Awaaz - South Asia Watch News
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Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Posted by: Awaaz / 6/11/2003 09:32:49 PMLK Advani and other senior BJP leaders had instigated karsevaks to pull down Babri Masjid
Read the Story: http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_276350,0008.htm
Karsevaks' body endorses charges of accused in Babri case
Press Trust of India, Hyderabad, June 9
A body of Ayodhya karsevaks on Monday endorsed the allegations of five accused in Babri Masjid demolition case that LK Advani and other senior BJP leaders had instigated karsevaks to pull down the disputed structure and that they were being discriminated in the case vis-à-vis VIP accused.
"We agree with what the karsevaks had confessed at the CBI special court in Lucknow on June 7 that senior BJP leaders instigated them to pull down the structure," National Convener of Akhil Bharat Ayodhya Rammandir Karsevak Sangh A Venkateswara Rao told reporters in Hyderabad.
The charge had been strongly denied by BJP.
Reiterating the contention of the five accused, Rao, who participated in the 1992 karseva and came out of RSS two years later, said, "When the crime is same all accused should be tried in the same manner but there has been discrimination as some VIPs were separated from the trial".
Rao and T Venkatesh, who showed photographs of their participation in karseva along with ID cards, said,"There was no need for anyone (the five accused) to give tutored evidences against BJP leaders".
Advani's lawyer Satyapal Jain had dismissed charges of the five accused, including the priest of the Ram Lalla temple, saying the evidence was tutored against Advani.
The Sangh, formed in 1999 by about 1,300 karsevaks from across the country, would continue its struggle for building the Ram temple, he said.
ENDS.
Posted by: Awaaz / 6/11/2003 09:30:40 PM
FASCIST LEADER & India's Deputy Prime Minister LK ADVANI IS VISITING BRITAIN
To Protest Against the Fascist Policies of Ruling BJP & RSS, join the Picket On
Sunday 15th June 2003, 5.30 pm - 7.00 pm
at QE2 Centre, Parliament Square, London WC1
(Opposite Westminister Abbey)
Nearest Tube: Westminister (District & Jubilee Line
India's powerful Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister-in-waiting, L.K. Advani, visited US and met George Bush and meeting Tony Blair this week. The purpose of this tour is to finalise arrangements for Indian troops to participate in the US' ongoing imperialist occupation of Iraq; to arrange US military bases in India; and to promote his government's idea of a 'core alliance' between the US, Israel and India.
REMEMBER AYODHYA
While he has been away, Advani's role in the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, which led to communal riots across the country, has once again been highlighted. Five of the accused in the demolition case have named Advani as the chief instigator of the demolition, and at the same time, fresh charges have been brought against him by India's Central Bureau of Investigations. There have been widespread calls for his immediate resignation.
REMEMBER GUJARAT
Meanwhile, Advani and his party the BJP continue to defend the genocidal state- sponsored attacks on the minority Muslim community in the state of Gujarat which took place in March 2002. At least 2,000 people - the majority women and children - were killed in the most brutal ways imaginable. Many thousands more saw their families, homes and livelihoods destroyed. Today, those survivors who have tried to return to their homes are being economically boycotted and terrorised into silence as the perpetrators of the attacks on them continue to roam freely. Advani describes Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who played a key role in planning the attacks, as 'India's best Chief Minister'. The BJP's sister organisation the VHP has called for the Gujarat 'experiment' to be repeated elsewhere in India.
WHO IS L.K. ADVANI?
The ruling party he represents, the BJP, is a far right Hindu supremacist party with a fascist ideology. The BJP used state power to pre-plan and orchestrate the Gujarat carnage along with its allies such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and the Bajrang Dal, which has also carried out systematic murderous attacks on the Christian minority community in India.
LK Advani has fully supported Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who has been personally indicted by human rights organisations for his role in planning and facilitating the attacks.
L.K. Advani joined the RSS, a militant Hindu supremacist group who proclaimed their admiration for Hitler, in the 1940s in his teens, and today represents their interests while in government.
In 1990, as President of the BJP, Advani he took out the Somnath-Ayodhya 'rathyatra' cross-country procession demanding construction of a Ram temple on the site of the historic Babri Masjid, thereby initiating the worst religious violence since Partition in 1947
On December 6, 1992 he personally presided over the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya - charges have been repeatedly brought against him but he has never been prosecuted
As Home Minister he has led the way in pursuing a belligerent policy of war-mongering against Pakistan. Several times he has brought the country to the brink of nuclear war.
He is the most important ideologue of Hindu fascism, and the crucial bridge between the militant and openly fascist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS - active in Britain as the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh) and the ruling Bharitiya Janata Party
Come Along to Save India From Fascist Forces
ENDS.
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Posted by: Awaaz / 6/10/2003 09:47:55 AMUnder the Shariat axe
At stake is not just women's rights, but Pakistan's future
Sherry Rehman
The Indian Express June 09, 2003
Every time the spectre of a Shariat act is raised in Pakistan, women are the first to shudder. Despite the rush of burqa humour clogging the Net, these jokes conceal a fear as visceral as it is real. Irrespective of its content, there are widespread fears that the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) government's adoption of a Shariat bill could result in serious curbs on women's mobility and freedom. The first worry is that many radical clauses kept off this bill's agenda will still be pursued by self-appointed vigilantes in the streets. A bigger fear is that once legislation such as the Hisba act goes through in the Frontier, the whole apparatus of vice and virtue policing may leak into the public culture of other provinces as well.
