South Asia Citizens Wire | 10 November, 2004 via: www.sacw.net
[1] Pakistan: No more jirgas, please! (Edit, The Daily Times)
[2] Pakistan: Jirga injustice (Ardeshir Cowasjee)
[3] Act of Faith: A Film on Gays and Islam (Matthew Hays)
[4] India: Manju Institute of Values - Course on How to Be a Dutiful Housewife (John Lancaster)
[5] India: Improbability ratio This population projection defies common sense (Mukul Dube)
[6] India: Calls for Witness Protection Grow as Pogrom Survivor Turns Hostile (Ranjit Devraj)
[7] Publication Announcement:
Cultural Dynamics - Volume 16, Issue 2 & 3 "Gendered Violence In South Asia: Nation And Community In The Postcolonial Present"
[8] Events etc:
(i) Lecture by Harsh Mander - "Forgotten Lives: The Other Side Of India" (Los Angeles, 10 Nov 2004)
(ii) Human Rights Day (New Delhi, 11 Dec, 2004)
(iii) A report on a recent day long conference on Pakistan at Johns Hopkins University
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[1]
Daily Times November 8, 2004 | editorial
NO MORE JIRGAS, PLEASE!
The adviser to the prime minister on women's affairs, Ms Nilofer Bakhtiar, has stated in Islamabad that the government will not allow Sindh to legalise the jirga system there. She connected the Sindhi move to legislate in favour of local tribal councils to the federal legislation on honour killing, implying that jirgas routinely allowed punishments based on honour. In the Sindh countryside a number of tribes are fighting wars based on the edicts of their conflicting jirgas. The myth is that the jirga adjudicates on the basis of some kind of custom. But the truth is that the jirga favours whoever is in power and metes out kangaroo-court punishments to innocent individuals.
Who is trying to revive the jirga system and ignoring the fact that the police has been ousted from its jurisdiction in parts of Sindh because of the illegal jirga? Interestingly the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Sindh chief minister have together condoned honour-killings handed down by the jirga from their different points of view. But some points about the jirga will have to be pondered. The jirga in non-tribal societies such as Sindh and Punjab (where it is called panchayat) is simply a perverse tribalisation of the state. Instead of weaning the FATA areas from the most unjust system of their jirgas we are actually trying to drag the rest of the country into this quasi-judicial quagmire. A jirga is also a violation of the constitutional edict of separation of the judiciary from the executive. Instead of "deforming" Sindh into a jirga-based society we should try to "reform" the tribal areas in FATA by bringing them into the ambit of proper municipal law. *
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[2]
Dawn November 7, 2004
JIRGA INJUSTICE By Ardeshir Cowasjee
Nicholas Kristoff, one of the leading columnists for the New York Times, travelled in Pakistan earlier this year - as he put it, in an attempt to come to the aid of General Pervez Musharraf and locate Osama bin Laden. He failed in his mission, but along the way came across someone who to his mind was even more extraordinary.
In a column published in the NYT on September 29 ('Sentenced to be raped'), Kristoff has revived the horrendous tale of Mukhtaran Bibi of Meerwalla, a village in southern Punjab, a 12-hour drive from Islamabad.
Mukhtaran's story has been written about at length, both here and abroad, in 2002 after she was gang-raped in June of that year.
It all started with the sexual abuse of Mukhtaran's brother by several members of the local feudal landowning clique (with whom this country is riddled). They then attempted a cover-up and accused the unfortunate lower-strata boy of having an affair with one of their women. A jirga was summoned and in its collective antediluvian wicked wisdom it was decided that a just punishment would be the organized rape of one of the boy's sisters. Mukhtaran Bibi was the chosen 'object'.
To quote Kristoff : "As members of the high-status tribe danced in joy, four men stripped her naked and took turns raping her. They then forced her to walk home naked in front of 300 villagers."
Rather than taking the traditional way out and committing suicide (as did a girl in a neighbouring village who was gang-raped a week later), Mukhtaran reported her rape to the police. The human rightists activated themselves, as did the press, and the rapists were charged, tried and sentenced. General Musharraf, reacting to the outcry against this monstrous crime, ordered that she be paid some Rs.500,000 as compensation (a primitive compensation for the violation of one's body) and given police protection so that she would not be killed.
