SACW - 15 Sept 2015 | Afghanistan: Public Lashing / Sri Lanka: Reconciliation commission / Nepal: Constitution making moves / Questioning Pakistan’s history / Pakistan-India: Curbs on culture / India: RSS calls the shots under Modi; Assault on reason; solidarity with FTII students; Dr. John Dayal under attack;

Mon Sep 14 15:12:54 EDT 2015

South Asia Citizens Wire - 15 Sept 2015 - No. 2870 
[since 1996]

Contents:
1. Questioning Pakistan’s history: Akbar Zaidi and I.A. Rehman
2. India: The emperor’s masks - apolitical RSS calls the shots in Modi sarkar | Dilip Simeon
3. MK Venu: The RSS Has Now Come Out of the Shadows in India
4. India: How Historians Came Under Attack in 1977 - interview with RS Sharma and Bipan Chandra
5. Audio Recordings: The Assault on Reason - Rewriting of History - A SAHMAT Press conference in Delhi (5 Sept 2015)
6. India: SAHMAT Statement of Solidarity with Striking FTII Students
7. India: In Defense of Dr. John Dayal - Statement of All India Secular Forum
8. India: Statement by Concerned Intellectuals Regarding Proposed Changes in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library
9. India: The importance of Professor Kalburgi | Chandan Gowda
10. Religion and Morality | N. D. Punchily
11. The real Hindi | Garga Chatterjee
12. India: Destruction of Gunga Devi’s Murals at the Crafts Museum | Laila Tyabji
13. Excerpts from the Introduction, ’Dalit Literatures in India’ edited by Joshil K. Abraham and Judith Misrahi-Barak
14. Recent On Communalism Watch:
 - India: Music director A.R. Rehman's response to the Raza academy fatwa against his doing music for the film Muhammad: Messenger of God
 - India: Is granting right to residence to members of persecuted minority from Bangladesh and Pakistan an election ploy towards voters in Assam? (Prasenjit Biswas)
 - India: The meat of the matter is governments should not dictate citizens’ personal choices (Edit, The Times of India, 14 sept 2015)
 - Anand Gandhi: The state has no moral right to interfere with the life and death choices of informed, consenting adults
 - India: Caste, Religious Institutions and Domination (Sanjana Krishnan and Rahul Jambhulkar)
 - Book Review: Rudy Heredia on Saitya Brata Das and Soumyabrata Choudhury's The Weight of Violence
 - Nepal rejects Hindu nation calls; protesters, police clash (14 september 2015 : AP report)
 - Dear Minister: Your Attempts To Define Indian Culture Are Clumsy (Isheta Salgaocar)
 - What the online attacks on my father say about India: activist John Dayal's daughter takes stock (Karuna John / Scroll.in, September 14, 2015)
 - India: Silencing A Tradition - Refusal to respect diverse readings of the Ramayana is cultural vandalism (Amrith Lal)
 - How caste politics is being resurrected with dubious history before polls in Bihar (Nalin Mehta, The Times of India, 14 Sept 2015)
 - Interview with historian Audrey Truschke (The Hindu, 14 September 2015)
 - Attempts on to destroy Indian history — but history’s not mythology or theology: Irfan Habib (Interview, Times of India)
 - Growing Intolerance: Controlling Food Habits Food Habits (Ram Puniyani)
 - India: Delhi University has of late seen a sustained charge by the RSS brigade (Bula Devi, Outlook Magazine, 21 sept 2015)
 - India:: RSS is in it and outside it: M.G. Vaidya (The Hindu - September 13, 2015)
 - India: Modi government sets a dangerous precedent by basing asylum policy on religion (Shoaib Daniyal)
 - BJP, hardliners warn Rajinikanth against accepting film offer on Tipu Sultan (Arun Janardhanan / Indian Express)
 - Aman Sethi : Engineers of the Hindu Soul (The Wire - 12 sept 2015)
 - India: Saffronising the institutions (Kuldip Nayar)
 - India: Project Bharatiyakaran - RSS' 8-point guide to saffronise education

::: RESOURCEs & FULL TEXT :::
15. Dispatches: A Court-Sanctioned Lashing in Afghanistan | Heather Barr
16. Afghanistan: Gallery's nudes raise eyebrows – and tensions – in Afghanistan capital | Peter Holley / The Washington Post
17. Nepal: All Articles of Part 1 of Revised Constitutional Bill approved
18. Sri Lanka to set up reconciliation commission
19. India - Pakistan: Curbs on culture | A.G. Noorani
20. India lacks coherent refugee policy | Shalini Bhutani
21. From refugees to Parliament: The Goan experience | Vivek Menezes
22. India: Aurangzeb vs Kalam | Pawan Khera 
23. India: Under the flyover - Is affinity with animals instinctive or learned? | Anuradha Roy

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1. QUESTIONING PAKISTAN’S HISTORY: AKBAR ZAIDI AND I.A. REHMAN
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Questions pertaining to 50th anniversary of the 1965 war and history
http://sacw.net/article11608.html

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2. INDIA: THE EMPEROR’S MASKS - APOLITICAL RSS CALLS THE SHOTS IN MODI SARKAR
by Dilip Simeon
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It is deceitful of the RSS to compare themselves to any other civil society organization, rather than to the National Advisory Council to which they had strenuously objected. No other NGO exercises ideological control over the government and maintains a vast cadre of political activists, many of whom undergo arms training. None of them can summon government ministers for discussions.
http://www.sacw.net/article11609.html

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3. MK VENU: THE RSS HAS NOW COME OUT OF THE SHADOWS IN INDIA
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It was probably the first time that the RSS had so openly displayed its ownership of a BJP-led government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi returned the compliment by saying “whatever I am today is based on the values imbibed from the RSS”. It was also the first time that the BJP members of the cabinet made no bones about being ideologically mentored by the RSS.
http://www.sacw.net/article11605.html

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4. INDIA: HOW HISTORIANS CAME UNDER ATTACK IN 1977 - INTERVIEW WITH RS SHARMA AND BIPAN CHANDRA
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27 November 1977 Times of India Interview by Narendra Panjwani with Bipan Chandra and RS Sharma
http://www.sacw.net/article11607.html

