South Asia Citizens Wire | 22-26 June, 2004 via: www.sacw.net
[1] Sri Lanka: Press Release by 'Tamil Rights'
[2] India: Myth and hate as history (B.G.Verghese)
[3] India: I Am A Terrorist : Come Shoot Me (Shabnam Hashmi)
[4] India: Patronising Secularism: Watching Dev Through Muslim Eyes (Farah Naqvi)
[5] India - Gujarat: Protest Dharna Against Violation of Human Rights
[6] India: Torture and sexual assault by Police personnel of Byappanahalli Police Station (Bangalore) - Call for Protest
[7] Book Release announcement : 'At the Water's Edge by Pradeep Jeganathan'
[8] Book Announcement: 'The Languages of Political Islam in India by Muzzafar Alam' and
'Against History, Against State: Counterperspectives from the Margins by Shail Mayaram'
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[1]
[Received on: 24 June 2004 ]
www.tamil-rights.org
PRESS RELEASE
South Asian readers may not be fully aware of some of the developments in Sri Lanka following the recent split in the LTTE. The violent and authoritarian nature of Sinhala nationalism is well-known, but there has been increasing concern within the ranks of those who support the rights of Tamil people to full citizenship, about the violence shown by the LTTE towards Tamil people of whom they claim to be the sole representatives. The most disturbing issue currently is that of forcible conscription of children into the LTTE army.
During the past 3 weeks, LTTE (Wanni) has intensified its efforts to re-recruit children (under 18 years) who had been released by the LTTE (Karuna group), in April this year, contrary to their repeated public promises and pronouncements not to do so.
Reliable sources in the East report that parents in villages around Kiran (Batticaloa District) have received letters summoning them to meetings which were addressed by Yatharthan, LTTE (Wanni) Area Leader, Koralapattu, on June 20th and 21st. They were told to bring their children and hand them over to the LTTE (Wanni) Political Office in Thihiliwattai, on June 24th. These parents are terrified as they know that their children will be used as cannon fodder by the LTTE (Wanni) in their battles against the LTTE (Karuna group). It is reported that the LTTE (Wanni) has threatened to shoot parents who disobey these orders.
These parents have so far taken the initiative to storm LTTE camps to reclaim their children and fearfully yet stubbornly resisted previous orders by the LTTE (Wanni) to hand over their children. A few years ago, there were several suicides by parents in the face of their helplessness in protecting their children. It is thus imperative that we support these parents, even at this late date, in resisting the latest demands and threats of the LTTE (Wanni) which goes against all international covenants and statutes regarding the rights of children.
It is crucial that all international and local NGOs working in Sri Lanka, and especially UNICEF which has an agreement with the LTTE (Wanni), broaden their focus from merely 'rehabilitating' these child soldiers to addressing the much more threatening and pressing reality of their re-recruitment.
We also appeal to all democratic-rights groups in Sri Lanka and in South Asia generally, to take cognizance of this as a serious and urgent matter. Already, some individuals working with the parents have been identified by the LTTE and they are in real danger of being eliminated. We urge all democratic forces in South Asia to raise this matter wherever possible, both in their own countries and in international forums.
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[2]
The Hindu June 23, 2004
MYTH AND HATE AS HISTORY
by B.G.Verghese
Maybe it is time to endeavour to produce a composite history of the subcontinent as a common South Asian reader.
THE BOOKS children read, especially textbooks, and the images they imbibe are the grammar of national identity, ideology and politics. Indian school textbooks tended for quite some time to portray and uphold the values and traditions of a plural, democratic society. The later emergence of fundamentalist challenges eroded these values. Gujarat and the project to rewrite textbooks in a bid to indoctrinate minds shook the nation and provided a timely reminder that wars, riots and ideas of revenge begin in the minds of men.
Fortunately, 2004 has witnessed a timely reversal and a return to the plural ideal. While this is welcome, we must beware any swing of the pendulum that enthrones rival dogmas and prejudice. Let children and grown-ups alike be exposed to all points of view rather than to a single, officially-ordained,sanitised truth.
