South Asia Citizens Wire | 22 November - 17 Dec., 2004 via: www.sacw.net
[1] Sri Lanka: Need of the Hour for Peace in Sri Lanka: A Human Rights Accord, Not ISGA (Sri Lanka Democracy Forum)
[2] India: Press Release (Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace)
[3] Nepal: Not A Hindu Nation (Kanak Mani Dixit)
[4] India: Babri Mosque - The Liberhans report is nearly ready (Chander Suta Dogra)
[5] India: An appeal from Karnataka Forum for Communal Harmony
[6] India: Orissa - Where Life Is Cheaper Than Aluminium (Angana Chatterji)
[7] Pakistan, India spend too much on defence: Doctors say
[8] Publications announcements:
- Zubaan announces 'Dawn: A Novel by Arupa Kalita Patangia'
- Three Essays announces 'The Other Indians: Essays on Pastoralists and Prehistoric Tribal People
by Shereen Ratnagar'
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[1]
10 December 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Need of the Hour for Peace in Sri Lanka: A Human Rights Accord, Not ISGA
The Sri Lanka Democracy Forum (SLDF) is gravely concerned about the increasing number of violent incidents in Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka and urges all parties to show restraint and respect the terms of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA). Many of these incidents are occurring in government-controlled areas in the North and East where the LTTE has been permitted to carry out their �political work� under the CFA. Whatever the deficiencies of the CFA, one positive aspect of it is that it has provided a period of respite from the horrors of war to not only the people of the war-torn North and East, but also to the people in the rest of the country. However, we believe that many of the recent incidents reflect a deliberate effort on the part of the LTTE to provoke the Sri Lankan security forces into a retaliatory violent response. We call upon the LTTE to stop this practice and call upon the security forces to show maximum restraint. The international community and especially Norway, given its role in facilitating the terms of the CFA and monitoring compliance, has a special responsibility to demand an end to the violence.
For any peace process to be credible, it should be more inclusive of all sections of the population in order to be able to address their concerns, interests and aspirations. Indeed there is popular support for such a peace process. It is right that the Ceasefire should have been between the two warring parties � the government forces and the LTTE. But it should be realized that the causes that led to the war and the consequences of it affected and concerned all the people, and therefore any peace process to have credibility and be capable of producing a lasting political solution must of necessity include and involve the widest possible representation of all sections of the country. SLDF therefore, repudiates and calls upon the LTTE to abandon its reprehensible stand of obstructing the presence and participation of representatives of the Muslim community in the peace talks.
The LTTE is engaged in these recent violent incidents for at least three reasons: firstly to discourage popular support for a more inclusive peace process that addresses the rights of all ethnic groups. Secondly, to silence growing criticism of the LTTE�s demand for an Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA) totally under its control. Thirdly, to bring pressure upon the Government to recommence peace talks only on the basis of the LTTE�s ISGA proposal.
The North and East of Sri Lanka, witness to politically motivated killings and abductions since the cease-fire began, now leading to a daily count, has been further paralyzed by a series of LTTE-instigated hartals. These general shutdowns, which close schools, government offices, and business establishments and which impose an informal curfew on the civilian population, have been organized by LTTE front organizations in Trincomalee, Vavuniya, and Mannar in the run up to the LTTE�s Heroes� week and thereafter. LTTE supporters have blocked roads, burned tires, threatened travelers and taunted and grievously attacked security personnel with at least one fatality. Billed as spontaneous protests against alleged violence by the security forces, these hartals are in fact engineered attempts to provoke the security forces and hasten the North and East�s degeneration into a state of anarchy and war. Every ceasefire violation is dangerous, as incidents can easily spiral out of control. A rash of recent grenade attacks including on the Batticaloa office of the Tamil newspaper Thinakkural, on an office of PLOTE in Jaffna, and on a privately owned television station, also in Jaffna, speak to the rising lawlessness on all sides. But we note with special concern that historically the LTTE has used attacks on the military, police and Sinhalese civilians to usher in major outbreaks of hostilities. SLDF calls upon the LTTE to desist from engaging in incidents that will plunge the country into another terrible war, the primary victims of which will be the people of the North and East. The Government of Sri Lanka must also ensure that the security forces show restraint in their response to such provocations and not retaliate against the innocent civilian population.
