SACW | Sept. 14-15, 2008 / Charlie Wilson / Blast War / Communal Orissa / God in US elections/

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | September 14-15, 2008 | Dispatch No. 2567  
- Year 11 running

[1] Pakistan-US: Charlie Wilson’s war: The academic blowback  
(Mohammad Taqi)
[2] India: Delhi Bomb Blasts - Reflections
   (i) Reconciliation may be easy, accepting the truth is trickier  
(Jawed Naqvi)
   (ii) Editorial: Is the Indo-Pakistan ‘blast war’ on again?
[3] India: Communalisation of Orissa is taking place very fast (K.N.  
Panikkar)
[4] India: Freedom’s Sentinels (Kaizaad Kotwal)
[5] USA: The Almighty and U.S. Elections (P. Sainath)
[6] UK: Our scientists must nail the creationists (Robin McKie)
[7] Announcements:
(i) film screening  'Four Women and a Room' (New Delhi, 17 September  
2008)
(ii) Anhad events - 'Bol Ke Lab Azaad Hain Tere' State Youth  
Convention (Bhopal, 30 Sept and 10 October 2008)

______


[1] PAKISTAN / USA:


The Statesman, Peshawar
September 13 , 2008

CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR: THE ACADEMIC BLOWBACK

by Dr. Mohammad Taqi

Just when we thought that Charlie Wilson would fade away into the  
dustbin of history, he staged a come-back last year, via a Mike  
Nichols movie “Charlie Wilson’s War” based on a 2003 book by George  
Crile with the same title.

Both the book and the movie represent an American view of the Afghan  
conflict of the 1980s, presented in a post-Soviet era, when very few  
people are willing to or care about analyzing these works  
objectively. The author, director and their US audiences do have a  
right to gloat over a glossed-up version of the history.

So far so good, but now there is group of Pakistani-Americans who  
have started a campaign to name a soon-to-be-founded Pakistan Studies  
Chair at the University of Texas, after Rep. Charlie Wilson. An Iftar  
dinner has been arranged in Washington, D.C. on September 24, 2008 to  
help plan, support and possibly raise money for this venture. Dr.  
Randy Diehl, the Dean of College of Liberal Arts at the University of  
Texas at Austin, TX, will be the featured speaker at the event.

Whereas we don’t doubt the sincerity of the efforts by this group,  
among which are some leading lights of the Pakistani Americans Public  
Affairs Committee (PAKPAC), it is unfortunate that these fine men and  
women have chosen one of the most controversial figures of the Afghan  
imbroglio, ostensibly to promote, in the USA, the study of Pakistan- 
related matters.

Unlike Charlie Wilson, few - if any - of these do-gooders have ever  
set foot on the Pashtun-Afghan lands and are completely oblivious of  
the fact that Afghans and Pashtuns continue to reap - till this day -  
what Wilson and Ziaul Haq sowed in the killing fields of Afghanistan.

Charlie Wilson might be a hero to a few Americans, who wanted to give  
the Soviets a bloody nose in Afghanistan, to avenge their own  
humiliation in Vietnam. However, it is an established fact that  
Wilson is also the grand-daddy of the present-day Taliban and is one  
of the few people directly responsible for Talibanisation of  
Pakistani and Afghan societies.

Warlords like Jalaluddin Haqqani - Wilson’s favorite commander - and  
Gulbudin Hikmatyar were direct beneficiaries of the arms and largesse  
pumped in by Wilson. It is not a surprise that Haqqani and his son  
Sirajuddin remain active Taliban till today, fighting both the US and  
Pakistan and that the US had to bomb their hideout on September 7,  
2008. Hikmatyar too, is not far behind OBL on America’s wanted list.

Wilson and his coterie’s stated strategy of mixing religion with  
politics and more importantly, a covert war continue to give us a  
blowback in the form of battle-hardened religious zealots, now  
marauding the tribal and settled areas of Pakistan. He remained a  
part and parcel of an unholy war, which in the words of a CIA  
operative “was fought with Saudi money, American arms and the Afghan  
blood”. All the players in this war, including Wilson, remained  
committed to fight “till the last Afghan”.

This is not the only concern about Wilson’s methods, for some would  
argue that anything and everything was necessary to defeat the “Evil  
Empire”. What is of more concern to the democratic forces in Pakistan  
and their supporters in the US and the West is that Wilson, along  
with George Schultz, Richard Armitage and Michael Armacost produced a  
post-Zia policy, thus sidelining the nascent democratic government of  
Benazir Bhutto. According to Steve Coll, the author of “Ghost Wars”.  
Wilson and Co. drafted this policy literally on the fly, while en  
route to attend Zia’s funeral.

The fallout from this relationship, where money and weapons were  
handed over to an intelligence agency, without the civilian oversight  
would come back to haunt all of us. Twenty years later Senator Joe  
Biden, along with Senator Dick Lugar, had to undertake the herculean  
task of rectifying this anomaly. The VP aspirant is trying to undo  
the damage done to both the US-Pak relations as well the Pakistani  
people, through the “Biden-Lugar” bill.

The issue at hand is fairly straight-forward: is there a need for a  
Pakistan Studies Chair at the University of Texas or for that matter  
at any other US academic institution? The answer is a resounding yes.  
The next question we have to ask is if such Chair should be named  
after someone like Charlie Wilson, whose personal and political  
scruples are very dubious to say the least. What kind of role model  
would he make for the students enrolling at the proposed center?

If Rep. Wilson and the Temple Foundation - the other potential donor  
- want to do something substantial for Pakistan Studies, a reasonable  
way to proceed would be by making an unmarked and unrestricted  
donation to establish a Chair in Pakistan studies at the University  
of Texas at Austin.

I call upon the academics and pro-democracy friends in Pakistan and  
around the world to write directly to Dr. Randy Diehl, the Dean of  
College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin, TX asking him  
to revisit the idea of naming a wonderful venture after a divisive  
character from the cold-war era. The blowback from Charlie Wilson’s  
war must stop - at least in the academia.


