Archive of South Asia Citizens Wire

  • India: Cultural Aggression in The Name of Hindutva

    by Praful Bidwai, 19 February 2009

    One can only marvel - if that’s the word - at the breathtaking speed with which the sangh parivar has vitiated the social climate in state after state. Within months of taking power in Karnataka, it has unleashed savage repression and turned Mangalore into a Hindu Taliban bulwark, where women are attacked if they go to a bar, where Hindus must not mix with Muslims, and where there is no media freedom and free interaction among young men and women. The Sri Rama Sene led by Mr Pramod Mutalik (…)

  • Pakistani Liberals and Progressives Wake up, Before the Fundamentalists Run Riot

    by Zulfiqar Ali Khalid, 18 February 2009

    Business Recorder Weekend Magazine (February 14 2009)
    A terrorised society
    Although our sixty years history is full of various types of crises yet the latest one, ie religious terrorism, is quite weird. The menace of terrorism, in the shape of suicide bombings, has engulfed the entire country right from cities like Karachi and Quetta to far flung tribal areas in NWFP. Almost all types of public places are within the reach of terrorists.
    Due to this culture of terror, Pakistan has (…)

  • Sri Lanka’s Final Offensive and India’s Deafening Silence

    by Tapan Bose, 18 February 2009

    Mail Today, 18 February 2009
    India is a silent bystander in Sri Lankan tragedy
    According to a British newspaper, Sri Lankan "officials have confirmed they will establish several ’welfare villages’ to house the estimated 200,000 Tamils displaced from their homes by the Sri Lankan army’s ’final offensive’ against the LTTE’s stronghold on the north." According to the report, the villages will be based in Vavuniya and Mannar districts and will be compulsory holding centres for all civilians (…)

  • Use and Abuse of Gandhi

    by Salil Misra, 18 February 2009

    The Economic Times
    Appropriating Gandhi
    Perhaps no leader of modern India has been misunderstood as much as Gandhi. The irony is that this misunderstanding is shared by Gandhians and Gandhi-bashers alike. They are both jointly united in creating distortions about Gandhi. There is however a reason for this. Gandhi was not a theoretician. He did not consciously construct a blue print, either of his theory or of an ideal social order. He often said that his life was his message. This (…)

  • Pakistan: Fascists at the doorstep

    by Manzur Ejaz, 18 February 2009

    Daily Times, February 18, 2009
    The advancing enemy
    Rulers averse to an independent judiciary and an equitable socio-economic order; an economic upper class hostile to paying its fair share in taxes; self-obsessed intellectuals and media persons; and a poverty-stricken population — this presents the perfect mix for the forces of destruction
    Our ruling elites kept crying ‘Wolf!’ for decades to scare the West into supporting their tenures. And now, as the NWFP government prepares to (…)

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