South Asia Citizens Wire | 7 Jan., 2005 via: www.sacw.net
[1] Reforming Pakistan's Universities -- I and II (Pervez Hoodbhoy)
[2] India: Wrong, Lord Desai & Prof Sen (T K Arun)
[3] India - Goa: Dangerous currents (Maria Aurora Couto)
[4] India: Amu, a film with promise
[5] India: Memorandum to demand for retrospective repeal of Section-32 of POTA (2002)
[7] India: International convention on secularism (Hyderabad , 14-15 January 2005)
[6] India: National Convention by People's Media Initiative (Bombay, 8-9 January 2005)
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[1]
REFORMING PAKISTAN'S UNIVERSITIES -- I by Pervez Hoodbhoy (Dawn 03 Jan 2005)
There is a severe and long-standing crisis in higher education. But, until the present military government took the initiative, there was no rehabilitation plan. Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman, appointed as chairman of the Higher Education Commission, was the wonder-man charged by General Musharraf with turning the situation around. He was quick to make a powerful pitch for vast increases in funding.
Foreign donors, worried about the implications of Pakistan's sinking educational system, obliged. The higher education budget zoomed by twelve times (1,200 per cent) over three years, a world record. A number of new and innovative utilization schemes were announced.
Some solid achievements did emerge. Internet connectivity in universities has been substantially expanded; distance education is being seriously pursued through the newly established Virtual University; a digital library is in operation; some foreign faculty has been hired; students are being sent abroad for PhD training (albeit largely to second rate institutions); some links with foreign institutions now exist; and money for scientific equipment is no longer a problem. No previous Pakistani government can boast of comparable accomplishments, and the HEC chairman deserves congratulations.
But the HEC is also setting into motion very dangerous, potentially catastrophic, systemic changes. In this article I will look at the problems in our higher education system and why the HEC reforms are set to make a bad situation worse rather than better. In a subsequent article, I will suggest some modest steps that may offer a way forward.
Pakistan has almost a hundred universities now. Not one of them is world class. Truth be told, not even one of them is a real university, if by a university one means a community of scholars engaged in free inquiry and the creation of knowledge.
Take for example the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, reputed to be Pakistan's best. Academic activities common in good universities around the world are noticeably absent. Seminars and colloquia, where faculty present for peer review the results of their on-going research, are few and far between. Public lectures, debates, or discussions of contemporary scientific, cultural, or political issues are almost non-existent.
The teaching at QAU is no better. Rote learning is common, students are not encouraged to ask questions in class, and courses are rarely completed by the end of the semester. This university has three mosques but no bookstore. It is becoming more like a madressah in other ways too.
It was not always this way. The global intellectual ferment of the late 1960's and 70's had a stimulating impact on Pakistani campuses. Intellectual, scientific, cultural and literary activity flourished. Young Pakistani scholars gave up potential careers in the West to come to Pakistani universities. But in November of 1981, just days after three QAU teachers had been caught with anti-martial law and pro-democracy pamphlets, General Ziaul Haq thundered on television that he would "purge the country's universities of the cancer of politics". He succeeded.
A quarter century later, the faculty are more concerned with money and promotions than research, teaching, or bringing their knowledge to bear on the myriad issues facing our society. Among the students there are many burqas and beards, but minuscule intellectual or creative activity. All student unions are gone, and ideological disputes have evaporated into the thin air. Instead of left vs right politics there is simple tribalism. Now Punjabi students gang together against Pakhtoon students, Muhajirs versus Sindhis, Shias versus Sunnis, etc.
Some campuses are run by gangs of hoodlums and harbour known criminals, while others have Rangers with machine guns on continuous patrol. On occasion, student wolf packs attack each other with sticks, stones, pistols, and automatic weapons. There are many campus murders. Most students have not learned how to think; they cannot speak or write any language well, rarely read newspapers, and cannot formulate a coherent argument or manage any significant creative expression.
Dumbed down, this generation of Pakistanis is intellectually handicapped. Like overgrown children, students of my university now kill time by making colourful birthday posters for friends, do "istikhara" (fortune telling), and wander aimlessly in Islamabad's bazaars.
Understanding the scale of the failure is important. Compare Pakistan's premier university with those in its neighbours' capitals. First to the east: Jawaharlal Nehru University, and the Indian Institute of Technology, in Delhi.
Their facilities are simple and functional, nothing like the air-conditioned and carpeted offices of most professors at QAU. And, more important, every notice board is crammed with notices for seminars and colloquia, visitors from the very best foreign universities lecture there, research laboratories hum with activity, and pride and satisfaction are written all around.
