jan 2012 - rh

THE RADICAL HUMANISTRs. 20 / monthVol. 75 No 10 JANUARY 2012

Founder Editor: M.N. Roy

(Since April 1949)

Formerly : Independent India (April 1937- March 1949)

502

Spiritual Materialism: A case for Atheism

Shroud of Turin: Redux

A Kashmiri pundit mother’s appeal

for peace in Kashmir- Part 2

No Walmart Please;

Lokpal Legislation Debate Requires Calmer Consideration

Heavy Reading

The ‘Peace-Mediator’ Rests in ‘Peace’

(Indira Goswami: 1942-2011)

—Ashok K. Choudhury

From the Editor’s Desk:

The Cardinal Principle of Radical Humanism

—Rekha Saraswat

—Laxmanshastri Joshi

—Daniel Loxton

—Asha Kachru

—Rajindar Sachar

—Dipavali Sen

THE RADICAL HUMANIST JANUARY 2012

The Radical Humanist

Monthly journal of the Indian Renaissance

Institute

Devoted to the development of the Renaissance

Movement; and for promotion of human rights,

scientific-temper, rational thinking and a humanist

view of life.

Founder Editor:

M.N. Roy

Editor:

Dr. Rekha Saraswat

Contributory Editors:

Prof. A.F. Salahuddin Ahmed, Dr. R.M. Pal, Professor

Rama Kundu

Publisher:

Mr. N.D. Pancholi

Printer:

Mr. N.D. Pancholi

Send articles to: Dr. Rekha Saraswat, C-8, Defence

Colony, Meerut, 250001, U.P., India, Ph.

91-121-2620690, 09719333011,

E-mail articles at: [email protected]

Send Subscription / Donation Cheques in favour of

‘The Radical Humanist’to:

Mr. Narottam Vyas (Advocate), Chamber Number

111 (Near Post Office), Supreme Court of India, New

Delhi, 110001, India [email protected]

Ph. 91-11-22712434, 91-11-23782836, 09811944600

Please Note: Authors will bear sole accountability

for corroborating the facts that they give in their

write-ups. Neither IRI / the Publisher nor the Editor

of this journal will be responsible for testing the

validity and authenticity of statements &

information cited by the authors. Also, sometimes

some articles published in this journal may carry

opinions not similar to the Radical Humanist

philosophy; but they would be entertained here if the

need is felt to debate and discuss upon them.

—Rekha Saraswat

Vol. 75 Number 10 January 2012

Download and read the journal at

www.theradicalhumanist.com

- Contents -

1. From the Editor’s Desk:

The Cardinal Principle of Radical Humanism

—Rekha Saraswat 1

2. From the Writings of Laxmanshastri Joshi:

Spiritual Materialism: A case for Atheism 2

3. Guests’ Section:


—Daniel Loxton 7

A Kashmiri pundit mother’s appeal

for peace in Kashmir- Part 2

—Asha Kachru 9

4. Current Affairs’ Section:

No Walmart Please;

Lokpal Legislation Debate Requires Calmer

Consideration

—Rajindar Sachar 17

U.S. withdrawal from Iraq;

Swami’s actions;

Mallaperiyar Project;

Threat of fast by Anna Hazare;

Devanand

—N.K. Acharya 21

5. IRI / IRHA Members’ Section:

PUCL’s History of Struggle

—Mahipal Singh 24

6. Teachers’ & Research Scholars’ Section:

The ‘Peace-Mediator’ Rests in ‘Peace’


—Ashok K. Choudhury 28

7. Book Review Section:

Heavy Reading

—Dipavali Sen 33

8. Humanist News Section 35

From the Editor’s Desk: The Cardinal

Principle of Radical Humanism

The cardinal principle of Radical

Humanism as I see it is the belief in the

infinite capability of man. That is why the

philosophy of Radical Humanism is fiercely

protective against any kind of control over

man’s potential to develop. It is

apprehensive of all types of collective

powers which continuously try to influence him in the

process of his becoming aware of his being as an

individual self.

If we take the basic point underlying most of the

theses of New Humanism, it summarizes as under:

1.“Man is the archetype of society…the development

of the individual is the measure of social progress.”

2.“Increasing knowledge of nature enables man to be

progressively free from the tyranny of natural

phenomena, and social environments….”

3.“Freedom is the progressive disappearance of all

restrictions on the unfolding of the potentialities of

individuals, as human beings, and not as cogs in the

wheels of a mechanical social organism.”

4.“Ideation is a physiological process-” (Ideas are

formed individually and not collectively in a man’s

mind) “-resulting from the awareness of

environments.”

5.“A political system and an economic experiment

which subordinates the man of flesh and blood to an

imaginary collective ego, be it the nation or a class,

cannot possibly be the suitable means for the

attainment of the goal of freedom…”

6.“Planning of production for use is possible on the

basis of political democracy and individual freedom.”

7.“Planned economy under political dictatorship

disregards individual freedom on pleas of efficiency,

collective effort and social progress…..”

8.“Atomized individual citizens-” (in Parliamentary

Democracy) “- are powerless for all practical

purposes, and most of the times.”

9.“The doctrine of Laissez faire only provides the

legal sanction to the exploitation of man by man. The

economic man is bound to be a slave or a

slave-holder.”

10.“The alternative to parliamentary

democracy is not dictatorship; it is

organized democracy in place of the

formal democracy of powerless atomized

individual citizens.”

11.“The function of a revolutionary and

liberating social philosophy is to lay

emphasis on the basic fact of history that man is the

maker of his world – man as a thinking being – and he

can be so only as an individual.”

12.“Radical democracy presupposes economic

reorganization of society so as to eliminate the

possibility of exploitation of man by man.”

13.“The new society, being founded on reason and

science, will necessarily be planned. But it will be a

planning with the freedom of the individual as its

main purpose.”

14.“The ideal of Radical Democracy will be attained

through the collective efforts of spiritually free men

united in the determination of creating a world of

freedom.”

15.“Education of the citizen is the condition for such a

reorganization of society as will be conducive to

common progress and prosperity without encroaching

upon the freedom of the individual.”

16.Radicalism integrates science into social

organization and reconciles individuality with

collective life: it gives freedom a moral, intellectual as

well as social content…”

17.“Radicalism starts from the dictum that “man is the

measure of everything” (Protagoras) or “man is the

root of mankind” (Marx) and advocates

reconstruction of the world as a commonwealth and

fraternity of free men, by the collective endeavour of

spiritually emancipated moral men.”

These are such self-explanatory selected lines from

the 22 theses of Radical Humanist philosophy directly

picked up as quotes to prove that this philosophy for

the first time in the world’s history tries to evolve a

balance between the chaos and confusion of

collectivism and the ultimate natural need and

demand of individualism.

1


Rekha Saraswat

From The Writings of Laxmanshastri Joshi:

Spiritual Materialism – A casefor Atheism

Translated by —Arundhati Khandkar

[The book Spiritual Materialism – A case for

Atheism, A New Interpretation of the

Philosophy of Materialism written by

Tarkateertha Laxmanshastri Joshi has been

translated by his daughter, Arundhati

Khandkar, who was formerly Professor of

Philosophy at S.I.E.S. College, University of

Mumbai, India. He passed away many decades

ago but his contribution in building up the

philosophical base of Radical Humanism has

been no less. Roy acknowledged it in his life time

and the followers of the philosophy continue to do

so. I had requested Ms. Khandkar to translate her

father’s major works from to Marathi to English

for the benefit of the contemporary readers of RH.

And to our pleasant surprise she informed that

there is already the above mentioned book in

English done by her. It is being serialised in The

Radical Humanist June 2010 onwards. She has

also promised to send us in English, gradually,

more of his Marathi literature.

Laxmanshastri wrote this essay with the title

Materialism or Atheism in 1941. How

meaningful and necessary it is, even now, 70

years later, can be understood by the following

paragraph given on the cover page of the book.

—Rekha Saraswat]

“That religion more often than not tends toperpetuate the existing social structure rather thanbeing reformist and that it benefits the upperclasses. They perpetrate the illusions and are usedfor impressing the weaker sections of the society.Many taboos which might have had somebeneficial effects are given a permanent sanctionand these put a fetter on further progress. Theargument that religion promotes social stability andsocial harmony is examined and rejected. Withoutthe dubious benefit of religion various secularworldly values have been developed and they havebenefited mankind more than the vaunted religiousvalues. With no sops of religion men have labouredhard and the finest admirable qualities of men’sspirit have been developed inspite of religiousinfluence – the scientists and the reformers areexamples. The humility that should force itself inthe presence of the infinite and the unknown ismore to be seen with the scientist, the philosopherthan the religious leaders and often this drives themto fathom the depths of thought in the quest fortruth. Rarely does religion explain the how andwhy. These have become the preoccupations ofpeople in secular fields. With a sense ofself-reliance and self-confidence guiding him, manhas dropped the earlier props of religion. In Indiatoo, the social order was seen as embodying moralvalues.”

Contd. from the previous issue............

Senseless Terrestrial Life

It is true that the preferred world is taken as theworld of order. Preference involves humanexpectation. It cannot be asserted at all, that thedesign of the universe is according to thepreference of man or animal. When we study thehistory of the interior of the earth or of the variousstrata of the earth, it means we study geology orarchaeology. Along with the study of history of thevarious species of dead organisms, we realise that itis replete with the history of destruction ofinnumerable species during their struggle forexistence. They suffered decimation as a result of

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Laxman S. Joshi

countless terrible events of cataclysmicproportions. The proportion of annihilation oversurvival is infinitely large. The living species havesomehow managed to survive the onslaught of theperennial clash among the forces of nature. Whyone would hold on to the doctrine that there existshere on earth a kind of order or harmony? That iswhy philosophers of India from antiquity have beencalling that life here on earth as senseless or as amarket place of sorrow.

If there exists heaven or nirvana or moksha, itresides only in the figment of the imagination!According to the poet saints of India, “Pleasure isas big as a pea while sorrow is as big as amountain.” This is their reality-check! It is only invery recent times, however, than man is seeing adim vision of some progress on the distant horizonin his quest for happiness. It is man’s faint hope thatlife on earth can be happy!

Causality or Divinity

Man is set on a journey from chaos towards orderand from discord towards harmony. Although hemisses his proper path thousand times, he does alsofind occasionally a right one. This passage iscrooked, difficult and untrodden. He is, however,making progress for sure. The organisation or orderthat exists in the world has something to do withlogic, or science, or with the laws causality, or withthe laws of mathematics. It has little to do withgod’s volition or purpose. We can infer neithervolition nor purpose from the concept oforganisation or order in the world. On the contrary,we infer only the absence of his volition or purpose.This is because, the order is physical andmechanical. There is no necessity of god for theoperation of these laws, physical or mechanical.Moreover, the operation of these laws proves on theother hand, the very absence of god.

It has been discovered that there are hundreds ofanimals in the substrata of the earth which givetestimony to the fact that the very form of theirbodies has been frequently responsible for theirdestruction. The antelopes do get entangled by their

horns in the woods and become the victims of thetrappers. If the animal body design would havebeen structured perfectly compatible with theenvironment, it would not have been destroyed bythe attack of virulent diseases and germs. Thereexist very few bodies of humans that can survivediseases such as plague, cholera, meningitis,cancer, etc. Well, there exists a much larger body ofevidence for the proposition that the structure of ananimal body is not the result of god’s volition, thanthere is for the contrary proposition that the bodydesign is the result of god’s volition!

Knower and Knowable

The fourth proof:

Here is presented the fourth evidence for god’sexistence. It is as follows: Whatsoever is seen byus, is sensed by our sensory organs, is understoodby our intellect or becomes the object of ourimagination, each of these things is dependent uponthe observer. Every known object has its existencein the domain of a knower. If the very knower or thesubject is absent, how can we say that the object orthe knowable thing is present? Knowledge existsbecause the knower exists! How can we say that‘The horse is white,’ if there is no eye to seewhiteness. If there is neither eye nor hand as senseorgans for vision or touch, how can we say that‘The horse is tall?’ The proof for the knowledgethat we have sense organs is also dependent onhaving an ability to experience. Without ourexperience, how can we say that these sense organsexist? Exactly in the same way we should treat thiswhole universe! We can say that the universe doesexist even if all the animals go to sleep whichmeans, the world exists even when there is nobody,meaning that no subject is experiencing it. ‘Theworld even then exists’ is a statement about theworld whose all attributes are dependent on theexperience of a subject, i.e. a knower. Therefore,there has to be such a knower and that one alone isgod. He is aware of, or conscious of, and he hasexperience of, the universe. He experiences theuniverse, which at a time none of us is

3


experiencing. The time at which none among theliving beings experiences the world, is the time atwhich there exists that being who experiences it.That one, upon whose experience the universedepends, is the supreme being, he and he alone isthe supreme seer, the omniscient, thePurushottama, the god.

Object Real or Imaginary

The above reasoning for the existence of god can bedealt with easily. The very statement ‘existence ofany object depends on its knowledge’ is by itselfnot true. On the contrary, we should say thatknowledge is object dependent. When we assertthat an object is real or true, it means it is real inspite of the absence of its awareness by any personin particular or a knower or a subject. If we say thatthe existence of an object is dependent on itsawareness by a subject or a knower, then we arerequired to infer that the object is not real or that itis only an illusion. The object that exists only whensomeone is aware of it and the object that does notexist when someone is unaware of it, has to beimaginary or unreal.

- As mentioned earlier in the first part of this bookon materialism, quantum mechanics (qm) doespose some paradoxes experimentally or otherwiseon this topic in the study of objects such aselementary particles. In this essay, there is no scopefor the discussion of qm paradoxes. There is anongoing discussion among philosophers andscientists in this matter. We only note here that qmreplaces even some laws of the classical logic in theformulation of particle physics. Our position,however, in the current discussion is as follows.

No real object needs awareness for its existence.The existence of an object does not depend on theevidence. Smoke is the evidence for the fire. Thatdoes not mean at all, that a proof has beenestablished for the statement, “If there is no smokethere is no fire.” The mountain that I see in front ofme has not come into existence because of myawareness. My awareness is not the reason for theexistence of the mountain. It exists before and I

become aware of it later. Experience does not causean object to come into existence. Such is also thecase for the whole universe. Even if no one is thereexperiencing the universe, it does exist. God issupposed to experience the universe. If he is absent,however, its existence is not threatened. When I donot experience my house during a certain period ofmy absence from it, nothing should threaten itsexistence. Experience or lack of it alone does notaffect an existing house. Experience is objectdependent. An object is the reason for itsknowledge. Knowledge, however, is not the reasonfor the object.

Beautiful God

The fifth proof:

-Infinite power of imagination inherent in god, issynonymous with his existence. This is the coreargument of the aesthetic proof to follow. Here wego for the exploration of the fifth evidence for theexistence of god.