(The author teaches and practices Medicine at the University of  
Florida and can be reached at taqimd at gmail. com)

_____


[2] India: Delhi's Bomb Blasts - Reflections

(i)

Dawn
September 15, 2008

RECONCILIATION MAY BE EASY, ACCEPTING THE TRUTH IS TRICKIER

by Jawed Naqvi

SATURDAY’S bomb blasts in Delhi killed 20 innocent people, terrorised  
the city of 14 million and threatened to deepen its social fault  
lines. In fact the terrorists, going by an email apparently sent by  
the shadowy Indian Mujahideen, are now planning to wreak more havoc  
in Mumbai. They have already taken a toll in Ahmedabad, Bangalore,  
Jaipur and other urban centres. The federal government is planning to  
respond by setting up a pan-India anti-terror agency, instead of the  
state-level units that currently exist, to combat the scourge. Such  
an agency would be probably modelled on the US Department of Homeland  
Security.

There is a flaw in this. The United States is a wrong example for  
India to emulate for several reasons. First, even without the  
exacerbation it would bring, India is well on its way to becoming a  
fractured society in which its 150 million Muslims and a smaller  
Christian community have all but turned into a convenient  
counterpoint for rightwing Hindu forces to consolidate, by demonising  
both minority groups. Even as a very scattered number from among the  
Muslims (so far) may indulge in acts of terror, the wider community  
is subjected to abuse and mistrust. This anguish came to the fore  
dramatically recently after the popular movie actress Shabana Azmi  
claimed in a TV interview that she was denied a house in Mumbai  
because she was Muslim.

If Shabana was exaggerating, as some suggested to be the case, she  
was taking a great personal risk with all her credibility at stake.  
There is enough circumstantial evidence however to support her claim.  
The growing array of “Muslim ghettos” in Gujarat, Delhi, and Mumbai  
among other major prosperous centres does indicate that something  
sinister is afoot. A similar majoritarian consolidation in the United  
States has led to disastrous consequences for the world, even as it  
has deepened the ghettoisation of its own minorities. This despite a  
far more robust legal system than India can currently hope to have.

The second reason why America makes a poor example for India to  
follow in tackling social fault lines, the main catchments for  
terror, is rooted in history. India, when it embarked on a mission  
under Nehru and Gandhi, was any day a more mature, equitable and self- 
assured democracy than the racially segregated United States that  
existed on the other side of the globe. Its pluralism and promise to  
the lowest ranking Indian was what probably nudged Sheikh Abdullah to  
bring a secular Kashmir into the national fold rather than join a  
religiously-inspired Pakistan. If that promise is getting frayed  
(which partly explains among other reasons the near total alienation  
of Kashmiris), it needs soul-searching, not borrowed prescriptions.  
And what panacea can the United States counsel other than a military  
solution to all and sundry social issues? There are too many  
contraindications inherent in the prescription to offer any hope to  
India’s life and death struggle with its own reality.

A way forward would be to stop the murderous hordes that target  
Christians, Muslims, Dalits, tribesmen and other weaker sections  
across the country often with state assistance, as in Orissa and  
Gujarat. That would win the confidence of the minorities and enable  
them to isolate and neutralise extremist groups picking on soft  
targets in urban India, the latest being the outrage in Delhi. A  
lawyer and human rights worker has done excellent work in this  
regard. But in spite of writing detailed notes to newspapers and TV  
channels that were screaming there lungs out on Saturday and giving a  
field day to Narendra Modi and such like, Iqbal Ansari’s petitions  
have been largely shunned by the media. Granted that he can be  
tedious because he never makes a brief point in a seminar, but that  
is no reason to ignore Ansari’s invaluable insights.Three four days  
ago he had distributed yet another well-researched document to the  
media on ways to resolve the country’s worsening communal strife. It  
included excerpts from the pamphlet emailed by Indian Mujahideen just  
ahead of the Ahmedabad attacks which is otherwise pure poison. But  
why this group is determined to kill innocent people particularly  
when it actually helps the Hindu right while causing more problems  
for the larger Muslim community? The question concerns the  
authenticity of the email and deserves to be addressed. Ansari picked  
out two quotes from the email that were not lethal. On the contrary  
they seemed to invite open and objective scrutiny of issues raised.  
The language nevertheless remains shrill.

“Irrespective of genuineness of its authorship, I would like to draw  
the attention of friends to the following observations made in the  
email signed by Guru-Al-Hindi and Al Arbi on behalf of ‘Indian  
Mujahideen’, after Jaipur and Ahmedabad blasts,” says Ansari,  
scrupulously keeping his distance from absolute belief that the email  
was in fact genuinely sent by Muslim fanatics.

“Think of the fraud perpetrated on us in the name of Nanavati  
Commission…You try to fool us in the name of fast-track courts made  
for ‘93 riot cases, through which you wish to free the actual Hindu  
culprits like Madhukar Sarpotdar who was caught red-handed with  
illegal firearms while the innocent Muslims arrested in the bomb  
blast case are being tried in the courts for years and years. Is this  
the hellish justice you speak of? You agitated our sentiments and  
disturbed us by arresting, imprisoning, and torturing our brothers in  
the name of SIMI (Students’ Islamic Movement of India) and the other  
outfits in Indore, Ujjain, Mumbai and in other cities of Karnataka.”

Now, in the rush to avenge the killings that are going on, is there  
scope also to pause and consider if the Indian Mujahideen, or SIMI or  
whoever else, was making a point or two about the approach of the  
Indian state towards the minorities?

Ansari cites two cases dealt by a POTA judge. In 2003, he held two  
young Muslim men, Mohammed Yaseen Patel and Mohammed Ashraf Jaffary,  
guilty and sentenced them to five and seven years imprisonment for  
waging war against India and disturbing communal harmony. They were  
alleged to have been associated with the banned organisation SIMI and  
were apprehended by the police while they were allegedly pasting  
posters on the wall of Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University

Library, which read: “Destroy Nationalism, Establish Khilafah.”

