Founding Editor: Daya Varma (1929-2015)
Editors: Vinod Mubayi (New York) and Raza Mir (New Jersey).
Editorial Board: Ram Puniyani and Irfan Engineer (Mumbai); Pervez Hoodbhoy (Islamabad); Dolores Chew (Montreal); Vamsi Vakulabharanam (Amherst); Ajay Bhardwaj (Vancouver).
Circulation/website: Feroz Mehdi (On behalf of Alternatives, Montreal).
SOUTH ASIA SCHOLARS ON TASLIMA NASREEN
(Statement)
We, concerned scholars of South Asia, condemn the attacks on Bangladeshi writer, Taslima Nasreen, by extremist forces in West Bengal who claim to speak for Muslim community. Freedom of speech, dissent and expression must be defended everywhere and at all times by those who are genuinely and consistently committed to these values. The Government of Bengal has, regrettably not fulfilled its obligation to do so even as it disregards the real interests of Muslim communities, forcibly acquiring land for industrial development, much of it from poor Muslims. Read more…
DIFFERING DIMENSIONS OF 1984 and 2002 TRAGEDIES
Daya Varma
It is always problematic to compare tragedies. A few more deaths in one than another act of violence do not make one horror any less repugnant than the other. Yet the political dimensions of all such sordid events in India, and elsewhere, are not always the same; the events of 1984, 1992, 1993 and 2002 are cases in point. Read more…
MUSLIMS SHOULD ADOPT ADVOCACY INSTEAD OF PROTESTS
Kaleem Kawaja
The number of Muslim students in India’s better universities, engineering colleges, medical colleges, IITs, IIMs, IIScs etc despite much growth of such institutions in recent years still hovers around a miserly two percent. Lack of education among the Muslim youth and their lack of competitiveness were recently pointed out by the Sachar Committee, who conducted a nationwide grassroots survey of the Muslim community, as a significant impediment to the community’s progress. Read more…
SECULARISM AND ITS PROBLEMS IN INDIA
Asghar Ali Engineer
(Secular Perspective, December 1-15, 2007)
It will be no exaggeration if I say secularism is the very life breath of Indian politics. One can hardly conceive of Indian polity sans secularism. However, it also faces several problems in Indian context. We will throw light and discuss the problematic of secularism in India. Before we do so we must explain meaning and context of Indian secularism. Read more…
GUJARAT ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS OF DECEMBER 2007: SOME FACTS
Shabnam Hashmi
Dec 25, 2007
While the whole media except a handful of journalists is under the spell of Modi’s magic it is important to register the fact that e.g. In Gandhinagar though 81864 people voted for BJP and they won the seat, there are 78116 people who voted against BJP and Modi. Read more…
IS SONIA GANDHI’S CONGRESS TO BLAME FOR THE GUJARAT DEFEAT?
Daya Varma
Sonia Gandhi’s Congress Party was badly defeated in the recent Gujarat Assembly elections securing a mere 59 seats compared with 117 for the Bharatiya Janata Party – led by Narendra Modi, rightly called “the merchant of death”. Read more…
LIGHT AHEAD OF GUJARAT DEBACLE
V.K. Tripathi
Dec 24, 2007
Gujarat Assembly Election results have been a major disappointment. The voices of sanity were louder this time than 2002 but the facade of development and peace (implying suppression of violence through the pogrom of 2002 and subsequent state actions) created by the ruling regime and its middle class supporters overshadowed the pressing problems of farmers, minorities, and other weaker sections. It is surprising that the Congress, which in 2004 parliamentary elections won in 91 out of 182 Assembly segments (winning 12 of 26 seats for parliament) could get only 62 seats this time. Read more…
MODI’S VICTORY: PORTENTS FOR INDIAN DEMOCRACY
Ram Puniyani
Surpassing many predictions, Modi did very well in the recently held assembly elections, (Dec. 2007) bringing his victory tally to the one close to post carnage elections of 2002. While 2002 elections were preceded by an unprecedented polarization of the society, in the current one it appeared as if there are many a factors which will go against Modi, the internal dissidents, the incumbency factor, the efforts of secular groups and slightly better efforts by Congress. This gave the impression that the results will be touch and go, but they turned out to be similar to the previous one giving him a massive mandate. Read more…
MODI’S WIN IN GUJARAT SHOULD BRING COMMUNISTS AND CONGRESS CLOSER
Kaleem Kawaja
There is no question that the convincing win of the Modi led BJP in the Gujarat election bodes ill for the Indian nation and the nation’s pluralist political culture. In the short run it will be a shot in the arm for the fascist forces who regularly trample on the weaker sections of society, who abuse religion in the pursuit of power, and who give two tuppence for India’s millennium old secular and democratic ethos. However let us hope that it will ring a timely alarm bell loud and clear for all secular and democratic forces in the nation to come together and isolate the fascist political forces. Read more…
MODI, GUJARAT, AND INDIA
Vinod Mubayi
Despite predictions by many liberal journalists, Modi has won handily in Gujarat again, even if his margin is slightly smaller than in the post-pogrom elections of 2002. Gujarat has been described many times as a “laboratory” of Hindutva. But, as Ram Punyani points out perceptively in the article reprinted below, it would be incorrect to consider Gujarat anymore as a laboratory for experimenting with the notion of Hindu rashtra. It has now graduated instead to a full-fledged industry, a veritable mass-production factory, for promoting Hindutva. Read more…
BENAZIR’S ASSASSINATION LEAVES PAKISTAN ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE
Vinod Mubayi
Just nine weeks ago, Benazir Bhutto received a tumultuous welcome in Karachi from hundreds of thousands of supporters on her return to Pakistan after a decade in exile. She narrowly escaped death on that occasion when a suicide bomber struck her cavalcade and killed several hundred innocent people. Her assassination at a campaign rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, despite the “hundreds of riot police manning security checkpoints with metal detectors” according to press reports, demonstrates the extent to which self-destructive and, ultimately, self-defeating violence has entered Pakistan’s political processes. No amount of American aid, military, financial, or political, dedicated to “defeating terrorism” seems likely to be able to reverse this downward spiral. In fact, it may, perversely, be tending to accelerate it. Read more…
THE YEAR 2008 DAWNS ON A SAD AND UNCERTAIN NOTE FOR SOUTH ASIA
Editors
The most popular politician in Pakistan and potentially its next Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, the leader of the Peoples Party of Pakistan, was killed on December 27 by a suicide bomb attack. The murderer Narendra Modi was re-elected as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, which has encouraged fascist goons of the Sangh Parivar to renew their attack on Christians in Orissa. There seems no end to the killings in Sri Lanka in the midst of the undeclared war between the Government and the Tamil Tigers. Bangladesh remains in the grip of a non-elected military regime and a growing fundamentalism. Whether or not the Seven Party Alliance in Nepal reaches unanimity on the issue of Nepal becoming a federal republic remains uncertain. Read more…
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