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[1] Pakistan's fundamentalists are on the rise -- even at its top university (Miranda Kennedy)
[2] Pakistan: No half-measures on sectarianism (Editorial, The Daily Times
[3] Other Side of Kashmir (Edit., the Times of India)
[4] India Pakistan Arms Race and Militarisation Watch Compilation # 140
[5] India; Many ways of stereotyping Muslims (Daya Varma)
[6] India: Naidu's "providential escape" ? A letter to the editor by Mukul Dube
[7] India: 'We are here to call the bluff of the imams and mullahs'
[8] India: Shivaji & Islam - A letter to the editor by Shariq Alvi
[9] India: Mischievous advertisement issued by the Department of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, on Gandhi Jayanti day
[10] India: Mumbai is for Marathis, says Thackeray
[11] India: Upcoming event - Act Now For Harmony (Anhad) Workshops Schedule
[12] Canada: Upcoming Public lecture: The Economic and Political Impact of the Indo-Pak Arms Race
[13] USA: Upcoming event: Atlanta Workshop on Promoting Peace and Development in South Asia
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[1.]
Boston Globe [USA] October 5, 2003
Campus takeover Pakistan's fundamentalists are on the rise -- even at its top university
By Miranda Kennedy, 10/5/2003
LAHORE--On a sunny day at Camp David in June, President George W. Bush hailed Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, as "a courageous leader" who is "working to build a modern Pakistan that is tolerant and prosperous." On his foreign trips, Musharraf proudly touts the progress in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban and the spread of press freedoms under his watch.
But for all the applause from Western leaders, Musharraf's Pakistan is a nation in deep trouble. Since the surprisingly strong showing of a coalition of six radical Islamic parties, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), in national elections last October, Pakistan's religious right has become increasingly assertive. In the frontier province bordering Afghanistan, the MMA-led government recently voted to impose Islamic law and is considering establishing a morality police modeled on the Taliban's Ministry for Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue. Across the country, the war in Iraq has only heightened the sense among many Pakistanis that the United States is waging a war on Islam -- with the aid of their president and army.
While academics and journalists admit that life is freer under Musharraf, they refuse to forget that his is still a military regime. "A free press in the absence of an independent judiciary and a parliament is meaningless to me," says M Ziauddin, the Pakistani president of the South Asia Free Media Association. "This is a totally untenable system: an elected government led by a military dictator, and the opposition led by the clergy."
Furthermore, many believe the MMA could not have risen to power without the help of Musharraf, who created a vacuum for the religious parties by banning his two mainstream political rivals. "We have always maintained that the reins of the mullah lie in the hands of army general headquarters," says Asma Jehangir, Pakistan's best-known human rights lawyer and activist, who has repeatedly been sentenced to death by Islamist mullahs.
The creeping "Talibanization" of Pakistan is evident even in its much-vaunted public universities. Sprawling across the cultural capital of Lahore, the state-run Punjab University is Pakistan's largest and oldest university, founded in 1882. Its 12,000 students are drawn from across economic and geographic backgrounds, thanks to fees that run at about $150 per year. But the university's academic reputation has been dulled by fundamentalism in the city that is also the home of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest party in the MMA alliance.
Hang around the campus a little while and you'll notice that the colorful clusters of students strolling between buildings are either all women or all men. Pressure from Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing forced the university to adopt a separate-seating policy for men and women in classrooms, in the cafeteria, in the library, and on university buses.
The Islamia Jamiat Taleba, the students' Islamic organization, can be found in a grimy student union office hung with posters that read, rather awkwardly, "Quran and Sunnah" -- the Word and the Way of the Prophet -- "is only that we demand to rule upon our land." On a recent day, Allahbaksh Leghari, a 27-year-old Jamiat leader, folded his hands and patiently explained that Jamiat's role is to "educate students about Islamic ways" to create "the ideal moral environment."
Many Pakistani academics believe Jamiat does more than that. They say the group controls the university according to its version of conservative Islam, with the collusion of the retired military officers who administer the institution. Departments and student groups must request permission from Jamiat to hold a function. Dance and life-drawing classes are forbidden. When a couple were discovered holding hands on campus several months ago, students beat them with wooden clubs. Since the MMA gained political power, student Islamists have been known to rove the streets of Pakistan's cities at night, smearing black paint on billboards showing women's faces.
Professors in Punjab's English Literature department got a rude shock this past spring when they discovered that a junior member of the department had apparently been recruited by the university administration to "purge" the syllabus of "vulgar, obscene, and morally corrupt" elements. An internal memo circulated by the lecturer in question, Shahbaz Arif, singled out Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock," noting that "the title of the book itself shows vulgarity," and Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" for its description of a "monstrous breast." Of Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises," he noted, "All characters sexually astray: men homosexuals; females lesbians/promiscuous; Brett Ashley nymphomaniac and so on." Sean O'Casey's play "The End of the Beginning" was selected for the sentence, "When the song ended, Darry cocks his ear and listens." Arif had underlined the word "cocks."
