SACW | March 9-14, 2009 / Pakistan: Towards theocracy? / Sri Lanka Human rights / India: Irom Sharmila's struggle ; Hindutva's Lab in Karnataka
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at gmail.com
Fri Mar 13 22:46:25 CDT 2009
South Asia Citizens Wire | March 9-14, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2612 -
Year 11 running
From: www.sacw.net
[1] Pakistan: Towards theocracy? (Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy)
+ Long March - A Long View (Beena Sarwar)
[2] Sri Lanka: War & Human rights
(i) Is the evacuation of civilians possible? (Shanie)
(ii) Protect the Human Rights of Sri Lankan Civilians Now! (SAPA)
[3] India: Goings on in Hindutva's Lab in Karnataka
(i) Fight This Talibanisation Culturally & Politically (U R Anantha
Muthy)
(ii) Morality play: "Police should not set norms for public
conduct." (Editorial, Deccan Herald)
(iii) Karnataka Public Money to promote blind faith (Ram Puniyani)
[4] India: Irom Sharmila Released and Rearrested: 9th Year of
Struggle Against AFSPA (Sumi Krishna)
[5] Israel / India: Israeli Armsdog-Millionaires Assault Bollywood
(Noah Shachtman)
[6] Book Review: In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (William Dalrymple)
[7] Announcements:
(i) 14th March, 2009 International Day of Action against Dams, for
Rivers, and for Peoples (Almanzar Jamshoro, 14 March 2009)
(ii) A rally demanding release of Dr Binayak Sen (Raipur,16 March 2009)
(iii) Dick Hensman Memorial Meeting (Colombo, 17 March 2009)
(iv) Workshop on Sexual Violence (New Delhi, 21 March, 2009)
_____
[1] Pakistan:
Frontline
March 14-27, 2009
TOWARDS THEOCRACY?
by Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy
Women in burqas and children from the Bajaur and Mohmand agency areas
wait to be registered at a refugee camp near Peshawar in January.
Today a full-scale war is being fought in FATA, Swat and other “wild”
areas of Pakistan, with thousands dying and hundreds of thousands of
displaced people streaming into cities and towns.
FOR 20 years or more, a few of us in Pakistan have been desperately
sending out SOS messages, warning of terrible times to come.
Nevertheless, none anticipated how quickly and accurately our dire
predictions would come true. It is a small matter that the flames of
terrorism set Mumbai on fire and, more recently, destroyed Pakistan’s
cricketing future. A much more important and brutal fight lies ahead
as Pakistan, a nation of 175 million, struggles for its very
survival. The implications for the future of South Asia are enormous.
Today a full-scale war is being fought in FATA (Federally
Administered Tribal Areas), Swat and other “wild” areas of Pakistan,
with thousands dying and hundreds of thousands of IDPs (internally
displaced people) streaming into cities and towns. In February 2009,
with the writ of the Pakistani state in tatters, the government gave
in to the demand of the TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistani
Taliban Movement) to implement the Islamic Sharia in Malakand, a
region of FATA. It also announced the suspension of a military
offensive in Swat, which has been almost totally taken over by the
TTP. But the respite that it brought was short-lived and started
breaking down only hours later.
The fighting is now inexorably migrating towards Peshawar where,
fearing the Taliban, video shop owners have shut shop, banners have
been placed in bazaars declaring them closed for women, musicians are
out of business, and kidnapping for ransom is the best business in
town. Islamabad has already seen Lal Masjid and the Marriot bombing,
and has had its police personnel repeatedly blown up by suicide
bombers. Today, its barricaded streets give a picture of a city under
siege. In Karachi, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), an ethnic but
secular party well known for strong-arm tactics, has issued a call
for arms to prevent the Taliban from making further inroads into the
city. Lahore once appeared relatively safe and different but, after
the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team, has rejoined Pakistan.
The suicide bomber and the masked abductor have crippled Pakistan’s
urban life and shattered its national economy. Soldiers, policemen,
factory and hospital workers, mourners at funerals, and ordinary
people praying in mosques have been reduced to hideous masses of
flesh and fragments of bones. The bearded ones, many operating out of
madrassas, are hitting targets across the country. Although a
substantial part of the Pakistani public insists upon lionising them
as “standing up to the Americans”, they are neither seeking to evict
a foreign occupier nor fighting for a homeland. They want nothing
less than to seize power and to turn Pakistan into their version of
the ideal Islamic state. In their incoherent, ill-formed vision, this
would include restoring the caliphate as well as doing away with all
forms of western influence and elements of modernity. The AK-47 and
the Internet, of course, would stay.
But, perhaps paradoxically, in spite of the fact that the dead bodies
and shattered lives are almost all Muslim ones, few Pakistanis speak
out against these atrocities. Nor do they approve of military action
against the cruel perpetrators, choosing to believe that they are
fighting for Islam and against an imagined American occupation.
Political leaders like Qazi Husain Ahmed and Imran Khan have no words
of kindness for those who have suffered from Islamic extremists.
Their tears are reserved for the victims of predator drones, whether
innocent or otherwise. By definition, for them terrorism is an act
that only Americans can commit.
Why the Denial?
To understand Pakistan’s collective masochism, one needs to study the
drastic social and cultural transformations that have made this
country so utterly different from what it was in earlier times. For
three decades, deep tectonic forces have been silently tearing
Pakistan away from the Indian subcontinent and driving it towards the
Arabian peninsula.
This continental drift is not physical but cultural, driven by a
belief that Pakistan must exchange its South Asian identity for an
Arab-Muslim one. Grain by grain, the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are
replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a rich Muslim culture in
India for a thousand years. This culture produced Mughal
architecture, the Taj Mahal, the poetry of Asadullah Ghalib, and much
more. Now a stern, unyielding version of Islam – Wahabism – is
replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the sufis and saints who had
walked on this land for hundreds of years.
This change is by design. Twenty-five years ago, under the approving
gaze of Ronald Reagan’s America, the Pakistani state pushed Islam on
to its people. Prayers in government departments were deemed
compulsory, floggings were carried out publicly, punishments were
meted out to those who did not fast in Ramadan, selection for
university academic posts required that the candidate demonstrate
knowledge of Islamic teachings, and jehad was declared essential for
every Muslim.
Villages have changed drastically, driven in part by Pakistani
workers returning from Arab countries. Many village mosques are now
giant madrassas that propagate hard-line Salafi and Deobandi beliefs
through oversized loudspeakers. They are bitterly opposed to
Barelvis, Shias and other Muslims, who they do not consider to be
proper Muslims. Punjabis, who were far more liberal towards women
than Pashtuns, are now also beginning to take a line resembling the
Taliban. Hanafi law has begun to prevail over tradition and civil
law, as is evident from recent decisions in the Lahore High Court.
K.M. Chaudhry/AP
Pakistan’s Ministry of Education estimates that 1.5 million students
are getting religious education in 13,000 madrassas. These figures
could be quite off the mark. Commonly quoted figures range between
18,000 and 22,000 such schools. Here, students at the Jamia Manzoorul
Islam, a madrassa in Lahore.
In the Pakistani lower-middle and middle-middle classes lurks a grim
and humourless Saudi-inspired revivalist movement which frowns on
every expression of joy and pleasurable pastime. Lacking any positive
connection to history, culture and knowledge, it seeks to eliminate
“corruption” by regulating cultural life and seizing control of the
education system.
“Classical music is on its last legs in Pakistan; the sarangi and
vichtarveena are completely dead,” laments Mohammad Shehzad, a music
aficionado. Indeed, teaching music in public universities is
violently opposed by students of the Islami Jamaat-e-Talaba at Punjab
University. Religious fundamentalists consider music haram. Kathak
dancing, once popular with the Muslim elite of India, has no teachers
left. Pakistan produces no feature films of any consequence.
