The Last Refuge

Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com

The Last Refuge

ISRAEL is an island in the global sea. We live in a bubble. This week I was sharply reminded of this.

I was returning home from Germany. On the eve of the flight, all TV networks, from CNN and BBC to the German channels, were reporting on the events in Pakistan. In the airplane, I opened Israel's largest circulation tabloid, Yedioth Aharonoth, in order to read about the Pakistani mess. I did not find any mention of it on page 1. Nor on page 2. I found a small item on page 27. The first pages were devoted to something much more important: the shouts of protest by right-wing football hooligans when they were requested to stand up in memory of Yitzhak Rabin.

The next day, Yedioth found an Israeli angle that enabled it to put Pakistan on the front page after all: the fear that the Pakistani nuclear bomb would fall into the hands of Osama bin Laden, who would aim it at Israel. Hallelujah, there is again something to be afraid of.

But the putsch by Pervez Musharaf is a serious matter. It could well have far-reaching effects for the world in general, and for Israel in particular.

The main victim - besides, of course, the hundreds of political activists who have been thrown into prison - is George W. Bush.

Machiavelli said that it is preferable for the prince to be feared rather than loved. In the same vein, it can be said that it is preferable for a president to be hated rather than derided.

And derision is what George W. is attracting. He has asserted in the past that his main task was to bring democracy to the Muslim world, and has assured us that the implementation of this aim was well under way. That is a laughable pretense.

What is happening in fact?

In Iraq one tyrant has been overthrown, and dozens of small local tyrants have taken over. The country is bleeding and falling apart. The "democratic elections" have brought to power a government that hardly governs the Green Zone in Baghdad, which has to be secured by American soldiers.

In Afghanistan an "elected" president hardly rules the capital, Kabul. In the rest of the country, local chieftains are in control. And the Taliban are slowly and steadily re-conquering the country.

In Iran, democratic elections have brought to power an uninhibited politician with a big mouth and small achievements, whose favorite occupation is to curse the American Crusaders and the "Zionist entity".

In Syria there is a stable dictatorship, which can carry on mainly because the Syrians believe that any alternative would be worse.

Turkey is ruled by a religious Islamic government, with the wife of the president wearing a headscarf. More than 10 million Kurdish citizens are oppressed and discriminated against. Not a few of them are fighting a guerilla war. In the course of the campaign against the Kurds, the Turkish army is about to invade neighboring Iraq, happy to have an opportunity to destroy the practically independent Kurdish regime there.

Lebanon is as far from democracy as ever. Real democratic elections, in which every citizen can vote directly for parliament without sectarian divisions, are out of the question. A new president has to be elected, but that is well-nigh impossible, the gulf between the sects is so wide. This week, Hizbullah conducted large-scale maneuvers near the Israeli borders. Even the Israeli army was impressed.

"In Iran, democratic elections have brought to power an uninhibited politician with a big mouth and small achievements, whose favorite occupation is to curse the American Crusaders and the "Zionist entity".

In Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the three "moderate" (read: dictatorial and pro-American) countries, there is a very original kind of democracy. Political opposition is languishing in prison.

In Palestine, impeccable elections were held under strict international supervision, the only really democratic elections in the Arab world. George Bush would have been proud of them, if - alas - they had not been won by the "wrong" crowd - Hamas. Now, Israeli army intelligence prophesies that President Mahmoud Abbas, Bush's favorite, may fall immediately after the Annapolis conference, if, as expected, it ends in failure.

And now, Pakistan. It seemed that there, at least, Bush was harvesting successes. He had brought back Benazir Bhutto, another Bush favorite, and everything looked fine: a democratic regime was about to be re- installed, the president was about to hang up his uniform and form a coalition with Bhutto. But then a bomb exploded next to her armored car, dozens were killed. The president-general, who was just waiting for such an opportunity, carried out a coup d'etat against himself, and, instead of his moderate dictatorship, has set up a much more harsh regime, like a Pakistani version of the late Saddam Hussein.

As in a Hollywood comedy, George Bush is standing there with a custard pie splattered all over his face. He looks ridiculous.

No president likes being ridiculous. Scary - OK. Evil - OK. Dumb - OK. But ridiculous - never!

That may have a direct bearing on a question that is worrying the whole world, myself included: Will he attack Iran?