Arif's colleagues were not amused. "The administration would like to filter information the students get," worries assistant English professor Zareena Saeed. "But if you are not going to allow students to understand other cultures, then you are going to produce a rigid generation." Muhammed Hafeez, head of the sociology department, agrees. "Most people are not going to change their sexual behavior because they read Pope or Donne, certainly not when we have satellite TV beaming into our bedrooms."
Fellow academics suggest the English department has been targeted because department chair Shaista Sonnu Sirajuddin is an outspoken progressive. Among the last remnants of the university's secular and elite left, she runs her department without religious influence, refuses to cover her head, and even sometimes wears a sari (the Indian national dress). But retired army colonel Masood ul-Haq, the university registrar, insists the issue has been blown out of proportion. "No change will be made to the syllabus. We are good Muslims here -- but the university is an entirely independent academic environment." He says Arif has temporarily been moved to another department because of internal matters.
But Arif's memo was hardly an isolated incident. Several weeks earlier, the administration arranged for the English department to meet with the wife of a high-ranking former army officer. She came armed with her own list of works on the syllabus she found offensive -- because, she said, they promoted Jews, favored Indians, or were written by lesbians -- and she informed the department it was "high time we became less tolerant." Across campus, history professors complain that "most of our textbooks were written by Islamists," as department veteran Kamar Abbas puts it. "History in Pakistan always comes down to religion and anti-Hindu feelings."
In fact, the university has been controlled by Islamists since the time of dictator General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, who forcefully "Islamized" the country until his death in a mysterious 1988 plane crash. Pakistan's two dozen or so private colleges, mostly funded by profit-seeking companies, are able to offer more academic freedom than Punjab University, but fear and self-censorship infiltrate intellectual life pretty much everywhere in Pakistan.
Journalism professor Mehdi Hassan spent his 32-year tenure at Punjab University trying to undo that legacy. Because his Marxist, anti-fundamentalist views were not popular with the religious right, Hassan says, he was twice accused of blasphemy and dismissed from the staff.
That's a charge familiar to Pakistani journalists, who live in fear of the country's stringent blasphemy law, which is punishable by death. After Musharraf's military coup in 1999, he promised he would reform the law as part of his campaign to rid Pakistan of Islamic extremism. But when he was advised not to incur the wrath of the extremist forces by doing so, he retreated from that position.
Meanwhile, journalists and academics continue to censor their work in the name of national interest and Islam. And international media watchdogs say that new laws regarding defamation, freedom of information, and the establishment of a watchdog Press Council proposed by Musharraf's government actually curb journalistic freedoms and public access to information.
Still, there are those who see some hopeful signs. Across town from Punjab University, Salima Hashmi has been flooded with applications for a new private school of visual arts. Hashmi is the daughter of the radical Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, who was accused of conspiring against the state and thrown in jail in 1951. She herself spent years teaching at Pakistan's premier fine-arts college, the National College of Art, where in the `80s her life-drawingclasses were attacked by Islamists.
Hashmi waves off the doomsday predictions of the Talibanization of Pakistan. "Those were really bad times," she laughs. "This is a piece of cake right now."
Miranda Kennedy is a writer and radio journalist based in New Delhi.
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[2.]
The Daily Times [ Pakistan] October 05, 2003
EDITORIAL: No half-measures on sectarianism
The killing of six SUPARCO (Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Organisation) employees in Karachi, by all indications, is an act of sectarian violence. The attackers waited for the Sunni passengers of the SUPARCO bus to alight at a mosque and attacked it en route to an imambargah, the Shia place of prayer. This incident, as others in the recent and distant past, clearly shows that sectarian terrorists, despite some setbacks in the past year, still roam this country in search of their targets and can strike at will. While the sectarian menace has haunted Pakistan for more than a decade-and-half, the violence has an added dimension in the wake of Pakistan's own war on terrorism following the events of Sept 11, 2001.
We have often editorialised on this issue and pointed out to the authorities that there is no real distinction between sectarian terrorists and the so-called jihadis. Since the militant groups fighting inside Afghanistan and Kashmir were Wahhabi-Deobandi, a free hand to them by the state meant they would also pursue a sectarian agenda. There is enough evidence to suggest that cadres of the so-called jihadi organisations also doubled, in many cases, as sectarian terrorists. For instance, it is futile to distinguish among groups like Harkat-ul Mujahideen, Jaish-e Mohammad, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Lashkar-e Jhangvi as jihadi or sectarian. Putting jihadi and sectarian tags on one or the other is a futile, in fact downright dangerous, exercise.