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5. AUDIO RECORDINGS: THE ASSAULT ON REASON - REWRITING OF HISTORY - A SAHMAT PRESS CONFERENCE IN DELHI (5 SEPT 2015)
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Recordings of interventions by Anil Nauriya, Irfan Habib, Teesta Setalvad, Prabhat Patnaik at the Press Club of India on 5 Sept 2015
http://www.sacw.net/article11603.html

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6. INDIA: SAHMAT STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY WITH STRIKING FTII STUDENTS
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As the strike by students of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) enters its fourth month, and the condition of students on hunger strike deteriorating alarmingly, we join the distinguished alumni of the institute, national award winning film personalities and others of the artistic fraternity, in extending our solidarity to the cause they are fighting for.
http://www.sacw.net/article11625.html

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7. INDIA: IN DEFENSE OF DR. JOHN DAYAL - STATEMENT OF ALL INDIA SECULAR FORUM
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The threats of abuse and death to Dr. John Dayal are one more disturbing events in recent times. John Dayal is a member of National Integration Council, is the Secretary General of All India Catholic Union and a foremost human rights defender. He has been seriously committed to the values of pluralism, secularism, communal harmony and for defense of weaker sections of society. An activist of long standing and repute; he has been part of human rights endeavors upholding the rights of minorities, Dalits and Adivasis.
http://www.sacw.net/article11627.html

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8. INDIA: STATEMENT BY CONCERNED INTELLECTUALS REGARDING PROPOSED CHANGES IN THE NEHRU MEMORIAL MUSEUM AND LIBRARY
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we note with concern that there are reportedly plans afoot to transform the Nehru Museum into a “Museum of Governance”, and to repurpose it to broadcast the activities of the current government. While the government has every resource at its disposal should it want to build a Museum of Governance and use such an institution to display its own achievements, the Nehru Museum was never meant to be anything other than a museum dedicated to India’s first Prime Minister, his life and his times.
http://www.sacw.net/article11598.html

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9. INDIA: THE IMPORTANCE OF PROFESSOR KALBURGI | Chandan Gowda
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Symptomatic of the superficiality of our times, the murder of Kalburgi, a scholar who considered knowledge essential for understanding society, was seen as the murder of a rationalist and an atheist
http://www.sacw.net/article11613.html

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10. RELIGION AND MORALITY
by N. D. Punchily
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It is generally supposed that the morality of a people is grounded in their religion. The falsity of this view is, however, borne out by the frequent riots in which a large number of innocent people are mercilessly killed in the name of religion. The history of the world is full of religious wars- wars between Muslims and Christians, between Protestants and Catholics, between Hindus and Muslims, between Muslims and Jews. Large-scale deception and oppression of the people has also taken place in the name of religion. The religion being the source of morality is a myth exploded by history.
http://www.sacw.net/article11602.html

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11. THE REAL HINDI
by Garga Chatterjee
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Hindi in the Devanagari script is the official language of the Indian Union government and some state governments. Hindi derives its primacy from numbers. According to the 2001 census, 41.03% of the population were Hindi speakers. However, the census’ definition of Hindi is extremely wide, and people are counted as being Hindi speakers even if they don’t call their own language “Hindi.”
http://www.sacw.net/article11614.html

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12. INDIA: DESTRUCTION OF GUNGA DEVI’S MURALS AT THE CRAFTS MUSEUM | Laila Tyabji
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The mindless destruction of Ganga Devi’s extraordinary last works at the Crafts Museum is terribly sad. It highlights the caste system between art and craft, the indifference to the creative integrity of a craftsperson’s vision. The quoted reaction of a Crafts Museum official, “Don’t worry, I’ll get another kohbar ghar painted” shows that, even for someone who claims to have worked there for 30 years, one piece of craft is much like another. So Ganga Devi is no more, let’s get Sita Devi or Champa Devi or Ambika Devi.
http://www.sacw.net/article11626.html

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13. EXCERPTS FROM THE INTRODUCTION, ’DALIT LITERATURES IN INDIA’ edited by Joshil K. Abraham and Judith Misrahi-Barak
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The volume engages with writers such as Namdeo Dhasal, Baby Halder, Sharankumar Limbale, Bama, Kallen Pokkudan, Manohar Mouli Biswas, Praveeen Gadhvi and others. Bringing together incisive essays by renowned and emerging scholars in the field, it initiates a dialogue between Dalit writing and Western literary theory and compares Dalit writings with other forms of subaltern writings from across the world, as also explores the literatures of Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians.
http://www.sacw.net/article11611.html

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14. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH:
========================================
 - India: Music director A.R. Rehman's response to the Raza academy fatwa against his doing music for the film Muhammad: Messenger of God
 - India: Is granting right to residence to members of persecuted minority from Bangladesh and Pakistan an election ploy towards voters in Assam? (Prasenjit Biswas)
 - India: The meat of the matter is governments should not dictate citizens’ personal choices (Edit, The Times of India, 14 sept 2015)
 - Anand Gandhi: The state has no moral right to interfere with the life and death choices of informed, consenting adults
 - India: Caste, Religious Institutions and Domination (Sanjana Krishnan and Rahul Jambhulkar)
 - Book Review: Rudy Heredia on Saitya Brata Das and Soumyabrata Choudhury's The Weight of Violence
 - Nepal rejects Hindu nation calls; protesters, police clash (14 september 2015 : AP report)
 - Dear Minister: Your Attempts To Define Indian Culture Are Clumsy (Isheta Salgaocar)
 - What the online attacks on my father say about India: activist John Dayal's daughter takes stock (Karuna John / Scroll.in, September 14, 2015)
 - India: Silencing A Tradition - Refusal to respect diverse readings of the Ramayana is cultural vandalism (Amrith Lal)
 - How caste politics is being resurrected with dubious history before polls in Bihar (Nalin Mehta, The Times of India, 14 Sept 2015)
 - India: Supreme Court stays criminal proceedings against cricketer M.S. Dhoni for visual depiction of him as Hindu god Vishnu
 - Interview with historian Audrey Truschke (The Hindu, 14 September 2015)
 - Attempts on to destroy Indian history — but history’s not mythology or theology: Irfan Habib (Interview, Times of India)
 - Growing Intolerance: Controlling Food Habits Food Habits (Ram Puniyani)
 - India: Delhi University has of late seen a sustained charge by the RSS brigade (Bula Devi, Outlook Magazine, 21 sept 2015)
 - India:: RSS is in it and outside it: M.G. Vaidya (The Hindu - September 13, 2015)
 - India: Modi government sets a dangerous precedent by basing asylum policy on religion (Shoaib Daniyal)
 - BJP, hardliners warn Rajinikanth against accepting film offer on Tipu Sultan (Arun Janardhanan / Indian Express)
 - Aman Sethi : Engineers of the Hindu Soul (The Wire - 12 sept 2015)
 - India: Saffronising the institutions (Kuldip Nayar)
 - India: Project Bharatiyakaran - RSS' 8-point guide to saffronise education
 - TV reportage on the Meat bans across India - Truth Vs Hype

