SACW - 1 Dec 2013 | Bangladesh: 'Hindu Question' / India-Pakistan: Hawks ; visas / India: Project Modi Inc; Kashmir casualties; IT Act challenged; God in the coins; Calcutta Ban on bikes / France: Int NGOs blind to religious manipulation / UK: Maoist slavery sect / Italian Resistance a History

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire - 1 December 2013 - No. 2800 
[year 15]
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Contents:

1. Pakistan: Theoretical physicist Riazuddin died in September. Pity no one noticed (Pervez Hoodbhoy)
2. India - Pakistan: Hawks in high places (Editorial, Kashmir Times)
3. India / Pakistan – That elusive visa: You can’t just ‘Google it’ (Beena Sarwar)
4. Tribute to Sunila Abeyesekera - on International Women Human Rights Defenders' Day
5. UK: What the Maoist slavery sect tells us about the far left (Tariq Ali)
6. India: Video recording 'The Stalkers'- Excerpts from the Press Conference
7. India: Project Modi Inc. (Bharat Bhushan)
8. India: How to spread communal hatred – Learn from BJP activists (Pratik Sinha)
9. Jordan G. Teicher - Britain's Very Last World War I Veterans
10. India: No room for hatred, as winter session is UPA's last chance (Harsh Mandar)
11. Bangladesh: "The Hindu Question" through Karl Marx's "On The Jewish Question" (Shamim Ahmed & Faruk Wasif - Debate)
12. Are the maladies of India's education system terminal? (Ashok Sanjay Guha)
13. India: Whither secularism? Government releases coins with Vaishno Devi emblem (R N Bhaskar)
14. Dr Tariq Rahman's Book Review on Language Gender and Power by Dr Shahid Siddiqui
15. India: Section 66A and the Intermediary Rules, Information Technology Act Challenged by PUCL
16. India: Casualties of Kashmir's Unrest Live in the Dark (Zahid Rafiq / India Ink)
17. India: Have no illusions about Narendra Modi's idea of India (Hasan Suroor)
18. India: Deposition to Calcutta Police Against the Ban on Biycles and other forms of non-motorized transport (25 November 2013) 
19. Italy - History: Claudio Pavone’s A Civil War reviewed by Mark Mazower
20. Video of book launch discussion: ’New Urdu Writings from India and Pakistan’ edited by Rakshanda Jalil
21. Glimpses from Meeto Memorial Award 2013 and First Sunila Abeyasekara Memorial Lecture in Dhaka

FULL TEXT
22. The Queenmaker of Bangladesh (Tahmima Anam)
23. France: We are faced with the manipulation of religions and with unacceptable deviations of certain NGOs


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1. PAKISTAN: THEORETICAL PHYSICIST RIAZUDDIN DIED IN SEPTEMBER. PITY NO ONE NOTICED.
by Pervez Hoodbhoy
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A quintessential scientist who patiently worked on his calculations until almost the very end, Riazuddin published his last physics research paper in 2013—a remarkable feat for an 82-year-old. For one who had helped set Pakistan on its nuclear path, the farewell Riazuddin got from a bomb-loving nation was surprisingly low key. The country’s powerful nuclear and security establishment was clearly not willing to celebrate a man who had rebelled against it.
http://www.sacw.net/article6705.html

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2. INDIA - PAKISTAN: HAWKS IN HIGH PLACES
- Editorial, Kashmir Times
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Trapped in their traditional and outmoded mindset they are out to subvert the peace process
http://www.sacw.net/article6698.html

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3. INDIA / PAKISTAN – THAT ELUSIVE VISA: YOU CAN’T JUST ‘GOOGLE IT’
by Beena Sarwar
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Most people who’ve seen the [google] ad have been moved to tears or at least choked up, despite their best intentions. But beyond the fantasy fairytale ending of ‘reunion’ lurks the reality, like a wicked witch keeping lovers apart. And that reality is the wretched visa regime that makes it next to impossible for Indians and Pakistanis to visit each other’s countries.
http://www.sacw.net/article6316.html

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4. SUNILA ABEYESEKERA - AWID TRIBUTE TO FEMINISTS AND WOMEN HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS WHO PASSED AWAY 2013
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On the occassion of International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, November 29, 2013, we are commemorating Sunila Abeysekera, a tireless defender of human rights in Sri Lanka. Sunila is remembered as a mother, activist, writer, critic, feminist, and singer with a wonderful sense of humor. Listen to Sunila sing in this short slide show we've put together to commemorate her life.


