India - Assam: Nagpur based and RSS connected Nikhil Bharat Bangali Udbastu Samannay Samiti (NBBUSS) demands emanding citizenship for Hindu Bangladeshis

The Wire

Bengali Outfit Rejects Assam Accord, Attacks Students’ Union Office

By Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty on 07/03/2017

Law and order concerns were raised and Section 144 imposed after protesters, led by a Bengali group demanding citizenship for Hindu Bangladeshis, vandalised an All Assam Students’ Union office.

New Delhi: In an unprecedented event, an office of the powerful All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) was attacked by a mob, allegedly led by a Bengali organisation demanding citizenship for Hindu Bangladeshis residing in the state and elsewhere.
Kuladhar Saikia, the state’s director general of police (law and order) told The Wire on March 7, “Curfew has been clamped in the area as a preventive measure and nine people have been taken into custody after an FIR was filed by AASU after the attack on March 6”.
According to local news reports, protesters led by the Nikhil Bharat Bangali Udbastu Samannay Samiti (NBBUSS) – spearheading the movement across the country for granting citizenship to Hindu Bengalis by amending the Citizenship Act, 1955 – organised a meeting in Silapathar town of the state’s Dhemaji district on March 6. It was attended by the organisation’s state and national level leaders. NBBUSS is a Nagpur-based outfit. Its president Subodh Biswas, who addressed the meeting, is allegedly associated with the RSS.
Leaders addressing the meeting rejected the Assam Accord and demanded citizenship of all the Hindu Bengalis residing in the state and called for an immediate halt to ‘harassment’ under the garb of ‘foreign nationals’. They supported the Narendra Modi government’s December 2014 move to bring about an amendment to the Citizenship Act to grant Indian citizenship to Hindu Bangladeshis, among others, on religious grounds.
According to reports, the NBBUSS thereafter took out a rally through the town that went out of control. Protesters pelted stones at the local AASU office and vandalised it, which led to the police having to use teargas and resort to a lathi-charge.
The incident could trigger serious law and order issues in the state, as the anti-Bangladeshi sentiment among the ethnic Assamese community has been strong. Lately, many citizens and students groups have been taking to the streets, strongly opposing the Modi government’s decision to amend the Act which, if passed, will violate the Assam Accord. As per the accord, signed in 1985 by AASU and All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad with the state government and the Rajiv Gandhi central government, anyone entering the state after March 25, 1971, would be considered a foreign national and would have to be deported to their country of origin. If the BJP government’s Bill becomes an Act, any Hindu Bangladeshi who has resided in the state for seven years will be eligible for citizenship.
Presently, the process of updating the National Register of Citizens 1951, is being carried out as per the cut-off date mentioned in the Assam Accord. Approximately, 1.5 lakh Hindus refugees from Bangladesh reside in the state.
Reacting to the March 6 incident, AASU advisor Samujjal Bhattacharyya demanded that the state government arrest the culprits behind the attack or else “the consequences will be severe”.
In a note released to the press soon after the incident, Bhattacharyya said, “The foreigners’ problems the state has been saddled with must be solved only on the basis of the Assam Accord. Religion has nothing to do with it. The indigenous people must call the shots in Assam, not Bangladeshis.” He also said, “The present ruling dispensation in the state came to power with a promise to safeguard the interests of indigenous people. After today’s incident, we will closely watch what steps the government takes in the coming days.”
AASU president Dipanka Nath said, “Due to indulgence from the BJP government, such groups are getting the opportunity to flex their muscles. The central government’s plan to give to citizenship to Bengali Hindus has emboldened them to react in a violent way. We oppose the Citizenship Bill tooth and nail and those (Hindus or Muslims) who came to the state after March 25, 1971, should go back to their countries of origin.”
The incident has also been condemned by the pro-talks faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). One of its senior leaders, Mrinal Hazarika, urged “all ULFA and ex-ULFA members” to join AASU in its fight against the incident. He also asked on social media, “Who is giving so much power and support to those forces opposed to Assam and the Assamese people?” and wondered whether the ethnic Assamese come out in protest after the incident.
DGP Saikia ruled out further violence in the area, stating, “Section 144 is in place as a preventive measure. We rushed security forces to the area soon after the incident, so the violence couldn’t spread. We have also issued an alert to the police forces in all the districts.”
NBBUSS, which calls itself “the voice of 3.5 crore Bengali refugees living in 18 states” of the country, organised the meeting in Silapathar with four issues on the agenda – Bengali Hindus as victims of India’s partition, removal of all Bengali Hindus from the D-voter list without any condition, unconditional release of all Bengali Hindus from the state’s detention camps and a halt to atrocities on Hindu Bengalis in the name of foreigners.
Attempts by The Wire to contact Hiranmay Sarkar from NBBUSS’s Dhemaji chapter and Prasen Raptan from the national chapter have failed to get a response so far.
The issue was raised in the state assembly today. State finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters that the state government has formed a committee headed by the additional home secretary to look into the matter and asked it to submit its report within a month.
As per local news reports, an all-party fact finding team has left for Silapathar on March 7.

The politics of converting Hindus to Hindutva (Suhas Palshikar)

By converting Hindus to Hindutva

While negotiations between the Shiv Sena and BJP are still in final phases, BJP has decided to find out the preparedness of its alliance partners from its own MPs. Various political and cultural signals in the past few weeks alert us to the rejuvenation of the “Hindutva agenda”.
Written by Suhas Palshikar | (Indian Express, September 18, 2014)

Waves recede rather quickly and often leave behind some ravages, but life then comes back to normal. Are we witnessing this maxim playing out in the results from a series of bypolls? But the “mandate” from May, as understood by some BJP supporters, has unleashed non-electoral processes that may have long-term implications.

Various political and cultural signals in the past few weeks alert us to the rejuvenation of the “Hindutva agenda”. During the campaign for the 2014 election, Narendra Modi reinvented himself as the icon of development. That encouraged many supporters of economic reform and efficient government to prop up the BJP, or at least welcome its victory. But sooner rather than later, the BJP needs to explain what relationship exists between the party of today and the longstanding aspirations of the Hindutva platform.
Tweets
Bypoll results notwithstanding, this phase of the politics of culture will likely be more one-sided.

Both the BJP and its predecessor, the Jana Sangh, never hid their deep dissatisfaction with the shaping of India’s national identity. They believed in the necessity of forming a political community based on a monistic religio-cultural identity. For them, this required sustained initiatives to reshape India’s cultural space. That effort continues today. As the BJP settles down in office, at least four unrelated developments require scrutiny to understand the contemporary interface between competitive politics and the politics of cultural and normative spaces.

First, there is a controversy over the alleged hate speech by Yogi Adityanath aimed at communal mobilisation. Such attempts are not new.

Electoral competition sometimes incentivises communal mobilisation (whenever and wherever it pays). Communal mobilisation becomes a useful strategy in two circumstances. One, it helps when a party is shorn of a sufficient base among the “majority” community and seeks to make a dent by creating a community-based consciousness among voters. The BJP did this in the 1989 and 1991 elections, just as the Shiv Sena did in Maharashtra in 1995. Two, this strategy is adopted selectively in constituencies or regions with mixed electorates to counter the localised division of majority-community votes. Adityanath’s current politics of polarisation fits into the second category. It seeks to create a self-conscious Hindu constituency, at least locally. As the results from Uttar Pradesh indicate, such a strategy can be rebuffed through local configurations.

But beyond electoral mobilisation, a parallel effort is made to mix national and religio-cultural identities. This puts the non-Hindu minority on the defensive and prompts it to uphold the “Hindu ethos” in more ways than one. The reported claim by Najma Heptullah that Muslims are not a minority is symptomatic of this inner compulsion to pass the nationalist test. Similarly, the claims by some politicians from Goa that Goa’s Christians are Hindu represents the mixing up of nationalism, secular cultural patterns and faith-based identity. This was echoed by the RSS chief when he recently claimed that all Indians are (or should be) Hindus.

Such Hinduisation faces an impediment in that, in most situations, the Hindu is unselfconscious of her religious affiliation as a critical factor in her collective identity. The shaping of that self-consciousness can take place through aggressive campaigns like the one over “love jihad”. Such language not only creates the spectre of conversions, it exhorts Hindus to consciously avoid intermixing with non-Hindus and segregate the cultural space of “Hindu” festivities by excluding non-Hindus. Such efforts not only exclude the non-Hindu, they seek to create an awareness of Hinduness among the disparate followers of Hindu religious beliefs by converting festivities into public expressions of religiosity and religious identity.