Conflict on campuses does exist - communist and socialist students battle with Hindutva students over the Gujrat carnage, Iraq, Kashmir, and the BJP doctoring of history. Angry words are exchanged and polemics are issued against the other, but no heads are bashed. While lecturing at these institutions during a recent visit, I was impressed by the fearlessness and the informed, critical intelligence of the students who questioned and challenged me. I cannot imagine an Indian professor having a similar reception in Pakistan.
Now to the west: Teheran's Sharif University of Technology, and the Institute for Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, are impressive institutions filled with professional activity, workshops, and seminars. Even as they maintain good academic standards, Iranian university students are heavily political and today are spearheading the movement for freedom and democracy. Iranian students make it to the best US graduate schools. Although it is an Islamic republic, bookshops are more common than mosques in Tehran. Translations into Farsi appear in just weeks or months after a book is published in the western world.
Driven by the unfavourable comparison with neighbours, the need for university reform finally became an issue. The first big idea was that Pakistan needed more universities. So today all it takes is a piece of paper from the HEC and some paint. Some colleges have literally had their signboards taken down for repainting, and been put back up changed into "universities" the next day.
By such sleight of hand the current tally of public universities, according to the HEC website, is now officially 47, up from the 23 officially listed in 1996. In addition, there are eight degree awarding public sector institutes. Unfortunately, this is merely a numbers game. All new public sector universities lack infrastructure, libraries, laboratories, adequate faculty, or even a pool of students academically prepared to study at the university level.
The HEC's "generosity" extends even into largely illiterate tribal areas. There are so-called universities now in Malakand, Bannu, Kohat, Khuzdar, Gujrat, Haripur, and in many other places where it is difficult to detect the slightest potential for successfully establishing modern universities.
Another poorly thought-out, and dangerous, HEC scheme involves giving massive cash awards to university teachers for publishing research papers - Rs 60,000 per paper published in a foreign journal. Although these stimulants are said to have increased the number of papers published in international journals by a whopping 44 per cent, there is little evidence that this increase in volume is the result of an increase in genuine research activity.
The fact is only a slim minority of Pakistani academics possesses the ethics, motivation, and capability needed for genuine scientific discovery and research. For the majority, the HEC incentives are a powerful reason to discover the art of publishing in research journals without doing research, to find loopholes, and to learn how to cover up one's tracks.
Established practices of plagiarizing papers, multiple publications of slightly different versions of the same paper in different research journals, fabricating scientific data, and seeking out third-rate foreign journals with only token referees are now even more common. The HEC has broadcast the message: corruption pays.
The casual disregard for quality is most obvious in the HEC's massive PhD production programme. This involves enrolling 1,000 students in Pakistani universities every year for PhD degrees. Thereby Pakistan's "PhD deficit" (it produces less than 50 PhDs per annum at present) will supposedly be solved and it will soon be at par with India. In consequence, an army of largely incapable and ignorant students, armed with hefty HEC fellowships, has sallied forth to write PhD theses.
Although the HEC claims that it has checked the students through a "GRE type test" (the American graduate school admission test), a glance at the question papers reveals it to be only a shoddy literacy and numeric test. In my department, advertised as the best physics department in the country, the average PhD student now has trouble with high-school level physics and even with reading English. Nevertheless there are as many as 18 PhD students registered with one supervisor! In the QAU biology department, that number rises to 37 for one supervisor. HEC incentives have helped dilute PhD qualifying exams to the point where it is difficult for any student not to pass.
The implications of this mass-production of PhDs are dire. Very soon hundreds and, in time, thousands of worthless PhDs will be cranked out. They will train even less competent students. Eventually they will become heads of departments and institutions. When appointed gatekeepers, they will regard more competent individuals as threats to be kept locked out. The degenerative spiral, long evident in any number of Pakistani institutions, will worsen rapidly, and become infinitely more difficult to break.
REFORMING PAKISTAN'S UNIVERSITIES -- II by Pervez Hoodbhoy (Dawn 04 Jan 2005)
For three decades Pakistani education planners toyed with grand plans to build MITs and Harvards in the country. Nothing materialized. But three years ago the first serious effort to deal with Pakistan's chronically ill universities was finally initiated. Unfortunately, this effort by the Higher Education Commission has now become mired in an intense, growing controversy.
The immediate cause centres on the award of fake degrees and the flourishing of substandard higher education institutions, as well as on the HEC's head, Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman, having personally punished the whistle-blower who brought this important issue to his (and the public's) notice. While unpleasant, this controversy is important because it addresses the deeper underlying question of the quality and credibility - rather than just the quantity � of higher education.
In the previous article, I explained how badly the existing university system has been broken and how the current university reform strategy is compounding the problem by concentrating on glitzy things like internet access, digital libraries, virtual learning, etc., while ignoring basic problems.