Pakistan's experience has been even more tragic and traumatic. It has yet to come to terms with its identity and rich plurality, shared history and composite culture, all of which it needs to internalise. The "ideology of Pakistan," to which it clings, has to be something more than the ruling military-cum-religious-right credo of hate for the Indian/Hindu "other" that informs textbook policy. This truly is the "core issue" Pakistan confronts like its identical Indian Hindutva twin. Yet quite clearly there is life beyond hatred.
Sensitive and thoughtful scholars on both sides have been acutely aware of this cancer for some time. K.K. Aziz's Murder of History in Pakistan (1993) and Rubina Saigol's Enemies Within and Enemies Without: The Besieged Self in Pakistani Textbooks (2002) and Krishna Kumar's Prejudice and Pride (2001) and The Delhi Historians' Communalisation of Education in India (2001) are only some among the writings that reflect on this problem. More recently, an agonised group of 30 Pakistani academics, assembled under the auspices of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad, has published a compelling document entitled The Subtle Subversion: The State of Curricula and Textbooks in Pakistan (2002-03) compiled by A.H. Nayyar and Ahmad Salim.
This critically examines current Social Studies, Civics, Urdu and English textbooks for Classes I to XII officially published in fulfilment of prescribed national objectives and directives. Monopoly Textbook Boards function as "ideological gatekeepers" and patronise compliant authors.
After two decades of Pakistan, the rot set in with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and intensified through Zia-ul-Haq's Islamisation era. President Pervez Musharraf has inveighed against "sectarianism, religious intolerance and violence", but the 2002 national curriculum review has apparently not improved matters. Subtle Subversion notes "inventions, omissions and distortions" to serve political and ideological ends that result in falsification of history and even contemporary events. It speaks of insensitivity to the nation's religious diversity; incitement to militancy and violence; the encouragement of prejudice, bigotry and discrimination towards fellow citizens, especially women, religious and ethnic minorities and other nations; a glorification of war and the use of force.
Two quotations say it all. "The distortion of history has increasingly warped Pakistan's view both of self and others for decades. Each generation has twisted the facts it passes to the next. This has served to create a particular worldview that is removed from reality and confounds efforts to understand and properly resolve important social, national and international problems." Secondly, "Four themes emerge most strongly as constituting the bulk of the curricula and textbooks of the three compulsory subjects (Social Studies/ Pakistan Studies, Urdu and English): That Pakistan is for Muslims alone; that Islamiat is to be forcibly taught to all students... ; that (the) Ideology of Pakistan is to be internalised as faith and hate (is) to be created against Hindus and India; and students are to be urged to take the path of jehad and shahadat (martyrdom)."
The term "Ideology of Pakistan," first enunciated in 1962, gained currency under Zia. However it has been officially fathered on Mr. Jinnah, who actually spoke of a liberal, pluralist Pakistan in his inaugural address to the nation's Constituent Assembly in Karachi on August 11, 1947. The imagined history of Pakistan, as officially taught, names Mohammad-bin-Qasim as the "first citizen of Pakistan" and father of the Pakistan movement. M.D. Zafar's Textbook of Pakistan Studies even affirms that "except for its name, the present-day Pakistan has existed as a more or less single entity for centuries." There is amnesia regarding the creation of Bangladesh and other uncomfortable facts.
India's new Minister for Human Resource Development, Arjun Singh, has initiated an NCERT textbook review. While this is overdue, a conference of State Education Ministers should also examine the content of books being taught in private schools that preach hatred or obscurantism. Maybe it is time to endeavour to produce a composite history of the sub-continent as a common South Asian reader. Could the Minister support such a non-official project through the Indian Council of Historical Research acting in concert with objective Pakistani and Bangladeshi historians?
Outside the classroom, news reports constitute the first draft of history. Alas, propagandist reportage has reinforced stereotypes, transmuting myth into "truth." In Pakistan, national myth has long replaced hard facts and ground realities in Jammu and Kashmir. Such distortions of contemporary history pose another danger. And that is another story.
