SACW - 23 April 2013 | Indonesia: 1965 Massacre / Bangladesh: War Crimes, Justice & Hefazat-e-Islam / India: Gujarat cover-up? ; Modi as Pakistan's Candidate / Pakistan: Taliban threat and elections

[Harsh Kapoor]

    South Asia Citizens Wire - 23 April 2013 - No. 2780
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Contents:

    India: Join MKSS to celebrate "May Day" Mazdoor Mela on the 1st of May 2013
    China - Fast Change and Its Discontents (Dissent magazine)
    India: Another closure report, another cover-up?
    A Trade Union Solidarity Song from Canada
    India: 'Koodankulam Nuclear Project must be stopped' Dr. A Gopalakrishnan
    India: Appeal To All Political Parties To Pass Constitutional Amendment Bill Regarding Indo-Bangla Land-Boundary Agreement
    Bangladesh: US diplomatic cables and the assassination of Sheikh Mujib in 1975
    Stooping to Conquer: The Indian Left avoids seeing caste as a political category
    Greece, Blood Strawberries, and Hate Crimes crisis
    India: Sarsanghchalaks have never projected themselves the way Modi is being projected
    Modi as Pakistan's Candidate
    Bangladesh: As the rightwing party Hefazat-e-Islam grows, millions of female garment workers increasingly fear for their jobs
    Ike's "Chance for Peace," Revisited 
    India: Police records show Gujarat riots weren't a sudden backlash
    India: Appointments to rights bodies - Why ex-police officers aren't fit for the job
    Video: Sahmat Collective - Sahmat's Beginnings
    Benedict R. Anderson: Reflections on the 1965 Massacre in Indonesia and its Legacy
    Caste discrimination in the UK must be outlawed
    India: PMANE Letter to Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project Employees
    Bangladesh: War Crimes, Justice and the Politics of Memory
    Pakistan: The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) threat and elections
    India: Why is Delhi's Univiversity Introducing the Four year Degree course at such reckless speed ?
    India: Earnest mediation between Maoist rebels and the Indian State could yet yield peace
    Tribute: Comrade Binod Bihari Chowdhury (1911-2013)
    India - UK: Margaret Thatcher, Chandraswami and Natwar Singh
    India: selected recent posts on Communalism Watch
    Kyrgyzstan Officials Taking Cultural Right Turn

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India: Join MKSS to celebrate "May Day" Mazdoor Mela on the 1st of May 2013
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On the 1st of May 1990, 23 years ago, poor peasants and workers collected at Patia ka Chowda , Bhim, Rajsamand District- after a year of deliberations about the need to organize and struggle- to form the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) . This day has become an important day for workers in this part of Rajasthan. We come every year to express our solidarity and take a pledge to work together to struggle for common, stated concerns.
http://sacw.net/article4305.html

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China - Fast Change and Its Discontents (Dissent magazine)
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[via dilip simeon]
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, a few short months after state violence curtailed the Tiananmen protests, and then the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Western observers began to assume that the Chinese Communist Party is living on borrowed time and will topple or implode any day now. Surely, according to this conventional wisdom, which is spelled out in high-profile books with titles such as China’s Democratic Future and The Coming Collapse of China, the Beijing regime cannot endure. (...)
http://sacw.net/article4301.html

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India: Another closure report, another cover-up?
by Javed Anand
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SIT’s closure report into the Godhra riots has left far too many questions unasked, and provided answers that are highly questionable
http://sacw.net/article4286.html

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A Trade Union Solidarity Song from Canada
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a one minute song in defence of the unions from the Canadian Labour Congress
http://sacw.net/article4283.html

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India: ’Koodankulam Nuclear Project must be stopped’ Dr. A Gopalakrishnan
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Dr. A Gopalakrishnan, the former Chairman of India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, has raised some urgent issues in his article in the New Indian Express - 19 April 2013 that the government must address before commissioning Koodankulam.
http://sacw.net/article4281.html

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India: Appeal To All Political Parties To Pass Constitutional Amendment Bill Regarding Indo-Bangla Land-Boundary Agreement
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Thousands of residents of ‘Indian enclaves’ in Bangladesh and ‘Bangladesh enclaves’ in India at Indo-Bangla borders have been suffering innumerable problems for the last about 65 years. Due to unjust demarcation of border areas, their life has become miserable; they are denied basic citizens rights, have no right to vote, suffer from various health problems, their children not able to avail educational facilities, - in effect they are not leading a normal life.
http://sacw.net/article4280.html

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Bangladesh: US diplomatic cables and the assassination of Sheikh Mujib in 1975
by David Bergman
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Two articles by David Bergman based on US state department cables from 1973 to 1976, which were declassified some years ago.
http://sacw.net/article4274.html

