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[1] From: "P. Joseph Raju" <aa5756@wayne.edu> Date: Wed Aug 3, 2005 Subject: Muslims' victimhood syndrome COMMENT: Muslims' victimhood syndrome -Ishtiaq Ahmed http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_2-8-2005_pg3_2 National sovereignty, the will of the people and democracy are great values, but become unintelligible when interpreted by philistines. We need an intellectual movement in the Muslim world which embraces the idea of a democracy that respects human rights ---------------------------- [2] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com> Date: Wed Aug 3, 2005 Subject: "Communist" History in India suklasen REVIEW A Consensus, Comrades? A history constrained by the blind spots of Left ideology and its long-dead prophets ADITYA NIGAM HISTORY OF THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT IN INDIA??”THE FORMATIVE YEARS 1920-1933 by The History Commission Of CPI(M) LeftWord Pages: 248; Rs 450 Communists have had a peculiar relationship with history. At one level, Marxist theory opened up history as the discipline central to an understanding of all human endeavours??”"historicise everything" in Frederic Jameson??™s famous injunction. Critical Marxism has thus produced some of the most significant historical works, both in this country and in the West. Yet at another level, politically, Communists have always feared history and sought to regiment and control its production. Grey and dull pedagogical volumes like the History of the CPSU(B) written by Stalin??™s handpicked commission was all that generations of Communists were fed on. Volumes like these were basically meant to "give the party line"??”how Stalin was the liberator of all humanity and the likes of Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev the scum of the earth, even "enemy agents". Likewise, the 17th congress of the CPI(M), held in Hyderabad in March 2002, entrusted a commission comprising Harkishen Singh Surjeet, Jyoti Basu, E.K. Nayanar, P. Ramachandran, Koratala Satyanarayana and Anil Biswas to rewrite such an official history of the Indian Communist movement. Elite history at its worst, moving between congresses, conferences and resolutions, it has no sense of movement/ferment on the ground. http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20050808&fname=Booksa&sid=1 The volume under review is the first of a series that the "History Commission" plans to bring out and covers the well-trodden ground of its formative years, especially the period from 1920 to 1933. The volume is as dreary as the History of the CPSU(B). The reason for this, of course, has to do with the fact that the commission has too many holy cows to protect. Apart from a purely one-dimensional understanding of historical processes, it is clearly restrained by the fact that it has to continue to be reverential to the long-dead Communist International (Comintern) and its Prophet??”and all the mini-prophets it spawned. The "dialectical" understanding of history, Communists tell us, accords centrality to the idea of "contradiction" and from this emerge, they say, their "weapons of criticism and self-criticism". Yet, in sharp contrast to critical Marxist traditions, the one thing a Communist can??™t countenance is the idea of contradiction, nor ever accept the possibility that s/he could ever have been wrong. This is pretty much in evidence throughout this volume. Merely one instance of how "history" is written by this august team will suffice for the time being. It is 1928: the period immediately before and after the notorious Sixth Congress of the Comintern, where it effected its most sectarian turn, both politically and organisationally. Up to this point, we all know and the authors assure us, M.N. Roy was pushing a sectarian line of opposing the bourgeois nationalist movements in the colonies. Suddenly we are told that in March 1928, Roy prepared a document for the Comintern executive committee entitled ???Draft Resolution on the Indian Question??™ which "reflected his right reformist tendencies". It was this "right reformism", we are further told, that led to his expulsion from the Comintern in 1929, as "he was accused of pursuing ???the opportunist policy of a bloc with national bourgeoisie??™". Now, when did the ???sectarian??™ Roy become the ???reformist??™ Roy? The authors do not care to tell us. We must simply believe the Comintern??™s accusations. But this is not the most important point. What is significant is that while the book does tell us that the 6th congress adopted a sectarian position, opposed the formation of workers??™ and peasants??™ parties (WPPS) in India and wanted them disbanded, it maintains complete silence over the fact that this had a lot to do with Roy??™s expulsion. Muzaffar Ahmed, the founder of the Communist party in Bengal, has published a letter from well-known British Indian Communist Clemens Dutt to this effect, in his memoirs. In fact, Dutt clarified, on Ahmed??™s request, that one of the reasons Roy was expelled was that "he wanted to build a Workers??™ and Peasants??™ party as an alternative to the Communist Party". This silence is interesting because the formation of wpps was the result of a shared understanding among the local Communists and not just Roy??™s initiative. This silence assumes strategic significance then, if one is to continue to vilify Roy. Apart from such endless instances of authorial desire to control meaning and interpretation??”even as history actually slips out of their grip??”there are other serious problems with this book. To name just one: this is elite history at its worst??”a history that moves between congresses, conferences and resolutions, with no sense of any movement and ferment anywhere on the ground. ----------------------------------------- [3] From: "P. Joseph Raju" <aa5756@wayne.edu> Date: Wed Aug 3, 2005 Subject: RE: [indiathinkersnet] Making Mumbai into Shanghai Dear ones: What the Maharashtra govt. done to the poor slum dwellers during the last few months are unbearable. I believe it is the tears of these people that flooded Bombay during the last one week. Sincerely, P. Joseph Raju http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Industries-envirn-resettlement/2005/mumbai-demoli tion.htm PUCL, July 2005 Making Mumbai into Shangai The case of the Mumbai slum demolitions -- By Dr. Pushkar Raj Photo