South Asia Citizens Wire | 27-29 June, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2265
[1] The story peddled by imperial apologists is a poisonous fairytale (Priyamvada Gopal) [2] Pakistan's flourishing arms bazaar (Aamer Ahmed Khan) [3] Bangladesh's fraying democracy (Liz Philipson) [4] Towards the endgame in Nepal (Siddharth Varadarajan) [5] India: Adoption of orphans by RSS outfit fraught with danger () [6] India: BJP-ruled governments defy Centre and Constitution (John Dayal) [7] The Cartoon Controversy: Left Join the Islamists Against Freedom (Mahmood Ketabchi) [8] Upcoming Events: (i) Anhad seminar - cultural tribute to Vasant Rao and Rajab Ali (Baroda, 30 June, 2006) (ii) World Summit on Free Information Infrastructures (Dharmsala, Oct 22- Nov 3, 2006) ___ [1] The Guardian June 28, 2006 THE STORY PEDDLED BY IMPERIAL APOLOGISTS IS A POISONOUS FAIRYTALE Neocon ideologues are being given free rein by the media to rewrite the history of Britain's empire and whitewash its crimes by Priyamvada Gopal A resurrection is haunting the British media, the bizarre apparition of "benevolent empire". It takes the form of documentaries and discussions steered towards the conclusion that colonialism was not such a bad thing after all and that something of a celebration is in order. Trouble is, to get there, some creative reworking of the facts is needed. After a recent brouhaha about Britain's imperial history on Radio 4's Start the Week - in which I took part - the presenter Andrew Marr worried that the debate had been "pretty biased" against empire: there was a lot of enthusiasm and a "warm nostalgia" for empire, he suggested in the subsequent phone-in, even in former colonies, "still something there, absolutely". Only the desire to recover some imaginary good from the tragedy that was empire can explain the elevation of the neoconservative ideologue Niall Ferguson to chief imperial historian on the BBC and now Channel 4. His aggressive rewriting of history, driven by the messianic fantasies of the American right, is being presented as a new revelation. In fact, Ferguson's "history" is a fairytale for our times which puts the white man and his burden back at the centre of heroic action. Colonialism - a tale of slavery, plunder, war, corruption, land-grabbing, famines, exploitation, indentured labour, impoverishment, massacres, genocide and forced resettlement - is rewritten into a benign developmental mission marred by a few unfortunate accidents and excesses. Soundbite culture thrives on these simplistic grand narratives. Half-truths and fanciful speculation, shorn of academic protocols such as footnotes, can sound donnishly authoritative. The racism institutionalised by empire also seems to be back in fashion. The book accompanying Ferguson's current Channel 4 series on 20th-century history, The War of the World, tells us that people "seem predisposed" to "trust members of their own race", "those who are drawn to 'the Other' may ... be atypical in their sexual predilections" and that "when a Chinese woman marries a European man, the chances are relatively high ... that only the first child they conceive will be viable." Not far from the pseudo-scientific nonsense that once made it possible to punish interracial relationships. Behind such talk and the embrace of the broadcasters is the insistence that we are being offered gutsy truths that the "politically correct" establishment would love to suppress. This is the neo-conservative as spunky rebel against liberal tyranny. Yet Ferguson peddles nothing more than the most hackneyed, self-aggrandising myths of empire, canards once championed by old imperialists such as Macaulay and Mill and rehashed now by the Bush administration: western imperialism brings freedom, democracy and prosperity to primitive cultures. The myth decorates US and British foreign policy spin while trendier versions have also emerged in platforms such as the Euston Manifesto. By anointing Ferguson and his fellow imperial apologists such as Andrew Roberts as semi-official historians, the British media are colluding in a dangerous denial of the past and lending support to contemporary US imperial propaganda . The evidence - researched by scholars such as Amartya Sen, Nicholas Dirks, Mike Davis and Mahmood Mamdani, Caroline Elkins and Walter Rodney - shows that European colonialism brought with it not good governance and freedom, but impoverishment, bloodshed, repression and misery. Joseph Conrad, no radical, described it as "a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly". Good governance? More famines were recorded in the first century of the British Raj than in the previous 2,000 years, including 17-20 million deaths from 1896 to 1900 alone. While a million Indians a