The Hazara Shia in Quetta had to endure two dastardly attacks which killed more than sixty and left over 100 injured. The Shia clerics categorically accused Jaish and LJ activists. At least one of them went to the extent of also obliquely blaming the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, the two factions of which are components of the Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal. The general tendency so far has been to accuse the Indian RAW of perpetrating these attacks even as, in all cases where the police have managed to apprehend the terrorists, it is clear who they are and what groups they belong to. Such is the level of hatred now that following the killing of Shia Hazara, two Sunni boys were allegedly torn to pieces by a Shia mob, though the story never made it to the newspapers. While Daily Times could not get it corroborated by any official source, the incident is widely known in Balochistan. Regardless of its veracity, it hardly needs be emphasised that no decent society can allow this kind of violence to go unchallenged.
General Pervez Musharraf has, on many occasions, talked about curbing extremism. But so far the government has failed to put down this scourge. We are also concerned about why leaders of banned extremist groups like Jaish continue to be treated as VIPs. There can be no half-measures on this score. The sectarian serpent's head has to be cut off. This can only be done by striking where it matters the most, at the level of top leadership. But while sectarianism must be treated as a priority law-and-order problem in the short-term, in the longer run the government needs to take a more integrated approach to the problem. That is where we need to address the question of what is it that produces sectarian hatred? A debate on this question would involve looking at societal tendencies that have developed over the past two decades. Have we become more intolerant and bigoted? Are we now wearing religion on the sleeve? Do we consider apostate anyone who does not share our worldview or denominational particularities?
There is need to look at these issues with rigorous intellectual discipline at multiple levels and use the findings to formulate policies. General Musharraf's talk about modernising Pakistan will remain just that, mere talk, unless he were to take concrete measures to address these deep-seated prejudices and distortions. It's time for him to walk the talk. *
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[3.]
The Times of India, October 6, 2003 | Editorial
Other Side of Kashmir [ Monday, October 06, 2003 12:00:01 Am ]
It's time India and Pakistan listened to saner voices from within
"Today millions of children in India and Pakistan are malnourished. Millions more do not have water, sewage and healthcare. What are both countries doing? They are spending more and more resources on armament. Religious fanaticism is sapping the energies of their people. Instead of building on the traditions of ahimsa and sufism, they have fallen prey to the cunning tricks of the industrial-military complex... Moderate Muslims must become vocal and refuse to acknowledge and support the wayward... The voice of moderate Muslims must be loud enough to drown out the radicals... Islamic states must be democratised and secularised, and mosque and state separated for good...". The phrases, the tone, the lament. We have heard it all before. Except, have we? The all-too-familiar excerpts have been taken, not from the Indian media, but from letters published in the latest issue of Friday Times, a Lahore-based weekly newspaper. Yet, the stereotypical vision of the Pakistani as an illiberal, India-hating bigot persists on this side of the LoC. Pakistani society is assumed to be uncritical and closed, and its media posited as shackled in contrast to its free and fair Indian counterpart.
In truth, there are hawks on both sides, just as there are those "and presumably these are in greater number" who want peace more than anything else. Nonetheless, when India and Pakistan meet in the diplomatic arena, there's not even a pretence of civility in their relations. When the two sides speak, it is always in the language of threat and innuendo. Reason: Kashmir. No, not even Kashmir as a whole, but a minuscule geographical area called the Kashmir valley. A microscopic piece of mountain-locked land has become an obsession so monomaniacal for the neighbours that neither can see anything beyond it - not the achievements, not the failures, not the many continuing social and economic challenges. If only Pervez Musharraf would listen to voices in his own country. In case he has trouble hearing, here is another example. "If Germany and France, the countries whose armies have invaded each other for centuries over Alsace-Lorraine, cannot just live in peace but be close allies, surely there is no reason India and Pakistan cannot resolve their differences." (Irfan Husain, Dawn). Are the political leaders, on either side of the border, listening? They must, if only more and more of us begin to speak out.
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[4]
India Pakistan Arms Race and Militarisation Watch Compilation # 140 (October 5, 2003) URL: groups.yahoo.com/group/IPARMW/message/151
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[5.]
International South Asia Forum (insaf ) Bulletin [18] October 1, 2003 Postal address: Box 272, Westmount Stn., QC, Canada H3Z 2T2 (Tel. 514 346-9477) (e-mail; [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our website http://www.insaf.net)
Many ways of stereotyping Muslims
Daya Varma
The history of human kind is inseparable from the role religion has played in war and peace, in prosperity and poverty, and in violence and harmony. Likewise, suppression of an entire community because of their religion has been catastrophic.
We are well aware of the atrocities against Muslims of India committed by the extended Sangh Parivar. But stereotyping Muslims and extending this to several levels of victimization is not limited to India. Overtly or covertly, it has permeated the main polity of Western countries which claim to abide by secularism and democracy.
Why is it that all Muslims in the US are treated as terrorists unless proven otherwise? Why is it that French, Italians, Polish, Russians, Germans, etc in Canada, US and other Western countries are identified by their nationality although almost all of them are Christians? And why is it that Muslims from different countries are identified by their religion and not national origin? Hindus from Trinidad and Tobago are primarily identified by their nationality and not religion. Hindus from India are called Indians. In the case of Muslims, the attitude of politicians and media is quite different; to them, they are all Muslims and therefore must be alike and more likely than others to be anti-secular and terrorists.
