South Asia Citizens Wire #1 | 09-11 March, 2004 via: www.sacw.net
[1] Pakistan: Inside The Nuclear Closet (Pervez Hoodbhoy) [2] Pakistan-India: War minus the shooting (Mike Marqusee) [3] Pakistan-India: Cricket not Politics (Kamal Mitra Chenoy) [4] India: A Fair Unfair to Books (Mukul Dube) [5] India: The BJP's publicity effect (Arvind Rajagopal)
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[1]
PAKISTAN: INSIDE THE NUCLEAR CLOSET Pervez Hoodbhoy 3 - 3 - 2004 (published in www.opendemocracy.net)
Abdul Qadeer Khan, regarded as the "Father of Pakistans' Bomb" was accused then pardoned by President Musharraf for his role in trafficking nuclear technology. But what sort of man is Qadeer, and what does his story reveal about the United States's role in Pakistan's nuclear proliferation? A nuclear physicist from Pakistan sends an exclusive report. ----------
The president of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, is in a self-congratulatory mood these days, savouring the praise heaped upon him by George Bush, Colin Powell , and the United States's under-secretary of state for arms control, John Bolton. After surviving two recent assassination attempts and overseeing a high-level summit meeting with India, the great survivor of Pakistani politics acts as if the worst is behind him. By way of celebration, he has announced new long-range missile tests for March 2004.
The primary reason for Musharraf's current satisfaction is the way that his treatment of Pakistan's hugely popular nuclear hero, Abdul Qadeer Khan -- forcing him to apologise on public television for his illicit nuclear trafficking, yet also pardoning him for the offence -- allowed him to please Washington without causing a massive uproar.
Many in the Pakistani press had warned that any attempt to punish Qadeer, advertised for near two decades as the architect of Pakistan's and the Islamic world's nuclear bomb, would provoke rampaging mobs to demand an end to Musharraf's pro-US rule. As it turned out, Washington was thrilled with the general's rebuke, while a disillusioned and disempowered Pakistani public grumbled but did not take to the streets.
But neither Musharraf's satisfaction nor America's approbation is likely to last long. For while Qadeer took sole responsibility for the trafficking in his televised confession, the sheer scale of Pakistan's secret exports raises at least two difficult questions that go far beyond him and a handful of his colleagues.
First, Iranian and Libyan revelations since December have confirmed that this was the most extensive nuclear smuggling in history. It involved the illicit export of centrifuge designs and parts, used to enrich uranium into fuel for nuclear reactors, or as fissile material for weapons (an export reluctantly admitted by the Pakistani government itself); but it also included complete centrifuges, together with a shipment to Libya of 1.5 tons of uranium hexafluoride gas. Could Qadeer and his cohorts have moved such large pieces of equipment, and traveled extensively outside Pakistan, without the knowledge of the military? The ultra-high level of security in Pakistan's nuclear installations makes this unbelievable and points to deeper level of complicity.
Second, documents handed over by Libya to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) -- now being evaluated by US experts -- reveal that the country had received old Chinese designs for a workable nuclear bomb that had been passed to Pakistan in the late 1970s. Here lies a puzzle, and the possibility of a huge embarrassment for the Pakistani establishment: because, although Qadeer is widely advertised as the "father of the Pakistani bomb", knowledgeable people are aware that he had nothing to do with the design and manufacture of the bomb.
As a metallurgist, Abdul Qadeer Khan's expertise was exclusively in producing weapons-grade uranium hexafluoride gas using the centrifuge process. The rest of the work of creating a nuclear weapon -- including metallisation, bomb design, manufacture, and testing -- was entirely the responsibility of an unfriendly rival organisation, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission.
How then did Qadeer happen to possess nuclear weapon design information when, in fact, the real work of weapons design was being done elsewhere?
