Kashmir Times
January 2, 2007
Editorial
Fascists strike in Orissa
Secular political parties must expose their designs
The persistence of trouble in Western Orissa after the shameful incidents that started on Christmas eve with the damage to churches and attacks on the Christian minority by Hindu fascists, that continued despite the curfew, is not only a cause for concern but is also an eye opener, revealing how deep the sectarian and communal divide is being deliberately allowed to flourish in this country. This is especially so in pockets where the Hindutava organizations have been able to spread hate soaked ideology based on prejudices and myths, and left un-countered by the secular forces on the scale that these should be opposed. Barring a handful of groups working on the ground against the hatred and violence perpetrated in the name of caste and religion, this evil of communalism and sectarianism, threatened more by majoritarian fascism, is allowed to persist. The secular parties in this country fail to go beyond the lip sympathy or the electoral battles in trying to defeat the fascist forces, and often miserably fail, allowing the fundamentalists to gradually infiltrate into positions of power - be in assemblies, civic bodies or other grassroots institutions. The malaise obviously exists because it is not being treated on a war footing in any part of the country.
The Orissa case merits special attention. Human rights activists and grassroots organisations working on harmonious relations between different communities and ethnicities have already warned that after Gujarat, Orissa may be the next laboratory for the propagators of Hindutava. In 1999, Australian misisionary Graham Staines and his two sons were brutally murdered by the Hindutava followers. And that may not be the only incident in the recent past. Western Orissa, dominated by upper caste Hindu landholders and traders, has been a deliberately chosen area for preaching of communal ideology and promulgation of Hindu militancy. Coupled with this, its tribal areas are bogged by aggressive Hinduisation through conversions in the last one decade. There are about 30 dominant Sangh Parivar organisations in Orissa that are targeting Christians, Adivasis, Muslims, Dalits and other marginalised sections, mostly by rhetoric based on propaganda but sometimes these tirades also assume violent forms. The followers of Hindutava, like fundamentalists from any groups or religions, do not hesitate in perverting and defaming history with concoted lies and injecting several myths that seek to brand the Muslims or Christians as 'other', 'foreigner' and 'terrorists', Dalits as 'filthy' and tribals as people who were once Hindus and need to be re-converted. So when on Christmas eve, the Hindutava forces chose to attack the Christian minorities in Western Orissa's Kandhamal district, it should have come as no surprise even as the scale of violence was shocking. However, shock and condemnation alone cannot amend things or reverse the trends that this pernicious ideology has unleashed, whether it is Orissa or anywhere else. The malaise is too deep to be treated superficially or simply leave it to electoral politics, that has only contributed in creating further polarization between communities and castes. In fact, electoral politics, as of Gujarat, has had larger ramifications, not only in that state but elsewhere in the country where the fabric of communal harmony is too fragile. This problems that has dangerous repercussions needs a consistent strategy and a grassroots networking to be countered.
The Hindutava ideology, or any other fascist propaganda, can be competed only if the secular forces are willing to beat the fascists at their own game. The Sangh Parivar has been working for decades, capitalizing and flourishing on the social insecurities and panic in a land of inequalities. It has woven a solidarity network on basis of myths propagated about glorious past of Hindus, essentially upper caste Hindus, and lies about the other castes and communities. Much of this is done in the name of social work, promotion of culture and often through perverting the school curriculum and books introduced in the large number of schools run by the Hindutava organizations. Though human rights groups have been working very successfully in certain pockets of the country to counter this trend, these groups do not have the kind of grassroots networking as the secular political parties do, and this is what has been left un-utilised. Cue can be taken from the past. After Mahatama Gandhi's assassination in January 1948, it was Congress led by Jawahar Lal Nehru who sought to use the political machinery of the party to counter the threat of communalism. Nehru mobilized Congress committees that were virtually converted into anti-communal fronts to make people aware about the dangers of the pernicious ideology of the RSS and its other sister organizations. Other secular fronts and individuals were also involved. Govind Sahai of the Congress took on the task of monitoring this awareness campaign and toured throughout the length and breadth of the country, distributing pamphlets and holding rallies to educate people and warn them against the devious designs of fascists. Amidst xenophobic tendencies of a growing number of groups, we need to adopt a similar strategy and follow it with the conviction and consistency that it demands.
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January 02, 2008
Seminar debates ‘Combating communalism and terrorism’
(The Hindu
Dec 31, 2007)
Communalism needs new response: Panikkar
Staff Reporter
Seminar debates ‘Combating communalism and terrorism’
The historian says
There have been sustained cultural and social activities by communal forces
The recent electoral success in Gujarat is an important indicator
— Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy
SHOWING URGENCY: Praful Bidwai (left), columnist, K.N. Panikkar, historian, Ko. Chennabasappa, chairman of M.S. Krishnan Memorial Trust, and Supriya Roy Choudhary, professor of political science, at a seminar in Bangalore on Sunday.
Bangalore: There is need for a departure from existing modes of combating communalism, from that of an exclusively political mode, to interventions in culture, said historian K.N. Panikkar here on Sunday. He was speaking at a seminar on “Combating communalism and terrorism,” organised by the M.S. Krishnan Memorial Trust and Kannada monthly “Hosathu”.
“Communalism is often seen as an essentially political phenomenon, and combating communalism seen as a political act. But the groundswell in communalism has been possible because of sustained cultural and social activities undertaken by these forces across the country and the creation of a communal social consciousness,” said Prof. Panikkar.
The recent electoral success of “communal forces” in Gujarat, despite their violence being exposed, is an important indicator of how political and social consciousness has been communalised, he said. “In the last five years the number of educational institutes controlled by the RSS has increased dramatically. Also, new social groups are being inducted into the communal fold, and the cultural life of tribal people being ‘Hinduised’,” he said.
There has never been a greater urgency to combat communalism, said Prof. Panikkar, adding that he anticipated a “surge” of communalism in the next two years. The intensifying of communal violence reflects the “failure of secular forces in resisting communalism,” he said. “There has not been a strong attempt to retrieve secularism and communal forces have been allowed to occupy positions of power,” he said.
Violence, he said, has always been linked to communalism.
“It becomes necessary to identify an ‘enemy’ for communal forces to make advances in society. The perpetration of violence has a larger agenda, which is to create a perpetual sense of fear and insecurity in people’s minds,” he said.
Speaking on terrorism, columnist and political observer Praful Bidwai said that state-sponsored terrorism is “incomparable” in scale to individual acts of terror.
“The 3,000 people killed in the September 11, 2001 attack has no comparison to the lethality of violence that the State can mobilise. For instance, over 1,00,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq following U.S. intervention,” he said.
Dec 31, 2007)
Communalism needs new response: Panikkar
Staff Reporter
Seminar debates ‘Combating communalism and terrorism’
The historian says
There have been sustained cultural and social activities by communal forces
The recent electoral success in Gujarat is an important indicator
— Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy
SHOWING URGENCY: Praful Bidwai (left), columnist, K.N. Panikkar, historian, Ko. Chennabasappa, chairman of M.S. Krishnan Memorial Trust, and Supriya Roy Choudhary, professor of political science, at a seminar in Bangalore on Sunday.
Bangalore: There is need for a departure from existing modes of combating communalism, from that of an exclusively political mode, to interventions in culture, said historian K.N. Panikkar here on Sunday. He was speaking at a seminar on “Combating communalism and terrorism,” organised by the M.S. Krishnan Memorial Trust and Kannada monthly “Hosathu”.
“Communalism is often seen as an essentially political phenomenon, and combating communalism seen as a political act. But the groundswell in communalism has been possible because of sustained cultural and social activities undertaken by these forces across the country and the creation of a communal social consciousness,” said Prof. Panikkar.
The recent electoral success of “communal forces” in Gujarat, despite their violence being exposed, is an important indicator of how political and social consciousness has been communalised, he said. “In the last five years the number of educational institutes controlled by the RSS has increased dramatically. Also, new social groups are being inducted into the communal fold, and the cultural life of tribal people being ‘Hinduised’,” he said.
There has never been a greater urgency to combat communalism, said Prof. Panikkar, adding that he anticipated a “surge” of communalism in the next two years. The intensifying of communal violence reflects the “failure of secular forces in resisting communalism,” he said. “There has not been a strong attempt to retrieve secularism and communal forces have been allowed to occupy positions of power,” he said.
Violence, he said, has always been linked to communalism.
“It becomes necessary to identify an ‘enemy’ for communal forces to make advances in society. The perpetration of violence has a larger agenda, which is to create a perpetual sense of fear and insecurity in people’s minds,” he said.
