SACW - 2 Nov 2013 | Bangladesh: Drug triangle / Pakistan: Poetry / India: Sexual Politics; Right Wing / Sri Lanka: Mega Devt / Greenham Common women / Wole Soyinka: Remembering Kofi Awoonor

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at gmail.com
Fri Nov 1 14:23:35 EDT 2013


South Asia Citizens Wire - 02 November 2013 - No. 2796 
[year 15]
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Contents:

1. The Sexual Politics of Modi, the BJP and the Sangh Parivar (India United Against Fascism) 
2. A pocket guide to India’s Right Wing (Youth Against Fascism)
3. Dhanwantri and PC Joshi on the 1947 Partition Killings and Communal Violence in Punjab
4. Religion-based politics is the biggest threat: Maudoodi's son | Interview in Dhaka Tribune
5. Sri Lanka: Mega Development Projects in Hambantota - In Whose Interest?
6. Wole Soyinka: Remembering Kofi Awoonor
7. Audio: Prof. Romila Thapar's Lecture of 23 September 2013, New Delhi
8. Devise a long-term strategy for dealing with terrorism - Statement by Forum for Secular Pakistan (FSP)
9. Karamat Ali: The powerful contribution of revolutionary poetry in the Pakistan of 1950's, 1960s . . .
10. Amartya Sen: The Truth About India's Women
11. Pakistan: Terror Attack on Peshawar Church - Editorials and commentary
12. Duke Ellington's Kabul concert in 1963 (BBC report)
13. India: Time to think - Why such mortal fear of love? What's really India's greatest security threat?
14. Audio: Dangerous Militarisation in India and the Militaristic Mindset in Society 
15. A 1948 Publication of Communist Party on Pakistan
16. [Video] The Pinochet File: How U.S. Politicians, Banks and Corporations Aided Chilean Coup, Dictatorship
17. Bangladesh: The drug triangle - The poor as collateral damage 
18. India: Sampradayikta Virodhi Andolan (SVA) / Movement Against Communalism Archive
19. Video of Teesta Setalvad Lecture in Goa on "The Politics of Development"
20. [Text of 2012 Deutscher Memorial Lecture] Seasons of Self-Delusion: Opium, Capitalism and the Financial Markets
21. UK: The women of Greenham Common taught a generation how to protest
22. India: Communist Party publication on Kashmir (1950)
23. India: Reason must triumph over blind faith (Praful Bidwai)
24. India - Assam: After the inferno (Harsh Mander)
25. Selected Posts on Communalism Watch:
 - India: Not just survivors, nation needs to mourn 1984 riots: Jaspreet Singh
 - India: Laboratory of Fascism: Capital, Labour and Environment in Modi’s Gujarat
 - India - Muzaffarnagar riots 2013 and aftermath: A list reports and statements by civil society groups, NGO's and womens groups (as on 31 Oct 2013)
 - Kashmir court seeks action against those who invoke religious nationalism while campaiging for elections 
 - Dilip Simeon's blog: High Court of Jammu and Kashmir upholds  petition for protection of religious places and castigates communal versions of nationalism 


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1. INDIA: THE SEXUAL POLITICS OF MODI, THE BJP AND THE SANGH PARIVAR
by India United Against Fascism 
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The systematic use of gang-rape as a weapon occurred in the Surat riots after the Babri Masjid demolition, and an ugly innovation was the videotaping of the gang-rapes. This was not a case of some random bystander filming the attacks, but a meticulously-planned spectacle with the venues flood-lit despite the fact that electric wires to the rest of the neighbourhood had been cut 
http://www.sacw.net/article6049.html

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2. A POCKET GUIDE TO INDIA’S RIGHT WING
by Youth Against Fascism
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Handy spiel on India’s Right Wing. People in India should know a bit about these respectable men and women of the Hindutva circuit.
http://www.sacw.net/article6011.html

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3. DHANWANTRI AND PC JOSHI ON THE 1947 PARTITION KILLINGS AND COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN PUNJAB
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Scanned version of the original Communist Party Pamphlet from 1947 by Dhanwatri and PC Joshi
http://www.sacw.net/article5921.html

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4. RELIGION-BASED POLITICS IS THE BIGGEST THREAT: MAUDOODI'S SON | INTERVIEW
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Syed Haider Farooq Maudoodi, son of Jamaat-e-Islami founder Syed Abul A'la Maudoodi, is now a columnist in Lahore, Pakistan. The 69-year-old former pilot studied in an English medium school, but refuses to speak in English. He shared his observations on Jamaat's politics in the sub continent, political Islam, militancy, state religion and the war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh, with the Dhaka Tribune.
http://www.sacw.net/article5876.html

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5. SRI LANKA: MEGA DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN HAMBANTOTA - IN WHOSE INTEREST?
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Development should be a forerunner to the protection of people's political, economic and social freedoms and rights. Till date, there has been little meaningful discussion or debate on the effectiveness of the scale and style of development unfolding in Hambantota, the lack of transparency and public access to information for the very people in whose backyards this development drive is taking place and the extent to which their priorities and aspirations are reflected in all of this.
http://www.sacw.net/article5844.html

