South Asia Citizens Wire | 17 June, 2004 via: www.sacw.net
[1] Pakistan: Our TV channels and 'enlightened moderation' (Editorial, The Daily Times)
[2] Pakistan: A 'Moderation' of Freedom (Samina Ahmed and John Norris)
[3] India: Are you listening? (A.G. Noorani)
[4] The UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non- Violence, 2004
[5] Kashmir: Not In My Name (Shabnam Ali)
[6] India: "Vedic Maths" Letter to the Editor, Deccan Herald (M.V. Ramana)
[7] Indian Elections-2004: Implications for democratic polity (Ram Puniyani)
[8] India: The Tainted and The Sainted (Alok Rai)
[9] India: On Secularism: Kuldip Nayar and the response by Ashis Nandy
[10] US Courts Could Order Union Carbide To Clean-Up Bhopal Toxics If ....
You Tell Indian Government To Say "Yes" To Bhopal Cleanup
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[1]
The Daily Times [Pakistan] June 16, 2004 Editorial
OUR TV CHANNELS AND 'ENLIGHTENED MODERATION'
President Pervez Musharraf has succeeded in getting the OIC to adopt the slogan of 'enlightened moderation', which in turn has created some space in the OIC discussions for the benighted Muslim intellectual and his perennial and ineffectual plaint about narrow-mindedness in the Muslim world. The latest OIC discussion in Turkey has pleasantly surprised the Western world. Many experts know what it means for the Muslims to talk about moderation; even then the reception of the call for 'enlightened moderation' at Istanbul has been well received. But President Musharraf knows that he has made the call because Muslims lack both enlightenment and moderation. You have to read the statements made by our politicians in the media to gauge the depth of violence in the Muslim discourse. What is more unsettling is that our new private TV channels too are inclined to spread the wrong message through their programming.
Islam stressed attributes of good life, like cleanliness and brotherhood, because the Muslims lacked them. Today Muslims lack enlightenment and moderation, but they have a way of avoiding the onus of setting themselves right. They interpose the ideal where the existential is actually being discussed. Thus a private TV channel discussing the topic would normally invite a cleric who would put an end to the discussion by claiming that Islam was already the last word in enlightenment and moderation and that it was in fact the West which needed higher civilisation. Pakistan's two leading TV channels are running 'religious' programmes that unfortunately don't mix viewership success with balance in opinion. This becomes obvious from the roster of the invitees where any channel wants to take the discussion. Thanks to the success of these 'interactive' religious programmes a lot of people may have actually returned to a ritualistic belief in primitive faith rather than a rationally arrived value system. Who determines the intellectual level of the programme?
The prime example of deliberately low-pitched intellectual appeal are some programmes conducted with an extremely responsive audience among the expatriate Pakistani community. In one such programme, the anchor is currently doing a long series on One-Eyed Dajjal as a Jewish scourge. The anchor fights the war against what he thinks is disinformation spread by the dominant Western media. The drawback here is that while the Western media injects its bias in reporting incidents, the Muslim media does it through opinion. This channel has become popular because it denies most of what the Western media says. It has taken sides and doesn't pretend to be unbiased, which puts the Western media on a higher moral plane because they pretend to be unbiased. This channel is the answer to Fox News. It is passionate rather than objective, which is the Muslim way, and the anchor allows himself to fly off the handle as a kind of gesture of devotion to the Muslim cause. Already turned away from integration, the expatriate community is doomed to isolation and resultant suffering in his hands.
This channel also does a low-level 'istakhara' (divination) programme, taking the people further away from this world of cause and effect. It also runs lectures from the Bombay-based speaker Zakir Naek who routinely rubbishes other religions to show how Islam is a better faith. When asked by a Hindu questioner what he thought of what the Taliban did to the Bamyan Buddhas, he answered that since there were no Buddhists in Afghanistan and the territory belonged to the Afghans, they were right in destroying their own property. Asked if Islam allowed women to enter co-ed institutions and become airhostesses, Dr Naik said, no, Islam did not allow either. He said airhostesses were required to please men. He forbade women to go in public without hijab. Was the programmer aware that this message would create difficulties not only with Muslim women in India and Bangladesh but also in Pakistan where the common man might start behaving intolerantly towards women in public if he thought that they were not properly veiled? ARY should have known that after the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamyan innocent Muslims were attacked in Thailand.
Most of the time we don't even know what extremism is. If you tell a Pakistani that what Maulana X in Jhang is doing in the guise of Khatm-e-Nabuwwat is extremism, he won't believe it. What the entire nation does to the non-Muslims under Blasphemy Law is extremism written into the statute book, but no one thinks it is extremism. One way to remove this extremism is reform, but Muslims don't feel inclined to go in this direction because reform requires a realisation of error. Muslims don't think they are in error. How many of the programmes are done to highlight this tendency? Ironically, the content of reform suggested is 'more of the same'. Similarly, the on-line Alims and Alifs merely reinforce narrow-mindedness by inviting clerics who can hardly understand what moderation is. The programmes are so routinely hide-bound that if something good happens accidentally it upsets the audience and the host. The clergy is tragically not restricted to religious programmes; they spread their extremism in almost all the discussions.
