South Asia Citizens Wire | July 3-4 , 2008 | Dispatch No. 2534 - Year 10 running
[1] Sri Lanka: End Internment of Displaced Persons (Human Rights Watch) [2] Gay activist in Nepal campaigns against discrimination (Henry Chu) [3] Afghan pride and German prejudice (Nushin Arbabzadah) [4] India: Its Time to Ban 'Hindu Janjagruti Samiti' and 'Sanatan Sanstha' (Subhash Gatade) [5] India: Worst of times (Bhaskar Ghose) [6] The Indian approach to climate and energy policy (Divya Badami Rao and M. V. Ramana) [7] A pilgrimage in Lahore (Jawed Naqvi) [8] Gandhi, Dalits and Feminists: Recovering the Convergence (Ajay Gudavarthy) ______ [1] Human Rights News SRI LANKA: END INTERNMENT OF DISPLACED PERSONS Government Illegally Holding Civilians Fleeing Fighting in the North (New York, July 2, 2008) - The Sri Lankan government should end the arbitrary detention of more than 400 civilians displaced by recent fighting at a newly established camp in northern Sri Lanka, Human Rights Watch said today. Since March 2008, the government of Sri Lanka has detained civilians fleeing areas controlled by the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at a so-called welfare center in Kalimoddai, Mannar district. The Sri Lankan armed forces have imposed severe restrictions on freedom of movement, instituting a daily pass system that limits to 30 the number of people who can leave the camp each day, and only if a family member remains behind to guarantee the detainees return in the evening. No court has authorized their detention and no charges have been filed against any of the camp's occupants, in violation of international human rights law. "The Sri Lankan government shouldn't treat civilians as criminals just because they're fleeing a conflict area," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Valid security concerns should be addressed on a case-by-case basis, not with wholesale restrictions on freedom of movement." Sri Lankan authorities maintain that detention at the camp is a security measure to protect displaced persons from possible LTTE reprisals. While the government has an obligation to protect internally displaced persons (IDPs), it cannot do so at the expense of their lawful rights to liberty and freedom of movement, Human Rights Watch said. The security rationale is also undermined by the government's practice in the last two months of also detaining at the Kalimoddai center at least 10 refugees who have returned from India. The Sri Lankan army has publicly indicated that Kalimoddai is just the first of more proposed sites in Vavuniya district to detain persons fleeing fighting in the LTTE-held Vanni. On May 10 and 11, local authorities conducted a survey in Kalimoddai camp to assess the wishes of displaced persons on their preferred place of residence. Out of the then camp population of 257, only five families indicated a wish to remain in Kalimoddai. The large majority indicated that they wished to leave and had alternative places to stay, including with nearby host families. To date, unconfirmed information indicates only 28 people have been released. International human rights law and international humanitarian law during internal armed conflicts prohibit arbitrary detention and unnecessary restrictions on freedom of movement. In his May 21 report to the UN Human Rights Council on his December 2007 visit to Sri Lanka, Walter Kälin, the United Nations secretary-general's representative on IDPs, emphasized that IDPs in Sri Lanka remained "entitled to all guarantees of international human rights and international humanitarian law subscribed to by the State." He noted that "while the need to address security may be a component of the plan [to receive IDPs], it should be humanitarian and civilian in nature. In particular, IDPs' freedom of movement must be respected, and IDPs may not be confined to a camp." The UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, an authoritative framework for the protection of IDPs, provides that, consistent with the right to liberty, internally displaced persons "shall not be interned in or confined to a camp." The principles recognize that "exceptional circumstances" may permit confinement only for so long as it is "absolutely necessary," but the Sri Lankan government has not demonstrated that such circumstances exist. Intensified military operations in 2008 against LTTE-controlled areas in the north have significantly increased displacement of the civilian population. Virtually all those displaced are of Tamil ethnicity. During the course of the two-decade-long armed conflict with the LTTE, Sri Lankan authorities have frequently restricted the movement of ethnic Tamils, especially Tamil displaced persons. In addition to concerns about those who fled to government-controlled areas, many of the displaced who remain in LTTE areas are in need of humanitarian assistance. The Sri Lankan government has severely restricted humanitarian access to LTTE-controlled areas, leaving an estimated 107,000 displaced persons with inadequate relief, including water and sanitation facilities. Meanwhile, the LTTE continues to prevent civilians from leaving areas under its control, thereby impeding their ability to seek safety in other parts of the country. "Both the LTTE and the government have a poor record of providing aid to populations at risk," said Adams. "Ensuring that humanitarian organizations have access to those affected by the fighting should be a priority concern, not an afterthought." _____ [2] The Christian Science Monitor June 30, 2008 ACTIVIST: IN CONSERVATIVE NEPAL, A VOICE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS. Gay activist in Nepal campaigns against discrimination Sunil Pant speaks up for disenfranchised groups in court and petitions the government for new constitutional rights. by Henry Chu | Los Angeles Times Katmandu, Nepal - Sunil Pant has built a successful gay rights movement - one that has fought against discrimination and