SACW | March 1-2 , 2009 / Sri Lanka: War and future / Bangladesh Mutiny / California Textbook Court Ruling / Slum Dog Millionaire / Pakistan Peace Delegation

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | March 1-2, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2609 - Year  
11 running
From: www.sacw.net

[1] Sri Lanka's War - What future for Peace?
     (i) Rule of all (Rohini Hensman)
     (ii) War-trapped Civilians (Praful Bidwai)
    (iii) Beyond the point of return (Papri Sri Raman)
[2] Bangladesh: BDR Mutiny and After
    - Trying times for us (Editorial, The Daily Star)
    -  [India's hawks happily buy conspiracy theory] Dhaka’s horror  
(Editorial, The Indian Express)
[3] Pakistan and Elsewhere: Myths vs facts about fundamentalism (Part  
1 and 2) (Rubina Saigol)
[4] USA / India: Hindutva Fundamentalists Loose California Textbook  
Court Case - Text of Court Ruling
[5] India - Karnataka: State Massively Funding Hindu Religious  
Institutions
     - Rs 60-cr largesse for faith (Express Buzz)
     - Karnataka Govt funding transport - distribution of 50,000  
liters of 'holy water' (ibnlive.in.com)
     - Letter to the Editor: Karnataka Govt funding of Temples is a  
matter of serious concern (Ram Puniyani)
    - Misplaced Religious Grants (Editorial, Deccan Herald)
[6] FILM REVIEW: Slum Dog Millionaire (Arundhati Roy)
[7] Announcements:
  - Following Joint Signature Campaign for peace : Pakistan Peace  
Delegation in India (Delhi, Lucknow, Jaipur 1-9 March 2009)

_____


[1] SRI LANKA'S WAR - WHAT FUTURE?

(i)

Himal South Asian,
March 2009

RULE OF ALL

by Rohini Hensman

A mass campaign is needed to convince the Sinhalese majority that  
devolution and democratisation are in its interest as much as they  
are in the interest of Sri Lanka’s minorities.

The political right and left around the globe seem to concur in  
linking democracy to bourgeois rule; the two concepts have even been  
hyphenated in the adjective ‘bourgeois-democratic’. Yet history gives  
us no reason to believe that there is a necessary connection between  
the two. It is true that when the bourgeoisie is fighting against  
feudal power to establish its rule, it seeks the support of the  
plebeian masses, and in the process allows them to fight for their  
own demands – hence the famous slogan of the French Revolution,  
‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’. Yet once their rule is  
established, they are quite capable of turning on their erstwhile  
allies, repressing or even slaughtering them. This is not to say that  
capitalism is incompatible with democratic rights and freedoms, but  
to emphasise that the latter will prevail only if the working people  
fight to establish and defend them. Even in advanced capitalist  
countries, long-established rights can quickly be demolished. Social  
Democracy in Germany was followed by fascism; even today, democratic  
rights are under attack in the heartlands of capitalism.

In the former colonies, there was likewise a popular movement for  
liberation from imperialism. This was often followed by a sense of  
disappointment when, though independence was won, the condition of  
the working masses remained little changed. Again, the illusion that  
democracy is the free gift of the bourgeoisie, or a necessary  
condition of their rule, is responsible for this disappointment.  
Alternatively, there has been a tendency, shared by both Maoists and  
Trotskyists, to deny that a bourgeois revolution has taken place or  
that capitalism is developing. A more realistic view would be to  
recognise that, for the working class, independence from colonialism  
is only the first of many battles for democracy.

The most common popular definition of democracy equates it with  
elections and parliamentary rule. While having elections is better  
than not having them, this system of representative democracy is,  
even at its best, the rule of a minority. The representatives who are  
elected – and they tend to come from the wealthier strata of society  
– can go on to do largely whatever they like, with little reference  
to the wishes of their constituents; indeed, there is very little the  
latter can do about it until the next elections. If, as in the US,  
there is a powerful president who is elected by a complicated system  
that allows a candidate with a smaller proportion of the popular vote  
to win, or, as in the first-past-the-post system, a government can be  
formed by a party that gets fewer votes than one of its opponents,  
the representative character of the government becomes even more  
tenuous.

Another popular definition of democracy is the rule of the majority.  
This is all too often used to justify discrimination against  
minorities as being inherent in the rule of the majority, especially  
in a capitalist society where there is fierce competition for jobs  
and resources. This type of majoritarianism has been widely prevalent  
in Sri Lanka. From the disenfranchisement of Up-country Tamils and  
the Official Language Act to the recent revival of attempts at  
Sinhala colonisation of the east, successive governments or parties  
hoping to come to power have advocated policies that deprive members  
of minority communities of their citizenship, franchise, employment,  
education, land, homes and, in many cases, their lives. All of this  
has been undertaken in the name of the Sinhalese majority.

Yet if we look behind the rhetoric and ask how many Sinhalese have  
actually benefited from these policies, the answer is ‘very few’. The  
majority has actually suffered from the decades of war, which have  
dragged down their living standards. Furthermore, at its worst, the  
assault on the rule of law allowed tens of thousands of Sinhalese to  
be killed with impunity during the late 1980s. In other words,  
majoritarianism is a way in which minority rule seeks to legitimise  
itself by creating the illusion that a small elite speaks and acts in  
the interests of the majority.

In fact democracy, properly defined, is not the rule of a minority or  
even the majority, but rather rule by the people – all the people,  
without any exception. It is true that perfect democracy cannot be  
achieved in a class-divided capitalist society, and therefore it  
would be legitimate to distinguish a more restricted democracy, one  
that is compatible with bourgeois rule, from the full democracy that  
is possible in a classless society. But the former is a necessary  
condition for the latter: only the struggle to defend and expand  
democracy under capitalism can create a truly democratic post- 
capitalist society.

Dealing with difference

If we define democracy as the rule of all the people, what measures  
are required to make this a reality? There is a practical problem  
here, because ‘the people’ are not, of course, homogeneous. Every  
population is differentiated by age and sex, and Sri Lankan society  
also has class divisions. Most modern societies embody linguistic,  
ethnic, religious and cultural differences. And if we are talking  
about a democratic order, there will be differences of opinion on all  
conceivable issues. So how could these disparities be accommodated?

Perhaps the first principle that needs to be laid down is that  
violence will not be used to resolve differences. The rights to life  
and freedom from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment are necessary  
to ensure that no one can prevail by annihilating the other. This  
already rules out such practices as torture, and judicial or  
extrajudicial executions. These rights should be regarded as  
absolute, in the sense that they cannot be denied even to criminals.  
The right to liberty, on the other hand, could be curtailed if  
someone is proved to have violated the fundamental rights of others,  
but it would be important to have a carefully defined due process of  
law to ensure that this penalty is not misused.
Equality is fundamental to democracy. Both equality before the law  
and equal protection of the law need to be guaranteed to all  
individuals, as does freedom from discrimination and persecution of  
any type. This would obviously rule out special privileges for any  
linguistic, ethnic or religious group. The special place given to  
Buddhism in the Constitution of Sri Lanka, for instance, erodes the  
democratic character of the Constitution without conferring any  
benefit to Buddhism. Implementing a policy of equality would also  
entail passing legislation and putting in place machinery to ensure  
non-discrimination and equal opportunities.

Finally, democracy as the rule of all people would require the  
institutionalisation of the right to information as well as freedom  
of expression and association, so that individuals have the means to  
participate in self-government. These freedoms should be restricted  
only where they encroach on the rights of others. For example, libel  
and slander are illegal because they can injure a person, and  
similarly hate-speech or incitement to violence can injure a whole  
community. Establishing the distinction between legitimate freedom of  
expression and hate speech may not be easy. Banning books such as The  
Satanic Verses because they hurt the sentiments of some people is not  
warranted. On the other hand, local radio was used to mobilise Hutus  
in the Rwandan genocide, and there clearly should not be freedom to  
incite people to commit murder.
The overall principle in this conception of democracy is that those  
who are most affected by a decision should have the most say in that  
decision. For example, the decision to continue or terminate a  
pregnancy most affects the woman who is pregnant, and she should have  
the final say in it. As another example, the residents of a block of  
flats or a housing society need to make collective decisions about  
issues that affect their living arrangements, and this process then  
continues up through municipalities and villages, provinces,  
countries and the world. But all of this depends on a constitutional  
and legal framework that confers on individuals the rights and means  
to be informed about issues that affect them, to engage in  
discussions on them and to participate in decision-making about them.

