Kuldip Nayar
Gulf News, May 30, 2008
I do not want to belittle the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) victory in Karnataka state election which has given it a foothold in the south for the first time since independence. My contention is that every such success lessens the space for secularism in India. When the chips are down, the BJP represents Hindutva and all that goes with it. The Congress may be opportunist in outlook, dynastic in attitude and authoritarian in approach, but its ethos is secular. It represents pluralism which was also the characteristic of freedom struggle.
The BJP has over the past few years hewn a path which circumvents the Muslim community. The party did not field a single Muslim candidate in Karnataka, Gujarat or a couple of other states where it fought elections in the last one and a half years. This seems to be the party's new policy. Muslims are roughly 15 per cent of India's population. Still the BJP has preferred to ignore them. They do not fit into the scheme of India the party has in view.
I am not suggesting that the BJP does not have Muslims as members. A couple of them are even office-bearers at its central organisational setup. Yet, the image of the BJP is that of a party which is anything but secular. Its constant, close links with the RSS makes the BJP still more suspect because the Sangh dictum is: Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan.
This is not a healthy development in a society which is constitutionally pluralistic and which is vehemently opposed to the two-nation theory. No doubt, the Congress is the most to blame because communal forces over the years have thrived at its expense. The party leaders, if they have the courage to speak out, must analyse why the Congress has lost its secular credentials. When a leader of the Nationalist Congress party, the Congress ally, proposes a joint government with the BJP at the centre and when RSS chief Sudarshan endorses the suggestion, the Congress must wake up to the general perception that it is not very different from the BJP.
Shrinking
The larger question which the country must face is why secularism is shrinking in the country. That the obsession of caste considerations is driving out the interest of community is largely true. Elections are fought primarily on the caste basis. But why the Congress has never projected the class, an economic conglomeration, to defeat the caste? It looks as if the party's own commitment to socialism and pluralism has got eroded. In a way, this is natural in a party where the decision-making process gets confined to a few and when the upper middle class frames the policy.
What about the other non-BJP parties? The Congress is not the country. All secular forces, big or small, have to think how to refurbish the value of pluralism which is losing its appeal. Getting together of pluralistic parties is worth a while in political terms so that the secular votes don't split. However, the challenge is moral. A nation traversing the path of constructing a secular polity is sought to be pushed towards a direction which is divisive, destructive and communal. It is not the structure that faces the danger. It is the very existence of the polity which has come to have a question mark against it. Why has the country even after 60 years of its rule failed to implant firmly pluralism which has the topmost priority?
India is proud of democracy. The system is based on the participation of all, equally and unequivocally. There is no majoritism or minoritism. Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs or Parsis are limbs which provide nourishment to the body politic. How and for how long can it stay healthy if some limbs are discarded or considered inferior for use? Pluralism and democracy are two sides of the same coin.
Sometimes I wonder whether Hindutva (Hindu nationalist ideology) is creeping in slowly and relentlessly. That may well have been the reason why the BJP did not communalise the election campaign in Karnataka and had no hesitation in getting Narendra Modi of Gujarat carnage fame electioneering for more than a week. The party had kept him away in some earlier elections. Modi represents the anti-thesis of pluralism. After all, he is the successor to L.K.Advani, the BJP's candidate for the post of prime minister, as the latter has publicly said.
Muslim extremists only aggravate the situation because they strengthen the BJP and its type of thinking when they indulge in bomb blasts or help the outsiders to do so and provide them with shelter.
Some Muslims organisations are doing a commendable job in holding public meetings and seminars, denouncing terrorism.
On the other hand, the harassment of Muslim youth in the name of fighting terrorism is instilling fear and a sense of insecurity into the community. A Muslim lawyer had a tough time at Faizabad court in UP the other day when he appeared for terrorist suspects. The bar had asked all lawyers not to defend them.
Yet, the basic question that Karnataka has thrown up remains unanswered. Is the Congress saleable as an alternative in the country? It has lost six states in a row in the last 18 months. Party president Sonia Gandhi is a crowd puller. But the crowd does not seem to be getting translated into votes.
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May 31, 2008
May 28, 2008
Islam: Perceptions versus Reality
Islam: Perceptions and Reality
Ram Puniyani
Book Review
Book Under review
Islam-Misgivings and History, Asghar Ali Engineer, Vitasta, New Delhi 2008, Pages, 228, Rs 295
The current times in the World history are marred by the political interests wearing the cloak of religion. World over the major offensives against the oil rich countries have taken place with the projection that the Western civilization is under threat due to the backward Islamic civilization. The real goal of control over oil has been hidden in the cloak of 'backward Islam.' The phenomenon of terrorism has emerged due to various reasons but most of it has been attributed to Muslims and Islam. At home in India the rise of rightwing politics has derived its legitimacy from the dangers of Islamic teachings and nature of Muslims, being aggressive, intolerant and terrorists. All in all, nowhere before in history any religion was picked up for such a demonization for political goals. At no point in History the major threat to world civilization was projected due to religion. The political interests have adorned the clothes of 'savior of democracy', while attacking other countries. At home a particular nationalism has been constructed around targeting Muslims and Islam.
It is in this background that a simple but profound contribution from Asghar Ali Engineer is a timely intervention in the social thinking process. Engineer has been one of the most prominent exponents of democratic secular values and profound scholar of Islam. His prolific and scholarly contributions have served as the defenders of human rights and values which uphold the rights of weak and deprived sections of society. He has contributed immensely, with equal competence, in different but related areas like communal riot investigation, defense of secular values and exposition of Islam. His commentaries on Islam are very refreshing and enlightening. Being primarily an activist his contributions are presented in a language which an average reader can grasp without any difficulty. At the same time he maintains rigor of the underlying concepts.
This book is on the expected patterns. It is a compilation of 17 of his essays written under Islam and Modern Age, his monthly essays. These cover the broad canvass of various issues around which Islam is perceived.
Right at outset he makes the distinction between ruling classes ruling in the name of Islam and their monarchical, feudal practices. Many an Islamic rulers being the part of feudal set ups are also close confidantes of the U.S. empire which at another level is spearheading the oil hunt with a deceptive flag of defending democracy. Making it clear that Islam's advent took place in the background of Arabic practices, which were very primitive bereft of moral components, it was the teachings Prophet Mohammad, which introduced the moral values of very high order, the values which have withstood the test of times. He counters the popular notion that Islam imposes inhuman compulsions of different types on its followers. While religions put up moral-ethical standards, the society rather than rising to those drags the standards to its level of practices. In this case it is duet between social practices and the moral standards set by Quran. The society is governed by multiple economic, social and political factors, the consideration of which alone can give us the clear picture of times.
The word kafir has been misused very badly to assume that Islam regards all those who do not believe in Islam and ordains that they be killed. Contrary to that Kafir word was used for those who rejected the new humane values of Islam, and used violence against its followers. The use of violence here was permitted purely in self defense. It should be made clear that the word Kafir was given a twisted interpretation by Madrassas set up by CIA-ISI to train Al Qaeda to fight the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Since that this word has become a totally distorted and used in a negative light. It is Islam which gave the concept of law for the first time. Disturbed by the use of violence as a means of settling issues, the concept of mediation and legality was introduced. Also disturbed by the social inequality the concept of zakat, obligatory payment for the welfare of deprived was introduced.
Similarly the meaning of jihad has been distorted beyond recognition due to these madrassas, meant to train Al Aqeda. Interestingly the syllabus of these was drawn in Washington and it is here that by subtle manipulation words, kafir and Jihad in particular were given the meaning which many a terrorist groups use and the meaning which media popularized. As such jihad according to Quran means to speak truth even in the face of a tyrant ruler. Jihad is against julm, tyranny. Killing the innocents it is a tyranny and so Islam not only opposes that but it also preaches to speak against any killing of innocents. Jihad is a collective struggle against tyrants and exploiters; it is for upholding justice and human dignity and for establishing a society where human rights and dignity will be ensured. According to Engineer, "...the Quran came as a liberator of entire humanity and brought those fundamental values, which are needed to evolve a liberated society. The Quran also accepts the fact that several prophets, guides and seers came in this world for the same purpose…" (P50)
Many Ulama have been proclaiming about Islamic state. As per Engineer there is no mention of Islamic state in the Holy book. No religion in the world establishes a state. It just removes moral corruption and acts as a spiritual guide. In the name of Islamic state Ulama control the political affairs and do not "…allow sharia law to be revisited and this is the reason why all Muslim countries, which have proclaimed themselves to be Islamic states and are stagnating in the field of modern knowledge." (p71) And further, ' the compliers of Sharia law adopted mono-level approach and , thus created problems difficult to tackle .What is worse is that the followers of these laws adopt very rigid approach and consider earlier formulations by great Imams as immutable thus injuring the very spirit of Quran." (P.78)
Contrary to the popular perceptions, Engineer points out that Islam was one of the first movements to accord rights to women, rights towards equality and their plight today, the plight of their being treated as subordinates, is more due to social systems in the grip of feudal values and due to the hold of Maulanas. The interpretation of Quran offered by him logically and scholarly shows that it meant to give equality to women. The whole Islamic feminism, the rights of women as enshrined in the Holy book is the foundation for women's rights. It becomes clear that the practices of section of Muslim society are not in conformity with Quran. Some of the sharia laws deprive women of human dignity and reduces them to the status of chattel, and this is what is the popular perception about women in Islam, while it is far from true as sharia rules do not match with the ones of Quran at most of the places. The best example is the insistence on use of veil or burqua by Muslim women. In Quran there is just a concept of dignified dressing not of veil. As per Engineer change is necessary in these laws but Ulama is against these changes due to fear of losing its power.
The perception that Islam and democracy are not compatible is a falsity of the highest order. Again many a Muslim countries, some which are ex-colonies, have not undergone secularization and the conservative elements oppose the reforms under the cry that it is an attempt to Westernize Islam. The political interests of US Empire have promoted and collaborated with many a cruel dictators and kings as the rulers of their countries. The absence of the democracy has nothing to do with Islam whatsoever. There are examples where live and vibrant democracies like the one of Iran, Mossadeq, was overthrown by the coup staged with the help of US. The orthodox Ulama and the rulers of dictatorial regimes go hand in hand and the collaboration of Ulama gives it a false veneer of Islam. Again these Ulama oppose the process of reform. Engineer correctly diagnoses the problem of Muslim society when he points out that Ulama just insists on social traditions rather than values which are inherent in Quran.
Uniform Civil Code (UCC) has been a bone of discord around which communalists built up their propaganda. There is a place of reform in Muslim Personal law, and there are trends within the community which favor this. The resistance and failure to progress in this direction is due to the insecurity caused by communal violence. A regular occurrence of violence intimidates the community and creates a fear, ghettoisation and strengthens orthodoxy. No physically threatened community can think of reform as physical and social security takes precedence over everything else. Also due to economic backwardness the weak middle class is not confident to oppose the orthodox elements. Due to low educational levels Muslim women are not aware of their due rights. In the face of offensive of Hindutva propaganda and use of UCC to browbeat minorities even the secular feminists have revised their demand from the UCC to that of Gender Just Civil code through the process of social reform.
Engineer does well to break the current mould of presenting the communities as uniform monoliths. During medieval times all Muslims were not rulers, even Muslim dynasties were fighting with each other, Babar against Ibrahim Lodi is the prime example. There were wars for power amongst Khaljis, Tuglaqs, Lodis and Mughals. Even all the Mughal emperors were not in a single mould. Akbar, Dara Shikoh were very different from Aurangzeb. Even Aurangzeb while was part of destroying some temples had made donations to Hindu temples as well.
This meticulous presentation of values of Islam will go a long way to dispel the popular notions which equate Islam and Muslims with terrorism and other backwards tendencies.
Author would have done well to qualify the other terminologies like, Social Islam, Political Islam. An elaboration of the phenomenon of Wahabi, Salafi and other trends of Islam should have been given to elaborate social and political goals hidden behind them. That would have been further brought forward is the point that these trends of Islam have more to do with politics rather than with what Quran says. What is missing in this valuable contribution is a proper critique of US presentation of Islam through madrassas in Pakistan for its goal of training Al Qaeda, for fighting Russian army. This would have clarified concretely as to how politics is at the back of these horrendous trends which are bringing shame to Islamic values and bringing untold miseries to Muslims all over the World.
Needless to say this book deserves a mandatory place in the book racks of all those wanting to understand the true nature of Islam, and all those who are engaged in struggle against the goals of empire to dominate the World and goals of sectarian politics threatening to bring in fascism in the name of religion.
Vegetarianism, tolerance and discrimination
Hindu, 26 May 2008
Tarunabh Khaitan
Where the executive is making intolerant orders and the courts are routinely upholding them, it is imperative that Parliament acts.
tolerate .v 1. allow the existence or occurrence of (something that one dislikes or disagrees with) without interference (Concise Oxford English Dictionary)
One of the central tenets of the Indian constitution is an injunction on the state to refrain from discriminating on the grounds of religion and caste. Recently, however, the judiciary has failed to recognise enforced vegetarianism as indirect discrimination, which although neutral on the face of it, has disproportionate impact on people belonging to particular religions and castes.
The recent decision of the Hon. Supreme Court in Hinsa Virodhak Sangh v. Mirzapur Moti Kuresh Jamat delivered on March 14, 2008 is a case in point. Under constitutional challenge was an order by the Gujarat government banning the selling of meat for nine days during a Jain festival. The court agreed that the right to eat what one wants to eat is a matter of personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. Yet, surprisingly, it upheld the ban saying it was a justified restriction on this right. There are several aspects of this judgment that are deeply disturbing.
On tolerance
Most of the judgment is a commendable and sincere lecture on the idea of tolerance. To quote the Court, “since India is a country of great diversity, it is absolutely essential if we wish to keep our country united to have tolerance and respect for all communities and sects.” Few of us in the right mind can disagree. But what is the notion of tolerance that the court is applying in this case?
Surely, as the OED definition quoted above reflects, tolerance must mean a recognition and respect for the beliefs and practices of others without interference. A voluntary decision to participate in the practices of other communities may evidence commendable goodwill, but it is beyond the requirement of tolerance. But forcing someone through legal sanction to participate in the practices of another community can only mean intolerance. The impugned law forces everyone else to refrain from eating meat because Jains don’t eat meat for religious reasons. Wouldn’t it be the same thing to require non-Christians to fast during Lent, non-Muslims to refrain from eating pork and non-Jews to eat only Kosher food? One may even envisage positive legal duties which require non-Muslims to celebrate bakr-id and non-Hindus to burst crackers on Diwali (of course, in this religious maze, an atheist is not even counted). With great respect to the Hon’ble Court, forcing the beliefs of one religious group on all others is quite the opposite of tolerance.
On religious sentiment
In this judgement (perhaps with the incidents involving Taslima Nasreen, M.F. Hussain, Khushboo and Raj Thackeray in mind) the court complains that “these days unfortunately some people seem to be perpetually on a short fuse, and are willing to protest often violently, about anything under the sun on the ground that a book or a painting or a film, etc, has ‘hurt the sentiments’ of their community. These are dangerous tendencies and must be curbed with an iron hand.” Again, few will disagree. Note that the sceptical emphasis on the phrase “hurt the sentiments” of their community is provided by the Court and not myself.
And yet, not a few paragraphs later, the court sees no contradiction in relying on a similar ‘respect for the sentiments of the Jain community, which has a sizable population in Gujarat and Rajasthan’ to uphold the impugned law (this time, the emphasis is mine). In saying so, the Court disturbingly establishes religious sentiment as a valid basis for secular law. Further, by emphasising on the “sizable population” of Jains, it links the validity of a given sentiment to the number of people who share it.
But fundamental rights are neither about numbers nor about sentiments. If ‘sentiment’ was an adequate basis for law, why have an independent Supreme Court isolated from popular pressures? Wouldn’t the directly elected Parliament do a better job of eliciting popular sentiment? With respect, religious sentiment is precisely the type of argument that cannot justify a law in an equal, liberal and secular society. Much less can a law be justified because a ‘sizable’ number of people share that sentiment.
The point can be seen clearly if one considers that the issue is not ban on meat per se. There can be secular and non-sentimental reasons for banning the sale of meat products. The ban on sale of chicken during the bird flu outbreak is one example. To justify such bans as respect for religious sentiment is a dangerous precedent whose only logical conclusion is a minimum measure of liberty that is left after we are done respecting all religious sentiments. It also gives reasons for those ‘perpetually on a short fuse’ to remain so — if religious sentiment is a valid justification for law, what better strategy to get one’s way than to cite religious sentiment for all your demands? The Court has mollycoddled those very dangerous tendencies it called for being ‘curbed with an iron hand’.
On discrimination
One aspect that the judgment is entirely silent about is that discrimination on the basis of food preference, even though facially neutral, has a disproportionate disadvantageous impact on certain religions and castes and not others. It therefore amounts to an indirect discrimination on the basis of religion and caste.
The judgment in Hinsa Virodhak Sangh involved discrimination by the State — it is relatively easier to argue that the State should refrain from discrimination (even though the Supreme Court did not acknowledge it). What if the discriminator is a private person? There has been also been a string of news reports in recent months on discrimination in the private housing sector. The most striking of them was reported widely in the beginning of April. Madhavi Kapoor wanted to sell her apartment in a posh housing society in Pune to a Muslim family. She faced all sorts of obstacles and discouragement. She told a news-channel that some gentleman asked her “Toh phir aapko chalega lawn par bakri katne ko.” (“So slaughter of goats on the lawn will be ok with you?”).
