South Asia Citizens Wire | 24 March, 2004
via: www.sacw.net
[This issue of the SACW is dedicated to the
memory of V.M. Tarkunde, one of India's foremost
defenders of Human rights and a leading figure of
the Radical humanists movement. V.M Tarkunde died
on the March 22, 2004, in New Delhi.]
[1] Bangladesh: On right to freedom of religion
and the plight of Ahmadiyas (Ridwanul Hoque)
[2] India: 'Gods for Sale' - Religion on the Retail (Satya Sagar)
[3] India: Freedom of Expression Under Attack
- Terror By Law (Dilip Chitre)
- Drowning Dissent (Dilip Chitre)
[4] India: Historians rue attack on freedom of expression (Vaishnavi C. Sekhar)
[5] India: A request for support by secular activists
[6] UK / India: Voices against communal terror
and for cultural freedom in India (London, April
1)
--------------
[1]
The Daily Star [ Bangladesh]
March 21, 2004
On right to freedom of religion and the plight of Ahmadiyas
Ridwanul Hoque
The recent governmental action banning
publications of the Ahmediyas (or Ahmadis) must
have shaken the conscience of those who believe
in democracy, peace and justice. The action has
sparked off huge debates and justifiably severe
criticisms. A legal challenge of the government's
order has already reached the court of justice.
This short article purports to explore some legal
aspects of the governmental action with reference
to Pakistani situation where the same issue has
caused a lot of problems..
Ahmadiyas, sometimes called Quadianis, claim
themselves as Hanafi Muslims but do not believe
in the finality of Islam's Prophet - Mohammad
(SM). Resultantly, they have been facing
rivalries and oppositions across the world,
although Pakistan is the only state to have
declared the Ahmadis as non-Muslims. In
Bangladesh and India, there is no legislation
that goes to the extent of declaring Ahmadiyas
non-Muslims or even limiting their activities.
Nor is there any law that defines who is or not a
Muslim. In India, the issue of Ahmadis came into
forefront in the seventies. On one occasion, the
court very pragmatically held that the Ahmadis
are Muslims [Shibauddin Koya AIR (1971) Ker. 206].
In Pakistan, Ahmadis have been declared as
nonMuslims and their freedom of religion
curtailed by a whole series of ordinances, acts
and even constitutional amendments. This was
concomitant with the process of Islamisation of
Pakistani legal system orchestrated largely by
General Zia-ul Haq. Following a constitutional
definition of 'Muslims' in 1974 that indirectly
excluded the Ahmadis, a law-suit was brought
seeking injunction to prevent Ahmadis from
observing Islamic practices. But the court
declined to act and Ahmadis were allowed to
maintain mosques and to call for azans. Things
changed gradually. Besides being declared as
non-Muslims, activities of Ahmadis were made an
offence by an Ordinance of 1984. Notably, within
the process of Islamisation of Pakistani legal
system, Shariah Courts were created to review
compatibility of any law with the 'Injunctions of
Islam'. On the other hand, there were
Constitutionally guaranteed fundamental human
rights (e.g., freedom of religion, protection of
minorities etc) which also created a basis of
judicial review. The Ahmadis went to the Shariat
Court to unsuccessfully challenge the authencity
of the 1984 Ordinance. The challenge was aborted
as the court held that the Ordinance was not
un-Islamic. (Mujibur Rahman, PLD 1985 FSC 8). On
another occasion, the court held that Muslims and
Ahmadis are two separate and distinct entities
(Khurshid Ahmad, PLD 1992 SC 522). These
judgments left the Ahmadis effectively insecure
and observance of their religious activities
still remained a criminal offence. Having lost
the legal battle of sustaining their religious
rights, the community went to the Supreme Court
to challenge the 1984 Ordinance on the ground of
constitutionality. (Zaheer-ud-din, 1993 SCMR
1718). Not surprisingly, the court interpreted
the right to freedom of religion from the
perspective of an Islamic state's obligation to
promote and preserve the state religion, i.e.,
Islam. Consequently, the Court decided by a
majority that the Ordinance was not
unconstitutional, thereby throwing the Ahmadis
into an apparently perpetuating state of
insecurity and frustration. It seems that the
court's unduly restricted interpretation of
'freedom of religion' was much influenced by the
Pakistani politics of that time. Labeling the
Ahmadis as 'non-Muslim minority', the Court held:
"The freedom of religion is guaranteed by Article
20 .... The overriding limitation .... is the
law, public order and morality. The law cannot
override Article 20 but has to protect the
freedom of religion without transgressing bounds
of morality and public order. Propagation of
religion by the appellants (Ahmadis) who as
distinguished from other minorities, having
different background and history, may be
restricted to maintain public order and
morality.''
Right to freedom of religion is a very special
kind of fundamental right which touches a
person's belief as to his creation, life and
death as well as his way of life and thinking.