Allowing these "reforms" to continue will destroy what little there is today. On the other hand, it will be a tragedy for Pakistan if the current HEC attempts collapse in a heap of dust. So, how to proceed if we are serious in trying to improve our universities?
The policy don'ts are clear. Some have already been discussed earlier: stop the creation of worthless new universities; stop funding and rewarding research that really isn't research; stop dishing out useless PhDs; stop playing the numbers game; and stop feeding academic corruption.
The do's are far more than can be discussed here. Broadly speaking, they can be divided into two mutually distinct sets. One set must deal with raising the level of general competence of teachers and students by ensuring that they actually have an understanding of the subject they teach or study, and with increasing the amount of research in specific disciplines. Universities everywhere prepare engineers, doctors, economists, business managers, and other professionals needed to fulfil the stringent demands of a modern society. Pakistani universities obviously need to do the same.
The second set relates to the broader function of universities - to create thinking minds, pursue research in subjects that are important but are not of immediate economic utility, to create and organize discourses on social and political issues, and to raise the cultural and aesthetic level of society. Whereas the Soviet and Chinese models concentrated exclusively on the first set of goals, western universities - or at least the good ones among them - successfully synthesized both sets and were far superior.
It is a mistake to believe that inadequate financial resources have prevented Pakistani universities from achieving the goals of the first set. In fact, the real need is for deep administrative and organizational reforms, together with the strong political will needed to handle the counter-reaction they would inevitably provoke.
First, there must be university entrance examinations at the national level to separate individuals who can benefit from higher education from those who cannot. No such system exists in Pakistan. Only local board examinations - where rote memorization and massive cheating are rampant - are used to select students.
But, on our borders, both Iran and India have centralized university admissions systems that work very well. Although corruption in India is perhaps as pervasive as in Pakistan, admissions to the IITs have nevertheless retained their integrity and intensely competitive nature over several decades. Honest examinations are presumably also possible in Pakistan, provided extreme care is taken.
Having such university entrance examinations would be important for another reason as well - they would set the goal posts for colleges and high schools all over Pakistan. In the US, the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, centrally administered by Princeton, are extremely useful for deciding student aptitude for university education. The "A" level examinations in Britain have similar importance.
At the PhD level, if the HEC is at all serious about standards, it should make it mandatory for every Pakistani university to require that a PhD candidate achieve a certain minimum in an international examination such as the GRE. These exams are used by US universities for admission into PhD programmes.
Given the state of student and teacher knowledge, and the quantity and quality of research in Pakistani universities, selection through GRE subject tests would have the welcome consequence of cutting down the number enrolled in HEC indigenous PhD programmes from 1,000 per year to a few dozen. The present safeguard of having "foreign experts" evaluate theses is insufficient for a variety of reasons, including the manipulations commonly made in the process of referee selection.
Second, we need to test those who would be university teachers. The system has remained broken for so long that written entrance tests for junior faculty, standardized at a central facility, are essential. Without them, universities will continue to hire teachers who freely convey their confusion and ignorance to students. Most teachers today never consult a textbook, choosing to dictate from notes they saved from the time when they were students in the same department. No teacher has ever been fired for demonstrating incompetence in his/her subject.
Third, the recruitment of non-permanent foreign faculty, whether of Pakistani origin or otherwise, is essential. Although this country is home to 150 million people, there are perhaps fewer than 20 computer scientists of sufficient calibre who could possibly get tenure-track positions at some B-grade US university. In physics, even if one roped in every competent physicist in the country, it would not be possible to staff even one single good department of physics. As for mathematics: it is impossible to find even five real mathematicians in Pakistan. The social sciences are no better.
In this grim situation, it is fortunate that the Higher Education Commission has initiated a programme for hiring foreign faculty with attractive salaries. But the success of this programme is uncertain. Jealousy at salary differentials, and a fear that local incompetence will be exposed, have led local teachers and university administrations to block the hiring of faculty from abroad.
There is another problem: Pakistan's image as a violent country deters most foreigners from wanting to come and live in Pakistan for any considerable period of time. Therefore, westerners are almost totally absent from the list of those who have applied under the foreign faculty hiring programme. Apart from Pakistani expatriates in the Middle East, the bulk of applicants are Russian speakers from the former Soviet Union countries.
One wishes it could be otherwise. It would be a major breakthrough if Indian and Iranian teachers could be brought to Pakistan. Indians, in particular, would find it much easier to adapt to local ways and customs than others and also have smaller salary expectations. The huge pool of strong Indian candidates could be used to Pakistan's advantage - it could pick the best teachers and researchers, and those most likely to make a positive impact on the system. In the present mood of rapprochement, it is hard to think of a more meaningful confidence building measure.