Of course, Islam is the religion of all Muslims. All practicing Muslims (most likely atheism is as frequent among Muslims as in other religions) revere Koran. But that is where the similarity ends. The societal behavior of believers and nonbelievers is determined by institutions like Church, Mullahs and priests rather than holy scriptures. That is why music was a criminal offence in Talibans' Afghanistan and was taken to new heights by Muslims in India. Is there much common between a Muslim from Kerala and a Muslim from Gujarat or Kashmir? Indeed the Survey of India took into account multiple variables and found very little difference between Hindus and Muslim of India.
Yet, Hindutva bigots have built numerous derogatory myths about Muslims of India; these myths are becoming a part of Indian cultural outlook. This cannot be undone by clarification because myths are not subject to scientific analysis. But it can be done and can only be done by ushering an alternative democratic movement and culture.
" In the early 1580s the emperor (Akbar) began openly to worship the sun by a set of rituals of his own invention. Four times a day he faced the east and prostrated himself before a sacred fire. Simultaneously, Akbar engaged in abstinence from excessive meat-eating, sexual intercourse, and alcohol consumption. These were all rites and practices much in evidence in the daily world of Hinduism in North India. Worship of the sun and moon with its images of light was easily compatible with the myths of origin and descent central to ethos of Rajput nobles." (John F. Richards in "The Mughal Empire", The New Cambridge University Press, 1993, Indian edition, page 47)
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[6.] [Letter to the editors]
D-504 Purvasha Mayur Vihar 1 Delhi 110091 [India]
5 October 2003
Sir or Madam,
In a speech the high points of which were broadcast over radio, Shri L.K. Advani spoke of the "providential escape" of Shri Chandrababu Naidu and attributed it to the grace of Lord Venkateswara. The honorable Deputy Prime Minister was misleading the nation, for I have it on the highest authority that the divinity responsible was either Lord Panduranga or Lord Murugappa; though some hold that the two worked as a team. To resolve this crucial issue, I invite Shri Advani to a public debate.
Yours truly,
Mukul Dube
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[7]
The Times of India October 5, 2003
'We are here to call the bluff of the imams and mullahs' TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, OCTOBER 03, 2003 01:40:35 AM ]
MUMBAI: In an attempt to challenge the hardline strain in their community, a group of Muslim intellectuals on Thursday came together to form a national alliance called Muslims for a Secular Democracy (MSD).
The alliance is an attempt to represent the liberal face of the Muslim community and challenge its domination by mullahs.
The new body, spearheaded by such prominent citizens as lyricist Javed Akhtar and social activist Javed Anand, is aimed at countering the hate agenda of both the Sangh Parivar and Islamic extremists.
"For years we have heard allegations that there are no secular Muslims," said Mr Akhtar. "We are here to call the bluff of the fundamentalist Shahi Imams and mullahs." He said that the alliance could not have chosen a more auspicious occasion than Gandhi Jayanti to announce its launch.
"Do not mistake us to be another elite organisation simply waxing eloquence," said Javed Anand, co-editor of Communalism Combat magazine. "We are an apolitical organisation which represents the voice of the Muslim community."
The alliance plans to consider core issues like population control, discouraging the use of loudspeakers for azaans, namaaz being held on the streets and the slaughter of goats during Bakri-Id in housing colonies in which members of other communities also live.
"Our local level study groups will hold meetings with people and provide the right information to them," Mr Anand said. "After that they are free to make an informed choice."
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[8.]
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com:80/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=213291 The Times of India, October 4, 2003 LETTERS TO EDITOR
Shivaji & Islam [ THURSDAY, OCTOBER 02, 2003 08:41:25 PM ]
Praveen Togadia, the VHP leader, was recently speaking at a meeting of Muslims convened by the minority cell of the BJP.
As usual, he warned Muslims that they must toe his line of convictions, if they wish to live in India peacefully. Further, he emphatically declared that his ideal is Shivaji.
There is considerable evidence that Shivaji welcomed Muslims in his state. The court proceedings of 1657 lists names of Muslim qazis (judges) who received regular salary to adjudicate on cases.
Shivaji also welcomed Muslims in his army. The first unit was a group of 700 Pathans, who had left Bijapur after the treaty with Mughals. Individual Muslims like Sidi Ibrahim, was a trusted commander in Shivaji's army. Nur Khan Beg was one of Shivaji's closest confidants.
Mr Togadia must know that Shivaji's confrontations with Mughals were not based on religious identities. The skir- mishes between the two were for political supremacy. In short, Hindu-Muslim enmity was non-existent during Shivaji's reign. The time has come when such communalists like Mr Togadia must be reined in.
Shariq Alavi, Lucknow
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[9.]
Mischievous advertisement issued by the Department of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, on Gandhi Jayanti day (2-10-2003).