Some say the following. In this world, onediscovers continuously, beauty which isenchanting, propitious, limitless and amazing. Onecannot rest without inferring that such beauty musthave at its roots, a genius, that is, pure, tasteful,unfathomable, and connoisseur of countless arts.From this, we not only infer, but also state withcertitude, that there must exist a universal divinepower which inspires imagination and creativity inmen such as great poets, painters, architects, andspecialists of various arts. Even an infinitesimalimitation of this divine power by an individual,enable him to reach the highest state of artisiticcreation. Any human who obtains even an iota ofmental power as a graceful gift from the ocean ofthis divine inspiration, becomes famous in theirworld. At times, we come across something that isugly, condemnable, worthy of abandonment,contemptible, and unholy, which causes pain in us.This is also part of his creation that inspires literarygenius. Which is the part of our life or of the world,that is, mean, deformed and ugly that has not beentransformed into a pleasing experience by Art?

4


Which is an event in the world or in our mundaneexistence that is inconsistent with tasteful artisticcreation?

It is said that philosophers meditate on knowable orunknowable objects. Philosophical contemplationis all encompassing. All the principles, whichphilosophers or philosophies study, also can becomprehended by artistic intellect. The wholeuniverse is the subject of artistic talent. Now, if theentire universe is an artistic production, then suchan extraterrestrial creation with the universe at itssoul must be the celebration of a creative geniusthat must exist! That someone really beyondimagination and measurement is the foundation ofvirtues, limitless and full of grace. He is god!

Counter Argument

The above aesthetic evidence in support of theinference that god exists is also flawed. This isbecause, it cannot be said that the universe isnothing other than beauty incarnate. Moreover,there is no evidence here for the existence of apower, endowed with thought and imagination thathas constructed this universe. Beauty or ugliness inthe universe depends on the exposure of a humanbeing either to pleasure or pain during his life. Manobtains basically two kinds of life experiences, painand pleasure. We will explore their influence on theanswer to the question. Is the universe beautiful?

World of sorrow

This universe is burning in the fire of sorrow and itis like an eternal crematorium. This has beendescribed in the writings of many saints. There isno dearth of poets as well as philosophers in Indiawho talk about the futility of life and thesorrowfulness of the world. The great men ofknowledge and experience and the trail-blazingleaders, such as Buddha, Kanada, Vyasa, etc. havesaid the same thing. There are also some who haveargued on the opposite side. The essence of boththese views is that the experience of beauty andugliness or happiness and sorrow in this world,depends on the environment and the acitivities ofhuman beings. When the situation of men

deteriorates ad inequality and lawlessness reign,they feel that life or the world is ugly, sorrowful andhellish. Consequently, rescue from it is likesalvation or moksha. It means, release from thebonds of the world. Moksha is considered to be thehighest human achievement, the Paramartha inIndian tradition.

World of Joy

In contrast, when society is so well organised thatthere develops the possibility of progress and goodconditions of livelihood for all, then people feel lifeis worth living and the world is full of hope. Thisleads to the prospect of well being in this life nowand nirvana thereafter.

Universe Beautiful or Not

Experience of beauty is relative to situation. So thestatement that the world is beautiful cannot be heldto be true categorically. The statement that the‘Universe is in reality nothing but beautiful’ cannotbe made without taking into account the situation ofmen. The only thing that becomes evident is that‘The universe is neither beautiful nor ugly.’ Thedecision regarding the beauty or ugliness of theworld is to be made in relation to man’s emotionalexperience and his surrounding world. Beauty isneither objective nor subjective. Proof for theuniverse being beautiful or ugly is to be obtainedfrom the interactions between the subject, theexperiencer, and the object, the universe, that isexperienceable.

A Set of Beauty Postulates

Even it is accepted that the universe is exclusivelybeautiful by itself, still it does not provide enoughground for drawing the inference that “Far outthere, must exist a power of artistic imaginationthat creates beauty.”

We deny the existence of such a power, becausethere is no justification for making the followingstatements:

A)Beauty is the character of the universe.

B)Beauty, is the everlasting character.

5


C)Beauty, the character has been created bysomeone.

Fallacy of Infinite Regress in the Beautifier Series

If we, however, accept A,B,C to be true, we have toadmit that the universe was ugly before and thatbeauty was created later. Now, what is the proof forthe existence of the prior ugly universe? Besides,we need to ask more questions. Is the designer ofthe beautiful universe beautiful? Is the one whoproduced the universal beauty, also beautiful? Allthe devotees of God tell us that ‘He is beautiful!’ Ifhe is beautiful, who created his unending beauty? Ifwe accept that someone created god’s beauty, whois it that created the beauty of god’s beautifier?Such a series of questions is without end.Therefore, there exists much more logical sense inthe assertion that ‘Beauty of the universe is intrinsicand there is no one else who has created it.’

Paradox in Creation Series

If it is maintained conversely, ‘God, the architect ofthe universe, is not beautiful’, then the primarysupposition, ‘The universe is exclusivelybeautiful!’ which in effect says, ‘Any objectwhatsoever, in the universe is beautiful,’ is false. Ifthe premise is false, meaning thereby ‘Someobjects in the universe are non-beautiful,’ we enterinto a paradox, since we are compelled to assertsimultaneously the following two propositions:‘God does not create non beautiful objects,’ and‘All objects whatsoever, have been created byGod.’ Therefore it is proper to maintain that ‘Godbeing an object must have been created by someoneelse!’ An assertion such as this does not, however,put an end to the Creation Series. In conclusion, it isbetter to end the paradox and the fallacy of infiniteregress and say, No one has created the universe orits beautiful features.

Continued in the next issue................


6

Guests’ Section:


[Daniel Loxton is the Editor of Junior Skeptic (the

10-page kids’ science section bound withinSkeptic

magazine). He is the author and illustrator of the

national award-winning kids’ science

book Evolution: How We And All Living Things

Came to Be (translated into Slovenian, Korean,

Norwegian, and, in a modified form as the separate

book Evolução, Portuguese). Evolution won the

2010 Lane Anderson Award recognizing the best

Canadian science book for young readers. It has

also been named a finalist for the Norma Fleck

Award (recognizing the best Canadian nonfiction

book for young readers) and the Ontario Library

Association’s prestigious Silver Birch Award.

Daniel is also the author and illustrator (with Jim

W. W. Smith) of Ankylosaur Attack, a paleofiction

storybook for ages four and up. This is the first

book in the “Tales of Prehistoric Life” series from

Kids Can Press. Daniel has written for critical

thinking publications including Skeptic, Skeptical

Briefs, eSkeptic and the Skeptical Inquirer, and

contributed cover art to Skeptic, Yes mag, and Free

Inquiry. In a previous career, Daniel was a

silvicultural shepherd for ten years (working

mostly along the BC side of the Alaska

panhandle).]

Skeptics sometimes express impatiencewith discussion of seemingly quaint

paranormal claims. (“What, Bigfoot—again?”) Butthe great lesson of paranormal history is that it is awheel: no matter how passé or fringe a claim maysound, it is almost guaranteed to come ‘roundagain, in the same form or in some novel mutation.

In the last few days, global headlines haveresurrected a nostalgic case from my childhood,just in time for Christmas: “The Shroud of TurinWasn’t Faked, Italian Experts Say.” The cuttingedge of yesterday—today! Even in my youth, thismystery was centuries old.

The Shroud of Turin is a 14-foot length of linencloth that bears a stylized picture of a bearded man.Legend holds the Shroud to be a burial clothwrapped around the Biblical Jesus following hisexecution. This linen was allegedly flash-imprintedwith an image of Jesus during his miraculousresurrection, presumably by an intense burst ofenergy released under such circumstances.

The case for fraud has been strong since the 14thcentury, but enthusiasts insist on rolling that wheel‘round again. According to news reports this week,Italian scientists used an infrared CO2 laser toscorch images onto cloth and “conducted dozens ofhours of tests with X-rays and ultraviolet lights” inan effort to prove that the image could be created bya burst of electromagnetic energy. What is thewavelength of a resurrection miracle? If there isone, the scientists were unable to discover what itmight be. They learned that “no laser existed to datethat could replicate the singular nature of markingson the shroud.”

All this business with lasers is neither here northere. I’m reminded of magician James Randi’s line

7


Daniel Loxton

from Flim-Flam! about the pseudosciencetechnique of the Provocative Fact.

The same technique was used by the Gelleriteswhen they assured us that at no time did Uri Gelleruse laser beams, magnets, or chemicals to bendspoons. This was quite true. It is also quite true thathe had no eggbeaters, asbestos insulation, orpowdered aspirin in his pockets either. So what?

Turns out it’s hard to make a Shroud copy usinglasers. That’s hardly surprising, but neither is itrelevant. There was never a good reason to thinkthe Shroud was created by anything but the toolsand artistry of a painter. Failed attempts to replicatethe Shroud image using lasers only underline theargument skeptics have made for decades: theobject is a medieval fake.

The bottom line on the Shroud remains the same:the Shroud continues to fail several key practicaltests, as discussed by skeptical investigator JoeNickell in his classic work on the subject, Looking

for a Miracle:

· Provenance: there is no sign that this objectexisted before the 14th century;

· Art history: the Shroud fits into art history aspart of a genre of artistic depictions and recreationsof burial cloths of Christ;

· Style: the image upon the shroud looks like amanufactured illustration consistent with 14thcentury religious iconography, not like a realhuman being;

· Circumstance: a 14th century Catholic bishopdetermined that the Shroud was a “cunninglypainted” fraud—and discovered the artist whoconfessed to creating it;

· Chemistry: the Shroud contains red ochre andother paint pigments;

· Radiometric dating: carbon-14 dating testsshowed in 1988 that the Shroud was likely createdbetween 1260 and 1390 CE. In 2008, thehypothesis that this date was distorted by carbonmonoxide contamination was tested—and resultsof the original tests confirmed.

Overturning the robustly supported conclusion thatthe Shroud was manufactured by a medieval artistwould take extraordinary levels of evidence infavor of some alternate explanation. The currentmedia hype carries no such breakthrough news.The opposite is true, in fact: the Italian researchersconcede (as quoted by Vatican Insider) that their“inability to repeat (and therefore falsify) the imageon the Shroud makes it impossible to formulate areliable hypothesis on how the impression wasmade.”

After decades of controversy, the real shame is notmerely the miasma of pseudoscience surroundingthe relic (that’s a fog skeptics are happy enough tocut through) but the blurring of the lines betweenscience and metaphysics—or if you like, betweenscience and faith. The Shroud’s popularity seems tostem from the hope that it could deliver tangibleevidence for the divine, but that hope is misplaced.Even if Shroud researchers were to prove their(exceptionally unlikely) speculation that theShroud image was imprinted by “a short andintense burst of VUV directional radiation,” thiswould in no way confirm the existence of God, onlyof a unique printing process—a process enthusiastshave thus far been unable to demonstrate. The truthis that the tools and methods of empirical sciencewould remain powerless to confirm the existence ofa transcendent metaphysical God even in the eventthat such a being existed. It’s just not the sort ofquestion science can answer.

Pressing science into the service of metaphysicsmay do harm to religion—I’ll leave it to thereligious to say if that is so—but it cuts out the heartof the scientific enterprise. And that is a Christmaspresent that none of us should want.

References:

1.Randi, James. Flim-Flam! (Prometheus Books:Amherst, New York, 1982.) p. 129

2.Nickell, Joe. Looking for a Miracle (PrometheusBooks: Amherst, New York, 1998.) pp. 22–29

ArticleSource: eSkeptic

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-12-28/

8


[Ms. Asha Kachru lives in a remote village in

Medak district of the South indian state Andhra

Pradesh since 1992. Her primary occupation,

besides being a resource person for gender in

agriculture issues, she has been mediating

between the rural poor and the Indian

bureaucracy and promoting organic agricultural

lifestyle. Before this she was in Germany for 22

years as a scientific officer in the German

Research Center now called Max Planck Institute

for Mathematics and Data-processing. She went

to Germany as an exchange scholar after

finishing post graduate studies in Pure

Mathematics from Delhi University. She was the

first South Asian woman to become a City

Councillor (for the GREEN faction) in a

European city (Bonn, the then capital) from

1984-1987. She lives at Katakeri, Kohir village,

Medak District, Andhra Pradesh 502210.

[email protected]]

A Kashmiri pundit mother’sappeal for peace in Kashmir-

Part 2Cntinued from the previous issue........

5. Mushtaq, Titli’s clerk in school helped me in theinitial stages to get a hotel room in Srinagar. He onhis own offered me an appointment with YasinMalik of JKLF as well as Geelani sahib of APHRC.I was surprised, I was not keen to meet anypolitical/religious leader, but I thought I must take

advantage of this opportunity and meet theseprominent leaders asking for independence fromthe Indian state. Ashima kaul, when told about thisappointment, warned me, saying they are not intopeaceful alternatives. When I asked Mushtaq, whathe thinks of Yasin and Geelani, he said he was notfor separation and he is happy with Titli and hiswork in her office. Mushtaq took me to YasinMalik’s office. I had prepared a set of questionsregarding his views/concerns about the KP’s andwhy he wants to separate Kashmir from India.When I went up the old building with narrow stairsto a dingy room, there were 5 men drinking theKashmiri salt tea called Sheerchai by Hindus andNoonchai by Muslims. I was offered and I enjoyeddrinking it along with the typical Kashmiri toastbread.

Yasin was not present, he was accompanying thevisiting ex-prime minister of POK, who wasvisiting the valley these days and had gone to themartyr’s graveyards. So I just had a small talk withone Mr. Dar, Yasin’s assistant on what Azadimeans to them and he, very confidently andsmilingly, told me “you can say/do whatever youwant, this is our concept of Azadi”. MeanwhileMushtaq wanted me to visit Geelani sahib, withwhom he had also made an appointment for me onphone. We went there, a big house in the lanes,secured by Police and Security officials, we had togive our details, had to leave the camera etc.outside, only to be told at the ironed entrance thatthere was no appointment given to us.

Sometime later another young man came and let usin, but again we were only offered tea and biscuitsand made to wait outside in the lounge. They againtold us an important meeting is in process and weshould come again in 2-3 days. Geelani was underhouse arrest for his infuriating statements to thepublic and he was adamant on his ways, even if itmeant that he could not attend his grandson’smarriage the statements, even though it meantstaying away from his grandson’s marriage thesame evening. The inside house atmosphere made a


9

Asha Kachru

very sad impression on me and I asked myself, whydo these men behave so rigid?

We went back to Yasin’s office. He lookedexhausted, but one could note that he is a handsomeman. His body language was very negative towardsme and soon asked me the reason of my visit. WhenI introduced myself as a kp, he seemed annoyed,saying it can be anybody asking him questions andmade a gesture for me to proceed further. When Iwas finished with my first question about why hewanted Azadi, he quickly took my copy book frommy hand and wrote his email address on it andguided me to send him my questions via email.That was the end of it. (I have sent him somequestions after my return and it is about a week, noreply yet.)

