South Asia Citizens Wire | 17 October, 2004 via: www.sacw.net
[1] Human security in Bangladesh (Zafar Sobhan)
[2] Bangladesh / Pakistan: Professor Anisuzzaman of Dhaka University talks about literature and secularism in Bangladesh and identifies ground for a struggle alongside Pakistani intellectuals
[3] The sectarian conflict is an unpleasant reality in today's Pakistan (Arif Jamal )
[4] India: Nailing RSS (D R Goyal)
[5] India: "CBFC, Kher etc." Press Release by Campaign Against Censorship / Films For Freedom
+ Report "Documentary producers' associations welcome sacking of Anupam Kher"
[6] India: Confessions were forced in Dec. 13 Case (Nirmalangshu Mukherji)
[7] Upcoming film screening : 'DESI: South Asians in New York '
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[1]
The Daily Star October 17, 2004
HUMAN SECURITY IN BANGLADESH Zafar Sobhan
These days security seems to be the burning issue on everybody's lips. In the aftermath of the 8/21 grenade attack and other bomb blasts and arms hauls that remain unresolved, no one could seriously argue that the question of security is not of paramount concern in Bangladesh today.
Nor do I wish to downplay the importance of traditional security concerns, which remain crucial to the well-being of the nation. But today I would like to focus on a subject that I feel is equally critical but that has been more or less ignored within the debate on security as a whole.
This is the subject of human security and what we can do to counter threats to human security in Bangladesh.
The concept of human security was developed as a means to try to broaden the conventional security agenda. Before the concept of human security gained currency, traditional security concerns addressed military threats to the state -- security threats envisaged efforts to destabilise or overthrow a government or political system.
Gradually the idea gained acceptance that a state can face many kinds of threats to its security that are not military. The acknowledgement of non-traditional security thus expanded the scope of security concerns to encompass concepts such as food security or energy security or environmental security -- the idea being that insecurity in any of these arenas could be as much of a threat to a nation's security as a traditional military threat. But the focus -- or referent -- of such security threats remained the state.
The concept of human security was developed alongside a recognition of the fact that it is the security of the individual more than that of the state that should be of pre-eminent concern to policy-makers and the administration.
The policy focus is now more on the security and safety of the individual and not on either traditional or non-traditional security threats to the state -- and it is in this light that I believe Bangladesh's security concerns must be addressed. It is important to keep in mind that shifting the emphasis from the state to the individual in no way diminishes the importance of traditional concepts of security -- traditional security threats to the state also count as threats to human security as ultimately it is the individual who suffers the most.
So what do we mean by human security? There have been many definitions coined over the years -- some more expansive than others -- but most have concentrated on freedom from fear and freedom from want. There has often been some tension between the West -- which has focused more on freedom from fear -- and Asia -- which has focused more on freedom from want -- but it seems to me that human security must encompass both these freedoms, and that for many human security threats it is neither possible nor helpful to deconstruct them into either one or the other.
Human security is perhaps best defined as freedom from violence (either man-made or natural), a state that does not oppress its own people, and conditions within which the means of livelihood can be earned. This is what we mean when we speak of human security and these are the indexes according to which we need to measure human security in Bangladesh.
Human insecurity is indivisible. It is not possible to be secure in one of the three ways outlined above if you are not safe in the other two ways. If a person is not safe from threats of violence then this diminishes or negates his or her ability to earn a living. Freedom from violence and state oppression is meaningless in the absence of means of livelihood, and if one's security is threatened by the state then one's freedom from violence or freedom to earn a living cannot be secured with any certainty.
Human security threats can also evolve into threats to the state due to their suddenness, scale, or severity. A good example of this is HIV/Aids in sub-Saharan Africa, which began as a public health problem, but has reached such a scale that it constitutes a legitimate security threat to the entire region. The destitution and parentlessness caused by the disease have decimated local populations, and apart from the massive strain put on health-care resources and facilities, the shrinking of the work-force and near collapse of institutions and law and order have threatened the continued functioning of the affected states.
One human security threat can also evolve into another due to linkages between the two, which can eventually threaten the state as a whole. Environmental threats such as floods are a good example of this. Floods can cause massive hardship for people in flood-hit communities or countries -- as happened recently in Bangladesh -- and this can lead to large scale migration that in turn creates a whole host of difficulties in the area to which the flood-affected people converge.
