SACW | Jan 28-29, 2009 / Sri Lanka Crisis / Mangalore's Taliban; Sulwa Judam in Orissa
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at gmail.com
Wed Jan 28 22:35:51 CST 2009
South Asia Citizens Wire | January 28-29, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2602 -
Year 11 running
From: www.sacw.net
[1] Sri Lanka: Major humanitarian crisis unfolding (ICRC News Release)
+ 'How can people say this is peace?' (Stephanie Nolen)
[2] South Asia: Shouldn't we pause to think? (M.B. Naqvi)
[3] Pakistan: possible ban on Indian cable TV channels and on films ?
(Editorial, The News)
[4] India - Karnataka: Hindutva's Thugs Running Amuck -- Editorials,
Statements and Reports
(i) Ram Sene attack is form of terror (Editorial, The Asian Age)
(ii) Pub Brawl (Editorial, The Telegraph)
(iii) Barbarians At Large (Editorial, Times of India)
(iv) Mangalore's Taliban: India outraged (Prerna Thakurdesai)
(v) What Is Sri Ram Sena? (NDTV)
(vi) Sene’s shame old story (expressbuzz.com)
(vii) Sri Ram Sena should be strongly disciplined; its origins
thoroughly investigated (Press Statement, SAHMAT)
(viii) Mangalore Attack: Take Firm Action (Press Statement by
Communist Party of India (Marxist))
(ix) Women drinking is as old as the hills in Karnataka (Sowmya Aji)
(x) Outrage in Mangalore (Editorial, The Tribune)
(xi) It’s goondaism, not Hinduism, say experts (Vikas Pathak)
(xii) Man who fought vigilantes in Karnataka receives threat to life
[5] India: Concern at Orissa Govt Setting up a ’Sulwa Judam’ Type
Militia
[6] Conference Declaration - 7th World Atheist Conference, Vijaywada
[7] Announcements:
(i) Film Screening: No Man’s Land / Everybody’s Land (Karachi, 30
January - 1st February 2009)
(ii) Sahmat - Image Music Text (New Delhi, 31 January 2009)
(iii) Seminar: Contesting Media Realities: Unpacking the Real
(Bombay, 29-30 January 2009)
(iv) Workshop Rethinking Culture & Development: Feminist Crossings
- Call For Applications (May 2009
_____
[1] Sri Lanka:
ICRC News release 09/22
27-01-2009
SRI LANKA: MAJOR HUMANITARIAN CRISIS UNFOLDING
Colombo / Geneva (ICRC) – Hundreds of people have been killed and
scores of wounded are overwhelming understaffed and ill-equipped
medical facilities in Sri Lanka's northern Vanni region, following
intensified fighting between the Sri Lanka Security Forces and the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
"People are being caught in the crossfire, hospitals and ambulances
have been hit by shelling and several aid workers have been injured
while evacuating the wounded. The violence is preventing the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from operating in the
region," said Jacques de Maio, ICRC head of operations for South Asia
in Geneva.
The terrified population is in need of protection, medical care and
basic assistance, according to the ICRC.
An estimated 250,000 people are trapped in a 250 square-kilometre
area which has come under intense fighting. They have no safe area to
take shelter and are unable to flee.
"When the dust settles, we may see countless victims and a terrible
humanitarian situation, unless civilians are protected and
international humanitarian law is respected in all circumstances,"
said Mr de Maio. "It's high time to take decisive action and stop
further bloodshed because time is running out."
The ICRC urgently appeals to both sides to allow and facilitate the
safe and voluntary movement of civilians out of the combat zone.
The ICRC is determined to stay as long as possible in the Vanni, but
the parties must respect its presence and its work. Humanitarian
assistance must be allowed to enter the Vanni and aid workers and
their premises must be protected from shelling and looting, as
required by international humanitarian law.
Both sides are strongly urged to spare the lives of those not, or no
longer, taking direct part in the fighting. Hundreds of patients need
emergency treatment and evacuation to Vavuniya Hospital in the
government-controlled area.
The ICRC, which is the only international aid agency to have remained
permanently in the Vanni over the past four months with the agreement
of both sides, continues to work alongside the Sri Lanka Red Cross
Society helping those in need.
For further information, please contact:
Carla Haddad Mardini, ICRC Geneva, tel +41 22 730 24 05 or +41 79 217
32 26
Sarasi Wijeratne, ICRC Colombo, tel +94 11 250 33 46 or +94 773 1588 44
o o o
The Globe and Mail
January 27, 2009
'HOW CAN PEOPLE SAY THIS IS PEACE?'
Eastern Sri Lanka chafes under the oppressive rule of a government
that says it is committed to democracy
by Stephanie Nolen
Trincomalee, Sri Lanka — In the local office of Sri Lanka's national
Human Rights Commission here in this eastern seaside town, they have
statistics: Ninety-eight people were abducted in this area last year,
snatched off the streets by the infamous white vans with no licence
plates that are used by government security agencies. Eighty-five
other Tamils simply disappeared. At the commission they have case
files and police reports.
But none of the staff will talk about them. "We are helpless," one
staff member said apologetically, ushering a visiting journalist out
of the office. "We would like to help the people but we have to be
afraid for our lives, too."
And who do they fear at this government office?
The government.
Eastern Sri Lanka offers insight into what the north of the country -
the area that until weeks ago was held by the rebel Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam - will soon look like. The Tigers have lost all but a
tiny portion of their territory to a punishing air and ground assault
by government forces, launched by a president determined to end the
country's 25-year-old civil war to win elections in April. He
promises peace and development for the civilians of the north, where
long-time oppression of the minority Tamils by the Sinhalese-
dominated government helped to create a powerful secessionist movement.
Until 2006, this swath of the east was also held by the LTTE. But
infighting within the Tigers, which Canada and many other nations
list as a terrorist organization, led to a split and the rebels of
the east soon allied themselves with the government.
Today the government holds up Eastern Province as a model of its
magnanimity, pointing out that elections were held there shortly
after its military control was established, and that a Tamil party
headed by ex-rebels won the region.
"The President has shown his commitment to honourable peace in
Eastern Province; those people were given the chance to elect their
own people. They know they are being represented, not neglected,"
said Lakshman Hulugalle, spokesman for the Ministry of Defence.
But international observers said the poll was marred by rigging,
violence and intimidation, and the provincial government is dominated
by ex-fighters from the breakaway Tamil faction who have little
support from the population, which resented the rebels' often
oppressive rule. Indeed the Chief Minister of the province is
Sivanesathurai Santhirakanthan, better known by his nom de guerre
Pillayan, which he acquired when he joined the Tigers as a 14-year-
old fighter. Today he is ostensibly the most powerful man in the
province, a claim he rejects with a small, tight smile.
"The government is eliminating terrorism, offering a political
solution, and that is how I have been elected Chief Minister," he
began in a recent interview in his office, then added, "I have become
a chief minister but I have not received powers from Colombo. For the
past six months Colombo says, 'This is not the right time to devolve
powers.' They say they will give them in time."
Most local and international observers - even Mr. Hulugalle of the
Defence Ministry - predict that when the LTTE loses control of all
its territory in the north it will launch an underground, Iraq-style
insurgency. The Tigers have since the first days of their fight used
suicide attacks on civilians, including those at prayer in places of
worship, as one of their standard tactics.