The police did not produce any independent witness saying that people  
did not want to be involved in criminal cases to avoid harassment.

Instead of questioning the police officials, the only witness in the  
case, the judge accepted their every word because “there is no reason  
why the investigation officer should have falsely implicated the  
accused person or the police persons should have deposed against the  
accused persons unless they were not actually caught indulging in the  
act of pasting anti-national posters on the wall”.

In another judgment delivered by the same learned judge in 1996, in a  
case arising out of anti-Sikh riots in Tirlokpuri, Delhi in 1984, he  
described the true character of the crime investigating agencies in  
India as “gifts of colonial era of British Empire. They are aimed to  
subserve their political masters faithfully”. Ansari’s question is  
simple: “How come the same judge holds a diametrically opposite view  
now about the role of the police in this case, as independent,  
conscientious and dutiful servants of society dedicated to upholding  
rule of law? What inference, can be drawn about the role of the  
courts according to his lordship’s own observations?” We know even  
the case of Gujarat massacres how the Supreme Court felt compelled to  
transfer the cases out of the purview of the state’s judiciary. India  
needs early reconciliation between its aloof communities. That may be  
relatively easy. Facing the truth and being fair to all sides  
concerned is the trickier part. What is more outrageous, after all  
rioting or putting up a wall poster?


o o o


Daily Times
September 15, 2008

EDITORIAL: IS THE INDO-PAKISTAN ‘BLAST WAR’ ON AGAIN?

Five bombs went off within an hour in various parts of New Delhi on  
Saturday, killing more than 20 and recalling earlier such explosions  
in Bangalore in Karnataka and Ahmedabad in Gujarat. A local terrorist  
group calling itself “Indian mujahideen” has claimed responsibility.  
This is not the first such bombing in New Delhi: In October 2005,  
sixty-six people were killed when three blasts ripped through the  
markets. In February last year two bombs exploded aboard a train  
heading for Pakistan, killing 66 passengers, most of them Pakistanis.

In the coming days comment will flood the Indian media and will  
doubtless retrace the past pattern of casting suspicion on the Indian  
Muslims and reflecting on the ongoing contest with Pakistan in  
Afghanistan. The latest blasts, although clearly a continuation of  
what has been happening in Assam, Varanasi, Mumbai and Hyderabad,  
will be seen in the context of a tit-for-tat game with Pakistan, with  
Pakistan accusing India of funding the terrorists in Balochistan and  
the Tribal Areas. But the “Indian Mujahideen” are not making things  
easy for Pakistan either. Their email after the blasts contains  
details that will probably be misinterpreted in the coming days.

The email message contains the address “Al Arabi”, pointing to a link  
with the Arabs of Al Qaeda who are today headquartered somewhere in  
Pakistan or Afghanistan. Although the “Indian Mujahideen” are seen by  
some as a hardline splinter group of the Students’ Islamic Movement  
of India (SIMI), or a bunch of SIMI activists who have managed to  
evade arrest and have become more radicalised, important quarters in  
India will soon point fingers at Pakistan. The “Indian Mujahideen”  
email also contains a reference which some Indian newspapers find  
“mysterious”. The email claims that the latest blasts were plotted  
“to salute the memory of two of its inspirational martyrs, Sayyed  
Ahmed and Shah Ismail”. The reference is to Sayyed Ahmad Shaheed of  
Rai Bareilly and his disciple Shah Ismail, a scion of the family of  
the great Muslim thinker, Shah Waliullah of Delhi. Sayyed Ahmad  
Shaheed and Shah Ismail waged a jihad against the Sikh empire in 1830  
and were both martyred in Balakot in the Hazara division of the NWFP.  
These two great martyrs are today the inspiration behind the jihad  
pursued by the Pashtun warriors of Pakistan “against the Americans”.  
In the past, the training camps of the jihadi organisations were  
located near the tombs of Sayyed Ahmad Shaheed and Shah Ismail.

The grounds for the radicalisation of the Indian Muslims have been  
provided by violently radical Hindus in the past. The massacre of  
Muslims in the state of Gujarat by a BJP government was condemned by  
the entire world; and all true Indians have abominated the chief  
minister, Narendra Modi, who still rules the state after having  
communalised it. But bad India-Pakistan relations — mainly because of  
the situation in Afghanistan — will deflect attention from local  
causes and the rising ghettoisation of the Muslim Indians.

An observation made on the timing of the Delhi blasts by an Indian  
newspaper may also be misinterpreted: “Only 10 days before Australia  
are scheduled to land in India for their four-Test tour, just hours  
after a Pakistan team arrived in the national capital to play their  
Nissar Trophy match against Ranji champions Delhi, serial blasts have  
ripped through the city, throwing things into uncertainty”. Is it  
Pakistan which is trying to throw India into the same turmoil it is  
suffering at the hands of Al Qaeda? Yet the truth is that a terrorist  
caught in Ahmedabad had already revealed under interrogation that  
Delhi would soon be targeted.

Two developments in the region threaten another trough in the current  
Indo-Pak equation. India has blamed a blast at its embassy in Kabul  
on Pakistan and Pakistan has blamed a blast at its consulate in Herat  
on India. Additionally, Pakistan has accused India of fomenting  
mischief in Balochistan and the Tribal Areas, saying that some of the  
terrorist attacks in the latter region too were funded by India.  
Under the circumstances, it is unfortunate that some jihadi  
organisations in Pakistan held rallies in Karachi and Lahore last  
week, threatening India with another bout of jihad in Kashmir and  
denouncing the Bajaur Operation being carried out by the Pakistan army.

It is tragic that India and Pakistan are moving towards conflict even  
when they know they are being tricked into it by elements within them  
who don’t want peace to prevail. Recent “enactments” of terrorism on  
both sides have put the peace process on hold and there is no  
politician big enough to rise above the smoke of these blasts to  
complete the job of normalising relations. In fact, as days pass, the  
two nuclear-armed states may look less and less able to pursue the  
road they know is right.