As a part of General Zia-ul-Haq’s cultural offensive, Hindi words
were expunged from daily use and replaced with heavy-sounding Arabic
ones. Persian, the language of Mughal India, had once been taught as
a second or third language in many Pakistani schools. But, because of
its association with Shiite Iran, it too was dropped and replaced
with Arabic. The morphing of the traditional “khuda hafiz” (Persian
for “God be with you”) into “allah hafiz” (Arabic for “God be with
you”) took two decades to complete. The Arab import sounded odd and
contrived, but ultimately the Arabic God won and the Persian God lost.
Genesis of Jehad
One can squarely place the genesis of religious militancy in Pakistan
to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the subsequent
efforts of the U.S.-Pakistan-Saudi grand alliance to create and
support the Great Global Jehad of the 20th century. A toxic mix of
imperial might, religious fundamentalism, and local interests
ultimately defeated the Soviets. But the network of Islamic militant
organisations did not disappear after it achieved success. By now the
Pakistani Army establishment had realised the power of jehad as an
instrument of foreign policy, and so the network grew from strength
to strength.
The amazing success of the state is now turning out to be its own
undoing. Today the Pakistan Army and establishment are under attack
from religious militants, and rival Islamic groups battle each other
with heavy weapons. Ironically, the same Army – whose men were
recruited under the banner of jehad, and which saw itself as the
fighting arm of Islam – today stands accused of betrayal and is
almost daily targeted by Islamist suicide bombers. Over 1,800
soldiers have died as of February 2009 in encounters with religious
militants, and many have been tortured before decapitation.
Nevertheless, the Army is still ambivalent in its relationship with
the jehadists and largely focusses upon India.
Education or Indoctrination?
Similar sentiments exist in a large part of the Pakistani public
media. The commonly expressed view is that Islamic radicalism is a
problem only in FATA and that madrassas are the only jehad factories
around. This could not be more wrong. Extremism is breeding at a
ferocious rate in public and private schools within Pakistan’s towns
and cities. Left unchallenged, this kind of education will produce a
generation incapable of living together with any except strictly
their own kind. Pakistan’s education system demands that Islam be
understood as a complete code of life, and creates in the mind of the
schoolchild a sense of siege and constant embattlement by stressing
that Islam is under threat everywhere.
The government-approved curriculum, prepared by the Curriculum Wing
of the Federal Ministry of Education, is the basic road map for
transmitting values and knowledge to the young. By an Act of
Parliament, passed in 1976, all government and private schools
(except for O-level schools) are required to follow this curriculum.
It is a blueprint for a religious fascist state.
The masthead of an illustrated primer for the Urdu alphabet states
that it has been prepared by Iqra Publishers, Rawalpindi, along
“Islamic lines”. Although not an officially approved textbook, it has
been used for many years by some regular schools, as well as
madrassas, associated with the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), an
Islamic political party that had allied itself with General Pervez
Musharraf.
The world of the Pakistani schoolchild was largely unchanged even
after September 11, 2001, which led to Pakistan’s timely desertion of
the Taliban and the slackening of the Kashmir jehad. Indeed, for all
his hypocritical talk of “enlightened moderation”, Musharraf’s
educational curriculum was far from enlightening. It was a slightly
toned-down copy of that under Nawaz Sharif which, in turn, was
identical to that under Benazir Bhutto, who inherited it from Zia-ul-
Haq.
Fearful of taking on powerful religious forces, every incumbent
government refused to take a position on the curriculum and thus
quietly allowed young minds to be moulded by fanatics. What might
happen a generation later has always been a secondary matter for a
government challenged on so many sides.
The promotion of militarism in Pakistan’s so-called “secular” public
schools, colleges and universities had a profound effect upon young
minds. Militant jehad became part of the culture on college and
university campuses. Armed groups flourished, invited students for
jehad in Kashmir and Afghanistan, set up offices throughout the
country, collected funds at Friday prayers, and declared a war
without borders. Pre-9/11, my university was ablaze with posters
inviting students to participate in the Kashmir jehad. After 2001,
this slipped below the surface.
For all his hypocritical talk of “enlightened moderation”, General
Pervez Musharraf’s educational curriculum was far from enlightening.
It was a slightly toned-down copy of that under Nawaz Sharif which,
in turn, was identical to that under Benazir Bhutto, who inherited it
from Zia-ul-Haq. (From left) Zia-ul-Haq, Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif
and Musharraf.
The madrassas
The primary vehicle for Saudi-ising Pakistan’s education has been the
madrassa. In earlier times, these had turned out the occasional
Islamic scholar, using a curriculum that essentially dates from the
11th century with only minor subsequent revisions. But their
principal function had been to produce imams and muezzins for
mosques, and those who eked out an existence as “moulvi sahibs”
teaching children to read the Quran.
The Afghan jehad changed everything. During the war against the
Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, madrassas provided the U.S.-Saudi-
Pakistani alliance the cannon fodder needed for fighting a holy war.
The Americans and the Saudis, helped by a more-than-willing General
Zia, funded new madrassas across the length and breadth of Pakistan.
A detailed picture of the current situation is not available. But,
according to the national education census, which the Ministry of
Education released in 2006, Punjab has 5,459 madrassas followed by
the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) with 2,843; Sindh 1,935;
Federally Administrated Northern Areas (FANA) 1,193; Balochistan 769;
Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) 586; FATA 135; and Islamabad capital
territory 77. The Ministry estimates that 1.5 million students are
getting religious education in the 13,000 madrassas.
These figures could be quite off the mark. Commonly quoted figures
range between 18,000 and 22,000 madrassas. The number of students
could be correspondingly larger. The free room, board and supplies to
students, form a key part of their appeal. But the desire of parents
across the country is for children to be “disciplined” and to be
given a thorough Islamic education. This is also a major contributing
factor.
Madrassas have deeply impacted upon the urban environment. For
example, until a few years ago, Islamabad was a quiet, orderly,
modern city different from all others in Pakistan. Still earlier, it
had been largely the abode of Pakistan’s hyper-elite and foreign
diplomats. But the rapid transformation of its demography brought
with it hundreds of mosques with multi-barrelled audio-cannons
mounted on minarets, as well as scores of madrassas illegally
constructed in what used to be public parks and green areas. Now,
tens of thousands of their students with little prayer caps dutifully
chant the Quran all day. In the evenings they swarm around the city,
making bare-faced women increasingly nervous.
Women – the Lesser Species
Total separation of the sexes is a central goal of the Islamists. Two
decades ago the fully veiled student was a rarity on Pakistani
university and college campuses. The abaya was an unknown word in
Urdu; it is a foreign import. But today, some shops in Islamabad
specialise in abaya. At colleges and universities across Pakistan,
female students are seeking the anonymity of the burqa. Such students
outnumber their sisters who still dare show their faces.
While social conservatism does not necessarily lead to violent
extremism, it does shorten the path. Those with beards and burqas are
more easily convinced that Muslims are being demonised by the rest of
the world. The real problem, they say, is the plight of the
Palestinians, the decadent and discriminatory West, the Jews, the
Christians, the Hindus, the Kashmir issue, the Bush doctrine, and so
on. They vehemently deny that those committing terrorist acts are
Muslims or, if faced by incontrovertible evidence, say it is a mere
reaction to oppression. Faced with the embarrassment that 200 schools
for girls were blown up in Swat by Fazlullah’s militants, they
wriggle out by saying that some schools were housing the Pakistan
Army, who should be targeted anyway.
Abdul Rehman/Reuters
This high school at Qambar in the Swat valley was among the 200
schools for girls destroyed by the Swat Taliban led by Mullah Fazlullah.
The Prognosis
The immediate future is not hopeful: increasing numbers of mullahs
are creating cults around themselves and seizing control over the
minds of worshippers. In the tribal areas, a string of new Islamist
leaders have suddenly emerged: Sufi Mohammad, Baitullah Mehsud,
Fazlullah, Mangal Bagh…. The enabling environment of poverty,
deprivation, lack of justice, and extreme differences of wealth is
perfect for these demagogues. Their gruesome acts of terror and
public beheadings are still being perceived by large numbers of
Pakistanis as part of the fight against imperialist America and,
sometimes, India as well. This could not be more wrong.
