SACW | July 20-21, 2009 / Sri Lanka: War refugee Camps / Bangladesh: Media Gag Threat / Kashmir Militarization With Impunity / India Govt money for Religion in Education / Agrarian Crisis, Mega-Dams

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | July 20-21, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2647 -  
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] Sri Lanka: War refugees kept in Sri Lanka "welfare camps"  (Al  
Jazeera Video)
    - UN Staff Union Expresses Concern At Continuing Detention and  
Harassment of Staff in Sri Lanka
    - Tamil Camps (Editorial,The New York Times)
    - IBAHRI alarmed by publication of lawyers’ names on Sri Lanka  
Ministry of Defence website
    - Justice in retreat: A report on the independence of the legal  
profession and the rule of law in Sri Lanka (IBAHRI)
[2] Bangladesh: Law suit mulled to gag media / The Daily Star,  
Prothom Alo bin Beximco allegations
      - Veteran leftist Hena Das passes away
[3] Pakistan court ruling on rights of transgender, transvestite and  
eunuch community (Basim Usmani)
[4] Militarization With Impunity - A Brief on Rape and Murder in  
Shopian (Int'l People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in  
Indian-administered Kashmir)
[5] India: Producing Priests [How Government Money is Promoting  
Religion in Educational Institutions] (Meera Nanda)
[6] Nooks / Book Reviews
     - Book Extract: Offence - the Hindu Case (Salil Tripathi)
     - Book review: India - Not So Fascinating World of Dalit- 
Hindutva Engagement (Subhash Gatade)
[7] India: Binayak Sen Interview - ‘Prison was a learning  
experience’ (Meera Prasad)
[8]  Miscellanea:
- The Great Himalayan Watershed - Agrarian Crisis, Mega-Dams and the  
Environment (Kenneth Pomeranz)
- "Abstinence Plus": Soothing to Parents, or Still Lying to Teens?  
(Amanda Marcotte)
- In God's name (Miklós Haraszti)

_____



[1]  Sri Lanka:


WAR REFUGEES KEPT IN SRI LANKA "WELFARE CAMPS"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8KZ09rsveQ

UN STAFF UNION EXPRESSES CONCERN AT CONTINUING DETENTION AND  
HARASSMENT OF STAFF IN SRI LANKA
http://www.innercitypress.com/unsu1sri071009.pdf


The New York Times, July 15, 2009

Editorial

TAMIL CAMPS

More than two months after declaring victory over Tamil Tiger  
guerillas, Sri Lanka’s government is continuing to hold hundreds of  
thousands of displaced Tamil civilians in what it calls “welfare  
villages,” but what increasingly look like military internment camps.

The civilians, many of whom were held hostage by the guerrillas in  
the bloody last stage of the long war, are not being allowed out of  
the camps, and access by human-rights organizations or journalists is  
highly restricted.

The government claims it is looking for Tamil Tigers among the  
refugees and clearing Tamil villages of landmines before letting  
people return. It may well be that there are former guerrillas hiding  
among the civilians — the Tamil Tigers had no compunctions about  
using civilians as cannon fodder or forcibly conscripting men and  
children. But the screening process is dragging on far too long. And  
many refugees see it as another abuse of the country’s Tamil  
minority. As one prominent Tamil politician told The New York Times’s  
Lydia Polgreen, “This is simply asking for another conflict later on  
down the road.” If President Mahinda Rajapaksa means it when he says  
he seeks reconciliation with the Tamils, he should start by letting  
these people return to their homes.

The government’s strict control on visits to the camps has also  
raised suspicions that it may be trying to block any investigation  
into possible government abuses committed in the last months of the  
war. Soldiers corralled the Tigers, along with hundreds of thousands  
of civilians into a narrow stretch of beach and, according to human- 
rights organizations, shelled the area repeatedly. The United Nations  
says that thousands of civilians were killed, though how and by whom  
remains murky in the absence of independent investigations.

Donor countries — including the United States, the European Union and  
Japan — as well as international aid organizations are helping  
provide food, shelter and clothing to the camps. Most have kept quiet  
so far about the Tamils’ plight, evidently fearful that criticizing  
conditions in the camps could get them thrown out of the camps. The  
time for silence is over. The best way to help the Tamils is by  
demanding their freedom and an end to their long ordeal.


o o o

14 July 2009

IBAHRI ALARMED BY PUBLICATION OF LAWYERS’ NAMES ON SRI LANKA MINISTRY  
OF DEFENCE WEBSITE

The International Bar Association Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) is  
alarmed by the recent publication of the article ‘Traitors in black  
coats flocked together?’ on the website of the Sri Lankan Ministry of  
Defence, Public Security, Law and Order. The article implies that  
lawyers defending the Sunday Leader newspaper in a defamation and  
connected contempt of court case brought by the Ministry of Defence  
are ‘unpatriotic’ and ‘traitors of the nation’. The article also  
includes photographs of the lawyers concerned.

In the context of the sensitivities surrounding the ending of the  
conflict with the LTTE and the threats currently being faced by  
lawyers taking politically sensitive cases, the IBAHRI considers this  
rhetoric to be deeply inappropriate and to seriously compromise the  
physical safety of the lawyers named.

The recently published IBAHRI report, Justice in Retreat, expressed  
serious concern at the publication of similar material by the  
Ministry of Defence in the article ‘Who are the Human Rights  
Violators?’ which implies that certain named lawyers representing  
terrorism suspects are themselves connected with terrorist activity.

Lord Goodhart, who led the IBAHRI fact-finding mission to Sri Lanka,  
said, ‘The delegation was assured by the government officials it met  
with in Colombo that the “Who are the Human Rights Violators” article  
would be removed from the website. It is therefore extremely  
disappointing to see that not only has this not been done, but that  
the Ministry of Defence continues to publish articles which leave  
lawyers open to an increased threat of attack’.

‘Governments are required by international law to protect and promote  
the independence of lawyers and to ensure that they are able to  
perform their professional functions without intimidation or  
harassment’, said Justice Richard Goldstone, IBAHRI Co-Chair. ‘The  
IBAHRI urges the Sri Lankan Ministry of Defence to refrain from  
publishing any potentially inflammatory rhetoric against lawyers and  
to withdraw both the “Who are the Human Rights Violators?” and the  
“Traitors in black coats?” articles immediately.’

ENDS

For further information please contact:

Romana St. Matthew - Daniel
International Bar Association
Press Office, 10th Floor, 1 Stephen Street, London W1T 1AT, United  
Kingdom

o o o

[See Also]

JUSTICE IN RETREAT
A report on the independence of the legal profession and the rule of  
law in Sri Lanka.  May 2009 (IBRAHI)
PDF - 2.2 Mb
http://www.sacw.net/article1029.html


_____


[2] Bangladesh:


The Daily Star, July 21, 2009

LAW SUIT MULLED TO GAG MEDIA
Court Correspondent

Vice-chairman of Beximco group of companies Salman F Rahman said  
yesterday he is going to file cases against The Daily Star and the  
Prothom Alo for running news reports against his companies.