–––––


[3]

Frontline
September 13-26, 2008

SECOND LINK IN THE CHAIN

by K.N. Panikkar

The incidents of August show that communalisation of Orissa is taking  
place very fast.


Graham Staines and his two sons and daughter. There were several  
instances of communal assertions in the State, some of them very  
violent, like the murder of Staines and his two sons in 1999.

COMMUNAL violence is not new in Orissa, or for that matter in any  
part of the country. But the latest incident is different, just as  
what happened in Gujarat in 2002. It is by far the most violent,  
brutal and widespread incidence of communal attack in the history of  
Orissa.

It is not a riot but a unilateral assault on the life and property of  
minorities by the members of Hindu communal organisations. Nor was it  
sudden or spontaneous. Behind it is an effective organisation and  
careful planning with a view to demarcating and isolating religious  
minorities from the national mainstream. It is also part of a larger  
political scheme of imparting a Hindu identity to the nation. There  
is a long preparation behind it, dating back to the 1940s when Hindu  
communal organisations struck root in the State. Since then  
communalism found its public articulation through expression of  
hatred towards minorities in manifold ways and through incidents of  
localised violence.

Communal consciousness has slowly but surely colonised society,  
constantly innovating its modes of social intervention. Several  
social activists who have noticed this alarming development have  
cautioned against the emerging communal situation in the State.

The testimonies of the victims of communalism from Orissa before an  
Independent People’s Tribunal in Delhi during March 20-22, 2007,  
contains the record of the intimidation, persecution and physical  
assault perpetrated by members of the Sangh Parivar against the  
minorities in the past few years. Fear and helplessness were writ  
large on the faces of those who took courage to appear before the  
tribunal (see Rise of Fascism in India: Victims of Communal Violence  
Speak, New Delhi, 2008).

One of the victims described what she experienced as follows: “A  
whisper, a look, a comment are weapons in the hands of the powerful  
that make us shiver. The RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh] men look  
at us when they circle our village. They come and go as they please.  
They taunt us in the bazaar. They beat the men and women. They  
whisper about us. They look at me and I feel sick. My children are  
afraid. When it is time, we know that the Sangh will act. Sometimes,  
I think what they might do. We are prisoners, slowly being pushed  
into darkness.”

The anticipated darkness has engulfed Orissa, sooner than expected.  
Most victims believed that a Gujarat is in the offing, for  
communalisation of Hindu community, just as happened in Gujarat, was  
taking place very fast. As a result, the incidents of August were not  
entirely unexpected. As feared by several secular activists, Hindu  
communalism has succeeded in establishing its second laboratory.
GUJARAT PROTOTYPE

The communal trajectory of Orissa has very closely followed the  
Gujarat prototype. What the Sangh Parivar organisations successfully  
experimented with in Gujarat was to launch a series of religion- 
centred programmes and institutions. Their aim was to create  
religious solidarity on the one hand and religious antagonism on the  
other. A variety of methods were adopted for achieving this  
objective. Among them, a very effective input came from social and  
cultural organisations. There is no reliable count of such  
organisations working in any one region in India. But there is hardly  
any social or cultural sector in which the Parivar has not failed to  
set up its “outlet”.

It is estimated that in Orissa it commands about 1,700 cultural  
organisations. Their activities and a large number of their  
publications are directed at the demonisation of the minorities as  
enemies. While in Gujarat, Muslims were cast in this role, in Orissa  
it was the turn of Christians to be accorded that status.

Although riots had occurred in the past against Muslims in Rourkela  
and Bhadrak, the communalisation of Orissa was primarily based on an  
anti-Christian project. All activities of Christian organisations and  
institutions were represented as steps towards evangelisation.  
Although the Christian population has not marked any increase in the  
past two decades, Christian missionaries were depicted as a threat to  
the future strength of the Hindu community.
ASHOKE CHAKRAVARTY

Six Christian women and the pastor of Kilipal village in  
Jagatsinghpur district who were tonsured by Sangh Parivar activists  
in February 2004.

Conversion, therefore, became a very emotive issue, which the Parivar  
invoked to close the ranks of the otherwise caste-differentiated  
Hindu community.

The ignorant and unsuspecting members of the community not only  
believed this canard but also swelled the fighting band of the  
Parivar. Particular attention was devoted to the tribal people who  
were recruited to the Parivar fold through different strategies of  
Hinduisation. One of the main reasons for the attack on Christian  
missionaries was to eliminate them from the tribal areas.

Slow, steady and continuous work, according to Professor Angana  
Chatterji, a political scientist working in California, has resulted  
in at least 12,000 of 20,000 villages in Orissa coming “under very  
strong influence” of the Parivar. In these villages, more than the  
RSS, it is the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) that  
command greater influence by recruiting the unemployed youth.

An important feature of the process of communalisation has been that  
it has occurred unobtrusively, even when its expansion has been  
rapid. It is the result of a conscious strategy so that communal  
forces get enough space to operate in its initial stage. This is not  
to suggest that the communal forces had not struck before. In fact,  
there were several instances of communal assertions, some of them  
very violent, like the murder of Graham Staines and his children,  
followed by several communal incidents and riots in different parts  
of the State.

These incidents, primarily coercive in character, were intended to  
prevent conversions and to bring back to the Hindu fold those who  
were already converted. Much of these coercions are not known outside  
the locality and do not appear even in the local language press.  
Lately, the Parivar has used force on the converts in a variety of  
ways. The converted women are taken to the village square, stripped  
and tonsured.

Samjukta Kandi of Kilipal, one of the many women who was subjected to  
such humiliation, described her experience as follows: “We were alone  
in the house with my two children and my sister-in-law. The men  
barged into our house and grabbed me. They dragged us to the square  
of the village and there in front of everyone, tonsured our heads.  
The children and my sister-in-law managed to escape to the forests. A  
VHP activist got up on the square and told us that he would be the  
second Dara Singh and would kill every one of us.” In many cases,  
economic boycott forced the converts to flee their villages. The  
instances of rape, which the victims referred to with tearful eyes,  
were many.
SOCIAL DISCRIMINATION

The VHP’s work is centred on forced reconversions in the tribal areas  
where Christian missionaries have been active through their  
philanthropic work. The VHP’s case is that conversions to  
Christianity are not voluntary and are effected with the lure of money.