 - available at: http://communalism.blogspot.com/

::: RESOURCES & FULL TEXT :::
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15. DISPATCHES: A COURT-SANCTIONED LASHING IN AFGHANISTAN
by Heather Barr
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(Human Rights Watch - 2 September 2015)

It’s a scene we associate with the Taliban. A woman covered head to toe in a flowing veil, huddled on the ground before a man in a turban. His right arm is raised, in motion, holding a lash, a second away from bringing it down on her. An audience of men – only men – sit in a circle around them. They have chairs – a nod to their comfort while they watch what may be intended as a cautionary lesson, or spectacle.

This is not the Taliban. This photo emerged on September 1, and reportedly shows the lashing of a woman named Zarmina, 22, who was arrested with a man named Ahmad, 21, several weeks ago in Afghanistan’s Ghor province. The two were accused of zina, or sex outside of marriage, which under Afghan law is a crime carrying a sentence of 5 to 15 years in prison. The two were sentenced to 100 lashes each by a court – not a Taliban tribunal, not a convening of elders, but a formal court of law that is part of the same Afghan government that the international community has been working to strengthen and legitimize since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001. The punishment of lashing is illegal, as it is not authorized by law, but Afghan courts hand out corporal punishment with sufficient regularity that district judges have been known to keep a lash hanging in their office.

[Photo] An Afghan judge hits a woman with a whip in front of a crowd in Ghor province, Afghanistan August 31, 2015.   REUTERS/PAJHWOK NEWS AGENCY

Sex between two consenting adults should never be a crime. But even more horrifyingly, a conviction for zina in Afghanistan is often based on the shakiest of evidence. When I interviewed dozens of women and girls imprisoned for zina and reviewed their cases, I learned that judges hand down harsh sentences based on women having left the home without permission, having been alone in the presence of a man who is not a relative, on malicious statements from angry and abusive husbands and fathers, and on abusive “virginity exams” – vaginal examinations that are medically meaningless.

On September 5, donor governments will convene in Kabul for a “senior officials meeting” to agree on a road map for international aid to Afghanistan for the next four years. This photo should be one more reminder of the extent to which the Afghan government continues to violate human rights, especially those of women. Ahead of the conference, President Ashraf Ghani has negotiated hard with foreign donors to reduce the human rights expectations they will place on his government. Instead, donors need to be much tougher about keeping rights at the top of the agenda.

They owe it to all of Afghanistan’s Zarminas and Ahmads. 

(Heather Barr, Senior Researcher, Women's Rights Division)

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16. AFGHANISTAN: GALLERY'S NUDES RAISE EYEBROWS – AND TENSIONS – IN AFGHANISTAN CAPITAL
by Peter Holley / The Washington Post
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(The Orange County Register - Sept. 14, 2015)

Munera Yousefzada shows off a painting from her gallery's current exhibition at the Shamama Contemporary Arts Gallery in Kabul. After living in Iran, Yousefzada returned to Afghanistan and started SCAG because she wanted to give Afghan female artists a place to exhibit their work.

KABUL – At first glance, the tastefully decorated rooms, embellished by dark wood floors and soft mood lighting, seem like an unlikely incubator of radicalism.

The occupants of this space, in a glassy residential tower overlooking one of Kabul’s poshest neighborhoods, wield master’s degrees, not Kalashnikovs.

Their weapons aren’t bombs but canvases – painted with searing images of agony and frustration, as well as something else never before seen in public in this deeply conservative country: nude female bodies.

This is Shamama Contemporary Arts Gallery, a female-owned commercial enterprise that represents a new front in the fight for women’s rights in Afghanistan. Munera Yousefzada, the gallery’s 30-year-old founder, said she opened the space last year to give Afghan women a bold new voice.

“Before I opened the gallery, I felt like I was trapped at the bottom of a well and nobody could hear my screams,” she said, recounting her struggle to live in a male-dominated society. “Now they can hear me, and they can hear the other women whose paintings hang on the walls.”

For women in Afghanistan, being heard too often means putting their lives at risk.

Despite years of liberalizing international influence and the influx of girls’ schools and women’s shelters since the Taliban were toppled in 2001, Afghan women still endure exceptional levels of violence and discrimination. Even now – amid a growing number of female television anchors, police officers and entertainers – the only way to ensure the female form is stripped of controversy is to cover it head to toe in a burqa and place a man at its side.

For this reason, the gallery has restricted access to the paintings to people in Kabul’s tight-knit, invitation-only arts community, but Yousefzada hopes to change that and begin exhibiting the paintings to the broader public as soon as possible.

To many, it sounds a lot like a suicide mission.

“Nude paintings are not acceptable in our society,” Mina Habibi, a 26-year-old government employee, said. “Afghans are so sensitive regarding Islamic- related issues. If anyone creates or displays nude paintings, then mullahs will issue a fatwa to kill them.”