Such fears are not unfounded. Our own history, as well as the experience of other Islamicised states, holds up a largely anti-women, deeply orthodox mirror to the societies they reflect. This picture threatens a large mainstream of Pakistani women today. Unlike the stereotype of the veiled, faceless woman the media likes to sensationalise, a majority of Pakistani women work unveiled inside and outside the home but remain unaccounted for, and hence unempowered, by the strictly fiscal nature of the modern economy. As in the wider South Asian context, in Pakistan too a woman's identity is a fragile social construct, subject to almost daily negotiation with powerful economic, political and cultural forces. What so-called Islamic laws will do is introduce a new slew of legal limits and cultural constraints to restrict even more the public space that most women can operate within.
I am not alone in dismissing the old right-wing bromide, in currency again, that such laws seek to protect women. Anyone who has witnessed the corrosive effects of General Zia's Islamisation process that saddled Pakistan with laws such as the Hudood and Zina ordinances knows what they mean for women.
If to privileged, postmodern apologists such laws don't define the quotidian experience of the average woman, I'd urge a quick, sobering look at police records of the last few years. The Hudood ordinance remains the single most commonly applied law to hold women in indefinite lock-up. According to this law, in present-day usage, when a woman petitions against her rape she invariably becomes an accomplice instead of a victim. Needless to say, the law's axe falls mostly on poor, resource-starved women.
But my issue with this bill is not just about the misogynist content and scope of these laws that seek to Talibanise the country. Without a doubt, women's freedoms and hard-earned rights are the first to go in any such project. Many others in Pakistan also feel these laws don't just threaten the power and mobility of women to attempt to live as equal members of the federation. They strike at the very heart of the project that is Pakistan. I say this because the legislation is about a fundamental re-ordering of the state in the image not of its founding father's dream, but in the muddled vision of its first opponents, our friends in the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal.
Mohammad Ali Jinnah would find most of the 71 points that the Council of Islamic Ideology has recommended in this Shariat bill repugnant to the spirit of tolerance and liberalism he espoused in his vision of Pakistan. Conceived as a home for Muslims to live in peace and prosperity, Jinnah had made it amply clear that Pakistan was never to be a theocracy.
For over three decades, Shariat-law adventurism has been a favourite ploy of rightist political forces who have been allies with the military in dominating the national agenda through the appropriation of the state's ideological discourse. Although critics of such policies blame the insertion of the Objectives Resolution in the Constitution as the original concession on this slippery slope, the real Islamisation of the state began seriously only under Zia. His formula of harnessing Islamist parties as a substitute for the legitimacy conferred by real democracy continues even today.
General Musharraf's intransigence on refusing the elected parliament the right to indemnify his constitutional amendments has led him up the same dangerous road. For a self-proclaimed secularist, his obsession with marginalising moderate, mainstream parties at the expense of the stability of the new democratic set-up has exposed his weakness and willingness to barter anything for his political survival. Faced with a revolt in the National Assembly and Senate, where his potential for an alliance with the MMA is crumbling in the wake of his refusal to give up his COAS uniform while remaining president, he is locked on the horns of a nasty dilemma.
The good news is that as surely as night follows day, the NWFP's Shariat bill will be challenged as unconstitutional by the bar councils, in the Supreme Court. Women's groups, minorities and trade unions will back the PPP a hundred per cent on reversing this bill on the grounds of it being a "Taliban bill". It is also not a foregone conclusion that the federal government will let this bill be signed by the governor of that province, although this tactic too will only buy its opponents a little more time, given that the bill will eventually have to be returned to the assembly.
At his own peril, Musharraf feels he can ignore this. His gameplan is clear. To break the single-issue agenda of the opposition on the Legal Framework Order crisis, he is dangling the carrot of this bill in front of the MMA. The stick is the pressure from his non-party local body councillors to resign their offices in confrontation with the MMA assembly. What he can't manage forever is the game he is playing with his real constituents, the terrorist-panicked US.
At the end of the day, nobody wants to back a dictator who is losing control of the game. Or who has lost his utility as a bulwark against religious militancy. The NWFP's Shariat bill is not a pawn in the MMA's chess game with the general. It is their final solution. It is high time the Jamali government alerted him to the reality that there is no such thing as limited Islamisation. At stake is not just his own survival. It is the survival of Pakistan as we know it.
(The writer is a member of the National Assembly in Pakistan, and former editor of the newsmagazine 'The Herald')
ENDS.
Pakistan: Law of the land A drive to enforce Islamic law threatens to unravel Musharraf's coalition government
BY TIM MCGIRK
Time June 16, 2003 / Vol. 161 No. 23 Notebook
http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501030616-457398,00.html
Once again, Pakistan's mullahs are on a collision course with President Pervez Musharraf. In the latest clash, on June 2, religious groups that control Pakistan's Northwest Frontier province declared that Shari'a law would be enforced in their territory-superceding the British-style legal system that is Pakistan's law of the land. Shari'a is the strict religious code that governs Islam. From now on, Arabic, the language of the Koran, will be obligatory in schools; girls 12 years and older will have to wear the head-to-toe veil known as the burqa, and women will not be allowed to leave home unaccompanied by a husband or male relative.
A challenge to Pakistan's shaky, secular government is the last thing Musharraf needs, but the mullahs are pushing a showdown. The Muttahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a political bloc of six religious groups, intends to set up a morality police to enforce Islamic virtue, raising cries among human-rights activists against the "Talibanization" of the province. But popular support for the change is evident: even before the law imposing Shari'a was passed, Islamic youths roamed the town of Peshawar tearing down billboards featuring images of unburqa'd women. The religious parties warned Musharraf not to interfere. "We will resist all threats," said the MMA's Secretary General, Maulana Fazlur Rehman.