The jehadists have longer-range goals. A couple of years ago, a
Karachi-based monthly magazine ran a cover story on the terrorism in
Kashmir. One fighter was asked what he would do if a political
resolution were found for the disputed valley. Revealingly, he
replied that he would not lay down his gun but turn it on the
Pakistani leadership, with the aim of installing an Islamic
government there.
Over the next year or two, we are likely to see more short-lived
“peace accords”, as in Malakand, Swat and, earlier on, in Shakai. In
my opinion, these are exercises in futility. Until the Pakistan Army
finally realises that Mr. Frankenstein needs to be eliminated rather
than be engaged in negotiations, it will continue to soft-pedal on
counter-insurgency. It will also continue to develop and demand from
the U.S. high-tech weapons that are not the slightest use against
insurgents. There are some indications that some realisation of the
internal threat is dawning, but the speed is as yet glacial.
Even if Mumbai-II occurs, India’s options in dealing with nuclear
Pakistan are severely limited. Cross-border strikes should be
dismissed from the realm of possibilities. They could lead to
escalations that neither government would have control over. I am
convinced that India’s prosperity – and perhaps its physical survival
– demands that Pakistan stays together. Pakistan could disintegrate
into a hell, where different parts are run by different warlords.
Paradoxically perhaps, India’s most effective defence could be the
Pakistan Army, torn and fractured though it may be. To convert a
former enemy army into a possible ally will require that India change
tack.
To create a future working alliance with the struggling Pakistani
state, and in deference to basic democratic principles, India must be
seen as genuinely working towards some kind of resolution of the
Kashmir issue. It must not deny that the majority of Kashmiri Muslims
are deeply alienated from the Indian state and that they desperately
seek balm for their wounds. Else the forces of cross-border jehad,
and its hate-filled holy warriors, will continue to receive
unnecessary succour.
I shall end this rather grim essay on an optimistic note: the forces
of irrationality will surely cancel themselves out because they act
in random directions, whereas reason pulls in only one. History leads
us to believe that reason will triumph over unreason, and humans will
continue their evolution towards a higher and better species.
Ultimately, it will not matter whether we are Pakistanis, Indians,
Kashmiris, or whatever. Using ways that we cannot currently
anticipate, people will somehow overcome their primal impulses of
territoriality, tribalism, religion and nationalism. But for now this
must be just a hypothesis.
Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy is Professor and Chairman of the Physics
Department at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad.
o o o
LONG MARCH - A LONG VIEW
Analysis by Beena Sarwar
Karachi, Mar 12 (IPS) - Barely a year after being elected, the
Pakistan government faces a political storm involving a street
agitation spearheaded by lawyers and opposition political parties
allied with religious parties. * Lurking on the sidelines is an army
unused to civilian command even as religious militants create havoc
around the country.
None of this is new to Pakistan but many find it all the more painful
given the hopes built up by last year’s general elections. On Feb 18,
2009, Pakistani voters overwhelmingly supported non-religious parties
and rejected those that had been propped up by the army.
The electorate’s rejection of the religious parties and the joining
hands of the late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and
her former rival Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)
raised expectations of an end to political confrontation and religion-
based politics - and the army moving away from politics.
These expectations followed decades of misrule and exploitation of
religion for political purposes. The Pakistani establishment, at
Washington’s behest, strengthened armed militancy, exploiting
religious sentiments to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan during
the 1980s. In the process they created ‘Jihad International’, as the
late scholar Dr Eqbal Ahmad termed it.
This may now be the biggest threat facing Pakistan - and the world -
since the attack on the World Trade Center on Sep. 11 2001. Since
then Washington has pushed Islamabad to fight the very forces of
militant Islam that both together had fostered and strengthened.
Resultantly, this country has, as Pakistanis point out, suffered the
most from militant attacks.
In this situation, political instability is distracting at best and
dangerous at worst. The ‘long march’ demanding the reinstatement of
chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Choudhry, spearheaded by the legal
fraternity and sections of civil society, has ready allies among the
right-wing political opposition.
This includes Sharif’s PML-N and the Jamaat-e-Islami, a mainstream
religious party sympathetic to militant Islam, as well as others
sympathetic to the Taliban, like ex-chief Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI) and anti-India hawk Gen. (retd.) Hamid Gul, retired bureaucrat
Roedad Khan who brutally quashed political opposition during the Zia
years, and cricket hero-turned politician Imran Khan, chief of the
Tehrik-e-Insaaf (Movement for Justice).
All these forces boycotted the 2008 polls, except Sharif who
rescinded his boycott decision after Bhutto convinced him that
elections were the only way forward.
Long-festering tensions between the PPP and PML-N came to a head with
a Supreme Court ruling of Feb 25 barring Sharif and his brother
Shahbaz Sharif from holding elected office. Bhutto’s widower,
President Asif Ali Zardari is widely believed to be behind this
controversial ruling.
The disgruntled Sharifs, already pushing for the reinstatement of
Choudhry, have flung themselves wholeheartedly into the long march -
a move that observers do not see as entirely altruistic since their
stated aims include effecting regime change.
“Sharif’s attempts to paint himself as a radical, grassroots activist
are at odds with his political origins,” commented former lawyer and
Australia-based analyst Mustafa Qadri, writing about the opportunity
Pakistan’s politicians of all hues have wasted in their “refusal to
look beyond personal power games and provincialism to develop the
nation’s still embryonic democracy”.
The Sharifs gained prominence as businessmen patronised by General
Zia -ul-Haq who was behind Pakistan’s “transformation from majority-
Muslim nation to Islamic state with more conservative religious
seminaries per capita than any other country in the world,” as Qadri
put it (‘Long march to nowhere’, The Guardian, Mar 10, 2009).
The current imbroglio comes on the heels of loaded statements by Gen.
(retd) Pervez Musharraf who during a visit to India last week, gave
several talks and interviews in which he hinted at a possible
political comeback.
Curiously Musharraf, who stepped down as president in August 2008,
urged New Delhi to stop ‘bashing’ the Pakistan army and the shadowy
ISI since, according to him, they were the best defence against the
growth of the Taliban and militancy in Pakistan.
President Zardari has invited comparisons to Musharraf because of his
government’s use of police force and mass arrests to prevent the long
march, as Musharraf did after suspending Choudhry in March 2007 and
imposing Emergency rule in Nov 2007.
The irony is illustrated by the recent three-hour detention of the
firebrand women’s rights and political activist, Tahira Abdullah, who
has been mobilising the lawyers’ movement from her home in Islamabad.
She faced police batons and tear gas in the Zia and Musharraf eras. A
day before the long march began, a police contingent arrived at her
house and virtually broke down her kitchen door.
However, her arrest attracted media attention, embarrassing the
government into quickly ordering her release. An undeterred Abdullah
immediately resumed mobilising for the agitation.
“It is sad and ironic that the PPP government has come to this,” she
told IPS. “They said it was preventive detention. They can’t catch
people like (Taliban leaders) Baitullah Mehsud and Maulvi Fazlullah
but they send police after me, a very ordinary person.”
There is also irony in progressive, secular activists like Abdullah
joining hands with the emerging right-wing coalition to achieve a
shared goal, the restoration of Choudhry.
Civil society activists privately admit that otherwise their numbers
are too small to reach the critical mass needed to effect political
change.
“There are only a handful of us,” one of them told IPS. “And there
are no more than 100,000 lawyers in the country. So we have to join
hands with political forces who agree with us on this matter even if
we don’t agree on other matters. We know they are using us, but we
are also using them.”
Observers like the political economist and former student activist
S.M. Naseem fear that this kind of mutual ‘using’ could push
Pakistan further towards right-wing forces.
Disappointed by the performance of the government as well as the
opposition, he holds that the lawyers’ movement has missed the
opportunity of creating a new polity in the country. “They should
have broadened the agenda to create a new political system,” he told
IPS. “Two years for the restoration of one person (Choudhry),
however, honest and bold, is a bit too much.”