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6. WOLE SOYINKA: REMEMBERING KOFI AWOONOR
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I submit that we were all present at that concourse of humanity in Nairobi. We were present by the side of every maimed and fallen victim, among who was a distinguished one of us, one of the very best that have defined us to the world.
http://www.sacw.net//article5808.html

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7. AUDIO: PROF. ROMILA THAPAR'S LECTURE OF 23 SEPTEMBER 2013, NEW DELHI
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India's celebrated historian Professor Romila Thapar speaking of her new book THE PAST BEFORE US: Historical Traditions of Early North India. This a full public recording of her talk at the India International Centre, New Delhi on the 23rd Sept 2013
http://www.sacw.net//article5729.html

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8. DEVISE A LONG-TERM STRATEGY FOR DEALING WITH TERRORISM - STATEMENT BY FORUM FOR SECULAR PAKISTAN (FSP)
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KARACHI: Forum for Secular Pakistan (FSP) supports Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's decision to call off the proposed peace talks with the Tehrik-e-Taliban, Pakistan. A state can talk with an enemy that follows some rules of warfare, not with brainwashed criminals who conduct cowardly attacks on innocents.
http://www.sacw.net//article5713.html

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9. KARAMAT ALI: THE POWERFUL CONTRIBUTION OF REVOLUTIONARY POETRY IN THE PAKISTAN OF 1950'S, 1960S . . .
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A video recording of Karamat Ali, the widely respected labour movement activist from Pakistan speaking on the subversive role of poetry of Majaz, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Makhdoom, Ali Sardar Jafri, Habib Jalib and others in capturing the popular imagination and shaping of progressive political culture in Pakistan of the 1950's-1960s and after. This recording was made at a Tribute to Asraur ul Majaz an to Faiz Ahmed Faiz at Ramjas College in Delhi University on 24 February 2011.
http://www.sacw.net//article5711.html

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10. AMARTYA SEN: THE TRUTH ABOUT INDIA'S WOMEN
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It is important to ask why women's education and the corresponding enhancement of women's voice and influence in family decisions have not done much to eliminate selective abortion of female fetuses. Educated mothers seem clearly less inclined to neglect girls compared with boys once they have been born; but they seem almost as keen on having boys rather than girls as uneducated mothers are. Here larger questions of enlightened understanding and scrutiny of traditional values become central and go beyond women's role and influence in family decisions. There seems to be a lack of adequate awareness of the oddity of seeing girls as inferior to boys, and a lack of knowledge about what happens in other places where such discrimination against girls is not present.
http://www.sacw.net//article5709.html

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11. PAKISTAN: TERROR ATTACK ON PESHAWAR CHURCH - EDITORIALS AND COMMENTARY
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some editorials and commentary in Pakistani and International newspapers
http://www.sacw.net//article5684.html

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12. DUKE ELLINGTON'S KABUL CONCERT IN 1963 (BBC REPORT)
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Fifty years ago this week, Duke Ellington and his band played in a concert he later called one of the most memorable of his life. The performance was in Kabul, in Afghanistan, and even though Ellington was at the height of his fame, almost all traces of it have been lost.
http://www.sacw.net//article5660.html

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13. "YAHI HOTA HAI, ISHQ KARNE SE MAAR DAALTE HAI" - TIME TO THINK - WHY SUCH MORTAL FEAR OF LOVE? WHAT'S REALLY INDIA'S GREATEST SECURITY THREAT?
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'This is what happens. If you fall in love, you are killed'
NB - The sheer brutality of what is happening to women, especially young women and children, the hatred of young lovers (I would have burnt my daughter alive for premarital sex: Delhi gang-rape lawyer) - should make us think again about India's 'greatest security threat'. If Asaram Bapu's lawyer can tell the court that the accuser has a disease that draws her to men, is this not (...) 
http://www.sacw.net//article5654.html

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14. AUDIO: DANGEROUS MILITARISATION IN INDIA AND THE MILITARISTIC MINDSET IN SOCIETY
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Praful Bidwai, India's well known progressive commentator speaking on the need to reduce the power of military and militarism in India. He was speaking on the eve of by the India National Convention of Pakistan India People's Forum on 20th September 2013 at an open public meeting held at the Ghalib Institute in New Delhi, India. (This audio recording was made by HK and is made available for educational and non commercial via sacw.net)
http://www.sacw.net//article5657.html

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15. A 1948 PUBLICATION OF COMMUNIST PARTY ON PAKISTAN
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This is a scanned and PDF version of the August 1948 publication of the Communist Party, printed in Bombay. It is a scathing commentary on the state of affairs in Pakistan one year after its creation.
http://www.sacw.net//article5576.html