Democratic devolution

In past debates on a political solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic crisis,  
devolution has tended to be over-emphasised and democracy has been  
under-emphasised. Within an overall democratic framework, devolution  
can certainly be a democratic measure. Instead of decisions about  
what happens in your municipality, village or province being made by  
people in a distant capital, who have little knowledge and less  
concern about the place where you live and the effects of their  
decisions, you would be empowered to have more say in the decisions  
that concern you. But if it is not specified clearly that the purpose  
of devolution is to promote democracy, there could be many dangers.

One potential danger is that there is insufficient devolution of  
powers, and the central government could interfere unnecessarily in  
the affairs of the province, without any justification in terms of  
protecting people’s human rights or civil liberties. This has  
happened in India in the past, and such interference was an important  
reason why the earlier experiment with provincial councils in Sri  
Lanka failed, and why the Rajapakse regime’s determination to go no  
further than that experiment will also fail. But it is also possible  
that it is the provincial government that is violating the people’s  
rights. In 2002, the state government in Gujarat carried out a  
genocidal pogrom against Muslims in the state, and the central  
government, which ought to have intervened to protect the victims  
from mass rape and slaughter, did not do so. Even after a Congress- 
led coalition came to power at the Centre, Muslims continued to be  
persecuted and prevented from returning to their homes by the state  
government in league with the police, while the judiciary in the  
state was subverted to allow the criminals to go free while  
incarcerating innocent Muslims. In essence, Gujarat was a fascist  
state within the framework of a more democratic one – a strange  
example of devolution gone wrong.

In fact, if we try to imagine what would have happened if Velupillai  
Prabhakaran had been more flexible and had accepted a federal  
arrangement when it was offered to him during the peace talks  
following the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement, it probably would have been  
something very similar to the situation in Gujarat. There would have  
been a fascist Tamil Provincial Council in the northeast, with  
Muslims of the north having no chance to exercise their right of  
return, and Muslims of the east facing ethnic cleansing. The courts  
would have functioned according to the dictates of the LTTE, and  
democratic rights and freedoms would be non-existent. At the same  
time, violations of the rights of Tamils in other parts of the  
country could continue, despite devolution, if the Provincial Council  
ruling over their area happened to be dominated by Sinhalese  
nationalists.
In Sri Lanka, the central government has long been displacing people  
in the name of High Security Zones and Special Economic Zones (SEZs).  
But in India, pitched battles have been fought by state governments  
against local communities facing displacement by SEZs. A democratic  
framework for devolution would allow neither the central nor the  
provincial government to dispossess people of their land, livelihoods  
and homes, but rather would insist on the need not only to obtain  
their consent as well as to compensate them adequately. Moreover, the  
usual practice of denying workers basic rights in SEZs, whether they  
are under the jurisdiction of the central or the provincial  
government, would also be impossible.

Even at the lower level of village councils, devolution may not  
result in democracy if the councils are controlled by the village  
elite. The movement in India that culminated in the Right to  
Information Act actually began at this level, when villagers demanded  
to know what was happening to development funds allocated to their  
villages, large quantities of which had gone missing. Subsequently,  
this Act has become a potent weapon against corruption and abuse of  
power. Moreover, until legislation was passed reserving 33 percent of  
the seats in the village Panchayats for women, the latter were rarely  
able to get elected. (A struggle for one-third reservation for women  
in Parliament and state assemblies is still in progress.) There may  
be cases where women are used as fronts for their menfolk, but in  
many cases the influx of women into local government has made a real  
difference, with priorities shifting to development and welfare  
measures that have truly benefited the mass of local people.

Unitary or united?

This is a useful lesson for Sri Lanka, where women are conspicuously  
absent from government, despite the relatively high level of female  
literacy and large number of extremely able women. This is a  
significant loss, both for the women whose abilities are not being  
exercised and for the country. But it is a problem that will not be  
addressed by devolution alone. Nor will devolution in itself ensure  
respect for the rights of children, which are violated in so many  
ways: forced conscription, sexual abuse both commercially and within  
the family, physical violence, psychological trauma and neglect. As  
such, it simply cannot be assumed that devolution by itself will  
guarantee democracy. It is vitally important to spell out a bill of  
rights that will protect the fundamental rights of all citizens in  
all parts of the country, and to make it the duty of government at  
all levels to defend those rights. Only within such a framework would  
devolution become a genuinely democratic measure, putting decision- 
making more securely into the hands of those who are affected by the  
decisions.

In Sri Lanka, previous exercises in constitutional change have done  
exactly the opposite. It is well known that the Republican  
Constitution of 1972 abolished the protection of minorities and  
established a unitary state. But it is less often recognised that it  
also took away rights from the majority of Sinhalese people, and  
concentrated power in the hands of the government. The Constitution  
of 1978 further concentrated power in the hands of one person – the  
president – and took away more rights, including the right to life.  
The adverse consequences for Tamils were immediately obvious, as  
several thousands were disappeared, tortured and killed; but the  
devastating consequences for Sinhalese did not become apparent until  
some years later. This very Constitution, under which tens of  
thousands of Sinhalese were disappeared, tortured and killed between  
1987 and 1990, is what the Sinhala nationalists are now trying so  
hard to preserve. And the separate state for which the LTTE has been  
fighting would be exactly the same, with absolute power concentrated  
in the hands of one man – Prabhakaran – and the majority of citizens  
deprived of all rights, including the right to life.

 From this angle, it can be seen that the conflict in Sri Lanka has  
been between a Sinhalese political elite fighting for a Sinhalese  
unitary state and the LTTE fighting for a Tamil unitary state. Both  
leaderships have been unwilling to share power, either with  
minorities in their area of jurisdiction or with the majority of  
their own community. Their goals have therefore been irreconcilable  
not only with each other, but also with democracy. The majority of  
people in all communities would, on the contrary, benefit from  
constitutional changes that strengthen democracy, and there is  
therefore no conflict between their interests on the basis of ethnicity.

The great virtue of spelling out the idea of constitutional change as  
a necessary measure to restore and strengthen democracy in Sri Lanka  
is that it quickly becomes clear that such change is not only in the  
interests of Tamils – and that, too, only those in the northeast,  
leaving out Hill-country Tamils and others living in the south. In  
fact, such a change would empower the vast majority of the people of  
Sri Lanka – indeed, all but the small elite who currently control all  
the power. In mid-2007, a poll by the Marga Institute of Colombo  
suggested that when Sinhalese people realised that devolution could  
actually bring government closer to them, the majority supported it.  
Unfortunately, the way in which the issue of devolution has usually  
been posed suggests that it is a zero-sum game, with more power for  
Tamils resulting in less for Sinhalese.

It needs to be clearly explained to the people of Sri Lanka that  
democratic devolution is actually a win-win strategy, ensuring peace  
and strengthening the rights of all people of all ethnic groups – bar  
a tiny minority who currently exploit and oppress the rest. The LTTE  
may be defeated militarily, but unless the democratic aspirations of  
the minorities are satisfied, conflict will surely spring up again.  
Conversely, if Tamils enjoy democratic rights and freedoms in the  
whole of Sri Lanka, why would they want to fight for a much smaller  
separate state in which their democratic rights are suppressed?  
Furthermore, the military victory has been won at the cost of a  
dangerous erosion of democracy in the south, exemplified by the  
harassment and murder of a large number of journalists, including  
Lasantha Wickrematunga. Reversing this trend will also depend on a  
common struggle for democracy by people of all communities.

Common interest

As a Sinhala-speaking half-Burgher Tamil from the south, who is also  
an activist focusing on labour and women’s rights, I feel that the  
simplistic way in which identities are commonly defined in Sri Lanka  
today is one reason why a solution to the crisis has thus far  
remained elusive. Such an approach erases important elements of  
identity, including class, caste, gender, political belief and even  
the mixed ethnicity that is so common in Sri Lanka. In my  
neighbourhood, there are many middle- and lower-income Sinhalese,  
some of whom I have known since my childhood; I know for a fact that  
they do not hate Tamils, because they protected my family in both  
1958 and 1983. They may insist that I share their meal with them, but  
if they are asked to share power with the Tamils, I suspect their  
response would be, “What power? We don’t have any. How can we share  
what we don’t have?” And indeed, given that most of them struggle to  
make ends meet on insecure incomes in the informal sector, their  
sense of powerlessness is understandable.