For some, the paintings are a sign of progress, evidence that a new generation of women has benefited from the influence of Western nongovernmental organizations that have spent the previous decade financing initiatives that encourage female education and agency. For others, the paintings are a stunt created by attention-obsessed asylum seekers, people intent on escaping the country’s deteriorating economic and security situation with a provocative ploy.

The nudes are the work of one of the artists who exhibit here, an outspoken 21-year-old studying at Kabul University. Farah Sultani said her paintings may draw undue attention but are foremost a celebration of the female form.

Colored black, but surrounded by bright greens and blues, the nudes she has created are shapely and explicit. They are based on photographs she snapped of a local sex worker.

“In Afghanistan, men don’t care about the personality of the women, and they’re judging a woman based on her body,” Sultani said. “I wanted to reclaim the female body, because it is something extraordinary and beautiful.”

Besides, she added, “I enjoy painting nude paintings of women personally, so why should I stop?”

Sultani was born in Afghanistan, but, like many in Kabul’s emerging arts community, she spent a large portion of her childhood in Iran, where she was exposed to the country’s thriving contemporary arts scene. She returned to Afghanistan as a teenager with a new sense of possibility and pride, she said.

She began painting images of nude women about a year ago, which led her family to ban her from working at home. Sultani has also been criticized on Facebook, where she was cursed at and questioned for posting images of her paintings.

She said she is generally unconcerned about her safety but sometimes fears becoming the next Farkhunda, the Afghan woman who was stoned to death and set on fire by a mob in downtown Kabul in March after she was falsely accused of burning a copy of the Koran.

Since Farkhunda’s murder, there have been at least 450 attacks on women in Kabul and surrounding areas, a 12 percent increase over the same period last year, according to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. The attacks are rarely associated with sacrilege, but usually arise from a culture of violence that is inflicted on women in a male-dominated society.

Others think Sultani will end up the next Kubra Khademi, an Afghan artist who narrowly avoided serious injury after she took to the streets in Kabul in suggestive body armor in March to protest street harassment. After her 10-minute walk, she received death threats and was forced into hiding. Critics accused her of using the performance to seek asylum in Europe.

Sultani said she has no intention of leaving the country and vows to continue painting.

“I was born to be a good painter and a good artist,” she said. “I was born to help my people. I am a strong Afghan girl, and I will never stop working because other people are ignorant.”

M. Alem Farhad, a member of the fine arts faculty at Kabul University, said that if Sultani was intent on creating nude paintings, she was probably attempting to make a name for herself instead of producing art in the service of Afghan society. Perhaps, he wondered, the artist is being influenced by foreign interests.

“In the West, nude paintings don’t create contradictions within the society,” he said. “In Afghanistan, we are a traditional society, and we should not create contradictions. An Afghan artist should consider the Islamic values and the cultural values of the people, or the people will hate Afghan artists.”

During his time as an art student in Ukraine, Hamid Kabuli, a member of the fine arts faculty at Kabul University, painted countless nudes. Since he returned to Afghanistan more than a decade ago, he has been asked to censor many of his paintings, and he said he has no problem with doing so, pointing to a large painting in his office in which he was forced to hide a female figure’s hair and remove a suggestion of her lower leg.

“In Afghanistan, nobody can draw the figure of a woman better than me, but I always consider the sensitivity of the issue,” he said. “I think it’s too early to introduce such ideas into this country. It will create a big problem for the artist, their work will be discredited, and people will assume they are an American instrument.”

Yousefzada, who spent eight years in Iran, also returned from living abroad with a new appreciation for contemporary art. To critics who assert that her gallery is a gathering place for asylum seekers, she said the opposite is true. The day she returned to Afghanistan from Iran, she said, was the day she decided not to leave again under any circumstances.

“It doesn’t matter if ISIS is here or any other extremists groups,” she said. “I want to work and fight here. Afghanistan needs people like me because the international community is leaving, so it’s the responsibility of Afghans to take care of our country.”

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17. NEPAL: ALL ARTICLES OF PART 1 OF REVISED CONSTITUTIONAL BILL APPROVED
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(Kathmandu Post - 14 September 2015)

Sep 14, 2015- The Constituent Assembly (CA) meeting today passed all nine Articles of the Part 1 of the Revised Bill of the Constitution of Nepal-2072. Earlier, provisions under Article 1 to 4 were passed. 

Article 5 states that sovereignty, national indivisibility, independence, unity, protection of rights and dignity Nepali, border security, economic prosperity shall be the fundamental issues of Nepal's national interest. Various amendment proposals lodged relating to this provision were rejected from majority. 

Lawmakers Shyam Shrestha, Bishwendra Pashwan and Chinkaji Shrestha had submitted amendment proposals in the Article 5. 

The joint proposal of three major political parties registered by Chief Whip of Nepali Congress Chinkaji Shrestha for changing the terminologies dignity, protection of Nepalis rights' to 'dignity, protection of rights and interests of Nepalis has been approved. 

The Article 6 approved by today's CA meeting states that 'All languages spoken in Nepal are the national languages'. Lawmakers Laxman Rajbansi, Kumar Khadka, Jaydev Joshi and Aindra Sundar Nembang had floated the amendment proposals on the same. 

Similarly, Article 7 stating 'Nepali language written in Devnagari script shall be the language of official use while the federal provinces shall use one or more languages for their official use depending on the majority of speakers of the languages in addition to the Nepali language’ was approved by the CA meeting. 

Of the total 16 amendment proposals tabled on the Article 7, nine proposals were withdrawn whereas eight were rejected. 

Likewise, the meeting passed the Article 8 on determining the same national flag in the new constitution. The national flag of Nepal, as handed down by tradition, consists of two juxta-posed triangular figures with a crimson-colored base and deep blue borders, there being a white emblem of the crescent moon with eight rays visible out of sixteen in the upper part and a white emblem of a twelve rayed sun in the lower part 

Of the total four amendment proposals lodged on this provision, one proposal was withdrawn while the CA rejected three others lodged by Ram Kumar Rai, Shivalal Thapa and Yashodha Kumari Lama. 