While pointing fingers at the external “other” is one way of fostering Hinduness, another is to transform the Hindu religion into an organised religion. Internal cohesion and gatekeeping are required for such a transformation, and the practice of convening the Hindu Dharma Sansad is representative of that attempt. Recently, the Dharma Sansad announced that Sai Baba (of Shirdi) should not be worshipped as a deity. Without getting into the complex social history surrounding Sai Baba and the enormous commercial activity that now constitutes the Sai Baba Sansthan, this move can easily be seen as an attempt to streamline the spiritual and practice-related boundaries of what constitutes the Hindu faith.

In the context of such developments — and these are only some instances — how does one look at the BJP? It could, of course, be argued that Adityanath is only the fringe of the BJP; that the RSS is charting its own course independent of the BJP, which is not involving itself in these activities. Having won the Lok Sabha elections handsomely, the BJP may have settled for a division of labour. The government will not get involved in controversial issues of identity but the party and its not-so-distant cousins will initiate cultural offensives.

However, this draws our attention to a complex process. The (second) coming of the BJP must be seen as a dual affair: on the one hand, now that the BJP has come to power, it will try and shift the middle ground of political and socio-cultural norms and discourse. On the other hand, the return of the BJP itself represents a slow but sure shift in that middle ground during the past two decades. After all, elections are shaped by pre-existing normative frames as much as they change normative bases of politics.

Provocatively, this can be described as the politics of converting Hindus to Hindutva. The BJP has won the politics of the ballot. Now the more serious and long-term politics commences. It is not just the politics of labels and identities, it is the politics of culture and norms. The first time such politics began in earnest during the 1980s and 1990s, a reasonable sprinkling of political forces fought it (albeit only electorally). Now, arguments about “love jihad” are an invitation to join a renewed phase of politics over norms and what constitutes the middle ground of India’s democratic politics.

Bypoll results notwithstanding, this phase of the politics of culture will likely be more one-sided because there are barely any political forces left to accept the invitation — or the challenge.

The writer teaches political science at Savitribai Phule Pune University
- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/by-converting-hindus-to-hindutva/

Bengali Hindus in Muslim-majority Bangladesh | Garga Chatterjee

The Hindu, January 16, 2014

Bengali Hindus in Muslim-majority Bangladesh

by Garga Chatterjee

AP The Jamaat-e-Islami, many of whose leaders are charged with war crimes and threatening the life and property of Bengali Hindus, has used its propaganda apparatus to portray itself as a victim of witch-hunting.

The ‘Partition’ was swift and vicious in the Punjabs and Sindh where religious minorities have ceased to exist for all practical purposes. This is not so in the Bengals, where many still live on their ancestral land

Few moments in the past century have evoked as much hope in its stakeholders as the emergence of the secular nation-state of Bangladesh in the eastern part of the subcontinent. That nation is in serious turmoil. In the last two years, the Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party–Jamaat-e-Islami combine has been partially successful in using its massive economic clout and propaganda apparatus to portray itself as a victim of state-sponsored witch-hunting.

The ‘witch-hunting’ boils down to two things that can finish off the Jamaat as a viable political force. The first is the de-registration of the Jamaat as an electoral force as per a Supreme court order that bars any party that “puts God before the democratic process”. The second is the war crimes trial of those who committed crimes against humanity during 1971. Much of the present Jamaat leadership was heavily involved in murder, rape, arson and forced conversions. In a subcontinent where politics thrives on the erasure of public memory, this episode has stubbornly refused to disappear. A dilly-dallying Awami League government was almost forced by the youth movement in Shahbag to pursue the war crimes trial seriously. Facing the prospect of political annihilation, the Jamaat responded by a three-pronged offensive. It marshalled its cadres and young Madrassa students and use them for blockading Dhaka. It lent its activists to a BNP in disarray to act as boots on the ground. It carried out targeted attacks on the homes, businesses and places of worship of Hindus, the nation’s largest religious minority.

In 2001, after the BNP-led alliance won the elections, the usual pattern of murder, rape and arson targeting Hindus happened on a very large scale. Hindus have traditionally voted for the Awami League. The guarantee for ‘jaan and maal’ (life and property) is important for the survival of any people. In the Awami League regime, although property and homestead have been regularly taken away by the powerful persons of the party, systematic attacks on minorities are not part of the party’s policy. The same cannot be said of the BNP-Jamaat partnership, which regularly threatened both jaan and maal. It is not hard to see why Hindus chose the devil over the deep sea. This time, Hindus seemed to be out of favour from both sides. While they were targeted by the BNP-Jamaat for coming out to vote at all, in other areas they were targeted by Awami League rebels for coming out to vote for the official Awami League candidate who happened to be of the Hindu faith. There have been disturbing signs over the past few years that at the local level, the difference between the ‘secular’ Awami League and the communal-fundamentalist BNP-Jamaat is beginning to disappear, though publicly the former does not tire in parroting the staunchly secular ideals of 1971.

A throwback to 1971

The violence unleashed against the Hindus this time, before and after the January 5 polls, have been worst in Jessore, Dinajpur and Satkhira, though many other places like Thakurgaon, Rangpur, Bogra, Lalmonirhat, Gaibandha, Rajshahi and Chittagong have been affected. Malopara in Abhaynagar, Jessore, inhabited by Bengali Dalit castes, has been attacked repeatedly. Large-scale attacks on villages, businesses and places of worship, able-bodied men being on night vigils, women huddling together in one place — all these things brought back memories of 1971 for many of the inhabitants.

In Hazrail Rishipara of Jessore, women were raped at gunpoint for the crime that their families had voted in the election. Dinajpur has been badly hit with cases of beatings, arson on homes, shops, haystacks and crops. Both Jessore and Dinajpur being areas bordering West Bengal, crossing the border in self-preservation is a sad trek that many have undergone. It creates an environment that forces the remaining Hindus to ask the question ‘Why am I still here?’ ‘Partition’ continues.

The ‘Partition’ was swift and vicious in the Punjabs and Sindh where religious minorities have ceased to exist for all practical purposes. This is not so in the Bengals, where many still live on the ancestral land claimed by nations whose legitimacies are much more recent than people’s ancestral claims over their homestead. More than 25 per cent of Bengal’s western half’s population is Mohammeddan (the figure was 19.46 per cent in 1951, after the 1947 Partition). In the eastern half, 8.5 per cent of the population is Hindu (it was 22 per cent in 1951). In Bengal, secularism has political currency. It was one of the foundational principles of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

How did things come to be this way? The autocratic years of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s BAKSAL, the long years of army rule when the barracks used Islam to create a veneer of political legitimacy beyond the Awami League and pro-liberation forces, the overtures by mainstream parties to fundamentalist groupings — all these have given religion-based politics a front-row seat in the nation. Religiopolitical organisations have not been immune to the violent turn of this brand of politics internationally in the last two decades. Pro-Pakistan forces, which looked to faith-unity as the basis of statehood, did not disappear after the Liberation War. They were broadly and transiently (as it increasingly seems) de-legitimised due to their role in the atrocities of 1971.

But what about the project — that religion marks a nation? What about the splinters of such an idea stuck deep in political and societal structures? That trend has persisted, even expanded. In the imagination of all the ruling factions since 1947 during East Bengal, East Pakistan and Bangladesh periods, there has been a tacit understanding of the normative citizen — a Mohameddan Bengali male or a Bengali Mohameddan male. Hindus there are a living reminder of an identity that is not fully coterminous with ideas that conflate Bengaliness (or ‘Bangladeshiness’) with that normative citizen. Their progressive numerical marginality makes this conflation project easier. Such projects often live in the underside of mindscapes that can be ‘secular’ in very many declarations. Thus, they can be marginalised without being actively targeted, in ‘innocuous’ everyday dealings.

The majority can decide to be whatever it wants and the minority has to follow suit in a modern nation-state. So, Bengali Hindus were expected to become ‘Pakistanis’ overnight in 1947 just as others elsewhere were expected to suddenly become ‘Indians’. While Bengali Muslim politicians have the autonomous agency to de-Pakistanise themselves at will, East Bengali Hindus could only publicly do so upon an explicit cue from their Bengali Muslim brethren. Just like other minorities, “extra-territorial loyalty” is the slur that is bandied about. And this is also what makes minorities cautious, anxious and lesser citizens in a polity where they cannot critique their state in all the ways a majority community person can.