Mukhtaran, illiterate, downtrodden, but brave and obviously intelligent, realizing that education was the only way in which she could help her people emerge from their helpless plight, used the money to build two schools in her village, one for girls and one for boys. She herself is now studying in the fourth grade of the girls' school which is named after her. The government had also agreed to fund the running of the schools but, not surprisingly, it has reneged.
The response to Kristoff's column, as he writes later, 'has blown me away'! Over 90,000 dollars was sent to him in cheques made out to Mukhtaran, all drawn on US banks. Mukhtaran herself was also sent a substantial amount in cheques, some of which she has deposited, but most of which is being held so as to avoid our bank clearing charges of up to some Rs.3,000 per US dollar cheque. Kristoff is also having a problem with his collection trying to figure out how to get the money to Mukhtaran without incurring the substantial clearing fees.
With regard to the levying of bank clearing charges, I spoke to the head of a bank with which my family has banked for over a century. Without any hesitation he agreed to waive all his bank's charges and is getting in touch with Kristoff.
Kristoff has posted Mukhtaran Bibi's address for those who may wish to make further donations: Meerwalla, Tehsil Jatoi, PO Wadowallah, District Muzaffargarh. His feeling is that as Mukhtaran has already used her own funds to help her fellow villagers, the donations will be used in a wise and befitting manner.
Illustrative of the mentality and mindset of the great representatives of our people, voted in by the people to do good by the people, is an e-mail Kristoff received : "My name is Humaira A Shahid and I am a member of parliament. Your column on Mukhtaran Bibi was right on the money. Just want to add to your information. As a member of parliament, I presented a piece of legislation suggesting a ban [on] such tribal council decisions. I had suggested that any person or group of individuals taking such decisions should be punished with a jail sentence if found guilty. Sadly, though, my effort is lying - unanswered - with the federal government of Pakistan for at least a year and a half. And I am a member of parliament in the ruling coalition and not the opposition. That goes to show the level of interest in resolving human right issues by the powers that be in this country."
So much for the federal and punjab governments. Here in Sindh, despite recent high court orders banning the holding of jirgas, the people's government has drawn up an ordinance, giving the two fingered sign to the judiciary and to the laws of the land, which will validate jirgas and nullify the effect of the court. It is proposed that it has retroactive effect, as of April 25, 2004, the obvious reason being that by its judgment dated April 24, 2004, the court, in the case of Mst Shazia vs SHO & Others (SBLR 2004 Sindh, 918) held the jirga system to be illegal and unlawful relying on several judgments of the Supreme Court:
"1) This ordinance may be called the Sindh Amicable Settlement of Disputes Odinance, 2004. . . . 4) Where any matter is brought to the notice of naikmard or the naikmard is otherwise satisfied that a dispute exists which is likely to cause bloodshed, murder or breach of peace and the settlement thereof will tend to prevent or terminate the commission thereof, the naikmard shall use his good offices (a) to achieve the amicable settlement of disputes amongst the people of the area through mediation, conciliation, arbitration or faisla; (b) to prevent the breach of peace and public tranquillity in the local area; (c) to promote harmony; (d) to eradicate enmity; and thereby create brotherhood among the persons of different segments of .., society. 5) Notwithstanding anything contained in any law, no legal practitioner shall be permitted to appear on behalf of any party to a dispute before the naikmard. 6) No suit prosecution, other legal proceedings shall lie against the government, the naikmard or any person for anything which is in good faith done or intended to be done in pursuance of the provisions of this ordinance . . . . .".
And who shall be the naikmard? ". . . . a person or persons who command the respect and confidence of the people of the local area and is appointed as such by the parties with their consent to decide their dispute."
The chief minister of Sindh, worthy feudal Arbab Ghulam Rahim, asked his law minister, Chaudhry Iftikhar, to draft the ordinance. A nominee and supporter of Pir Pagaro, the minister did not hesitate. Should he not be sacked forthwith for contravening the law?
This iniquitous piece of potential legislation will permit our local feudal lords to continue their practice of holding sway over the lives and deaths of their subjects - the serfs who in their ignorance and illiteracy have voted them into the provincial assembly. How is it possible for the governor - a qualified doctor of medicine, educated, who has lived abroad for over a decade and should be vaguely in tune with the 21st century - to put his signature to such a document?
As has been the situation for the past five years, decisions, if they are to hold, have to be made by General Musharraf, the president. We are all helpless and it is now time for him to step in and ensure that the jirga system is firmly put behind us and that the dishonourable killings which are handed down are dealt with as premeditated murder, pure and simple.