year died from avoidable famines, taxation subsidising colonial wars, and relief often deliberately denied as surplus grain was shipped to England. Tolerance? The British empire reinforced strict ethnic/religious identities and governed through these divisions. As with the partition of India when 10 million were displaced, arbitrarily drawn boundaries between "tribes" in Africa resulted in massive displacement and bloodshed. Freedom and fair play? In Kenya, a handful of white settlers appropriated 12,000 square miles and pushed 1.25 million native Kikuyus to 2,000 restricted square miles. Resistance was brutally crushed through internment in detention camps, torture and massacres. Some 50,000 Kikuyus were massacred and 300,000 interned to put down the Mau Mau rebellion by peasants who wanted to farm their own land. A thousand peaceful protesters were killed in the Amritsar massacre of 1919. A collective failure of the imagination now makes it difficult for us to think about the globe before European and American domination. Greed and violence are hardly exclusive to one culture. But colonialism destroyed or strangled possibilities and potential for progress, such as Mughal Emperor Akbar's "sul-e-kul" or "universal good" which underpinned his governance. The scale of European imperialism inaugurated a new chapter in the history of greed which still shapes all our lives. Natural resources - cotton, sugar, teak, rubber, minerals - were plundered in gigantic quantities. The Indian textile industry was the most advanced in the world when the British arrived; within half a century it had been destroyed. The enslaved and indentured (at least 20 million Africans and 1.5 million Indians) were shipped across the globe to work on plantations, mines and railroads. The stupendous profits deriving from this enabled today's developed world to prosper. The point isn't for Europeans to feel guilt, but a serious consideration of historical responsibility isn't the same thing as a blame game. Forgetting history is tempting but undermines a society's capacity for change. Among the many facile assumptions encouraged by these imperial apologists is that those who criticise colonialism are absolving tyrants and bigots in Asia and Africa from responsibility for their crimes. Of course it is possible and absolutely necessary to condemn both. Indians must acknowledge their culpability for atrocities during the partition, for example. But that in no way exonerates the British Raj from its pivotal role in the tragedy that led to over a million deaths. A wilful ignorance of other people's cultures and histories encourages the notion that freedom, democracy and tolerance are intrinsically western. As Amartya Sen has argued, the subcontinent has long been home to traditions of free-thinking and debate. Participatory governance was not Britain's gift (recall Gandhi's indigenous village republics), even if parliamentary democracy as an institutional form was adopted in some ex-colonies. Free trade is another mythical western contribution to world history. Amitav Ghosh has reconstructed the forgotten history of a vibrant trade culture between medieval India and Africa. When the Portuguese arrived, they demanded that the Hindu ruler of Calicut expel Muslims, "enemies of the Holy-Faith", from his kingdom. He refused and was subjected to two days of bombardment. Indeed, one legacy of European colonialism that we all reckon with is the self-fulfilling prophecy of the "clash of civilisations". The claim that east and west are bound to come into conflict is merely an extension of imperial practice which found it useful to seal off porous cultures into fixed categories. This tragic "lie of the colonial situation", as Frantz Fanon called it, rebounds on us tragically in the terror unleashed in the name of Islam and Bush's "war on terror". If we are to undo the destructive legacies of empire, it won't do to invest celebratory falsifications with credibility. To make sense of a shared present and look towards a more humane future, we need to start with a little informed honesty about the past. ยท Priyamvada Gopal teaches postcolonial studies at Cambridge University and is the author of Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence _____ [2] BBC 21 June 2006 PAKISTAN'S FLOURISHING ARMS BAZAAR by Aamer Ahmed Khan BBC News, Peshawar Weapons in Darra Adam Khel All kinds of weapon are on sale in Darra Adam Khel "There is nothing we cannot copy," grins Haji Munawar Afridi, an arms trader at Darra Adam Khel near Pakistan's northern city of Peshawar. "You bring us a Stinger missile and we will make you an imitation that would be difficult to tell apart from the original." It is not uncommon to come across such swagger from Pashtun tribesmen