Still one cannot but hope that the People’s Republic of Bangladesh would live up to some of its original ideals. Minorities have fled the nation-state for want of security in large numbers, year after year. There is significant presence of minorities in the bureaucracy and local administration. Even during the recent spate of violence, the state has transferred police officials for failing to provide security. This reality exists too. It is this reality that partly prevents a mass exodus of Hindus beyond the levels seen at present. For many, they have too much to lose to be able to leave. And that is a problem for a religious majoritarian nation-state.

(The writer is a researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

“The Media Magnifies Ruptures Of Everyday Pluralism” - Diana L. Eck interview

Outlook Magazine, Jan 13, 2014

Interview
“The Media Magnifies Ruptures Of Everyday Pluralism”
Harvard's professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies on various asp­ects of her latest book
Pranay Sharma

A professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at Harvard Uni­versity, Diana L. Eck is an eminent name in her field. She has been a frequent visitor to India since the 1960s and is the author of the much-acc­laimed Banaras, City of Light. Her new book, India: A Sacred Geography, has also received critical acclaim. In this interview with Pranay Sharma, she responds to various asp­ects of her latest book, the importance of pilgrimage in India and what Hindu religious symbols mean for this multi-cultural and pluralistic country. Excerpts:

Is Hindu mythology the most effective way of defining the geography of India?

India is too complex to be “defined” in any one way. Centuries of history and its multi-religious reality mean that there are many ways of seeing what “India” means, depending upon one’s point of view.

What is so sacred about India’s geography that distinguishes it from other countries?

For many centuries, Hindus have seen the lore of the gods and heroes in the landscape itself. Every myth and narrative “takes place” in the land that we know. So there is a sense of living geography—rivers that descend from heaven, like the Ganga and Godavari, power-points where Shiva’s jyotirlinga appeared, and places where Devi slew the bull-demon Mahi­sha. I grew up in the Rocky Mountain landscape of the US, but if one went to the headwaters of America’s rivers, one would not find a shrine or temple. India is unique in taking these places not only as worth visiting, but as holy.

What role does Hindu mythology play in strengthening India’s open-ended, secular fabric?

The multitude of stories and gods gesture toward a way of seeing that cannot be defined by any one perspective. That is a good thing for “secular” India, in the sense that there is not one national religion or perspective. As scholar Triloki­nath Madan has often said, India’s secularism really is its pluralism.

If its geography is largely defined by Hindu mythology, what role do the mythologies of other groups in a country like India play?

Different groups have different imagined geographies that matter to them. The dargahs or tombs of Muslim saints and martyrs compose their own sacred geography, as pilgrims from many different religious backgrounds seek out these places. For Catholics, the shrine of Velankanni has a vast catchment area of pilgrims of all faiths.

Do you believe that the everyday pluralism of India is increasingly becoming fragile?

I don’t know. I think that the ruptures of everyday pluralism are magnified by the media. The everyday pluralism of neighbours, Hindu and Muslim, secular and religious, is not a great news story, so we don’t know as much about it. The Pluralism Project I began at Harvard investigates this everyday pluralism in the US—the interfaith networks and initiatives that are increasingly important. Per­haps a Pluralism Project India would attract young student researchers who could answer your question.

How is Hinduism different from Hindutva?

This is a question of definition. Whose Hindutva? Hindutva as defi­ned by the Sangh parivar? Hinduism is a word to describe the whole complex of Hindu faith and civilisation. It’s not a “Hindu” word really but is a word ascribed by outsiders to describe the “ism” of Hindu India. The word “Hinduism” is a vast umbrella that is raised over countless ways of being religious as a Hindu person. Hindutva, on the other hand, as defined by Savarkar in his eponymous treatise, meant the acc­eptance of India as fatherland and holy land. This is too restrictive and was Savarkar’s idiosyncratic Hindu nati­onalist view. Some of this has been adop­ted by the Sangh parivar. This is not helpful for the spirit of contemporary India. Hinduism and Hindutva are not interchangeable words. This is especially the case for those who want to define Hin­dutva in a way that is supposed to be “inclusive” of all faiths in India, as long as they’re grounded in and loyal to the land and nation. There are, of course, many ways of being an Indian citizen. Hindutva doesn’t include all these ways.

India: In Bihar the encroachment of Muslim graveyards by Hindus, reflects growing tensions between the two communities

livemint.com

In Bihar, graveyard politics plays up
To prevent desecration of Muslim graveyards, JD(U) has expedited the fencing of these graveyards by spending some Rs.400 crore
Utpal Bhaskar

First Published: Mon, Aug 26 2013. 10 44 PM IST
A graveyard in suburbs of Patna in a thickly populated Muslim area. Photo: Ramesh Pathania/Mint

Nawada/Nalanda/Patna
: In Bihar, the living are fighting over the dead, with the encroachment of Muslim graveyards by Hindus, reflecting growing tensions between the two communities in the state even as simmering tensions threaten to boil over in Ayodhya in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh over building a Ram temple at a disputed site where a mosque once stood.
In an attempt to prevent the desecration of Muslim graveyards, the Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United), or JD(U), government has expedited the fencing of these graveyards by spending some Rs.400 crore.
“Graveyards have always been an issue. It is a huge issue and is becoming a flashpoint across the state,” said a state government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “In the absence of fences, it is very difficult to demarcate what is sarkaari (government) land and what is private land.”
The government plans to put fences around more graveyards to diffuse communal tensions.
“Even in the case of riots in Nawada, mazaars were destroyed,” the official said. Mazaar is a Urdu word for the grave of a holy man.
The Nawada riots saw pitched battles between security forces and rioters on 11 August in Nawada, some 100km from state capital Patna.
“Mazaars have been broken. Even Karbala has been destroyed. Communal problems are due to this graveyard issue,” said a second state government official, who also didn’t want to be identified.
Religious processions are held to commemorate the death of Imam Hasan. It is at the Karbala that Tazia or flags carried by the procession are buried.
The JD(U)-ruled administration has been at pains to describe the riots, in which at least two people died, as part of “a well thought out conspiracy”, and alleged that its erstwhile ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had a hand in instigating the violence. Its former ally, in turn, has termed the event a result of the government’s “dwindling control on civil administration”. In the 243-seat state assembly, the JD(U) has 115 members and the BJP, 91.
The 17-year-old alliance between JD(U) and BJP soured after Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was named BJP’s chief election campaigner and the possibility arose of him being named as a prime ministerial candidate at the national elections due by May 2014.
Socially disadvantaged Muslims form a key vote bloc for the Nitish Kumar-led JD(U). Modi is accused by human rights activists of not doing enough during the large-scale killing of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. Modi denies any wrongdoing.
Amir Subhani, principal secretary in Bihar’s home department, tried to play down the issue and said, “It (Nawada riots) was a very small matter. It was a fight at a dhaba that escalated.”
The riots in Nawada started after a scrap on 10 August at a roadside eatery called Baba ka Dhaba owned by a Hindu. The violence led to Muslim shops being gutted in the Vijay Bazaar area and allegations of kanwarias (Shiva devotees) being assaulted on National Highway 31.
In response to a question about whether the riots were a conspiracy as described by the district administration, Subhani said, “We are looking into every aspect of the matter.”
He declined to comment on incidents of communal violence increasing after the split in the state’s ruling alliance in June. “Political commentary is not my job,” Subhani said. “You are free to draw your inferences.”
An analyst said encroachments on graveyards were a problem, although he implied that the issue had more to do with economics than anything else, not altogether surprising in a country where land remains the primary source of wealth for most people.
“Graveyards have become a point of friction. All the common land, whether it is graveyards for Hindus or Muslims, have seen encroachment by powerful people. However, if the Hindus react, it seems that they have a right to react, while in the case of Muslims, it is termed communal,” said D.M. Diwakar, director of Patna-based A.N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies.
Of a total of 8,064 graveyards that have been identified for fencing, 4,500 have already been fenced with the work going on at 1,800 graveyards. More graveyards are likely to be identified depending upon their sensitivity. According to the 2001 Census, around 16.5% of Bihar’s population is made up of Muslims, compared with the national average of 13.4%.
“There were some issues earlier with encroachment, to which the government has helped with fencing,” said Jhunnu (who only uses one name), a grave digger at Shahgunj graveyard in Patna.
There is a new political narrative in Bihar, where, unlike the last elections where development was central to the poll agenda, in the next Lok Sabha elections, the electorate will be polarized along religion and caste lines, Mint reported on 16 August.
According to Bihar’s home department data, the state witnessed 9,768 incidents of riots in 2011. The number of incidents went up to 10,871 in 2012 and this year has seen 5,760 in the six months to June, of which 1,241 incidents happened in June alone.
Communal tensions have been simmering in other sensitive districts such as Araria, Kishanganj, Bettiah, Khagaria, Nawada, Jamui, Nalanda and Gaya.
“If fencing is done then the boundary is fixed. It works well,” Diwakar said. “But there have been cases where the fences have come down and the graveyard has become a thoroughfare.”
The Bihar government claims that the fencing of graveyards has helped improve the situation.
“Disputes have come down due to fencing of graveyards,” said Subhani. “Some very old and chronic disputes have also been solved in the process.”
While the elections for the 40 Lok Sabha seats in the state are due in 2014, the state elections are due in 2015.
“Law and order has improved. The government has established rule of law. Police infrastructure has been strengthened and the force strength has been increased and trail and convictions by the courts have been ensured,” said Subhani.
Bihar has a police force of 70,000. As part of a force-strengthening programme, 20,000 constables have been appointed, with 43,000 new recruitment of policemen to take place in the next five years. The state saw 11,962 and 10,346 convictions in 2011 and 2012, respectively. Till June, 4,838 were convicted by the courts.