Interaction with religion and the state has been
therefore inevitably critical and intriguing and
maintaining a peaceful atmosphere between
different believers of the same or different
religions has emerged as a potentially difficult
job for the state. A strategy of attaining that
objective of peace is by resorting to the state
principle of secularism or by adhering to the
principle of ensuring human rights for all
ethnic, social and religious minorities. But
secularism is not always an ideal solution to the
problems with freedom of religion, unless there
is democratic political will. An examination of
the developments in this field in India reveals
that freedom of religion is not absolute even in
a secular state. And, from the Pakistan's
experiences as above, we have learnt that
interpretation of freedom of religion in a
religious state brings forth a further dimension
to the judicial discourse.
Truly speaking, as regards legal and political
difficulties ensuing from the interpretation of
the right to freedom of religion, Bangladesh does
not fit into the systemic position of either
Pakistan or India. Although Bangladesh initially
adopted secularism as one of its core fundamental
principles of state policy, she has abandoned the
principle later, following, of course, not a
truly democratic process. On the contrary, it is
not a Islamic state either. Nor is its legal
system Islamised, although Islam has been made
'state religion' by amending the Constitution
through another undemocratic means. Bangladesh is
a democratic, plural society with a record of
fairly peaceful coexistence of a diverse number
of religious, ethnic or linguistic minorities.
Its Constitution is a unique piece of supreme
legal document encompassing almost all human
rights. The Constitution has unequivocally and
emphatically insisted on democracy, rule of law
and social, economic and political justice.
Needless to say, the level of democracy or
civility of a society is measured in terms of its
record of preserving and promoting fundamental
human rights of all including minorities without
any sort of discrimination.
Fighting for freedom of religion!
Article 39 (1) of the Constitution guarantees
freedom of thought and conscience. Interestingly,
unlike freedom of speech and expression
guaranteed by Art. 39 (2), this right has not
been subjected to any legal restrictions.
Correspondingly, the threshold of the
government's obligation not to interfere with the
citizens' freedom of thought is high. Prohibition
by government of Ahmadiyan publications is
undoubtedly a severe blow on the community's
freedom of thought. More importantly, the banning
order has violated the community's right to
freedom of religion. Article 41 of the
Constitution guarantees freedom of religion,
albeit subject to 'law, public order and
morality'. However, it is a cardinal principle of
constitutional jurisprudence that 'public order
and morality' ground does not authorise the
parliament to take away the very right to freedom
of religion. That said, it should also be noted
that law does not also allow any one to impede
social order or to jeopardise public morality.
What is tricky is that government does often play
politics with 'public order and morality' ground
as this has not been defined in the Constitution
or any other law. Absent such a definition, it is
a challenge for the courts to determine what
'public order and morality' means in a given
situation. Thus when a governmental action is
alleged to have violated freedom of religion of a
person or people and the government advances the
ground as justification, the court has to make a
balancing exercise keeping in mind that the
concept of public order and morality is not
static, rather society-specific.
A pertinent question, therefore, is whether
Ahmadiyan activities are against public order and
morality justifying the government's action. As
we have seen above, in Pakistan, the activities
of the Ahmadis were legally prohibited and they
were declared non-Muslim on the ground of public
order and morality. But the situations - legal,
political and constitutional - in Pakistan are
clearly not the same as in Bangladesh. We have
seen that present constitutional scheme disallows
the type of action the government has taken. One
might however argue that there are at least two
potential elements that might liken the
situations to those of Pakistan. These are: (i)
that the principle of absolute trust and faith in
the Almighty Allah is a fundamental principle of
the Constitution and state policy and (ii) that
Islam is the state religion of Bangladesh. A
closer look at these previsions will show that
attack on Ahmadis' freedom of religion cannot be
justified with reference to these provisions.
Because, true faith in Islam requires us to show
tolerance to others who expresses different
opinions and even to those who oppose Islam. That
Islam itself acknowledges various sects is
particularly educative for us. State religion
provision of the Constitution does not permit the
state, it is argued, to lay unreasonable
restrictions on Ahmadis' freedom of religion,
because the provision does not obligate the state
to do anything in relation to state religion.
This is merely a recognising or declaratory
provision. Another potential argument in defence
of the governmental action might be that
government did not actually prohibit the Ahmadis'
activities, nor were they declared non-Muslims
and thus their right to freedom of religion is
kept untouched. Instead, it has only forfeited
some of the Ahmadiyan publications on the ground
that these did hurt the belief of general of
Muslims. As said earlier, regulation of religious
activities may be justified on the ground of
public order (Jibendra Kishore, 9 DLR (SC) 21).
The 'public order' ground must, however, be
exercised bona fide and objectively. In
Bangladesh Anjuman-E-Ahmediya (45 DLR 185), the
court upheld the forfeiture of a book as it
outraged the religious belief of bulk of Muslims.
But now the government seems to have forfeited
the Ahmadiyan books on a wholesale basis and
seemingly to console those who are demanding the
complete prohibition of practising Ahmadiyanism.
Thus at any rate, governmental action in question
appears to be blatantly illegal and incompatible
with its constitutional duty to preserve and
promote human rights for all.
Ridwanul Hoque is an Assistant Professor,
Department of Law, Chittagong University.
_____
[2]
'Gods for Sale'
Religion on the Retail
By Satya Sagar
[24 Jan 2004]
It is a very, very Indian story.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine filed a petition
in the Indian Supreme Court against - believe it
or not- the tenth incarnation of the Hindu God
Vishnu! Or at least, against a person who claims
to be nothing less than that and has in the past
decade drummed up a following of over several
million people in the southern part of India.