"The LTTE will go to the jungle as resistance, and even if there are
a few hundred of them, the government has to maintain a military
presence in the north; their residual force will require suspicion of
all Tamils," said Jehan Perera, head of the National Peace Council.
"The situation is likely to be the same or much worse than in the
east - the soldiers, the questioning of people, the difficulty of
getting private business to invest there."
And the peace of the victors will be a cold one for the Tamils, he
predicted. "They say they will be doing infrastructure, building
roads and that kind of thing, but it will all be done by the central
government, and this conflict grew in the first place from the view
the central government is Sinhalese and doesn't take their interest
into account," he said.
Thus the streets of Trincomalee, banded every 150 metres or so with
checkpoints where Tamils are grilled about who they are and where
they are going and whether they can prove they do not support the
LTTE, offer a grim vision of what the north will soon be like.
"What democracy do we have today?" asked the president of a respected
local development organization, too afraid to be quoted by name. "We
cannot meet, we cannot talk, even if someone sees us now, the
security will come and ask what we are discussing. Every time you
leave your house it's like you are going to court to face charges."
Sure, he said, the government has built a few roads (using Sinhalese-
owned contractors and only Sinhalese labourers), and yes, he got to
vote, for the first time in decades. But that is cold comfort, he
said. "You can put a parrot in a nice cage and feed it nice food like
apples but it's still a caged bird."
Pillayan, the Chief Minister, knows people are frustrated, and said
that the situation will change. "The central government gave
assurance that the 13th amendment [to the constitution, which
promises power-sharing with the Tamils and other minorities] and even
more will be there," he said. "We still have hope."
Yet as frightening as the disappearances, and perhaps more likely to
cause further conflict over time, is the government's unabashed
campaign of "Sinhalization." Historic sites commemorating ancient
Tamil kingdoms have, in the months since the government took control
of the area, suddenly become memorials to Sinhalese kingdoms. Some
Tamils stopped at checkpoints can no longer give the names of their
home villages, because those places have new Sinhala names, local and
international human-rights monitors say.
The government recently announced that the fishermen of Trincomalee
were back to catching their prefighting hauls of fish, but neglected
to mention that it continues to deny all but a handful of Tamil
fishermen the right to put to sea (citing the security risk that they
might ferry supplies to the Tigers) and has instead brought in
Sinhalese fishermen from the south, to whom it affords much more
freedom.
"All the land seized as a 'high security zone' in the 2006 fighting
is still in the hands of the military, and you have tens of thousands
of people stuck in resettlement camps where they aren't allowed to
fish and don't have land to farm and have a miserable existence,"
said one United Nations employee who was not authorized to discuss
the situation on the record.
UN agencies, which are feeding civilians on both sides of the
conflict and supporting a host of development projects across the
country, as well as other aid agencies, are routinely denounced in
the state-controlled Sri Lankan media as overt partisans and backers
of the LTTE, a fact that both hinders their work and has the effect
of blunting their criticism.
There is an additional layer of tension in the east because the LTTE
is still present here, albeit underground - a situation that will be
doubly true in the north. The rebels continue to pressure the Tamil
population to provide funding and other support for the nationalist
cause, and attempt to enforce vote boycotts and other obstacles to
peaceful political participation.
In the anxious offices of the Human Rights Commission, investigators
are regularly reminded by their government masters that official
policy is: All is well in the east. And they despair. "How can people
live like this?" a staff member asked. "How can people say this is
peace?"
_____
[2] South Asia:
The Daily Star
January 29, 2009
SHOULDN'T WE PAUSE TO THINK?
by M.B. Naqvi
South Asians remain divided in multiple ways. Each member of the
Saarc has internal divisions. India has internal insurgencies going
on, and India and Pakistan are immersed in communal hatred.
Pakistan is threatened by an intolerant and violent Islam that may be
its nemesis. Ethnic nationalisms are also permanent divisions.
Islamic extremism is a threat that Bangladesh also faces.
Afghanistan is under foreign occupation, and a war is going on in the
name of the same new Islam represented by al-Qaeda. Sri Lanka is torn
by a war that is internal and near formal.
The most hopeful and peaceful country is Bangladesh, though it faces
a threat from the new Islam and a fractured polity. But it might just
escape the mayhems in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.
India and Pakistan have had their politics deformed that began with
the British colonial masters specifying religion as the main
distinguishing feature. Once communal rivalry started, it grew into a
monster that divided the British Indian Empire and has kept the two
states on an inimical course, until the Muslims demanded a separate
state.
The policies of the two states remain frozen into a hideous shape of
trying to down each other. Pakistan fought three wars with India
until Pakistan itself was partitioned: having promoted hatred against
the "other."
Despite the riots on the horizon, Indo-Bangladesh relations remain
peaceful. Will the Indians recruit at least Bangladesh as their
cooperative partner for a joint endeavour in the economic sphere?
Pakistan-India relations remain dangerously fraught. Both wish to
rush at each other's throats and the rest of the world rushes in to
mediate. Superficially, the leaderships of both sides appear to be
mature to the demands of statecraft and diplomacy. But what have they
achieved by this seeming maturity?
Pakistan signed the Shimla Agreement in 1972 (with India) after
losing the third war. But the man who had signed it was frightened by
his rightwing parties and did not implement all the obligations of
the agreement, particularly with regard to Kashmir. Instead of
talking, Indian and Pakistani leaderships started building up even
bigger military machines.
Pakistan caught up with India's nuclear power status, and both have
been engaged in building up conventional and nuclear forces. There
was no effort to normalise relations. They later agreed on an eight
subject Composite Dialogue.
These talks lasted for some time and more or less broke down in the
competitive testing of nuclear weapons. India made one more effort to
talk peace with Pakistan in February 1999. But it was quickly replied
to by Kargil's semi-war, leading back to square one.
Musharraf tried to start talks at Agra and drew a blank. The attacks
on Delhi Red Fort and the Indian Parliament brought the countries to
the verge of another war. India acted as if it would invade Pakistan.
Pakistan repeatedly threatened the use of nuclear weapons. The Anglo-
American powers got busy in managing the near-combatants into staying
in the trenches rather than making actual peace.
The cost of such mediation is high, and Islamabad and Delhi looked
like playing into the hands of supposedly more mature and more
peaceable powers, although the US's record of military aggressions
speaks volumes. Diplomats of the two countries were manipulated by
Anglo-American powers and have been separately recruited as their
junior partners. The hard fact of both being junior partners of the
US and the rest of the Nato powers cannot be ignored.
Political leaderships of South Asian states should care more for
their own people rather than for their hate-based ambitions of
defeating their opponents. Saarc was a worthy Bangladeshi initiative
and it was hoped that South Asians would work for economic
integration of their region.
The west Europeans decided that they did not want more war glories!
They would rather go for plain non-military benefits of economic nature.
The newly independent South Asians couldn't resist the temptation of
giving priority to their hate-based actions. Which is why South Asia
is where it is: each state well below the standards of living it
could have attained if it had given priority to economic development.
Each state is not at peace, except probably only Bangladesh in part
and Maldives. It looks as if South Asians will remain set on their
present courses.