populating the lawless tribal belt along the country's western border with Afghanistan. But it would perhaps be unwise to dismiss it as sheer bluster. The hot, dry and dusty little town of Darra Adam Khel, barely a half-hour drive from Peshawar, is one of the major suppliers of small arms to the residents of the tribal belt. Master gunmaker Haji Alizai In pictures: Deadly trade >From a distance, it looks no different from any suburban settlement in North-West Frontier Province. The main road meanders into a market where few outlets are larger than a single room. But the fare they flaunt is deadly: revolvers, automatic pistols, shotguns and Kalashnikovs line the shelves of a typical shop. Only five years ago, the list would also have had items such as anti-personnel mines, sub-machine guns, small cannons and even rocket launchers. Betrayal "This farcical war on terror has been hard on us," says Haji Afridi. "The government has forced us to stop manufacturing heavy arms. It says such weapons are used by terrorists." For Darra tribesmen, the government's crackdown amounts to a betrayal of sorts. They say it was the government itself that transferred heavy weapons technology to Darra in the late 1980s. In April 1988, a major ammunition dump in Rawalpindi used for stockpiling US and Saudi-funded arms for the Afghan fighters blew up. The entire dump, called the Ojhri camp, was gutted in a day-long inferno during which dozens of people were killed as unarmed missiles rained down on citizens living in the heavily-populated areas around. Tribesmen say the government sold all the destroyed ammunition as scrap to arms dealers in Darra Adam Khel, a claim never quite denied by the authorities. Haji Afridi, who has been a member of parliament and is an active player in the bazaar's politics, say it was a windfall for local manufacturers. Arms trader Arms traders continue to focus on local markets "From those destroyed weapons, we overnight acquired the technology for manufacturing mines, machine guns, small cannons and even multi-barrel rocket launchers." It made Darra a household name in neighbouring Afghanistan, where the Afghans had descended into factional infighting after the Soviet withdrawal. Amid waning international interest in Afghanistan, Darra became the focal point for various antagonists engaged in the country. Within a couple of years, it had outgrown other tribal arms bazaars such as those in Bajaur and Jundollah. But the so-called war on terror seems to have put paid to the glory days. Under threat Analysts say these open arms markets were an invaluable asset for Pakistani policy-makers before 9/11. Influential traders in Darra Adam Khel proudly talk about their role in arming the Islamist fighters engaged in Kashmir. Arms trader Haji Afridi Punjabis love small arms and Punjab is our major market Arms trader Haji Afridi Others recall the times when the Pakistani authorities would encourage them to supply more to one Afghan commander than the other. This privileged status now seems to be under threat. Senior military officials say open arms markets are contributing significantly to the conflict between Taleban fighters and Pakistani security forces in the tribal belt. One official told the BBC News website that Pakistan's top army intelligence unit had recommended the immediate closure of all arms markets in the tribal belt soon after 9/11. For several years now, the government has been seen encouraging the arms manufacturers in Darra to participate in international defence weapons exhibitions held annually in major Pakistani cities. The idea is to introduce the tribesmen to the international arms market and create new, above-board relationships that are more easily regulated. That was perhaps the thought behind the government's decision to route all export orders awarded to Darra arms manufacturers through the ministry of defence. The move backfired, however, as most of the tradesmen started accusing the government of channelling international orders to their "favourites". At present, only a handful of the 2,000-odd families involved in arms manufacturing in Darra are supplying clients abroad. The rest continue to focus on local markets. "Punjabis love small arms and Punjab is our major market," says Haji Afridi. His claim is rubbished by intelligence officials, who say places such are Darra are critical in sustaining major conflicts in the region. Whatever the reality, it is clear that the government will have to come up with a highly innovative and aggressive strategy to bring this lethal trade under control. _____ [3] Opendemocracy.net 26 - 6 - 2006 BANGLADESH'S FRAYING DEMOCRACY by Liz Philipson http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-protest/bangladesh_3681.jsp _____ [4] The