How likely this (or any, for that matter) Muslim family is to slaughter goats on the lawn is questionable. This gentleman would probably have had no objection to selling the flat to meat-eating Hindus, but Farrah, my vegetarian Muslim friend, would certainly invite hostility. The incident shows how, on the pretext of vegetarianism, we are building exclusive intolerant ghettoes in our cities. Sometimes, even this pretext is not present. Recently, Kanaklata Rani was allegedly beaten up by her landlord in Delhi when he discovered that she was a dalit.
Of course there are cases where vegetarianism is not necessarily a pretext for religious and caste discrimination but is a genuinely held moral objection to (somebody else’s) preference for meat. Citizens have a constitutional guarantee of freedom of association which they can exercise based on this moral objection. Freedom of association of vegetarians who object to living in close proximity with non-vegetarians must get due legal consideration. But the individual harm and social exclusion that follows when certain groups are systematically excluded from housing societies must outweigh this moral objection. At an individual level, several fundamental opportunities and life choices (including where to live) are denied to non-vegetarians because of exercising the basic right to choose what to eat. More importantly, at a societal level, a widespread practice of exclusion of non-vegetarians from residential opportunities will inevitably lead to apartheid-like social ghettoes (especially given the Indian context where meat-preference has a strong correlation with one’s caste and religion). Restrictions on freedom of association in order to limit these resultant societal and individual harms are reasonable and will pass constitutional muster.
Need for urgent action
The judgment in Hinsa Virodhak Sangh is not the first of its kind. In Om Prakash v. State of U.P. (2004), a ban on sale of any meat, fish or eggs at anytime in the year in Rishikesh was upheld by the Supreme Court. In Zoroastrian Co-operative Housing Society Limited v. District Registrar Co-operative Societies (2005) the Supreme Court upheld direct religious discrimination by allowing co-operative housing societies to restrict their membership to followers of a particular religion. These are disturbing trends.
Where the executive is making intolerant orders and the courts are routinely upholding them, it is imperative that Parliament acts to prevent our cities from fragmenting completely on religious and caste lines. Recently, the Menon Committee set up by the Ministry of Minority Affairs “to examine and determine the structure of an Equal Opportunity Commission” recommended draft legislation to combat discrimination in the private sector. The Bill makes education and employment its initial focus, but the recent events pointed out above make it imperative that combating discrimination in the housing sector should also be one of its central concerns.
(Tarunabh Khaitan is a vegetarian and researches on anti-discrimination law at the University of Oxford.)
Tarunabh Khaitan
Where the executive is making intolerant orders and the courts are routinely upholding them, it is imperative that Parliament acts.
tolerate .v 1. allow the existence or occurrence of (something that one dislikes or disagrees with) without interference (Concise Oxford English Dictionary)
One of the central tenets of the Indian constitution is an injunction on the state to refrain from discriminating on the grounds of religion and caste. Recently, however, the judiciary has failed to recognise enforced vegetarianism as indirect discrimination, which although neutral on the face of it, has disproportionate impact on people belonging to particular religions and castes.
The recent decision of the Hon. Supreme Court in Hinsa Virodhak Sangh v. Mirzapur Moti Kuresh Jamat delivered on March 14, 2008 is a case in point. Under constitutional challenge was an order by the Gujarat government banning the selling of meat for nine days during a Jain festival. The court agreed that the right to eat what one wants to eat is a matter of personal liberty guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. Yet, surprisingly, it upheld the ban saying it was a justified restriction on this right. There are several aspects of this judgment that are deeply disturbing.
On tolerance
Most of the judgment is a commendable and sincere lecture on the idea of tolerance. To quote the Court, “since India is a country of great diversity, it is absolutely essential if we wish to keep our country united to have tolerance and respect for all communities and sects.” Few of us in the right mind can disagree. But what is the notion of tolerance that the court is applying in this case?
Surely, as the OED definition quoted above reflects, tolerance must mean a recognition and respect for the beliefs and practices of others without interference. A voluntary decision to participate in the practices of other communities may evidence commendable goodwill, but it is beyond the requirement of tolerance. But forcing someone through legal sanction to participate in the practices of another community can only mean intolerance. The impugned law forces everyone else to refrain from eating meat because Jains don’t eat meat for religious reasons. Wouldn’t it be the same thing to require non-Christians to fast during Lent, non-Muslims to refrain from eating pork and non-Jews to eat only Kosher food? One may even envisage positive legal duties which require non-Muslims to celebrate bakr-id and non-Hindus to burst crackers on Diwali (of course, in this religious maze, an atheist is not even counted). With great respect to the Hon’ble Court, forcing the beliefs of one religious group on all others is quite the opposite of tolerance.
On religious sentiment
In this judgement (perhaps with the incidents involving Taslima Nasreen, M.F. Hussain, Khushboo and Raj Thackeray in mind) the court complains that “these days unfortunately some people seem to be perpetually on a short fuse, and are willing to protest often violently, about anything under the sun on the ground that a book or a painting or a film, etc, has ‘hurt the sentiments’ of their community. These are dangerous tendencies and must be curbed with an iron hand.” Again, few will disagree. Note that the sceptical emphasis on the phrase “hurt the sentiments” of their community is provided by the Court and not myself.
And yet, not a few paragraphs later, the court sees no contradiction in relying on a similar ‘respect for the sentiments of the Jain community, which has a sizable population in Gujarat and Rajasthan’ to uphold the impugned law (this time, the emphasis is mine). In saying so, the Court disturbingly establishes religious sentiment as a valid basis for secular law. Further, by emphasising on the “sizable population” of Jains, it links the validity of a given sentiment to the number of people who share it.
But fundamental rights are neither about numbers nor about sentiments. If ‘sentiment’ was an adequate basis for law, why have an independent Supreme Court isolated from popular pressures? Wouldn’t the directly elected Parliament do a better job of eliciting popular sentiment? With respect, religious sentiment is precisely the type of argument that cannot justify a law in an equal, liberal and secular society. Much less can a law be justified because a ‘sizable’ number of people share that sentiment.
The point can be seen clearly if one considers that the issue is not ban on meat per se. There can be secular and non-sentimental reasons for banning the sale of meat products. The ban on sale of chicken during the bird flu outbreak is one example. To justify such bans as respect for religious sentiment is a dangerous precedent whose only logical conclusion is a minimum measure of liberty that is left after we are done respecting all religious sentiments. It also gives reasons for those ‘perpetually on a short fuse’ to remain so — if religious sentiment is a valid justification for law, what better strategy to get one’s way than to cite religious sentiment for all your demands? The Court has mollycoddled those very dangerous tendencies it called for being ‘curbed with an iron hand’.
On discrimination
One aspect that the judgment is entirely silent about is that discrimination on the basis of food preference, even though facially neutral, has a disproportionate disadvantageous impact on certain religions and castes and not others. It therefore amounts to an indirect discrimination on the basis of religion and caste.
The judgment in Hinsa Virodhak Sangh involved discrimination by the State — it is relatively easier to argue that the State should refrain from discrimination (even though the Supreme Court did not acknowledge it). What if the discriminator is a private person? There has been also been a string of news reports in recent months on discrimination in the private housing sector. The most striking of them was reported widely in the beginning of April. Madhavi Kapoor wanted to sell her apartment in a posh housing society in Pune to a Muslim family. She faced all sorts of obstacles and discouragement. She told a news-channel that some gentleman asked her “Toh phir aapko chalega lawn par bakri katne ko.” (“So slaughter of goats on the lawn will be ok with you?”).
How likely this (or any, for that matter) Muslim family is to slaughter goats on the lawn is questionable. This gentleman would probably have had no objection to selling the flat to meat-eating Hindus, but Farrah, my vegetarian Muslim friend, would certainly invite hostility. The incident shows how, on the pretext of vegetarianism, we are building exclusive intolerant ghettoes in our cities. Sometimes, even this pretext is not present. Recently, Kanaklata Rani was allegedly beaten up by her landlord in Delhi when he discovered that she was a dalit.
Of course there are cases where vegetarianism is not necessarily a pretext for religious and caste discrimination but is a genuinely held moral objection to (somebody else’s) preference for meat. Citizens have a constitutional guarantee of freedom of association which they can exercise based on this moral objection. Freedom of association of vegetarians who object to living in close proximity with non-vegetarians must get due legal consideration. But the individual harm and social exclusion that follows when certain groups are systematically excluded from housing societies must outweigh this moral objection. At an individual level, several fundamental opportunities and life choices (including where to live) are denied to non-vegetarians because of exercising the basic right to choose what to eat. More importantly, at a societal level, a widespread practice of exclusion of non-vegetarians from residential opportunities will inevitably lead to apartheid-like social ghettoes (especially given the Indian context where meat-preference has a strong correlation with one’s caste and religion). Restrictions on freedom of association in order to limit these resultant societal and individual harms are reasonable and will pass constitutional muster.
Need for urgent action
The judgment in Hinsa Virodhak Sangh is not the first of its kind. In Om Prakash v. State of U.P. (2004), a ban on sale of any meat, fish or eggs at anytime in the year in Rishikesh was upheld by the Supreme Court. In Zoroastrian Co-operative Housing Society Limited v. District Registrar Co-operative Societies (2005) the Supreme Court upheld direct religious discrimination by allowing co-operative housing societies to restrict their membership to followers of a particular religion. These are disturbing trends.
Where the executive is making intolerant orders and the courts are routinely upholding them, it is imperative that Parliament acts to prevent our cities from fragmenting completely on religious and caste lines. Recently, the Menon Committee set up by the Ministry of Minority Affairs “to examine and determine the structure of an Equal Opportunity Commission” recommended draft legislation to combat discrimination in the private sector. The Bill makes education and employment its initial focus, but the recent events pointed out above make it imperative that combating discrimination in the housing sector should also be one of its central concerns.
(Tarunabh Khaitan is a vegetarian and researches on anti-discrimination law at the University of Oxford.)
May 27, 2008
DIFFERENT STROKES
Frontline, May 24 - Jun 06, 2008
PARTHA CHATTERJEE
The M.F. Husains of India are in danger because the people who wish to control their destiny are devoid of creative imagination.
THE trouble with being an out and out artist like Maqbool Fida Husain in a bigoted, largely feudal country like India in the 21st century is that there will always be a small group of people, acting on behalf of their interested masters, who are ready to find fault with anything you do. These people of necessity will have to belong to right-wing religious outfits. In Husain’s case, it has been the satellite organisations of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal, and the Rashtriya Swayamswevak Sangh (RSS) and even the Shiv Sena, the Mumbai-based party founded by Bal Thackeray on strict communal lines.
M.F. Husain, 92, India’s most charismatic artist, has been living in exile in Dubai ever since Hindu fundamentalists filed cases against him in Indore and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Pandherpur in Maharastra, Rajkot, Gujarat, Haridwar, Uttarakhand and the State of Delhi and many other places in India for painting “Bharat Mata”, or the mother-of-the-nation, in the nude. One must risk being called a bore for saying time and again that ancient Hindu, Jain and Buddhist sculptures have depicted various deities in the nude as have the more recent though pre-modern schools of miniature painting, which have exquisitely rendered examples of Radha and Krishna making love.
Husain does not have much of a choice. He shuttles between Dubai and London, where he also has a home, and to other places in Europe. What is incredible is that the lower courts everywhere allowed specious charges to be filed against him. After all, the judiciary at all levels is expected to be fair, responsible and well informed. It cannot rely on sophistry and say that any citizen in a democracy is allowed to bring a law suit against another and that there is the law to decide on the worthiness of the case and to decide one way or another in favour of the plaintiff or the accused.
The other excuse offered, though not so readily by the so-called progressives planted amongst the more enlightened citizenry by the BJP and its agents, is that the legal machinery is so burdened with cases that it takes years to come to a decision on any single one. How then can the courts in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Delhi be expected to arrive at a decision on charges pending against Husain? No one has even bothered to say that the charges against him are frivolous and communal in intent and therefore malicious. The constant refrain is that Husain saab has hurt Hindu sentiments by painting Hindu gods and goddesses in the nude.
The only reprieve for him was the recent order of the Delhi High Court quashing the criminal proceedings initiated against him at three different places.
The truth of the matter is that the average Hindu, by birth or faith or both, is too busy struggling to earn a living to bother. As for the nude deities in ancient Indian sculptures, either he or she does not care about them or has come to accept them as a natural part of his consciousness. His/her relationship with god is very much like that of astrologer and client. Since there is neither equity nor justice in the world he/she inhabits, it is only god’s throw of dice that can sometime be relied upon to keep starvation at bay or protect the dignity of the wife, daughter or any other member of the family.
The vociferous claims of the Hindu upper class – which holds the reins of political and hence financial power despite being a minority in the Hindu community – to be the voice of downtrodden Hindus are entirely false and laughable. The BJP, Bajrang Dal, VHP and the Shiva Sena are upper-class and upper-caste Hindu organisations. Their hatred for Husain is because of his religion and is thus wholly illogical and irrational.
Class has as much a contentious role to play in 21st century India as religion. The fact that Husain overcame the limitations of a poor economic background to fight his way to the top in the world of art and stay there has riled his detractors no end. For them, it was as if a Dalit had become the Prime Minister of India.
The analogy is not as far-fetched as it sounds. It was after all caste that led to the formation of a party like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu where the Brahmin hegemony had not only garnered all the privileges for itself but also treated the so-called lower castes with contempt.
To digress for a moment with purpose, it is important to remind oneself that in 2002 the Sangh Parivar used starving tribal people to kill over 3,000 Muslims during the pogroms in Gujarat. Only about a third of the assailants were bona fide party cadres, the rest were tribal people desperately short of cash. It must be remembered that Muslims were killed because they refused to be deprived of their right to earn a living. In a documentary done by Ruchira Gupta for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), a Hindu Gujarati villager declares on camera, “We will kill them economically by not allowing Muslims farmers to sell their fruits and vegetables in the village haat.” One may ask how all this connects up with the Husain affair? It does in more ways than one.
The BJP and its supporters regard art in all its modern manifestations as a liability. The number of people in the Hindu Right, which is fascist in outlook, who hero-worship Hitler is not funny – they are of the view that art can serve only one purpose – ideology. There is room in their ranks for a Leni Riefenstahl (the woman who made two immensely visually impressive documentaries for Hitler, The Triumph of the Will and Olympiad, which extolled the virtues of Nazism) but not for a Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Ram Kinkar Baij, Sailoz Mookherjea or M.F. Husain.
Fascism shuns individuality. Fascists feel confident only in groups. There are no great flights of the imagination for them – artistic, scientific or both. They feel intelligence must be applied for a pragmatic purpose – to ensure material well-being but not much else. There is no adventure or romance there though the American brand of fascism available, courtesy George Bush and company, makes claims to the contrary.
Even though such assertions are fallacious, let them be for the moment. What place is there in L.K. Advani’s or Murli Manohar Joshi’s scheme of things for a Husain? What does Narendra Modi think of him? Perhaps nothing personal, but they may hate him for denying the BJP the desired political mileage.
The Indian state is indulging continuously in chicanery vis-a-vis the respective roles of the executive and the judiciary. The classic examples are the cases of Husain and Dr. Binayak Sen, a widely respected medical practitioner in Chhattisgarh incarcerated without trial for the last one year for allegedly aiding and abetting naxalites. Dr. Sen has rendered service to poor and needy tribal people in Chhattisgarh, a state carved out of Madhya Pradesh on November 1, 2000.
Chhattisgarh’s economic history has always been a troubled one in which the tribal people have been ruthlessly exploited right from the beginning. It is for them literally a question of where the next meal is going to come from. It is only natural for them to support the armed struggle of the naxalites against the state. But a distinguished doctor, Sen, mingling with them can only be seen by the state as treachery. He has, after all, studied in the best schools and colleges in the country.
The Christian Medical College in Vellore, an elite institution of the country, takes great pride in his achievements, as do the tribal people of Chhattisgarh. What does Dr. Sen do? He goes and promptly betrays his class. So what if 14 Nobel Laureates from the world over, including Amartya Sen, plead for his release and protest against his unjust and unlawful detention?
The government can always give the farcical, even bizarre excuse of the executive not interfering with the functioning of the judiciary. But is it too much to expect the judiciary to perform in a free, fearless and unbiased manner? Is it unnatural to expect it to be secular, meaning worldly and completely free of any kind of religious bias? In the cases of Dr. Sen and Husain, dangerous precedents have been set. One has dedicated his life to serving the suffering and the downtrodden and the other to bringing joy and beauty into the lives of people with his paintings and films. Husain’s GajaGamini with Madhuri Dixit and Meenaxi featuring Tabu are sparkling celebrations of womanhood. Both Dr. Sen and Husain are guilty of bringing hope into a dark world.
In Indian society and so politics, religion is quite literally the opium of the masses. When individuals turn up to contradict this belief, they challenge the status quo.
Indian society has, well before the communications revolution, thrived on the maintenance of the status quo. The upper classes, regardless of their political loyalties, are all united in protecting fiercely what they consider their birthright, chief amongst them being the control of the natural resources of the country and financial and political power. It is of no consequence to them that more than half the Indian population goes to bed hungry. However, the presence of people who might educate them enough to inspire resistance against exploitation or, equally important, open to them the aesthetic possibilities of the beauties of the world is very naturally seen as alarming.
