South Asia Citizens Wire - 9 May 2017 - No. 2936 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996]
Contents: 1. Pakistan - India: Go for un-interruptible dialogue - Citizen’s resolution for peace 2. Three more signs that Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League has tightened its embrace of Islamism | Ikhtisad Ahmed 3. Bangladesh: Secular activists protest over sectarian content of textbooks 4. Curbing the mullah in Pakistan | Nadeem F. Paracha 5. India: Stop the Attack on Minorities and Dalits in the name of Gau Raksha - Memorandum to Chief Minister of Rajasthan 6. India: ‘Cow Protection' Spurs Vigilante Violence - Prosecute Assailants, Protect Targeted Minorities | Press release by Human Rights Watch 7. India: With Rising Cow Vigilantism, Death stalks the land | Ananya Vajpeyi 8. Odd Stance of India's Supreme Court on the Question of Excessive Use of Force to Control Stone Pelters in Kashmir | Tapan Bose 9. India: 50 Years of Naxalbari: - Remember Your Humanity, Rebel | Dilip Simeon - No glorious red future awaits us. Nor corporate utopia | Dilip Simeon - why the new milieu it spawned is still relevant today | Ranabir Samaddar 10. India: Yogi Adityanath being at the same time Chief Minister of U.P. and a Member of a Lok Sabha is illegal | Rajindar Sachar 11. India: The Hindutva Story from Advani to Yogi Adityanath | Vidya Subrahmaniam 12. India: Gujarat riots victim Bilkis Bano’s hard-fought victory holds out hope at a time of fear and hate | Harsh Mander 13. India: Small courageous steps by women against the veil in Haryana . . . with miles to go agaiinst patriarchy | BBC News Video 14. India: Salutes to Justice Leila Seth from National Alliance of People’s Movements 15. Recent on Communalism Watch: - All victims of sexual violence have equal claims to justice - Bilkis Bano is the mirror of Nirbhaya says Editorial in The Times of India - India: BJP and the rise of Lord Ram in Bengal (Saugata Roy / TOI) - India: Prita Jha on how Hindu mobs used rape as a weapon against women such as Bilkis Bano during the Gujarat riots of 2002 - India: News report on RSS's Garbh Vigyan Sanskar Project - Book Review of Mussolini's Army in the French Riviera: Italy's Occupation of France - India: Eugenics a la Arogya Bharati RSS-Linked Body In Kolkata Shares Secrets Of Making 'Super Babies' - Rs. 500 for every couple - India: Text of Press Statement by Bilkis Yakub Rasool - Why Secularism in India Is Under Serious Threat (Ritu Menon) - Modi Wants to Give Muslim Women Their Rights. So Why Did He Abandon Bilkis in Her Hour of Need? (Siddharth Varadarajan) - India: Modernity or murder, Mr Modi? asks Tavleen Singh - India: Violence In UP’s Saharanpur - Clashes breaks out over Maharana Pratap birth anniversary parade, barely a fortnight after similar clashes during Ambedkar Jayanti procession - India: Cow protection units and other tenets of the RSS faith are transforming BJP states into major law and order problems (S Nihal Singh) - [Book Review] Shadow Armies: Fringe Organisations and Foot Soldier of Hindutva (Reviewed by Pragya Tiwari) - India: Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) withdraws name of Parsi priest for membership of minorities commission - India: Vigilante groups such as Hindu Yuva Vahini or gau rakshaks etc repeatedly assault, or even kill ignoring supposed calls for restraint ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 16. Sri Lanka: Constitutional reforms: Some posers | Ranjith Soysa 17. Nepal: Move to Impeach Chief Justice Sushila Karki a month before she retires speaks for it self 18. India: Delhi watches silently as its contemporary heritage disappears | Shivani Singh 19. Kalaratri Appears: Indigenous Women Take-Up Arms in India | Paul Bentley 20. India: Voice of reason with a big bindi 21. UN investigator warns about Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs |LIndsay Murdoch 22. Anti-Austerity Geringonça in Portugal | Bruno Góis 23. Sohoni on Eaton & Wagoner's 'Power, Memory, Architecture' 24. Kallis on Maulsby, 'Fascism, Architecture, and the Claiming of Modern Milan, 1922-1943' ======================================== 1. PAKISTAN - INDIA: GO FOR UN-INTERRUPTIBLE DIALOGUE - CITIZEN’S RESOLUTION FOR PEACE ======================================== "Deeply concerned at the current rise in animosity and antagonism between India and Pakistan, we urge both governments and their security establishments to take all steps possible towards improving relations." - a citizen’s statement http://www.sacw.net/article13248.html ======================================== 2. THREE MORE SIGNS THAT BANGLADESH’S RULING AWAMI LEAGUE HAS TIGHTENED ITS EMBRACE OF ISLAMISM | Ikhtisad Ahmed ======================================== Its boycott of Bengali New Year parade, the Lady Justice row and pro-madrasa education reform are the latest examples of ruling party’s pandering to Islamists http://www.sacw.net/article13257.html ======================================== 3. BANGLADESH: SECULAR ACTIVISTS PROTEST OVER SECTARIAN CONTENT OF TEXTBOOKS ======================================== News report from New Age of 9 May 2017 http://www.sacw.net/article13258.html ======================================== 4. CURBING THE MULLAH IN PAKISTAN | Nadeem F. Paracha ======================================== One now wonders, would the state of the country have been better today had Islamic Modernism been allowed to evolve beyond the 1970s? http://www.sacw.net/article13256.html ======================================== 5. INDIA: STOP THE ATTACK ON MINORITIES AND DALITS IN THE NAME OF GAU RAKSHA - MEMORANDUM TO CHIEF MINISTER OF RAJASTHAN ======================================== Today, activists of people's movements, women's organisations, trade unions, and others have protested in front of Bikaner House, demanding the justice to Pehlu Khan and other victims of the attack. A delegation of the people comprising Kavita Krishnan (AIPWA), Kavita Shrivastava (PUCL), Vimal Bhai (NAPM), Prem Singh (AIKM), Maimoona Mollah (AIDWA) and others met the resident commissioner after the protest and submitted the memorandum with demands for strict and quick action for justice to the victims. http://www.sacw.net/article13246.html ======================================== 6. INDIA: ‘COW PROTECTION' SPURS VIGILANTE VIOLENCE - PROSECUTE ASSAILANTS, PROTECT TARGETED MINORITIES | PRESS RELEASE BY HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH ======================================== Indian authorities should promptly investigate and prosecute self-appointed “cow protectors” who have committed brutal attacks against Muslims and Dalits over rumors that they sold, bought, or killed cows for beef, Human Rights Watch said today [27 April 2017] http://www.sacw.net/article13237.html ======================================== 7. INDIA: WITH RISING COW VIGILANTISM, DEATH STALKS THE LAND by Ananya Vajpeyi ======================================== The murder of individuals by mobs in the name of "cow protection” has become common in Hindutva-dominated India, occurring in states as far apart as Manipur and Gujarat, Rajasthan and Assam, besides the Hindi-heartland and cow-belt of Himachal Pradesh-Haryana-Uttar Pradesh-Madhya Pradesh-Jharkhand-Chhattisgarh, and Jammu and Kashmir as well. http://www.sacw.net/article13259.html ======================================== 8. ODD STANCE OF INDIA'S SUPREME COURT ON THE QUESTION OF EXCESSIVE USE OF FORCE TO CONTROL STONE PELTERS IN KASHMIR | Tapan Bose ======================================== The Supreme Court will direct the government to stop using pellet guns, if Kashmir youth stop stone pelting http://www.sacw.net/article13239.html ======================================== 9. INDIA: 50 YEARS OF NAXALBARI ======================================== - REMEMBER YOUR HUMANITY, REBEL | Dilip Simeon A teenager’s journey from Delhi’s St Stephen’s to the starving hamlets of Bihar and the killing fields of militias is a personal history of the Naxal upsurge http://www.sacw.net/article13253.html - NO GLORIOUS RED FUTURE AWAITS US. NOR CORPORATE UTOPIA | Dilip Simeon The richest sense of irony I ever felt was evoked by a PTI report, dated 13 May, 1997 from Siliguri, that a bust of Charu Majumdar had been decapitated. http://www.sacw.net/article13242.html - WHY THE NEW MILIEU IT SPAWNED IS STILL RELEVANT TODAY | Ranabir Samaddar It is generally agreed, by supporters and opponents alike, that the late 1960s were the time of the Naxalbari movement. . . . Praised and reviled alike, Naxalbari has come to occupy a singular place of significance in the annals of radical politics in post-independence India. http://www.sacw.net/article13241.html ======================================== 10. INDIA: YOGI ADITYANATH BEING AT THE SAME TIME CHIEF MINISTER OF U.P. AND A MEMBER OF A LOK SABHA IS ILLEGAL | Rajindar Sachar ======================================== there is a serious legal challenge to the continuance of existing position of Yogi as a Chief Minister and Member of Parliament at the same time. This is a constitutional conundrum which ill befits a Chief Minister of biggest State in the country. http://www.sacw.net/article13240.html ======================================== 11. INDIA: THE HINDUTVA STORY FROM ADVANI TO YOGI ADITYANATH | Vidya Subrahmaniam ======================================== Yogi Adityanath has completed a little more than a month at his new perch as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. And the highlight of the month has been the dramatic makeover of the chief priest of the Gorakhnath mutt in Gorakhpur in eastern U.P.: he has transformed before our disbelieving eyes from a rabid, hate-dispensing monk with a militant, Muslim-baiting following to enlightened leader with an egalitarian, inclusive vision. http://www.sacw.net/article13236.html ======================================== 12. INDIA: GUJARAT RIOTS VICTIM BILKIS BANO’S HARD-FOUGHT VICTORY HOLDS OUT HOPE AT A TIME OF FEAR AND HATE by Harsh Mander ======================================== The epic, heroic legal battle fought by the barely lettered wife of a small Gujarati cattle trader has caught the imagination of many in the country. The judgement of the Bombay High Court on Thursday http://www.sacw.net/article13252.html ======================================== 13. INDIA: SMALL COURAGEOUS STEPS BY WOMEN AGAINST THE VEIL IN HARYANA . . . WITH MILES TO GO AGAIINST PATRIARCHY | BBC NEWS VIDEO ======================================== A BBC reportage from Haryana http://www.sacw.net/article13247.html ======================================== 14. INDIA: SALUTES TO JUSTICE LEILA SETH FROM NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF PEOPLE’S MOVEMENTS ======================================== National Alliance of People’s Movements is deeply saddened to learn of the demise of Justice (Retd.) Lelila Seth, well-known (she disliked the word eminent) jurist and champion of rights of women and marginalized genders. Her 6 decades of work as a legal practitioner including about two decades as a judge was a testimony to the values that she carried easily on her – conviction, compassion and wisdom. http://www.sacw.net/article13250.html ======================================== 15. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - Is Hindu Rashta Good For Hindus? - India: They said BJP Will Take Care of Old Cows - some took the cue a tethered one in outhouse of a local BJP leader in Bihar ... - All victims of sexual violence have equal claims to justice - Bilkis Bano is the mirror of Nirbhaya says Editorial in The Times of India - India: BJP and the rise of Lord Ram in Bengal (Saugata Roy / TOI) - India: Prita Jha on how Hindu mobs used rape as a weapon against women such as Bilkis Bano during the Gujarat riots of 2002 - India: News report on RSS's Garbh Vigyan Sanskar Project - Book Review of Mussolini's Army in the French Riviera: Italy's Occupation of France - India: Eugenics a la Arogya Bharati RSS-Linked Body In Kolkata Shares Secrets Of Making 'Super Babies' - Rs. 500 for every couple - India: Text of Press Statement by Bilkis Yakub Rasool - Why Secularism in India Is Under Serious Threat (Ritu Menon) - Modi Wants to Give Muslim Women Their Rights. So Why Did He Abandon Bilkis in Her Hour of Need? (Siddharth Varadarajan) - India: Modernity or murder, Mr Modi? asks Tavleen Singh - India: Violence In UP’s Saharanpur - Clashes breaks out over Maharana Pratap birth anniversary parade, barely a fortnight after similar clashes during Ambedkar Jayanti procession - India: Cow protection units and other tenets of the RSS faith are transforming BJP states into major law and order problems (S Nihal Singh) - [Book Review] Shadow Armies: Fringe Organisations and Foot Soldier of Hindutva (Reviewed by Pragya Tiwari) - India: Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) withdraws name of Parsi priest for membership of minorities commission - India: Vigilante groups such as Hindu Yuva Vahini or gau rakshaks etc repeatedly assault, or even kill ignoring supposed calls for restraint - India: To spread RSS' propaganda BJP's special six months programme in Uttar Pradesh - India: Far Right Hindu Yuva Vahini Activists Held for Beating to Death a Muslim man in Bulandshahr - India: 'Month after murder, Pehlu’s killers walk free' - The RSS idea of India is not just being spread in colleges but among the defence forces too - India: A bio note on the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat (Pavan Dahat / The Hindu) -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 16. SRI LANKA: CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS: SOME POSERS | Ranjith Soysa ======================================== The Island (Colombo), May 5, 2017 The Prime Minister recently stated that the New Constitution will be introduced and it will be based on the report of the 11 member committee appointed. He further said the unitary nature of the Constitution will be preserved and all parties have agreed to the recognition of the foremost place given to Buddhism. If his intention is to introduce a constitution with these features and it will in turn be based on the 11 member committee report, one can conclude that the PM is desperately attempting to square a circle. The 11 member committee views regarding the following issues are in black and white. The committee recommends the establishment of a secular state and among other proposals under the related issues are: 1. Heading of Chapter II of the current Constitution should state ‘Religions’ and not Buddhism and retain Article 9 as it is with no change 2. Reformulate Article 9 of the current Constitution as follows: "The Republic of Sri Lanka shall give all religions equal status. The State shall protect and foster Buddhism and the Buddha Sāsana while assuring to all religions the rights granted by Articles 10 and 14(1)e of the current Constitution. 3. Sri Lanka shall be a secular State 4. Sri Lanka shall be a secular State while recognizing the role of religion in the spiritual development of people 5. Heading of Chapter II of the current Constitution should State ‘Religions’. The clause should be revised as follows:"The Republic of Sri Lanka will give all religions equal status" The subject of the Unitary state will also have to be analysed as per the report of the committee. The proposals submitted give precedence to the Provinces at the expense of the Centre. The one and only reason flaunted by the committee is the undue advantage enjoyed by the Centre when examining the issues from the point of view of the Periphery. They repeat the term ‘impediment to a healthy relationship’ to identify the specific powers entrusted to the Centre for governance. The recommendations are by and large an attempt to dismantle the Centre and equip the provinces to follow a path towards complete independence. The report clearly states that "The Unitary character is an impediment", which reveals the preferred directions of their agenda. In short, the committee is overtly interested in a Federal government as part of a project to dismember the Sovereign Unitary State of Sri Lanka. Some of the other proposals put forward by the committee are as follows: 1 The powers of the Governor to be reduced to make him a nominal head of the Provincial Council system.2 The Provincial public service to be brought under the Provincial Public Service Commission.3 The concurrent list, which is in the present constitution, to be abolished as it is an impediment to the spirit of devolution.4 The Provincial Police to be under an independent Provincial Police Commission.5 All state lands in the Provinces to be administered by the Provincial Council. In addition, there are other recommendations in relation to Finance and Revenue collections, Parliamentary laws, Reserved List etc., which are said to a part of a "hierarchical pyramid structure" rather than playing an effective role in the sphere of the Periphery. The pervasive inference of the proponents for more devolution to the Periphery is not difficult to comprehend. In the circumstances, the Prime Minister is getting ready to drive Sri Lankans to the wall. How can the Prime Minister reconcile the written word of the committee with his pledge to protect the Unitary State of Sri Lanka and retain the foremost place given to Buddhism? Can the Prime Minister square a circle? ======================================== 17. NEPAL: MOVE TO IMPEACH CHIEF JUSTICE SUSHILA KARKI A MONTH BEFORE SHE RETIRES SPEAKS FOR IT SELF ======================================== Kathmandu Post, May 6, 2017 CJ impeachment motion - Move assault on human rights, says OHCHR - Post Report, Kathmandu UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein has condemned the move to impeach Chief Justice Sushila Karki, warning that such actions suggest a “concerted attempt by government to undermine the independence of the judiciary”. Issuing a statement on Friday, Zeid urged the Nepal government to respect the independence of the judiciary and withdraw the impeachment motion. “I urge the Nepal authorities to respect the independence of the judiciary, to withdraw what appears to be a politically motivated impeachment motion and to commit to the processes of transitional justice and accountability that are so important if Nepal is to overcome the tragic legacy of its conflict,” Zeid said. “Chief Justice Sushila Karki has been instrumental in a number of high-profile and