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[3]
Hindustan Times June 23, 2004
I AM A TERRORIST : COME SHOOT ME by Shabnam Hashmi
In coming calls from Pakistan, Dubai, Gujarat. Gujarat ? Yes from Godhra, Dahod, Kalol, Sabarkantha, Banaskantha, Himmat Nagar, Surat, Ahmedabad, Vadodara. Ninety percent Gujarat calls by Muslims! This number belongs to S.., the son of the accused in Godhra case, and this one is of L.., her mother was very active with so and so in the camp, also has to be an accused. This call was received at midnight, this at 2am. Three days ago a call came from US at 5am, it was a Muslim calling. Last week an outgoing call to Karachi at 11pm and today three calls to Kashmir.
We are constantly watching the e-mails, intercepting them. This one has come from a Muslim organisation from USA. This one is demanding prosecution for Modi. Here it is making fun of Advani and Vajpayee. This one is abusing VHP and Togadia. This is some charter of demands on Gujarat. Asking for repealing of POTA?
The bookshelf, there are more than 200 books in Urdu, loads of handwritten papers in Urdu, even the computer has the Urdu font, this looks like a book, Urdu poems, no must be some secret behind that, an assassination plot written in verse. There are books in Gujarati. Text books from Gujarat. Hitler’s name is underlined in this book. Didn’t the e-mail say Modi is like Hitler. Do you see the connection? There is a folder full of articles on RSS . E-mails from Afghanistan.
And what is this. My God hundreds of tapes and CDs- there is footage of Gujarat riots, there are hundreds of photographs, photographs of S-6, Sabarmati, taken from every angle. What is this footage? Mass graves? How could anyone get this? Who could have shot, there was hardly anyone from outside at that point? Has to be an ISI conspiracy to malign Modi.
My dear friend, remember I called you two days ago and I said I have the information that before the so-called ‘encounter’ on June 15, the ‘terrorist’ were interrogated in the crime cell of the Police Commissioner’s office in Surat. You gave me a long list of ‘police’ proofs of their having links with some terrorist organisation.
I request you friend, please kill me. I am a Terrorist too. Please organise an encounter. It will take you 5 minutes to prove that I was a terrorist. I will fit into the latest design, an educated woman, from middle class, mother of two, scientist’s wife, connection with terrorists! Sells well, doesn’t it? Please go ahead.
Here is the proof. I am making your life easier. You won’t have to ask your local reporter to go to the local police for information. Also you will have one person less pointing out to you that your reporting is biased.
Yes, my mobile works 24 hours. Yes, I talk to Muslims from every corner of the world including Pakistan, Dubai, Gujarat. Yes, families of the so-called accused, who are arrested under POTA in Godhra , call me. They call me at 5 am and they call me at 2am. I receive calls from different parts of Gujarat, from all corners of the world throughout the night.
My house is full of Urdu books, I have loads of Gujarat footage. I abuse Modi, Advani and Vajpayee in my mails. I accuse Modi for Genocide, I talk to people to try him for that. I carry thousands of papers with me about the Godhra case. I have maps of every corner of not only Gujarat but other states too. My visiting cards, my e-mail id, my mobile number is with hundreds of people in Gujarat.
I even went to Pakistan a few months ago. I have friends in Dubai. Some of my articles were even picked up by Pakistani papers like Jang. I leave home early, sometimes even at 4 and return at all odd hours. For days I come back well past midnight. I got o Nizamuddin Basti, isn’t it a basti full of maulavis. The place from where I buy kababs, has to be a joint for exchanging notes.
I, like all modern terrorists on a mission, always carry my identification card, so that the police can recover it after shooting me. Just give me time to buy a new pair of shoes, mine are broken.
What more proof you need to call me a terrorist?
Come, shoot me.
I will make a good story.
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[4]
The Times of India 25 June 2004
PATRONISING SECULARISM: WATCHING DEV THROUGH MUSLIM EYES by Farah Naqvi
Hamlavar ban kar aaye the, badshah ban kar raaj kiya ab gaddar ban kar aish karna chahte hain (they came here as invaders, ruled like kings, and now want to have a good time as traitors), declares Om Puri, 'the bad cop' in Dev about Muslims. As my (Muslim) friend and I cringe in the darkness of the cinema hall in Ahmedabad, the titter of laughter which greets this grotesque description hits us. It's the way people laugh at an inside joke. 'We' are on the outside. Nothing has changed in Gujarat.