violence in this conservative Southeast Asian country. "It's absolutely astonishing," said Scott Long, who works on issues of sexuality for Human Rights Watch. "Considering how few resources they have and the depth of prejudice they have to fight against, what they've achieved is extraordinary." The advances are part of a larger social and political ferment brewing in Nepal, one of the world's poorest countries. After 10 years of a Maoist insurgency, a democratic transition is under way. There is a clear sense that everything is up for grabs as Nepal reinvents itself, a rare moment when groups of whatever stripe - women, ethnic minorities, members of lower Hindu castes - have a shot at leaving their imprint on the fabric of the state. "We have a golden opportunity to raise our voice and contribute to this country," Pant said. "This is a struggle I think this generation has to do, about being brave and honest." For years, they were mute. And even now, Nepalese society remains extremely traditional, bound by deeply inscribed values and rigid hierarchies. Conservative mores reign in this majority Hindu country, where millions of uneducated villagers eke out meager livings in near-feudal conditions. At the beginning, Pant's organization, the Blue Diamond Society, focused solely on health issues. When an official saw the word "homosexuality" in the group's application, he told Pant he couldn't register unless his goal was to turn gay people straight. Pant removed the reference. But within a few years, Pant concluded that it was impossible to wage an effective battle against HIV/AIDS without also addressing official attitudes toward homosexuals. Many Nepalese gays said they were harassed by police, who would beat them or extort money. They were sometimes fired or denied housing. Pant launched a drive to document and publicize such cases. An extraordinary week in 2004 catapulted his cause to the center of public attention. Even conservative Nepalese who don't approve of homosexuality were horrified by the actions of a policeman who slit a transgendered person's throat. When 39 members of the Blue Diamond Society were arrested at a protest a few days later, sympathetic media coverage and international outrage stung the government. That "was a turning point," Pant said. "We became much stronger in responding to violence against us." Political recognition was slower in coming. Gay activists joined other nonprofit groups and political parties in agitating against the 15-month absolute rule imposed by King Gyanendra. Yet after popular government was restored in 2006, they found few willing to take up their cause. "They continually ignored us," said Pant. He then set his sights on another vehicle for securing gay rights: the judicial system. With three other civil groups, the Blue Diamond Society filed a petition with the Supreme Court appealing for equal rights and an end to discrimination. "It's the court's responsibility to be the eye-opener of society a lot of the time and to lead the government and country," Pant said. In December, the court ruled in their favor. ______ [3] guardian.co.uk July 3, 2008 AFGHAN PRIDE AND GERMAN PREJUDICE The appeal to 'culture' to explain the murder of a young Afghan-German woman by her brother sidesteps the real issue: class by Nushin Arbabzadah Morsal Obeidi was born amid civil war in Afghanistan but it was in Hamburg, a peaceful German city, that she was murdered. The killer was her own brother, Ahmad, 23. He stabbed her 20 times to "protect the family's honour". He felt no regret. The incident happened in May but Hamburg's Afghan community is still in shock. Hamburg has the largest population of Afghans in Europe, but so far they have lived inconspicuously. Afghans are among Germany's better-integrated ethnic minorities. Some 40% are German citizens and the community values education. So what went wrong? Why did Ahmad feel compelled to kill his sister when in Afghanistan men like Perwez Kambakhsh risk death by challenging traditional perceptions of Afghan women? With this question in mind, I followed Afghan students' debates on studivz.net, Germany's Facebook. But discussing Morsal with German Afghans was not helpful, as the majority felt defensive. I could understand why they felt the need to protect their reputation. Ahmad had delivered the perfect excuse for racists in Germany to indulge in Ausländer-bashing. For Germany has a problem with xenophobia. A recent study revealed that xenophobic and anti-democratic views are terrifyingly widespread and that many young Germans hope for some kind of "führer" to come to their rescue. I gained little insight from the Afghans because they felt defensive. So I turned to the German media for an explanation, but to no avail. While the murder itself was base and brutal, the discussion around it was abstract and philosophical. Big words and abstract concepts like Afghanische Kultur, individualism and freedom were repeatedly used to explain the case in terms of a clash of cultures - western individualism versus outdated eastern tribalism. Spiegel TV, for example, introduced the story as follows: "It was an unequal clash of cultures when German-Afghan Morsal met her brother on the night of her murder." In a tribute video, Morsal's friends said: you died because you wanted to chose for yourself how to live your life. In my view, to assume that a teenager would want to risk death for her belief in an abstract concept like individualism was quite far fetched. Furthermore, Morsal was attached to her family, which is why she never seriously tried to leave them. It was her trust in her family that eventually killed her. The view that Morsal died because of her desire for self-determination was prominent in the media, reinforcing the impression of a clash of cultures. But the Afghans I talked to denied that "honour killing" was part of their culture. They said: What about the German Familiendramen (domestic murders) that regularly