In retaliation, Musharraf could dissolve the provincial assembly. But the MMA is making threats of its own, warning that 68 of its members serving in parliament may resign if Islamabad tries to overturn the local law. That poses no direct peril to Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless coup in 1999. But the flimsy coalition Musharraf stitched together after last October's elections could come unraveled if there are mass resignations. And if the elected government falls, Musharraf's popularity could plummet, as could his standing with his main international ally: the U.S.
Meanwhile, a nationwide alliance of mullahs has launched a direct attack on Musharraf, demanding that he no longer serve as both the country's President and army chief. They say they are willing to drop that demand-if Musharraf agrees to apply Shari'a law throughout the country, a step the President, a religious moderate, is loathe to make. If he wants to save his façade of civilian government and retain international support, he may have to swallow hard and make peace with two exiled former Prime Ministers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, whose parties together are strong enough to foil the clerics.
-With reporting by Ghulam Hasnain/Islamabad and Rahimullah Yusufzai/Peshawar
ENDS.
Textbook Troubles: India's Hindu Nationalists Rewrite Their Country's Past-Conveniently
Siddhartha Deb
The Boston Globe June 1, 2003
EVERY NATION IMPARTS self-serving myths and legends to its young, but in recent years few countries have done so quite as avidly as India. In classrooms from Kashmir to Karnataka, a new history is being produced by a resurgent right-wing Hindu movement. One finds a number of curious stories being peddled to schoolchildren: Aryans sallying out from India to settle Iran, Homer adapting ''The Iliad'' from the Ramayana, Christ roaming the Himalayas in search of Hindu wisdom. These claims will sound unlikely even to the hardened Indophile, but they are being promoted in government-sponsored textbooks, columns by right-wing journalists, and paintings commissioned to adorn public spaces. The Hindu fundamentalist vision of history presumes that the Indian subcontinent is an exclusive Aryan-Hindu preserve. Hindu ideologues dismiss strong historical evidence that the area once contained a mix of peoples, and that the Aryan people migrated there from central Asia. Their purist idea! of India has become visible even in America. On March 25, a vocal group of well-dressed Indian nationalists disrupted a Columbia University panel on India and Pakistan, forcing the moderator to abruptly halt the discussion. In April, some 2000 signatures appeared on an online petition protesting the appointment of Romila Thapar, a secular scholar of ancient India, to a research chair at the Library of Congress. Such incidents are old news in India, where liberal, secular, and left-wing historians have been under attack since the early 1990s, when the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) began its rise to power. The BJP originally focused its complaints on a 16th-century mosque in Ayodhya, a symbol to them of the long history of Muslim conquest and plunder. The BJP, along with its allied organizations the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) (known collectively as the ''Sangh family''), claimed the mosque had been built on the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama. Historical evidence was hard to come by, but the BJP leader L.K. Advani (who has since become deputy prime minister) gave public appearances as Rama riding his chariot. Subsequently, the mosque was demolished by Sangh cadres. In 1998, the BJP won national elections and began taking control of the country's leading scholarly bodies. A national curriculum for schools run by the central government was proposed the same year, with the objective of replacing history textbooks by the country's most reputed scholars, many of whom have a secular or left-wing orientation. In May 2002, the education ministers of 16 states walked out of a conference to protest the right-wing bias of the new curriculum, while three leading scholar-activists filed a petition with the Supreme Court challenging the publication of new textbooks. The petition was turned down, however, and ''India and the World'' and ''Contemporary India'' made their appearance last year. At first sight, the new textbooks seemed notable only for their bad photographs, cluttered maps, occasional typos, and the insouciance of introductory statements like ''The twentieth century world witnessed umpteen developments of far reaching consequences.'' Once the liberal press had subjected the textbooks to close readings, however, a pattern emerged from the ''umpteen developments'' left out. The anti-left bias, as in the offhand description of Lenin as the leader of a ''coup,'' was expected. But some other distortions were less so. The Holocaust, for example, is significantly absent from the discussion of Nazi Germany in ''India and the World,'' and Gandhi's assassination by a right-wing Hindu isn't mentioned in ''Contemporary India.'' The books criticize German nationalism not for genocide, war, pogroms, and book-burning, but merely for a false superiority complex premised on ''so-called Aryan blood.'' The real Aryans, or Hindus, omnipresent in all aspects of the Indian subcontinent, are a different matter altogether. It doesn't take a reader of runes to trace the lineage of these omissions and distortions. The Hindu right-wing vision of India was in large part imported from the West: Under British rule, the history books emphasized irreconcilable differences between Hindus and Muslims, largely as a justification for the British presence. These versions of history trickled down to the colonial-era figureheads of the Hindu right. The BJP, for instance, owes a great deal of its historical vision to Veer Savarkar, an Indian nationalist imprisoned by the British in the early 20th century. Although Savarkar turned informer in prison, the BJP recently installed his portrait in the Indian parliament. It was a loyal gesture, because Savarkar had articulated the view closest to the revised history being shaped by the Sangh family, even coining the word they use to express their idea of Indian identity: ''Hindutva,'' or Hindu-ness. As Savarkar explained, ''Hindutva is not a word but a history. ! Hindutva embraces all the departments of thought and activity of the whole being of our Hindu race.'' Savarkar defined the Hindu race as those for whom the Indian subcontinent was their original ''fatherland,'' while M.S. Golwalkar, an early guiding light of the RSS, had written admiringly of the ''race pride'' of Nazi Germany. Taken together, they provide the perfect framework for a constructed ''Aryan'' history whose key points fly in the face of mainstream historical consensus. According to this revisionist history, the people commonly referred to as Aryans were native to the Indian subcontinent, not tribes who arrived from Central Asia around 1500 BC. The Harappan civilization that flourished in Western India and Eastern Pakistan from 3000 to 1500 BC were horse-riding Aryans, not the advanced urban population most historians say they were. The period of Muslim Moghul role from the 11th to the 18th centuries AD was one of total religious persecution of the Hindu majority, not a time when Hindus played active roles in sustaining and challenging the Mughal empire. And finally, the BJP claim that independence from British rule was won by right-wing Hindus, when in fact such organizations had a shameful record of collaboration with the British. In today's India, only 30 percent of school children attend primary school, and far fewer reach the state-run secondary schools where the most controversial textbooks are likely to be used. It's significant ! that the new textbooks are aimed, most of all, at the children of India's middle class, which embraces both the idea of a global economy and retrograde fantasies of ethnic purity. The Hindu nationalist middle class participated avidly in the looting that accompanied the massacre of an estimated 2,000 Muslims in the western state of Gujarat last year. What all this history effort produces, of course, is the worldview held by Praveen Togadia, the VHP's general secretary, who proclaimed Gujarat a ''laboratory'' for Hindutva in the wake of the killings. Togadia has demanded that Indian Muslims take blood tests to prove they are not of Arab descent. He was probably characterizing Islam as an Arab and foreign religion, and his message was clear: Non-Hindus are second-class citizens, and anyone who knows India's history should know as much. To defeat Togadia's way of thinking will require Indians to remember precisely those pluralistic and tolerant aspects of their history that ! the new government-sponsored curriculums so eagerly erase.