Hindu June 29, 2006 Towards the endgame in Nepal by Siddharth Varadarajan The sooner a U.N. mission is in place to monitor the arms of the Nepal Army and Maoist PLA, the smoother will be the transition towards an interim government and Constituent Assembly elections. http://www.hindu.com/2006/06/29/stories/2006062902871000.htm _____ [5] Kashmir Times June 27, 2006 Editorial BENEVOLENCE WITH BIAS ADOPTION OF ORPHANS BY RSS OUTFIT FRAUGHT WITH DANGER The news report about adoption of 100 militancy affected children from Jammu and Kashmir by an NGO affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh (RSS) carries a mixed omen of both good and bad. The good things first. The unfortunate children, mostly said to be orphans, are being given an opportunity to get education upto higher secondary level which may make them fit for higher education or any desired vocation. This would have sounded like Beethoven's symphony to the ears had it not been for the saffron brigade's hidden agenda behind this gesture of benevolence. The RSS is known to operate politically in the grab of social work and starting indoctrination camps for the very young, invoking its hate-soaked Hindutava philosophy, which may not be healthy for anyone, much less the children from Jammu and Kashmir who have already borne the brunt of violence and grown up in an atmosphere of turmoil and insecurity, forbidding them to think liberally and logically. The act of charity may be appreciable if there were no exterior motive or hidden agenda. Whether the RSS contests this, the fact is that the organization carries a baggage of history, which may not sound too appeasing. The organization, in the name of social work and cultural promotion has been motivating youngsters to attend its run schools and imparting its own curriculum with distorted histories and untruths about India's history or politics. The saffron brigades brush with distortion of history during the BJP led NDA rule at the Centre is already too well known. The RSS goes a step further with its own curriculum of social history, which preaches nothing but hatred against most of Indian neighbours, particularly Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. It raises the perverted ideology of Hindutava to lofty heights and labels everybody who does not believe in this philosophy as anti-nationals. If the news report about adoption of these children is to be believed, the army, through its Sadbhavana policy, has also facilitated the handing over of 57 children to this RSS affiliated NGO. This indeed is a cause for concern. The army, which is a visible face of the state could have done better than associating itself, at any level, with an NGO which has political designs and ambitions to fulfill. The needs of the orphaned children need to be fulfilled and this is important. Though primarily the task of the government, which has virtually done nothing for the state's growing number of orphans in the last sixteen years, the local NGOs and those from outside without a political design could have done a greater service. Unfortunately, while not many local NGOs have come forward to cater to the needs of the orphans, as these often lack funds and infrastructure; the government help is always wanting in this regard. Recently when the Centre had embarked on the course of sending a group of orphans, wrongly projected as earthquake victims, outside the state for studies, the move drew flak from various quarters. One of the points of argument against the move was that the children from the state should be looked after in the state itself as sending them outside would be an attempt to cut them from their roots. This is a plausible logic. And, though the basic education and basic needs of the orphans - quake victims, militancy affected or naturally orphaned children - should be a priority, it is also important to maintain that cultural and social link between the already victimized children and their original environment. Permitting NGOs with a bias to swoop in on the state's orphans and fulfill their evil designs by playing politics with the tragedy and grief of the children will be even more criminal. While the government needs to take steps in this regard to ensure that the orphans are not doubly victimized by any kind of petty politicking, this is essentially a task for the civil society, which can not only ensure safeguards against such a practice but also come forward to generously donate, in terms of money or time, for the cause and needs of the victimized children. _____ [6] [ The following article appears in the next issue [June July 2006] of the prestigious journal Communalism Combat, edited by Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand] o o o PARALLEL STATES: BJP-RULED