SACW | June 11-14, 2009 / Afghan Curbs on Free Speech / Colombo Deportation / Manu Militari in Kashmir / Hindutva / women's Bill / Homophobia

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | June 11-14, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2634 -  
Year 11 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.  
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and  
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]
____

[1]  Afghanistan goes back in time - curbs on free speech (Kamran Mir  
Hazar)
[2]  Sri Lanka: Deportation of Bob Rae: Questions for the future of  
Minorities and the Erasure of Democracy (UTHR)
[3]  Pakistan: Sindhi Nationalists and threats to Pakhtun students  
(Frontier Post)
      - The toll of indifference (Kamila Shamsie)
[4] 'Men in uniform are Kashmir's problem, not solution' (Sanjay Kak)
[5] India: BJP without Hindutva  - is like a Fish out of Water : So  
what is this talk about camuflage? (Ram Puniyani)
[6] India: Never Ready For It (Editorial, The Telegraph)
[7] India: Quotas are not enough... Give women real power (Antara Dev  
Sen)
[8] India: Dalits in a 'Hindu rashtra' (Subhas Gatade)
[9] Announcements:
    - Forum on Countering Talibanization: A Way Forward (Islamabad,  
23 June 2009)

_____

[1]

The Guardian, 13 June 2009

AFGHANISTAN GOES BACK IN TIME

 From his appointment, Afghan culture minister Karim Khorram has  
shown a dislike of free speech and has taken steps to curb it

by Kamran Mir Hazar

Since the fall of the Taliban, the international community has been  
playing a game of double-standards in Afghanistan. George Bush, for  
example, repeatedly talked of spreading democracy in Afghanistan but  
not once did he raise his voice against those accused of human rights  
violations.

The Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai is pleased with such  
pronouncements, as they downplay the daily increase in corruption,  
injustice and inefficiency. Karzai is content with such  
pronouncements and is exploiting them to ensure his own survival.  
Nowadays he officially refers to Mullah Omar, the leader of the  
murdering band of the Taliban, as his "dear brother Mullah Omar" and  
is asking for the names of Taliban killers to be removed from the UN  
blacklist.

In doing so, the Afghan government is intending to complete the  
number of human rights violators in the government by officially  
including the Taliban and Golbuddin Hekmatyar's terrorist group. But,  
even if the intention exists to fight Hekmatyar and the Taliban, the  
struggle has to begin from the presidential palace and parliament.  
This is because many men loyal to the Taliban and to Hekmatyar are  
currently acting as senior advisers to President Karzai, including  
education minister Faruq Wardak; culture minister Karim Khorram,  
Mullah Zaif and Mullah Mutawakel as well as such tie-wearing Taliban  
like Hedayat Amin Arsala and former finance minister Nurulhaq Ahadi.

The international community's game of double standards and the Afghan  
government's backing of this game has had bitter results for the  
people. Alongside the spread of human rights violations, the  
situation with regard to freedom of expression has become equally  
desperate. Afghanistan has become one of the most dangerous parts of  
the world for journalists. Seven journalists have been killed in  
Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, a number of others have  
been kidnapped and dozens more have been arrested and imprisoned,  
beaten and belittled.

Thousands of letters have been sent so far to Karzai about Parwiz  
Kambaksh, a journalist sentenced to 20 years' jail, but so far Karzai  
hasn't even taken the smallest of steps to help Kambaksh. This is  
even though all Kambakhsh has done is to download a piece of writing  
off the internet, to print it and distribute it to a small group of  
friends. Exactly one day after Kambakhsh was sentenced to 20 years, a  
serious human rights violator by the name of Asadullah Sarwari was  
given 19 years in jail, a year less than Kambakhsh.

Even though the situation of the freedom of expression had little to  
offer prior to the appointment of the current culture minister, Karim  
Khorram, it seems that by appointing Khorram three years ago, Karzai  
has taken organised measures against freedom of speech and culture in  
Afghanistan. The measures are to be put into practice through this  
specific member of Golbodin Hekmatyar's party.

Only a few days after becoming minister, Khorram had turned up at a  
cultural institution. There, he banned female photographers from  
photographing him. He told them that he did not want women to take  
his picture. This Taliban-style attitude showed that Khorram had no  
inclination to come to terms with freedom of speech and that he would  
take measures to curb this freedom.

Khorram has gone so far as to officially and practically declare  
freedom of expression not a basic human right but a worthless western  
phenomenon. In his most recent pronouncement, he has defended Nimroz  
officials' decision to throw thousands of books into the river. The  
books in part were about oppressive Afghan rulers but also included  
books considered sacred by the Shia minority of Afghanistan. The  
minister has used all that is in his power to stop freedom of speech  
in Afghanistan. His coming along with military men in a raid on the  
National Radio and Television station, the expulsion of 80  
journalists, the sending to court of dozens of files of journalists  
and media outlets, the sending of letters ordering around the press,  
the lack of financial transparency in his ministry are part of the  
minister's measures against culture and freedom of expression in  
Afghanistan.

Equally, when the National Security Department, yet another  
government body that is threatening freedom of expression, sent out  
letters of censorship filled with bans to media outlets, the culture  
ministry, which according to the media law is supposed to defend  
freedom of expression, happily remained silent. Right now, the  
culture ministry together with the telecommunication ministry is  
planning to introduce a system of filters on internet websites.

The ministries have said that only pornographic websites and websites  
that run counter to the Afghans' Islamic culture will be affected.  
But judging by the minister's record so far, running against Islamic  
and Afghan culture means anything that is not in line with the  
minister's interpretation of Islam or culture. Kabulpress, one of the  
most famous Afghan internet websites, is presently offering its  
readers instructions on how to bypass the filter.

Self-censorship is equally widespread in Afghanistan, and many  
journalists are unable to express their criticism in newspapers, on  
radio or television. Left with no choice, some of them have turned to  
the internet, and are writing under aliases for various internet  
websites.

Experience over the last eight years had shown that the international  
community's game of double standards, which is supported by Kabul,  
has not only failed to improve the situation but has made the  
situation worse. But all the international community needs to do is  
to focus its energy and capability on the establishment of freedom of  
expression, and on ensuring justice, and fighting illiteracy, and  
drawing up plans for basic fundamental economic structures. This  
would enable Afghanistan to move forward in history, rather than  
backward, as it's doing right now.

• Translated by Nushin Arbabzadah


_____


[2] Sri Lanka:

A statement issued by the

University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), Sri Lanka

Date of Release: 11th June 2009

DEPORTATION OF BOB RAE: SOME FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE OF  
MINORITIES AND THE ERASURE OF DEMOCRACY

  The recent denial of entry to the Canadian Parliamentarian Bob Rae,  
a long time champion of democracy, requires particular attention by  
those who care about the future of Lanka. His deportation reflects  
the paradox of continuing internal repression and unhealthy  
xenophobia despite the end of the war.  It reflects a mindset that  
bodes ill for the minorities and the democratic rights of Sinhalese.   
It is a government that wants everyone else to conform to its own  
agenda and is hostile to discussion of any kind based on rights.

In our recent report, released on 10th June 2009, we highlighted the  
character of present government and its leadership, which is using  
the euphoria following on military success against the LTTE to  
promote a majoritarian agenda along with increasing authoritarianism.  
If this trend is not challenged, the country will be hijacked by  
those who will do irreparable damage to the long term interest of the  
country. The UTHR(J) has experienced and challenged the negative  
aspects of narrow Tamil nationalism, which permitted the rise of LTTE  
and its ability to paralyse the community through internal terror and  
created an illusion of strength among the Tamil community founded on  
transient military success. In the absence of broader humanity, it  
failed miserably in uniting the people.

Many people from the all the different communities hoped that end of  
the war would bring goodwill to the fore. They hoped for  
reconciliation and reconstruction in the context of a just political  
process.  It should also have been the time to restore democratic  
governance and accountability and bring an end to the culture of  
impunity. But during the last stages of the war, the bankruptcy of  
the political leadership and its majoratarian schemes were becoming  
clear. The dominant section of the government shows utter contempt  
for the emergence of a Tamil democratic culture and is only  
interested in using the armed elements within Tamil community that  
are willing to toe the ruling SLFP’s narrow interests. In this  
context the denial of entry to Bob Rae clearly exposes the mindset of  
the present government and those who control its decision making.

When entry is barred to a Canadian parliamentarian, a former premier  
of Ontario and one of the leading figures in the Opposition Liberal  
Party after being granted a visa with the full knowledge of its  
purpose by Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in Canada, it is much more  
than a gaffe. It reflects the atrocious diplomacy into which the  
country is being driven by a clique that is usurping the due  
functions of other arms of the state.