Siddhartha Deb is an Indian writer whose reviews and articles have appeared in New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement, and Legal Affairs. His novel ''The Point of Return'' was published recently by Ecco.Copyright (c) 2003 Globe Newspaper Company
ENDS.
Coalition to Support Democracy and Pluralism in India
C/O 110 Maryland Ave, NE Suite 510
Washington DC 20002
Phone: 202 547 4700 Fax: 202 547 6228
June 9, 2003
TO: The President, The Vice President, The Secretary of State, The Secretary of Defense, The Secretary of Homeland Security, The Attorney General, The National Security Advisor and the Congressional Leaders
FOR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION
We, the undersigned belonging to various organizations, including those representing Americans of Indian origin are writing to you about your possible meeting with the visiting Deputy Prime Minister of India Mr. L.K. Advani, today.
Mr. Advani has indicated that he intends to discuss, how India and the United States can co-operate to fight global terrorism. We welcome such cooperation. Terrorism has become a global menace, necessitating coordination across countries.
We also believe India and the U.S. should come together to promote trade and strategic partnership.
However, we are not comfortable with the fact that such discussions should take place with people like Mr. Advani. His actions in the past and currently undermine the American interests and values:
§ He has been held directly responsible for criminal activities against religious minorities and gross violations of human rights. India's lead intelligence agency, the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) has filed criminal charges against Mr. Advani as recently as last week for masterminding the religious riots.
§ His actions have undermined the global war on terror by encouraging religious extremism in India which in turn fuels the religious extremism in Pakistan. His positions and rhetoric are causing more damage in South Asia.
§ His religious politics is causing uncertainties and unrest in India which is bad for business. It also damages economic stability besides causing strains in U.S.-India trade.
Criminal Activities and Human Rights Violations
Since late 1980s, Mr. Advani has succeeded in spreading hatred against India's religious minority communities, particularly Christian and Muslim populations. He has organized numerous rallies across India that have led to violent riots, thousands of deaths, and the illegal destruction of private, commercial and religious property. The most flagrant instance occurred in December 1992, when the 16th century Babri mosque was demolished in Ayodhya, India by several thousand extremist Hindu 'volunteers' belonging to the BJP and its sister organizations, under the guidance of Mr. Advani. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), filed several charges against Mr. Advani in connection with this incident. These activities have also been highlighted by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). The May 2003 USCIRF report refers to BJP capitalizing on the religious intolerance and hatred against minorities for electoral gains.
Under Mr. Advani's leadership, the Ministry of Home Affairs has consistently refused to take action against Hindu extremists who have been responsible for destroying Christian churches, schools and hospitals, and for killing pastors and raping nuns. He has similarly protected the perpetrators of organized large scale violence against the Muslim community.
Mr. Advani has used the influence of his office to scuttle many official inquiries into these acts of violence, and has even made public statements declaring the accused as innocent. The Government is now dragging its feet in investigating the riots against the Muslim minority in Gujarat in February-March 2002 which resulted in over 2000 Muslim deaths.
It is shocking to note that Mr. Advani and other BJP members have publicly lauded Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who has been indicted by a range of Indian and international human rights groups of conniving with and supporting the mobs who attacked the religious minorities in Gujarat.
Creating Instability and Undermining War on Terror
We urge you to seriously consider whether Mr. Advani and the BJP are trustworthy allies in the war on terrorism. Mr. Advani's actions have directly made the Indian subcontinent more unstable. He has polarized religious communities within India, leading to religious violence among different religious communities. Hindu fundamentalism promoted by his party has encouraged greater Islamic militancy in South Asia, further destabilizing the Indian subcontinent undermining the war on terrorism globally. This should be of utmost concern for the U.S., particularly given Pakistan's past history and its direct/indirect involvement in Kashmir.
The US support to BJP leaders and its government would be considered very short sighted and has the potential to cause long term damage to the progress and partnerships. We urge the United States to reconsider its support to a religious fundamentalist party such as BJP which will cause permanent damage to the civil society in India.