We are told the media empowers through transmission of information. Are we being empowered? If yes, where is this power and how is it good for us? What kind of information do we need to feel that we are empowered? Is it religious information or is it what we call general knowledge or data relating to the functioning of the state in the light of the rights of the people? How do we get out of the rut of our 'information-poor' status? If a channel discusses 'foreign affairs' and ends up moaning over the immorality of international politics without telling Pakistanis what is pragmatically good for Pakistan it simply generates anger which is impotent against global powers but destructive at home. There is more xenophobia and anti-Westernism in Pakistan today than when the state-owned media had a monopoly. Someone is winning the media war in Pakistan. It is not the West. It is not India. If there is empowerment in it, it is certainly not in the interest of Pakistan if one is to go by what we see everyday on the screen. *
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[2]
The Washington Post Tuesday, June 15, 2004; Page A23
A 'MODERATION' OF FREEDOM Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf Isn't Practicing What He Preaches by Samina Ahmed and John Norris
Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, recently made a broad and seemingly heartfelt call for Muslims to raise themselves up through what he terms "enlightened moderation" [op-ed, June 1]. Decrying the influence of militants, extremists and terrorists, Musharraf insisted that political injustice lay at the heart of the vast suffering of Muslims around the globe. His path forward is for Muslims to disavow extremism in favor of socioeconomic progress and for the United States to take on a much bolder role in resolving political disputes in the Muslim world, particularly in places such as Palestine and Kashmir.
The words sound good, and such language from the leader of a nuclear nation on the front lines of the war against terrorism should be reassuring. But sadly, to most people who follow Pakistan closely, Musharraf's comments come across as dangerously close to farce. While advocating enlightened moderation abroad, Pakistan's leader is content to practice enlightenment in extreme moderation at home.
First and foremost, he continues to avoid handing real power back to democratically elected officials. While the Bush administration repeatedly holds up Iraq as a nation that could serve as a shining example of Islamic democracy in action, it continues to offer a blank check to a Pakistani government in which all power resides in the military. Curbs on democratic freedoms in Pakistan remain draconian. To discourage domestic dissent, the government has sentenced Javed Hashmi, leader of Musharraf's main political opposition, to 23 years in prison for daring to offer criticism. And it deported an exiled opposition leader, Shahbaz Sharif, when he had the temerity to attempt to return home after the Supreme Court confirmed the right of all citizens to actually reside in Pakistan.
In the same vein, Musharraf's domestic reforms are primarily aimed at strengthening military rule. For example, he promoted a recent plan for a devolution of power to local officials as a means to "empower the impoverished" and strengthen local government. Instead, it has undercut mainstream moderate political parties, left widespread corruption unchecked and shifted power away from the provinces as a means to bolster military rule.
U.S. officials are rightly beginning to grumble that they are not getting what they are paying for with billions of dollars of economic and military aid. In high-profile pledges two years ago, Musharraf vowed to crack down on madrassas, the religious schools where many Pakistani children receive their education and which have often been a wellspring of extremism. Pakistan has failed to deliver on those pledges; most madrassas remain unregistered, their finances unregulated, and the government has yet to remove the jihadist and sectarian content in their curricula.
The Pakistani government has taken a similar approach to jihadist organizations. The growth of jihadist networks continues to threaten both domestic and international security. After declaring that no group would be allowed to engage in terrorist activities in Indian-controlled Kashmir, the government ordered a number of extremist groups to do little more than change their name. One extremist leader was allowed to run for parliament, and won, even though he had been charged with more than 20 violent crimes. The leaders of other banned groups, designated as terrorist organizations by the United States, continue to preach freely their sectarian and anti-Western jihad. Pakistan has also notably failed to adequately address important issues such as terrorist financing, including money laundering, making the country a favorite base of operation for all too many extremist organizations.
Indeed, escalating sectarian violence in Karachi, deplored by the U.N. secretary general, painfully underscores the government's failure to tackle extremists within its own borders. This failure was also shown in the government's halting and contradictory statements after cordon and search operations in northwest Pakistan designed to apprehend al Qaeda operatives and Taliban militants. After initially trumpeting that the arrest of "high value" suspects was imminent, the government sheepishly had to admit that any such suspects had escaped as it engaged in negotiations with local tribesmen to free a number of captured Pakistani soldiers.
Pakistan could serve as the force of moderation and enlightenment espoused by Musharraf, but it will require enlightened leadership on his part. Pakistan's military needs to return to the sidelines of political life and give its moderate political parties -- which have always done reasonably well in keeping a lid on extremism -- a chance to function. While the military has done a good job in using the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to strengthen its position, military governments across the globe have demonstrated that they usually do not stand the test of time or enlightenment.
Samina Ahmed is South Asia project director and John Norris is special adviser to the president of the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization that specializes in conflict resolution.
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[3]
Hindustan Times, June 14, 2004
ARE YOU LISTENING? by A.G. Noorani
The UPA government faces daunting challenges on the foreign policy front. The peace process with two neighbours, Pakistan and China, are at a delicate, nascent stage. Iraq and Afghanistan are in a shambles thanks to its 'liberators'. While it is very much in our national interest to have good relations with the US, we must also assert clearly the points on which we differ. There is, besides, the problem of national consensus.
The NDA regime repeatedly claimed unprecedented achievements that turned out to be empty boasts. There was scant respect for national consensus. The Jan Sangh belittled Jawaharlal Nehru. The BJP followed suit. Jaswant Singh's book, Defending India, retained (p. 45) the lie that Nehru wanted to "scrap the army", relying on the word of the first Commander-in-Chief, whom Nehru had sacked. Worse, citing Nehru's Discovery of India, Jaswant Singh referred (p. 56) to Nehru views expressed by Gandhi ignoring deliberately the differences which Nehru had recorded on the very same page (p. 443). Ignored also was Nehru's memo of February 3, 1947, which said: "We are going to provide for defence by armed forces." Nehru listed his expectations from all their three wings (Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru; Vol. 2, p. 353). This, despite a handsome grant from the Dorab Tata Trust "for the research costs of this book".