Any commitment to the welfare of Tamil civilians living in the North and East, who have disproportionately suffered from the last two decades of civil war, precludes the option of war. As such, it is imperative that the CFA be rigidly enforced and adhered to and that peace talks resume on an equitable basis.
The possibility of war was given explicit articulation in Pirapaharan�s Heroes Day speech on November 27th. In his worldwide broadcast, the LTTE leader declared that the ISGA would be the only acceptable basis for peace negotiations, threatening that "if the government rejects our urgent appeal, and adopts delaying tactics perpetuating the suffering of our people, we have no alternative other than to advance the freedom struggle of our nation.� SLDF finds this an unacceptable basis for the resumption of peace talks: the LTTE�s threats of war do not indicate a genuine commitment to peace and a viable peace process. And the ISGA, which fails to adhere to fundamental principles of democracy and human rights, will not, in any way, serve to advance the rights and aspirations of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Rather than base negotiations on the ISGA, the peace talks should re-commence from the point at which they were broken off by the LTTE in April 2003. Particularly in the context of gross and persistent violations of human rights, including political killings, abductions and forced recruitment of child soldiers, SLDF believes the primary concern to be addressed in any resumed peace talks should be that the parties subscribe to a human rights accord, and a mechanism to monitor such an accord that includes independent international human rights monitors. In other conflict situations, such accords were often not only the first step towards a lasting peace process, but also ensured the conditions needed for an inclusive and sustainable peace based on justice and democracy. As the threat of war looms over Sri Lanka there is a pressing need for such a human rights accord.
-- Sri Lanka Democracy Forum www.lankademocracy.org
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[2]
16 December 2004
PRESS RELEASE
The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP), India, is greatly disappointed at the failure of the recent official talks between India and Pakistan to come up with meaningful nuclear confidence-building measures (CBMs). Although these are no substitute for nuclear disarmament they can, when intelligently conceived and sensibly applied, make matters less unsafe. However, such CBMs are not likely to emerge when both governments continue buying and producing more conventional armaments thereby raising bilateral tensions and mistrust. Nor are matters helped through false reassurances about Kashmir no longer being a "nuclear flashpoint" when serious steps towards resolving the issue are absent.
New Delhi and Islamabad seem to lack the vision and commitment to bring about such desired nuclear CBMs. The CNDP calls on both governments to rapidly move towards:
1) Separating warheads from all delivery systems and making such procedures transparent and verifiable.
2) Establishing on both sides of the border a zone of non-deployment of nuclear capable delivery systems.
3) A permanent bilateral test ban pact.
4) Establishing joint teams of Indian and Pakistani scientific personnel to periodically visit nuclear-related facilities in both countries.
J. Sri Raman Kamal Chenoy
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[3]
The News International December 17, 2004
NOT A HINDU NATION
The religio-political miscreants in India do the people of Nepal an injustice when they describe their country as a 'Hindu' state. Ironically, this provides strength to Nepal's ambitious monarchy
Kanak Mani Dixit
Not since Bengal satrap Shamsuddin Ilyas came up from the plains four centuries ago to loot and descerate had Kathmandu Valley seen bigoted passion fueling wanton destruction. It was finally on this year, on Wednesday, 1 September 2004, that those who nurture religious hate gained the opportunity to get back at history. They went on rampage, taking advantage of a political stalemate between the parties, the royal palace and insurgents that had left the country rudderless.
Amidst a more generalized violence that sought different targets in 'response' to the 12 Nepali job-seekers massacred by extremists in Iraq, there were attacks on masjids, madrasas, Muslim homes and shops. For a country that had lost its peaceful halo due to the ongoing brutal insurgency and harsh state reaction, this descent into communal violence marked yet another national calamity.