The temptation is almost overwhelming. In another year, his term in office will come to an end. After eight years, he has nothing to show for it - except a continuous series of failures. But a man who (he says) holds daily talks with God cannot leave the stage of history like that.

He is longing for some sort of success in Annapolis. At the most, there will be an empty declaration signed by the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. There will be some good photo opportunities, but that will not satisfy the lions. Something much bigger is needed, something that will leave its mark in the annals of history.

http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18009/26/

The New Untouchables

By Asra Q. Nomani
Sunday, November 4, 2007; Page B02

THANDEESWARA, India

Sharifa Khanam stood on a plot of land near a flooded rice paddy in
this tiny village in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, staring at the
skeletal outline of a mosque on the ground before her. It was 10
bricks high, with concrete rods jutting expectantly toward the sky.
Bags of cement lay unused nearby.

In late 2003, Khanam had made international headlines with the
announcement that she intended to build a women's mosque in a country
where women are banned from most Muslim places of worship. Now she
sighed and eyed the tall weeds poking out of the halted
construction. "I feel as though we are in a boat with waves crashing
against it," the 41-year-old activist said as the sun set behind
her. "We may just drown."

The frustrated effort to build a women's mosque exposes the Achilles'
heel of India's highly touted secular democracy: the abysmal
socioeconomic status of Muslims.

This became quickly clear to me when I went to Mumbai late last year
on a reporting fellowship from the South Asian Journalists
Association to chronicle the "progressive jihad," or struggle for
progress by Muslims in India. The week I landed, the Indian
government released the so-called Sachar Committee report, a 404-page
document that revealed it all: Muslims are disenfranchised, poor,
jobless and uneducated. Their conditions are worse than those of the
dalit, the caste commonly called "untouchables. " To me, the sad truth
was evident: Muslims are India's new untouchables.

Consider these figures: Fifty-two percent of Muslim men are
unemployed, compared with 47 percent of dalit men. Unemployment among
Muslim women is 91 percent, compared with 77 percent among dalit
women. Forty-eight percent of Muslims older than 46 can't read or
write. Though they make up 11 percent of the population, Muslims
account for 40 percent of the prison population. They hold only 4.9
percent of government jobs and only 3.2 percent of the jobs in the
country's security agencies.

You wouldn't know any of this from the news about India that appears
in the Western media. Here, it's "Incredible India," as a global ad
campaign by the Indian government proclaims. Or it's "India Inc.,"
the headline on a Time magazine cover story. In an op-ed piece in the
Wall Street Journal this year, former defense secretary William
Cohen, whose Cohen Group consults frequently on the country, said
that the United States and India are "perfect partners" because of
their "multiethnic and secular democracies. "

But if we don't pay attention, that could all change. Unless
something is done to improve the socioeconomic condition of Muslims
in India, it may be only a matter of time before extremist Islamic
ideology takes root.

Indian Muslims' ability to prosper and progress is a test of the
country's democracy and of its hopes for becoming a First World
economic power. Though India's nearly 150 million Muslims are a
minority at home, they represent the second-largest Muslim population
in the world, behind Indonesia (190 million) and just ahead of
Pakistan (about 140 million). Their group is larger than the entire
population of Arab Muslims (about 140 million).

I was born in Mumbai in 1965 and lived the first four years of my
life in my paternal grandparents' home in Hyderabad. My father left
India for Piscataway, N.J., to earn his PhD at Rutgers University,
with the angry words of a Hindu man whom he had considered a friend
ringing in his ears: "Why don't you just leave for Pakistan?" We are
the immigrant success story; my father became a professor and my
mother a boutique owner. I took my 4-year-old son, Shibli, with me
when I flew back to India last year for the fellowship, eager to
share my ancestral country with him.

I had spent comfortable summers vacationing with my relatively
affluent extended family in India. Many of my family members are in
business, and they still live in Mumbai high-rises. But I could see
that their living standard had deteriorated in the 30 years since my
childhood: Their cars were now run-down, and paint peeled from water-
stained walls. An uncle told me that he lies to some customers of his
clothing business and claims to be Hindu to avoid being blackballed.

In Panchgani, a town outside Mumbai, my son surprised a friend of the
family, a Muslim girl, on her 15th birthday with a gift from the
United States: a dream catcher, a handmade web of thread and beads.
Her nightmares would escape through the beads, I explained. The web
would catch her dreams. "What do you dream for yourself?" I asked.
She stared at me blankly. Her eyes downcast, she answered, "I don't
have a dream."

