FRIENDS OF SOUTH ASIA (FOSA)
welcomes you to
Secularism & Democracy in India:
The Challenges Ahead

An Interactive Discussion
with
Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer
and
Dr. Angana Chatterji

Santa Clara Marriott
2700 Mission College Boulevard, Santa Clara, CA 95054

Saturday, Jan 24 2004
12:30 - 4:30 PM
12:30 - 1:30 - Reception & Lunch
1:30 - 4:30 - Discussion & Q&A

Tickets are $10 per person and can be purchased at the door.
Free Baby sitting.
Phone: (408) 219 1433

Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer

Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer is a renowned Indian scholar and activist, recognized for his work in promoting communal harmony and peace in India. Dr. Engineer has received numerous awards for his work, notably the 1997 Communal Harmony Award by the Government of India. In over forty years of exhaustive fieldwork, he has investigated and documented nearly every riot in post-independent India. He is the recipient of the prestigious R.B. Joshi Inter-Faith Award.

He was conferred a Doctorate of Literature by Calcutta University in 1993. Dr. Engineer has written extensively on Indian Muslims and Indian communalism in countless articles, weekly newsletters and books. He has forty-five books to his credit, both on communalism and Islam, and is currently the chairman of the Center for the Study of Society and Secularism (CSSS) and the Institute of Islamic Studies, both in Mumbai, India.

http://www.csss-isla.com

Dr. Angana Chatterji

Dr. Angana Chatterji is professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Dr. Chatterji has integrated scholarship, research, and activism in linking the roles of citizen and intellectual. She has been working with advocacy and research within postcolonial social movements in India and internationally since 1984, toward enabling participatory democracy for social and ecological justice. Her work focuses on issues of globalization, identity politics, sustainable development, cultural survival, majoritarianism and nationalism.

Currently, Professor Chatterji has been working in Orissa with issues connected to the ascent of Hindutva in the state. Dr. Chatterji is on the Board of Directors of Earth Island Institute and International Rivers Network, Director Research, Asia Forest Network, and serves on the editorial board of Journal of Peace and Democracy in South Asia, and a member of the Campaign To Stop Funding Hate.

http://www.ciis.edu/faculty/chatterji.html

Co-Sponsored by:
Coalition against Communalism (CAC)
Friends of South Asia (FOSA)
South Asian Progressive Action Collective (SAPAC)
Non-Resident Indians for a Secular and Harmonious India (NRI-SAHI)
Indian Muslim Council (IMC)
Indian Muslim Relief Committee (IMRC)

About Friends of South Asia

Founded in the Silicon Valley/San Francisco Bay Area, Friends of South Asia(FOSA) brings together people with roots in various parts of South Asia, as well as other well-wishers of the region. FOSA's mission is to achieve a peaceful, prosperous, and hate-free South Asia--most immediately working towards a demilitarized, nuclear-free South Asia and promoting respect for, and celebrating the diversity and plurality of South Asia. FOSA works to promote amity between countries and communities, working towards a South Asia where the rights of all minorities are respected and protected regardless of religious, ethnic, sexual or other differences. FOSA carries out its work through people-to-people contacts, dialog, and other non-violent, non-exclusionary means; working as a single group and with other organizations that share similar aspirations. FOSA's website is at http://www.friendsofsouthasia.org/.