Speaking on terrorism, columnist and political observer Praful Bidwai said that state-sponsored terrorism is “incomparable” in scale to individual acts of terror.
“The 3,000 people killed in the September 11, 2001 attack has no comparison to the lethality of violence that the State can mobilise. For instance, over 1,00,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq following U.S. intervention,” he said.
Ram Puniyani: On Anti Christian Violence in Orissa
Orissa: Anti Christian Violence
by Ram Puniyani
Gladys Stains is a name etched in our memory for wrong reasons. Her husband and two sons were torched to death around a decade ago in Keonjhar Manoharpur Orissa. She wrote to Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh recently, to ensure that communal peace is restored in Orissa. This she did in the backdrop of the scattered attacks on Christians, over 40 churches torched in Orissa (24 Dec. 2007). In the violence which broke out, many of the people have been severely injured. Some of the priest and laity have run for shelter, leaving their homes and hiding in the forests in the biting cold. All this has happened in the Adivasi area in and around Phulbani and Kandhamal. The timing is around the Christmas celebrations, 2007.
It is no coincident that the BJP is part of the ruling coalition in Orissa, and those involved in the vandalism are part of some or the other organization directly affiliated with the RSS. The major such are Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Bajrang dal and their local variants. While the media reports are sketchy, the Citizens Inquiry team, which was to visit the area has been denied permission to visit the districts and was escorted out of the area.
The attacks on minorities and weaker sections is launched for short term or long term political goals, but the care is taken that a pretext is manufactured and then the attacks are unleashed. In this case it has been said that Swami Lakkhanand was attacked by Christians and so the retaliation. One is supposed to believe that a Swami from the majority community, with sizeable following, will be attacked by the section of miniscule minority!
The Christmas season is the chosen time for anti Christian attacks. Earlier also such occasions have been chosen for beating and attacking the Christian community, notably in Dangs in 1998. This time in Phulbani area the declarations being made by the Swami and associates is that the presence of Christians will not be tolerated in the Adivasi areas.
The visible attacks on Christian minorities started from 1996. The areas selected for these attacks have spread over from Gujarat, Dangs on the extreme West, to the Orissa on extreme east of the tribal belt. It is in these areas that anti Christian violence have been going on in scattered form since then. Most of these acts of violence have a bit different characteristic, i.e. unlike the anti Muslim violence which is more in the cities and occurs as spurts of killing hundred or thousands in a single go, here the cauldron is kept boiling continuously, The intensity is that of a slow but sustained intimidation and attack.
The most ghastly anti Christian violence was that done by Bajrang Dal activist, Dara Singh, who instigated the Adivasis and led the burning of Pastor Graham Stewart Stains. He and his organization kept propagating for months that pastor has come from Australia for converting the gullible Adivasis to Christianity, that his work amongst the leprosy patients is just a ploy to do his ?real work? of conversions. The Wadhwa commission, appointed by the NDA Govt. with Advani as the Home minister, in the aftermath of this brutal killing, concluded that the pastor was not involved in any conversion activities and that the percentage of Christian population in the area has remained static despite the Pastor working in the area.
At national level the attacks on Christians have been investigated by different civic groups, compiled in 'The Politics behind Anti Christian Violence' (Media House, Delhi) Most of the reports conclude that the attacks have been deliberately stepped up in the Adivasi areas. The main targets of these attacks are the Christian missionaries working in the area of education. The contrast is very glaring. The city based Christian mission institutions are upheld and respected for their contribution in the area of education, while in the Adivasi areas the same are being hounded out. The reports also observe that the RSS affiliates have been trying to do anti Christian propaganda along with Ghar Vapasi (re-conversion in to Hinduism) campaign. The major work of Ghar Vapasi has been undertaken in the BJP ruled states, or in the states where BJP has been sharing power. The subtle assistance of the state machinery in the anti Christian tirade is always at the service of RSS affilaites. The Ghar Vapasi asserts that Adivasis are basically Hindus, who had to flee to the forests to escape the conversion by Muslim invaders, so they are 'nationally' Hindus, who have forgotten the Hindu rituals and gods and so have fallen low in the hierarchy of Hindu religion. This ritual of re-conversion is supposed to religiously restore them to their old Hindu glory!
The case of Orissa was specifically investigated by India Peoples Tribunal, led by Justice K.K.Usha (retired) of Kerala High court in 2006 (Communalism in Orissa) This tribunal forewarns about the shape of things to come. " The tribunal assessed the spread of communal organizations in Orissa, which has been accompanied by a series of small and large events and some riots?such violations are utilized to generate the threat and reality of greater violence, and build and infrastructure of fear and intimidation." It further notes that minorities are being grossly ill treated; there is gross inaction of the state Govt to take action. Outlining the mechanism of the communalization, it points out, ?The report also describes in considerable detail how the cadre of majoritarian communal organizations is indoctrinated in hatred and violence against other communities it holds to be inherently inferior. If such communalization is undertaken in Orissa, it is indicative of the future of the nation? the signs are truly ominous for India?s democratic future.? (p 70)
In these Adivasi areas swamis have made their permanent Ashrams, Lakkhanand, in Orissa, Assemanand in Dangs, and followers of Asaram bapu in Jhabua area to name the few. Also Hindu Samgams, congregations, are being held, the culmination of which was the Shabri Kumbh in Dangs where thousands of Adivasis were brought. In those areas the Hindutva organizations spread the intimidating rumors that those who do not attend these functions will be dealt with in due course. Interestingly these are precisely the areas which are the poorest; these are the areas where the problem of land, education, water and food is the highest.
Anti Christian violence is in the continuation of RSS agenda of Hindu Rasthra, Pehle kasai Phir Isai (First the Muslims then Christians). There is an additional factor in the anti Christian violence. One concedes that there may be many a Christian groups who might be focusing on the conversion work, within the bounds of Indian constitution, of course. But one has to note that in India, over all population of Christian minorities is declining over a period of last four decades, ( 1971-2.60%, 1981-2.44% , 1991-2.34%, and 2001-2.30%). While Christianity is a very old religion here, during last nineteen centuries or so only 2.odd percent have become Christians.
The major problem is that the effort of missionaries to reach education to the adivasi areas. Educated Adivasi, empowered Adivasi will be more aware of her rights and that's precisely what RSS combine cannot stand.
That the tiny minority can be a threat to the huge majority of Hindus is quiet a concoction. There is a need to deal these violations of human rights firmly, there is a need to curb the hate other propaganda in these areas and of course the need to promote modern education and other welfare schemes in these areas. Christmas which should be a festival of joy is being turned into an annual ritual of violence and mayhem by the RSS combine.
--
Issues in Secular Politics
January 2008 I
For circulation/circulation
by Ram Puniyani
Gladys Stains is a name etched in our memory for wrong reasons. Her husband and two sons were torched to death around a decade ago in Keonjhar Manoharpur Orissa. She wrote to Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh recently, to ensure that communal peace is restored in Orissa. This she did in the backdrop of the scattered attacks on Christians, over 40 churches torched in Orissa (24 Dec. 2007). In the violence which broke out, many of the people have been severely injured. Some of the priest and laity have run for shelter, leaving their homes and hiding in the forests in the biting cold. All this has happened in the Adivasi area in and around Phulbani and Kandhamal. The timing is around the Christmas celebrations, 2007.
It is no coincident that the BJP is part of the ruling coalition in Orissa, and those involved in the vandalism are part of some or the other organization directly affiliated with the RSS. The major such are Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Bajrang dal and their local variants. While the media reports are sketchy, the Citizens Inquiry team, which was to visit the area has been denied permission to visit the districts and was escorted out of the area.
The attacks on minorities and weaker sections is launched for short term or long term political goals, but the care is taken that a pretext is manufactured and then the attacks are unleashed. In this case it has been said that Swami Lakkhanand was attacked by Christians and so the retaliation. One is supposed to believe that a Swami from the majority community, with sizeable following, will be attacked by the section of miniscule minority!
The Christmas season is the chosen time for anti Christian attacks. Earlier also such occasions have been chosen for beating and attacking the Christian community, notably in Dangs in 1998. This time in Phulbani area the declarations being made by the Swami and associates is that the presence of Christians will not be tolerated in the Adivasi areas.
The visible attacks on Christian minorities started from 1996. The areas selected for these attacks have spread over from Gujarat, Dangs on the extreme West, to the Orissa on extreme east of the tribal belt. It is in these areas that anti Christian violence have been going on in scattered form since then. Most of these acts of violence have a bit different characteristic, i.e. unlike the anti Muslim violence which is more in the cities and occurs as spurts of killing hundred or thousands in a single go, here the cauldron is kept boiling continuously, The intensity is that of a slow but sustained intimidation and attack.