Those with formal employment may not be much better off. When I  
started working with women garment workers in the late 1980s, simply  
undertaking to organise in the Free Trade Zones was to risk  
disappearance and death. Since then, there has been considerable  
progress in winning the right to freedom of association, but hard-won  
wage gains are currently being snatched away by runaway inflation.  
Back in 1990, when I interviewed women widowed by the Janatha  
Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) insurgency and the government’s counter- 
insurgency, their sense of powerlessness was overwhelming. I imagine  
they experience a similar feeling of despair now, as it becomes  
increasingly difficult to survive economically.

Would it be surprising if such people get the feeling that Tamils are  
demanding more power than they themselves possess? Or that they could  
allow themselves to be persuaded that devolution would rob them of  
part of their country, and that this would be a concession to the  
Tigers, who are killing Sinhalese? Such arguments need to be  
countered by explanations that, far from leading to a separate state,  
devolution within a democratic framework is the best insurance  
against separatism and war; that it would empower not just minorities  
but also the majority of the Sinhalese; and that those who oppose it  
and campaign for a unitary state are interested not in the welfare of  
the majority, but only in the power of a small political elite.

The All Party Representative Committee (APRC), set up to find a  
political solution to the ethnic crisis, got off to a good start when  
the Majority Report of the panel of experts was released in December  
2006, and Professor Tissa Vitharana later produced a draft proposal  
incorporating most of the elements of the Majority Report. But the  
task of building consensus around proposals for constitutional change  
that would be acceptable to the democratic majority among the  
minority communities later ran into trouble. What is grievously  
lacking in this process, and what has allowed the Sinhalese  
nationalists to sabotage it time and again, is a mass campaign to  
convince the Sinhalese majority that devolution within a democratic  
framework is as much in their interests as it is in the interests of  
the minorities.

Particularly in the current environment of military ‘victory’  
fervour, it is critically important that the APRC proposals be  
released to the public without any dilution, and that a mass campaign  
be launched to support them. The campaign would need to draw in  
everyone who has been opposed to the war and in favour of democracy:  
progressive political parties, trade unions, women’s groups,  
religious organisations, academics and intellectuals, students,  
journalists, NGOs and others. The campaign should result in a popular  
outcry among Sinhalese against anyone who tries to derail the process  
of constitutional reform. Politicians need to get the message that  
the electorate will reject them if they put obstacles in the way of a  
democratic constitution. That is the only solution to Sri Lanka’s  
ethnic crisis.

Rohini Hensman is a researcher and writer active in the women’s  
liberation, trade union, human-rights and anti-war movements in India  
and Sri Lanka.

o o o

(ii)

The Times of India
2 March 2009

WAR-TRAPPED CIVILIANS

by Praful Bidwai

As the Sri Lankan Armed Forces (SLAF) attack what is claimed to be  
the last stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in
Mullaithivu, a huge humanitarian crisis has built up in the war zone,  
where 2,50,000 Tamil civilians remain trapped. As the SLAF and the  
LTTE target them the former through indiscriminate bombing and  
shelling, and the latter by firing on them to prevent them from  
fleeing to safety up to 35 civilians are being killed every day.  
According to the international liberties group Human Rights Watch  
(HRW), 2,000 Tamils have been killed and 5,000 wounded since the fall  
of the Tigers' administrative headquarters in Kilinochchi in January.

Here's what HRW says: "The Sri Lankan government has indicated that  
the (trapped) ethnic Tamil population... can be presumed to be siding  
with the LTTE and treated as combatants, effectively sanctioning  
unlawful attacks." This permits heinous crimes against civilians, in  
total violation of the laws of war and of international humanitarian  
law, which grant immunity to non-combatants. The SLAF has "repeatedly  
and indiscriminately shelled areas crowded with displaced persons",  
including state-declared "safe zones" and the region's "remaining  
hospitals". "The [civilians'] plight... has been made worse by the  
government's decision in September 2008 to order most humanitarian  
agencies out...", according to HRW.

The government has thrown a blanket of censorship over the war zone.  
It has failed to bring in enough food, medical supplies, and other  
relief, with only a minimal role for the United Nations. Continued  
fighting, lack of oversight, and manipulation of aid delivery have  
intensified the humanitarian crisis. The SLAF is keen to finish the  
war and declare victory before the Sri Lankan New Year in April. This  
will lead to a sharp increase in civilian casualties. As if to cover  
this up in advance, the SLAF is deliberately playing down the number  
of civilians originally inhabiting the zone to 70,000. The Rajapakse  
government claims that half of them have fled, although the number  
may be only a few hundred, according to the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum.

In the coming days, Colombo may declare that virtually all civilians  
have escaped and the SLAF can legitimately launch a no-holds-barred  
final offensive, including firebombing, to finish the LTTE. This is  
liable to lead to mass slaughter. In addition to open war in the  
north, the Colombo government has launched a dirty war in the south.  
Critics are harassed, abducted and have "disappeared", or like  
journalist Lasantha Wickrematunga, killed by hired gunmen. Colombo is  
deviously resisting international pressure to remedy the situation  
and allow aid workers to return.

The European Union has called for an immediate ceasefire so that  
civilians can leave the conflict area, and asked the LTTE to lay down  
arms. It has also asked the government to "engage in an inclusive  
political process which addresses the legitimate concerns of all  
communities". The government balks at this and says if the LTTE lays  
down arms, there would be no need for a ceasefire. It claims  
civilians are exclusively targeted by the Tigers.

India has demanded an end to civilian killings and a political  
settlement that addresses Tamil grievances through devolution of  
powers. The Rajapakse government is particularly keen to stave off  
Indian pressure. Sri Lankan army chief Sarath Fonseka has exaggerated  
the "threat" that the LTTE's air wing poses to India and warned that  
their planes could penetrate 150-170 km inside Indian territory.

The LTTE has proved ruthless towards Tamil civilians. With each  
battlefield defeat, it treats them with ever-greater brutality,  
subjecting them, including children, to forced recruitment and deadly  
labour on the battlefield. The LTTE, probably the most murderous and  
pathologically militarised group in South Asia, with a long history  
of assassinating all those who disagree with it, deserves no  
sympathy. But that should blind no one to the unitarist and  
chauvinist framework under which the Rajapakse government operates.

Sinhalese chauvinists wrongly see the Tamils as "outsiders" although  
they have inhabited the island for 2,000 years. India bears a special  
responsibility vis-a-vis Sri Lanka not only because it is a big  
neighbour with a large Tamil population, but because of its past  
interventions there. New Delhi committed a grave blunder in the early  
1980s by training and arming the LTTE, which soon turned against  
India. India committed a second blunder in 1987 by sending in the  
Indian Peace Keeping Force. This was a disastrous misadventure, which  
failed to accomplish the objective of disarming the Tigers.

After Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, India followed a hands-off  
policy. But in recent years, it has covertly given, and continues to  
provide, military assistance to Colombo, including radar  
surveillance, logistical support, armaments and helicopters. Without  
India's support, the SLAF couldn't have scored major military  
victories. It isn't enough for India to ask Sri Lanka to evacuate the  
trapped Tamil civilians and implement the 13th constitutional  
amendment, enacted at India's behest, which mandates provincial  
councils and merger of the north and the east.

India must pull its full political weight by mobilising a diplomatic  
campaign and making specific time-bound demands: a series of safe  
corridors, international monitors, protection of civilians under  
international supervision, and permission for extensive relief  
operations. Above all, India must ask for extensive devolution of  
powers and a non-unitary state structure, with a bicameral  
legislature. This alone can achieve fruitful results while preventing  
the massacre of civilians.

The writer is a Delhi-based journalist.

o o o

(iii)

The Tribune
March 2, 2009

BEYOND THE POINT OF RETURN

by Papri Sri Raman

Sri Lanka’s President, Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, said: “On behalf of the  
entire Sri Lankan nation, I make an open invitation to all Sri  
Lankans — Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim, Burgher, Malay and all other  
communities — who left this country because of the war, to return to  
your motherland.”