After the Mumbai attacks, the reactions of India's rightwing parties
and media show that this sort of thing is likely to erupt every now
and then vis-à-vis Pakistan. Resumption of serious dialogue is
unlikely soon, despite its aim for normalising relations.
Each Saarc state needs to reorient itself to mainly achieving
economic development. These states should democratise their purpose
also; it is not enough to have formal democracy alone. The militaries
must become one of the secondary necessities of any state. Democracy
must become the means as well as the end. Will they do that?
M.B. Naqvi is a leading Pakistani columnist.
_____
[3] Pakistan:
The News
January 29, 2009
Editorial
BOLLYWOOD BAN?
The Senate Committee on Information, during its discussions,
suggested the possibility of a ban on Indian cable TV channels and on
films. Members of the committee, during a debate that focused on the
situation after the Mumbai attacks, pointed out that Pakistani
television plays, magazines and books had been banned in India.
As the old adage goes, two wrongs do not make a right. Rather than
focusing on a 'tit-for-tat' answer to measures adopted by the
Indians, Pakistan must show itself to possess greater acumen and
maturity. By doing so it would most effectively gain the edge over
India and gain diplomatic advantage. There is another reason for
this. Cinema owners in Pakistan have expressed concern over the
possibility of a ban on Bollywood films. The decision to allow
selected Indian films to play at movie theatres has been a key factor
in halting their decline. It is also a fact that these films will
help promote the competition that the local film industry needs to
move out of its present state of stagnation. A ban on Indian films or
TV channels will, therefore, do more harm than good. In an age when
information flows more freely than ever, it is pointless to impose
bans of this kind. By refusing to do so Pakistan would play a
positive part in moving towards a more normal relationship with
India, demonstrating that, unlike New Delhi, it has no desire to add
to the exiting tensions but is instead determined to end them.
_____
[4] INDIA - KARNATAKA: HINDUTVA'S THUGS RUNNING AMUCK
Editorials, Statements and Reports compiled by sacw.net
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/01/karnataka-hindutvas-thugs-
running-amuck.html
(i) Ram Sene attack is form of terror (Editorial, The Asian Age)
(ii) Pub Brawl (Editorial, The Telegraph)
(iii) Barbarians At Large (Editorial, Times of India)
(iv) Mangalore's Taliban: India outraged (Prerna Thakurdesai)
(v) What Is Sri Ram Sena? (NDTV)
(vi) Sene’s shame old story (expressbuzz.com)
(vii) Sri Ram Sena should be strongly disciplined; its origins
thoroughly investigated (Press Statement, SAHMAT)
(viii) Mangalore Attack: Take Firm Action (Press Statement by
Communist Party of India (Marxist))
(ix) Women drinking is as old as the hills in Karnataka (Sowmya Aji)
(x) Outrage in Mangalore (Editorial, The Tribune)
(xi) It’s goondaism, not Hinduism, say experts (Vikas Pathak)
(xii) Man who fought vigilantes in Karnataka receives threat to life
(i)
The Asian Age
28 January 2009
Editorial
RAM SENE ATTACK IS FORM OF TERROR
Jan. 28:The Sri Ram Sene, which shamefully assaulted women in a
Mangalore pub last Saturday, has relied on an inglorious tradition to
justify its degrading action, executed in the name of defending
"Indian norms". The perpetration of cruelty and violence, especially
against women, in the name of religious or moral sanction, or taking
the plea of defending the putative values of a society, or nation, or
a particular tradition, has been with us for hundreds of years. In
our own times, the Taliban began shooting women at point blank range
or beheading them in public for not taking seriously the mores sought
to be enforced by them. This, incidentally, was among the social
causes that led to revulsion against the extremists in Afghanistan
prior to the US invasion. In Kashmir, from time to time, terrorist
elements have used violence against women in particular to enforce
their diktat on a generally unwilling society. Not so long ago, Hindu
society in Rajasthan and other places found the recrudescence of the
hateful sati system, which had to be put down through the use of
administrative force. More often than not, attacks on women are
conducted by well-organised groups that enjoy political patronage of
influential groups, and often administrative patronage as well. It
will indeed be a surprise if the Ram Sene is found to be a body
without powerful patrons who will spring to its defence.
It is interesting that the Bajrang Dal has reportedly sought to take
the credit for the physical attack on young women in Mangalore away
from the Ram Sene. The Bajrang Dal is an integral part of the Hindu
far right, many of whose affiliates have gone on the rampage from
time to time in different parts of the country. Such outfits keep
their cadres mobilised by attacking artists and the arts in various
forms, assaulting the integrity of women, and spreading poison
against minority groups. Invariably, the justification is an assumed
moral outrage at deviations from the religious or cultural
sensibilities the political parties or ideological formations backing
these outfits happen to espouse. There is little that distinguishes
the self-proclaimed "guardians" of our tradition from the guns-and-
bombs category commonly described as terrorists. Both use violence to
intimidate ordinary people in order to spread fear and achieve
political ends. Both consciously subvert processes as by law
established. The only way to beat them back is to meet them
frontally. If the state retreats, they are emboldened. If powerful
elements of the state deviously support them while pretending to do
otherwise, extremists eventually overtake those elements and seek
direct power for themselves. This is what the Taliban are doing now
in Pakistan, for instance. In recent history, the inspiration of the
Hindu far right comes from the gory episodes of Gujarat, circa 2002,
and the wilful and organised demolition of the Babri mosque, circa
1992. The administration must meet the challenge posed by the likes
of the Ram Sene forcefully and skilfully. If it is serious, the goons
will take flight. It will also help if the Sangh Parivar leaders
publicly dissociate themselves from the self-appointed guardians of
our values and our culture.
o o o
The Telegraph
January 28 , 2009
Editorial
PUB BRAWL
When a bunch of Hindu rightwing thugs stormed a pub in Karnataka and
beat up the women in it, their ostensible reason had something to do
with “Indian norms”. It is not quite clear whether these norms were
being violated by the women drinking alcohol in public or being
affirmed by their being beaten up by the men. Perhaps a bit of both.
But the violence of the assault on the women and on the men who tried
to come to their rescue, together with the verbal abuse hurled at the
women, was evidence of the passion with which these norms could be
upheld. More than 25 members of the Sri Ram Sena have now been
arrested in Karnataka, but the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have
distanced itself from the Sri Ram Sena’s zeal, claiming that the
outfit was not a member of the sangh parivar. Mangalore’s
cosmopolitanism, its religious mix and its urban culture were all
against the grain of the conservatism of a BJP-ruled state. In a big
city like Mumbai, the bigotry of the Hindu Right, though often in
evidence, gets diluted by the magnitude and variety of its citizenry.
But it would be easier to bully a smaller city like Mangalore. And
everything would depend on what sort of an attitude the state
government adopts with regard to such incidents, and the extent to
which the state’s law and order machinery can deal with such
lawlessness without bowing to partisan pressures.