The most ghastly anti Christian violence was that done by Bajrang Dal activist, Dara Singh, who instigated the Adivasis and led the burning of Pastor Graham Stewart Stains. He and his organization kept propagating for months that pastor has come from Australia for converting the gullible Adivasis to Christianity, that his work amongst the leprosy patients is just a ploy to do his ?real work? of conversions. The Wadhwa commission, appointed by the NDA Govt. with Advani as the Home minister, in the aftermath of this brutal killing, concluded that the pastor was not involved in any conversion activities and that the percentage of Christian population in the area has remained static despite the Pastor working in the area.
At national level the attacks on Christians have been investigated by different civic groups, compiled in 'The Politics behind Anti Christian Violence' (Media House, Delhi) Most of the reports conclude that the attacks have been deliberately stepped up in the Adivasi areas. The main targets of these attacks are the Christian missionaries working in the area of education. The contrast is very glaring. The city based Christian mission institutions are upheld and respected for their contribution in the area of education, while in the Adivasi areas the same are being hounded out. The reports also observe that the RSS affiliates have been trying to do anti Christian propaganda along with Ghar Vapasi (re-conversion in to Hinduism) campaign. The major work of Ghar Vapasi has been undertaken in the BJP ruled states, or in the states where BJP has been sharing power. The subtle assistance of the state machinery in the anti Christian tirade is always at the service of RSS affilaites. The Ghar Vapasi asserts that Adivasis are basically Hindus, who had to flee to the forests to escape the conversion by Muslim invaders, so they are 'nationally' Hindus, who have forgotten the Hindu rituals and gods and so have fallen low in the hierarchy of Hindu religion. This ritual of re-conversion is supposed to religiously restore them to their old Hindu glory!
The case of Orissa was specifically investigated by India Peoples Tribunal, led by Justice K.K.Usha (retired) of Kerala High court in 2006 (Communalism in Orissa) This tribunal forewarns about the shape of things to come. " The tribunal assessed the spread of communal organizations in Orissa, which has been accompanied by a series of small and large events and some riots?such violations are utilized to generate the threat and reality of greater violence, and build and infrastructure of fear and intimidation." It further notes that minorities are being grossly ill treated; there is gross inaction of the state Govt to take action. Outlining the mechanism of the communalization, it points out, ?The report also describes in considerable detail how the cadre of majoritarian communal organizations is indoctrinated in hatred and violence against other communities it holds to be inherently inferior. If such communalization is undertaken in Orissa, it is indicative of the future of the nation? the signs are truly ominous for India?s democratic future.? (p 70)
In these Adivasi areas swamis have made their permanent Ashrams, Lakkhanand, in Orissa, Assemanand in Dangs, and followers of Asaram bapu in Jhabua area to name the few. Also Hindu Samgams, congregations, are being held, the culmination of which was the Shabri Kumbh in Dangs where thousands of Adivasis were brought. In those areas the Hindutva organizations spread the intimidating rumors that those who do not attend these functions will be dealt with in due course. Interestingly these are precisely the areas which are the poorest; these are the areas where the problem of land, education, water and food is the highest.
Anti Christian violence is in the continuation of RSS agenda of Hindu Rasthra, Pehle kasai Phir Isai (First the Muslims then Christians). There is an additional factor in the anti Christian violence. One concedes that there may be many a Christian groups who might be focusing on the conversion work, within the bounds of Indian constitution, of course. But one has to note that in India, over all population of Christian minorities is declining over a period of last four decades, ( 1971-2.60%, 1981-2.44% , 1991-2.34%, and 2001-2.30%). While Christianity is a very old religion here, during last nineteen centuries or so only 2.odd percent have become Christians.
The major problem is that the effort of missionaries to reach education to the adivasi areas. Educated Adivasi, empowered Adivasi will be more aware of her rights and that's precisely what RSS combine cannot stand.
That the tiny minority can be a threat to the huge majority of Hindus is quiet a concoction. There is a need to deal these violations of human rights firmly, there is a need to curb the hate other propaganda in these areas and of course the need to promote modern education and other welfare schemes in these areas. Christmas which should be a festival of joy is being turned into an annual ritual of violence and mayhem by the RSS combine.
--
Issues in Secular Politics
January 2008 I
For circulation/circulation
Speaking up for inter 'community' or cross class marriages
Outlook Magazine
14 January 2007 /
Special Issue: Rearview 2007
Embers Flicker
The protest marches for Rizwanur and Nitish, the candles lit around their dead faces, the media outrage, the reactions of human rights groups...
by Manju Kapur
Over the past year, we have read and heard a lot about young lovers wanting to marry across boundaries of class and community being thwarted by their families—usually the girl’s family. The most high-profile cases were of Priyanka Todi and her husband Rizwanur, who came up against a police and parental nexus, or Srija, the daughter of Andhra film star Chiranjeevi and her husband, Sirish, who sought police protection, expecting harassment from Srija’s family and her father’s fans.
But there were many others, too, in 2007, popping up in the newspapers and on TV screens. The elopement of a Sindhi girl and a Muslim boy caused a near-riot in Bhopal, forcing the couple to run away to Mumbai to escape harassment.
Cases like these make me wonder how much attitudes towards women have really changed, even though girls from conservative families are now able to wear pants, if they want to, instead of saris.
As a university lecturer in a women’s college, I can say with some confidence that the Priyankas, Srijas and Bharati Yadavs (the girlfriend of Nitish Katara, who was allegedly killed by Bharati’s brothers) are not the norm. On a recent English entrance test, we asked about attitudes to arranged marriages and of the thousand-odd students who answered, more than 900 claimed to be in favour of arranged marriages, because their parents knew better. So when we talk about young women wanting to step out of the safe confines of tradition and seek love and marriage outside community and class, we are talking about a minority. As a writer, I write about such women, because it is through their stories that I can explore social fissures.
In being different, these girls test both family and society. These are families and a society that are, on the face of it, more ‘modern’ than before. They are educating their daughters, sending them to study at co-ed institutions, and even allowing them to work. Fifteen years ago, girls from the BA (Pass) course at my college would tell me that they had to get married as soon as they finished their degree; today many of the girls doing the same course say they plan to work after college, although the imperative to marry has not changed.
Is there a paradox here? That traditional families are able to embrace education and professions for their daughters, yet won’t allow them to marry men they meet in college or at the workplace? Perhaps not, once you start exploring why these opportunities are being made available to women. I doubt if parents are educating their daughters in order to enable them to make informed choices about their lives. I rather suspect education is being equated with giving young women a ‘good finish’, to improve their prospects in the marriage market.
And why are women from socially conservative families encouraged to work? Once again, this seems to be a pragmatic choice. We live in a consumerist society, there is a limit to what one salary can buy, so two salaries have become an attractive idea. Perhaps, somewhere, parents also feel that if things go wrong, at least the girl will be able to contribute to her own upkeep. These ‘concessions’ to women can quite comfortably coexist with a patriarchal arrogance that denies women the right to assert individual choice in matters of marriage.
This arrogance is widespread. But the question here is not one of how you feel about what your daughter does, but what you do with those feelings. There are families—usually, metropolitan middle-class families—who don’t take extreme steps to break up ‘illicit’ relationships.They may be appalled at their daughter marrying a Muslim or a Hindu from another caste and will probably do what they can to stop her, but they don’t file police cases against the man or try to kill an unacceptable son-in-law, as the Todi family is alleged to have done, or lock away the daughter, as Chiranjeevi is alleged to have done.
The families that take such steps are usually those who have money, muscle or political power behind them, or very strong support from clan or community for their actions, who feel they can get away with it. There is nothing new about their actions—the Ashok Todi phenomenon has been around for a long time.
What is new are the protest marches for Rizwanur and Nitish, the candles lit around their dead faces, the media outrage, the reactions of human rights groups. What is new is the demand for accountability from a law and order machinery that also seems to believe that adult young women should respect the wishes of their families, even if the law guarantees them freedom of choice in matters of marriage. What is modern and liberating is civil society not allowing these violations of law to completely die down.
Manju Kapur is a novelist whose books include Difficult Daughters (winner of the Commonwealth Prize), A Married Woman and Home
14 January 2007 /
Special Issue: Rearview 2007
Embers Flicker
The protest marches for Rizwanur and Nitish, the candles lit around their dead faces, the media outrage, the reactions of human rights groups...
by Manju Kapur
Over the past year, we have read and heard a lot about young lovers wanting to marry across boundaries of class and community being thwarted by their families—usually the girl’s family. The most high-profile cases were of Priyanka Todi and her husband Rizwanur, who came up against a police and parental nexus, or Srija, the daughter of Andhra film star Chiranjeevi and her husband, Sirish, who sought police protection, expecting harassment from Srija’s family and her father’s fans.
