(Tehelka, July 27, 2011)
When friends begin to speak like foes
by John Dayal
A hate-filled and strange analysis of terrorism by Janata Party chief and lawyer Subramanian Swamy and a well-meaning but myopic policy paper by the redoubtable former ias officer and National Advisory Council member Harsh Mander show how minorities in general, and micro minorities in particular, can face political and developmental disenfranchisement at the hands of foes and friends. Writing a column on terrorism in the Mumbai edition of DNA, Swamy says Hindus cannot accept being killed in a 'halal fashion', continuously bleeding every day till the nation finally collapses. Painting a scary scenario to hold the readers' attention, he says, 'There will be no doubt about Islamic terror after 2012' when he expects a Taliban takeover in Pakistan and the Americans to flee Afghanistan. 'Then, Islam will confront Hinduism to complete unfinished business'. The lawyer, who has so far made the Congress and Sonia Gandhi his main targets, says the Hindu leadership has not united the people against the victimisation of Hindus in Kashmir, Mau, Melvisharam and Malappuram. 'If half the Hindus voted together, rising above caste and language, a genuine Hindu party would have a two-thirds majority in parliament and the assemblies'. The Muslims of India, he says, are being programmed by a 'slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus'. 'Hindus must collectively respond as Hindus against the terrorist and not feel individually isolated. If one Hindu dies merely because he or she was a Hindu, then a bit of every Hindu also dies. This is an essential mental attitude, a necessary part of a virat (vast) committed Hindu', he says. Swamy forgets that in Kashmir, Mumbai and Gujarat, a large number of people killed in terror acts have been Muslims, as also the occasional Sikhs and Christians. For Swamy, what is required is a 'collective mindset as Hindus'. 'If any Muslim acknowledges his or her Hindu legacy, then we Hindus can accept him or her as a part of the Brihad Hindu Samaj (greater Hindu society) which is Hindustan. Hindustan is a nation of Hindus and others whose ancestors were Hindus. Others, who refuse to acknowledge this or those foreigners who become Indian citizens by registration, can remain in India but should not have voting rights (which means they cannot be elected representatives).'
Swamy's arguments take the discourse back to Guru Golwalkar, Savarkar and the other founders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and their theology of a Brihad Bharat in which there would be no place for followers of the so-called non-Indic religions, unless they agreed to a second class, vote-less position. Living in the dream world of a larger India, Swami says 'however small the terrorist incident, the nation must retaliate massively'. Swamy's last sentence gives it away. It is not just Islamic terrorism and fundamentalism he is against. Many a Muslim, and most Indian Muslim organisations, has denounced terrorism and fundamentalism. Swamy is against all non-Hindu minorities. He is against churches and pastors, he confesses, as much as he opposes the constitutional freedom to convert to another religion. All conversions, he stresses, can only be to Hinduism. Those who do not know Swamy's mindset may feel surprised at the outburst of the former commerce minister, because he is married to a Parsi lawyer, and one of his daughters is married to a Muslim. Unlike Swamy, Harsh Mander loves the religious minorities. The ias officer was working for Action Aid on a sabbatical when he resigned from government service denouncing the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. Since then, he has done wonderful work to ensure justice for the victims, rising to be a member of the National Advisory Council headed by United Progressive Alliance chair Sonia Gandhi. In the Council, Mander is in charge of issues concerning religious minorities, especially the Communal and Targeted Violence Prevention Bill, which is now nearing completion, and the Food Guarantee Bill, which has been completed. A major input into the communal violence prevention bill is the recognition that Christians too are victims and therefore the Bill has provisions to help them. It is thus frightening, no less, to read a long report written by Mander on why the government's affirmative action must be openly targeted only at Muslims. Christians would be right in presuming that Mander does not want the grants diluted by being passed on to Christians or Buddhists. As reported in The Times of India of 21 July 2011, Mander's Centre for Equity Studies dubs the Centre's minority welfare schemes and the Prime Minister's 15-point programme as non-starters, blaming the government's timidity in declaring the schemes as Muslim-oriented for fear of an opposition campaign of minority appeasement. 'The diffidence on the Muslim-word led to schemes being dubbed as 'minority' or 'area-based', thereby diluting targeted community approach.'