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani has said that he cannot, in all
conscience, oppose the long march. “We have also participated in
street agitations and long marches,” he said. “How can we stop anyone
else from exercising their democratic right to do so?”
This stand appears to pit him against President Zardari, holding an
office strengthened by past military dictators. The President’s
powers include being able to dismiss the prime minister and dissolve
government - as several presidents before him have done. This is
unlikely to happen now. For Zardari to take such a step would mean
dismissing his own government.
Having recently obtained a majority in the Senate, the PPP can
conceivably push through the constitutional amendments it proposed in
May 2008 for which a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly and
the Senate is required. These amendments include the removal of the
17th amendment that allows the President to dismiss government.
Moves towards reconciliation between the PPP and the PML-N continue
behind the scenes, even as the long march kicks off with lawyers and
political activists from various cities heading towards Islamabad to
converge by Mar. 16 for a dharna (or sit-in) ‘until the Chief
Justice is restored’.
Observers fear a breakout of violence even though the long march
leaders have promised to keep matters peaceful.
_____
[2] Sri Lanka:
(i)
The Island
March 14, 2009
IS THE EVACUATION OF CIVILIANS POSSIBLE?
by Shanie
The end-game in the Vanni War is taking longer to end than expected.
Earlier this year, towns and villages were being vacated and occupied
even faster than the Peace Secretariat issuing polemical statements
to counter-attack every criticism of the government’s operations vis-
a-vis civilians. The civilians vacated the towns and moved into the
north-east corner of Vanni, while the security forces simply over-ran
and occupied these towns and villages, routing the LTTE cadres, who
though putting up stiff resistance were no match for the vastly
superior Sri Lanka security forces. But now the civilians are all
holed up in the north-east corner and bearing the brunt of this
brutal and now senseless war. Senseless because the LTTE has all but
been defeated in conventional operations and it is only a matter of
time before the security forces capture the remaining bit of
territory. Brig Shavindra de Silva leading the 58th Brigade is right
when he states that it is only the presence of civilians that is
delaying the inevitable.
It is clear that the civilians are tragically caught up in a war not
of their choosing. It is not material if there are only 70,000 of
them as the government claims or 200,000 of them as some non-
governmental agencies estimate. It is also clear that the LTTE does
not want them to leave. If all the civilians are evacuated, the only
people left would be the LTTE cadres and the security forces will
simply bomb them out of existence – by sea, land and air. So the
evacuation of the civilians is just not going to happen, without
delicate negotiations with the LTTE. The present situation of the war
is also untenable – soldiers, LTTE cadres and civilians are being
killed or injured, with perhaps the largest number being among the
civilians, because these innocents are the LTTE’s ‘first line of
defence’. Civilians are also reported to be dying because they lack
medical facilities and/or insufficient food. Delivery of food is
delayed because the ICRC which handles this requires security
guarantees from both sides. The same goes for the evacuation of the
elderly and the sick.
The civilians, as indeed all the actors in this war, are our fellow-
citizens. We simply cannot allow them to be suffer in this fashion.
Their suffering will come to an end only if the actors in this war
stop playing games with people’s lives. The LTTE will not let them go
and the security forces will not stop artillery-fire because they
state that the LTTE is firing shells at them from among or near
civilians. So they refuse to let-up until the LTTE surrenders. A
decision by the security forces to end the current standoff and wipe
out the LTTE can only be carried out at the expense of thousands of
civilian lives. It is a Catch-22 situation for these helpless and
powerless civilians
Thinking the Unthinkable
Some of our religious leaders, some members of the civil society and
some from the international community (whom we love to hate but to
whom we now have to turn because of a severe financial crisis) have
been urging a cease-fire to protect civilian lives. The government
has refused to consider this, until the LTTE lays down arms. Lives of
soldiers, LTTE cadres and civilians are being lost, all with the
object of defeating the LTTE and bringing all territory under the
writ of the government. Cannot that objective be achieved while
protecting lives? To do so, we may have to think of what has been
unthinkable up to now. We need to have a mediator or mediators who
can talk both to the government and the LTTE and bring this war to a
dignified end. The mediator/s must enjoy the trust and confidence of
all the parties (the government, the LTTE and the Tamil civilians),
preferably with experience in conflict resolution in similar
situations. The unthinkable may be even to offer an amnesty to the
LTTE cadres in return for a peaceful withdrawal from territory.
This column is convinced that only a settlement on those lines will
bring lasting peace to our troubled nation. If it is coupled with a
sincere implementation of the 13th and 17th Amendments, it will help
us to re-unite and re-build our country, without further bloodshed.
Nation building and national integration are priority needs for our
divided nation. This can be achieved only if war is ended with
dignity and less triumphalist rhetoric. Senator George Mitchell was
the mediator who achieved the unthinkable in Northern Ireland. That
is why the killing of two British soldiers and a policeman in a
Catholic area this week has received condemnation from the political
leadership across the religious divide. The indications are that
Catholic residents are providing information that will eventually
lead to the arrest of the dissidents responsible for this crime.
Thousands from across the religious divide and from all parts of
Northern Ireland have been holding vigils as a peace protest against
terrorism from the dissidents.
Of Dissent
Civil conflict in Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland and other countries
grew because governments refused to address the grievances of a
section of the community. Instead, grievances were allowed to fester
and eventually militants within the community replaced democratic
political leadership, because they felt that democratic protest was
leading to a dead-end. History has repeatedly shown that there can be
no long-term development in nation without democracy, nor can
community grievances ever be addressed without democracy within the
community. Democracy then is surely the only way to move forward.
Only a free and vibrant media and an alert civil society can make a
difference and ensure transparency and honesty in the political
leadership. It is only the corrupt and the greedy who want to muzzle
criticism. Pakistan is paying the price for corruption and lack of
transparency in politics. The present Pakistani government, barely
one year in office, has already begun stifling dissent and beating up
opponents. Zimbabwe went down the same way.
We here need to learn the lessons from the tragedy of rgese other
countries. Silencing criticism by violence against the media will
always end up as counter-productive. The killing of Lasantha
Wickrematunga revolted the nation. The perpetrators of that crime, as
that of several journalists before, seem to enjoy immunity. That is
why these crimes continue. The latest victim has been Prof. Ganganath
Dissanayake, who was abducted from his home days after a state
newspaper reportedly claimed, apparently without any foundation, that
he was authoring a book critical of President Mahinda Rajapalsa. He
has since been released. But apparently Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose
media unit was headed by Prof Dissanayake, earlier telephoned and
sought President Rajapaksa’s assistance in this regard.
Vidyatharan, editor of a Tamil daily, remains in custody on charges
which are not known. The manner of his arrest at a family funeral
showed the utter disdain the arresting officers had for decency and
dignity. Tissainayagam, another Tamil journalist, was arrested and
kept in detention for several months and has now eventually been
ndicted on vague charges of bringing the government into disrepute by
what he wrote some years ago in a weekly paper that is now defunct.
The LTTE has been silencing critics by violence ever since it was
established.
Jawaharlal Nehru, whom this column quoted extensively last week, once
stated: "To crush a contrary opinion forcibly and allow it no
expression, because we dislike it, is essentially of the same genus
as cracking the skull of an opponent because we disapprove of him. It
does not even possess the virtue of success. The man with a cracked
skull might collapse and die but the suppressed opinion or idea has
no such sudden end and it survives and prospers the more it is sought
to be crushed with force. History is full of such examples.
"Long experience has taught us that it is dangerous in the interest
of truth to suppress opinions and ideas. It has further taught us
that it is foolish for us to imagine that we can do so. It is far
easier to meet an evil in the open and to repel it in fair combat in
people’s minds than to drive it underground and have no hold on it or
proper approach to it. Evil flourishes far more in the shadows than
in the light of the day."
o o o
(ii) PROTECT THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF SRI LANKAN CIVILIANS NOW!