Judging by past experience, the February 5 appeal is unlikely to find  
a positive response among the fugitives, mainly Tamils, from the  
island’s war-torn north to Tamil Nadu across the Palk Strait.

Even before such appeals, 1,99,546 refugees in India have returned to  
Sri Lanka over the years, according to the UN High Commission for  
Refugees. Aid agencies, however, point out that 50 per cent of them  
have come back to India. In the Tamil Nadu camps, there are refugees  
who have come back for a third time, after repatriation.

The numbers reeled out by the aid agencies are truly numbing — 90,000  
Tamil Muslims driven out of Jaffna overnight, another 50,000 Tamils  
told to leave the city in a day. Up to 2005, as many as 2,78,549  
people are said to have come to India in three phases of  
displacement, the first in 1984, the second between 1989-91 and the  
third since 1996. Half of all these were children.

In December 2008, the 117 camps in Tamil Nadu sheltered a total of  
73,613 people. As many as 23,500 refugees live outside camps. Since  
January 12, 2006, when the latest war began, yet another 21,000 have  
arrived in India.

India has refrained from taking aid from any country or external  
agency for the Tamil refugees. For the first time in 2008, however,  
funds from the USAID Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian  
Assistance and the Public Law (PL) 480 (also called the Food for  
Peace) programme were used through international relief organisations  
to rebuild some shelters gutted by fire in the Metupatti camp in the  
Namakkal district, upgrade sanitary facilities in the Mandapam camp  
and construct new structures in the Thappathi and Kulathuvaipatti  
camps in the Tuticorin district.

“Mandapam is our best camp”, says D. Jothi Jagarajan, one of the most  
senior government officers and the secretary in charge of public  
affairs, under whom a Rehabilitation Commissioner and a department  
facilitate refugee rehabilitation.

The Mandapam camp in Rameswaram, with flood-lit high walls, barbed  
wires and armed guards, is a transit facility for more than 5,000  
where the refugees are given shelter, after their authenticity is  
verified and they go through a quarantine procedure. Most camps are  
rows and rows of palm-thatched cubicles besides dusty highways,  
flooded during monsoon.

There are two special camps, one in Chengalpet in Kancheepuram  
district and another in Cheyyar, Thiruvannamalai district, holding  
about 40 specially interned people. Some of the Indian camps are very  
large. The Tiruvallur camp houses nearly 5,000 inmates, of whom 1,300  
are children. There are 1,497 children in a camp in Madurai, and the  
Bhavanisagar camp has more than a thousand children.

All the refugees are required to carry identity cards, are under 24- 
hour police surveillance, have to report to authorities whenever  
required to do so and their access to the media is severely restricted.

A category of refugees, to whom Mr. Rajapaksa’s appeal is not  
addressed, is that of the internally displaced. Together, the  
internally displaced and the refugees abroad are estimated to total  
6,00,000 as of today.

‘There is actually no difference whether a person is an IDP  
(internally displaced person) or a ‘refugee’ in another country. For  
the victim, it is not only a loss of home and livelihood, it is also  
a loss of ownership and freedom, a loss of identity,” says Ashok  
Gladston Xavier of the social work department of the Loyola College,  
Chennai.

Particularly distressed among the internally displaced are the  
2,00,000 Tamils herded into 13 barbed wire camps by the Sri Lankan  
government in last two months of the ongoing war. The Rajapaksa  
government has declared its intention of keeping them in camps for at  
least three years and is seeking foreign aid.

After a visit to the IDP camps, British Labour MP Robert Evans has  
said: “These are not welfare camps: they are prisoner-of-war cum  
concentration camps.” People are allowed to get out of these camps,  
“only if a relative stays behind,” say Amnesty International officials.

The refugees are fleeing not only the endless war but also its  
economic fallout. Sri Lanka, according to most United Nation reports  
of the 50s and 60s, was a state with better human development  
indices, literacy and healthcare than Singapore and Malyasia. Now, in  
the island’s north, every step is a mine-field, most buildings are  
burnt-out shells, and village after village bombed out.

“It has been estimated that the ongoing war has annually taken one to  
two per cent off the GDP growth in Sri Lanka”, says economist S.  
Narayan, a former finance secretary of the Government of India.

He adds: “When cumulated over two decades, it is possible to argue  
that per capita incomes should have been twice what they are now,  
which would be equivalent to that in Malaysia or at least Indonesia.  
The cost of the war in terms of overall welfare is, therefore, quite  
evident. The displaced persons camps are a part of this cost.”

What will the refugees’ rehabilitation cost? Says Narayan:  
“approximately US $ 600 per person per year including administrative  
overheads, leakages etc—a huge amount, given the numbers of displaced  
persons.” Not exactly an easy target to reach, one may add, in these  
times of recession.

This article is supported by a C-NES UNHCR media fellowship


_____


[2]  BANGLADESH: BDR MUTINY AND AFTER


The Daily Star
March 2, 2009

Editorial

TRYING TIMES FOR US
Unity and discipline are the needs of the hour

EVER since the dastardly acts of a section of BDR men came to light,  
we, through several editorials have expressed our deepest sorrow at  
the tragic events. We commend the armed forces for the way it has  
held its grief in check and gone about performing its duties in the  
most professional manner.

We are passing through a difficult time and the events will no doubt  
leave a deep sorrow in our collective psyche. We are in the process  
of overcoming a grave catastrophe at the moment crossing the very  
initial days of the post-crisis phase. It is thus very important that  
we preserve our cool and avoid split within the society since that is  
what those behind the mutiny would be most happy to see happen. One  
must not fail to see that the mutiny in effect was designed to  
destroy and damage the two major elements of our defence capability  
the army and the BDR

It is neither the time for rumour mongering nor giving ears to all  
the irresponsible tales that are making the rounds. Going by the  
events of February 25 one can be in very little doubt that there is a  
deep-rooted plan to destabilise the country and exploit the  
situation, and we can resist and prevent that from happening if we as  
one, cutting across party lines, refuse to dance to their tunes by  
quashing the rumours.

All the political parties must understand that politicising the  
matter will be very damaging for the nation. We would have liked to  
see the PM involve her counterpart in the decision making process in  
the quelling of the BDR mutiny. This unfortunately did not happen and  
we feel that the Grand Alliance and Sheikh Hasina have lost a golden  
opportunity to gain the confidence of the opposition. One should not  
overlook the importance of such involvements since the collective  
decision, right or wrong, would have to be owned by all. And the  
blame game one sees is primarily due to this.

The BNP reaction, perhaps a consequence of being spurned by the  
government, is a disturbing stance to take. This is not the time for  
blaming one another or pointing accusing finger at the government on  
mere speculation, since what we need at the moment are cohesion and  
consolidation not division.

We feel that there will be time for discussion on the way the matter  
has so far been handled. We shall have enough scope for analysying  
the actions of all concerned. What we need to do now is to help  
overcome the immediate problems that of making the BDR operational  
and strengthening the armed forces to overcome their loss of such a  
large number of officers. We must work together to overcome the  
trauma inflicted on us.

o o o

The Indian Express
March 02, 2009

Editorial

DHAKA’S HORROR

The gory details of the Bangladesh Rifles mutiny emanating from Dhaka  
are worrisome for two reasons. First, because of the brutal massacre  
that constitutes a human tragedy of mammoth proportions and a  
potential for destabilisation. Second, the violent rebellion has  
exposed the tind-erbox that Bangladesh, and by extension, its  
neighbours — particularly India — sit upon. When Sheikh Hasina Wajed  
won a landslide victory in a legitimate democratic election in  
December 2008, there was hope that Bangladesh’s prolonged instability  
would end soon and the rule of law be restored, along with civil  
liberties. But the discovery of mass graves within the Pilkhana  
headquarters of the BDR in Dhaka demonstrate how close the country  
had come to another catastrophe. A stern threat from the prime  
minister and tanks rolling down Dhaka towards Pilkhana might have  
compelled the rebels to surrender, but the fear of imminent doom has  
far from subsided.