Date: 4th Oct 2003
We were horrified to see the advertisement issued by the Department of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, on Gandhi Jayanti, quoting Gandhi on the need to take up arms rather than suffer dishonour. The mischievous intent of the advertisement is obvious. Given its preoccupation with reinventing histories to suit its agendas, and the discomfort of living with the internationally-famed Gandhian legacy of non-violence, it is no surprise that the present government would choose to select a line from Gandhis writings, totally removed from its context, to prove that even the great Apostle of Peace endorsed violence in the name of nationalism.
The quote used in the advertisement is a line from Gandhis article in Young India dated 11 August 1920, titled The Doctrine of the Sword. The article was written by Gandhi in the wake of country-wide violence following the passing of the Rowlatt Bills and the Jallianwallah Baug massacre in 1919, and centred on the call for non-cooperation from 1st August 1920. It sought to explain his concept of non-violent non-cooperation, and the spirit of non-violence itself. The article, unlike its misrepresentation by the line used in the advertisement, is devoted to the real possibility of non-violence as a political strategy, and its moral significance. The opening sentence of the article reads: In this age of the rule of brute force, it is almost impossible for anyone to believe that anyone else could possibly reject the law of the final supremacy of brute force.Gandhi goes on to explain how violence can be resorted to where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence. However, the real intent of the article is made clear in the sections following the line quoted in the advertisement issued by the Government on Gandhi Jayanti: But I believe that non-violence is infinitely superior to violence. Gandhi goes on to explain how violence is resorted to by the helpless, whereas the people of India should not see themselves as being helpless. The advertisement could just as well have quoted his other famous lines in this article: I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical idealist. The religion of non-violence is not meant merely for the rishis and saints. It is meant for the common people as well. Non-violence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute and he knows no law but that of physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law to the strength of the spirit; or: I am not pleading for India to practise non-violence because it is weak. I want her to practise non-violence being conscious of her strength and power. No training in arms is required for realization of her strength. We seem to need it because we seem to think that we are but a lump of flesh. I want India to recognize that she has a soul that cannot perish and that can rise triumphant above every physical weakness and defy the physical combination of whole world.
Perhaps the most apt quotation that could have been used to honour Gandhi in these conflict-ridden times would have been one of the closing lines from the same article: Indias acceptance of the doctrine of the sword will be the hour of my trial.More than eighty years later, this is precisely what is coming about: we seem to be accepting the doctrine of the sword, subverting Gandhis ideals to legitimate an agenda of violence. That this is now being done even through an official agency of the Government like the Department of I & B, is a shame and a tragedy. Gandhi could only have grieved if he were alive today.
Human Right Activists Rohit Prajapati Nandini Manjrekar Anand Mazgaonkar Johannes Manjrekar Trupti Shah Deeptha Achar +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Young India, 11-8-1920 VOL. 21 : 1 JULY, 1920 - 21 NOVEMBER, 1920
In this age of the rule of brute force, it is almost impossible for anyone to believe that anyone else could possibly reject the law of the final supremacy of brute force. And so I receive anonymous letters advising me that I must not interfere with the progress of non-co-operation even though popular violence may break out. Others come to me and assuming that secretly I must be plotting violence, inquire when the happy moment for declaring open violence will arrive. They assure me that the English will never yield to anything but violence secret or open. Yet others, I am informed, believe that I am the most rascally person living in India because I never give out my real intention and that they have not a shadow of a doubt that I believe in violence just as much as most people do.
Such being the hold that the doctrine of the sword has on the majority of mankind, and as success of non-co-operation depends principally on absence of violence during its pendency and as my views in this matter affect the conduct of a large number of people, I am anxious to state them as clearly as possible.
I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence. Thus when my eldest son asked me what he should have done, had he been resent when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908,1 whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force which he could and wanted to use, and defended me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me even by using violence. Hence it was that I took part in the Boer War, the so-called Zulu rebellion and the late War. Hence also do I advocate training in arms for those who believe in the method of violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour.
But I believe that non-violence is infinitely superior to violence, forgiveness is more manly than punishment. Forgiveness adorns a soldier. But abstinence is forgiveness only when proceed from a helpless creature. A mouse hardly forgives a cat when it allows itself to be torn to pieces by her. I, therefore, appreciate the sentiment of those who cry out for the condign punishment of General Dyer and his like. They would tear him to pieces if they could. But I do not believe India to be helpless. I do not believe myself to be a helpless creature. Only I want to use Indias and my strength for a better purpose.
Let me not be misunderstood. Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. An average Zulu is any way more than a match for an average Englishman in bodily capacity. But he flees from an English boy, because he fears the boys revolver or those who will use it for him. He fears death and is nerveless in spite of his burly figure. We in India may in a moment realize that one hundred thousand Englishmen need not frighten three hundred million human beings. A definite forgiveness would therefore mean a definite recognition of our strength. With enlightened forgiveness must come a mighty wave of strength in us, which would make it impossible for a Dyer and a Frank Johnson to heap affront upon Indias devoted head. It matters little to me that for the moment I do not drive my point home. We feel too downtrodden not to be angry and revengeful. But I must not refrain from saying that India can gain more by waiving the right of punishment. We have better work to do, a better mission to deliver to the world.