India: Judicial opinions on Hindu religion and Hindutva

(Northern Voices Online | March 18, 2013)

By Irfan Engineer

Definition of Hinduism has confounded the Indian judiciary. Hindu nationalists and Hindu religious institutions benefit from this confusion. The pendulum of judicial opinions swing from defining Hinduism as a religion, albeit one that embraces a multiplicity of gods, texts and religious rites in Commr. Of Wealth Tax, Madras Vs. Late R. Sridharan, to “Hindutva is the way of life”, as in Manohar Joshi’s judgment, and “Hinduism is neither a religion, nor Hindus constitute a religious community”, as in the recent judgment by the Income-Tax Appellate Tribunal in Nagpur. The former interpretation suits religious establishments and temples while the latter suits Hindu nationalists as they conveniently seek to impose Hindu religion as national culture.

The IT Appellate Tribunal, persuaded by the Appellant Shiv Mandir Devasthan Panch, described Shiva, Hanuman and Goddess Durga as super powers of the Universe, not representing any religion. The Appellant wanted to claim exemption under section 80G (5)(vi) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 on the ground that expenses for maintenance of the temple and worship of Shiva was not religious activity and open to members of all the communities and therefore charitable in nature.

Jurisprudence on Hindu idols:

Contrary to the view that Shiva was a super power and not god, earlier Judicial opinions have held idols as Gods and gave human persona and attributes. In Deoki Nandan v. Murlidhar, Supreme Court held that under the Hindu law, an idol is a juristic person capable of holding property and the properties endowed for the institution vest in it. In the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi temple case, the Allahabad High Court held idols to be a minor in perpetuity with property vested in it, hence law of limitation does not apply. Deities can even seek partition of the undivided property under Hindu law by filing a suit in Court. Gift to the Deity reflects fiduciary capacity or position in shebaits (Sri Sri Sridhar Jew v. Manindra K. Mitter).

Swaminarayan Sampraday argued before Supreme Court (Shahstri Yagnapurushdasji v. Muldas Bhunadardas Vaishya) that they were distinct and separate from Hindus, in order to claim that the Bombay Hindu Places of Public Worship Act, allowing Dalits entry into the temples, did not apply to it. The Supreme Court although accepting the diversity in religious practices in Hinduism and that Hinduism was way of life, held that “beneath the diversity in all these aspects lie certain basic concepts – acceptance of Vedas as the highest authority and philosophical matters, the great ‘Rita’ of the universe and belief in rebirth and pre-existence”.

Way of life:

Hindu Nationalists have claimed Hinduism to be a religion or culture and way of life according to convenience and context. When surya namaskar, yoga and teaching Gita in schools was made compulsory for all school students in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP led State Government claimed that Gita was not a religious text as Article 28 of the Constitution of India prohibits teaching of religious texts in Schools receiving grant-in-aid from state. However, when state prosecutors initiated action against Russian edition of Bhagvad Gita in Tomsk in June 2011 to ban it on charges of religious extremism, BJP delegation sent a copy of Gita to the President of Russia along with a letter claiming that Gita promotes spiritualism. Minister of External Affairs S M Krishna in his statement to the Parliament on the subject described Gita as a “religious text”. MP Government even sponsors the senior citizens to perform pilgrimages to various religious places – only the pilgrimage centres are centres for Hindu pilgrimage. MP Govt. has belatedly included Ajmer in the itinerary after protests by secularists.

In the Manohar Joshi case’s judgment, the Supreme Court conflated Hinduism with Hindutva and opined that Hindutva was also way of life, contrary to the fact that Hindutva was political ideology constituting and defining Hindu community as a race by Savarkar and Golwalkar. Communal boundaries were defined to exclude Muslims and Christian from the nation and race and constitute them as enemies of Hindu Rashtra. Savarkar distinguished between Hinduism and Hindutva. While conflating Hinduism with Hindutva, the Court gave no reasons whatsoever, let alone cogent reasons. Savarkar’s Hindutva was to position Hindu race rather than Hindu religion as superior. According to Savarkar, ‘Hindus are not merely the citizens of the Indian state because they are united not only by the bonds of love they bear to a common motherland but also by the bonds of blood of the mighty race incorporated with and descended from the Vedic forefathers’. But Savarkar did not stop at this concept of a common fatherland and a common racial bond. Rather, for him, a Hindu was also one who inherits Indian civilization ‘as represented in common history, common heroes, a common literature, a common art, a common law and common jurisprudence, common fairs and festivals, rites and rituals, ceremonies and sacraments’. Hindus are thus defined in terms of their common cultural heritage. A Hindu, according to Savarkar is a ‘person who regards the land of Bharatvarsha from Indus to the Seas as his fatherland (pitrubhumi) as well as his holyland (punniyabhumi) – that is the cradle of his religion. It is through this elision of fatherland and holyland that Savarkar constructs the political category of Hindu in opposition to non-Hindus, particularly to Muslims and Christians. Despite the fact that Muslims and Christians ‘have inherited along with Hindus a common fatherland and a greater part of the wealth of common culture – language, law, custom, folklore and history, (they) are not and cannot be recognized as Hindus.

The Income Tax Appellate Tribunal’s order in a way is a double edged sword and cuts at the root of Hindutva ideology. Hindutva claims Hindus to be not only a community, but also a political community, taking advantage of the diversity of belief of Hindus. Hindutva aims to emulate the religions that it is opposed to in many respects. Hindutva aims to homogenizing the beliefs of Hindus and militarize Hindu religious community. The political structure of such a community would be a benevolent authority to which all the members should submit and those who resist would be dealt with by necessary force and subject to punishments. The Tribunal’s order runs contrary to such a vision of Hindutva by opining that Hindus did not even constitute a religious community.

Discrimination:

The underpinning of all the varied judicial opinion is that they see varied cultural and traditional practices of Hindu religion and not its doctrines. Whereas when Islam or Christianity comes up for judicial scrutiny, they rely on doctrines and texts, not how it is actually lived by the communities professing the religion. Hence Hinduism appears to be diverse but Islam and Christianity appears to be doctrinaire and dogmatic. There are varied interpretations of Islam and Christianity and lived religion is as diverse as Hinduism. Thus Muslims in Lakshadweep and Christians in Meghalaya are matrilineal societies. There is lot of shared cultural and religious practices between Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. While Shiva, Hanuman and Durga are super powers of universe, even Allah is described in Quran as Rabbul Alamin, God of entire universe and not Rabbul Muslimeen – God of Muslims. One of the many names of Allah in Qur’an is “Jabbar”, as God is powerful, therefore, Allah is also a super power of the Universe. In Christianity, God is the eternal being that created and sustains the universe. Church and Mosques are more inclusive spaces than temples as opined by the Tribunal. While Dalits do not have entry in most temples, everyone is welcome in Sufi shrines, mosques and churches. However, Islam and Christianity will always be held as religion and Muslims and Christians to be one overarching community.