The Binayak Sens and the M.F. Husains of today’s India are always in danger because the people who wish to preside over their destiny are mediocre and entirely devoid of creative imagination. It is not nature or the arts as such that inspires them but crass materialism and wanton hedonism.
PARTHA CHATTERJEE
The M.F. Husains of India are in danger because the people who wish to control their destiny are devoid of creative imagination.
THE trouble with being an out and out artist like Maqbool Fida Husain in a bigoted, largely feudal country like India in the 21st century is that there will always be a small group of people, acting on behalf of their interested masters, who are ready to find fault with anything you do. These people of necessity will have to belong to right-wing religious outfits. In Husain’s case, it has been the satellite organisations of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal, and the Rashtriya Swayamswevak Sangh (RSS) and even the Shiv Sena, the Mumbai-based party founded by Bal Thackeray on strict communal lines.
M.F. Husain, 92, India’s most charismatic artist, has been living in exile in Dubai ever since Hindu fundamentalists filed cases against him in Indore and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Pandherpur in Maharastra, Rajkot, Gujarat, Haridwar, Uttarakhand and the State of Delhi and many other places in India for painting “Bharat Mata”, or the mother-of-the-nation, in the nude. One must risk being called a bore for saying time and again that ancient Hindu, Jain and Buddhist sculptures have depicted various deities in the nude as have the more recent though pre-modern schools of miniature painting, which have exquisitely rendered examples of Radha and Krishna making love.
Husain does not have much of a choice. He shuttles between Dubai and London, where he also has a home, and to other places in Europe. What is incredible is that the lower courts everywhere allowed specious charges to be filed against him. After all, the judiciary at all levels is expected to be fair, responsible and well informed. It cannot rely on sophistry and say that any citizen in a democracy is allowed to bring a law suit against another and that there is the law to decide on the worthiness of the case and to decide one way or another in favour of the plaintiff or the accused.
The other excuse offered, though not so readily by the so-called progressives planted amongst the more enlightened citizenry by the BJP and its agents, is that the legal machinery is so burdened with cases that it takes years to come to a decision on any single one. How then can the courts in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Delhi be expected to arrive at a decision on charges pending against Husain? No one has even bothered to say that the charges against him are frivolous and communal in intent and therefore malicious. The constant refrain is that Husain saab has hurt Hindu sentiments by painting Hindu gods and goddesses in the nude.
The only reprieve for him was the recent order of the Delhi High Court quashing the criminal proceedings initiated against him at three different places.
The truth of the matter is that the average Hindu, by birth or faith or both, is too busy struggling to earn a living to bother. As for the nude deities in ancient Indian sculptures, either he or she does not care about them or has come to accept them as a natural part of his consciousness. His/her relationship with god is very much like that of astrologer and client. Since there is neither equity nor justice in the world he/she inhabits, it is only god’s throw of dice that can sometime be relied upon to keep starvation at bay or protect the dignity of the wife, daughter or any other member of the family.
The vociferous claims of the Hindu upper class – which holds the reins of political and hence financial power despite being a minority in the Hindu community – to be the voice of downtrodden Hindus are entirely false and laughable. The BJP, Bajrang Dal, VHP and the Shiva Sena are upper-class and upper-caste Hindu organisations. Their hatred for Husain is because of his religion and is thus wholly illogical and irrational.
Class has as much a contentious role to play in 21st century India as religion. The fact that Husain overcame the limitations of a poor economic background to fight his way to the top in the world of art and stay there has riled his detractors no end. For them, it was as if a Dalit had become the Prime Minister of India.
The analogy is not as far-fetched as it sounds. It was after all caste that led to the formation of a party like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Tamil Nadu where the Brahmin hegemony had not only garnered all the privileges for itself but also treated the so-called lower castes with contempt.
To digress for a moment with purpose, it is important to remind oneself that in 2002 the Sangh Parivar used starving tribal people to kill over 3,000 Muslims during the pogroms in Gujarat. Only about a third of the assailants were bona fide party cadres, the rest were tribal people desperately short of cash. It must be remembered that Muslims were killed because they refused to be deprived of their right to earn a living. In a documentary done by Ruchira Gupta for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), a Hindu Gujarati villager declares on camera, “We will kill them economically by not allowing Muslims farmers to sell their fruits and vegetables in the village haat.” One may ask how all this connects up with the Husain affair? It does in more ways than one.
The BJP and its supporters regard art in all its modern manifestations as a liability. The number of people in the Hindu Right, which is fascist in outlook, who hero-worship Hitler is not funny – they are of the view that art can serve only one purpose – ideology. There is room in their ranks for a Leni Riefenstahl (the woman who made two immensely visually impressive documentaries for Hitler, The Triumph of the Will and Olympiad, which extolled the virtues of Nazism) but not for a Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Ram Kinkar Baij, Sailoz Mookherjea or M.F. Husain.
Fascism shuns individuality. Fascists feel confident only in groups. There are no great flights of the imagination for them – artistic, scientific or both. They feel intelligence must be applied for a pragmatic purpose – to ensure material well-being but not much else. There is no adventure or romance there though the American brand of fascism available, courtesy George Bush and company, makes claims to the contrary.
Even though such assertions are fallacious, let them be for the moment. What place is there in L.K. Advani’s or Murli Manohar Joshi’s scheme of things for a Husain? What does Narendra Modi think of him? Perhaps nothing personal, but they may hate him for denying the BJP the desired political mileage.
The Indian state is indulging continuously in chicanery vis-a-vis the respective roles of the executive and the judiciary. The classic examples are the cases of Husain and Dr. Binayak Sen, a widely respected medical practitioner in Chhattisgarh incarcerated without trial for the last one year for allegedly aiding and abetting naxalites. Dr. Sen has rendered service to poor and needy tribal people in Chhattisgarh, a state carved out of Madhya Pradesh on November 1, 2000.
Chhattisgarh’s economic history has always been a troubled one in which the tribal people have been ruthlessly exploited right from the beginning. It is for them literally a question of where the next meal is going to come from. It is only natural for them to support the armed struggle of the naxalites against the state. But a distinguished doctor, Sen, mingling with them can only be seen by the state as treachery. He has, after all, studied in the best schools and colleges in the country.
The Christian Medical College in Vellore, an elite institution of the country, takes great pride in his achievements, as do the tribal people of Chhattisgarh. What does Dr. Sen do? He goes and promptly betrays his class. So what if 14 Nobel Laureates from the world over, including Amartya Sen, plead for his release and protest against his unjust and unlawful detention?
The government can always give the farcical, even bizarre excuse of the executive not interfering with the functioning of the judiciary. But is it too much to expect the judiciary to perform in a free, fearless and unbiased manner? Is it unnatural to expect it to be secular, meaning worldly and completely free of any kind of religious bias? In the cases of Dr. Sen and Husain, dangerous precedents have been set. One has dedicated his life to serving the suffering and the downtrodden and the other to bringing joy and beauty into the lives of people with his paintings and films. Husain’s GajaGamini with Madhuri Dixit and Meenaxi featuring Tabu are sparkling celebrations of womanhood. Both Dr. Sen and Husain are guilty of bringing hope into a dark world.
In Indian society and so politics, religion is quite literally the opium of the masses. When individuals turn up to contradict this belief, they challenge the status quo.
Indian society has, well before the communications revolution, thrived on the maintenance of the status quo. The upper classes, regardless of their political loyalties, are all united in protecting fiercely what they consider their birthright, chief amongst them being the control of the natural resources of the country and financial and political power. It is of no consequence to them that more than half the Indian population goes to bed hungry. However, the presence of people who might educate them enough to inspire resistance against exploitation or, equally important, open to them the aesthetic possibilities of the beauties of the world is very naturally seen as alarming.
The Binayak Sens and the M.F. Husains of today’s India are always in danger because the people who wish to preside over their destiny are mediocre and entirely devoid of creative imagination. It is not nature or the arts as such that inspires them but crass materialism and wanton hedonism.
The Politics Of Terror
Tehelka, May 31, 2008
Floundering for leads, the police is cracking down on hapless Bangladeshi immigrants, reports TUSHA MITTAL
IT IS 6am in Jaipur, the morning after a string of blasts ripped through the walled city. A police van drives up to a cluster of jhuggis around huge heaps of trash. In the next few days they will visit again, seven times. This is a densely populated Bengali settlement known as Galta Gate basti. Some are children of Bangladeshi immigrants who came to India during the 1971 war. Some are from Assam and Kolkata. Some don’t know anything about their origin.
Mahmood Kamroo Chaudhary was sleeping when men in uniform walked up to his hut. They asked him to head to the police station with them. “Why,” he asked. “Nothing to fear, you are not alone, we are taking people for questioning and will leave you in a few hours,” was the reply.
Five days after the blast, Chaudhary’s wife Parveen Begum is pacing up and down with her infant. Her husband is yet to return home. So are hundreds of others who were picked up from Bengali bastis across Jaipur.
She recalls her visit to the Galta Gate police station. “The police were shouting and beating them. We could hear the screams as they were being hit,” she says. “They tell him he is lying, that he is not from Assam but Bangladesh.” In Jaipur’s ground zero, Bangladeshis are terror’s new scapegoats.
Chaudhary’s parents came to India from Bangladesh, but Begum says he was born in Assam and has been in Rajasthan for the past 16 years. He has a PAN card, a valid licence and a ration card issued by Rajasthan authorities. The police haven’t asked Chaudhary for any papers and Begum is hesitant to present this evidence. “They will take it from me and burn it,” she says. “Then I will have no proof. The bombers did what they had to and left, now we are paying for it.”
Bangladeshi immigrant Marzina Begum’s 15-year-old son was taken in police custody after the blasts. When she visited him, he showed her marks on his body where he had been beaten.
There is another curious phenomenon. Throughout the city, heaps of rubbish lie uncollected and untouched. Very few trash pickers are visible. It is common knowledge here that most of the kabadi walas are Bangladeshis. What is not common knowledge is that ever since the blasts, they are petrified to venture out in fear of being spotted by the police.
A few days after the deadly blast killed 63 and injured 151, the pink city is bustling and tourists are easily spotted. The only visible scars are the bullet holes that pierced water tanks, concrete walls and even the strongest of metal surfaces. Candles and marigold flowers mark the places where victims died, where Kishan the batasha-wala sat when a cycle near him exploded. No policemen parade the streets or guard entry/exit points. The curfew has been lifted, and businesses continue as usual.
But behind the façade of normalcy, Jaipur has become a battleground for the politics of terror. The state’s BJP government and the UPA government at the Centre are already sniping at each other over a circular reportedly sent by the Centre asking the state to put illegal Bangladeshis in transit camps. Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil denies this. But state Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria told TEHELKA, “We received circulars from the Centre on January 24 and April 25 asking us to put illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in detention centres. They said the state would have to bear the costs. It is not only Rajasthan’s problem. The Centre should help us but it is taking things casually.”
Rhetoric from the other side too. “My first reaction was that the government has failed to live up to the challenges. We were supposed to prepare for this after Ajmer,” says state Congress unit chief CP Joshi. Attacking the Vasundhara Raje government, he adds, “Why are you targeting Bangladeshi Muslims? Isn’t the intention a communal flare up?”
The Rajasthan government has formed a special task force to head the Jaipur blasts investigations. “We will not depend on anyone else,” CM Raje has said. One week after the blasts, no leads have emerged and the force appears clueless. Local papers reported that Sajid, a SIMI activist, is being interrogated in Udai village in Sawai Madhopur district. Sajid does not resemble any of the sketches released by the police. The sketches are now being redrawn. ADGP AK Jain confirmed this but said he cannot disclose why Sajid is being questioned. Other reports introduced the name of Abdul Karim Tunda, an accused in the 1992 Mumbai blasts and reportedly involved in the Bangladesh-based HUJI. They said Tunda was seen in Jaipur recently.
Sources say the police are looking for Abu Faisal, a SIMI activist from Indore. Faisal’s picture was released in local papers with a sketch. This sketch was drawn on the description of Satyanarayan Malpandi, owner of Santosh Cycle. TEHELKA approached him with the photo and Malpandi denied having ever seen the man.
DIG Saurabh Srivastava, who is a member of the Special Investigation Team, told TEHELKA that the modus operandi of the Jaipur blasts is exactly similar to the court blasts in UP, while the explosive device used in Jaipur resembles that used in the Hyderabad blasts. He said the Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh investigating agencies are working in collaboration.
BJP spokesperson Rajendra Rathore admitted that HUJI has been on the investigation radar. “We have clues that point towards HUJI,” said Rathore. But the only “clues” disclosed are five cigarette packs of Bangladeshi make, found at the Sanganeri Gate blast site, and the claim of shopkeepers that the cycle buyers spoke with Bengali accents.
Rathore said the police have been asked to crackdown on illegal immigrants. “Many give addresses in West Bengal, we have given the police 30 days to verify all addresses,” he said, estimating the number of immigrants to be more than 10,000.
One obvious problem arises. Current and past governments have helped many of these “illegal immigrants” get ration cards and voter ID cards. Mina Khatum of Galta Gate basti holds up her voter ID and cries out loud. “I have been here for 20 years. I was married here, and became a nani and a dadi here. Now they have made life hell for us. We came to this land years ago, that’s our only fault.”
THE CRACKDOWN has begun with more than 400 Bangladeshis being questioned in the last few days. But a visit to the Bangladeshi colonies is enough to realise that much more than questioning is taking place. Groping for clues, the police have kept hundreds in custody for days, without food and without explanation. IGP Pankaj Kumar Singh admitted that this is not the way things should be handled. “This needs to be checked. If it is happening, it is wrong,” he told TEHELKA.
Bagrana is Jaipur’s main Bangladeshi colony. Here people openly say they are from Bangladesh. In other neighbourhoods, people are terrified to own up to their roots.
After the blasts, the police set up a tent right outside the basti. They went up to the main masjid, took in two imams for questioning and announced on a loudspeaker, “We will take your photos. Until we finish our investigation you cannot leave.”
Daulat Khan is the basti chief. He faced the brunt of the police’s wrath as others ran away. “Isko bulao, usko bulao,” the police told him and when no one appeared, the beating began. Scared, Dulal is hesitant to say anything but his sister points out two broken teeth.
Three days in custody cost Mohammed Dulal of Baxawala basti Rs 1,500, the income he could have earned driving his auto. “We were in front and the police caught whoever came in sight,” he says. Dulal said he was interrogated by the police, kept in a room with 40 others and forced to accept that he is Bangladeshi.
“I told them my address and they said you are lying. If you want to make me Bangladeshi forcefully, that’s your wish, I replied” he says. “Just because we speak Bengali doesn’t mean we are Bangladeshi. They say they will cancel my ration card and take away my house. Dhamki dete hain we will leave you in Bangladesh. I’m not an outsider, my home is India. How can you throw me out?”
The irony is that Dulal lives in a government- subsidised house. He says Raje herself handed the house papers to him. Yet the police say his documents, including his ration card, are false. On May 20, Dulal’s wife Sara Khatum called TEHELKA to say the police have again taken him into custody. “Last night, the police came and took Dulal and many others. They beat him in front of my eyes. Fifty of us are sitting outside the jail now. Please help us.”
Four Bengali bastis spreads across Jaipur have the same story to tell. Daughters tell mothers to keep shut — they look at you with stony eyes seeped in distrust. But talk to the elder of them in Bengali and they begin to open up. Every single conversation ends with “please don’t get us into more trouble. If the police see this, they will beat our husbands even more.” For many in Jaipur, another kind of terror has just begun.
Floundering for leads, the police is cracking down on hapless Bangladeshi immigrants, reports TUSHA MITTAL
IT IS 6am in Jaipur, the morning after a string of blasts ripped through the walled city. A police van drives up to a cluster of jhuggis around huge heaps of trash. In the next few days they will visit again, seven times. This is a densely populated Bengali settlement known as Galta Gate basti. Some are children of Bangladeshi immigrants who came to India during the 1971 war. Some are from Assam and Kolkata. Some don’t know anything about their origin.
Mahmood Kamroo Chaudhary was sleeping when men in uniform walked up to his hut. They asked him to head to the police station with them. “Why,” he asked. “Nothing to fear, you are not alone, we are taking people for questioning and will leave you in a few hours,” was the reply.
Five days after the blast, Chaudhary’s wife Parveen Begum is pacing up and down with her infant. Her husband is yet to return home. So are hundreds of others who were picked up from Bengali bastis across Jaipur.
She recalls her visit to the Galta Gate police station. “The police were shouting and beating them. We could hear the screams as they were being hit,” she says. “They tell him he is lying, that he is not from Assam but Bangladesh.” In Jaipur’s ground zero, Bangladeshis are terror’s new scapegoats.
Chaudhary’s parents came to India from Bangladesh, but Begum says he was born in Assam and has been in Rajasthan for the past 16 years. He has a PAN card, a valid licence and a ration card issued by Rajasthan authorities. The police haven’t asked Chaudhary for any papers and Begum is hesitant to present this evidence. “They will take it from me and burn it,” she says. “Then I will have no proof. The bombers did what they had to and left, now we are paying for it.”
Bangladeshi immigrant Marzina Begum’s 15-year-old son was taken in police custody after the blasts. When she visited him, he showed her marks on his body where he had been beaten.