03 March 2009
(Bangkok) Solidarity for Asian People’s Advocacy (SAPA) Working Group
on South Asia (WG SA), a coalition of Asian civil society groups and
networks, express grave concern at the escalation of violence in
northern Sri Lanka which has led to the country’s current human
rights and humanitarian crisis. SAPA WG SA condemns the Government of
Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) for their
targeting of civilians and negligence of international humanitarian law.
In the region of Vanni, an estimated 350,000 Tamil civilians are
trapped as a result of the ongoing conflict between Sri Lankan Armed
Forces (SLAF) and the LTTE. The estimated figure of the Internally
Displaced Persons (IDPs) stands at over 300,000, with the
intensifying conflict in the region. According to the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), “people are caught in the
crossfire, hospitals and ambulances have been hit by shelling and
several aid workers have been injured while evacuating the wounded”.1
The LTTE has prevented civilians under its control from fleeing to
government held areas, with the rebel group forcing civilians deeper
in to the territory that they control including the local staff
members of the UN and international humanitarian organizations.
Restricting the movement of IDPs as well as forcing their movement
against their will is a violation of their human rights.
“Safe zones” which are declared for displaced families, as well as a
hospital and village, have been shelled by the Sri Lankan military
according to reports. There have been individual reports of acts of
violence and human rights abuses within the camps. Rather than
providing a safe haven for the civilians, these “safe zones” are
adding further misery to the plight of the civilian population.2
Displaced persons who move to government controlled areas live under
conditions akin to concentration camps. In addition, the government
has appropriated medical and food distribution as a weapon with which
they force displaced people into government controlled areas.
There is also the deeper issue of impunity, which has been allowed to
go on throughout Sri Lanka. The fear of reprisals against victims and
witnesses, together with lack of effective investigations and
prosecutions, has led to a circle of impunity that must be broken,
with disturbing reports of torture, extra judicial killings and
enforced disappearances throughout the country.34
SAPA WG SA demands the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE to re-
establish a ceasefire immediately and create independently monitored
safe zones for civilians. All civilians must be protected under
international humanitarian law without any compromise, and so all
humanitarian personnel must be given safe and unrestricted access to
the affected areas in order to distribute medical and food items. The
Sri Lankan government should take urgent step to meet the genuine
aspirations and demands of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka.
8 March 2009 marks the 1-year anniversary of the politically
motivated detainment of J. S.Tissainayagam, a journalist who wrote
about the situation in the eastern parts of Sri Lanka. He is being
held without charge in the Terrorist Investigation Division detention
center in Colombo for criticizing the government. SAPA WG SA demands
the immediate and unconditional release of Tissainayagam. The
government of Sri Lanka has systematically suppressed all forms of
media freedom and freedom of expression not only through censorship
but also through killing, detaining and disappearing prominent
journalists who express dissent. This date also marks the second
month anniversary of the assassination of the prominent journalist
Lasantha Wickramathunga who wrote extensively about the civil war and
human rights violations.
SAPA WG SA calls upon human rights groups and the people of Asia to
stand in solidarity with brothers and sisters of Sri Lanka who are
the tragic by-standers of a long and vicious fight and continue to be
targeted on a daily basis. A peace vigil will be held at every
Embassy and Consulate of Sri Lanka in prominent Asian cities on
Monday 9 March 2009 in remembrance of those human rights defenders,
journalists and aid workers who have been targeted and continue to be
targeted for protecting the human rights and dignity of Sri Lankan
civilians.
Contact Persons:
SAPA WG SA Co-convener:
Bijaya Gautam,
Executive Director, Informal Sector Service Center (INSEC)
Nepal
SAPA WG SA Co-convener:
Syed Saiful Haque,
Warbe Development Foundation (WARBE DF)
Bangladesh
FORUM-ASIA Secretariat:
Saji Thomas,
South Asia Programme Manager (FORUM-ASIA)
Thailand
_____
[3] India: Goings on in Hindutva's Lab in Karnataka
(i)
Peoples Democracy
March 8, 2009
FIGHT THIS TALIBANISATION CULTURALLY & POLITICALLY:
by U R Anantha Muthy
U R Anantha Muthy is a distinguished writer and critic in Kannada
language. He is a recipient of the Jnanpith Award for Kannada
language. G Mamatha of People’s Democracy spoke to him when he was in
New Delhi. The following are his views on the moral policing in
Karnataka.
THIS Talibanisation of ‘constructed Hinduism’ would shock all
religious people. This is a criminalisation of Hindutva and it is
carried out by goon elements. Unemployed youth were swayed into these
activities. The attention given by the media to this is mind
boggling. A non entity Muthalik was turned into a national figure. A
saner government would have acted soon on theses incidents and a
small story on this should have appeared inside the newspapers.
Muthalik is very grateful to the media for giving him such attention.
The unfortunate thing is the Sangh Parivar, which drew its support
from some sections of upper castes, now, has got a backing among the
lower castes too. The absence of a movement dealing with the real
issues of the people that could have moulded these boys who are
getting into the trap of the Sangh Parivar into the progressive
channels is a sad thing. The liberal forces, the Left has to make
efforts to overcome this lacuna.
The deep seated prejudices and chauvinism of the Sangh Parivar has
resulted in the attacks on the girls who dress fashionably. It is
absolutely abnormal in a democractic society to beat girls. The BJP
which is in power in Karnataka follows a dual policy regarding these
elements. It wants them to be subdued while it is in power and
utilizes them when elections are around. As such, it is a little
embarrassed with these incidents. But the BJP that subscribes to an
extremist ideology which aims at a majoritarian rule in India always
nurtures such extremist elements. The entire civil society is
shocked. We have been fighting against these chauvinist forces.
Pattabhi Rama Somayaji, a lecturer, who has been campaigning and
fighting against this was served a memo by the university
authorities. We demanded the university to punish the guilty and not
the ones who are fighting the crime. A kind of fear is sought to be
instilled among the people and the government remains a mute
spectator and does nothing except issue memos to the people standing
up for safeguarding the democratic rights of the country.
There are two major reasons for this sorry state of affairs to
continue. One is the lack of will and unity in the Congress party
that cannot get its act together and fight these elements. The other
is the secret pact between these extremists and the government, which
does not wish to alienate them, for they would be of use during the
elections. In this context, one tends to recall what Anant Kumar, MP,
said recently about turning Bababudangiri into another Ayodhya.
Bababudangiri in Chikamagalur district in West Karnataka is a famous
Sufi place of worship where people from all religions visit and offer
prayers. The BJP wants to use this as an election issue.
The immature and childish politics of JD(S) has resulted in the rise
of BJP in Karnataka. The mining lobby of Bellary is very powerful and
they have no political scruples. They have made crores of rupees at
the cost of people. I have been campaigning that selling ore is a
sin, but the government does not care a bit. With these kinds of
developments happening around, a sense of demoralisation and
helplessness is spreading, which is being encashed by the divisive
forces.
The need of the hour is to fight it culturally. And this cultural
protest must be backed by political action. We all must unite and
celebrate the rich plurality and tolerance prevalent in our country
and strive for safeguarding them.
o o o
Deccan Herald
March 11, 2009
Editorial
MORALITY PLAY: "POLICE SHOULD NOT SET NORMS FOR PUBLIC CONDUCT."
If women have been at the receiving end of moral policing by Hindutva
elements till now, it is now the turn of the Karnataka police to join
the party by busting birthday celebrations. Over 100 young people,
both men and women, were arrested from a farm house on the outskirts
of Bangalore on the charge of attending a rave party on Sunday. The
police men’s action has scant defence in law and is an intrusion into
the private lives of people.
No drug was seized and results of the tests for possible drug abuse
are awaited. Rave parties have been targets of self-proclaimed
custodians of morality for long. A few months ago, Rakshana Vedike
activists attacked a party and manhandled the participants and even
stole some of their belongings. But Sunday’s busted party had nothing
rave about it. Call what you don’t like by a bad name, and damn it.