Replying to questions at a press briefing in the city yesterday,  
Salman said he is in the process of suing the two newspapers. “Our  
lawyers are studying the issue. We will file cases not just to show- 
off. We will fight the case vigorously and win,” he said.

In the past, both newspapers were repeatedly subjected to harassment  
in the name of litigation for carrying out journalistic  
responsibilities professionally and ethically.

Some of those who had earlier filed cases against The Daily Star and  
the Prothom Alo are BNP Secretary General Khondaker Delwar Hossain,  
Salauddin Qader Chowdhury, parliamentary affairs adviser to the then  
prime minister Khaleda Zia, former energy adviser Mahmudur Rahman,  
former housing and public works minister Mirza Abbas and former BNP  
lawmaker Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu.

They had filed 16 defamation cases and civil cases against The Daily  
Star Editor and Publisher Mahfuz Anam, Prothom Alo Editor and  
Publisher Motiur Rahman and several other senior journalists for news  
items concerning them on different dates.

On April 2 in 2006, Delwar filed a defamation case with the Chief  
Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in Dhaka against Mahfuz Anam, Motiur  
Rahman and two others for news reports about him.

On February 6 in 2007, Mahmudur Rahman filed a defamation case with  
the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court in Dhaka against the editor  
and five senior journalists of The Daily Star for news items  
concerning him.

He also filed a damages suit on March 12 the same year against the  
same persons with the Fourth Joint District Judge's Court claiming Tk  
25 crore as compensation for a report relating to him.

Moreover, former BNP lawmaker from Khagrachhari Abdul Wadud Bhuiyan  
filed 19 defamation cases in a day against the Prothom Alo editor and  
publisher, and its local correspondent.

On June 11 in 2003, Salauddin Quader Chowdhury filed a defamation  
case against Mahfuz Anam, Motiur Rahman and Awami League General  
Secretary Abdul Jalil for a report about him.

Mirza Abbas and Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu filed five defamation cases  
against Mahfuz Anam, Motiur Rahman and several other journalists for  
news items on different dates during the BNP-led alliance rule.

Besides, Khamba Ltd, a private firm, a Jamaat leader and a Jatiya  
Party leader filed separate defamation and civil suits for news  
reports on different dates.

Former additional attorney general Abdul Wadud Khondaker (late) filed  
a defamation case against Mahfuz Anam for a news item.

o o o

THE DAILY STAR, PROTHOM ALO BIN BEXIMCO ALLEGATIONS
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=97849


o o o

The Daily Star, July 21, 2009

VETERAN LEFTIST HENA DAS PASSES AWAY
Staff Correspondent

Eminent leader of women rights and leftist movement Hena Das died at  
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) yesterday morning  
at the age of 85.

She had been suffering from old age complications and breathed her  
last at 11:30am.

Her body is kept at the BSMMU mortuary. The funeral may take place on  
Thursday after the arrival of her younger daughter from Germany on  
Wednesday.

She will be taken to the offices of Communist Party of Bangladesh  
(CPB), Bangladesh Mahila Parishad and Teachers Association on  
Thursday. Then, she will be taken to the Central Shaheed Minar  
premises at 12 o'clock where people will get the opportunity to pay  
their last tribute to the selfless leader.

She will be cremated in Narayanganj, said CPB leaders.

Hena Das was admitted to the city's Labaid Hospital Friday morning  
soon after she had lost consciousness at her residence inside the  
Buet quarters. She was shifted to BSMMU Sunday afternoon.

Leaders and activists of CPB and different rights organisations  
thronged the BSMMU at the news of her death.

"She was a valiant lady and took part in different movements  
including the language movement and liberation war," said CPB General  
Secretary Mujahidul Islam Selim, adding that she also contributed a  
lot in teachers' movement and women rights movement.

She also played a significant role in cultural movement and her  
dedication and activities will remain a source of inspiration for  
all, he added.

Hena Das fought for building a humanitarian society throughout her  
life and also worked hard for the cause of women's rights, said  
Bangladesh Mahila Parishad President Ayesha Khanam. She was the vice  
president of the first committee of Mahila Parishad and served as its  
president for long eight years after the demise of Begum Sufia Kamal.

"Hena Das is one of the persons whose sacrifice, devotion and  
activities inspired me in politics," said Agriculture Minister Matia  
Chowdhury while visiting the leader at BSMMU. She never compromised  
with her ideology and she was a rare person, Matia added.

Hena Das was born in Sylhet on February 12, 1924. The anti-British  
movement influenced her while she was a class-VII student. In 1938,  
she joined progressive students' organisation, Students' Federation.

She earned membership of Communist Party in 1942 and married  
Communist leader Rohinee Das in 1948.

She organised women during the Nankar Movement in 1948-49 and later  
organised female tea garden workers for trade union to realise their  
rights.

She came to Dhaka and took up teaching in 1958. She served as  
headmaster of a non-government school in Narayanganj. She joined the  
Liberation War in 1971 and distributed relief among the refugees who  
took shelter in India.

She got involved with the Teachers' Association in 1978 and was the  
elected general secretary and vice president for long 14 years. She  
was one of the members of the first education commission headed by Dr  
Qudrat-e-Khuda.

She got many awards. In 2001, she received the national award--Begum  
Rokeya Padak.

She authored a number of books that include Amar Shikkha O  
Shikkhokota Jibon, Sritimoy Dingulo, Smritimoy Ekattor, Pancham  
Purush and Char Purusher Kahini.

_____


[3] Pakistan:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/18/pakistan- 
transgender-hijra-third-sex
The Guardian
18 July 2009

PAKISTAN TO REGISTER 'THIRD SEX' HIJRAS

A court ruling follows a bid to improve life for Pakistan's  
impoverished transgender, transvestite and eunuch community

by Basim Usmani


Pakistan's supreme court recently ruled that all hijras, the Urdu  
catch-all term for its transvestite, transgender and eunuch  
community, will be registered by the government as part of a survey  
that aims to integrate them further into society. The ruling followed  
a petition by Islamic jurist Dr Mohammad Aslam Khaki, who said the  
purpose was to "save them from a life of shame".

Khaki's petition was prompted by a police raid on a hijra colony in  
Taxila, an ancient city filled with some of the oldest Buddhist ruins  
in Pakistan. Two of the three judges on the bench that ruled in  
favour if the hijra petition, chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad  
Chaudhry and Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry, were under house arrest for the  
better part of the past three years. This, coupled with the  
clobbering the police gave the lawyers during their demonstrations  
against the suspension of the judiciary in 2007, makes it easy to  
regard the hijra ruling as being directed against the police.