take place at Christmas? Are they part of German culture? They believed Morsal's death was a domestic tragedy. They pointed out that Ahmad had a criminal past and had already been sentenced for grievous bodily harm. Furthermore, it was absurd to think that Ahmad had committed an honour killing bearing in mind that he allegedly frequented brothels, took drugs and was often drunk. But even though I understood how they felt, the Afghans' answers left me unsatisfied. The fact was that Ahmad himself saw his act as "an honour killing". He felt he was innocent since he had acted because of a higher power, "culture". But the problem with "culture" is that it can't be put on trial. It's too abstract and powerful, which is probably why the German authorities failed to protect Morsal even though they were aware of the danger she was in. Ahmad even hit his sister in front of policemen and they didn't interfere. I had doubts that culture was the cause of Morsal's death. After all, what exactly is Afghan culture and who is representing it? There is no book of rules called "Afghan culture". When it comes down to it, it's one Afghan's word against another's. Perwez Kambakhsh, Malalai Joya and countless others would never accept honour killings. It's their word against Ahmad's. The reason is simple. The term culture implies a fixed set of unchangeable values that all Afghans adhere to. But, in reality, whatever this thing is that people call culture, it's something that is fluid and changing. Suicide attacks used to be a cultural taboo but now they're common. Challenging authority figures used to be culturally unacceptable but now it's widespread in the media. Even the Taliban are not what they used to be. So Ahmad's excuse is weak. After all, he can't call Afghan Culture to court as his witness to confirm that it had ordered Morsal's killing. While culture doesn't help us understand Ahmad's behaviour, class does. "Honour" is the poor man's capital. Making Afghan men undergo German citizenship tests will not protect Afghan women. The key is in social mobility and tackling racism to create confident men. A confident man has no need to prove his manliness by controlling his sisters. ______ [4] www.sacw.net - July 3, 2008 Spritual As Criminal ? TIME TO BAN 'HINDU JANJAGRUTI SAMITI' AND 'SANATAN SANSTHA' by Subhash Gatade ( It is really difficult to believe how an organisation which supposedly 'aims to present religious mysticism in a scientific language for the curious and to guide seekers' and which 'conducts weekly spiritual meetings, discourses, child guidance classes, workshops on spirituality, training in self-defense and campaigns to create awareness of righteousness' to further these aims can double up as an organisation which can invite prosecution under 'laws meant for unlawful and terrorist organisations'. But any impartial observer of the activities of 'Sanatan Sanstha' and 'Hindu Janjagruti Samiti' would concur with the view that these organisations need not be allowed to spread their venomous agenda among innocent people any further. The recent bomb blasts in Maharashtra where members of these organisations have been found to be involved is another reminder about the danger which these organisations present before the communal harmony situation in our country.) It is definitely no Kafkasquean scenario where one fine morning someone experiences metamorphosis of a different kind. It is a real world, world which talks of 'spiritual salvation' and 'awareness of righteousness', a world which supposedly 'aims to present religious mysticism in a scientific language for the curious and to guide seekers', which 'conducts weekly spiritual meetings, discourses, child guidance classes, workshops on spirituality etc.' but this is just one part of the whole story. The other part of the story is that here 'destruction of evildoers' is an integral part of 'spiritual practice'. And this 'destruction' is to be done at 'physical and psychological level'. Interestingly to facilitate this 'Dharm Kranti' (religious revolution) the seekers are also provided with training in arms - rifles, trishuls, lathis and other weapons. Enter the world of Sanatan Sanstha and Hindu Janjagruti Samiti, which recently reached national headlines for completely non-spiritual reasons, when its activists/members were arrested by Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra state for recent bomb blasts in Maharashtra. It was sheer coincidence that these terrorists belonging to these organisations could be nabbed and for the first time a possibility emerged about tracing the real culprits behind many unexplained bomb blasts in this part of Western India. In fact the bomb blasts at theatres in Vashi ( Visnudas Bhave Auditorium, 31 st May) and Thane ( Gadkari Rangayatan Auditorium, 4 th June) which fortunately did not kill anyone, would have similarly joined many such blasts where real culprits could never be identified, if the ATS had followed the oftbeaten track of stigmatising particular community and thus restricting the scope of investigation. One crucial link which the police already had was that the play which was to be staged in these two auditoriums named "Amhi Pachpute" had evoked a strong reaction from the members of the Hindu Jangagruti Samiti (HJS) and Sanatan Sanstha (SS) earlier. The HJS and SS members had even held joint protest to register their protest about the manner in which 'hindu mythological figures had been shown in poor light' in the drama. Interestingly HJS members had similarly held violent protests earlier when another play by the same author 'Yada Kadachit' was staged. The arrested terrorists namely Ramesh Hanumant Gadkari ( 50), Mangesh Dinkar Nikam ( 34), Vikram Bhave (26), Santosh Sitaram Angre (26)and Dr Hemant Chalke provided many crucial details to the ATS team. It was the same group which was involved in bomb explosion at Panvel Cinema Hall in February when Jodhaa Akbar was screened. They