An e-mail message just received from MNA Fauzia Wahab of the PPPP relates the story of a 50-year old woman, the mother of eight, who, fearing for her life, approached her local police station asking for protection. Naturally, the police turned their backs on her. She was later found dead, her body hacked into pieces. A case could be filed against the killers, but on the basis of Section 299 of the PPC, Dyat, the woman's killer, her brother-in-law will be pardoned by his brother, the widower, and that will be that. Her eight children will be the only ones to mourn her death.
Such foul happenings and deeds make a mockery of General Musharraf and his pleas for 'enlightened moderation'. And they are hardly an advertisement for Pakistan on the international front - what message do such news items send out to investors, or even those mad enough to contemplate visiting Pakistan as tourists? It is high time for the general to step in and settle this issue once and for all.
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[3]
New York Times November 2, 2004
ACT OF FAITH: A FILM ON GAYS AND ISLAM By Matthew Hays
Documentary filmmakers have long wrestled with the need to obscure the identities of gays and lesbians in their work, to avoid unpleasant consequences like job loss or a falling out with family. Parvez Sharma, a New York-based director, has been worried that much worse could await the Muslim homosexuals profiled in his upcoming "In the Name of Allah," if ever they were identified.
For some, imprisonment or torture is a possibility, Mr. Sharma said. Indeed, one of Mr. Sharma's associate producers, a gay Egyptian man, will not be listed in the credits at his own request because of the perceived risk.
And threats to the director have become routine. "About every two weeks I get an e-mail that berates me, condemns me to hell and, if they are nice, asks me to still seek forgiveness while there is still time," Mr. Sharma said, speaking here about his as yet unfinished film, which he is preparing to take on the festival circuit in faraway 2006.
That such pressure is building around a project still more than a year from completion is the best measure of a perhaps widening gulf that separates an increasingly open attitude toward gay and lesbian life in many Western countries from that of predominantly Muslim ones.
With backing primarily from European television broadcasters, including Channel 4 in Britain, Arte in France and ZDF in Germany, Mr. Sharma set out nearly two years ago to examine how homosexual Muslims around the world reconciled their faith with their sexual orientation.
In doing so, the director received advice and moral support from his producer, Sandi Simcha DuBowski, the filmmaker behind "Trembling Before G-d," a feature-length documentary that two years ago investigated the lives of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews who are also gay or lesbian.
"Parvez's film is extremely important," Mr. DuBowski said. "It challenges the idea that there are no Muslim gays or lesbians. It poses much the same question that 'Trembling Before G-d' did: why would gays want to be part of a tradition that rejects them?"
Mr. Sharma, who was born and brought up in India, said the inspiration for his film came from his own experiences as a gay Muslim. His curiosity about how Islam and homosexuality intersect grew when he attended American University in Washington, where he received a master's degree in film and video.
Listening to stories told by gay Muslims at the school, Mr. Sharma conceived the idea of a picture that would "give voice to a community that really needed to be heard and that until now hadn't been; it was about going where the silence was strongest."
Mr. Sharma has conducted interviews throughout North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, in countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Egypt. Many of the people he interviewed were found through the Internet.
"I received thousands of e-mails shortly after word got out about the film,'' Mr. Sharma said. "One 17-year-old Egyptian is remarkably brave, quite open about his sexual orientation despite that country's crackdown on homosexuals."
As with Christianity and Judaism, there is a broad range of expert opinion on the exact nature of Islam's official stance toward homosexuality. Some scholars interpret the Koran as suggesting that there is no condemnation of homosexuality, while others read Muslim scripture as indicating homosexual acts should be punished with death.
Given the hostility toward homosexuality in some Islamic factions, Mr. Sharma has gone to great lengths to reassure many of his interview subjects that they will remain anonymous. But this obscuring of identities has led to what the director regards as one of his key challenges: filming people in silhouette or with their faces covered tends to reinforce a sense of shame around homosexuality, precisely countering one of Mr. Sharma's main objectives.
"One young Afghan woman I've interviewed, if her family found out about her being lesbian they would undoubtedly kill her,'' Mr. Sharma said. "So it's unavoidable. In certain circumstances, I'm going to have to conceal faces. But I'd rather not."
Still, nothing in that difficult process - including the threats to himself - has destroyed Mr. Sharma's faith in the ability of Islam to tolerate diversity.