The CA retained article 9 that mentions the index of the national anthem, rhododendron as Nepal's the national flower, cow as the national animal, crimson as the national colour, lophophorus as the national bird.

Of the total 19 proposals submitted on this provision, one was withdrawn whereas others were rejected from the CA members during the clause-wise voting on the Bill of the new constitution. 

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18. SRI LANKA TO SET UP RECONCILIATION COMMISSION
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(Deutsche Welle) 

Sri Lanka has announced plans to create a truth commission and reconciliation office aimed at addressing war crimes committed during the country's decades-long civil war. At least 100,000 were killed during the conflict.

Sri Lanka's new government announced on Monday that it would be creating a new office for war reparations and a truth commission in the wake of a decades-long civil war between state forces and "Tamil Tiger" guerrillas that began in 1983.
"The government of Sri Lanka recognizes fully that the process of reconciliation involves addressing the broad areas of truth seeking, justice, reparations and non-recurrence," Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.

Samaraweera said Sri Lanka sought assistance from authorities in South Africa and others in order to create a "Commission for Truth, Justice, Reconciliation and non-recurrence," similar to the one established in South Africa following the apartheid era.
"We realize how important this is to prevent impunity not only for violations of human rights but for corruption and other crimes," the minister said.
Samaraweera's statement came hours after the UN Human Rights Council announced that it would be releasing a report on war crimes committed during the country's civil war, in which at least 100,000 people died.
The report was delayed by six months at the behest of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad al-Hussein in order to give the new government under President Maithripala Sirisena the opportunity to cooperate with investigators.
During former President Mahinda Rajapakse's tenure, a final offensive lead to the killing of up to 40,000 ethnic Tamil civilians, an onslaught decried by human rights organizations in 2009.
The UN report is expected to call for a judicial process to try officials who served during Rajapakse's rule.
ls/msh (Reuters, AFP)

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19. INDIA - PAKISTAN: CURBS ON CULTURE
by A.G. Noorani
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(Dawn - 12 September 2015)

PAKISTAN and India have been commemorating the 1965 war. Their governments and intelligentsia would do well to reflect on its baleful consequences on travel, cultural exchange and trade between them. Both countries were overwhelmed with bitterness.

Article VI of the Tashkent Declaration (Jan 10, 1966) provided that the parties “have agreed to consider measures towards the restoration of economic and trade relations, communications, as well as cultural exchanges between India and Pakistan”. It remained a dead letter.

Three years later, prime minister Indira Gandhi wrote to president Yahya Khan, proposing that they “ease the regulations for travel between the two countries, encourage greater cultural contact in the field of letters, art, music, science and sport”. In reply, Yahya Khan urged “that we go back to the heart of the matter” — Kashmir and the Ganges waters. In 1969 she regretted that “today, there is almost a total lack of control between the peoples of our two countries. Commercial, economic and cultural relations are completely cut off”. Is the situation now, some 50 years later, any different?

Each side has contributed to this. Pakistan insisted on a settlement of the Kashmir dispute as a precondition to resumption of severed links. In 1997, Mian Nawaz Sharif relented from the single-point agenda and agreed to a “composite dialogue” to cover all issues including Kashmir and terrorism. I.K. Gujral backed out.
Indo-Pak ties are not immune to the truths of diplomacy.

A most promising phase in India-Pakistan relations (2004-7) was interrupted by the Mumbai blasts on Nov 26, 2008. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh soldiered on only to be checked by his party the Congress.

The Narendra Modi government has hardened that position. Its single-point agenda is terrorism. What Raymond L. Garthoff, a wise scholar-diplomat, wrote of a superpower the United States, is even more true of the South Asian adversaries. “By tying virtually the whole of US relations with the Soviet Union — everything involved in business as usual, from high-level official contacts to exchange visits of art exhibits — to the continued Soviet military presence in Afghanistan, the Carter administration in essence mortgaged American policy to this issue.”

The record demonstrates that in no case was an impasse resolved because cultural links were severed. It was diplomacy that resolved the issue.

Relations between India and Pakistan are not immune to the time-tested truths of diplomacy. But the important question is can the state enlist civil society in its policy of confrontation and subject the citizen to hardships in consequence? The citizen owes loyalty to the state; not his mind, still less his soul. He has a right to know the truth.

This is recognised in Article 19(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.”

Curbs on travel and cultural exchange are a blatant violation of this internationally recognised right. It is not the foreign participant but the local audience which suffers the most; be it in curbs on seminars, visits of musicians or scholars and the like.

The curbs have assumed barbaric proportions. Visas were denied to devotees who sought to participate in the annual urs of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishty at Ajmer. The disease is of recent origin.

In April 1961, even amidst a diplomatic stand-off, an India-Pakistan Cultural Conference was held in New Delhi. Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru delivered the inaugural address. Erudite papers were read on archaeology and history; education; fine arts; journalism and films and languages, with particular attention to Urdu.

The present situation is best illustrated by the prime ministers solemnly agreeing at Ufa to devise a “mechanism for facilitating religious tourism”. This severely limited remit betrays a mediaeval mindset.

To appreciate the great value of cultural exchange we need go no further than consult Pakistan’s former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri’s excellently documented account of his term in office (2002-2007), entitled Neither a Hawk nor a Dove. The book was published recently by OUP, Karachi.

He writes: “Cultural activities between the two countries can go a long way towards blunting adversarial feelings. In this context, a liberal visa regime for artists, poets, writers and musicians would greatly benefit Pakistan and India. It has been aptly remarked: ‘Lata’s songs won’t destabilise Pakistan while Faiz’s poems can’t break India’. Love and not hatred is the lyrical idiom of singers and poets. Undoubtedly, a regular exchange of artists between Pakistan and India would be a good way of palliating historical wounds.”

The question is when will the leaders of Pakistan and India join hands to heal those wounds?

The writer is an author and a lawyer based in Mumbai.

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20. INDIA LACKS COHERENT REFUGEE POLICY
by Shalini Bhutani
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(Deccan Herald, September 11, 2015, DHNS)

South Asia does not have a coordinated policy. Regional co-operation in asylum policies is essential.