Openly Selling Secrets
General Musharraf has claimed that Qadeer's export of centrifuge technology was unknown to successive governments. Yet for over a decade, Qadeer openly advertised his nuclear wares; each year -- including 2003, when the proliferation controversy had already become intense -- colourful banners festooned Islamabad advertising workshops on "Vibrations In Rapidly Rotating Machinery" and "Advanced Materials". These workshops, sponsored by the Dr. A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories (also known as the Kahuta Research Laboratories), had obvious and immediate utility for centrifuge technology, essential for producing bomb-grade uranium.
In earlier years, Qadeer and his collaborators had published a number of papers detailing critical issues regarding the balancing of centrifuges and magnetic bearings. These dealt with technical means for enabling centrifuge rotors to spin close to the speed of sound without disintegrating. The relevance of such work to the development of weapons-grade uranium was already evident even to non-specialist observers.
But to make the blatant absolutely certain in the minds of prospective customers, Kahuta issued glossy sales brochures aimed at "classified organisations". These advertised such nuclear products as complete ultracentrifuge machines, high frequency inverters, equipment for handling corrosive uranium hexafluoride gas, as well as hand-held ground-to-air missiles.
In light of such persistent, egregious advertising of forbidden nuclear wares, can successive governments of the sovereign nation really have been -- as President Musharraf claims -- so ignorant?
An Empire Of Patronage
For all who cared to see, and as even his admirers admit, Abdul Qadeer Khan was corrupt. Despite a salary of less than $3,000 a month, Qadeer had bought vast amounts of the choicest real estate; owned restaurants and colleges; purchased a hotel in Timbuktu which he named after his wife; and claimed ownership of a psychiatric hospital. His belief that his historic contribution elevated him above the country's laws and environmental regulations even led him illegally to build a magnificent mansion along the pristine Rawal Lake, the source of Rawalpindi's drinking water.
But Qadeer's insistence on his paternity of Pakistan's supreme status symbol did not come free. He had to buy the loyalty of journalists, military men, and scientists. His biographers and other sycophants were amply rewarded; none of his relatives are poor anymore. Many of my colleagues in the physics department of Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University would receive cheques for substantial amounts merely by sending him an obsequious note and asking for money.
He was not so generous with me. With a physics colleague, Abdul Nayyar, I challenged in court Qadeer's bid to steal our university's land in 1996. We eventually won, but he had me placed on the Exit Control List and I was forbidden to leave Pakistan until I finally managed to clear myself of various charges of being "anti-national". These included selling the secrets of the Kanupp reactor to the United States and India -- a wildly ridiculous charge given that Kanupp is under the full-scope safeguards of the IAEA.
The Wind Blows Danger
It is said that General Musharraf has a strong personal dislike of Qadeer, and it is unlikely that he approved his shady dealings. Yet when he removed Qadeer as head of the enrichment facility in late 2000, allegedly under US pressure, Musharraf did not order a thorough investigation; nor, more recently, did he show much gratitude to the two countries which had exposed an international crime ring.
Indeed, in the marathon press conference where he announced his acceptance
of Qadeer's petition for mercy, Musharraf excoriated Iran and Libya for
surrendering to the IAEA and meekly handing over documents on their
nuclear programmes that implicated Pakistan ("Our Muslim brothers did not
ask us before giving our names"). When asked if the state would
appropriate Qadeer's illicitly acquired wealth, Musharraf replied that
this was not necessary -- this even though Musharraf has been
incarcerating political rivals for many years on charges of corruption
that may be true but are yet to be proved in court.But Pervez Musharraf is not the only one with some explaining to do in this murky affair. So does the United States government, both for its past and present policies towards Pakistan and for its role in nuclear proliferation generally.
American policy on nuclear proliferation towards both Pakistan and Israel has historically been driven by expediency. As these two nations, for different reasons, set about building nuclear weapons decades ago, the US chose to look the other way. While Pakistan fought America's war-by-proxy against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the president of the United States certified year after year that Pakistan was not attempting to build a nuclear weapon thus allowing Pakistan to keep building the bomb. But after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the US imposed sanctions on Pakistan and accused it of making the bomb.