"You have to understand," Mr. Sharma said, "that Islam is a religion of more than a billion people, one more than 13 centuries old, that has been hijacked by an extremely small and sometimes loud minority."
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[4]
Washington Post Monday, November 8, 2004; Page A16
Women on the Rise in India Feel the Riptide of Tradition COURSE ON HOW TO BE A DUTIFUL HOUSEWIFE HAS STRONG RESONANCE
By John Lancaster Washington Post Foreign Service
BHOPAL, India -- By some measures, Meena Mangtani was a model of emancipated Indian womanhood, with a college degree in business, a working knowledge of computers and English and a desire to land a job in a bank. She even harbored the notion, as she put it recently, "that men and women are equal, that we can do anything."
But Mangtani, 23, said she had come to see the error of her ways.
Aildas Hemnani, who leads a course that emphasizes women should be subservient, instructs students in Bhopal. (John Lancaster -- The Washington Post)
In preparation for her imminent marriage, the slender, dark-eyed grocer's daughter is nearing completion of a popular three-month course on how to be the ideal Indian wife. Among other things, the course emphasizes the importance of household chores, suggests keeping sex to a minimum and advises that the key to blissful relations with a new husband is to "think of him as your god." It also recommends extreme deference to mothers-in-law, who typically live under the same roof as the new brides.
At a time when Indian women are struggling to shuck off centuries of oppression and are entering the workplace in record numbers, the teachings of the Manju Institute of Values serve as a reminder of the enduring power of tradition in Indian marriage -- and, some say, its continuing role in holding women back.
"Even if they say something mean to us, our first instinct should not be to retort back, but to stay silent," said Mangtani, who now maintains that her new husband and his parents will decide whether she pursues a career. "The 'I' in me was very strong. Now I have learned that we are newcomers in that family and we have to adjust. We have to reduce the ego."
Such lessons might seem redundant in this nation of more than 1 billion people, where traditional views of marriage are deeply entrenched. In most cases, for example, parents still arrange their children's marriages and -- if they are parents of the groom -- expect substantial dowries, even though the practice supposedly has been outlawed since the 1980s.
Even Indian marriage, however, is not immune to the pressures of globalization and rapid urban growth. The newsmagazine India Today recently published a story on marriage that cited the role of Internet matchmaking services in empowering young Indians to play a more active role in choosing their mates. Although India still has one of the world's lowest rates of divorce -- largely because of the stigma it confers on women -- the percentage of marriages that end that way has risen steadily over the last decade, especially in urban areas, according to Ranjana Kumari, director of the Center for Social Research in New Delhi.
To social conservatives, such trends represent a dire threat to India's family-oriented culture and values -- a threat that the Manju Institute, among others, aims to combat by reminding women of their customary domestic role.
"Women make house," Aildas Hemnani, a retired civil servant who founded the institute in 1987, told his students the other morning as they sat cross-legged on the floor of the Hindu prayer hall that serves as his classroom. "Men make society. But where does the society come from? Because a woman, when she is making the home, she brings up model citizens."
Such attitudes infuriate development experts in India, for whom there is no bigger or more urgent challenge than lifting the status of women, who continue to lag behind men on key social indicators such as literacy and access to education. Every year, more than 6,000 Indian women are murdered by their husbands and in-laws -- sometimes doused with kerosene and burned to death in purported kitchen accidents -- for failing to yield to demands for bigger dowries, according to national crime statistics.
By encouraging women to remain subservient to their husbands and in-laws, the Manju Institute and others like it are "reinforcing patriarchal norms and values," said Kumari of the New Delhi research group. "When there is some empowerment happening, I think this is absolutely pulling them back."
A dulcet-voiced guru with swept-back white hair, Hemnani, 62, denied any desire to thwart women's progress. "We don't want her to always bow down -- that would be wrong," he said, noting that the course textbook, which he wrote, advises women to seek police protection from abusive husbands and in-laws and reminds husbands to treat their wives with tenderness and respect.
But he cautioned that women should not regard themselves as equal partners with their husbands. "The moment you say partner, that's where the clashes come," he said, adding in reference to the husband, "He's not God, but he's like God."
Hemnani's training center occupies a three-story concrete building next to a private school in a quiet neighborhood of Bhopal, a pleasant central Indian city known for its man-made lakes and also as the site of the world's worst industrial accident, the 1984 gas leak from a Union Carbide plant that killed at least 2,000 people within hours and injured tens of thousands more.