The effort to build a women's mosque in that village in Tamil Nadu
was an attempt to help the Muslim world's poorest demographic: its
women. After announcing her plans to build the mosque, Khanam drew up
a detailed budget proposal, estimating $110,000 for construction and
an annual budget of about $75,000 to cover operating costs for the
mosque and a women's shelter, including a salary for a female imam.
She decided to name the mosque Halima Pengal Pallivasal, or "Halima's
Women's Mosque," after her mother, Halima, whose name means "gentle"
in Arabic. Khanam sold pieces of jewelry to raise money to buy the
land.

She designed a path to the mosque that would be covered by a canopy
of roses and jasmine. She and her supporters gathered petitions from
women who oppose the all-male rulings they must live by. She went
village to village, gathering donations. Together with her staff, she
spent countless hours writing a funding proposal to the New York-
based Global Fund for Women. It turned her down. A spokeswoman told
me that the mosque plan didn't fit its "human rights" agenda.

But the lives of Muslim women in India are certainly a human rights
issue. Many of the members of STEPS, the women's rights organization
that Khanam founded, are former dalits, who converted to Islam
because it doesn't have a caste system. When the government
introduced an affirmative action program for the dalit class in
recent years, these women found themselves barred from it. And they
face the additional problem of having to live with sexist
interpretations of Muslim law, which India allows to govern family
matters.

Khanam's effort is part of a wider struggle by Indian Muslims to
create an identity beyond the influence of extremism. But they are
fighting against a tide of pessimism that offers an opening to
conservative and radical clerics. In a crowded two-room office on the
second floor of a dilapidated building in Mumbai, an aging Muslim
scholar named Asghar Ali Engineer lamented the difficulties facing
him and other progressive leaders in the Muslim community. "We are
the minority within the minority," he said.

Late last year, conservative Muslim men in the village of Gingee in
Tamil Nadu stormed the gates of a vocational school for Muslim girls
not far from the construction site of the women's mosque. Saeed
Amanullah, a native son of Chennai, had built the school after
retiring from his 25-year career as a structural engineer for Los
Angeles County. "The Muslim problem stands in the way of India being
the power that people think it can be," said Amanullah's Hollywood-
born son, Shahed, who was in India during the controversy. "These
unresolved socioeconomic issues are going to be like chains on the
country's legs. We won't be able to move forward."

Meanwhile, Khanam strives to keep her hope for a women's mosque
alive. She wants the Sachar Committee report to result in political
reforms such as affirmative action programs, but so far there hasn't
been much movement in the status quo.

Last year, she paid her own travel expenses to New Delhi to testify
at a meeting of the committee, which promised to reimburse her.
Months later, she was still waiting for the check as she sat in the
sunset watching wild peacocks wander where congregants should have
been gathering in the mosque of her dreams.

Asra Q. Nomani teaches investigative journalism at Georgetown
University and is the author of "Standing Alone: An American Woman's
Struggle for the Soul of Islam."

asra@asranomani. com

http://www.washingt onpost.com/ wp-
dyn/content/ article/2007/ 11/01/AR20071101 01035_2.html?
hpid=opinionsbox1

NATIONAL CAMPAIGN ON DALIT HUMAN RIGHTS is an Advocacy Platform committed for Dalit Human Rights at the Grass root, National and International levels. Dalits In News aims at sensitizing Civil societies, HR Mechanisms and providing updates of HR violations on Dalits for their Intervention.

NATIONAL CAMPAIGN ON DALIT HUMAN RIGHTS

NCDHR

Dalits In News

November 11, 2007

Delhi government spending funds for Dalits on animals: NGO- Earth Times
http://www.earthtim es.org/articles/ show/138172. html
Banking sector has failed to meet targets for weaker sections- Hindu.com
http://www.hindu. com/2007/ 11/11/stories/ 2007111160470800 .htm

A dark Deepavali for Dalits- New Indpress
http://www.newindpr ess.com/NewsItem s.asp?ID= IET2007111000073 5&Page=T&Headline=A+dark+ Deepavali+ for+Dalits&Title=Southern+ News+-+Tamil+ Nadu&Topic=0