Such expediency -- to put it at its mildest -- continues to guide US actions today. CIA director George J. Tenet claims that his agency had penetrated deep into the nuclear technology smuggling ring in recent years. This should not have been difficult, given Qadeer's shameless advertising of his wares. But why then did the Americans not stop him?
If Tenet's claim is correct, then the US knew -- but did not attempt to stop -- centrifuge and bomb designs from being further copied, and centrifuge parts being manufactured and distributed to other interested parties. In effect this has made the difficult job of containing the spread of nuclear weapons still harder. Such a role is itself a form of complicity in nuclear proliferation. It is not clear why the CIA chose to move so slowly and with such apparent indecision.
The more recent United States indulgence of General Musharraf has a clearer explanation. The Americans want Pakistan to help eliminate the al-Qaida and Taliban threat. Colin Powell's statement that Pakistan has done "quite a bit to roll up the (nuclear) network" must be read in the light of this urgent priority. But can Pakistan deliver on either account?
The way that nuclear organisations, in Pakistan as elsewhere, are necessarily clothed in layers of secrecy raises questions about Powell's optimism. It is also an open question as to whether Pakistani government assurances, even if they are sincere, can prevent all in the country's nuclear establishment from following in Qadeer's footsteps. Only two years ago, as is well-known, senior members of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission were ready to play their role in the jihad against America. In a fit of Islamic solidarity they went to Afghanistan and met with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. It is difficult to believe that they were the only ones so inclined.
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[2]
The Guardian [UK] March 10, 2004
War minus the shooting
India's first cricket tour of Pakistan in 15 years brings political opportunity and danger in equal measure
Mike Marqusee
India's superstar cricketers - among the country's most famous faces - will today visit Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at his Delhi residence, to receive his official blessing before boarding a chartered flight for Lahore. It's a short hop, but a momentous journey - the start of India's first full cricket tour of Pakistan since 1989.
This is world sport's fiercest local derby. It arouses the greatest passions among the greatest number of people, and is over-stuffed with political, cultural and religious connotations. Its absence has been the hole in the heart of the world game, as well as a standing reminder of the near state-of-war prevailing between the south Asian neighbours. Its resumption is a welcome by-product of the current tenuous thaw.
There are dangers here as well as opportunities. Cricket, like other mass spectator sports, is a magnet for meanings, a malleable metaphor. And in the past, cricket between India and Pakistan has served as both a symbol of south Asian harmony and a prime example of what George Orwell called "war minus the shooting".
Sport is everywhere a major carrier of national identity, but cricket between India and Pakistan tends to promote a specific type of national identity, one defined - and sharpened - by its focus on "the enemy". In addition, this type of nationalism often targets an "enemy within". (In India, the cricket rivalry has been used as a Tebbit-style national loyalty test against Indian Muslims.) In recent years, the winner-takes-all ethic promoted by neo-liberalism seems to have inflated the values attached to victory and defeat on the field of play. The pressure on the players to succeed will be enormous. In both countries a special stigma is attached to failure against the sub-continental rival, while success is doubly rewarded. In the eyes of the more ardent cricket nationalists, the inescapable vagaries of luck and form are always suspect. On either side of the border, there's a tendency to respond to defeat with allegations of betrayal.
Pre-tour anxieties have focused on the security question. Reluctantly, the Pakistanis have agreed to play only one-day matches instead of five-day tests at Karachi and Peshawar - two of the country's major venues - in deference to Indian fears that a prolonged stay in either city would be unsafe. But the reality is that any number of unpredictable incidents could transform the temper of the series. When Pakistan played in Calcutta in 1999, a disputed run-out call precipitated a crowd disturbance; the spectators were cleared and the game was resumed before TV cameras in an empty stadium.