6. I made an appointment with the elderly ZareefAhmad Zareef sahib, a well known poet andintellectual in the valley, also because I wanted tosee how he behaves towards me, after we have hada rather unpleasant exchange of emails on women’srole in Islam and I told him to “agree to disagree”.He is doing family business with Kashmirihandicrafts too and I bought quite some items fromhim last time. It has always been a pleasure visitinghim and his family. And this time too, inspite of theemail exchange. He offered me food and KashmiriNoonchai etc. his wife and daughter in law weremore visible in the drawing room this time. Lasttime they were sitting in the kitchen all the time.This time he even mentioned once to me about howlucky he is with the services the two provide to him.May be this was an outcome of my raising certainquestions about the over protection of women inIslam, the traditional sexual division of labour,from which the men benefit and not workingwomen like me. Zareef sahib invited me to a coupleof interesting events in Srinagar like the youngwriter’s day at the women’s college, in which hepresented his satirical poetry on the Kashmirsituation. Everybody was thoroughly enjoying hispoetry, laughing loudly. I was even more impressedby his personality. Once he invited me to amarriage of the son of one of his friends, a rich man

like the one last year too.

Zareefsaheb wants me to taste their Wazwan food. Idid like witnessing the Muslim marriage culture,but I was not so impressed by 2 facts. One is thehuge amount of meat consumed in marriages,called Wazwan. I was told nearly a kg of meat perperson is offered, along with bags for the guests totake away the remains. Secondly the women haveto wait till evening till they get their lunch, men getit first! Also the amount of gold and silk withgolden embroidery on Muslim women’s bodieswas just immense. I was told that the women’s 3piece dresses can cost up to a lac of rupees! Andsome are again even using a traditional horse totake the bridegroom to the bride’s place and it costsapp. Seventy thousand rupees per day. In eachfamily there are as many cars as adults etc. etc., anautorikshaw wala told me. Suraiyya, Zareefsaheb’sdaughter in law, was again and again pointingwomen to me, who had acquired Crores of rupeesof property, for example from sale and export ofsaffron. Since the Europeans are conscious of thehealth dimension of organic products, now theKashmiris are shifting to organic saffron and thiscan bring them even greater revenue. Many of theseMuslims have become Crorepatis overnight, fromsale of land and property bought from KP’s atdistress sale prices and sold for much more. ThePunjabi manager of the hotel I was staying in saidrepeatedly ‘nothing will change here. You KP’swill not be able to come back. I know it I havesurvived the militancy; I know what they can belike. If you remove the security forces for a week,you will see how it will again be like then. I am stillliving in fear. I hate my Indian Govt. for not havinghelped us here during the militancy and I askmyself what use was my life as an army officer.Nobody cares for us here.” He used to get angry atmy daily efforts to go and meet the Muslims in thevalley.

7. My friend Ashima Kaul, who has been workingon peace issues in delhi at WISCOMP, started theYakhjay (means together in Kashmiri) and shewanted me to attend the Yakhjay group meet in


10

Srinagar, having attended the Jammu group meetearlier. So I went to meet the young students andsocial workers, 6 women and 2 men at the premisesof the J&K association of social workers. Ashfaqintroduced us to the work of J&KASW, presentlyon child rights issues. He asked the Yakhjaywomen about how they are going to contribute tothe society after they have undergone training ofYakhjay on transformation and information, peaceand reconciliation issues. I intervened to say thatfirst the girls have to develop their personality to beable to deal with the system around.

Khairunissa started the discussion on how safe onefeels as a woman in the security forces ridden stateof affairs in the valley. She said she has noproblems except with men of the security forces,who are always eveteasing her. Ashfaq evenmentioned about how free and secure Muslimwomen in the valley were, as opposed to theirprotected Muslim sisters in India. I was surprised tohear this and so I informed them about manyMuslim women in India going out of their homesfor jobs and not always having to wear burqas,particularly in cities. A discussion started on thesituation of women in general in the valley andsoon all sorts of examples were acknowledgedabout violence towards women in households, rapeetc. being common in the valley too. And theinternalized belief by the women, that they areanyway vulnerable to male violence. At the end ofthe discussion it was realized that moresensitization work need to be done to make womenmore active in the promotion of social justice issuesin the valley.

8. I read a few daily newspapers, Greater Kashmir,Rising Kashmir etc. on 20th Sept I found anadvertisement of a function called Peace Daycelebrations at the Sanad Island of peace in NaginLake. When I rang up Zareef sahib to find out aboutthe whereabouts of this island, he guided me andsaid Mr. Habib who is organizing this festival cumworkshop is his friend and he was invited by him,but unable to go and wanted me to attend it. I said Iwanted to anyway and so I made my way through.

The autorikshaw-wala did not know about the placebut somehow and after having a shikara ride forapp. half an hour in the Nagin Lake and that toothrough wild lotus and Lily plants all over, Ireached a big Hotel situated on an island and therewas an announcement UN Peace Day21st September. Mr Basheer welcomed me and Imet the young lawyer and social worker, NadeemQuadri, grandson of the formulator of the J&Kstate’s constitution and a well know Congressworker. Nadeem told me that he started this daycelebration in Kashmir and it was the only place inthe world, where this day was being celebrated!? Itwas based on a film made by one Jeremy Gilly,known to him!

I was surprised to meet my old friend ShiraliKishwar, with whom I was once a researcher on amental health of women, an Asian project, fromKishtwar along with her friend Nighat Khan, headof a Helpline Foundation in the valley. So it was apleasant surprise for me. Later I heard the manyyoung girls and boys give their speeches on whatPeace means to them on a personal, national andinternational level. One girl from Islamia Schooland one from the Kashmir Harvard School! Theyspoke very good English and were very selfconfident too. I feel there has been a vital change inthe situation of education of girls in the valley.These young girls pointed at some eye openingfacts. They said that Muslims can and shoulddefend themselves not by being offensive. Jihad isan important thing in Islam and means to strive.And that educated Muslims have created thepresent violent image of Islam! This wise statementalong with pointing at the importance of Gandhiji’snon-violent method of resistance kept me thinkingabout the maturity of these young students and theirteachers. I took two Green flags distributed there,with the Islamic Green colour Chenar leaf and ahalf moon sign on it and “Peace in Kashmir”written on them.

9. On suggestion from Ashima Kaul, I met Dr. ArifKhan, who is also a counselor in an organizationcalled Helpline in the city. He expressed concern at


11

the situation in Kashmir and said: Islam propagatedtoday in valley is not indigenous. It is an importedideology since 1947. He also said, again there areall sorts of changes taking place. Kashmiris areagain going to shrines and Sufism is beingpropagated. There are only 4 out of every girlstudent, who is wearing burqua. He said too muchdamage has been done in the past and so many arein need of psychiatric help. In the last 2 monthsalone he has had 900 calls from Kashmiris,sometimes even Kashmiri Pundits call. They wantto just speak to someone in their mother tongueKashmiri. Most young and educated youth in thevalley have employment problems. He said suiciderates are rising from 0.1 % to 16 % and the valleyranks third in India, after Maharashtra and Orissa.Three times as many women commit suicide asmen in valley. Though drug addiction is wellknown in valley youth, there are only 2 drugcenters, one run by Police and one by an NGO. Hesaid it was drug abusers who took to stone peltingand is even today getting paid, 500-1000 rupees oreven Cannabis from those, who want to keep thevalley to be in turmoil. A Child soldier is a conceptimported from abroad and Pakistan is exploitingthe situation in the valley, providing cannabis andarms and ammunition. He said that Anantnaagdistrict has most of the cannabis growing in itsfields and also most of the patients who come tohim are from the same area. I could not visit theiroffice, but will do so next time.

10. Zareefsaheb invited me to the Mushaira on girlchild, organized by the Women’s college. He alongwith 2 others was invited to the happening asjudges. A few young girls and boys read out theirpoems and stories, mostly in Kashmiri.Zareefsaheb invited me also for the reason that Icould interact with Dr. Neerja Matoo and Dr. GirijaDhar, 2 prominent Kashmiri Pundit women inAcademia in the valley. One young girl Afroza readout a story emphasizing the fact that women do noteven have a persistent name. It gets changed whenthey marry. This invited fury from one of the judgesMazroom saheb, who criticized the feminist

influence and the need to “keep one’s own reality inmind”. Dr Neerja told him that he is in deep troubleand so it happened. The female staff of the collegestrongly protested this outlook. I was stunned to seesome Muslim ladies speak so loudly and so selfconfidently to a judge! Then there was a storycalled CHAANDAW (means search) in which oneyoung girl named Dheeba Nazir projected thefeelings of someone searching for his/her home andall those little things of relevance in one’s home andone’s society. I was very moved and had tears in myeyes and could not stop them, only when I sawNeerja too wiping her eyes did I realize that it is ourstory, put so empathetically by a young Muslimgirl.

11. At last I could fulfill my dream of visiting theplace I was born in. Mushtaq brought me to the busstop in Srinagar from where I could take a TataSumo to Anantnaag. I had already informed Aadilabout my visit and he had organized a room in oneof the only 2 hotels in Khanabal, near Anantnaag.Aadil came with a copy of Tehelka and said he willcome the next day to take me to the hospital. In itsarticle “simmering discontent in the valley”, writesits editor Zahoor Ahmad Malik and itseditor-in-chief Rashid Ahmad, rather in athreatening way: “…now there is a class of leaders,who have the potential to channelize the anger ofthe Kashmiri youth into a massive campaign. SyedGeelani has already warned the Govt. of massagitation, if it continues with its ‘repressivemindset’.” I could not prevent thinking whether it isthe self fulfilling policy, which makes Zahoor andRashid think the way they do. There are manyothers in the valley, who think differently, thoughthey may be a lesser percentage. But then if I thinkof what Dr. Arif Khan said, namely “if they sayopenly what wrong is happening in the valley, theirhouses will be pelted” and many others have toldme that they can’t come out openly against theseparatists in the valley.

When we went to the hospital next day, we had towait long because it was Sunday and they were intheir church, performing prayers and listening to


12

the priest. I found out that it was all AndhriteChristians, who were doing both a doctor’s nursesas well as a priest’s job. The Muslim women andmen as well as other people from Punjab andRajasthan, who had found some work in thehospital were singing and praying Jesus Christ.

I asked the doctor to help me get the birth certificatefrom the hospital. Later I was informed that thedocuments are too old and not available. So myefforts to obtain a birth certificate did notmaterialise but I got to know the People there and Itook part in the mass. I accepted the Prasad givenby the Andhra sisters and doctors, but Aadil refusedto take it. He told me later that he is going to file anRTI against them for eventually converting theyoung Kashmiri girls, who are undergoing a nursetraining with them, into Christians. I nowunderstood the reason for his not accepting thePrasad. But I also thought of all the conversions theMuslim rulers did on Kashmiri Hindus. Wonderwhat Aadil thinks of that.

Aadil left me near the Martand sun temple on waytowards Amarnath cave. I visited the temple as wellas the small gurudwara nearby. I was pleased toread that Guru Nanak ji had stayed for 13 days inthat place and had advised the learned BrahmanBrahmdas: “all the book knowledge you have isnothing in relation to knowledge about HIM”. Onhearing this saint Brahmdas as well as Faqir Kamalwere so impressed, that they converted to Sikhism!I also read on one of the tables put up in theGurudwara, that when KP’s approached the saintTejbahadur, complaining about atrocities done byMoghul kings on them, he sent his sons to theMoghul rulers, who were treated most inhumanly,but the Sikh leaders did not bow. It reminded me ofthe intermediary role Sikhs have played betweenthe Hindus and the Moslems. It also made meskeptical about Aadil’s remark that the Bandiporakilling of 33 Sikhs was in fact a plan of Hindus andIndian Govt. to create distrust between the Sikhsand the Muslims.

Some other remarks of Aadil that India does notwant peace in the valley, because then the peoplewill ask for Azadi. He said the Pakistani and theIndian police and security forces are benefittingfrom the dispute between Kashmiris and Indians,both are bribing the other side to keep the conflictgoing and survive themselves. He said the killingsof innocent Sikhs was not a work of militants, butthat of the Indian security forces to create distrustbetween Musims and Sikhs and the rapes on the3oo women in a village was of course the work ofthe security forces. This solidarity with themilitants is very conspicuous amongst theKashmiri Muslims. Is it the Quran connection Aijazmentioned last year? I cannot take this version ofAadil and some other Muslims I met in the valley. Itseems these are all self fulfilling prophecies ofthose who side with the separatists.

12. In the hotel I stayed at, an interesting exchangetook place with the young manager Fayyaz. He toldme about the bad situation in schools in thevillages. He was interested in his daughter’seducation, because as he said, she is veryintelligent. He wants her to go to a very goodschool. He wanted me to visit the villages and so hetook me to one Mirguna village, where his daughterMuskaan goes to school I was not surprised towitness the inadequate situation in rural schools,the missing teachers, the large number of studentsin congested classes.

The principal and the young teacher I spoke gaveme an impression of that. The principal, who is asportsman himself, told me that he is happy aboutthe various exchange schemes for scouts betweenIndian school children and those from the valleyschools. This gave them the rural children someexposure, but the facilities at the school are verybad, as they don’t have the funds. The Govt. schoolopposite to their school has only seven children andthree teachers! And the crores that the state getsfrom the center for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA)vanish into air and never reach their destination.Aadil was also complaining about the forty somecrores allotted to the Anantnaag district, of which


13

his NGO working with disabled children did notreceive a penny.

Fayyaz took me to his house, which was on way tothe school. I met his young mother and aunt andfather too. They are a big family living togetherhappily. All joint family members have theirindividual houses next to each other. His motherhas never been to school, but his father is arespected Muslim Maulvi. I was surprised andhappy to hear him say that his father does notbelieve in reading Namaz five times a day andgoing for Haj, his understanding of Islam is servingothers as Prophet Mohammad did. He givesdifferent types of medicines to people, I thinkUnani medicine. Afterwards I took a Tata Sumotaxi to Pahalgam, which was just 50 km away and Itook pictures of the breathtaking scenery of thisbeautiful Kashmiri town. I went for a walk, talkedto some Gujjars, who live there in the hills and arepastorals, very innocent and non intrusive, as somesmall town people get, on seeing a strange ladywalking alone with a rucksack and a stick in herhand and returned by the evening to my hotel.Fayyaz helped me buy some nice cassettes and CDsand I had a lovely Kashmiri dinner with non-veg.dishes and the noonchai at the end. Two things Iwant to mention here adding, just to amplify thefact that you experience trust and good behavior ifyou can trust others. Fayyaz has a backacheproblem at this young age and he told me about it infront of his mother, his wife had gone for somepaper work to the city and I showed him some yogaexercises which have helped me over the years andI also gave him the address of the Ayurvedicchospital in Kalpetta in Wynad district of Kerala,where I just had very good massages, which haveeven helped me get rid of my knee pains. Anotherthing I find worth mentioning here is the experiencethat Fayyaz asked me whether I had the money topay the bill, at the end of my stay there. Such thingsdon’t happen in a big city!

13. On way back to the valley I visited Aadils NGOHumanity Welfare in Bijhebara, working withdisabled children, some due to militancy. They are

one the very few such organizations in Kashmir. Ispoke to Sajjad, the director, for long about theneed to do special sensitization programs for andwith women. They were telling me about parentswho bring their disabled girl children and arefearful about them getting raped! Sajjad was alsotalking about the low sex ratio in the valley. I washappy to find out that due to their interventions atthe national level, some rights of the disabled areincorporated in our system: wheelchair provision atthe airports, separate roads for disabled ingovernmental institutions. Sajjad told me that thereis only one Govt. institution for such children,Abhinandan Home in Barazulla and that too is notfunctioning! He told about his personal experienceof low sex ratio in the valley and Muslims toomaking use of the sex selection clinics.