Blasphemous as the claim of this audacious avatar
is the court battle is not really about the finer
details of Hindu cosmology or theological
doctrine.
Based on several years of painstaking
investigation and research it is my friend's
claim that 'Kalki Bhagwan', as the defendant
calls himself, has taken money from the public
for rural development activities and fraudulently
diverted it to his personal bank accounts as well
as that of his close relatives. From being an
ordinary clerk working for a state-owned life
insurance company fifteen years ago today the
'Tenth Incarnation of Vishnu' is allegedly worth
many million dollars and owns vast properties in
many parts of South India.
The Indian Supreme Court has been asked, based on
the merits of the evidence presented, to order a
thorough investigation by state agencies into the
functioning of the 'Kalki' empire.
The 'Kalki' case is not very unique in a country
that gave the world the word 'guru' to begin with
and produces more of them every year than the
rest of the world combined. (I am including some
software programmers here!!!). The manipulation
of abstract (often abstruse) thought to
manipulate or motivate animate creatures has deep
roots in this ancient land, which has produced
several of the world's major religions apart from
numerous cults and mystical traditions.
Out of all the 'gurus' that routinely spring up
on the spiritually fertile Indian soil only a few
are genuinely enlightened souls who help spread
goodness and true religiosity around them. In
recent decades however, a bulk of them have been
unfortunately ordinary conmen out to make a quick
buck.
Once upon a time the typical 'guru' would prey on
the gullibility of the predominantly rural and
illiterate Indian population. Considering the raw
deal these village folks got here on Planet Earth
their attraction to anyone promising a better
life in the Heavens above was never surprising.
But the new trend is that god men and gurus of
all kinds are now developing a huge following
within the urban Indian lower middle and middle
classes. Since the early eighties in particular
there has been a boom in the `guru industry'
across urban India and some of them have acquired
virtual pop-star status. (All that long hair
helps, I am sure)
So what explains this phenomenon of otherwise
educated, well-heeled Indians queuing up in
droves to fall at the feet of fake god men and
shower them with money? Is this about the genuine
quest of individuals seeking spiritual salvation
in a very materialist world or is it about their
dishonest attempts to get quick-fix solutions to
the moral dilemmas they face in an increasingly
unscrupulous world? To be fair I guess one would
have to say it is a bit of both.
On one hand there is a genuine search for
spiritual satisfaction that many individuals
undertake, in a world where there is growing
material consumption but diminishing human
happiness. This leads many to experiment with one
false prophet after the other in the hope of
arriving at a magic formula that will bring
balance between mind and matter.
Also given the inability of institutionalized
religion to cater to the specific spiritual needs
of individuals, many people turn to gurus who
offer precisely such personalized service. Like
having your own custom-built conduit to nirvana.
At another level, the kind of things that most
members of the middle-classes need to do in their
jobs to both keep their jobs and get ahead of the
Jains (the Indian equivalent of the Jones)
creates considerable moral turbulence to say the
least. While most people justify whatever they do
as being part of 'what everyone does to survive'
the fact is their conscience still undergoes a
torment that simply cannot be wished away- and
hence has to be whitewashed away.
The more troubled a society is by feelings of
guilt and sinfulness that the consumerism of the
few amidst poverty of the many engenders, the
more frenetic its public display of pretended
religiosity. It is this vast growing market for
moral mufflers across the small towns and cities
of India that the guru industry has managed to
cleverly identify and capture.
With their instant solutions of spiritual
salvation- sold at steep moral discounts with
pay-as-you-pray options- the gurus have struck a
commercial goldmine. In exchange for a fat fee
they offer the modern citizen an easy way out of
the more difficult task of maintaining integrity
or decency in their day-to-day lives.
There was a time in the past when the typical
guru would become popular by exhorting the public
to give up their material desires and then sit
back to watch all the lovely money flow into his
own bank account. Nowadays though the average
guru is more realistic about public attitudes and
instead promises them all kinds of shortcuts to
instant wealth while charging a commission for
his services.
"Don't shun worldly pleasures, seek ultimate
happiness" the Tenth Avatar is quoted as
preaching to his devotees, (sounds like the late
Chairman Deng to me!) to whom he promises
everything from winning lotteries to marrying a
bride who looks just like their favorite movie
star. His foundations charge followers for
attending courses on something called 'pragmatic
materialism'.
The Indian public is lapping up this kind of
drivel and paying for it too. Today the sad
situation is that while the average urban Indian
becomes more and more overtly religious in
his/her public activities, politics, priorities
and cultural symbolism- this is accompanied by a
steep fall in his/her actual moral worth.
For all their hedonist holiness the Indian
middle-classes have neither become more
charitable, or generous, or kinder or tolerant-
not a single sign that they have somehow become
better human beings than before. ('Don't
interrupt my orgasm! You unhappy, pseudo-secular,
bloody communist!!' I can hear them say)
At the macro-level too there are other pressures
that bear upon the individual pushing them
towards blind unquestioning faith. One of these
is the deliberate injection of uncertainty into
the material lives of millions of low-income
Indian families in recent decades by successive
governments implementing neo-liberal economic
policies.