The series will unfold on many levels simultaneously: within the grounds but also on television, in workplaces and in the streets. How it unfolds on these various levels will tell us something about the societies in which it unfolds. Since 1989, the face of India has been transformed. Neo-liberal policies have led to an influx of multinational corporations and the emergence of a TV-saturated consumer class. Meanwhile, rightwing Hindu chauvinism - intolerantly nationalistic and anti-Muslim - has established itself at the centre of power and is the ideology of choice among the elite. Just how this "shining India", as the Vajpayee government dubs it, will cope with either victory or defeat in Pakistan will be interesting to see.
Across the border, the last 15 years have witnessed repeated crises and apparently cyclical transitions - out of and back into military rule, out of and back into favour with the US. General Musharraf's position remains precarious and is now deeply tied to the India-Pakistan peace process. He has a huge vested interest in this series unfolding without disruption. Others, on both sides of the border, will have different interests.
The series promises to be a huge moneyspinner, and broadcasters, sponsors and advertisers have been jostling for a piece of the action. While the corporations have pledged themselves to the cause of peace, the reality remains that the easiest way for them to maximise the return on their investment in the cricket is to infuse it with extraneous emotional significance. They'll be tempted to hype the series as the ultimate confrontation. A few years back the Star/ESPN channel (owned by Murdoch and Disney) promoted an India-Pakistan match-up in Australia as "qayamat" - apocalypse. It was tasteless and reckless.
Nonetheless, it is true that the intensity (and profitability) of this unique sporting rivalry derives as much from the common cricket culture that unites the two countries as from the history that divides them. And the series should be, at least in part, a celebration of that common culture, that enthusiasm for the game which can be found in parks and alleyways, bazaars and colleges on both sides of the border.
As one of an international army of committed neutrals, I'll be following the series as avidly as the most die-hard national partisan. Unburdened by the stress and anxiety of nationalist zeal, I suspect I may enjoy the cricket even more. In the end, though, the only victory worth celebrating will be the kind that both sides share equally.
· Mike Marqusee is the author of Anyone But England
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[3]
Sahara Time [India] March 13, 2004.
Cricket not Politics
--Kamal Mitra Chenoy
Politicians can never leave cricket alone. Even in selection committees and boards there is politics. Thus Jimmy Amarnath's famous one liner: "The selection committee is a bunch of jokers." The cricket tour to Pakistan has to bear additional burdens. In the first place, India alone has to win, and all true patriots must support it. Especially Muslims, secularists, cricket lovers and other such deluded people who mistaken that this is only a game, might support the best side on the day, thereby exposing their anti-national and Islamist credentials. Secondly, there is the problem of security. Security in Karachi and elsewhere where the Taliban and Al Qaida are yet to be seen? Of course stupid, its all about economics. Its India shining of course, at least until the elections. After that the Right politicians will shine. So if the team goes to Pakistan, and horror of horrors loses on Pakistani pitches in front of Pakistani crowds with anti-Hindutva umpires, 'feeling good' will turn into 'failing good,' as irreverent cricket historian Ramachandra Guha pointed out. The security of the government is at stake! It's very important! Tendulkar when 38 may be old, especially if he has already smashed every record in sight, but Atalji at 80 has no intention of moving.
But what about the moneybags? The Board, TNCs, advertising agencies, media, Pakistani tourism, etc., all outside the sainted 'parivar,' are making money. How can this be part of Indian shining? In which the poor, downtrodden, starving peasants whose total food intake is today lower than during the Bengal Famine of 1943, and unemployment and especially rural unemployment particularly of women is at record levels, apparently they, the majority, are making money. If not, are the already rich making money? No that can't be, that's old hat, not Generation Next. But India is shining: the Tatas, Birlas, with an Aziz Premji thrown in. Are they actually making money to spend, say on mass marriages? That's just the media hype, not cricket. And even if they make money also on cricket, what's new. But not in the P word, not politics, but Pakistan. No benefit whatsoever to Pakistan. No money, only worry. No Inzy victory, only Indian curry. No Pindi blaster, only the little master. No India whining, only India shining.
