ACHA PEACE BULLETIN
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http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/ACHAPeaceBulletin
A publication of
Association for Communal Harmony in
www.asiapeace.org & www.indiapakistanpeace.org
Editor: Pritam K. Rohila, PhD pritam@open.org
Subscription is free.
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Volume XI, No. 1,
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CONTENTS
EDITORIAL
*On The Path of Peace & Harmony: A Step Forward For ACHA
PEACE & HARMONY NEWS
BOOKS
*Golwalkar’s We or Our Nationhood Defined: A Critique, Shamsul Islam
*Religion, Peace and Dialogue in
PARTITION-RELATED STORIES
*Story of M.Mehdi
Kazmi Family,
PEACE & HARMONY EDUCATION & TRAINING
*March 14 – 17,
CONFLICT RESOLUTION EDUCATION
PEACE & HARMONY CONFERENCES, SEMINARS & WORKSHOPS
*April 20-22,
PEACE EDUCATION
PEACE & HARMONY EVENTS
*January 12, Toba
*January 27-29,
EDUCATION DAY.
PEACE & HARMONY ORGANIZATIONS
*Bangladesh-Bharat-Pakistan
People's Forum (BBPPF),
_______________________________________________________________________
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
(If you like what we at ACHA are doing, please support us by joining us. ACHA membership does not require payment of any membership dues.
To join send us at pritamr@open.org a request for Membership Application. OR Go to www.asiapeace.org , click Membership and email a completed copy of Membership Application to us pritamr@open.org)
EDITORIAL
*On The Path of Peace & Harmony: A Step Forward For ACHA
We have recently amended ACHA constitution. Among other things, the changes allow us to conduct all our business by email, phone and other electronic means.
The change permits us to have individuals from far-off places to serve on our Board of Director. It means we can expand our horizons more widely, and avail of abilities, experiences, enthusiasm, energy and wisdom of people from more diverse areas and backgrounds.
Under the amended constitution, we have just completed
recruitment of our New Board of Directors. I am confident their individual and
collective efforts as members of the new team and your continued goodwill and
support will help us make significant progress in the pursuit of our mission of
peace in
Please help us welcome the new Directors. They are
Dr. Omar Ali
Dr. Herbert Hoefer
Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy
Some of them have been associated with ACHA for quite a while; others are new. Their brief biographical sketches are presented below.
Also in this issue of ACHA Peace we have a new section for “Partition-Related Stories.” We will post them on our website as well. If you (or someone you know) have a similar story to tell, please send it to me at pritamr@open.org.
Pritam K. Rohila, Ph. D.
____
DIRECTOR
(ASIAPEACE): Omar Ali MD,
Dr. Ali is a Pakistani-American physician, currently Assistant professor of Pediatric Endocrinology at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
He hails from a village near
In addition to his professional interests, he is an avid reader and used to write book reviews for the Pakistani magazine "Herald". He has written 28 reviews, almost all of them about history or science.
He is very interested in peace between the sub continental neighbors and is eager to do what he can in this cause.
He has been associated with ACHA since April 2004 as Co-moderator, and since September 2005, as Moderator of Asiapeace, one of ACHA’s three Electronic Discussion Forums.
DIRECTOR:
She is currently working as the
President of Institute of Human Rights Communication
In the course of her work, so far she has more than 14 countries and more than 65 Districts of Nepal.
For her work she has received many awards, including the Krishna Mohan- Nudup Peace Award in 2005 for playing leading role to aware women in peace and good governance in the country.
She joined ACHA in 2007.
DIRECTOR:
He joined ACHA in 2007.
DIRECTOR:
Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy,
Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy is professor of physics at
Dr Hoodbhoy is
involved in social issues as well, such as: women's rights, environment,
education, and nuclear disarmament. He is author of "Islam and Science:
Religious Orthodoxy and the
He joined ACHA in 2007
DIRECTOR:
Dr. Herbert
Dr. Hoefer has
an Ed. D. from
He has served on ACHA Board, as its President or as Secretary-Treasurer since 1999.
DIRECTOR
(COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM): Ingrid Shafer,
Dr. Shafer has been associated with ACHA since 1999, when she started hosting, designing and maintaining its website. In 2001, she was admitted to ACHA Board in the honorary position of Director of Communication Systems. The same year, she was recognized for her work with an ACHA Star Award.
EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR: Pritam K. Rohila, Ph.D,
Dr. Rohila, grew
up in Haryana and
He served as the
President of India Cultural Association (
He is a founding member of ACHA. He has served as ACHA President from 1993 until 2002, and since 2003 as its Executive Director.