As with the Shiv Sena’s agitations in Maharashtra almost every year
on Valentine’s Day, what such collective eruptions attest to is a
violently irrational element at the heart of certain invented
traditions that are nevertheless perfectly capable of organizing
themselves institutionally. Outfits like the Sri Ram Sena are driven
by passions that find their focus on such preoccupations as female
virtue or appropriate forms of publicly expressed patriotism, all
formulated in terms of a certain idea of India. Women sitting in a
pub drinking alcohol violates this idea in a way that civilized,
rational and modern minds will find difficult to fathom. Yet, the
power of hordes is just as difficult to ignore, and benighted
enthusiasms are very often collectively held. The freedom to have fun
in a secure, yet liberated, public arena is a fundamental right for
women and men in any modern democracy. The State as well as civil
society will have to persist in protecting these rights.
o o o
Times of India
28 January 2009
Editorial
BARBARIANS AT LARGE
It only keeps getting worse. Intolerance is a stain that is spreading
deep and fast in our country. Violent attacks by hoodlums inspired by
extreme ideologies - be it regional chauvinism, religious bigotry or
a warped sense of Indian tradition and ethos - are becoming an
alarmingly frequent feature of our times. The incident last weekend
in Mangalore, in which women were physically assaulted by a bunch of
goons bearing allegiance to the Sri Ram Sene - a fringe right-wing
outfit - simply because they chose to visit a pub is further evidence
of this phenomenon.
Like those associated with other extremist right-wing groups, members
of the Sri Ram Sene are self-appointed custodians of ‘Indian
culture’. Just what is this monolithic culture that these people
refer to and use as an excuse to further their exclusionary political
agenda? Is beating up women also part of this culture? Our culture
and traditions are neither static nor singular. Through the
centuries, they have been shaped and reshaped by historic events and
interactions with other cultures. Today, there could be more than a
billion ways of being Indian.
It's worrying that small groups of people can hold the public to
ransom and assault our collective liberties with such apparent ease.
More troubling is the fact that our state and central governments
seem ill-equipped and unwilling to crack down swiftly on such groups.
Be it against Raj Thackeray in Mumbai or similar troublemakers
elsewhere, administrations move too slowly and feebly, undermining
citizens' faith in their ability to secure law and order. Those
responsible for attacks on churches and prayer halls last year in
Mangalore have not all been brought to book yet.
This time, a couple of dozen men involved in the pub attacks have
been taken into custody but all attackers have not yet been arrested.
State home minister V S Acharya has not helped matters by saying that
pub owners must "augment security to prevent this kind of incident in
future". What is the minister suggesting? That we privatise the
enforcement of law and order? Isn’t it the government’s job to ensure
public security?
The state government's condemnation of the incident and stated
resolve to suitably punish the guilty are welcome. But that is not
enough. Unless it fairly pursues the matter, and is seen to be
serious about keeping its word, the government in Karnataka runs the
risk of being accused of looking the other way as the state, known
for its tolerant spirit, slides down a path of intolerance.
o o o
ndtv.com
MANGALORE'S TALIBAN: INDIA OUTRAGED
by Prerna Thakurdesai
Tuesday, January 27, 2009, (Mumbai)
The attack by activists of a fringe group called the Shri Ram Sena,
attacking women at a pub in Mangalore, has brought back memories of
similar acts of moral policing across the country.
It's an incident that's bringing back bitter memories of attacks by
other fringe groups across the country where state governments
watched rather than crackdown.
A case in point is the Shiv Sena's various attempts to stop those
celebrating Valentine's Day.
Another instance, is Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirman Sena
(MNS), which attacked north Indians to promote its sons of the soil
issue.
In August 2008, on the outskirts of Bangalore, the Karnataka Rakshana
Vedike had attacked a rave party.
Again in October 2005, the Pattali Makkal Kakchi had attacked actress
Khushboo over her comments on pre-marital sex.
"Besides condemning these Talibanese, we should ask the question why
the government is doing nothing about it. It almost seems like they
are a part of it," said writer and lyricist, Javed Akhtar.
The outrage against the Mangalore incident was evident on the
streets, specially among women, the primary targets of the attack.
"They don't want us to live in peace. It's not like we don't know how
to regulate ourselves," said one woman.
There were similar reactions on the web from bloggers and Youtube users.
"We are celebrating Republic Day today and this video shows exactly
how Republic we are," said a web user.
o o o
ndtv.com
WHAT IS SRI RAM SENA?
NDTV Correspondent
Monday, January 26, 2009, (Mangalore)
A handful of men from a group thought of deciding how others should
behave in Mangalore. The group is called Sri Ram Sena. Here's the
history of the group and the man who founded it.
There was nationwide outrage, as the images of the Mangalore pub
incident scarred the collective psyche of a nation that's celebrating
Republic Day.
Pramod Muthalik is the man who laid the foundation of the right-wing
Hindu group called the Sri Ram Sena.
"Whoever has done this has done a good job. Girls going to pubs is
not acceptable. So, whatever the Sena members did was right. You are
highlighting this small incident to malign the BJP government in the
state," said Pramod.
Pramod Muthalik, a full-time RSS man earlier, was the Karnataka
coordinator of the Bajrang Dal four years ago. Soon he was expelled
from the Bajrang Dal after which he joined the Shiv Sena and later he
formed his own group.
This isn't the first time the Sri Ram Sena has indulged in moral
policing.
In August, 2008, it vandalised an exhibition of M F Husain's
paintings in Delhi.
Interestingly, the group also finds mention in the Malegaon blast
chargesheet filed by the Maharashtra Police. In the transcript of a
conversation, the prime accused Colonel Purohit is quoted saying,
"The Shri Ram Sena is doing very good work. Purohit calls the leader
of the group as Muthalik.
In an interview given to a website, Muthalik staunchly defended
Sadhvi Pragya Thakur, another key accused in the Malegaon blast case,
saying she is innocent.
And now he's dismissing the Mangalore pub attack as a small incident.
o o o
expressbuzz.com
SENE’S SHAME OLD STORY
BRUTE FORCE: A group of Sri Ram Sene activists attacked women at the
Amnesia pub in Mangalore on Saturday, triggering an uproar
Express News Service
First Published : 27 Jan 2009 07:24:15 AM IST
MANGALORE: As the nation watched in horror the shameful act of women
being chased out of a pub in Mangalore and being assaulted, the
pressure on the Karnataka government was clearly showing.
On the one hand, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa said that nobody
would be allowed to take the law into their hands, on the other, Home
Minister V S Acharya appeared to be in denial mode.
Speaking to reporters in Udupi, Acharya said it was an attempt by
former CM M Veerappa Moily to malign the government, adding that
extortionists were behind the attacks and the Sangh Pariwar had
nothing to do with it. This was despite the fact that Sri Ram Sene
national president, Pramod Mutalik, owned responsibility for the
attack on women at Amnesia pub in Mangalore’s Balmatta and promised
similar action in the future. Speaking to Express from his hideout,
Mutalik said, “Sri Ram Sene will not sit silently, watching the
attack on Hindu culture.
Sene will not apologise for what has happened in Mangalore.” While
admitting to the fact that Sene men chased the girls out of the pub,
Mutalik justified the act and said, “We got information that they
were all drug addicts… The Sene men made them run but we never tried
to molest the girls.”
Media to blame, say SP, DGP That the police had been caught on the
wrong foot was also evident from the notice the Mangalore
Superintendent of Police, N Satheesh Kumar, served on mediapersons
who were present at Amnesia pub when the attack was carried out on
Saturday. He wanted to know from the mediapersons why they did not
inform the police when they had information about the action.
DG&IGP R Srikumar took the same line and said media was hand-in-glove
with the attackers.