The cognocenti in Kathmandu had long taken comfort that the Sangh Parivar's political Hindutva had failed to cross the open border into Nepal. Inter-community relationships had remained placid even in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya, fast by the Tarai border in Uttar Pradesh.
But radical Hindutva had been working away to build a base in the kingdom, and when government disappeared for a day on 1 September, it ignited. Two of the major mosques in Kathmandu, just down the boulevard from the royal palace, were vandalized and partially torched. The sleep of two sufi saints from four centuries ago was disturbed in their dargahs, as was that of Begum Hazrat Mahal of Avadh, who sought refuge from the British in the Kathmandu court.
"We are Nepalis, but they are trying to make us Muslims," said one elder. The dreadful counterpoint of one craven ringleader was, "How dare they forget that this is a Hindu rashtra? We cannot have a masjid standing before the palace of our monarch!"
The fact is that civics education does not exist in Nepal, where history is as yet all royal hagiography. The young hooligans would not know that Nepal is not the 'Hindu rashtra' promoted lately by Hindutva propaganda, nor the 'asli Hindustan' as claimed by Prithvi Narayan, the unifier of Nepal and the twelfth ancestor of present King Gyanendra.
To be a 'Hindu nation', Nepal would have to be populated entirely by Hindus but that is far from the case. The very definition of who is a 'Hindu' among the many ethnic groupings is open to question, residing as they do in an accommodating penumbra that straddles animism, nature worship, diverse Hindu streams, and Himalayan Buddhism.
In such an amorphous coming together of identities, those who do not regard themselves as 'Hindu' - as defined by those who demand definition - would make up perhaps thirty percent of the population. Meanwhile, those who regard themselves as Hindus tend to follow a typically syncretistic faith that does not have the ritual rigidities identified with political Hindutva.
And yet, it is true, the 1990 Constitution promulgated after the collapse of the autocratic Panchayat regime, declared Nepal a Hindu state. Simply put, this was a mistake made through conservative compromise, when an attempt to identify the only the king as 'Hindu' was derailed. The reference in the document has to be erased through interpretation or revision.
The odd shankaracharya and religio-political miscreants in India do the people of Nepal an injustice when they insist on describing their country as a primal nativist 'Hindu' state. Ironically, this provides strength to Nepal's increasingly ambitious monarchy that basks in the adulation and seeks to take mileage.
Nepal's national mosaic is created by the participation of more than sixty ethnic and caste groups of mountain, midhill and Tarai. Each community holds a small percentage of the total, and none commands a majority. Making up over four percent of the population, the Muslims of Nepal are a significant national presence.
Nepali Muslims comprise three distinct groups: the Churaute who live as one with the 'parbate' hill population, the 'Kashmiri' who arrived over four centuries ago and have evolved within Kathmandu Valley's Newar culture, and the Tarai Muslim who are culturally one with their co-religionists in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
While the many ethnic groups as well as dalits have since 1990 discovered their voice to protest historical discrimination, the Muslims kept silent because of their relative poverty and social station. And yet it is they who had to face the attackers on 1 September.
The mainstream reaction against the perpetrators of Black Wednesday was so strong that, hopefully, this one-time aberration will never again to be repeated. For this to happen, the attackers on Muslim shrines and property must be pursued and prosecuted, providing an exception to the rule in a country where impunity has been the historical norm.
The sudden spotlight on Nepali Muslims is an occasion to inform the world, as well as indulgent Hindutva agitators everywhere, that Nepal is not a 'Hindu rashtra' after all. Such an expose will provide the authentic picture of the country and its people, and burst the obscurantist balloon within and without.