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5. UK: WHAT THE MAOIST SLAVERY SECT TELLS US ABOUT THE FAR LEFT
by Tariq Ali
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Far-left 'splittist' sects like Comrade Bala's proliferated in the 70s – and a genuine desire for change was corrupted
http://www.sacw.net/article6692.html

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6. INDIA: VIDEO RECORDING 'THE STALKERS'- EXCERPTS FROM THE PRESS CONFERENCE
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a video recording from a press conference addressed by civil society activists following an exposé by gulail.com on illegal surveillance in Gujarat under the Modi govt.
- Screening South Asia: Public Sphere, Citizenship and Technologies of Control / Gujarat, http://www.sacw.net/article6690.html

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7. INDIA: PROJECT MODI INC.
by Bharat Bhushan
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Among the heaviest investors in “Project Modi”, however, are the Hindu ideologues of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Having been banned twice since Independence, its leaders fear another ban, and worse, the prospect of being jailed. Recent developments have intensified such fears. Hindu extremist groups have been found to be involved in the terrorist attacks on the Mecca Mosque in Hyderabad, at Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti's shrine at Ajmer (also known as Ajmer Sharif), and on the Samjhauta Express. Several RSS members (since disowned) have been arrested for their involvement in these terror plots. The heat of the investigations threatens to singe some top RSS functionaries.
http://sacw.net/article6689.html

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8. INDIA: HOW TO SPREAD COMMUNAL HATRED – LEARN FROM BJP ACTIVISTS
by Pratik Sinha
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Ms. Asma Khan Pathan, District President of BJP Minority cell, Kheda, Gujarat tweeted an image of Muslims burning the Indian National Flag at 10:41 AM on 28 November 2013 claiming that to be of illegal Bangladeshis doing so in a protest in Assam. In reality, the image was that of JuD protesters burning the Indian flag in Karachi
http://sacw.net/article6687.html

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9. JORDAN G. TEICHER - BRITAIN'S VERY LAST WORLD WAR I VETERANS
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(via dilip simeon's blog)
Nearly 9 million people were mobilized to serve in Britain's military during World War I. By the time photographer Giles Price started seeking veterans of the war in 2005, there were just 23 left. Even fewer lived long enough to have their portrait taken. “I was aware that very few were still alive and wanted to document them while they were alive,” Price said via email.His series, “The Old Guard,” features portraits of the last 12 veterans of the war, which broke out 100 years ago next summer. 
http://sacw.net/article6683.html

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10. INDIA: NO ROOM FOR HATRED, AS WINTER SESSION IS UPA'S LAST CHANCE
by Harsh Mander
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The continued human suffering and cynical engineering of social ruptures in Muzaffarnagar is another reminder of the imperative for a law to prevent further communal violence. This statute was promised by the UPA government when it assumed power in 2004. But so far it has been unable to muster the political courage to steer it 
http://sacw.net/article6681.html

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11. BANGLADESH: DEBATE "THE HINDU QUESTION" THROUGH KARL MARX'S "ON THE JEWISH QUESTION"
by Shamim Ahmed & Faruk Wasif
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The nucleus of power in Bangladesh is pivoted around the recognition of ‘heterosexual Muslim Bengali males', as this combines ‘ the greatest race, the greatest sexual orientation, the greatest religion, the greatest sex'. If power politics and the power of money are also added, who would be able to resist the rise of ‘the greatest sex'? The state can. But none of AL-JP-Jamaat-BNP-Leftist alliance – who runs our state, has effective agendas to stop the communalism. The existence of AL-JP-Jamaat-BNP depends on that very rise. The non-communist leftist parties of the county and those opportunistic parties which call themselves ‘communist parties', ally with AL and BNP alternately, supporting the rise of ‘that sex'. On the other hand, the revolutionary parties want to give democratic-revolution a chance. Amid this razzle-dazzle, the minority gets annihilated.
http://sacw.net/article6674.html