Human security threats cannot typically be localised or contained and this is why, left unchecked, they almost always metastasize into threats to national security. Who among us would argue that floods do not have the potential to threaten national security every bit as much as bombs and grenades do?
The question is, of course, who bears responsibility for securing us from these threats to human security and what we, as individuals, can do to secure ourselves.
Bangladesh is a relatively young country that is still developing both economically and politically. Many if not most of our democratic institutions have not been fully developed and concepts such as citizenship or civil society are still in their infancy. It is for these reasons that I believe the lion's share of responsibility for human security must fall to the state.
When we shift the focus from traditional security to human security, we are shifting the answer to the question "whose security?" but not to the question "whose responsibility?" The focus may now be on the security of the individual, but the responsibility must remain the state's.
If Bangladesh were more developed -- economically and politically -- and if we had a better developed sense of civil society -- then perhaps the state could take a back-seat role and leave it to the people to safeguard their own security. But this is not the case in Bangladesh. In addition, when the state -- through its action and inaction -- is either directly or indirectly the cause of much of the human insecurity in the country, then it stands to reason that no human security solution which does not contemplate a leading role for the state will be effective.
This is not to say that civil society has no role or that civil society in Bangladesh has not been astonishingly productive when it comes to safeguarding our human security and performing functions which should be the state's responsibility.
It is civil society which must hold the state accountable for its failures, it is civil society which must organise, mobilise, and educate the public, and influence, pressure, and educate policy-makers. It is civil society that must expend its energies to reform the state because left to itself the state will never do so.
But ultimately the responsibility for safeguarding human security must lie with the state, and in Bangladesh, this responsibility remains unfulfilled.
Zafar Sobhan is an Assistant Editor of The Daily Star.
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[2]
The News on Sunday [Pakistan] October 17, 2004
interview 'WE HAVE A COMMON CAUSE'
Professor Anisuzzaman of Dhaka University talks about literature and secularism in Bangladesh and identifies ground for a struggle alongside Pakistani intellectuals
By Zaman Khan
"We conceived Bangladesh as a secular, democratic and socialist country. But soon after, to our misfortune, we had a military rule. Not once but twice in a short period of time. It was then that the secular character of the constitution was distorted," said Professor Anisuzzaman speaking to TNS on the sidelines of a conference in Colombo recently.
A reputed teacher of Bengali literature, Anisuzzaman taught at Dhaka University from where he retired last year. He has also taught in some prestigious universities of Europe and America.
Anisuzzaman was born in Calcutta in 1937, and his family moved to East Pakistan in 1947. He did his doctorate in Dhaka, and was one of the many Bengalis who crossed over into India in 1971-- becoming a refugee a second time. He came back after the creation of Bangladesh.
Professor Anisuzzaman is currently associated with a couple of journals -- an English-language art journal and a Bengali literary monthly.
The 1946 Hindu Muslim riots in Bengal left an indelible mark on the mind of a young Anisuzzaman and he became a committed secularist. But the situation in his country makes him sad: "We are not striving for a just society now. We have become a captive to market economy. In the last three years we have seen that the religious and ethnic minorities in Bangladesh have been very badly treated. There is a systematic campaign against the Ahmadis and also in the background an impending campaign against Shias. All this makes me very sad because we thought that a free Bangladesh would also be free from this sort of sectarianism and obstructionism."
One of his earliest memories he has are that of 'Asian Writers Conference' held in Delhi in December 1956. He attended as the youngest member of the Pakistani delegation from East Pakistan. The delegation was headed by Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
When the constitution of Bangladesh was being made, Anisuzzaman was given the responsibility to look at it from the perspective of language (Bengali). Later on, in one of its judgements, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh held that at the time of interpretation, Bengali version of the constitution should be consulted as the final version.
Professor Anisuzzaman is a keen reader of Bengali literature: "Bengal produced great writers like Rabindranath Tagore and Qazi Nazrul Islam. Even today, we have produced quite a number of significant writers who have combined their art work with their social responsibility. I would say that a reasonably good literature is being produced in Bangladesh, all of this in not world class but some of it is. For example Waliullah's first novel which was first published in 1948 was translated into English and French and was received very well. If you can make a selection of some of Suleman's poems, perhaps it can come up to the world standards."