The refugee crisis is not only a problem for West Asia and the European world. As the crisis deepens, it is important to hold the mirror to us and reflect on the state of refugee policies in the country and the South Asian region and ask why so many are rendered stateless.

Many in Syria and other conflict-ridden areas of the world might never find refuge. If and when they do, refugee policies of the country they finally find themselves in will determine the future course of their lives.

Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gives everyone the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. This puts a moral and ethical obligation on states to accept those taking refuge in another country.

The international law is elaborated in the United Nations Convention (1951) and its Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees(1967). This Geneva Convention was born in a post-World War II Europe to help those fleeing Europe. Ironically, today there is a mass exodus of people heading to Europe.

The Convention clearly defi-nes a ‘refugee’ as someone who “...owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to su-ch fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such eve-nts, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”

The Convention legally constraints its (currently 137) member countries to exercise their sovereign right to decide who can enter their territory, remain there and those who cannot. The international legal principle of non-refoulement prevents a country from expelling refugees. As per the Convention, refugees have a set of rights, which include access to basic education, to health services, to employment, free access to courts and of necessary documentation such as a refugee identity and travel document.

The South Asian region doesn't have a coordinated policy on this. Regional cooperation in asylum policies is essential in these parts. None of the countries in the sub-region are party to the international Convention.

Nevertheless, India will need to play a more constructive role on this front. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has an office in Delhi since 1995.There was also a Delhi Initiative in 1996 to develop a Model National Law for Refugees for South Asian countries to follow, but that has not made progress. In an already impoverished region, providing for refugees becomes all the more challenging.

Legal entitlements

In a country like India that was born with a refugee crisis that the 1947 Partition brought, a coherently articulated refugee policy is conspicuous by its absence. So, when Afghanis, Bangla-deshis, Myanmarese, Nepalis, Sri Lankans or Tibetans are allowed in, they are dealt with characteristic adhocism. In the absence of a national law on refugees, refugees have no means to enforce globally recognised legal entitlements. Moreover, the existing Indian law – Foreigners Act, 1946, gives wide powers to the government for detention and deportation.

Yet, there has been some public interest litigation for refugee rights in courts across the country though draft bills on refugee protection have yet to make it to parliament. The Government of India, in September 2014, set up a taskforce under the Ministry of Home Affairs to review the problem. It is to look into the issue of grant of long-term visa (LTV) based on UNHCR documentation, and eventual grant of citizenship. Whether this will give protection to all bona fide refugees in India is to be seen. The BJP’s election manifesto of 2014 expressly stated that the long pending problems and demands of refugees from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) will be addressed.

However, in the context of the country’s North East frontier, the same document states that it will address the issue of illegal immigrants and complete all pending fencing work along the India-Bangladesh and India-Myanmar border, stepping up border security. Refugee issues often get entangled with economic protectionism and security concerns. But it is absolutely critical to differentiate between a regular immigrant and a refugee as defined in international law. For that reason, refugee status determination (RSD) becomes critical.

Refugees are real people with real problems who had to flee their homes and homelands to stay alive because global politics couldn’t keep their country from going to ruin. Both government officials and local people have to be mindful of the fact that the underlying reasons for refugees was life-threatening war and serious human rights violations.

The question has to broaden from how do we deal with refugees to how do we prevent refugees from being made? Until and unless political turmoil, armed conflict, sexual and gender-based violence are all squa-rely confronted, the refugee crisis cannot be addressed. While government policies are important, public opinion can play a critical role in the development of public policy in this area.

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21. FROM REFUGEES TO PARLIAMENT: THE GOAN EXPERIENCE
by Vivek Menezes
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(The Times of India - Sep 13, 2015)

Suella Fernandes knew exactly how she wanted to start her British Parliamentary career. The newly-elected 35-year-old Conservative MP for Fareham began her maiden speech recalling "a cold February morning in 1968" when "a young man, not yet 21, stepped off a plane at Heathrow airport, nervously folding away his one-way ticket from Kenya. He had no family, no friends... his homeland was in political turmoil. Kenya had kicked him out..." Christie Fernandes of Nairobi (and Assagao) was part of a wave of Goans and other Indians forced out of Africa to begin life again in an unfamiliar country.

Echoes of that wrenching refugee experience are reverberating now, as the world reels horrified from an onslaught of images from the borders of Europe, where hundreds of thousands of desperate families (mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan) overwhelm the barricades to get to Germany and a handful of other countries which have promised refuge. Huge numbers are walking in caravans across Hungary and Austria, others are crossing the Mediterranean Sea in dangerously-unsafe boats. Many are dying along the way.

While international agencies and the European Union are scrambling to come up with something like an adequate response to the challenges posed by this explosive crisis—easily the most severe refugee exodus since World War II—there are also some obvious lessons to be learned from this unfolding situation that can be immediately registered to help cope with the challenges that will continue to unfold throughout the 21st century.

First, the world is now too interlinked for the impact of failed states to remain localized. When the disastrous American-sponsored war made Iraq unlivable, millions of Iraqis moved to Syria, when a collective failure of leadership (led by Assad, but fuelled by drought) compelled Syria to implode, many of those people waited for a while in Lebanon and Turkey, then—quite logically—decided to head for Germany, where Chancellor Merkel basically said they would be welcome, deciding to brave hostilities along the way.

Another lesson, instead of becoming fearful about potential "threats" from refugees, it should be noted that societies usually benefit from dynamic influxes. As the increasingly invaluable Nigerian-American writer (and son-in-law of Goa) Teju Cole wrote, earlier this week, "more than 'refugee' or 'migrant', I say 'people' and say it with compassion because everyone I love, and everyone they love has at some point said tearful goodbyes and moved from place to place to seek new opportunities, and almost all of them have by their movement improved those new places".

That sentiment makes straightforward economic sense, according to the star economist Thomas Piketty, who argued "for an open Europe" a few days ago, reckoning a huge refugee influx into the continent is actually a gift, "an opportunity to jump-start the continent's economy" where it "can and must become a great land of immigration in the 21st century" in order to sustain the kind of marketplace activity it requires to maintain its standard of living.