But there were many others, too, in 2007, popping up in the newspapers and on TV screens. The elopement of a Sindhi girl and a Muslim boy caused a near-riot in Bhopal, forcing the couple to run away to Mumbai to escape harassment.
Cases like these make me wonder how much attitudes towards women have really changed, even though girls from conservative families are now able to wear pants, if they want to, instead of saris.
As a university lecturer in a women’s college, I can say with some confidence that the Priyankas, Srijas and Bharati Yadavs (the girlfriend of Nitish Katara, who was allegedly killed by Bharati’s brothers) are not the norm. On a recent English entrance test, we asked about attitudes to arranged marriages and of the thousand-odd students who answered, more than 900 claimed to be in favour of arranged marriages, because their parents knew better. So when we talk about young women wanting to step out of the safe confines of tradition and seek love and marriage outside community and class, we are talking about a minority. As a writer, I write about such women, because it is through their stories that I can explore social fissures.
In being different, these girls test both family and society. These are families and a society that are, on the face of it, more ‘modern’ than before. They are educating their daughters, sending them to study at co-ed institutions, and even allowing them to work. Fifteen years ago, girls from the BA (Pass) course at my college would tell me that they had to get married as soon as they finished their degree; today many of the girls doing the same course say they plan to work after college, although the imperative to marry has not changed.
Is there a paradox here? That traditional families are able to embrace education and professions for their daughters, yet won’t allow them to marry men they meet in college or at the workplace? Perhaps not, once you start exploring why these opportunities are being made available to women. I doubt if parents are educating their daughters in order to enable them to make informed choices about their lives. I rather suspect education is being equated with giving young women a ‘good finish’, to improve their prospects in the marriage market.
And why are women from socially conservative families encouraged to work? Once again, this seems to be a pragmatic choice. We live in a consumerist society, there is a limit to what one salary can buy, so two salaries have become an attractive idea. Perhaps, somewhere, parents also feel that if things go wrong, at least the girl will be able to contribute to her own upkeep. These ‘concessions’ to women can quite comfortably coexist with a patriarchal arrogance that denies women the right to assert individual choice in matters of marriage.
This arrogance is widespread. But the question here is not one of how you feel about what your daughter does, but what you do with those feelings. There are families—usually, metropolitan middle-class families—who don’t take extreme steps to break up ‘illicit’ relationships.They may be appalled at their daughter marrying a Muslim or a Hindu from another caste and will probably do what they can to stop her, but they don’t file police cases against the man or try to kill an unacceptable son-in-law, as the Todi family is alleged to have done, or lock away the daughter, as Chiranjeevi is alleged to have done.
The families that take such steps are usually those who have money, muscle or political power behind them, or very strong support from clan or community for their actions, who feel they can get away with it. There is nothing new about their actions—the Ashok Todi phenomenon has been around for a long time.
What is new are the protest marches for Rizwanur and Nitish, the candles lit around their dead faces, the media outrage, the reactions of human rights groups. What is new is the demand for accountability from a law and order machinery that also seems to believe that adult young women should respect the wishes of their families, even if the law guarantees them freedom of choice in matters of marriage. What is modern and liberating is civil society not allowing these violations of law to completely die down.
Manju Kapur is a novelist whose books include Difficult Daughters (winner of the Commonwealth Prize), A Married Woman and Home
Modi's Victory: why Hindutva is so uniquely powerful in Gujarat
Frontline
Jan. 05-18, 2008
COLUMN
Why Gujarat?
by PRAFUL BIDWAI
The Congress could not have defeated Narendra Modi without grasping why Hindutva is so uniquely powerful in Gujarat and without confronting it at its roots.
ARUNANGSU ROY CHOWDHURY
BJP supporters in Ahmedabad celebrate the party’s massive win.
AS the Congress licks its wounds after its mauling in Gujarat, all manner of explanations are being trotted out for its poor electoral showing: divisions in the anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) vote in a dozen northern Gujarat constituencies because of Congress “rebels”, the Bahujan Samaj Party’s spoiler role in Kutch and Saurashtra, over-reliance on discredited BJP dissidents, and poor campaigning tactics.
There is doubtless some validity in these explanations. It is also true that the Congress lost about 20 seats by margins as narrow as 2,000 votes. Focussed campaigning and aggressive debunking of Narendra Modi’s extravagant claims about “development” and “good governance”, along with a projection of equitable pro-poor alternatives, would probably have yielded improved results.
However, the sad truth is that these factors could not have countered fully the powerful pull of aggressive Hindutva in Gujarat, strengthened under Gujarat’s ultra-conservative upper-class savarna (upper-caste)-dominated ruling social coalition.
The Congress deluded itself that the election would be a “normal” contest in which the arithmetic of caste, class, ethnicity and region would prevail. It would have to do nothing special to counter the challenges posed by Narendra Modi through his virulent Hindu communalism, appeal to Gujarati hubris via a chauvinistic sub-nationalism masquerading as Gujarati asmita (self-respect), and an authoritarian personality cult.
The Congress refused to counter Modi’s core-agendas and instead caved in by adopting a “soft Hindutva” posture and ducking all issues pertaining to the pogrom of 2002 and after, including the State’s continuing victimisation and exclusion of Muslims. It did not question Modi’s Gujarati-chauvinist orientation. Even on “development” and “governance”, it failed to mount a convincing campaign offering alternatives favourable to working people.
Consider development. Despite high GDP growth, Gujarat’s rank in areas such as health, literacy, education, and hence human development and gender empowerment, has been slipping, according to the official Human Development Report (2004). Nothing bears more eloquent testimony to Gujarat’s unbalanced and warped development than the fact that 74.3 per cent of its women and 46.3 per cent of its children are anaemic.
Gujarat’s indices of patriarchy are frightening. The sex-ratio is an abysmal 487:1000 in the 0-4 age-group and 571 in the 5-9 age-group (national averages, 515 and 632 respectively). Gujarat’s health indices are barely higher than Orissa’s. The proportion of children under age 2 who receive complete vaccination fell from 53 to 45 per cent between 1998-99 and 2005-06. In social sector spending as a proportion of public expenditure, Gujarat ranks a lowly 19 among 21 major States.
Gujarat boasts good-quality highways, including the gleaming Ahmedabad-Baroda expressway. But so high is the toll for using the expressway that the bottom half of the population is forced to use camel- or bullock-carts. The road has cut off villages from one another and caused flooding by blocking natural drainage.
Gujarat is rapidly industrialising. But the industries that have flourished the most are all highly hazardous or polluting: poisonous chemicals (Vapi is among the world’s 10 worst toxic hubs); textile dyeing; ship-breaking; and diamond polishing, which turns people blind in their thirties. Gujarat has not still recovered from the de-industrialisation of the 1980s when its textile mills closed down. Its performance on labour rights is appalling. On minimum wages, it ranks eighth among all States, much below its per capita income rank (fourth).
The Congress did not criticise adequately this deplorable record or demand inclusive, people-centred development. It went along with Modi’s dualistic growth model. Its failure to counter Modi’s core appeal was even more damaging to itself – and to Indian society. It refused to understand or acknowledge the strength of Hindutva in Gujarat, which goes far beyond the BJP’s 17 years in power, including 12 years on its own.
The BJP has won close to, or more than, 50 per cent of the vote in two Assembly elections in Gujarat – unlike in any other State. Its associates are also well entrenched. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has a presence in each village with a population exceeding 500. The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) claims to have a branch in every town and village.
Communalism runs deep in Gujarat’s veins. It was the site of modern India’s first recorded communal riot, in 1713. Another landmark was the Hindu-Muslim violence of 1893 at Somnath, whose effects were felt nationally, leading to the famous Hunter Commission. This partially involved the politics of revenge for perceived past “injustices”. (For the complex story, see Romila Thapar, Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History, Viking, 2004). Under the impact of competitive politics, Hindu-Muslim differences over religious identities grew even more sharply.
The ground for this was prepared by the invention of an “Aryan” identity, which attracted the emerging Brahmin-Bania middle class like a magnet. Its principal author was the writer-historian-scholar Narmad, long a social reformer, who turned against reform to embrace indigenism. He defined “Arya” as high-born, noble upper castes “who came first and settled in India”.
Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj, was a Gujarati and toured the region in the late 19th century glorifying the Vedic Age and Aryadharma, and opposing it to Paradharma (alien religions). His legacy was carried on by Shraddhanand with his shuddhi (re-conversion of Muslims) campaign.
Even the freedom movement’s mobilisation strategies used religious metaphors: the Non-cooperation Movement was dharmayuddh; and British rule, “Ravan raj”. Hindutva was aggressively propagated through cow protection societies and Ganesh festivals.
Communal violence had become endemic and recurrent in Gujarat by the early 20th century. Major freedom movement events such as the Bardoli Satyagraha and the Dandi March happened to the accompaniment of Hindu-Muslim clashes. The riots of 1969 were remarkable for their ferocity and led to Muslim ghettoisation and disenfranchisement.
Hindutva’s strength is also related to the influence of Right-wing ideas in Gujarat’s business-oriented society, which places a premium on commercialising all human relationships. Politically, the Right’s influence goes back to Gandhi’s withdrawal in 1930 from Gujarat, and the inflated importance of Vallabhbhai Patel.
Divisive factors
Three major factors have further shaped Gujarat against this backdrop. The most important is the early consolidation of a powerful alliance between patidar farmers and Brahmins and Banias in the cities. This divided the State between “Bhadra Gujarat” and “Aam Gujarat”, say social scientists Achyut Yagnik and Suchitra Sheth, and authors of The Shaping of Modern Gujarat (Penguin, 2005). “The expanding and modernising middle class of Gujarat has been looking for a new identity to validate its present and protect its future.”
Hindutva furnished this identity and helped the dominant castes thwart demands for power-sharing with the underprivileged majority. Gujarat’s social conservatism is thus an amalgam of Hindutva and upper-caste domination.
It is noteworthy that Gujarat is India’s only major State where there has been no successful Dalit or OBC self-assertion. An attempt was made at this when the Congress put together the KHAM (Kshatriya-Harijan-Adivasi-Muslim) social coalition in 1980 and won a record 140 Assembly seats.
The upper-caste elite reacted violently to this and launched a powerful street agitation against reservations for Dalits. “The myth of Gandhi’s Gujarat – peaceful, tolerant and non-violent – exploded,” say Yagnik and Sheth.
The OBCs faced a similar violent savarna agitation in 1985-86 for demanding affirmative action. Remarkably, one of the agitation’s main leaders was Narendra Modi. The personnel who participated in it were mobilised yet again in 2002 in the post-Godhra pogrom.
“While the ideology of Hindutva was gaining ground,” say Yagnik and Sheth, “moderate voices were getting weaker…. By the early 1990s, community leaders… no longer wielded any authority over their youth…. These youngsters… have grown up on a diet of anti-minority invective and the voices of moderation, of liberal thought and tolerance have been missing from their environment.”
A second factor is the influence of conservative ideas through the non-resident Indian (NRI) community. Gujarat has the highest representation of any Indian State among professional NRIs living in North America. Their reactionary “long-distance” nationalism feeds Hindutva. They are more orthodox and backward-looking than their resident Indian counterparts, but provide the role model for young Gujaratis.
The third factor is Gujarat’s weak liberal culture. Gujarat has certainly had a tradition of tolerance, and peaceful co-existence of Hindus, Muslims and Parsis. But tolerance is not the same thing as modernist liberal respect for pluralism. One reason for a lack of this is the weakness of Gujarat’s labour movement. Once militant, this was compromised by the imposition of the pro-employer mazoor-mahajan union based on the romantic notion of “trusteeship”: industrialists as the “trustees” of labour, not its exploiters.
The labour movement’s disarming at an early stage meant that Gujarat’s elite was under little pressure to make human rights and other concessions, or to respect liberal values. As historian E.P. Thompson often said, a liberal culture does not come out of thin air; it arises from the people’s struggles, from fights at the barricades. This did not happen in Gujarat.
Since the early 1990s, the bhadralok’s aggressiveness has increasingly taken the form of xenophobia and crude Hindu chauvinism. It is in Gujarat that textbooks were first severely rewritten to distort history by glorifying everything Hindu and maligning everything non-Hindu. The effects have been aggravated by changes in the social geography of cities like Ahmedabad and the creation of Hindu and Muslim ghettos, resulting in declining social interaction between communities.
Gujarat’s Muslims, probably the most culturally integrated minority in India, have been turned into the bhadralok’s villains. Ironically, this happened although the penetration of Islam in Gujarat was remarkably peaceful. Traditionally, Gujarat’s Muslims were divided into 130 different communities disparate in descent, occupation, lifestyle and customs. For instance, the Bohras and the Khojas were severely persecuted by Sunni Muslims, not Hindus. Hindutva has been as blind to differences among Muslims as to divisions among Hindus.
Virulent sub-nationalism
Finally, what explains the virulence of Gujarati sub-nationalism and the Modi personality cult? Gujarat’s middle class has long nurtured a grievance over the “loss” of Mumbai caused by the reorganisation of the old Bombay State in 1960. It also convinced itself that the whole nation was prejudiced against Gujarat because it did not quickly sanction the Narmada dam projects. Parties across the spectrum built a mystique around the dams as the key to limitless progress and prosperity, despite their high economic, human and ecological costs.
When the Narmada Bachao Andolan launched an agitation against the Sardar Sarovar dam for displacing vulnerable people without rehabilitating them, Medha Patkar was vilified as Gujarat’s “enemy”; defence of the underprivileged was demonised; and militant sloganeering about “Gujarat’s glory” took over the public discourse.
Modi cynically constructed the “Gujarat Gaurav” plank from these negative and xenophobic sentiments. During the election campaign, he depicted all those who demanded justice for the victims of 2002 as violators of Gujarat’s self-respect: for his followers, the 2002 anti-Muslim carnage never happened; only Godhra and Akshardham did.
Ultimately, Modi won because he projected, like a true demagogue, an appeal based on militant Hindutva, Gujarati hubris, and a despotic personality that respects no democratic values or norms of decency but is admired for its strong will, determination and decisiveness – although these may be directed to achieve elite objectives and in undemocratic ways, such as coercive land acquisition for special economic zones (SEZs) and gross violations of human rights.
The admiration this ruthless decisiveness evokes among the middle classes testifies to a horrible cult of personality, and of a quasi-fascist personality at that. So, thousands of Modi supporters chose to suppress their own identities by wearing masks imitating his face. The bulk of the middle class does not feel even an iota of remorse for what happened in 2002.
All this speaks of a deep social pathology in a State that has graduated from a Hindutva laboratory into a large-scale Hindutva factory. At any rate, Modi will now seek a larger, national-level role for himself. The Sangh Parivar, always a worshipper of power, will find it hard to contain him.
That task has fallen to all those who believe in secularism, freedom and inclusive growth. We must not fail these ideals.
Jan. 05-18, 2008
COLUMN
Why Gujarat?
by PRAFUL BIDWAI
The Congress could not have defeated Narendra Modi without grasping why Hindutva is so uniquely powerful in Gujarat and without confronting it at its roots.
ARUNANGSU ROY CHOWDHURY
BJP supporters in Ahmedabad celebrate the party’s massive win.
AS the Congress licks its wounds after its mauling in Gujarat, all manner of explanations are being trotted out for its poor electoral showing: divisions in the anti-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) vote in a dozen northern Gujarat constituencies because of Congress “rebels”, the Bahujan Samaj Party’s spoiler role in Kutch and Saurashtra, over-reliance on discredited BJP dissidents, and poor campaigning tactics.
There is doubtless some validity in these explanations. It is also true that the Congress lost about 20 seats by margins as narrow as 2,000 votes. Focussed campaigning and aggressive debunking of Narendra Modi’s extravagant claims about “development” and “good governance”, along with a projection of equitable pro-poor alternatives, would probably have yielded improved results.
However, the sad truth is that these factors could not have countered fully the powerful pull of aggressive Hindutva in Gujarat, strengthened under Gujarat’s ultra-conservative upper-class savarna (upper-caste)-dominated ruling social coalition.
The Congress deluded itself that the election would be a “normal” contest in which the arithmetic of caste, class, ethnicity and region would prevail. It would have to do nothing special to counter the challenges posed by Narendra Modi through his virulent Hindu communalism, appeal to Gujarati hubris via a chauvinistic sub-nationalism masquerading as Gujarati asmita (self-respect), and an authoritarian personality cult.
The Congress refused to counter Modi’s core-agendas and instead caved in by adopting a “soft Hindutva” posture and ducking all issues pertaining to the pogrom of 2002 and after, including the State’s continuing victimisation and exclusion of Muslims. It did not question Modi’s Gujarati-chauvinist orientation. Even on “development” and “governance”, it failed to mount a convincing campaign offering alternatives favourable to working people.
