if the pattern of the past 
few years is consistent-a significant part of 
Mumbai will go under water, stranding commuters 
and bringing life to a standstill. In 2005, 
nearly 500 people died in floods and landslides 
caused by the rain and an unprepared 
administration.
So forget about "world-class", for the majority 
of its citizens, Mumbai is barely liveable.
But why single out Maharashtra? What Shivaji is 
to Maharashtra, B.R. Ambedkar is to Uttar Pradesh 
(or Ram Manohar Lohia, when Mulayam Singh Yadav 
is in power). Now, after a spree of installing 
Ambedkar statues, chief minister Mayawati has 
commissioned several statues of herself. She's a 
difficult customer to please: less than 45 days 
after her statue (and three others, Kanshi Ram, 
Ambedkar and Ambedkar's wife, Rama Bai) was 
installed in Lucknow's posh Gomti Nagar in April, 
our behenji with prime ministerial ambitions 
ordered it to be pulled down: apparently she 
thought it was too small.
India's statue-building spree is nothing if not 
ambitious. In New Delhi, towering statues of 
Hanuman and Shiva dot the landscape, testimony to 
the power and faith of the Capital's nouveau 
riche.
In Bodhgaya, engineers from the UK are helping to 
build the world's tallest statue, a 500ft-high 
Buddha which is being funded by an international 
consortium. But unlike the edifices to political 
luminaries, these are built with private money.
The Congress-NCP's joint manifesto presented to 
the people four years ago had promised to build 
an "international class memorial in honour of 
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in the Arabian Sea on 
the lines of Vivekanand Smarak at Kanyakumari".
But the manifesto also promises to "target 100% 
literacy" and come up with a "time-bound plan to 
prevent infant and malnutrition deaths, specially 
in tribal areas".
Here's my suggestion: let's declare a moratorium 
on statue-building for the next 10 years. Let's 
instead build schools, hospitals, bridges and 
roads and name these after people whose legacy we 
wish to honour and emulate.
Statues, big and small, can wait for another day.
(Namita Bhandare will write every other Tuesday on social trends.

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

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