PEACE & HARMONY NEWS
*Singh's visit to be a 'big' CBM: Pak NATION |
*Pranab (
*Rs 2.1b Indian aid for
*Gayoom seeks parties'
reconciliation HAVEERU |Thursday,
*Maoists
finally decide to mend ways THE HIMALAYAN TIMES |
*
*
*Manipur (
*Pak tariff for SAARC states down by 5pc DAILY TIMES |Saturday,
*Indian goats to sacrifice on Eid arrive in Pakistan THE POST |Saturday,
*Indo-Pak ties to grow:
Astrologers DAILY TIMES |
*SL-India MoU signed amidst protests Colombo Page |
*
http://www.southasianmedia.net/index_story.cfm?id=350683&category=Frontend&Country=Nepal
*Muslims to have equal share in development in
http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/dec/27pm.htm
*Pak ready to show flexibility on Kashmir OUTLOOK |Wednesday,
*Lambah, Aziz
held quiet meeting on 19th INDIAN EXPRESS |
*
*
*
*
*
http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/dec/22sir.htm
*Secret India-Pak talks to blur LoC
make headway DNA |Friday,
*Singh's speech positive, says
*
*
Sri Lanka Govt. plays Santa in Jaffna The Island |Friday,
*
*
*
*New trade treaty on
*Pak to
announce tariff reduction on 31st DAILY TIMES |Wednesday,
*
*Pak PM lauds Dr Singh for positive response to Musharraf's J&K formula, Rediff.com, December 19, 2006 15:36 IST http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/dec/19aziz.htm
*
*
http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/dec/18visa1.htm
*Mukherjee meets Koirala, pledges
support TRIBUNE INDIA
*
*Tourist influx if ties normalise DAILY TIMES |
BOOKS
*Golwalkar’s We or Our Nationhood Defined: A Critique [With
the full text of the book], Shamsul
Islam notointolerance@hotmail.com,
Published by Pharos Media & Publishing Pvt Ltd (
We are witnessing a concerted attempt by the RSS to establish MS Golwalkar as the ‘prophet of resurgent India’, ‘a saint’,
‘a new Vivekananda’, the best son of Bahratmata’, and
the ‘biggest gift to Hindu society in the 20th Century’. This in spite of the
fact that Golwalkar, throughout his life, remained
committed to the concept of Hindutva which meant an
inherent faith in Casteism, Racism and Imperialism. He
stood for the establishment of a Hindu rashtra, or
nation, where minorities like Muslims and Christians could exist only as second
class citizens.
This book attempts to put across actual facts about Golwalkar’s
life and beliefs in the light of his original writings, publications of the
RSS, documents available in its archives and many other RSS documents the
writer collected over the last 35 years from different parts of the country,
specially the original text of Golwalkar’s book We or
Our Nationhood Defined (1939) which is being reproduced in this book. It is the
most important text in order to understand the RSS’ concept of Hindu state, and
has not been available after 1947.
Shamsul Islam teaches Political Science in
*Religion,
Peace and Dialogue in
This book, based on insights from the field, explores alternate understandings
of religion in the context of the three parts of the Indian-administered Jammu
and Kashmir (Ladakh, Kashmir and Jammu), examining
the diverse ways in which religions (Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Dalit religious traditions and Christianity) are
interpreted to promote conflict, on the one hand,
and dialogue, peace and reconciliation, on the other.
PARTITION-RELATED STORIES
*Story of M.Mehdi Kazmi Family,
It is not only the human condition but we cannot partition the same people and
have those people pay the cost of partition too.I
also have my families story of blood and gore followed by a story of feeling at
one with the people my family was separated from.
In December 2005 I accompanied my mother to her home in Agra, a home she left
58 years ago and had never been back to since the pivotal event of
partition that to this day rules my parent's lives and mine ( and
will probably play a big part in our American born son's life, hopefully
in a "never again" manner). My mother was 16 years old when she left,
she remembered every street and gulee in
We than made it to the village where my maternal grandfather came from, Peharsar, about 55 miles north of Agra across the Rajisthan border.Prior to
partition this was a Muslim village, the majority were my grandfathers family
and extended family, about 1900 people, mostly Shias
with at least a two hundred year history in this prosperous village.
They spoke the same language, wore the same clothes, ate the same makai ke roti and sarson ka saag that the surrounding Hindus did for generations. The played holi with the Hindus, tied rakhi's on the arms of Hindu men and the Hindus would compete with them as to who made the best tazia for the yearly Moharram procession, the Hindus I am told insisted that their tazia should be in the lead every year.