Consider development. Despite high GDP growth, Gujarat’s rank in areas such as health, literacy, education, and hence human development and gender empowerment, has been slipping, according to the official Human Development Report (2004). Nothing bears more eloquent testimony to Gujarat’s unbalanced and warped development than the fact that 74.3 per cent of its women and 46.3 per cent of its children are anaemic.
Gujarat’s indices of patriarchy are frightening. The sex-ratio is an abysmal 487:1000 in the 0-4 age-group and 571 in the 5-9 age-group (national averages, 515 and 632 respectively). Gujarat’s health indices are barely higher than Orissa’s. The proportion of children under age 2 who receive complete vaccination fell from 53 to 45 per cent between 1998-99 and 2005-06. In social sector spending as a proportion of public expenditure, Gujarat ranks a lowly 19 among 21 major States.
Gujarat boasts good-quality highways, including the gleaming Ahmedabad-Baroda expressway. But so high is the toll for using the expressway that the bottom half of the population is forced to use camel- or bullock-carts. The road has cut off villages from one another and caused flooding by blocking natural drainage.
Gujarat is rapidly industrialising. But the industries that have flourished the most are all highly hazardous or polluting: poisonous chemicals (Vapi is among the world’s 10 worst toxic hubs); textile dyeing; ship-breaking; and diamond polishing, which turns people blind in their thirties. Gujarat has not still recovered from the de-industrialisation of the 1980s when its textile mills closed down. Its performance on labour rights is appalling. On minimum wages, it ranks eighth among all States, much below its per capita income rank (fourth).
The Congress did not criticise adequately this deplorable record or demand inclusive, people-centred development. It went along with Modi’s dualistic growth model. Its failure to counter Modi’s core appeal was even more damaging to itself – and to Indian society. It refused to understand or acknowledge the strength of Hindutva in Gujarat, which goes far beyond the BJP’s 17 years in power, including 12 years on its own.
The BJP has won close to, or more than, 50 per cent of the vote in two Assembly elections in Gujarat – unlike in any other State. Its associates are also well entrenched. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has a presence in each village with a population exceeding 500. The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) claims to have a branch in every town and village.
Communalism runs deep in Gujarat’s veins. It was the site of modern India’s first recorded communal riot, in 1713. Another landmark was the Hindu-Muslim violence of 1893 at Somnath, whose effects were felt nationally, leading to the famous Hunter Commission. This partially involved the politics of revenge for perceived past “injustices”. (For the complex story, see Romila Thapar, Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History, Viking, 2004). Under the impact of competitive politics, Hindu-Muslim differences over religious identities grew even more sharply.
The ground for this was prepared by the invention of an “Aryan” identity, which attracted the emerging Brahmin-Bania middle class like a magnet. Its principal author was the writer-historian-scholar Narmad, long a social reformer, who turned against reform to embrace indigenism. He defined “Arya” as high-born, noble upper castes “who came first and settled in India”.
Dayanand Saraswati, the founder of the Arya Samaj, was a Gujarati and toured the region in the late 19th century glorifying the Vedic Age and Aryadharma, and opposing it to Paradharma (alien religions). His legacy was carried on by Shraddhanand with his shuddhi (re-conversion of Muslims) campaign.
Even the freedom movement’s mobilisation strategies used religious metaphors: the Non-cooperation Movement was dharmayuddh; and British rule, “Ravan raj”. Hindutva was aggressively propagated through cow protection societies and Ganesh festivals.
Communal violence had become endemic and recurrent in Gujarat by the early 20th century. Major freedom movement events such as the Bardoli Satyagraha and the Dandi March happened to the accompaniment of Hindu-Muslim clashes. The riots of 1969 were remarkable for their ferocity and led to Muslim ghettoisation and disenfranchisement.
Hindutva’s strength is also related to the influence of Right-wing ideas in Gujarat’s business-oriented society, which places a premium on commercialising all human relationships. Politically, the Right’s influence goes back to Gandhi’s withdrawal in 1930 from Gujarat, and the inflated importance of Vallabhbhai Patel.
Divisive factors
Three major factors have further shaped Gujarat against this backdrop. The most important is the early consolidation of a powerful alliance between patidar farmers and Brahmins and Banias in the cities. This divided the State between “Bhadra Gujarat” and “Aam Gujarat”, say social scientists Achyut Yagnik and Suchitra Sheth, and authors of The Shaping of Modern Gujarat (Penguin, 2005). “The expanding and modernising middle class of Gujarat has been looking for a new identity to validate its present and protect its future.”
Hindutva furnished this identity and helped the dominant castes thwart demands for power-sharing with the underprivileged majority. Gujarat’s social conservatism is thus an amalgam of Hindutva and upper-caste domination.
It is noteworthy that Gujarat is India’s only major State where there has been no successful Dalit or OBC self-assertion. An attempt was made at this when the Congress put together the KHAM (Kshatriya-Harijan-Adivasi-Muslim) social coalition in 1980 and won a record 140 Assembly seats.
The upper-caste elite reacted violently to this and launched a powerful street agitation against reservations for Dalits. “The myth of Gandhi’s Gujarat – peaceful, tolerant and non-violent – exploded,” say Yagnik and Sheth.
The OBCs faced a similar violent savarna agitation in 1985-86 for demanding affirmative action. Remarkably, one of the agitation’s main leaders was Narendra Modi. The personnel who participated in it were mobilised yet again in 2002 in the post-Godhra pogrom.
“While the ideology of Hindutva was gaining ground,” say Yagnik and Sheth, “moderate voices were getting weaker…. By the early 1990s, community leaders… no longer wielded any authority over their youth…. These youngsters… have grown up on a diet of anti-minority invective and the voices of moderation, of liberal thought and tolerance have been missing from their environment.”
A second factor is the influence of conservative ideas through the non-resident Indian (NRI) community. Gujarat has the highest representation of any Indian State among professional NRIs living in North America. Their reactionary “long-distance” nationalism feeds Hindutva. They are more orthodox and backward-looking than their resident Indian counterparts, but provide the role model for young Gujaratis.
The third factor is Gujarat’s weak liberal culture. Gujarat has certainly had a tradition of tolerance, and peaceful co-existence of Hindus, Muslims and Parsis. But tolerance is not the same thing as modernist liberal respect for pluralism. One reason for a lack of this is the weakness of Gujarat’s labour movement. Once militant, this was compromised by the imposition of the pro-employer mazoor-mahajan union based on the romantic notion of “trusteeship”: industrialists as the “trustees” of labour, not its exploiters.
The labour movement’s disarming at an early stage meant that Gujarat’s elite was under little pressure to make human rights and other concessions, or to respect liberal values. As historian E.P. Thompson often said, a liberal culture does not come out of thin air; it arises from the people’s struggles, from fights at the barricades. This did not happen in Gujarat.
Since the early 1990s, the bhadralok’s aggressiveness has increasingly taken the form of xenophobia and crude Hindu chauvinism. It is in Gujarat that textbooks were first severely rewritten to distort history by glorifying everything Hindu and maligning everything non-Hindu. The effects have been aggravated by changes in the social geography of cities like Ahmedabad and the creation of Hindu and Muslim ghettos, resulting in declining social interaction between communities.
Gujarat’s Muslims, probably the most culturally integrated minority in India, have been turned into the bhadralok’s villains. Ironically, this happened although the penetration of Islam in Gujarat was remarkably peaceful. Traditionally, Gujarat’s Muslims were divided into 130 different communities disparate in descent, occupation, lifestyle and customs. For instance, the Bohras and the Khojas were severely persecuted by Sunni Muslims, not Hindus. Hindutva has been as blind to differences among Muslims as to divisions among Hindus.
Virulent sub-nationalism
Finally, what explains the virulence of Gujarati sub-nationalism and the Modi personality cult? Gujarat’s middle class has long nurtured a grievance over the “loss” of Mumbai caused by the reorganisation of the old Bombay State in 1960. It also convinced itself that the whole nation was prejudiced against Gujarat because it did not quickly sanction the Narmada dam projects. Parties across the spectrum built a mystique around the dams as the key to limitless progress and prosperity, despite their high economic, human and ecological costs.
When the Narmada Bachao Andolan launched an agitation against the Sardar Sarovar dam for displacing vulnerable people without rehabilitating them, Medha Patkar was vilified as Gujarat’s “enemy”; defence of the underprivileged was demonised; and militant sloganeering about “Gujarat’s glory” took over the public discourse.