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[4] Outlook Magazine | Dec 20, 2004
EXCLUSIVE BABRI MASJID
The Echo Of A Day
The Liberhans report is nearly ready-and it will take a hard look at Advani's role
Chander Suta Dogra
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20041220&fname=Babri+Masjid+%28F%29&sid=1
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20041220&fname=Babri+Masjid+%28F%29&sid=1&pn=2ec
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[5] [AN APPEAL FROM KARNATAKA FORUM FOR COMMUNAL HARMONY]
Dear friend,
Attached below is an appeal from the anti-communal
platform in Karnataka (Karnataka Komu Souharda Vedike) which has been leading the fight against the Sangh Parivar's attempt to communalise the state in their attempt to "liberate" a Sufi shrine at Bababudangiri Hills in the Western Ghats. As the stage is set for another showdown among the state administration , the Sangh Parivar and the anti-communal forum, the forum is sending this
appeal to explain the genesis of the dispute, the
forum's campaign/programmes over the last couple of
years and this year's programme on December 25th &
26th. KIndly circulate this message among progressive
circles and strengthen the forum's pro-active fight
against the Hindutva forces.
KARNATAKA KOMUSOUHARDA VEDIKE
Cultural Festival for Communal Harmony
Saturday, December 25, 2004.
ChikkamagaluruKarnataka state is known for its rich cultural and religious plurality as well as for maintaining peace even amidst communal strife that has plagued our country in recent times. It is home for many syncretic religious centres which stand as living testimony to her unique tradition of tolerance and communal harmony. The Baba-Datta cave shrine on Bababudangiri near Chikkamagaluru is an example of one such great tradition where people of different faiths seek their God in a common shrine. Obviously this unique and glorious symbol of secularism and tolerance is indigestible to the communal forces. For the last few years the sangh parivar has been targetting the cave shrine on Bababudangiri with the sole intention of destroying this tradition in the name of 'liberating' the shrine from Muslims. In order to achieve their narrow sectarian goal, they have been creating unwanted disputes, putting up historically untenable and legally unsubstantial arguments. To prove their point that the shrine once belonged only to Hindus, they have started floating new rituals and introducing non-existence religious practices like Datta-Male, Shobha Yatre and Datta jayanthi every year in the months of November and December. It is obvious that their main purpose is neither religion nor faith , but to target Muslim community as 'outsiders' bent on destroying the 'Hindu' tradition and culture.
The irony is that being neither totally Hindu nor Muslim, the Baba-Datta shrine is already a liberated place. In the name of liberating the shrine, the sangh parivar is only trying to tie it back to a narrow and sectarian religious institution. Both Baba and Datta represent the common peoples' tradition that rebelled against narrow religious boundaries. Here Hindus worship the place as Datta and the Muslims revere it as the holy abode of Bababudan, a fakir much respected by such historical figures like Tippu and the Wodeyars of Mysore alike. The communalization of this place is against peoples' long held belief, against history and above all against the law of the land.
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Karnataka Forum for Communal Harmony, a federation of more than two hundred secular and progressive organizations in the state, has been resisting this move of the sangh parivar to destroy the secular tradition of this place. The Forum upholds the long pluralist, tradition that is practiced in this place and demands its continuation without any changes as maintained by law. It has been trying to draw the attention of the Government and the public the Brahmanical character of the BJP and the sangh parivar.
In order to celebrate this plural, heterogeneous character of our culture, the Forum is organising a day-long cultural festival in Chikmagalur on December 25. The festival aims to highlight peoples' culture as against the sangh parivar's singular, upper caste culture. It will begin with an 'Inter- religious Dialogue' by religious leaders, followed by cultural programmes ranging from singing and poetry reading to painting and staging of plays. Mumbai's famous 'Vidhrohi Samskutik Manch' led by Sri Sambaji Bhagat will present their performance. Well-known writer-activist Arundati Roy and actress Shabana Azmi are being invited to attend the festival as chief guests. Editor of 'Communalism Combat' Teesta Settlewad has agreed to be with us on 25 December.
Bababudangiri today is not just a local issue. It represents our true tradition which is of national importance. Communalising it leads to destroying the secular character of the people of this country.
Come, let us strengthen this tradition by opposing the destructive tendencies of the sangh parivar.