Inquiries into what happened on February 25 and 26, and why, are  
revealing a murky picture. As some had suspected, there appears to be  
an extremist cum political instigation. The name of Salahuddin Qader  
Chowdhury, a Bangladesh Nationalist Party MP and business tycoon,  
with ties to the Pakistan military and the ISI, has cropped up.  
Chowdhury was linked to an arms haul in 2004, arms meant perhaps for  
insurgents in India’s Northeast. BDR personnel under interrogation  
have disclosed that 1 crore taka may have exchanged hands before the  
mutiny began. All of this point to conspiracy and pre-meditation.  
According to information provided by Dhaka, the plan was to exploit  
BDR jawans’ grievances with the hope that once they had killed a  
“sufficient” number of army officers assigned to the BDR, the army  
would react violently. In the process, the Awami League-led  
Government would have been toppled. Plots to assassinate the army  
chief, Moeen U. Ahmed, and the PM have also come to light.

The BNP leader, Begum Khaleda Zia, has pledged her support to the  
government in the ongoing inquiry. That is to be welcomed. However, a  
further cause for concern is the anger among army personnel to exact  
their revenge on the mutineers. They want exemplary punishment for  
the BDR personnel who instigated the rest. But they must persist in  
the restraint they have shown so far and have faith in the process of  
inquiry and justice set in motion. This episode is, in the end,  
Bangladesh’s internal matter; but given the potential threat to the  
subcontinent, New Delhi must be in constant touch with Dhaka and  
monitor developments.


_____


[3]  Pakistan and Elsewhere: Understanding Fundamentalisms

The News International
February 21, 2009

MYTHS VS FACTS ABOUT FUNDAMENTALISM (Part 1)

by Rubina Saigol

Religious fundamentalist movements of all shades and hues have  
gripped large parts of the world and have posed a threat to the  
prevalent political, economic and social systems. While  
"fundamentalism" is a term that is used in varying contexts to denote  
differing realities, its origins lie in 1920s America where it was  
used to refer to puritanical evangelist movements. The term is  
sometimes used to deny history by suggesting a return to some  
imagined early purity or "golden period" that supposedly existed in a  
bygone era. Fundamentalisms have manifested themselves in virtually  
all kinds of cultures and societies, Christian, Muslim, Hindu or  
Jewish. Like anything that is not much explored or understood,  
fundamentalisms have given rise to certain myths that tend to seduce  
public imagination. The purpose of this article is to try and  
dismantle eight of the most common myths about Muslim fundamentalism  
and extremism in our part of the world by juxtaposing such myths  
against observable facts.

Myth: Fundamentalism is the result of mental and moral backwardness,  
attitudes, religion and beliefs.

Fact: Fundamentalism is about geopolitics, involving power, money,  
and control over territory, people and resources. If we examine the  
actions and pronouncements of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or the  
Swat Taliban – actions that include beheading, rape, murder, public  
display of dead bodies, public executions, suicide bombings killing  
scores of innocent people – it is not hard to discern that such  
actions have little to do with religion or a moral order. Through  
brutal means and barbaric methods, the Taliban have gained control  
over territory in Swat and Waziristan. They have forced the  
government to accept their power over people and resources through  
the Nizam-e-Adl agreement reached between the Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e- 
Shariat-e-Muhammdi's Maulana Sufi Muhammad and the provincial  
government of the ANP. Apart from drug trafficking, the money is  
raised from donations received from Saudi Arabia and other countries  
and goes to pay Rs15,000-20,000 per month to about ten thousand  
militant followers of Maulana Fazlullah.

Myth: Fundamentalism in Pakistan can be traced back to the era of  
General Zia.

Fact: Fundamentalism can be traced much further back to Imam Hanbal,  
Al-Ashari, Imam Ghazali (he influenced writers like Ashraf Thanvi who  
wrote Bahishti Zewar), Abdul Wahhab and the Darul Uloom, Deoband.

Contrary to the common perception that General Zia's Islamisation  
laid the foundation of extremist and fundamentalist strands of  
religion, the seeds were sown much earlier. Reactionary Islamic  
thought goes back centuries, to the time when rationalism first  
appeared in Muslim lands. The Asharite revolt against the Mu'tazila  
rationalist thought located in Greek philosophy, Imam Ghazali's total  
repudiation of Reason as a source of truth apart from Revelation, and  
his denunciation of the great scientists, medicine men,  
mathematicians and thinkers like Al-Kindi, Al-Razi, Ibn-e-Rushd and  
Ibn-e-Sina who introduced enlightenment within the Muslim world  
between the 8th and 11th centuries, are reflections of early  
fundamentalist reactions. In the heyday of Baghdad, the genius of  
these thinkers was much admired and they were highly respected during  
the time of Khalifa Al-Mamun. However, later Muslim rulers like Al- 
Mutawakkil punished them severely for injecting innovative thought in  
the Muslim world. It was political power that chose to ally itself  
with the traditionalist and conservative ulema who crushed innovative  
and scientific thinking in favour of obscurantism.

The 18th century Arabian thinker Abdul Wahhab, who was also protected  
by and aligned with the House of Saud and political power, rejected  
all later accretions in Islamic thought and insisted on returning to  
purported versions of pure Islam during its early years. The bland  
Wahhabi version of religion that he propounded was exported to the  
subcontinent through Saudi Arabian funding of religious movements in  
Pakistan. The much more syncretic, tolerant and non-violent versions  
of Sufi Islam were rejected by a highly intolerant version which came  
though Saudi imperialism. In the context of the subcontinent,  
fundamentalist thought was furthered by Maulana Maudoodi, who used  
his influence in the passage of the Objectives Resolution in 1949  
which laid the foundation of a potentially "theocratic" state.  
General Zia made the Objectives Resolution a substantive part of the  
Constitution in 1985 through the insertion of Article 2-A. General  
Zia thus merely accelerated a process begun by his predecessors.

Myth: Only religious parties and sectarian outfits support or forge  
fundamentalism.

Fact: Fundamentalism has been supported or encouraged as much by the  
so-called secular elite as by religious parties to maintain class  
power and privilege.

The common assumption that only parties like the JUI-F, JUI-S and  
Jamaat-e-Islami and sectarian and Jehadi outfits like Sipah-e-Sahaba- 
e-Pakistan or Harkat-ul-Mujahideen support fundamentalism in Pakistan  
overlooks the constant capitulation to religious extremism by  
seemingly secular and liberal parties. Most analysts like to quote  
Jinnah's August 11, 1947, speech to argue that he envisioned a  
secular state, but in several of his other speeches he catered to the  
religious lobby's sentiments to justify the two-nation concept. In  
1940 he declared: "It is extremely difficult to appreciate why our  
Hindu friends fail to understand the real nature of Islam and  
Hinduism. They are not religious in the strict sense of the word, but  
are, in fact, different and distinct social orders, and it is a dream  
that the Hindus and Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality, and  
this misconception of one Indian nation has troubles and will lead  
India to destruction if we fail to revise our notions in time. The  
Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies,  
social customs, literatures. They neither intermarry nor inter-dine  
together and, indeed, they belong to two different civilisations  
which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions."

Even though Ayub Khan was considered modern and enlightened, a large  
number of his speeches cater to the religious lobby, in particular  
the ones that were designed to ensure "national integration" and  
emphasise Pakistani identity over ethnic and regional identities. In  
1962 he declared: "Pakistan came into being on the basis of an  
ideology which does not believe in differences of colour, race or  
language. It is immaterial whether you are a Bengali or a Sindhi, a  
Baluchi or a Pathan or a Punjabi – we are all knit together by the  
bond of Islam." The Council for Islamic Ideology was established  
during his rule to scrutinise laws for their conformity to religion.  
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, often associated with the Left and socialist  
thought, caved in to the demand to declare the Qadianis non-Muslims  
in 1974 through the Second Amendment, and later capitulated to the  
Nizam-e-Mustafa movement by taking certain symbolic measures towards  
Islamisation. The National Education Policy of 1972 declared that  
Islam is woven into the warp and woof of Pakistani society and would  
be reflected centrally in education. It was during Benazir Bhutto's  
second tenure that the Taliban gained ascendancy in Afghanistan in  
1996 and her government was the first to recognise their rule.