It is not difficult for the police to find provisions in the law to
haul up people. Disturbance of the peace of the neighbourhood
certainly calls for police intervention, but there are civilised ways
of doing it. Violation of excise laws, indecency and obscenity are
all easy charges to harass people with. A slight tweaking of the law
and a generous interpretation are all that is needed. Police should
respect people’s rights, but what the police love to do is to use a
sledgehammer to persecute people. The revellers of Sunday are said to
have been “scantily dressed.” Is it the business of the police or
anybody to pass judgment on how people dress at a private party and
punish them for it?
The police should not set standards of conduct for people in their
private lives and act as cultural commissars. Karnataka’s social life
is already under threat from the senseless acts of a cultural mafia
which bash up women in pubs, punish girls for talking to boys and do
not believe in equal rights for all people. The police have been soft
on these retrograde elements, probably because the political
environment is conducive to these backward ideas and encourages such
elements. Now the cops have gone a step forward, and are themselves
trying to act as protectors of the false tradition these elements lay
claim to. Law and order and culture should not be mixed up wrongly.
The police in Bangalore have a lot of other things to worry about.
Rather than misspend their energy on youngsters’ parties, they should
try to make life safe for the City’s citizens.
o o o
KARNATAKA PUBLIC MONEY TO PROMOTE BLIND FAITH
by Ram Puniyani
http://tinyurl.com/dxmczh
_____
[4] http://www.sacw.net/article738.html
IROM SHARMILA RELEASED AND REARRESTED: 9TH YEAR OF STRUGGLE AGAINST
AFSPA
by Sumi Krishna
(sacw.net, 12 March 2009)
For over eight years, 36-year-old, Irom Chanu Sharmila has been in
almost continuous detention in Imphal, in the north-eastern state of
Manipur, for her refusal to take any food or drink by mouth till
India’s draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 (AFSPA) is
repealed from all of Manipur. Sharmila’s arrest under Indian criminal
law (IPC Section 309) for attempted suicide is legally permissible
for a maximum of one year at a time. In keeping with the law, yet
again in 2009 she was released on 7 March and rearrested two days
later on 9 March because she continues to fast.
Violence and corruption have engulfed Manipur for decades. The many
communities who inhabit the oval, riverine valley and the surrounding
hill ranges are caught in an unending spiral of conflict – between
insurgents and the counter-insurgency forces, and among the
proliferating ‘UGs’ (as the underground groups are called). With an
estimated 30 UGs and 55,000 security forces for a population of under
two and half million, Manipur may be the most heavily militarised
space in the world. It is this militarisation that is being
challenged by the women’s peace initiatives, various non-violent
protests and the growing human rights movement in Manipur.
Sharmila’s unique protest began in November 2000 when 10 civilians at
a bus stand in the small town of Malom, 15 km. from Imphal, were
brutally shot dead by men of the Assam Rifles, in retaliation after a
convoy of security forces had been ambushed by Manipuri insurgents.
As a voluntary social worker Sharmila had earlier witnessed the
agonising testimonies of women assaulted and raped by armed forces
personnel. She had also been to Malom for a meeting to plan a peace
rally but the massacre at the bus stop made her feel the need to do
something more meaningful.
Throughout she has been supported by the Sharmila Kanba Lup (Save
Sharmila Campaign) of the Meira Paibi, literally ‘women torch
bearers’ who patrol the streets at night. The Meira Paibi are a wide
grassroots network of traditional Meite women’s groups across towns
and villages in the Manipur valley. They have rallied in protests
against colonial oppression in British times and against male
alcoholism and drug addiction in more recent years. And they were
among the first to take up the human rights struggle against the
might of the armed forces in Manipur. The Naga Women’s Union, Manipur
(NWUM), an organisation of 16 Naga tribes across all the hill
districts, is also with Sharmila and the Meira Paibi in the struggle
against the AFSPA and the movement for peace.
The AFSPA is an ‘emergency’ legislation that should be reviewed every
six months, but it has been in force in large parts of the north
eastern states and Jammu and Kashmir for decades. The Act gives the
Indian military and para-military forces unfettered powers to search
and destroy any structure, to arrest or shoot to kill on mere
suspicion, and it also grants them immunity from prosecution. This
has resulted in gross human rights violations in all the areas where
the AFSPA is in operation, including Manipur.
In 2004, when a young woman Thangjam Manorama was picked up from her
house, possibly raped, then tortured, and killed by the Assam Rifles,
the anger of the Meira Paibi exploded in a dramatic protest. A group
of 12 elderly ima (mothers) stripped in front of the Assam Rifles
quartered at Imphal’s historic Kangla Fort, with banners reading
‘Indian Army Rape Us’. This set off waves of shock and horrified
protest with human rights activists and women’s groups speaking out
strongly in Sharmila’s support. The Indian Association for Women’s
Studies, for instance, has repeatedly called for the repeal of the
AFSPA, as has a coalition of several women’s groups across the country.
In October 2006, when Sharmila was ritually released, she had flown
undetected to New Delhi along with her brother and a couple of other
activists, camping on the pavement near Jantar Mantar on Parliament
Street, but was soon rearrested and sent to the All India Institute
of Medical Sciences to be force-fed. Later she was taken back to
Manipur. Year-after-year, the ritual of release and arrest are re-
enacted.
Just before night-fall on 7 March 2009, after her release from the
high-security ward of the Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital in Imphal,
Sharmila walked to the market place less than a kilometre away where
hundreds of Meira Paibi have been fasting in relays from 10 December
2008, the international Human Rights Day. As she walked, she was held
up by 64-year-old S. Momen, co-convenor of the Sharmila Kanba Lup,
and some of the other women who had been part of the naked protest
five years ago. Accompanying the Meira Paibi in solidarity were
nearly 100 others including some 50 visiting members of the Network
of Women in Media-India.
Throughout the slow walk, Sharmila held her head high, her eyes
closed perhaps because of the flashing cameras. She then sat wrapped
in a blanket on the ground amidst the Meira Paibi, her uncombed hair
framing a very pale, drawn face, piercing eyes and a wry smile. Eight
years of confinement, a largely supine existence and being force-fed
liquids through a nasal tube have clearly taken a toll on her health.
No water passes her lips and she even cleans her teeth with dry
cotton. She practices yoga regularly and writes poetry but has said
she misses people, because all her interactions are strictly
regulated and monitored.
Her elder brother Irom Singhajit, who now manages the Just Peace
Foundation, recollects that as a child she was quiet, somewhat
solitary, sensitive and inward-looking, with compassion and a poetic
sensibility. Speaking softly after her release, Sharmila’s comments
made in the Meitei language were lyrical and the ‘mothers’ were often
moved to tears. Here is a rough transliteration put together from the
recollections of some of the bilingual listeners:
[Question: Are you tired?] ‘I am not tired. I have the strength to
walk the streets of Imphal. Will you be able to keep up with me?
Words cannot express my deep gratitude when I see you all waiting for
me here. You have renewed my courage. I will continue my campaign
till the draconian AFPSA is repealed throughout Manipur.
Tomorrow is International Women’s Day. As the world observes this
day, there is a very beautiful place on earth, with lofty hills and
the clear flowing water in the streams, where the flowers bloom, a
place on earth where one woman is being kept in solitary confinement.
Isn’t this ironic?
This time [the release] feels different because you all are here.
When I come here and see the Meira Paibi and women from other parts
of India, I hope that they will take with them this story and our
voices.
The government spends so much energy, so much money, to keep me alive
through artificial means. All that energy, all our energy could be
channelised productively.
Every year, like clock-work, I come to the waiting hands of the ima.
Will you be able to save me this time? What is the end, the purpose,
because nobody cares?’
Septuagenarian K. Taruni, convenor of the Sharmila Kanba Lup,
replied: ‘We have been on hunger-strike, fasting for 88 days. What
more can be done? There are the laws of the land, the might of the
state. If a thousand mothers would join you on an indefinite hunger-
strike they would be forced to listen. I can join you because I am
old, but I am one. Where do I find a thousand women? They have
children, responsibilities.’