In New Delhi, Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Choudhary
called it the Talibanisation of India. “I am absolutely horrified at
the insensitivity on the eve of Republic Day. I will seek an
explanation from the state government as well as the self-styled Sri
Ram Sena,” she said.
25 arrested Eight more persons were arrested on Monday for the attack
in Mangalore, bringing up the total to 25. The 17 accused arrested
earlier were produced in court on Sunday and remanded in judicial
custody for 15 days. IGP (Western Range) A M Prasad told Express that
the arrested persons would be booked under the Goonda Act, if they
are found to be repeat offenders.
The police is also examining the possibility of charging them under
the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, he said.
o o o
http://www.sacw.net/article548.html
SAHMAT
8 Vithalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg
New Delhi 110 001
Telephones: 23711276/ 23351424
email: sahmat at vsnl.com
27.1.2009
PRESS STATEMENT
We join all right-thinking people in condemning the criminal assault
on a group of women at a Mangalore pub by hooligans operating under
the banner of the Sri Ram Sene. We remind the public that this group
(whose name has been spelt as it is in phonetic loyalty to the
Kannada language) is the same as the Sri Ram Sena, which carried out
an attack on an exhibition mounted by Sahmat in August last year,
celebrating M.F. Husain’s contributions to Indian art.
We take note of the hurried and deeply embarrassed statements by the
leaders of the Hindutva cultural fraternity, dissociating themselves
from the Mangalore atrocity. Yet we denounce their concurrent
assumption of the power to legislate on what social practices are
true and what are not, in their relationship with Indian
culture.These are not decisions to be made by a sectarian political
leadership.
The Sri Ram Sena was little heard of or known, till it attacked the
exhibition that Sahmat mounted in August to protest the exclusion of
M.F. Husain’s work from a major display and sale of Indian art that
was mounted at that time.
Sahmat sounded the alarm then about this debutant group, a spawn of
the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, both credentialed
members of the Hindutva family. And Sahmat has continued to warn
about the dangers posed by the new organisation within the Hindutva
fold, which has been showing the kind of destructive energy that
belies its fledgling, newborn, character.
Clearly, the Sri Ram Sena has emerged out of the campaign of hatred
and intolerance that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its
affiliates within the broader Hindutva parivar launched many years
back. The BJP leadership has issued some hasty and embarrassed
statements distancing itself from the atrocities in Mangalore. But
these have little credibility, since the BJP continues to take
political capital out of the legacy of its baleful campaign of moral
majoritarianism.
We call for the immediate arrest and prosecution of all those who
have participated in this atrocity in Mangalore, or contributed to it
in any fashion. The prosecution should be purposive and should
address all individuals who bear constructive responsibility for
creating the climate of intolerance that made this criminal assault
possible.
We urge the investigating agencies to pay attention to the growing
evidence that this is about more than an art exhibition or about an
incident in Mangalore that may seem trivial in relation to the scale
of atrocities perpetrated in the last two decades by the agents of
majority communalism.It has been credibly reported that the elements
who directed the Mangalore attacks were in intimate contact with
individuals currently being prosecuted for their culpability in the
Malegaon bomb blasts of September 29 last year.
The individual identified as the leader of the assault on Sahmat’s
exhibition last August, was also the principal agent of a severe
transgression of the basic ethos of academic life, when he spat at a
college lecturer who had been invited to a discussion on the scourge
of terrorism at Delhi University in November. Again, the Sri Ram Sena
drew its moral and ideological sustenance from the Hindutva parivar,
since the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a recognised affiliate
of the family, had prepared the ground for this act of barbarity, by
pronouncing an anathema on the college lecturer invited to speak
about his first-hand experiences as a victim of so-called “terrorism”
investigations.
The Mangalore incident shows that terrorism has several
manifestations and multiple protagonists. We appeal to the public to
break out of the template on terrorism that has been moulded by the
Hindutva parivar and to recognise that all offences against civilised
norms of conduct and the rule of law, contribute to the triumph of
terrorism.
The police and investigating agencies, we urge, should not fail this
test of standing up for the rule of law. Regrettably, their conduct
over the last many years gives us little confidence that they will.
Finally, we would like to appeal to the media to evolve a set of
norms on the coverage of such acts of criminality. We do not go along
with the stricture handed down by Karnataka’s Director-General of
Police, that the media should have informed the authorities of this
criminal gang’s intent once it got advance notice. This is an issue
that each media professional should resolve in accordance with his or
her own sense of civic responsibility and his or her own ethical
commitment.
We do believe however, that the media should evolve a credible set of
norms on the coverage of criminal acts that it has advance notice of.
Clearly, the Mangalore hoodlums staged their criminal act in the
belief that they would, through the breathless reporting of India’s
booming and thoroughly irresponsible electronic media, enjoy a few
minutes of nationwide fame.
If the media were to deny moral vigilantes the coverage that they so
desperately seek, it would deny them the oxygen of publicity that
they flourish on. Media professionals need, in this context, to
clearly lay down the norm that they will not succumb to competitive
pressures and provide any variety of coverage to the perpetrators of
criminal actions, even when these are dressed up in moral and
political terms.
Ashok
for SAHMAT
o o o
January 27, 2009
PRESS STATEMENT
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued
the following statement:
Mangalore Attack: Take Firm Action
After the brazen and criminal attack on young women by the Shri Ram
Sene in Mangalore, the BJP state government has not acted firmly in
taking action against this Hindu extremist outfit.
It may be recalled that this extremist group was responsible for a
series of attacks on churches in Mangalore and targeting Christians
in other places. The failure to take firm action in these instances
and the efforts to soft-pedal their activities by the Home Minister
then have emboldened the group.
The Polit Bureau demands that all the leaders of the Sene be arrested
and immediate steps taken to proscribe the organisation’s activities.
o o o
Mail Today
28 January 2009
WOMEN DRINKING IS AS OLD AS THE HILLS IN KARNATAKA
by Sowmya Aji in Bangalore
THE attack on girls in a Mangalore pub in the name of “ Hindu ethos”
has led to a public outrage in Karnataka.
Litterateur and critic K. Marulasiddappa opined that Hindu culture
was being used as a mask by goons to indulge in anti- social
activities. “ Ours is a very healthy tradition, all these narrow
minded ideas have actually come to them from Christian influence. How
can you complain about halfnaked women when our temples in Belur and
Halebidu have sculptures of half- naked women? That is our tradition.
And what is the Shiva linga , that we worship? Why are we being
prudish?” he said.
Unless Hindu ethos are narrowly defined as the Brahminical practice
of abstinence, the Kannada Hindu tradition doesn’t bar women from
drinking in public and this spirit of gender equality is celebrated
in many works of literature.
Sure, the girls of Mangalore belong to the category of the upwardly
mobile urban women, who earn and hold their own. And among the urban
women in this happening coastal town, drinking in public is nothing new.
Upper middle class women have been drinking in public for at least 25
years, much before the Sri Rama Sene or its goons who vandalised the
pub were even born.
Then, the lower classes whom the vandals probably claim to represent,
always enjoyed their drinks without any gender biases. Folklorist
Kodihalli Ramaiah contends that the attack by the Sri Rama Sene goes
against the essential multiculturalism that is said to constitute the
Hindu way of life.