Funded by a wealthy Bombay family and a distant guru who serves as Hemnani's mentor, the institute charges no tuition for its marriage classes, which meet six mornings a week, although Hemnani is happy to accept donations from students and other followers. About 3,000 young women have taken the course; he said he offers a compressed version in other cities several times a year.
At one recent session, Hemnani began with lessons in Sikhism -- an offshoot of the Hindu faith from which his teachings borrow heavily -- and natural healing, including advice on good sleeping habits. Then he directed Mangtani, the business graduate, to read from his textbook on surviving the rigors of the Indian joint family. (Though patterns are changing, a new bride is normally expected to join her husband -- especially if he is the eldest son -- in the home of his parents, who are supposed to adopt her as their own.)
"After marriage, the bride should not think she's going to the in-laws' family to throw her weight around," Mangtani read. "Instead, she's going there to serve the family and perform her duties, in order to turn that home into a heaven."
Hemnani's textbook is filled with such advice. "The bride should do everything according to the wishes and orders of the mother-in-law and father-in-law," it says. "The mother-in-law and father-in-law are never wrong."
It also offers plenty of tips for getting along with a new husband. "For a woman, her husband is everything," the textbook says. "The wife should sleep after her husband and wake up before him. . . . When he returns home, welcome him with a smile, help him in taking off his shoes and socks, and ask him to sit down. Bring him water and biscuits, and with a smile, ask him about his day. A husband's happiness alone is your life's goal. . . . Do not go without your husband's permission anywhere."
In addition, the textbook includes a section on how a husband should treat his wife. Among other advice, it suggests: "If there is anything missing or inadequate in her cooking, do not get angry, but explain to her with love"; "never raise your hand to hit your wife"; and "sometimes praise her good qualities."
As for sex, the less the better: "You can be celibate even when you're married," Hemnani advises, citing a Hindu saint's recommendation that couples have sex only once in their marriage. "If they are not happy with that, then once a year," he writes, warning that more frequent sex "reduces your lifespan."
Mangtani said she saw nothing wrong with Hemnani's recipe for harmonious marriage. "These are our duties -- not to go on insisting on our rights, but do our duties," she said. "If we perform our duties well first, our rights will come."
Notwithstanding her college education and career aspirations, Mangtani became engaged to her fiance -- whose family owns a license-plate factory in a town about five hours from Bhopal by train -- as part of a deal brokered by the two families.
After the families agreed on a dowry of 300,000 rupees -- about $6,400 -- the young man and his grandfather traveled to Bhopal, where Mangtani met her fiance for the first time. "He was happy to hear that I prefer a joint family," she recalled.
Her parents hosted an engagement party the next day.
Mangtani has seen her husband-to-be only twice since that day seven months ago, once to go to a movie and another time to take a boat ride on a lake. But she does not seem worried about getting married to a virtual stranger, in part, she said, because of the lessons she has learned at the Manju Institute.
"The whole idea is to surrender yourself to your husband and new family," she said. "If they let me have a career I will have a career, and if they don't that's okay. My prime goal is to serve."
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[5]
Indian Express November 09, 2004
IMPROBABILITY RATIO THIS POPULATION PROJECTION DEFIES COMMON SENSE by Mukul Dube
Ashok Singhal of the VHP is reported to have said that owing to the "rapid growth" of the Muslim population, Hindus will be reduced to a minority by 2060. I have made some simple calculations based on the figures contained in the 2001 census. Being mathematically challenged, I request Ashok Singhal to kindly check them.
If India's Hindu population is to grow constantly until 2060 at its decadal growth rate of 1991-2001, it will become 182 crore. If Muslims have by then reduced Hindus to a minority, they will outnumber Hindus by at least one individual. The Hindu population will have become over twice as large as it is, while the Muslim population will have become over 13 times as large. I assume here that the numerically insignificant religious communities will have grown, like the Hindus, at their 1991-2001 rates.
The 2001 census recorded 138,188,240 individual Muslims in India. In order to grow to 182 crore in 60 years so as to meet Ashok Singhal's target, they will need to maintain a growth rate of 203 per cent. Every Muslim in India, including infants, must produce roughly one fifth of a child every year, for 60 years without a break.