When Sharmila spoke of her own mother, Irom Sakhi, who she had not
met for years, many wept:
‘I had made a pact with my mother, which I have broken. [That they
would not meet till Sharmila had fulfilled her mission and the AFSPA
was repealed.] Last year when she was lying critically ill in JN
Hospital, I went to see her. It was not an easy decision. I paced the
corridors outside her ward for hours like a pendulum before I stepped
into my mother’s domain. My mother said: “Why have you come here?” I
had no answer.’
The struggles have had some results. Kangla Fort, a symbol of Meitei
identity and for centuries the seat of the royal family that ruled
Manipur, had been seized by the British in 1891, and taken over by
the Indian army after Manipur was controversially merged with the
Union of India in 1949. The fort has now been returned to the civil
administration; the Assam Rifles have been moved out of the fort area
and the water in the moats is clean.
The Indian government also appointed a committee headed by retired
Supreme Court Justice and former Chair of the Law Commission Jeevan
Reddy to examine the demand for repeal of the AFSPA. The report,
submitted in 2005, sought to balance the views of the armed forces
and different sections of the people. It has not been officially
released but was made public by the national daily, ‘The Hindu’. The
report recommended repeal of AFSPA, while strengthening the Unlawful
Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) that applies to the rest of India.
In 2006, KG Kannabiran, national President of PUCL, writing in
‘Combat Law’ said ‘the unanimous opinion in the north east is that
the AFPSA should be scrapped’ but was dismayed that the Jeevan Reddy
Committee had not evolved a ‘democratic and political method of
resolving the problems’ of the region.
Indeed, it seems that the repressive provisions of the special law,
the AFSPA have been transferred to the general law, the UAPA. As
amended in December 2008, the UAPA provides for arrest, search and
seizure on suspicion, pre-trial detention to 180 days, denial of bail
on various grounds, and so on. The law renders anyone and everyone
suspicious. Human rights activists like Babloo Loitongbam of the
Human Rights Alert (HRA), Imphal, do not think the UAPA is relevant
to Manipur and are continuing to campaign against the AFSPA.
Human rights abuses continue unabated. Sharmila is reported to have
told a group of MPs of the Manipur People’s Party who visited her in
hospital in January 2009:
‘I am being kept alive but there is no let up in the killing of
innocent people under the immunity granted by the AFSPA.’
In fact, there is evidence that 90 persons (security forces,
insurgents and civilians) have been killed in Manipur in just two
months, January and February 2009. Most devastating was the
kidnapping, bludgeoning and killing of Kishen Singh Thingam, an
upright and committed Manipur civil service officer and two others by
a section of the Naga underground (NSCN-IM) in the hill district of
Ukhrul in mid-February 2009. Kishen Singh an idealistic government
official, well known as the founder and editor of the journal
‘Alternative Perspectives’, had given up teaching first at Delhi
University and later at a Manipur college to serve the people more
directly. Kishen’s Singh’s bereaved wife told us, ‘Like me there are
thousands of young widows of men who have been killed without
rational grounds, and numerous children orphaned, spoiling their
future.’ She had no words to express the pain and agony of the widows
of Manipur.
On the evening of 7 March, Irom Sharmila clasped the hands of
journalist Anjulika Thingam, a cousin of Kishen Singh, and said to
her, the Meira Paibi and all of us clustered around:
‘I heard about your brother. There is more to life than death.
A dew drop on a lotus leaf is just blown away by the breeze. I don’t
want to end my life [like a dew drop] without a purpose.’
_____
[5] Israel / India: War Toys and Patriarchy
[Unbelievable but real, a promo video from a firm in the Israeli
military industrial complex; The video was produced for screening at
the recent arms fair in Bangalore]
o o o
IRON EAGLE NOMINEE: ISRAELI ARMSDOG-MILLIONAIRES ASSAULT BOLLYWOOD,
GOOD TASTE
by Noah Shachtman
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/03/iron-eagle-isra.html
_____
[6] Book Review:
IN OTHER ROOMS, OTHER WONDERS
Review by William Dalrymple
Published: March 7 2009 01:16 | Last updated: March 7 2009 01:16
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
by Daniyal Mueenuddin
WW Norton & Co $23.95 224 pages
It was an Indian novel, The White Tiger, that won last year’s Booker
Prize, and another piece of Indian fiction, Q&A, that was adapted
into this year’s Oscar winner, Slumdog Millionaire. But 2009
nevertheless looks set to be the year that Pakistan emerges from the
literary shadow of its great neighbour. Just as Pakistan as a nation
state seems to be disintegrating, Pakistan as a force in literature
is gaining ever greater cohesion.
Until two or three years ago, Pakistan seemed to be a literary desert
in both Urdu and English. Now, quite suddenly, it has produced a
cluster of remarkable bright young novelists able to match anything
coming out India: in fiction, Nadeem Aslam, Mohsin Hamid, Mohammed
Hanif and Kamila Shamsie; and in non-fiction, Ahmed Rashid and Ayesha
Siddiqa.
At the literature festival I helped direct in Jaipur this January, it
was the Pakistani contingent that stole the show – despite attempts
by Hindu fundamentalist parties to ban Pakistani books from Indian
shelfspace. The writers spoke eloquently about the difficulty of
writing in such a volatile environment – Aslam talked of “writing
fast with a burning quill”. He and Hanif, author of A Case of
Exploding Mangoes, compared their experiences to what the writers of
Latin America faced in the 1970s: a repressive political environment
that could not be escaped, and which had to be confronted on the page.
If there was one thing the new Pakistani fiction seemed to lack, it
was a Midnight’s Children – a single text to which the word
masterpiece could unquestionably be attached. Now that moment may
have come in the shape of Daniyal Mueenuddin and his outstanding
collection of short stories, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. It is one
of the most startlingly authentic works of fiction to come out of
south Asia this decade, rooted in a rural landscape like the stories
of RK Narayan, but far bleaker and blacker than anything in Narayan’s
Malgudi tales. The trajectory of each story ends, almost inevitably,
in a shell-burst of loss and tragedy.
Like Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Other Rooms is a book that seems
at first to come out of nowhere, owing nothing to the literature
produced by the writer’s contemporaries or compatriots. But while
Midnight’s Children in reality leapfrogged Europe to seek inspiration
in the magic realist writing of Latin America, Other Rooms has made a
stranger leap still. It looks for inspiration not in the writing of
south Asia or indeed anywhere else in the modern world, but instead
draws on the stylistic example of Turgenev and Chekhov, and the soul-
searing bleakness of vision of Dostoevsky or Gogol – but with the
action transposed from the Russian steppe to the Pakistani Punjab.
Like Turgenev in his Sketches from a Hunter’s Album, Mueenuddin
creates a world peopled by wholly believable rural folk who cluster
around the townhouses and estates of the landlord, KK Harooni
(clearly modelled on Mueenuddin’s own father), all sketched with
wonderful economy and lightness. We meet Rezak, who lives in a little
hut on the edge of the estate, and who finds happiness with a young
mute wife, who then mysteriously disappears, presumed abducted; the
ingenious “Nawabdin Electrician” with his “signature ability, a
technique for cheating the electric company by slowing down the
revolutions of electric metres”, who is shot by a robber and nearly
killed; Saleema the kitchen maid who falls in love with Rafik the
butler and bears him a child, but who is abandoned when Harooni dies
and Rafik returns to his wife. She ends her days begging at a road
junction, cradling “the little boy in her arms, holding him up to the
windows of cars ... one of the sparrows of Lahore”.
Mueenuddin’s Pakistan is visually beautiful – there are wonderful
sketches of the rhythms of the landscape with its banyan trees and
mango orchards. But it is brutal and savage too. Individuals can be
generous and dutiful, but fate is rarely kind: men are killed, women
are abducted or taken to the Karachi brothels, while the police beat
the innocent and helpless, and the powerful trample on the poor.