Hurting Business and U.S. - India Trade
Mr. Advani's religious politics is not creating a suitable environment for growth in business. As India has become a vital hub in industries such as software and outsourcing, increasing instability and unrest in the society could undermine the ability of US companies for doing business there.
We would respectfully ask the US Government to strongly address with Mr. Advani the abovementioned areas of concern. We request that Mr. Advani be asked:
1. To take full cognizance of the USCIRF report of May 1, 2003.
2. What the Government of India, and the office of the Deputy Prime Minister in particular, is doing to counteract the prevailing climate of hostility against religious minorities in many parts of India.
3. What specific steps have been taken and how many people have been prosecuted for the carnage against minorities in Gujarat, and what steps have been taken to protect these minorities from continuing attacks by BJP's political affiliates.
4. Whether US-based contributions to Hindu fundamentalist groups in India are being monitored as closely as overseas funds received by Christian and Muslim institutions. It is well documented that funds raised by some groups in the US are being used to strengthen Hindu extremist groups in India that have committed violence against religious minorities.
It is our belief that the friendship, generous support and goodwill being extended to India by our Government and the people of the United States should not be allowed to be misused by the extremist Hindus among the leadership in the Indian Government. Your attention and understanding of this matter is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Partial list of signatory organizations and offices:
Ambedkar Memorial Trust Association for India's Development (AID) Association of Indian Muslims of America, The (AIM) Ahsan Jafri Foundation Bharatiya Educational Foundation, California Institute of Integral Studies, Educational Subscription Service, Ethics and Public Policy Center, South Asia Studies (EPPC) Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America (FIAOCONA), Federation of Indian Christians (Chicago) India Development Society, India Foundation, India Unity Group, Indian American Catholic Association (IACA) Indian Christian Forum, New York ICF(NY), Indian Muslim Council (IMC), Institute for Religion and Public Policy (IRPP) International Service Society, M.K.Gandhi Institute for Non-Violence, Memphis, TN SE Ministries International, Inc. Seva International, South Asia Forum (Washington DC), Vaishnava Center for Enlightenment, MI.
ENDS.
Workshop discusses threats to democracy
Express News Service New Delhi, June 6:
''Stop the hatred'' is the message painted across all the banners that hang at a four-day political training workshop in the city.
The Indian Express June 08, 2003
Organised by Act now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD), the NGO formed earlier this year seeks to build a secular cadre all over the country and sensitise the activists to issues related to communalism.
Anhad's workshop, with 85 participants from various political parties and non-governmental organisations, was conceived as an intensive programme of workshops where topics surrounding communalism are being discussed.
Documentary films like Zakhm by Mahesh Bhatt, Naseem by Saeed Mirza, Zulmaton Ke Daur Main by Gauhar Raza were screened along with informal sessions of poetry reading, music, and performances.
Every day, two hours would be devoted to learning of movement songs. Discussions around forms of active, non-violent resistance besides future plan of action, were also held.
Topics to be discussed included nationalism, fascism, terrorism, state and civil society, gender issues, movement and relation with communal politics, communalisation of history, education and media, legacy of the freedom movement, formation of the Indian identity, history of the RSS, growth of the fascist forces and the threat to democracy, present global context and communalism, nationalist chauvinism and Indo-Pak hostility.
The experts conducting the sessions included Mukul Dube, Irfan Habib, Nivedita Menon and Praful Bidwai.
The organisation has plans to hold similar programmes all over the country at least for the next three years.
ENDS.
LK ADVANI IS VISITING BRITAIN
Make your voice heard against India's fascist government!
GUJARAT GENOCIDE - NEVER AGAIN! NO US BASES IN INDIA! NO INDIAN TROOPS IN IRAQ!
PICKET OF RECEPTION at QE2 Centre, Parliament Square, (next to Methodist Central Hall), London WC1
Sunday 15th June [2003] 5.30pm - 7.00pm
India's powerful Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister-in-waiting, L.K. Advani, is visiting George Bush and Tony Blair this week. The purpose of this tour is to finalise arrangements for Indian troops to participate in the US’ ongoing imperialist occupation of Iraq; to arrange US military bases in India; and to promote his government's idea of a 'core alliance' between the US, Israel and India.
REMEMBER AYODHYA
While he has been away, Advani’s role in the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, which led to communal riots across the country, has once again been highlighted. Five of the accused in the demolition case have named Advani as the chief instigator of the demolition, and at the same time, fresh charges have been brought against him by India's Central Bureau of Investigations. There have been widespread calls for his immediate resignation.
REMEMBER GUJARAT
Meanwhile, Advani and his party the BJP continue to defend the genocidal state- sponsored attacks on the minority Muslim community in the state of Gujarat which took place in March 2002. At least 2,000 people - the majority women and children – were killed in the most brutal ways imaginable. Many thousands more saw their families, homes and livelihoods destroyed. Today, those survivors who have tried to return to their homes are being economically boycotted and terrorised into silence as the perpetrators of the attacks on them continue to roam freely. Advani describes Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who played a key role in planning the attacks, as 'India's best Chief Minister'. The BJP's sister organisation the VHP has called for the Gujarat 'experiment' to be repeated elsewhere in India.
WHO IS L.K. ADVANI?
1 The ruling party he represents, the BJP, is a far right Hindu supremacist party with a fascist ideology. The BJP used state power to pre-plan and orchestrate the Gujarat carnage along with its allies such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and the Bajrang Dal, which has also carried out systematic murderous attacks on the Christian minority community in India.
2 LK Advani has fully supported Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who has been personally indicted by human rights organisations for his role in planning and facilitating the attacks.