had also planted a bomb outside a mosque/dargah on the Pen Highway last Diwali. It was worth noting that these terrorists who owed their allegiance with HJS and Sanatan Sanstha did not regret their act. They reportedly told the investigators that '' We are proud of what we did to deter those who were trying to show our gods and goddesses in poor light." The aggressive statements by the culprits emphasised the arrival of Hindutva terrorism in India - a charge which was already in air but never conceded by anyone. Not to be left behind, Bal Thackeray, the Supremo of Shiv Sena praised these 'brave Hindus' but chided them for using improvised techniques and exhorted Hindus to form 'suicide squads' to tackle the 'menace of Islamic terrorism'. FULL TEXT AT: http://www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ArticlesArchive/3jul08gatade.html ______ [5] Frontline July 05-18, 2008 WORST OF TIMES by Bhaskar Ghose We stand close to a state where our liberties may be overtaken, and it is time we saw the menace and confronted it with determination. [Photo] PAUL NORONHA A silent protest by various citizens' groups in Mumbai on June 10 expressing solidarity with "Loksatta" editor Kumar Ketkar after his home in Thane was attacked by Shiv Sangram activists. ON June 6 in Thane in Maharashtra, a group of some 70 or 80 men led by a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader, Vinayak Mete, attacked the house of Kumar Ketkar, editor of Loksatta. The attackers belong to a little-known group of bigots called the Shiv Sangram. They threw stones and bricks at Ketkar's house, smashed window panes, smeared tar across the doors and windows and tried to break into the flat, in which attempt they were fortunately unsuccessful. Inevitably, they also burnt copies of Loksatta on the road. All this was because Ketkar had written an editorial in which he criticised the State government for deciding to erect a 309-foot-tall (92.7 metres) statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji in the Arabian Sea off Marine Drive, spending crores that could have been spent on developmental work in the State. The editorial was critical of the government and did not say anything about Shivaji, but that was not what these bigots were interested in. They apparently resented the fact that Ketkar dared to refer to the erection of a statue of Shivaji. They conveniently overlooked what Ketkar himself pointed out, that "Shivaji Maharaj did not go around erecting statues, he instead attended to people's problems". The attack cannot, however, be written off as the action of a lunatic fringe. It has more sinister implications. It is a manifestation of the growing menace of extremism in different avatars in civil society. A leading newspaper carried a story some weeks later of the growth of networks of extreme Hindu organisations, which are known to very few but which appear to have a common agenda: using religion to foment hatred and using physical force. Three of these groups are the Sanatan Sanstha, the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti and the Dharmashakti Sena. This last organisation held a rally, it is reported, where its members wore military fatigues. The publications of these groups refer to attacks on Hindus by "anti-Hindus" and laud former Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh leader Golwalkar's exhortation that weapons should be countered with weapons. They are scathing about the present government's weak record in dealing with Islamist terrorism and repeatedly call on Hindus to unite. These three groups - there are presumably others - already have cells across Maharashtra and Goa, according to the newspaper report, and one of them, the Sanatan Sanstha, has centres in New Jersey, Brisbane, Melbourne and Dubai. The growth of such extremist units needs to be seen in the context of the enormous power that is wielded in Gujarat by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its associated groups and by the Chief Minister himself, who in a recent speech declared that Gujarat was quite capable of managing its affairs if the Centre did not raise taxes from the State - a veiled reference to the fact that it could well do without the Centre, in other words, without the rest of the country. It has to be seen in the context of the fact that the BJP has been able to form a government in Karnataka and that in election after election it has secured the mandate to govern even if, in some cases, this is with the help of political partners. The attack by the Shiv Sangram on Ketkar's house has been condemned by most parties across the country and a number of organisations, not the least of which is the Editors Guild, but some others have maintained a studious silence. It is easy to guess which these parties and organisations are. The fact is that extremism is not only growing, but it is being allowed to grow - and not only among Hindus. The real danger is that it is part of a larger propensity - the propensity to counter an expression of views by someone, a writer or political personality, with violence. And with this, there is the other worrying factor, the indecisive nature of the response to such attempts to suppress a person's right to express his or her views. "The best lack all conviction," wrote the poet W.B. Yeats, sadly, "And the worst are full of passionate intensity." Why should this happen? Why do we not stand by our commitments to free speech, to democracy and to democratic institutions, things for which earlier generations fought and often paid dearly for, with their lives or with years in prison? It is true that a great deal of all this is taught to our children in schools. They are told about the Constitution, our fundamental rights and freedoms, but merely telling them is clearly not enough. Somehow, we do not seem to have been able to make it real enough to matter in a very direct, personal sense to each member of the younger generation. The strong