politically sensitive decisions, and therefore the attempt to remove her gives rise to serious concerns about the government’s commitment to transitional justice and the rule of law,” said Zeid in a statement. This suggests a fundamental misunderstanding regarding the role of an independent judiciary, the High Commissioner noted. “Recent rulings by the Supreme Court have been critical in advancing human rights in Nepal, assisting victims seeking justice for the crimes and serious human rights violations committed against them,” Zeid said. Two ruling parties--Nepali Congress and CPN (Maoist Centre)--had filed an impeachment motion against CJ Karki on April 30, alleging that she had interfered with the prerogatives of the executive. The motion was presented before the Legislature-Parliament on Friday. However, no deliberation could be held on it due to obstruction from the opposition parties including the CPN-UML, Rastriya Prajatantra Party, and Nepal Loktantrik Forum. o o o The Nepali Times SC stays impeachment Friday, May 5th, 2017 Chief Justice Sushila Karki in her official residence at Baluwatar on Friday. Photo: Bikram Rai Supreme Court has issued an interim order against the impeachment motion filed against Chief Justice Sushila Karki, allowing her to return to office from Friday itself. Justice Cholendra Shamsher JBR’s bench on Friday instructed Parliament to not move forward the impeachment motion against Karki. The ruling Maoist-NC coalition had filed the impeachment against Karki early this week, accusing her of interfering in the workings of the executive. The impeachment was filed days before Karki was to deliver her final verdict on the appointment of Prakash Aryal as the new police chief. Karki was known as a crusader against corruption, and the impeachment against her was viewed by many as a conspiracy to prevent her from hearing high-profile corruption cases in her last month in office. She is retiring later this month. The impeachment trigged a huge backlash, prompting the main opposition UML to obstruct the House. Other political parties, including Upendra Yadav’s Federal Socialist Forum Nepal, had also pressed the government to withdraw the impeachment. o o o The Nepali Times, 5-11 May 2017 #857 Exit, the crusader: Sushila Karki is forced out of the Supreme Court, not in disgrace but in a blaze of glory by Kanak Mani Dixit For weighing the value of one lone woman to the Nepali nation, you just have to reach back half a year ago, when the national prospects looked so bleak. Lokman Singh Karki had managed to cow down the political class, compromise the national police, and create a parallel state structure that was all set to sabotage the constitutional process and grab the Kathmandu crown with the help of quislings and opportunists. It required Sushila Karki to block him, with the politicians hiding behind her judicial robe. And as is their wont, the ingrate politicians have paid her back with an impeachment motion. Nepal’s judiciary has had great moments of jurisprudential exposition. There were fine judgements even during the autocratic Panchayat era and against King Gyanendra’s power grab in 2005, but the overall politicisation of appointment of judges has weakened the judiciary. Both the bar and the bench have gone into corrupt embrace, justice is compromised and delayed. The public suffers in grim fatalism. The politicisation of the judiciary was further exacerbated when the Maoists entered the state structure as part of the peace process, and the lack of dignity and circumspection displayed by the present (Maoist) attorney general is a case in point. The result of the overall atmosphere has been the ‘setting’ of court procedure, with collusion in the assignment of judges to particular cases. While individual judges sought to fight the tide, the courts lost their lustre to such an extent that the Nepal Police would not act on Supreme Court directives, as shown in its refusal to arrest the murder convict (Maoist) Bal Krishna Dhungel. It required the advocate-turned-judge Sushila Karki, following up on her predecessor Kalyan Shrestha as chief justice, to try to jump start the judiciary again through activism within the year that she had before retirement. She despatched CIAA chief Lokman Singh Karki, declaring his 2013 appointment null and void when even the politicians who had appointed him didn’t dare to impeach him. Now, it is the same politicians who are trying to impeach her. Chief Justice Karki had just a month more to go before retirement, but the Maoist and Nepali Congress leaders wanted to publicly prove that they were far above the law. Indeed, having ruled for a decade of the peace process under the faux democracy defined by ‘consensus politics’ these leaders had developed a sense of invincibility. They saw Chief Justice’s personal austerity and public probity as a threat. By compromising the Supreme Court through such intemperate action, they also hoped to get the entire state super structure, including important constitutional commissions, to submit to their diktat. A whole array of people were unhappy with the Chief Justice, including those enmeshed in long-pending corruption cases that she was committed to bringing up for decision. Congress Chair Deuba, of course, wanted his choice of police chief put in place, and was enraged that she stood in the way. Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal would have wanted to punish the Chief Justice for ordering the arrest of the murder convict Dhungel. Chief Justice Karki was simply trying to leave the judiciary in a better state than she found it at her oath-taking. The edifice of justice had to be reconstructed brick-by-brick, but she had too little time, which is why she may have seemed to some to be an activist judge in a hurry. Sushila Karki has not been disgraced by the impeachment motion, it is the political class led by Deuba and Dahal that is emitting bad odour, even as the country goes into local elections. They have created conditions where Chief Justice Karki will have retired while still in suspension, before the impeachment motion fails in Parliament, as it will. The impeachment motion is proof of the contempt the top political leadership has for representative politics, constitutionalism and separation of powers. Indeed, not since the fall of King Gyanendra has there been such a unified voice across the spectrum of civil society, from radical progressives to liberals and the royalist right, all expressing outrage at the impeachment motion. The Acting Chief Justice Gopal Parajuli himself told the Nagarik newspaper the impeachment process was unfortunate, and a whole slew of former chief justices, judges and civil society leaders have condemned the procedure. Some may have expected a modest people’s movement to protest the impeachment action, but the public is focussed on ensuring that local government elections are held after a hiatus of 19 years, knowing that many forces would want to scuttle the exercise. It would be good to see Chief Justice Karki back at the bench and retiring from the chair rather than while in suspension. But we know that Sushila Karki is not one to sit back and watch the judiciary degraded and compromised. Deuba and Dahal will live to rue the day they forced her out. ========================================= 18. INDIA: DELHI WATCHES SILENTLY AS ITS CONTEMPORARY HERITAGE DISAPPEARS | Shivani Singh ========================================= Hindustan Times - May 01, 2017 The Hall of Nations and Hall of Industries at Pragati Maidan was demolished last week and except for a group of city historians, artists and architects, no one raised their voices as the city lost one of its architectural marvels. Shivani Singh Hindustan Times, New Delhi Pragati Maidan Built in 1972, the iconic Hall of Nations a permanent exhibition venue and a 20th-century heritage site at Pragati Maidan was demolished on April 23. This was the country’s first pillar-less building.