Poetry, he thinks, has been a productive area in Bengali literature and he counts the names of Jaswanti, Shamsul Khan, Al Mamoon and others. Novel has touched the popularity of poetry in Bangladesh. "Syed Waliullah was the first to introduce the 'stream of consciousness' theme in our novels. Then Abu Ishaq wrote very realistic novels with countryside as the background. Shaukat Usman who has been writing since before the partition continued with his novels of social reality. Shaeedullah Qaiser, based his novels both in the countryside and cities like Calcutta and Dhaka and it represents the Bengal of modern Muslim middle class and its psyche. The prolific and popular Humayun Ahmed is among the new crop of novelists," he said.
One of Humayun's first novels '1971' was about a village where the Pakistan army committed atrocities. His last novel published this year also on war of liberation. "It is a comparatively voluminous book because he usually writes shorter novel. It portrays not only about atrocities but goes deep into the human psyche and the emotions of the people bringing out different sentiments and reactions in times of crisis. In some cases there is unexpected heroism, in other cases there is fear. He has done very well. His novel '1971' has been translated into English and made into a movie," said Professor Anisuzzaman.
After Bangladesh's creation, playwrights have produced original plays and also good adaptations, mainly of European originals. "From 1972 onwards, we have had a people's theatre or group theatre. These are amateur artists but fully devoted. They have done very well," he said. Among playwrights he mentions the names of Abdullah Almamoon and Saleemuddin. Munir Chaudhry and Syed Ali Hasan he rates as good critics and Badruddin Omar, Sirajuzzaman Chaudhry and Jalil-ur-Rehman Siddique as worthy essayists.
Professor Anisuzzaman does not rate Tasleema Nasreen as a very good novelist: "Persecution of religious minorities is a very strong theme for a novel, but she could not do justice to it. Her treatment was not good. Her poetry is good and so are the literary columns she has contributed to Bengali journals. She has since devoted herself to writing autobiographical narratives, which have also become a centre of controversy."
Professor Anisuzzaman, however, says that Nasreen has the courage to write what she believes in, being "a feminist of sorts writing against male domination and against very oppressive society." And he thinks the circumstance in which she was forced to leave the country was very unfortunate. "Even if one does not agree with one's writings, one cannot deny one's right to live. One must defend her/his right to life," he said.
Pakistani literature does not find an audience in Bangladesh because there are very few translators who can translate from Urdu. "I don't think even they can translate any contemporary Pakistani literature and as for English translations, the readers do not receive much," he said. "Faiz has been translated into Bengali since 1950s. Faiz is very well known."
About the role of Pakistani writers in 1971, he said: "There was an information gap on both sides. We know that it was problem for the writers from Pakistan to respond to facts. There were general expectations that writers, artists, intellectuals would rise in protest. But we think that still we have common problems to fight against and a common cause."
Professor Anisuzzaman thinks that the situation is very bad in Bangladesh with particular reference to minorities. "If those belonging to a minority group call themselves Muslims, as do the Ahmadis, who are we to declare them non-Muslims?" he asked.
And the hope for the revival of secularism in Bangladesh is fading. "Secular forces came to power again in 1996 but they did not revive secularism. At the moment the possibility is remote because anti-secular forces are united and the secular forces are not. This revival can happen if there is a large coalition of secular force. For example the recent incident of attack on Hasina has united secular forces," he concluded.
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[3]
News on Sunday, October 17, 2004
Now, more intense THE SECTARIAN CONFLICT IS AN UNPLEASANT REALITY IN TODAY'S PAKISTAN.
It cannot be overcome with administrative measures alone -- most of which have been cosmetic so far
By Arif Jamal
The current wave of sectarian violence shows that the government has failed to curb the activities of the banned jihadi and sectarian groups with strict administrative measures.
The first ten days of October have been particularly bloody. The month of October started with a suicide attack on a Shia mosque in Sialkot on October 1. More than 30 Shia worshippers died in the attack. The attack was followed by a car bomb at the Millat-i-Islamia (formerly Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan) convention on the occasion of the first death anniversary of Maulana Azam Tariq on October 7 in Multan. More than 40 participants died in the explosion.