Our Demands ============
(*) The District Commissioner of Chikmagalur has announced that the administration would follow the Court Order and not allow any practices that were not in vogue prior to June 1975. But he has also said that the Government would allow 'Datta Jayanti'. But this is a contradiction. The Government is not coming out with the fact that no such ritual existed before June 1975. We demand that the Government should uphold the Court ruling in this regard.
(*) No communal activity by the sangh parivar should be permitted either on the hill or in the town of Chikmagalur.
(*) There should be free access to the hill shrine for all communities.
We request you to ==================' (a) Send telegrams to CM karnataka urging him - (1) to take stern action against sangh parivar if it tries to violate court orders which allow only pre-1975 traditions to be practised at the shrine (2) not to bow down to pressures from the Sangh parivar (3) allow souharda vedike to hold 'souharda samskruthika jathre' on 25th December in Chikkamagalore.
(b) Write letters to various newspapers highlighting the above three points
(c) If you wish to contribute to the Komu Souhardavedike funds, please send in your contributions in the form of deman draft or cheque in the name of 'Bababudangiri Souharda Vedike' account payable at Shimoga, Karnataka. The contributions can be sent to the following address - K.L.Ashok, Organising Secretary. Durga Nilaya, II Cross, Bapuji Nagar, Shimoga.
Contact address & phone numbers -
K.L.Ashok, Organising Secretary. Durga Nilaya, II Cross, Bapuji Nagar,Shimoga. 9448256216. Smt. Banu Mushtak,: 94482 20339; Sri Sanathkumar Belagali: 98802-82705; Sri Puttaswamy: 94480-00026
------------------------------------------------- The origins of the Baba-Datta Cult & the Saffron attack on the shrine -------------------------------------------------
The Datta pantha is a primarily non-vedic, rebellious cult characterized by its rejection of Brahmanical practices of worship. Bababudan was a sufi saint. It is this commonality that drew these two belief systems towards each other. Here there are no moulvis or priests to mediate between people and God. Nor is there any high-caste, vedic rituals that are usually seen in Hindu temples. It is significant and natural that the followers of both these sects are common, poor and exploited sections of society.
But the Sangh Parivar has targeted this place to create communal tension by weaving a web of lies. Every year, they add a new lie to push their point. It includes false claims that this shrine has always been a Hindu place of worship but 'usurped' by the Muslim invaders to spoil its Indian character. Its leaders have claimed that they would make Chikmagalur another Ayodhya and Karnataka another Gujarat. The local administration, aided by successive Governments, has yielded to these demands by gradually allowing in this place new, but hitherto non-existent, Vedic religious practices like homas, abhishekas and havanas to please the Hindu sentiments.
This is in clear violation of the Court directions that only those practices that existed prior to June 1975 should be performed in this cave shrine. The Court directive makes no mention of any of the practices now propagated by the Sangh Parivar. In fact, as our study team found out, there is no mention of Datta Jayanthi till 1987 in any of the documents, including the sangh parivar's petitions to the Court. There is no documentary or historical evidence to suggest that Datta Jayanthi was performed at this place. That the Government has yielded to the Sangh Parivar's demands for fear of alienating the Hindu votes for a few years now does not in any justify the continuation of Datta Jayanthi which is a clear violation of not only the Court Order but is also against the Parliamentary Act of 1991 which prohibits any changes in the nature of religious practices after 1947 in places of worship.