The lines are sharply drawn. And so, we watch the rest of the film, feeling very much like two 'Muslims', surrounded by a sea of tittering 'Hindus' whose first instinct — sympathise with the paranoid Muslim-hater Om Puri — is only gradually won over by the secular moral narrative of the Hindu hero Dev (played by Amitabh Bachchan). But even this is a sad, compromised victory. For what Dev peddles is 'soft' secularism, the preferred parivar version of Gujarat 2002.
Dev is about Gujarat. Make no mistake about it. Ignore Govind Nihalani's protests that his film is 'really' about Mumbai, Meerut, Bhiwadi and every other riot in the country. (That the location of the film is Mumbai rather than Gujarat is a matter of irrelevant detail.)
The 'meaning' of a film is determined by its context, by how its audiences choose to 'read' it. Certainly in Gujarat, perhaps elsewhere too, Dev is being 'read' as the film version of the events of February-March 2002. And to those events Nihalani has done a grave injustice. For those events were not a riot, by any stretch of the imagination. They were a one-sided massacre. And Muslims were a cowering herd, not a violent mob. Yet, Dev has scenes of Muslim mobs retaliating, daring to torch Hindu shops (an acceptable version of events — communal violence as a clash between two 'equal' enemies). Far worse, Nihalani reinforces the action-reaction justification for the carnage. (The burning of the Sabarmati coach at Godhra and the killing of the kar sevaks is here substituted by a motorcycle bomb which kills devotees at a Ganesh temple.)
While the true facts of Godhra remain a mystery (which we hope our new and esteemed railway minister will soon unravel), Nihalani does not engage with such bothersome detail. In his version, an evil Muslim don is responsible for the bomb blast which begins the cycle of revenge-massacre of Muslims. It's all justified. The final approval comes from the mouth of Dev himself, the moral exemplar, the police officer with a conscience who embodies the secular spirit of 'Indian (Hindu) nation'. When Farhan, an angry young Muslim played by Fardeen Khan, tells Dev to stop offering sympathy when the latter's hands are tainted with the blood of Muslims, a furious Dev reminds his misguided Muslim friend of the Ganesh temple bomb blast, par is saare fasad ki jad kya thi ? (What started it all?) Tab kiske haath khoon se range the?" (Whose hands were tainted with blood then?) he asks.
The audience hums in approval. Farhan is silenced. Godhra as the cause for Gujarat 2002 (the fasad ki jad ) is upheld. Dev invokes the 'liberal' sentiment: "It was truly terrible to kill so many Muslims, but really that burning at Godhra was so grizzly and somehow 'they' always seem to start it all..." Not only are Muslims blamed for the carnage, they are responsible for catalysing pretty much anything bad which happens in the film. Even when Muslims refuse to lodge FIRs despite being raped and pillaged, the fault lies with one of them — the Muslim don-leader has instructed them not to. (Anyone who has stood in Gujarat's police stations and watched a hostile police blatantly refuse to lodge any complaints from Muslim survivors will fume at Nihalani's storyline).
At another level, Dev is a narrative about an Indian nation whose salvation lies in soft, patronising secularism. The upright police officer mouths platitudes about the samvidhan or Constitution. He will not violate the samvidhan at the behest of the wicked CM, he declares time and again, with portraits of Gandhi-Nehru prominent in the backdrop. It would be fine if things stopped here. But his secularism is made greater, its generosity even more generous, because he has ample reason not to worry too much about the samvidhan . Dev lost his young son to a terrorist's bullets. (The religious affiliation of the terrorist is never specified. Nihalani leaves it to our imagination.) In this, Dev is India, a nation wounded by Muslim terrorists. Yet, Dev is magnanimous enough to embrace all religions in his secular person. Secularism, the narrative seems to suggest, is not a matter of right but of patronage by a large-hearted and forgiving nation-state. Indeed, so great and inclusive is this secularism, that Dev even begins to see Farhan as his dead son, wooing him away from the influence of Muslim don Latif.