Years of neglect, displacement forcing tribals to take up arms- News Indpress http://www.newindpr ess.com/NewsItem s.asp?ID= IEQ2007111000310 8&Page=Q&Headline=Years+ of+neglect% 2C+displacement+ forcing+tribals+ to+take+up+ arms&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0http: www.newindpres s.com/NewsItems. asp?ID=IEQ200711 10003108&Page=Q&Headline=Years+ of+neglect% 2C+displacement+ forcing+tribals+ to+take+up+ arms&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0

Earth Times

Delhi government spending funds for Dalits on animals: NGO
http:www.earthtim es.org/articles/ show/138172. html

New Delhi, Nov 7 - The Delhi government was diverting funds meant for welfare of Dalits for treating animals and distributing Diwali gifts, an activist body alleged Wednesday on the basis of information retrieved using the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

Rashtriya Shoshit Parishad president Jai Bhagwan Jatav alleged that out of a fund of Rs.8.80 billion allocated in fiscal 2006-07 for upliftment of the Scheduled Castes, the state government was able to spend only Rs.60 million for them.

Jatav said as per the Planning Commission guidelines, a sum of Rs.8.80 billion was allocated for schemes related to the Scheduled Castes in proportion to their numbers in the total population - 16.09 percent in Delhi.

He pointed out the plan panel guidelines stipulate that the funds for the Scheduled Caste population are 'non-lapsable and non-divertable', that is, they can neither be diverted to other schemes nor can they be returned.

Such funds have to be added to funds under the same head for the subsequent fiscal, explained Jatav, a close associate of former prime minister V.P. Singh.

Yet the Delhi government, out of the amount of Rs.8.8 billion, spent over Rs.9 million on items such as treatment of sick animals and their vaccination and treating them for diseases related to sterility, Jatav alleged.

Giving another example of diversion of funds for Dalits, Jatav said in response to one of his queries under the RTI Act, the Delhi government informed him that it had spent Rs.650,000 from the fund meant for Dalits in distributing Diwali gifts and another Rs.1.9 million on entertainment.

Hindu.com

Banking sector has failed to meet targets for

weaker sections

http://www.hindu. com/2007/ 11/11/stories/ 2007111160470800 .htm

Special Correspondent

JAIPUR: The banking sector in the country does not seem to be paying adequate attention to the flow of finances to Dalits and underprivileged sections and has failed to meet the priority sector credit targets for them. Whatever flow of funds is visible, it is for the implementation of various schemes. Making these observations, a new study on "Financial exclusion and the underprivileged in India" here has suggested announcement of special packages for credit disbursal to the Scheduled Castes and making them creditworthy by investing in their education, health and infrastructure.

The study, conducted by the newly appointed Director of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Surjit Singh, reveals that the much talked about economic reforms have reinforced financial exclusion of landless people belonging to weaker sections who would suffer the most in the current agrarian crisis and uprooting as a result of industrialisation and urbanisation.

Access to institutional credit is denied to a large majority of households located at the lowest rung of both the economic hierarchy and the caste-based hierarchical social stratification. At the scheme level, access is denied because of non-inclusion in lists like Below Poverty Line (BPL) at times and also because of social exclusion.

The study cites the National Sample Survey Organisation' s figures of 2005 to point out that 49.77 per cent of Scheduled Caste and 63.68 per cent of Scheduled Tribe farmer households were excluded from the formal financial system that included the provisions of savings, loans, insurance, payments and remittance facilities.

The participation of the Scheduled Castes as members of the Primary Agricultural Credit Societies improved from 13.5 per cent in 1978-79 to 33.18 per cent in 2003 to fall to 30.61 per cent in 2004. The Scheduled Castes' share as borrowing members fell from 11.5 per cent in 2003 to 6.49 per cent in 2004, clearly indicating their continued exclusion.

Since 1993, the number of Scheduled Caste bank accounts declined sharply from 100.44 lakh to 72.62 lakh in 1997 and then to 61.61 lakh in 2001 and to 41.47 lakh in 2004. The study revealed that the figures showed a decline in the share as well as absolute numbers of Scheduled Castes. The number of women Scheduled Caste accounts also fell significantly from 21 lakh in 1997 to 11.3 lakh in 2004.

The average amount of outstanding loan per Scheduled Caste farmer household was Rs.7,167 compared to Rs.12,585 for all farmer households. The proportion of indebted farmers at the national level is 18 per cent, while the proportion of indebted Scheduled Caste farmers varied from 36.4 per cent in Uttarakhand to 4.5 per cent in Kerala.