Since the early eighties successive Indian
regimes have pursued a path of Liberalisation,
Privatisation, Globalisation (the LPG model)
which has resulted in increasing income
inequalities, diminishing job opportunities and
the rapid erosion of the rights of employees in
both the state and private sectors. The last two
decades of the Indian economy has been aptly
characterized by some as consisting of an
industrial sector which had growth without jobs,
while the rural sector saw employment without
income. According to the Indian Planning
Commission there are currently 212 million people
in the country between the ages of 14 to 24, but
only 107 million have jobs.
The insecurity of the average Indian family today
is one of gigantic proportions as they witness
before their own eyes the systematic destruction
of all hopes for a better life by policies
designed only to enrich a few at the expense of
the many. Unable to understand this process and
in the absence of organized resistance many have
resigned themselves to their fate or sought
refuge in the false but comfortable world of
pseudo-religiosity.
Another major factor promoting the growth of
spiritual supermarkets and religious retailers in
India is of course the speculative greed
unleashed among its middle classes by the
'casinofication' of its economy- as a consequence
of globalisation.
The sheer volumes and velocity of global
financial flows conjures an awe among many human
beings that was once upon a time reserved only
for the grand forces of Mother Nature. And in a
world where money mysteriously appears in some
lives and disappears from others, like the
incarnation of an ancient God, it is difficult
not to become superstitious.
It is not accidental therefore that financial
speculators, aptly dubbed as 'wizards' by the
media, have become the new high priests of our
societies and role models for many people. "When
in sorrow contact Soros, for happiness try the
Hedge Fund! " has become the new mantra of the
punting classes.
And like all gamblers everywhere the speculating
middle-class citizen today will do any damn
desperate thing to keep the fate of his/her
financial investments prospering. Go through the
classifieds section of any major Indian newspaper
and you will find outfits peddling everything
from astrology, numerology, fengshui, magic gems
side by side with finance companies, stock
brokers, real estate agents, investment
consultants, wheelers and dealers of every
description.
So what we have right now in much of urban India
is a mad scramble by the middle classes to
blindly bet everything they have on the market
and equally blindly buy insurance from the
nearest holy-looking scamster and hope it all
works out fine.
While I have described so far the dilemmas of the
temple (also mosque/church in the Indian context)
going public the question that troubles me is
that if the people have become vulnerable is it
not the responsibility of the truly religious to
restore their moral spines? Unfortunately as far
as most contemporary religious institutions are
concerned one sees no attempt whatsoever to help
ordinary citizens cope in an honest and dignified
manner with the momentous economic and social
upheavals tossing around their once simple lives.
Instead what we witness is that religious
outfits- after having served out their feudal
masters in the past- are quickly adapting to the
corporatisation of the world and becoming
full-fledged enterprises on their own. And all
signs are that they have been extremely
successful too- using every modern corporate tool
from slick advertising to internet marketing to
get their customers.
This is a global phenomenon in fact and just to
give an example from Thailand- one new Buddhist
sect here called the Dhammakaya which preaches
the Kalki/Deng line of "to get rich is glorious'
actually won a national award in 1988 for its
'market planning strategies' from the Business
Management Association of Thailand.
Before anyone gets me wrong let me explain that
I do seriously believe in the possibility of
religious institutions playing a very positive
role in many societies provided they put the
interests of ordinary folk above that of rich
elites or their own survival. Just to give
another example from Thailand again the Buddhist
Sangha here does a fantastic service to society
by absorbing large numbers of rural youth from
poor farming families into the monkhood. The
Sangha provides the young monks with shelter, a
basic education and a sense of social
responsibility and at the same time is not
dogmatic or rigid about their leaving the
monkhood to take up other professions. Some of
Thailand's best know writers, artists and even
social activists come from a background in the
monkhood.
Maybe one can argue that it is the role of the
state to provide such welfare but in many a
developing country given the dysfunctional state
of the state such traditional social welfare
systems still have an important role. (If such
opportunities were extended to young Thai women,
who are unfortunately discriminated against,
Thailand could get rid of much of its notorious
commercial sex industry)
In stark contrast in India, with a few splendid
exceptions, most religious institutions and
those claiming special spiritual powers have
ceased to serve the public in any meaningful way
and instead parasitically live off them. At the
time of Indian Independence Jawaharlal Nehru, the
first Prime Minister, famously claimed that
industries would become the 'temples of modern
India'. What we see now is that instead it is
the temples that have become the 'industries of
a revivalist India'!
If this is going to be the case then I have a
suggestion to make. Subject all gurus and
religious institutions to the same laws that
apply to all other industries, businesses and
trade. Allow all those employed by the religious
industry to form trade unions and empower
consumers of religion to claim compensation in
the courts when they get products of 'low
spiritual quality'. If they are in the business
of selling God then there should at least be a
sales tax on the proceeds. Tax these religious
outfits and use the money to pay for truly
religious actions such as giving the weak and
poor a better life.