Unsporting? No stupid, win at any cost. We won at Pokhran [forget Chagai], when "Buddha smiled,"[1974] and "Buddha smiled again" [1998] because our initial vegetarian friendship became truly radioactive. There were a few hiccups during Kargil, but the final result was 'quite' all right according to our neutral umpires, as impartial as K. Subrahmaniam, George Verghese have certified. The grim fact that for many, the 'quite' was the 'quiet' of the grave is unfortunate. But that's ok. We only need 22 yards plus for the cricket pitch. The damn Pakistanis never did play by our rules. We really must have our own security. For the Buddha to smile, of course. He was against violence, killing, non-vegetarianism? That was in the past, before Bofors and MacDonalds. He would know better now. Then he would smile again. Even if he doesn't, Saurav and Donna had better do. Otherwise Sachin and Anjali are always there. No insecurity for the ruling regime! Goodness, what would happen to the country, to cricket? May it rule forever under its ever youthful leaders.
This would actually be funny, if it was totally untrue. But it isn't. Cricket and cricketers bear impossible burdens. They bear the chauvinism of a whole nation, and its prejudices as a bonus. If they fail to do the impossible, their houses are stoned, they are reviled, and instant experts castigate them. Look at the money they are making on ads! We know its all declared. Doesn't even have to go before a inquiry committee or be filmed by Tehelka, or one of the Jogis. The more experienced ex-cricketers but verbal blasters join the BJP to pitch in the Lok Sabha. Why should the jokers be confined to the selection committees and boards?
For peace to prevail in the world, and especially in South Asia, politics must be divorced from sport. Peshawar must be divorced from the pesha of politics. The game must be played for what it is. Teams might and must lose, but the game should win. To be 'Number One' you don't have to win everything, you have to be sporting, to play the game as it should be played. Winning is NOT everything. But the bucks the richies are making? That's part of neo-liberalism where winning is everything as long as you make the most money. So what is everyone cribbing about? Suppose Pakistan, the Pindi Express, Inzy and all win? Will people ask uncomfortable questions? What in the end is there in all this for us? You can't stupid, that's against National Security! Cricket may be a game, but wining is security. Only then is India shining.
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[4]
Mainstream [India] vol. XLII, no. 10, 28 February 2004
A Fair Unfair to Books
Mukul Dube
Books have been in the news recently, for no fault of theirs. First came the attack by the Sambhaji Brigade on the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute of Pune, ostensibly over the "denigration" of Shivaji by a historian who was only setting out the different ways in which people have looked at that historical hero. Naturally, those whom he had thanked for having helped him were bad people who therefore became targets. Then rewards were announced, in Mumbai and in Kolkata, for blackening the faces of the writers Salman Rushdie and Taslima Nasreen, respectively. Hordes of avid bibliophiles everywhere, incensed beyond endurance by bad books.
Finally came the World Book Fair which began in Delhi on 14 February 2004, organised as usual by the National Book Trust. It began, according to the report published in the *Hindu* the next day, "amid [the] chanting of Vedic mantras [and the] rendition of Saraswati Vandana". This is, as we know, how public events commence all over the globe, so the use of the word "World" in relation to this book fair was entirely justified.
It was only to be expected that the speakers at all the major functions in the book fair should be associated with the Sangh Parivar, which, through the BJP-led coalition at the Centre, controls the National Book Trust. This year, though, there was a change in the usual arrangements: individual publishers who wished to hold book release functions or "meet the author" events were required to obtain the prior permission of the fair's organisers. The Chairman of the NBT, B.K. Sharma, said that this was not aimed at censorship but represented sound management and was meant to prevent possible disorder. It was only "unavoidable circumstances" which kept the organisers from allotting space for the release of Taslima Nasreen's book *Dwikhandita*, at which the writer herself was to have been present. None but the organisers of such a large event can understand the immense problems involved, the great responsibility that weighs on their shoulders.