14. On way back from Anantnaag I stopped atSopore to meet Nadeem Quadri, whom I met at theUN peace day celebration on 21st Sept. I wasinterested in knowing about the activitiesundertaken by any NGO to save the ecologicallydegraded Dal Lake. Nadeem is a very enterprisingyoung Kashmiri Muslim handling many differentpositions, besides being a lawyer.

He told me that he is dealing with legal issues ofenvironment and ecology in Kashmir. He said 300truckloads of chemical fertilizers are thrown awayat the fringes of the Dal Lake and that the DachganNational Park being very important from the watersource perspective, needs being attended to equallyseriously as the Dal Lake issue. The Ministry ofEnvironment and Forests is spending Crores ofrupees on conservation of Dal Lake, but protectingWetlands of Kashmir and the Wular Lake in Soporeis equally important. Secondly he, interestingly,mentioned about non-sensitivity towards women’sissues in the valley. He said the case of rape of 300village women in Kunun Poshpora of Kupwaradistrict by security forces is still not closed inspiteof justice Kirwani and justice Basheeruddin ofHuman Rights Commission’s interventions. Hesaid that though there are 4.500 NGO’s, primarilyin the valley, not one deals with women’s rights


14

issues explicitly. He wanted me to talk to youngHuman Rights lawyers Libul Nissa and Nargis onwomen’s rights and if possible to start a women’sgroup too. Being one of the coordinators of theYouth Parliament group in J&K, he wascomplaining about the disinterest shown by thepresent Government in Kashmir on listening to thedemands of the youth.

15. The next person I wanted to meet was LibulNissa and as per her suggestion we met in CaféArabica, a café on the styles of the modern café’s inthe world. All sorts of cakes and bakery plus a bookshop as reading room was available. We discussedabout the non existing women’s group and how wecould start one. She mentioned how in the villages,when she talks to women, they behave so helplesssaying yes they are beaten up by their frustratedhusbands but as women what can they do, theyhave to near with it and so on.

Libel was not available, as she was attending thecross border women leaders meet in Gulmarg.Libel and I tried hard to get to that meet, but wewere not able to do so, also because nobody couldtell us where it is and whether anyone could attendit. Later with the help of Neerja Mattoo andZaheerfsaheb, we got to know that they haveplanned an open discussion at the end of the 2 daymeet at the Broadyaw Hotel, a very elite place foran ordinary woman to come to. Libel fell ill and Iwent there alone and was disheartened to not to seeeven a single KP woman in the audience, besides ofcourse Neerja Matto, who along with Sushobhaji ofCenter for Dialog and Reconciliation fromDelhi was an organizer. These meetings are beingheld since a couple of years on the Indian side, butnone yet on the other side, smacks again ofappeasement policies of the Indian Govt.!

I thought it proper to inform the mostly upper classand professionals from POK, Gilgit Baltistan,Poonch, Jammu and valley, who were had tears intheir eyes and very emotional about how they feltbeing in places where they had spent theirchildhood, about how the KP women feel in camps

in Jammu and the like. They were also complainingabout the long routes they had to undertake to cometo Gulmarg and hence one of their demands was tokeep the line, but remove the control. They werenot requesting and showing signs of victimhood,they were rather demanding that women be part ofthe future talks between the 2 countries. I madefriends with interesting women from the differentparts of that region.

I was totally shocked when at the end of themeeting one rather stout Muslim lady came up tome and more or less threatened me with her uglybody language for having said what I did. Sherefused to accept the very fact that I was born inAnantnaag, saying she had never seen me there. Iwas told later that she has been in Tihar jail for longand has written a book “100 days in jail” butnobody could tell me her name and she just turnedaway, when I asked her to tell me her name.

This was my ONLY ugly experience in the valley!

16. Lastly I want to mention that since Ms. HemlataWakhlu, chairperson of the J&K Social WelfareBoard and 3 times ex Legislative Assemblymember, invited me to speak to the adolescent girlson their one day conference on “Need for educationand empowerment of adolescent girls in J&K” , Ihad this opportunity to address the dignitaries Prof.Saifuddin Soz, MP; Home and technical educationMinisters of State, Jenab Nasir Aslam Wani andJenab RS Chib, about the importance of change inthe mind sets of elders, parents and religiousleaders besides of course of the Govt. policymakers. I took the challenge to highlight the role ofrape and sexual violence as well as prostitution andsex-work prevalent in the valley for the lives ofyoung girls and women. My paper is attached.

I was all too happy to be addressed to by a fewyoung girls at the end of the meet, who informedme about their problems: Nikhat who is 22 yearsold and a M.Sc. from Bangalore said she doesn’tlike to be friends with the guys in the valley,because of their being so abusive to her likes. Shetold me of her personal experience, how her sister’s


15

friend was killed by the guy who was so angry ather having refused friendship with him. She evensaid that any men anywhere outside the valley havenever spoken so rudely to her for her being anindependent type. Her mother and father supporther in this and I congratulated her mother, who wasaccompanying her. A few girls from Kargil wantedto tell their stories, but I was asked to come forlunch. I asked for their numbers and emails, but I

have yet not been able to approach them. Lastly oneAmrita Razdan, a KP girl, was complaining aboutthe failing scholarships for young KP students likeher, though her counterparts the KM students canavail of these. She asked me for help. I had to directher to Khemlata. I have not been able to approachher either, due to the SMS and mobile call facilitybeing so restricted in J&K.


16

BOOKS BY M.N. ROY PUBLISHED by RENAISSANCE PUBLISHERS, INDIAN

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Current Affairs’ Section:

[Justice Rajindar Sachar is Retd. Chief Justice of

High Court of Delhi, New Delhi. He is UN Special

Rapportuer on Housing, Ex. Member, U.N.

Sub-Commission on Prevention of

Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and

Ex-President, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties

(PUCL) India]

I

No Walmart Please

If the combined opposition had sat down forweeks so as to find an issue to embarrass

the UPA Government and make it a laughing stockbefore the whole country, they could not havethought of a better issue than the free gift presentedto it initially by the UPA Government by insistingthat it had decided irrevocably to allow the entry ofmulti brand retail leader super stores like Walmart,USA and then within a few days, with a whimperwithdrawing the proposal.

As it is even initially this decision defied logic inview of the Punjab and UP elections and furtherknown strong views against it of BJP / left andmany states who had all the time opposed the entryof Walmart which would affect the lives of millionsin the country.

Retail business in India is estimated to be a 400billion dollars but the share of the corporate sector

is only 5%. There are 50 million retailers in Indiaincluding hawkers and pavement sellers. Thiscomes to one retailer serving 8 Indians. In China itis 1 for 100 Chinese. Food is 63% of the retail trade,according to the information given out even byFICCI.

The claim by the Government that Walmartintrusion will not result in the closure of smallretailers is a deliberate mis-statement. IOWA StateUniversity study in USA has shown that in the firstdecade after Walmart arrived in IOWA the statelost 555 grocery stores, 298 hardware stores, 293building supply stores, 161 variety stores, 158women apparels stores and 153 shoe stores, 116drug stores and 111 men and boys apparels stores.Why would it be different in India with lessercapacity for resilience by the small traders?

The fact is that during 15 years of Walmart enteringthe market, 31 super market chains soughtbankruptcy in 15 years. Of the 1.6 millionemployees of Walmart only 1.2% makes a livingabove the poverty level. The Bureau of LabourStatistics, USA is on record with its conclusion thatWalmart’s prices are not lower than anyone elsewhen compared to a typical family’s weeklypurchases.

In Thailand supermarkets led to 14% reduction inthe share of ‘mom and pop’ stores within four yearsof FDI permission. In India, 33-60 percent of thetraditional fruit and vegetable retailers reported15-30 percent decline in footfalls, 10-30 percentdecline in sales and 20-30 percent decline inincomes across cities of Bangalore, Ahmedabadand Chandigarh, the largest impact being inBangalore, which is one of the mostsupermarket-penetrated cities in India.

The average size of the Walmart stores in theUnited States is about 10,800 sq. feet employingonly 225 people. In that view is not theGovernment’s claim of increase in employment acanard.

Governments attempt to soften the blow byemphasizing that Walmart is being allowed only


17

Rajindar Sachar

51% in investment upto US$ 100 million. Primafacie the argument may seem attractive. But isWalmart management so stupid that when itspresent turnover of retails is 400 Billion Dollars itwould settle for such small gain? No, obviously,Walmart is proceeding on a maxim of the camelbeing allowed to put its head inside a tent and theoccupant finding thereafter that he is being drivenout of it by the camel occupying the whole of thetent space. One may substitute Walmart to thecamel in order to understand the danger to ourmillions of retailers.

The Government’s tongue-in-cheek argument ofallowing Walmart to set up its business in India as itwould lead to fall in prices and increase inemployment is unproven. A 2004 Report of aCommittee of US House of Representativesconcluded that “Walmart’s success has meantdownward pressures on wages and benefits,rampant violations of basic workers’ rights andthreats to the standard of living in communitiesacross the country.” By what logic does theGovernment say that in India the effect will be theopposite? The only explanation could be that it is adeliberate mis-statement to help the multinationals.

Similar anti consumer effects have happened by theworking of another Super Market enterprisenamely Tesco of Britain.

A study carried out by Sunday Times shows thatTesco has almost total control of the food market of108 of Britain’s coastal areas i.e. 7.4% of thecountry. The Super Markets like Walmart andTesco have a compulsion to move from the territoryfrom England and USA because their markets aresaturated and they are looking for countries withlarger population and low super market presenceaccording to David Hogues, Professor of AgriBusiness at the Centre for Food Chain Research atImperial Collage, London, because they have gotnowhere else to go and their home markets arealready full. Similarly a Professor of MichiganState University has pointed out that retailrevolution causes serious risks for developing

country farmers who traditionally supply to thelocal street market.

In Thailand, Tesco the foreign owned super marketcontrols more than half the Thai market. ThoughTesco when it moved into Thailand promised toemploy local people but it is openly being accusedof unfair trading practices and conflict with localbusinesses. As for the claim that these super marketdealers will buy local products is belied because ina case filed against Tesco in July 2002 the Courtfound them charging slotting fees to carrymanufacturers products, charging entry fee ofsuppliers. In Bangkok, Grocery Stores’ salesdeclined by more than half since Tesco opened astore only four years earlier.

In Malaysia seeing the damage done by the supermarket Tesco since January 2004 a freeze on thebuilding of any new super markets was imposed inthree major cities and this when Tesco had onlygone to Malaysia in 2002.

It is worth noting that 92% of everything Walmartsells comes from Chinese owned companies.Indian market is already flooded with Chinesegoods which are capturing the Indian market withcheap goods and traders are already crying foulbecause of the deplorable labour practices adoptedby China. Can in all fairness, Indian Governmentstill persist in keeping retail market open to foreignenterprises and thus endangering the earnings andoccupation of millions of our countrymen andwomen.

II

Lokpal Legislation DebateRequires Calmer Consideration

The debate in Parliament on the proposedLokpal legislation has unfortunately

touched a low nadir; instead of discussing thelegislation in a sober atmosphere and withconscious effort to arrive at as much consensus as


18

possible, the parties instead indulged in mutualattacks.

Government’s furtive slip in of various quotasincluding the minorities was a deliberate ploy withon eye on U.P. Elections, notwithstanding thedoubt on legality of it expressed by formerSupreme Court Judges and jurists. Could even anyone imagine that the selection committee of PrimeMinister, leader of opposition, irrespective of theirparty affiliation and non political Chief Justice ofIndia that they would not include as members fromthe amongst Muslims, and women, when anynumber of them are available on their own merit.Why this non issue was loud mouthed unless it is adevice to stall the

Lokpal legislation? Let us not forget that theseMulayam / Lalu groups were the ones whosabotaged women Reservation bill by wantonlyinsisting a sub quota in Women Reservation Billthus embarrassing Sonia Gandhi and SushmaSwaraj who had earlier without any embarrassmentembraced and congratulated each other at theirvictory in Lok Sabha, but had to beat a retreat inRajya Sabha.

The suggestion that if there are any allegationsagainst the Prime Minister they would bedecoratively pigeon holed and brought out after hehad remitted office (which may be even 5 yearslater) does not make any sense, Are we living in ademocracy or under a kingship who was supposedto be a representative of Divine. Recently a sittingPrime Minister of Italy who was forced to resign oncorruption charge proved against him by a courtmagistrate.

Similarly Chirac, Prime minister of France hasbeen sentenced to 7 years and the President of Israelbeing sent to jail on the grounds of moralimpropriety.

The most contentious matter of C.B.I. remainsunresolved. His appointment should be by a jointcommittee consisting of Lokpal and the standingcommittee of Parliament. Give C.B.I. director afixed tenure for say five or 10 years. He should

have full administrative control over the staff ofC.B.I. and earmarked funds from the consolidatedfund. There would be no interference with his dayto day working from the Central Government orLokpal. However Lokpal would be entitled to askor/and receive reports from him at regular intervalsand also be authorized to convey its decisions onsuch matters. He shall not be removed from serviceexcept in the manner and on like grounds as a judgeof the Supreme Court – the same manner ofremoval applies to the removal of Chief ElectionCommissioner.

I for one would not limit the choice necessarily to apolice official and it could even be from outside theservice. If it is decided to have a Chief VigilanceCommissioner, the same conditions and procedurewill apply as applicable to Director of C.B.I.

Surprisingly not withstanding bitter wrangling onother aspects all members of the Parliament areunanimously agreeing to keep themselves immunefrom the ambit of Lokpal or even Directors C.B.I.for their corrupt actions and bribery if it is doneinside the Parliament. To me this is scandalous andunacceptable.

In their defence Members of parliament invokeArticle 105 of the Constitution, and the widelycriticized majority judgment of (3 against 2) inNarsimma Rao case (1999) (I believe the matter isreferred to a larger bench).

The minority Judgment however warned that thisinterpretation could lead to charter for corruptionso as to elevate Members of Parliament as“super-citizens, immune from criminalresponsibility”. It would indeed be ironic if a claimfor immunity from prosecution founded on theneed to ensure the independence of Members ofparliament in exercising their right to speak or casttheir vote in Parliament, could be put forward by aMember who has bartered away his independenceby agreeing to speak or vote in a particular mannerin lieu of illegal gratification that has been paid orpromised. By claiming the immunity such aMember would only be seeking a license to indulge


19

in such corrupt conduct. In other countries such aconduct of MPs is treated as criminal, since 1875 inAustralia.

To invoke Article 253 of the constitution forenacting Lok Ayukat is of doubtful legality andimperishable in our federal set up. Surely no statecan resist the public sentiment built for LokAyukat.