I am not a visionary. I claim to be a practical idealist. The religion of non-violence is not meant merely for the rishis and saints. It is meant for the common people as well. Non-violence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute and he knows no law but that of physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law to the strength of the spirit.
I have therefore ventured to place before India the ancient law of self-sacrifice. For satyagraha and its off-shoots, non-co-operation and civil resistance, are nothing but new names for the law of suffering. The rishis, who discovered the law of non-violence in the midst of violence, were greater geniuses than Newton. They were themselves greater warriors than Wellington. Having themselves known the use of arms, they realized their uselessness and taught a weary world that its salvation lay not through violence but through non-violence.
Non-violence in its dynamic condition eans conscious suffering. It does not mean meek submission to the will of the evildoer, but it means the putting of ones soul against the will of the tyrant. Working under this law of our being, it is possible for a single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust empire to save his honour, his religion, his soul and lay the foundation for that empires fall or its regeneration.
And so I am not pleading for India to practise non-violence because it is weak. I want her to practise non-violence being conscious of her strength and power. No training in arms is required for realization of her strength. We seem to need it because we seem to think that we are but a lump of flesh. I want India to recognize that she has a soul that cannot perish and that can rise triumphant above every physical weak- ness and defy the physical combination of whole world. What is the meaning of Rama, a mere human being, with his host of monkeys, pitting himself against the insolent strength of ten-headed Ravana surrounded in supposed safety by the raging waters on all sides of Lanka? Does it not mean the conquest of physical might by spiritual strength? However, being a practical man, I do not wait till India recognizes the practicability of the spiritual life in the political world. India considers herself to be powerless and paralysed before the machineguns, the tanks and the aeroplanes of the English. And she takes up non-co-operation out of her weakness. It must still serve the same purpose, namely, bring her delivery from the crushing weight of British injustice if a sufficient number of people practise it.
I isolate this non-co-operation from Sinn Feinism, for, it is so conceived as to be incapable of being offered side by side with violence. But I invite even the school of violence to give this peaceful non-co-operation a trial. It will not fail through its inherent weakness. It may fail because of poverty of response. Then will be the time for real danger. The high-souled men, who are unable to suffer national humiliation any longer, will want to vent their wrath. They will take to violence. So far as I know, they must perish without delivering themselves or their country from the wrong. If India takes up the doctrine of the sword, she may gain momentary victory. Then India will cease to be pride of my heart. I am wedded to India because I owe my all to her. I believe absolutely that she has a mission for the world. She is not to copy Europe blindly. Indias acceptance of the doctrine of the sword will be the hour of my trial. I hope I shall not be found wanting. My religion has no geographical Limits. If I have a living faith in it, it will transcend my love for India herself. My life is dedicated to service of India through the religion of non-violence which I believe to be the root of Hinduism.
Meanwhile I urge those who distrust me, not to disturb the even working of the struggle that has just commenced, by inciting to violence in the belief that I want violence. I detest secrecy as a sin. Let them give non-violent non-co-operation a trial and they will find that I had no mental reservation whatsoever.
Rohit Prajapati / Trupti Shah 37, Patrakar Colony, Tandalja Road, Post-Akota, Vadodara - 390 020 GUJARAT, INDIA
[See Related News Report:
Gandhi (mis)quote in I&B ad raises hackles (Times of India - October 5, 2003)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com:80/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=216162 ]
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[10] [Posting on Hindutva @ Work Blog > haw.blogspot.com ]
o o o
Mid Day [Bombay, India], October 6, 2003
Mumbai is for Marathis, says Thackeray
By: A Mid Day Correspondent
October 5, 2003
Hammer out the Bangladeshis from Mumbai and Maharashtra, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray ordered his troops at the party?s annual rally held at Shivaji Park in Dadar yesterday.
A Marathi maanus alone cannot weed out the threat of Islam, hence the call for Hindutva that will unite all Indians, Thackeray said. ?I have said that Maharashtra and Mumbai is for Marathis, just like Bengal is for Bengalis, Gujarat for Gujaratis and so on. All of them cannot take on Islam, ISI or (Lashkar-e) Taiba on their own. But together they can deliver an iron blow,? he said.
Thackeray also hinted that the recent attack on Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu was carried out by Islamic terrorists and not by the Naxals as is widely believed by the intelligence agencies.
?Take that weapon in your hands, there is no other option. What?s wrong in it? Even Mahatma Gandhi has said that one must fight out like a mard and not sit helpless,? he claimed.
He did not forget to reiterate that Mumbai belonged to Marathis. He also asked Maharashtrian youth to do away with ?useless education? and look for something else. ?I can?t see a Marathi milkman, a vegetable vendor or even a cabbie any more,? he moaned.