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12. ARE THE MALADIES OF INDIA'S EDUCATION SYSTEM TERMINAL?
by Ashok Sanjay Guha
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One of the worst-kept secrets of the human resource development ministry is the fact that education in India is in a mess. Explosive expansion over the last two decades has failed to mask appalling standards of quality: in this, indeed, we are now at the very bottom of the global ladder. In 2011, India first participated in world-wide tests of the reading and arithmetical ability of school children. In every test, in every grade tested, India competed desperately with Kyrgyzstan for the last two places. These tests confirmed the results obtained earlier by another organization: in school-learning outcomes, in 2003, India was among the five worst countries in the world. In the eight years between the tests, we had only deteriorated. The reactions of the government were entirely predictable. It did nothing about the facts revealed. Claiming that the tests were biased against us, it withdrew India from future world-wide testing.
http://sacw.net/article6666.html

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13. INDIA: WHITHER SECULARISM? GOVERNMENT RELEASES RS5 COINS WITH VAISHNO DEVI EMBLEM
by R N Bhaskar
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Coins and currency notes were never meant to promote any religion. However, curiously, just when national elections are round the corner, the government has released into the market five-rupee (Rs5) coins 
http://sacw.net/article6668.html
    
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14. DR TARIQ RAHMAN'S BOOK REVIEW ON LANGUAGE GENDER AND POWER BY DR SHAHID SIDDIQUI
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Gender is not the same as sex. The latter is being biologically male or female; the former is what we expect from each. In short, gender is constructed while sex is a given. In Pakistan, for instance, we expect girls to behave modestly, not to whistle at boys, not to have street fights and so on. Children will be socialised in these gender roles and people will consider them natural, inborn, intrinsic and appropriate. But a study of anthropology and history tells us that these gender roles keep changing so they are not natural but taught. But where does language come in, you will ask? It comes in because it is through language that we construct gender.
http://sacw.net/article6349.html


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15. INDIA: SECTION 66A AND THE INTERMEDIARY RULES, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ACT CHALLENGED BY PUCL
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This is the draft of the PIL (Public Interest litigation) filed by the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) before the Supreme Court of India challenging Section 66A and other provisions of the Information Technology Act including the Blocking Rules. PUCL is India's largest civil liberties and human rights organization and this petition is in furtherance of those objectives.
http://sacw.net/article6663.html

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16. INDIA: CASUALTIES OF KASHMIR'S UNREST LIVE IN THE DARK
by Zahid Rafiq | India Ink
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A pellet cartridge holds around 500 little iron balls in it, a senior police officer said, and when shot, they scatter in the air, hitting anyone in the range. The Jammu Kashmir Police say that the pellet gun is a nonlethal weapon that is very useful in controlling crowds without causing much damage. According to the ophthalmologist, S.M.H.S. Hospital has already treated more than 300 young men with pellets in their eyes. “And most avoid coming here if they can, because of the spies that police has posted here,” said the doctor, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the matter. “They keep a check on our registers and see who has pellet injuries, and then the police comes and arrests them.”
http://sacw.net/article6661.html

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17. INDIA: HAVE NO ILLUSIONS ABOUT NARENDRA MODI'S IDEA OF INDIA
by Hasan Suroor
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With the entry of Narendra Modi in the electoral fray as the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, it is becoming clearer by the day that Muslims are going to be the biggest elephant in the room . . .
http://sacw.net/article6366.html

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18. INDIA: DEPOSITION TO CALCUTTA POLICE AGAINST THE BAN ON BIYCLES AND OTHER FORMS OF NON-MOTORIZED TRANSPORT (25 November 2013)
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We respect your concern about the congestion in Kolkata streets and we are in opinion that a comprehensive committee set up by the State Government and constituting experts (health, environment, urban planning etc), stakeholders (cycle and NMT union representatives etc.), and traffic departments can address it, after the removal of the prohibitionary orders.
http://www.sacw.net/article6366.html

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19. CLAUDIO PAVONE’S A CIVIL WAR REVIEWED BY MARK MAZOWER 
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(via Financial Times)
A Civil War: A History of the Italian Resistance, by Claudio Pavone
In Italy, they were known as the partisans, though the Germans called them bandits. To the military mind, the partisan represents a kind of pathology, a deviation into irregularity and a force of disorder and unlawful violence.
http://www.sacw.net/article6662.html

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20. VIDEO OF BOOK LAUNCH DISCUSSION: ’NEW URDU WRITINGS FROM INDIA AND PAKISTAN’ EDITED BY RAKSHANDA JALIL
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At the book release event in Delhi in November 2013 poet and film script writer Javed Akhtar gave a opening lecture on language, literature and urdu. Followed by a question and answer with the book editor Rakshanda Jalil and Javed Akhtar
http://www.sacw.net/article6711.html