That is exactly the lesson learned from the painful experience of the same generation as Suella's father in the UK. A few weeks after Christie arrived in London, Enoch Powell (representing the same Conservative Party as Suella) delivered his famous "Rivers of Blood" speech warning of "whole areas, towns and parts of towns...occupied by sections of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population". By then, the British government had already betrayed its "citizens" in the East African colonies with the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, divesting them of full UK passports, legislation described in its own Parliament as "cruel and brutal anti-colour legislation".

Later in 1968, Parliament passed the Commonwealth Immigrants Act specifically to deter Kenyan Asians from fleeing to Britain. Christie made it in by just a hair. By now, there was a full-scale scare against refugees. Soon, the City Council of Leicester would take out full-page advertisements in newspapers in Kampala advising, "In your own interests and those of your family, you should not come to Leicester."

But what's the moral of the story? Leicester survives and thrives today because the refugees came, and braved the hostility. Powell would hate it, because there are 1,00,000 British Indians resident in the city, and Aden-born Goan Keith Vaz has represented them in Parliament since 1987. The Goans who were expelled under difficult circumstances from Africa have added great value to every country where they have settled—not least of all back home. Today's refugees crisis is tomorrow's dividend.

The writer is a widely-published author and photographer.

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22. INDIA: AURANGZEB VS KALAM
by Pawan Khera 
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(The Indian Express - Sep 2, 2015)
The renaming of a road is part of a wider pattern of strategic messaging by the NDA.
Written 

Ironically, the BJP’s office is on a road named after a king who converted millions of Hindus and Jains to Buddhism. If Aurangzeb must be exorcised, what about Ashoka? 

The renaming of Aurangzeb Road to A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Road has left apolitical liberals shocked and political parties dumbfounded. Without being saddled with the baggage of ideology, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal jumped to take credit for the renaming by tweeting the news first. He was present at the NDMC Council meeting that took the decision based on a petition by BJP’s east Delhi MP, Maheish Girri.
The naming of streets in Delhi is governed by home ministry guidelines of September 27, 1975. These guidelines clearly state that names of existing streets should not be changed and only new or unnamed roads should be given names after eminent personalities. In the 15 years that I spent as political secretary to former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, we often received demands to rename/ name streets in various parts of the city. In many cases, these demands were accepted, but never to rename a street. From K.K. Birla Marg to Rajesh Pilot Marg to Shrimant Madhav Rao Scindia Marg, names were either allotted to new streets or to streets that had yet to be named.
Aurangzeb’s track record as an Indian-born Mughal ruler is full of contradictions: there are instances when he showed extreme intolerance to pluralism, but also examples of his patronage and largesse towards other religions. If Aurangzeb decided to impose Islamic rule, it was to seek legitimacy from those who had supported him in decimating his brothers and seizing power. It can be understood even in today’s context, with the RSS-controlled government’s frequent attempts at making India a Hindu rashtra. If Aurangzeb decided to demolish temples that became political centres, he also funded the repair of the Chitrakoot temple, the Mahakal temple and several gurdwaras. Are we to judge him by the temples he demolished or by the temples he supported? Didn’t the BJP rise to electoral prominence after demolishing a mosque, and promising to demolish more — “abhie toh pehli jhaanki hai, Mathura, Kashi baaki hai”? Are we to judge Aurangzeb by his decision to make Sambhaji a mansabdar in the contest against the Bijapur Sultanate, or by his many contests against the Marathas? Should Aurangzeb be judged by the jizya tax imposed on able-bodied non-Muslims who did not volunteer to be in the army or by the zakat, ushr, sadaqah, fitrah and khums he collected from only Muslims? Aurangzeb needed to finance his various wars. He seized the throne in 1658, whereas jizya was imposed in 1679.
Aurangzeb banned the consumption of alcohol, gambling, music, nautch girls, narcotics, castration, etc. If we are to judge him by the bans he imposed, how should we judge the present ruling party, which has banned beef in some parts, come dangerously close to banning porn sites, is in the process of banning some NGOs, banned a film on the December 16 gangrape case, banned the word “lesbian” from films (among 28 other “swear words”)?
Without an approximate understanding of the historical and political context of that era, are we to judge at all? History will judge us by the way we judge history. And if in judging history, we were to include the good, the bad, the ugly, the black, the white and the grey, our heart will neither bleed for Aurangzeb nor throb for Kalam.
Ironically, the BJP’s office is on a road named after a king who converted millions of Hindus and Jains to Buddhism. If Aurangzeb must be exorcised, what about Ashoka? Did he not indulge in largescale killings of Hindu Ajivikas and Jain Nirgranthas, especially after converting to Buddhism?
Having failed to take corrective action against then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for his controversial role in the post-Godhra riots in 2002, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was losing his sheen as the secular mascot of the BJP. Vajpayee’s troubleshooters advised him to nominate Kalam as the NDA’s presidential candidate. By accepting to become president, and thus whitewashing the taint of the ruling establishment, Kalam weakened the losing cause of pluralism in India. He failed the countless victims of communal violence in the country. A brilliant scientist and a fine human being, as the 11th president of India, Kalam willingly became a shield for a government desperately seeking cover after the shameful role played by its party in Gujarat.
It may not have electorally benefited the NDA in 2004, but in terms of a political strategy, appointing Kalam as president was perhaps the best perception-management option that the NDA’s street-smart managers had.
The renaming of Aurangzeb Road to A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Road is part of the same strategic messaging: you are a good Muslim if you further our agenda or shield our real face. The rest are bad Muslims, and for them, the messaging shall come from Pravin Togadia, Giriraj Singh and Sadhvi Pragya.
The writer, a former political secretary to Sheila Dikshit, is with the Congress party

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23. India: Under the flyover - Is affinity with animals instinctive or learned?
by Anuradha Roy
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The Telegraph - 8 September 2015

The author's latest novel, Sleeping on Jupiter, is longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

At nine-thirty on a weekday morning in the monsoon, Delhi's Defence Colony flyover is a noisy, semi-immobile caterpillar. The rain always makes the traffic inexplicably denser. Nothing's moving, there is no likelihood that it will any time soon. Through car windows you can see men and women in corporate uniforms glaring into mobiles. If their fingers stop tapping the keypad, they begin tapping the steering wheel, a steady drumbeat of rage: delayed meetings, lost opportunities, money down the drain.