A good start would be to straighten out the
booming business empire of none other than our
dear 'Tenth Avatar of Vishnu'.
Satya Sagar is a journalist based in Thailand.
_____
[3]
Outlook [India]
March 23, 2004
OPINION
Terror By Law
Is Maharashtra's Home Minister declaring another
Emergency of his own during this pre-election
period? Will champions of civil liberties remain
articulately silent and silently articulate in
the face of this clear and present danger to
democracy itself?
DILIP CHITRE
The front page of the Pune City Edition of the
Marathi daily newspaper Sakal (23 March) had the
shocking news today that the Home Minister of
Maharashtra, R. R. Patil has "ordered the
Commissioner of Police, Pune to investigate the
persons at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research
Institute responsible for supplying malicious
information on 'Jijau' (Shivaji's mother) to
James W. Laine, so that the State can take
appropriate action against them."
[It is interesting to note the different focus in
reportage in this Marathi newspaper as compared
to the various English publications, or even the
PTI feeds, where the reportage is confined to the
Maharashtra government's threat to enlist
Interpol's help for arresting James Laine - Ed,
outlookindia.com]
This ridiculous-sounding statement, was made by
Home Minister Patil at a press conference in
Mumbai on March 22. The Home Minister has helped
to camouflage the extremely serious criminal
assault on the B.O.R.I. on January 5 -- that was
no ordinary conspiracy or act of dacoity -- into
what Marathi newspapers are now referring to as
'The James Laine issue'!
While James W. Laine's book has already been
banned and a police case against the author and
his publishers has been filed in Pune, the
Special Branch of the Maharashtra Police has not
yet shown any interest in tracing and
investigating the persons, organizations, and
political parties that have instigated the
assaulters. This has been treated as a case of
'hurt sentiments' though it is in all probability
a case of pre-calculated incitement of uninformed
public opinion for the sake of electoral and
other gains, or for 'recognition of
extra-constitutional clout'.
It is significant that the Home Minister and his
own party -- the N.C.P.-- have tried indirectly
to justify the 'Sambhaji Brigade' and the 'Chhava
Sanghatna' who attempted to disrupt the Prime
Minister's election campaign meeting in Beed,
raising slogans about the Laine book. The Prime
Minister too obliged by retracing his steps from
an earlier liberal stance in the matter of
censorship.
While neither James W. Laine nor the hero of his
book, Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, have any
conceivable role to play in the 14th Lok Sabha
polls, the Constitution of the Secular Democratic
Republic of India is itself under attack from
domestic terrorists and their political clients.
Would Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, were he to
reappear in the 21st century, make caste-wars the
foundation of his Svaraj?
Is Maharashtra's Home Minister declaring another
Emergency of his own during this pre-election
period? Will the Election Commission ignore this
on technical grounds? Will the Union Government
find it politically embarrassing to act
appropriately and bring to book those who
engineered and carried out the attack on BORI?
Will champions of civil liberties remain
articulately silent and silently articulate in
the face of this clear and present danger to
democracy itself?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dilip Chitre is Honorary Editor New Quest - a
quarterly journal of participative inquiry into
society and culture - and this piece appears in
New Quest Number 155 (January-March 2004)
focussing on "the rise of neo-Fascism in India".
o o o o
Outlook [India]
March 23, 2004
Drowning Dissent
What we have at stake in the floundering career
of our Republic is the plural character of our
polity pitted against a conformism imposed from
above, i.e. by an elite conspiring and conniving
to rule the vast mass of population.
DILIP CHITRE
In a remarkable essay, The Prevention of
Literature, published in 1945, George Orwell put
it most succinctly: "freedom of the Press, if it
means anything at all, means the freedom to
criticize and oppose."
What we have at stake in the floundering career
of our Republic is the plural character of our
polity pitted against a conformism imposed from
above, i.e. by an elite conspiring and conniving
to rule the vast mass of population, a sixth of
humankind inhabiting the entire planet crowded
within the frontiers of a modern nation-state.
Orwell's essay, written sixty years ago when the
Second World War was just ending, seems just as
relevant today and prophetic in retrospect. I am
tempted to quote him at some length:
"In our age, the idea of intellectual liberty is
under attack from two directions. On the one side
are its theoretical enemies, the apologists of
totalitarianism, and on the other side its
immediate practical enemies, monopoly and
bureaucracy. Any writer or journalist who wants
to retain his integrity finds himself thwarted by
the general drift of society rather than by
active persecution. The sort of things that are
working against him are the concentration of the
Press in the hands of a few rich men, the grip of
monopoly on radio and films, the unwillingness of
the public to spend money on books, making it
necessary for nearly every writer to earn part of
his living by hackwork, the encroachment of
official bodies like the M.O.I. and the British
Council, which help the writer to keep alive but
also waste his time and dictate his opinions, and
the continuous war atmosphere of the past ten
years, whose distorting effects no one has been
able to escape."
(Inside the Whale and Other Essays;
Penguin Books, 1962).