How different sections of the state acted tells its own story. Daya  
Perera PC, High Commissioner in Canada was frankly apologetic.  
Controller of Immigration P.B. Abeykoon told the Daily Mirror, ‘We  
denied him entry to Sri Lanka and detained him after State  
intelligence services warned that Mr. Rae’s visit was not suitable’  
indicating that he was taking instructions from the Defence Ministry.  
Someone at the Mirror tried to be clever by inserting a box item  
comparing Rae’s deportation to that of Charles de Gaulle from Canada  
in 1967 after his expression of support for Québec separatism. The  
state-owned Daily News in saying Rae was involved in pro-LTTE  
political activities in his home country, was repeating parrot-like  
something about which it knew nothing. The Island simply described  
him as an LTTE-supporting Canadian MP.

The Army spokesman as reported on its web site said not only that Rae  
‘relentlessly supported Tiger terrorists and their supporters in  
Canada’, but went on to put words into the mouth of poor Mr.  
Abeykoon: ‘He was held by Immigration and Emigration authorities at  
the airport on charges of aiding and abetting terrorism while working  
against the interests of Sri Lanka.’ The related Defence Ministry web  
site was strangely silent or had on second thoughts taken down its  
posting. It is clear where the action came from.

To begin, we set the record straight. Far from being a supporter of  
the LTTE, Bob Rae played an important role in helping Tamil  
dissidents in Canada to find their voice. It was owing to active  
moral support from people like him, that the LTTE’s monopoly over the  
lives of Tamils in Toronto began to crack in 2004. In December 2004  
he chaired a Human Rights Watch meeting in Toronto launching a report  
looking into the LTTE’s recruitment of children.  It was his  
commitment to Tamil children that led him to take a strong stand on  
the child soldier issue even as pro-LTTE activists attempted to  
disrupt the meeting.

Bob Rae’s commitment to Tamil dissent and a united Sri Lanka is clear  
from his participation at a memorial meeting in London, UK in March  
2007 for his friend and colleague Kethesh Loganathan, who was  
labelled a “traitor” and assassinated by the LTTE.  Kethesh  
Loganathan, a long-time activist, spent the last months of his life  
working in the Government’s Peace Secretariat to take forward the  
political process.  In his keynote address, Bob Rae stated: “This has  
been the central question in Sri Lankan politics for the entire 20th  
century.  How to create a country that reflects pluralism, that  
reflects diversity, that reflects the differences, that reflects the  
collective personalities of Tamils, of Hill Country Tamils, of  
Muslims, of Sinhalese. And that gets rid of this pathology of an  
excessive nationalism which never recognises the dignity and the  
difference and the personality of the other.”

Bob Rae was firmly on the side of human rights, a committed opponent  
of violations by the LTTE and its conscription of children. Like most  
Tamil dissidents and many enlightened Sinhalese he supported a  
federal political settlement in Lanka and at no time supported  
separatism in Lanka.

It is a sad comment of the section of the elite in Lanka close to the  
President, that once the Government started on a no-holds-barred  
military course, they became nervous about any criticism of  
violations by the government forces and by minions of the Defence  
Ministry. Any criticism was branded as support for terrorism and  
hence for the LTTE. This was the route by which Bob Rae is being  
labelled a Tiger supporter in the minds of this clique.

The quality of intelligence on which the Defence Ministry deemed Bob  
Rae an LTTE supporter raises a very fundamental question. Beginning  
with the killing of five students on the Trincomalee sea front in  
January 2006 through the thousands of extra-judicial murders over  
which the Defence Ministry presided were based on the premise that  
the victims were LTTE supporters. These were heinous acts based on  
the intelligence of paranoid minds. They cry out for a thorough  
investigation that will never come from the Sri Lankan Police.

For the Press too there are some fundamental questions. This  
government has assaulted, threatened and killed persons in the media  
who refused to feed off its trough. It is hard for anyone to work  
under these conditions and keep their sanity. They know there would  
always be the next incident where a tragedy would befall a journalist  
whose understanding of patriotism does not conform to the norms set  
by those in the top rungs of the Defence Ministry. They must  
constantly worry about crossing the line unawares. Playing safe  
imposes a conformity into which people slip in by slow degrees. That  
is what the LTTE relied on. Its effect in the South is reflected in  
how even the independent media have covered Bob Rae’s deportation.  
Once facts cease to matter, journalism dies. One day perhaps, they  
would understand that Bob Rae was their friend and a true friend of  
Lanka.

Bob Rae’s deportation is reflective of the arbitrary abuse of power,  
clamp down on dissent and the lack of space for dialogue within  
Lanka. Such openness is particularly necessary for peace and  
reconciliation, and this attack along with recent attacks on  
journalists critical of the military and the relentless abductions  
are reflective of a continuing war mentality of the military  
establishment. Over the last twenty years we have documented the  
deterioration of the Sri Lankan state and its various institutions.   
Such deterioration was in many ways a consequence of the overwhelming  
role of the military leadership in the affairs of both state and  
society. At the current moment, the President in continuing to give  
unwarranted licence for his brother, the Defence Secretary and the  
military establishment, is undermining the international goodwill  
that is necessary for Sri Lanka to rebuild and more importantly  
inhibiting the ability for ordinary people to begin democratic life  
having suffered the onslaught of the war.

  It is high time the Government, the President, the ruling SLFP and  
the other political parties stop acquiescing to the military  
leadership.  The rank and file and many of the high ranking officers  
over the decades have shown considerable professionalism in the face  
of politicisation.  The people of Lanka have a strong democratic  
ethos.  Now, democracy should roll in the entire country.  To delay  
movement towards peace and reconciliation due to the personal whims  
and ambitions of the Defence Secretary and the military establishment  
would be a historic tragedy.


_____


[3] Pakistan:


The Frontier Post

PAKHTUN STUDENTS SEEKING MIGRATION

Peshawar (PPI): More then 130 Pakhtun Students of Sindh University  
Jamshoru, who leave Sindh University after they were given life  
threats by nationalists’ parties have urged the government to migrate  
them from Sindh University where it was impossible for them to  
continue the studies after being attacked and tortured. “Sindh Taraqi  
Pasand Party (STP) and supporters of other Sindhi nationalist parties  
tortured Pakhtun Students, STP supporters stormed Alama Iqbal hostel  
where Pakhtun Students were staying and badly injuring three  
students, one of them Miandad Hassan was very seriously wounded and  
hospitalized in Haiderabad Civil Hospital after continues bleeding  
for 9 hours as the nationalist warned them to leave university before  
May 28 otherwise Pakhtun Students would be shot dead and would be  
kicked out of the university,” the students who were forced to leave  
Sindh university alleged and urged NWFP government to make  
arrangements for their migration to any of the University out of  
Sindh. Establishing a protest camp out side of Peshawar Press Club,  
the students informed more then 130 students of different parts of  
NWFP were enrolled in Sindh University at Jamshoru where they were  
studding in different departments however on May 21st thy were warned  
to leave the university before May 28 and asked never to return the  
University otherwise they would be killed. “ STP supporters snatched  
our luggage, computers, mobile phones and cash and even we were not  
allowed to attend the exams and asked to forthwith leave the  
university as the university was only for Sindhis not for the  
Pakhtuns,” they told PPI adding that “supporters of STP and other  
nationalist parties attacked the hostels on May 28 and smashing the  
doors and windows they entered inside the hostels, seized every thing  
of Pakhtun Students asking if any of the Pakhtun student were seen  
inside the university he would be shot dead at the spot,” they told  
saying that they had no choice except leaving Sindh university as the  
university administration was not able to provide them protection.  
“yes we requested Vice Chancellor Sindh University Mazhar-ul-Haq  
Sadiqi however VC just offered security at hostel gate showing his  
inability to control the violent students inside the hostel rooms,”  
the students informed and added that provost of the university also  
given the same reply arguing that “STP is a nationalist party and the  
university administration would be able to resolve the issue  
involving nationalist aspect,”. Majority of the students who were  
forced to leave the university belongs to Swat, Dir and Bunir where  
military had been involved in gun battle with the militants had no  
other option except to establish protest camp out side press club.  
“We can not go to Sindh University as we are Pakhtun, were are being  
punished for just very reason that we belongs to NWFP but what  
provincial government in control of Pakhtun nationalist would do for  
we are just waiting for it. We want return of our luggage, computers  
and migration from Sindh University,” they remarked. The students  
were of the view that 130 students of Geology, Pharmacy and other  
departments had left the university at the time when their exams were  
about to start nut they were not even allowed to carry their  
belongings. “STP claimed it is Sindhu Dish not Pakistan therefore  
Pakhtun students have no right to stay,” they remarked and questioned  
what the Pakhtun nationalist government would do for them to save the  
students’ future.

o o o

The Guardian, 12 June 2009

THE TOLL OF INDIFFERENCE

In the Pakistani press the Swat assault is painted as a popular  
triumph. But it has come at a horrific cost

by Kamila Shamsie

Almost every day the news out of Pakistan offers evidence of growing  
support for military action against the Taliban in Swat, and growing  
antipathy towards the Taliban itself. The rightwing media, which had  
urged the government to make peace deals, is falling over itself in  
praise of military advances.