Underneath the flyover, a young man with a single silver earring and an improbable beret on his head is murmuring to a bird on his wrist. The bird is large, and it has a hooked beak. For a moment I think it's a falcon, because I've heard of trained falcons. When I ask the man, he says with an adoring smile, "She's a kite. She is mine. I love her."

The Friendicoes animal shelter and clinic has the Defence Colony flyover as its ceiling. The flyover is made of joined up prefab blocks of concrete. Gaps between the blocks let in a drip-drip of dirty rainwater on to parts of our waiting area even as the cars and buses above - when they finally move - make the clinic shudder with their vibrations. The space outside the clinic is a dimly lit passageway and its two coolers struggle to shift the sultry heat. Impatient dogs, cats in carriers, hamsters and birds, all wait their turn here, sometimes one hour, more often two. The vets are furiously overworked, two of them treating five animals at a time, charging from one patient on a drip to another with a gaping wound.

The man with the kite has come because his bird has fractured a wing. Three years ago, the kite had fallen out of its nest as a chick. The man had put the chick back in the nest, but it fell out again. This time he took it home and she has lived with him ever since. "We have a dog too. They are good friends. This bird is a member of my family." As if to prove this, the bird kisses the man's lips with its beak, which looks lethal enough to slice faces in half. Its talons quiver on the man's bandaged hand.

Wait long enough at an animal shelter and you will see all of human life. If this isn't an ancient proverb, it should be.

We've seen ramshackle drunks bring in a wounded bitch for treatment - complete with her litter of suckling puppies, their eyes as yet blind to the world; injured pigeons, and kittens hardly bigger than mice, wrapped in hankies or aanchals; we've seen labourers, motor mechanics, women in patched saris, come long distances with strays, sometimes tied with no more than a rope because leashes and collars are unaffordable. These are animals they happened to see knocked down by a passing car or wounded in a fight. "How could we leave them to die?" is a common refrain. One woman said, "I had to look after her because she was wounded, but then it became love ( phir pyaar ho gaya)." Some say environmentalism is a "full stomach" phenomenon: by that logic, people will care most for trees and animals when they can afford a 4x4 to drive to wildlife resorts. But under the flyover is compassion, not entertainment.

There are other kinds of people too: I saw a well-dressed trio come in with a Saint Bernard they claimed belonged to a neighbour. The 'neighbour' didn't want the dog any more, they said. After a few formalities in the office, they patted the dog with a "Bye Bye, Bruno" before walking away, freed of their fifty-kilo charge. The huge, furry dog, as out of place in Delhi as a polar bear might be, gazed at his new surroundings unaware his family had gone forever.

In one experiment, when Konrad Lorenz hand-reared goslings as soon as they had been hatched, he discovered that the process of recognizing parents is not instinctive in birds: it is learned. The goslings followed him around exactly as they would their mother goose, and paid no attention to their biological mother. This is known as filial imprinting, and many animals imprint on to more than one other species, provided they meet them early enough in friendly encounters. The biologist, John Bradshaw, describes how puppies, between the fifth and twelfth week of their lives, can extend this filial attachment to several species. That is why puppies who encounter friendly humans or cats early in life adopt these aliens as extensions of their own family. Cats and dogs can be the best of friends.

What about humans? Is affinity with animals instinctive or learned? Why do some humans develop a deep sense of kinship with animals - most commonly dogs? Is it because they have had dogs as children or is it an innate, unlearnable capacity like an ear for music or an eye for colour?

In the West, this affinity is valorized: there is a whole publishing and film industry built on its foundations. It is considered good manners - actually just plain normal - to greet people's dogs. Dogs are allowed to travel on trains and go to cafés. I've been to expensive restaurants where the immaculate head waiter presents the dog with a bowl of water before he turns to the humans with a menu card.

In our country, it is usually the opposite. Meet someone with your dog and the distrust is immediate: "Does it bite?" This may have complex social causes, and there are exceptions of course, but the bottom line is that most of us in India are indifferent to animals and often cruel. There are other countries where animals are savagely treated as well, but here, the venerated cow is an abstraction. Bull calves, always unwanted, are commonly left to starve to death; boiling water and even acid is flung on stray animals. Most animals, especially dogs, are seen as dangerous and dirty. It is no accident that the Friendicoes shelter is hidden away in a dark corner under a leaky flyover. Another shelter I have been to, the NOIDA SPCA, is set in a wasteland near a cremation ground and a graveyard. This is a country in which its National Human Rights Commission has issued a statement against stray dogs, calling it a "'Human Rights' versus 'Animal Rights' battle".

For much of the middle class in India, with two jobs, two children, a small flat and dreams of second or third cars, every minute and square metre is apportioned. This does not allow for the genial anarchy of animals, the care and sacrifices they require. Few people have pets at home or feel the need for them. Some want pets, but worry about time, money, space. Their children, who never encounter animals, are usually rigid with ignorance and fear when confronted by so much as a playful puppy. I once saw a boy wash his cricket ball, which had recently rolled several times into a drain, after my dog picked it up. In his head the drain was hygiene compared to a pet dog's mouth. In his head, as in that of far too many Indians, the species hierarchy was as immutable as the caste system, with humans at the top.

The other day, there was the rare middle-class child at the shelter: a five-year-old who waited for two hours in the heat with her father, grandfather, and Golden Retriever - incongruously named Silver. She patted our dog with complete confidence and was unfazed by the dozens of lame and mangled strays who ambled around the waiting area. She's going to be the odd-girl-out among troops of self-absorbed children growing up unaware of the needs of any species but their own.

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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/

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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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