Fourth, we need better, more transparent, and accountable ways to recruit vice-chancellors and senior administrators. What we have now is a patronage system that appoints unqualified and unsuitable bureaucrats or generals as vice-chancellors, and that staffs universities with corrupt and incompetent administrators.
While a tenure-track system for faculty is currently under discussion and may allow for breaking with the system of life-long jobs independent of performance, there is no corresponding system being contemplated for the top leadership. But without good leadership, and people who can set an example, no institution can be reformed.
Finally, it is crucial to bring back on to the campuses meaningful discussions on social, cultural and political issues. To create the culture of civilized debate, student unions must be restored, with elections for student representatives. They will be the next generation of political leaders.
Such a step will not be free from problems - religious vigilantes rule many Pakistani campuses although all unions are banned. Extremists would surely try to take advantage of the new opportunities offered once the ban is lifted. Political parties have also been less than responsible.
But the reinstatement of unions - subject to their elected leaders making a pledge to abjure violence and the disruption of academic activity - is the only way forward towards creating a university culture on campus. Ultimately, reasonable voices, too, will become heard.
To condemn Pakistani students as fundamentally incapable of responsible behaviour amounts to a condemnation of the Pakistani nation itself. If students in our neighbouring countries can successfully study, as well as unionize and engage in larger issues, then surely Pakistan's can do so as well.
The task of university reform has not yet seriously begun. Nor can it do so until issues of the purpose and philosophy of higher education and of the goal of the reforms are squarely confronted. It is time to decide whether we are serious about education being something more than merely giving out certificates. Do we want to build institutions for creating knowledge and helping students to be informed, critical, active citizens? Or not?
(The author is professor of physics at the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.)
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[2]
Economic Times January 06, 2005
WRONG, LORD DESAI & PROF SEN Cursor / T K Arun
Lord Meghnad Desai thinks India is a collection of nationalities. These, he says, find political articulation through regional or caste-based parties that together detract from India's potential for growth through exclusive focus on distribution.
He therefore advocates a grand coalition of the Congress and the BJP, both with a unitary vision of the Indian nation and therefore capable of focusing energies on stepping up the rate of economic growth, which will solve the problems that the smaller parties seek to solve through distribution.
Lord Desai aired his opinion at a dialogue with Prof Amartya Sen, organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry at the Capital earlier this week.
Prof Sen disputed his friend's vision of Indian nationhood and commended a change in policy priorities to improve public health and education as the key to faster growth. Both the labour lord and the Nobel laureate are mistaken.
The strategy of industrialisation led by state ownership and machines that make machines, Desai argued, stunted economic growth but pandered to the incumbent elite.
The decision to leave traditional society alone was based on the presumption that growth and industrialisation would perform the job of modernisation in due course.
Aborted growth led the subaltern 'nationalities' to use the space offered by universal adult franchise to form their own political parties. In this fragmented polity, the Congress or the BJP can form a government only with the help of these parties, the primordial loyalty of whose members is to a caste/region/language/ethnic identity and not to India, unlike in the case of the major national parties.
This dependence on 'distribution-first' parties leads to a drain of national resources away from production enhancing investment. Therefore, the two parties with a unitary vision of Indian nationhood should come together at least for five years, to kick-start accelerated growth.
This Desai thesis has many holes in it. Desai tends to conflate all group identities with nationalities. As Sudipto Mundle pointed out, significant drain of public resources is effected by groups such as farmers and exporters, who cannot be identified as nations by any stretch of the imagination.
Besides, castes can even be defined only in terms the larger collective, India, and in relation to other castes. Brahmins, for example, are a pan-Indian group who would lose their specific identity if there were no hierarchy of other castes to dominate in ritual authority.
Similarly, Dalits would not be Dalits if there were no caste hierarchy to be at the bottom of. Now, nations define themselves of themselves, not in relation to one another.
Leaders like Lalu Yadav or Mayawati do not even represent all Yadavs or all Dalits. To be consistent with his definition of any group represented by a Third Front party as a nation, Desai would have to call the Yadavs of Bihar one nation, and the Yadavs of Uttar Pradesh, another, and recognise the Dalits represented by Paswan as a nation distinct from the nation of Dalits represented by Mayawati.
Nor are regional parties like the DMK or the AIADMK distribution-first profligates. Under their dispensation, Tamil Nadu has emerged as one of the best-governed, fastest growing states of the country.
Desai's biggest fallacy is the notion that BJP's idea of nationhood is pro-growth. Hindutva condemns minority religious communities to second class status, and is prepared to reinforce that subordination, if necessary, through state-sponsored violence as in Gujarat.
The distribution of political power, financial and communication channels and dispersal of potentially destructive technology in the modern world together offer the targets of such attempted subjugation assorted means of violent resistance. Hindutva is a prescription for schism, not prosperity.