Dr. Singh said the most important purpose of Scheduled Caste farmers obtaining loans was capital expenditure and current expenditure in farm business. For every Rs.1,000 taken as loan, Scheduled Caste farmer households borrowed Rs.446 for these purposes. The Scheduled Caste farmer households borrowed for education as well and it was higher than other social groups.

New Indpress

A dark Deepavali for Dalits
http://www.newindpr ess.com/NewsItem s.asp?ID= IET2007111000073 5&Page=T&Headline=A+dark+ Deepavali+ for+Dalits&Title=Southern+ News+-+Tamil+ Nadu&Topic=0

Saturday November 10 2007 10:29 IST

ENS

MADURAI: For the Dalits of Avarampatti village in Vilampatti police limits in Nilakkottai taluk of Dindigul district, Deepavali this year was of a different kind.

They were beaten up by the people from high caste, and many of their houses were damaged.

The Dalits and the people of the high caste communities had remained daggers drawn for some months.

On Thursday, around 4 in the evening, a Dalit youth had hurled a stone at a dog. The stone had fallen into the house of Karuppiah.

His sons had entered into an argument with Senthil which led to fistcuffs. The Dalits, who came there, had told Karuppiah to keep his sons under check or they would go to the police station.

Karuppiah, who is also a Dalit, had said that he also had his supporters and brought about 150 people from the high castes.

This mob had gone on a rampage attacking the Dalits and damaging houses. Over 20 Dalits were injured and 12 of them had been admitted to the government hospitals.

As many as 20 houses were damaged and two of them had been set on fire. On receipt of information, a fact-finding team from Evidence, a Madurai based NGO, had gone to the village for an assessment of the situation.

News Indpress

Years of neglect, displacement forcing tribals to

take up arms
http://www.newindpr ess.com/NewsItem s.asp?ID= IEQ2007111000310 8&Page=Q&Headline=Years+ of+neglect% 2C+displacement+ forcing+tribals+ to+take+up+ arms&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0http: //www.newindpres s.com/NewsItems. asp?ID=IEQ200711 10003108&Page=Q&Headline=Years+ of+neglect% 2C+displacement+ forcing+tribals+ to+take+up+ arms&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0

Saturday November 10 2007 10:52 IST

ENS

BHUBANESWAR: Years of neglect, lack of support both from the Centre and the State and displacement due to industrialisation has forced the adivasis to join the Naxal ranks, observed eminent historian Ramchandra Guha.

Focussing on the plight of adivasis while presenting the Pradyumna Bal Memorial lecture on the leader's 75th birth anniversary here on Thursday, he felt the rising Naxal menace could have been tackled effectively had the Government operationalised the 5th Schedule of the Constitution guaranteeing their right over the land.

''It has dishonoured its policies for their uplift. As a result, neither they have been properly rehabilitated nor longterm strategies drawn to bring them to the mainstream,' ' he rued. While adivasis constitute just eight percent of the population, they make up for over 40 percent of the displaced people in the country.

Describing their condition as an outcome of a unique 'predicament, ' he underlined key factors such as lack of presence in the national stage and geographical isolation for their prevailing state. ''They are even worse off than Dalits,'' he noted.

This is mainly because Dalits had a leader like B.R.Ambedkar in them. He still continues to inspire the community. In contrast, Adivasis have none. Dalits have elected representatives taking up their issues in Parliament, but there is no adivasi leader who can ventilate their plight.

Being a minuscule minority and isolated, they have even failed to influence vote bank politics. As a result, there has been a general absence of the community in the political agenda. Consequently, they have taken up arms. But things can be changed for better, provided there is a concerted effort from all sections to alleviate their sufferings, Guha asserted.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik spoke on the occasion. Pradyumna Bal's wife Saswati Bal gave away the Pradyumna Bal Memorial award to Kalahandi-based social activist Udit Narayan Pradhan.

The function was organised by Pradyumna Bal Memorial Trust and attended by BPUT Vice-Chancellor Prof Omkarnath Mohanty, trust member Sambit Bal, KIIT Chancellor Achyut Samant and others.

ARUN KHOTE
Secretary- Media
National Campaign On Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR)
8/1, 2nd Floor, South Patel Nagar,
New Delhi-110008
Ph: 011- 25842249 /25842250
0- 9350183802
email: arun@ncdhr.org
arun.khote@gmail. com
ncdhr@vsnl.net
Website: www.ncdhr.org