Outside the affluent areas of Lahore, police are known to arrest and  
shake down members of the urban working and begging classes; and many  
police working at busy intersections have bad relations with the  
"genderqueer".

But that doesn't mean the current judiciary stands for greater gender  
equity either. Last May, one of the judges that also sat on the bench  
for the hijra ruling, Ijaz Chaudhry, banned the popular songstress  
Naseebo Lal from being played on the radio for singing vulgar songs.

Still, the ruling has brought hijras further into the public eye.  
They held their first protest outside the Lahore Press Club a week  
after the ruling. On 26 June, hundreds from around Pakistan gathered  
outside the club holding up placards with the verse "Who am I?" by  
Punjab's most beloved poet, Bulleh Shah. The gathering was to laud  
the colossal effort it must have taken for the supreme court to  
acknowledge their existence, and to hopefully inform the public about  
the impoverished, and desperate conditions that they live in.

Boys who grow up genderqueer in Pakistan are often abandoned by  
families and left to fend for themselves during early adolescence.  
Most hijra colonies could be described as matriarchies, with a clear  
leader, referred to as the guru. Some hijras remain on the colonies,  
others go out to dance, collect alms or entertain city dwellers for  
money, which is given to the guru who ensures their food and lodging.  
There are other boys, referred to as pakhi was (gypsies), who live on  
the banks of the Ravi river in tent colonies and also dress up as  
women to earn money singing and dancing in public. But pakhi was  
dress like this to earn more money and attention, not because of  
their sexuality.

In a culture with strict gender codes, those who bend the rules  
choose to dress as hijras for many reasons. The government survey  
will have to decided whether or not to recognise the distinctions  
between hijras, street performers and even prostitutes.

This survey is also likely to be lacklustre in its execution.  
Previous government attempts to survey or register the working and  
begging classes have been ineffectual, at best. After securing a 150  
rupee daily wage for labourers, the labour secretary in Lahore  
admitted that only a fraction of the labourers working in the city  
were registered. Despite a so-called guarantee by the government to  
keep the poor from starving to death, people are still starving to  
death. Without a real follow-through on the part of local districts  
of major cities and towns, any government surveys will remain unhelpful.

The move to recognise hijras has perhaps been part of a spillover  
from India's efforts to recognise its own hijras following a stunt  
last April when three hijras applied to run for office to raise  
awareness about the "third sex issue". As a result, hijras can now  
give their gender as "E" for eunuch on their passports and government  
forms.

One thing is for sure, though. To change the attitude towards  
sexuality and gender in the country, it will take much more than  
rulings by the courts, or surveys by the government.


_____


[4] India:


International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian- 
administered Kashmir
(IPTK)


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JULY 19, 2009

MILITARIZATION WITH IMPUNITY:
A Brief on Rape and Murder in Shopian, Kashmir

@ http://www.kashmirprocess.org/shopian


From
Dr. Angana Chatterji, Convener IPTK and Professor, Anthropology,  
California Institute of Integral Studies
Advocate Parvez Imroz, Convener IPTK and Founder, Jammu and Kashmir  
Coalition of Civil Society
Gautam Navlakha, Convener IPTK and Editorial Consultant, Economic and  
Political Weekly
Zahir-Ud-Din, Convener IPTK and Vice-President, Jammu and Kashmir  
Coalition of Civil Society
Advocate Mihir Desai, Legal Counsel IPTK and Lawyer, Mumbai High  
Court and Supreme Court of India
Khurram Parvez, Liaison IPTK and Programme Coordinator, Jammu and  
Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society

Contact
Khurram Parvez
E-mail: kparvez at kashmirprocess.org
T: +91-194-2482820
M: +91-9419013553


Enclosed, please find our brief on the events and investigative  
process in Shopian, Kashmir, connected to the brutalization and death  
of Asiya Jan and Neelofar Jan in end May 2009, in which the state  
security forces have been implicated.

While investigations have emphasized the procedural conduct of the  
police in their handling of the investigation, they failed to focus  
on the actual crimes that were committed, or the conduct of state  
institutions. The investigations in Shopian have not focused on the  
identification and prosecution of perpetrators or on addressing  
structural realities of militarization in Kashmir that foster and  
perpetuate gendered and sexualized violences, and undermine rule of  
law and justice. The investigations have instead concentrated on  
locating 'collaborators' and manufacturing scapegoats to subdue  
public outcry. 'Control' rather than 'justice' has organized the  
focus of the state apparatus, including all processes related to  
civic, criminal, and judicial matters.

What is the 'truth' of the matter, who are in the know, and what is  
being shielded?

We were compelled to write this brief to mark the inability of the  
state apparatus to deliver justice. We urge civil society  
institutions and international human rights groups and those working  
with issues of social justice to seek accountability.

In writing this, we have visited, and been in contact with, the  
family of Asiya Jan and Neelofar Jan, and civil society leaders and  
organizations in Shopian, and in Srinagar. We are grateful for the  
collegiality extended us, and especially to those that placed  
themselves at risk to offer us insight.

Please find the brief enclosed as a PDF document. As well, it is  
available at:
http://www.kashmirprocess.org/shopian


_____


[5] India: How Government Funded Educational Institutions Are  
Promoting Religion in India

Frontline, July 04-17, 2009

PRODUCING PRIESTS

by Meera Nanda

Several deemed universities serve as crucial links in the supply of  
retailers of Hindu rituals, feeding a demand fuelled by material  
prosperity.

[Photo: http://www.flonnet.com/fl2614/images/20090717261403101.jpg]  
Shanker Chakravarty
[Caption] Students who secured the Degree of Vidyavaridhi (PhD) at  
the first convocation of the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan in New  
Delhi, deemed to be a university in May 2002, on June 29, 2005.

WHAT is good for the market is proving to be good for the gods in  
India. The more material acquisitions the middle classes make, the  
more pujas and homas they feel compelled to perform. Every vahan  
(vehicle) must have its puja, as must every tiny plot of bhoomi  
(land) before anything can be built upon it. Every puja, in turn,  
must have an astrologer or two and a vastu shastri, too. And then,  
every astrologer and vastu shastri worth his/her name must know how  
to work a computer, speak in English, and be “scientific” about it all.

Watching India’s thriving god market, one cannot help asking a simple  
question: where are all these seemingly modern pujaris, astrologers,  
vastu shastris and other retailers of rituals coming from? How does  
the supply of ritualists keep pace with the bottomless demand 21st  
century-Hindus have for religious rituals of all kinds?

Deemed universities have always served as crucial links in the supply  
chain that runs from traditional gurukuls and Vedic pathshalas to the  
homes, temples, offices, shops and even corporate boardrooms of the  
middle classes in India, going all the way to NRIs. The diplomas and  
degrees conferred by these universities, the majority of which are  
funded by taxpayers’ money, are actively “modernising” Hindu  
priestcraft and turning it into an economically comfortable middle- 
class occupation.