New meanings of religion in nineteenth century:

In the nineteenth century India, religion assumed new meaning. The term “Hindu” was used more as a geographical term to describe people inhabiting the geographical territory on the south-eastern side of River Sindhu which was mispronounced as Hindus. Hindus were people following diverse traditions and religious practices which had absorbed from various influences in different historical phases. However, this diversity was also punctuated with exclusion and caste based hierarchy. Diversity was perforce to maintain graded inequalities, forced traditional occupations and exclusion of vast sections from privileges. Rules of purity and pollution were invented to justify the exclusion. Excluded communities were left to their own religious traditions and rituals so long as they respected the boundaries of exclusion and followed their traditional occupations. While the privileged upper-castes guarded the purity of their traditions to justify their privileges, the excluded lower-castes were liberal in absorbing from various influences and traditions, including Islam and Christianity, as they had little stake in the hierarchical caste structure. On one hand this gave rise to religious diversity and on the other hand syncretic traditions emerged wherein community practices included traditions of more than one religion. It was difficult to clearly demarcate religious boundaries of the followers.

Colonial rulers needed to, and believed in enumerating their subjects and naming their religions. It is the process of enumeration that necessitated rigid religious boundaries to be constructed. Religious identities were arbitrated by the colonial state. As numbers could mean power, the native upper caste elite triggered Shuddhi movement to Sanskritize and Tablighi movement to Islamize the fuzzy communities, and deepen and strengthen religious boundaries.

It is this reality and history that judicial opinions have ignored which has resulted in discrimination of and othering of minorities in spite of many landmark judgments protecting their rights. The judicial opinions are taken advantage of by the Hindutva forces as their stand gets legitimized. Hope this trend is arrested for survival of democracy in India.

What I want is neither a Ram Rajya or a Buddha Rajya, but in fact a Lok Rajya

Deccan Chronicle, 25 January 2013

Of religions, castes and men: Kancha Ilaiahm Ajay Navaria, Nirupama Dutt debate at Jaipur Literature Festival

PTI

Jaipur: Coming down heavily on the caste structure in Hindu religion, author Kancha Ilaiah today advocated adopting the Buddha’s ideology as a way to achieve secularism in the country, generating a lively debate among the fellow panelists at the Jaipur Literature Festival here.

Religious conversion, caste structure within religions and position of dalits after conversion were the main talking points of the session titled “God as a Political Philospoher: Dalit Perspectives on Buddhism,” where Ilaiah engaged with author Ajay Navaria and poet Nirupama Dutt.

“A dalit who converts to Christianity can become a pastor or be an equal in the mosque or can touch the Guru Granth Sahib. But he can do none of this in Hinduism. He cannot become anything,” Ilaiah said.

“No dalit can become a priest in a Hindu temple,” said the author of “Why I am not a Hindu” who also pointed out that Buddhism has always advocated the ideas of equality, abolition of caste structure, notion of justice and women’s rights.

However, fellow author and panelist Ajay Navaria, whose collection of stories “Unclaimed Terrain” translated into English has recently been published, disagreed over the issue of the benefits accruing to dalits from conversion and the adoption of Buddhism as the main religion.

“Conversion does not solve any problem. In fact, there is a category in administration of a ‘New Buddhist’ where a person’s original caste is mentioned in brackets even after adopting another religion,” he argued, questioning then the purpose of going through conversion.

“I am not here to advocate Hinduism. But the dalits can go into any religion but their identity is that of an untouchable. They are not liberated even there,” Navaria said, adding, “Religion cannot solve the problem.”

Furthering his argument, poet Nirupama Dutt highlighted the problem of caste structures within religions.

Dutt, who hails from Punjab, drew attention to the phenomenon of Gurudwaras being based on caste. “Today one can find separate Gurudwaras for Sikh Jats, Kabir panthis and the tanners,” she said.

“While Sikhism does not recognize caste, just like in the case of Islam, the situation of the ground is very different from the one visualised in scriptures,” added Dutt.

Drawing attention to the ground realities in countries where religion forms the basis of law, Navaria said the country would not become secular and discrimination-free just by adopting Buddhism.

“I don’t like religion based systems because they end liberty...no religion is detached from caste,” he added.

Even as the panelists disagreed on various issues, they did agree on one thing – that the aim should be that of a caste-free society.

“I don’t agree that caste cannot be abolished or that equality cannot come to India,” Ilaiah said.

And while Navaria disagreed with him on how to achieve this goal, he did outline his vision for India. “What I want is neither a Ram Rajya or a Buddha Rajya, but in fact a Lok Rajya.”

India: Right wing and conservative forces take over anti rape protests at Jantar Mantar (9 Jan 2013)

Hunger strike tent of Bhagat Singh Kranti sena at Jantar Mantar 9 Jan 2013 (photo: Harsh Kapoor)

Hindu religious chanting and ritual something at 'Damani' shrine at Jantar Mantar Delhi, 3 Jan 2013 (Photo: Harsh Kapoor)

A shrine like feel, with a grave like thing in place and also a manequin with garlands in place at Jantar Mantar, 3 Jan 2013 (Photo: Harsh Kapoor)

Bigamy, Conversion and Women's Rights In India

Deepali Gaur Singh's blog


by Deepali Gaur Singh (RH Reality Check, Asia, October 5, 2009)

A reasonably popular TV show in India has a highly respected retired senior police officer holding an informal civil court that attempts to dispense with disputes - mostly matrimonial - before they find their way into the local courts and take on legal ramifications. A noble cause, nevertheless, had the normally unflappable retired civil servant fly into a fury during one of the episodes. The reason - she had already tired of the innumerable times she had to explain to the men that their wives were not their property to dispense with as and when they felt the need. The latest report and controversy surrounding the bigamy law hinges on the very same discourse – the dispensability of one wife for another and the ease with which more and more men and even couples have been able to circumvent the restrictions of Section 494 of the Indian Penal Code.

Bigamy is outlawed in India with the exception of the Muslim minority community which is governed by its own personal/ family law. What this has, in effect, meant is that even non-Muslim men have been able to use the method of quick-fix conversions to undermine the law. From revered film stars to powerful politicians, the professional elite to the educated populace, almost everyone has milked the benefits of this exception made for Muslim personal law. While the last conducted survey on the subject as far back as 1974 points to the prevalence of the practice more commonly amongst the tribal’s of the country, even between the Hindu and Muslim communities it is the former who showed higher incidence (at 5.8% as opposed to 5.6 %) which when converted to actual numbers with reference to the actual strength of both populations is a substantial difference.

The Supreme Court of the country had already made a very clear judgment in 1995 in what is famously called the Sarla Mudgal vs. the Union of India case whereby a conversion to Islam would not protect a man from the bigamy law if the first marriage was prior to his conversion and as a non-Muslim. It is on the basis of this judgment and another in 2000 that the law commission filed a report seeking for amendments in the family law under the Hindu Marriage Act (HMA) as well as other religious personal laws.

While the Muslim clergy have been quick to come to the defense of bigamy and polygamy within Muslim law the truth is that, in practice, even the Muslim men do not use bigamy and polygamy in the spirit that it was meant to be. Many of the religious clergy have been quick to explain the beginnings of the practice - at a time of war when women – widows and orphans – outnumbered men necessitating such a practice. The point that seems to be missed is that the practice was introduced as an adaptation to the circumstances. Perhaps it is time for this practice to be reviewed according to the present circumstances.

The law commission, on its part, has been on the defensive as experience has shown that any attempts at revisions in laws, particularly those pertaining to women with respect to religious groups have always been a volatile issue. It has been quick to reassure the religious leaders that it does not intend to change any laws with relation to bigamy within the Muslim personal law and only wants insertions that would prevent the misuse of conversions to break a law. But conversions-for-marriage do not make a significant number of the bigamy cases. It is the use of this method by the powerful elite of the country that makes salacious media events out of these episodes only to shift focus away from women who actually bear the consequences of such alliances. In many parts of the country it is seen as a male prerogative and with tacit social acceptance many do not even feel the need to use conversion’s flimsy cloak of legality.

Multiple marriages have socially and legally punished women rather than men. The Bigamy Law has been under cloud for some time especially since the Supreme Court passed a decision that women in substantially long live-in relationships should be given the same rights as a legally wedded wife. This was to protect the second wife who under the bigamy law loses all rights since the marriage is considered null and void in the absence of the dissolution of the former. Besides, in the event of the death of the spouse the family often disinherited them since the marriage would not be legally recognized. And with uneducated women very often duped into such marriages or unable to get out of them for fear of ostracism, social boycott and stigma continuing to live within such a legally tenuous alliance, this was the protection that the courts were offering.

On the flip side men simply deserted the first wife to live with the next with no support or maintenance which a Muslim wife is eligible to (but might not necessarily get). Bigamists often go scot free because courts can only act on a formal complaint, the onus of which lies on the wife. Thus, most cases of bigamy often go unregistered because women fear stigmatization for prosecuting their own husbands. Besides, single and deserted women have a very poor status in our society. Both the instances of the SC decision - of awarding women in live-in relationships the status of a wife and of capping conversions-for-marriage - stems from these situations that women find themselves in.