But straightforward approval for military action is not the whole  
story. An article in one of Pakistan's papers a few days ago reported  
that tribesmen in Upper Dir had besieged 200 Taliban and killed a  
number in response to the Taliban's bombing of a mosque. The  
newspaper cited this as further evidence of growing anti-Taliban  
sentiment. There is no reason to doubt the tribesmen's genuine anger  
– yet near the end of the article there was a telling admission that  
cannot be left out of the picture: a tribal elder said that allowing  
the Taliban to stay was asking for trouble as it would invite a  
military offensive that they certainly didn't want.

This is where the story of wholehearted support for the military  
offensive breaks down. The army's success has come at a horrific  
cost: there are estimated to be 2.5 million internally displaced  
persons (IDPs) in Pakistan. Who can blame the tribesmen of Upper Dir  
for taking up arms to prevent the army from adding their families to  
the swelling numbers of IDPs? The editorials of relief and approval  
about the army's decision to "finally" do what is necessary contain  
the implicit message that the suffering of the 2.5 million is the  
price that must be paid. Around the world, leaders and opinion-makers  
have reached the same conclusion.

But what of the 2.5 million? When their numbers were less than half  
that amount – just a few weeks ago – the IDP camps could house less  
than 15% of them. The rest had to rely on the kindness of relatives  
and the even more extraordinary kindness of strangers. Families with  
roofs over their heads have been taking in large numbers and sharing  
what little they have. Their generosity is shaming, particularly when  
placed against the horrifying indifference of the rest of the world –  
a world that for months urged the Pakistan government to send its  
army into Swat and surrounding areas.

Yesterday nine major aid agencies – ActionAid, Cafod/Caritas, Care,  
Concern Worldwide, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, Save the Children,  
World Vision – issued a press release to say their aid projects face  
closure due to a shortage of funds. Oxfam will have to shut down its  
programme to assist 360,000 people if more funding doesn't arrive by  
next month. The United Nations is faring no better – its $543m appeal  
has only received $138m so far. The United Kingdom has given only  
1.6% of the amount the UN requires.

A change in attitude is needed urgently; if humanitarian grounds  
aren't reason enough, consider the fact that refugee camps are prime  
targets for those trying to radicalise the disaffected. When the  
Pakistani film-maker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy was in the IDP camps  
earlier this year she found the young boys who make up such a large  
population of the camps equally split between those who support the  
army and those who support the Taliban. A vital "hearts and minds"  
battle is being waged in the camps, where groups such as the  
extremist Jamaat-ud-Dawa (linked to the Mumbai attacks) have been  
very visible in giving aid.

Many in Pakistan who still oppose military action are likely to claim  
that "the west" is pressurising the army to kill and displace its own  
people, uncaring of the suffering it causes. Time now for "the west"  
to show a different face to those who are desperate for assistance,  
and will not forget where it comes from.


_____


[4]   India Administered Kashmir:	

The Times of India, 14 June 2009

'MEN IN UNIFORM ARE KASHMIR'S PROBLEM, NOT SOLUTION'

by Sanjay Kak

Those who use the media filter to try to understand what is happening  
in Kashmir should realize they're looking at a shadow play. A curtain  
lies
between events and us. What is played out on the screen depends on  
who manipulates the sources of light.

Last summer, the Valley was overwhelmed by several months of  
unprecedented non-violent public protest. It was triggered by the  
complicated Amarnath land issue, but on the streets the people were  
saying "Hum kya chahte? Azadi!" We are hearing this again this  
summer, triggered by the rape and murder of two young women from  
Shopian in south Kashmir. Only the stone deaf could miss the cry.

Between these two summer uprisings came the Assembly elections of  
December. As everyone braced for a boycott, people did turn out to  
vote. This surprise turnout was presented as nothing short of a  
miracle and we were informed that this was "a vote for Indian  
democracy". Those who wondered why people who had braved bullets only  
a month ago should suddenly queue up to vote were reminded that  
Kashmiris were an unpredictable, even contrary, people.

In fact, there is a frightening consistence about the Kashmiri chant  
for decades: "Hum kya chahte? Azadi!" Protests have begun for all  
sorts of reasons but they are a manifestation of the simmering anger  
always close to the surface.

The current round of protests were given a head-start by the  
distinctly amateur vacillations of the state chief minister, not  
least his puzzling shifts on what may have actually happened to  
Nilofar, 22, and her sister-in-law Asiya, 17, on the night of May 29.  
Well-intentioned though he may be, Omar Abdullah seems very badly  
advised, or else possessed of a political death-wish.

In its election campaign the National Conference made a point of  
underlining that it was seeking a mandate for development, for bijli,  
sadak, pani. It made no claim to settling masla-e-Kashmir or the  
Kashmir issue. But once the elections were over, they went along with  
the Indian establishment, which trumpeted the turnout as a decisive  
mandate in India's favour. The inability of Omar Abdullah's  
government to reach out to the people of the Valley in the past  
fortnight is a timely reminder of the dangers of that delusion. In  
just a little over 10 days, the protests have damaged the patina of  
normalcy that the election 'success' painted on a deeply troubled  
situation.

In the middle of all this, but almost buried by events, the J&K  
police announced the arrest of Constable Nazir Ahmed of the India  
Reserve Police battalion for allegedly raping a minor girl in  
Baramulla in north Kashmir. (They admitted the constable was a former  
Personal Security Officer of Ghulam Hassan Mir, legislator and former  
minister). Days after the incident, a scuffle between the families of  
the victim and the policeman led to the tragic killing of the  
victim's grandmother.

Both incidents of the past fortnight must be placed next to one from  
a few years ago, when the infamous "sex scandal" led to huge  
protests, bringing Srinagar to a grinding halt. That was a tawdry  
tale of the sexual exploitation of vulnerable women, including the  
prostitution of minors. It was on a massive scale, with the  
involvement of politicians
, senior bureaucrats, police and paramilitary officers. The scandal  
exposed the ugly networks of power and oppression, which prop up the  
structures of control in Kashmir. It also laid bare the vulnerability  
of women all over the Valley, prey to the brutal arrogance unleashed  
by 20 years of intense militarization and unbridled power.

It's a good time to remember that the acquisition of land for the  
Amarnath yatra was only the spark that set off last summer's  
protests. But the real fuel was widespread resentment about the fact  
that thousands of acres of agricultural, orchard and forest land is  
under occupation by the army and paramilitary forces, housing their  
feared camps and cantonments and vast logistics bases. The Kashmiris'  
behaviour then turns out to be underpinned by a fairly  
straightforward political reason: we don't need to delve into their  
fragile 'psyche'.

This week, the lights behind the curtain are being moved around to  
give the illusion of change: the CRPF's duties are to be handed over  
to the J&K police. If true, this will need massive local police  
recruitment and give a disturbing new twist to the Indian  
government's promise of employment to young Kashmiris. (However, from  
the Establishment's point of view, a policeman in every home may well  
be a solution to Kashmir's troubles.)

But this change of guard will not alter the lives of ordinary people.  
They do not care if the oppressive figure of the soldier wears the  
uniform of the Indian Army, its paramilitary forces, or is their  
neighbour in brand new fatigues. Such shallow transformation is not  
new: people remember the 'disbanding' of the dreaded Special  
Operations Group, which was simply merged into regular police  
operations; or the highly public way in which the CRPF replaced the  
BSF in Srinagar, leaving the countryside in the Army's iron grip.

This summer's protest is not just about the rape and murder of two  
women, the violation of human rights, or even the repeal of some  
draconian law. The shadow play must not distract us from the real  
issue, which is the extraordinary and intolerable militarization of  
Kashmir.

Sanjay Kak is a filmmaker whose most recent documentary 'Jashn-e- 
Azadi' explores the conflict in Kashmir



_____


[5] Communalism Watch (communalism.blogspot.com)

ELECTION VERDICT 2009 - WHITHER BJP?

by Ram Puniyani (June 13, 2009)

The resounding defeat of BJP in the 2009 elections, decline in number  
of seats and decline in voting percentage prompted various BJP  
insiders and sympathizers to do some introspection. Where did the  
party go wrong? In his piece in Times of India 4th June 2009, Swapan  
Dasgupta feels that BJP has got too much identified with Hindutva,  
which is no more appealing to large section of Hindus so it needs to  
come out of this image for a makeover. Sudheendra Kulkarni (Tehelka  
13th June 2009), looks at the defeat as close Advani aide and also as  
an insider and points out that Advani was not sufficiently backed up  
by RSS and BJP. He also says that BJP’s implementation of Hindutva  
looked to be anti minorities and that its links with RSS need to be  
given a second look.