Modi cynically constructed the “Gujarat Gaurav” plank from these negative and xenophobic sentiments. During the election campaign, he depicted all those who demanded justice for the victims of 2002 as violators of Gujarat’s self-respect: for his followers, the 2002 anti-Muslim carnage never happened; only Godhra and Akshardham did.
Ultimately, Modi won because he projected, like a true demagogue, an appeal based on militant Hindutva, Gujarati hubris, and a despotic personality that respects no democratic values or norms of decency but is admired for its strong will, determination and decisiveness – although these may be directed to achieve elite objectives and in undemocratic ways, such as coercive land acquisition for special economic zones (SEZs) and gross violations of human rights.
The admiration this ruthless decisiveness evokes among the middle classes testifies to a horrible cult of personality, and of a quasi-fascist personality at that. So, thousands of Modi supporters chose to suppress their own identities by wearing masks imitating his face. The bulk of the middle class does not feel even an iota of remorse for what happened in 2002.
All this speaks of a deep social pathology in a State that has graduated from a Hindutva laboratory into a large-scale Hindutva factory. At any rate, Modi will now seek a larger, national-level role for himself. The Sangh Parivar, always a worshipper of power, will find it hard to contain him.
That task has fallen to all those who believe in secularism, freedom and inclusive growth. We must not fail these ideals.
Communal violence mars the peace in Kandhamal district of Orissa
[Picture Credits: Kamal Singh / PTI | Photo source: Frontline]
Photo caption in Frontline: An All India Christian Council demonstration in New Delhi on December 27 demanding that the safety of Christians in Orissa be ensured.]
Frontline - Jan. 05-18, 2008
ORISSA
Black Christmas
by Prafulla Das
Communal violence mars the peace in Kandhamal district of Orissa around Christmas time.
AP
The police guarding a church at Darigibadi in Phulbani district, on December 26.
On December 24, when the world was preparing to celebrate Christmas, the Kui-speaking tribal people of Orissa’s Kandhamal district were getting ready for a 36-hour bandh beginning the next morning. But even as preparations were on, the bomb of hatred that had been ticking for long went off, ripping the communal fabric of the district.
Trouble apparently began when a section of Hindus opposed the preparations for Christmas. Following this, a group of Christians allegedly attacked Swami Lakshmananda, a local Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader, who was on his way to perform a yagna in the Brahmanigaon area of the district. Activists of the VHP retaliated by setting ablaze churches and other Christian institutions, and houses belonging to members of the community. The VHP also called for a four-hour, State-wide bandh the next day in protest against the attack on its leader. The bandh coincided with the one that was called by the Kui Samaj Samanwaya Samiti.
The Kui Samaj has been agitating against the alleged granting of Scheduled Tribe (S.T.) status to Dalits in the district, which has a sizable Christian population. The vast majority of the Dalits in Kandhamal are Christian whereas only a small section of the tribal population has embraced Christianity. The divide between the tribal people and the Dalits has widened in recent years with the VHP repeatedly contending that religious conversion was at the root of the trouble in the central Orissa district.
As the agitating tribal people felled trees on all roads leading to the district on December 24 night to enforce their bandh beginning from the next day, VHP activists put their organisation’s stamp on the Kui Samaj agitation and went about vandalising churches and prayer houses.
Prayers were not held in any church in Kandhamal on Christmas day. One person was killed and over 30 people were injured in the clashes between the two communities.
Caught unawares, the administration imposed a curfew on Phulbani, the district headquarters, and three other towns – Brahmanigaon, Baliguda and Daringibadi. Prohibitory orders were enforced in the remaining areas of the district. In Bhubaneswar, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik appealed to the people of Kandhamal to maintain peace and harmony.
It was only on December 26 that the State government took up the matter seriously and deployed additional forces in different parts of the district. The situation, however, did not show any improvement as the police could not enter most of the areas because of roadblocks put up by Kui Samaj members.
When Kandhamal was burning, on December 26, leaders of the ruling Biju Janata Dal were busy at a massive rally in the State capital, Bhubaneswar, on the occasion of the 10th foundation day of the party. At the rally, Naveen Patnaik, who is also the BJD president, reiterated his party’s resolve to realise the dream of his father, the late Biju Patnaik, of building a prosperous Orissa.
Patnaik, however, took time off and reviewed the Kandhamal situation at the State Secretariat twice that day. The government said three companies of the Central Reserve Police Force had been called in from other places in the State to restore peace in Kandhamal.
As Kandhamal remained cut off from the rest of the world for the fourth day on December 27, the Chief Minister flew to Phulbani and held a review meeting, which was attended by Director General of Police Gopal Chandra Nanda and top officials of the police and the administration.
On his return, Patnaik told reporters in Bhubaneswar that the situation in the district had normalised to a great extent. Admitting that churches and prayer houses had been damaged or burnt down in the district, he said more than two dozen people were arrested and action was being initiated against the offenders. In reference to the tribal agitation, Patnaik said that his government would look into the grievances and take necessary steps to resolve the issue.
Patnaik, however, appeared to be unaware of the fresh violence that was occurring around the same time in Kandhamal. By evening, reports started pouring in that at least a dozen more churches and prayer houses had been burnt during the day. Besides, three persons were reportedly killed in police firing when an armed mob, said to be VHP supporters, attacked the Brahmanigaon police station. A mob attacked the police station after the police personnel tried to prevent them from attacking members of the Christian community. A senior officer was injured in the police station attack. Fresh trouble began in Brahmanigaon after the body of a child was recovered from the locality earlier in the day.
KAMAL SINGH/PTI
An All India Christian Council demonstration in New Delhi on December 27 demanding that the safety of Christians in Orissa be ensured.
Confirming the death of three persons in police firing, a top official said that the police had opened fire in self-defence. Confronted with reports of the damaging and burning down of more than 40 churches and prayer houses by December 27 evening, he said the exact details were not available. It was difficult for the administration to keep track of incidents taking place in remote hilly areas, he explained.
Police stations were also attacked at Phiringia and Tikabali and many police vehicles were burnt by mobs. It was difficult to assess as to whether the attackers were Sangh Parivar members or Kui tribal people, an official observed.
On December 27, a delegation led by Raphael Cheenath, Archbishop of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar, met the Chief Minister and submitted a memorandum stating that Christians were not safe in Kandhamal. The representatives of the community, who claimed that at least 50 churches had been damaged over the previous four days, also demanded an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the incidents. The VHP alleged that Hindu places of worship were also attacked in some places.
As violence continued in Kandhamal, the Opposition parties and other organisations criticised the government for its failure to maintain law and order. They also blamed Patnaik for being soft on the Sangh Parivar because the Bharatiya Janata Party was a partner in the two-party coalition government.
Four days after Kandhamal smouldered, Patnaik went on a damage-control exercise. He ordered a judicial inquiry into the violence in Kandhamal on December 28. He, however, clarified that only one person had been killed in police firing the previous day and not three persons as had been reported in the media. Only one body had been recovered, he added.
Soon after Patnaik ordered the judicial inquiry, Steel and Mines Minister Padmanabha Behera, who hails from the violence-hit district, resigned from his post. The government also appointed a new District Collector for Kandhamal.
The dropping of Behera from the Cabinet was one of the demands put forward by the Kui tribal people. Behera belongs to the Dalit community. The Kuis have also been demanding the appointment of a direct Indian Administrative Service officer as Collector instead of an officer who was promoted to the cadre.
January 01, 2008
Praful Bidwai: On why Gujarat Is Special
The Times of India
2 Jan 2008
Why Gujarat Is Special
by Praful Bidwai
It's impossible to understand the reasons for or the magnitude and quality of the BJP's stunning victory in Gujarat without moving beyond 'normal' electoral arithmetic and campaign strategies, and looking at some factors which have shaped Gujarati society and politics over the decades. Three of these are pivotal: a deep-rooted social conservatism laced with rabid Hindutva; aggressive, intensely chauvinist subnationalism; and growing receptivity to an authoritarian personality cult.
Although 'Hindutva laboratory' Gujarat has been under full or partial BJP rule since 1990, its communalisation goes back a long way. Modern India's first recorded communal riot occurred in Gujarat, in 1713. No less important was the Hindu-Muslim violence of 1893 at Somnath, whose effects were felt nationally and debated in London, leading to the famous Hunter inquiry. The politics of revenge for perceived past injustices struck deep roots in Gujarat under the influence of Dayanand Saraswati's Arya Samaj and the 'shuddhi' (reconversion from Islam) movement active in the 1920s, led by Swami Shraddhanand.