But conversions are merely a symptom of a much larger problem that exists, irrespective of religious affiliations, in communities which see women as either commodities or unequal entities in the social hierarchy. Neither is bigamy common only among the Muslim community and nor is there enough evidence to suggest that every Muslim man who enters a bigamous relationship does ‘equal’ justice – by way of social and legal rights - to all his spouses as stipulated by their personal law. Most of the times the women are simply deserted, left to fend for themselves and their children. The irony is that despite the fact that progressive groups both within and outside Muslim society in India do not favor bigamy, religious leaders continue to block legislative reform. There have been instances of demands that Indian Muslim girls be exempted from the provisions of the law restraining child marriage. And it is against this background that there once again lies the potential of the issue trickling down to one of religious sensitivities over women’s rights.

Media Bias in the Big Press: Reporting as 'Hindus'

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 6, Issue 22, Dated Jun 06, 2009

CULTURE & SOCIETY

personal histories

‘As Hindus, We Were Expected To Further The Cause With Our Stories’

Simple M Pani
Is 32. She is a journalist based in New Delhi

image
Illustration: UZMA MOHSIN

EVERY YEAR, I look starry-eyed at the awardees of the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards and at the stalwarts handing over the honours. For grit, hard work, tenacity and honesty to the trade, without a care for reward, getting richly rewarded. But this year, I couldn’t quell a queasy feeling in my stomach when the virtues of fair reporting were spoken about at the event. This has been happening since the Amarnath land agitation, when I was reporting for the Jammu bureau of a leading national daily. It visited Jammu like a gale, sweeping away in gusts the sense of fair play and discrimination of many scribes. In our morning meetings, it was assumed as a given that being Hindus, we (reporters, photojournalists and other staff) supported the agitation for restoration of land to the Amarnath Shrine Board. Not only were we expected to support it whole-heartedly but it was considered our ‘moral’ duty to further its cause through our stories. It was routine for our editor to ask, “So how is the agitation faring in xyz place?” and an over-zealous colleague to answer passionately, “Excellent. It’s got a tremendous response there” and for the editor to rub his chin and say, “But find out what challenges they are facing in abc place and how it could be strengthened there.” If you were in Jammu, you had to sing paeans to the agitators. What smacked of fascism was that no other line of thinking, let alone criticism of any sort, was brooked. The few media houses that did judge it critically, were a woeful minority.

Two quixotic features of the agitation stood out. First, to refuse to recognise the real. To pretend not to see something as stark as an economic blockade of the Valley, imposed by the stone-pelting agitators by attacking and burning Valley-bound trucks. (I’ve seen trucks burnt to rubble by agitators, on the Jammu-Pathankote National Highway, but naturally, it wasn’t considered newsworthy in several publications because the Jammu media had decided there was no blockade. This assumption ruled out any question of trucks being attacked.) This kind of dangerous, deductive logic crafting an alternative reality was rampant at the time. The storyline would be decided in the office and reporters would be asked to select data from the field to support it. For instance, to prove the nonexistence of a blockade, we would be asked to report that medicines were available in plenty in Jammu. If there were a blockade, then Jammu would be equally hit, ran the specious logic. In reality, Jammu faced a severe shortage of medicines!

The common man of Jammu knew that sporting a ‘Bhagat Singh moustache’ doesn’t equate one with the martyr

Second, to fancy the unreal as real, by drawing parallels between itself and the India’s Freedom Movement. Like praising the Emperor’s new clothes, which despite any empirical reality, were extolled to the skies. Eulogies of “those brave, nationalist, heroes,” the agitators, who went about uprooting railway tracks, smashing windows of public transport that dared to ply on the roads in defiance of the bandh call, and violently attacking trucks entering the state, filled reams of newsprint every day. Strangely, the mute common man of Jammu, the poor news vendor and hawker on the streets seemed to be more discerning than the city’s intelligentsia. They knew that there was much more to nationalism than flag-waving xenophobia. That sporting a ‘Bhagat Singh moustache’ wasn’t enough to equate one with the martyr. They knew that vandalism couldn’t pass for bravery and that they would have to repay the loss caused to the state from their pockets; all of which the intelligentsia missed, in a misplaced fervour.

Despite the claim that the struggle was solely for the restoration of land to the Amarnath Shrine Board, the fact is it did degenerate into hate for the ‘other.’ Gujjars’ kullas were burnt in hundreds. The word “Kashmir” was knocked off from the Kashmir Square Mall, a Delhi-style mall in town, and was rechristened ‘City Square Mall.’ Such sentiments are dangerous for any civilised society, more so when the media, the supposed watchdog of liberal values, is gung-ho about it.

Hindu-Muslim Bhai Bhai in a Small Town in Bangladesh

The Economic and Political Weekly, May 23 - May 29, 2009


by Delwar Hussain (EPW, May 23 - May 29, 2009)

Following Partition, the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 and later the Babri Masjid demolition in India in 1992, the Hindu population in Bangladesh has been dwindling, targeted as it is by politicians and communalists

http://www.epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/13539.pdf

From Mixed, Multiple to Fixed (one and single only) and 'Corrected' Identities

(BBC News, 11 July 2008)

Islam and Hinduism's blurred lines

By Jyotsna Singh BBC News, Ajmer, Rajasthan Hindus and Muslims have co-existed within the same family for centuries Forty-two-year-old Sohan Singh is delighted to call himself a "full-fledged" Hindu. Recently he cremated his mother, defying a family tradition of burying their dead. Mr Singh is a member of the Kathat community in Rajasthan and follows what his community believes is a pledge undertaken by their forefathers. Legend has it that the Mehrat, Kathat and Cheeta communities - with a combined total of one million people in four districts of central Rajasthan - are the descendants of the Hindu ruler of the warrior caste, Prithviraj Chauhan. The three communities also have strong Islamic connections, because many centuries ago, their forefathers undertook a pledge to follow three Muslim practices. These include the circumcision for the newborn male children in the community, eating halal meat and burying their dead. That is the tradition many have followed, keeping the word of their ancestors. But it has also led to them facing something of a faith-based identity crisis. Mixed identity At a bustling market in Masuda town, a large number of people from the Mehrat community gather every day. A majority of them are poor and illiterate. They are people with a mixed Hindu-Muslim identity. And left alone, that is how they would like to be. Deepa, 60, has a Hindu name but he thinks he is a Muslim because he follows Muslim practices. "In my family, we celebrate Hindu festivals such as Holi and Diwali. But we also offer namaz (prayers) at (the Muslim festival of) Eid. We worship both local gods and Allah. This has been a tradition in my family. I do not know whether my ancestors were Hindus or Muslims." Mange Ram was a staunch Hindu, but he is a Muslim now Another Mehrat member is Mahendra Singh who has a Hindu name. "We don't care about being Hindu or Muslim. It is sheer politics," he says. Barely, 15km (9 miles) from Byawar town, Rasool runs a tea shop. He says his great grandparents were Hindus. But somewhere along the line, they became Muslims. "It wasn't such a big deal to be Hindu or Muslim," says Rasool. His son Shankar is named after a Hindu god but he says they consider themselves Muslims. "We are clearly Muslims. Only one of my three sons has a wrong (Hindu) name. It's too late to change that. But it won't happen again in our family," says Madeena, Shankar's wife. For 65-year-old Shanta - like many others in this area - religion has become an issue. She has many relatives who are Muslims. But her son-in-law is associated with the Hindu hardline group, Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and her decision to declare herself a Hindu has alienated her from many relatives. "My son wonders, why are we born in this community where there is so much confusion? I have told my son to cremate me as Hindus would their dead. My relatives boycott us, but that's alright. I think our ancestors were forced to convert to Islam. We have to correct that," Shanta says. 'Homecoming' Organisations such as the VHP say they are trying to end this confusion in the lives of the community by making them realise their true identity. The group has organised several mass conversion events in the area in the past years under a programme called the "Homecoming" or "Ghar Wapsi". "We remind them about their history, that they are actually the descendants of the Hindu warrior king Prithviraj Chauhan who lived in the 12th century and, therefore, they are Hindus," the VHP general Secretary in Byawar, Nitesh Goel says. "Some ill practices have crept into their behaviour, but this can be purified and they can become Hindus again. These people are not Muslims, they only follow certain customs that are common to Muslims. They are Hindus at heart and, therefore, should return to the religion," he says. Jamna is unhappy that her father-in-law has converted to Islam Mr Goel insists his organisation is not carrying out any campaign for conversion or reconversion. "People contact us voluntarily," he says. But the VHP's campaign has alerted Muslim groups in the area. The state president of Jamaat-e-Islami, Salim Engineer, says until 20 years ago (when the VHP first began its campaign) Muslim groups were not even aware that there was any confusion with regard to their community. "Many centuries ago, Mehrats declared themselves as Muslims. But they did not know what Islam was and so remained with the old culture. They do not follow Islam in an organised manner. The VHP is spreading hatred," Mr Engineer said. He also justifies the campaign by Muslim groups like Tabliki Jamaat to "educate" Mehrats about Islam. "We are doing what the government has failed to do. The Muslim community all over India is seeking modern education. Along with that, we are also educating them about their religion," he said. Stress This need to join organised religion is putting a lot of stress on families that have co-existed with members following their own customs. And religion so far has played little part in their lives. Mange Ram Kathat was a staunch Hindu and then decided to become a Muslim because he felt a majority of his community were Muslims. He says he does not discriminate between the two religions but his daughter-in-law Jamna, a school teacher who follows Hinduism, is clearly upset. Shanta's decision to become a Hindu has alienated many of her relatives "There is a lot of confusion in our household. There is tension between me and my husband because of my father-in-law," says Jamna. She says that she also does not like her father-in law's Muslim outfit or his Islamic greetings. "He should have remained a Hindu. Why did he do this?" Though Mehrats are listed in the Other Backward Communities list and are as such entitled to benefits under the government's affirmative action policy, the community has little access to basic facilities such as schools or employment opportunities. Barely 25 years ago, the community members had a lot more flexibility to switch between the religions. But the harmonious mix of Hinduism and Islam which existed in the community for many centuries is now visibly under threat.