album - Click here Democracy is about people. People are its pillar with certain fundamental rights like the right to life, livelihood, liberty, equality, privacy and many others that can ensure human security as a fundamental holistic value -------------------- [4] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com> Date: Wed Aug 3, 2005 10:22pm Subject: India-US Nuclear Deal [The US President George Bush promising to engage with India in trades to bolster its civilian nuclear programmes, subject to India separating its civilian and strategic nuclear facilities and opening the former to the scrutiny of the IAEA, is a direct and severe blow against the NPT, and also another act of gross unilateralism on the part of the Bush administration. The fact that there are yet hurdles to be crossed within the US itself and also internationally, particularly within the 44 member Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG), does in no way mitigate the seriousness of the assault against the NPT. The possible collapse of the NPT under such assaults can only lead to unchecked proliferations - both vertical and horizontal, with nightmarish consequences. The bogey of abridgement of Indian sovereignty as regards its nuclear programmes - both civilian and military, is, however, highly misplaced. It only reflects a sort of perverted mindset, poisoned with irrational and morally repugnant nuclear ambitions, on the part of the critics.] http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/080205E.shtml A Non-Debate over India-US Nuclear Deal By J. Sri Raman t r u t h o u t | Perspective Tuesday 02 August 2005 Much has been written about the India-US "nuclear deal" struck during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Washington in July. More alarming than the still vague details of the deal, however, is the shape the debate over it is acquiring in India. It is all boiling down to bickering over a single point: has India earned US recognition as a nuclear-weapon state or not? Has India entered the hallowed precincts of the "nuclear club" or has it just got its foot in against an oft-slammed door? The parameters of the debate preclude even a partial victory for the peace movement. If the opponents of the deal carry the day, it can only lead to a louder knock on that long-frustrating door by the Indian nuclear militarists. Opposition to the deal as a legitimization of nuclear weaponization in South Asia has been voiced - but only feebly and by very few. The very first protest against the deal came, in a profound irony, from former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who had presided over India's nuclear weapon tests in 1998 and proclaimed India a nuclear weapon state. His main point of criticism was that the deal did not represent India's recognition as a nuclear weapon power. Said he: "The Bush Administration may have recognized India as a responsible state with advanced nuclear technology but it is far from recognizing India as a legitimate and responsible nuclear-weapon state." In his reply, Singh did nothing to alter the terms of the debate. In a statement in the Lok Sabha (the Lower House of India's parliament), the Prime Minister said: "I wish to emphasize to this House that the basis for this understanding was a clear recognition that India is a responsible nuclear power with an impeccable record on nuclear non-proliferation." He added: "We expect the same rights and responsibilities as other nuclear powers. Reciprocity is key to the implementation of all the steps enumerated in the joint statement. Indian actions will be contingent at every stage on actions by the other side." "Reciprocity," ever since, has figured as the word most freely bandied about in a strange debate. The word, implying some sort of equality, has served to promote illusions about the possibility of an India-US deal bestowing comparable obligations on both sides. Singh and his camp insist that the deal does not oblige India to do anything that is not expected of the present members of the nuclear club. Such common obligations, according to New Delhi, would include separation of civilian and military nuclear facilities and assuring verifiability of this through inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). There are few takers, however, for the implied claim that this provision would place similar, if not the same, constraints on India and the USA, for example. "Reciprocity" has been a recurring refrain in the ensuing defense of the deal from many experts. As former diplomat G. Parthasarathy, who continues to be an unofficial spokesman for the country's security establishment, put it: "What has been agreed in the nuclear deal is a set of reciprocal commitments. The US can't call us a nuclear power and continue to impose sanctions." The debate may rage about whether the USA has indeed called India a "nuclear power." But there is little scope for a debate over Washington's initiatives in the wake 9/11 to withdraw sanctions imposed in 1998 and to enlist India in the "alliance against global terror." The consequent emergence of South Asia as nuclear flashpoint and, in Bill Clinton's words, "the scariest place on earth" has been no material consideration for Washington. The political forces that have backed India's peace movement, predominantly the left, have warned against the entire idea of an "India-US strategic partnership." On the nuclear deal, however, the left has let the media see "differences" within its camp. The left has, indeed, called for a national debate on the deal but has refrained so far from condemning it as India's attempt at co-option into the nuclear club. The left has sounded less strongly critical of the deal since the Prime Minister's undoubtedly persuasive rounds of discussions with this crucial political ally. The point to note, particularly for the left, is that the "strategic partnership," as spelt out in the deal, entails India's participation in what the US advertises as its anti-proliferation initiative. This may well turn India, as an allegedly anti-terror associate of the US, into an ally in implementing what has been called a policy of "nuclear apartheid." The non-debate - conducted mainly by political camps that seek alike India's membership in the "club" - can make the nuclear deal a direr threat to South Asia's peace and security. |
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