3 L.K. Advani joined the RSS, a militant Hindu supremacist group who proclaimed their admiration for Hitler, in the 1940s in his teens, and today represents their interests while in government.
4 In 1990, as President of the BJP, Advani he took out the Somnath-Ayodhya 'rathyatra' cross-country procession demanding construction of a Ram temple on the site of the historic Babri Masjid, thereby initiating the worst religious violence since Partition in 1947
5 On December 6, 1992 he personally presided over the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya - charges have been repeatedly brought against him but he has never been prosecuted
6 As Home Minister he has led the way in pursuing a belligerent policy of war-mongering against Pakistan. Several times he has brought the country to the brink of nuclear war.
7 He is the most important ideologue of Hindu fascism, and the crucial bridge between the militant and openly fascist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS - active in Britain as the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh) and the ruling Bharitiya Janata Party
STAND TOGETHER AGAINST COMMUNALISM AND WAR IN SOUTH ASIA!
Organised by South Asia Solidarity Group
For more information contact 020 7267 0923 email southasia@hotmail.com
ENDS.
Sunday, June 08, 2003
Posted by: Awaaz / 6/08/2003 11:42:13 AMDAWN, 8 June 2003
Another fling at Shariat By I.A. Rehman
The shock waves generated by the adoption of the Enforcement of the Shariat Act by the Frontier Assembly can easily be appreciated. Apart from what the act proposes in the immediate or the long term, it raises very fundamental questions about the enforceability of the Shariat by a state authority, the desirability or otherwise of uniform codes of law and policies in the state, and the relations between the federation and its units. These are serious issues that need to be discussed in a manner unaffected by dogmatic stubbornness or arrogance of power. The act in one part is a declaration of intent to the effect that the Shariat will be enforced in the Frontier province and, in another part, it lays down the process for realizing the declared objective. More legislation will follow in the light of recommendations of commissions on Islamization of education, economy, and the judicial system in PATA (provincially administered tribal areas). Some other objectives, such as projection of Islam by means of mass communication, protection of life, liberty and property, eradication of bribery, social evils, shamelessness and vagrancy, are presumably to be realized through administrative measures. The real issue is how this act is going to be interpreted and implemented. In a sense, the Frontier law is meaningless and superfluous. It is a literal translation into Urdu of the Enforcement of the Shariat Act adopted by the federal parliament and gazetted on June 18, 1991. While the provincial enactment does omit some provisions of the federal act, it does not go beyond the latter. It also concedes (Section 15) that "regardless of what the Act says all legislation under it will be done in accordance with the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan of 1973". Article 143 of the Constitution quite clearly lays down that if a matter is covered by federal legislation and a provincial law both, the former shall prevail and the provincial law, to the extent of inconsistency with the federal law, shall be invalid. Thus, if the Frontier act, or subsequent laws and measures adopted under it, merely say what is already there in the 1991 act or is covered by measures taken under it, the exercise becomes redundant, and if anything inconsistent with the federal law is attempted, that too will be invalid. That makes the Frontier act, at least at present, meaningless in legal terms. At the same time, the constitutional validity of the measure is questionable. The act refers to subjects that do not appear to be within the province's legislative domain. For example, it talks of a provincial commission's reform of the "fiscal laws, and laws relating to taxation, insurance or banking", which do not clearly fall within the provincial jurisdiction of law-making. It is possible that this aspect of the matter was blotted out of the Frontier regime's view by its decision to copy the 1991 act. Similarly, the act refers to reform of the judicial system in PATA and ignores the possibility of enlarging the discrepancy in laws meant for FATA and PATA. The first question therefore is: Why did the Frontier government consider it necessary to undertake this legislation? Three answers are possible and each leads to a disturbing controversy. The first reason could be that the provincial government did not look at the 1991 federal act, or was unaware of it. This assumption cannot be seriously entertained because the Frontier text is a translation of the 1991 enactment. Even otherwise, provincial law-makers are supposed to ascertain, before embarking on any new legislation, whether any identical law already exists on the statute book and also whether the matter falls within its legislative jurisdiction. The second explanation possible is that the provincial regime responded to the lack of implementation, real or perceived, of the 1991 act. That opens up the issue of options before a federating unit in case it finds that a federal law, on which it places high value, is not being fully implemented. It should be possible for the provincial government to approach the federal authority to rectify its lapse. The provincial assembly could pass a resolution requesting the federal government to ensure enforcement of the laws in question. The matter could be raised at the Council of Common Interest. The alliance in power in the Frontier has a strong presence in the federal parliament and could use its representatives there to raise the issue. There is no evidence that the Frontier MMA leaders held any consultations with their colleagues in the federal legislatures. The enactment of a provincial law of doubtful validity was not the sole option available to them. The third explanation is that the MMA legislators in the Frontier were aware of the superfluous nature of their piece of legislation and the lack of constitutional sanction for it but chose to proceed with their plan in order to secure two objectives - firstly, to assume the role of a vanguard in a new attempt to make Pakistan a theocratic state and, secondly, to create space for imposing socio-cultural codes of their choice on the population of the province. This explanation is the most convincing one. This view receives strength when we look at what the Frontier law-makers have omitted from the 1991 Act. These omissions are:1. Section 3(2) of the 1991 act protected the country's political system (parliament, provincial assemblies, the system of government) by putting it outside the scope of the enforcement of the Shariat. No such reservation has been made in the new Frontier act. The implication is obvious. If the MMA jurisconsults so decide, they may abolish the assembly and the franchise system. The act of 1991 also protected international financial obligations and other existing obligations (sections 18 and 19). Perhaps it was decided that once you accept the supremacy of the Shariat (sec 3 in both the 1991 act and the Frontier act), such protective provisions become empty rhetoric, if not hypocritical. 