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Stooping to Conquer: The Indian Left avoids seeing caste as a political category
by Mukul Kesavan
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The failure of the traditional communist parties to make political headway in the Indian hinterland beyond their eastern and southern redoubts of Kerala and Bengal has something to do with their unwillingness to come to terms with caste as a political category and as lived reality.
http://sacw.net/article4273.html

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Greece, Blood Strawberries, and Hate Crimes crisis
by khujeci (via Alal o Dulal)
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About 30 migrant workers, mainly Bangladeshi, have been wounded in a shooting on a strawberry farm in Greece after requesting salaries that had not been paid
http://sacw.net/article4265.html

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India: Sarsanghchalaks have never projected themselves the way Modi is being projected
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Jairus Banaji speaks to Hardnews on the multiple layers of emerging fascism in India and the urgent need for a united and secular struggle.
http://www.sacw.net/article4267.html

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Modi as Pakistan’s candidate
by Jawed Naqvi
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Pakistan only has to bet on a total sway of religious fanaticism in India, which buoys Mr Modi. India’s fascism has flourished on a successful campaign of religious revivalism that was set in motion even before 1947 by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh with generous help from Muslim leaders, though everyone from the left to the right was complicit in its growth.
http://www.sacw.net/article4263.html

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Bangladesh: As the rightwing party Hefazat-e-Islam grows, millions of female garment workers increasingly fear for their jobs
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. . .the emergence of a radical conservative Muslim party, Hefazat-e-Islam, as the standard bearer of the religious right. Earlier this month, at a huge rally in Dhaka attended by more than 100,000 according to police, the party issued 13 demands. They included the introduction of measures to stop "alien culture" making inroads in Bangladesh, the reinstatement of the line "absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah" in the nation’s constitution, . . . Hefazat-e-Islam’s demand that men and women do not mix in public – seen by many as a bid to stop women working outside the home – that most worried Akhter, one of tens of millions of female labourers in Bangladesh’s booming garment industry.
http://www.sacw.net/article4253.html

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Ike’s "Chance for Peace," Revisited
by N.D. Jayaprakash
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Sixty years ago, on 16 April 1953 – soon after he had assumed office as the 34th President of USA, President Dwight Eisenhower had delivered an address before the American Society of Newspaper Editors under the title “The Chance for Peace”. [1] For the first time ever a president of the United States had given a call for building “an age of just peace” and, with prophetic insight, had warned people across the world “to guard vigilantly against the domination ever again of any part of the world by a single, unbridled aggressive power.”
http://www.sacw.net/article4252.html

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India: Police records show Gujarat riots weren’t a sudden backlash
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NB-Is there a systematic attempt to withhold crucial evidence from the gaze of the courts? As in the Tytler case (1984) where the investigating agency did its best to discredit witnesses , so in this one, it seems that the criminal justice system sometimes works actively for the benefit of powerful accused persons.
http://www.sacw.net/article4250.html

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India: Appointments to rights bodies - Why ex-police officers aren’t fit for the job
by Rajindar Sachar
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One of the tragedies of modern politics is that politicians have no embarrassment in speaking in one way and acting in the other.
http://www.sacw.net/article4251.html

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Video: Sahmat Collective - Sahmat’s Beginnings
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http://www.sacw.net/article4244.html

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Benedict R. Anderson: Reflections on the 1965 Massacre in Indonesia and its Legacy
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Domestic mass murder on a large scale is always the work of the state, at the hands of its own soldiery, police and gangsters, and/or ideological mobilization of allied civilian groups. The worst cases in the post-World War 11 era – Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Cambodia,Sudan,Bosnia,Rwanda, Liberia, China, East Pakistan, East Timor, and Indonesia – show much the same bloody manipulations. It is equally the case that the killer regimes do not announce publicly the huge numbers killed, and rarely boast about the massacres, let alone the tortures that usually accompany them. They like to create a set of public euphemisms endlessly circulated through state-controlled mass media.
http://www.sacw.net/article4242.html

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Caste discrimination in the UK must be outlawed
by Priyamvada Gopal
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No community should be exempt from equalities legislation. The government should stop blocking this extension of fairness to all
http://www.sacw.net/article4241.html

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India: PMANE Letter to Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project Employees
by People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy
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    Greetings! As you know, we conducted a siege protest on April 3, 2013 at the back of your Anu Vijay Township. That was an earnest attempt to point out the dangers you are exposing yourself and your families at the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP). As educated and informed people, you must be familiar with most of our arguments against the KKNPP. We would very much like to repeat a few more relevant points here for your serious analysis and careful consideration.
http://www.sacw.net/article4237.html