If Desai is wrong, it does not mean that the 'tossed salad' view of Indian nationhood is right. The good thing about this dish is that each individual element retains its separate identity while yielding a collective taste distinct from the individual flavours.
But it's a poor metaphor for the collective of multiple identities that constitute India, because India's multiple identities are dispersed in a hierarchy of power. The Thakur and the Dalit do not quite bond the way cucumber does with cabbage.
Prof Sen conceded this, even while harping on the ancient lineage of the idea of India as a union of diversities. However, his stress on health and education as the antidote to this inequality of power abstracts away the reality of oppression faced by the Dalits.
Such brahminism, too, impedes growth and welfare by blacking out another part of the remedy: empowerment of the subaltern through organisation and political representation. Political agency armed Keralites to acquire literacy, not benign enlightenment.
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[3]
The Hindu Jan 06, 2005
DANGEROUS CURRENTS
By Maria Aurora Couto
History and memory need to be recovered by both the Hindu and Catholic communities of Goa but not with crude productions that distort and telescope unrelated events to create divisive hatreds.
THE YEAR ended in Goa with a testament of faith by 2.2 million pilgrims during six weeks of the Exposition of St. Francis Xavier. This was preceded by the International Film Festival, which brought unprecedented national and international attention as also excitement and controversy within the State. Visitors were struck by the peace and harmony, the ready smile, the helpful hand, and an innate courtesy. A few paused to reflect on these qualities. Could it be the beauty of its environment or the centuries-old exposure to the major religions of the world that has cemented the unique humanism of this society?
Yet all is not as well as it appears to be, and Goans are well aware of the dangerous undercurrents that have begun to flow beneath this calm surface. A VCD, "Goa Freedom Struggle," produced by the Directorate of Education of the Government of Goa, is the most recent manifestation of the not-so-subtle attempt to disturb and distort the Goans' perception of self and society. Four decades after its liberation from Portuguese rule, there has been no proper study published on the freedom struggle. Very few young Goans are aware of this period or indeed of the complex past of the land they love so deeply, a history they need to understand if harmony is to prevail.
The theme of the documentary should have been welcome but its malicious perspective, which twists and distorts history to create communal hatred, has led to a condemnation of the VCD by Church authorities, by the Congress party, and by freedom fighters, activists, and writers including the poet, Manohar Rai Sardessai, and the writer, Uday Bhembre. There would have been a wider public expression of anger had the VCD been viewed widely.
The coarse bigotry of its perspective, which demonises Christianity, seeks to establish a link between the excesses of the early period of Portuguese rule in the 16th and 17th centuries and the freedom struggle of the modern period, and its lopsided account of the latter to invent a heroic role for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh which everyone knows had very little to do with the liberation of Goa or indeed with the Indian national movement, is truly an arrogant misuse of power to disseminate misinformation to young minds. The documentary was produced two years ago, and screened on the national channel of Doordarshan. No one seems to have paid much attention to it then. What has incensed most Goans is the fact that the VCD was sent to more than 400 schools with a directive that it be screened on December 19, Liberation Day, and that a report confirming screening be sent to the Directorate.
Goans are unwilling to face the troubled past - it is indeed another country where dreadful things happened that seared the psyche. Perhaps it is the institution of the ganvkari, communidade - the commune system of which the historian, Damodar Kosambi, has written so evocatively - that healed and restored cohesiveness, aided by the Christian spirit of many missionaries, including the much maligned Francis Xavier. Yet the Catholics of Goa need to understand that troubled country of the past, when atrocities were committed in the name of Christianity in a ruthless quest for power and souls, and not pretend it did not happen. It is only then that the reaching out to each other of their ancestors - which is the basis of the goodwill that prevails - will not get ruptured by recent attempts to indoctrinate young Hindu minds.
While it is true that knowledge of history has strengthened rather than undermined faith, there are voices that discourage the digging up of a violent past. Ignorance may be bliss, but it renders the faithful defenceless against the antagonisms that debase their religion. Although the faith of the Goan is a fact of identity and the rock of his life, questions about the past need to be asked so that we understand the past and live creatively in the present particularly at a time when religion is used to subvert political life in a ruthless quest for power. History and memory need to be recovered by both the Hindu and Catholic communities of Goa but not with crude productions such as the VCD that distort and telescope unrelated events to create divisive hatreds.