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21. GLIMPSES FROM MEETO MEMORIAL AWARD 2013 AND FIRST SUNILA ABEYASEKARA MEMORIAL LECTURE ON 30 NOVEMBER 2013 IN DHAKA
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On, 30 Nov 2013, people assembled at the national theatre auditorium in Dhaka in the afternoon in memory of Meeto and Sunila Abeysekara. The program was jointly organized by Sangat, Nijera Kori, SAAPE and People’s SAARC. 
http://www.sacw.net/article6714.html


::::::FULL TEXT::::::

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22. THE QUEENMAKER OF BANGLADESH
by Tahmima Anam
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(The New York Times, 27 November 2013)

DHAKA, Bangladesh — Call Bangladesh the land of the resurrected. Here, a dictator can be overthrown, disgraced and imprisoned, and still make a comeback.

More than two decades after being ousted, Hussain Mohammed Ershad is now being called the “Queenmaker.” Thanks to recent political maneuvering, he is in a prime position to tip the scales between the two main contenders in the general election to be held in January: Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister, and Khaleda Zia, former prime minister, leader of the opposition and Ms. Hasina’s longtime foe.

Mr. Ershad came to power in 1983, as the head of a military-backed government. By late 1990, after nearly a decade without free and fair elections, a massive popular uprising — led by the two most powerful opposition parties, the Awami League (Ms. Hasina’s party) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (Ms. Zia’s) — was putting pressure on Mr. Ershad to step down. His government fell after the army withdrew its support. Within weeks, Mr. Ershad was in jail on corruption charges.

More than 20 years later, Mr. Ershad’s influence is on the rise again. Though Ms. Hasina and Ms. Zia once cooperated in the movement to restore democracy, they have become bitter opponents in the intervening years, as power has shifted back and forth between the Awami League and the B.N.P. Now, on the eve of another election, Mr. Ershad is the accidental arbiter in the enduring rivalry between the co-architects of his downfall.

Bangladesh is deeply divided. Ms. Hasina’s record in many areas — development, infrastructure, health care, the trial of war criminals from the 1971 liberation war — boasts important victories, and those go far beyond anything Ms. Zia achieved when she was prime minister, in 1991-1996 and 2001-2006.

But Ms. Hasina’s decision to stand by allegedly corrupt ministers and her consistent repression of her political opponents have damaged her standing. Especially controversial, Ms. Hasina has scrapped the so-called caretaker government that had overseen national elections since Mr. Ershad’s fall. In its place she has appointed a special election-time cabinet formally open to all parties and placed herself at its helm.

Ms. Zia looks even worse. Her last term in office was marred by allegations of corruption (some involving her immediate family), and she reigned over an unprecedented spate of violence by religious extremists, including the Islamic terrorist Bangla Bhai. While in the opposition, Ms. Zia has been obstinately uncooperative. She has boycotted Parliament since losing the election in 2008. Now she is threatening to boycott the January election unless the caretaker framework is reinstated. In the meantime, she has called a series of strikes and demonstrations that have brought the country to a standstill. She has refused to join Ms. Hasina’s interim cabinet.

Mr. Ershad, for his part, has accepted to join the new cabinet. He has also agreed to run in the election, a move that will lend the process the credibility that Ms. Hasina badly wants and Ms. Zia is trying to deny her. And if Ms. Zia does stick to her boycott, the Jatiya Party of Mr. Ershad will likely become the country’s new main opposition party, vastly increasing its current influence.

And so it is that while the two leading ladies of Bangladeshi politics quarrel, Mr. Ershad’s clout is growing. In fact, it is almost tempting to forget the dark spots in his past. Mr. Ershad’s rule is sometimes looked upon as a dictatorship of the benign sort. The 1982 coup that brought him to power was bloodless (conveniently, his predecessor had already been assassinated). And the years of democracy that have followed his downfall have been tainted by so much corruption, cronyism and repression that his regime can seem innocuous by comparison.

But nostalgia underestimates the damage the man did to Bangladesh. Mr. Ershad institutionalized corruption on a large scale, undertaking building projects that enriched him and his cronies. In 1988, his government amended the Constitution, ignoring its foundational secular principles to declare Islam the country’s state religion. The return to politics of this dictator, whose fall was so hard-won, sends a message of impunity.

Democracy in Bangladesh has taken another hit, in other words. Politicians are unaccountable. The electoral process is sketchy. Yes, Bangladeshis have held on to the right to vote, but it is, in effect, the right to vote only for warring factions determined to destroy each other.