The ground had been prepared in the late 19th century by the invention of an 'Aryan' identity, towards which the emerging Brahmin-bania middle class gravitated. Cow protection societies and Ganesh festivals became sites of communal association and action. Under competitive politics, religious identity-based contestations only sharpened further. So powerful and recurrent was the violence that formed the backdrop to politics that even the Bardoli satyagraha and Dandi March took place amidst Hindu-Muslim clashes. From the landmark riots of 1969 to the pogrom of 2002, Gujarat saw increasing Muslim ghettoisation and disenfranchisement.
Gujarat also witnessed the early consolidation of an alliance between patidar land-owning farmers, and urban Brahmins and banias. This divided it between 'Bhadra Gujarat' and 'Aam Gujarat', say social scientists Achyut Yagnik and Suchitra Sheth. "The expanding and modernising middle class of Gujarat has been looking for a new identity to validate its present and protect its future". Hindutva furnished it.
Gujarat's social conservatism is thus an amalgam of Hindutva and near-complete upper-caste domination untempered by social reform, especially after Mahatma Gandhi's withdrawal in 1930 from Gujarat. Gujarat is India's only major state where there's no power-sharing between 'savarnas' and plebeians and no successful Dalit or OBC self-assertion. The first attempt at this was the Kshatriya-Harijan-Adivasi-Muslim coalition under the Congress, which swept the 1980 elections.
The savarna reaction was a violent agitation against Dalit reservations and dilution of bhadralok power. The second factor at work is best understood through the Gujarati middle class's sense of hurt over the perceived "loss" of Mumbai when the old Bombay state was reorganised, and even more, over long delays in clearance for the Narmada dam projects. Parties across the spectrum turned the dams into an issue of supreme iconic significance — the key to unbounded progress and prosperity, despite their high economic, human and ecological costs.
Elite resentment rose sharply after the World Bank withdrew from the Sardar Sarovar Project following the Morse report, and the Narmada Bachao Andolan launched an agitation against displacement-without-rehabilitation of highly vulnerable people. Medha Patkar was vilified as Gujarat's 'enemy'. 'Human rights' became a term of abuse. Defence of the underprivileged was demonised as effete and machismo about 'Gujarat's glory' and 'avenging' insults to the state replaced rational discourse. Modi cynically fashioned these misanthropic sentiments into the 'Gujarat Gaurav' ideology, lacing it with chauvinist venom and maligning any reference to justice for the victims of 2002 as an injustice and insult to Gujarat itself.
Of a piece with the total absence of middle-class remorse for the 2002 massacre is the spread of intolerant and authoritarian ideas and respect for despotic 'decisiveness'. Modi is the man who 'gets things done' by means fair or foul. If Bt-cotton is to be promoted to please big business, it'll be rammed down the throats of peasants, no matter that 500 farmers have committed suicide. If fertile land is to be procured for a toxic chemicals plant in Ankleshwar or Baroda, it will be acquired no matter how reluctant the owner is to sell. If labour unions demand the minimum wage, they must be smashed.
The admiration this ruthless decisiveness evokes among the middle classes is similar to the spell that Hitler and Mussolini cast by ensuring that 'the trains run on time'. This speaks to an unprecedented cult of personality, and a quasi-fascist personality at that. Why else would thousands of Modi supporters choose to suppress their own individual identities by wearing masks moulded after his face?
The tragedy of Gujarat is magnified by the strong likelihood that Modi will acquire a high-profile national role within the BJP, relentlessly pushing it further to the right; and that mal-developed Gujarat will be lauded and promoted as a model-state by the captains of Indian industry. In 2002, the CII at least registered a mild, soon-to-be-withdrawn protest against the collapse of law and order. Today, even supposedly 'enlightened' industrialists lavish praise upon Modi.
The writer is a political commentator.
2 Jan 2008
Why Gujarat Is Special
by Praful Bidwai
It's impossible to understand the reasons for or the magnitude and quality of the BJP's stunning victory in Gujarat without moving beyond 'normal' electoral arithmetic and campaign strategies, and looking at some factors which have shaped Gujarati society and politics over the decades. Three of these are pivotal: a deep-rooted social conservatism laced with rabid Hindutva; aggressive, intensely chauvinist subnationalism; and growing receptivity to an authoritarian personality cult.
Although 'Hindutva laboratory' Gujarat has been under full or partial BJP rule since 1990, its communalisation goes back a long way. Modern India's first recorded communal riot occurred in Gujarat, in 1713. No less important was the Hindu-Muslim violence of 1893 at Somnath, whose effects were felt nationally and debated in London, leading to the famous Hunter inquiry. The politics of revenge for perceived past injustices struck deep roots in Gujarat under the influence of Dayanand Saraswati's Arya Samaj and the 'shuddhi' (reconversion from Islam) movement active in the 1920s, led by Swami Shraddhanand.
The ground had been prepared in the late 19th century by the invention of an 'Aryan' identity, towards which the emerging Brahmin-bania middle class gravitated. Cow protection societies and Ganesh festivals became sites of communal association and action. Under competitive politics, religious identity-based contestations only sharpened further. So powerful and recurrent was the violence that formed the backdrop to politics that even the Bardoli satyagraha and Dandi March took place amidst Hindu-Muslim clashes. From the landmark riots of 1969 to the pogrom of 2002, Gujarat saw increasing Muslim ghettoisation and disenfranchisement.
Gujarat also witnessed the early consolidation of an alliance between patidar land-owning farmers, and urban Brahmins and banias. This divided it between 'Bhadra Gujarat' and 'Aam Gujarat', say social scientists Achyut Yagnik and Suchitra Sheth. "The expanding and modernising middle class of Gujarat has been looking for a new identity to validate its present and protect its future". Hindutva furnished it.
Gujarat's social conservatism is thus an amalgam of Hindutva and near-complete upper-caste domination untempered by social reform, especially after Mahatma Gandhi's withdrawal in 1930 from Gujarat. Gujarat is India's only major state where there's no power-sharing between 'savarnas' and plebeians and no successful Dalit or OBC self-assertion. The first attempt at this was the Kshatriya-Harijan-Adivasi-Muslim coalition under the Congress, which swept the 1980 elections.
The savarna reaction was a violent agitation against Dalit reservations and dilution of bhadralok power. The second factor at work is best understood through the Gujarati middle class's sense of hurt over the perceived "loss" of Mumbai when the old Bombay state was reorganised, and even more, over long delays in clearance for the Narmada dam projects. Parties across the spectrum turned the dams into an issue of supreme iconic significance — the key to unbounded progress and prosperity, despite their high economic, human and ecological costs.
Elite resentment rose sharply after the World Bank withdrew from the Sardar Sarovar Project following the Morse report, and the Narmada Bachao Andolan launched an agitation against displacement-without-rehabilitation of highly vulnerable people. Medha Patkar was vilified as Gujarat's 'enemy'. 'Human rights' became a term of abuse. Defence of the underprivileged was demonised as effete and machismo about 'Gujarat's glory' and 'avenging' insults to the state replaced rational discourse. Modi cynically fashioned these misanthropic sentiments into the 'Gujarat Gaurav' ideology, lacing it with chauvinist venom and maligning any reference to justice for the victims of 2002 as an injustice and insult to Gujarat itself.
Of a piece with the total absence of middle-class remorse for the 2002 massacre is the spread of intolerant and authoritarian ideas and respect for despotic 'decisiveness'. Modi is the man who 'gets things done' by means fair or foul. If Bt-cotton is to be promoted to please big business, it'll be rammed down the throats of peasants, no matter that 500 farmers have committed suicide. If fertile land is to be procured for a toxic chemicals plant in Ankleshwar or Baroda, it will be acquired no matter how reluctant the owner is to sell. If labour unions demand the minimum wage, they must be smashed.
The admiration this ruthless decisiveness evokes among the middle classes is similar to the spell that Hitler and Mussolini cast by ensuring that 'the trains run on time'. This speaks to an unprecedented cult of personality, and a quasi-fascist personality at that. Why else would thousands of Modi supporters choose to suppress their own individual identities by wearing masks moulded after his face?
The tragedy of Gujarat is magnified by the strong likelihood that Modi will acquire a high-profile national role within the BJP, relentlessly pushing it further to the right; and that mal-developed Gujarat will be lauded and promoted as a model-state by the captains of Indian industry. In 2002, the CII at least registered a mild, soon-to-be-withdrawn protest against the collapse of law and order. Today, even supposedly 'enlightened' industrialists lavish praise upon Modi.
The writer is a political commentator.
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