Finally, Farhan sees the truth. Only in accepting the moral leadership of Dev, the high secular Hindu, can the Muslim community get justice and salvation. Farhan (read as legitimate Muslim anger) is neutralised. Long live secularism.
Dev is insidious. It takes one of the most brutal communal carnages in modern India, and seeks to resolve its dilemmas by resorting to stereotyped image-making about Muslims, distorting the events of Gujarat, and peddling a watered-down, patronising version of the secular principle. At best, it's another offensive film but one whose secularism will appeal to far too many people.
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[5]
Rights activists demand POTA repeal
Ahmedabad, June 25 (IANS) :
Rights activists held a demonstration here Friday demanding the withdrawal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA).
The 100-odd activists gathered under the banner of Gujarat Jan Andolan, or Gujarat Mass Movement, demanded that POTA be revoked with retrospective effect.
"We demand the withdrawal of POTA with retrospective effect, since it is the question of 250 individual's rights," said activist Hiren Gandhi.
Gandhi was referring to the arrest of 250 people, mostly Muslims, who have been booked under POTA.
Wilfred D'Costa alleged that the use of POTA was being "actually used in spreading terror among the common people".
"If POTA is not removed with retrospective effect, we will go to New Delhi and press for its removal," he said.
Apart from revoking POTA, the activists demanded withdrawal of the electricity tariff hike for farmers, safety of social activists and removal of contract labour system.
o o o
[See text from Jan Andolan -calling for protest ]
Gujarat Janandolan
CALLS UPON ALL DEMOCRATIC MINDED PEOPLE TO JOIN THE
PROTEST DHARNA AGAINST VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND RIGHTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE
ON 25TH JUNE 2004 AT 5.30PM
IN FRONT OF TOWN HALL AHMEDABAD
GUJARAT JANANDOLAN, JAMIATE-ULEMA-HIND, ANHAD, NEW SOCIALIST MOVEMENT, GUJARAT FEDERATION OF TRADE UNIONS AND SCORES OF OTHER CIVIL RIGHT and TRADE UNION ORGANISATIONS have decided to hold a massive protest Dharna on 25th June, 2004, between 5.30pm to 7.30pm, in front of the Town Hall at Ahmedabad, against the violation of Human rights and the rights of the working people and farmers in Gujarat.
The JANANDOLAN was of the view that the continuing victimisation of the minorities under POTA, the progressive contractorisation of the workers, the attack on the rights of the farmers and hefty increase of the farm inputs, the recent attacks on the social activists and the attempt to impound the passport of a social activist, Father Cedric Prakash - are the growing undemocratic tendencies that require to be resisted at all cost. The growing cases of “encounter” in Gujarat also raised serious doubts about genuineness of the police actions and an impartial investigation by CBI was absolutely necessary to put to rest the doubts in such serious issues of national security.
The JANANDOLAN and its allies have also decided that in case the Central Government fails to repeal the POTA retrospectively, a delegation would be sent to Delhi for appropriate representation. JANANDOLAN was of the view that POTA does not in any manner prevent terrorism but is a law that is used against innocent people all over India for political purpose. POTA must therefore be repealed.
The Khedut Sangharsh Samiti has also decided to support and join the Dharna.
Published by JANANDOLAN from, 104 Maharanapratap Complex, opposite Ellis bridge P.O, Ahmedabad- 380006.
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[6]
TORTURE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT BY POLICE PERSONNEL OF BYAPPANAHALLI POLICE STATION (BANGALORE) OF KOKILA
Dear friend(s)
We are writing from SANGAMA (www.sangama.org), a sexuality minorities' rights organisation in Bangalore, India.
Kokila, a 21 year old hijra (member of a traditional male-to-female transsexual community in South Asia), has been living in Bangalore City for the last 5 years. She survives by doing sex-work, the only option available to most hijras.