There is another curious phenomenon. Throughout the city, heaps of rubbish lie uncollected and untouched. Very few trash pickers are visible. It is common knowledge here that most of the kabadi walas are Bangladeshis. What is not common knowledge is that ever since the blasts, they are petrified to venture out in fear of being spotted by the police.
A few days after the deadly blast killed 63 and injured 151, the pink city is bustling and tourists are easily spotted. The only visible scars are the bullet holes that pierced water tanks, concrete walls and even the strongest of metal surfaces. Candles and marigold flowers mark the places where victims died, where Kishan the batasha-wala sat when a cycle near him exploded. No policemen parade the streets or guard entry/exit points. The curfew has been lifted, and businesses continue as usual.
But behind the façade of normalcy, Jaipur has become a battleground for the politics of terror. The state’s BJP government and the UPA government at the Centre are already sniping at each other over a circular reportedly sent by the Centre asking the state to put illegal Bangladeshis in transit camps. Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil denies this. But state Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria told TEHELKA, “We received circulars from the Centre on January 24 and April 25 asking us to put illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in detention centres. They said the state would have to bear the costs. It is not only Rajasthan’s problem. The Centre should help us but it is taking things casually.”
Rhetoric from the other side too. “My first reaction was that the government has failed to live up to the challenges. We were supposed to prepare for this after Ajmer,” says state Congress unit chief CP Joshi. Attacking the Vasundhara Raje government, he adds, “Why are you targeting Bangladeshi Muslims? Isn’t the intention a communal flare up?”
The Rajasthan government has formed a special task force to head the Jaipur blasts investigations. “We will not depend on anyone else,” CM Raje has said. One week after the blasts, no leads have emerged and the force appears clueless. Local papers reported that Sajid, a SIMI activist, is being interrogated in Udai village in Sawai Madhopur district. Sajid does not resemble any of the sketches released by the police. The sketches are now being redrawn. ADGP AK Jain confirmed this but said he cannot disclose why Sajid is being questioned. Other reports introduced the name of Abdul Karim Tunda, an accused in the 1992 Mumbai blasts and reportedly involved in the Bangladesh-based HUJI. They said Tunda was seen in Jaipur recently.
Sources say the police are looking for Abu Faisal, a SIMI activist from Indore. Faisal’s picture was released in local papers with a sketch. This sketch was drawn on the description of Satyanarayan Malpandi, owner of Santosh Cycle. TEHELKA approached him with the photo and Malpandi denied having ever seen the man.
DIG Saurabh Srivastava, who is a member of the Special Investigation Team, told TEHELKA that the modus operandi of the Jaipur blasts is exactly similar to the court blasts in UP, while the explosive device used in Jaipur resembles that used in the Hyderabad blasts. He said the Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh investigating agencies are working in collaboration.
BJP spokesperson Rajendra Rathore admitted that HUJI has been on the investigation radar. “We have clues that point towards HUJI,” said Rathore. But the only “clues” disclosed are five cigarette packs of Bangladeshi make, found at the Sanganeri Gate blast site, and the claim of shopkeepers that the cycle buyers spoke with Bengali accents.
Rathore said the police have been asked to crackdown on illegal immigrants. “Many give addresses in West Bengal, we have given the police 30 days to verify all addresses,” he said, estimating the number of immigrants to be more than 10,000.
One obvious problem arises. Current and past governments have helped many of these “illegal immigrants” get ration cards and voter ID cards. Mina Khatum of Galta Gate basti holds up her voter ID and cries out loud. “I have been here for 20 years. I was married here, and became a nani and a dadi here. Now they have made life hell for us. We came to this land years ago, that’s our only fault.”
THE CRACKDOWN has begun with more than 400 Bangladeshis being questioned in the last few days. But a visit to the Bangladeshi colonies is enough to realise that much more than questioning is taking place. Groping for clues, the police have kept hundreds in custody for days, without food and without explanation. IGP Pankaj Kumar Singh admitted that this is not the way things should be handled. “This needs to be checked. If it is happening, it is wrong,” he told TEHELKA.
Bagrana is Jaipur’s main Bangladeshi colony. Here people openly say they are from Bangladesh. In other neighbourhoods, people are terrified to own up to their roots.
After the blasts, the police set up a tent right outside the basti. They went up to the main masjid, took in two imams for questioning and announced on a loudspeaker, “We will take your photos. Until we finish our investigation you cannot leave.”
Daulat Khan is the basti chief. He faced the brunt of the police’s wrath as others ran away. “Isko bulao, usko bulao,” the police told him and when no one appeared, the beating began. Scared, Dulal is hesitant to say anything but his sister points out two broken teeth.
Three days in custody cost Mohammed Dulal of Baxawala basti Rs 1,500, the income he could have earned driving his auto. “We were in front and the police caught whoever came in sight,” he says. Dulal said he was interrogated by the police, kept in a room with 40 others and forced to accept that he is Bangladeshi.
“I told them my address and they said you are lying. If you want to make me Bangladeshi forcefully, that’s your wish, I replied” he says. “Just because we speak Bengali doesn’t mean we are Bangladeshi. They say they will cancel my ration card and take away my house. Dhamki dete hain we will leave you in Bangladesh. I’m not an outsider, my home is India. How can you throw me out?”
The irony is that Dulal lives in a government- subsidised house. He says Raje herself handed the house papers to him. Yet the police say his documents, including his ration card, are false. On May 20, Dulal’s wife Sara Khatum called TEHELKA to say the police have again taken him into custody. “Last night, the police came and took Dulal and many others. They beat him in front of my eyes. Fifty of us are sitting outside the jail now. Please help us.”
Four Bengali bastis spreads across Jaipur have the same story to tell. Daughters tell mothers to keep shut — they look at you with stony eyes seeped in distrust. But talk to the elder of them in Bengali and they begin to open up. Every single conversation ends with “please don’t get us into more trouble. If the police see this, they will beat our husbands even more.” For many in Jaipur, another kind of terror has just begun.
May 26, 2008
'Scapegoats and Holy Cows' : State 'Response' to Terrorism
'Scapegoats and Holy Cows' : State 'Response' to Terrorism
May 29, 2009
Seminar
Time 10am to 4pm
Venue: Main Auditorium, India International Centre, Max Mulellar Marg, New Delhi-110003
Speakers:
A. Bimol Akoijam, Associate Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
Arun Kumar Srivastava- Assistant Professor, JNU
Dr Syed Ahamed Anwar State Secretary, Human Rights Wing. TMMK, Tamil Nadu
Justice Rajinder Sachar – former Chief Justice, Delhi High Court
Hilal Ahmad Meer, Journalist, Greater Kashmir, J & K
Kavita Srivastava-General Secretary, PUCL, Rajasthan
Mahesh Bhatt-Director, Producer, Filmmaker, Social Activist
Nasiruddin Haider Khan-Senior Journalist, UP
Prof KN Panikkar-Historian, Social Activist, Writer
Sheema Mohsin-Social Activist, PUCL, Karnataka
Siddharth Vardarajan-Senior Journalist, the Hindu, Delhi
Zaheeruddin Ali Khan, Editor, Siasat, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh
Zakia Jowher-Social Activist-Gujarat
Every now and then the Indian State, reaches out its 'long arms of injustice' to pick a scapegoat from amidst the Indian population to cover up its own incompetence to provide security to its citizens.
The hapless creature, decorated and demonized by the 'fashion designers' of Indian officialdom, is then paraded before the entire nation to create a public spectacle prior to its ritual sacrifice.
The Bengali speaking Muslim people of Jaipur are the latest in a long line-up of such scapegoats.
The Indian state's treatment of scapegoats is in stark contrast to the 'holy cows' it protects, irrespective of their trespasses or crimes against the people of the country.
Whether it be the Hashimpura massacre of 1987, the Babri Masjid demolition and the Mumbai riots of 1992, the Gujarat carnage of 2002 , Nanded Bomb Blast April 6, 2006 or the recent anti-national activities of the likes of Raj Thackeray in Mumbai- no one gets even arrested- leave alone punished for their terrorist activities.
The seminar mentioned above is being organised at a very short notice to register our anguish and protest against the way innocent people across India are being harassed, picked up, arrested and tortured in the name of fighting terrorism. It is also to register our protest against the well designed plan of demonising minorities in this country. We might not be able to document all the cases at this seminar but this is being organised as a first step to plan a larger national level campaign involving citizens and organisations from across india to resist the state terror.
DO COME AND REGISTER YOUR PROTEST.
PASS THE INFORMATION TO YOUR FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES AND FELLOW ACTIVISTS.
HRLN, PEACE, ANHAD
23, Canning Lane, New Delhi-110001
Tel-23070740/ 22; anhad.delhi@gmail.com
May 29, 2009
Seminar
Time 10am to 4pm
Venue: Main Auditorium, India International Centre, Max Mulellar Marg, New Delhi-110003
Speakers:
A. Bimol Akoijam, Associate Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
Arun Kumar Srivastava- Assistant Professor, JNU
Dr Syed Ahamed Anwar State Secretary, Human Rights Wing. TMMK, Tamil Nadu
Justice Rajinder Sachar – former Chief Justice, Delhi High Court
Hilal Ahmad Meer, Journalist, Greater Kashmir, J & K
Kavita Srivastava-General Secretary, PUCL, Rajasthan
Mahesh Bhatt-Director, Producer, Filmmaker, Social Activist
Nasiruddin Haider Khan-Senior Journalist, UP
Prof KN Panikkar-Historian, Social Activist, Writer
Sheema Mohsin-Social Activist, PUCL, Karnataka
Siddharth Vardarajan-Senior Journalist, the Hindu, Delhi
Zaheeruddin Ali Khan, Editor, Siasat, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh
Zakia Jowher-Social Activist-Gujarat
Every now and then the Indian State, reaches out its 'long arms of injustice' to pick a scapegoat from amidst the Indian population to cover up its own incompetence to provide security to its citizens.
The hapless creature, decorated and demonized by the 'fashion designers' of Indian officialdom, is then paraded before the entire nation to create a public spectacle prior to its ritual sacrifice.
The Bengali speaking Muslim people of Jaipur are the latest in a long line-up of such scapegoats.
The Indian state's treatment of scapegoats is in stark contrast to the 'holy cows' it protects, irrespective of their trespasses or crimes against the people of the country.
Whether it be the Hashimpura massacre of 1987, the Babri Masjid demolition and the Mumbai riots of 1992, the Gujarat carnage of 2002 , Nanded Bomb Blast April 6, 2006 or the recent anti-national activities of the likes of Raj Thackeray in Mumbai- no one gets even arrested- leave alone punished for their terrorist activities.
The seminar mentioned above is being organised at a very short notice to register our anguish and protest against the way innocent people across India are being harassed, picked up, arrested and tortured in the name of fighting terrorism. It is also to register our protest against the well designed plan of demonising minorities in this country. We might not be able to document all the cases at this seminar but this is being organised as a first step to plan a larger national level campaign involving citizens and organisations from across india to resist the state terror.
DO COME AND REGISTER YOUR PROTEST.
PASS THE INFORMATION TO YOUR FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES AND FELLOW ACTIVISTS.
HRLN, PEACE, ANHAD
23, Canning Lane, New Delhi-110001
Tel-23070740/ 22; anhad.delhi@gmail.com
On BJP's May 2008 victory in Karnataka elections
The Hindu
May 26, 2008
Editorial
The BJP’s hour of triumph
Even if not overwhelming or decisive, it was a comfortable victory in Karnataka for the Bhartiya Janata Party that left its rivals far behind. The party would surely take comfort from being free of the crutches of the Janata Dal (Secular). In some ways, the 2008 Assembly election was not very different from 2004 when the BJP finished first but substantially short of a majority, the Congress second, and the JD(S) third. But this time, the BJP gained immensely at the cost of the JD(S), falling just three short of the magic figure of 113 in the 224-member Assembly. Evidently, the last thing the people of Karnataka wanted was another period of political uncertainty. The JD(S), which broke a power-sharing agreement with the BJP last October and forced an early election, was the only real loser. Both the BJP, which focussed its campaign on the “betrayal” by the JD(S), and the Congress, which fought hard to overcome factionalism in its ranks, recorded gains compared to 2004. However, the JD(S) was by no means decimated, and the party has retained a part of its core support base in the old Mysore region and picked up a few seats elsewhere too, notwithstanding the desertion by several second line leaders. Thus, Karnataka is still nowhere close to moving towards a situation of polarisation between the two national parties.
With the BJP falling tantalisingly short of a majority, the Congress and the JD(S) might be tempted to come together and make a desperate bid for power. However, Governor Rameshwar Thakur, a former Congress Union Minister, cannot let old loyalties blur his judgment, and should invite the BJP to form the government, unless of course the Congress and the JD(S) are able to quickly secure letters of support from at least 113 members, which would include five of the six independents. In the ordinary course, if the Governor denies the BJP the first shot at forming the government, he will be exposing himself to charges of political partisanship. As the BJP is only three seats short, a post-poll alliance of the Congress and the JD(S) will popularly be seen as opportunistic. Politically, the proper course for the two parties will be to bide their time, sitting in the opposition. The BJP, on its part, should be humble in victory. Although the party did play the Hindutva card during several stages of its growth in Karnataka, it owes the present success mostly to its positioning as a viable political alternative to the Congress. Filling the role of an opposition is far easier than holding the reins of governance. Words are enough to keep an opposition party thriving, but a ruling party will be judged by its actions. The BJP, in power on its own strength for the first time in a southern State, will need to learn its lessons quickly.
May 26, 2008
Editorial
The BJP’s hour of triumph
Even if not overwhelming or decisive, it was a comfortable victory in Karnataka for the Bhartiya Janata Party that left its rivals far behind. The party would surely take comfort from being free of the crutches of the Janata Dal (Secular). In some ways, the 2008 Assembly election was not very different from 2004 when the BJP finished first but substantially short of a majority, the Congress second, and the JD(S) third. But this time, the BJP gained immensely at the cost of the JD(S), falling just three short of the magic figure of 113 in the 224-member Assembly. Evidently, the last thing the people of Karnataka wanted was another period of political uncertainty. The JD(S), which broke a power-sharing agreement with the BJP last October and forced an early election, was the only real loser. Both the BJP, which focussed its campaign on the “betrayal” by the JD(S), and the Congress, which fought hard to overcome factionalism in its ranks, recorded gains compared to 2004. However, the JD(S) was by no means decimated, and the party has retained a part of its core support base in the old Mysore region and picked up a few seats elsewhere too, notwithstanding the desertion by several second line leaders. Thus, Karnataka is still nowhere close to moving towards a situation of polarisation between the two national parties.
With the BJP falling tantalisingly short of a majority, the Congress and the JD(S) might be tempted to come together and make a desperate bid for power. However, Governor Rameshwar Thakur, a former Congress Union Minister, cannot let old loyalties blur his judgment, and should invite the BJP to form the government, unless of course the Congress and the JD(S) are able to quickly secure letters of support from at least 113 members, which would include five of the six independents. In the ordinary course, if the Governor denies the BJP the first shot at forming the government, he will be exposing himself to charges of political partisanship. As the BJP is only three seats short, a post-poll alliance of the Congress and the JD(S) will popularly be seen as opportunistic. Politically, the proper course for the two parties will be to bide their time, sitting in the opposition. The BJP, on its part, should be humble in victory. Although the party did play the Hindutva card during several stages of its growth in Karnataka, it owes the present success mostly to its positioning as a viable political alternative to the Congress. Filling the role of an opposition is far easier than holding the reins of governance. Words are enough to keep an opposition party thriving, but a ruling party will be judged by its actions. The BJP, in power on its own strength for the first time in a southern State, will need to learn its lessons quickly.
May 22, 2008
Terrorism -A Political Cancer
Terrorism: A Political Cancer
Ram Puniyani
The blasts in Jaipur (13th May 2008), have once again brought to fore the grim reality of global and local political scenario. In a short span of time close to hundred innocent lives were lost. What was heartwarming was the calm with which the society handled this grim tragedy. The amity with which the post blast situation was handled certainly needs million respectful salutes.
But political parties are what they are, taking advantage of such tragedies to bake their political breads. The BJP leadership was quick enough to say that the blasts are taking place as the central government is weak, the withdrawal of POTA has given rise to a situation where terrorists can make merry. Most such criticism is aimed at scoring brownie points, forgetting that during BJP led NDA regime with POTA in operation, the attacks on Parliament, Red fort and many other acts of terror were very much there. Despite Advani’s lie that he did not know about foreign minister accompanying the terrorists to Kandhar, there were acts of terror a plenty when he was the Home/deputy prime minister and was trying to cultivate the image of an iron man. Also the argument that BJP ruled states with glorious strength are free from terrorist acts also comes to a naught with this tragedy.
Petty political thinking apart, the world today is gripped by this insane phenomenon, which like a cancer has spread over a period of last two decades. The analogy of cancer for terrorism is very apt as many features of this are matching with the behavior of cancer in human body. Cancer has multiple etiologies (causative factors) and same is true of terrorism. First, it is due to the indoctrination of minds, like Al Qaeda by CIA sponsored madrassas in Pakistan. The Al Qaeda was used as a proxy for American army to fight against Russian army in Afghanistan. Here the indoctrination of Muslim youth was done through the syllabus developed in Washington. The goal of course was control over oil wells in the region. They did these insane activities in the name of religion. Presumably for the glory of their religion! Similarly the indoctrinated Bajrang Dal workers, who died while making bombs in Nanded April 2006, also were indoctrinated in the RSS ideology prepared to lay down their life presumably for their religion.