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Bangladesh: War Crimes, Justice and the Politics of Memory
by Bina D’Costa
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Four decades into the war of independence, Bangladesh has re-initiated a domestic war crimes trial process that contains its own power dynamics, exclusions and silences. In this article, BINA D’COSTA weaves through divergent layers of the complex politicisation of memory by various actors. It provides a brief background of the current impasse, the fractured process and the hierarchical nature of various international discursive interventions delegitimising the trials and considers popular protests in Shahbagh, Dhaka, through which collective remembrance becomes a distinct and disputed social and political practice.
http://www.sacw.net/article4235.html

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Pakistan: The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) threat and elections
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the TTP has threatened to strike at the ANP, the PPP and the MQM. These parties have been singled out for being “secular” and have been warned that their election rallies and leaders will be targeted, with the caretaker prime minister noting that prominent leaders from these parties face significant threats to their lives.
http://www.sacw.net/article4226.html

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India: Why is Delhi's Univiversity Introducing the Four year Degree course at such reckless speed ?
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The unnecessary and yet frantic haste with which Delhi University is introducing a new Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) brings to mind the advice that autorickshaws often offer on their bumpers: Jaldi mat kar, der ho jayegi (Don't hurry, or you will be late!).
http://www.sacw.net/article4221.html

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Earnest mediation between Maoist rebels and the Indian State could yet yield peace
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. . . [Needed] a semi-permanent group of interlocutors ‘to have sustained discussions on peace talks, as against the knee-jerk use of mediators in times of hostage crises
http://www.sacw.net/article4209.html

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Comrade Binod Bihari Chowdhury (1911-2013)
by Naeem (via Alal o Dulal)
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Sometimes you wait your whole life to meet someone properly. First time I met Chittagong Armory raid famed Binod Bihari Chowdhury was in 2004. My documentary on persecution of Ahmadiya films was screening at Chittagong Press Club. Everyone was tense. Chittagong was considered less sympathetic to secular forces. They were having difficult time finding a chief guest who would speak. Binod dada agreed, without hesitation.
http://www.sacw.net/article4207.html

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India - UK: Margaret Thatcher, Chandraswami and Natwar Singh
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Natwar Singh is a gifted story teller. But he does not mind to use his talent for a dirty job. His pretentious tale of Margaret Thatcher’s alleged admiration for Chandraswami, that is hitting the media these days, is a brazen-faced attempt to bring the shady polit-tantrik, entangled in numerous high profile criminal cases, back into the match. It is appalling to see the former Indian cabinet minister and professed rationalist prostituting himself for such a service. But alas, if his story is true, it’s not the first time.
http://www.sacw.net/article4206.html

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On 25 April 2013 we stand with Bangladeshi bloggers and activists!
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We, the undersigned, call for 25 April to be an international day to defend Bangladesh’s bloggers and activists. On this day, we urge groups and individuals to rally at Bangladeshi embassies, contact members of parliament in their countries of residence, highlight the situation, write protest letters, carry out acts of solidarity, Tweet #Bangladesh #Bloggers, and sign this petition.
http://www.sacw.net/article4200.html

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India: Women Groups Decry Chhattisgarh Government’s Attempt and malafide Intentions to Make Soni Sori Undergo "Psychiatric Evaluation"
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Several women’s groups today slammed the Chhattisgarh government for its continuing harassment of the adivasi teacher, Soni Sori, imprisoned in its jails for the past 19 months
http://sacw.net/article4199.html

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Babar Ayaz: The myth of the ideology of Pakistan
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Nowhere in history was Islamic ideology of Pakistan mentioned, it was always the political, social, economic rights of the Muslims
http://sacw.net/article4190.html

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INDIA: RECENT POSTS ON COMMUNALISM WATCH 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/
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‘A Nation-Wide Campaign For Secular India’ (report on Anhad's 2 day conclave on India's descent into Fascism)
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-nation-wide-campaign-for-secular.html
Modi’s Pals
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2013/04/modis-pals.html
Dr. Akshay Desai prominent US supporter of Narenda Modi in hiding, running from law in $25M defrauding case 
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2013/04/dr-akshay-desai-prominent-us-supporter.html
Why hardline Hindutva is a national security issue
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2013/04/why-hardline-hindutva-is-national.html
Karnataka Assembly Elections 2013: BJP plays Muslim card in coast
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2013/04/karnataka-assembly-elections-2013-bjp.html
India: Mangalore’s moral police: Why Hindutva groups might cost BJP the polls
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2013/04/india-mangalores-moral-police-why.html
India: Prashant Statement on Gujarat Government Seeking "Death Penalty" for Kodnani
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2013/04/india-prashant-statement-on-gujarat.html
How the support of the neo-middle class has been crucial to Modi's rise (Christophe Jaffrelot) 
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-support-of-neo-middle-class-has.html
    EPW editorial on the campaign to whitewash Narendra Modi
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2013/04/epw-editorial-on-campaign-to-whitewash.html
    The Whole Truth about Women in Gujarat - A letter from Ila Pathak
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/04/the-whole-truth-about-women-in-gujarat.html
    India: Day and Night CSDS's Prof. Kishwar is singing songs of Modi's Gujarat
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2013/04/india-day-and-night-csdss-prof-kishwar.html
    India: Hindu religious mythology rules the election poster campaign for 2014 elections by social democrats of JDU
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2013/04/india-hindu-religious-mythology-rules.html

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Kyrgyzstan Officials Taking Cultural Right Turn
by David Trilling 
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BISHKEK, Apr 12 2013 (EurasiaNet) - Authorities at Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Culture want to ban a play that discusses domestic abuse and sexual violence because it “promotes scenes that destroy moral and ethical standards and national traditions of the peoples of Kyrgyzstan.”