2. Section 20 of the 1991 act, which protected the rights of women as guaranteed by the Constitution, has not been included in the Frontier act. One obvious conclusion is that the MMA leaders are not shy of proclaiming their resolve to keep women in bondage and are not prepared to save the constitutional guarantees available to them. 3. A minor but significant omission is that while in the 1991 act, jurists (along with ulema and other experts) were entitled to be nominated on the commissions for Islamization of education and the economy, the Frontier act has excluded them from the commissions envisaged under it. That may be taken in accord with the MMA's view of the judiciary. A major issue that must be faced now is whether the units of a federation can have different legal, economic and educational orders? The matter requires extended discourse. A great deal can be said about provincial rights in a democratic context, but religious purists are unlikely to respect these rights to the extent democrats do. They may not accept provincial demarcations either. Whether the Pukhtuns are prepared to lose their identity under the spell of the MMA is for them to ponder, but other provinces may have ideas of their own. However, matters relating to citizenship and criminal laws cannot be put on different levels in different parts of the federation. An even more fundamental issue that can no longer be ignored concerns the status of the Constitution once the Shariat is proclaimed the supreme law. Common sense tells us that you can have either the constitution or the Shariah, you cannot have both. The earliest law-makers in Pakistan carefully kept the constitution out of clauses that obliged the state not to make any law that was repugnant to Islamic injunctions. A distinction between the constitution and the sub-constitutional legislation was manifest. This distinction is now threatened with erosion. In this regard the difference between the traditional definition of Shariat and the one used in the Frontier act may be noted. The 1991 act followed the Ziaul Haq formula while defining the Shariat as Injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah, and the opinions of recognized schools of jurisprudence were to be taken into consideration. That amounted to binding the Muslims of Pakistan down to what Iqbal described as a 'frozen fiqh' and militated against the spirit of Islam, as understood by scholars outside the obscurantist lot. The Frontier act defines Shariah as "injunctions mentioned in the Quran and Sunnah or derived from them". This suggests a contemporary process of deriving injunctions from the Quran and Sunnah, which could possibly be a good thing if the interpreters of the scriptures were liberal, or turn out to be a prescription for further regression if the task was entrusted to traditionalist. In short the Frontier assembly has thrown a challenge to undo the state as it has so far existed. This is the inevitable result of the policy of appeasing the clerics followed till 1999 and of colluding with them since then. The remedies do not lie in federal misadventures against an elected provincial government. The only way out is a return to democratic rule, freedom of the political process, and an end to the treatment of popular political leaders as pestilential, to quote a phrase aptly used by Mr Suhrawardy.
ENDS.
ZNet , June 06, 2003
Axis Of The Apocalyptic by Satya Sagar
As old, established global alliances break like empty beer bottles in a Bombay street brawl- the War on Terror is giving birth to a strange coalition across the continents. India-Israel-USA.
In their own words they call themselves a Triad against Terrorism. In reality they are nothing more than the curious progeny of a spurious theory- Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations.
The Hindus, Jews and Christians versus the Moslems of the world today and the Confucians of China tomorrow. This is nothing less than the Axis of the Apocalyptic.
On May 8, India's National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra formally announced its arrival at the 97th annual dinner meeting in Washington of the American Jewish Committee, an out-and-out Zionist outfit.
To quote Mishra " a core, consisting of democratic societies" must emerge, "which can take on international terrorism in a holistic and focused manner ---- to ensure that global terrorism is pursued to its logical conclusion". The India-Israel-USA triad would form the core of this 'democratic' alliance. (He could have added that the 'logical conclusion' will be annihilation of all those defined as 'terrorists').
Topping up his irrational exuberance over the viability of this axis Mishra went to make a startling announcement. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will visit India sometime in the second week of June this year.
Before we get into discussing the life expectancy of this newborn creature a little bit of background first. This is an axis that has been in the making for a while now ever since the quasi-fascist Hindu chauvinists came to power in India a few years ago.
The Indian loony right have used 'Islamic terrorism' as the ostensible excuse for their assiduous cultivation of both the US and Israel in search of strategic partnership. But for those who know them well it is also obvious they harbor grandiose illusions about the destiny of the nuclear-armed 'Hindus' becoming a great power in global affairs.
While Israel responded warmly to the Indian overtures right from the start, the US was initially indifferent. It already had an old and trusted slave in South Asia- Pakistan- the pet hate object of the Hindu chauvinists- and was reluctant to retire it hastily.
The events of September 11 however have seen the US do precisely that- fire Pakistan- and allow India to qualify for the post of Uncle Sam's favorite vassal in the region. The blooming India-Israel romance has merely helped seal this dubious deal between three very different countries.
For the obvious question that arises is - what do the world's only hyper-power, a nation set up by the survivors of the Nazi holocaust and the world's largest producer of masala movies- really have in common ? It seems, their interests do intersect on several themes.
To begin with- they are all deeply in love with Osama Bin Laden.
Seriously, in Bin Laden all three governments have found their perfect demon- a demon with designer horns. He is Muslim, suitably long-bearded, a religious fanatic, a confirmed terrorist and likes living in caves. Even better he pops up once in a while on our television screens speaking in a strange tongue. Just like the odious villain in a James Bond flick threatening to blow up the world if not allowed to take it over. (Heck, I thought the Talebs prohibited music, dance and photography)
All of which makes it easier for the regimes that run these three countries to keep their citizens perpetually scared, jack up military spending and justify whatever economic/social policies their corporate masters want them to implement.