The second major cause of terrorism is a spontaneous response to injustices done to a group of people, generally in places where the democratic norms are compromised. Recently (December 2007) the acts of terror done by Adivasi National Liberation front resulting in blast in the Guwahati Rajdhani express exemplifies this. This blast was in the wake of group of Adivasis being beaten and their female companion being molested. This was the triggering point for the acts of terror being done by that group. Similarly the Mumbai blasts in 1993 and in 2002 were in the aftermath of Mumbai riots and Gujarat carnage after which some Muslims played in the hands of elements out to do such acts as a revenge, in the name of their religion. They forget that no religion worth its spirituality teaches to kill the innocents. Here the feeling of frustration, the feeling of taking revenge is paramount in the minds of these terrorists.
The third major factor leading to acts of terror relate to the injustices done in the name of nationalism, the suppression of ethnic, regional aspirations, Khalisthani, Kashmir, North East (ULFA etc...) LTTE and Irish Republican army fall in this category.
Cancer in the human body spreads by multiple mechanisms, physical extension, and through blood vessels etc. The one spreading through blood and getting lodged at a site distant from the original one is called Secondary metastasis. Al Qaeda was the primary cancer and what we witness at many other places is either secondary metastasis of that or is being done by those who have ulterior political motives. In current times this is the major type of terrorism and is the one where the indoctrination designed by US administration and propagated by US media disguised its lust for oil resources. The indoctrinated mind is the most lethal weapon in the World. It then becomes supra national and is beyond the realm of usual controls. The goal of US was to politically control oil zones through concocted pretexts, leading to attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. And these were projected as a part of clash of civilizations. Here the propaganda is that the backward Islamic civilization is the threat to the World so attack Afghanistan on the pretext of catching hold of Osama bin Laden or attack on Iraq on the pretext of saving the sovereignty of Sheikh of Kuwait, to defend the world from weapons of mass destruction hidden by Saddam Hussain. This surely is one of the biggest hoaxes of contemporary history.
Imperialism, the domination of poor countries by the more powerful ones’, has assumed different languages during last several centuries. Initially when the Britain, Portugal and France etc. went on to colonies the World for their material gains, they projected this exploitation of colonies as the ‘Whit man’s burden to civilize the barbarians’. Then came the era when national liberation movements were being undertaken by different colonies, many of which were influenced by socialist ideas. This period of history was dominated by two superpowers, US and Russia. US led camp tried to retain its hegemony on colonies or as a continuation, adopted policies to exploit these colonies through other economic mechanisms. To prevent the colonies becoming economically autonomous, imperialists tried to hegemonies global politics and the language used by them was, ‘defense of freedom and democracy’! With demise of socialist states the language being used is the one related to civilization, ‘the threat of Islam’.
The difference in the current times is that since a religion and a religious community are demonized and targeted the impact becomes much more deep and retrogressive in the cultural arena. It starts polarizing the communities along religious lines. This clash of civilizations theory is operative worldwide. In India the problem is further compounded due to the rise of communal politics, politics around issues of religious identity, which has changed the language of social discourse and has worsened the situation further. So far, communal violence has been polarizing the nation along the lines of religious communities. Now due to this propaganda Islam and Muslims have been linked to this phenomenon, and the Muslims all over the world and more so in India have been uniformly demonized. The result is that the acts of terrorism are projected, investigated and propagated in a biased way, totally conforming to the global and local propaganda about Islam and Muslims. The attitude of semi-communalized state machinery and communal parties further polarizes the society.
While these acts of terror are acting as the divisive factor, in a way they are playing the same type of role which communal violence has played so far, polarizing the communities. Despite the fact that communities are responding with amity, somewhere deep down the demonization of minorities is worsening. The investigation pattern so far has been to link the acts of terror to the Pakistan based groups, now Bangla Desh based groups. The main pattern has been the arrest of huge number of innocent youth. The social hysteria against them has been so bad that sometimes lawyers, in violation of their professional ethic refuse to take up their cases. In such cases, the dictum that one is innocent till proved guilty, has been put upside down or it is asserted that if someone belongs to the wrong religious community he has to be a terrorist! In this scenario the fatwa of Deoband that violence against innocents is un Islamic has given a very powerful message to the society. The multiple seminars being held, to say that Islam and Muslims have nothing to do with terrorism are good but are restricted to the Muslim audience and not able to achieve the desired result. These messages have to be taken far and wide, involving all religious communities.
Some social groups and communal parties are subtly intensifying these misplaced perceptions and weakening the nation. It is time that while improving our investigation methods we need to desist from politicizing and communalizing these tragic events. The seeds of this cancer were sowed by the global super power so just being shortsighted to blame the neighboring country and the religious community is counter productive. There is a need to cultivate amity and trust and that’s possible if we see that essentially it the secondary metastasis of the Al Qaeda clones, very difficult to control by superficial means. Better intelligence, better policing and a deeper understanding of the phenomenon will go a long way to overcome this suffering of the country.
--
Issues in Secular Politics
For Circulation/ publications
May 2008 II
www.pluralindia.com, ram.puniyani@gmail.com
Ram Puniyani
The blasts in Jaipur (13th May 2008), have once again brought to fore the grim reality of global and local political scenario. In a short span of time close to hundred innocent lives were lost. What was heartwarming was the calm with which the society handled this grim tragedy. The amity with which the post blast situation was handled certainly needs million respectful salutes.
But political parties are what they are, taking advantage of such tragedies to bake their political breads. The BJP leadership was quick enough to say that the blasts are taking place as the central government is weak, the withdrawal of POTA has given rise to a situation where terrorists can make merry. Most such criticism is aimed at scoring brownie points, forgetting that during BJP led NDA regime with POTA in operation, the attacks on Parliament, Red fort and many other acts of terror were very much there. Despite Advani’s lie that he did not know about foreign minister accompanying the terrorists to Kandhar, there were acts of terror a plenty when he was the Home/deputy prime minister and was trying to cultivate the image of an iron man. Also the argument that BJP ruled states with glorious strength are free from terrorist acts also comes to a naught with this tragedy.
Petty political thinking apart, the world today is gripped by this insane phenomenon, which like a cancer has spread over a period of last two decades. The analogy of cancer for terrorism is very apt as many features of this are matching with the behavior of cancer in human body. Cancer has multiple etiologies (causative factors) and same is true of terrorism. First, it is due to the indoctrination of minds, like Al Qaeda by CIA sponsored madrassas in Pakistan. The Al Qaeda was used as a proxy for American army to fight against Russian army in Afghanistan. Here the indoctrination of Muslim youth was done through the syllabus developed in Washington. The goal of course was control over oil wells in the region. They did these insane activities in the name of religion. Presumably for the glory of their religion! Similarly the indoctrinated Bajrang Dal workers, who died while making bombs in Nanded April 2006, also were indoctrinated in the RSS ideology prepared to lay down their life presumably for their religion.
The second major cause of terrorism is a spontaneous response to injustices done to a group of people, generally in places where the democratic norms are compromised. Recently (December 2007) the acts of terror done by Adivasi National Liberation front resulting in blast in the Guwahati Rajdhani express exemplifies this. This blast was in the wake of group of Adivasis being beaten and their female companion being molested. This was the triggering point for the acts of terror being done by that group. Similarly the Mumbai blasts in 1993 and in 2002 were in the aftermath of Mumbai riots and Gujarat carnage after which some Muslims played in the hands of elements out to do such acts as a revenge, in the name of their religion. They forget that no religion worth its spirituality teaches to kill the innocents. Here the feeling of frustration, the feeling of taking revenge is paramount in the minds of these terrorists.
The third major factor leading to acts of terror relate to the injustices done in the name of nationalism, the suppression of ethnic, regional aspirations, Khalisthani, Kashmir, North East (ULFA etc...) LTTE and Irish Republican army fall in this category.
Cancer in the human body spreads by multiple mechanisms, physical extension, and through blood vessels etc. The one spreading through blood and getting lodged at a site distant from the original one is called Secondary metastasis. Al Qaeda was the primary cancer and what we witness at many other places is either secondary metastasis of that or is being done by those who have ulterior political motives. In current times this is the major type of terrorism and is the one where the indoctrination designed by US administration and propagated by US media disguised its lust for oil resources. The indoctrinated mind is the most lethal weapon in the World. It then becomes supra national and is beyond the realm of usual controls. The goal of US was to politically control oil zones through concocted pretexts, leading to attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. And these were projected as a part of clash of civilizations. Here the propaganda is that the backward Islamic civilization is the threat to the World so attack Afghanistan on the pretext of catching hold of Osama bin Laden or attack on Iraq on the pretext of saving the sovereignty of Sheikh of Kuwait, to defend the world from weapons of mass destruction hidden by Saddam Hussain. This surely is one of the biggest hoaxes of contemporary history.
Imperialism, the domination of poor countries by the more powerful ones’, has assumed different languages during last several centuries. Initially when the Britain, Portugal and France etc. went on to colonies the World for their material gains, they projected this exploitation of colonies as the ‘Whit man’s burden to civilize the barbarians’. Then came the era when national liberation movements were being undertaken by different colonies, many of which were influenced by socialist ideas. This period of history was dominated by two superpowers, US and Russia. US led camp tried to retain its hegemony on colonies or as a continuation, adopted policies to exploit these colonies through other economic mechanisms. To prevent the colonies becoming economically autonomous, imperialists tried to hegemonies global politics and the language used by them was, ‘defense of freedom and democracy’! With demise of socialist states the language being used is the one related to civilization, ‘the threat of Islam’.
The difference in the current times is that since a religion and a religious community are demonized and targeted the impact becomes much more deep and retrogressive in the cultural arena. It starts polarizing the communities along religious lines. This clash of civilizations theory is operative worldwide. In India the problem is further compounded due to the rise of communal politics, politics around issues of religious identity, which has changed the language of social discourse and has worsened the situation further. So far, communal violence has been polarizing the nation along the lines of religious communities. Now due to this propaganda Islam and Muslims have been linked to this phenomenon, and the Muslims all over the world and more so in India have been uniformly demonized. The result is that the acts of terrorism are projected, investigated and propagated in a biased way, totally conforming to the global and local propaganda about Islam and Muslims. The attitude of semi-communalized state machinery and communal parties further polarizes the society.
While these acts of terror are acting as the divisive factor, in a way they are playing the same type of role which communal violence has played so far, polarizing the communities. Despite the fact that communities are responding with amity, somewhere deep down the demonization of minorities is worsening. The investigation pattern so far has been to link the acts of terror to the Pakistan based groups, now Bangla Desh based groups. The main pattern has been the arrest of huge number of innocent youth. The social hysteria against them has been so bad that sometimes lawyers, in violation of their professional ethic refuse to take up their cases. In such cases, the dictum that one is innocent till proved guilty, has been put upside down or it is asserted that if someone belongs to the wrong religious community he has to be a terrorist! In this scenario the fatwa of Deoband that violence against innocents is un Islamic has given a very powerful message to the society. The multiple seminars being held, to say that Islam and Muslims have nothing to do with terrorism are good but are restricted to the Muslim audience and not able to achieve the desired result. These messages have to be taken far and wide, involving all religious communities.
Some social groups and communal parties are subtly intensifying these misplaced perceptions and weakening the nation. It is time that while improving our investigation methods we need to desist from politicizing and communalizing these tragic events. The seeds of this cancer were sowed by the global super power so just being shortsighted to blame the neighboring country and the religious community is counter productive. There is a need to cultivate amity and trust and that’s possible if we see that essentially it the secondary metastasis of the Al Qaeda clones, very difficult to control by superficial means. Better intelligence, better policing and a deeper understanding of the phenomenon will go a long way to overcome this suffering of the country.
--
Issues in Secular Politics
For Circulation/ publications
May 2008 II
www.pluralindia.com, ram.puniyani@gmail.com
May 21, 2008
BJP Seizes On Jaipur Bombing To Promote Communalism and Social Reaction
by Deepal Jayasekera
20 May, 2008
WSWS.org
India’s official opposition, the Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has seized on the recent terrorist atrocity in Jaipur, the capital of the northwestern Indian state of Rajasthan, to promote anti-Muslim and anti-Bangladeshi prejudice and to press for a further strengthening of the repressive powers of the state.
At least 63 people, Hindus and Muslims alike, were killed and 200 injured by a series of bomb blasts that occurred in quick succession in Jaipur on the evening of Tuesday, May 13. The attack, which reportedly consisted of seven separate explosions—an eighth bomb failed to go off—was planned to produce a massive loss of life. Bicycles laden with bombs were placed at locations where large numbers habitually congregate. One blast occurred near a Hindu temple dedicated to the Hindu god Hanuman, and Tuesday is the traditional day of worship to him.
The coordinated bombings are India’s deadliest terrorist attack since the July 2006 bombing of Mumbai commuter trains, which killed almost 200 people.
Whoever carried out the bombings, it was a criminal attack on innocent civilians designed to whip up communal animosity in India and embitter relations between India and Pakistan, which are set to resume their comprehensive (peace) dialogue this month.
The BJP state government of Rajasthan along with sections of the police-intelligence establishment and the press were quick to blame, without offering any tangible proof, the attack on a Bangladeshi-based Islamicist militia, the Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami.
BJP leaders and sections of the press have harped on a police claim that a bicycle shop owner, to whom the police traced several of the bikes used in the attack, said that a group of young Bengali-speaking men had purchased them. Bengali is the main language of both Bangladesh and the east Indian state of West Bengal.
Meanwhile, a little-known group that terms itself either the Indian Mujahedeen or Guru-al-Hindi has claimed responsibility for the Jaipur blast. It has sought to substantiate its claim by e-mailing video-clips that purport to show one of the bicycles and a bag used in the bombing to two Delhi-based media organizations.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundara Raje has expressed skepticism about the authenticity of the video-clips. But there are press reports that claim the police are now considering them genuine because the frame registration number of the bicycle in the video matches that on one of the mangled bicycle-bombs.
Raje, her government, and the national BJP are bent on using the alleged Bangladeshi connection to the Jaipur atrocity as a pretext for a foul communal campaign against Bangladeshi migrant workers. Without presenting any evidence, K.L. Charuvedia, the BJP’s publicity chief in Rajasthan, declared the blasts were “the handiwork of Bangladesh immigrants living unlawfully in Jaipur as laborers.”
Then last Friday Rajasthan’s parliamentary affairs minister, Rajendra Rathod, told a press conference that the BJP state government is giving district collectors 30 days to compile comprehensive lists of Bangladeshis living “illegally” in the state, as a prelude to their deportation.
“District authorities,” said Rathod, “have been issued orders to compile data on the Bangladeshis in their areas. They have also been directed to initiate the process for retrieval of ration cards of those who have managed to get them [and to] cancel their names from the voters list.”
Police have launched house-to-house searches in neighborhoods with large concentrations of Bangladeshi migrants. Dozens have been taken into custody, but none has been charged, at least with anything connected to the Jaipur atrocity. Declared police spokesman Jeewan Bishnoi, “We must verify that every single person here is registered with us.”
According to an Indian press report, eight Bangladeshi migrants were arrested last Friday in the city of Ajmer near a shrine to a famous Sufi (Muslim) saint “after they were found moving under suspicious circumstances.” The report added that a police officer had said that “the eight had come from Dhaka eight years ago and were working as servants.”
Understandably, the Bangladeshi migrants, who are poor and denied citizenship rights in India, are scared. Daulat Khan, a 60 year-old man who earns his living by picking up scraps and garbage, told reporters: “We are a poor community. We don’t have the funds to orchestrate this kind of thing or the time. . . . They hassle us just because we are Muslims. It’s very wrong.”
According to a BJP state government representative the number of Bangladeshis in Jaipur has grown substantially in recent years, rising from 2,500 in 2004 to more than 10,000 today.
The BJP has long complained about Bangladeshi migrants, claiming that there are as many as 20 million in India, and attacking the Congress Party, the dominant partner in India’s ruling coalition, for being “soft” on Bangladeshi migration because it wants to court the Muslim vote.
The figure of 20 million Bangladeshis in India is a gross, communally-inspired exaggeration. But undoubtedly millions have sought to escape poverty and communal and ethnic strife in Bangladesh by coming to India. The 1947 communal partition of the subcontinent carried out by India’s departing colonial overlords and the bourgeois Congress Party and Muslim League defied economic logic and the history of India, and has served only to perpetuate imperialist oppression and institutionalize communal conflict.
The BJP’s claim that Bangladeshis living in India are “foreigners” is a communal slur, based on the championing of the 1947 communal partition. But the entire Indian establishment endorses it. Citing concerns about terrorism, India’s government—with the enthusiastic support of the Left Front government of West Bengal—recently completed construction of a fence along the entire Indo-Bangladeshi border.
Whipping up anti-Bangladeshi prejudice and terrorizing Bangladeshi migrants is only one plank in the BJP’s response to the Jaipur atrocity.
In the wake of last week’s bombings, the BJP has amplified its denunciations of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) central government for “failing” to fight “terrorism.”
“There is a complete failure of central intelligence and UPA policies in tackling terrorism,” said BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar. “The UPA government failed to treat terrorism as a national menace.”