As a writer who was nine years old when India
became an independent and new nation-state, and
twelve years old when the Constituent Assembly
declared ourselves to be citizens of a Republic,
I have lived through a period of 'continuous war
atmosphere' not unlike what Orwell was talking
about. I now think that the entire Indian
subcontinent -- or indeed the whole of South Asia
comprising nations erupting out of a tenaciously
surviving civilization with a precariously
balanced plurality of character -- has been in
the throes of a continuing civil war.
In a civil war situation, the vox populi is no
longer reasonably unanimous or consensual. It
turns polyphony into cacophony resulting in a
Tower of Babel type of crisis. Prior to
independent nationhood, we were plunged into what
some people would call a fratricidal communal
conflict and others a genocidal deluge. Both
Muslim and Hindu 'nations' here were conceived
and carved out in genocide; and territorial
disputes over historical cartographic illusions
show no signs of going away in the near future.
Drowning the voice of dissent has been a regular
exercise throughout the new nation-state of India
whose ruling elite learnt the wrong kinds of
political lessons from their occidental political
mentors including Great Britain, Europe --
Western, Central, and Eastern -- and the United
States.
If we read the Constituent Assembly Debates and
listen to the voices of our Founding Fathers who
represented our ruling elite then, we get a vivid
picture of the challenges to our present
Constitution and where they come from.
It seems a miracle now that individuals like
Nehru and Ambedkar, who were actually in the
liberal minority, prevailed then. The passage of
the Hindu Code Bill through the Parliament was
fraught with the same hazards. At each stage,
human rights were sought to be limited and
concessions were carved out to appease religious,
communal, ethnic, and gender interests in the
status quo. Modernisation itself was seen by the
majority among the ruling elite as culturally
dangerous and undesirable.
But to focus more sharply on to the conflict
between pluralism and censorship, one must
examine the implications of Article 12 to Article
35 of the Constitution of the Republic of India.
These are stated in Part III of the Constitution
that deals with Fundamental Rights.
These rights proclaimed on January 26, 1950
converted us legally from being vassals or
subjects of an absolute sovereign authority (such
as the British Monarch that ruled us till August
15, 1947) to having become citizens with
inalienable rights and privileges. Our individual
status as citizens of India was guaranteed
regardless of race, religion, sex, creed, caste
and so forth.
This was a written text modifying which was made
deliberately difficult so that it could be done
only with an overwhelming majority of our elected
representatives agreeing to a change and its
President assenting to such a change, subject to
a review by the nation's judiciary.
There can hardly be a dispute that our Founding
Fathers conceived our Republic as consisting of
plural communities that were regarded as one
people and that this plurality was a delicately
balanced unity that would be safeguarded from any
brute majority or rogue force trying to crush or
oppress individual citizens or minorities in
terms of religion, race, creed, language, caste
and so on.
However, people who traditionally perceived
themselves as subjects and their leaders as
headmen or masters by birth privileges such as
caste, gender, or religious and traditional
communal consensus that would directly be in
conflict with their paper status as individual
citizens, continued to live under the illusion
that they were vassals of a government that had
absolute power over their lives and destinies.
The realpolitik governing India did not change
just by the ushering in of a Constitution that
reflected modern democratic aspirations and a
value-perception of human life and freedom that
informed our Founding Fathers. Indeed, one of
them, Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar once bitterly
remarked that constitutional morality was
difficult to cultivate in our soil.
Our Constitution, 54 years after it was launched,
remains fundamentally unaltered despite some
questionable or dubious amendments. But
successive governments both at the centre and in
the states since 1951-52 have in practice abused
state power on a growing scale so that we now
have political parties that agree to fight it out
amongst themselves by coercion and corruption.
Money has been a seemingly benign but always
malignant source of power and violence in culture
and society. Today with the globalisation of the
capital market it can make nations and
governments bounce like dud cheques with instant
shifting and relocation of power, pauperizing
communities at will, rendering local and regional
labour jobless and powerless with one decisive
electronic click. The global creation and
distribution of wealth is itself controlled
largely not by nation-states but by those who eye
their natural resources--human resources
included--with an eagle but piratical eye.
The world's map is already warped by this. It
makes Texas look larger than the United States of
America in terms of control of oil producing
regions of the planet; and the North American
N.R.I. as powerful in Gujarat as the Jewish lobby
in the U.S. is in determining the fate of
Palestine. The real Clash of Civilizations is
between the Old World and the New, and Europe is
only just discovering the nature of the
trans-Atlantic challenge and the Anglo-Saxon
sweep of the globe through a communication
revolution and an information explosion.
Decisions made in board-rooms thousands of miles
away determine our fate in formerly inaccessible
parts of India such as the once-heavenly Bastar.
Our General Elections, whether we perceive it or
not and whether we like it or not, are also an
auction of South Asia at which we --as the actual
voters--are the weakest bidders.
Speaking of fundamental rights only, look at our
children below the sub-voting age that comprise
the largest segment of our population. Girl-child
labour, girl-child malnourishment, and girl-child
illiteracy in India are a horrifying reality that
would inevitably lead to a shrivelling of the
very roots of our society within a generation. In
fact, the entire female population of India seems
to be heading for a qualitative-quantitative
decline.