A book represents, in now unfashionable terms, "superstructure" or "ideology". It may contain the truth, as those who follow "religions of the book" believe their particular books to represent, or it may contain lies. With obvious exceptions, the reader is free to evaluate a book. What is important is that in every modern society, books are a symbol of the freedom of expression that is guaranteed to every member of such a society. In our own country's Constitution, this freedom is set out in Article 19 (1) (a); although specific exceptions are listed which keep it from being absolute.
Maharashtra, ruled by a Congress-led coalition, banned James Laine's book on Shivaji; and West Bengal, ruled by the CPI(M), banned Taslima Nasreen's book. In both cases, the stated reason was that the books hurt the "sentiments" of some people and were therefore potential causes of trouble. Thus "law and order" were given primacy over freedom of expression. It does not speak well for either state's government that it considered itself unable to tackle the law and order problems which *may* have arisen, choosing instead the easy way out - simply banning the books.
We do not know if it occurred to the two administrations that they had in the process trampled over a fundamental right granted by the Constitution, the upholding of which was their duty. One is led here to think of other administrations, those which included people who had shaped the Constitution. Did they ban the writings of Golwalkar and Savarkar, all of which not only caused but were *intended* to cause hurt to the sentiments of millions of Indians and which recommended the denial to these Indians even of ordinary citizens' rights? Of course they did not. Perhaps some secretly agreed with the maniacs while others saw no harm in letting the ranters rant on. Whichever way we choose to look at it, freedom of expression was not denied even to those who spouted poison.
One is led here to think also of what many stalwarts of the Sangh Parivar have been permitted to say, without let or hindrance, in their writing, in their public speeches, and in audio and video cassettes. The likes of Narendra Modi, Pravin Togadia and Ashok Singhal, and, in a comparatively restrained though no less obvious way, Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani himself, have freely painted India's Muslims as Pakistani agents, as Pakistanis, and as terrorists, not to speak of several references involving what is more directly called obscenity. Of the many provisions in the Indian Penal Code which prescribe punishments for such acts, I shall mention only those which pertain to public tranquillity (chap. VII), religion (chap. XV) and criminal intimidation (chap. XXII). Today's leaders are not governed by those very laws which they are pledged to uphold: nor, of course, are their "kin".
Literally silencing opponents is one use to which political power has been put. The other side of the coin is the spreading of one's own vicious ideas, their imposition on the nation, most particularly on its children. Both run counter to the law of the land, but why should those people bother who have political power in their grasp and who never made much of the law of the land anyway? Their own agenda is primary, and they use the laws only when they can be used against others: otherwise they bend them or ignore them entirely. The law is only a tool: it has nothing to do with natural justice or with principles.
Political power and the law can be misused to impose on people books that are packed full of lies. Further, people can be compelled to believe what these books contain because books which contain alternative view-points can be made unavailable, again misusing the same set of laws. Modern societies are liberal in that they grant great freedom to their citizens as individuals, imposing restrictions only when the exercise of this freedom impinges on the freedoms of other citizens. Books, especially those that are used in school education, are perhaps the finest example of how India, in the last decade or so, has been sought to be taken back from liberal modernity to a mediaeval suppression of individual freedoms, in large part through the obnoxious and cynical promotion of superstition.
Anil Sadgopal, Arjun Dev, Bipan Chandra, D.N. Jha, Irfan Habib, Nalini Taneja, Romila Thapar and Teesta Setalvad are some of the people who have written, with cogent arguments and extensive documentation, about the Sangh Parivar's organised effort to give a particular slant to text books meant for school children. The preponderance of historians is explained by the fact that it is chiefly our land's history which the Sangh Parivar has sought to re-write, in such a way that it might "prove" the ancient and eternal superiority of its ahistorical and sociologically nonsensical construct of "Hindu" culture and civilisation - a superiority which it says was marred by the coming (always as invaders, naturally, for there could have been no simple traders among them) of evil people who followed other faiths. To regain that superiority non-Hindus must be disenfranchised, suppressed, thrown out - or simply annihilated.
My fear is that the World Book Fair of 2004 may mark the co-option of the National Book Trust, in the way in which the National Council of Educational Research and Training was long ago co-opted, into the service of the Sangh Parivar. If this happens, not just school books but *all* books will sing the glories of Hindutva; and there will be nothing else to read.