GOVERNMENTS DEFY CENTRE AND CONSTITUTION ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM by John Dayal In an irony which will haunt and embarrass the government of India for a long time to come, New Delhi's commitment to the International Human Rights Council formed in Geneva this month, and also Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's refining the 30 year old 15-Point Programme for Minorities coincided with a major escalation in violence against the minority Christian communities in the states of Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. The situation has come to such a pass that senior Christian leaders have with all gravity asked the Union Government if its writ still runs in States which are ruled by Bharatiya Janata Party or its Allies. Church leaders have in fact cautioned the Union Government that unless urgent steps are taken, and seen to be taken, the impression will go that there are two sets of laws operating in the country-one criminal justice system operating in areas ruled by the BJP and another Constitutional law operative in the rest of India. Needless to say this poses a serious threat not only to the secular fabric of India, but indeed to the federal structure of its polity in which while states have a wide range of freedom of action, they are constitutionally bond to adhere to the basic tenets of our republican democracy. These of course include such basic freedoms and human rights as those of freedom to profess, practice and propagate one's faith or religion. Indicative of the BJP's defiance of both the Congress and the Constitution is the recent three-pronged attack on the Christian community. The first of this is repeated articulation by Chief Ministers and regional BJP heads in the four or five central Indian States that they would slam down with all severity on Christian Missionary activity, calling it anti-national and disruptive of national unity. The second is a heighten activity of conversion to Hinduism, politically called Ghar Wapasi of the indigenous or Tribals of Central India in which politicians such as the lumpen giant Judeo as also the controversial Shankaracharya of Puri are involved. The final blow is unabashed violence against poor and illiterate Tribals in remote villages who profess the Christian faith or are even remotely hospitable to a visiting pastor. Violence is no longer confined to beating up the man or demolition the family hut, but is now graduating to molesting of women, parading them in the streets and finally subjecting them gang rape as a method of teaching them a lesson. And illustrative case is of two Christian women on 28th May 2006 in Nadia village of Bhagwanpura block of Khargone district of South Western Madhya Pradesh of the night of 28th May. The women and their families had earned the wrath of the BJP leadership in the region for continuing to worship in a house church defying the dictat of the local Sangh thugs. On the 28th night a group of men lead by people now identified as Lalla, Nandla, Kallu, Rewal Singh and Sakaram all from the same village came and raided the house of the Christians beat up the men and then gang raped the women. The women say they can identify the tormentors (see box items for testimonies). I fully realise that rape is endemic in many areas in India including my home city of Delhi. We have police records which show the gravity of the situation, where in India a women is raped every 30 minutes and another is murdered every 75 minutes. National Police Crime Records Bureau data says a third of these rapes take place in Delhi but a very large number do take place in rural India, including the tribal parts of Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh. The Madhya Pradesh case is however different because of its religious connotations and the fact that the victims were raped so they could be "taught a lesson" for professing the Christian faith. This is reminiscent of the gang rape of nuns in Jhabua not far away from Khargone. Adding insult to the injury is the attitude of the district authorities including the police. They have constantly refused to file First Information Reports on behalf of the women or many eye witnesses. Not only this, they went on to coerce the victims to remain quite. And finally, as if to show their contempt to the rule of law, the police filed a case against the families of the victims for encouraging conversion to Christianity. Under such a protective police umbrella, thugs of the Sangh Parivar have created so much communal fear that even fact finding groups from the State capital of Bhopal find it difficult to travel to the villages of Khargone in the day time. After persistence complaints to the Centre's National Minorities Commission Chairperson