The effort points to creeping conservatism in the thinking of Kyrgyzstan’s leaders.

“The Vagina Monologues” is an episodic play where woman address how they relate to their bodies, discuss their sexual experiences, and confront the topic of sexual violence. Since American Eve Ensler wrote the play in 1996, it has been performed in over 140 countries and translated into 48 languages. A performance is scheduled for Apr. 12 in Bishkek.

The Culture Ministry sent a letter to local media outlets on Apr. 1 saying the Vagina Monologues advocates “unnatural, perverted sex under the slogan of feminism”. The letter warned that Kyrgyz law prohibits the distribution of materials that “promote pornography and offend human dignity”.

Organisers say authorities are rushing to judgment. “The play is aimed at stopping violence against women, a very important thing for our society where there is a lot of violence against women,” Aikanysh Jeenbaeva, one of the organizers and a co-founder of the Bishkek Feminist Collective SQ, told EurasiaNet.org.

“The ministry did not say which parts of the Vagina Monologues are supposedly offensive or promote pornography. I think none of them have actually seen the play and they’re just judging it by its name.”

A ministry representative, Ermek Jolochuev, admitted he had not seen the play, but said it “contradicts our mentality. You know that nationalities living on the territory of Kyrgyzstan, and Eastern people in general, are not used to talking about such topics openly or to speaking publicly the names of women’s body parts.”

He confirmed that “prominent” cultural figures stood against the play, but would not name them over the phone. He also did not follow through with a promise to email EurasiaNet.org their names.

Jolochuev said the ministry has no legal recourse to ban the performance. Nevertheless, organisers fear the ministry’s recommendation will engender hostility toward the production. The Russian-language version of the play is scheduled for 7 pm Friday at the Metro Pub theater; 100 percent of proceeds will benefit Chance, a local women’s shelter. If it goes ahead uninterrupted, it will be the Vagina Monologues’ third season in Bishkek, after debuting in 2009 and returning in 2011.

Bishkek was the first location in Central Asia to host the Vagina Monologues; Almaty hosted a sold-out performance this past February.

Organisers have received threats in the past, but have never experienced such interference from authorities.

Kyrgyzstan remains an entrenched patriarchal society where, despite Soviet attempts to extend equal opportunities to women, today women’s rights appear to be backsliding. There is little quantitative data available, but a 2008 U.N. study found one in four Kyrgyz women had suffered from domestic violence.

Stigma is widespread: women who speak out about sexual and domestic abuse are often shamed both as something sullied and as backstabbers betraying their families. Moreover, bride kidnapping, though illegal, has become more common since the Soviet era, activists say.

Given the seriousness of the issue, when the Culture Ministry statement appeared on Apr. 1, “We thought it was an April Fools’ joke,” Jeenbaeva said. Cancelling the play would send a message, members of her group said, that domestic violence is not a serious problem.

The dispute underscores a trend in which the Kyrgyz government is shunning Western liberalism. Last fall, for example, the State Committee on Religious Affairs successfully blocked, with a court order, the screening of a documentary film about gay men in the Muslim world.

In recent weeks, parliament has discussed a bill that would ban young women from traveling abroad, supposedly to protect them from sexual abuse and, in the words of the bill’s author, Irgal Kadyralieva, “increase morality and preserve the gene pool”.

Prominent human rights activist and lawyer Cholpon Djakupova is worried by the trend and feels Kyrgyz society is lashing out at perceived foreign ideas with growing cynicism. She added that, despite years of promises, Western liberalism has done little to improve living standards or confront widespread corruption.

The Culture Ministry’s attempted ban “is the reaction of people who do not like [what has turned out to be a] false and empty democracy. In NGOs and even the term freedom, people see the failed realization of foreign promises,” Djakupova told EurasiaNet.org.

“This concept of freedom is only important for creative people and self-reliant people. Poor people have no access to education or justice. For them, all these liberal concepts are estranged from their difficult lives.”

David Trilling is EurasiaNet’s Central Asia editor.

This story originally appeared on EurasiaNet.org.

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South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. Newsletter of South Asia Citizens Web: 
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DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
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