As External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh promised "tectonic shift of consciousness" and carried out such "shifts" in many respects, most notably, when it came to the US. The Jan Sangh had advocated markedly pro-American and pro-Israeli policies. The UPA, therefore, can't be blamed for correcting excesses inspired by ideological biases. The BJP had received full cooperation from the opposition during the months it had pursued its harebrained Operation Parakram and in the two peace processes. The UPA government must not allow itself to be deflected from its course as Inder Gujral was when Vajpayee attacked the Islamabad Joint Statement of June 23, 1997. It envisaged a mechanism for a composite dialogue on all issues. Had Gujral not reneged on the accord by refusing to set up a working group on Kashmir, Pakistan's insistence on discussing the issue first would not have acquired the edge it did. India did not offer Pakistan the Chinese model of a working group. To plead "Let us put Kashmir aside" is to arouse the very fears and suspicions in Islamabad which need to be set to rest if the peace process is to succeed.
The fine print of the Simla agreement (para 6) is instructive: "Both governments agree that their respective heads will meet again at a mutually convenient time in the future and that, in the meanwhile, the representatives of the two sides will meet to discuss further the modalities and arrangements for the establishment of durable peace and normalisation of relations, including the question of repatriation of prisoners of war and civilian internees, a final settlement of Jammu and Kashmir and the resumption of diplomatic relations."
Three points deserve note. First, the existence of a Kashmir dispute, which required "a final settlement", was accepted. Second, to this end the heads of government were to "meet again". Third, "in the meanwhile", representatives of both sides were to meet to discuss Kashmir and other issues. They met to discuss only 'other issues' in 1972-73, never Kashmir. The summit envisaged by para 6 was never held. The Simla agreement does not provide a mechanism that works on its own. It is a do-it-yourself kit, with incomplete instructions and a price tag. Over time its text acquired layers of sub-texts. A decade ago, Mani Shankar Aiyar remarked: "I never understood the logic of using the Simla agreement to put the Kashmir issue on the backburner."
External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh has done well to stress a commitment to "Simla, Lahore plus January 6; total continuity" and also that "nothing that the Vajpayee government has accomplished will be undone; it will be taken further". International accords bind States regardless of changes in government. None of the challenges facing the nation can be resolved except through national consensus. This is true not only of Kashmir and the boundary dispute with China but also of, say, revision of the 1950 Treaty with Nepal or disputes with Bangladesh. The BJP's cooperation must be sought, but it mustn't be allowed to veto initiatives as it did in 1997.
It is certainly not partisanship to repair the damage the NDA implicated for ideological reasons in several areas of foreign policy. For instance, from the Rajiv-Zia accord of Dec. 17, 1985, on talks on Siachen, right till 1998, it was tacitly accepted by both sides that they would disengage from the area. For reasons of his own, not hard to discern, George Fernandes abruptly reversed the policy on July 18, 1998 by declaring "India needs to hold on to Siachen, both for strategic reasons and wider security in the region". Both reasons run counter to experts' opinions. National Security Advisor J.N. Dixit remarked in Outlook (Nov. 2, 1998): "One wonders why both countries do not implement the agreement already initialled on Siachen and Tulbul Navigation (Wular Barrage) finalised between 1990 and 1994." P.V. Narasimha Rao aborted an accord in November 1992, as everyone knows.
It is this record that Natwar Singh will have to grapple with. Precisely what will be his government's policy on Siachen, on the Wular Barrage Project and on Sir Creek? He must break the logjam by agreeing to a substantive dialogue on Kashmir in earnest and, simultaneously, on these three issues. Convinced that Kashmir is not being put on a backburner, Pakistan should be persuaded, as the talks progress, to settle the trio by a fair compromise.
India faces challenges to diplomatic creativity on the Kashmir dispute as also the boundary dispute with China. On both, much common ground is very much in sight already; on Kashmir perhaps for the first time in years. President Pervez Musharraf has all but abandoned the UN resolutions. Plebiscite is thus excluded. So is the LoC. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says, "Short of secession, short of redrawing boundaries, the Indian establishment can live with anything." It is not at all impossible to find common ground that is short of secession yet goes beyond the status quo.
China insists on some concession in the eastern sector in return for the ones we seek in the western sector. There is surely some room for concession if the 1914 McMahon Line is redefined in 2004 by modern methods. Having served as a member of the IFS, Natwar Singh must act energetically to revive its morale which successive PMs and EAMs undermined. The Planning Division is a shambles. The MEA deserves much better of the government. It is vain to draw much comfort from improvement in relations with the big powers, Japan, Germany, South-East Asia or the Gulf States when relations with the neighbours call for improvement.
A breakthrough in this area will add immensely to India's prestige the world over.
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[4]
The UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non- Violence, 2004
CALL FOR SUBMISSION OF CANDIDATURES
For individuals, institutions and organizations that have made a significant contribution to the promotion of tolerance and non-violence through activities in the fields of science, the arts, education, culture and communication.
Deadline: 30 June 2004
For more information, please contact Mr. Serguei Lazarev, Secretary of the Prize
Tel: +33 (0)1 45 68 38 54 -fax: +33 (0)1 45 68 57 23
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.unesco.org/tolerance/prize1e.htm
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[5]
Outlook Jun 14, 2004
FROM THE HEART
Not In My Name
What was the ostensible reason for targeting innocent tourists in Pahalgam? An Al-Nasreen spokesman apparently told PTI that the tourists were "spreading vulgarity in the valley which they could not tolerate". I think we must tell them what we cannot tolerate. Updates
by Shabnam Ali
zarra zarra mere kashmir kaa mehmaan nawaaz raastoN ke pathroN ne bhii diyaa paanii mujhe
Chakbast
(Each small particle of my Kashmir is hospitable Even the wayside stones provided water to me)
It's a familiar story. Each report of increasing tourist traffic in the Kashmir valley is greeted with a silent prayer: May it not just be a prelude to yet another incident of mindless violence. It was just last week that tourist arrival in the valley touched one lakh. I was trying to persuade my friends in Delhi that it was safe to visit my land, my beloved--and bloodied--valley rather than suffer the stifling, oppressing heat of the capital. But--predictably, heart-breakingly--terror struck at the tourist resort of Pahalgam--at around 4:15 pm on Saturday, June 12.