On 18th June, 2004 (Friday), around 8 p.m., while she was waiting for clients, she was raped by 10 goondas (all male) who forcefully took her to the grounds next to Old Madras Road. They threatened to kill her if she wouldn't have sex with them. She was forced to have oral and anal sex with all of them. While she was being sexually assaulted, two policemen arrived. Most of the goondas ran away from the scene but two were caught by the policemen. Kokila told the policemen about the sexual assault by the goondas. Instead of registering a case against the goondas and sending Kokila for medical examination, they abused her using filthy language and took her along with the two captured goondas to the Byappanahalli Police Station. They didn't even allow Kokila to pickup her trousers from the ground and she was forced to be naked for the next 7 hours.
In the Police Station Kokila was subjected to brutal torture. They took her to a room inside the Police Station, stripped her naked and handcuffed her hands to a window. There were six policemen in that room. All of the policemen were under the influence of alcohol. Many of them hit her with lathis and their hands, and kicked her with their boots. They abused her using sexually violent language. The verbal abuses include: ninna ammane keyya (we will fuck your mother), ninna akkane keyya (we will fuck your sister), khoja (derogatory word used against transgenders) and gandu (one who gets penetrated anally, a derogatory word). She was assaulted brutally by policemen and suffered severe injuries on her hands, palms, buttocks, shoulder and legs. They also tortured her sexually by burning her nipples and chapdi (vaginal portion of hijras) with a burning coir rope. One policeman of the rank of SI (Sub Inspector of Police) positioned his rifle on her chapdi and threatened to shoot her. He also tried push the rifle butt and lathi into the chapdi and saying, "Do you have a vagina, can this go inside?" while other policemen were laughing. This is to humiliate a transsexual woman by insisting that she is not a woman as she was not born with a vagina.
At around 11 p.m. PI (Inspector of Police, highest ranking Police Official of that Police Station) arrived into the room. He directed the policemen to continue the torture. The torture continued till 1 a.m. in the night. Despite begging for water she was not given any water. The police tied her up and the Inspector of Police threatened to leave her on the railway track unless she confessed to the knowledge of the robbery of a diamond ring and a bracelet. They paid no attention to her pleading that she had no knowledge of the robbery, or the person they were trying to get to implicate in the robbery.
At 1 a.m., four policemen (including PI and SI) dragged Kokila into a police jeep and took her to a hamam (bathhouse run by hijras) in Krishnarajapuram area. They physically abused her and forced her to knock on the hamam door and call the hijras living there to open the door. At around 2 a.m., they took her to another hamam in Garudacharapalya area. They broke open the lock of that hamam. They forced her to wear male clothes (shirt and trouser). They tied a towel to her head and threatened to shave off her hair. Police also searched both the hamams illegally.
At around 3 a.m., while on the way, Kokila begged the Police to take her to the house of Chandini (a hijra human rights activist) who lived nearby. The police entered Chandini's house forcefully and searched the entire house despite severe protests by Chandini. Chandini told the policemen that they cannot enter her house at such hours and without any valid reason and her consent. When she protested, the police threatened her and her husband with dire consequences. Finally, on Chandani's demand that Kokila be left behind, and her assurance that she would bring Kokila to the Police Station in the morning if her presence was required, the police left her residence at 3.30 am.
Kokila's complaint was registered in Ulsoor Police Station on 19th June 2004. The complaint was registered only after legal intervention and after putting a lots of pressure on various high-ranking Police Officials of Bangalore City for three hours. The IPC (Indian Penal Code) Sections in the FIR (First Information Report) are 506 (criminal intimidation - threat to cause death or grievous hurt), 377 (unnatural sexual intercourse), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention). Kokila has already identified four policemen who tortured her. She has also identified five goondas, who sexually assaulted her.
These are not stray incidents but are part of ongoing police violence against hijras. The level of violence has increased after hijras, other sexuality minorities and sex-workers started protesting against police brutality.