“ In all our folk rituals in Karnataka, be it the Dalits or backward
classes, drinking, whether it is men or women, is a very essential
part. Far from being banned, drinking is actually mandatory,” he said.
Ramaiah pointed out that there are also great scenes of women getting
drunk in venerated Kannada writer Kuvempu’s novels set in coastal
Karnataka. “ It is true that women do not really come out in the open
spaces and drink, but it is certainly a part of Hindu culture. What
we do not understand about the Sri Rama Sene contention is, what kind
of Hinduism are they talking about? There are several layers in the
Hindu community, so this attack on women drinking in public is
actually an attack on Hindu culture itself,” he maintained.
The state has very strong traditions of women drinking in other
contexts also. “ Women are given brandy to drink to ward off the
jinni ( spirit) right after childbirth. It is to warm them up and is
a socially accepted norm,” said Dr Vivek Benegal, additional
professor of psychiatry at the Deaddiction Centre in Nimhans.
Particularly during festivals of individual gods, that vary from
community to community and region to region, women drink publicly and
participate on par with the men.
The Kamana Habba, similar to the North Indian Holi, is one such
festival where women drink in public and participate in the
celebrations. This stretches across all the socioeconomically
backward sections of the society.
Benegal, who collaborated with the India segment of the WHO’s study
on gender, alcohol and culture international study ( GENACIS), said
that the drinking of alcohol in women had gone up from approximately
1 per cent in 2003 to over 5 per cent in 2007. The study had
Karnataka as the India hub.
“ Women seem to be drinking when spouses or male family members are
also drinking.
They start off because of some social practice like the childbirth
tradition,” he explained.
The study has also identified the new trend among urban women, not
just in Bangalore but in places like Mangalore, Shimoga and other
tier II and III cities, of social or connubial drinking. “ There is a
lot of social drinking that happens.
These people are not drinking to get drunk,” Benegal added.
o o o
The Tribune
June 29, 2009
Editorial
OUTRAGE IN MANGALORE
The BJP govt falters again
The manner in which some activists of the Hindu hardliner group
called the Sri Rama Sena barged into a pub in Mangalore on Saturday
and thrashed revellers, including girls, is highly reprehensible. The
self-appointed moral police chased many girls in the pub, mercilessly
beaten and molested them. Strangely, the activists have justified
their criminal action, claiming that they have received “complaints”
from the people that the pub users had been “violating traditional
Indian norms”. Clearly, the Sena activists have no right to interfere
with the freedom and independence of young boys and girls. The BJP
government headed by Mr B.S. Yeddyurappa has responded to the outrage
belatedly. About 27 activists were arrested after two days of the
incident. Worse, Ram Sena chief Pramod Muthallik has been arrested
not for the pub attack but for a different offence — creating
communal disharmony in Davanagere on January 11!
How will these hooligans be punished if the government tries to
protect them? The law and order in Karnataka has been vitiated ever
since the BJP came to power. The saffron outfits appear to have no
fear of the law. The government’s delayed response to the Mangalore
outrage is a shocking repeat of its earlier inaction when the
Hindutva extremists torched Karnataka’s churches and prayer halls a
few months ago. Such incidents have been occurring with sickening
regularity. Recently, the activists of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike
stormed a private party on Bangalore’s outskirts. Earlier, Karnataka
Yuva Vedike activists went on the rampage at a leading hotel’s pub in
Bangalore.
Unfortunately, though pseudo-vigilante outfits are proliferating and
acting with impunity in the BJP-ruled state, the government has been
found reluctant to tackle them. The BJP can restore law and order
only if it gets rid of the lumpen elements in the party and checks
its outfits from taking the law into their own hands. It needs no new
laws to deal with hooligans. The existing laws are enough to deal
with them. What is needed is the will to crackdown on some of the
Parivar’s elements who are out to disturb peace in the country on one
pretext or another. The rule of law in Karnataka is under serious
threat and the BJP government would do well to remember that it
cannot afford to be seen on the side of the hoodlums even if they are
motivated by the ideology of its liking.
o o o
The Hindustan Times
IT’S GOONDAISM, NOT HINDUISM, SAY EXPERTS
Vikas Pathak, Hindustan Times
New Delhi, January 29, 2009
In Brindavan, there is a park where Lord Krishna is believed to come
every night to perform Raas Lila. “Nobody stays back at Nidhi Van at
night as it is said that anyone who does so, goes mad. People say
Krishna’s flute and the sound of the Gopis’ anklets are heard there,”
said Uma Shankar Mishra, a local resident.
Popular Hinduism does not consider the “erotic” as polluting: the god
who gave the message of the Gita is also revered as a lover-god. But
this pluralistic tradition is under threat from fringe right wing
groups such as the Sri Ram Sene, which attacked women at a pub in
Mangalore on the absurd ground that this was against “our culture”.
“The Sri Ram Sene has nothing to do with Hinduism. They are goondas
posing a law and order problem,” said Hinduism scholar Jyotirmaya
Sharma.
Historian Ramchandra Guha said these attackers have nothing to do
with Indian culture or Hinduism. “We have a vast reservoir of young
men in India who haven't had quality education and can be mobilised
in any sectarian way — Sri Ram Sena, MNS or even Maoism,” he told HT.
Both ‘ascetic’ and ‘erotic’ ideals are part of Hinduism. Hindu
beliefs exist in multiples. Rather than “right” and "wrong" ways,
there are various alternative paths in Hinduism.
If there is a celibate Hanuman, there is the lover-god, Krishna. On
12th century poet Jaydev’s celebration of Krishna as a lover-god in
Gita Govind, historian A.L. Basham wrote, “Its inspiration to the
Western mind seems erotic rather than religious.”
The Hindu Right, however, wants asceticism to be hailed and eroticism
banished. This is an imitation of the 19th century Victorian
repression of anything amorous and is thus colonial in inspiration.
Ironically, this imitation of Victorian values is being paraded as
“pure” Indian culture.
Popular images of Ram show him as a smiling god. However, the Sangh
Parivar depicts him as a warrior, seeking to reduce a benevolent god
to a warrior. In the process, they have damaged the idea of Ram –
which inspired many including Mahatma Gandhi. “Neither Valmiki nor
Tulsidas ever saw Ram as a violent god. Valmiki depicted him as a
pretty boy,” Sharma pointed out.
o o o
MAN WHO FOUGHT VIGILANTES IN KARNATAKA RECEIVES THREAT TO LIFE
http://www.hindu.com/2009/01/29/stories/2009012956141000.htm
_____
[5] Concern at Orissa Govt Setting up a ’Sulwa Judam’ Type Militia
http://www.sacw.net/article550.html
TEXT OF LETTER TO CHIEF MINISTER OF ORISSA ON PLANS OF RECRUITING
TRIBAL YOUTH AS SPECIAL POLICE OFFICERS
January 23, 2009
Chief Minister Navin Patnaik
Government of Orissa
Naveen Nivas,
Aerodrome Road,
Bhubaneswar,
Orissa 751001
Via facsimile: +91 674 2535100
Re: Special Police Officers
Dear Chief Minister:
Human Rights Watch is an international nongovernmental organization
that monitors human rights abuses by governments and non-state armed
groups in more than 80 countries around the world. I write to express
deep concern regarding the Orissa Home Department’s plan to recruit
an estimated 2,000 tribal youth as special police officers (SPOs) to
counter Naxalite violence in the region. In particular, we are
concerned about the use of SPOs for paramilitary purposes, and the
possibility that children under the age of 18 may be recruited in
violation of the Home Department’s stated age limits.