Angana Chatterji’s study shows that generally the converts do not  
gain any benefits from converting. “As they are Dalits, oppression  
makes them all the more dissatisfied with the Hindu religion and  
further acts as a stimulant for converting them to Christianity or  
Buddhism in order to escape the discrimination that Hinduism inflicts  
upon them.”

Whatever the causes of conversion, the minorities have become the  
targets of social discrimination and economic marginalisation.  
Instead of looking inward, the Hindu communal organisations have  
taken the easier route of blaming other communities for conversion.
ASHOKE CHAKRAVARTY

VHP leaders stage a demonstration in front of the State Assembly in  
Bhubaneswar on July 5, 2007, protesting against conversions.

Retaliation for the murder of Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, the VHP  
claims, is the reason for the widespread communal violence. Who  
killed the swami is uncertain. Is it the Maoists, or the Christians  
who were provoked by the swami’s anti-Christian tirade, or those who  
were looking for easy money? Praveen Togadia and the VHP would like  
to believe that it is the handiwork of local Christians. As in the  
case of the Godhra incident, was the murder of the swami the occasion  
rather than the cause?

The Hindus, at least a section of them, were so much communalised and  
arraigned against Christians that the attack would have taken place  
even if the murder had not occurred. The suggestion in the media that  
the swami was chosen as a useful scapegoat by the VHP itself cannot  
be dismissed lightly, given the fascist track record of the Parivar.  
At any rate, unlike in the past, this time the violence was not  
localised. Although Kandhmal is the epicentre of the violence, seven  
other districts were affected simultaneously, indicating careful  
planning and organisation. No accurate estimate of the loss of life  
and property can be made now.
Failure of the state

Yet, it is reported that more than a 100 Christian institutions have  
been destroyed and about two dozen lives have been lost, including  
that of the woman who was burnt alive. Thousands of people have  
escaped to the forest to save their lives. Like their counterparts in  
Gujarat, they will be doomed to spend their lives in makeshift  
tenements in future. Orissa is yet another example of the failure of  
the state to contain communalism.

It is to be expected that the government of Orissa with the Bharatiya  
Janata Party (BJP) as one of its partners would be soft towards  
communal elements. But the Central government has not shown any  
urgency or willingness to address the issue of communalism even  
though it came to power on a secular platform.

Even the much-touted Bill for the prevention of communal violence has  
not been passed. In fact, no step has been initiated in the past four  
years to contain the communal virus that is spreading across the  
country. If anything, the leading partner in the coalition, the  
Congress, has adopted a soft Hindutva posture whenever it suited its  
political interests.

Even now when Orissa is burning, the Central government has refused  
to take any initiative to quell it, taking cover under some legal  
formalities. That is precisely what the BJP did when the Gujarat  
riots happened. Given its communal track record, it is  
understandable. But then the Congress claims to be a secular party.

What is happening in Orissa is not just another communal riot, caused  
by some local differences between the members of two communities, as  
has often happened in the past. It is part of a larger plan of which  
Gujarat was the first expression. That is why the Orissa government,  
under the BJP’s influence, has not taken adequate steps to bring the  
situation under control.

The Prime Minister-in-waiting, L.K. Advani, who has so far remained  
silent, would be hoping that Orissa would emerge as the second link  
in the communal chain. Such a contingency can be avoided only through  
the intervention of civil society.


______


[4]

The Morung Express
September 10, 2008

FREEDOM’S SENTINELS

by Kaizaad Kotwal

THERE IS no worse enemy of democracy than censorship. There is no  
patriotism greater than protecting free speech and freedom of  
expression. Sadly, in India today, while our government claims  
otherwise, there is a constant, deliberate and violently vitriolic  
attack on free speech and freedom of expression for individuals and  
groups alike. To be sure, none of our other freedoms and rights — to  
assemble peacefully, of religious expression, of political dissent,  
to seek justice etc. — are even remotely possible without our freedom  
of speech and rights of free expression, guaranteed under the  
Constitution. I write about this from a very particular point of  
view, with a very personal set of experiences. Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal  
and I are the producers/directors of the path-breaking play The  
Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler. Right from the start we have faced  
problems trying to get the play mounted — producers walking out at  
the last minute, sponsors balking at the title, actors who wear  
skirts short enough to expose their vaginas refusing to say the very  
word. Yet, nothing compares to the ways in which theatres and  
individuals have tried to silence the play.
A democracy must protect rights, not muzzle free speech

In Mumbai, even after getting a fullycleared script from the Censor  
Board (a prehistoric idea to begin with), theatres still refuse us  
performance permission, nothwithstanding the fact that after 192  
house-full shows, audiences are still clamouring to see it. A Mumbai  
college professor sued us in court because she thought we were  
responsible for the moral decay in the city!

The worst blow has come from Chennai, which, to date, has refused us  
entry to the city with this play on four different occasions. In 2003  
when we had brought down the playwright, along with two Oscarwinning  
actors — Jane Fonda and Marissa Tomei — we were told, a mere two  
hours before boarding the plane that the police commissioner had  
declined permission to perform because we would disturb the law and  
order situation in Chennai. First of all, it is only in fascist/  
totalitarian states where the police are in charge of artistic  
expression. Secondly, how perfectly non-violent people, preaching non- 
violence towards women, would violate the peace of Chennai is  
baffling. Thirdly, we were raising funds for women’s shelters and  
charities. Then, just this past week, we were off to Chennai to  
perform the play as part of the Times Of India Festival. Less than 48  
hours before the show, once again we were barred entry by a group of  
women who said that they would not allow the play to be performed in  
their city.