The matter of Lokpal is too important and needs tobe discussed more seriously and not under pressureof forth coming elections in Punjab and especiallyof U.P. Also the panicky reaction of Centralgovernment to Anna Hazare threat of fastcompounded by the opposition wanting to cash onit when they went to Anna Hazare sit in to showcloseness to him. Their puerile excuse that theywanted to explain their point of view isunacceptable. Political Parties hold their ownmeetings to explain their position to the public. Wego to Jantar Mantar to show our solidarity with thevictims of forced displacement, and the illegalactions of the government on the deprived poor.The parties do not go to the sit in of a person they

now want to deride and ridicule. Of course I agreethat Anna Hazare has full rights to muster supportand arouse masses and exercise his democraticrights – and to put pressure on the government andeven the parliament, to pass a particular lawbecause the ultimate sovereign is the people. Butthere is a caveat that this discussion requires acalmer atmosphere. Could the parties unanimouslyagree to adjourn the discussions to be after thepressure of U.P. Elections is over with a pledge topass the legislation as first item when it begins thenext session?

As a measure of his genuine concern for strongLokpal Anna Hazare, on his part, one hopes, wouldreciprocate by not going on fast. He can restassured that peoples’ determination to have astrong Lokpal is not so weak, as to let governmentavoid its solemn pledge to pass the bill in the nextsession of the parliament – if the governmentfurther prevaricates it most know thatconsequences could be monumental and nogovernment can remain in permanent confrontationwith its real masters, the people of India.


20

Letters to the Editor:

Dear Rékhâ,Received issue No. 500 with an impressive cover and, among other stimulating topics, the reprint fromEllen Roy’s writings.

Also received issue No. 501: An excellent way to keep Radical Humanism alive is what you are doingwith flashes of most timely quotations from the Founder Editor.

Warm regards.

—Prithwindra-dâ

****************

Dear Madam,

Arab Spring and Role of Women by Dr. Asgar Ali in the December 2011 issue was a very interestingand informative article.

Also, A Kashmiri Pandit Mother’s Appeal for Peace in Kashmir Part 2 was equally appealing.‘Kashmiri Pandit’ – is a major issue in India but not a single politician is ready to work and try to solvethis problem. All other issues even of tiny magnitude are ready to explode in the media.

—Atul K. Raval,

7, Muktimangal Tenaments, Thaltej, Ahmedabad 380054

[Sri N.K. Acharya is an advocate, columnist and

author of several books on law. He was formerly

Secretary of Indian Rationalist Association and

had edited the Indian Rationalist, then published

from Hyderabad on behalf of the Association

prior to its transfer to Madras.]

I

U.S. withdrawal from Iraq

Withdrawal of American forces from Iraqhas achieved its purpose viz.,

replacement of dictatorship in that country, eventhough its other purpose of seeking surrender ofatomic weapons failed because it is found that Iraqhad none of them. This process took nine years.During this period, one important issue ofInternational Law was decided. That was about theright of the country which is directed by the UnitedNations to take action against the offendingcountry, to continue action even after U.N. orderedcessation of operations. America asserted that ithad power to continue the operations so long as itfound the need to continue them. Americandecision prevailed notwithstanding some of theother participating countries who preferred towithdraw their forces. Now, a further question mayarise in future in which the American precedencemay be quoted in the matter of United NationsResolutions sanctioning Peace Keeping Forces tomaintain peace either internally or betweenfighting States. This question is important in thecontext of what happened in the case of Indian

Peace Keeping Force intended to restore peace inSri Lanka at the instance of that Government whichlatter on withdrew. This one led Indian PeaceKeeping Force in Sri Lanka to withdraw from itsundertaking unceremoniously.

Those apart, certain unexpected consequencesfollowed in the middle-east as a consequence ofAmerican intervention in Iraq. A mass movementfor popular rule arose in several countries in themiddle-east. In Egypt and in Libya, people took tostreets and replaced the existing autocratic regimes.It has yet to be seen whether popular democraticsystems take route in those countries.

II

Swami’s actions

It was a very old story. It has been told thatM.Ps by reason of their influence over the

Central Secretariat have been tempting officials toshow them the office files and later on disclosingtheir contents in Parliament. But on surface theappearance shows as if they themselves haveconducted some investigation and research on thesubjects. In fact, one of such M.Ps, who was afamous editor of a Vernacular daily used toproclaim that almost all the M.Ps were followingthe same route. Swami’s depositions in 2-GSpectrum case illustrates this practice because hequoted not only the facts alleged to have takenplace but also the case numbers and the dates ofletters said to have been exchanged between theMinistries. The Court, however, directed Mr.Swami to produce certified copies of thereferences.

In this connection, it is not inappropriate to quote,the practices which prevail in several High Courts.Previously, when any party produced a privatecopy of the Orders of the Government or of theInternal Correspondence, the Court was refusing tolook into them. Subsequently, the Court began


21

N.K. Acharya

directing the Government Pleader to produce theoriginals of their proceedings. That is why, theRight to Information Act made a specific provisionthat the copies of any document provided by thePublic Information Officer shall not be treated aseither a certified copy nor they may be used asevidence in Court.

III

Mallaperiyar Project

Mallaperiyar Project is located in KeralaState. It is a very ancient project. It is an

irrigation project. It serves two states, the state ofTamil Nadu and the state of Kerala. The projectnow requires repairs which are long overdue. Whilerepairing the project, Kerala wants to increase thedam height. Tamil Nadu suspects that the repairsand raise of height may adversely affect the interestof the people of Tamil Nadu. Several objectionswhich are neither new nor special are being raisedby Tamil Nadu. Local people of Kerala are raisinghigh degree of demonstrations protesting againstthe objections of Tamil Nadu.

Inter-state river projects have been subjects ofdisputes between and among several states.According to the Constitution of India, they have tobe referred to the Commissions specially set up bythe Central Government. The decisions of theCommissions are final and binding on all the statesinvolved. The decisions of the Commissions shallbe implemented by the Union Government.

Past experiences have been very happy. TheCommissions which inquired into the disputes havebeen very helpful and seeking unanimity almost inevery case. Though, the proceedings appear to beadversarial, they are mostly in the nature ofnegotiations between the parties and it is only whenconsensus is arrived at, the Commissions are givingawards. Such being the case, as regards, inter-statedisputes on river waters, the present dispute which

is mostly a product of mere apprehensions, shall bedecided by mutual consultations assisted by theUnion. There is no other go than to follow thedictates of consensus.

Inter-state river projects are always treated asNational Projects. They are invariably dedicated tothe nation. If it is an irrigation project, it benefitsseveral riparian states; if it is a power project, ithelps the nation as a whole because a substantialpart of electricity produced is added to the centralgrid. Whatever be the dispute the work on therepairs to the project as well as the additionalconstructions to be built for Mallaperiyar Projectshould not be stalled and must proceed as plannedwithin the time schedule fixed.

IV

Threat of fast by Anna Hazare

Everyone in India now knows that thethreat of fast is an empty threat, for it is

either withdrawn or forced to give up. The Courtshave sanctioned forced feeding. That is why someof the leaders are announcing fasts for a few days orsymbolic fasts for one day.

There is only one fast in the history of India whichcan be held to have achieved its purpose. ‘That wasa fast- unto-death undertaken by Mahatma Gandhiagainst creation of separate electorates forHarijans. It was given up after what was calledAmbedkar-Gandhi pact. After the fast, Mahatmaundertook a full year programme of touring theentire country propagating the need for Harijanuplift. The other fast which ended in tragedy was byPotti Sraramulu who passed away demandingseparation of Andhra region from Madras province.

The present threat of Anna Hazare is preceded bythree earlier fasts. Questioned as to what is thepurpose of the one day fast proposed in the lastweek of December, he said it was only a test whichwill be followed by an indefinite fast subsequently.


22

The declared objective of these tests is to achieveeffective Lokpal.

Whether as envisaged under Anna Hazare’s draft orunder the Government draft, the Lokpal remains anadvisory body. So long as Lokpal remains a mereadvisory body, it cannot be effective unless it isinvested with a power to punish the corrupt. Whatall that is contemplated under either of the drafts iswhat all the Lokpal can do is to give a direction tothe disciplinary authorities to take action againstthe corrupt or itself file a complaint beforeanti-corruption Court. The current disputesbetween Anna Hazare and the Government arecentered on three matters.

1. Bringing Prime Minister within the jurisdictionof Lokpal

2. Bringing Central Bureau of Investigation withinthe scope of inquiry by Lokpal and

3. Bringing Class “C” and “D” Officers subject tothe Lokpal. But the Government would agree in aform and manner it suits their purpose on all thethree issues.

V

DevanandWhat was characteristic of Devanand was his gait.Had it been treated as his weakness he would nothave become the hero. But, his gait, gesture andmannerisms had gained the recognition andattracted the approval of the audience.

An actor becomes popular for his expressionssuitable to the situations. Facial expressions andphysical movements contribute to his eminence.There were instances where such characteristicswere noted as typical expressions, such as the waythe character handles his hand stick or they handletheir heroines. Devanand was an all-rounder. Heacted frivolous characters with as much ease as hehandled the serious ones. He acted withcompetence with every heroine of his times spreadover half a century. He moved the hearts of threesuccessive younger generations. He was veryfortunate in passing away in sleep at 88 withoutsuffering any illness. It was reported that he hadbeen engaged in finalizing scripts for hisforthcoming productions. That is the way a creativeperson lives and sets examples for others.Devanand died in London and his obsequies tookplace in London only.


23

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IRI/IRHA Members’ Section:

[Mr. Mahi Pal Singh is the President of Indian

Radical Humanist Association (IRHA) of the

Delhi Unit and National Secretary of Peoples’

Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), C-105, D.D.A.Flats, Sindhora kalan, [email protected]]

Continued from the previous issue......................

Can the Courts Provide any Relief? TheConstitution of India has laid down the

responsibility of protecting the fundamental rightsof the people, as guaranteed under the Constitution,on the shoulders of the Supreme Court of India andthe various High Courts. In individual cases thesecourts have given some historical judgmentsthereby extending the scope of some of thefundamental rights. The Right to free andcompulsory Education as a fundamental rightemanated from the judgment of the Supreme Courtin 1993 in Unni Krishanan’s case (AIR 1993 SC2178) wherein the Court observed that the ‘Right toEducation’ is also a right to life, which is implicit asit flows from the right to life guaranteed by Article21, though it had been present in the Constitution ofIndia as a Directive Principle of the State Policyunder Article 45 ever since the adoption of theConstitution in 1949 without being considered afundamental right by any government before that.Right to know and information have also emanatedfrom the interpretations of Articles 19 and 21 of theConstitution by the apex Court. However, in the

matter of such draconian laws as the TADA, thePOTA and the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act,the courts have somehow failed to fulfill theirresponsibility as the protectors of the FundamentalRights of the people as assigned to them by theConstitution and as recognized by themselves assuch, when, in the Keshvanand Bharti case,otherwise known as Fundamental Rights case (AIR1973 SC 1461) the apex Court observed that thedemocratic form of government and thefundamental rights are some of the basic structuresand framework of our Constitution and they cannotbe abrogated or whittled down even by theParliament in exercise of its plenary powers ofamending the Constitution. Yet the Court has goneagainst its self-assigned, and constitutionallymandated, duty again and again. On the allegationsof “administrative liquidation” of two men bypersonnel of the Manipur police, the SupremeCourt had ordered a district and sessions judge toconduct an investigation on a public interestpetition filed by the People’s Union for CivilLiberties (PUCL) in 1992. The Court, however,gave orders only for monetary compensation, in itsjudgment on February 6, 1997, to the relatives ofthe victims. It did not exercise its authority to referthe matter to the trial court for the criminalprosecution of the perpetrators of the crime. Whenthe necessity to examine the Armed Forces (SpecialPowers) Act arose as a result of a letter-petitionaddressed to the Court in 1982, it was convertedinto a petition under Article 32 of the Constitution.The judgment came after 14 long years and theCourt ruled that none of the provisions of the Act

can be characterized as arbitrary. Though utterlybizarre such judgments might seem, they are inperfect consonance with the status-quoits characterof the establishment, be it the legislature, theexecutive or the judiciary. Otherwise how does oneview the judgment of the apex court, during theEmergency in 1976, where in the Habeas CorpusCase, which came to be known as ADM (Jabalpur)Case, (AIR 1976 SC 597) the majority of the fourJudges headed by Chief Justice A.N. Ray (Justice


24

Mahi Pal Singh

Khanna alone differing and paying the price for it)ruled that “Article 21 is the sole repository of theright to life and liberty and that since that right wassuspended, Habeas Corpus petitions were not evenmaintainable,” which practically meant that theGovernment had a right to kill a person without theauthority of law and, in fact, contrary to the rule oflaw. The National Human Rights Commission iseven prevented by Clause 19 of the Protection ofHuman Rights Act from investigating directlycomplaints of human rights violations against thearmed forces.

How Can an Atmosphere Conducive to Human

Rights be secured? The National DemocraticAlliance (NDA) government led by Sh. Atal BehariVajpayee could not find time to pass the Women’sReservation bill to empower women during its sixyear rule because, as it claimed, it wanted to bringabout a consensus on the issue. The samegovernment passed the POTA within no time bycalling a joint session of Parliament when itrealized that it would not be able to get the billthrough in the Rajya Sabha where it did not enjoy amajority. The same Congress party, which wasopposing the move then, and later declared that itwould abolish the Act as soon as it came to power,took a lot of time to do so, although, if JusticeRajindar Sachar, a retired Chief Justice of the DelhiHigh Court and expert in legal matters, is to bebelieved, the Act could be abolished overnight byan ordinance issued by the President. Not only that,the Congress led government at the centre is nowplanning to invoke Article 355 of the Constitutionto keep the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act inplace in Manipur, where the people in largenumbers have come out in favour of repealing theAct, in view of its gross misuse by the securityforces. Article 355 permits the Centre to intervenein the state affairs without the consent of the stategovernment in the interest of protecting the state

from external aggression or internal security

threat. What kind of threat from ‘externalaggression’ or ‘internal security threat’ thegovernment perceives is hard to comprehend. On

the issue of keeping Manipur designated as a“disturbed area”, there is a consensus in thepolitical parties of all hues supporting thegovernment, including the Left parties, who haveotherwise been opponents of such black laws. Thestand of the Congress party on continuing theAFSPA to remain in force in Nagaland and theother North Eastern states can well be taken as aforegone conclusion.