I saw recently a book which documents how, in Iran after the Islamic Revolution, many banned books - not just Nabokov's *Lolita* but also, strangely, the works of Jane Austen - were read in secret by girls and young women with the encouragement of their brave teacher. Maybe the time is not far when I shall have to hide when I read Tolstoy or Hemingway - or Charlie Brown.
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[5]
The Hindu [India] March 10, 2004
The BJP's publicity effect
By Arvind Rajagopal
The Bharatiya Janata Party's publicity management far exaggerates its real political strength.
INVITING ALL sections of society to vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee recently said, why focus on small, chut-put incidents of violence that may occur "here and there?" Instead why not come together to build a great nation?
In case you thought this meant the BJP had turned over a new leaf, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani's forthcoming India Shining (Bharat Uday) yatra, which recalls his earlier blood-soaked rath yatra, proves that it is still the same party. We are being invited to cooperate to build the nation. But we should also discuss what kind of nation we are building.
The BJP protests that to identify Hindu nationalism exclusively with it, and against the Congress, is wrong. It is true that the Congress too sought votes on communal grounds, although more often from Muslims and lower castes, and seldom officially on a Hindu platform. It is also common knowledge that communal riots have been abetted by members of both parties at various times. Nevertheless, there remains a difference.
The Ahmedabad labour leader, Ashim Roy, has concisely expressed this difference as follows: whereas the Congress always localised the impact of communal violence, the BJP has invariably tried to nationalise it. Thus past riots in Meerut or Moradabad would be downplayed by the Congress leaders as local disturbances. Godhra, by contrast, was described by the BJP leaders as indicative not only of Muslim tendencies as a whole, but, going further, also as a Pakistani plot, in which Indian Muslims were co-conspirators.
There is another way in which the relation between the Congress and the BJP can be described. It is a formulation made (in a personal conversation) by Govindacharya: BJP minus Congress equals RSS. Although the BJP may appear increasingly as the successor to, and even imitator of, the Congress, the party's reliance on the Sangh for its grassroots force ensures that it will be different.
Today we are treated to the VHP's denunciations of the BJP for the alleged gimmickry of Mr. Advani's new yatra. Since for the Parivar, politics is declared to be an amoral activity, it is difficult to know whether such criticisms are seriously meant. At any rate, they illustrate the BJP's need to oscillate between strong and weak Hindutva, between satisfying its cadre and playing politics as usual.
This is mirrored in the supposed divide between Mr. Advani and Mr. Vajpayee. As they themselves repeatedly remind us, however, they work for the same party, and symbolise the way in which it works. The BJP's belligerent and diplomatic aspects are structurally linked, in a division of labour that still defines its organisational character today.
We are asked nowadays to treat the BJP as a centrist party, and as the rightful legatee of Indian nationalism. But the way in which the case is advanced makes it hard to believe.
To take only one example. When sustained episodes of violence have occurred, it is for the victim to show forgiveness, and for the judge to declare exoneration. Now, those arguing for the accused are themselves pooh-poohing the accusation. But if our Hindu past is important, surely what Hindus did and do is also important. Who decides what we should focus on and what we should ignore? We are being told: there is nothing here for you to see, so just move on!
This recalls what the historian Jacques Ranciere has phrased as the police concept of history. We are told to ignore certain things because they risk upsetting the status quo. It does not fit the picture of a Shining India. So it is better that we forget about it.
Note that this does not lead to burying the past. Rather, it is preserved as a forbidden space that we must all remember to ignore. In fact, because we are unable to forget the past, we must constantly be told to downplay it, and keep moving on.
Can the police concept of history be effective in a hard-to-police country like India? In the era of the Congress, many felt that there was no alternative. Today, a similar argument is being made about the BJP: that there is no alternative. You might say this is a police concept of politics: there is no one else for you to choose, so hand over your vote and move on!
