DASTAK: STARTING POINT FOR FURTHER ACTION 73 of nationalism through the creative arts. As professor K.N. Panikkar said in his keynote address, there is a need to shift from an anti-communal campaign to one that addresses in broader terms secular mobilization. Certainly these four antidotes fleshed out in the conference constitute ways of affirmative mobilization rather than reactionary anger. During Dastak , hundreds of people from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, as well as other countries around the world came together and formed connections. This common ground and the connections made can now serve as the starting point for further action. WE WILL REMEMBER HIM IN CELEBRATION "We willl not mourn Safdar, we will remember him in celebration," was the message in everybody' s heart as they paid homage to Safdar on January 1 in New Delhi. Programmes of music, dance, and poetry recitation marked the tenth anniversary celebrations of the slain theatre director, poet, and playwright Safdar Hashmi. A series of performances by eminent and young artists led the audience into the evening. The programme, which began with the performance of streetplay Natakjari Hai, highlighted Safdar Hashmi' s convictions. The screening of the film "Safdar," produced soon after the death of Safdar Hashmi in 1989, revived the memories of the young and vibrant man as well as the brutality of the attack on him and the callousness of the system in the face of this attack. The spontaneity of the protest and its widest reach do not seem to have diminished over the last ten years from the response of the artists and the participants. The artists included Rajendra Prasanna, G.S. Rajan, Sushmit Bose, Wasifuddin Dagar, Dadi Padamjee, Astad Deboo, Madhup Mudgal, Kiran Segal, Madan Gopal Singh, Navtej Johar, the Indian Ocean fusion band, Kishwar Naheed, Asad Zaidi, Gauhar Raza, and many more. Releasing a statement for the Dastak convention, SAHMAT said it proposed to coordinate their activities with the democratic South Asia and the South Asian Diaspora. On the occasion, special publication posters, a badge commemorating Safdar Hashmi and ten years of SAHMAT, a video casette of anti-communal poetry by Zohra Segal were released. SAHMAT also strongly condemned the attacks on Christian minority urging all democratic people to stand up and act against "the insidious designs of the Hindu communalists who are out to subvert the secular foundations of our polity."