Again, it was the right-of-centre PML-N which, during Nawaz Sharif's  
first tenure, instituted the death penalty (295c) for blasphemy, a  
law much abused by religious zealots against the Ahmadi and Christian  
communities. In his second tenure he introduced his infamous Shariat  
Bill (15th amendment) which would have effectively made him Amir-ul- 
Momineen, for it was designed to gain power by deciding virtue and  
vice and imposing it upon the country. Most recently, the ANP has  
entered into a desperate agreement with TNSM for Shariat in return  
for peace – an expensive peace which may or may not come about!  
Liberal, centrist and Left-oriented leaders and parties have  
contributed heavily to the rise of religious fanaticism in order to  
maintain their hold on power.


(To be continued)

The writer is an independent researcher specialising in social  
development. Email: rubinasaigol at hotmail.com


The News International
February 23, 2009

MYTHS VS FACTS ABOUT FUNDAMENTALISM (PART 2)

by Rubina Saigol

Myth: Fundamentalists want a genuine Shariah-based system of quick  
and affordable justice.

Fact: Fundamentalist and extremist outfits have little or no  
understanding of Shariah and have devised a highly convoluted version  
of Shariah that is rejected by a large number of serious religious  
scholars.

Recent interviews of a cross-section of religious scholars and  
thinkers in Punjab and the NWFP conducted by a team of researchers  
reveals the following: There is not a single serious scholar of  
Shariah and Islamic jurisprudence who believes that bombing and  
torching girls’ schools, digging out dead bodies and hanging them  
from trees, murdering with wild abandon and killing innocent people  
with suicide bombing are Islamic. Similarly, these scholars informed  
us that there is no known school of Islamic thought that forbids the  
education of women and disputes their right to work, or their freedom  
of movement to carry out their daily tasks. Rather, virtually every  
scholar or religious leader that we interviewed said education is the  
foremost duty of every Muslim, man or woman. There is no respected  
religious scholar who supports the beating of women for going out of  
their houses or starving children to death by disallowing women from  
earning a livelihood. Virtually, every scholar, belonging to various  
sects and schools of thought, strongly condemned the actions of the  
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan of Baitullah Mehsood and Fazlullah’s  
actions in Swat as efforts to give religion a bad name.

Myth: Fundamentalism is the antithesis of imperialism and Jehadis/ 
Taliban are fighting against imperial domination.

Fact: Fundamentalism and imperialism are deeply linked and invoke  
each other for their own aims; fundamentalism is itself a specific  
form of imperialism.

In his thoroughly researched book Jihad-e-Kashmir o Afghanistan,  
journalist Muhammad Amir Rana reveals the following: After the Soviet  
invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Jimmy Carter’s administration  
created a secret fund of $500 million to create terror outfits to  
fight the Soviets. Nicknamed “Operation Cyclone,” this fund was kept  
secret even from Congress and the American public. Subsequently, the  
Reagan administration and Saudi Arabia provided $3.5 billion to  
General Zia’s regime for the funding of madrassahs for the Afghan  
Jihad. Militants were trained in the Brooklyn School in New York and  
in Virginia by the CIA. In Pakistan they were trained by MI6 and the  
Inter-Services-Intelligence. Between 1979 and 1990 there was a  
mushroom growth of madrassahs – Jihad-related organisations grew by  
100 percent and sectarian outfits multiplied at the rate of 90  
percent. By 1986 the rate of increase of deeni madaris was 136  
percent annually, whereas in previous times it had been a mere 3  
percent. By 2002, 7,000 religious institutions were offering degrees  
in higher education. Currently, it is estimated that there are  
between 18,000 and 22,000 madrassahs operating in Pakistan, teaching  
over 1.5 million children. Pakistan is in fact located at the nexus  
of multiple and competing imperialisms representing the US (and the  
so-called West), Saudi Arabian Wahhabiism and Iranian forms.

Myth: Fundamentalism and related terrorism are problems of the  
Frontier regions/FATA/Swat.

Fact: The Largest recruitment for Afghan and Kashmir Jehad is from  
the Punjab followed by the NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan.

Amir Rana’s study reveals that Punjab contributes about 50 percent of  
the Jihadi workforce, followed by the NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan.  
Punjab has the largest number of deeni madaris (5459 according to a  
2002 study). The NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan have 2,483, 1,935 and  
769, respectively. Karachi alone accounts for about 2,000 madrassahs.  
Statistics collected by the ministry of education show that FATA has  
135 while Islamabad alone has 77 deeni madaris. According to Rana,  
the great majority of militants from the Punjab were sent to fight in  
Kashmir by groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad, while  
most of the Pakhtoon and Balochi youth from the NWFP and Balochistan  
were sent to and killed in Afghanistan. Most belonged to the JUI-F  
and the TNSM (which has now entered into an agreement with the ANP  
government of the NWFP). A large number of organisations, such as  
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Jabbar wal Islami, Hizb-ul- 
Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Al Badr and Lashkar-e-Islam have  
participated in the Kashmir and Afghan Jihad getting their poor foot  
soldiers killed while the leaders enjoy luxurious lifestyles that  
include Pajeros, expensive mobile phones, large houses and frequent  
air travel.

Myth: Only non-state actors are involved in religion-based terrorism  
and fundamentalism.

Fact: State policy, in line with imperial and vested interests, has  
fully encouraged and supported the growth and rise of fundamentalist  
and sectarian outfits.

The state is fully implicated in backing, supporting and fanning the  
growth of extremist outfits. Pakistan’s “strategic depth” theory  
effectively helped keep the Taliban in power in Afghanistan, even as  
they killed, murdered and butchered children for playing football,  
women for going to the bank or school, working or lifting the lower  
part of the burqa to cross a river. The reign of terror had  
Pakistan’s official support while the rest of the world remained  
incredulous. The policy of “bleeding India with a thousand cuts”  
through infiltration in Kashmir also had state sponsorship. One look  
at the curriculum and teachings by Jamaat-ud-Daawa, an offshoot of  
Lashkar-e-Taiba, reveals the main purpose of this organisation. Their  
alphabet revolves around killing, murdering and jihad and their  
hatred is focused on Hindus. The games children play are war games  
designed to inspire them to lay down their lives for “holy war.”  
Going into the Afghan jihad in return for dollars was also a state  
decision.

Myth: Fundamentalist outfits have the support of local populations.

Fact: People have invariably voted in secular and liberal parties in  
elections.

A frequent defence in favour of religious hegemony is that the people  
are essentially religious and want a religious order in Pakistan. An  
examination of all elections held since 1970 reveals that people  
invariably voted for secular and liberal parties, while religious  
parties were promoted only by dictators: the Jamaat-e-Islami by  
General Zia and the MMA by Musharraf! The major winners of elections  
in 1970, 1977, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1997, 2002 and 2008 were the Awami  
League, the PPP, the PML-N, the ANP and the MQM, along with smaller  
nationalist parties. The religious parties failed to capture people’s  
imagination in a significant way in any election.

The myths that one has tried to unpack above need detailed scrutiny.  
As a nation we need to contemplate our choices: can we afford  
religious extremism with its negative obsession with controlling  
women as well as its anti-democracy, anti-development stance and its  
propensity towards violence because of its love for martyrdom, death  
and the next world? Or, do we need a plural democracy that can ensure  
fundamental rights while also accommodating and balancing the  
concerns of the different provinces, ethnicities, religions and  
genders into a just system of production and distribution.

(Concluded)


_____


[4] USA / India:

HINDUTVA FUNDAMENTALISTS LOOSE CALIFORNIA TEXTBOOK COURT CASE:
(CAPEEM vs Kenneth Noonan et al) Summary Judgement (February 25, 2009)

In an important court ruling by the US Federal judge on 25 February  
2009, Hindutva’s politically motivated efforts to change the contents  
of school textbooks in California are scuttled.

Full Text of 63 page court ruling
http://www.sacw.net/article713.html

_____


[5] INDIA - KARNATAKA: MASSIVE STATE FUNDING OF HINDU RELIGIOUS  
INSTITUTIONS UNDERWAY BY THE BJP GOVT.

Express Buzz

RS 60-CR LARGESSE FOR FAITH

Express News Service
21 Feb 2009

Bangalore: With an eye on the coming Lok Sabha elections, Chief  
Minister B S Yeddyurappa has doled out grants worth over Rs 50 crore  
for the development of various religious institutions and places of  
importance for different sects of people, besides announcing a grant  
of Rs 10 crore for places spreading religious harmony.