On 21st June, 2004 a meeting was held to discuss this issue, where more than 85 social activists from various organizations working for sexuality minorities/sex workers/women's/dalit/slum dwellers/human rights and trade unions participated. The organizations include: Alternative Law Forum, Dalit Christian Federation, DISC, Garment Workers Union, Jagruthi, People's Democratic Forum, Samraksha, Sanchaya Nele, Sangama, SICHREM, Social Action Committee, Stri Jagruthi Samithi, Swathi Mahila Sangha, Vimochana and Vividha. The following demands were made at the meeting:
1. Byappanahalli Police personnel (including Ashwat Narayana - PI, Krishanappa - SI, Ramakrishna - Constable and Roshan Ali Khan - Constable) involved in torture immediately be arrested and sent to judicial custody
2. Byappanahalli Police personnel should be charged for offenses under IPC Sections 330 (voluntarily causing hurt to extort confession or to compel restoration of property), 342 (wrongful confinement), 348 (wrongful confinement to extort confession, or compel restoration of property), 456 (lurking house trespass or house breaking by night) and 461 (dishonestly breaking open receptacle containing property) read with IPC 34
3. CBI should conduct an impartial enquiry in to the incidents
4. Hijras should be declared as women
5. Repeal Section 377 of the IPC and ITPA [Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act], which criminalize sexuality minorities and sex-workers respectively
It was decided to go on indefinite-relay-hunger-strike from 23rd June, 2004 to press for the above mentioned demands. The indefinite-relay-hunger-strike will be carried on in front of Gandhi Statue on MG Road near Cubbon Park. We request all of you to join in solidarity against this gross violation of the basic rights of people by the police. We also request you to send letters of protest against the incidence and the police brutality against hijras to 1. Chief Minister of Karnataka, 2. Chairperson of National Human Rights Commission, 3. Chairperson of National Commission for Women, 4. Director general and Inspector General of Police, Karnataka and 5. Commissioner of Police, Bangalore City. Please send a copy to Sangama. A model protest letter is given below.
in Solidarity
Elavarthi Manohar
On behalf of SANGAMA
Our Contact Details:
Mobile: 91 9844013413, Phone: 91 80 22868080/22868121, Fax: 91 80 22868161
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Address: SANGAMA, Flat 13, 3rd Floor, 'Royal Park' Apartments, 34 Park Road, Tasker Town, Bangalore - 560051, India.
- - - - - - - -
Protest Letter
To
Mr. Dharam Singh, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Karnataka
Justice A. S. Anand, Chairperson of National Human Rights Commission
Dr. Poornima Advani, Chairperson of National Commission for Women
Shri T. Madiyal, Director General and Inspector General of Police, Karnataka
Shri S. Mariswamy, Commissioner of Police, Bangalore City
Dear Madam/Sir
We are shocked to hear of the brutal torture suffered by Kokila, a Hijra, on 18th June, 2004, at the hands of policemen of Byappanahalli Police Station, Bangalore, India. The police took her into custody when she was being raped that night by ten goondas near Old Madras Road. Instead of providing support and relief to her, they carried on the brutal assault at the Police Station.
This is not a stray incident but is part of ongoing police violence against hijras. The level of violence has increased after hijras and other sexuality minorities started protesting against police brutality. The police are used to treating hijras as outcasts with no rights. The police think that no hijra would dare to stand up to them. Police routinely use hijras by falsely implicating them in crimes. The vicious anger with which the police have reacted to the hijras protesting against their torture is frightening.
We demand that the policemen implicated, Ashwat Narayana (PI), Krishanappa (SI), Ramakrishna (Constable) and Roshan Ali Khan (Constable) be immediately arrested and sent to judicial custody. We also demand an impartial CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) enquiry into the whole incidence. Only such strong measures will send the message down that human rights violations will not be tolerated any longer.
We reiterate that notions of different rights for different sets of people, and discrimination by the police against hijras and various other minority groups/communities can have no place in a civilized democracy that India claim to be.