Emotions are left unspoken in this conservative society; apparently
flexible barriers of class and wealth prove in the end cruelly
insurmountable. Jaglani, the unscrupulous land agent, takes another
man’s wife: “Please, Chaudrey Sahib, you and I grew up together in
Dunyapur, we played together as children,” says the husband. “I beg
you don’t take what’s mine. You have so much, and I so little.” “I
have so much because I took what I wanted,” replies Jaglani. “Go away.”
If Other Rooms is unlike anything recently published in India, this
is partly because of the very different trajectories the two
countries have taken since 1947. Almost immediately after
Independence, the Congress party broke the power of the Indian
landowners, emasculating them with income tax and land ceiling acts
that instantly shredded their estates. This legislation was never
passed in Pakistan, which continued to be dominated by its old feudal
elite, just as Tsarist Russia once was.
So while most successful Indian writers in English are the product of
urban middle-class backgrounds and now tend to live in London or New
York, there are no Indian Daniyal Mueenuddins who live like Tolstoy
or Turgenev on their estates. Mueenuddin has lived on his own as a
farmer for 20 years, hundreds of miles from the nearest urban centre,
and can describe with real authenticity the rural world he daily
inhabits.
It is true that the quality of a writer’s fiction should never be
judged by his home address – Joyce after all wrote the Dublin of
Ulysses from Trieste. Yet here the difference is striking. Compared
to the thwarted, tragic grandeur of Mueenuddin’s women, Deeti, the
opium farmer’s wife who is the heroine of Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of
Poppies, seems paper-thin: Bihar as imagined from Brooklyn.
The critic Pankaj Mishra has attacked the “slickly exilic version of
India” manufactured by diasporic English-language writers from India,
describing them as a “cosmopolitan third world elite”, their fictions
“suffused with nostalgia”. No one could make this charge of
Mueenuddin. His stories have not just a fluency and perfection of
shape; above all they have an authenticity of observation and
dialogue rooted from long experience living among the people he is
writing about. The result is a unique book, probably the best fiction
ever written in English about Pakistan, and one of the best to come
out of south Asia in a very long time.
William Dalrymple is author of “The Last Mughal’” (Bloomsbury). His
new book, “Nine Lives: Searching for the Sacred in Modern India” is
published by Bloomsbury in October
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
_____
[7] Announcements:
(i) 14th March, 2009 International Day of Action against Dams, for
Rivers, and for Peoples
Background of the day:
Worldwide, 30-60 million people have already been displaced by large
dam projects over the last 50 years. Dam projects now under
construction are displacing millions more. Pushed into already
overcrowded cities or unsuitable lands, most of these people never
recover from the ordeal. The floodplain soils that reservoirs
inundate provide the world's most fertile farmlands; their marshes
and forests the most diverse wildlife habitats. Dams are the main
reason one-fifth of the world's freshwater fish is now either
endangered or extinct. A dam tears at all the interconnected webs of
river valley life.
The ambitious plan of water resources development in Pakistan
envisages in vision 2025 is a clear indication that whatever the
water comes in rivers will be diverted and utilized upstream. These
policy decisions, which are politically rooted, would have even
future serious implications for the poor and voiceless deltaic
communities of Sindh Province. Water for life, not for death! These
words resounded at the First International Meeting of People Affected
by Dams held in Curitiba, Brazil in March, 1997. From many countries
including Taiwan, Brazil, Chile, Lesotho, Argentina, Thailand,
Russia, Europe, and the United States, the dam-affected came together
to share successes, failures, and experiences. In the Declaration of
Curitiba <http://www.ramsar.org/forum/
forum_day_against_dams.htm#decl>,the delegates' state:
Over the years, we have shown our growing power. We have marched in
our villages and cities, refused to leave our lands even though we
have faced
intimidation, violence and drowning. We have unmasked the corruption,
lies and false promises of the dam industry...
We are strong, diverse and united and our cause is just. We have
stopped destructive dams and have forced dam builders to respect our
rights. We have stopped dams in the past, and we will stop more in
the future. The goal of your action might be to Demonstrate, Educate,
or Celebrate. The important thing is to raise our voices in unison
against destructive water development projects, reclaim the health of
our rivers and watersheds, and demand the equitable and sustainable
management of our waterways. By acting together, we will demonstrate
that these issues are not merely local, but global in scope.
Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) has initiated to organize
International Day of Action against Dams and for Rivers, Water, and
Life on March 14th, 2009, will be held at Almanzar Jamshoro. Day will
be commenced sharp 02-00 pm to 05-00 pm. The Conference will attend
by water experts, Researchers, Politicians, Civil Society
Organizations and the Communities.
We are looking forward to seeing you with us; please confirm your
valuable participation
Mohammad Ali Shah
Chairman
Cell: 0300-3380051
Schedule for the International Day of Action against
Dams and for Rivers, Water, and Life
March 14th, 2009, at Almanzar Jamshoro
Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum
1 Arrival at Almanzar Jamshoro
1:30 to 2:00
2 Human Chain in Indus River
2:00 to 2:30
3 Cultural ceremony
2:30 to 3:30
4 Seminar
3:30 to 4:45
5 Vote of thanks by PFF
---
(ii) A rally will be held on and from 16th march 2009 at raipur,
chattishgarh
demanding release of DR BINAYAK SEN, who is prisoned for last two
years... representatives of different mass organisations and democratic
intellectuals will join that rally...concerned persons are requested
attend there...
for more contact-
ANANTA AHARYA-[0]9331858854...
ALOKE MUKHERJEE-[0]9232395442...
---
(iii) Dick Hensman Memorial Meeting Colombo 17 March 2009
INVITATION
The Ecumenical Institute for Study and Dialogue (EISD)
is organising a meeting in memory of Late C. R. ('Dick') Hensman
Date: Tuesday 17th March (His birth day)
Time: 4.30 p.m.
Venue : Ecumenical Institute
490/5, Havelock Road,
Colombo 6.
Tel: 2586998 or 2581474
On behalf of Hensman family, I extend this invitation to you to join
us at this meeting to celebrate Dick Hensman’s life and service to
the community.
Rohini Hensman
---
(iv)
CHAMPA
THE AMIYA & B.G.RAO FOUNDATION
25, Nizamuddin East, New Delhi-110013 (India)
Champa Annual Function
Workshop on Sexual Violence
21st March, 2009
Over the last few decades we have been witness to wave after wave of
sexual violence as part of a conflict situation which, even when
reported, have gone without legal redress. In certain regions such as
the ‘North-east’ and Jammu and Kashmir there are special laws such as
the Armed Forces Special Powers Act or variants of it that provide
protection to perpetrators of sexual violence who are personnel of
the security forces. In other areas, impunity to such acts have
become the common practice through the workings of a criminal-justice
system that is perceived to be openly partisan and therefore
unavailable to marginalized groups such as the dalits, minorities and
tribals. While it is commonly believed that survivors of sexual
violence do not initiate and press criminal charges because of
feelings of shame, dishonour and other complex emotions, it is
equally evident that in a conflict situation fear of reprisals and a
lack of credibility of the judicial system are grounds for the actual
impunity enjoyed by perpetrators. We have witnessed many incidents in
recent years that suggest that we need to understand and confront
sexual violence in ways that can challenge the existing impunity and
mobilize opinion on the issue.
A workshop is proposed to begin a discussion on these
issues on Saturday 21st March in Delhi at the V.P. House from 2:30
p.m. to 5:30p.m. as part of the annual Champa event: Champa is the
Amiya and B.G. Rao Foundation and has held meetings on civil
liberties and democratic rights, many of which focus on feminist
issues. We will have opening comments from speakers on J&K, the
Northeast, Gujarat, tribals in Chhattisgarh and Orissa, and dalit
women in different regions. This will be followed by a focused
discussion among the participants to help us begin a process that can
lead to a collective intervention in the near future.
Uma Chakravarti Ph: 011-24117828
011-24116196
N.D..Pancholi (M) 9811099532
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
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