Transcrition Gaffe or A Widespread Orientalist Cliche That Marks Representations of India Abroad

(Source: India: A Billion Aspirations)
July 9th, 2008

Does the White House think India is a Hindu nation?

Posted by: Jonathan Allen

The White House staffers charged with transcribing the every public utterance of U.S. President George W. Bush and his friends do not have an easy job. If they falter even for a moment in the constant war against What did you say?tape hiss, mumbling and ill-timed coughs, they risk putting the wrong words in some of the most powerful mouths on the planet.

And so, as I read today’s official transcript of remarks made by Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the G8 Summit in Japan, I wondered if the transcriber forgot to take a cotton swab to their ear that morning:

PRIME MINISTER SINGH: Mr. President, it is a great opportunity for me to once again meet you and to review with you the state of Hindu-American relations. (Emphasis added.)

Surely some mistake? (UPDATE 5.25pm: The White House has now corrected the transcript on its website, but the original version can still be seen here and here.)

Singh is known to be a soft-spoken man, but he is very clear on at least one point: his Congress Party, which heads India’s coalition government, is intended to be a secular party, embracing equally the 230 million Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, Zoroastrians, Jews, animists, agnostics and atheists that live alongside India’s 900 million Hindus. (Besides which, Singh himself is a Sikh.) A vote for Congress, so its leaders say, is a vote against what are darkly called “the forces of communalism” — a thinly veiled reference to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s main opposition, which believes Indians of every creed should revere and live by the wisdom of the Vedas and other ancient Hindu texts.

For once, the BJP might be delighted to read over Singh’s remarks, but he actually said “Indo-American” relations, according to Sanjaya Baru, Singh’s spokesman. (”An amusing mistake,” Baru said with a chuckle, adding that they were seeking to get the transcript corrected.)

So have the “forces of communalism” reached even as far as the White House? Or is this just another example of the confusion some non-Indians have grasping the differences between “Hindu”, “Hindi” and “Indian”?

UK: Temple's alleged links to Tamil Tigers

BBC News
3 May 2007

Temple's alleged links to rebels
Negendram Seevaratnam
Mr Seevaratnam has been suspended during the inquiry
A document leaked to BBC London has revealed that a Hindu temple in south London may have possible links to a rebel organisation.

The Armulmihu Hindu temple in Tooting has had its assets frozen pending an investigation into alleged links with the UK banned Tamil Tigers.

The temple's founder has been suspended during the investigation.

However temple members fear children in Sri Lanka who rely on their aid will die as a result of the ban.


If I am not associated, how can I disassociate?
Negendram Seevaratnam, the temple's founder

Organisers say the temple raises nearly £500,000 each year, some of which goes to help orphans in Sri Lanka following the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.

But the government has suspended the temple's founder, Negendram Seevaratnam, because it alleges he failed to disassociate himself from the banned group.

Mr Seevaratnam said: "When you say 'disassociate yourself', there's a presumption that I was already associated. Now if I am not associated, how can I disassociate?"

The Tamil Tigers have been a banned organisation in the UK since 2001 because of what UK authorities believe are its links to terrorism.

The Tigers are fighting for a separate homeland in the north and east of Sri Lanka.

Ministers said they would not comment on the investigation into the Hindu temple as it was ongoing.

In the Name of Faith

The Times of India
April 19, 2007

IN THE NAME OF FAITH
by Yoginder Sikand

At the theoretical level, religions are often understood in strictly scripturalist terms.

Each religion comes to be regarded as a self-contained, monolithic and neatly bounded entity, completely apart, if not mutually opposed to, other religions.

In contrast, lived religious traditions often defy neat categorisations and allow for a considerable sharing as well as blurring of boundaries between religious communities.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of the popular Sufi traditions in north India. Some years before the demolition of the Babri masjid, I visited Ayodhya on a project to document Sufi traditions in eastern Uttar Pradesh.

By this time, Hindu right-wing forces had established a strong foothold there. One of their particular concerns was to erase all traces of the centuries-old Muslim presence in the town.

Yet, the remnants of history spoke louder than the shrill rhetoric of the Hindu supremacists.

Besides the Babri masjid and numerous old ancient mosques that dotted Ayodhya were scores of Sufi shrines, big and small, that testified to a rich local tradition of popular religion that defied the sternly Brahminical Hinduism that the Hindutva forces were so ardently seeking to impose on the country.

Muslims formed less than a tenth of the town's population, and a sizeable number of those who visited Ayodhya's Sufi shrines were Hindus.

This, of course, was not a unique phenomenon. All across Uttar Pradesh, and, in most parts of India, Hindus still flock to Sufi shrines in large numbers, out of devotion to buried Muslim saints and in the belief that they are able to intervene with God to seek His blessings.

A number of Sufis made Ayodhya their centre for spiritual teaching and instruction from as early as the 12th century — much before Babar, as is said by some, visited the town.

One of the first was Qazi Qidwatuddin Awadhi, who came to Ayodhya from Central Asia. He is said to have been a disciple of Hazrat Usman Haruni, the spiritual preceptor of India's most famous Sufi saint, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer.

Another great Muslim mystic of Ayodhya of pre-Mughal times was Shaikh Jamal 'Gujjari', of the Firdausiya Sufi order.

According to popular legend, the Shaikh would regularly step out of his house carrying a large pot of rice on his head, as the men of the Gujjar milkmen caste did, which he would distribute among the poor and the destitute of Ayodhya.

Ayodhya was home to a number of spiritual successors of the renowned 14th century Sufi of Delhi, Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya.

The most important of these was the famous Sufi Shaikh Nasiruddin Chiragh-i Dilli, who lies buried in New Delhi.

Shaikh Nasiruddin was born in Ayodhya and at the age of 40 left the town for Delhi to live with Khwaja Nizamuddin Auliya.

Yet, he would often return to Ayodhya to visit his relatives, and made disciples who emerged as great Sufis. These included people such as Shaikh Zainuddin Ali Awadhi, Shaikh Fatehullah Awadhi and Allama Kamaluddin Awadhi.

Ayodhya is also home to the shrine of a female Sufi saint, Badi Bua or Badi Bibi, sister of Shaikh Nasiruddin Chiragh-i Dilli.

She was particularly beautiful, but she remained single throughout her life and devoted herself to serving God and the poor. When she was asked why she refused to marry she would answer, 'I only love God and nothing else'.

She is said to have been greatly troubled by the local clerics, perhaps because of her refusal to marry.

The kotwal, the chief police officer of the town, asked for Badi Bua's hand in marriage, saying that he was in love with her eyes. Without a moment's hesitation, so the story goes, she plucked out her eyes and gave them to him.

The shocked Kotwal, realising that Badi Bua was no ordinary woman, but a true devotee of God, repented at once and begged her for mercy.