The University Grants Commission’s (UGC) infamous decision in 2001 to  
introduce jyotir vigyan and karma kanda into post-secondary education  
breathed a new life into the already existing Sanskrit institutions  
which had been deemed to be universities. In addition, the Bharatiya  
Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance government  
created a new network of deemed universities which continue to  
provide direct and indirect support for training Hindu ritualists.  
Even if the BJP were to stay in political wilderness for years to  
come, its objective of promoting traditional Hindu sciences will be  
well taken care of by the institutional infrastructure it put in  
place when it was in power.

When the UGC in 2001 decided to introduce astrology courses in higher  
education, three national-level institutions well known for their  
jyotish and karma-kanda courses had already been deemed as  
universities. They are: Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit  
Vidyapeeth in New Delhi, Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth at Tirupati,  
and Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya in Haridwar.

These institutions specialise in shastric learning, which includes  
advanced courses in jyotish, purohitya and yoga, both as a part of  
the regular course of study in Ved-Vedang and for special diplomas  
and certificates. They saw considerable expansion after the UGC (and  
later the Supreme Court) gave the green light to astrology. Shri Lal  
Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth, for example, bought  
new equipment for its Department of Jyotish and set up a horoscope  
bank during the Tenth Five-Year Plan period (2002-07). It also  
expanded its reach by starting part-time diploma and certificate  
courses for astrology and purohitya. But this was only the tip of the  
iceberg.

In May 2002, the New Delhi-based Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan (RSS)  
was deemed to be a university. This old and venerable institution  
(founded 1970), which for so long had taken care of old Sanskrit  
manuscripts and Sanskrit scholars, was given the authority to create  
new syllabi, offer new courses and confer degrees.

All 10 of its campuses (in Allahabad, Puri, Jammu, Trichur, Jaipur,  
Lucknow, Sringeri, Garli, Bhopal, Mumbai) are deemed as universities,  
meaning that each one of them is authorised to design new courses  
(within the already permissive UGC guidelines) and hand out degrees  
and diplomas. The Sansthan serves as the nodal body that coordinates  
all the various campuses, along with the activities of the two  
vidyapeeths in New Delhi and Tirupati mentioned above. It is a part  
of its mandate to give out grants and financial aid to non- 
governmental gurukuls and Vedic pathshalas. It also grants stipends  
and scholarships for vocational courses in jyotish and karma kanda  
meant to improve the employability of those with Sanskrit degrees.

To round up the story so far, mention must also be made of two  
institutions recently deemed to be “yoga universities” that are not  
directly involved in jyotish and karma kanda but are still relevant  
to maintaining an adequate supply of priests.

They are Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana (SVYAS) in  
Bangalore, which was recognised by the UGC in 2001, and Bihar Yoga  
Bharati in Fort Munger, Bihar, which became a deemed university in 2000.

There are two more strands in this tangled web of priest-training  
institutions:

The Central government funds the Ujjain-based Maharishi Sandipani  
Rashtriya Veda Vidya Pratisthan, which acts as an accrediting and  
funding agency for non-governmental Vedic pathshalas and gurukuls  
that are cropping up all over the country. This agency is supposed to  
set the standards for gurukuls and conduct examinations for budding  
pujaris. Recognition from this agency has become a selling point for  
gurukuls.

The State-level UGC-approved universities, over and above the deemed  
universities mentioned earlier, form a category that includes well- 
known universities such as Mahesh Yogi’s university in Madhya Pradesh  
or the Kavi Kulguru Kalidas Sanskrit University in Ramtek,  
Maharashtra. These institutions do not have the status of university  
conferred upon them later by the UGC, but were established as full- 
fledged universities by their respective State legislatures and later  
granted recognition by the UGC.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Vedic Vishwavidyalaya was established by a  
unanimous vote of the Madhya Pradesh State Legislature under Congress  
Chief Minister Digvijay Singh in 1995. This was done to honour Mahesh  
Yogi as a native son of Madhya Pradesh. This institution has become  
one of the best-known sources of advanced degrees (including PhDs) in  
all kinds of Vedic sciences. Many of its graduates have gone on to  
establish profitable businesses and/or academies as vastu shastris,  
astrologers, gemmologists, and so on.

These State-level, UGC-recognised universities and yoga universities  
serve as finishing schools for smaller, less well-endowed gurukuls  
and Vedic pathshalas that are cropping up all over the country. Many  
of these priest-schools take in young indigent boys (girls are not  
allowed) and train them in traditional karma kanda. But since they do  
not have the authority to confer academic degrees, they channel their  
students into any of the deemed or accredited State universities that  
specialise in yogic or Vedic sciences – loosely defined to include  
everything from astrology to yoga. This improves the marketability of  
their students as pujaris and other ritualists in India or abroad.

It is true that Sanskrit education is deeply intertwined with the  
ritualistic aspects of Hinduism and the two are often hard to tease  
apart: learning to perform a yagna or a puja is only the practical,  
hands-on aspect of mastering Yajurveda for a degree in Sanskrit. But  
rather than try to draw lines between teaching the religious  
literature written in Sanskrit and teaching rituals, the Indian  
educational establishment has gone the other way: it is using the  
cover of teaching Sanskrit and Hindu philosophy to use public money  
and resources to promote Hindu rituals.

Can India really call itself a secular republic when it pours public  
resources into promoting the majority religion through deemed  
universities?

Meera Nanda’s new book, The God Market: How Globalization is Making  
India More Hindu, will be published in August by Random House.

_____


[6] BOOKS / BOOK REVIEWS:

(i)

http://interjunction.org/article/fighting-for-the-soul-of-rama/

FIGHTING FOR THE SOUL OF RAMA

By Editor on July 20, 2009 4:41 pm

The Hindu nationalist insistence on a single, authoritative version  
of the Ramayana contravenes the central tenet of Hinduism. In this  
edited extract from his new book, Offence: the Hindu Case (Seagull  
Press: Calcutta/London/New York, 2009), Salil Tripathi argues the  
historical and political case for defending the plurality of Hinduism.

”THE CURIOUS FACT is that as we move into the 21st century,  
historians have become central to politics. We historians are the  
monopoly suppliers of the past. The only way to modify the past that  
does not sooner or later go through historians is by destroying the  
past. Mythology is taking over from knowledge.”

—Eric Hobsbawm in “Politics, Memory and the Revisions of History in  
the Twenty-first Century,” lecture delivered at Columbia University,  
2003.