Thus the people's tradition of Baba-Datta is now under threat of losing its secular tradition, much against the law of the land, thanks to the soft hindutva of the Congress that allowed illegal practices on the shrine. It is important to note here that there are several such syncretic traditional centres in India and particularly in Karnataka. It is also crucial to note that such rebel traditions have been brutally suppressed or cleverly appropriated by the mainstream Hindutva forces in the past also. Vedic tradition is only one among several traditions, but Brahmanical supremacy has been intolerant of these other traditions. The Brahmanical supremacy has been questioned and rejected by rebel religious movements beginning with the Budhdha and later by the Vachana and Bhakti movements. In recent times, we have the examples of Phule, Ambedkar, Periyar and Narayana Guru raising questions against the Brahmanical hegemony. The threat to the secular character of Baba-Datta shrine should be seen in this historical perspective. The struggle to uphold the secular, peoples' tradition in the Bababudangiri should also be seen as a continuation of this historical struggle from Budhdha to Ambedkar. The Sangh Parivar's invented tradition is to be understood as a tactical move to erase the cultural memories as lived out mainly the non-Brahmanical community. Thus the communalism of the Sangh Parivar clearly seen is not only against Muslims and Christians, but also, to a large extent, against the Shudras, Dalits and other minorities. Its objective is to destroy a multi-cultural tradition and in its place establish a mono-culture of Brahmanical Hindutva. Bababudangiri is just a pretext for them to carry out this hidden agenda. Hundreds of Hindu farmers have committed suicide; the attack on dalits and other minorities in increasing. Perhaps they are not Hindu enough for the sangh parivar and it has no plans to fight for their cause.
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[6]
Op-ed, Asian Age, December 11, 2004
WHERE LIFE IS CHEAPER THAN ALUMINIUM By Angana Chatterji
On December 1, 2004, the Orissa police attacked and critically injured 16 adivasis (tribals) in Rayagada district. Many, disproportionately women, were arrested. More than 300 adivasis and dalits (erstwhile "untouchable" castes) were targeted for protesting the creation of a police station and barrack for armed police at Karol village, in proximity to the proposed aluminium plant site of Utkal Alumina International Limited (a joint enterprise of Aditya Birla Group, and ALCAN, a Canadian company) at Doraguda. The people were demanding that the state construct healthcare and education facilities instead. Those injured were sequestered in Rayagada jail, denied hospital care, and some were reportedly missing. Armed police, the Central Reserve Police Force and the Indian Reserve Battalion patrol the area as thousands gather, demanding justice.
The government of Orissa has violated its legal and ethical mandate by suppressing public dissent through police brutality. Why are state police prioritising the interests of corporations over those of citizens? Why are rights of those imprisoned being violated? History tells us that when irresponsible corporate globalisation and a callous and authoritarian state collaborate to undermine the interest of local communities, it exacerbates social suffering, betrays the disenfranchised, and furthers gendered violence. Exercising citizenship to encourage responsible government action, dalit and adivasi groups have been protesting the establishment of the aluminium plant. The project is expected to cost Rs 4,500 crores, displace and dispossess 20,000 people, and impact rights to life and livelihood across 82 villages. The plant might provide employment to about 1,000 people over 20 years, exhausting bauxite resources in the process.
Kashipur witnessed state repression of adivasi communities in December 2000 as well, when state police fired on non-violent dissenters in Rayagada protesting the mining of their lands, in the process killing Abhilas Jhodia, Raghu Jhodia and Damodar Jhodia. Kashipur remains a tragic affidavit of the intersections of irresponsible globalisation, state complicity in defiling human rights, and police participation in fostering social violence. For 12 years, local communities have been protesting bauxite mining by a consortium of industries, condemning the breach of constitutional provisions barring sale or lease of tribal lands without local consent.
In July 2003, the Orissa government permitted the unconstitutional transfer of lands in Schedule V areas for industrial use. Orissa's decision contradicts the 1997 Samata versus Andhra Pradesh judgment, where the apex court had ruled against the government's lease of tribal lands in Scheduled Areas to non-tribals for industrial operations. In January 2004, adivasi villages, Borobhota, Kinari, Kothduar, Sindhabahili, in southeast Kalahandi, were razed by Sterlite, a multinational corporation building an aluminium refinery adjacent to Kashipur.
The Orissa government is invested in generating an affirmative climate for brisk industrialisation, without regard for the massive social and ecological destitution that has become the tragic bi-product of modernisation in India. In November 2004, the World Bank sanctioned a
US $125 million socio-economic development credit or loan for Orissa. People's groups and Left political parties estimate that Orissa has received bids for investment amounting to Rs 250,000 crores over the next decade, committed to large industries and related infrastructure. Such investment will lead to employment opportunities for only 175,000, analysts say, while two million are unemployed and another two million are underemployed. The Orissa government estimates that 20 proposed mining projects and five large dams will displace 250,000 people, radically impacting mineral resources and the ground water base. Such development will decimate what holds value and is sacred to myriad communities, accelerating cultural genocide.