How has it so quickly come to appear as if there is no alternative to the BJP? We might assume that in an era of coalition politics, the increased barter between parties would make political dialogue more transparent. But the opposite has occurred.
With the shift from Congress dominance to BJP hegemony, we have a party that claims a radical break from the past, while denying that the campaign which brought it to power has any influence over it. And it is true that the appeal of Prime Minister Vajpayee for celebrities of all political hues and stripes suggests a "big tent" party in which anything goes, somewhat akin to the Congress itself.
The success of the BJP in being able to maintain its lofty stance and in creating the effect that "there is no alternative" is amazing. But it is certain that its publicity management far exaggerates its real political strength. The party is in fact vulnerable on numerous fronts.
For example, the BJP takes pride in having made India a nuclear power. But the Hindu bomb sparked off an Islamic bomb in reply, and India's overwhelming military advantage over Pakistan was wiped out by "nuclear parity" and "mutually assured destruction." Among other things, this confidence prompted the Kargil invasion. South Asia became for a while "the most dangerous region in the world," to quote Bill Clinton. The recent peace initiatives with Pakistan may be a partial counterweight to these events. But nuclearisation has brought irrevocable problems to the subcontinent, and escalated projected defence costs incalculably.
Then there are scandals such as the multi-crore stamp paper scam, Enron, disinvestment of PSUs, Tehelka, and the silencing of Satyendra Dubey, that have happened on the BJP's watch. Gujarat hangs over the party like a crimson question mark.
But the teflon party's image seems unscathed. How does this occur? This occurs, I suggest, because the BJP's publicity has been to create the impression of a unipolar politics. If we were not susceptible to such a publicity effect, it could not work, however.
Earlier, the Congress was in this position. The only unifying point for the Opposition at the time was "Indira hatao." It was left to Indira Gandhi to define a national agenda, which she did memorably with "garibi hatao." Today the BJP appears to be in a similar situation.
Although the Congress inaugurated liberalisation, the BJP was able to take credit for it, due to the Congress' decline and the resulting space for new formations. The BJP's Hindu nationalism provided the cultural and political accompaniment to liberalisation. With Hindutva, the BJP offered what seemed like a final chance for India to be a great nation.
But what kind of nation? There is an assumption that Hindutva can remain tacit and undiscussed, as the silent technology that will empower the nation's rise to global eminence. But there needs to be debate as we come to grips with the fate of secularism under the BJP, and as we acknowledge that democracy is being ensured by the presence of countervailing caste-based parties.
The habit of understanding politics in a unipolar fashion took shape in the Congress era. The party became identical to the state, which in turn was the foundation of nation-building. It was assumed that there was no alternative to the Congress, as the party of Indian nationalism. In a much more partial way, the BJP seeks to be its successor.
What kind of nationalism the BJP represents is perhaps too threatening to discuss impartially. All said and done, the state is the guarantor of national security, and is meant to define the practical limits of society. To challenge its philosophical basis would be subversive. Hence we seem to have a continuation of unipolar politics, with opponents clamouring ineffectively around the BJP. This is at least the impression one gets from most of the news media.
But this is a completely misleading impression. India is experiencing, as one writer has said, "a million mutinies now." Lower caste groups and regional parties are redefining the landscape, for better or worse. A democratic experiment more daring than anywhere else in the world is under way in India. In the West, poor people opt out of elections; in India it is the opposite. The poor vote in greater numbers here whereas it is the rich who opt out of elections.
The sense of a unipolar politics unwittingly reflects the complacency of the rich, rather than the struggles of the majority. It is our responsibility to respond to this to overcome this limitation. If we fail to do so, we will surely be swept away in the tide of popular forces that is sure to burst forth, together with our misconception that "there is no alternative."
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Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace and democratisation in South Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit citizens wire service run since 1998 by South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
The complete SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/
South Asia Counter Information Project a sister initiative, provides a partial back -up and archive for SACW: snipurl.com/sacip
See also associated site: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org
DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
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