impact of television and the commercial world that it projects through the vast number of advertisements may well be a factor in all this, but surely we have had television around for long enough to know how to use it for purposes that are not wholly commercial or designed to make money. The Central government runs the biggest and most widely spread network of radio and television centres. Could these not be used in a meaningful manner to counter the insidious menace of extremism in different forms? This is not just a noble ideal, one that needs to be commended to the authorities as a worthwhile ideal. It is more of an emergency plan that needs to be considered. It would be wrong to look at our growing urban areas and our villages and conclude that the aberration of extremism is a problem that can be tackled locally or with some perfunctory action. A time will come when there will be no time left, when good intentions will be overtaken by stronger and less palatable emotions and hysteria. It happened in Germany in the 1930s; let us not forget that the Nazi Party was elected to power and that Hitler was elected Chancellor of the Reich. This is the danger that no one seems to be taking very seriously, certainly not the Right, the BJP and its allies, for instance. But of all the groups and organisations, they need to be the most worried. This is a menace they will find difficult to handle. If the United Progressive Alliance government appears to be indecisive and hesitant, the National Democratic Alliance could find that firm action is an option that does not exist, should it come to power. "Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must lift itself up to liberty. It is a blessing that must be earned before it is enjoyed." These are the words written above one of the grand, arched entrances to the North Block of the Central Secretariat in New Delhi. This message may have sounded patronising when it was written but is coming very close to our own darkest anxieties: We stand close to a state where our liberties may be overtaken, and it is time we saw the menace and confronted it with determination. ______ [6] Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 3 July 2008 THE INDIAN APPROACH TO CLIMATE AND ENERGY POLICY by Divya Badami Rao and M. V. Ramana | Article Highlights * India won't commit to reducing its greenhouse gas emission targets unless developed nations such as the United States agree to pay for it. * While India's emissions are relatively small when compared to the developed world, it should still develop much better energy policies. * In particular, current Indian energy policies are completely inequitable, as they often focus on meeting the demands of the urban rich at the cost of poverty alleviation and rural development. * Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has promised to keep the country's per-capita emissions below the global average, but he hasn't considered what that means for future energy planning. At the end of the thirteenth meeting of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change that took place in Bali last December, the Indian delegation was relieved, happy even. According to Kapil Sibal, India's minister for science and technology and head of the delegation, "India did not have to give any commitment on reduction of greenhouse gases to the world. We have achieved our goals." Such statements may explain the Economist's recent observation that "India has acquired an ugly reputation on the global front against climate change. Among big countries, perhaps only America and Russia are considered more obdurate." Only a little while ago, China was viewed similarly. Like India, it had traditionally avoided any kind of emission-reduction commitments, citing the need to rely on cheap fossil fuels to meet its development goals. But this is no longer the case: "In the past couple of years, Chinese officials have begun sounding like converts to the climate-change cause," the same Economist article stated. China's target is to reduce its energy intensity (energy used per dollar of gross domestic product generated) to 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2010 and increase the share of renewable sources in its electricity generation capacity to 20 percent by 2020. In June 2007, the Chinese government released a National Climate Change Program that outlines the steps Beijing will take to meet these targets, as well as its plans to support adaptation. Because of China's policy shift, India is finding itself somewhat isolated at international negotiations. More pressure is coming from the United States, which refuses to commit to any emission reductions without similar binding commitments from China and India. Along with China's newfound stewardship, this international pressure seems to have finally prompted the Indian government to establish its own Council on Climate Change--a high-level group of experts and senior government officials to advise New Delhi on measures it can take to mitigate and adapt to climate change. On June 30, the council released India's National Action Plan on Climate Change PDF. The 47-page document primarily offers a list of eight technological efforts, the pride of place being given to research and development of solar energy. But staying true to India's stance at Bali, the report doesn't set any concrete numerical goals for emission reductions--or even for energy intensity. A major point of contention in Bali was whether, in the absence of concrete funding by developed countries, developing countries would agree to commit themselves to any emissions reductions. Despite pressure from the United States, the final text of the Bali road map pledged developing country parties to the framework convention to "consider" nationally appropriate mitigation actions "in the context of sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing, and capacity-building, in a measurable, reportable, and