Having narrated the most personal aspects of the horrors of  
censorship, let me say that my fight for this cause is larger. I know  
that when I cannot speak, there are millions others, too, who find  
their mouths gagged, their plays/films banned, their books burned and  
their paintings vandalised. The really insidious part of censorship  
in India is not simply that we silence necessary voices, but also  
that those who censor resort to violence and vandalism. This is the  
sure sign that opponents of free speech actually have no tenable  
arguments, no logical ideology, and that violence is their only  
resort to winning the day. When that barbarism wins, you may as well  
bury democracy. What the anti-free speech crowd doesn’t understand is  
that while they have the right to dissent against any way of thinking  
and doing, or the right to protest any work of art, they do not have  
the right to prevent individuals from expressing themselves, nor  
others from enjoying this very same art. I support, with every fibre  
of my being, anyone’s right to protest my art. I cannot stomach  
anyone trying to silence mine, or any other, voice.

We may snickeringly find comfort against China’s meteoric economic  
rise by saying that they are totalitarian. My fellow Indians, just  
look around you. The truth is that in many ways we are no less  
totalitarian or fascistly brutal in our tactics against those we  
disagree with. And yet, we profess to the world that we are its  
largest democracy. Democracy is not to be evaluated by a country’s  
headcount, but rather by its avowed and daily insistence upon and  
unmitigating protection of the rights of all its citizens.

Kotwal is a writer, producer, director, and actor who teaches in the US

______


[5]

counterpunch
September 13 / 14, 2008

Hang in There Ralph! 79 Per Cent of Americans Believe in Miracles!!

THE ALMIGHTY AND U.S. ELECTIONS

by P. Sainath

Barack Obama made sure his eyes looked unblinking into the TV camera  
as he said:  "I believe (in)  --  Jesus Christ died for my sins, and  
that I am redeemed through him."  Barely an hour later, John McCain  
said from the very same platform (into the same television cameras)  
that being a follower of Christ "means I'm saved and forgiven. We're  
talking about the world. Our faith encompasses not just the United  
States but the world." Whatever it means to Obama and McCain, it  
means God is alive and well and a frontrunner in US election campaigns.

Both Presidential candidates were confessing their faith to Pastor  
Rick Warren at the Saddleback Church. This was in mid-August and  
their first major public appearance on the same platform - though not  
together but one immediately after the other. Both were reaching  
audiences of millions, but were basically aiming at a large religious  
constituency. Both knew what they had to say and how to say it.   
Neither had a problem with the idea that two potential presidents of  
the United States could submit themselves to interviews and  
(absolution?) on a religious platform of one faith.

It is of course legitimate for candidates to harbor religious  
beliefs. It is also true that this was probably the first among  
modern nations to have a written constitution making a strong and  
sharp separation of church and state.  Among the founders of the  
United States were those who had seen religious persecution in  
Europe. Hence their wall between Church and State. It's precisely  
that separation that begins to erode in such public displays of faith.

Let's suppose this had happened in, say, Pakistan. Say Zardari and  
Sharif  or whoever, had had their opening debate at the Grand Mosque.  
You'd never have heard the end of it in the US media. It would have  
been the 'aha' proof, if any were needed, of religious zealotry,  
bigotry, fundamentalism and the rest of it.  Here though, the swamp  
of analysis in the mainstream media that followed the Saddleback  
event had no such conclusions to draw. Not even in mild, diluted terms.

The media not only fear  (and sometimes suck up to) the religious  
right, they also factor in what they see as vital sensitivities  of  
their audiences.  For all its world leader status and excellence in  
scientific research, far more people in this country believe in the  
Devil than in Darwin, as one late 2007 poll put it.  Belief in  
(literal) Hell and the Devil was firm amongst 62 per cent of those  
surveyed. Darwin, complete with evolution / 'natural selection'   
clocked in with a poor 42 per cent. (About the same as Obama's rating  
in his latest polls.)

Also noteworthy: 79 per cent believed in miracles, 75 per cent in  
heaven. Witches and UFOs draw roughly the same score, with about a  
third of the populace believing in them. The UFOs have it by a short  
head among the general population  35 per cent against 31 per cent  
for witches. But witches outclass UFOs amongst born again Christians   
-  amongst whom Darwin fares worse than both, with a mere 16 per  
cent. (You've got to hand it to the Harris pollsters. Someday,  
someone must pull off this exercise at the level of the Indian  
political class with its godmen and tantriks.)

The religious (and spiritual-moral) motif in the US presidential race  
extends far beyond Saddleback, though. And not just in terms of  
prayers at the Conventions of both Republicans and Democrats. The  
choice of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate had a lot to do with  
it, too.  It was a move aimed at getting  unhappy Evangelicals to  
board the McCain bandwagon. To that extent, it's even a move that has  
worked, apart from putting the Obama camp into confusion and  
despondency. The more so since the Democrats have tried hard to  
broaden their base amongst 'faith voters' for some time now.

This is partly based on the dangerous  and fragile notion that the  
Left-inclined, the anti-Bush voters,  those angry over the economy  
will vote Democrat anyway. So let's target the 'faith voters' a bit  
more.

Religious writers and religious correspondents of the daily did spot  
this even before the Democrats held their Convention in Denver. They  
pointed to the fact that the party had a new "faith caucus" and was  
throwing up themes like: "Faith in 2009. How an Obama Administration  
will Engage People of Faith."  Of course, the religious events at  
their events were billed as "inter-faith" services, but their scope  
was more Christian than anything else. Of course, Jewish sentiments  
and votes are also an important factor in US elections.

Other religions have made disastrous forays into US Presidential  
races. None more humbling than the debacle of year 2000, when several  
Muslim leaders and bodies decided and declared that the best  
candidate for Muslims was a George W. Bush.  As the San Francisco  
Chronicle's Religion Writer points out: " The decision was heavily  
influenced by Bush's public declaration to end the use of secret  
evidence in immigration cases, a form of racial profiling, that  
disproportionately affected Muslims. Muslim leaders touted the fact  
that the bloc vote delivered thousands of extra Bush votes in  
Florida, where Bush's margin was in the hundreds."  The rest is history.