Kulkarni projects as if Hindutva is all inclusive, Hindu identity is  
core of Indian Nationalism, and Cultural nationalism is not meant for  
Hindus alone. One can infer that Kulkarni basically stands by the  
core RSS concepts of Hindutva, Cultural Nationalism and Integral  
humanism and finds BJP practices faulty in this direction. One can  
point out that since Kulkarni is an insider, associated with BJP from  
the times of Advani’s Rath nay, blood yatra, and is close to the top  
echelons of BJP and that he had all the time to point out to BJP  
leadership as to how their practice is deviating from the genuine  
Hindutva. One is not sure whether this has been done inside the party  
forums, any way lets keep that aside.

Concepts and ideologies are not made in the thin air. They reflect  
the needs of social groups. These terms couched in the language of  
religion were devised by ideologues of declining sections of Hindu  
society, the landlords and Brahmins from early nineteen twenties  
onwards. The term Hindutva in particular came into being as the  
politics of Hindu Mahasabha and RSS. It stood for politics of Hindus,  
for the building of Hindu Rashtra. This word was coined by Savarkar  
in 1920s and was meant to be an alternate notion of politics to the  
one being articulated by national movement led by Gandhi. Similar  
concept of nationalism, based on the values of liberty, equality and  
fraternity were also articulated by Ambedkar, while the third major  
stream during freedom movement, Bhagat Singh and Communists, dreamt  
of a Socialist society, based on the notions of substantive equality  
and state regulating the social relations to ensure this equality.

It must be pointed out that the concept of Hindutva aims at Hindu  
nation, in parallel to the concept of Muslim nation being propounded  
by Muslim League, and in opposition to the concept of democratic  
secular nation, the concept for which national movement was working.  
This Indian nationalism is all inclusive, inclusive of all religions,  
castes and both genders. The concepts of Hindu and Muslim nations are  
exclusive concepts. The second point is that the Gandhi-Ambedkar  
Nationalism was based on the equality of caste and gender while  
HIndutva and the ideology of Muslim nationalism were continuum of the  
feudal values, the harping on caste and gender hierarchy. In the same  
direction later Deen Dayal Upadhyay the ideologue of RSS-BJP very  
cleverly put up the concept of Integral Humanism. This concept argues  
that as any organism is well balanced due to the division of work  
between different parts of the body, similarly different social  
groups perform different well defined tasks to provide the  
equilibrium for the proper social functioning. This in a way talks of  
status quo in the caste and gender relation prevalent in society.

Similarly Cultural nationalism as propounded by RSS and adopted by  
BJP stands for the elite Brahminical culture as the synonym for  
Indian ness. All in all this is precisely what RSS defines and BJP  
practiced so far. There cannot be equal place of dalits, women and  
non Hindus in this scheme of things. Swapan Dasgupta feels BJP has to  
drop Hindutva, to provide an alternative based on good governance,  
non dynasty politics etc. Kulkarni’s reading of Hindutva and integral  
humanism is from the world of make-believe, totally off the mark. The  
simple question is why were these practitioners of Hindutva, cultural  
nationalism aloof from National movement? It is this National  
movement which laid the basis of India and achieved India’s  
independence. These streams which take the cover of glorious  
traditions focus only on those traditions are elitist. In Indian  
context the concepts Hindu nationalism and Muslim Nationalism derive  
their legitimacy from Brahminical and Ashrafs (Muslim elite) stream  
respectively. Why can’t RSS-BJP talk that primarily they are loyal to  
the values of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity and dump all those  
concepts built around religious identity? It is because these  
religion based concepts are the best cover for oppression of women,  
dalits and non Hindus. And in turn these concepts also demonize,  
intimidate and commit violence against minorities, trying to reduce  
them to second class citizens.

BJP could come to power only because of harping on identity of Lord  
Ram. BJP does hold Ram is the symbol of India’s identity. This is one  
of the expressions of their cultural nationalism. The question arises  
why only Lord Ram is the symbol of India, why not Shambuk, or Bali or  
Sita. In nutshell their cultural nationalism picks up those  
characters which suit the interests, agenda of Hindu elite. Surely  
had Ram temple agitation not taken up, Babri mosque not demolished  
and Mumbai and Gujarat violence not instigated, BJP would have been  
on the margin of Indian society. Its very raison detre is due to the  
fact that it is progeny of RSS, to the fact that it is related to  
VHP, Bajrang Dal etc., whose vagaries it keeps defending most of the  
time. It is thoroughly exclusionist and that’s why it justifies  
Gujarat violence, Kandhamal, rejects Sachar committee etc. It is not  
a mere coincidence; it is the core of BJP politics. It is not that  
the concept of Hindutva is inclusionary and practice is faulty, the  
very concept of Hindutva is exclusionary, in theory and practices both.

Can BJP throw away Hindutva, aim of building Hindu Nation around  
glorious Hindu traditions of Manu Smriti etc? The question is  
misplaced as BJP is nobody to decide that. BJP is merely a political  
arm of RSS; it is RSS which has to decide that. Can RSS cut its own  
legitimacy off by renouncing Hindutva? The question does not arise.  
RSS essentially is aimed around these goals. Kulkarni’s confusions  
and his welcome concern about poor, minorities and dalits are  
misplaced as those are not the concerns of RSS, they have never been  
and can never be the concerns of BJP and company at any point of  
time. Hindutva or integral humanism is cleverly worded disguise to  
undermine the concept of democracy. Last two decades had been a  
nightmare where the values opposed to Indian nationhood asserted  
themselves aggressively, bringing immense miseries. One hopes with  
the trend of decline of BJP, those striving for democratic struggles,  
struggles for equality and rights of dalits, women, adivasis, workers  
and minorities will come to occupy the main social space and protect  
the nation form the damages done by the politics in the garb of  
religious identity.


_____


[6]  India - the Women's Bill Debate

Asian Age
June 11, 2009

QUOTAS ARE NOT ENOUGH... GIVE WOMEN REAL POWER

by Antara Dev Sen

I am most disappointed that the histrionics over the Women's  
Reservation Bill in Parliament was limited to the cowboys of the  
cowbelt. The Yadavs seem to be the most vocal opponents of the bill.  
Not a single Southern MP has offered to self-immolate. Only Sharad  
Yadav has threatened to drink poison, a la Socrates. (Curiously, this  
did not spark a stampede of honourable members offering him their  
best venom.) The charming Lalu Prasad Yadav declared that this bill  
was a conspiracy to finish off regional parties and prevent the  
empowerment of the backward. And dear old Mulayam Singh Yadav was  
blunt. You won't get back in here, he warned the male MPs cheering  
the bill: "For all the table-thumping now, soon you will be thumping  
your charpoys at home!" His trusted deputy Amar Singh added later:  
"The careers of many established leaders will be destroyed as their  
seats are lost due to women's reservation". The talk of quotas within  
quotas was eyewash, the bill's opponents were driven by the fear of  
exclusion. And this for just ensuring that one-third of MPs are  
women. What would the poor dears do if women were actually given half  
the sky - and Parliament?

The touching insecurity of male MPs is not without reason. Socrates  
believed, as Mr Sharad Yadav will confirm: "Once made equal to man,  
woman becomes his superior". We see it around us - given equal  
opportunity, education and support, women generally do better than  
men, starting right from school. Take the most recent examination  
results. The two CBSE toppers were girls, as were the three IAS  
toppers. And since 1984, the percentage of women candidates winning  
seats in Parliament has been consistently much higher than men.  
Reportedly, the average winnability of women candidates in the last  
five Lok Sabha elections is 12.5 per cent, as opposed to 8.3 per cent  
for men.

Denying women a fair chance is essential to keep the patriarchal  
power structure alive. So Indian women are usually not allowed to  
study much. About half are married off before turning 18. They are  
kept out of decision-making, and even what they earn is usually spent  
by their husbands or fathers. Empowering women politically is one  
decisive way to change our deeply sexist society. Women MPs have for  
years cut across party lines to come together in support of the  
Women's Reservation Bill. This time, with the commitment of President  
Pratibha Patil and the Congress, the unambiguous support of the  
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Left, it seems likely to be passed.

So why am I not delighted at the prospect? First, because I was never  
a fan of the bill. In 1996, when it was first tabled, it seemed like  
a personal insult. Plant women in the highest decision-making office  
in the country? There was a difference between panchayats and  
Parliament, for heaven's sake. Would we be reserving ministries next?  
Clear the way, remove the obstacles, watch women glide in on their  
own steam. We don't need no reservation, we don't need no seat control.