Situation in Maoist infested areas: With the entryof Multi National Corporations (MNCs) in thecountry in the name of globalization, thegovernment at the center declared a newdevelopment policy by setting up of SpecialEconomic Zones (SEZs) in the country providingspecial incentives and facilities to the MNCs toestablish enterprises for exploitation of the mineralwealth of the country, more for their own benefits(and the benefits of the politicians, if the exampleof Madhu Koda, who was caught with 4,000 Croresof Rupees of unaccounted wealth, is an example)than for the benefits of the people who own landsand resources of the targeted SEZs. When thevarious State governments started usurping theirlands, mostly in tribal areas of central India likeChhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra Pradeshetc., at throwaway prices to be handed over to theseMNCs, dispossessing the people of not only theirlands but also of their only source of sustenance,the people arose in revolt. This gave chance to theNaxalites/Maoists to gain their sympathies andpromote their ideological influence by supportingtheir cause against the various State governments.As a result there were violent protests againstforcible land acquisitions resulting into ruthlesssuppression of these protests by police andpara-military forces which resorted to large scaleviolation of human rights, rapes, burning of theirhouses, disappearances and extra judicial killings.Nandigram in West Bengal saw large-scaleviolence and the entire tribal belt of Lalgarhbecame alive with Maoist activities where, for along time, no Naxalite activity was observed. Poscoand Tata projects faced strong protests in Orissa.Almost the whole of the mineral rich tribal belts ofChhattisgarh and Jharkhand became the epicenter


25

of Maoists activities. But instead of listening to thegenuine grievances of the poorest tribal populationof these areas, the government at the center and theStates resorted to the policy of suppression named‘Operation Green Hunt’, on the face value againstthe Maoists but in truth against the tribals. Humanrights activists working among the masses in theirareas for their education, medical services etc. werealso targeted. The arrest of Dr. Binayak Sen, ahuman rights activist and well-known doctor whohad been working to provide medical services tothe people in those areas for the last 25 years, was ineffect a declaration of war by the State against allthose who raised the voice of concern for the life,liberty and rights of these tribals. The State today isbent upon pursuing a model of development, whichseeks to promote the interests of big capital andMNCs to the detriment of the poor farmers and thetribal population of the country. Accordingly,anyone who espouses the cause of the tribals islabeled ‘Maoist sympathizer’ and put behind thebars. It is precisely for this reason that the PUCLhas been named in the Kobad Ghandi charge sheetas a front organization of the Maoists, in spite of thefact that the PUCL has from its very inceptiondenounced violence by any individual, politicalgroup and the State alike. In a press statementpublished in the newspapers in June 2010 theUnion Home Ministry threatened to use UnlawfulActivities (Prevention) Act, 1967 for arrestingthose who criticize the policy of the homedepartment of the Govt. of India in dealing with thetribal Maoist problem. It shows the stringentcharacter of the provisions of this Act on the onehand and the blatant act of intimidation to suppressthe right of every citizen to unrestrainedly criticizethe wrong policies of the government under theright to freedom of speech and expressionguaranteed under the Constitution on the other. ThePUCL condemned this statement in strong wordsdemanding immediate withdrawal of the statement.Emergency-like situation in the country:

Situation in the country today is no better thanduring the Emergency regime. In fact, it is worse.In such a scenario, in which none of the threebranches of the State seem to care for the human

rights of the people, in spite of their commitment tothem under the Constitution of the country, theUnited Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights of1948 and the Covenant on Civil and PoliticalRights that followed the Declaration, to which thecountry is a signatory, the people of the country areleft with no other alternative except to organizethemselves into a movement against suchdraconian laws which act as an instrument ofdepriving them not only of their civil liberties butalso of their right to life with impunity. As JusticeP.B. Sawant (Retd.) observed in the Twenty-thirdJP Memorial Lecture organized under the auspicesof the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Pune, onMarch 23, 2003, “A citizenry well-empowered toassert itself, sufficiently well-informed to takeproper decisions on public issues, active enough toparticipate in the day-to-day affairs of the state, andalways alert to call the governors to account fortheir acts of omission and commission – these arethe minimum prerequisites of a successfuldemocracy.” The people have to be vigilantbecause, to quote him again, the powerful people“are in a position to control all the key institutions –the media, the bureaucracy, the police etc. andmanipulate and corrupt them, manufacture consentin their favour, and sabotage not only the will of thepeople, but also the law of the land.” (HumanRights in Retreat: P.B. Sawant, Mainstream, June28 and July 5, 2003). If the people of the countryare to be saved from the onslaught of inhuman lawsand not to be pushed against the wall by them intotaking to arms, which, in any case, are no solutionof the problems facing them and the country, theymust organize themselves into a strong people’smovement to oppose such laws. Human Rightsgroups and other NGOs engaged in securing therights of the people should lend full support to theirpeaceful efforts directed to this end. Someorganizations from Nagaland, including somepeople engaged in the protection of human rightsand civil liberties there, had approached PUCL,PUDR etc. some time ago to get their support forthe movement to repeal Armed Forces (Special


26

Powers) Act. It was decided to co-ordinate theefforts of various human rights groups in thisregard and form an all India Committee to take upthis cause. In this connection a convention wasorganized at the Constitution Club in New Delhiand a resolution was passed there. Anotherconvention was organized at Gandhi PeaceFoundation in which PUCL-Delhi played a verysignificant role. At the latter meeting, an actionplan was also passed – including contacting variouspolitical groups and also individual MPs to mustertheir support for the cause. It was also decided toform sub-committees or regional committees,

which can take up the matter with the governmentsand political parties at the level of various stateswhere this law is in force. An awareness campaignabout human rights education should also be startedamong the people so that the State can bepressurized to tackle such political issuespolitically through talks with all concerned groupsinstead of resorting to the use of armed forceswhich are best kept confined to their barracksexcept in times of external aggression.

Continued in the next issue...........................


27

Important Announcement

Encyclopedia of the Radical Humanists

To be loaded on the RH Website (http://www.theradicalhumanist.com)

Dear Friends, This is to request you to send in your personal details, contact numbers etc. (along with

your passport size photographs) as well as a brief account of how you got associated with M.N.

Roy/Radical Democratic Party/Radical Humanist Movement directly or indirectly through the

philosophy of New Humanism.

This is also a request to all those friends, whose deceased parent/parents were involved in or were

sympathetic with Radical Humanism and its Movement, to send in accounts of their parent’s/parents’

association (as much as they can recollect and recount). This will be a loving and emotional tribute to

their memories from your side.

All this effort is being made to form an encyclopedia of the Radical Humanists right from the days of the

beginning of M.N. Roy’s social and political activities in India and abroad.

All this information will be uploaded and permanently stored on the RH Website in the Profile section

for everyone to read and come in contact with one another.

This will be a historical check-list to connect with all the crusaders who worked or are still working for

the human cause on the humanist lines.

—Rekha Saraswat

Research Scholars’ & Teachers’ Section:

The ‘Peace-Mediator’ Rests in‘Peace’


Eminent Assamese litterateur, academic,Ramayana-scholar, and solo mediator

between Ulfa, the banned secessionist group ofAssam, and the Central Government, MamoniRaisom Goswami, popularly known as IndiraGoswami, lovingly called Mamoni Baideo, passedaway on 29th November 2011, barely three weeksafter death of Bhupen Hazarike, an acclaimedsinger and music director of Assam, at GuwahatiMedical College after prolonged illness. Herpassing will not only leave a void in Assamese andIndian literature but also in the hearts of all thosewho knew her. She was the first Indian to receivethe 60 lakh Principal Prince Claus Award (2008),named in honour of Prince Clause of TheNetherland; Goswami donated the entire prizemoney to the Assam Government to build ahospital in her ancestral village Amranga inKamrup district.

Mamoni was the winner of 36th Jnanpith Award forthe year 2000 for her contribution to the enrichmentof Indian literature through her creative writingbetween 1978-99. She brought for second time theprestigious award for the State of Assam after twodecades after Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya whowon in 1979 for his novel Mrityunjay, written

against the backdrop of Independence struggle inAssam. Rendering yeoman service to the cause ofliterature, she enriched the genre with hertranslation of short stories from different parts ofthe country. By receiving this all India literaryprize, Mamoni established herself as one of the bestwriters of India. “I am much elated at being giventhis honor though I was not expecting it as I wasnominated for it several times earlier. This willdefinitely help me in going ahead with my futureliterary endeavor”, Mamoni had remarked afterreceiving the award.

Assam government accorded the writer-crusader alofty slot in the annals of State by tendering herunique honor of being the maiden honored guest atthe Independence Day Celebration of Judge’s Fieldin Guwahati in 2001. “Writing is my life, dharma,writing is my soul”, observed Goswami whileaddressing a gathering at a function organized bythe Guwahati Press Club to felicitate her at thePress Club premises. She was also the recipient ofseveral prestigious literary awards including theSahitya Akademi Award in 1983 for her novelMamare Dhara Tarowal (Rusted Sword) thatdepicts the experience of building an aqueduct overthe San in Rai Bareilly district. It is considered asan outstanding contribution to Assamese literaturefor its deep insight into social tensions, abhorrenceof the exploitation of man-by-man, sympathy withthe toiling masses and for its gripping style. Itexposes brilliantly the hypocrisy, deceit andselfishness that masquerade as respectability. Allthe characters in this novel come to life with a rarebrilliance and reality.

Starting writing from the tender age of thirteen,Goswami earned an exalted position in thepantheon of fiction writers of India. She was firstrecognized by Kirtinath Hazarika, a leading editorin that time Natun Asomiya. It was he whoencouraged in her early literary efforts andpublished all her stories. At a ‘Meet the Author’program arranged by Sahitya Akademi, New Delhion 1st November 1992 she declared that writing wasan obsession with her. In the course of her


28

Ashok K.Chaudhury

interesting talk she admitted writing helped hercope with many of her personal tragedies.

Christened Indira Goswami, the somewhat intrepidgirl began her tryst with destiny since her birth onNovember 14, 1942. A priest of Kamakhya templewhile preparing her horoscope advised her motherAmbika Devi, that this girl’s stars are so bad thatshe would do well to cut her up in two pieces andthrow her into the Brahmputra to do away withomen connected with the birth. On the issues,which move her, were her childhood days. She hadseen widowhood from very close quarters, whenshe was a companion to her paternal aunt whobecame widow at the age of twelve. Her aunt spenther entire life worshipping the pair of Kharam

(wooden foot wear) of her dead husband. Widowedin less than eighteen months of her marriage to aTamil engineer, Madhavan Raisom Iyenger, aKannadiga lyengar, she was able to add herself tothe list of characters that she created. The untimelydeath of her father Umakanta Goswami was a greatblow to her. She also witnessed an act ofsuffocating a he-goat, in the name of a communityfeast. Then there is the case of organizing areligious function to exorcise the evils that weresupposed to be dominating her destiny. Butpossessed of an indomitable nature, Goswami cameout after each tragedy as if “baptized by fire.”

Her writings touch upon diverse themes rangingfrom the sordid to the sublime. The canvas ofGoswami is indeed vast and includes impression oflife and people in their spectacular variety andrichness. Her gallery of characters is constitutedwith those people who live on the fringes of thesociety. Using very few stylistic devices to mar theflow of her pen, she weaved, fascinating talesagainst a backdrop of human deprivation andexploitation and an authentic feel of the locale inher stories. The woes and travails of man andwoman are mirrored in all her novels, short stories.Her autobiography finds ardent appeal across theglobe.

Goswami wrote short stories for two decadesbefore emerging as a powerful novelist. Moved bythe plight of widows, Goswami wrote her firstnovel Chenavar Srota (As the Cherish Flows,1972). The picture of the poor workers engaged inconstruction of a bridge as projected in the novel isexactly what she personally saw at the bridge site. Itis a work marked by vivid realism, penetratinginsight and a deep poetic sensibility. Nilakantha

Braja, her second novel in 1976, translated intoEnglish as The Shadow of a Dark God, is mostly atale of three love-lorn damsels: Saudamini, ayoung widow; Mrinalini, a spinster; and thehelpless Sashi, another spinster. This novel is theoutcome of studying the lives of the over 3000widows at Vrindavan where she lived for two yearsin a temple room. She narrated what she hadactually seen - the pathetic life of the widows andspinsters, their sorrow and agony, their desires andfrustrations. Abandoned by their relatives, thesehelpless women are often driven to prostitution fortheir living. The bestiality in men was for the firsttime viewed by her from very close quarters in thisholly land of Krishna. Pulsating with the life andinviting the reader’s participation in it, Goswamiwithout being too obviously feministic, deftlyportrayed the anguish of these women and lashedout against in her typical humanistic fashion.

Goswami drew parallel in her delineation ofcircumstance and protagonists from the workingclass in the Kashmir valley and the dam sites inMadhya Pradesh. While in Madhya Pradesh, shesaw herself the work of an aqueduct project. Herclose contact with the workers and her experienceof their way of life gave the basic material to buildthe story of her novel Ahiron. Highly readable, it isa message of hope in a world marred by grief andbrutality.

Datal Haatir Uye Khawa (The Worm-eaten Howdaof Tuskar), translated into English as A Saga orSouth Kamrup, portrays an undiluted and vividpictures of the ‘statra’ (a religious monastery) atwhere she had spent most of her childhood days.Goswami said that there was a pressure from her


29

relatives on the publisher not to publish the novel.She exposed the wretched life of three widows of arural orthodox family. Inspired by the real life casesin her own family, she showed widows of differentages, where the eldest one is resigned to her haplessplight as conditioned by the cruel society; thesecond one, helped by relative affluence, is able tomake space for her little words; the third one,young Giribala, cannot make herself submit to thehuman reality. She forgot everything realism andrituals, wisdom or restraint. She takes meat,interacts without any qualms. There are flickers ofrebellion in the young widow who is deprived ofthe traits of life by a set of cruel customs.

The Assamese film version of the novel, Adajya,

which is considered a claasic, won twointernational awards after competing with Train to

Pakistan and Hazar Chaurasi Ki Ma. As well, theAssam Sahitya Sabha honoured her with theBasanti Devi Memorial Award in 1988.

Animal sacrifice custom in the state is one of theprimary concerns in her creative work. Her novelChinnamastar Manuhto focuses on buffalosacrifice in the Kamakhya temple. This grotesqueritual provoked her to shake the foundations of thesociety. The book aroused protest from among thepriestly classes. There were threats to kill the editorof the magazine, which serialized the novel, andone person was beaten up. But nothing was going tostop her from opposing such practices. And whategged her on was the fact that she was beingsupported by the youth of the State.Chinnamastar… moved the young generation onwhose opinion, the future would be molded. Sheelaborated; stating about 15 per cent of the masseshad supported her with the majority from the youthsection.

Militancy in the state was her next major project asshe wanted first to closely observes the ultras’activities and their philosophies prior to taking upthe task, though she was criticized by some peoplefor not writing more on militancy in the state. Butshe had decided. Everyone speaks about her

boldness. She unhesitatingly exposed thoserealities, which the elitist mind is either afraid of or‘ashamed’ of looking into. Apart from her novels,her autobiography Adha Lekha Dastavej

(Unfinished Autobiography, 1983) is a powerfultestimony in this regard. She frankly revealed herown story. This autobiography covers some eventsand incidents of her life up to 1970. Adopting atechnique of presentation that keeps the readerspellbound, she sized up the events and charactersand people she came across in her own life with aclarity that must be the envy of many a biographer.The rare courage with which she faced life, whichhas not been too kind to her, came out powerfully inthis book. Her deep observation of the life andlocale wherever she happened to be was alsoevident throughout. In fact it has all the making ofwhat an autobiography should be and leaves thereader eager for a sequel. The much acclaimedautobiography, which she penned, “it is not just forthe heck of it. You know. I dare to touch a subjectonly after it moves my inner being. The feelings ofthe disposed must be a felt experience”. Goswamisaid, “What is in me to hide? How can I depict thestories about others’ lives if I am not true to myself?I have never tried to sermonize. I have alienated mywritings from my life”.

