IMC Weekly Digest--Lots and lots of interesting articles!

Wed, 07 Jan 2004 13:45:41 -0800



Indian Muslim Council <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 23:05:08 -0500 (EST)
From: Indian Muslim Council <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Amartya Sen thinks Gujarat Govt engineered Communal riots

Indian Muslim Council, USA (IMC-USA)
'Defending India's freedom, democracy and pluralism'
IMC-USA Weekly News Digest - January 3rd, 2004

In this issue...

Announcements:

Communal Harmony in Action:

News Headlines:
Opinions & Editorials:

Announcements:

IMC-USA invites you to the nationwide speaking tour of Dr.Asghar Ali Engineer

Indian Muslim Council - USA invites you to attend the discussions and nation-wide speaking tour of Dr.Asghar Ali Engineer.
When: January - February 2004
Where: San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago and other cities in USA. More details to follow.

Dr. ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER is a renowned Indian scholar and activist. In over forty years of exhaustive fieldwork, he has investigated and documented nearly every riot in post-independence India. Dr. Engineer has written extensively on Indian Muslims and Communal harmony, Secularism etc in countless articles, weekly newsletters and books. He has forty-five books to his credit, and is currently the director of the Center for the Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS) and the Institute of Islamic Studies, both in Mumbai, India.


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Communal Harmony in Action:

"Main Vijay Hoon, Main Anthony hoon. Main Iqbal hoon. Main Amitabh Bachchan hoon. Main ek Hindustani hoon." (Stopthehatred.com, 2002)
The deep baritone, is unmistakable. "Main Vijay Hoon," it says. "Main Anthony hoon. Main Iqbal hoon. Main Amitabh Bachchan hoon. Main ek Hindustani hoon. Ek Hindustani pe zulm saare Hindustaniyon pe zulm hai." The clip is from Ramesh Sippy's daughter-in-law Rohena Gera's Stop the Hatred public service campaign.

The four 30 second spots feature national icons. So Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar, Zakir Husain, Aamir Khan, Ashutosh Gowariker, M F Husain, Aparna Sen, Mammooty, Abhishek Bachchan, Fardeen Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Shabana Azmi, Tabu, Raveena Tandon, Akshaye Khanna and Anupam Kher all profess that they are Indians to the core, and a crime against any Indian is a crime against India.

The idea came to Rohena in May. "I was watching all this hate propaganda on TV," she says. "The days during and after the Gujarat carnage were a time to be ashamed. I didn't want to be ashamed of being an Indian. I had to do something, however small. At a time when people were buying into a very scary rhetoric, it was important to say something positive. And to be heard, I thought it was best to have icons giving that message."

Stop The Hatred
http://www.stopthehatred.com/coverage.html

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News Headlines:

Amartya Sen thinks Gujarat Govt engineered Communal riots (Jan 1 2004, DeepikaGlobal)
New Delhi, Dec 31 (UNI) Communal riots in Gujarat in the wake of the ''Godhra carnage'' in 2002 were ''planned and disciplined '' and a court of law must examine the allegations regarding involvement of the Narendra Modi government, of which there is ''considerable evidence'', according to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. ''We had this terrible riot in 2002. It started with an arson in which the victims were primarily Hindu ....But then the reaction that followed and the organisation that went with it clearly points to a well-disciplined riot,'' he said in an interview to be broadcast tonight by the BBC World's 'Asia Today' programme where he spoke at length on communalism and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
http://www.deepikaglobal.com/latestnews.asp?ncode=10914

SEE ALSO:

Violence in Gujarat continues in different forms: Report (Dec 24 2003, Hindustan Times)
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_507672,000900040003.htm

Riot relief heat on Modi (Dec 25 2003, Telegraph)
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1031225/asp/nation/story_2716099.asp

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Overseas Peaceniks say Gujarat riots disturbing (Dec 31 2003, Times of India)
AHMEDABAD: Even as foreign delegates attending the International Conference on World Peace (ICWP) deliberated on various aspects of peace on Tuesday, they wondered why there was no attempt to probe the reasons behind the communal flare-ups in Gujarat . “I am surprised why there was no reflection after the riots over the differences that came to surface in the name of religion. There also seems to be absence of efforts to highlight ethnic commonalties to mitigate the communal tension in the state,” said a delegate from the UK , Paul Fletcher.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/396899.cms

SEE ALSO:

NCW writes to home secy on Ranvir Sena killings (Dec 31 2003, Times of India)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/397161.cms

Gujarat 2003: HOPE/ Not forsaken (Dec 31 2003, Indian Express)
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=72059

Modi shadow on Christmas (Dec 24 2003, Times of India)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/379877.cms

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RSS, Jamait hold first-ever meet (Dec 28 2003, Times of India)
NEW DELHI: As Lok Sabha polls draw nearer, back-channel activities have been launched to resolve the decades-old vexed Ayodhya tangle and other issues of communal discord with Sangh Parivar top brass holding first-ever talks with influential Muslim leadership here. RSS chief K S Sudarshan, its spokesman Ram Madhav and VHP President V H Dalmiya met Jamait-i-Ulema-e-Hind President Maulana Mehmood Madani and its two other top leaders Niaz Farouqi and Maulana Nomani four days back. Aiming to ‘clear misunderstandings’ about each other the Hindu-Muslim religious leadership discussed, among other topics, the Ayodhya issue and how to solve it.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/387284.cms

SEE ALSO:

Muslim organisation advocates court settlement for Ayodhya (Dec 24 2003, Hindustan Times)
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_506607,0008.htm

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Historians plan 'parallel textbooks' (Dec 30 2003, The Hindu)
MYSORE DEC. 29. The Indian History Congress (IHC) is opposed to "interference" in the writing of history textbooks and has prepared a list of "mistakes and distortions". ..Ms. Moosvi, former secretary of the IHC, said over 1,200 delegates were attending the 64th session of the IHC here, a record since the first meet in Allahabad in 1935. This was an _expression_ of unity by historians against "interference" in history writing by those who were not historians. It was also a matter of concern that textbooks were being written by "persons who had never taught history".
http://www.thehindu.com/2003/12/30/stories/2003123001511200.htm

SEE ALSO:

Sainiks vent ire against Biharis (Dec 26 2003, Times of India)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/382720.cms

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Religious heads join polio drive (Dec 31 2003, Times of India)
..Speaking at a sammelan organized to create awareness about polio and the means to eradicate the same, the minister said it was found that the maximum cases relating to the disease were found in Muslim dominated localities. The reason for this was their poor economic status and lack of literacy. ..Delivering his address at the sammelan, president of the Muslim Personal Law Board Maulana Sayed Rabey Hasan Nadwi said God had blessed each child with an inherent ability but the same child became helpless when he is struck by polio virus. ..Mufti Abdul Irfan Mohammad Naimul Halim Firangi Mahal said diseases were the outcome of the fault of the people and “Islam teaches its followers to keep their body fit and healthy.”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/397041.cms

SEE ALSO:

Implement Police Commission report: NHRC (Dec 30 2003, The Hindu)
http://www.thehindu.com/2003/12/30/stories/2003123001551200.htm

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Healing the orphans of Gujarat's riots (Dec 31 2003, BBC)
Shafiq is eight and wants to be a policeman. Perhaps that is because his most vivid memories are not of law and order, but carnage. "They surrounded us from all sides and set us on fire inside our compound. Of the 11 family members, my father, grandmother, uncle, my sister, my auntie, died. Eight died. Three of us survived - me, my younger sister and my mother." Shafiq comes from Narora Patia, the area of the Indian state of Gujarat worst affected by riots between Hindus and Muslims last year. He too was set alight. He has the physical scars but the emotional ones run deeper. Now he is here among a clutch of young children in a classroom in Raigarh, 200 kilometres from Bombay (Mumbai).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3335559.stm

SEE ALSO:

Justice still eludes Best Bakery victims (Dec 29 2003, Times of India)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/388118.cms

Bakery retrial vetoed, acquittal stands (Dec 27 2003, Telegraph)
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1031227/asp/nation/story_2723898.asp

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BJP may take services of RSS cadre for party jobs (Dec 27 2003, The Hindu)
NEW DELHI DEC. 26. The Bharatiya Janata Party is expected to utilise the full-time cadre of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh for specific jobs of the party in the run-up to Lok Sabha elections. The number of persons who will be "loaned'' by the RSS is not clear, but much will depend on the timing of the general election. The closer the election, the more RSS men will be used. "After the BJP decides what jobs need to be done, the RSS will begin the process of identifying the men for the jobs,'' a senior RSS leader insider said. The editor of The Organiser, Seshadiri Chari, is to be given full-time responsibility in the BJP.
http://www.thehindu.com/2003/12/27/stories/2003122704031300.htm