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16. [VIDEO] THE PINOCHET FILE: HOW U.S. POLITICIANS, BANKS AND CORPORATIONS AIDED CHILEAN COUP, DICTATORSHIP
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Video of a Democracy Now programme on the 40th anniversary of the Chilean coup with Spanish lawyer Juan Garcés, a former personal adviser to ousted Chilean President Salvador Allende, and Peter Kornbluh, author of "The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability."
http://www.sacw.net//article5555.html

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17. BANGLADESH: THE DRUG TRIANGLE - THE POOR AS COLLATERAL DAMAGE
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In Bangladesh, it is the working class of the cities that are paying the largest price. They are the full spectrum of collateral damage.
http://www.sacw.net//article5554.html

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18. INDIA: SAMPRADAYIKTA VIRODHI ANDOLAN (SVA) / MOVEMENT AGAINST COMMUNALISM ARCHIVE
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A digital archive of documents from the now defunct ’Sampradayikta Virodhi Andolan’ (SVA) [Movement Against Communalism] in India.
http://www.sacw.net/rubrique32.html

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19. VIDEO OF TEESTA SETALVAD LECTURE IN GOA ON "THE POLITICS OF DEVELOPMENT"
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Teesta Setalvad Lecture in Goa on "The Politics of Development" on Sunday 1 st September 2013. Organised by - Citizens Initiative for Communal Harmony (CICH) and Nature Education Society & Transformation(NEST)
http://www.sacw.net//article5467.html

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20. [TEXT OF 2012 DEUTSCHER MEMORIAL LECTURE] SEASONS OF SELF-DELUSION: OPIUM, CAPITALISM AND THE FINANCIAL MARKETS
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Published in: Historical Materialism 21.2 (2013) 1–17
The first appearance of the term ‘fictitious capital' in Volume III of Capital is in the heading of Chapter 25 (‘Credit and Fictitious Capital'), yet curiously the term itself appears only twice in the main body of the chapter and on neither occasion is it Marx himself speaking. The first occasion is an excerpt from the Yorkshire banker Leatham who, as early as 1840, discusses the humungous circulation of bills of exchange, adding that this (...) 
http://www.sacw.net//article5466.html

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21. UK: THE WOMEN OF GREENHAM COMMON TAUGHT A GENERATION HOW TO PROTEST
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Greenham was a place where a generation of women found a public voice. It was a voice that was predicated on inclusion and difference... It identified earlier than most, that we had been let down by a political class, that the interests of ordinary people had been ignored in favor of warmongers and international business interests
http://www.sacw.net//article5460.html

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22. INDIA: COMMUNIST PARTY PUBLICATION ON KASHMIR (1950)
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Since August 15, 1947, Kashmir events have unfolded the aggressive designs of the Anglo-American Imperialist Bloc. The way to implement these designs on the Indian soil was cleared by the Mountbatten Award devised by British imperialism and accepted by the Indian National Congress the All-India Muslim League.. . .
http://sacw.net/article5453.html

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23. INDIA: REASON MUST TRIUMPH OVER BLIND FAITH
by Praful Bidwai
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THE assassination of anti-superstition activist Narendra Dabholkar in Pune is a black mark on Indian society. Forces of intolerance, superstition, irrationality and reaction killed him not because he threatened their faith or freedom, but because he was against exploiting people through black magic, sorcery, and sleights-of-hand while invoking supernatural powers.
http://sacw.net/article5457.html

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24. INDIA - ASSAM: AFTER THE INFERNO
by Harsh Mander
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One year has passed since the monsoon of 2012, which witnessed, in Assam, the country's largest displacement caused by ethnic and communal mass violence after the Partition riots of 1947-48. Half a million people were uprooted from their villages because their homes were looted and set ablaze, or simply for fear of their lives. It is extraordinary how easily the rest of the country has forgotten the carnage and the mass suffering it engendered. Part of the reason for this national amnesia is that this violence scarred India's distant north-eastern frontiers, and the survivors were either indigenous Bodo tribals or Bengali Muslims.
http://sacw.net/article5349.html

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25. SELECTED POSTS ON COMMUNALISM WATCH:
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India: Not just survivors, nation needs to mourn 1984 riots: Jaspreet Singh
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/11/india-not-just-survivors-nation-needs.html

Laboratory of Fascism: Capital, Labour and Environment in Modi’s Gujarat
by Rohit Prajapati and Trupti Shah
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/10/laboratory-of-fascism-capital-labour.html

India - Muzaffarnagar riots 2013 and aftermath: A list reports and statements by civil society groups, NGO's and womens groups (as on 31 Oct 2013)
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/10/india-muzaffarnagar-riots-2013-and.html

Kashmir court seeks action against those who invoke religious nationalism while campaiging for elections 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/10/kashmir-court-seeks-action-against.html

Dilip Simeon's blog: High Court of Jammu and Kashmir upholds Sanjay Tickoo's petition for protection of religious places and castigates communal versions of nationalism 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2013/10/dilip-simeons-blog-high-court-of-jammu.html


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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: 
www.sacw.net/

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