Demonizing Muslims and Islam has multiplied manifold since then. The  
Hillary Clinton campaign did not lag far behind the McCain one when  
it came to reminding people that Obama's middle name is Hussein. Even  
while being given a mudbath on that one, Obama faced flak from the  
media for his association with  his  -  Christian  -  pastor, the  
Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright holds what in the US media  are  
"controversial" views  --  like saying that 9/11 was a result of the  
USA's own terrorism elsewhere.  Obama quickly distanced himself  from  
his pastor. Now, the Democrats wait, hoping that Sarah Palin's church  
and pastor will do her some damage. They could be hoping in vain.  
True, a recent sermon there said that bomb blasts and suicide attacks  
directed at Israel were punishment for the Jews not converting to  
Christianity. But outrageous statements on the Right get off more  
lightly than the mildest criticisms from elsewhere. God and the  
media  favor the Big Battalions.

In India, we do have the Bharatiya Janata Party that has worked hard,  
consciously and pretty explicitly at suffusing every sphere of  
activity with religion -  that is, their Brahmanical brand of  
Hinduism In government, in education -  and even in and with the  
Army, it has spared no effort to whip up religiosity and carry God  
all the way to the voting booth. While it has made significant  
advances in all these efforts,  it gets more complex at election  
time.  Inflation will be a much bigger God in the next election and  
the BJP will seat him high up on their pantheon. Sickening amounts  
of  blood has been spilt in the name of God. But God in this avatar  
always faces challenge and criticism. Other parties of the Hindu  
Right, like the Shiv Sena, would have a very poor base if their  
radical religious rhetoric were not also pinned on to issues of  
regional identity and fears of discrimination against "sons-of-the- 
soil" in jobs and positions of authority. There have been coalitions,  
even at the Centre, with no major religious motif.  And there have  
been several movements and parties, essentially atheistic, that have  
come to power in the states on non-religious platforms. Far more  
Muslims have voted to send Communists to parliament than to seat  
candidates of the Muslim League there. And while drawing wide  
conclusions from it would be very wrong  -  you still do have  an  
upper caste Hindu woman for President, a Sikh as Prime Minister, a  
Dalit as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and an atheist as Speaker  
of the nation's parliament. As complex and confusing as it gets,  
though perhaps logical when politics is seen as a mix of so many   
diverse streams.

Here in America, the first modern state to legally separate church  
and state, it's different. God moves in a strange way his wonders to  
perform. And sometimes, during elections, for instance, it really  
leaves you wondering.

P. Sainath is the rural affairs editor of The Hindu, where this piece  
appears, and is the author of Everybody Loves a Good Drought. This  
fall he is giving a course at UC Berkeley. He can be reached at:  
psainath at vsnl.com.
______


[6] UK

The Observer
September 14 2008

OUR SCIENTISTS MUST NAIL THE CREATIONISTS

The Royal Society should take a much stronger stance in opposing  
religion in the school lab

by Robin McKie

There are two ways of reacting to the Royal Society's claim that its  
education director Michael Reiss was misrepresented in reports  
alleging he thought creationism should be taught in science  
classrooms. Either journalists got it wrong or Reiss - an ordained  
Church of England clergyman - did indeed suggest religious dogma be  
mixed with science teaching. I tend very much to the latter view.

As Sir Harry Kroto, a society fellow, and a Nobel prize winner,  
pointed out in a letter to the Royal Society, Reiss was an accident  
waiting to happen: 'I warned the president ... that his was a  
dangerous appointment. I did not realise just how dangerous it would  
turn out to be.'

Now the society has been caught out, though in the short term it may  
ride out the current controversy. In the wake of Reiss's remarks,  
most commentaries have focused, quite reasonably, on the issue of how  
science and religion should be taught at school. At the same time,  
the Royal Society has rushed to assure scientists that it still  
believes creationism has no place in school laboratories.

There is a second, more important issue at stake, however. How should  
the Royal Society, the world's oldest and most prestigious scientific  
organisation, treat religion within the confines of its own  
headquarters?

Science and religion do mix, though the combination is often volatile  
- the reaction often depending, intriguingly, on the discipline  
studied by a particular researcher, according to Sir Tim Hunt, winner  
of the 2001 Nobel prize for medicine. 'Cosmologists and physicists  
dwell on cosmic forces which - if altered only slightly - would  
prevent many chemical reactions, and life, from occurring. The sheer  
improbability of our universe makes them all a bit spiritual and soft  
on religion. By contrast, biologists see evolution constantly at work  
in their research and are more hard-nosed about God.'

The idea is not without exceptions, of course. Hunt, a biologist, is  
scarcely hardline about Reiss's creationism call, for example. 'I am  
not worried about this one, though I am definitely anti-religious.'

But if he is unworried about God getting a foot in the Royal  
Society's door, many other fellows find recent developments  
troubling. Scientists such as Kroto, Sir Richard Roberts (another UK  
Nobel winner), and Richard Dawkins look with horror upon the spread  
of faith schools; the growing influence of bodies such as the  
Templeton Foundation, a conservative US organisation which constantly  
seeks to establish links between science and religion; and the  
prospect of creationism being taught in Britain's science classrooms.  
They expect the Royal Society to take a tough stand on these issues.

Many of their fears are based on their American experiences, it  
should be noted. Kroto and Richards now work there while Dawkins is a  
frequent visitor on the US lecture circuit. And what they see in  
America unnerves them: school science teachers who firmly believe the  
world and humanity are the 6,000-year-old handiwork of God and who  
cannot accept what DNA tells us about our close relationships with  
the animal world, what isotope research reveals about the deep  
antiquity of our planet, what astronomical studies tell us about the  
size and age of the universe; and what fossils reveal about our own  
species' multimillion-year lineage. The prospect of such ignorance  
spreading to Britain quite rightly appals them.