As the bill aged, I mellowed. And bowed to the passion of senior MPs  
like the late Geeta Mukherjee. There was an urgent need to increase  
women's participation in the political process and to rectify the  
shameful imbalance of political power. If reservation is the only way  
our dear politicians can get more women into Parliament, so be it.  
Quotas can fast-track social justice, and with an abysmally low  
percentage of women MPs (we have finally reached 10 per cent this  
year, a record) it seemed fine to jump the queue. When the quota  
lapses 15 years later, may the best candidates win.

Now, 13 years of debates and dithering shows that the bill will not  
fast-track gender justice. We should have looked at other ways of  
politically empowering women. Instead, we are stuck in the rut of  
cliched tokenism that does nothing for women's empowerment.

To make matters worse, this week it seems like the quota will be  
reduced from 33.3 per cent to 20 per cent. This is unacceptable. Once  
there is a quota, women will not get general seats and will remain  
stuck in the 20 per cent seats reserved for them, chosen arbitrarily  
by a draw of lots.

This lottery prevents MPs from nurturing constituencies, and the  
electorate from rewarding or punishing their MP. Besides, men who are  
forced to vacate their constituency when it becomes a woman's seat  
for one election would use their women relatives as placeholders.  
Women MPs would have to flit from one reserved constituency to  
another, rootless and vulnerable.

And they will be limited to fighting against other women - ushering  
in the age of purdah in politics. It would limit the voter's  
democratic choices, instead of increasing them.

Besides, a "quotawali" could further hinder the acceptance of women  
as equal to men, and their legitimacy as MPs. We have always had  
outstanding women leaders and ministers, and this devaluing of women  
MPs would be a great pity.

The reason we don't have enough women in Parliament is because  
political parties don't give enough tickets to women - and often  
allot them weak constituencies to lose from. Take this year's  
allotments. Even the Congress and BJP gave barely 10 per cent of  
tickets to women; the CPI(M) and the CPI, forever ranting about  
women's empowerment, gave seven per cent. The Shiromani Akali Dal  
fared the best, 20 per cent of its tickets went to women. So the  
logical way would be to clear the block at this stage, instead of  
reserving seats.

Around the world this quota for tickets, not seats, has worked,  
substantially pushing up the proportion of women MPs in Sweden (47  
per cent), Norway, Canada, Britain and France. But in India, parties  
will not give women candidates more tickets voluntarily, and it seems  
forcing them to do so may be unconstitutional. Since most changes in  
mindset are brought on not by law but by peer pressure and societal  
reward and punishment, I believe that carrot and stick should also  
work for "women-friendly" and "women-unfriendly" parties.

Parties should be categorised by both the percentage of tickets women  
get and the percentage of women actually elected, to make sure that  
the women are viable candidates from winnable seats.

For if we really want women's empowerment, endlessly debating a  
flawed quota system in Parliament doesn't work. We should fight  
against gender violence and focus on women's education, health and  
freedoms. Electoral tickets give women freedom of opportunity.  
Reserved seats make them the less than equal "quotawali".

Antara Dev Sen is editor of The Little Magazine. She can be contacted  
at: sen(at)littlemag.com


_____


[7]

The Telegraph
June 13, 2009

Editorial

  NEVER READY FOR IT

In India, the State now speaks in many tongues on homosexuality.  
Different ministries have come up with bafflingly different positions  
on the matter. So far, on the ‘reading down’ of Section 377 of the  
Indian Penal Code (the archaic law that ends up criminalizing adult  
consensual homosexuality in India), the courts have sounded  
progressive, the health ministry encouraging, and the law and home  
ministries regressive. The regressiveness is alarming, not only  
because of the astonishing ignorance, indeed blindness, of its “India  
is not ready for it yet” position, but also because of the  
schizophrenic divide regarding sex and sexuality within the State  
that shows up when the health ministry’s view is compared with those  
of the law and home ministries. Yet the health ministry’s ‘positive’  
stance is founded on fear and caution rather than principled thinking  
— on the same sort of logic that underlies action against swine ’flu  
or SARS: if the law is not changed, then it will be difficult to stop  
people from dying of AIDS. So when the law minister makes vague  
public noises to the effect that some bits of the IPC “may be”  
outdated, and Section 377 “could be” one of these bits, then it  
really does not amount to very much. But by now, hanging on to every  
word that the State lets fall on the matter, and then trying to make  
sense of them, have become part of the entire struggle for legal and  
social change that the movement against Section 377 has become in India.

This movement remains largely confined, though, to those who are  
victimized by Section 377 — that is, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and  
transgendered community, mostly among urban (and sometimes  
provincial), middle-class Indians. Annual parades and candle-lit  
vigils, again mostly in the big cities and often (though not always)  
associated with HIV/AIDS, are when this community is given some  
visibility in the media, although of a stereotypically colourful  
kind. Or when big-budget Bollywood indulges in a bit of innocuous  
same-sex fun, people talk about it for a while, usually with light- 
hearted titters, as if chatting about exotic lifestyle options. But  
with food, weddings, cricket and elections being the nation’s chief  
obsessions, the closet rather than the courtroom is where the matter  
is invariably laid to rest.

Why does it remain virtually impossible to figure out what the  
nation’s leaders think about men having sex with men, or women having  
sex with women? Does the Rashtrapati Bhavan or the Prime Minister’s  
Office have a view on homosexuality? Would the Gandhis, particularly  
the younger ones, speak up for it? What does Agatha Sangma, the Lok  
Sabha’s youngest minister, think about it? How does Buddhadeb  
Bhattacharjee feel about the sexual orientation of his beloved  
Proust? All these right-thinking people would not think twice before  
speaking up against untouchability, apartheid or female circumcision.  
So why this silence, or slipperiness, about this other, universally  
acknowledged, form of discrimination?


_____


[8] India:

  infochangeindia.org

DALITS IN A 'HINDU RASHTRA'

by Subhash Gatade

Everyone knows about Gujarat’s bias against Muslims. But consider the  
dalits in this ‘Hindu rashtra’: they are confined to ‘dalits only’  
housing societies in Ahmedabad, school quotas for recruitment of  
dalit teachers are ignored, and dalits are buried in separate burial  
grounds if available and in wasteland if not
108 dalits lost their lives in the riots of 2002, 38 in the city of  
Ahmedabad alone

The severe earthquake that hit Gujarat in 2001 and the subsequent  
relief and rehabilitation programme revealed to the outside world the  
deep-seated caste bias in the Gujarati community, apart from the much  
talked about bias against the minority communities. There were  
reports that in some places the relief and rehabilitation work  
bypassed both the dalits and the Muslims.

Similarly, the organised killing of Muslims a year later, in 2002,  
also saw several dalit casualties. While the co-option of a section  
of the dalits in the Hindutva agenda and their metamorphosis as foot  
soldiers of the Hindutva brigade was duly reported, the media did not  
deem it necessary to emphasise that the riots also affected dalits.  
One hundred and eight dalits lost their lives, 38 in the city of  
Ahmedabad alone. Quite a few of these deaths occurred when dalits  
resisted the Hindutva goons by siding with hapless Muslims.  
Interestingly, Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar had asked his followers to stop  
Hindu Raj becoming a reality at all costs.

Discrimination against dalits in Gujarat occurs routinely -- in  
housing, in education, and even in death.

No place for the dead

When Naresh Solanki's two-and-a-half-year-old nephew died in 2001,  
the grieving family from Hooda village in Palanpur block of  
Banaskantha district buried the child in the community burial ground.  
No sooner had they reached home than they heard that a member of the  
Patel community from the village had exhumed the body with a tractor.  
The powerful Patels had encroached on some part of the land next to  
the burial ground and were offended by the burial.

It has been more than seven years since that incident took place and  
the dalits of Hooda village are still waiting for the collector and  
the village panchayat to allot them some land for burial. When a  
community elder died in 2008, his body had to be carried to another  
village, where dalits have a separate graveyard.

That the problem of burials for dalits is not limited to Hooda is  
borne out by a report in Mail Today in the first week of February  
2009. It said that dalits are not allowed to use common burial  
grounds in Gujarat and are often forced to bury their dead in  
wastelands near villages. Absence of any legal entitlement to this  
land allows the dalits to be pushed out of such lands by dominant  
upper castes.

A survey conducted by the Gujarat Rajya Grampanchayat Samajik Nyay  
Samiti Manch found that out of 657 villages in Gujarat, 397 villages  
do not have any designated land allotted for burial for dalits. Out  
of the 260 villages where land has been formally allotted, 94 have  
seen encroachments by the dominant castes and in 26 villages the  
burial ground is in a low-lying area and therefore gets waterlogged.

When the question of burying their dead comes up, dalits have much in  
common with Muslims who also find their graveyards being encroached  
upon by the dominant classes. A few years ago, the Gujarat high court  
had to intervene and ask the state government to post police  
personnel to block attempts to encroach on the graveyard of Muslims  
in Patan.
[. . .]
http://tinyurl.com/q9feoq

______


[8]

Magazine / The Hindu
June 14, 2009



TRIBUTE

Habib was theatre

by Shanta Gokhale

Habib Tanvir, who passed away recently, melded the sophistication of  
modern urban theatre with the vitality of folk arts in his work.