More than 60% of male children in the 0-18
segment would seem to fare no better. While girls
before they are married serve as domestic labour
in their own homes, spend hours fetching drinking
water from scarce and distant sources and looking
after younger siblings, the relatively
'privileged' male child provides farm labour and
performs other unpaid chores before dropping out
of primary school or secondary school altogether.
Rural families regularly migrate to semi-urban or
urban centres with their children who then become
urban urchins, rag pickers, or small-time
criminals on a daily percentage basis in the big
cities. Some girls become sex workers even before
reaching puberty, and their brothers may become
pimps or illicit drugs or bootleg liquor vendors,
or join gangs. A few of the luckier boys join
political front organizations sent out to collect
protection money; and the brightest among them
may be trained as sharpshooters in the supari
murder trade, or become small-time netas and
muhalla-level terrorists.
Have you ever wondered where the fighting-fit,
street-smart squads of organizations such as the
Bajrang Dal, the Patit Pavan Sanghatana, the
Sambhaji Brigade, the Raza Academy and so on --
and their ilk elsewhere in the country under
various local labels -- come from? Don't you know
who their political bosses are and which of the
regional and national political parties'
interests they serve?
We live in an India where the obvious has become
invisible by 'civilized' consensus. We ignore the
fact that terrorism is a form of
employment--created out of human resources given
criminal training of which democracy and civil
society are prime soft targets--and its ends are
political and financial power.
We refuse to consider that the law favours the
lawless through the docility or with the
connivance of those who already wield political
clout; or that 'populist expressions' of 'hurt
sentiments' are engineered by vested interests
against constitutional guarantees given to
individual citizens or fragile 'classes' and
'micro-minorities' such as writers, artists,
investigative journalists, outspoken
intellectuals, honest officials, and scholars.
At bottom, these 'small voices' represent our
decency, our plurality, our cultural vibrancy,
our innovative and critical nature-- dissent,
debate, and discussion--all of which are sought
to be drowned in a barbaric pandemonium
comprising slogan-shouting, instigatory and
inflammatory oratory, and actual fisticuffs even
in such formerly hallowed places such as
Parliament and the state legislatures. By now,
even impressionable children watching televised
house proceedings see adult representatives of
the people doing things for which they (the
children) would not be spared by their teachers.
Extra-Constitutional bullying is not recognized
as a criminal offence by the Government of
Maharashtra who have posted an armed guard at my
door since January 7, 2004 to 'protect' me.
Surely, the government of my state knows from
whom there is a threat to my person. I am
targeted among others by the Maratha Seva Sangh
as one of those who have been thankfully
acknowledged by Professor James Laine, author of
the hastily banned book Shivaji: Hindu King in
Muslim India that now the government thinks
provoked sensitive Maratha minds to attack the
B.O.R.I.
The Maharashtra police, despite some of their
elite officers being currently embroiled in the
Telgi scam investigation, are reputedly efficient
in containing crime. They have a Special Branch
and a Crime Branch that is supposed to have sharp
noses and ears, and agile legs and arms, not to
mention acute brains.
Don't they already know who attacked the
Bhandarkar Research Institute on January 5, which
tabloid weekly instigated and provoked the
'public' to teach a lesson to American historian
James Laine and his supposed 'collaborators' (all
of them allegedly Brahmins conspiring to damage
the legend of Shivaji the Founder-King of Maratha
Swaraj)? Which Pune 'historians' protested
against the book Shivaji: Hindu King in Muslim
India simultaneously approaching the Oxford
University Press and the Government of
Maharashtra? Don't they know the systematic
build-up of the 'hurt sentiments' myth by an
organization floated by one of their own
bureaucrats while in active service, his name,
and his organization's name?
I refuse to believe that they are that inept.
Their only fault seems to me to be that they
think that the realpolitik in Maharashtra is more
sacred than the Constitution of the Republic of
India. They are not alone in this. Their
counterparts in every state of the Republic think
similarly, and so do their counterparts in Delhi.
This is a dismal scenario pointing to an even
bleaker future. But without facing it squarely,
our future will soon look like the worst part of
our past.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dilip Chitre is Honorary Editor New Quest - a
quarterly journal of participative inquiry into
society and culture - and this piece appears in
New Quest Number 155 (January-March 2004)
focussing on "the rise of neo-Fascism in India".
_____
[4]
The Times of India
March 24, 2004
Historians rue attack on freedom of expression
VAISHNAVI C. SEKHAR
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2004 12:15:41 AM ]
MUMBAI: As an eminent scholar who did pioneering
research in Maratha history and held prestigious
posts, A R Kulkarni should be complacent in
retirement. But today he is an anxious man. "I
don't think I should say anything, I don't want
to get involved,'' he pleads with this newspaper
over the phone from his home in Pune.
Kulkarni is nervous for good reason. His name
figures in the acknowledgements of a book that
has already brought violence to one scholar and
vandalism to a great institution.
The allegedly derogatory remark in US scholar
James Laine's controversial book about Shivaji
has been deleted, and the book itself banned, but
this has not stopped political groups from
terrorising those even remotely connected to it.
Kulkarni, once head of Pune university's history
department and the Indian Council for Historical
Research, is eager to disassociate himself from
the book.