'I don't know if it is too late to stop the slide in Britain but I  
think it is in the US where they [the religious right] have now  
almost complete control over politics, the judiciary, education,  
business, journalism and television,' says Kroto. 'And it will only  
take a presidential victory by McCain, followed by him having a heart  
attack weeks later, and Sarah Palin, a creationist supporter, will  
become head of the world's most powerful country.'

It is the duty of scientists to fight such onslaughts and be examples  
of rationality in a darkening world, it is argued. Hence the anger at  
the Royal Society for failing to firmly nail its colours to its mast.  
The organisation has a motto: 'Nullius in verba' (roughly, 'Take  
nobody's word for it'). In other words, verify everything by  
experiment and think for yourself. Both are noble aspirations. It is  
therefore baffling how an ordained minister - a man committed to  
believing the word of God without question - could have been asked to  
play a senior role in the society. Equally, the society's acceptance  
of money from the Templeton Foundation raises further concerns.

The Royal Society - which should set the fiercest of examples in its  
commitment to rationality - has shown worrying signs of spiritual  
sloppiness. (Its current president, Lord Rees, is a cosmologist who  
attends church 'as an unbelieving Anglican', it should be noted.)  
Those of a religious persuasion might welcome this softening. I would  
sound a note of caution, however. Britain is still a broadly secular  
society which guarantees freedoms not just to atheists but to all  
religions, no matter how few its adherents. If we follow the example  
of America then all are threatened by the rise of a powerful  
Christian right.

We badly need our premier scientific society to stand firm and  
present a clear vision of how our planet, our species, and the cosmos  
came into existence. It needs to be unequivocal about the wonders of  
nature as revealed through rational, scientific investigation. As  
Douglas Adams put it: 'Isn't enough to see that a garden is beautiful  
without having to believe there are fairies at the bottom of it too?'


______


[7]  ANNOUNCEMENTS:

[1]

film screening : 'Four Women and a Room' (DVCAM, 42 Minutes, English,  
Hindi with English subtitles) on

Wednesday, 17th September at 4.30 pm at The Stein Auditorium, India  
Habitat Center, New Delhi.

About the film:

'Four Women and a Room' unfolds as a story of four women and the  
diverse relationships they have with notions of nurturing and being  
mothers. Late into pregnancy, MILI is confounded with the unknown.  
Having gone through endless rituals of matchmaking, LATIKA is  
wondering about her desire to be a biological mother. The dreamscape  
of the FILMMAKER throws up images and associations of a hospital  
visited sometime back and reminds her of meeting KALPANA; an UNKNOWN  
WOMAN; who undergoes a sex selective abortion.

The film is set against a backdrop of the emergence of 'choice' based  
New Reproductive Technologies and the history of how abortion came to  
be'legalised' in India.

As against popular perception, The Medical Termination of Pregnancy  
Act 1971 originated from the population control imperatives of Indian  
State, not from  pro-choice arguments of feminist politics.
Under a government aided programme, abortion of female foetuses  
became the preferred method of population control between 1970-80s.
Despite the initial ban imposed on the use of sex selection  
technologies in 1978, the 2001 Census indicated that the girl child  
was more unwanted than ever.
In a bid to fix the ‘problem’ pro-life arguments began slipping into  
the language of advocacy , policy and activism. In the midst of all  
this, no thought was given to how women would negotiate agency and  
choice in a culture that ceaselessly tries to fix their role as  
producers; a culture that obsesses around the production of a male  
child despite its apparent hypocrisy. 'Four Women and a Room' sets  
out to explore some of these questions.

Crew:
Direction, Script and Editing: Ambarien Al Qadar
Cinematography: Shakeb Ahmed, Sound : Girijashanker Vohra
Producer: The Public Service Broadcasting Trust, New Delhi 2008.


o o o


[2]

http://www.anhadin.net/article52.html

State Youth Convention
Bol Ke Lab Azaad Hain Tere
Bhopal Madhya Pradesh
October 2008

As part of a two long month 'Save Democracy Campaign' * in Madhya  
Pradesh , Anhad has announced two competitions for youth residing in  
Madhya Pradesh (age18-30yrs) .


While the Youth Convention is open to all in Madhya Pradesh ( age  
group 18 - 30) for those who wish to get their voices heard will have  
to take part in two competitions.

1. Essay Writing Competition
Last Date : 30 September, 2008
Langugae: Hindi or English
Subject: Indian Constitution & the assault on its values
Word limit: 800-1500 words.
80 best entries will be selected and will qualify for the second  
round of the competition.Selected candidates will be given merit  
certificates and prizes also.

2. Elocution Competition
Date: 10 October 2008 ( in case of any change the selected candidates  
will be notified)
Time Limit: 3-4 minutes
Language: Hindi or English

After qualifying the first round the selected 80 candidates will take  
part in this round.
Subjects:

Participants will have to speak on any of the following subjects:
1. State of Dalits and assault on their constitutional rights
2. State of women in Madhya Pradesh
3. Communalism: danger to our Democracy
4. Privatization of Education and its effect on ordinary citizens
5. Globalization and its effect on farmers
6.State of Adivasis and challenges faced by them
7.Criminalisation of Politics and its effect on society
8. Dream of an equal and just society: Challenge in front of the Youth

three speakers on each subject will be selected. they will be given  
two days training in content and public speaking. Selected candidates  
will be given merit certificates and prizes also.

The selected candidates will be the main speakers for the Youth  
Convention to be held in October in Bhopal.

Please send your entries to anhad.bhopal at gmail.com
Anhad, G-2, Aditi Apartment, Plot No E-8/ 352, Trilanga, Bhopal
Tel- 0755- 4285213

Please circulate to young people in Madhya Pradesh

sincerely

Shabnam Hashmi

'Save Democracy Campaign' * was launched in Madhya Pradesh on  
September 10th. A large number fo organsations from Madhya Pradesh  
have come together in this campaign. They include: People's Research  
Society( Bhopal), Sandarbh( Indore), BGVS, All India Secular Forum,  
Jan Pahal, Lok Sagarsh Manch, HRLN.



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

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
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