If history represents collective memory, and if it is to be objective  
and not written by victors, it becomes important to guard its  
sanctity. After artists like Maqbul Fida Husain, the Hindu  
nationalists’ prime target is Indian history. In late February 2008,  
a group of Hindus stormed into the history department of the  
University of Delhi, breaking windows and causing general mayhem.  
They belonged to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (All India  
Students’ Council), the student wing of the BJP. They were angry  
because the professors had directed students to read an essay on the  
Ramayana that they considered ‘blasphemous.’

The essay, “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts  
on Translation,” by the distinguished poet A. K. Ramanujan, a  
Macarthur Genius Fellow who died in 1993 in the US where he taught at  
the University of Chicago, marvels at the sheer diversity and range  
of the epic Ramayana, and recounts many of the unusual and alternate  
renderings of the myth, pointing out the vibrant plurality in  
religion and literature. The head of the history department, a quiet  
academic called Saiyid Zaheer Hussain Jafri, is, as his name  
suggests, a Muslim. The professor who reportedly assigned the essay  
is Upinder Singh, who happens to be Sikh and the daughter of India’s  
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. This particular combination gave the  
nationalists further ammunition.

The conventional Ramayana narrative is complicated enough. Most  
interpretations tell a story with which many Indians, Hindu or not,  
are familiar. But as you travel through the length and breadth of the  
vast Indian nation, the stories change, sometimes subtly, sometimes  
quite drastically, and no one singular view prevails. Ramanujan’s  
essay irritated Hindu activists precisely because it showed that  
there is no one, unique rendering or interpretation of the Ramayana.  
Not surprisingly, the student activists called it “malicious,  
capricious, fallacious, and offensive to the beliefs of millions of  
Hindus.”

But to silence a voice that says that there are many versions of  
Ramayana is not only an act of crude censorship and an attack on  
Hindu intellect, it also goes against the central tenet of Hinduism.  
The doyen of Indian history, Romila Thapar, herself a target of  
vicious attacks by Hindu nationalists, has shown how the Ramayana’s  
many versions embed stories reflecting social aspirations and  
ideological concerns of each group that propounded a different  
version. The Hindu nationalists’ challenge to the diversity of voices  
is more a political proposition than a religious assertion.

And how diverse those narratives are—not only across India, but as  
far away as Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos where  
they vary even more widely than in India. These multiple narratives  
interfere with the master version of a strong, virile, masculine and  
martial lord/warrior-king—like the image now reinforced by Virgin  
Comics in India which casts him as a muscular, Superman-like hero in  
Ramayana 3392 AD—that the BJP wants to project in India.

There is political purpose behind depicting Rama as a soldier, and  
not as maryada purushottam (the ideal man who knows his own and  
society’s limits, and who will sacrifice his interests for others).  
And that is to inject militancy into the Hindus, who, the BJP  
believes, have been made to feel like second-class citizens in their  
own country.

Feminist scholars are indeed appalled by the Ramayana’s overt  
masculinity. But they have also found in Sita a cliché-ridden  
representation of femininity, a docile woman willing to be led  
wherever her husband takes her and unquestioningly accepting her  
fate, including cruel punishments and chastity tests. Gauri Parimoo  
Krishnan notes: “Valmiki’s Ramayana has been wrongly ascribed  
canonical status, giving rise to a sort of patriarchal, literate, pan- 
Indian elitism which in recent times has been scorned.” In the Indian  
feminist magazine, Manushi, Nabaneeta Dev Sen and Madhu Kishwar have  
written powerful critiques of the masculine interpretation of the  
Ramayana.

A survey of Hindu epics may suggest that Hindu gods don’t claim to be  
morally perfect; they do practise subterfuge and trickery. In an  
uncertain universe, we often have to act in ways that seem morally  
impure in order to achieve a higher end. That, indeed, is the message  
of the Mahabharata. On the other hand, the Ramayana aims to show how  
it is possible to lead a morally pure life. Rama’s heroism is not  
simply based on his battlefield skills but also on his ability to  
place the interests of others—and his own sense of obligation—above  
his own.

Such sacrificial acts are passé; the BJP wants to project Rama as a  
superman. However, elevating him over other gods makes Hinduism seem  
monotheistic, a bit less like itself and a bit more like Islam or  
Christianity. The late Morarji Desai, a former prime minister,  
astutely noted this point in a conversation with me in the  
late-1980s, when the BJP was still only beginning to embark on what  
then seemed like a quixotic campaign—to reclaim the site of the Babri  
Masjid. “They are playing a dangerous game,” he told me. “They want  
to create a cult of Rama. They are converting Hinduism into Islam— 
they are making Hinduism a religion with one book (Ramayana), one  
place of worship (Ayodhya) and one God (Rama). That is not Hinduism.  
Hinduism is about plurality.”

Edited extract reproduced with permission from Seagull Books.  
Offence: The Hindu Case will be available in bookstores from August,  
2009. It is published by Seagull Books (Calcutta/London/New York) and  
distributed worldwide by the University of Chicago Press. The book is  
available for pre-order from Amazon in the UK and US.

Salil Tripathi is a writer based in London. He has written frequently  
for a range of publications, including Wall Street Journal,  
International Herald Tribune, Guardian, Index on Censorship,  
Washington Post and Salon. He is also a columnist for Mint and a  
writer-at-large for Tehelka. Salil serves on the board of English  
PEN, and has been a senior visiting fellow at the Kennedy School,  
Harvard University.

Email Salil at salil61 at hotmail.com and visit his blog at http:// 
saliltripathi.wordpress.com/

o o o


(ii) Book review: India - Fanatic Dalits, Empowered Dalits ?

NOT SO FASCINATING WORLD OF DALIT-HINDUTVA ENGAGEMENT
by Subhash Gatade
http://www.sacw.net/article1023.html

While it is easy to comprehend dalit assertion on autonomous lines,  
connecting it to the glorious tradition of cultural revolts led by  
the likes of Phule, Jyothee Thass, Periyar, Ambedkar and others, one  
is normally baffled by a section of the dalits cooption by the  
Hindutva forces and their becoming stormtroopers for its hate agenda.

The book under discussion by Mr Badri Narayan titled ’Fascinating  
Hindutva : Saffron Politics and Dalit Mobilisation’ (Sage, 2009) in  
fact tries to unravel this dynamics of dalit identity to ’deconstruct  
the tactics used by the Hindutva forces to politically mobilise  
Dalits’ to its side. The articles collated in this volume -a few of  
which have appeared in different journals/magazines- are mainly based  
on the original empirical data collected by the writer through his  
extensive field trips to UP and Bihar, wherein he has looked at the  
recent goings on in individual marginal communities and the manner in  
which politics of identity is being played out in these communities  
at the behest of political forces on the right namely Hindutva  
forces. The writer has focussed his attention on mainly four dalit  
castes Pasi, Nishads, Musahars and Dusadhs and their clever  
manipulation by the RSS-BJP.