The BJP is now going to convene its national executive on May 31 in Jaipur, where, according to senior party leader M. Venkaiah Naidu, it will “discuss the menace of terrorism faced by the country and decide the future course of action.”
The BJP has never agreed to the UPA’s decision to rescind a draconian anti-terrorism law that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government pushed through parliament in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US and the December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament buildings.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) granted sweeping powers to the military and police to detain “terrorist suspects” for 30 days without producing them in courts, and for 90 days without formal charges.
Due to public opposition, the UPA government, which came to power in May 2004, was forced to replace it in September 2004 with another law, which retained many of the repressive and arbitrary powers of POTA, thus making its repeal largely cosmetic.
But the BJP has repeatedly demanded the restoration of POTA and clearly hopes to use the issue in next year’s general election as part of a double-pronged reactionary attack in which the Congress will be assailed for “coddling” Muslims and being soft on terrorism.
Demanding the UPA government revive POTA, BJP prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani said: “It’s not about an anti-terror law alone. It reflects the attitude of the government and the people... It is about the ability of the state to pre-empt such strikes.”
The initial response of the UPA government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the Jaipur bombing was cautious. Singh made a statement condemning the attacks and asking the people to stay “calm” without blaming anyone.
Pointing the suspicious finger was left to the junior Home Minister Shriprakash Jaiswal, who declared, “the people responsible for these attacks have foreign connections.” But not only did Jaiswal fail to provide any evidence, he refused to specify what country he was referring to when he used the term “foreign.” When asked specifically at a news conference, Jaiswal said it could be any of the neighboring countries—Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Myanmar—that had been gripped by internal turmoil.
On May 18, further adapting to BJP’s barrage against his government, Prime Minister Singh called for the creation of a federal agency—an Indian FBI—to deal with “terrorist” crimes. On the same day, India’s chief justice K.G. Balakrishnan, addressing a seminar in New Delhi, demanded special new anti-terror laws.
20 May, 2008
WSWS.org
India’s official opposition, the Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has seized on the recent terrorist atrocity in Jaipur, the capital of the northwestern Indian state of Rajasthan, to promote anti-Muslim and anti-Bangladeshi prejudice and to press for a further strengthening of the repressive powers of the state.
At least 63 people, Hindus and Muslims alike, were killed and 200 injured by a series of bomb blasts that occurred in quick succession in Jaipur on the evening of Tuesday, May 13. The attack, which reportedly consisted of seven separate explosions—an eighth bomb failed to go off—was planned to produce a massive loss of life. Bicycles laden with bombs were placed at locations where large numbers habitually congregate. One blast occurred near a Hindu temple dedicated to the Hindu god Hanuman, and Tuesday is the traditional day of worship to him.
The coordinated bombings are India’s deadliest terrorist attack since the July 2006 bombing of Mumbai commuter trains, which killed almost 200 people.
Whoever carried out the bombings, it was a criminal attack on innocent civilians designed to whip up communal animosity in India and embitter relations between India and Pakistan, which are set to resume their comprehensive (peace) dialogue this month.
The BJP state government of Rajasthan along with sections of the police-intelligence establishment and the press were quick to blame, without offering any tangible proof, the attack on a Bangladeshi-based Islamicist militia, the Harkat-ul-Jihadi Islami.
BJP leaders and sections of the press have harped on a police claim that a bicycle shop owner, to whom the police traced several of the bikes used in the attack, said that a group of young Bengali-speaking men had purchased them. Bengali is the main language of both Bangladesh and the east Indian state of West Bengal.
Meanwhile, a little-known group that terms itself either the Indian Mujahedeen or Guru-al-Hindi has claimed responsibility for the Jaipur blast. It has sought to substantiate its claim by e-mailing video-clips that purport to show one of the bicycles and a bag used in the bombing to two Delhi-based media organizations.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundara Raje has expressed skepticism about the authenticity of the video-clips. But there are press reports that claim the police are now considering them genuine because the frame registration number of the bicycle in the video matches that on one of the mangled bicycle-bombs.
Raje, her government, and the national BJP are bent on using the alleged Bangladeshi connection to the Jaipur atrocity as a pretext for a foul communal campaign against Bangladeshi migrant workers. Without presenting any evidence, K.L. Charuvedia, the BJP’s publicity chief in Rajasthan, declared the blasts were “the handiwork of Bangladesh immigrants living unlawfully in Jaipur as laborers.”
Then last Friday Rajasthan’s parliamentary affairs minister, Rajendra Rathod, told a press conference that the BJP state government is giving district collectors 30 days to compile comprehensive lists of Bangladeshis living “illegally” in the state, as a prelude to their deportation.
“District authorities,” said Rathod, “have been issued orders to compile data on the Bangladeshis in their areas. They have also been directed to initiate the process for retrieval of ration cards of those who have managed to get them [and to] cancel their names from the voters list.”
Police have launched house-to-house searches in neighborhoods with large concentrations of Bangladeshi migrants. Dozens have been taken into custody, but none has been charged, at least with anything connected to the Jaipur atrocity. Declared police spokesman Jeewan Bishnoi, “We must verify that every single person here is registered with us.”
According to an Indian press report, eight Bangladeshi migrants were arrested last Friday in the city of Ajmer near a shrine to a famous Sufi (Muslim) saint “after they were found moving under suspicious circumstances.” The report added that a police officer had said that “the eight had come from Dhaka eight years ago and were working as servants.”
Understandably, the Bangladeshi migrants, who are poor and denied citizenship rights in India, are scared. Daulat Khan, a 60 year-old man who earns his living by picking up scraps and garbage, told reporters: “We are a poor community. We don’t have the funds to orchestrate this kind of thing or the time. . . . They hassle us just because we are Muslims. It’s very wrong.”
According to a BJP state government representative the number of Bangladeshis in Jaipur has grown substantially in recent years, rising from 2,500 in 2004 to more than 10,000 today.
The BJP has long complained about Bangladeshi migrants, claiming that there are as many as 20 million in India, and attacking the Congress Party, the dominant partner in India’s ruling coalition, for being “soft” on Bangladeshi migration because it wants to court the Muslim vote.
The figure of 20 million Bangladeshis in India is a gross, communally-inspired exaggeration. But undoubtedly millions have sought to escape poverty and communal and ethnic strife in Bangladesh by coming to India. The 1947 communal partition of the subcontinent carried out by India’s departing colonial overlords and the bourgeois Congress Party and Muslim League defied economic logic and the history of India, and has served only to perpetuate imperialist oppression and institutionalize communal conflict.
The BJP’s claim that Bangladeshis living in India are “foreigners” is a communal slur, based on the championing of the 1947 communal partition. But the entire Indian establishment endorses it. Citing concerns about terrorism, India’s government—with the enthusiastic support of the Left Front government of West Bengal—recently completed construction of a fence along the entire Indo-Bangladeshi border.
Whipping up anti-Bangladeshi prejudice and terrorizing Bangladeshi migrants is only one plank in the BJP’s response to the Jaipur atrocity.
In the wake of last week’s bombings, the BJP has amplified its denunciations of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) central government for “failing” to fight “terrorism.”
“There is a complete failure of central intelligence and UPA policies in tackling terrorism,” said BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar. “The UPA government failed to treat terrorism as a national menace.”
The BJP is now going to convene its national executive on May 31 in Jaipur, where, according to senior party leader M. Venkaiah Naidu, it will “discuss the menace of terrorism faced by the country and decide the future course of action.”
The BJP has never agreed to the UPA’s decision to rescind a draconian anti-terrorism law that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government pushed through parliament in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US and the December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament buildings.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) granted sweeping powers to the military and police to detain “terrorist suspects” for 30 days without producing them in courts, and for 90 days without formal charges.
Due to public opposition, the UPA government, which came to power in May 2004, was forced to replace it in September 2004 with another law, which retained many of the repressive and arbitrary powers of POTA, thus making its repeal largely cosmetic.
But the BJP has repeatedly demanded the restoration of POTA and clearly hopes to use the issue in next year’s general election as part of a double-pronged reactionary attack in which the Congress will be assailed for “coddling” Muslims and being soft on terrorism.
Demanding the UPA government revive POTA, BJP prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani said: “It’s not about an anti-terror law alone. It reflects the attitude of the government and the people... It is about the ability of the state to pre-empt such strikes.”
The initial response of the UPA government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the Jaipur bombing was cautious. Singh made a statement condemning the attacks and asking the people to stay “calm” without blaming anyone.
Pointing the suspicious finger was left to the junior Home Minister Shriprakash Jaiswal, who declared, “the people responsible for these attacks have foreign connections.” But not only did Jaiswal fail to provide any evidence, he refused to specify what country he was referring to when he used the term “foreign.” When asked specifically at a news conference, Jaiswal said it could be any of the neighboring countries—Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Myanmar—that had been gripped by internal turmoil.
On May 18, further adapting to BJP’s barrage against his government, Prime Minister Singh called for the creation of a federal agency—an Indian FBI—to deal with “terrorist” crimes. On the same day, India’s chief justice K.G. Balakrishnan, addressing a seminar in New Delhi, demanded special new anti-terror laws.
May 14, 2008
Jaipur Serial blasts: Statement of Concerned Citizens
We the undersigned strongly condemn those behind the serial blasts of Jaipur. We also offer our sincerest condolences to the victims of this dastardly act and urge upon the state government and the Central Government to take all possible measures for the proper compensation/ rehabilitation of the survivors.
These cowardly acts of terror have become a sore on the body politic of Indian democracy. The current global and local politics in the name of religious identity is intensifying the acts of terror, more so in India. The unfortunate part is that prevention of these acts has been politicized by some political parties. Some of them claim that the present Government is soft on terrorism so there is increase in these acts of terror. They forget that even during the NDA regime the frequency and intensity of these acts was similar. Just by making the repressive laws cannot curtail these acts as it is a superficial and wrong approach. These acts of terror have deeper political causes. These causes relate to U.S. lust for oil, its help in forming Al Qaeda and local rise of communal politics around issues of religious identity.
The worst part of handling acts of terror, which has a bearing on the preventive measures, is the prevalent theory guiding the investigation authorities. As per this theory these acts are done by some Pakistan trained groups who want to spread communal disharmony. On this pretext many Muslim youth are hauled up and investigation is presented as a success. So many such acts of terror have taken place, Malegaon, Banaras, Mumbai, but how many places have the communal disharmony erupted? Are the terrorist’s fools to repeat the act which is not having the desired result? Then, the investigations done so far are clouded in mystery and under the cloak of secrecy. The social audit of these investigations has not taken place barring an odd exception. The present theory of investigating agency deliberately overlooks the case of two Bajarang Dal workers getting killed in Nanded in April 2006. It also does not want to give serious thought to the narco-analysis of one of the survivors of the Nanded episode who said that now we Hindus should also do the acts of terror, in front of crowded mosques, else we will be regarded as eunuchs.
The occurrence of these acts, more often on Tuesdays and Fridays gives a signal which goes beyond the thinking of present investigation agencies. There is a need to have a National body with due representation from the socially concerned citizens and Human rights activists who can have a say in these matters and also who in an unbiased way can go to the truth of these acts, unlike the ones at present, where the pattern of investigation can be predicted right in advance due to the prevalent prejudices, which by now have become institutionalized.
These acts are now polarizing the society and the biggest beneficiary of these are the communal forces. In a way, now communal violence is being substituted by the acts of terror to consolidate the electoral base by communal party.
We urge upon the society at large, the ruling governments, the bureaucracy, police and human rights activists to try to go to the depth of this painful phenomenon and try to address the deeper disease which is causing the symptom of terrorist acts.
We Demand
- Setting up of a National Commission with representation of broad layers of people to monitor the investigations.
- This Commission gives suggestions in the direction of prevention of such acts.
- This commission monitors those arrested on the ground of suspicion and ensures that only the guilty are detained while innocents are released.
- This commission goes to the deeper maladies affecting the society leading to such acts and suggests the remedial measures.
- It suggests ways to strengthen the intercommunity bonds so that religious identity and terrorism are not correlated.
Sincerely
1. Asghar Ali Engineer, Chairman Center for Study of
Society and Secularism
2. Digant Oza: Senior Journalist, Ahmedabad
3. Shabnam Hashmi, Secretary ANHAD
4. Dr. M.Hasan, Academic, Writer Jaipur
5. L.S.Hardenia, Senior Journalist, Writer
6. Irfan Engineer: Institute of Peace Studies and
Conflict Resolution
7. Ram Puniyani , Secretary All India Secular Forum
These cowardly acts of terror have become a sore on the body politic of Indian democracy. The current global and local politics in the name of religious identity is intensifying the acts of terror, more so in India. The unfortunate part is that prevention of these acts has been politicized by some political parties. Some of them claim that the present Government is soft on terrorism so there is increase in these acts of terror. They forget that even during the NDA regime the frequency and intensity of these acts was similar. Just by making the repressive laws cannot curtail these acts as it is a superficial and wrong approach. These acts of terror have deeper political causes. These causes relate to U.S. lust for oil, its help in forming Al Qaeda and local rise of communal politics around issues of religious identity.
The worst part of handling acts of terror, which has a bearing on the preventive measures, is the prevalent theory guiding the investigation authorities. As per this theory these acts are done by some Pakistan trained groups who want to spread communal disharmony. On this pretext many Muslim youth are hauled up and investigation is presented as a success. So many such acts of terror have taken place, Malegaon, Banaras, Mumbai, but how many places have the communal disharmony erupted? Are the terrorist’s fools to repeat the act which is not having the desired result? Then, the investigations done so far are clouded in mystery and under the cloak of secrecy. The social audit of these investigations has not taken place barring an odd exception. The present theory of investigating agency deliberately overlooks the case of two Bajarang Dal workers getting killed in Nanded in April 2006. It also does not want to give serious thought to the narco-analysis of one of the survivors of the Nanded episode who said that now we Hindus should also do the acts of terror, in front of crowded mosques, else we will be regarded as eunuchs.
The occurrence of these acts, more often on Tuesdays and Fridays gives a signal which goes beyond the thinking of present investigation agencies. There is a need to have a National body with due representation from the socially concerned citizens and Human rights activists who can have a say in these matters and also who in an unbiased way can go to the truth of these acts, unlike the ones at present, where the pattern of investigation can be predicted right in advance due to the prevalent prejudices, which by now have become institutionalized.
These acts are now polarizing the society and the biggest beneficiary of these are the communal forces. In a way, now communal violence is being substituted by the acts of terror to consolidate the electoral base by communal party.
We urge upon the society at large, the ruling governments, the bureaucracy, police and human rights activists to try to go to the depth of this painful phenomenon and try to address the deeper disease which is causing the symptom of terrorist acts.
We Demand
- Setting up of a National Commission with representation of broad layers of people to monitor the investigations.
- This Commission gives suggestions in the direction of prevention of such acts.
- This commission monitors those arrested on the ground of suspicion and ensures that only the guilty are detained while innocents are released.
- This commission goes to the deeper maladies affecting the society leading to such acts and suggests the remedial measures.
- It suggests ways to strengthen the intercommunity bonds so that religious identity and terrorism are not correlated.
Sincerely
1. Asghar Ali Engineer, Chairman Center for Study of
Society and Secularism
2. Digant Oza: Senior Journalist, Ahmedabad
3. Shabnam Hashmi, Secretary ANHAD
4. Dr. M.Hasan, Academic, Writer Jaipur
5. L.S.Hardenia, Senior Journalist, Writer
6. Irfan Engineer: Institute of Peace Studies and
Conflict Resolution
7. Ram Puniyani , Secretary All India Secular Forum
May 13, 2008
Karnataka NGO's campaign against BJP under fire from the State election commission
( From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 19, Dated May 17, 2008)
ENGAGED CIRCLE
activists in trouble
Campaign Pains
A coalition of 150 NGOs campaigning against the BJP in poll-bound Karnataka have run afoul of the State Election Commission, reports SANJANA
POLITICAL PARTIES are not the only ones engaged in a pitched battle in election bound Karnataka. People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) — a statewide coalition comprising 150 NGOs that work on a range of issues from Dalit and women’s rights to farmers’ issues, caste politics and labour — is actively engaged in campaigning against what it calls the BJPs ‘communal agenda’. Says KL Ashok, a PAD convenor, “We have no doubt that the BJP is a communal party committed to treating Dalits, Muslims, women and the working masses as second-class citizens. We have seen what they did in 20 months when they were in power in Karnataka. We are saying — never again!”
Headed by prominent cultural figures such as UR Ananthamurthy, Sara Aboobacker and Gauri Lankesh, the coalition has framed for itself a precise agenda — to ensure defeat of the BJP in the coming Assembly elections and to demand accountability from other political parties seeking to represent the people. It had undertaken a massive public awareness campaign including ‘jeep jathas’ across 100 towns in Karnataka and wide-scale distribution of a ‘people’s manifesto’, backed by about 50,000 posters. The campaign had just started to make waves when it ran into trouble with the Karnataka State Election Commission (SEC) and the police, which stepped in to halt it.
A Election Commission of India (ECI) directive issued to the Karnataka SEC on April 7, 2008 stipulates that “no wall writing, pasting of posters/papers, erecting of cut-outs, hoardings, banners, or defacement in any other form shall be permitted on public property” and that any local law applicable should be strictly enforced. Accordingly, MN Vidyashankar, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Karnataka issued strict orders to the police for “criminal cases to be booked against those flouting the directive.”