(PTI Photo) Last week, Delhi lost a part of its identity. The Hall of Nations and Hall of Industries at Pragati Maidan that had for four decades hosted the International Trade and Book Fairs, the national capital’s most popular public dos, were razed to make way for a “world class” convention centre. Except for a group of city historians, artists and architects, the otherwise protest-ready Delhi showed no outrage at losing an architectural marvel of modern India. The demolition became fait accompli when the high court ruled that the two buildings did not qualify as “heritage” because they were not 60 years or older. The Indian Trade Promotion Organisation will now spend Rs 2,254 crore to build a complex complete with a hotel, a mall, a multilevel food court, exhibition halls, parking and helipads to showcase “the technological, scientific, economic, and intellectual prowess of a resurgent India”. In the bargain, Delhi lost a symbol of architectural ingenuity and enterprise demonstrated so brilliantly 45 years ago, when India was still struggling to make its mark as a new nation. In 1972, the 25th year of our Independence, India was to host the ‘Asia 72’ Trade Fair. The country needed a modern convention centre but was low on money, resources, and even building material. But architect Raj Rewal and engineer Mahendra Raj, who built the two exhibition halls, were not short of ideas. They used reinforced concrete, which was less expensive than steel and iron, for construction. To save on power consumption, they introduced ‘jali’ or latticed screens, inspired by the Mughal architecture, in a way that they blocked the heat but not the light while allowing ample ventilation. Japan Pavilion at Pragati Maidan during the first exhibition named , Asia ‘72 (HT Photo) The demolition of these two structures is not just a one-off blow. Delhi’s many iconic buildings with rich architectural and aesthetic value will not qualify as heritage under the “60 years or older” clause applied by the court to the two Pragati Maidan marvels. The tearing down of the two buildings has set a precedent that makes Delhi’s contemporary heritage vulnerable. In 2013, the Delhi chapter of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage prepared and submitted to the Delhi Urban Art Commission a list of 62 buildings built from 1955 onwards to be designated as heritage structures and protected legally. The authorities sat on the proposal even as the Hall of Nations and Hall of Industries, which were on the list, were torn down. But there is still time for a course correction and providing a safety net to Delhi’s other contemporary landmarks. After all, the iconic structure that had inspired the New York City to rally in its support and in a way led to the establishment of the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1965, was only in its fifth decade, when it faced bulldozers. In 1962, NYC authorities decided to replace the 53-year-old Pennsylvania Station with a new one, a Penn Plaza and Madison Square Garden. Architects, city planners and prominent citizens such as former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, urbanist Jane Jacobs and writer Norman Mailer fought the move. They could not stop the demolition — termed “the single greatest act of architectural vandalism the city has ever seen” by the New York Times — but made the fellow New Yorkers value their living heritage. A group of visitors posing for a photograph at Pragati Maidan during Asia ‘72 Exhibition. (Virendra Prabhaka. (HT Photo) Three years later, the Landmark Commission, now globally considered a template for built heritage conservation, saved the Grand Central Terminal, successfully defending it all the way to the US Supreme Court. Today, NYC buildings as ‘new’ as 30 years old qualify to be on the list for preservation. In 1990, then 31-year-old Guggenheim Museum building became the youngest to become a designated landmark. It is time Delhi also recognised its living heritage. Had the Mughals demolished the structures built by the Turks, or the British razed Shahjahanabad, Delhi would have none of its famed layers of built history to flaunt today. Every bit of what is historical today was very much contemporary once. It is for the authorities — as always multiple in Delhi — to look beyond whimsical heritage-by dates and appreciate what makes the national capital unique. It is for the Delhiites to mobilise and hit the streets, if necessary, to save their city’s built heritage for future generations. Or history will not be too kind to us. shivani.si...@hindustantimes.com ======================================== 19. KALARATRI APPEARS: INDIGENOUS WOMEN TAKE-UP ARMS IN INDIA by Paul Bentley ======================================== Counterpunch, May 8, 2017 — Hemanto Samrat from Gopalpur village, Sundargarh, Odisha, India Uncharacteristically, the Canadian Press omitted to report the 50 hour abduction last month of a cyclist from Ottawa by Maoist forces in the jungles of central India. The story was reported with great alarm, however, in all the major Indian papers. The Canadian had gone missing in the midst of a major recent escalation of violent resistance by the indigenous communist cadres of Chattisigarh that has left up to 50 State paramilitary personnel dead since March 11th, 2017. Luckily, the “cycling enthusiast”, who in various reports was referred to as a “Canadian social worker” or a “member of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Center”, was released unharmed and flown quickly back home by Canadian consular officials despite his original intention to make his way to Bangledesh. Only, he wasn’t a social worker, he was an employee of Canadian High Artic Energy Co., an expert on oil drilling! No wonder his presence in their region was of interest to the Communist Party of India (CPI), whether he just happened to be passing through on “vacation”, or not. The drilling of oil and other mining industries are precisely the issue for the indigenous people, referred to as Adavasi, or Tribals, in India. Their fight is to preserve their way of life in the forest regions in which they have dwelled from time immemorial from despoliation by mining interests. While Canadian High Artic Energy is not presently active in drilling operations in India, other Canadian companies are. For example, Saumya Mining recently “signed a Joint Venture Agreement with Lantech Drilling Inc. of Canada to engage and provide specialized services to mining or mineral exploration companies petroleum companies and government agencies”, according to their website. Saumya Mining boasts that it is a leading Indian Company involved in bauxite, coal, uranium, oil and other mining operations in Chattisigarh and neighboring states; and that it has built its business on “its ability to adapt the working conditions to whatever adversity a site can present”. In other words, Saumya is a partner in the ferocious war against the indigenous communists which just last week again broke out in deadly violence. Like an appearance of the Hindu Warrior Goddess Kalaratri, over 200 female cadres of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) emerged from the Jungles of Chattisigarh on April 24th to kill 25 paramilitary soldiers, and in so doing, also shatter much of what remains of the political mythology of the post-WWII era. Most importantly, the actions of these women challenge assumptions about the political role of their gender. The kind of leadership they represent is certainly not the same as that called for by Ivanka Trump & Chrystia Freeland at the W20 Women’s Summit on April 25th! They also challenge standard estimations of a woman’s power. The “Jawans” killed were all men who, perhaps not surprisingly, were caught napping! According to the Hindustan Times, “the Maoists timed their attack during lunch when sentries were relaxed and the main force disengaged their arms. After they received the signal from operatives posing as road construction labourers that the food van had arrived, they took positions on both sides of the road. Unsuspecting, the soldiers considered them laborers. The Maoists waited until almost 80 percent of the troops dispersed for water and food and bolted toward the vans to attack”. The fact that over 70% of the adivasis warriors who engaged in this attack were women, also poses difficult questions for the post-Ghandhian, post-MLK consensus in the West on the superiority of non-violent resistance. Arundhati Roy, the Indian Booker Prize winning author, put the question this way in a piece she entitled, Walking with the Comrades: “I feel I ought to say something about the futility of violence, about the unacceptability of summary executions. But what should I suggest they do? Go to court? A rally? A relay hunger strike? Which party should they vote for? Which democratic institution in this country should they approach? It sounds ridiculous”. The fact that 99% of the CPI (Maoist) cadres are indigenous tribal peoples engaged in a “protracted people’s war” against the full force of the Indian State; assisted as it is by drones provided by Israel, and helicopter attacks from the air reminiscent of the War in Vietnam; also challenges Stalinist era ideological assumptions. Not only is this last outpost of communist revolutionary activity found in the jungles, not the cities; but the revolutionaries themselves are not workers nor even peasants; they are “tribals”, even, indigenous women. And, these indigenous communists are not “Marxists”, “Leninist”, “Trotskyist”, nor “Social-Democrats”; they proudly extoll an ideological eclecticism they call “Marxist-Leninist-Maoist”, which may point the way for the future of the left. In the end, one may ask whether this episode hearkens back to the matriarchal societies of the North American Iroquois in whose political forms Marx and Engels saw the future of communism. “It will be the same”, Marx wrote in reference to indigenous societies, “but different”. ======================================== 20. INDIA: VOICE OF REASON WITH A BIG BINDI ======================================== The Telegraph, May 7, 2017 Voice of reason with a big bindi Our Special Correspondent New Delhi, May 6: As in life, Leila Seth set an example in death. The first woman to become chief justice of a high court in India, who died at her home in Noida on Friday night aged 86, had willed her body to be donated to a hospital. The end for her came just a