The script, which is in Hindi, elides recklessly in its account of Goan history, with a presumption that is breathtaking. It begins with a dream sequence of a rape scene and then a narrative that describes Goa as a holy place with "the innocence of a child" vandalised by the Portuguese. Recorded facts that prove the collaboration of local leaders, who in fact sought the help of Afonso de Albuquerque to end the rule of Yusuf Adil Shah, are left out. Instead there is a succession of exaggerated scenes of violence, destruction of temples, and a cross lurking in the background or dangling threateningly above hapless victims. Christianity, both in human and symbolic form, is portrayed to evoke fear and revulsion.
The fact that the first violence was against the Muslim population, that the women raped or converted were Muslim women, that there was an initial pact between the Hindu collaborators and the Portuguese that safeguarded the majority Hindu population - all these are carefully deleted, as is the fact that the drive for conversion began not on arrival of the Portuguese in 1510 as depicted but in 1540, that the Inquisition was established in 1560, and more seriously, that the main victims of the Inquisition were the early converts to Christianity who refused to give up their traditional customs and rituals.
The Maratha rulers, Shivaji and Sambhaji, are given a heroic role within Goan history. Yet historian P.S. Pissurlencar's Portuguese-Mahratta Relations (translated by T.V. Parvate, 1983) details their battles with the Portuguese and proves that they attacked Goa for their own ends and not to save the local population, that Shivaji distrusted the Portuguese but sought their help against the Moghuls. The theme of the freedom struggle is not revealed in all its complexity. If the intention was to encapsulate the centuries between 1510 and 1946 when Ram Manohar Lohia demanded civil rights for Goa trapped in Salazar's firm grasp, then the omissions are brazen. To bring in the Marathas and diminish or erase the long years of quiet or bloody battles fought by the Goan clergy against racist policies, the later polemics of an emerging elite, is political manipulation at its worst. Besides, freedom fighters have pointed out major errors in presenting the last phase of the struggle.
The Government will not be able to force the issue given the agitation from all quarters. The point is not that it may find itself compelled to withdraw but that it had the temerity to fund this shoddy piece of work (Rs. 40 lakh), produced by Ramesh Deo, a film actor from the Marathi film industry with no experience of direction.
I recall that when Atal Bihari Vajpayee made his astonishing endorsement of Narendra Modi in a speech in Goa before the 2002 Assembly election, absolving him of his complicity in the Gujarat massacre, it was widely felt that Goa was a test case to see how far the Sangh Parivar could go to force its agenda. These inroads in Goa continue to be made - with a young, intelligent, and energetic Chief Minister, skilfully manipulating his popularity with sops, improvements, and an active personal presence that is being severely tried with this last outrageous assault on the dignity of Goa.
(Maria Aurora Couto is the author of Goa: A Daughter's Story, Penguin Books India, New Delhi, 2004.)
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[4]
The Hindu Jan 06, 2005
AMU, A FILM WITH PROMISE
MUMBAI, JAN. 5. Stressing that cinema has a role that goes beyond providing mere entertainment, director Shyam Benegal has appreciated the fact that a new crop of film-makers is concerned about environmental and other issues facing society.
Speaking last night after a special screening of the film, Amu, directed by Shonali Bose and set against the backdrop of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Benegal said: "In the last decade, questions were being asked as to why the young generation of film-makers did not seem to be concerned about social issues. It's true that the prime objective of films is to entertain, but social concerns could also go with it. Psychological relationships could be explored."
Amu is fabulous and the script is extremely well-written, he said. Besides, the performances are excellent. "Considering this is Shonali's first film, she has to be complimented for tackling a subject that has been taboo for the last 20 years," Benegal added.
The director of the film, due to be released on January 7, expressed the confidence that her debut movie would appeal to a wide cross-section of people. "The issue handled in the film is still alive. Only the faces have changed. Nobody has been punished, the victims have not been rehabilitated."
The film is about a 21-year-old non-resident Indian, played by Konkana Sen Sharma of Mr and Mrs Iyer fame, who visits India and stumbles upon the secrets of her past.
Amu, with the social activist, Brinda Karat, and Ankur Khanna playing pivotal roles, will be screened in the competition section of the 7th International Film festival of Mumbai organised by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Images, which begins here tomorrow.
The Los Angeles-based director said that even though she had fictionalised the story, it was true to reality. She recalled that as a first-year history student in Delhi University during the riots she had met several of the victims and interviewed them for a book by her Professor, Uma Chakravarty, The Delhi Riots.