India’s Police Act, 1861, empowers local magistrates to temporarily
appoint civilians as SPOs to perform the roles of “ordinary officers
of police.” Such appointments are meant as a stop-gap measure where
the police force is otherwise believed to be insufficient. However,
the language of the statute does not envision the deployment of SPOs
in roles comparable to those played by paramilitary police such as
the Central Reserve Police Force and the Indian Reserve Battalions.
Section 17 of the Act states that magistrates may appoint SPOs “for
such time and within such limits as he shall deem necessary” when “it
shall appear that any unlawful assembly, or riot or disturbance of
the peace and taken place, or may be reasonably apprehended, and that
the police-force ordinarily employed for preserving the peace is not
sufficient.”
Home Department officials have been quoted by the press as saying
that SPOs in Orissa will be “doing the same things that the SPOs in
Chhattisgarh are doing.” An investigation conducted by Human Rights
Watch in Chhattisgarh in 2007 and 2008 found that SPOs were routinely
deployed alongside paramilitary police on anti-Naxalite combing
operations. In fact, police officials in Chhattisgarh admitted that
SPOs have been responsible for numerous human rights violations and
disciplinary action had to be taken against them. Recently, an
inquiry had been ordered into the killing of 17 alleged Naxailites in
an encounter in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district. Human rights
activists said that the encounter was faked and it was villagers that
were killed. Several SPOs were involved in this operation.
SPOs received training that was far inferior to that given to civil
police. Many SPOs in Chhattisgarh have been killed or injured in
armed exchanges with Naxalites and in Naxalite detonations of
landmines and improvised explosive devises (IEDs). We also found that
SPOs were often targeted for Naxalite reprisals. (The full findings
of Human Rights Watch’s report can be found in “Being Neutral is our
Biggest Crime: Government, Vigilante, and Naxalite Abuses in India’s
Chhattisgarh State,” online at http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/
2008/07/14/being-neutral-our-biggest-crime...)
While the Orissa state government has an obligation to provide for
the security of the population against human rights abuses by
Naxalites, measures to maintain law and order must be in accordance
with both national and international law. However, Indian human
rights lawyers who have studied the conflict in Chhattisgarh contend
that “the Indian Police Act does not envisage en masse recruitment of
SPOs,” and that the deployment of SPOs against Naxalites is a
“blatant abuse” of the Police Act. We therefore urge the Orissa
government to ensure that SPOs are not deployed in paramilitary
operations against Naxalites.
We are also concerned about the possible recruitment of children as
SPOs. Our investigation in Chhattisgarh found that police often
recruited SPOs with little regard for minimum age standards, and that
many children, including some as young as 14, were recruited and used
for dangerous armed operations. In some cases, child Naxalites who
surrendered to government forces were also used as SPOs, even though
still under age 18. Such practices place children at grave risk, and
violate India’s obligations under the Optional Protocol to the
Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children
in armed conflict, which sets 18 as the minimum age for any direct
participation in hostilities. India became a party to the Optional
Protocol in 2005.
We urge the Orissa Home Department to ensure that its age guidelines
(stipulating that SPOs should be between the ages of 18-25 and have
completed eighth standard) are strictly enforced. To avoid underage
recruitment, the Home Department should insist on proper age
documentation for all SPO applicants, and reject any applicants who
cannot produce documents proving that they are at least 18 years of age.
While the Naxalites present a real security threat to the people of
Orissa, the Orissa government should ensure that its response to this
threat does not give rise to additional human rights violations.
Thank you for considering our recommendations. We would appreciate
learning about any steps that you take in this regard.
Sincerely yours,
Brad Adams
Executive Director
Asia Division
Human Rights Watch
Cc: P. Chidambaram, Home Minister, Government of India, North Block,
New Delhi 110001; National Human Rights Commission, Faridkot House,
Copernicus Marg, New Delhi 110001
_____
[6] http://www.sacw.net/article557.html
7TH WORLD ATHEIST CONFERENCE 2009
CONFERENCE DECLARATION
We, the Atheists, Humanists, Rationalists and Freethinkers from
around the world, gathering in Vijayawada, for the 7th World Atheist
Conference, January 5-7, 2009, are concerned about the growing
fundamentalism, religious obscurantism, marginalization of
communities and the negative impact of human activity on the
environment and development, and collectively raise our voice for
addressing them.
The participants declare that:
1. We affirm atheism and humanism as an alternative life stance
(a way of life). There is no doubt that our values come from atheism
and humanism.
2. We recognize that critical thinking, scientific temper and
free inquiry are essential for thought and development in the society.
3. We uphold gender equality, an aspect still denied by several
religions and the rights of children and minorities.
4. We demand that legislations be based on common concerns,
rather than religious beliefs, and we demand the separation of
religion from politics, the state, the law and education.
5. We stand for a secular state.
6. We want miracle claims to be challenged and investigated as
they militate against the modern scientific temper and knowledge.
7. We recognize the importance of promoting secular values, so as
to enhance tolerance, peace and harmony in society.
8. We are concerned by the prospects for world environment and
climate change and demand special attention to address them.
9. We deplore violence in the name of god or religion.
10. We are committed to promote democracy and human development.
Vijayawada, India, 7 January 2009
Wide media coverage:
The World Atheist Conference received wide attention in the
electronic and print media. The All India Radio, Vijayawada
broadcasted a curtain raiser on the progress of atheism world wide
and on the significance of the Worldwide. Dr. Vijayam, convener of
the World Atheist Conferencde was interviewed for 20 minutes in the
prime time. All India Radio also broadcast a radio review of the
three day proceedings of the Conference which was presented by Mrs.
Nau Gora, Secretary Arthik Samatama Mandal. The print media covered
daily about the proceedings. In addition to the Telugu press, the
Hindu, the largest circulated English daily in South India, not only
highlighted the proceedings, but also a half a page report “Taking
home a slice of Vijayawada”, stating that “besides emerging richer by
experience gained in brainstorming sessions of the World Atheist
Conference in the city, the offshore humanist delegates will carry
home the essence of Vijayawada”.
_____
[7] ANNOUNCEMENTS:
(i)
No Man’s Land / Everybody’s Land – Glaring in Defiance is a series of
screenings that leads us to different corners of histories, creating
a space to consider the lines we live by. No Man’s Land borrows from
Saadat Hasan Manto’s stories - the choice to refuse a given logic, a
given order of the sensical and the non-sensical. This series of
interwoven films creates an unwieldy narrative over the three days,
it does not follow a nostalgic path nor seek a representation of
historical events, instead, No Man’s Land offers a cinematic
exploration of partitions, borders and walls.
The screenings offer a dialogue between films from different
geographical and time contexts - South Asia, the Middle East and
Europe. This dialogue is not just to accentuate known historical and
political relations between those places but perhaps to find
unforeseen ones.