few hours after the Supreme Court had upheld the death sentences in the December 2012 Delhi gang-rape-cum-murder that had shaken the nation into tightening its sexual assault laws. Seth had helped draft the new law as a member of the Justice J.S. Verma Committee. An abolitionist, Seth would likely not have been happy with the death sentences but she did live to see the victim's parents get some closure. Seth died of a cardiac seizure in the presence of her family members, who included her son and celebrated author Vikram Seth. Her body goes to the Army Research and Referral Hospital at Delhi Cantonment. All her life, Seth championed the virtues of openness, diversity and tolerance of differences, including some that most people prefer to keep under wraps, such as homosexuality. She was open about her first-born Vikram's homosexuality and did not hesitate to speak her mind when the Supreme Court re-criminalised homosexual acts in 2013, four years after Delhi High Court had decriminalised them. Born in 1930 in Lucknow, Seth had enrolled herself with Calcutta High Court in July 1959 and the Supreme Court in September that year. She practised in Patna High Court for a decade and then in Calcutta High Court for about three years. In June 1974, the Bengal government put her on its panel of lawyers at the Supreme Court. Designated senior advocate by the Supreme Court in January 1977, she became the first woman judge of Delhi High Court three years later and was transferred as chief justice to Himachal Pradesh High Court in 1991. After retirement, she remained engaged with matters of the law as a member of various commissions, including the Law Commission of India. She did not let her age be a deterrent when the UPA government was putting together the Verma Committee in December 2012 to amend the criminal law and provide for quicker trials and enhanced punishments in sexual assault cases. Besides an autobiography titled On Balance, Seth penned We, the Children of India: The Preamble to Our Constitution to make the Preamble accessible to children, complete with illustrations. She also authored Talking of Justice: People's Rights in Modern India. President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed condolences today, with Mukherjee noting her "immense contribution to the development of jurisprudence". Historian Ramachandra Guha remembered her as "an exceptional Indian, a sublime combination of intelligence, grace and courage". A consensus emerged that in the passing of the diminutive woman with the big one-rupee-sized bindi, the country had lost another voice of reason at a time it desperately needs such conscience-keepers. ======================================== 21. UN INVESTIGATOR WARNS ABOUT RODRIGO DUTERTE'S WAR ON DRUGS | LIndsay Murdoch ======================================== The Age (Australia) May 6 2017 A top United Nations' human rights investigator has warned that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs would only unleash more problems including rampant killings, vigilante crimes and an overall breakdown in law and order. "The war on drugs does not work," Agnes Callamard, the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, told a human rights conference in Manila. "Badly thought-out, ill-conceived drug policies not only fail to address substantively drug dependency, drug-related criminality and the drug trade, they add more problems, as has been well documented around the world," she said. The comments came after US President Donald Trump provoked an avalanche of criticism for inviting Mr Duterte, a foul-mouthed firebrand former provincial mayor, to the White House, and praised his efforts to rid the country of drugs. Two US legislators on Friday introduced legislation in the US Senate seeking to restrict the exportation of arms by the US to the Philippines, as the death toll under the crackdown almost reaches 8000, including children as young as five. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, chairman of the US foreign relations sub-committee, said the war on drugs is "deeply alarming". "This is not the right way to conduct an anti-drug campaign, and our legislation reflects our sincere desire to work with the Philippines to support human rights, expose narcotics networks emanating from mainland China and other countries, and use a public health approach to responsibly counter the danger drugs pose to our society," he said. Mr Duterte's officials scoffed at the bill which would require the US State Department to report on the human rights situation in the Philippines before it could be passed. "We have plenty of arms," said the President's chief legal counsel Salvador Panelo. In his latest comments, Mr Duterte declared it will take him three years to stabilise the Philippines which has one of Asia's highest rates of drug use. He promised to step-up the drugs war and efforts to curb criminality and corruption. Ms Callamard's comments angered Mr Duterte, whose spokesman Ernesto Abella said she had failed to notify the government of her visit to Manila in a "clear signal" she was not interested in an objective view. But Ms Callamard said she had informed Manila of her trip in advance and was participating in an academic human rights forum in her private capacity. She praised Filipinos who have spoken out against the killings. "I have followed the testimonies of the relatives of victims, I have seen the brave work of civil society actors, lawyers, human rights defenders, academics, senators," she said. Mr Duterte was elected promising to wipe out illegal drugs within months, declaring among other outlandish statements that fish in Manila Bay would grow fat from the bodies of drug users and pushers. A complaint has been filed in the International Criminal Court at The Hague citing Mr Duterte and 11 of his officials for crimes against humanity. The court has yet to decide if it would accept the case. This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/content/adaptive/theage/world/un-investigator-warns-about-rodrigo-dutertes-war-on-drugs-20170505-gvzi46.html ======================================== 22. ANTI-AUSTERITY GERINGONÇA IN PORTUGAL | Bruno Góis ======================================== Transform! Europe, 20 April 2017 A new word has arisen in the European political debate: Geringonça. This new Portuguese political term geringonça (contraption), refers to the current minority government of the Socialist Party (center-left) supported in the parliament by radical left parties. The name Geringonça was coined by its conservative critics but became popular and is also used by supporters. Carnation Revolution demonstration in Lisbon Between 2012 and 2013, Portugal had massive popular demonstrations, the biggest since the revolutionary period of 1974/75. Half a million people in the streets in a country of 10 million inhabitants is quite a lot. The target of these demonstrations was the austerity policy of the Social Democratic Party (PSD)/People's Party (CDS) right-wing government and the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), commonly refered as the Troika. However, that popular wave hit an institutional barrier. Not even the political crisis of summer 2013, when the minor partner (CDS) of the right-wing coalition menaced to leave, could break down the government. Cavaco Silva – the President of the Republic at the time – had managed to sponsor a deal between the parties of the right-wing government (PSD/CDS) and the biggest opposition party (Socialist Party, center-left) in order to ensure the government of Passos Coelho to proceed until 2015. The popular protests alongside with the trade unions were therefore defeated with that institutional solidity which prevented the PSD/CDS government from falling. This was followed by a harsh social peace living together with impoverishment and degradation of public services. At the same time we witnessed floods of emigration comparable to the times of the national liberation wars of the peoples that were under the Portuguese colonial power (1961-75). The Government of the Socialist Party (since 2015) October 2015 was the time for the desire of protest and change to express in the election. Almost a million votes were relied on the leftmost forces: Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc) with 10.19%, and the electoral alliance between the Communist Party and The Greens (PCP-PEV) with 8.25%. However, despite the hard austerity years, the Socialist party (32.31%) was not able to win more votes than the right-wing coalition PSD/CDS (36.86%). Preventing the rightist parties to keep on ruling and to stopping the austerity policies were the main motivations to sign an agreement to establish a parliamentary majority of support to a Socialist Party minority government, under the leadership of António Costa. Among the different recovery measures of workers’ and pensioners’ income, the plan of a phased increase of the national minimum wage until the end of the legislative term in 2019 will translate into a real change in the lives of more than 650,000 workers. The aim is to reach the €600 mark, promised for a long time. The Portuguese minimum wage had been frozen between 2011 and 2014 