Thackeray reiterated his opposition to the peace process, though he didn?t launch a direct attack on the Centre or Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for conducting peace talks.
?We are again talking about a bus service to Lahore. While our passengers to Pakistan are usually clean, what about theirs? What will you do if there are terrorists?? he asked.
He supported his son and Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray?s experiment of joining hands with Dalits under the slogan Shiv Shakti + Bheem Shakti = Desh Bhakti (Sena power and Dalit?s strength put together is patriotism) and promised there won?t be any backstabbing from the Sena. ?You tried others. Now try us,? he appealed.
Referring to the police permission to loudspeakers at Sena?s Dussehra rally and then its withdrawal, Thackeray challenged that if the police had guts, they should remove loudspeakers from mosques that blare much before the allowed time frame.
His bete noire and Maharashtra Home Minister Chhagan Bhujbal, however, received a word of praise from Thackeray for his act of allowing loudspeakers at Sena rally in his own powers. ?I won?t call him Lakhoba (a slang for a traitor in Marathi, conferred upon Bhujbal after he quit Sena in 1991) any more,? Thackeray announced.
The 40-minute speech, however, was devoid of any major fireworks, which is a Thackeray trademark, barring a few usual punches.
A jubilant Sena crowd, after the defeat of Congress in Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde?s Loksabha constituency, was expecting a thunderous speech from Thackeray that did not happen.
There were no speeches from Uddhav and Raj Thackeray, both of whom sat on either sides of Thackeray.
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[11]
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 19:25:44 +0100 (BST) From: Shabnam Hashmi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
ACT NOW FOR HARMONY (ANHAD) WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
8,9,10,11,12 OCTOBER
Venue: Bhartiyam, Delhi State Bharat Scouts and Guides Campus, Near Humayun's Tomb, Nizamuddin, New Delhi
Note: Schedule for the films/ documentaries is yet to be worked out. There are two workshops at the same venue: one is in English and second is in Hindi.
Workshop in English
8 October 2003 8.30-9.30- Breakfast and Registration
9.30-11.00 Need and Urgency to Resist the Rise of Fascist Forces- Prof. Bipin Chandra-
Tea- 11.00-11.30
11.30-1.0 Secularism as Constitutional Right: Colin Gonsalves
Lunch- 1.00-2.00
2.00-3.30 Formation of the Indian Identity- Sohail Hashmi
3.30-4.00
4.00-5.30 AYODHYA-Dr. KM Shrimali
5.30-6.30- movement songs
6.30-7.00- tea
7.00 onwards film followed by dinner
9 October 2003 9.30 onwards with lunch and tea breaks till 5.30pm
REALITY UNVIELED- Ram Puniyani Facts Vs Myths on · Appeasement of Minorities · Anti Nationalism of Minorities · Demography of the nation [population of the minorities] · Conversion and Christian Missionaries · Godhra – the facts and falsities · Kashmir – the facts and falsities
5.30-6.00- tea 6.00-7.00 movement songs 7.00 onwards film followed by dinner
10 October 9.30-11.0 Gujarat: The Present Situation- Digant Oza 11.00-11.30 tea 11.30-1.00 History of the Sangh Parivar- Pralay Kanungo- Lunch- 1.00-2.00
2.00-3.30 Communalisation of Education and History- Rizwan Qaisar
3.30-4.00 Tea
4.00-5.30 COMMUNALISM, NATIONALIST CHAUVINISM AND INDIA PAKISTAN HOSTILITY: THE CONNECTION- Praful Bidwai
5.30-6.00--- tea 6.00-7.00- movement songs 7.00 onwards film followed by dinner
11 October-Saturday
9.30-11.00 –Legacy of the Freedom Movement- Mridula Mukherjee-
11.00-11.30- tea
11.30-1.00- Minority Communalism—Prof. Imtiaz Ahmad
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00-3.30 Gender issue, movement & interrelation with communal politics- Nivedita Menon-
3.30-4.00 tea 4.00-5.30 -Communalisation of Media-Rajdeep Sardesai- 5.30-6.00- tea 6.00-7.00- movement songs 7.00 onwards film followed by discussion
October 12, 2003
9.30-11.00 -Dalit – issue, movement & interrelation with communal politics--SK <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Thorat
11.00-11.30- tea
11.30 onwards-
FOLLOW UP ACTIONS TOWARDS SECULAR COMMUNITY BUIDLING Possible secular actions & initiatives Mode, language, idiom of communication/intervention Cultural interventions Forms of active resistance Plan of actions and commitments from the district
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Workshop in HINDI 8,9,10,11,12 OCTOBER
8.30-9.30- breakfast and registration
9.30-11.0 Need and urgency to resist the rise of fascist forces-Achyut Yagnik-
11.00-11.30- tea
11.30-1.0 Legacy of the freedom Movement- Amar Farooqui
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00-3.30- KM Shrimali- Ayodhya
3.30-4.00 Tea
4.00-5.30 Communalisation of Education- Krishan Kumar
5.30-6.00- tea
6.00-7.00- movement songs