A few weeks ago, in a bid to convince her to end the strikes, Ms. Hasina made a telephone call to Ms. Zia. The transcript of the conversation, which was circulated online, reads like a parody.

Ms. Hasina: “We don’t want to quarrel.”

Ms. Zia: “You are quarrelling.”

Ms. Hasina: “You are the only one doing the talking. You are not allowing me to talk.”

Ms. Zia: “Why would I do that? You are asking questions, I am replying.”

Ms. Hasina: “I am not getting a chance to speak.”

Amid that bickering, Ershad doesn’t need to do much talking at all.

Tahmima Anam is a writer and anthropologist, and the author of the novel “A Golden Age.”

A version of this op-ed appears in print on November 27, 2013, in The International New York Times.

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23. FRANCE: WE ARE FACED WITH THE MANIPULATION OF RELIGIONS AND WITH UNACCEPTABLE DEVIATIONS OF CERTAIN NGOS
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(via siawi.org | URL: http://www.siawi.org/article6261.html)

source: Feminist and secularist Solidarity Collective (*)

24 November 2013

Communiqué

We are faced with the manipulation of religions and with unacceptable deviations of certain NGOs

On the 27 November, two important events will take place concerning the assertion of the secularity principle both nationally and internationally :

· In France, the Paris Court of Appeal will pronounce its judgment on the so-called Baby Loup case, after the Court of Cassation annulled the dismissal of an employee wearing the Islamic head scarf when the by-laws of the day care centre stipulate that all religious symbols are forbidden.

· At the European level, France will be heard by the European Court of Human Rights after the request lodged in April 2011 by a woman wearing a niqab who attacked the law of the French Republic forbidding people to conceal their faces in public (Law N° 2010-1192 of 11 October 2010).

On this second affair, Amnesty International, Liberty, Open Society Justice Initiative and the Gent University Human Rights Centre, all presented observations, as intervening third parties claiming the incompatibility of the 11 October 2010 law with the European Convention upholding human rights and fundamental freedoms.

These organisations thus demonstrate, not only their blindness towards religious manipulations, but also an unforgivable collaboration with those who mislead the notions of freedom and of consent in order to assign a degrading form of invisibility to women.

Confronted with a case so extreme and grossly distorted as that of a full face veil, and while throughout the entire world attacks of extreme violence are made against women, these humanitarian organisations prove themselves incapable of recognising the significance of a costume like the niqab: the symbolic cloistering of women and the stigmatising of their bodies.

These unworthy attacks should convince French representatives in all internationalstructures that it is high time to cease their low profile policy when secularity is attacked, as if this were a slightly shameful and uncommunicable French peculiarity.

It is, above all, an emancipating principle of universal importance, the basic condition for women’s freedom.

Signatories

(*) Membership of the Solidartity Collective created by the Ligue du Droit International des Femmes :

Association des Femmes Euro-Méditerranéennes Contre les Intégrismes
(34 rue Martin Levasseur, Saint-Ouen 93400)

Association des Femmes Franco-Africaines de Paris
( Maison des Associations, 11 rue Caillaux ,75013 Paris)

Comité Laïcité et République
(54 rue Pigalle, 75009 Paris)

Commission pour l’Abolition des Mutilations Sexuelles
(6 place Saint-Germain des Pr és, 75006 Paris)

EGALE, égalité, laïcité Europe
( 21 rue Monges, 75005 Paris),

Espoir pour Tous Droits pour Tous
( 45 rue Henri Poincaré, 92600 Asnières),

Féminism in London
(Raby’sBarn Newchapel RH 7 6 LE, UK)

Institut de Recherche et d’Etudes Stratégiques de Khyber,
(6 place Saint-Germain des Prés, 75006 Paris)

Libres MarianneS
( 11 rue Caillaux, 75013 Paris),

Le Chevalier de la Barre
(Maison des associations du XVIIIème Boîte à lettres 89 15 passage Ramey, 75018 Paris)

Le Mouvement Ni Putes Ni Soumises
(Maison de la Mixité, 70 rue des Rigoles, 75020, Paris)

Ligue du droit international des Femmes
( Association créée par Simone de Beauvoir,
6 place Saint-Germain des Prés, 75006 Paris)

Réseau Féministe Rupture
(38, rue Polonceau 75018 – PARIS)


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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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