Hamid Ansari sent two of his members to Madhya Pradesh for an on the spot inquiry. Commission member Harcharan Singh Josh later said that the situation in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh was not safe for Christians. He said that Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and a new organisation called the Dharam Dal were terrorizing the Christians even as the police forces closed their eyes to this violence. There is a very little left now for Christian groups and activists other then to move the High Court at Jabalpur to direct the state government to take action against the culprits. Another recourse perhaps lies by moving a similar writ in the Supreme Court. But moving the judiciary can be affective if the Union Government shows any sign of being politically alive to the communalism being fanned by the BJP governments in Madhya Pradesh and adjoining states. So far the Union Home Ministry -- in spite of my several letters to Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Prime Minister Shri Manmohan Singh in my capacity as a President of All India Catholic Union, the biggest Christian organisation in the country claiming to represent 1.8 Crore Catholic laity, and also as a member of the Central Government's own National Integration Council -- seems not to have elicited any response from the mandarins of North Block. Little wonder than that the Shankaracharya has openly organised mass conversion of Christians to Hinduism in Orissa while the district collectors look on. And in Rajasthan the State Home Minister and the Chief Minister pursue their one-point programme of implementing an anti conversion law in the face of almost universal condemnation. --------------------------------------- THREE TESTIMONIES FROM NANDYA VILLAGE KHARGONE DISTRICT Mrs Baysubai Ben narrates: "On 28th May, the village Mukhya's men came and took my husband Gokhrya. They were beating him all through the way. They also beat him in the gram Panchayat. But he refused to reject Jesus. Some one said that these Christians don't drink alcohol. So if we will make them to drink liquor, he will become a non-Christian.' So they forced the liquor into his mouth. Then asked him to leave Jesus or give up his land. He said, 'I will leave any thing but not Jesus.' The village Patel Pandya was there. He said, 'you people can do anything you want to with their women. There will not be any police case. If there is any case, I will handle it.' So some came to our village. I saw from my house two men molesting my sister in law (brother's wife, Rekha Bai.) I knew that they could do something to me also as my husband was not at home. I ran and took shelter in the neighbouring house. It was around 10 in the evening. They came and found me. They dragged me out and dropped me in the agricultural land. They undressed me by force and threw the clothes on the ground. They both repeatedly raped me. My husband and his friend were walking to our home from the friend's village. They heard my cry and came to rescue me. But there were a few others standing as guards. They caught hold of my husband and his friend. They started to beat the friend more than my husband. My husband took me home but they were beating his friend taking him to the Mukhya. There they bound him to a tree - and reported to the Mukhya, Ram Singh Patel. The people who raped me told my husband and me that if we will tell this to any one - they will kill us. As we were really shocked and frightened we did not do any thing. Next day came and warned that we should not leave the village and should not be fools to report - and it will cost our lives. But on the second night we escaped to a neighbouring village and found shelter in a neighbour's house who is a Christian. I am afraid and frightened when I see those who beat my husband or raped me. I feel so ashamed. The witness of Mrs. Rekha Bai. On May 28th some men came to our home after a meeting with the Mukhya. They caught hold of me and started to molest me. I escaped but as I am seven months pregnant I could not run far. So I ran to my father in-laws house, which is 200 meters away. My father in law tried to save me. They started to beat my father in law with firewood and the poor man ran for his life. Three men came to the in-laws house and found me hiding. They dragged me out and threw me on the cot that was put outside the house for my father in law. They undressed me and raped me. (One cot was broken which the police have taken away for evidence.