verifiable manner." Note the use of the word "actions," as opposed to commitments, and the linkage between actions and "support" for such actions (implicitly by developed countries), especially financing. Indian diplomats played an important role in placing the clause "measurable, reportable, and verifiable" at the end--the implication being that any mitigation actions taken by India that are "measurable, reportable, and verifiable" should be supported by international funding. This position makes it difficult for India to commit to any such climate-mitigation actions--and emission targets would certainly fit that description--unilaterally. Since the Bali meeting, members of India's climate council have argued publicly that the cost estimates of even modest emission reductions are so high that India would have to cut expenditures on traditional development activities such as building schools and hospitals to afford them--obviously, an unacceptable option within the country. The other argument against taking on emission targets is that India emits just 4 percent of global emissions, and therefore, its actions shouldn't be of major concern. Prodipto Ghosh, a council member, wrote in the Indian Express, "If India were to eliminate all its [greenhouse gas] emissions, essentially by going back to the Stone Age, it would hardly matter for the climate change impacts on India, or indeed, anywhere else!" That may be true today, but India's emissions are likely to become more significant in the coming decades. In its 2006 World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that developing countries will overtake member nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, i.e. the wealthier nations, sometime around 2020 in annual carbon dioxide emissions. And from 2005 to 2030, the IEA projects PDF that India and China alone will contribute 56 percent of the increase in projected worldwide emissions. The United States believes that such projections are ample reason for India and other developing nations to commit to measures that would help them avoid reaching these emission levels. But the Indian government's preference, as well as that of many other developing countries, is to measure accountability for climate mitigation in terms of the past. For example, between 1900 and 1999, carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel combustion in China, India, and other developing countries in Asia together accounted for only 12.2 percent of total global emissions, while the United States accounted for 30.3 percent, the European Union contributed 27.7 percent, and the former Soviet Union 13.7 percent, according to the World Resources Institute. Even when projected to 2030, the emissions ratio doesn't change much PDF. This difference was explicitly acknowledged in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which established "legally binding" reductions in greenhouse gas emissions for developed countries such as the United States and Japan but not developing countries, most notably India and China. Delineating responsibility for climate mitigation by using an analysis of per-capita emissions makes developing countries less culpable still. Indian interlocutors also stress that while India's overall emissions will increase, it will be because of the combined total emissions of a far larger national population--not because Indians have intrinsically energy-intensive lifestyles. As of 2005, India's annual emissions work out PDF to less than 1.1 tons of carbon dioxide per capita; in the United States, it's more than 20 tons per capita. That's a big gap that won't be closing any time soon. While these arguments may make it sound as though India is ethically justified in refusing to curtail emissions for the sake of its development, the problem is that the energy policies that the government is defending are not justifiable--neither on the basis of efficiency, equity, nor environmental sustainability. The hope amongst those desiring a more sound energy policy, especially independent analysts, is that the pressure on India to devise a climate plan of action will bring the government's historically poor energy and development policies into sharper focus. Energy planning PDF in India has resulted in an electricity sector that doesn't provide access for millions of rural inhabitants, proves unreliable even for those who have access, and negatively impacts local environments, disrupting the lives and livelihoods of untold millions. For evidence of the latter, see this photo essay on coal and uranium mining in India, this World Bank report PDF on a power plant run by India's National Thermal Power Corporation, and Indian novelist Arundhati Roy's writing on the impact of dams on villages and indigenous populations. Unfortunately, the future policies the government is considering are no better. Equity has been a prime casualty. Even though energy projects are often constructed in the name of poverty alleviation and rural development, they're largely focused on meeting the demands of the urban rich. (Note "demands" should be differentiated from the normative term "needs.") Therefore, it shouldn't be surprising that even official estimates show that around 56 percent of rural households PDF in the country didn't have electricity in 2000. These residents live without adequate lighting, and many spend hours each week collecting firewood because they don't have access to modern cooking fuels. An October 2007 Greenpeace report PDF shows how the rich in India have much higher carbon emissions compared to the poor. Not only do the poor and marginalized in India not have access to electricity, they also often face the brunt of the negative consequences of generating electricity for the rich. In a densely populated country such as India, a significant fraction of the population is directly dependent on land, water, and forests. Practically all large-scale electricity generation projects in the