SEE ALSO:

Sangh loan to boost BJP campaign (Dec 27 2003, Telegraph)
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1031227/asp/nation/story_2723618.asp

Sangh sings BJP tune to woo tribals (Dec 29 2003, Telegraph)
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1031229/asp/nation/story_2729415.asp

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Forensic film contests Godhra theory (Dec 29 2003, Telegraph)
Chennai, Dec. 28: An independent forensic expert has “demonstrated” with material evidence, testimony and logic in an hour-long documentary that the attack on the Sabarmati Express at Godhra was not a “conspiracy”. The arson in which 59 persons were killed on February 25, 2002, was a “continuation of happenings on Platform no. 1 at the railway station earlier”. Kar sevaks on the train are said to have clashed with vendors. Godhra Tak: The Terror Trail by New Delhi-based journalist-turned-film maker Shubhradeep Chakravorty shows Dr V.. Sehgal, former director, Central Forensic Science Laboratory, and a member of Interpol, doing spot investigation of coach S6 of the Sabarmati Express.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1031229/asp/nation/story_2728597.asp

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Opinions and Editorials:

Gujarat: Remember this? - By Kalpana Sharma (Dec 28 2003, The Hindu)
Can we afford to bury and forget the terrifying messages that the massacres in Gujarat carry? ...Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is convinced that anyone who still speaks of the horrifying events of February-March 2002 in Gujarat — "five-star activists and pseudo-secularists" — is "trying to tarnish the State's image". There is not even a hint of acknowledgment, leave alone regret, about the killings during those months that scarred not just Gujarat but India. As far as Modi is concerned, the "people have given them (the pseudo-secularists) a fitting reply by voting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) back to power and these five-star activists have no right to question the collective wisdom of the people of Gujarat."

Is it "collective wisdom" to endorse amnesia? Can a sound future be built for a state, or a country, on the unhealed gaping wounds of thousands of its citizens? Can we as a country afford to bury and forget the terrifying messages that last year's massacres in Gujarat carry? To ensure that the memory of the Gujarat carnage is not erased, one more report by the people Modi loves to hate has been released. "Threatened existence: A feminist analysis of the genocide in Gujarat" by the International Initiative for Justice in Gujarat is an important addition to the scores of documents that have recorded the events of early 2002.
http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mag/2003/12/28/stories/2003122800210300.htm

SEE ALSO:

Gandhi’s quotemartial - Editorial (Dec 25 2003, Indian Express)
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=37909

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Bilal's return to Gujarat - By Linda Pressly (Dec 18 2003, BBC)
In February 2002, three British tourists were murdered in Gujarat in a wave of anti-Muslim violence. Bilal Dawood is the brother of one of the men and the cousin of another. ..He was looking for landmarks like the farm house where the tourists fled to, pursued by a terrifying armed mob. Or the factory, where Bilal gathered human remains of fine white ash with his bare hands. Gujarat can still be tense, and Bilal had been advised to spend as short a time as possible in this part of the state. What is unprecedented about the carnage was the level of state sponsorship Saeed and Shakil Dawood, their childhood friend, Mohammed Aswat, and their driver Yusuf Peragar were murdered because they were Muslims.

...In the days after the attack in 2002, Dr Dongre looked after a terrified Imran in his house. "We cannot forget those days," he told Bilal. "After Imran was with me, I received two or three threatening calls, saying you had one Muslim chap there, we will see you..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/3331767.stm

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Watch the bakery - Editorial (Dec 29 2003, Telegraph)
...But it has been the singular achievement of the machinery of state to make their fight for justice look either like uncalled-for judicial activism or like a ridiculous and outmoded form of left-liberal political correctness. Apart from the Supreme Court’s persistence in the matter, protesting against what has happened in Gujarat, and continues to happen there, has begun to look almost like a hippy movement, conducted in isolated venues by assorted rights activists or inconvenient celebrities (usually women, and usually from the minority communities). This is not only a perversion of justice, but also a mockery of the Indian polity and civil society — of the Constitution and the judiciary, and of the lives of individuals and communities.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1031229/asp/opinion/story_2727809.asp

SEE ALSO:

Handing it on a platter - by Pran Chopra
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_506542,00120002.htm

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