7.00 onwards film followed by dinner
Oct 9
9.30-11.0 Formation of the Indian Identity- Sohail Hashmi
11.00-11.30
11.30-1.0 Civil Society and State: Lessons from Gujarat-Harsh Mander
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00-3.30 Fascism: Gauhar Raza
3.30-4.00 pm
4.00-5.30 Secularism as Constitutional Right- Prashant Bhushan
5.30-6.0- tea
6.00-7.00 movement songs
7.00 film followed by dinner
Oct 10 9.00-10.30- History of the Sangh Parivar- Pralay Kanungo 10.30-11.00 –tea 11.00 onwards till 5.30 pm with lunch and tea breaks
Day 3/ Session I -IV REALITY UNVIELED Facts Vs Myths on · Appeasement of Minorities · Anti Nationalism of Minorities · Demography of the nation [population of the minorities] · Conversion and Christian Missionaries · Godhra – the facts and falsities · Kashmir – the facts and falsities 5.30-6.00- tea 6.00-7.00- movement songs 7.00 onwards – film followed by dinner
Oct 11
9.30-11.0 Communalisation Of Media-Amit Sengupta
11.00-11.30-tea
11.30-1.00-Gender - issue, movement & interrelation with communal politics
Nivedita Menon
1.00-2.00pm
2.00-3.30-Minority communalism- Prof. Imtiaz Ahmad
3.30-4.00 tea
4.00-5.30-Dalit - issue, movement and interrelation with communal politics- Dr.Tulsiram-
5.30-6.00 tea
6.00-7.00- movement songs
7.00 onwards- film followed by dinner
Day 5/ 9.30-11.00
COMMUNALISM, NATIONALIST CHAUVINISM AND INDIA PAKISTAN HOSTILITY: THE CONNECTION- TO BE FIXED
11.00-11.30-tea 11.30 onwards
FOLLOW UP ACTIONS TOWARDS SECULAR COMMUNITY BUIDLING Possible secular actions & initiatives Mode, language, idiom of communication/intervention Cultural interventions Forms of active resistance Plan of actions and commitments from the district
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[12]
Announcement
The Economic and Political Impact of the Indo-Pak Arms Race
Speaker: Sushil Khanna
Professor of Economics, Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata
Friday October 10, 2003 7.30 p.m. Place: Center for developing Area Studies (CDAS), McGill University 3715 Peel Street, Montreal [Canada] Sponsored by: CERAS and CDAS
Admission free All welcome
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[13]
2nd Annual Atlanta Workshop on Promoting Peace and Development in South Asia
Saturday, October 11th, 2003, 10.00 am - 4.30 pm
Location: White Hall, 480 Kilgo St., Emory University, 30322 [USA}
http://www.emory.edu/FMD/web/central.htm (White Hall is Bldg #4 on the map link)
Organized by South Asians for Unity (www.SA4U.org) from Atlanta, and by Develop in Peace (DiP) from Charlotte
Chai, Refreshments, and Lunch will be provided
Main Presenters Will Be: Professor Raju Thomas (International Affairs Studies, Marquette University) Hussain Haqqani (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) Amit Pandya (Open Society Institute)
Purpose of Workshop:
1. To involve members of the South Asian community in the United States in a constructive dialogue on Peace and Development in South Asia.
2. To influence positive sociopolitical change between India and Pakistan.
3. To find ways to sustain local forums on improving India-Pakistan relations.
There is limited space for this event, so please pay your $10 registration fee today.
Registration Information
Complete and mail with your $10 registration fee to South Asia Peace Workshop, P.O. Box 49494, Atlanta, GA 30395. Please make your check out to "Develop in Peace".
Very soon you will be able to register through Sulekha.com as well.
1. Name: ___________________________________________________
2. Address: ___________________________________________________
3. City: __________________ 4. State:_______ 5.Zip Code:__________
6. Telephone number: __________________ 7. Email: _________________________
8. What would you like to accomplish at this workshop?
If you have any questions, would like to VOLUNTEER or make a tax-deductible DONATION, please contact Khurram Hassan (SA4U in Atlanta), Cell Phone 404-213-9825, [EMAIL PROTECTED] or Gautam Desai (DiP in Charlotte), Cell Phone 704-540-5066, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please contact Gautam for further details on 2 hour seminars on "US-India-Pakistan relations: A road map to peace" planned in the Raleigh area on 9th Oct Thursday at 6:00 pm, Davidson College at 10:00 am and Charlotte, NC at noon on 10th Oct Friday.
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Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace and democratisation in South Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit citizens wire service run since 1998 by South Asia Citizens Web (www.mnet.fr/aiindex). [Please note the SACW web site has gone down, you will have to for the time being search google cache for materials]
The complete SACW archive is available at: http://sacw.insaf.net
DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
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