country--whether coal plants, nuclear plants, or large dams--impact these resources, and most recent large-scale electricity generation projects have met with stiff resistance from local inhabitants. (See "Haripur: Land for Nuclear Plant" PDF and "Campaign Against Coal-Based Thermal Power Plant Project," an online petition signed by hundreds of people who oppose a proposed coal-based thermal power plant in India's Chamalapura Valley.) This alone makes it unlikely that massive expansion of large and centralized energy projects will materialize anytime soon. Independent energy analysts have shown that it's possible to plan for energy and electricity in a way that caters to India's marginalized poor and that this makes financial sense. Studies PDF using the development-focused end-use-oriented service-directed (DEFENDUS PDF) paradigm for energy pioneered by the late Amulya Reddy and his collaborators have shown that in contrast to conventional energy planning, DEFENDUS could result in greater achievement of development objectives at far lower cost in a shorter time. And because of the emphasis on improved efficiency--as well as the use of decentralized and renewable sources of electricity generation wherever it made economic sense--it also resulted in enormous environmental gains. The necessity of such methods of energy planning that pay attention not just to overall electricity generation targets but also equity and environmental sustainability is implicitly highlighted by the National Action Plan on Climate Change. While it includes no commitments to reduce emissions, the plan reiterates a non-numerical promise by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, first made at a June 2007 meeting PDFof the G-8 in Germany that India's per-capita emissions wouldn't exceed the global average emissions of the developed countries. An important international implication of this statement, which India's special envoy on climate change recently highlighted DOC, is that according to Singh's promise, India will limit its carbon emissions according to the scale of effort that the developed countries are themselves prepared to put in. "The more ambitious they are, the lower the limit that India would be prepared to accept. Thus, there is an inbuilt mutuality of incentive," the envoy stated. If Washington takes Singh's commitment seriously, it could be a small but significant step in breaking the impasse of mutual inaction. Though mentioned again in the national action plan, the document fails to explore the implications of the prime minister's promise. If the promise is taken together with what scientists posit are the requirements for avoiding catastrophic climate change, then it would imply tight constraints on emissions for India. If the world were to agree on reducing its emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, then in one plausible scenario PDF, global emissions would have to peak by 2015 before declining to less than 20 billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2030 (and less than 6 tons by 2050). The United Nations projects PDF that the world's population in 2030 will be about eight billion or more. If the allowed emissions were to be shared equally, the per-capita threshold will be 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide. Compare this with what is projected by India's planners for its emissions. In its "Integrated Energy Policy" report, the Indian Planning Commission projects PDF that electricity generation in India during the next 25 years will increase seven- to eightfold, involving a four- to fivefold increase in coal use and a nine- to tenfold increase in the use of natural gas. This would increase India's per-capita emissions to 3.6-5.5 tons of carbon dioxide by 2030. Reducing per-capita emissions by 1 ton of carbon dioxide is hard enough, but it's much harder for a nation whose population is expected to be 1.5 billion people. This is the challenge that the national action plan should have identified and based its targets on. Turning around emission trends will not be easy, but the task will become harder the longer planning for it is delayed. _______ [7] Dawn July 03, 2008 A pilgrimage in Lahore by Jawed Naqvi THE visa regime between India and Pakistan is oriented to the spread of religious beliefs. There are special arrangements for visitors to Nankana Sahib and Ajmer, among other places of religious importance. Intensive discussions have been devoted to Katasraj, a place off the Lahore-Islamabad motorway, which is of importance to Vaishnavite Hindus. Whenever I can, I make my own personal pilgrimage to Pakistan to meet a deity - not of religious wisdom but of devout secularism. Neruda would call her a deity of wheat and revolution. Between August 1997 when I met her first in her arborous house in Lahore for a documentary on South Asia (sponsored by the Indian foreign ministry), and a few days ago, when I visited her as a doting pilgrim, Tahira Mazhar Ali had not changed. Well into her eighties she remains an indefatigable campaigner for the underdog. She ushered me to an airy room with old books and pictures of her family, which includes a few illustrious journalists. This was the same room where she had spoken to me on television about the vital need for India and Pakistan to join hands to improve the lot of their people. This was also the room, she revealed this time, where she had comforted Benazir Bhutto when her father was going to be hanged. She recalled the dramatic moments that ensued, allowing the narrative to be interspersed with an easy smile or an elaborate pause. "When she drove up, I saw two other cars following her. I said to myself, this girl is in trouble. They were police cars. During lunch I held her arm and said to her, 'Benazir, they have come to take you. But you don't get upset. Just take your time and eat well.' And she ate very calmly after that," recalled Tahira Mazhar Ali. After what must be the longest luncheon meeting of its kind it was time to face the inevitable moment. As they headed for the door, she held Benazir's arm again and whispered words of solidarity and comfort. "As she sat in her car, I looked at the two cars behind. They remained motionless. After a hundred excited bye byes, when she finally sped off and disappeared from sight, the two men from the police cars walked up to me. They said politely, 'Bibi we have come to take you.'" Tahira Mazhar Ali has been to prison a few times to uphold her idealism and also to motivate her fellow comrades. This particular outing was going to be longer. I think she stayed six months or so. Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote a moving poem on Bhutto's execution, which he sent her to read. "By then, I had befriended all the women from the so-called criminal cell. They were lovely women - unlettered but emancipated women, and mostly victims of their circumstances. They openly admitted to killing a husband or some other relative or a neighbour and said they would do it again to defend themselves from their savagery. One early morning we (the political women prisoners) woke up to a lot of wailing from the other cells. Bhutto my son, Bhutto my brother, Bhutto my father, they were screaming. Shouts in rustic Punjabi of long live Bhutto rent the prison walls. They were all acutely political women in their own way." But for her sense of humour and an even more defined sense of the absurd Tahira Mazhar Ali could be mistaken for a stubborn rabble-rouser. One day when she decided to read out the poem on Bhutto to the inmates, they thought it was a letter from home. "They all clapped indulgently at every line I read. When the poem was over and we dispersed, a woman walked up to me and asked very earnestly if the person whose lines I had read was my close relative. She confessed she had not understood a word of it, but the trouble I took to read it suggested that somehow this was a letter from home. So they cheered at every inflection and pause. "These women had never heard of Faiz, nor did they care for his poetry. They merely cheered me because they thought it was a letter from home and I was feeling lonely. And yet there was never a night when we did not hear them sing Bulleh Shah in their prison cells. They sang him and wept copiously as they sang for so many days during my incarceration. When I told Faiz how the women inmates preferred Bulleh Shah to him, he had a hearty laugh and asked me to write about it. Now that was a tall order. I don't like to write." That's not entirely true of course. As recently as in May I found a letter written quite spontaneously to this newspaper. It was a simple, old-fashioned communist's admonishment of the way things had turned out thanks to the betrayal by those she had expected better from. Punjab that had fed the rest of India was going hungry, she protested. Her outrage flowed from six decades of engagement with the peasants' movements, of grassroots work for educating women and fighting for their still largely elusive political and social rights. When the world grieved over Benazir Bhutto's assassination, Tahira Mazhar Ali felt a mixture of pain and anger at the loss - pain because she knew Benazir had cared for her people, angry because she saw her straying from the path that took her to the people. "I couldn't believe that her last speech was entirely addressed to the American patrons. Had she solved the problem of poverty and hunger of the people that she had moved to a new agenda? No. She still needed to fulfil the promises made by her father. Now, after her there's no one else who will." Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan reminds me of a few valiant women the Indian subcontinent has produced. There is a glimpse of the late Kalpana Joshi (nee Dutt) who was accused of terrorism and imprisoned by the British. I once travelled with Kalpana Joshi in a DTC bus in Delhi when she was going to buy fish. With her simple anecdotal conversation, the octogenarian Marxist could convince a hardboiled cynic into believing that meaningful social changes were nigh. She also reminds me of Arundhati Roy in a way, because both are sceptical about the efficacy of NGOs when the need really is for a wider political mobilisation. But most of all she reminds me of Fidel Castro of recent days. Someone asked the Cuban leader amid the rubble of the Soviet Union in 1991, why he liked to stick out like a sore thumb with bristling idealism when everyone else had accepted moderation. His reply was simply withering: "As the world moves to the right, I look that much more of a leftist by simply remaining where I was." Tahira Mazhar Ali is like a character out of Brecht who refuses to budge from her belief in the undulating dialectics of life. She may not be part of the India-Pakistan radar about visas. But her house in Lahore is always worth a pilgrimage. The writer is Dawn's correspondent in Delhi. _______ [8] Economic and Political Weekly June 21 - June 27, 2008 Gandhi, Dalits and Feminists: Recovering the Convergence by Ajay Gudavarthy The dalit/feminist critique of Gandhi and his philosophy derives from the same epistemological framework of "lived experience" that characterises Gandhian thinking and praxis as well. The "exclusive" and top-down nature in turn suggests problems in the Gandhian outlook. The emerging new identity politics (just as Gandhi's politics) is too strongly bound within experiential confines, and could only entrench the social practices which it wishes to transcend. FULL TEXT AT: http://www.epw.org.in/epw//uploads/articles/12315.pdf _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), 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/ SACW archive is available at: http://sacw.net/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. _______________________________________________ SACW mailing list SACW@insaf.net http://insaf.net/mailman/listinfo/sacw_insaf.net