What are the numerical implications for this of the fact that human reproduction typically involves two co-operating persons? Should I have said two fifths of a child per person per year? Or one tenth, perhaps? Nor can I see how the absence of physiological capacities so far considered essential might be overcome. But I am content to accept Ashok Singhal's prediction, for it must have been based on a profound knowledge of Vedic arithmetic and Vedic biology. However, breeding on the prodigious scale that is predicted for India's Muslims has not been seen anywhere in the world at any time.
Going by the calculations above, India's population in 2060 will have become 3.7 times what it is today; but they assume a mere 20 per cent decadal growth rate for Hindus. If Hindus, who were 81.4 per cent of the population in 2001, are to heed the VHP's call to adopt the 8 sons norm, and if they can refrain from bumping off the probably equal number of daughters who will be born to them, their population - and that of India - will grow by 2060 to a size with which my computer cannot cope. All I can say is that we must look forward to turning into aquatic creatures. In anticipation I have begun to sprout gills.
Finally, the all-important matter of divinity. Those who are capable of procreation of this order cannot but be super-human. They must be inducted with honour into the Hindu pantheon.
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[6]
Inter Press Service INDIA:
Calls for Witness Protection Grow as Pogrom Survivor Turns Hostile Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Nov. 9 (IPS) - Human rights activists are calling for a better witness protection programme after a key survivor of the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in western Gujarat turned hostile and accused a leading voluntary agency of trying to coerce her into making statements.
Zahira Sheikh -- who saved herself from mobs that set ablaze the bakery her family owned in Ahmedabad city and murdered her sister, uncle, three cousins and seven other Muslims -- is the best-known face of what is undoubtedly India's worst communal riot since the country was partitioned in 1947 into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu-majority India.
At least 2,000 people were killed and tens of thousands driven from their homes and businesses in the ensuing violence. Human rights organisations and the statutory National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) have accused the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, which rules the state, of turning a blind eye to the killings.
On Nov. 3, Sheikh, a key witness for the prosecution against 21 people accused of attacking the bakery, suddenly turned against the well-respected, Mumbai-based Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) and accused it of compelling her to testify at ''knife-point.''
But human rights activists find it hard to fathom her sudden changes of stance - which often vacillated between the prosecution and defence.
In May 2003, based on her statements, a fast-track court in Gujarat dealing with the pogrom had acquitted all the accused but a month later Sheikh turned up in Mumbai city and told press reporters that she had testified under constant threats from pro-Hindu organisations affiliated to the BJP.
Based on appeals made on her behalf by the CJP, the Supreme Court ordered the transfer of the 'Best Bakery Case' out of Gujarat to courts in neighbouring Maharashtra state -- a stronghold of the Congress party that swears by secularism and, since May, leads India's government.
Speaking to IPS, Shabnam Hashmi, leading rights campaigner and leader of the pro- secular, voluntary group 'Anhad' said Sheikh's latest volte-face was the result of ''poor witness protection in the legal system of the country.''
''It is time to seriously consider federal protection to investigate mass crimes where investigation by local police may be wanting,'' said Prashan Bhushan, a Supreme Court advocate and well-known rights activist.
Already India's Law Commission, charged with formulating reform measures, has called for the enactment of comprehensive legislation for witness protection and the introduction of special procedures to ensure anonymity for witnesses as well as rights for the accused.
The Law Commission, which is yet to come up with a draft bill for the consideration of Parliament, has also called for physical protection of witnesses as well.
Meanwhile, Sheikh cannot complain of lack of protection. The same Gujarat police who failed to act during the pogrom escorted her to the press briefing where she denounced the CJP and its leader, the feisty Teesta Setalvad, before secreting her away to an undisclosed place.
On Sunday, according to news reports, Sheikh's Muslim neighbours in Baroda's Ekta Nagar burned her effigy and described her as a traitor and a blot on the entire community especially since her stand could damage more than 15 other cases relating to the Gujarat riots filed by the CJP.
Those cases include that of Bilkis Banoo and Rehanabibi, key witnesses in another case where 27 people were burnt alive near the town of Anand by mobs seeking revenge for the torching of a train carrying Hindu pilgrims at Godhra station on Feb 27, 2002 resulting in 59 deaths.
On Saturday Setalvad petitioned the Supreme Court to demand a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the circumstances that led to Sheikh's Nov. 3 statements to reporters - while under escort by the Gujarat police.
