If anyone would like to discuss this situation in Sapac, please some to the next meeting, this is an email update:
October 29, 2003
Partial Success at Hand�
Mallika Sarabhai Granted Bail Today!
Dear Friend of Freedom:
Just received word that despite tremendous pressure on Gujarat Judges, Mallika has been granted bail�.
However, this does not mean that the Modi government in the State of Gujarat will not do everything in its power to continue to frame her in false case of human trafficking.
We must put tremendous pressure on the highest officials in India to tell Mr. Modi that the Court of World opinion will not accept his dirty tricks.
Please add your personal name and country as well as the name of your organization as signatory to the following letter going via courier to:
v The President of India
v The Prime Minister of India
v The Deputy Prime Minister of India
v The Chief Minister of Gujarat
v The Speaker of Indian Parliament
If you have already signed, please make sure that your name, country and organizations are spelled correctly.
WE WILL RELEASE THIS LETTER TO THE MEDIA IN INDIA RIGHT AWAY AND CLOSE THE SIGNING BY NOON, SATURDAY NOVEMBER 1ST 2003
I have also attached a very moving letter from Dr Mallika Sarabhai, which was written prior to her getting bail.
With warmest personal regards,
Yours for Freedom,
Shrikumar PoddarShrikumar Poddar 35 C C I Chambers, Mumbai 400 020 Phone 2202-7320 or 2282-4055 Fax 2204-0108 Email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
PS: Please Phone Five or More Friends to ask them to join you in signing the statement.
Dear Mr. Vajpayee:
You are urged to take immediate steps to stop the harassment and intimidation of Dr Mallika Sarabhai, who is the Pride of Gujarat. Times of India of Tuesday, October 28th 2003 has headlined a story entitled �Mallika Sarabhai Is Being Framed� and it has put the Government of India and the State Government of Gujarat in a very bad light.
As you very well know that Mallika has been very outspoken in condemning the massacre of innocent human beings in the State of Gujarat after the Godhra incident of February 2002.
She has refused to withdraw her case against the State Government of Gujarat for lack of failure to prosecute the perpetrators of the senseless violence and also the failure of the State to provide adequate relief and rehabilitation of the survivors in the Supreme Court.
She has categorically denied any wrongdoing and the charges of human trafficking against a person of her stature is absurd. Despite this she did co-operate fully with all the inquiries of the authorities.
Efforts of Gujarat Government to deny her bail is gross miscarriage of justice. Many prominent citizens of India such as Rajmohan Gandhi , Kuldeep Nair, Shabana Azmi, Asghar Ali Engineer, J B D�souza, Dolly Thakore Alyque Padamsee B G Verghese have already protested this outrageous effort to silence one of the few voices of sanity in the State of Gujarat.
We respectfully ask you to take immediate steps to reverse the misguided effort to force Dr Mallika Sarabhai to withdraw her public interest litigation; otherwise irreparable harm will be done to India�s reputation that got tarnished in all parts of the world.
We the undersigned Non-Resident Indians both individuals and organizations are awaiting your confirmation that the right steps have been taken to set the wrong that has been done to Dr Mallika Sarabhai.
Sincerely yours,
Individuals
Shrikumar Poddar, USA
Dr K S Sripada Raju, USA
Uma Balakrishnan, USA
Kaleem Kawaja, USA
S.M.Bhagat, USA
Hari Sharma, Canada
Rasheed Ahmed, USA
Ruchira Gupta, USA
Imtiazuddin, USA
Gautam & Urvi Desai, USA Amit Shah, USA
Zubair Patel, USA
Rajesh Veeraraghavan, USA
Sami Uddin. USA
Dr. Chander Balakrishnan, USA
Srividhya Venkataraman ,USA
Dr. Jawaid Quddus, USA
Mayurika Poddar, USA
Uttara Mashruwala, Australia
Ahmad Raza, USA
J. Mohan Rao, USA
Dr. Beheruz N. Sethna, USA
Daksha Mashruwala, India
Kay Jamieson, Australia
Dr. Beheruz N. Sethna, USA
Parul Zaveri, India
Nimish Patel, India
George Abraham, USA
Dr Andree Grau, United Kingdom
Kristine Landon-Smith England -
Franz Probst, Switzerland
Jhelum Paranjape,India
Uma Dogra, India
Tushar A. Gandhi,India
Ann Tonks, Australia
Deepak Raja, United Kingdom
Zafar Iqbal, USA
Mayank Mansingh Kaul,
Organizations
International Service Society, USA
Vaishnava Centre for Enlightenment, USA
India Development Society, USA
India Foundation, USA
Seva International, USA
Bharatiya Educational Foundation, USA
Probst Rechtsanw�lte, Switzerland
Assn of Indian Muslims of America,, USA
Gujarati Muslim Assn of America, USA
International South Asia Forum, Canada
Am Fed of Muslims from India, USA
S.Asian Network for Secularism & Democracy, Canada
KJ, Australia
Kaishiki, India
Develop in Peace, USA
Peace on Earth, USA
Coalition for a Secular & Democratic India, USA
Samved Society for Performing Arts, India
LETTER FROM MALLIKA SARABHAI...