The Central Board of Film Certification has granted the film an `A' certificate, with a few minor cuts, she added. - UNI
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[5]
MEMORANDUM to demand for retrospective repeal of Section-32 of POTA (2002)
While we welcome the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2002 with prospective effect from 2004, we feel deeply disturbed and anguished by the refusal of the Central Government to repeal the Act with retrospective effect. We had in the past opposed the TADA and we also opposed the POTO(2001) and the POTA 2002 on the ground that the terrorist ACT was in fact and in principle ' a lawless law', meant to be used and abused against all those who dissent and resist the dominant ideology and politics in the name of " terrorism". The Act was, in our opinion, undemocratic, unconstitutional, unjust and inhuman, as it violated all principles of historically developed civilized and humanized criminal law, seeking to secure justice to the victims (both the society and the individuals) and the accused. The law was not only capable of being abused in some cases, but was in itself 'an abuse of law' and was doomed to be counter-productive. It was, in fact not Prevention of Terrorism Act, but Production of Terrorism Act and symbolized the worst form of state terrorism.
After the prospective repeal of the POTA 2002, and enactment of new unlawful Criminal Activities law without the obnoxious provision of the POTA 2002, the painful reality still remains, namely as the Act was invoked only against Muslims in post riot Gujarat and not against the Hindu fanatics who were responsible for the genocide of the Muslims, these hundreds of Muslims booked under the POTA 2002 will continue to suffer as being governed by the repealed POTA, with exposure to all its obnoxious provisions.
One such provision of the POTA 2002 was S-32 which provided that a confession made by a person before police officer in writing or any mechanical or electronic device shall be admissible in evidence under the POTA and may be used against that person or any co-accused. This Section 32 of the POTA 2002 is in complete derogation of the provision of the normal Criminal and Evidence Law which in clear terms denies its admissibility as evidence. It is a matter of common knowledge that the police is notorious for its unchecked and uninhibited use of third degree methods, known as police torture and custodial violence for extracting forced confessions from the persons in police custody. In fact and in popular parlance police remand is understood as police torture. This is nothing but grows violence of the basic human rights of the accused, particularly right to live with dignity and is consistently condemned by the supreme court of India, holding it to be direct contempt of court.
It is also known to everybody in Gujarat that almost all POTA cases are based upon such forced confessions extracted from the persons arrested by the police officers, which confessions are used for arresting other persons named under POTA. All Muslims arrested under the POTA before its repeal will have to face trial on the bases of such forced confessions under S-32 of the POTA 2002. It is worth nothing that the new law to replace the provisions of the POTA for dealing with the terrorists does not retain S-32 of the POTA and makes the terrorist law almost similar to ordinary criminal law. Because of the obnoxious and unjust character of S-32 of the POTA, a curious result is that the new alleged terrorist accused will be tried without using the forced confessions before police officer, while the alleged terrorist accused under POTA will have to bear the harsh consequences of S-32. This is really grossly and unjustly discriminatory violative of Art. 14 of the constitution. Moreover with the retention of S-32 of the POTA 2002 for those arrested before its repeal, the accused will not be in a position in get the real benefit of mandatory review committee whose sole function is to examine and stop those cases of abuse of POTA. The review will be illusory, if it is to consider whether there is a prim facie case or the basis on the confessed statements under S-32.
We believe that the Muslims in Gujarat have suffered terribly and irreparably during the 'genocide' program of the Gujarat Government under Narendra Modi. They at least yearn for justice - Justice for the Muslim victims and justice for the Muslim accused, and equality between Muslim accused and Hindu accused during riots of 2002. We believe that all these - Hindu and Muslims - who are found guilty according to the normal criminal law must be punished but we do not want and would never support the stand of the government that Muslim accused will be punished as per S-32, of the POTA, while others equally involved will be judged as per the normal Criminal law.
We demand that Section 32 or the repealed POTA which would still govern the pending cases should be repealed with retrospective effect, for the sake of justice, non-discrimination and protection of the basic human rights of the accused in the riot cases. The Government should at least humanize the continuing operation of the repeated POTA for pending cases. We also appeal to all those who are committed to democracy, rule of Law equal justice secularism in human dignity to empower upon the Central Government to give retrospective effect to S-32 of the repealed POTA. This is very urgent because the Gujarat Government is bent upon finishing as namely POTA cases as possible and as early as possible and any delay will do great injustice to the POTA accused and even the little benefit assured to them by the Review committee will be lost.
(E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Signatures: Dr. Hanif Lakdawala Girish Patel (Senior Advocate) Indukumar Jani Sheeba George Dr. Shakil Ahmed and others
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[6]
The Hindu Jan 07, 2005
INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION ON SECULARISM IN HYDERABAD By Our Staff Reporter
HYDERABAD, JAN. 6. An international convention on secularism will be held in Hyderabad on January 14 and 15.
Organised by the Indian Radical Humanist Association under the aegis of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), the convention would be attended by over 200 delegates from six countries apart from India.
K. Jayachandra Reddy, Chairman, Press Council of India; Shanta Sinha, Magsaysay Award winner and K. Kesava Rao, president, APCC, are among those who are expected to participate in the proceedings, according to G.R.R. Babu, executive director, IHEU.