[Book under review: ’Fascinating Hindutva : Saffron politics and  
dalit mobilisation,’ Badri Narayan, 2009, Sage, pages 195]

_____


[7]  Binayak Sen Interview:

Magazine Section / The Hindu
19 July 2009

FACE TO FACE

‘Prison was a learning experience’

by Meera Prasad

Unjustly imprisoned by the Chattisgarh State and now out on bail,  
doctor and activist Dr. Binayak Sen talks of the horrors of prison  
and what lies ahead. Excerpts from a conversation...

Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury

Battling trauma: Dr. Binayak Sen soon after his release.

Dr Binayak Sen came out of prison with a new cause: to highlight the  
abysmal condition of prisons and the state of the prisoners  
languishing in jails. He says, “It’s far worse in there than what  
people think. Prisons get little or no publ ic attention and the  
prisoners remain a forsaken lot.”

His health took a severe beating when he was in detention for two  
years. So he was at the Christian Medical College (CMC) hospital in  
Vellore recently for medical examination. When I met him in Vellore,  
he remembered his time in prison and spoke of the road ahead.

Dr. Sen is a renowned doctor and activist committed to community  
health and human rights. At the time of his arrest, he was the  
national vice-president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties  
(PUCL) and the general secretary of the Chhattisgarh PUCL unit.

He sees his prison time as a “huge learning experience”. Thrown into  
a cell with those serving life sentences for murders and other  
heinous crimes, he learned first-hand about the deplorable conditions  
and the sub-human lives prisoners led.

Dr Sen was arrested and sent to the Raipur jail in May 2007 by the  
Chhattisgarh State on trumped up charges because he exposed  
government oppression of the tribals. He was labelled a “Maoist” by  
the state. The Supreme Court granted him bail on May 25 this year,  
and he was released from jail.

Nearly two months after his release, he is still battling the trauma  
of his jail term and gets very emotional when he remembers his prison  
mates with whom he developed “close friendships”. “The jail officials  
strip the prisoners of their dignity,” he says. “They are treated  
like cattle, identified only by the numbers allotted to them.

Dr. Sen is now enjoying quality time with his family — wife Ilina and  
daughters Pranhita and Aparajita. He is proud of his wife, a  
professor in women’s studies, who spearheaded the campaign for his  
release and turned the spotlight on his case, even as she ran the  
home and saw to their children’s needs.

Touched by the global outcry against his detention and the support  
that poured in, Dr. Sen says he is now experiencing the healing that  
only the warmth of loved ones can bring not just family, but also the  
hordes of friends and well-wishers. He is overwhelmed by the  
affection he has received from his alma mater, CMC-Vellore, during  
his ordeal and after. Excerpts from the conversation:

Has the prison experience robbed you of your motivation to continue  
with the good work you started nearly two decades ago among poor  
tribals?

The jail term was a dark phase. I had lost all hope of being  
released. My wife would ask me to remain optimistic during her weekly  
visits. She would brief me on the movement outside for my release.  
Her faith in a solution helped me hold on. I was also completely  
disappointed. This was the jail I walked in and out of as a doctor to  
treat the inmates, and there I was behind bars. I had never imagined  
that would happen. It was a setback but I will pick up the threads  
from where I left off and continue my work among the really poor  
people of the region.

Were there uplifting moments in lockup?

It has to be the love and concern of my prison mates. Their  
gentleness and sensitivity were amazing. They saw me as different  
from them and encouraged me as they watched the news clippings on TV  
and discussed aspects of my case. In my ward, which was barely a  
10’x10’ space, there were 18 prisoners, all of them serving life- 
terms for murders and other serious crimes. Each had a concrete slab  
that was our bed and we were provided a blanket. Nothing else. My  
ward mates would give me their blankets to use as a mattress while  
they slept on the hard concrete without a cover.

We spent time talking and sharing. I also read a lot. We talked about  
ourselves but no one would delve into the other’s past. In our  
fellowship the past was never the focus. We accepted each other as we  
were.

I am convinced that many of those serving life sentences would not be  
rotting in jails if the laws were more sensitive and cases put on the  
fast track. Our judicial procedure is besieged with delays and  
lawyers are part of the problem.

What gives you nightmares still?

Many memories. After the wake-up call at 5.30 a.m. we were herded  
into a courtyard and counted like cattle to make sure none had  
escaped. There would be a recount every few hours. The prisoners were  
treated with contempt. I have seen fellow inmates flogged by the  
officials and the scale of the torture will always haunt me. Nobody  
dares to question the authorities and their actions are never given  
reasons. Nobody knew why I was sent into solitary confinement one day  
and brought back to the ward a month later. I was not given  
preferential treatment, but I was never beaten up or singled out for  
any form of ill-treatment. I remember one instance when I was  
sweeping the corridors, an official took the broom away from me  
saying that was not my job.

Again, suicides are a matter of grave concern and the suicide rate is  
quite unnerving in the jails.

Your future plans?

I am not yet free completely. However, I will go back to Rupantar,  
our NGO, and resume my weekly clinics in the tribal areas. My  
priorities will remain the rights of the poor and their quality of  
life. But first, I will lobby for prison reforms.

Meera Prasad is a freelancer based in Mumbai.


_____


[8] India: Dams

The Hindu, July 21, 2009

A dam and some critical questions

by V.R. Krishna Iyer

Mullaperiyar is a classic instance where the precautionary principle  
of action cannot wait for a public calamity to happen.
http://www.hindu.com/2009/07/21/stories/2009072155780900.htm

______


[8] MISCELLANA:

  New Left Review 58, July-August 2009

THE GREAT HIMALAYAN WATERSHED
Agrarian Crisis, Mega-Dams and the Environment

by Kenneth Pomeranz

Since we tend to take water for granted, it is almost always a bad  
sign when it is in the news; and lately there has been all too much  
water-related news from some of Asia’s most populous nations. [*] The  
stories have ranged from the distressingly familiar—suicides of  
drought-hit Indian farmers—to the surprising: evidence that pressure  
from water in the reservoir behind the new Zipingpu dam may have  
triggered the massive Sichuan earthquake in May 2008, for example.  
[1] Meanwhile glaciers, which almost never used to make the news, are  
now generating plenty of worrisome headlines.