What irked Setalvad most was Sheikh's statement that she preferred the Best Bakery trial to be conducted in Gujarat rather than in Mumbai as ordered by the Supreme Court. In August, the Supreme Court ticked off the Gujarat government prosecutor for opposing warrants against the accused to appear in court for cross-examination.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has reacted to the dramatic volte-face by Sheikh by taking a swipe against human rights organisations. A day after Sheikh made her statements Modi said publicly that it was to ''re-examine the role of voluntary agencies in society.''
But rights activists believe that Modi's government may have encouraged Sheikh to denounce the CJP with blandishments and threats. ''The police must have been harassing and torturing her relatives,'' said Bhushan.
On Monday the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), another statutory body, said it has received a complaint from Sheikh saying that she was being harassed by Setalvad and the CJP an was seeking its help in protecting her as a member of a minority community.
''We have received a complaint from Zahira Sheikh in which she has written about her helplessness and we have taken cognizance of it,'' said Tarlochan Singh, Chairman of the NCM.
The bizarre turn of events has elicited comments from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who told Indian reporters accompanying him to The Hague for the 5th India-European Union Summit, on Monday, that it was a matter ''people should ponder and reflect.''
''We need to examine the system of criminal investigation in the country as well as the prosecution system,'' Singh was quoted as saying.
When Singh, a former World Bank economist, took over as prime minister in May he made a solemn pledge that under his rule communal violence like the kind that occurred in Gujarat would not occur, again, in the country.
Political analysts believe that the BJP lost the elections because of its failure to take timely measures to control the riots in Gujarat and bring the culprits to justice, including Modi. (END/2004)
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[7]
Announcement:
GENDERED VIOLENCE IN SOUTH ASIA: NATION AND COMMUNITY IN THE POSTCOLONIAL PRESENT
Cultural Dynamics, Sage Journal. Volume 16, Issue 2 & 3
Guest Editors: Angana P. Chatterji and Lubna Nazir Chaudhry
(http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalIssue.aspx?pid=105512&jiid=506463)
"This volume addresses how borders violently mark women's bodies in wars of direct and indirect conquest, and how women's agency is constituted in these times. How is gendered violence inscribed through the spectacular and in everyday life? What is the role of war or armed conflict in transforming women's spheres of agency? As we write about this issue, we are struck by the historical paradox that we women in/from South Asia inhabit. Anti-colonial struggles that achieved independence and formed postcolonial nation-states have consolidated themselves through prodigious violence that defined and divided communities, memories and futures. Promises betrayed reverberate across the very borders such violation enshrines. This violence was inscribed upon women's bodies in very specific ways, as they became, to borrow from Gayle Rubin, the "vile and precious merchandise" that was literally and figuratively exchanged as boundaries were imposed and enforced. Following 911, the war in Afghanistan, and subsequently the invasion of Iraq by Empire, signified the rapidity with which violent events are encompassing women globally. As feminist scholar-activists, we have elaborated on the role of gendered and sexualized violence within South Asia in this collection, entering into disputed representations of gendered violence with small hope that knowledge itself, always partial and shifting, might act as an intervention to suffering."
ARTICLES:
ENGENDERING VIOLENCE: Boundaries, Histories and the Everyday by Sukanya Banerjee, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Angana P. Chatterji, California Institute of Integral Studies Lubna Nazir Chaudhry, State University of New York at Binghamton Manali Desai, University of California at Riverside and University of Reading Saadia Toor, Cornell University Kamala Visweswaran, University of Texas at Austin
BETWEEN REALITY AND REPRESENTATION: Women's Agency in War and Post-Conflict Sri Lanka
by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake , Social Scientists' Association, Sri Lanka
INTELLIGIBLE VIOLENCE: Media Scripts, Hindu/Muslim Women, and the Battle for Citizenship in Kerala
by Usha Zacharias, Westfield State College, United States
WOMEN NEGOTIATING CHANGE: The Structure and Transformation of Gendered Violence in Bangladesh
by Meghna Guhathakurta, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
ADVERSARIAL DISCOURSES, ANALOGOUS OBJECTIVES: Afghan Women's Control Saba Gul Khattak, Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Pakistan
MAOIST INSURGENCY IN NEPAL: Radicalizing Gendered Narratives by Rita Manchanda, South Asia Forum for Human Rights, Nepal
RECONSTITUTING SELVES IN THE KARACHI CONFLICT: Mohajir Women Survivors and Structural Violence
by Lubna Nazir Chaudhry, State University of New York at Binghamton, United States
DEMOCRATIZING BANGLADESH: State, NGOs and Militant Islam by Lamia Karim, University of Oregon at Eugene, United States
THE BIOPOLITICS OF HINDU NATIONALISM: Mournings Angana P. Chatterji, California Institute of Integral Studies, United States
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[8] [Events etc.]