“It took me years to discover the simple thing that I should give my  
artists autonomy; that I should give them their mother tongue…”


Habib Tanvir is identified so completely with a theatre that used  
Chhatisgarhi actors, dialect and narrative material that it is  
difficult to believe he chose to train at the Royal Academy of  
Dramatic Arts, London. But it was just as well that he did.

Halfway through the course he saw how irrelevant the training was to  
his idea of theatre. He quit and returned to India after writing and  
singing his way across Europe with the ultimate aim of meeting  
Bertolt Brecht, whose theatre he admired. Unfortunately, Brecht died  
before he arrived in Berlin, but Tanvir stayed on to see his plays.  
It is not by accident that songs have told as much of the story as  
speech in Tanvir’s plays. In part at least, this was a Brechtian legacy.
With a dream

When Tanvir returned to India, it was with a dream he had nurtured  
all through his travels in Europe. He was obsessed with doing  
Shudraka’s “Mricchakatika”. Its modernism and free-flowing form  
challenged him. His mind was sparking with ideas contrary to what  
pundits claimed Sanskrit theatre had been. In Delhi, Begum Qudsia  
Zaidi’s Hindustani Theatre was willing to back him. Begum Zaidi even  
translated the play into Hindi for him. Then serendipity took over.  
Born in Raipur, Tanvir had grown up with local folk theatre forms  
like Nacha and Pandavani. On a visit home, he watched an all-night  
Nacha performance and his mind was blown by the superb acting skills  
of the five actors before him. On an impulse, he asked them if they  
would go to Delhi to act in “Mitti ki gadi”. They happily agreed.  
Begum Zaidi was horrified. (“Habib, theatre demands young handsome  
faces, not these strange creatures”) but laid the foundation of Naya  
Theatre, Tanvir’s karmabhoomi.

Madan Lal, Thakur Ram, Shiv Dayal, Bhulwa Ram, Jagmohan and Lalu Ram  
became the backbones of Naya Theatre along with Tanvir’s wife and  
professional partner, Moneeka Mishra. Together they tried, failed,  
tried again to meld the skills, spontaneous energy and instinctive  
feeling for movement and song of the Chhatisgarhi actors with  
Tanvir’s sense of narrative flow and overall structure.

“It took me years to discover the simple thing that I should give my  
artists autonomy; that I should give them their mother tongue,”  
Tanvir once said in an interview with Prithvi Theatre. “I knew the  
sweetness of the dialect but I was totally unaware of its  
communicability to non-Chhatisgarhi people. That is what held me  
back. And I got bad versions of Hindi and feeble actors because of  
their self-consciousness. Finally I said ‘let’s try this’ and after  
three years of failure I got the breakthrough with ‘Gaon ka Naam  
Sasural, Mor Naam Damaad’ and then ‘Charandas Chor’.” The trick was  
to use Chhatisgarhi dialect, allow the actors to improvise and, when  
their movements matched his ideas, freeze them.

The 1974 play, “Charandas Chor” became a hit in India and abroad. If  
the earlier 1954 hit, “Agra Bazaar”, which could so easily have been  
a miss, had revealed the possibility of bringing urban actors and  
rural non-actors together successfully on the same stage, “Charandas  
Chor” established a way of bringing together the sophistication of  
modern urban theatre with the vitality of folk artists. The method  
served him well in all his future plays.
The folk element

Doing plays with Chhatisgarhi actors was not part of the “back to the  
village” movement that swept in and out of social and theatre circles  
in India in the 1970s. Tanvir was not chasing folk forms to use as  
decorative elements, he said. He was chasing folk actors for the  
specific vitality, acting and singing skills only they could bring to  
his plays. He wanted to be part of their great cultural traditions  
and, in the process, help those traditions and the actors to survive.  
The actors were paid a salary of Rs. 5000-6000 a month, while Tanvir  
received Rs. 10,000. No written contracts were required. The actors  
stayed with Naya Theatre till they retired or died because it allowed  
them to live off their art with dignity. In the village, they were  
the lowest of the low. On the Naya Theatre stage they were kings and  
queens.

Habib Tanvir did not believe government schemes could help folk arts.  
“Government schemes are survey, budget, report on result. Art is not  
like drought where you can count how many died,” he once told me. If  
folk theatre was to survive, it needed hard work from within, not  
“uplift” from outside, he asserted.

Tanvir combined a passion for theatre with an uncompromising belief  
in secular-liberal values and a lifelong engagement with social  
problems. His most overtly political play, “Hirma ki amar kahani”,  
appeared to some critics to be an argument in favour of feudalism  
against democracy. But Tanvir pointed out that democracy was not all- 
white. It could be used for a fascistic agenda as had happened in  
Gujarat. Similarly feudalism was not all black. It had encouraged the  
arts. In telling the story of Hirma, he was only provoking people to  
see both sides of the story .

Standing up for your convictions, countering lies, fighting  
parochialism, meant running personal risks. Habib Tanvir did that  
when his play “Ponga Pundit” was attacked by the Hindu right for  
being supposedly anti-Hindu. Mikes and stones were thrown at him and  
his actors. But he stood his ground and continued to perform the 70- 
year-old folk play.

Habib Tanvir was theatre in every sense of the word. His death  
orphans the art.

Shanta Gokhale is a writer and theatre critic based in Mumbai.



 From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 24, Dated Jun 20, 2009
CULTURE & SOCIETY	 	
appraisal

A Farewell To The Bard Of Bhopal

Habib Tanvir was like a Zen master — unruffled and wise. The Sangh  
Parivar got after him, but nothing could stop him , says SUDHANVA  
DESHPANDE

HABIB TANVIR was the last great actormanager of the Indian theatre,  
in the grand tradition of Sisir Bhaduri, Prithviraj Kapoor, Utpal  
Dutt. But he was more. He was one of our finest playwrights, an  
internationally acclaimed director, a fine poet, lyricist, singer,  
designer, teacher. He ran a professional theatre troupe, Naya  
Theatre, for half a century. Anyone with any experience of running a  
theatre group will tell you what a staggering achievement that is.  
All along, maintaining the highest standards of artistic excellence.

Plays like Agra Bazaar, Charandas Chor, Bahadur Kalarin, Kamdev ka  
Apna Basant Ritu ka Sapna, Mitti ki Gaadi, Shahapur ki Shantibai,  
Mudrarakshas and Raj Rakt, gave immeasurable joy to theatre lovers.  
In theatrical terms, there was nothing he left untouched. The ancient  
Sanskrit writers Sudrak, Bhasa, Visakhadatta and Bhavabhuti; European  
classics by Shakespeare, Molière and Goldoni; modern masters Brecht,  
Garcia, Lorca, Gorky, and even Wilde; Indian writers Rabindranath  
Tagore, Asghar Wajahat, Shankar Shesh, Safdar Hashmi and Rahul Varma.  
He adapted stories by Premchand, Stefan Zweig and Vijaydan Detha for  
the stage, besides adapting oral tales from Chhattisgarh. He took  
theatrical seeds from all over the world and nurtured them with the  
water, air and soil of Chhattisgarh. His plays were as cosmopolitan  
as they were rural, as modern as they were traditional. And always,  
just great rollicking fun.

Habib Tanvir was a public intellectual, responding to his times and  
the events around him with plays as much as by writing articles,  
speaking, joining protest marches and signing statements. Let me  
recount here one of my quintessential memories of the man.

In September-October 2003, on the eve of the State Assembly elections  
in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Habib sa’ab toured these two  
states extensively with his plays. The Chhattisgarh shows, a majority  
of them in villages, went off without a hitch. But when the troupe  
started performing in Madhya Pradesh, they came under attack from the  
Hindu Right. The play that evoked their ire was that little jewel of  
the Nacha tradition, a play neither written nor directed by Habib  
sa’ab, but simply inherited by him via his actors, Ponga Pandit, a  
rip roaring farce against untouchability.

It was all meticulously planned. In town after town, gangs of saffron  
activists would land up at the performance venue, and make enough  
noise to make the district administration jittery about law and  
order. But Habib sa’ab was considerably more crafty than his imbecile  
attackers. At Bhopal, they performed his classic Charandas Chor.  
After the performance, the organisers asked him to introduce his  
actors. He said, “We are kalakars (artistes); our introduction is our  
art. Would you like to listen to some songs?” “Yes,” chorused the  
audience. The actors started singing, and, without anyone realising,  
seamlessly segued into a performance of Ponga Pandit. By the time the  
Hindutva zealots realised what was happening, the play was over.