The village was exempted from taxation by the Maharaja of Bharatpur because the founders of the village had conquered the area and given it to Surajmal, the Hindu Jat Maharaja in the early part of the 17th century for inclusion in the state territory. Out of 1900 residents in 1947 1600 were massacared by the Maharaja of Bharatpurs personal guard and brother, not one actual villager took part in the killing.
We reached the village late at night and stayed in a bed and breakfast inn(the mansion belonged to a relative of my mother's, now owned by a nephew of the former Maharaja of Bharatpur. The next morning the entire village was outside waiting for us, greeting us with "this is your village, not ours, you and your ancestors settled it".
They took us to a Muslim shrine where the entire village gets together to pray and recite fatiha, all Hindus where my ancestors used to do the same. When asked why they do so the villagers insisted that it is their shrine too, not only the Muslims who had left. we had a fatiha together. They than insisted that we should spend a night in the small house my grandfather had built in 1946.
A poor gardener approached my mother and asked if she remembered any of the graves, my mother could recall exactly where her grandfather’s grave was, the one and only surviving one in the entire village. She found her way through the fields of waist high lush green and yellow mustard to the grave. The grave has been tended to with great care by this gardener, he replaces the stones, plants flowers around it. His answer to why he does so was "we all know that this grave meant a lot to your family so it means a lot to us". He refused to accept any money for the grave's upkeep.
He also insisted on making it clear to me that none of the Hindu residents of
the village at the time of partition took part in the killing nor did they
pillage the property left behind because it would be "haram"
for them. They insisted that "you are Jats like
us".
In my grandfathers house in Agra, the 17 year old daughter of the current
family living there brought out a brick with his initials on it, she told us it
was excavated when they were re-doing the flooring in the house, that she knew
these were the initials of my grandfather, that she would not give it to me
because it was as precious to her as it was to me.
These stories are not just" about the milk of human kindness" but
about one people, families torn apart by those who had their own agendas who
committed the "crime against humanity" of the "batwara" and who were so intellectually defunct
that they could see no alternative but a complete annihilation of people, a way
of living and being that carried the wisdom of ages.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: I invite ACHA Peace Bulletin subscribers to share with us similar stories about their experiences. Please send them to pritamr@open.org We have decided to create a separate section for such stories on our website www.asiapeace.org)
PEACE & HARMONY EDUCATION & TRAINING
*March 14 – 17, Cleveland, Ohio, USA: INTER-AMERICAN SUMMIT ON CONFLICT RESOLUTION EDUCATION, to be hosted by Global Issues Resource Center, Office of Community Continuing Education, at Cuyahoga Community College and The Organization of American States, for government representatives from among the 50 states and 34 countries of the Americas and their non-governmental organization partners who have legislation or policies in place to deliver conflict resolution education at the K-12 level and in colleges of teacher education. More info including a registration form and preliminary conference program, from Jennifer Batton at 216-987-2224 or Jennifer.Batton@tri-c.edu
PEACE & HARMONY CONFERENCES, SEMINARS & WORKSHOPS
*April 20-22, Albacete, Spain: WORLD CONFERENCE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD PEACE EDUCATION to help promote the need for changes in early childhood education in order to stem the growth of the prevalent culture of violence and contempt and prepare the child to assume a responsible life in a free society, with a spirit of understanding and peace. More info from http://www.waece.org/albacete/ingles/ppal.htm
PEACE & HARMONY EVENTS
*January 12, Toba
Students shall deliver their speeches on the 22 identified HR issues while poster compition on these issues shall also be conducted. Special Theater “Religion of Peace” shall be played by “Saher” Group and a lecture on “The importance of HR Education in student’s practical lives “shall also be delivered.
Winning contestants shall be awarded with prizes and certificates. Students, teachers from other schools and people from different walks of life shall also witness this one day HR program.
More info from
*January 27-29,
On January 29, they will hold meetings with congressional representatives and their staffs to make sure they get the message.
To reflect the truly national character of this movement, they have set the goal of having all 435 congressional districts
represented in
Connect with other people from your area coming to DC
To find out if anyone from your area is
already organizing transportation, click here .
For information about housing, visit UFPJ's housing board
.
More info from www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545
PEACE & HARMONY ORGANIZATIONS
*Bangladesh-Bharat-Pakistan
People's Forum (BBPPF),
Pakistan chapter of Bangladesh-Bharat-Pakistan People's Forum (BBPPF) will have its first
national meeting at Aspire Public School ( 575-H/2 Johar
Town, Lahore) on January 21 Sunday 2007 starting at 9:30. The meeting
will finish after lunch. If you would like to attend the meeting, please
contact Saeeda