} Three men raped me. When my mother-in-law started to curse and save me, one man took big firewood and hit her at the back. Wriggling with pain she sat there abusing the men. As they were going they warned us, "You tell this to any one try to make a complaint - we will get rid of you for ever." My husband was in the next village. Next day when he came, the people who raped me came and warned again - 'you dare to report this to any one or try to go out of the village - we will not let you live." This was on Sunday night. On Tuesday night we came out of the village - as no one was seeing us. On Wednesday we went to the police station. The Police inspector told me, "You are a prostitute and you are trying to blame these innocent people. ' He was abusing us continually. The police sent us to the government hospital. The doctor gave Gudiya an injection and some pills but did not do a check up on me. So one police came with us to the Khargone district government hospital. The doctor did a medical check up. Gudiya, a villager, says: My name is Gudiya. One day my friend Gokhariya from my nearby village came to me. It was on 28th May and said that the people of the village did beat him very badly for being a Christian. We discussed as what we could do in the new wave of this persecution. We sat there till 9.45 pm. Then Gokhariya said that he is going home. I said that I will walk with him. As we were walking by a hill, we heard the cry of a woman from the filed. It was the wife of Gokhariya. We ran over there and found two men raping her. But there were more men standing around. They caught hold of us. They were angry as I came to help my friend. They started to beat me on my back with a stick and there were deep wounds. They took me to the Mukhya but then they bound me on a tree with my hands bound to the back and left. I have the mark of the ropes even now on my arms. They left me there like that and reported to the Mukhya. He came and set me free. [With thanks to Fr Anand of Bhopal and Pastor PG Vargis] _____ [7] THE CARTOON CONTROVERSY: US LEFT NATIONALISTS ON THE SIDE OF ENEMIES OF FREEDOM by Mahmood Ketabchi (March 1, 2006) As the world witnessed the Islamists' reactionary campaign to impose their taboo on the progressive humanity, the US left nationalists, as expected, supported the Islamists. They talked of "Denmark's racist cartoons," praised the Islamists' protests, and tried to sell us the Islamist campaign as a "fight against racism, xenophobia, colonialism, and imperialism." They told the whole world that the "Muslims are right to be angry" and justified their savagery and hooliganism. They told us that the freedom of press and right to blasphemy was irrelevant and portray it as an imperialist conspiracy against Muslims. They called for protest in solidarity with the Islamist currents. They rushed and fell all over each other to raise hue and cry against "Islam-bashing," "the attack on the Muslim world," and "insults against Prophet Muhammad." They ignorantly conflated attack on religion with attack on people of color and claimed that it was racist xenophobic to attack on Islam. They tried to tell us that there is a great confrontation between imperialism and the Islamic forces. [. . .]. FULL TEXT AT: http://www.ww4report.com/node/1686 _____ [8] [UPCOMING EVENTS] (i) Dear Friends, ANHAD IS ORGANISING A DAY LONG SEMINAR AND A CULTURAL TRIBUTE TO VASANT RAO AND RAJAB ALI ON THE EVE OF THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THEIR MARTYDOM. JUNE 30TH, 2006 AT VADODARA, GUJARAT. Please Join Us. Shabnam Hashmi o o o 60 Years of Martyrdom Vasant Rajab : A Symbol of Communal Harmony June 30th, 2006 CC Mehta Auditorium, MS University , Vadodara It was the 1st of July, 1946 and the day of the RathYatra (Car Festival) when communal riot flared up in Ahmedabad. The entire city was engulfed in arson, looting , killings, burnings. The law and order situation was in disarray. Vasant Rao and Rajab Ali were engaged in saving Hindu and Muslim Families and their houses and properties. The news came from Jamalpur in the evening to the Seva Dal workers in Congress office that at Khand -ni- that a Dalit family was being surrounded by the frenzied mob. It was evening. As soon as the news came, Vasant- Rajab rushed to the spot. They reached the spot and tried their best to pacify the mob. Vasant- Rajab tried their best to appeal to their conscience. Instead, the mob threatened them of dire consequences. Vasant and Rajab resisted the mob, many from the mob left but the die hards attacked them and both of them were killed on the spot. Of course their martyrdom saved the Dalit family and the Basti Their sacrifice could finally put off the flame of communal fire. Anhad, after its formation three years ago, declared July 1 as the communal harmony day in memory of Vasant and Rajab and has been observing it every year since 2002. Anhad is organisng a day long seminar followed by an evening cultural tribute to the martyrs on June 30th, 2006 in Vadodara on the eve