For almost half the world’s population, water-related dreams and  
fears intersect in the Himalayas and on the Tibetan plateau. Other  
regions have their share of conflicting claims over water issues:  
Turkey, Syria and Iraq over the headwaters of the Tigris; Israel and  
its neighbours around the Jordan basin; the us and Mexico over the  
Colorado River; the riparian states of the Paraguay, the Parana or  
the Nile. But none combine the same scale of population, scarcity of  
rainfall, dependence on agriculture, scope for mega-dam projects and  
vulnerability to climate change as those at stake within the greater  
Himalayan region. Here, glaciers and annual snowmelts feed rivers  
serving just under half of the world’s population, while the  
unequalled heights from which their waters descend could provide vast  
amounts of hydro-power. At the same time, both India and China face  
the grim reality that their economic and social achievements since  
the late 1940s—both ‘planned’ and ‘market-based’—have depended on  
unsustainable rates of groundwater extraction; hundreds of millions  
of people now face devastating shortages.
http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2788


o o o

"ABSTINENCE PLUS": SOOTHING TO PARENTS, OR STILL LYING TO TEENS?
By Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check
Will abstinence-only programs continue to get funding to misinform  
kids about sex? Read more »
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/07/13/abstinence-plus- 
soothing-parents-or-still-lying-teens

o o o


http://www.osce.org/documents/rfm/2009/06/38092_en.pdf

IN GOD'S NAME

by Miklós Haraszti

By adopting the language of human rights, a new UN proposal  
condemning "defamation of religion" cements oppressive governments'  
control of free speech while still sounding compatible with the  
advanced multiculturalism of liberal democracies, writes Miklós  
Haraszti.

It should no longer be difficult to tackle illegitimate limits to  
free speech, particularly since so many dictatorships have now made  
the transition to democracy. The required standards are clear enough:  
actual instigations to actual crimes must be seen as crimes, but  
otherwise offensive speech should be handled by encouraging further  
dialogue – in the press, through media ethics bodies or in civil courts.

What we see instead, despite some progress internationally in  
decriminalising violations of honour and dignity, is a growing,  
punitive trend that is introducing new speech bans into national  
criminal codes.

One of these à la mode speech crimes is defamation of history –  
committed in some countries by questioning a nation's historical  
narrative and in others by defending it. While Turkey prosecutes  
writers for using the word genocide to describe the massacre of  
Armenians in 1915, Switzerland has prosecuted a Turkish politician  
for calling the use of the term genocide an "international lie". Yet  
defamation of religions is proving to be an even more insidious and  
restrictive pattern worldwide.

On 26 March, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution  
condemning 'defamation of religions' as a human rights violation,  
despite wide concerns that it could be used to justify curbs on free  
speech. The Council adopted the non-binding text, proposed by  
Pakistan on behalf of the Islamic states, with a vote of 23 states in  
favour and 11 against, with 13 abstentions. The resolution "Combating  
Defamation of Religions" has been passed, revised and passed again  
every year since 1999, except in 2006, in the UN Human Rights Council  
(HRC) and its predecessor, the UN Human Rights Commission. It is  
promoted by the persistent sponsorship of the Organisation of the  
Islamic Conference with the acknowledged objective of getting it  
codified as a crime in as many countries as possible, or at least  
promoting it into a universal anathema. Alongside this campaign,  
there is a global undercurrent of violence and ready-made self- 
censorship that has surrounded all secular and artistic depictions of  
Islamic subjects since the Rushdie fatwa.

This year's resolution, unlike previous versions, no longer ignores  
Article 19, the right to free expression. That crucial human right  
has now received a mention, albeit in a context which misleadingly  
equates defamation of religions with incitement to hatred and  
violence against religious people, and on that basis denies it the  
protection of free speech. It also attempts to bracket criticism of  
religion with racism.

On the other hand, the vague parameters of possible defamation cases  
have now grown to include the "targeting" of symbols and venerated  
leaders of religion by the media and the Internet. What we are  
witnessing may be an effort at diplomacy, but it is also a  
declaration of war on twenty-first century media freedoms by a  
coalition of latter-day authoritarians.

There is nothing backward looking or historicising in the  
declaration. It adopts the language of human rights so that the  
proposal sounds compatible with the advanced multiculturalism of  
liberal democracies. All the signatories have acquiesced: the late- 
communist and the post- communist governments among them, along with  
the post-colonial or predominantly Muslim nations. Yet only very few  
of the 23, amongst them South Africa and Indonesia, are democracies  
equipped with a truly pluralistic media. The consistently high number  
of abstentions, including by nations with free speech guarantees,  
helps ensure the proposition is officially accepted every year.

Because of this contemporary strategy, I reject the often heard claim  
that the resolution's backers represent a culturally defined  
movement. That claim would only serve to offer another excuse to  
patronise the endeavour, and leniently underestimate its impact. In  
fact, the drive to criminalise defamation of religions is an entirely  
post-modern, Orwellian spin crusade against human dignity, ostensibly  
in its name.

Year after year, the Human Rights Council (HRC) vote lends a double  
domestic victory to the supporting oppressive governments. It cements  
their control of speech through cultural taboos and blasphemy laws,  
and at the same time glorifies and internationally acknowledges them  
in the vanguard of promoting tolerance.

Of course, one can understand why many democracies condescend- ingly  
abstain from the fight and let the game of the Organisation of the  
Islamic Conference prevail. After all, since the Iranian Revolution  
and the global debut of al Qaeda, those willing to present the  
oppressive notion of defamation of religions in human rights terms  
are by definition moderates, compared to the jihadists who openly  
reject those rights. The HRC manoeuvres also help the moderates to  
counter claims by domestic radicals that their governments are not  
true guardians of the faith.

I happen to remember these games from my time in the closed  
civilisation of the communist one-party state, where pluralism  
consisted of factional fights inside the Politburo of the Party.  
Kremlinologists also knew the game, but they must have had more fun  
watching it than I had. The technique was called "overtaking from the  
left", and it meant the recurring scene whereby otherwise pragmatic  
leaders of the Party started to emanate hardliner slogans, obviously  
in order to keep the Stalinists at bay. It actually never simply  
meant just tough talk; it always came with new measures against  
freethinkers, such as house searches and indictments, 'only' to  
provide proofs of the leadership's fidelity to the cause. This tactic  
is a distant relative of the "taking the wind out of the sails"  
policy of western moderate parties, when they buy into anti- 
immigration measures in order to preclude a growing popularity of  
xenophobic platforms that propose... anti-immigration measures.

The trouble is that "taking the wind out of the sails" may help one  
stay on board, but never succeeds in easing the restrictions. Let me  
tell you how it really works when the stipulations of the Human  
Rights Council resolution are applied.

In Azerbaijan, one of the supporters of the resolution, two  
journalists were given prison sentences in 2007. Rafiq Tagi, a  
journalist of the intellectual monthly Senet, and Samir Sadagatoglu,  
the newspaper's editor, were sentenced to three and four years  
respectively, for alleged 'incitement to religious hatred' in a  
philosophical essay published in 2006. In fact, the essay compared  
European and Islamic values in a somewhat self-critical vein. (The  
language was "them and us".) Its thesis was innocent, well-meaning  
and polite. It was a similar message about a similar subject, "reason  
and faith", to Pope Benedict XVI's famous Regensburg speech the same  
year. In my assessment, it was even milder, as there were no  
Byzantine quotations ascribing violent proselytism to Mohammed. The  
question of violence did not even turn up in the text.