to €485 and reached €505 in the last year of the right-wing government. The Socialist Party government supported by the parties on its left increased the minimum wage to €530, in 2016, and to €557, in 2017. That was one of the demands of the parliamentary majority agreement. Even though timidly, the pressure to raise the remaining salaries is going on, contributing to revise the devaluation in the wages that occurred in the preceding years. Good Economic Results (2016) The tax relief on consumption, the withdrawal of the surcharge on public administration and the small increase on pensions have also helped to create a positive atmosphere for the Portuguese economy. The unemployment rate decreased to 11.1%, the lowest in the last five years (the highest rate was 16.2% in 2013). The budget deficit in 2016, slightly above 2% of the GDP will be the lowest in the last 40 years. This undermines the dogma based on the principle that austerity policies are the ones that ensure a low budget deficit. The Limits of the Economic Program Another dogma is refuted with the deficit decline achieved by the Socialist Party government. A low budget deficit does not ensure low interest rates. The public debt interest has been continuing its rise due to the ECB perspective of reduction of even cessation of guarantees over public debt securities. In fact, the ‘3% debt norm’ has the purpose to submit the economy to arbitrary rules that have no real impact or meaning concerning the expected positive economic effects for the Portuguese society, particularly for those who work. The so-called European Fiscal Compact and the Stability and Growth Pact often infringed by Germany and France are not but a corset to public investment and an excuse to reforms that inescapably lead to job insecurity and ruin property and public services. At the same time, the Socialist Party government foresees a primary balance of the public administration of about €5-billion in 2017; in other words, from the normal performance of the public administration with the foreseen revenues/expenses, €5-billion are still ‘left’ and could be used to strengthen Health or Education, for instance. However, that accounting result is reversed when you have more than €8-billion of public debt interest to be paid every year. How to go Beyond the Portuguese ‘Contraption’? Despite these limitations, some relief is what people are actually feeling. Austerity measures were stopped as well as the privatizing fury of the previous government. And the tiny social and economic results seem to ensure the minimums for the continuity of the parliamentary majority in support of the Socialist Party government. It is quite ironic for the history of the Portuguese democracy that a parliamentary agreement between the Socialist and the leftist parties has occurred just when the Socialist Party presented its most liberal program ever for the 2015 election. Even more ironic is the fact that, according to the opinion polls released over the past few months, the Socialists are benefiting from the ‘left turn’ they have been forced to, due to the growth of Bloco de Esquerda and PCP-PEV alliance in 2015. Prime Minister António Costa’s squaring the circle – obeying Brussels/Berlin alongside with the agreements signed with the left forces – may eventually fit and succeed within a legislature term until 2019. However, in the framework of the European rules, the margin is smaller to recover work income and perform social policies. The bank recapitalization requirements may push it even harder. At the same time, it is worth remembering that Vieira da Silva, the current Minister of Labour, carries the burden of precarity and austerity packages. Vieira da Silva had already been Minister of Labour (2005-2009) and Economy (2009-2011) during the governments of the Socialist Party headed by José Sócrates. So, it's not likely and no one believes that the author of the current Labour Code is going to disrupt the job insecurity and attack to collective agreements mark he left himself during the Socialist Party government (2009-2011) that opened the way to austerity policies. One cannot yet see a way for a real friendly policy for those who work and where Portuguese democracy is reinforced. To state such policies demands disobeying the existing Europe. It is not about remaining in the EU or the euro or leaving it on the other hand. Those are matters that cannot open by itself any ways to development. What really matters is what people want to do with the political and economic instruments. Disobeying is not unprecedented. Using an example in the precisely opposite angle, the conservative government of David Cameron was able to demand the EU for some space, in order to enforce policies that attacked foreign workers. That was despicable and it did not prevent a Brexit. For Portugal to make progressive policies, will the EU not have to give in? Portugal is not a political or economic power as the UK is, but the strength of a democracy cannot be underestimated. We know that democracies are in danger, they are being squeezed between different types of austerity (from center-left to right-wing) and the progress of a reactionary wave featured by Marine Le Pen in France and Donald Trump in the USA. The forces of democracy will have to be mobilized by an alternative way that supports the workers’ interests. Portugal needs a social majority that stands against the barriers that may rise in the final breakdown of the impoverishment cycle. • Bruno Góis is junior research fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences of Lisbon University, Master in International Relations, and Anthropology Ph.D. student. He is a member of Bloco de Esquerda (Portugal). ======================================== 23. SOHONI ON EATON & WAGONER'S 'POWER, MEMORY, ARCHITECTURE' ======================================== Richard M. Eaton, Phillip B. Wagoner. Power, Memory, Architecture: Contested Sites on India's Deccan Plateau, 1300-1600. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014. Illustrations. xxvi + 395 pp. $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-809221-6. Reviewed by Pushkar Sohoni (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research) Published on H-Asia (May, 2017) Commissioned by Sumit Guha Power Memory & Architecture The primary focus of this book by Richard M. Eaton and Phillip B. Wagoner is the three cities of Kalyana, Raichur, and Warangal, as exemplars of fortified secondary urban centers that served as economic, political, and social links between agrarian hinterland societies and courtly elites in the capital cities of their respective sultanate kingdoms of the Deccan. These cities are contextualized in the period between the thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries, particularly as contested spaces in the sixteenth, and their monumental architecture is understood as “the most visually prominent expression of societal culture” (p. 32). While the chapters are sufficiently described in the introduction, a small outline is provided here. Eight chapters are organized into four sections containing two chapters each. The first chapter gives a brief history of the Kalyana Chalukyas and their successor dynasties, and their encounter with the Delhi sultanate in the thirteenth century. Rejecting conventional models of antagonism, Eaton and Wagoner demonstrate that the two literary cosmopolitan systems of Persian and Sanskrit were in fact “preoccupied with the universality of dominion, with codifying and explicating law...; and with proper etiquette and comportment, especially in the context of royal courts,” and produced similar discourses (pp. 25-26). The conquest and annexation of the Deccan by the sultanate of Delhi is explained as the catalyst for the diffusion of ideals from the Persian cosmopolis into the Sanskrit cosmopolis, and not a cultural rupture. The second chapter, on the conquest of the Deccan by the Delhi sultanate, tries to understand the sultanate’s subsequent actions as victors who had to politically engage with the built landscapes of the defeated regimes. While explaining why Hindu temples were the “most culturally and politically significant structures encountered,” the discussion is not limited to simplistic ideas of desecration, but shows a range of reactions, from patronizing, occupying, rebuilding, rehabilitating, redefining, imitating, or even destroying the religious buildings that were inherited from the past (p. 40). Such discourse is illustrated with a range of examples, from Pillalamarri, Devagiri, Bijapur, Bodhan, Warangal, Rajahmundry, Kalyana, Sholapur, Manvi, and Kondapalli, which were all sites taken over by the Delhi sultanate in the early fourteenth century. The second section of the book is dedicated to understanding the legacy of the Chalukyas of Kalyana. The authors suggest that as opposed to the earlier dispensation of reusing temple elements to build mosques, a strategy that only aimed to displace “one contemporary political and religious order by another,” a new pattern emerged in the sixteenth century (p. 77). In the spirit of Wagoner’s seminal essay “Sultan among Hindu Kings,” they examine in detail the building practices of both kingdoms, Vijayanagara and Bijapur, demonstrating that architectural elements and fragments from a period stretching over five hundred years were deliberately deployed by the two polities in new buildings, and not necessarily only in religious contexts.