Mr. Babu said the convention would recommend implementation of a universal civil code, thorough investigations into the funding and administration of religious bodies and strict punishment for those who incite communal hatred and violence.
He said that secularism had been misinterpreted by successive governments in India to mean equal respect for all religions and their superstitions, whereas true secularism implies separation of religion from State.
``The convention will help us compare the experiences of secularism from various countries and work out measures appropriate for us,'' explained N. Innaiah, convener, Federation of Atheist, Rationalist Humanist Associations, one of the sponsors.
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[7]
PEOPLE�S MEDIA INITIATIVE 609, Golden Chamber, Opp. Citimall, Andheri (W), Mumbai � 400 053. Email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Press Note
Dear Sir/Madam,
People�s Media Initiative is holding a two days National Convention in Mumbai on 8th and 9th January 2005 and we are holding a press conference on 7th January 2005 at 5:30 p.m. at Press Club, Near Azad Maidan, V.T., Mumbai � 400 001.
Senior journalist and ex - member of parliament Mr. Kuldip Nayyar will be addressing Press on issues of challenges before media and People�s Media Initiative , an initiative much needed today and on lessons of Gujarat Riots 2002 and Role of Media.
Other speakers will be Rohit Prajapati of PUCL, Gujarat, Adv. P.A.Sebastian of Committee for the protection of Democratic Rights, Ramesh Pimple of People�s Media Initiative and Ms. Vidyottama.
On 8th January, 2005 [Saturday], People�s Media Initiative will be having open session from 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and press and media are requested to cover it and Mr. Kuldip Nayyar will be inaugurating it and many prominent Media and civil right activists will be speaking on various issues.
You are requested to kindly send your reporter to cover it and do the needful.
For People�s Media Initiative
Ms. Rumana 022 - 26358301 People's Media Initiative Golden Chamber, Opp. Citimall, Andheri (W), Mumbai - 400 053.
Dear Colleagues,
Sub: The first foundation conference of People's Media Initiative, which is to be established as an All India Body.
Today Media is playing a very strong role in shaping the mind - set of the people and heavily influence political-social-economical policies of India. We are aware that vernacular media of Gujarat was at great extent responsible for fuelling the Gujarat Communal Riots 2002, we have started hearing new coin word Media Trial, somewhere the voices of downtrodden, poor, dalits, minorities, workers, exploited class is lost completely and the divide between the have and have not has further widened up.
People's Media Initiative is basically a group of progressive filmmakers, journalists, and social and human right activists from Mumbai and Gujarat, who are active since the last 5 years. We are looking forward to take the shape of a formal organisation and form an All India Body of like-minded people who are active in media, civil liberties and human rights, journalism, film making (documentaries and feature films), academicians, intellectuals and persons engaged in diverse activities but somewhere keen to be a part of this process.
People's Media Initiative is keen to deal with cases of state repression, communal violence, illegal detention, encounter killings, custodial violence, death in police firing, the denial of democratic and civil liberties to any section of the population.
Today basic concept of fact-finding is changing rapidly and fact- finding is done today with camera in hand, so that it becomes more factual and fool- proof. PMI wishes to use audio-visual medium while doing probe, fact-finding, and intervention and while undertaking public awareness programmes.
People's Media Initiative is keen to become as a link body so that those who are active in the field or wish to be become active can join PMI be it from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Manipur to Mumbai and function as a Unitary body, draw the strategies, programmes and intervene successfully through probes, fact- finding, filling news reports, spot films, legal interventions and try to create place in mainstream print media, television and films.
People's Media Initiative is registered as Society under the Societies Registration Act 1860 as well as under Bombay Public Trust Act 1950. First Foundation Conference will be held in Mumbai on 8th & 9th January 2005 [Saturday & Sunday], leading journalist of India, Mr. Kuldip Nayar will be inaugurating the meet, besides him there shall be many leading figures from media and human rights that are likely to attend the meet.
In this meet, PMI wishes to emerge as an organised body and new office bearers, working committee and general body will be formed during this two-day conference and the conference will conclude with a press conference.
Date of conference: 8th & 9th January 2005. [Saturday & Sunday]
Time: 10:00 a.m.onwards
Place: Bio-Medical Centre, St. Pius College Complex, Aarey Road, Goregaon (E), Mumbai - 400 063.
[It is 5 minutes distance from Goregaon Railway station on East side, Goregaon station is on the Western railway, those coming from Mumbai Central will have to take Borivali local train and get down at Goregaon Station. And those coming from Borivali will have to take Churchgate train.]
People's Media Initiative Ramesh Pimple Kirit Bhatt Shyam Ranjankar Geeta Chawda Yusuf Mehta Kunda P.N. & others
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