In a letter to Goswami in November 1990, MulkRaj Anand remarked, “I read one third of yourautobiography in one go and think you to be asensitive and truthful person, who has revealed herfeelings, uncertainties, disappointments and lapseswith a candor not shown by many contemporaries”.Amita Mallik, on reading the autobiography, said,“Mamoni’s writing is spontaneous, likeconversation. But it is heart-felt, and moving. I canonly salute Mamoni for the truly heroic saga that isher life”. Amrita Pritiam, who has written a‘Foreword’ to its English translation, Life is No

Bargain, an Unfinished Autobiography, a part ofher life story, which could be described as “life isno bargain. Indira Goswami is one of those raresouls who have been able to get an insight into thegreat power which is working behind this


30

universe”. Her autobiography has also beentranslated into Hindi as Zindagi Sauda Nahi.

Besides, Budhasagar Dhushar Geisha Aru Md

Musa, Sanskar Udaybhanur Charitra Etyati,

Jakhmi Jatri, Tez Aru Dhulira Dhusharita Prishta,

Uparryash Samagra are some of her other novels.Goswami was a competent short story writer.Author of eighteen novels, three hundred shortstories and an autobiography, quite a few of hershort stories have been translated into English andother Indian languages. Almost all her novels andshort stories revolve around young widows, whonever achieve either sexual fulfillment orindependence. Equating her writing to activism,Goswami expressed, “it is enough for me to showthe rebellion. I want to tell the women that theyshould fight even if they do not succeed”. In eachsuccessive novel, she unfolded tragedy, and thenraised voices of protest against the traditions andsocial norms. Her novels are not just aboutliterature, they are emotion ridden outpouringsabout her own life as a widow, an experience thatcontinues to colour every word that she writes.Goswami’s narrative has a distinction of its own.Her specialty is the picture she brought forththrough her prose. Her writing is marked by avigorous style, bold treatment and insight intosocial tensions.

Replying to a question on what makes hercharacters so appealing, Goswami said, “I intenselystudy the themes of the stories before penned them.I have not written anything without experiencing it.I pick my characters from real life. Readers takeinterest in my language”. Navakanta Baura said,“Mamoni can paint pictures with words. And shedrew these pictures from experiments”. Shepointed out that the purpose of the endeavor was toensure that sense prevails, facades peel off, crassmaterialism gave way to the solace of spiritualismand the derailed society is brought back to thetracks. Commenting on the novels of Goswami, thenoted writer Vishnu Prabhakar once observed: “Inher writings even dead characters are galvanizedand come alive at the touch of her magical pen”.

Goswami is considered an authority on theRamayana, and here is her account as to whatpropelled her to select the epic as her researchproject. One of her latest projects was on Ravana,

the King of Lanka. It is sort of a corollary to herresearch work A Comparative Study of the

Ramayana of Madhav Kandali and Goswami

Tulsidas”. The litterateur felt her research workwas her most enduring contribution to literature.She said that a detailed study of this epic hasopened a new vista in her life. She travelled toseveral south-east Asian countries for participatingin deliberations on this epic. She participated ascoordinator in the International Seminar onRamayana Literature at Trinidad in Spain. In 1973she was awarded Ph.D. from the Institute ofOriental Philosophy, Vrindavan, for her thesis onthe Ramayana, which was published in 1996. Shealso produced voluminous work on TulsiRamayana and Assamese Ramayana of MadhavaKandali and has contributed articles on the theme inIndian and foreign journals.

As an eminent translator, Goswami translatedMrityunjay into English in just 15 days at theinsistence of the then Jnanpith Executive MemberLakhiprasad Jain. Besides, she also contributedresearch papers in numerous research journals andshe presented papers in national and internationalseminars. Goswami introduced Premchand toAssamese readers by some of his stories intoAssamese.

Goswami was associated herself with a number oflearned and literary bodies: Association ofAuthors; the Central Board of SecondaryEducation; the Assam Lekhak Sambhai; the Boardof Studies (Assamese), Benaras Hindu University;K.K. Birla Foundation; Committee for Assamese,National Book Trust, Delhi, etc. She wasCoordinator of the Meeting of the 2nd Anniversaryof Mirza Ghalib, under the joint aegis of SahityaAakademi, and Urdu Akademi; Coordinator at theInternational Meet in Hindi at the IndiaInternational Centre, New Delhi; Member of theAdvisory Board (1983 to 1988), Sahitya Akademi,


31

and also as a Member of its Executive Board,(1998-2002).

Apart from Jnanpith and Sahitya Akademi awards,her great contributions rightfully brought her anumber of prestigious awards including: BasantiDevi Memorial Award of Assam Sahitya Sabha(1988), Bharat Nirman Award (1989), SauhardSamman of U.P. Hindi Sansthan (1992), KathaAward (1993), Kamal Kumari Foundation Award(1996), Joimoti Kunwari Award by Ahom RoyalCouncil of Assam, Guwahati (2003).

An alumnus of Cotton College, Guwahati,Goswami was the Professor, Modern IndianLiterature and Language Studies Department,University of Delhi. Throughout her career, she

was a champion of the oppressed, humiliated,downtrodden, particularly widows of Vrindavan,and the victims of Partition. Goswami was alwaysready to serve the poorer, leprosy and cancerpatients, and was keen to see lasting peace in theNortheast. She dedicated her time and energy to theupliftment of her mother tongue. Hiren Gohain, anoted critic and scholar from Assam, says,“Mamoni is the most extraordinary thing to havehappened to Assamese literature in recent years.There cannot be any doubt that she is a major authorfrom whom great things can be expected”. Now thegreat things are only to be dreamt.

Dr. Ashok K. Choudhury, a postdoctoral scholar& lit critic, is with Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi.


32

M.N. Roy Literature on RH Web portal:www.theradicalhumanist.com

Dear friends,

Kindly go through the following published material on the RH Web Portal in its ‘Literature’ section

on the following URL:

http://www.theradicalhumanist.com/index.php?option=com_radical&controller=literatures&I

temid=61

The books already uploaded are:

New Orientation; New Humanism; M.N. Roy’s letters to Dr. Reddy; Roy’s Writings on Georgi

Dmitrov; M.N. Roy’s write-up on Leon Trotsky and Ellen Roy’s letters to Warren Allen Smith (1, 2

3); Men I Met; Politics, Power and Parties; From the Communist Manifesto to Radical Humanism;

Historical Role of Islam; The Russian Revolution and Tragedy of Communism; Revolution and

Counter-Revolution in China.

We will be gradually uploading all the other major works of M.N. Roy. We are getting very favourable

responses from friends telling us that this is a historical feat as it is allowing Roy’s Literature to come

alive once again to newer and wider readership.

—Rekha Saraswat

Book Review Section:

[Ms. Dipavali Sen has been a student of Delhi

School of Economics and Gokhale Institute of

Politics and Economics (Pune). She has taught at

Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan, and

various colleges of Delhi University. She is, at

present, teaching at Sri Guru Gobind Singh

College of Commerce, Delhi University. She is a

prolific writer and has written creative pieces and

articles for children as well as adults, both in

English and Bengali. [email protected]]

Heavy Reading

[INDIA The Ultimate Sights, Places, and

Experiences, by Abraham Eraly, Yasmin Khan,George Mitchell, and Mitali Saran; published byDK, a Penguin company, London; 2008; price notindicated.hardcover, 12” x 10 “, pp 376.]

This book is a guide to the essence of India.It contains more than 700 specially

commissioned photographs with accompanyingtext and notes. It takes us through the fascinatingland that India is. .

A `coffee table book’ it may be, but as I pick it up, Irealize it is of solid worth.

This book is in six sections.

LANDSCAPE INDIA’S HORIZON provides thereaders a “visual journey” in. terms of beautifulphotographs in colour, coupled with appropriate

quotes.E.g., on pp24-25, there is the greenery ofMeghalaya, and the lines: “When you meet theforest Your desires become the seasons. Yoursmiles turn into brooks. Thorn and brush drag atyour feet .And the hills stop you on your way.”(‘Coincidence’, Jyotsna Das).

HISTORY THE STORY OF INDIA spansprehistoric times to modern. Seals and pottery ofthe early Aryans are photographed with usefulnotes. There are mementoes from every period,ranging from Ganjifa playing cards (p 93) to Tipu’stiger (p 99).

The third section is PEOPLE A DAY IN THELIFE. It follows 14 individuals from all walks oflife. The Hindu priest offers his prayers from thebanks of the Ganga at Varanasi. The Aptanitribeswoman works in the fields, doing a littledance to press the earth flat. A nobleman enjoys asumptuous breakfast in his fort. A `langar’ cookmakes lentil for 150,000 people, and so on…All thephotographs are accompanied by little notes.Particularly interesting are the spread of Indian toys(pp174-5) and the display of Indian musicalinstruments (pp190-1).

CULTURE THE SPIRIT OF INDIA captures theintangible but powerful entity called culture interms of exquisite photographs. The two-pagedisplay of Naga sadhus is (p2330 is as remarkableas that of young Budddhists (p 238). Rajajasthanifolk dance ( p 250-1) or Madhubani folk art (p262-3). Classical literature is also discussed, withthe help of rare depictions of the Mahabharata, thePanchatantra etc. No aspect has quite been left out,not even Indian cuisine.

India has an astounding variety of architecturalstyles, as presented in the next section,ARCHITECTURE BUILDING A NATION. Theelaborate stepwell of Adalaj in Gujarat isbeautifully portrayed (pp 278-283) along with theAnoop Talau of Fatehpur Sikri (p 307).Padmanabhapuram, the wooden royal palace ofTamil Nadu (pp310 – 317) forms an interestingcontrast to the Amber Fort (p 318-323). The Taj


33

Dipavali Sen

Mahal and the Meenakshi temple are representedfrom unusual angles and great detail (pp324- 337).

The sixth and last section, TRAVEL EXPLORINGINDIA, is a listing of important tourist spots, withillustrated information on hotels, shops, eatingplaces, travel and communications.

This is followed by an INDEX (in somewhat smalllettering).

The photographs in the book are by ChristopherPillitz and Gary Ombler, both very well-known. Itis they who bring the book alive. Abraham Early

and Yasmin Khan are historians. George Mitchellis an architect who has also studiedarchaeology.Mitali Saran is a free-lancetravel-writer and columnist.The combination oftalents has produced a faultlessly detailed volume,brilliantly attractive.

But it has also made the book thick and difficult tohandle. I almost sprained my wrists in doing so.Despite its delightful content, INDIA makes heavyreading!


34

Please register yourself on the RH Websitehttp://www.theradicalhumanist.com

¨Please log in to it to give your comments on the articles and humanist news which are uploaded

from the world over on the Website almost daily.

¨You may also send in news and write-ups from your part of the land for uploading on the Website.

¨Please send in your views and participate on the topics of debate given in the debate section. You

yourself may also begin a debate on any topic of your choice in this section.

¨Please suggest themes for the coming issues of The Radical Humanist, discuss them in the Themes

Section of the Website; the content of which may be later published in the RH journal.

¨It is your own inter-active portal formed with a purpose of social interaction amongst all Radical

Humanists as well as Rationalists and Humanists from different forums also.

¨Do make it a practice to click on the RH Website http://www.theradicalhumanist.com URL daily,

ceremoniously.

¨Please utilise the RH Website to come closer for the common cause of ushering in a renaissance in our

country.

—Rekha Saraswat, (Editor & Administrator, RH Website)

Letter to the Editor:

Dear Editor, In my article Changing trends in Indo-Nepal Relations published in the ‘Research

Scholar’s Section’ of December 2011 issue of RH kindly announce the following corrections, ifpossible, and oblige. The year mentioned in the second line may be read as 1950 and not 1900. And, inthe seventh line the correct year was 1950 instead of 1980. Sorry for the inconvenience caused to thereaders.—Pravesh Kumari

Humanist Views and News Section:

I

Letter to the Editor:

Fragments:

Dear Rekha,

I looked up the Arab word for philosophy I referredto in my mail to you: falasifa (with a diacritic bar, Icannot place, on the second ‘a’ indicating that itshould be pronounced as our second vowel theother two ‘a’s being like our first vowel).

In the eleventh and the twelfth century they werealready using it. I read it in a book on Ibn Rushd(known as Averroes in Europe).

The Arabs had thus adopted the Greek wordmeaning “love of knowledge” which philosophywas supposed to be.

In the nineteenth century Indian culture andphilosophy was very much à la mode in Germany.Chateaubriand, during a visit, as ambassador, notedwith wry amusement that in certain circles theconversation at dinner table seemed to be mostly inSanskrit. That, say the Upanishads were“apaurasheya” did not prevent them from beingreferred to as Indian philosophy.

All this is, of course, history.

You analyze well, in your editorial, the problems ofsucceeding generations in keeping alive andpropagating the ideas of charismatic pioneers ofhumanism. You place your faith and hope inscience. I have no clear idea about the role ofscience in such domains. I hope that you are right.That would be so much the better.

Talking about science, Laxmanshashtri’s notesinclude a passage stating “The latest cosmologicalparadigm of the universe is “The Big Bang”.”He wrote it, I suppose, sometime ago. Now thereare other proposals. Loop quantum gravity models(originating in a paper of Abhay Ashtekar withwhom I had friendly relations some years ago)propose periodic expansions and contractions therebeing no true initial singularity. After a period of

contraction, before reaching a true singularity,there is a “big bounce” and the whole periodicprocess starts over again. There are, according tothis theory, no first or last moments in the evolutionof the universe.

—Amitabha Chakrabarti

[email protected]

II

News from CFI:

CFI Mourns the Death of Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens died Thursday (on 16th

December 2011) of complications from esophagealcancer. He was 62.

“Christopher Hitchens was a gifted writer andpolemicist, with razor-sharp wit and an acuteintellect, who was also a steadfast champion forsecularism,” said Ronald A. Lindsay, president andCEO of the Center for Inquiry (CFI). “We aredeeply saddened by his death.”

Hitchens was prolific, writing on a number oftopics through his varied career as an author andjournalist. His works covered topics as diverse asthe Elgin marbles, Mother Teresa, and theequivocations of Bill Clinton.

Fortunately for those concerned about the influenceof religion, Hitchens also turned his wide-rangingintellect to religion. His 2007 book, God Is Not


35

Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, became abest seller, and Hitchens became a well-knowndebater on the topic of religion. In the last severalyears, he was a fixture as a speaker for manysecular organizations, including CFI and theCouncil for Secular Humanism.

Hitchens was a long-time columnist for Free

Inquiry.

Hitchens left us many words of wisdom. Butperhaps one quote stands out. In God Is Not Great,Hitchens wrote, “Human decency is not derivedfrom religion. It precedes it.” In this concise,insightful observation, Hitchens captures all thatneeds to be said about the independence of moralityfrom religion.

Hitchens has left humanists and atheists a richlegacy of logic, fearless advocacy, and wit. It’s upto us to make good use of it.