Two days later, unknown gunmen killed Mufti Mohammad Jamil Khan and Maulana Nazeer Taunsavi, two leaders of the Almi Majlis Khatme Nabuwat, in Karachi. Next day, an unrecognised person carried out a suicide attack in a Shia mosque in Lahore. The assassin blew himself up and the guards when they intercepted him. At least four people including the attacker died.
The current wave of sectarian violence appears to be the continuation of the 20-year old conflict with all its brutality. General Ziaul Haq's support to the jihadi and sectarian groups, which supported his military rule at home during the Afghan jihad has created unmanageable monsters. The creators no longer appear in control of the situation.
The sectarian groups used to carry out sectarian violence on the pattern of non-sectarian violence in the country before the 9/11 attacks in the United States. The sectarian violence became intense and brutal after the jihadis had to leave Afghanistan after the US attack. The sectarian terrorists started using suicide attacks to perpetuate sectarian violence in Pakistan in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington. Suicide attacks were unknown in Pakistan in the pre-9/11 period and were largely associated with the al-Qaeda network. Although the al-Qaeda-affiliated groups never used them in Pakistan.
A new mode of violence has been introduced during the current wave of sectarian conflict: a car bomb. It is for the first time that the terrorists have used a car bomb in Pakistan. In the past, they once used motorcycle bomb in the mid-1990s against the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan leaders. If past is any guide, they are likely to used this mode of violence more frequently in the future.
The government first tried to explain the suicide attack on the Shia mosque in terms of a reaction to the death of Amjad Farooqi, who was allegedly involved in the suicide attacks on General Pervez Musharraf in December 2003, in an encounter with security agencies in the town of Nawabshah a few days earlier. Farooqi was allegedly involved in the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl also. Thus he was a most wanted terrorist. Later, when the attacks and suicide attacks became frequent and intense, the government took some administrative measures by banning the ijtimas of the already banned groups. Currently, the security agencies are also arresting real or potential terrorists from the banned jihadi and sectarian groups.
The intense sectarian conflict has once again shown that the government has miserably failed to stop the banned groups from functioning under different names. All the banned jihadi and sectarian groups have been functioning under different names without much difficulty since General Musharraf banned them on 12 January 2002. So far, the administration has hardly taken any measures to implement the ban except arresting and later releasing some of the cadres of these groups. The police start arresting some of the cadres of these groups every time there is an escalation in the sectarian conflict. They are mostly released after the sectarian violence subsides.
The organisational infrastructures of the banned groups, which now function under new names, have mostly remained intact. They have mostly the same office bearers. None of them has gone underground after the January 12 ban. There are two exceptions though -- both Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Sipah-i-Mohammad remain underground. Other banned groups are still operating mostly out of their old office premises. Some of them have shifted to new premises. They are still bringing out the same periodical publications, mostly under the old names. They are discreetly raising funds and holding ijtimas without any fear.
The administrative measures to implement the ban have mostly been cosmetic. The huge rally on the occasion of the first death anniversary of Maulana Azam Tariq in Multan is one such example. This was first shown when Maulana Azam Tariq contested and won the general elections in 2002 despite a ban on his party. Later, he also had the unique honour of helping former Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali to win the prime ministerial race with his vote.
The government has tried to make a scapegoat out of the nazim of Multan for allowing the Millat-i-Islamia to hold its convention on the first death anniversary of Maulana Azam Tariq. The nazim must have given the permission to the Millat-i-Islamia in view of the fact that the dead leader of the party was a member of the incumbent National Assembly and the party was freely functioning in the country. The Millat-i-Islamia ran a publicity campaign throughout the country before the convention but the government did not move to ban the convention. The banned groups have not stopped holding public rallies under new names even after another ban on their rallies. They rarely seek permission from the local administration.
The sectarian conflict and violence is an unpleasant reality in today's Pakistan. The other reality is that it is becoming more and more intense. Yet another reality is that the administrative measures have so far failed to eliminate this threat. Unless the government accepts these realities, it cannot remove the threat of sectarian violence. The problem of sectarianism cannot be overcome with administrative measures alone while the state is in an alliance with some of them. The government needs a very strong political will to eliminate the threat of sectarianism.
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[4]
sify.com Friday, 08 October , 2004, 20:32
NAILING RSS By D R Goyal
Inside information by a former RSS swayamsewak proves that the militantly anti-secularist organisation was directly complicit in planning one of the most heinous assassinations in human history.