There is an attempt to erase from public memory stories of these and other Sufis of the town, as Hindu chauvinist forces cannot brook any association of Hindus with Islam and Muslims.

There are now hardly any Muslims left in the town, almost all of Ayodhya's Muslim families having fled in the wake of the destruction of the Babri masjid.

However, visible signs of centuries-old Muslim presence continue to dot the town — crumbling minarets of ancient mosques, neglected graveyards rapidly slipping under a dense cover of weeds, broken walls of what must have once been grand Sufi lodges.

Some of these structures came down along with the Babri mosque. In the violence, the dargahs of Shah Muhammad Ibrahim, Bijli Shah Shahid, Makhdum Shah Fatehullah, Sayyed Shah Muqaddas Quddus-i Ruh and the Teen Darvesh, were attacked.

Today, some Sufi shrines still survive in Ayodhya, continuing to be visited by local devotees in search of solace.

Strikingly, and despite the almost total takeover of the town by votaries of Hindutva, several of them are carefully tended to by local Hindus, particularly 'low' castes — a silent reminder of a past now rapidly being forgotten and one that perhaps can never be relived again.

The writer works with the Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

In the Making: Identity Formation in South Asia

New title from Three Essays Collective
(available from March 15 [2007])


In the Making: Identity Formation in South Asia

by Meeto (Kamaljit Bhasin-Malik)

This book critiques the taken-for-granted opposition of Hindu and Muslim as separate and cohesive categories, the frequent coding of syncretism as deviant, impermanent or tolerant, and moves towards a more nuanced approach. It questions the historicist preoccupation with incidents and processes of conflict, conquest, iconoclasm, and sets out to look at co-existence and peaceful interactions at the grassroots as equally crucial for the formation of identities. Written with perception and lucidity, it could be used profitably by scholars and by students, teachers, activists and the general reader.

Contents:

Introduction by Kumkum Sangari

1. A historiographical essay on Hindu-Muslim relations
2. Composite Culture in Pre-Partition Punjab: Fractures and Continuities
3. The Historian and the Indian Census: Accounts of Religion in late Nineteenth Century Punjab
4. The Census in Colonial Ceylon
5. Minority Rights, Secularism and Civil Society (co-authored with Yamini Aiyar)
6. The Ahmadi Problem: an unfinished essay
7. Appendices: a. I would like to ...; b. Concept Paper on the Census; c. Being an Ahmadi in an Age of 'Islamic terrorism'

Meeto by Judith Brown

About the Author:

Meeto (Kamaljit Bhasin-Malik) was doing her doctoral dissertation at Balliol College, University of Oxford, when she died in January 2006 at the age of 28. She had been awarded the prestigious Clarendon Fellowship. Before returning to academics, she worked in various capacities with organisations involved in developmental and gender issues, minorities and human rights, and peace movements.

Demy 8vo, xviii + 138 (156) pages
ISBN 81-88789-58-5 Rs175 Paperback
ISBN 81-88789-49-6 Rs375 Hardcover

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Three Essays Collective
B-957 Palam Vihar
GURGAON (Haryana) 122 017
India

British Police and Government Supporting A Hindu Fundamentalist Agenda?

AWAAZ - SOUTH ASIA WATCH STATEMENT

4 MARCH 2007

BRITISH POLICE AND GOVERNMENT SUPPORTING A HINDU FUNDAMENTALIST AGENDA?

Why are the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and a government minister giving credence to dubious Hindu fundamentalist claims?


AWAAZ - SOUTH ASIA WATCH condemns what it believes to be an attempt by London’s Metropolitan Police to lend authority to dubious claims being made by Hindu fundamentalist groups in Britain. These claims mainly centre around the allegation that Muslim students on university campuses are engaging in ‘aggressive conversions’ or ‘forcible conversions’ of Hindu and Sikh girls.
On 21 February 2007, the Hindu Forum of Britain and National Hindu Students Forum (NHSF) held a ‘Hindu Security Conference’ at the London School of Economics. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Ian Blair, was a keynote speaker and a number of senior policemen, including officers from Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist squad and Diversity Directorate, were present. Tony McNulty, the Minister for Policing and Security, was also a keynote speaker. The audience was mainly composed of about 120 students.

THE ‘AGGRESSIVE CONVERSIONS’ CLAIM

At a conference workshop on the subject of ‘campus security’, chaired by a police officer from the Met’s Diversity Directorate, NHSF students related accounts of what they described as aggressive conversions. These were the worst examples they presented: one Hindu male student described how a Muslim friend has suggested he come to a lecture on the meaning of Islam. In another case, a group of Muslim students allegedly told a Hindu male student that he should convert to Islam and predicted that, by the end of the university term, he would do so—a statement which this student felt carried an element of menace. Both these were defined as examples of ‘aggressive conversions’. Mention was made of leaflets, alleged to have been produced by Islamic organisations and distributed on campuses, in which instructions were given on how to convert Hindu and Sikh girls by getting them drunk. Such leaflets have long been used by groups on all sides wanting to stir up trouble in British Asian communities. Police officers, in the past, have generally dismissed them as a hoax.

WHY ONLY MUSLIMS?

The poster for the Hindu Security conference advertised ‘radicalisation and violent extremism’ as one of the topics under discussion. But, in fact, the only extremism under discussion was of the Islamist kind. At the conference, a representative of the Union of Jewish Students described what he regarded as a special relationship between Hindus and Jews, explaining that what Israel faces in Palestine is the same as what India faces in Kashmir. Islamic societies on campuses were being singled out as the sole guilty parties on conversions. When one attendee at the workshop pointed out that many evangelical religious organisations, including Christian ones, attempt to convert students, the police officer chairing the workshop said they were only interested in Muslim attempts at converting people. At one point in the conference, an officer from Scotland Yard’s SO15 Counter Terrorist Command showed an al-Qaida propaganda video, explaining that it was important for the audience to know what Muslim students were being exposed to. Awaaz believes that this is a reprehensible attempt to link violent terrorist organisations and acts with the separate issue of alleged forcible conversions in the UK.

WHAT THE PAPERS REPORTED

The day after the Hindu Security event, a number of articles on ‘aggressive conversions’ appeared in the press. The Metro wrote of ‘Muslim extremists who try to force teenage Hindu girls to convert’ and spoke of a ‘new police crackdown’ (22 February 2007). Ian Blair was quoted as saying ‘There is a feeling in the Hindu community that we have not given them as much attention as other groups.’ In the Daily Mail (22 February 2007), Blair also spoke of the need to clamp down on ‘aggressive conversions’ by ‘extremist Muslims’. Both newspaper articles reported uncritically the Hindu Forum of Britain’s allegations that ‘hundreds of mostly Sikh and Hindu girls’ are being ‘terrorised’ into converting.

AWAAZ’S VIEW

Neither at the conference nor in subsequent newspaper reports was there any
solid evidence of coercion. Awaaz strongly condemns any attempt to intimidate or threaten students into religious conversion or religious conformity and believes that this must be tackled by university authorities. We condemn, for example, some reported incidents of Islamist groups trying to coerce Muslim women into wearing the hijab. But we believe that the National Hindu Students Forum is grossly exaggerating the issue of ‘aggressive conversions’ as part of its own political agenda. It is indulging in dangerous and divisive scare-mongering. The organisation itself, and the claims it is making, are being given undue credibility by the police and the government. The National Hindu Student’s Forum is an organisation closely allied to Indian Hindu supremacist groups, such as the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh). The RSS, once banned in India because of its fascist and violent history, has a virulent anti-Muslim agenda and pursues this effectively through its sister organisations abroad. Indian groups with links to the RSS are often also anti-Christian (more information on these groups is available on our website: www.awaazsaw.org). Neither the British organisations nor the Indian ones represent the majority of Hindus in either country. Awaaz believes that the NHSF in Britain is trying to turn any kind of conversion—whether coercive or not—into a matter involving the police and criminal justice system. This agenda has been imported directly from Hindu supremacist groups in India, such as the violent Vishwa Hindu Parishad, an organisation that the Hindu Forum of Britain has defended. A number of anti-conversion laws have been introduced in some Indian states after successful lobbying by these groups. These are part of an anti-Muslim and anti-Christian communal politics which has led to restrictions on religious freedom in India.

Hindu supremacist organisations in Britain have long targeted campuses in order to promote their divisive ideology. What is new is the overt collusion of the police in a political agenda that is itself a serious threat to community cohesion.
[ENDS]
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0208 843 2333