Unmindful of the criticism by the Opposition for his soft corner for  
religious institutions, BSY has given them the goodies. “Sincere  
efforts will be made to bind different religions and castes with love  
and affection by formulating constructive programmes,” the CM  
announced in his budget speech.

Institutions and places chosen for the grants for spreading religious  
harmony are: Khaja Aminuddin Dargah (Bijapur), Shirahatti Fakiraswamy  
Mutt (Gadag Dist), Kodekal Basavanna and Tinthani Mauneswara of  
Surpur (Gulbarga), Savalgi Shivalingeswara Mutt of Gokak (Belgaum),  
Murugamalla Kshetra of Chintamani (Kolar) and other places of Hindu- 
Muslim and Hindu-Christian amity.

Yeddyurappa has earmarked Rs 10 crore for Kaginele, the birth place  
of saint Kanakadasa, while announcing a Rs 50-crore plan to develop  
Renuka Yellamma temple at Saudat t i in Belgaum. An amount of Rs 5  
crore has been kept aside for the coming year for the Kaginele projects.

Other religious places and institutions chosen for grants include:  
Yediyuru Siddalingeshwara Mutt (Rs 5 crore), Malemahadeshwara Betta,  
Biligirirangana Betta and Himavad Gopalaswamy Betta (Rs 5 crore),  
Melukote (Rs 2 crore), Chandragutti and Shivanapada (Rs 2 crore  
each), Jidaga Mutt in Gulbarga ( Rs 1 crore), Sharanabasaveshwara  
Gurupeetha of Bovi community in Bagalkot, Immadi Siddarameshwara Mutt  
and Hampi Hemakoot Gayatri Mutt (Rs 1 crore each), Kumaraswamy Mutt  
at Hangal and Shivayogi Mandir in Bagalkot (Rs 1 crore each),  
Babbuswamy Mutt in Udupi (Rs 1 crore) and Rajanahalli Valmiki  
Gurupeetha in Davanagere (Rs 2 crore).

o o o

ibnlive.in.com

RELIGIOUS AGENDA

KARNATAKA GOVT TO WASH SINS BY GANGAJAL DISTRIBUTION

Deepa Balakrishnan / CNN-IBN

Feb 23, 2009

HOLY GRAIL: BJP has a votebank that thrives on religious sentiments  
so the Karnataka state government may please its voters.

New Delhi: Holy water from the Ganga is all set to flow into  
Karnataka today on the occasion of Maha-Shivaratri.

The BJP government in Karnataka is spending lakhs of rupees to take  
the holy river to 1,500 temples cross the state.

Ganga-jal or holy water from the Ganga river in tankers is the BJP  
government's unusual gift to the people of Karnataka this Shivratri.

SN Krishnaiah Shetty, Muzrai Minister said, “Gangajal is considered  
very auspicious for Hindus who call it pavithra gangajal or holy  
water. That's why we're distributing it for Maha-Shivaratri, which is  
an important and powerful day."

Nearly 50,000 litres of gangajal has been brought in two tankers  
across 2000 kilometres.

Ashok Kumar, driver of the tanker too was amazed at the kind of cargo  
he ferried and said that he has never done something like this before.

This is not the first time that the Muzrai department is showing its  
eccentric side. A few days after coming to power, this department  
ordered that every temple should do a puja religious rituals in the  
name of chief minister Yeddyurappa every morning. It was an order  
that hugely embarrassed the government and had to be taken back the  
next day.

Shetty says he doesn't know how much the gangajal distribution will  
cost and that the devotees are footing the bill.

This is only a way of cooperating with devotees said the minister.

But simple arithmetic will tell you that the whole exercise is going  
to cost more than a few lakh rupees. Karnataka may not get any new  
schools or hospitals this year but it will have plenty of holy water.

o o o

http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/03/karnataka-govt-funding-of- 
temples-is.html

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: KARNATAKA GOVT FUNDING OF TEMPLES IS A MATTER  
OF SERIOUS CONCERN

Madam/Sir

The move of Karnataka Government to allot 130 crores for Temples and  
mutts in the state is a matter of disgust and serious concern. The  
ground for allocation is that this will please the Gods. The Chief  
Minister said that this is to seek forgiveness for the sins of  
previous Governments, to bring prosperity for the state by more rains  
and food production by making the Gods happy. This is blatant  
promotion of blind faith, going against the values of our  
constitution, which directs the state to promote rational thought and  
oppose the blind faith. By now we know that rainfall is related to  
ecological factors and food production is related to agricultural  
policies. To attribute this to Gods’ will is not only wrong it is a  
slap on the scientific temper. BJP in Karnataka came to power by  
propping up Baba Budan Giri dargah issue and now it is resorting to  
outright communal and obscurantist politics by giving money to  
temples. This also displays that BJP like formations are there just  
to promote faith in temples and Mutts, to build their policies around  
issues of ‘other world’. The builder of Modern India, Nehru, saw  
‘Holy places’ in industries and agricultural development through  
planning. In contrast for BJP, Ram temple has been the core issue.  
BJP ruled Karnataka is fast falling into the politics of medieval  
ages. It is time that people reprimand such retrograde policies of  
the BJP and demand that public money cannot be wasted in temples etc.

Ram Puniyani
All India Secular Forum
1102/5 MHADA Deluxe
Rambaug Powai
Mumbai 400076
Ph 25704061

o o o

Deccan Herald
2 March 2009

Editorial

Misplaced priorities
GRANTS FOR RELIGIOUS BODIES IS POLITICAL APPEASEMENT.

Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, who has had an opportunity to present  
two budgets in a span of nine months, may not have a formal economics  
background, but so was the case with many of his predecessors. M Y  
Ghorpade was perhaps the last finance minister that Karnataka has  
seen with an academic background of economics and finance. But,  
Siddaramaiah and S M Krishna who preceded Yeddyurappa in the finance  
department, carried enough political acumen to depend on sound  
economic advice before presenting their budgets and put the state on  
a sound economic footing. The two budgets that Yeddyurappa has  
presented — last June soon after the elections and now — betray a  
lack of vision and roadmap to consolidate the state economy in an  
acutely adverse circumstance.

Global meltdown has begun to hit the country badly. But Karnataka,  
especially Bangalore, could be worst hit in the coming fiscal year as  
it has rode high on the information technology sector boom for last  
one decade. Economic activity is already witnessing severe downturn  
in IT and textiles, the two major sectors in the state. The fears of  
large-scale job losses are real in the two sectors. The state  
government should have geared up to meet this challenge. The resource  
mobilisation and consequently the budgetary allocation in the last  
fiscal fell short by over Rs 4,500 crore and the downward fiscal  
spiral is expected to continue. And yet, Yeddyurappa’s latest budget  
has not been able to relate itself to this challenge. On the  
contrary, scarce resources have been proposed to be deployed to dole  
out to religious institutions. Over and above the Rs 130 crore he  
handed out while presenting the budget on Feb 20, Yeddyurappa has  
announced a further Rs 22.70 crore ‘grant’ to religious bodies across  
the state.

The point is that apparently there were no specific requests or  
justifiable reasons for such state support. It is as if the chief  
minister has used the budgetary instrument to openly appease  
different communities ahead of the general elections. The allocations  
prompted one Opposition MLA to make a sarcastic remark that  
Yeddyurappa would have even made allocation for BJP’s ‘operation  
lotus’ as well, if the Constitution so permitted. These allocations  
are eminently avoidable. In these times of economic distress, it is  
still not late for the government to review its budgetary course. It  
would be prudent and highly desirable that the government allocates  
its limited finances for public investment so as to induce economic  
recovery.


_____


[6] FILM REVIEW: Slum Dog Millionaire

Dawn.com
1 March, 2009

CAUGHT ON FILM: INDIA ‘NOT SHINING’

by Arundhati Roy

The night before the Oscars, in India, we were re-enacting the last  
few scenes of Slumdog Millionaire. The ones in which vast crowds of  
people – poor people – who have nothing to do with the game show,  
gather in the thousands in their slums and shanty towns to see if  
Jamal Malik will win. Oh, and he did. He did. So now everyone,  
including the Congress Party, is taking credit for the Oscars that  
the film won!