On April 12, activists belonging to PAD were detained and arrested by police in Madikeri (Kodagu district), Mulbagal (Kolar district) and Bangalore as they attempted to paste posters urging voters to say no to the BJP. In Jamkhandi (Bagalkot district), police authorities denied permission to hold a public meeting. In Bangalore, activists were detained and posters seized. “Everywhere the police demanded that we produce permission letters by the State Election Commission. No matter how many times we told them that we weren’t a political party, they would not listen,” says AMM Shaafi of PAD.
For the State Election Commission too, this was a difficult proposition to buy – a non-political party coalition working to defeat the BJP and distributing copies of its own manifesto. When Shaafi along with other convenors approached the CEO Vidyashankar three days after the arrests, he said, “We want to ensure that they were not indulging in surrogate canvassing. The content of the posters have to be cleared.” The CEO insisted that the coalition submit translated copies of publicity material to the ECI and wait for clearance, citing an April 2004 Supreme Court judgment.
When the coalition obtained copies of the SC order, they found that it had nothing to do with their case, and instead pertained to cable television advertisements by Gujarat political parties during elections. When PAD representatives reverted to the CEO, he was apologetic but held that having submitted the poster for clearance, they had no choice but to wait for the ECI’S decision. With first phase of polling starting on on May 10, the coalition representatives are infuriated, but so far the only reply they have received from the SEC is that the matter is pending due to delays with the ECI in New Delhi.
ELECTION COMMISSIONER Dr SY Quraishi, told TEHELKA that, “PAD is free to do their campaigning; provided they don’t say that BJP is a communal party. That is a specific allegation. But they are free to ask voters to not vote for communal parties.” He also categorically stated that the ECI had conveyed this to the Karnataka SEC during their last visit to Bangalore. But Karnataka’s Joint Chief Election Commissioner BV Kulkarni, says they are “still waiting to hear from the ECI.”
Shabnam Hashmi, member, National Integration Council, who has undertaken similar campaigns in Gujarat, and who also wrote to the ECI on the PAD issue, believes that the organisation should simply get on with the task. “For eight months we carried a strong anti-BJP and anti-Modi campaign. There were cases against us. You can’t keep rushing to officials to get their stamp of approval every time.”
PAD is doing just that. Tired of official dillydallying, they have proceeded with their campaign — albeit in different ways.
ENGAGED CIRCLE
activists in trouble
Campaign Pains
A coalition of 150 NGOs campaigning against the BJP in poll-bound Karnataka have run afoul of the State Election Commission, reports SANJANA
POLITICAL PARTIES are not the only ones engaged in a pitched battle in election bound Karnataka. People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) — a statewide coalition comprising 150 NGOs that work on a range of issues from Dalit and women’s rights to farmers’ issues, caste politics and labour — is actively engaged in campaigning against what it calls the BJPs ‘communal agenda’. Says KL Ashok, a PAD convenor, “We have no doubt that the BJP is a communal party committed to treating Dalits, Muslims, women and the working masses as second-class citizens. We have seen what they did in 20 months when they were in power in Karnataka. We are saying — never again!”
Headed by prominent cultural figures such as UR Ananthamurthy, Sara Aboobacker and Gauri Lankesh, the coalition has framed for itself a precise agenda — to ensure defeat of the BJP in the coming Assembly elections and to demand accountability from other political parties seeking to represent the people. It had undertaken a massive public awareness campaign including ‘jeep jathas’ across 100 towns in Karnataka and wide-scale distribution of a ‘people’s manifesto’, backed by about 50,000 posters. The campaign had just started to make waves when it ran into trouble with the Karnataka State Election Commission (SEC) and the police, which stepped in to halt it.
A Election Commission of India (ECI) directive issued to the Karnataka SEC on April 7, 2008 stipulates that “no wall writing, pasting of posters/papers, erecting of cut-outs, hoardings, banners, or defacement in any other form shall be permitted on public property” and that any local law applicable should be strictly enforced. Accordingly, MN Vidyashankar, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Karnataka issued strict orders to the police for “criminal cases to be booked against those flouting the directive.”
On April 12, activists belonging to PAD were detained and arrested by police in Madikeri (Kodagu district), Mulbagal (Kolar district) and Bangalore as they attempted to paste posters urging voters to say no to the BJP. In Jamkhandi (Bagalkot district), police authorities denied permission to hold a public meeting. In Bangalore, activists were detained and posters seized. “Everywhere the police demanded that we produce permission letters by the State Election Commission. No matter how many times we told them that we weren’t a political party, they would not listen,” says AMM Shaafi of PAD.
For the State Election Commission too, this was a difficult proposition to buy – a non-political party coalition working to defeat the BJP and distributing copies of its own manifesto. When Shaafi along with other convenors approached the CEO Vidyashankar three days after the arrests, he said, “We want to ensure that they were not indulging in surrogate canvassing. The content of the posters have to be cleared.” The CEO insisted that the coalition submit translated copies of publicity material to the ECI and wait for clearance, citing an April 2004 Supreme Court judgment.
When the coalition obtained copies of the SC order, they found that it had nothing to do with their case, and instead pertained to cable television advertisements by Gujarat political parties during elections. When PAD representatives reverted to the CEO, he was apologetic but held that having submitted the poster for clearance, they had no choice but to wait for the ECI’S decision. With first phase of polling starting on on May 10, the coalition representatives are infuriated, but so far the only reply they have received from the SEC is that the matter is pending due to delays with the ECI in New Delhi.
ELECTION COMMISSIONER Dr SY Quraishi, told TEHELKA that, “PAD is free to do their campaigning; provided they don’t say that BJP is a communal party. That is a specific allegation. But they are free to ask voters to not vote for communal parties.” He also categorically stated that the ECI had conveyed this to the Karnataka SEC during their last visit to Bangalore. But Karnataka’s Joint Chief Election Commissioner BV Kulkarni, says they are “still waiting to hear from the ECI.”
Shabnam Hashmi, member, National Integration Council, who has undertaken similar campaigns in Gujarat, and who also wrote to the ECI on the PAD issue, believes that the organisation should simply get on with the task. “For eight months we carried a strong anti-BJP and anti-Modi campaign. There were cases against us. You can’t keep rushing to officials to get their stamp of approval every time.”
PAD is doing just that. Tired of official dillydallying, they have proceeded with their campaign — albeit in different ways.
Harsh Mander's film review of 'Khuda Kay Liye' and 'good faith' vs 'bad faith'
The God delusion
by Harsh Mander
Hindustan Times, May 12, 2008
There is today a world-wide resurgence of the politics of identity, separateness and divide. This has been spurred by declarations of an ongoing global ‘war on terror’, consummating in bloody military enterprises that have casually decimated vast helpless civilian populations. Religious texts as well as democratic principles have been reinterpreted to justify violent reprisals and to deny democratic rights. Democratic governments have felt it fit to label, place under surveillance and, in many cases, detain, torture and even exterminate people held in suspicion primarily because of their religious faith. But the greatest battle of all has been in the hearts and minds of people, in the everyday discourse of homes, classrooms and work-places, where the people of one faith have been demonised globally for their allegedly violent histories, and their alleged pervasive contemporary sympathies for terrorism.
It is inevitable that this battle would spill over also into the songs we sing, the poetry we recite, and — in particular in this part of the world — in the films we make. This cinema is notoriously unrealistic in its literal depiction of people’s lives. But because of the special emotional resonance of films with people in South Asia, they are often authentic as reflections of popular consciousness. It is, therefore, instructive to observe the evolution of the depiction of Muslim people in Indian cinema. In the relatively idealistic early decades after Independence, Muslim people were an essential element of the ‘formula’ of popular Hindi cinema, homogenised as gentle, friendly, benign neighbours, or people of exceptional culture, grace and poetry. In more recent times, their metamorphosis was precipitous, into shadowy, sinister figures: mafia, criminal, traitor, regressive, people who always initiate riots, are fundamentalist, violent. But many recent films have challenged these troubling, false stereotypes, and several have received enthusiastic audience endorsement.
Important among these is a popular Pakistani film, Khuda Kay Liye. Although flawed as cinema, it is a moral document of unusual humanism. The film attempts a brave, searching exploration of the struggles that people of faith in Islam are embroiled in, as they strive to sift right and wrong in a world which holds them responsible for the reprehensible crimes of a few who claim to defend their faith. It tries to make sense of the teachings of some leaders of their faith, who interpret its texts in ways that deny its syncretic humanist traditions, and who justify the oppression of women and the bloody often random extermination of not just people of different faiths but even liberal and progressive political persuasions. It also tries to understand the compatibility of Islam with Western sensibilities of dress and music.
The film endorses one of the most profound truths of our times: that the central battle is not of Islam with other faiths. The real war is between humanist and liberal interpretations and practices of faiths, and versions that advocate division, patriarchy, hate and violence. This war is by no means restricted to Islam, but people of Muslim faith in every country are forced more than any other to constantly make public choices about which side they stand on in this battle, because much of the world assumes that they are on the side of loathing and shedding of the blood of innocents. They shout their dissent, and sometimes pay for it with their lives, but few hear them, as they find themselves condemned because of the faith to which they are born.
The film has the quality of anguished honesty: as it tracks this turmoil within Islam, it holds up its own truths for scrutiny by the rest of the world. And yet the truths it captures are universal. The film is not a portrayal of contemporary Islam alone; it is a mirror to fundamentalist resurgence in every major faith today. The bids of the Muslim cleric in the film to ‘rescue’ women who wish to marry outside their faith by abducting them and forcing them into weddings with men of their own religion could be the mission of a Babu Bajrangi in Gujarat. The endorsement of retributive violence against ‘other’ peoples echoes Bush’s doctrine of ‘collateral damage’ and his and Blair’s frequent reference to ‘crusades’, or Modi’s resort to Newtonian physics to justify the post-Godhra massacres.
The cleric’s mocking of NGOs in the court scene of Khuda Kay Liye could have been Modi caricaturing ‘five-star’ NGOs or K.P.S. Gill’s indictment of human rights groups. The harrowing portrayal of cruel torture of a Muslim man under police detention after 9/11 in Chicago resonates chillingly with many testimonies of torture and illegal detention of Muslim youth in Gujarat after 2002, or in Hyderabad after the bomb blasts last year. It is not the truth of Islam, of the ‘other’ out there that the film recreates; it is the picture of all of us, if we have the courage and compassion to see and hear it.
My main quarrel with the film is its resolution. In its climax, the services of a ‘good’ cleric are recruited, as he offers his interpretation of Islamic scriptures, not just to justify music and Western dress and culture (which it could be argued was legitimate), but also to affirm that a woman cannot be forced to marry and have sex with her husband against her will. I feel troubled that judges of the court in the film rely on his interpretation of scriptures as clinching evidence, rather than reference to the undisputed facts, to reason and the secular law of the land; to gender equality, tolerance and the respect of adult choice.
The court is dealing with a grave crime, of clerics motivating a young man to abduct, marry and rape his cousin to prevent her from marrying a white Christian man. By subjecting this crime to interrogation by faith rather than law and secular notions of justice, the film in the end compromises its universalistic, liberal and modernist premise. There is an attractive finale of the young protagonist back in his jeans and jaunty cap, defiantly confronting the disapproval of the hardline cleric by delivering the call to prayers in the mosque. But before he does that, I would have felt reassured to see him jailed for abducting and raping his cousin.
There have been some as honestly introspective films about Hindu fundamentalism in India. The best recent example is Parzania, which tracks the heart-breaking search of parents for their child who disappeared in the 2002 carnage in Gujarat. It is as agonisingly scrupulous in its portrayal of Hindutva politics, and ends far more reassuringly, with the resolve of the survivors to fight against all odds for justice in the courts of law. Equally important is Shaurya, which courageously admits to communalism in the armed forces, and to human rights abuses against children in Kashmir. The Muslim officer who defends the civilians against the atrocities by his brother officer in uniform is viewed with suspicion because of his faith. The ‘loyalty’ test that Muslim citizens often find themselves subjected to was also illustrated in one of the most popular films of last year, Chak De! India, in which a Muslim hockey coach is believed to have deliberately thrown a match against Pakistan. In both films, audiences backed the Muslim who was unfairly labelled.
All these films revive hope, that ultimately in the battle of hearts and minds — that rages in the name both of global crusade against terror, and the political mobilisation within India around religious identity — justice, truth and compassion still have a chance.
Harsh Mander is the convenor of Aman Biradari
by Harsh Mander
Hindustan Times, May 12, 2008
There is today a world-wide resurgence of the politics of identity, separateness and divide. This has been spurred by declarations of an ongoing global ‘war on terror’, consummating in bloody military enterprises that have casually decimated vast helpless civilian populations. Religious texts as well as democratic principles have been reinterpreted to justify violent reprisals and to deny democratic rights. Democratic governments have felt it fit to label, place under surveillance and, in many cases, detain, torture and even exterminate people held in suspicion primarily because of their religious faith. But the greatest battle of all has been in the hearts and minds of people, in the everyday discourse of homes, classrooms and work-places, where the people of one faith have been demonised globally for their allegedly violent histories, and their alleged pervasive contemporary sympathies for terrorism.
It is inevitable that this battle would spill over also into the songs we sing, the poetry we recite, and — in particular in this part of the world — in the films we make. This cinema is notoriously unrealistic in its literal depiction of people’s lives. But because of the special emotional resonance of films with people in South Asia, they are often authentic as reflections of popular consciousness. It is, therefore, instructive to observe the evolution of the depiction of Muslim people in Indian cinema. In the relatively idealistic early decades after Independence, Muslim people were an essential element of the ‘formula’ of popular Hindi cinema, homogenised as gentle, friendly, benign neighbours, or people of exceptional culture, grace and poetry. In more recent times, their metamorphosis was precipitous, into shadowy, sinister figures: mafia, criminal, traitor, regressive, people who always initiate riots, are fundamentalist, violent. But many recent films have challenged these troubling, false stereotypes, and several have received enthusiastic audience endorsement.
Important among these is a popular Pakistani film, Khuda Kay Liye. Although flawed as cinema, it is a moral document of unusual humanism. The film attempts a brave, searching exploration of the struggles that people of faith in Islam are embroiled in, as they strive to sift right and wrong in a world which holds them responsible for the reprehensible crimes of a few who claim to defend their faith. It tries to make sense of the teachings of some leaders of their faith, who interpret its texts in ways that deny its syncretic humanist traditions, and who justify the oppression of women and the bloody often random extermination of not just people of different faiths but even liberal and progressive political persuasions. It also tries to understand the compatibility of Islam with Western sensibilities of dress and music.
The film endorses one of the most profound truths of our times: that the central battle is not of Islam with other faiths. The real war is between humanist and liberal interpretations and practices of faiths, and versions that advocate division, patriarchy, hate and violence. This war is by no means restricted to Islam, but people of Muslim faith in every country are forced more than any other to constantly make public choices about which side they stand on in this battle, because much of the world assumes that they are on the side of loathing and shedding of the blood of innocents. They shout their dissent, and sometimes pay for it with their lives, but few hear them, as they find themselves condemned because of the faith to which they are born.
The film has the quality of anguished honesty: as it tracks this turmoil within Islam, it holds up its own truths for scrutiny by the rest of the world. And yet the truths it captures are universal. The film is not a portrayal of contemporary Islam alone; it is a mirror to fundamentalist resurgence in every major faith today. The bids of the Muslim cleric in the film to ‘rescue’ women who wish to marry outside their faith by abducting them and forcing them into weddings with men of their own religion could be the mission of a Babu Bajrangi in Gujarat. The endorsement of retributive violence against ‘other’ peoples echoes Bush’s doctrine of ‘collateral damage’ and his and Blair’s frequent reference to ‘crusades’, or Modi’s resort to Newtonian physics to justify the post-Godhra massacres.
The cleric’s mocking of NGOs in the court scene of Khuda Kay Liye could have been Modi caricaturing ‘five-star’ NGOs or K.P.S. Gill’s indictment of human rights groups. The harrowing portrayal of cruel torture of a Muslim man under police detention after 9/11 in Chicago resonates chillingly with many testimonies of torture and illegal detention of Muslim youth in Gujarat after 2002, or in Hyderabad after the bomb blasts last year. It is not the truth of Islam, of the ‘other’ out there that the film recreates; it is the picture of all of us, if we have the courage and compassion to see and hear it.
My main quarrel with the film is its resolution. In its climax, the services of a ‘good’ cleric are recruited, as he offers his interpretation of Islamic scriptures, not just to justify music and Western dress and culture (which it could be argued was legitimate), but also to affirm that a woman cannot be forced to marry and have sex with her husband against her will. I feel troubled that judges of the court in the film rely on his interpretation of scriptures as clinching evidence, rather than reference to the undisputed facts, to reason and the secular law of the land; to gender equality, tolerance and the respect of adult choice.
The court is dealing with a grave crime, of clerics motivating a young man to abduct, marry and rape his cousin to prevent her from marrying a white Christian man. By subjecting this crime to interrogation by faith rather than law and secular notions of justice, the film in the end compromises its universalistic, liberal and modernist premise. There is an attractive finale of the young protagonist back in his jeans and jaunty cap, defiantly confronting the disapproval of the hardline cleric by delivering the call to prayers in the mosque. But before he does that, I would have felt reassured to see him jailed for abducting and raping his cousin.