Secondly, since all three nations pretend to be great democracies (the messiest, the costliest and the loneliest) the Bin Laden bogey allows them to squash every semblance of civil and political rights from the lives of their citizens- while getting extreme right wingers re-elected on ultra-nationalist, anti-terrorist platforms.
At a deeper level there is another interesting commonality emerging between these three countries. The power elites ruling all of them are deeply obsessed with manipulating the structures of the STATE.
The Hindu right wing is desperately trying to capture the Indian State and cleanse it of all the secular, pluralist, democratic elements inherited from the Indian struggle against British colonialism (a struggle to which they contributed absolutely nothing). They want to redefine what it means to be an Indian completely in 'Hindu' terms and define what it means to be a Hindu according to the Weltenschauung of a minority upper-caste. And all this in a country where there are large non-Hindu minorities present.
Sharon's 'Likud'ationists are ruthlessly seeking to consolidate and expand the racist Israeli State to fulfill an ultra-nationalist vision of lebensraum for a Greater Israel.
The most audacious of all manipulations is of course the attempt by the US elites to breakdown existing international structures and create a completely new State- at the global level. A State that will serve their interests and their interests alone. The 100 year American Reich.
But is that all it is about- their common grounds ? I wish it were. Really. Quite frighteningly, all three regimes are today run by people who will not show a moment's hesitation in using weapons of mass destruction against anyone they dub their 'enemy'.
The repeated pronouncements in recent times by the United States that it 'reserves the right' to exercise the nuclear option, even for a first strike, is to be taken seriously. Particularly as it comes from a nation that is the only one on this planet to have ever carried out a nuclear attack anywhere.
Israel, the middle-east's only nuclear power, has also repeatedly threatened there will be 'devastating consequences' for countries that dare to strike Israel even with conventional weapons. Surely a clear signal of their willingness to use WMDs.
The Indian Minister of Defense George 'loose cannon' Fernandes, has in the past year said publicly several times that if there is a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan ' We will lose a few million people but Pakistan will be wiped out completely'. (I want to know the names and addresses of these few million people he is willing to sacrifice)That a senior minister of any government will even talk about such a possibility so casually shows the material these madmen are made of.
Wait, it gets worse. What is even more horrific about this emerging Axis of the Apocalyptic is that all of them today harbor elements who have classic Nazi-like intentions towards Muslims (in the abstract).
In the US there are those who talk of 'nuking Mecca' who are dangerously close to the powers-that-be. In Israel the extreme rightwing would like to ethnically cleanse the West Bank and Gaza of its Palestinian people.
In India the state sponsored pogrom against Muslims in the western Indian state of Gujarat two years ago showed the world the true face of Hindu fascism. Over 2000 Muslim men, women and children were systematically killed by Hindu mobs while state authorities looked on or even joined in. A clear attempt was made by the Hindu fanatics to push the entire Muslim community out of the province by destroying their sources of income.
At the national level, echoing the practices of the Nazis, the current Indian regime, has systematically rewritten history text books and cooked up archaeological evidence to suit its fanciful theories about India's past, persecuted religious minorities and sent storm troopers to physically intimidate its critics.
In fact, talking about the Nazis - the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a militarist, so called 'cultural' organization, which mentored many senior leaders of the current Indian government, is a vintage fascist organization. The Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, considered a 'moderate ' (and believe me he looks like one compared to the rest) among the Hindu Hawks, has been a life-long member of the RSS. And I do not use the term 'fascist' as an abuse word (I have choicer words for that purpose) but to refer specifically to the political ideology spewed up by Mussolini in Italy of the 1920s and later 'developed' so devastatingly by Herr Hitler in Germany. But there will be no irony at all when Ariel Sharon shakes hands with his Indian counterpart later this month. Unfortunately, the man presiding over a nation built to say Never Again to the Nazi holocaust (built on somebody else's land of course) will be very comfortable in bed with this bunch of Indian Nazi-lovers. Sharon's visit to India at this juncture will be just one more episode in the relentless realpolitik of the Zionists that has seen Israel transform from a land of the 20th Century's greatest victims to one of its most reviled oppressors.
India's Hindu fundamentalists too will see no contradiction in admiring Hitler and Sharon in the same breath. With their paranoia about 'Muslim terrorism' and their own vision of a Greater India the proponents of an Indian fascism are ardent fans of Sharon- for his willingness to use disproportionate force to put down the rebellious Palestinians, his contempt for both international and human rights laws and his ability to make the monkey (s) in the US White House dance to his tune.
Coming back to how this new Axis is likely to fare in the future it is obvious that there are glaring contradictions within its fold. Contradictions, that have to do with the sheer mismatch in the abilities and ambitions of India and Israel on one hand and the United States on the other.
The simple fact is that while India and Israel delude themselves about being invited to sup with the Superpower for the latter they are both a highly dispensable duo. Mere client-states to be disposed off with when their utility is over.
Israel, as the United State's best bulldog in the turbulent Arab world, to keep an eye on those precious oil reserves. India the dumb, short-sighted elephant to be suckered into conflict with the Chinese dragon someday. And both to seek, hunt and destroy subversive Muslim militants on behalf of Uncle Sam.
So, on closer observation, this Axis of the Apocalyptic turns to be not a single creature but a strange menagerie of a bulldog, elephant and the man-eating tiger that the US has currently become. A tiger that has always had permanent interests, never permanent friends.
Together in the short run they could be a terrifying lot indeed. But if the prey turns out to be tougher to get and the hunt gets longer than planned the tiger will surely not mind supping solo. All alone by itself- on elephant steak and bulldog burger. SHLURP ! BURP ! SHALOM ! NAMASTE!
ENDS.
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