My dear friends,
Over the last 20 months many of you have been aware of my stand against the Anti Muslim pogrom that happened in Gujarat.
With many of you I have had personal conversations, and many of you know that I have had to go underground and that I and Darpana [The 60 year old performing arts institute in Ahmedabad, begun by Mrinalini Sarabhai, Mallika's mother.] have been harassed and threatened continuously, amongst other things to try and cow me down into withdrawing my public interest litigation about this in the supreme court and to stop me talking at a variety of fora about the continuing boycott of the Muslims, the continuing lack of justice and other issues.
Those of you who are in India or who log onto Indian news portals are already aware of their latest move, i.e. to frame a criminal case against me of fraud and intention to cheat, through a young woman who was a short term student of Darpana's.
I will not go into the case in detail just now - she is accusing me/Darpana of having promised her a United States Visa and thereby a false dance tour ruse to illegally immigrate to the states; she also claims that when the visa was rejected I intimidated her and refused to return the money taken for tickets, visas and other charges.
Without going into this further, I want you to know only that there is not an iota of truth in it, that all monies for the cancelled dance tour, as per the contract with the students, were returned, as were their passports, and that this is a huge and apparently successful attempt to defame me and the institution and family, nationally, through the media. It is also a huge attempt at intimidation.
Under the Indian criminal law, once a First Information Report or FIR is accepted by the police, the police, if they so wish can arrest you and throw you into jail till they produce you before a magistrate.
Guilty till proved innocent. Given the high visibility of my name and the issue, my lawyers have asked me to apply for anticipatory bail, which I have, in the session�s court. There are tremendous pressures being brought on to the judiciary, for obvious reasons.
My detractors have planned this well. The court is on vacation and works only two hours a day. The backlog in the court is big so my bail hearing has taken 48 hours to be heard instead of 24. It will be heard in the next hour. If the session�s court rejects it, the courts are shut for four days for Diwali, so the earliest we can apply in the high court is on Tuesday.
Meanwhile I have to be unavailable for arrest. Non-euphemistically, that means in hiding and on the run. Yet again, I veer between despair and anger. Between wanting to be a martyr for truth if that is what my larger purpose in life is, and wanting to throw up my hands and say 'neither the country nor its people for whom I have spent 25 years working deserve me'.
This is a democratic country and they are doing this to one of the most known faces and voices. What of the millions of others?
I am trying to keep sane and sensible. All my colleagues at Darpana have been and continue to be wonderful and out in the open. And my brother and my daughter who are there in Ahmedabad. And as happened before, the many idealistic 'friends', well-wishers and intellectual seekers of truth in Gujarat have deafened me by their silence.
Where there is smoke there is fire, I hear them saying. But isn't that a saying that is no longer valid? When dalits in a village get their eyes gouged out for daring to look at their betters, which is the smoke and which the fire? When young women get acid thrown at them because they refuse advances from men, which is the smoke and which the fire?
When law courts say that rape could not have happened because the men are respectable and the woman but a tribal where is the smoke and where the fire?
People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, I hear them saying. But is it inconceivable that some of us live in glass houses because we want to be transparent, because we want to make our lives open books?
I don't know if I will be able to write again or when. Nor what today holds. But I wanted you all to know that if I go down it shall be fighting for what I believe is true and right.
--- Mallika Sarabhai
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