Around 40 tourists lazing around under a warm afternoon sun were violently reminded of the terror that so far had only perhaps lurked somewhere in the back recesses of their minds. The exploding grenade immediately killed four--Danish Halwai Mustakam Halwai, from Uttar Pradesh and Bahvesh Chanderkant and his 8-year daughter Neelu, from Mumbai. While Bahvesh's wife was one of the 21 injured, the deceased Bhuvesh's 10-year old son, Ratik, finally succumbed to injuries on Sunday, June 13, taking the death-toll to five.
I do not know what prompted this ill-fated lot of tourists to visit the valley. Was it news of the tourist influx? Knowledge that even the terrorists would not target the tourists? An urge to visit the most beautiful part of the country? Nostalgia? Reviving an old family tradition? Implorations by the kids, seduced perhaps by the romance and adventure as depicted in films? I do not know. Heavens, I do not want to know.
What was the reason for targeting these tourists? Terrorist outfit, Al-Nasreen, has been quick to claim responsibility for the grenade attack, saying it was carried out to "warn tourists not to visit Jammu and Kashmir". An outfit spokesman apparently told PTI on phone that the tourists were "spreading vulgarity in the valley which they could not tolerate". I think we must tell them what we cannot tolerate.
How specious and brutally cruel this mindless "reasoning" is does not need any elucidation because the truth is that it is the tourists that are the lifeblood of the valley's economy. The last decade and a half of terror and violence has not only resulted in the cold-blooded murder of innocents, but has also been responsible for the terrorists' real aim--of keeping the valley isolated from contact with visiting tourists. While the leaders live in palatial mansions with Z-plus security and the Al-Nasreen apparently does not have to bother with mundane chores like earning a living, thanks to their pay-masters abroad, it is the poor Kashmiris who have suffered--the shikara-wallahs, the houseboat-wallahs, the pony-wallahs, the papier-mache and traditional craftspeople whose very livelihood depends on the tourists.
Spreading vulgarity? It would be vulgar and profane to the memory of those killed, not to mention futile, to address any question to this bunch of so-called Al-Nasreen, for they are not only cowards but also brain-washed, killing-machines, with hate as perhaps the only known emotion. To kill anybody--leave alone innocents and children--in the name of "azaadi" is the not only vulgar but also an act of heart-breaking cruelty. It is cold-blooded murder, and in any civilised society we know what the punishment for murder is.
But what would they care? They are after all above
any law, and haven't they and their other fellow "freedom fighters" shed the blood of many times more of their own co-religionists than that of the "kafirs"? Perhaps we would get another litany of counter-claims about the "blood of martyrs" and shrill, self-righteous indignation that perhaps only gets assuaged by killing innocents and children.The litany of hatred from the Hindu right is equally shrill when they invoke each such incident to "justify" their "revenge" in atrocities such as Gujarat.Each time I would hear this from one, I would be comforted by at least 10 more from the same Hindu community who would be the first to denounce this specious rationalising. And each time I would hear 1984 being invoked to justify 2002, I would cringe, knowing that there were many in my beloved valley, aided, abetted and instigated by those from across the borders, to retaliate and take revenge for the "crimes of the Indian state".
It would take too long to dwell on the real or perceived "crimes" of various parties involved and while any of this doesn't need any repetition and while I know that what I am writing right now is neither novel nor particularly insightful, I do feel the urgent need to reach out. It is high-time, I feel, that we, the common-people of J&K, added our voices, spoke out and reached out to our brothers and sisters outside the valley--in India and elsewhere--yes, even in Pakistan--to join us in condemning this latest outrage unequivocally.
The only redeeming feature seems to be that at least some of the mainstream political parties and leaders like Shabir Shah have spoken out against this latest outraging act of terror. But the common people--particularly those who have suffered loss personally--understand the pain, the anguish, the anger, the rage that any innocent death entails. We need to speak up. Just as I saw my friends in rest of India and abroad, speak out when innocent Muslims were targeted after the dastardly, inhuman barbarity of Godhra.
Apart from the selfish motive of wanting tourists to visit the valley for the sheer sake of their livelihood and economy, there is also the human factor. The Chief Minister was only stating the obvious when he pointed out that this brutal killing could only be the handiwork of the enemies of the state and that it is a "conspiracy to target Kashmir's interests and its people". Each time a peace-process is initiated, each time a government is elected, each time we Kashmiris see just the tiniest of rays of hope in the revival of the tourist-trade, a heinous, violent act of terror such as this.is perpetrated in our names.
I have got used to the analogy with the 'Good Germans". Become immune to it. It has even stopped irritating me, this demand from non-Kashmiri, well-meaning people to lend my voice--hadn't I lost a brother?--against the madness in J&K. I was tired, I would argue, of reiterating that I, and countless others like me--indeed, the majority in the valley-- do not approve of any violence, but to speak out to silence those who found our silence eloquent somehow seemed so demeaningly trite. Aren't we human? Don't we feel pain at the loss of innocent lives? Aren't our discussions filled with remorse at what little has been done by the community at large for the Kashmiri Pundits and all those who have suffered at this mindless violence of the last few decades? But then don't we have to move on with our lives? Should we suspend all other activities and just take to condemning each and every atrocity supposedly perpetrated in our names?
I now believe that just as the ordinary people spoke out against Gujarat, because the dastardly deeds were done in their name, it is high-time that we, the ordinary people of J&K, spoke up. In unison. We must speak out, shout, and scream till our voices get hoarse.I saw how almost routinely, for more than two years now, almost on a daily basis, newspapers, TV channels, magazines, have had an unrelenting profusion of Hindu names and faces lamenting what happened to the innocent Muslims of Gujarat.The situation with J&K is undoubtedly not completely analogous, but I feel almost compelledto demand that we, the common people of the valley, have to let our voices be heard, read and registered, that don't want any bloodshed, that we do not want any killings of anybody in our name.