Orissa's development strategy focuses on an invasive expansion of power, mining and heavy industry, tourism and agriculture, related infrastructure, and the privatisation of public resources. Corporate activity and dominant development in Orissa remain divorced from people's participation in decision-making. Maldevelopment imperils environmental health, endangering people who depend on natural resources for subsistence. The state often charges poor rural communities with the primary responsibility for ecological degradation, while plans for allaying rural poverty emphasise capital-intensive strategies that alienate the poor by privileging "free" market activity through endorsing the unchecked involvement of the private sector in development processes.
Dominant development has failed to halt the rise in the absolute and relative number of people below the poverty line in rural Orissa. While schemes and programmes focused on poverty alleviation have been continued in the Tenth Plan (2002-2007), their impact on rural poverty remains dubious. These agendas are ill-planned and mismanaged, surfeit with corruption, inattentive to the needs of 47.15 per cent of Orissa's population who live in poverty, making suspect the government's commitment to human rights and social security. Lack of access to common property resources, including water and forests, heightens impoverishment, and the wreckage wrought by the cyclone of 1999, the floods of 2001, the droughts of 2000 and 2003 pose formidable challenges for environmental, political and social sustainability for the 36.7 million residents of the state.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-Biju Janata Dal government, allied Hindu nationalist organisations, and other major political parties manoeuvre dalits, adivasis, and minority religious groups for sectarian interests, with abject disregard for the well-being and self-determination of these groups. Resolute voices of dissent, in solidarity with the affected people of Rayagada, unequivocally condemn the actions of Navin Patnaik's government. The Orissa government must take immediate action to stop police brutalisation and mining operations, and set up an independent commission to inquire into the social and environmental damage resultant from past action. Investigation into human rights violations and plans for reparations must be central to the mandate of such a commission. Failure to do so will only further evidence the despairing breakdown of governance in the state.
Angana Chatterji is associate professor of social and cultural anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
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[7]
PAKISTAN, INDIA SPEND TOO MUCH ON DEFENCE: DOCTORS SAY...
[World News]: Karachi, Dec. 13 : More than 70 doctors from India and Pakistan called upon their respective governments to destroy their nuclear weapons and to cut their defence budgets , so that more money could be diverted to the health, education and other social sectors.
According to Dawn, the doctors also called for relaxation in travel and trade restrictions imposed by both governments. They were of the opinion that the two countries could only benefit if they kept moving towards peaceful resolution of their disputes.
Speaking at a symposium organized jointly by the Pakistan Doctors for Peace and Development (PDPD) and Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD), in collaboration with the Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), on Sunday, the doctors said the subcontinent remained one of the most backward regions of the world so far as health, education and other human development indicators were concerned, mainly due to the ongoing arms race between India and Pakistan.
Dr Livtar Singh Chawla of the IDPD, in his presentation, which was received well by the audience, pointed out that the total amount that was spent on eradicating small pox was equivalent to what the world spent on weapon development and purchases in just four hours. He said the world spent some 1 trillion dollars on arms and armaments every year, about half of which was spent by the US alone.
The IDPD president said about a quarter of all deaths in the developing world, including India and Pakistan, were caused by communicable diseases, which were preventable. If the money that was spent world wide on arms in just four days was spent on immunization instead, the communicable diseases could be dealt with.
Dr Chawla criticized the Indian and Pakistani authorities for spending only about three and one per cent of their GDPs, respectively, on health of their people. He demanded of both governments to get rid of their nuclear weapons and the missiles capable of causing death and destruction on the two peoples.
Speaking on the occasion, the PDPD president, Prof Tipu Sultan, said the border that today divided the two peoples, with some effort, could become a meeting point for them. He welcomed the 30 Indian doctors and medical students, who were currently visiting Karachi, saying that such ventures could bring the two peoples closer.