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Lecture - FORGOTTEN LIVES: THE OTHER SIDE OF INDIA
The Colloquium on South Asian History and Cultural Studies invites you to a talk and discussion with HARSH MANDER (formerly of the Indian Administrative Service)
Harsh Mander received the National Human Rights Award in 2002, becoming known as the 'conscience of India' for forcefully drawing attention to the atrocities committed in Gujarat. He is one of India's most well- known social and political activists and the author of "Unheard Voices:
Stories of Forgotten Lives" (Penguin, 2002). He will be speaking on struggles for equality and justice in India among the working class, slum dwellers, tribals, and others who live on the margins.
Colloquium Convenor: Vinay Lal, Department of History
Date: Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Time: 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
UCLA History Conference Room Bunche 6275 Los Angeles, CA 90095
o o o
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Date: Tue, 9 Nov 2004 10:17:03 +0000 (GMT) From: Anhad Delhi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> SUBJECT: HUMAN RIGHTS DAY To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dear Friends,
The struggle for equality and non-discrimination is a continuous struggle waged by thousands of human right activists across the world.
To celebrate the efforts of thousands of these activists from across the world, we propose to organise an evening of music, dance, theatre and poetry on the occasion of the International Human Rights Day on Saturday, December 11, 2004 in New Delhi.
The event would be organised at the Hamsdhwani Open Air Theatre, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. The evening concert would be of approximately four- hour duration.
Jagori, Sangat, Prashant, Anhad and Insaf are collaborating to organise the event on December 11, 2004. A large number of organisations are supporting the event. The event would be attended by thousands of people.
ANHAD Publication: Anhad is planning to bring out a special publication on this occasion. It would be released on December 11, 2004 during the event.
This publication would have articles and papers by prominent human right activists. It would also contain sketches, paintings, cartoons, poetry related to the human rights issue.
Supporting the event and publication: We are proposing to NGOs, human rights organisations, individuals to sponsor one or more pages in the proposed publication and thus support the event.
The support contribution is Rs.10000. You can either sponsor a page which will have a painting, sketch, a poem or a cartoon or you can sponsor a page which will have information about your organisation. The information will have to be in written form, it cannot be an advertisement.
The organisations/ individuals sponsoring one or more pages in the publication would be entitled to:
Their logo, name and address at the bottom of the page/ pages.
1. 5 copies of the publication
2. Display space at the venue for their material if they desire
3. Their names would appear at the backdrop of the event as event supporters
Anhad would have the right to accept/ reject a sponsorship. Any organisation known for any violation of human rights in the past and an organisation having links with any communal outfit will not be entertained.
With regards
Shabnam Hashmi
PS: We accept only Indian money.
SPONSORSHIP FORM
Name of the organisation: __________________
No.of pages: ____________________________
Would you sponsor: a poem/ a painting/ a sketch/ a cartoon If yes, please tick or highlight
Do you want the information about your NGO to go on the page/pages? :
If yes, have you enclosed the information: Yes/ No
If no, then name of the person with whom to follow up: Draft/ cheque No. ______/ Bank�s name__________.. Branch_________./ Amount______________.
All cheques/ drafts to be sent in favour of ANHAD, address: 4, Windsor Place, New Delhi-110001. Tel- 23327366/ 67 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Technical Details about the Publication
Size: 8x11 inches
Pages: 120-150
Pages available for sponsorship: 50
Sponsorship of a single page: 10,000 (Indian rupees)
Last date for accepting sponsorship: November 25, 2004
BOOK PAGES IN ADVANCE. PLEASE WRITE 'Human Rights' Day Publication� on the envelop.
For any queries contact: Mansi Sharma, 23327366/ 67
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Conference on Pakistan highlights both faults and gains By Khalid Hasan (Daily Times, Nov 10, 2004) http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_10-11-2004_pg7_34
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Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace and democratisation in South Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit citizens wire service run since 1998 by South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
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DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
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