When writing in the backdrop of the brutal murder of tourists, perhaps this is not an opportune time to speak of starting a movement for the rehabilitation of the displaced Kashmiri Pundits, and all those who have suffered, but in our own self-interest it is time to speak out. The risks involved are many, and there is the fear of the gun--but the guns have to be silenced somehow. If they won't be, perhaps individually we could begin by trying to drown out their obscene sounds with a loud and clear scream -- not in my name.
My friends are convinced now to visit the valley before the summer is out. Meanwhile, it is time to spare more than a moment for prayers for those who became the victims of hate in this latest "vulgar" outrage in Pahalgam.
(*Shabnam Ali, is a post-doctoral researcher who works with disadvantaged children.)
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[6]
[ submitted as Letter to the Editor, Deccan Herald ]
Subject: Vedic Maths Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 12:04:01 +0530
Sir,
With regard to the article "Vedic Maths can be fun too" (Deccan Herald, Wednesday, 16 June 2004), it should be noted that Vedic Maths is neither really Vedic in its origins nor is it serious Mathematics. It can best be described as a bunch of tricks to perform faster arithmetic, many of which can be derived by any serious student of Mathematics for himself or herself. The example given in the first line of the article itself demonstrate this. It is fairly straightforward to realize that to multiply 73.58 by 9.9999, one should use the fact that 9.9999 = 10 - 0.0001. Multiplying 73.58 by both 10 and 0.0001 are easy as is subtracting the latter result from the former. The final answer is 735.792642. One needs no Vedic Maths trick to do this. To use this trivial example to argue that one should "plunge into Vedic Maths" so that "even the toughest mathematical problem would appear as a primer riddle" is just nonsense. Can one, for example, prove Fermat's last theorem or the Riemann hypothesis using the methods of Vedic Maths?
Sincerely, M. V. Ramana Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development ISEC Campus, Nagarabhavi Bangalore 560 072 www.cised.org
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[7]
From Milligazette June, 2004
INDIAN ELECTIONS-2004: IMPLICATIONS FOR DEMOCRATIC POLITY by Ram Puniyani
The verdict of 2004 elections has come as an utter surprise to most of the people of the country. All those individuals and groups who perceived the threat from the rise tide of communalism during last few years have felt great relief. The major setbacks suffered by the country during last six years of BJP rule had been multiple. The erosion of democratic institutions has been one of the main. The riots of Gujarat, on the pretext of Godhra train burning had been too shocking for words, and the post violence handling of issues had been worse than the pogrom itself.
Added on to this was the issue of communalization of textbooks, blatant violation of the autonomy of centers of learning and the introduction of obscurantist course like astrology and Karmakand in the universities. The pro US-Israel tilt of the foreign policy was very visible and India bending its knees in front of the US Empire was a big shame. Add on to this the appointment of key personnel in the positions that matter, the grip on the different wings of state apparatus by pro Hindutva individuals made the picture gruesome. This did stifle the liberal and democratic space to no end. The scar of these policies, the Gujarat riots and the formation of ëtwo nationsí within Gujarat, on the minority psyche has been too deep for words.
Steps are being taken by the Government to undo some of the damage done by the RSSís political arm, the BJP. Various ministries are chalking out programs to put the things back on rails. Various civic rights groups are drafting the petitions and appeals to ensure that the violations of democratic norms and human rights indulged in by BJP are reversed at the earliest. While it is too early to comment on the outcome of these attempts, it is sure that more the pressure from civic groups more is the possibility of democratic norms and practices being restored.
Is that the end of the threat from intimidating Hindutva/Fascist threat to Indian democracy? We have to realize that the defeat of BJP has not been comprehensive. BJP has been able to do good showing in MP, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh. It has registered its presence in Kerala and come up in Karnataka. Despite erosion, it has retained good bit of strength in Gujarat. Its voting share has gone down by mere two percent. BJP is not alone in this game.
The problem lies in other direction also. It has the support from VHP, Bajrang Dal, Vanvasi Kalyan Ahsram and myriad other organizations which are manned by RSS volunteers. The threat to Indian democracy is from various directions and BJP is merely the political angle of the story. RSSís role in subjugating culture, and other arenas of life cannot be underestimated. One can say that it is precisely due to the activities of BJP affiliates that BJP can make its impact.
It is due to the mass indoctrination and doctoring of mass consciousness that communal violence breaks out and it is the communal violence, which lays the base for the politics of BJP. Who can take on this foundational work of RSS? Can the Government machinery counter this onslaught on our society? The best it can do is to undo the damage to curricula, the farthest it can go is to ensure that the heads of controlling bodies like ICHR and others are appointed on the grounds of their competence, professionalism and not due to their loyalty to Hindutva as has been happening during last six years. But thatís just the small subset of the problem, which one can see in the most visible manner.
The problem has been created due to the RSS ideology being percolated through thousands of Shakhas, the RSS swayamsevaks infiltrating in different wings of our state machinery. And surely the vehemence of other wings of Sangh combine had reached very dangerous proportions under the political umbrella provided by BJP rule. It is true that the very fact of BJP not grabbing power again has demoralized many of these outfits. One was also puzzled by the momentry eclipse of Togadia. His ëquietí period is being extended and one is wondering about the future of this ëpoison spewingí machine. Is he on way out like his predecessor Sadhvi Ritambhara or is he recuperating after too many of outpourings?