The party claims that instead of India Shining it has presided over  
India 'Achieving'. Achieving what? In the case of Slumdog, India's  
greatest contribution, certainly our political parties’ greatest  
contribution is providing an authentic, magnificent backdrop of epic  
poverty, brutality and violence for an Oscar-winning film to be shot  
in. So now that too has become an achievement? Something to be  
celebrated? Something for us all to feel good about? Honestly, it's  
beyond farce.

And here’s the rub: Slumdog Millionaire allows real-life villains to  
take credit for its cinematic achievements because it lets them off  
the hook. It points no fingers, it holds nobody responsible. Everyone  
can feel good. And that’s what I feel bad about.

So that’s about what’s not in the film. About what’s in it: I thought  
it was nicely shot. But beyond that, what can I say other than that  
it is a wonderful illustration of the old adage, ‘there's a lot of  
money in poverty’.

The debate around the film has been framed – and this helps the film  
in its multi-million-dollar promotion drive – in absurd terms. On the  
one hand we have the old 'patriots' parroting the line that "it  
doesn't show India in a Proper Light' (by now, even they’ve been won  
over thanks to the Viagra of success). On the other hand, there are  
those who say that Slumdog is a brave film that is not scared to plum  
the depths of India 'not-shining'.

Slumdog Millionaire does not puncture the myth of ‘India shining'—  
far from it. It just turns India 'not-shining' into another glitzy  
item in the supermarket. As a film, it has none of the panache, the  
politics, the texture, the humour, and the confidence that both the  
director and the writer bring to their other work. It really doesn’t  
deserve the passion and attention we are lavishing on it. It's a  
silly screenplay and the dialogue was embarrassing, which surprised  
me because I loved The Full Monty (written by the same script  
writer). The stockpiling of standard, clichéd, horrors in Slumdog  
are, I think, meant to be a sort of version of Alice in Wonderland –  
‘Jamal in Horrorland’. It doesn't work except to trivialize what  
really goes on here. The villains who kidnap and maim children and  
sell them into brothels reminded me of Glenn Close in 101 Dalmatians.

Politically, the film de-contextualises poverty – by making poverty  
an epic prop, it disassociates poverty from the poor. It makes  
India’s poverty a landscape, like a desert or a mountain range, an  
exotic beach, god-given, not man-made. So while the camera swoops  
around in it lovingly, the filmmakers are more picky about the  
creatures that inhabit this landscape.

To have cast a poor man and a poor girl, who looked remotely as  
though they had grown up in the slums, battered, malnutritioned,  
marked by what they’d been through, wouldn't have been attractive  
enough. So they cast an Indian model and a British boy. The torture  
scene in the cop station was insulting. The cultural confidence  
emanating from the obviously British 'slumdog' completely cowed the  
obviously Indian cop, even though the cop was supposedly torturing  
the slumdog. The brown skin that two share is too thin to hide a lot  
of other things that push through it. It wasn’t a case of bad acting  
– it was a case of the PH balance being wrong. It was like watching  
black kids in a Chicago slum speaking in Yale accents.

Many of the signals the film sent out were similarly scrambled. It  
made many Indians feel as though they were speeding on a highway full  
of potholes. I am not making a case for verisimilitude, or arguing  
that it should not have been in English, or suggesting anything as  
absurd as 'outsiders can never understand India.' I think plenty of  
Indian filmmakers fall into the same trap. I also think that plenty  
of Indian filmmakers have done this story much, much better. It's not  
surprising that Christian Colson – head of Celedor, producers of ‘Who  
Wants to be a Millionaire?’ – won the Oscar for the best film  
producer. That's what Slumdog Millionaire is selling: the cheapest  
version of the Great Capitalist dream in which politics is replaced  
by a game show, a lottery in which the dreams of one person come true  
while, in the process, the dreams of millions of others are usurped,  
immobilizing them with the drug of impossible hope (work hard, be  
good, with a little bit of luck you could be a millionaire).

The pundits say that the appeal of the film lies in the fact that  
while in the West for many people riches are turning to rags, the  
rags to riches story is giving people something to hold on to. Scary  
thought. Hope, surely, should be made of tougher stuff. Poor Oscars.  
Still, I guess it could have been worse. What if the film that won  
had been like Guru – that chilling film celebrating the rise of the  
Ambanis. That would have taught us whiners and complainers a lesson  
or two. No?


_____


[7] ANNOUNCEMENTS:

(i)

From: COVA network
  Sent: Sunday, March 1, 2009 6:45:56 PM
  SUBJECT: 12 MEMBER PAKISTANI PEACE DELEGATION FOR 12 INDIAN CITIES  
- JOINT SIGNATURE CAMPAIGN

Dear friends

A 12 Member Peace Delegation crossed the Wagah- Attari Border on 1st  
March 2009 for a 10 day Goodwill visit to India. The Peace Delegation  
will be visiting Amritsar, Delhi, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Chennai,  
Lucknow, Patna, Kolkotta, Durgapur, Jaipur, Ajmer and Chandigarh  
before they return to Pakistan on 9th March 2009.

Over a hundred organisations in India are involved in organising  
programs for the Pakistan Peace Delegation where they will be meeting  
and interacting with school, college and university students, youth  
groups; teachers, students, workers and trade unions, social,  
women’s, human rights and peace activists; leaders of Dalit and  
marginalised communities, businessmen and corporate representatives,  
editors and leaders of the media, members of political parties and  
other dignitaries.

Program for Amritsar and Delhi is attached and appended below.  
Programs for other cities will be mailed soon.

Please join the programs in your city to cement your solidarity for  
peace!!

Big Thank you and an Appeal

We would like to express our gratitude to hundreds of organisations  
and individuals who have endorsed the Indo- Pak Joint Signature  
Campaign Against Terorism and War and to promote Peace and partnered  
to collect thousands of Signatures from hundreds of cities, towns and  
villages in both India and Pakistan. We appeal to all those who have  
not yet sent the forms and banners on which the signatures were  
collected to kindly post them immediately to the following addresses:

Facilitating Organisations:

INDIA:	
COVA, 20-4-10, Charminar, Hyderabad, A.P., India – 500 002, Ph: 
+91-40-24572984, Email: indopak.jointcampaign at gmail.com	
PAKISTAN: PILER Centre, ST.001, Sector X, Sub-sector V, Gulshan-e- 
Maymar, Karachi 75340. Pakistan, Ph: +92-21-6351145–7
Website:	http://www.indopakcampaignagainstwarnterror.org

Proposed Program Schedule of the Pakistan Peace Delegation to India

1st – 9th March 2009

1st to 3rd March: Programs at Amritsar and Delhi

Sunday 1st February- Lahore - Amritsar

Coordination at Amritsar:

1. Mr. Ramesh Yadav- 98723 18484, 0183 2221599

11.00 am Cross over at Wagah - Attari border
  2.00 pm Reach Amritsar followed by Lunch
  4.00 pm Interaction with Civil Society Organisations and Media-  
Virsa Vihar Amritsar
  10.00 pm Depart for Delhi by Volvo Bus- Escort:

Contacts at Delhi:
  1. Coordination: Haris Kidwai- 09811081240 and Mazher Hussain-  
9849178111
  2. Appintments:Shailander Uniyal-98186 01094
  3. Events and Logistics: Coordination: Rajeshwar and Asghar
  4. Media: Mohita Nagpal- 98730 27024

Programs at Delhi - Monday, 2nd March
12.00 Noon	Interactions with Trade Union and Mass Movement Leaders -  
India Islamic Cultural Center, Lodi Road, New Delhi- Organised by COVA
03.00 pm	Meeting with Peace Activists at Coffee House, Cannaught  
Place, New Delhi- Organised By Indian Social Security
05.00 pm	Human Chain against Terrorism, War and Violence and for  
Peace and Cooperation by Indian and Pakistani Citizens- Raj Ghat, New  
Delhi
09.00 pm	Dinner and Meeting with Students of JNU at Sutlej Hostel

Monday, 3rd March 2009
11.00 am	Interaction with members of CII- India Habitat Center-  
Organised by CII
12.30 pm	Interaction with Media Leaders followed by Lunch at The  
Press Club of India- organized by SANSAD
3.00 p.m.	Press Conference
4.30 pm	Group I and III leaves for Nagpur and Jaipur
8 00 pm	Group Leaves for Lucknow


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S o u t h      A s i a      C i t i z e n s      W i r e
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

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