That the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) is a past-master at lying brazenly to defend its conspiratorial past has been proved by its repeated denial of any association or responsibility for the crime of having supported, in either form or intent, the killing of Mahatma Gandhi. Its good fortune - and the nation's misfortune - is that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), an RSS affiliate, is suffering from such amnesia, or complacency, that when the issue is even lightly touched on by one of its senior leaders, the bulk of the party prefers to dissociate itself from the issue, thus allowing the outfit to mislead the public by loud protestations and by threatening to file a defamation suit. I am not sure that this is not an empty threat - there is so much evidence that proves that Nathuram Godse was actively associated with the organisation and was inspired to do the dirty deed by the ideology that gave birth to the RSS. The organisation's lies have been nailed by no less a person than Nathuram's own brother, Gopal Godse.
In an interview to Frontline magazine (January 28, 1994), he said, "All the brothers were in the RSS. Nathuram, Dattatreya, myself and Govind. You can say we grew up in RSS rather than in our home. It was like a family to us. Nathuram had become a baudhik karyavah (intellectual teacher) in the RSS. He had said in his statement that he had left RSS. He said this because Golwalkar and the RSS were in a lot of trouble after the murder of Gandhi. But he did not leave the RSS."
When confronted with Advani's claim that Nathuram had nothing to do with RSS, he replied that he had countered Advani by saying, "It is cowardice to say that. You can say that RSS did not pass a resolution saying 'go and assassinate Gandhi'."
Apart from denying his association with Nathuram, the outfit has been using the time-tested technique of all liars. Selective quotations from the correspondence of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel are cited to suggest that the then home minister did not believe that the RSS had committed the crime. Patel's letter had been addressed to Nehru in February 1948. But in a letter to RSS founder, Dr Shyamaprasad Mookerjee, written in July that year, when more facts were probably unearthed, he squarely blamed the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha, saying, "As�the case relating to Gandhiji's murder is sub judice I would not like to say anything about the participation of these two organisations, but our reports do confirm that, as a result of the activities of these two bodies, particularly by the former (i.e., RSS), an atmosphere was created in the country in which such a ghastly tragedy became possible."
He went on to write, "The activities of the RSS constituted a clear threat to the existence of the Government and the state."
Neither this letter nor one from Patel to Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar himself, in which the ban on the RSS was justified, is talked about. Golwalkar was told that the speeches of the RSS men "were full of communal poison. It was not necessary to spread poison in order to enthuse the Hindus and organise for their protection. As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhiji." In the same letter, Patel pointed out that popular opposition to the RSS turned serious "when the RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji's death".
Rather than being penitent, asserting that it was not the RSS but Nathuram, on his own, who had fired the shots, is like saying that it wasn't Nathuram but a pistol that had killed Gandhi. After all, the man who risks his life to take somebody else's is motivated by ideas; in this case, Nathuram had imbibed them from the RSS. Nathuram was the instrument of that ideology, just as the pistol was Nathuram's instrument. It should, therefore, be examined whether RSS training could have inspired his intense hatred against Gandhi.
Godse's strongest claim to innocence is based on the court judgment, which had held only Godse guilty and not any organisation. That was because the Indian Penal Code then in force had no provision for proceeding against organisations spreading hatred. The lacuna was removed in 1972 through an amendment. Therefore, a court judgement based on the old IPC should not be treated as a valid alibi.
Vinayak Damodar "Veer" Savarkar had been arrested and punished not because he had killed Curzon Wylie, but because he had incited and inspired the killer, Madan Lal Dhingra. British law did not suffer from the handicap that the IPC did, particularly because there is enough evidence.
In this regard, I find my own experience significant. I had become an RSS activist as a teenager way back in 1940-41 as a reaction to the Muslim League's Pakistan resolution. The Congress had no children's wing and for the nascent political consciousness of a teenager, the RSS provided the only expression.
The intellectual food that I had got till 1948 was such that I was averse to seeing Gandhi's face. I was then working in a Hindi daily, Milap, and was assigned the duty to report Gandhi's speeches at the prayer meetings. Instead of going to Birla House, I would report his speech with the aid of the radio broadcast. The only day I decided to go to a prayer meeting was the day Madan Lal Pahwa hurled a bomb, which missed its target. I had gone because the RSS crowd was circulating the news that something of high importance was expected to occur.