One has to wait and watch as to what is up the sleeve of RSS. What course it adopts now. After having said that BJP defeat is due to underplaying the Hindutva agenda, even RSS is at loss to find another emotive issue, which can put it, back into offensive track? They really must be cursing Sonia Gandhi for taking away the highly usable emotive issue of Sonia Janmbhumi from their gambit. Ram Janmbhumi may not deliver the desired results any longer and the Kashi, Mathura is also unlikely to enthuse the gullible now.
While one awaits the future strategy of RSS and its progeny one does realize that some of the damages done to democratic polity done by the acts of commission of this multi headed hydra cannot be undone by the state or the Government all by itself. The two pressing problems of the day relate to the influence of ëHate Otherí propaganda ceaselessly done by this outfit. Lately the impact of this propaganda has been boosted by the international events in which the likes of Osama bin Laden and Talibans have added fuel to the fire of Hatred generated against Muslims in particular, from last nearly eigth decades. The other major problem is the creation of divides amongst communities on the grounds of religion. While Gujarat is the worst example of this, other states are also not spared and one finds dime a dozen examples where one cannot buy a house in a particular locality because one happens to belong to the ëwrong religioní.
It is here that efforts of civic groups, social movements are most crucial to deepen the democratic ethos in the country.
The Hate propaganda generated against minorities has to be undone in a most humane and effective method. The projections of History, the communal viewpoint of history introduced by British, are the ruling viewpoints in popular minds in the sub continent. The community divides are on the increase. The teachings of Bhakti saints and Sufi saints have been dumped in to the backyard. The efforts of Mahatma Gandhi in building the modern India on the ground of Citizenship cutting across religions are being challenged by the notions of religion based nationalism of Jinnah, Savarkar-Golwalkar variety. Can the government efforts reach the nook and corners of society to re-cultivate the concepts of composite nationalism? Sure, merely the correction in the school curricula, though an essential prerequisite, are not adequate enough. New programs are to be designed by the Government to propagate the values, which were the foundation of freedom movement, the values that guided our Indian constitution, in a way that all and sundry re-imbibe these values in their psyche?
How can the hurt minority psyche be soothed and how can they be made to feel secure in this country? One fears that the threat of bringing back Hindutva agenda may mean more violence and more bloodshed. One fears that the ëdefeatedí BJP, RSS combine may resort to any method to deepen the divisive agenda in the society. The present ëfeel goodí of the democratic secular-democratic groups may not last much once RSS combine hits back with its usual ëtoolsí. One is aware that preservation and strengthening of Human rights is the need of the hour. One is aware that the social groups whose human rights have suffered adversely during last two decades are dalits, women, workers, adivasis and minorities. One is also aware that it is precisely to suppress these issues that Hindutva wants to bring in emotional issues.
Social movements will be faulting in their commitment to social issues if the divisive politics is not combated at social level. And this government must feel duty bound to morally uphold these initiatives for harmony and the efforts in the directions, which strengthen the grass root bonding and amicable atmosphere.
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[8]
Times of India June 15, 2004
THE TAINTED AND THE SAINTED by Alok Rai
Of course I can imagine a civilized parliament and, with a little voice training, even Sushma Swaraj and Mamata Banerjee might be granted a place in it, provided they promise to keep their hair on. (And Mr Jaitley of course - he looks so sincere!) But if all people with serious criminal charges against their names are to be excluded, it will be a very small parliament indeed. The former Home Minister, we know, will be forced to stay at home. And this is the real reason why the BJP has dug up the quaintly religious idea of a "taint", whereby a flexible sort of distinction is sought to be established between different sorts of charges and different sorts of unconvicted crimes. Thus, the Bihari Uddins, so to speak, are accused of offences like kidnapping, extortion and murder. And these are, beyond doubt, horrible crimes. And so the Uddins are deemed to be "tainted" merely by virtue of the fact of being accused of such heinous crimes. It is of course a damn pity, and an embarrassment, that these people have all been elected - rather like Mr Advani and the infamous Modi. One may still try to base some kind of distinction on the grounds that one lot are elected because of their crimes, while the others are elected despite them. But I defy anyone to work out which is which. (Consider Shahabuddin: despite? because? Consider Modi: because? despite?Š) But, be that as it may, election can hardly offer exemption from justice. Legislators cannot be presumed to be above the law, like policemen. We know, of course, that all of these people are still unconvicted - so perhaps we could just pick on the judicial system, and forget the whole messy business? But even this would be somewhat complicated by the fact that, until lately, Mr Advani actually presided over the very department that was supposed to investigate and perhaps convict him! I suppose saints must be presumed to be above mere conflict of interest. So, what is the real distinction between the tainted and the sainted - between say, Shahabuddin and, say, Advani? Somehow, the implication is that the former's crimes are worse than the latter's; that the latter's crimes are, in fact, not crimes at all. Mr Vajpayee is actually quoted as saying only yesterday [ PTI, June 10 ] that the cases of his colleagues were "of a different nature". He introduced the notion of a "political crime" that was fundamentally different from the "other" kind. He opined magisterially if ungrammatically that "you cannot have one gauge to (sic) all issues," thereby lending his authority to the idea of multiple standards. Now, I hold no brief for the louts, those ordinary "ordinary" criminals - exclusion isn't enough, hang them if you can, pull out their fingernails! But I wish to examine the arguments whereby Advani and MMJoshi and Uma Bharati, the Babri Three, are sought to be exempted from this necessary justice. One can understand why the "sainted" ones are reluctant to name the tradition whose moral glamour they seek to invoke in their favour. This is the tradition of civil disobedience, associated indissolubly with the name of the assassinated Father of the Nation - assassinated, let us never forget, by a member of Mr Advani's own ideological fraternity. In civil disobedience, the law is broken publicly, declaredly, without violence and with the explicit political intent of subjecting the law to the critique of a higher, undeniable moral law. One thinks of Gandhi breaking colonial law on the beach at Dandi; of Martin Luther King breaking the segregationist, racist law in the southern U.S.; of Mandela and apartheidŠ It is of the very nature