In the same tour, they were travelling from one town to another when  
they came upon a village. Habib sa’ab struck up a conversation with  
the villagers. Would you like to see a Nacha performance, he asked?  
Some of the villagers recognised his actors and within a short time  
the village chaupal had been readied for performance. Ponga Pandit  
was performed, watched by a few hundred villagers, who laughed and  
enjoyed the play without any interference from right wing goons. At  
another place, the protestors shouted ‘Joote maro saaley ko’ (‘Hurl  
shoes at the *#@^’) and ‘Jai Shri Ram’. Habib sa’ab scolded the  
protestors: “Aren’t you ashamed that you take the name of Shri Ram in  
the same breath as you utter profanities? Abuse me, for all you want,  
but don’t drag Shri Ram into it! I will not allow that!”

I was present at the performance in Vidisha during the same tour. We  
reached there in the afternoon, and the district administration began  
mounting pressure on Habib sa’ab to cancel the show, citing ‘law and  
order’. He listened to the DM and SP carefully and respectfully,  
asking questions about exactly how many people had gathered where. He  
then insisted on going to the venue before deciding. At the venue, a  
few dozen VHP-Bajrang Dal activists were shouting slogans against  
him. Except that they’d got his name wrong — ‘Tanvir Ahmed murdabad!’  
— and this amused him no end.

There was very heavy police presence. But the police allowed some  
protestors to enter the auditorium. Habib sa’ab still decided to go  
ahead with the performance. First, they did Asghar Wajahat’s Jis  
Lahore Nahi Vekhya Voh Janmya hi Nahi, a play about a Hindu woman  
left behind in Lahore after the Partition. Habib sa’ab made the main  
character, a fundamentalist, say all the things you would expect your  
friendly neighbourhood VHP guy to say, but the protestors could say  
nothing, since the character in question was a Muslim.
Actor Udayram said: “If the god of death comes knocking for Habib, he  
will say, ‘Wait, I am rehearsing’”

AT THE end of the play, Habib sa’ab spoke to the audience about  
India, our myriad, wonderful cultures, the great religions of India,  
our syncretic and pluralrist traditions. He was like a Zen master —  
unruffled, calm, wise. What was fascinating was that he was not  
delivering a speech, he was speaking to the spectators, engaging them  
in a dialogue. Later, he explained to me that since most of the  
audience were ordinary students, he felt that he had to win them over  
with logic and reason. He spoke also about the Nacha, the theatrical  
form of rural Chhattisgarh, and how he had learnt much from his  
unlettered actors. He asked the spectators: would you like to see a  
classic play of this genre? One man, saffron scarf around his neck,  
said no. Before anyone could realise what was happening, the police  
swooped in and removed not only him, but the entire audience. Within  
minutes, the auditorium was empty, thanks to the police which was  
deployed to aid the performance.

Habib sa’ab came to the microphone again, and said: I don’t care if  
there is no one here. We have come to perform the play, and we shall  
perform the play. And so, the play was performed — to an empty  
auditorium. That was Habib sa’ab. Nothing could stop him from  
performing.

In the last years of his life, as his old actors began retiring and  
some started dying, and especially after his wife Moneeka died, many  
of us asked Habib sa’ab to slow down, to disband the theatre, to  
spend more time writing, teaching, workshopping. He would listen to  
us, nod sagely, agree that this was what he ought to do. And yet,  
every time someone phoned to ask for a performance, his eyes would  
light up. The lights, the music, the stage, the travelling, the  
hurlyburly of life on tour — all this gave him a high. As his actor  
Udayram said to me once: “If Yamraaj (the god of death) comes  
knocking, he will say, ‘Wait, I am rehearsing a scene.’”

And when the end came, he was still planning, dreaming, writing,  
active till the last.

Deshpande has co-directed, with Sanjay Maharishi, two documentary films
on Habib Tanvir and Naya Theatre

WRITER’S EMAIL
deshsud at rediffmail.com


http://www.outlookindia.com/

Outlook Magazine, 22 June 2009

TRIBUTE
Beyond The Fourth Wall
The great thespian internalised Brecht, adopted folk idiom as his own
Shama Zaidi on Habib Tanvir
| e-mail | one page format | feedback: send - read |

During the last few days I have been remembering Habib Tanvir over  
the years, ever since we first met in 1954. It's like leafing through  
an old family album of faded photographs. I knew Habib through his  
interaction with three people in my family who at various times were  
important in his life. The first was my eccentric uncle Zulfiqar  
Bokhari who was the director of the Bombay station of All India Radio  
(AIR). In 1945 Habib left Aligarh without completing his Masters  
degree to join the Bombay film industry as an actor. Zulfiqar mamu  
asked him to work for AIR as a producer and actor. I don’t know  
whether he learnt anything about radio broadcasting while on the job,  
but it certainly whetted his appetite for becoming an actor. And like  
many who were influenced by Zulfiqar mamu, Habib adopted his style of  
accentuated dialogue delivery, something he was to retain throughout  
his life. For a while Habib copied mamu’s  "afro" hairstyle as well.  
The radio stint didn’t last too long because Zulfiqar mamu opted for  
Pakistan in 1947 and went back to his hometown, Lahore. Habib then  
turned to doing odd jobs, writing for films and advertisement shorts,  
editing various journals and "struggling" to become an actor.

Like many of his generation of students of AMU, Habib was influenced  
by leftist politics and this marked his political stance from then  
onwards, though he threw away his party card very soon after he  
acquired it. Just before Habib arrived in Bombay, the Indian People’s  
Theatre Association (IPTA) had just been founded. He immediately  
began to take part in its activities. They rehearsed in a hall near  
Opera House and Habib acted in plays directed by Balraj Sahni and  
Dina Pathak. I remember him telling us how they used to stage street  
plays by pretending to be a pickpocket and a policeman quarrelling.  
The crowd which collected had no idea that this was just a play and  
by the time they found out and the real police arrived, the actors  
melted away. When the Communist Party of India was banned many IPTA  
members were jailed or went underground. From 1948-50, Habib was left  
with the responsibility of running the organization. After which the  
doctrinaire Ranadive line made it impossible to do anything  
worthwhile in theatre and the group became almost defunct.

In Bombay, Habib edited the English periodical of the Bombay Youth  
League, which he sold on the pavements of Bombay as well. One of his  
earliest assistants in this venture was the second person in my trio,  
my husband M.S. Sathyu. Sathyu ran away without completing his  
studies in Bangalore and landed in Bombay in 1951. The only two  
people he knew in Bombay were Khwaja Ahmed Abbas and Habib Tanvir,  
who also edited a film paper that Sathyu happened to come across in  
Bangalore. Sathyu sought out Habib and they became friends and shared  
a flat near Churchgate station. As IPTA had fallen apart and Habib’s  
attempts to become a filmstar weren’t leading anywhere he decided to  
leave Bombay.

In 1953 Habib and Sathyu left to teach drama and art respectively in  
a Montessori school in Delhi run by Mrs. Elizabeth Gauba. Indira  
Gandhi was a close friend and her two sons attended this school   
while Habib was there. Sathyu and Habib lived on the premises and  
became part of Mrs. Gauba’s family. She had a large circle of  
friends, including my mother Begum Qudsia Zaidi and Habib managed to  
enthuse her about forming a professional theatre group. My mother had  
grown up in Lahore and her brother-in-law Ahmed Shah Bokhari  
(Zulfiqar mamu’s brother) was one of the first people along with  
Imtiaz Ali Taj to stage modern plays for Government College, Lahore,  
where he taught English literature. She and Habib decided that they  
would start out by presenting adaptations of European classics as  
well as Sanskrit dramas which, apart from Shakuntala, were almost  
unknown in Hindi-Urdu theatre.

She set about translating a number of plays herself.

Meanwhile some friends in Jamia asked Habib to stage plays with a new  
group they had formed. In 1954 he wrote Agra Bazar which was staged  
by him with a group of villagers and amateur actors from Jamia. This  
was followed by a dramatization of Premchand’s Shatranj ke Mohre.  
Sathyu designed these plays and did the lighting as well, before  
going back to Bombay to work with Chetan Anand.

It was in the winter of 1954 that I met Habib who used to come and  
visit my parents. I was in the 9th standard in boarding school in  
Mussoorie, and was in Delhi for my winter holidays. And I developed a  
terrible crush on Habib about which he was faintly amused. I went  
back to school in spring and later in the year Habib left for England  
to study acting in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and later  
direction in the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. After many months of  
a study tour which took him all over Europe, he returned to India in  
1958. Of this time, eight months were spent studying the plays of the  
Berliner Ensemble, the theatre founded by Bertolt Brecht.