A similar motivation impelled me to proceed in that direction on January 30, but before I could enter Birla House, I found people running and screaming that Gandhi had been killed. I ran back and entered the bungalow of Dr N B Khare, the prime minister of Alwar state who was then a member of the Constituent Assembly: I was aware of his sympathies for the RSS.
My experience is corroborated by the experience of another disillusioned swayamsewak who had written a letter to Sardar Patel after the assassination and which has been referred to by Gandhiji's private secretary Pyarelal in his book, Mahatma Gandhi: The Last Phase, and quoted by Justice J L Kapoor, who reviewed the case in 1966. In that letter, the swayamsewak had asked "members of the RSS at some places to tune in the radio sets on the fateful Friday for the 'good news'."
Pyarelal has also mentioned an aborted attempt at assassination by these people in Poona in order to punish Gandhi for his campaign against untouchability. He said, "Their plans this time were far more systematic and thorough and included such refinements as conditioning the mind of youth for their prospective task by making them wear, as part of their training, photos of Congress leaders like Pandit Nehru and others, besides Gandhiji, inside their shoes, and using the same for target practice with fire-arms etc."
What kind of intellectual diet were the swayamsewaks fed? It is there in Bunch of Thoughts, a compilation of Golwalkar's ruminations, officially published in 1966. To give a comprehensive idea, one has to quote at length, especially to avoid being accused of the selectivity which the RSS itself indulges in. Accusing the Gandhi-Nehru leadership of "Muslim appeasement" in order to achieve Hindu-Muslim unity, he says, "The Hindu was asked to ignore, even submit meekly to the vandalism and atrocities of Muslims. In effect, he was told: Forget all that the Muslims have done in the past and all that they are now doing to you. If your worshipping in the temple, your taking out gods in procession in the streets irritates the Muslims don't do it. If they carry away your wives and daughters, let them. Do not obstruct them.
"Once a notable Hindu personality of those days, in a largely attended public meeting, declared: 'There is no swaraj without Hindu-Muslim unity�In other words, the Hindu was told that he was imbecile, that he had no spirit, no stamina to stand on his own legs and fight for the independence of his motherland and all this had to be injected into him in the form of Muslim blood. What a shame, what a misfortune that our own leaders should have come forward to knock out the indomitable faith in ourselves and destroy our spirit of self-confidence and self-reliance, which is the very life-breath of a people! Those who declared 'No swaraj without Hindu-Muslim unity' have thus perpetrated the greatest treason to our society. They have committed the most heinous crime of killing the life-spirit of a great nation."
It is not difficult to imagine the effect of such propaganda on listeners who treat Golwalkar's words as no less than divine. Although Gandhiji's name has been included in the pratah-smarn (morning prayer), the attitude, in practice, remains unaltered. An editorial in 1961 in the Organiser, the RSS mouthpiece, commented that Gandhi's assassination was the result of anger caused by his insistence on stopping anti-Muslim killings and paying RS 55 crore to Pakistan as that new nation's post-Partition due share of the treasury. More recently, former RSS chief Rajendra Singh said that Godse's opposition to Gandhi was not wrong, only that his method was not right. The entire Sangh Parivar is still adamant on its refusal to accept Gandhi as the "Father of the Nation."
In 1948, they physically killed Gandhi. Since then, they have been systematically trying to kill his moral-political legacy, recent evidence of which was shamelessly brandished in Gandhi's home state of Gujarat under the dispensation of the brutal Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who is being treated as a sacred cow by the RSS establishment. But metahistory will eventually prove the RSS in the wrong and complicit in one of the most heinous assassinations in human history.
Courtesy: Hardnews Syndication Service
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[5]
[October 16, 2004]
PRESS RELEASE CAMPAIGN AGAINST CENSORSHIP / FILMS FOR FREEDOM [India]
The last few days have seen much heat generated by the removal of Anupam Kher as Chairman of the CBFC.
The Campaign Against Censorship/Films for Freedom would like to draw attention to the fact that the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) in the last few years had become a political tool in the hands of the BJP and its allies to stifle dissent and prevent the right of film makers to reach out to the public with stories of critical importance.
The real issue before us is the urgent need to review the Censorship laws under the Cinematograph Act as well as the functioning of the CBFC to prevent political parties and their appointees from harassing and attacking film makers who could be politically opposed to their ideology.