A complete screening schedule is attached. For more information,
please visit http://www.t2f.biz/no-mans-land
Images: Seaview, D: Paul Rowley, Ireland 2008
Dates: Friday 30th Jan, Saturday 31st Jan, Sunday 1st Feb 2009
Venue: The Second Floor (T2F)
6-C, Prime Point Building, Phase 7, Khayaban-e-Ittehad, DHA, Karachi
- - -
(ii)
SAHMAT
8 Vithalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg
New Delhi 110 001
Telephones: 23711276/ 23351424
email: sahmat at vsnl.com
29.1.2009
IMAGE MUSIC TEXT
MF HUSAIN ART GALLERY
JAMIA MILLIA ISLAMIA, NEW DELHI
Sufi Bhakti Music
by Madangopal Singh
& Rekha Raj
Saturday, 31st January 2009
4.30 p.m.
MF Husain Gallery
Presented in association with the Outreach Program of Jamia Millia
Islamia
- - -
(iii)
FRAMES OF REFERENCE
Contesting Media Realities: Unpacking the Real
National Seminar
January 29 – 30, 2009
Centre for Media and Cultural Studies
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
Distinctions between the real and the imagined are often understood
in black and white. This seminar seeks to unsettle such simplistic
binaries. It will critically examine the media's representations of
'reality' and raise questions about its frames of reference. Does the
media, fictional or non-fictional, propagate certain ideas about
truth, the real and the world? The seminar will unpack
representations of reality in news, documentary and fiction films.
29th January, 2009
10:00 A.M. - Inaugural Address by Ms. Sushma Singh, Secretary
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India
10:15 A.M. - Prof. S. Parasuraman, Director, TISS
10:30 A.M. - Keynote Address by Prof. Aijaz Ahmed
11:30 A.M. - Tea Break
11:45 A.M. - Panel Discussion on "Contested Media Realities :
Unpacking the Real" – The mediated news.
Panelists : Padmashree Sucheta Dalal, Dr. Prof. B. P. Sanjay, Mr.
Sashi Kumar, Ms. Meena Menon, Ms. Jyoti Puniani, Ms. Pratima Joshi,
Ms. Radhika Bordia
01:15 P.M. - Lunch
02:15 P.M. - Screening of Documentary of XXWhy, directed by B.
Manjula
Discussants : Mr. Sree Nandu, Ms. Kalki and Dr. Shoba Ghosh
04:00 P.M. - Tea Break
04:15 P.M. - CMCS Students' Presentation
06:30
P.M. onwards - Hindi Play "Girija Ke Sapne" directed by Mr. M.
S. Satyu, produced by Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA)
10:00 A.M. - Panel Discussion on "Contested Media Realities:
Unpacking the Real" – The mediated cinema.
Panelists : Prof. Moinak Biswas, Mr. Om Puri, Ms. Revathy, Mr.
Anurag Kashyap, Mr. Sriram Raghavan
11:30 A.M. - Tea Break
11:45 A.M. - Panel Discussion on "Contested Media Realities:
Unpacking the Real" - The mediated documentary.
Panelists : Prof. Shiv Vishwanath, Mr. Amar Kanwar, Mr. Stalin K. and
Mr. Ajay T.G.
1:15 P.M. - Lunch Break
2:15 P.M. - Paper Presentation by Students
4:00 P..M. - Vote of Thanks
Photo Exhibition by the Thane Press Club on 26/11
- - -
(iv)
WORKSHOP ON RETHINKING CULTURE & DEVELOPMENT: FEMINIST CROSSINGS
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
The 10 day residential workshop is organised by the School of
Women's Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, with the financial
support from Sir Ratan Tata Trust, Mumbai in May 2009, West Bengal.
Concept:
Women's Studies, as a distinctive field of study, is relatively
new in the history of higher education in India. Women's Studies is
often understood as an instrument for women's development as well as
a necessary input to deepen the knowledge base of various other
disciplines. Feminist contestations within the field of development
have come a long way from building a case of 'inclusive' growth that
prevents the marginalization of women to a questioning of the
predominant notion of 'development' itself. The body of feminist
critique continues to travel new terrains and posit new challenges.
However, limitations of a neo-liberal vision of society often put at
the centre the atomistic, unconnected, self maximizing individual –
a conception that largely inhibits the space of development
evaluation and intervention. More importantly, there is a strong
undercurrent of economic determinism within the development
discourse. The terms 'Feminist', 'Feminism' were rarely used in
earlier discussions on Women's Studies in India. These terms were
deemed as western concepts neither explaining nor relating to Indian
culture. Since women are considered to be the 'repositories of
traditional Indian culture' the onus of 'maintaining its purity'
fell on women.
Since 1990s a new economic policy has led to Globalisation or a
form of liberalisation which has had an enormous impact on the
society, especially women. On the one hand, globalisation has
produced images of integration with the global consumer market; and,
on the other hand, it seemed to have had a destabilizing effect by
attempting to exert control over cultural identities, which are
perceived to be under 'western' threat. New questions are being
raised as to what is global and what is local. Women are becoming,
once again, the ground on which questions of modernity and tradition
are being framed. The 'Indian woman' remains the embodiment of
boundaries between licit and illicit forms of sexuality, as well as
the guardian of the nation's morality. Sexuality is said to bear a
reciprocal relation with development. Lack of development is
believed to spawn a culture of sexual immaturity, exploitation and
aggression. In other words, the 'underdeveloped' is said to be
'oversexed' and the rhetoric of development gets played out on in
the context of woman's sexuality. The poor prostitute has to be
rehabilitated, the suffering mother has to be educated to make her
own decisions about contraceptives, raped woman has to be empowered
to accept her sexual 'fate'. Development, through education,
economic rehabilitation, psychological upliftment, are all considered
to be tools that can deliver women from exploitation. What remains
unspoken is the fact that while commodification and exploitation can
be addressed through the political economy of development, sexual
objectification is something that operates at the level of meaning
and culture and cannot be addressed through the rhetoric of
development alone.
How much can be explained through culture and how much through
development seem to be one of the questions that continue to bedevil
Women's Studies.
In this era of 'globalisation', when reproduction and exchange
involves not only the material but also the ideological, the
discourses on culture and development have to establish a dialogue
with multiple discourses outside its traditional ambit. This perhaps
is the only way one can understand and grapple with a complex,
multilayered process. Only then, can an alternative feminist vision
emerge. This workshop will address the ways in which gender offers
ways of interlinking Cultural Studies and Development Studies for a
better understanding of the present and future of Indian women.
We invite proposals on topics related to
* women and culture in the era of globalisation
* the new challenges for women in dealing with sexuality
* face to face with development issues in women's studies
* reading culture and development as opposed to / complementary to
each other
* understanding/ making a difference : women in culture and women's
culture
Please note that the workshop will be fully residential. Travel to
and from the workshop venue and accommodation and board for the
period of the workshop will be covered.
Apply with:
* Research proposal (1000 words approx.)
* CV (mentioning involvement with women's studies cells/ centres, etc).
* Experience of teaching or research in Women's Studies should be
highlighted.
Deadline for sending applications: 8 February 2009
Send applications to: Jayeeta Bagchi Coordinator, SRTT-SWSJU
Project School of Women's Studies UG Arts Building Jadavpur
University Kolkata -700032 FAX: 33 2414 6531 Mail to:
swsju at rediffmail.com / abbasannoy at yahoo.co.uk / gariagirl at gmail.com
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