He asks the government to openly resolve to improve the lot of Muslims by making a dedicated 14 per cent budgetary allocation for the community on the lines of sub-plans for SCs and STs. With the findings raising an alarm, the Council has sought a detailed response from the minority affairs ministry on the study. Mander's report questions the efficacy of schemes launched with fanfare for amelioration of the minorities - in education, self-employment and infrastructure among others. He dismisses the upa's minority outreach as tokenism. The Ministry of Minority Affairs is the target. Mander says it lacks institutional and political authority to ensure compliance of its objectives from other arms of the government. He says the anxiety over charges of appeasement led to a Multi-Sector Development Programme for Muslims morph into one for 'minorities' and ultimately to an 'area-scheme' - aiming to improve infrastructure in 90 districts with over 25% Muslims. Mander's Centre for Equity Studies terms the allocations for minorities as small - 19 per cent of the population got 5 per cent budgetary allocation, with per capita allocation of a mere Rs 797. It recommended that the pm's 15-point programme be turned into an independent minority sub-plan having earmarked funds in each ministry and monitors to check their use. While Swamy's rants are easily dismissed as the delusional outpourings of a demented Hindutva fundamentalist, Mander's report seems to hit at the basis of constitutional guarantees to all religious minorities, and may aggravate and empower the Hindutva forces. Not many know that the formation of the Ministry of Minority affairs by the upa in 2006, two years after it came to power after the rule of the bjp-dominated nda, has been challenged by anti-minority forces. There have been several cases against the ministry, challenging its existence. One argument, facile as it may be, is why do we need for separate ministries, plan and budget components and other affirmative action when the Constitution guarantees every citizen equal rights and equal protection. Why then, it is argued, should we have special provisions for SCs and sts, for instance, or for women in terms of reservations, and why for religious minorities when the nation is secular and holds all religions in equal respect.
This argument flies in the face of the fact that three thousand years of religion-sponsored hierarchy has created situations that have kept Dalits and tribals, even women and several religious groups, outside the pail of development, denying them equity in progress. It, perhaps, is not widely known that the ministry has been made party in Writ Petition no. SCANO No. 2245/2008 of Vijay Harish Chandra Patel in the High Court of Gujarat, Writ Petition (pil) 84 of 2008 of SG Punalekar in the High Court of Bombay and writ petition no. (298/08 and wpc No. 9569 of 207) in the Delhi High Court. A Vijay Harish Chandra Patel has challenged the Prime Minister's 15-point programme and filed a public interest litigation challenging the steps taken by the Union of India and the Planning Commission to utilise national resources in favour of a particular minority community, which according to the petitioner is discriminatory, arbitrary and violative of various constitutional provisions. Chief Justice K S Radhakrishnan ruled that 'funds used to minimise inequalities among minority communities by adopting various social and welfare activities like public safety, health, slum development, improving the deficiencies in civic amenities, economic opportunities, improving standard of education, skills and entrepreneurship development, employment opportunities, eradication of poverty, etc., would in no way violate the constitutional principles of equality or affect any of the fundamental rights guaranteed to the members of other communities'. The All India Christian Council and the All India Catholic Union have been struggling with the union government to set up a Justice Sachar Commission to assess the economic and development infirmity in the Christian community, especially among the tribals and the Dalits, the boatmen, fishermen, landless labour and other deprived communities. This campaign started when the government first set up the Justice Sachar committee after decades of campaigning and advocacy by Muslims groups. The Sachar committee report has greatly strengthened the Muslim cause and has given a tool to ngos and community leadership to strengthen the struggle for their rights in the development pie.
Unfortunately, the government has not paid heed to the Christian demand, partly because the church leadership has not been as vocal in its interaction with the government, remaining satisfied with minor crumbs. If the government were to listen to the Mander report, it would undo whatever little headway has been made towards the empowerment of the poor in the Christian community through the advocacy in the Working Group on Minorities of the Planning Commission, now involved with the Twelfth Five Year Plan document. A minority sub-plan, which Mander suggests, will be feasible only if it covers all minorities and is not confined just to the Muslim community. Our argument in the working committee has been that the major budgetary and plan allocations for minorities have not percolated to the Christian community, whatever be the reason, and whether the fault lies with the government or with the church leadership. Another danger if the government were to accept the Mander recommendations is the threat to secular unity, and giving additional ammunition to people like Swamy. At present, the dialogue between Christians and other minorities is very little. The formal dialogue is limited to casual and occasional contact by the Catholic Bishops Conference of India and its equivalent federations in the protestant churches meeting once or twice a year with sundry Maulanas and Granthis, the rk Mission, the Bahais and the Brahma Kumaris for some lip service to common issues of peace and brotherly love. There has never been serious political dialogue between minorities on issues of development and demands to the union and state governments. The result has been that Christians have had to chalk their own destiny or accept whatever little may come out of, on a pro rata basis, from the government's plans for the Muslims. Christians have therefore felt discriminated and isolated, feeling that Muslims have taken away the development booty. This in a way creates a distance between Muslims and Christians and shatters whatever element of unity could be created.
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