Previously, an Iranian grand ayatollah, Fazel Lankarani, had issued a  
fatwa calling for the two journalists to be killed. Domestic  
religious activists responded by starting an intimidation campaign  
against the journalists. Reportedly, they were allowed to shout death  
threats in the courtroom. The journalists' crime was defamation of  
religion (their own, apparently) and incitement, by the same act, to  
religious hatred (against themselves, one must conclude). Yet it was  
the journalists who sat in the dock, not those who menaced them with  
violence.

And, most importantly, the Iranian ayatollah who called for their  
death was never accused of incitement, neither in Azerbaijan nor in  
Iran – protected as he was by his status as a defender, rather than a  
defamer, of the faith.

Similar abuses could be cited from several non-Muslim countries as  
well, all of them, by the way, participating states of the OSCE, and  
some of them members of the Council of Europe. The commitments of the  
former and the standards of the latter would forbid any persecution  
based on 'defamation of religions'. But under the justifying umbrella  
of the HRC resolutions (and exploiting the lack of resolute  
opposition to them in Europe) the crisis created around the Danish  
cartoons was used to get tough on critically minded outlets and  
journalists.

In Russia, the Vologda newspaper Nash Region published a collage of  
the cartoons on 15 February 2006, as part of an article on the global  
controversy. The proprietor decided to close the newspaper shortly  
afterwards in order to ease the legal consequences. Prosecutors had  
immediately opened a case against the editor, Anna Smirnova, for  
"inciting religious hatred". In April 2006, she was fined 100,000  
roubles (approximately US$3,000) and given a two-year suspended  
sentence. Happily, a month later, the Vologda Oblast Court overturned  
the decision on appeal. It was clear no happy ending would have been  
possible had the paper still existed. Exactly the same scenario was  
played out in Volgograd: the publisher of Gorodskie Vesti decided to  
close the newspaper after charges for defamation and incitement were  
brought by the regional branch of the country's ruling party, United  
Russia. Criminal proceedings were subsequently dropped. The trigger  
for the prosecution was a sweet, truly peace-preaching caricature of  
the four venerated personalities Moses, Jesus, Mohammed and Buddha.  
In the cartoon, the religious leaders are watching television and  
concerned to see demonstrators from different religions hurling  
insults at each other. "This is not what we have taught you to do,"  
one of the prophets is saying.

In Belarus, Alexander Zdvizhkov, editor of the Zhoda opposition  
newspaper, was sentenced to three years in prison on 18 January 2008  
for incitement of religious hatred. His newspaper was shut down in  
March 2006 for merely planning to publish the cartoons, and remains  
closed today. Zdvizhkov went into hiding abroad, was then arrested  
upon return, and finally released after the Supreme Court reduced his  
sentence from three years to three months, the term he had already  
served.

But these were only opportunistic blitzes. Since the cartoons crisis,  
another new punitive fashion has emerged, also inspired by the HRC  
resolutions: the extremism package. In Russia (which came up with the  
idea), Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Tajikistan,  
legislators have bundled the defamation of religions provisions with  
otherwise legitimate incitement laws, adding also the ban of  
"offensive criticism" (yes, defamation) of government bodies or  
officials. This cocktail of legislation is presented as a heightened  
form of combating a never precisely defined attitude – extremism.  
There is an echo here of the West's promotion of terrorism  
provisions, which is helpful in defusing possible criticism. But  
while western legislation was criticised domestically as being  
possibly conducive to illegitimate prosecution of political thought,  
the eastern extremism packages are actually created for that purpose.  
And they are used, too, especially in retaliation for unwanted  
coverage of the human rights situation in the Northern Caucasus.

At the time of writing, Slovakia is planning to introduce its own  
'extremism' package, ostensibly to fight radicalism. Ireland – while  
otherwise decriminalising libel – is about to introduce a new crime,  
"blasphemous libel", described as an act of compliance with a  
constitutional tenet dating from the 1930s. Is it far-fetched to see  
here an implicit, perhaps even unconscious, influence of the HRC  
campaign?

When I referred earlier to the surrounding threat of violence, I  
meant the disturbing, but untold, connection between the recurring  
legal drive at the UN Human Rights Council and the fatwas, murders  
and violent demonstrations against secular or critical depictions of  
Islamic issues. The grievances expressed by the fatwa authors and the  
HRC diplomats are in fact indistinguishable. What is missing here is  
the realisation that combating defamation of religions is not just  
harmful: it is the wrong fight, the wrong criminalisation.

I do not see any moral difference between ordering a contracted  
killing of investigative reporters like Anna Politkovskaya and  
issuing fatwas that call for murdering writers or journalists. Both  
punish writers for doing their job. And, by the way, the fatwas also  
offer financial rewards, just like the zakazchiki in Russia.

In Pakistan, the main country sponsor of this year's HRC resolution,  
Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi, prayer leader at the historic Mohabat Khan  
mosque in Peshawar, announced in 2006 that the mosque and his  
religious school would give US$25,000 and a car, while a local  
jewellers association offered another US$1m, for the murder of any  
Danish cartoonist. In India, Uttar Pradesh Minister for Haj and  
Minority Welfare Haji Yaqoob Qureishi placed a 510m Indian rupee (US 
$11m) bounty on the head of a cartoonist, plus the murderer's weight  
in gold. I am listing here examples only from inside democracies that  
signed the HRC resolutions or abstained.

At this point, the resolution is no longer an exercise at taking the  
wind out of the sails of the radicals. It is turning out to be a  
cover-up for the murderous instigators of religious tension and  
reactionary self-censorship.

I find it a scandal that authors of edicts calling for the murder of  
writers or journalists can still continue to be respected and do not  
have to face the consequences of their hateful acts, while many  
journalists have to live anonymously under police protection. So far,  
none of the names of the instigators of these fatwas has appeared on  
wanted lists, not even in the countries which, I am sure, would  
extradite the masterminds of Politkovskaya's murder, if found. That  
is the HRC resolution's longest shadow.

Caution is somewhat understandable in a country such as tiny Denmark,  
stricken by calls for a commercial boycott, or in any single nation.  
But what about the European Union? Has it not been designed to be  
stronger than its components? What about Interpol and other  
international law enforcement agencies? Since when have they dropped  
soliciting murder from their list of crimes? What about at least a  
travel ban against the well-known zakazchiki of religious hate crimes?

The Human Rights Council must be told: if incitement to religious  
hatred is what you are concerned about, call immediately for the  
punishment of those who issue fatwas inciting violence. There can be  
no stronger protection against defamation of Islam or any faith.  
Promote tolerance by relieving the fear factor from the minds of the  
world's editors.



Published 2009-06-19

Original in English
First published in Index on Censorship 2/2009

Contributed by Index on Censorship
© Miklós Haraszti/Index on Censorship


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