Mr. Anupam Kher led one of the most repressive censorship regimes of recent times . Under the short one year tenure of Anupam Kher as Chairman, the CBFC already mired in controversy, has gone through one of its darkest periods. The targeting of films that dealt with the Gujarat massacres of 2002, which the previous government had in particular a vested interest in stopping, exposed the partisan, authoritarian, and irresponsible use of the powers given to the CBFC. Mr. Kher and other officials of CBFC were directly responsible for the harassment faced by Rakesh Sharma (dir. of Final Solution). Final Solution went through a bizarre process of preview by CBFC. To begin with it was not even being accepted for preview on various pretexts; then it was denied a certificate for public exhibition with Mr. Kher making statements to the media defending the denial of certification and asserting that the film could not be publicly exhibited. The film was finally reviewed under immense public pressure and a certificate with no cuts was granted and now Mr. Kher claims it was his intervention that got the film a certificate! There are many other films that are still stuck with the CBFC.
The process began when the Regional Panels of the CBFC were stacked with political appointees with direct political links to the party in power (and mostly with no connection/interest in cinema). There was harassment of filmmakers at the censor board, and eventually the unprecedented step of the CBFC taking an aggressive and proactive stand in stopping screenings of "uncensored" films, often in collusion with right-wing political fronts. All of this happened with the knowledge of Shri Kher, if not at his behest. Mr. Kher was personally involved in attempting to disrupt the Films For Freedom festival in Bangalore earlier this year. He was aided in this attempt by members of the Hindu Jagran Manch who also claimed to be members of the regional board of the CBFC.
We also condemn the political censorship being imposed by Prasar Bharati on film-maker Prakash Jhas' recent film on Jayaprakash Narain (especially regarding those sections in the film that have critical references to the Emergency that was imposed by the Congress government). This clearly reiterates our belief that important public institutions like the CBFC and Prasar Bharati have been stripped of their independence and continue to be used by political parties to simply further their narrow agendas.
To ensure freedom of expression and to strengthen democratic institutions there is therefore an urgent need to totally review the censorship laws under the Cinematograph Act as well as the functioning of the CBFC.
The Campaign against Censorship calls on all film makers, journalists, members of the media, democratic institutions and human rights organisations to join us in our demand to review and change the Cinematograph Act and all censorship laws and to create a certification mechanism that is based on the principles of freedom of expression and justice, and which prevents political, moral and cultural policing of the media by all governments and political parties.
For further information (in Delhi) contact: Amar Kanwar: 98102 16088 / 26516088; Rahul Roy: 98103 95589 / 26515161; Saba Dewan: 26515161/9810395589; Shohini Ghosh: 98180 88378 / 22720703; Sanjay Kak: 98112 29952 / 26893893; Ranjani Mazumdar: 98180 89519 / 22723764
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[See also a related news report ]
http://news.newkerala.com/
Documentary producers' associations welcome sacking of Anupam Kher:
[India News]: Mumbai, Oct 16 : The controversy over removal of Anupam Kher as chairman of Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) took a new turn today, with two documentary producers' bodies welcoming the move and one of them admitting it had lodged its protest against the actor with the centre.
Ironically, the discontent over Anupam was voiced at a meeting organised by the film fraternity to garner support against the sacking of Kher, who they claim was victimised, citing irrelevant political connections.
Indian Documentary Producers' Association and Vikalp, representative bodies of short film-makers in the country, said they welcomed the move as the actor has misused the powers of the Censor Board and "harassed the film fratenity".
"Removal of CBFC chairman Anupam Kher and Censor Board Organisation's regional officer in Mumbai, is necessary but not sufficient step," documentary film-maker and Vikalp member Anand Patwardhan told reporters here.
Vikalp, along with Campaign Against Censorship/Films for Freedom (CAC/FFF), "welcomes the removal of non-liberal, pro- active Censor Board officials as a step towards redressing the regressive role played by CBFC in stifling all political dissent", Patwardhan read out from a statement.
The statement was signed by members of the Vikalp and CAC/FFF, including Rakesh Sharma, Sanjiv Shah and Anjali Monteiro among others.
Sharma's film `Final Solution', a documentary on Godhra carnage was alleged to have been delayed by Kher by not providing a certificate and also by not permitting to show the film in the country.