(The Radical Humanists Join CFI in their grief

and send condolences for Christopher Hitchens)

III

N. Innaiah remembers Christopher Hitchens:

Mr. Christopher Hitchens the best seller writer ofGod Is Not Great died on 16th December 2011. Hisbook is translated by me into Telugu. He is greatpopular, controversial journalist and humanist.

I express my deep sorrow for his demise which is agreat loss for the secular humanists.

I know him personally and discussed with him onissues. Christopher Hitchens, a sharp-wittedprovocateur who used his formidable learning,biting wit and muscular prose style to skewer whathe considered high-placed hypocrites, cravenlackeys of the right and left, “Islamic fascists” andreligious faith of any kind, died Dec. 15 at ahospital in Houston. He was 62.

He had pneumonia and complications fromesophageal cancer, according to a statement from

Vanity Fair, the magazine for which Mr. Hitchensworked.

IV

All India Campaign against Sedition and other

Repressive Laws:

A daylong meeting was convened by the PUCL onthe 16th of December to discuss and plan the launchof an All Indian Campaign against Sedition Laws.This was a follow up to the meeting held on the 7th

and 8th May, 2011, in which members from variousbranches of the PUCL, and representatives ofseveral democratic rights organizations like thePUDR, APDR, CPDR, CDRO, APCLC, Masum,Human Rights Alert, Manipur, NAPM,participated and it was decided that a millionsignatures should be collected and presented to theSpeaker of the Lok Sabha demanding the repeal ofsec. 124A IPC and sec. 2(o) (iii) of the UnlawfulActivities Prevention Act (UAPA), 1967 and otheranti-sedition laws provisions in other legislations.

The follow up meeting on 16th December, 2011 washeld at Gandhi Peace Foundation, Delhi. It had over40 people participating which included membersfrom the PUCL state branches of Rajasthan, Delhi,Andhra Pradesh, UP, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and thenational executive of the PUCL along withmembers from and other democratic, human rightsand people’s organizations like the PUDR, NewSocialist Initiative, INSAF, Human Rights LawNetwork, People’s Democratic Front of India,CDRO, Agriculture Workers Union, Karnataka,CHRI, NAPM, Right to Food and Work Campaign,Rajasthan along with several free lance mediapersons among others.

The decisions taken are as follows:

1.To launch the `All India Campaign against

Sedition and other repressive Laws’ as a collectivecampaign of all democratic rights and human rightsorganisations, mass movements, rights bodies,professionals and concerned citizens. Thiscampaign should be launched on the 31st of


36

January, 2011 at the Gandhi Peace Foundation inDelhi (originally we had planned 30th JanuaryMartyr’s day, but due to the non availability of thehall, the launch has been shifted to the 31st with apress conference in Delhi on the 30th of January,2011).

2.A Steering group would be formed withrepresentatives of different organisations whichhad participated in the May and Dec, 2011meetings, with state level coordination to beundertaken in different states. Even organisationsthat were unable to attend the 16th December, 2011meetings would be invited to be part of the SteeringCommittee. Gautam Navalakha of PUDR andAsish Gupta of CDRO undertook to contact otherhuman rights organisations with the invitation toparticipate.

3.On behalf of the PUCL, the 4 national SecretariesKavita, Mahipal Singh, Chittaranjan Singh andSuresh would coordinate with PUCL state units toparticipate in this effort. Similarly other concernedindividuals would also be invited to be part of thecampaign.

4.Pushkar Raj, PUCL National Secretary wouldcontinue with the coordination of the All Indiacampaign along with the support of the PUCLnational secretaries and representatives othermember organization till the steering committee isformally launched.

5.The planning meeting for the All Indiaconvention will take place at Gandhi PeaceFoundation at 4 pm on the 9th of January, 2012 tochart out the strategy and plan for the January 31st,2012 All India launch. (Pushkar Raj, KavitaSrivastava, Mahipal Singh, Parmajit to coordinateamong others)

6.It was felt that the campaign must work indifferent groups:

(a) A group which works on the documentation andresearch side of the law. On the basis of the formatgiven below, information and case studies shouldbe provided to this committee so that a report couldbe consolidated and released on the 31st of January,

2011. ( Proposed names Pushkar Raj, V. Sureshand Gautam Navlakha, Venkatesh to coordinatewith others)

(b) A group will coordinate the public educationcampaign on the subject with students, farmers,workers, tribals, dalits, minority groups and otherhuman rights workers and members of otherorganizations, through public meetings andsignature campaigns. (Proposed names ChittranjanSingh, Anil Chaudhary, Subhash Gatade amongothers)

(c) Outreach work, especially with the legalfraternity. (Justice Sachar, Usha Ramanthan, RaviKiran Jain and others)

(d) A group would simultaneously also beginaddressing legal support needs with the localorganisation which would have identified victimsalong with it working on the social support andrehabilitation side of the victims. ( ColinGonsalves, Himanshu, N D Pancholi and others)

(e) A media group which through alternative andmain stream media, web based and otherwise,would aggressively highlight this issue. ( Ajit Sahi,Anand Panini and others)

7.The All India documentation study of the use

and abuse of sedition laws should be on the

following parameters:

(i) State wise / District wide / Police Stationspecific list of Cases (FIRs) in which seditioncharges u/s 124A IPC and Sec. 2(o)(iii) UnlawfulActivities Prevention Act (UAPA), 1967 wereinvoked along with other criminal law sections inthe last 10 years;

(ii) Description of status of each of the cases listedabove in terms of (a) still pending investigation; (b)whether a charge sheet has been filed, if so what arethe charges; (c) status of trial, and number of yearspending; (iv) if trial concluded, whether theaccused is/are convicted for offence u/s 124A IPCand UAPA, and other charges with details ofsentence; (v) whether appeal filed and pending ordecided.


37

(iii) Even if it is not possible to get details of allcases described in (ii) above, attempt should bemade to collect details in as many cases as possible.

(iv) To sub-categorise the list of cases in (i), (ii) and(iii) Above in terms of the following categories ofcases where sedition charges were invoked: (a)workers’ strikes, (b) farmers’ agitations, (c) dalitstruggles, (iv) tribal rights groups, (v) minorityrights issues, (vi) students’ agitations (vii) rightsdefenders, (viii) women’s movements, (ix) protestsagainst development projects / displacement (x)others.

(v) List out the background of the accused in allcases involving sedition charges.

(Vi) Prepare case studies of major cases involvingsedition charges highlighting the details of (a)glaring absurdity of the case, (b) human interest, (c)political vendetta, (d) impact on families, (e) lengthof arrest and difficulties in bail,

Planning Meeting For The All India Convention

Will Take Place At Gandhi Peace Foundation

On The 9th January, 2011 (Monday) From 4 Pm

To 6 Pm. Please Come On Time.

We are,

—Pushkar Raj, V. Suresh, Mahipal Singh,

Chittranjan Singh , Kavita Srivastava

Dated: 26th January, 2011

All queries and emails should be sent to: withcopies to and , please mails related to this alwayswrite subject: sedition

If by post : Pushkar Raj, General Secretary, PUCL,

270-A, Patparganj, Opp. Anandlok Apartments,Mayur Vihar-I, Delhi-110091

V

Press Conference against BRAI Bill 2011 by

DELHI ALLIANCE FOR SAFE FOOD -

Humanist Party's stand on the issue:

The HUMANIST PARTY of INDIA, as part ofthe DELHI ALLIANCE FOR SAFE FOOD,supports the Campaign for immediate cancellationof the “BIOTECHNOLOGY REGULATORY

AUTHORITY OF INDIA BILL 2011", that isproposed to be tabled in the Parliament at any time.

The BRAI bill 2011 signifies the blatant nexusbetween Multinational Seed companies who arepushing their Genetically modified crops in Indiaand our government institutions, and the corruptPoliticians and the bureaucracy.

The BRAI bill 2011 is a negative legislation since itis based on “anti-life-manipulation-of-science” - itindeed truly represents CORRUPTION of Ideasacting in the fields of Science, Law, Industry,Politics among others.

This corrupt practice of multiple players, beingpresented to India by Monsanto and its partners inthis death-game is unfortunately getting the fullsupport from UPA Government headed by thePrime Minister Shri Manmohan Singh, anddeserves full-complete opposition from alllife-supporting Indians.

The campaign being conducted under the bannerof DELHI ALLIANCE FOR SAFE

FOOD, formed by a wide cross sectionof consumers, farmers, traders, civil society, tradeunion activists, scientists and academics fromDelhisupport of hundreds of Organizationsrepresenting millions of Indians, urges theManmohan Singh Government to not only drop theproposed legislation completely but also cancel allthe current trials being conducted in different partsof India on different kinds of GM seeds. Thesetrials are not just illegal and immoral but alsoanti-life, as we have seen deaths of hundreds ofthousands of farmers specially in the areas whereBT-Cotton has been allowed over the last years.

No Government in a true-democracy has the rightto sell the security & sovereignty of its people’slives. If any Government attempts to do that, it willrisk facing the strong opposition of people leadingto the end of its undemocratic rule.


38

Continuation of insisting this bill will only provethe corrupt-violent credentials of the currentGovernment and the people of India, in that casewill have no choice but to work for a newGovernment that will be formed based on thefollowing principals :

1. ACTIVE NON-VIOLENCE:

2. HUMAN BEING AS THE CENTRAL

VALUE:

3. CO-OPERATIVE SYSTEM:

4. NON-DISCRIMINATION:

5. PRINCIPLE OF OPTION AND OF NO

MONOPOLIES:

For THE HUMANIST PARTY OF INDIA

Sudhir Gandotra

SECRETARY – INTERNATIONAL TEAM.

Available for download at :

Major concerns with BRAI Bill, 2011

· The fundamental basis of regulation on productsof modern biotechnology lies in the risks associatedwith modern biotechnology. Therefore, thereshould only be one primary mandate or objective tothis statute: to prevent risks to the health and safetyof people of India, its socio-economic fabric, itsenvironment and its biological diversity inparticular, from the development, handling,transport, use, transfer and release of any livingmodified organisms. But the preamble of thecurrent proposal gives one a feeling that products ofmodern biotechnology are a fait accompli and thelaw is being made to ‘promote’ safe usage.

· There is an inherent, objectionable conflict ofinterest as the BRAI is proposed to be under theMinistry of Science and Technology, whichalready has a mandate to promote GM crops, aproduct of modern biotechnolgy which BRAI issupposed to regulate. The very mandate of theBRAI Bill is inappropriate.

· There is no intention or mention of independent,long-term and rigorous biosafety assessment ofGM crops.

· Centralised and narrow decision-making with nomechanism for consultation with the public orinvolvement of multiple stakeholders indecision-making is present in the bill, which isagainst the spirit of democracy and against theCartagena Protocol, to which India is a signatory.

· No mechanism for transparency- Worse yet, theBill bypasses the citizen’s right to information byoverriding the Right to Information Act, 2005, forcommercial interests.

· The Bill overrides the state governments’authority over health and agriculture and therebychallenging the federal polity of the country.

· It is also objectionable and problematic that thisAct will have an over-riding effect over other lawsin force, since this Bill is indeed inconsistent withlegislations like the Biological Diversity Act.

· The Bill has very weak penal clauses and lacksdeterrent liability mechanisms to ensure preventionof mishaps and irresponsible actions by GM cropdevelopers and promoters. It also lacks anyredressal mechanisms where by stakeholders[farmers, consumers etc] can be compensated fordamages [deliberate or otherwise] caused andremediation ensured.

· Very importantly, the Bill fails to talk about anyneeds evaluation, socio-economic assessment andassessment of alternatives, which was also stressedby the Government in its Bt brinjal moratoriumdecision – and assumes that all biotechnology andGM crops are a fait accompli.

More details at:

Http://www.facebook.com/groups/antigmfood/

VI

News from CFI, New York, U.S.A.:

New Online Course

Course No. - SCI 221-0112:

Course Name - “Was Jesus Resurrected?”

Course Duration - January 1 – January 31, 2012

Instructor: Robert M. Price, PhD, author andprofessor of theology and scriptural studies,


39

Johnnie Colemon Theological SeminaryInstructor: John Shook, PhD, CFI director ofeducation.

This one-month, four-module course examinesChristianity’s claims about the divinity andresurrection of Jesus Christ.

Course Topics:

Skepticism towards the New Testament

The implausibility of Jesus’ resurrection

Refuting theological defenders of resurrection

The mythical and theological invention of thefigure of Jesus

Readings: Students will purchase their own copiesof Jesus is Dead (American Atheist Press, 2007) byRobert M. Price. Supplemental papers and lectureswill be made available online at no extra cost tostudents.

Instructors for SCI 221-0112:

Robert M. Price, PhD, is professor of theology andscriptural studies at Johnnie Coleman TheologicalSeminary, co-host of CFI’s Point of

Inquiry podcast, founder and fellow of The JesusSeminar and The Committee for the ScientificExamination of Religion, research fellow at the CFIInstitute, and host of The Bible Geek webcasts. Hisbooks include Beyond Born Again, The Reason

Driven Life, The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man,

Inerrant the Wind and The Case Against the Case

for Christ. He has written some seventy articles onreligion, theology and the Bible for The Christian

Century, The Evangelical Quarterly, Christian

Scholars Review, The Journal for the Study of The

New Testament, The Journal of Psychology and

Theology, Religious Studies, The Reformed

Journal, Religious Humanism, Playboy, American

Rationalist, and others. Dr. Price holds a PhD. intheology as well as a PhD. in the New Testament.

John Shook, PhD, is director of education andsenior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry, andis also visiting assistant professor of scienceeducation at the University at Buffalo, teaching forits Science and the Public online program. From

2000 to 2006 he was professor of philosophy atOklahoma State University. Shook publishes onphilosophical topics regarding science, the mind,humanist ethics, democracy, secularism, andreligion, and has debated the existence of God withleading theologians, including William Lane Craig.His most recent books are The God Debates and aseditor, The Essential William James.

About CFI Institute Online courses:

CFI 200-level courses are taught at an intellectuallevel equivalent to an introductory collegecourse. We expect students to participate in theclass discussion at their own chosen pace, and thereare no other writing requirements and nograding. These classes are entirely online— everything for the course except the book isprovided on a CFI website. You will read thecourse lectures, follow links to other web pages,ask your questions, and participate in classdiscussion with the instructors and other studentson our website.

There is no specific time that you must be online.There is no “live” part to these courses, and youcannot miss anything even if you can only getonline at 6am or 11pm — you can log in andparticipate anytime, day or night, 24/7. A certificateof course completion is available to students whodo participate online (as opposed to only lurkingand reading, which is also an unobjectionableoption for some students). Completion of eightcourses at the Expertise 200-level is rewarded withthe Institute’s Certificate of Expertise.

This course can also be taken for college creditthrough the University at Buffalo; contact: Dr. JohnShook for details.

Course Fees: $60 for general registration; $50 forFriends of the Center; and $10 for college students.

Ready to sign up? Register online here.

Explore our other educational opportunities atthe CFI Education page.

Questions? Email a CFI Institute representative

or phone (716) 636-4869 ext. 408.


40


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