of such "law breaking" that conviction is a certainty - unless of course one is a friend of the Home Minister or, better, one is oneself the Home Minister! Gandhi, as every schoolboy knew - before Joshi got to work on the textbooks! - actually requested Judge Broomfield to convict him. Though Vajpayee may claim that Advani's "crimes" are different, the fact of the matter is that Advani, unlike Gandhi, has actually sought to escape conviction - rather like the Bihari Uddins, in fact! But, perhaps, there is something in Vajpayee's distinction after all. It is possible that the "crimes" of Advani et al are a distinct third category, distinct both from the common or garden crimes of the Uddins and from non-violent civil disobedience. The difference lies in the fact that these are calculated acts of public violence, executed in order to achieve political ends. The commonly available designation for such acts, I fear, is terrorism. Lawyers make a fundamental distinction between civil and criminal law. While disputes regarding property fall within the purview of civil law, resorting to extra-legal means to settle such disputes - whether through violence or subterfuge, as in forgery - are the subject of criminal law. In the light of this distinction, the violence of the Uddins are still, essentially, about seizing property and are arguably therefore, admittedly from a macro godlike perspective, still a zero sum game: your money, my pocket, that sort of thing! But the political violence associated with the proponents of "cultural nationalism" is radically different. When it rises "idealistically" above mundane intentions like clearing slum properties and benefitting land mafias, it aims at nothing less than kidnapping the nation, Constitution and all. The existing civil and criminal law - existing by virtue of the same Constitution - can hardly capture its fundamental enormity. After all, Germany barely survived the paroxysm of perverted Hitlerite nationalism in the 1930s. I believe that India 2004 has had a narrow escape from a similar fate: India, that is Bharat, that might have been Modi's Gujarat. Mere murderers are nothing compared to these madmen. And women. Of course they must all, the tainted and the sainted, be convicted under the existing law. But it is only consistent with the moral altitude claimed by these "sainted" ones - perpetually implying and declaring that they are "above" the law - that they receive a "higher" sentence.
(Alok Rai teaches English at Delhi University)
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[9]
[ On Secularism: Kuldip Nayar and the response by Ashis Nandy; the articles are pasted below]
o o o
Outlook [India] May 31, 2004 opinion
ABHOR SINGULARITY! The critique of secularism by Nandy et al confuses tradition with religion
Kuldip Nayar
I met Ashis Nandy the other day to find out if the message I got from his writings on secularism was correct. What I understood, I told him, was that he did not believe that secularism was suited to the genius of India. He replied: "You are more or less correct." He's not the only one. In fact, there's a growing breed of intellectuals which has arrived at similar conclusions. They think the secularism agenda has flawed the Indian state right from the beginning. According to some of them, secularism, by virtue of being a western concept, is alien to India. For others, it is anti-religion and, therefore, in contradiction with the bedrock of our society's beliefs.
I wonder why scholars like Nandy have lost faith in the pluralistic ethos of the country. I can imagine their disgust over the contamination of the educated Hindu middle class. But I hope this is not their dialectical materialism that builds political theory on political 'fact'. According to me, they should have fought against prejudice and bias instead of rationalising them, conferring credibility on them in the process. When they claim that in India tradition and religion are synonymous, they mock at the synthesis the country has managed over the years, enabling respect for the sanctity of individual entities.
I have no quarrel with those who equate religion with tradition so long as they realise that the Indian tradition does not have the stamp of any particular religion. My difference arises when this tradition is mistaken for Hinduism. Our tradition is that of accommodating different religions and separate faiths. Secularism is a product of that process. It has gone through the crucible of tolerance and understanding. So, secularism is about not mixing religion with the state or politics.
I recall my short stint at London as India's high commissioner. Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister then and the Soviet Union was crumbling. After her return from Moscow, Thatcher met me at a party. I asked her how she found Mikhail Gorbachev, then the boss at Moscow. She said Gorbachev told her that the country was slipping away from his grip and that he could not hold it together. She said she had advised him to go to "your friend" India and see how people there had lived together for centuries despite their different religions, castes, languages and standards of living.
Thatcher then asked me what I attributed this to. It took me sometime to put my thoughts together. I told her that we in India did not think that things were either black or white. We believed there was a fuzzy area of overlap which we went on expanding. That was secularism. And the sense of tolerance and the spirit of accommodation that grew out of it was the glue that held us together.
True, the proponents of Hindutva are chipping away at it. They are making secularism look anti-Hindu and are equating it with 'minorityism'. And intellectuals like Nandy fail to realise precisely this. Religions, as Jawaharlal Nehru said, have laid down values and have pointed out principles for the guidance of human life. They should not be mistaken for attributes of a completely formed and closed culture that we have inherited.
The fight between secularism and chauvinism is nothing new. In Europe, all experiments with religions, holy wars, theocratic concepts of states have been discussed. After fighting wars for hundreds of years, the continent has come to the conclusion that religion and state should be separated. Even Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the exponent of the two-nation theory, said after Partition that religion shouldn't be mixed with politics.
What I hear in support of Hindutva today is nothing new. In fact, it was worse following Partition in August 1947 because after the struggle for independence, something that was conducted keeping the secular ideals in mind, the division of India on the basis of religion was a staggering blow.At that time, the Hindutva forces were up in arms to drive out the Muslims who were told that they had their 'share' in the shape of Pakistan.
The Gandhian thoughts of pluralism and peace were pooh-poohed. It was considered a cowardly response to 'Islamic jingoism'. There were many intellectuals who argued that India was culturally and traditionally Hindu and must reflect the same thinking in the Constitution it was framing. Still, Jawaharlal Nehru, Abul Kalam Azad and Sardar Patel stood their ground and rejected the outmoded, unscientific way of thinking in the name of tradition. So, India, Partition's aftermath notwithstanding, adopted the most liberal Constitution which gave the minorities the right to even preach and propagate their religion.