[1] In the third chapter, which focuses on Vijayanagara, the genealogical, literary, and titular continuity of the Vijayanagara dynasties is shown to bear continuity with the Kalyana Chalukyas. Thus, the architectural reappropriation and reuse of Chalukyan building elements and sites by the Vijayanagara kings is an extension of the same effect. Eaton and Wagoner, through the use of individual examples, such as the Bhuvaneshwari Temple and the stepped well at Vijayanagara, demonstrate how the kingdom continuously made aesthetic and political claims to being the inheritors of the Chalukya past. The fourth chapter is about the sultanate of Bijapur and its relation to an earlier imperial history of the region, as imagined materially. The authors argue that several factors explain the varied stances of different Adil Shahi sultans toward the Chalukyan past of the region, including the usual factional divisions between ethnic Persian émigrés and indigenous Muslim (and Hindu) communities, and “the personality or ideology of the ruling sovereign, as well as the broader political context” (p. 126). The gateway to the citadel of Bijapur, the Aravattukhambada Temple converted to a mosque, and Kalyan fort are the three sites where changes by the Adil Shahs are explained within their specific context. The third section is about two regimes, those of the rebel Bahmani governor Shitab Khan and later the Qutb Shahs, and their connections with the Kakatiya past in present-day Telangana. The fifth chapter traces the life of Shitab Khan, from his humble beginnings and rapid rise at the Bahmani court in the mid-fifteenth century, to his conquest of Warangal in the early sixteenth century. The authors show how Shitab Khan’s capture of Warangal, and conformance with “Sanskritic models of kingly behaviour,” which included having panegyric verses composed by Brahmins, had a strong resonance in form with the earlier Kakatiya rulers of Warangal (p. 170). With some clever forensics, the authors explain the relocation of the Kakatiya śivaliṅga from Hanamkonda to Warangal and the assemblage of an older temple in the construction of the Pancaliraya Temple as Shitab Khan’s attempts to interpret and deploy the Kakatiya past in order to assert his potential kingship. The next chapter logically follows the Qutb Shahs, who recaptured Warangal from Shitab Khan, but their actions, which connected them to the Kakatiyas, were situated in their new capital, Hyderabad. Eaton and Wagoner explain how the conceptual model of Hyderabad was based on the cosmogrammatic intentions at Warangal, in a composite milieu of the Persian-Telugu Qutb Shahi court. In the fourth section, the seventh chapter traces the developments in military technology in the Deccan from the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Using textual sources to see how many times various forts changed hands, and mapping such statistics onto the developments in artillery and fortifications in the sixteenth-century Deccan, the authors make spatial and temporal claims about the frontiers of the Deccan polities and their stability. The eighth chapter considers the functions of city gates beyond the simply utilitarian, instead arguing for their monumental, ritual, and symbolic values. The Kati Darwaza at Raichur is discussed in great detail in this chapter. Finally, the conclusion synthesizes the various chapters, and ends on a note of irony, with a tongue-in-cheek description of recent developments at the site of Warangal. Two interesting appendices that provide some of the raw data generated in the course of research follow the conclusion. This book is one of the few truly diachronic studies for multiple architectural sites, exploring how successive regimes received the constructed environment of the vanished or vanquished dynasties of the past. In a region like the Deccan, continuously occupied by a variety of fast-changing polities and states, architectural and political history intersected, as demonstrated masterfully and compellingly through this truly interdisciplinary work. The volume is profusely illustrated, and all the arguments are animated with drawings and photographs. The authors have conducted extensive fieldwork, making observations in the field and consulting relevant texts, followed by intensive analysis in the lab. Information from historical texts (such as the Tarikh-i Firishtah) is coupled with GIS software to create maps that show frequent contestations over secondary urban centers; this book thus provides a paradigm shift for the study of architectural history in the Deccan. Discursively, the authors dismiss conventional binaries and tropes, such as outsiders and invaders vis-à-vis the indigenes, or simple religious contestations. The diversity of material they encounter is not collapsed into any naive formation; instead they recognize the complexity of political circumstance and flexible cultural boundaries. Perhaps the only minor criticism would be that the seventh chapter does not neatly fit the theme of the book; while it does engage architecture and political history in novel ways, it does not directly address questions of received architectural memory and power, though the conclusion does eventually accommodate the chapter in the narrative of contested secondary urban centers. Other than that, the absence of the northwestern Deccan is striking, given that the area was under Chalukya rule and has several monuments from their reign. They were followed in this region by the Yadavas, an important post-Chalukyan polity, who also had their monuments razed, reappropriated, and reused in the sultanate period. The northwestern Deccan was later integral to the Bahmani kingdom (which had declared independence in the erstwhile Yadava capital of Devagiri or Daulatabad). The region was also the heartland of the Nizam Shahs, a powerful sultanate of the post-Bahmani Deccan, who were the progenitors of the Maratha kingdom. The northwestern Deccan completes the triad of linguistic zones that Firishtah mentioned as comprising the Deccan. Thus, a third of the cultural history of the Deccan, as represented through time by the Yadavas, the Nizam Shahs, the Marathas, and the modern state of Maharashtra, all entities associated with the Marathi language, is largely absent. But a book should not be judged by what is missing, and what is presented is of outstanding value, in terms of extensive data, imaginative scholarship, and rigorous methods. Hopefully, this book will provide inspiration for several other scholars to do similar work. Note [1]. Phillip B. Wagoner, “Sultan among Hindu Kings,” Journal of Asian Studies 55, no. 4 (1996): 851-880. ======================================== 24. KALLIS ON MAULSBY, 'FASCISM, ARCHITECTURE, AND THE CLAIMING OF MODERN MILAN, 1922-1943' ======================================== H-Italy (May, 2017) Lucy M. Maulsby. Fascism, Architecture, and the Claiming of Modern Milan, 1922-1943. Toronto Italian Studies Series. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014. Illustrations. 272 pp. $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4426-4625-4. Reviewed by Aristotle Kallis (Keele University) Commissioned by Niamh Cullen In his address to the 1937 Congress of Urbanistica, Giuseppe Bottai spoke about the singular status of Rome—as a modern city, as a national capital, but above all else as the fount of Fascism’s most powerful political myths. When it came to a place that was so central to Fascism’s own history, otherwise established priorities and rules could often be interpreted loosely or abrogated if, Bottai noted, this would help the city “fulfil, as we all hope, its function of the capital of the modern world.”[1] Invested with such an extravagant mission, Rome gradually overshadowed all other cities during the Fascist ventennio. Even Milan, the traditional “moral capital” of Italy, the birthplace of the Fascist movement, and the stage of its crucial early successes, was eclipsed in symbolic significance.[2] It is thus not surprising that the Mussolinian “third Rome,” with its uniquely rich register of urban interventions and ambitious ideas for urban transformation in the twenty years of Fascist rule, has received the lion’s share of historiographical attention.