There have been some as honestly introspective films about Hindu fundamentalism in India. The best recent example is Parzania, which tracks the heart-breaking search of parents for their child who disappeared in the 2002 carnage in Gujarat. It is as agonisingly scrupulous in its portrayal of Hindutva politics, and ends far more reassuringly, with the resolve of the survivors to fight against all odds for justice in the courts of law. Equally important is Shaurya, which courageously admits to communalism in the armed forces, and to human rights abuses against children in Kashmir. The Muslim officer who defends the civilians against the atrocities by his brother officer in uniform is viewed with suspicion because of his faith. The ‘loyalty’ test that Muslim citizens often find themselves subjected to was also illustrated in one of the most popular films of last year, Chak De! India, in which a Muslim hockey coach is believed to have deliberately thrown a match against Pakistan. In both films, audiences backed the Muslim who was unfairly labelled.
All these films revive hope, that ultimately in the battle of hearts and minds — that rages in the name both of global crusade against terror, and the political mobilisation within India around religious identity — justice, truth and compassion still have a chance.
Harsh Mander is the convenor of Aman Biradari
Perverse Drive for Cultural Purity Will Continue Till We Build A Secular Culture: Any takers ?
Daily News and Analysis
May 09, 2008
India’s cultural divide
by Ranjona Banerji
The Delhi High Court has done both India and art an enormous favour by dropping three obscenity cases against the 91-year-old artist, MF Husain.
As is well-known, India’s most famous artist has spent almost two years in self-imposed exile, ever since he was threatened for his ‘obscene’ portrayal of Hindu goddesses and mythological figures and his works were vandalised by Hindutva fundamentalists.
Yet, at every art venue, Husain’s works have continued to sell for top dollar — he remains India’s most coveted painter both at home and abroad. In his quirky, whimsical manner, he has also given the idea of an artist new impetus. His obsession with a series of Hindi film actresses, his delightful forays into film-making, his keen interest in current affairs, and his own unique way of transferring that interest into his art add to his greatness.
Husain has had his share of controversy within the art world as well and that is inevitable given his long career and body of work. But it is the controversy in the outside world that is truly shameful.
That he should be hounded and attacked by obscure groups looking for cheap publicity and that the idea of offending ‘sentiments’ should stop the law from being implemented is one of independent India’s less salutary episodes in upholding freedom of expression.
Because whatever the ferocity of the religious organisations which have attacked him, the government of India should have stood up to them with courage rather than cowardice.
Instead, we are unable to truly understand the significance of ‘freedom of expression’ — of artistic expression as well as of poetic licence. In all societies, popular culture rules over ‘high’ art. But in most societies, ‘high’ art is revered — it does not have to bow down to popular culture.
Rather, the popular strives to reach higher. We seem to have turned that wisdom on its head. As more of us get ‘voices’, we register our outrage at everything that offends us and even more at what we do not understand.
Some of this anguish has been expressed by Justice Sanjay K Kaul of the Delhi High Court. He said in his judgment, “We have been called the land of the Kama Sutra. Then why is it that in this land we shy away from its very name? Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder and so does obscenity.” He went on to say, “It’s most unfortunate that India’s new Puritanism is being carried out in the name of cultural purity and that ignorant people vandalise art.”
In the second sentence lies the crux of the matter. When art critics or art lovers have objected to Husain — and they have —it has been on the basis of his art and that alone.
When the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti launched the vicious campaign against Husain, it did not consider his work as an artist. It understood neither context not subtext but went straight for obvious pictorial representation. Even by itself, the right of these neo-Puritan saviours of ‘cultural purity’ to be offended would stand. But they went beyond intellectual discourse into physical intimidation, destruction of artworks and vituperative public campaigns. Dissent is essential in a democracy; threat, extortion, blackmail and violence are not.
The judge has gone back to both ancient Indian culture as well as contemporary art traditions and rued that the people who have attacked Husain are not familiar with either. He has pointed — perhaps inadvertently — to a singularly divisive fault line in India today. The cultural divides between an open and cultured elite and a neo-puritanical middle class obsessed with maintaining ‘cultural purity’ are extreme and silly. The recent debate over the cheerleaders in cricket matches exposed both.
The fault lies in a society which makes no effort to create space for both popular and high cultures. If your ideas of Indian mythology, for instance, are based solely on Hindi potboilers or televised mythological serials, then it is hardly surprising that Husain’s interpretations would offend you. If you have never read any of ancient India’s many eye-popping and enlightening texts, but have relied solely on word of mouth, then definitely Husain’s interpretations would offend you. This ignorance is not deliberate but it is a natural corollary of a system where once the elite kept everyone else out and today, technical education is given more prominence than the humanities. Interestingly, it is the techies of Bangalore and the US’s Silicon Valley who are the biggest supporters of India’s religious fundamentalist groups.
By mentioning what is known but rarely publicly stated, the Delhi High Court has pushed intelligence to the forefront over obscurantist rantings. It can only be hoped that now Husain will come home again and India will start a reasoned debate on how to disagree in a civilised manner.
May 09, 2008
India’s cultural divide
by Ranjona Banerji
The Delhi High Court has done both India and art an enormous favour by dropping three obscenity cases against the 91-year-old artist, MF Husain.
As is well-known, India’s most famous artist has spent almost two years in self-imposed exile, ever since he was threatened for his ‘obscene’ portrayal of Hindu goddesses and mythological figures and his works were vandalised by Hindutva fundamentalists.
Yet, at every art venue, Husain’s works have continued to sell for top dollar — he remains India’s most coveted painter both at home and abroad. In his quirky, whimsical manner, he has also given the idea of an artist new impetus. His obsession with a series of Hindi film actresses, his delightful forays into film-making, his keen interest in current affairs, and his own unique way of transferring that interest into his art add to his greatness.
Husain has had his share of controversy within the art world as well and that is inevitable given his long career and body of work. But it is the controversy in the outside world that is truly shameful.
That he should be hounded and attacked by obscure groups looking for cheap publicity and that the idea of offending ‘sentiments’ should stop the law from being implemented is one of independent India’s less salutary episodes in upholding freedom of expression.
Because whatever the ferocity of the religious organisations which have attacked him, the government of India should have stood up to them with courage rather than cowardice.
Instead, we are unable to truly understand the significance of ‘freedom of expression’ — of artistic expression as well as of poetic licence. In all societies, popular culture rules over ‘high’ art. But in most societies, ‘high’ art is revered — it does not have to bow down to popular culture.
Rather, the popular strives to reach higher. We seem to have turned that wisdom on its head. As more of us get ‘voices’, we register our outrage at everything that offends us and even more at what we do not understand.
Some of this anguish has been expressed by Justice Sanjay K Kaul of the Delhi High Court. He said in his judgment, “We have been called the land of the Kama Sutra. Then why is it that in this land we shy away from its very name? Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder and so does obscenity.” He went on to say, “It’s most unfortunate that India’s new Puritanism is being carried out in the name of cultural purity and that ignorant people vandalise art.”
In the second sentence lies the crux of the matter. When art critics or art lovers have objected to Husain — and they have —it has been on the basis of his art and that alone.
When the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti launched the vicious campaign against Husain, it did not consider his work as an artist. It understood neither context not subtext but went straight for obvious pictorial representation. Even by itself, the right of these neo-Puritan saviours of ‘cultural purity’ to be offended would stand. But they went beyond intellectual discourse into physical intimidation, destruction of artworks and vituperative public campaigns. Dissent is essential in a democracy; threat, extortion, blackmail and violence are not.
The judge has gone back to both ancient Indian culture as well as contemporary art traditions and rued that the people who have attacked Husain are not familiar with either. He has pointed — perhaps inadvertently — to a singularly divisive fault line in India today. The cultural divides between an open and cultured elite and a neo-puritanical middle class obsessed with maintaining ‘cultural purity’ are extreme and silly. The recent debate over the cheerleaders in cricket matches exposed both.
The fault lies in a society which makes no effort to create space for both popular and high cultures. If your ideas of Indian mythology, for instance, are based solely on Hindi potboilers or televised mythological serials, then it is hardly surprising that Husain’s interpretations would offend you. If you have never read any of ancient India’s many eye-popping and enlightening texts, but have relied solely on word of mouth, then definitely Husain’s interpretations would offend you. This ignorance is not deliberate but it is a natural corollary of a system where once the elite kept everyone else out and today, technical education is given more prominence than the humanities. Interestingly, it is the techies of Bangalore and the US’s Silicon Valley who are the biggest supporters of India’s religious fundamentalist groups.
By mentioning what is known but rarely publicly stated, the Delhi High Court has pushed intelligence to the forefront over obscurantist rantings. It can only be hoped that now Husain will come home again and India will start a reasoned debate on how to disagree in a civilised manner.
May 12, 2008
Karnataka: Dargah forgotten, locals concerned about land rights, water & coffee
Indian Express, Monday, May 12, 2008
APURVA
Chikamagalur, May 11 : One of the flashpoints during the 2004 Assembly elections involved a 200-year-old dargah located in Chikamagalur district’s Baba Budan Hills. Looking for a foothold in the south, the BJP used the communal tension surrounding it to its advantage in defeating the Congress candidate from the seat. It was a major win, given that the candidate was a Muslim leader and a three-time winner in an area where the Muslims enjoyed a 20 per cent vote share.
This election, nobody is talking of the Baba Budan Dargah Inam Dattatreya Peeta here, including the BJP. It’s local issues which occupy voters’ minds, including rights of tribals in the Kudremukh reserved forests, drinking water and a failing coffee market.
The BJP’s silence, says the Congress, is understandable. “After winning, they have not done anything about the dargah, and that works to our advantage,” says Congress candidate K B Mallikarjuna.
While Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had invited a complaint from the district administration for his provocative speeches on the dargah in 2004, BJP leader Ananth Kumar had promised to make it another Ayodhya. However, on Sunday, while touring Chikamagalur, Kumar — the BJP’s Bangalore MP — made no mention of the shrine.
“Two saints, one a sufi and the other a vedic, settled in the dargah 200 years ago, and since then both Hindus and Muslims visit the shrine. However, the BJP wanted to make it a Hindu shrine and devoted their 2004 campaign to this,” says Vasu H V of the Karnataka Communal Harmony Forum.
In the streets of Chikamagalur, located 270 km from Bangalore, the dargah is a forgotten issue. Locals are more concerned about declining demand hitting the coffee plantations, and the fact that nobody is discussing it.
Chikamagalur district also has a strong Naxal presence, and recently tribal rights in the nearby Kudremukh reserved forests have emerged as a major issue. However, again, all parties remain mum on it.
Sidlingappa T G, a local shopkeeper, says: “All the candidates only talk about the state and country and terrorism and not about drinking water or land rights. Last time they created a spark with the dargah and now they refuse to even acknowledge it.”
It’s not surprising that five days before Chikamagalur votes, in the second phase, the important hub for coffee and education is largely undecided about who to vote for.
APURVA
Chikamagalur, May 11 : One of the flashpoints during the 2004 Assembly elections involved a 200-year-old dargah located in Chikamagalur district’s Baba Budan Hills. Looking for a foothold in the south, the BJP used the communal tension surrounding it to its advantage in defeating the Congress candidate from the seat. It was a major win, given that the candidate was a Muslim leader and a three-time winner in an area where the Muslims enjoyed a 20 per cent vote share.
This election, nobody is talking of the Baba Budan Dargah Inam Dattatreya Peeta here, including the BJP. It’s local issues which occupy voters’ minds, including rights of tribals in the Kudremukh reserved forests, drinking water and a failing coffee market.
The BJP’s silence, says the Congress, is understandable. “After winning, they have not done anything about the dargah, and that works to our advantage,” says Congress candidate K B Mallikarjuna.
While Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had invited a complaint from the district administration for his provocative speeches on the dargah in 2004, BJP leader Ananth Kumar had promised to make it another Ayodhya. However, on Sunday, while touring Chikamagalur, Kumar — the BJP’s Bangalore MP — made no mention of the shrine.
“Two saints, one a sufi and the other a vedic, settled in the dargah 200 years ago, and since then both Hindus and Muslims visit the shrine. However, the BJP wanted to make it a Hindu shrine and devoted their 2004 campaign to this,” says Vasu H V of the Karnataka Communal Harmony Forum.
In the streets of Chikamagalur, located 270 km from Bangalore, the dargah is a forgotten issue. Locals are more concerned about declining demand hitting the coffee plantations, and the fact that nobody is discussing it.
Chikamagalur district also has a strong Naxal presence, and recently tribal rights in the nearby Kudremukh reserved forests have emerged as a major issue. However, again, all parties remain mum on it.
Sidlingappa T G, a local shopkeeper, says: “All the candidates only talk about the state and country and terrorism and not about drinking water or land rights. Last time they created a spark with the dargah and now they refuse to even acknowledge it.”
It’s not surprising that five days before Chikamagalur votes, in the second phase, the important hub for coffee and education is largely undecided about who to vote for.
May 09, 2008
Cases against M.F. Husain, cultural bigotry and moral vigilantism
The Hindu
May 10, 2008
Editorial
An end to Husain’s travails
By quashing the proceedings in three cases against M.F. Husain, the Delhi High Court has sent a strong message against cultural bigotry and moral vigilantism. The order provides a measure of welcome relief for India’s most celebrated painter, who has suffered terribly at the hands of rank communalists and a criminal justice system that failed to factor in the utter ludicrousness of his so-called offence. Mr. Husain has been living in self-imposed exile in Dubai since 2006, thanks to a vicious and orchestrated campaign by right-wing groups, which charged him with offending religious sentiments through paintings that insulted Bharat Mata (Mother India) and Hindu gods and goddesses. The 92-year-old artist was threatened, his Cuffe Parade residence in Mumbai was ransacked, and exhibitions of his paintings were vandalised. As if this weren’t enough, the harassment spilled over into the legal sphere with lower courts taking cognisance of what were clearly frivolous complaints, resulting in a chain of events — a proclamation declaring the painter an ‘absconder’ and an order to attach his Cuffe Parade residence, not to speak of the many non-bailable warrants.
In observing that frivolous and vexatious complaints that affect the freedom of an individual should be scrutinised strictly at the magisterial level, the Delhi High Court was echoing the Supreme Court which, in a series of judgments, has cautioned lower courts from taking cognisance of them reflexively. In its 192nd report, the Law Commission recommended the enactment of a law to prevent the filing of such litigations (civil and criminal); the Commission framed a model Act by drawing upon laws in force in countries such as Britain, Australia, and Canada that deal very firmly with vexatious litigants. Orders such as the one passed by the Delhi High Court are a good precedent and will act as a check on lower courts, which — instead of upholding freedom of expression — have tended to be extremely accommodating of frivolous complaints. A recent case that made international headlines related to Richard Gere; the Supreme Court had to step in to quash the arrest warrant issued against the famous Hollywood actor for pecking Indian actress Shilpa Shetty on the cheek at a public function in New Delhi. Four more cases, which were registered in different parts of the country and transferred to a lower court in Delhi, survive against Mr. Husain. They are in different stages of the legal process but are similar inasmuch as they relate to the same tired and hollow controversy over the obscenity of his paintings. They would hopefully meet the same legal fate — a firm and forthright quashing.
May 10, 2008
Editorial
An end to Husain’s travails
By quashing the proceedings in three cases against M.F. Husain, the Delhi High Court has sent a strong message against cultural bigotry and moral vigilantism. The order provides a measure of welcome relief for India’s most celebrated painter, who has suffered terribly at the hands of rank communalists and a criminal justice system that failed to factor in the utter ludicrousness of his so-called offence. Mr. Husain has been living in self-imposed exile in Dubai since 2006, thanks to a vicious and orchestrated campaign by right-wing groups, which charged him with offending religious sentiments through paintings that insulted Bharat Mata (Mother India) and Hindu gods and goddesses. The 92-year-old artist was threatened, his Cuffe Parade residence in Mumbai was ransacked, and exhibitions of his paintings were vandalised. As if this weren’t enough, the harassment spilled over into the legal sphere with lower courts taking cognisance of what were clearly frivolous complaints, resulting in a chain of events — a proclamation declaring the painter an ‘absconder’ and an order to attach his Cuffe Parade residence, not to speak of the many non-bailable warrants.
In observing that frivolous and vexatious complaints that affect the freedom of an individual should be scrutinised strictly at the magisterial level, the Delhi High Court was echoing the Supreme Court which, in a series of judgments, has cautioned lower courts from taking cognisance of them reflexively. In its 192nd report, the Law Commission recommended the enactment of a law to prevent the filing of such litigations (civil and criminal); the Commission framed a model Act by drawing upon laws in force in countries such as Britain, Australia, and Canada that deal very firmly with vexatious litigants. Orders such as the one passed by the Delhi High Court are a good precedent and will act as a check on lower courts, which — instead of upholding freedom of expression — have tended to be extremely accommodating of frivolous complaints. A recent case that made international headlines related to Richard Gere; the Supreme Court had to step in to quash the arrest warrant issued against the famous Hollywood actor for pecking Indian actress Shilpa Shetty on the cheek at a public function in New Delhi. Four more cases, which were registered in different parts of the country and transferred to a lower court in Delhi, survive against Mr. Husain. They are in different stages of the legal process but are similar inasmuch as they relate to the same tired and hollow controversy over the obscenity of his paintings. They would hopefully meet the same legal fate — a firm and forthright quashing.
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