The country continued to face political religiosity or what is now sold in the name of culture. But its standard-bearer, the Jana Sangh, a forerunner of the BJP, never went beyond the one-digit figure in the Lok Sabha till the mid-'70s. I believe that Mahatma Gandhi's assassination saved the nation from the hot wind of communalism, which blew fiercely at that time. The pro-Hindutva intellectuals and the pro-BJP think-tanks did not relish secular thoughts but dared not open their mouths.
What is now accepted as the lure of cultural or traditional impulses was then considered an expression of communalism. But such confusion can't be an excuse for righting a wrong. It only shows that intellectuals like Nandy are faltering in their commitment.
o o o o o
Outlook [India] June 21, 2004 opinion
A BILLION GANDHIS
Down the ages, a natural tolerance—tinged with faith—has been our subsoil. Why do my friends foist a dry import like secularism upon this rootedness?
Ashis Nandy
Secularism is not communal amity; it is only one way of achieving such amity. As an ideology, it is not even 300 years old. Yet, despite the consistent failure of secularism to contain the growth of both Hindu nationalism and Islamic, Jewish and Christian fundamentalism in recent years—both in India and elsewhere in the world—only a few seem to have the courage to look beyond it. In a recent column in this magazine ( Abhor Singularity, May 31), my friend Kuldip Nayar has lamented my rejection of secularism and loss of faith in the plural traditions of South Asia. Nayar, whom I have given company in many battles—including some he would call secular—has got me entirely wrong. Actually, my criticism of secularism is an aggressive reaffirmation of these proto-Gandhian traditions and a search for post-secular forms of politics more in touch with the needs of a democratic polity in South Asia.
The concept of secularism emerged in a Europe torn by inter-religious strife, warfare and pogroms, when the resources for tolerance within traditions were depleted and looked exhausted. This has not happened in India, not even probably in most of South Asia. In India, a huge majority of riots—indeed nearly all of them—take place in the cities. Even the few that take place in villages begin almost always in the cities. Perhaps then it’s no surprise that in the last 50 years, less than 4 per cent of all riot victims in India have died in villages—where nearly 75 per cent of Indians stay; more than 96 per cent have died in cities, where 25 per cent of Indians stay. To go to an Indian village to teach tolerance through secularism is a form of obscene arrogance to which I do not want to be a party.
These ideas of tolerance in ordinary people and everyday life are tinged with popular religious beliefs, however superstitious, irrational and primitive they may seem to progressive, secular Indians. Modern India, till today, has not produced a single hero of secularism except for that fading star, Jawaharlal Nehru. If Ashoka, Akbar, Kabir and Gandhi, whose names the secularists routinely mouth, could do without the concept of secularism, so can the people of South Asia. They do not need leaders, vanguards, preachy academics or journalists vending fancy theories to educate them in the niceties of tolerance and respect for other faiths. The time has come for us to decipher the language and culture of those humble Indians who live by their ‘inferior’ beliefs and have made our society livable.
In a democracy, people will bring their values into politics, whether we like it or not. Instead of imposing on them an idea that makes no sense to the non-English-speaking majority—even the term dharmanirapekshata is a translatese that literally means amorality—why can’t we learn from and build upon indigenous concepts that have worked in real life over the centuries? If secularism only means the traditional tolerance of South Asia, why do we need an imported idea to talk about that local tolerance? And why import an idea from countries that have such shoddy records of religious, racial, cultural and ethnic tolerance? Why not, for instance, borrow the concept of convivencia from Medieval Islamic Spain, arguably the only truly plural polity Europe has produced in the last one thousand years?
However, I also know that it is pointless to raise these questions. Some things are just not possible in the dominant, colonial culture of India’s knowledge industry and among our official dissenters. Otherwise, at least the Indian Left would have picked up a thing or two from the aggressively non-secular, liberation-theology-based ideology of the Sandinistas. Instead of obsequiously aping, in the name of secularism, the Leninist crudities of a cut-throat regime that killed 6.2 crore of its own citizens during its so-called revolutionary rule to become the exemplar of India’s brain-dead, pre-war, colonial Left.
I am a child of modern India and a non-believer myself. It has taken me many years to turn a traitor to my class—the urban, western-educated, modern Indians—and to learn to respect the people who have sustained Indian democracy using their tacit theories and principles of communal amity. That has not turned me into a believer but forced me to rediscover, study and reaffirm these theories and principles in my work during the last 20 years. In this effort, I have been guided by Gandhi’s maxim that those who think that religion has nothing to do with politics understand neither religion nor politics. I leave it to the next generation of South Asians living in South Asia to judge if it has been all a waste of time.
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[10]
US COURTS COULD ORDER UNION CARBIDE TO CLEAN-UP BHOPAL TOXICS IF .... YOU TELL INDIAN GOVERNMENT TO SAY "YES" TO BHOPAL CLEANUP
· In response to a suit filed by Bhopal survivors, a court in New York has agreed to consider survivors’ claims for getting Union Carbide to clean up the toxic wastes in Bhopal.
· For this to happen, the Indian Government needs to submit a letter to the New York court expressing its support for the survivors’ claims, and assuring the court of the Government’s interest in having Union Carbide clean-up the contaminated site and groundwater.
· The DEADLINE set by the New York court for receipt of such a letter is June 30, 2004.
Send a FREE fax petition to the Indian Government Indian Government Contacts
More Information and to send the free fax: http://www.aidindia.org/bhopal/
Contacts:
Nishant Jain, Association for India's Development: (512) 422-7169, nishj (AT) umich.edu
Students for Bhopal: www.studentsforbhopal.org (Additional info, newslinks)
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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.sacw.net/
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