[3] Still, Lucy Maulsby’s impressive study of architecture and urban planning in Fascist-era Milan illustrates how so much emphasis on this terza Roma can create a very narrow scholarly tunnel vision that distorts the “bigger picture” of Fascist-era architecture and urban history. Maulsby, for example, reminds the reader that the customary identification of Fascist ideology with romanità and the colonial-geopolitical Mediterranean mare nostrum had far less purchase in the northern metropolis of Milan—a city for centuries dominated by a superb Gothic cathedral, a strongly commercial-industrial economic profile, and a long tradition of links with central Europe. The point is not just that other cities, Milan included, need and deserve more historiographical attention, which undoubtedly they do. It is also that the Roman “tunnel vision” has led historians of the Fascist period to derive many of their insights and assumptions about general Fascist attitudes to architecture and urban planning from the otherwise singular case of Rome. Even if largely overshadowed by Rome, the city of Popolo d’Italia and the 1919 founding meeting at Piazza San Sepolcro continued to occupy a special place in the Fascist collective imagination. It was a fascinatingly singular place too, in its own way. In sharp contrast to Rome, Milan was the city most associated with modernity and the one that expressed most authentically Fascism’s futural cult. The city was the hub of architectural rationalism, the home of the Gruppo 7 and the base of one of the two most significant schools of the Italian modernist avant-garde in the 1930s (the other being the nearby city of Como); and yet Milan’s dominant architectural vocabulary remained a fascinating hybrid of tempered modernist sensibilities and reinterpreted regional traditions, where the tone was set by such singular figures as Giovanni Muzio and Piero Portaluppi rather than by the patriarch of the Fascist stile littorio Marcello Piacentini or even northern rationalist child prodigies like Giuseppe Terragni, Giuseppe Pagano, and the younger BBPR (Banfi, Belgioioso, Peressuti e Rogers) group. Maulsby uses five of the six chapters of her book to discuss how the Fascist Party and regime used iconic civic projects to underline and extend its claim over the city of Milan: Paolo Mezzanotte’s Casa del Fascio and Borsa, Piacentini’s Palazzo di Giustizia, Portaluppi’s Casa del Fascio/Sede Federale, and Muzio’s Palazzo del Popolo d’Italia. Each of these projects captures an array of fascinating intersections between international, national, and local agencies; between political, economic, and cultural interests; and between modernity and tradition, innovation and conservation. In the case of the construction of the new party headquarters on Piazza San Sepolcro, the national party (and Benito Mussolini personally) mandated the construction of the new complex for the party’s headquarters in Milan on a site that bore the imprint of that fated 1919 founding meeting inside the rooms of the Renaissance-era Palazzo Castani. However, the site was at the heart of Milan’s medieval core and thus subject to a rich—national and international alike—debate about rules of conservation and integration of modern life into historic urban centers. As a result, construction took years and involved numerous design and topographical compromises. Still, the trademark tower in Portaluppi’s building staked its claim over Milan’s cityscape just like Fascism intended the new Sede Federale as yet another powerful marker for its symbolic ownership of the city. It was once again compromise that set the tone for the new headquarters of the newspaper Popolo d’Italia on Piazza Cavour. Maulsby shows how this project provides a fascinating insight into the constant intersections between architects, planners, municipal experts, conservationists, and speculators. Muzio’s initial, bolder proposal for the building, complete with a beacon and a wall panel filled with a hyper-modern kinetic display of letters announcing news and events, makes the final (executed) design seem modest and something of an anti-climax by comparison. Yet the outcome was the result of an overwhelmingly successful compromise with local authorities and powerful heritage experts over the fate of the whole area of Piazza Cavour. Unsurprisingly, Maulsby’s research brings to light complexities and quirks that were far from uncommon in Rome or indeed elsewhere in Fascist Italy. During the years of the Fascist regime, there was a new, ambitious regulatory framework for the city (in the case of Milan, authored by Cesare Albertini in the early 1930s) that sanctioned extensive demolitions in order to “liberate” important historic monuments, create new dramatic vistas, and facilitate traffic—all resulting in the eviction and displacement of large sections of the urban poor. The regulatory framework in Milan proved as porous as that of Rome, with constant revisions, reinterpretations, and ad hoc initiatives. Architectural competitions served similar purposes of “aesthetic pluralism” in the two cities, resulting in many cases in paper architecture that had little connection to the eventual project, if there were one, that is. The rationalists were as unsuccessful in winning official high-profile architectural projects in Milan as in Rome—in spite of Milan’s very special status in the history of Italian modernism. Importantly too, Maulsby’s insightful analysis of the complexities and compromises behind each of the projects featured in the book underlines the need for extending this kind of more nuanced approach to the overall history of architecture and urban planning in interwar Italy that still remains in thrall to over-rehearsed, tired polemics about modernism and tradition. If I have one (minor) criticism, it is one about the mechanics rather than the approach or the essence of the book. Each of these projects provide Maulsby with fascinating opportunities to restate her main argument about the limits of the control that the Fascist regime had in enforcing its decisions about iconic civic projects and transformational planning interventions in Milan, supposedly Fascism’s “party” capital. Yet, taken as an ensemble, the five major projects discussed here remain supremely eclectic and rather loosely connected in the overall economy of the book. What binds them together, beyond their shared status as important Fascist-era civic projects located in the historic core of Milan, is implied rather than stated in the otherwise excellent introduction and the rather more elliptical epilogue. Party and state buildings; realized and paper architecture; the interplay between regional, national, and international aesthetic idioms; projects commissioned and chosen in competitions are so much more than simply interesting fragments of an urban chronicle. In their eclecticism and amid the numerous compromises that their realization involved, the surveyed projects attest not only to the limits but also to the effectiveness of the Fascist appropriation—spatial, architectural, symbolic—of Milan. This is a fascinating story of two conjoined halves: of a Fascist conquering ambition spearheaded by a series of ambitious architectural projects and urban interventions and of a singular set of regional/local complexities on the ground that intervened between regime intentions and their realization (or not). In the end, through its program of realized iconic civic buildings and transformative urban interventions, the Fascist regime did manage to root itself in the historic core of Milan and—partly at least—“claim” it in a way that failed to work in Rome (where none of the major civic projects destined for the historic core of the city was executed). Yet at least as compelling is Maulsby’s insightful mapping of the diverse agencies and complex processes that shaped each of the featured projects. The stories that Maulsby pieces together, with the help of an impressive array of archival sources and contemporary publications, are thoughtfully supported by excellent photos and illustrations, for which both the author and the publisher should be congratulated. The book marks an important contribution to the historiography of architecture and urban planning—not just for its forensic look at the often overlooked case of Milan but also for the alternative perspectives that it offers, perspectives that can inform the study of other cities and indeed aspects of the architectural production during the Fascist ventennio. Notes [1]. Giuseppe Bottai, “Discorso inaugurale: politica e urbanistica,” in Atti del I Congresso Nazionale di Urbanistica, vol. 2, Discussioni e resoconto (Rome: Instituto Nazionale di Urbanistica), 3-5. [2]. Steven Gundle, “Mussolini’s Appearance in the Regions,” in The Cult of the Duce: Mussolini and the Italians, ed. Stephen Gundle, Christopher Duggan, and Giuliana Pieri (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), 110-128. [3]. See, for example, the classic studies of Spiro Kostof, The Third Rome, 1870-1950: Traffic and Glory (Berkeley, CA: University Art Museum, 1973); and Antonio Cederna, Mussolini urbanista: Lo sventramento di Roma negli anni del consenso (Bari and Rome: Laterza, 1979). More recently (in English): Borden Painter, Mussolini’s Rome: Rebuilding the Eternal City (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005); Joshua Arthurs, Excavating Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013); and Paul Baxa, Roads and Ruins: The Symbolic Landscape of Fascist Rome (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010). _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ South Asia Citizens Wire Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on matters of peace and democratisation in South Asia. Newsletter of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ 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