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[6]
SACW | Oct. 17, 2004
INDIA: CONFESSIONS WERE FORCED IN DEC. 13 CASE by Nirmalangshu Mukherji *
In his submission before the Supreme Court in the Parliament attack case, the senior counsel Mr. Shanti Bhusan argued on Thursday that the confessions made by the accused Mohammad Afzal and Shaukat Hussain Guru were extracted from them by the Special Cell of the Delhi police under torture. Afzal and Shaukat were given death sentences by the High Court in its judgment of 29 October, 2003. Their confessions formed a crucial evidence against them. In fact, Afzal's confessional statement is the only evidence for the identity of the terrorists who died in the attack, the names of organizations they belonged to, the hatching of the conspiracy from Pakistan, and the details of arms and ammunition brought from Kashmir.
The appeal against the High Court judgment by the defence is currently being heard by Justice Reddy and Justice Naolekar at the Supreme Court. On the fifth day of his submissions in defence of Shaukat Hussain Guru, Mr. Shanti Bhusan focused mostly on the validity of the confessions. He pointed out that the disclosure statement of the accused recorded by the police on 16 December 2001 soon after their arrest already contained all the details of the official confession made later under POTA on 21 December 2001. If the disclosure statements were voluntarily made, they clearly showed that the accused were eager to confess to their alleged crime. Hence the accused could have been produced before a judicial magistrate on the 17th itself for a recording of the confession under the Criminal Procedure Code. Instead of taking this course, the police waited till the 19th when the POTA clauses were officially introduced in the case, and the confessions were recorded befor a police officer on 21 December. This suggests that the police wanted to use the convenience of POTA, and avoid the safegurds against forced confessions provided in the Code. So the possibility that both the disclosure statements and the confessions were extracted under torture can not be ruled out.
Mr. Shanti Bhusan also pointed out that the Deputy Commissioner of Police, who was empowered to record the confessions, gave a written order to his subordinate Assistant Commisioner of Police to produce the accused before the DCP at 11.30 A.M. on 21 December 2001. As such, Mohammad Afzal, Shaukat Guru and SAR Geelani were produced at the appointed time. However, Geelani refused to make a confessional statement, and his statement to this effect was recorded by 11.55 A.M. Then, instead of producing the next accused before the DCP for the confessions, they were taken away and brought back over three hours later when the recording of Shaukat's confession started at 3.30 P.M.; recording of Afzal's confession started at 7.30 P.M. The only explanation, according to Shanti Bhusan, is that, after Geelani refused to confess, the other two accused were subjected to further torture so that they fell in line before the recordings were resumed.
In view of these and other infirmities in the said confessions, and the long series of legal pronouncements that discouraged the use of confessions before the police, the bench asked if there was an explanation as to why such a confession was allowed under POTA. Interestingly, the bench itself reflected that this method could be needed only in those exceptional circumstances, such as operations in remote areas, in which a judicial magistrate may not be easily available. The case under discussion, in contrast, was handled in New Delhi.
Earlier, Mr. Shanti Bhusan had already pointed out that many individual statements in these confessions were in contradiction with other evidence produced by the prosecution. Mr. Shanti Bhusan's submission will resume on 26 October after the autumn recess.
(* Department of Philosophy, Delhi University)
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[7]
Malcolm X Library proudly presents:
DESI: South Asians in New York Monday, October 18, 2004 6:00-8:00 pm
This documentary film is a groundbreaking tribute to the diversity and dynamism of South Asians living in New York City and the U.S. A Hindi word meaning "countryman" or "people of the soil," desi refers to a broad, multicultural spectrum of South Asians- Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, Nepalese and others-who have become an integral part of many regions in the United States including California. Illustrating the growing sense of shared identity here in America, Pakistani and Indian cab drivers are seen uniting in a New York taxi strike as nuclear tests explode on their native subcontinent, threatening the outbreak of war.
Directed by Allen Glazeb & Shebana Coelho, 58 minutes, 2000, USA
Dr. Huma Ahmed-Ghosh of the Women's Studies Dept at San Diego State University will facilitate a post screening discussion after the film.
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Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace and democratisation in South Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit citizens wire service run since 1998 by South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/
Sister initiatives : South Asia Counter Information Project : snipurl.com/sacip South Asians Against Nukes: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org Communalism Watch: communalism.blogspot.com/
DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
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