of the anniversary of their martydom. SEMINAR 9.30am-5.30pm June 30th, 2006 CC Mehta Auditorium, MS University , Vadodara Reimagining the City, Reimagining the Nation Session I Reimagining the City 9.30am -1.00pm Introducing the Seminar and Speakers- Adarsha Hegde Chairperson: Ghanshyam Shah Gujarat: Traditions of Composite Culture- Achyut Yagnik Vadodara and Its Dalit Tribal Hinterland: Rift between the City and the Countryside: Dr. Lancy Lobo Vadodara as a Centre of Education: Past and Present- Prof. Iftikhar Ahmed Khan Vadodara: Ghettoisation and Hate: The Rift between Religious Communities- Beena Srinivasan Gender at the Faultlines of Conflict: Zakia Jowher Vadodara and livelihoods and the rift between the rich and the poor - Rohit Prajapati Lunch Break 1.00pm -2pm Session II 2.00pm- 5.30pm Tea Break- 3.00-3.30pm Reimagining the Nation Chairperson: Prof. KN Panikkar Rakesh Sharma Siddharth Vardarajan Harsh Mander Ram Puniyani Gagan Sethi A Cultural Tribute to Vasant and Rajab An Evening of Dance, Poetry and Music 7.30pm onwards Dhruv Sangari Gauhar Raza Khalil Dhantejvi Saba Azad Grewal and Mehneer Sudan Dhruv Sangari did his masters in music from Delhi University. he follows the tradition of Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Dhruv learnt from Ustad Miraj Nizami of Delhi and from Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan for three years. He has performed all over India, US and UK. Gauhar Raza is a scientist, documentary filmmaker and a poet. Gauhar's first book of poetry got the Hindi Academy Award for creative Writing. He was also awarded creative writing award from Urdu academy for science writing for children. He has made more than 30 documentaries on different social issues. He is at present working as the Director, Jahangirabad Media Institute. Khalil Dhantejvi is a Baroda based poet. He has written extensively on issues related to harmony and peace. He is known for his stage presence. Mehneer Sudan was, in her words "born to dance". She is a contemporary dancer, and has trained in many dance forms. She trained in Kathak for ten years and has a junior diploma in the same from the Prayag Sangeet Samiti (Allahabad). She has trained in jazz and ballet at Danceworx (New Delhi) she has also trained in contemporary dance from the Northern School of contemporary dance, Leeds. She has attended workshops with international choreographers such as Jan Freeman, and has choreographed and taught dance in London. She has performed all over India as well as at Leeds. She was until recently teaching at the British School Delhi. Dance, for Saba Azad, is the most natural mode of _expression. She has been training in Odissi for the past 15 years under the tutellage of Padmashree Guru Smt. Kiran Segal. She has trained in ballet, jazz and Latin dances from ballet master Fernando Aqilera and Danceworx Delhi. She is currently training in contemporary dance. She has performed all over Canada, England, Nepal and India. She has done choreography for children's plays with Vivek Mansukhani. She has taught at the American School Delhi __ (ii) WORLD SUMMIT ON FREE INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURES WSFII Memorandum Of Understanding We declare, as an ongoing international process of multiple, local action oriented events which provide space for people to come together, to share experiences, present practical solutions, to learn and to build, all kinds of Free Information Infrastructures. Infrastructures, are shared across language, cultural and other boundaries, and are natural meeting points for people. We want to promote affordable, non-bureaucratic, participatory, do it yourself, self-governing approaches in a wide variety of fields. We offer: * An open space to represent your practice and validate your knowledge. * A network of international practicioners and vissionaries. * A series of regional events to be designed by the participants. * An international summit to take place in Dharamsala, India from 22nd of October until 3rd of November 2006. * and a support group, how-tos, and resources to make it happen. The Wsfii coordinators commit to making this happen. We invite you, your project, your initiative or your organization to join us. Come and participate at this years global WSFII workshop at Dharamsala end of October. http://wsfii.org/ _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace and democratisation in South Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit citizens wire service run since 1998 by South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/ SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. _______________________________________________ Sacw mailing list [email protected] http://insaf.net/mailman/listinfo/sacw_insaf.net