In his keynote address, Prof Haroon Ahmed said fear, denial and the media made the two countries step back each time they came close to embracing each other in peace. He particularly slammed the authorities for trying to control, block or ban each other's media.
Talking of the lessons that could be drawn from the ten-year-old peace movement in the subcontinent, he pointed out that whenever a conflict broke out between the two countries, the advances made by the peace movement were reversed.
At the time of conflict, he added, the peace movement was overwhelmed by war hysteria. Two medical students from India and Pakistan each also made presentations on the occasion. (ANI)
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[8] [PUBLICATIONS ANNOUNCEMENTS]
o o o
Zubaan announces the publication of Dawn: A Novel by award winning Assamese writer, Arupa Kalita Patangia.
Dawn
A Novel
Arupa Kalita Patangia
Translated by Ranjita Biswas
300pp Pb o Rs 295
o ISBN 81 86706 84 4 o All rights available
Set in the heady years preceding independence, this is the story of young Binapani growing up in a small Assamese town. Headstrong, stubborn and high-spirited, this independent minded girl is confronted with a host of questions as she attempts to come to terms with the changing reality around her: why are girls not allowed to study? Why do some families have to live in poverty while others are feted and fawned upon by townspeople? Why does a nationalist hero have to be hidden away, a Christian boy termed an outcasete? Before she can even begin to find answers to any of these questions - in which her only support is her aging grandmother, Jashodha - Binapani is married off to a much older man whom she has always disliked. A lifetime of drudgery, relieved by the birth of her children, her occasional visits to her grandmother, follows and then, just as life threatens to become empty of joy, a chance encounter with an old friend brings change. Binapani realizes that the world is still a beautiful place and life can still have meaning. This beautifully crafted tale describes a moment of profound hisotrical change, against which it weaves a fine web of changing relationships, of people's joys and sorrows, as seen through the eyes of a young girl and her painful journey to adulthood.
Arupa Patangia Kalita is one of Assam's leading, award-winning novelists. She has more than ten novels and short story collections to her credit including Mriganabhi (1987) and Millenniumar Sapon (2002). A Ph.D in English Literature, she teaches English at Tangla College, Assam.
Ranjita Biswas has translated a number of well-known Bengali and Assamese novels into English.
For any further enquiries or for ordering copies of the book, please contact Jaya Bhattacharji or Satish Sharma at:
Zubaan, K-92, First Floor, Hauz Khas Enclave, New Delhi - 110016 INDIA Tel: +91-11-26521008, 26864497 and 26514772 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
o o o
The Other Indians: Essays on Pastoralists and Prehistoric Tribal People by Shereen Ratnagar
Demy, xii + 112 p. Hardcover ISBN 81-88789-19-4 Rs350 Paperback ISBN 81-88789-18-6 Rs150
Contents: 1.Hunter-Gatherer and Early Agriculturist: Archaeological Evidence for Contact 2. Our Tribal Past 3. A Chalcolithic Village in a Famine Belt 4. Pastoralism as an Issue in Historical Research
The essays in this volume are an attempt to tease out from the scant archaeological (and to some extent historical) sources available, some information on certain aspects of rural societies in the past: mobility, subsistence from animal herding, symbiosis between crop production and animal rearing, situating hunters and gatherers, and the importance of forest as integral to rural life rather than the dichotomous 'other' of the field or village. There is also an attempt to bring out the ways in which tribal society, continuously misrepresented in academia today, laid the foundations of many aspects of Indian civilization in the remote past.
Shereen Ratnagar gave up her Professorship in Archaeology at the JNU when it ceased to be fun and has since been researching and teaching in various places. Her interests include the bronze age, trade, urbanism, pastoralism, and, recently, the social dimensions of early technology. She lives in Mumbai.
Three Essays Collective P.O. Box 6, Palam Vihar Gurgaon 122 017 Tel: 98683 44843, 98681 26587 Res.: 0124-236 9023 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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