Sincerely
- - - - - - - -
Send the emails TO: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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[7]
The International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo
launches
At the Water's Edge
by
Pradeep Jeganathan
(Collection of Short Stories of Contemporary Sri Lankan Experience)
at the
ICES Auditorium, 2, Kynsey Terrace, Colombo 8 [Sri Lanka] Friday, June 25, 2004 at 5:30 p.m. All are Welcome
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[8]
Muzaffar Alam
The Languages of Political Islam in India
c. 1200-1800
Hardback / 255pp / ISBN 81-7824-062-9 / Rs 575 / South Asia rights
Foreign rights bought from Permanent Black by CHICAGO UNIVERSITY PRESS, USA, and HURST & CO, UK
This book shows the ways in which political Islam, from its establishment in medieval north India, adapted itself to a variety of Indian contexts and became deeply Indianized.
This process, by which pre-existent Arabo-Persian traditions were moulded to new Indian contexts, involved changes in the manner in which Islamic rule was conceived and conducted in the subcontinent. It became gradually apparent to the conquering Muslim sultans (and later to their successors, the Mughals), as well as to medieval thinkers and writers of treatises on Islamic morality, theology and political doctrine, that the conduct of Islamic statecraft in a country comprising mostly Hindus entailed shifts in Islam's conceptual and institutional vocabulary. Islamic rulers could not command a vast country without accepting certain cultural limitations to the exercise of their power. In this process of acculturation, political Islam in India was forced to reinvent itself as a doctrine of rule.
From this stemmed a second change: a shift in the meanings of key Islamic terms, especially those pertaining to statehood, and relations between rulers and subject populations. Through a close reading of a variety of texts-ranging from normative treatises and Sufi biographies to Persian court poetry-Muzaffar Alam shows that the vocabularies in use went through certain changes so fundamental that the language of Indian Islam became quite different from what was in vogue in contexts outside.
With its profound deployment of primary and secondary sources to study Indo-Muslim statecraft vis-à-vis Islamic theocratic languages over an eight-hundred-year stretch, this book provides major insights into the changing nature of political Islam in India. It will interest scholars of the Islamic world, as well as all serious readers of Indian history and comparative politics.
Muzaffar Alam is Professor in the departments of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, and History, at the University of Chicago. Earlier, he was Professor of History, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His works include The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India, 1707-1748.
2
Shail Mayaram
Against History, Against State
Counterperspectives from the Margins
Hardback / 320pp + 12pp pictures / ISBN 81-7824-096-3 / Rs 695 / South Asia rights
Foreign rights with COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
"Š[Mayaram's] book represents the voice of a people not otherwise visible in the written record. Her greatest achievement is constructing a subjective history of the State Š Mayaram's careful, inventive, and meticulous scholarship is impressive."-Susanne Rudolph, University of Chicago
"Š a significant contribution to studies of subaltern dissent."-Gananath Obeyesekere, Princeton University
This important new book will interest historians, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, and all students of the complex relationships between Hinduism, Islam, and the Indian state.
Reassessing conventional South Asian historiography from a subaltern perspective, Against History, Against State examines how conceptions of history and memory clash.
For nearly a millennium, the Meos of north India-one of the largest Muslim populations in South Asia-endured a succession of brutally oppressive regimes, from the Arab conquest in the eighth century through to the establishment of the Turkish sultanate, the Mughal empire, the regional Rajput kingdoms, and the era of British imperialism. Unwilling to abandon their ethnic and religious identity, the Meos developed an independent oral tradition that enabled them to challenge state formation for centuries.
By creating an alternative record of their past through songs and stories, the Meos were able to successfully retain a degree of cultural sovereignty. But their quest for autonomy was stigmatized, even criminalized, while histories-written by the literate, ruling elite-transformed ethnic prejudice into historical fact.
This pioneering study, based on a decade of intensive research, explores the Meo community through their oral tradition, revealing sophisticated modes of collective memory and self-governance. Against History, Against State reveals the remarkable complexity and resilience of a transgressive culture that has survived on the margins of Hinduism and Islam.
Shail Mayaram is Visiting Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi. She is the author of Resisting Regimes: Myth, Memory, and the Shaping of a Muslim Identity and co-author of Creating a Nationality: The Ramjanambhumi Movement and the Fear of Self. She is a member of the Subaltern Studies editorial collective.
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