The influence of Brecht made him discard all that he had learnt in  
England. He took to heart Brecht’s dictum that theatre needs to be  
fun, like the music-hall or football. Some of the Brechtian concepts  
had already been tried out by him in his production of  Agra Bazar  
and Shatranj ke Mohre which were produced by the Okhla Theatre Group.  
But the example of the Berliner Ensemble inspired him to use song and  
dance as part of the theatrical style. Use of folk idiom had already  
become popular in Marathi and Gujarati plays staged by IPTA, but  
Hindi-Urdu theatre had no such experiments until Habib came along.

By this time my mother had set up the Hindustani Theatre, and two  
plays Shakuntala and Khalid ki Khala had been staged, both directed  
by Monica Misra. Habib now decided to stage a musical version of  
Shudrak’s Mrichchakatika as Mitti ki Gaadi (translated by my mother).  
While the script was being polished he went home to Raipur to visit  
his family. There he met a group of "nacha" style folk actors of  
Chhattisgarh and was so impressed with them that he brought them back  
to act in Mitti ki Gaadi along with a few Hindustani Theatre full- 
timers. For this production Sathyu had called the poet Niaz Haider  
from Bombay to write the lyrics. Habib had to bully and cajole Niaz  
Baba to produce anything in a time-bound manner. But the final script  
was quite marvellous. The play was a complete revolution for Delhi  
theatre goers. It was panned by the critics as an insult to a  
Sanskrit classic, but the audiences seemed to enjoy it.

Later, the most outspoken critic of the production, Suresh Awasthi,  
became a devotee of Habib’s new style of theatre. My mother had a  
terrible argument with Habib because of his use of folk actors. In a  
huff he left to form his own group. Monica Misra, who originally  
resented being upstaged by Habib, had by then fallen in love with  
him  and she also left Hindustani Theatre along with Habib. By then I  
had left for England and Germany to study stage and costume design.  
When I returned in 1961 my mother had died of a massive heart attack  
and the Hindustani Theatre Repertory Company had been disbanded.

Habib and Monica married and formed their own group, the Naya  
Theatre. The Naya Theatre included a large number of nacha actors  
from Chhattisgarh plus some enthusiastic urban acolytes of Habib.  
Another version of Agra Bazar was produced by him using this  
combination of urban and folk actors. For many years indulgent  
officials allowed Habib and Monica space in Delhi to house their  
troupe in a government colony and they put up many memorable  
productions.

While Habib and Monika were working out their ideas using folk  
elements and the nacha actors, Sathyu and I tried to keep the  
Hindustani Theatre going as an amateur group. Sathyu staged my  
mother’s translations of Brecht’s Chalk Circle and I decided to  
direct Mudrarakshas. Niaz Baba added the recitative verses and songs  
for these plays. But halfway through Mudrarakshas, he suddenly  
announced one day that he just had to go to Brindaban and we didn’t  
see him for four months. Habib then offered to complete the verses  
for the play. Many years later he used the same script for his own  
production of the Mudrarakshas. Habib continued his productions for  
Naya Theatre but we had to wind up the Hindustani Theatre and leave  
for Bombay.

Four years later I returned to Delhi in connection with the Ghalib  
Centenary celebrations in 1969. We commissioned a number of plays and  
other shows which were performed as part of the Ghalib festival,  
including a splendid play by Habib. For some reason the play was  
never repeated by him after that. Habib at first continued with his  
mix of urban and folk actors but then decided to shift to Bhopal and  
work only with his "nacha" actors.

Then we lost touch until 1974. Charandas Chor was staged by Habib as  
a short play for a workshop in Jaipur, after which Habib worked with  
me on a film-script for a film by Shyam Benegal, based on the same  
story for the Children’s Film Society. Habib later expanded the  
script into a full-length play, and along with Agra Bazar it is the  
play most people remember him for. Except for Smita Patil who played  
the princess all the other actors were "nacha" performers from  
Habib’s "Naya Theatre". Our cameraman Govind Nihalani would get  
exasperated with them because the dialogues and acting for each take  
was improvised and so did not match what had been shot earlier. The  
film was shot in the style of the old Keystone Cops and Chaplin films  
and is still quite amusing.

It was after Charandas Chor that Habib’s signature style was  
recognized all over the country. And, as someone has said, he became  
a legend in his own lifetime. One kept getting news of him from  
various people and read about his victimization by the Hindutva  
forces; his being forced out of the Repertory Company in Bhopal and  
the attempt to ban his staging of Ponga Pandit. One story he used to  
repeat with glee was his reply to the BJP minister Sikandar Bakht who  
advocated the cause of "Urdu theatre" during a seminar. Habib told  
him there was no such thing as a separate Hindi and Urdu theatre.  
They were the same. In any case, the minister himself knew nothing  
about theatre, what he did know was how to destroy old mosques and  
Habib was quite willing to give him a list of further mosques he  
could destroy.

After Monica passed away in 2003 Habib could not continue with the  
same vigour. But he still ate and breathed theatre till the last day  
of his life. The 2004 festival of many of his plays, staged at  
Prithvi Theatre, Mumbai, was like a swan song. We met a few times  
during this festival and he reminisced about Monika and the old days.  
Then a few months ago he came to Bombay for readings from his  
forthcoming memoirs. Mahmood Farooqui read a few excerpts as Habib  
was liable to get breathless, and Habib answered a few questions. His  
daughter Nagin tells us that he had just got to the Monica part of  
the memoirs before he went to the hospital, never to come back.


_____


[9] Announcements:


STAKE HOLDER FORUM
COUNTERING TALIBANIZATION: A WAY FORWARD

Tuesday, 23rd of June, 2009
3pm, at National Library
Constitution Avenue, Islamabad

The problem of Talibanization is much bigger than the crises of FATA  
and Swat. There continues to be elements in our political leadership,  
media, academia, civil administration and citizenry that support the  
discourse propagated by the Taliban. Thus, there is a pressing need  
for those who want to address this problem at its roots to articulate  
and propagate a progressive discourse and a long term strategy.
This forum will provide an opportunity for different stakeholders,  
political parties and representatives from the civil society and  
academia, together with those directly affected by the Taliban crisis  
to put their points of views forward. We would also screen a  
documentary on Waziristan by our colleague Farhat Taj.
Speakers:
Qamar Zaman Kaira, Minister of information
Senator Mian Raza Rabbani, Chairman: Parliamentary Committee on  
National Security
Afrasiab Khattak, ANP
Shmaila Rana, PML N
Amir Muqam, former federal minister
Afzal Khan Lala
Pervaiz Hoodbhoy Islamabad Quaid-e-Azam University
Khadim Hussain, Aryana Institute of Regional Research and Advocacy  
(AIRRA)
I A Rehman Human Rights Commission of Pakistan
Dr Said Alam Mehsud
Mukhtiar Bacha
Ziauddin Yousufzai
Prof. Mehdi Hassan, Beaconhouse University
Anis Haroon, Chairperson, National Commission on the Status of Women
Declaration by Fazal Maula
Press note by Idrees Kamal
Hosted by: Dr. Fouzia Saeed
The program is being organized under the umbrella of Amankaar Tehrik,  
a citizen's platform with chapters in every city. Mehergarh and AIRRA  
are the main organizers this event with other partners including  
Women Action Forum, Pakistan Workers Federation, Bedari, Bhandar Hari  
Sangat, and several other organizations and citizens joining from  
Islamabad and Peshawar. Other organizations include Pashtun  
Democratic Council (PDC), AIRRA, SAP-PK, Sarhad Chamber of Commerce  
and Industries SCCI. Anjumne Tajran, Tajir Ittehad, Hotels and Bakers  
Association, Labour Unions, Anjuman-e-Kashtkara n, Kissan Board,  
Anjumne Tarqi Passand Musannifeen, Alami Pukhtu Congress, Alami  
Pushtu Conference, PUTA ( Peshawar University Teachers  
Association) ,Tribal Development Forum TDF, Districts Bar, High Court  
Bar Association, Previous HCB, Students Unions, Students Societies,  
Leading NGOs, SNI, PNF, SPO, SUNGI, Aurat Foundation, Shirkat Gah,  
Khwendo Kor, , DIA, DR-NET, Humanitarian
Network, AWAZ, Doctors Forums, Lawyers Forum, Global Peace Council,  
Teachers Association Peshawar Press Club, Khyber Union of  
Journalists, Paramedical and clerk associations, Employees  
coordination Council, Pakistan Workers Confederation, Mutahida Labour  
Federation, ANP, PPPP, Pukhtoon Khwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP),  
National Party (Dr. Malik Baloch).
(Other groups who want to join in Pl contact us)
AIRRA: 051-2220168 khadim.2005@ gmail.com
Mehergarh: 051- 2252203 mehergarh at yahoo. com
For any further information, please contact:
1- Idrees kamal (0300-5862104)
2- Dr Fouzia Saeed (0300-8541929)
3- Fazal Maula (0342-2637724)
4- Ziaddin Yousufzai (0333-9502027
5- Khadim Hussain (0333-5568938)


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