"As department head, I have met so many scholars
,'' he explains. When politicians in Maharashtra
vie to show who loves Shivaji more, history
becomes hazardous business. Academics say that
the recent cultural policing has left many afraid
of a witch hunt. "It's suffocating,'' says J V
Naik, former head of the Mumbai university's
history department. "You can get into trouble for
just expressing a point of view.One feels afraid
to talk even on the train.''
Historian Jairus Banaj[i], who almost got
arrested when he heckled Gujarat chief minister
Narendra Modi at a seminar, is blunt. "As the
elections near, politicians outdo each other in
pandering to the worst kind of communal
chauvinism. It is typical that they can work up
more passion about their 'outraged' sentiments
than about all the squalor, violence and
deprivation surrounding them.'' Banaj[i] adds,
"If we are a modern democracy and not a fascist
cesspool, then scholars have every right to
express themselves within a democratically
acceptable discourse.''
While scholars agree it is incumbent to be
sensitive, they say the spaces for intellectual
debate are diminishing. "Laine's book is meant
for other scholars,'' notes Partha Chatterjee,
head of the Centre for Studies of Social
Sciences, Kolkata, who found the book to be
largely sensitive.
"And what is appropriate for a scholarly
discussion may not be apprropriate for a broader
audience. The issue here is how do we protect the
fora for scholarly discussion, prevent it from
being hijacked by people who are not even
reading'' she says.
In this case, Chatterjee notes, the fact that the
author is not Indian is adding fuel to the fire.
"Certain things that can be said in the Marathi
press, which has a tradition of critically
discussing great men, won't be accepted from a
foreigner.''
The casualty of cultural censorship may be
scholarship.Already, academicians are polarised,
says Arvind Ganachari, professor in the Mumbai
university's history department. "If you praise
Shivaji, you're a Sainik, but if you criticise
him, you're a JNU Marxist. There's no middle
ground,'' he complains.
On a practical level, some say they will think
twice before writing. Shrikant Bahulkar, the
80-year-old Sanskrit scholar whose face was
blackened by Shiv Sena activists for translating
some texts for Laine, says he is now even wary of
helping other scholars.
_____
[5]
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 10:56:09 +0530 (IST)
Subject: A request for support
Dear Friends
We had circulated this appeal earlier. We could not raise sufficient
funds. Now we have decided to buy the CD projector, come what may.
We urge upon you to kindly spport this effort.
You may please forward the appeal to other concerned friends as well.
Thanks and best wishes
Waqar Khan(Dharavi) Daniel Mazgaonkar (BSFC) Ram Puniyani (EKTA)
--
An Appeal for Support
Dear Friends
Some of our friends have been working on the issue of Communal Harmony in
Mumbai slums, especially in Dharavi. Apart from intercommunity programs on
National days and intercommunity celebration of festivals they are
regularly screening films giving the message of communal harmony. One such
film, Ham Sab Ek Hain, (We are all one) has been made by Mr. Waqar Khan, a
basti activist himself, who along with Bhau Korde is the key person
conducting these programs. So far nearly 30 shows of the film have taken
place. They also plan to broaden this work by undertaking film screening
in other Bastis and also by incorporating other films as well.
The constraint is the VCD projector, which they have to hire and the usual
difficulties about that. We plan to help them buy this projector for which
a sum of Rs. 80000 has to be raised. This is an appeal to help in this
work and send your contributions for the same. Please send your
contributions in the name of
Bombay Sarvodaya Friendship Center
Friendship Building
Kajupapda Road
Kurla Mumbai 400072
(tel. 28513660)
Please also send a covering letter or an email stating the purpose of your
donation
Email your support letter to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
With best wishes
Ram Puniyani
_____
[6]
Voices against communal terror and for cultural freedom in
India
South Asia Solidarity Group invites you to a meeting with
Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar
Thursday April 1
6.30 - 8.30pm,
SOAS,
Thornhaugh Street,
Russell Square,
London WC1 [UK]
Shabana Azmi, actor, social activist and ex-MP will discuss
the struggle to defend cultural freedom from the onslaught of
the stormtroopers of far-right Hindutva.
Javed Akhtar, acclaimed Urdu poet and lyricist and activist
will discuss his anti-communal work with children and young
people across India.
Details: 0207 267 0923, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
South Asia Solidarity Group is a campaigning organisation
committed to strengthening movements for secularism, justice
and genuine democracy, both in South Asia and among South
Asian communities in Britain. Our activities and analysis
make the connections between the racism of the British state,
America and Britain's so-called 'war on terror', and the rise
of fascist forces in South Asia. We are involved in struggles
against patriarchal oppression within South Asian communities
and in exposing the ways in which it is reinforced and
reshaped by the British state. We aim to develop an
understanding of the changes which are occurring in South
Asia and globally from a revolutionary left perspective.
Currently we are organising under the slogan 'Stand Together
Against Communalism and War' to
ˇ Resist the attempts of the religious right to divide
South Asian communities in Britain
ˇ Stem the flow of funds raised in Britain for fascist
Hindutva organisations in India
ˇ Build a strong and united South Asian presence in
the anti-war movement in Britain
We are founder members of Asian Women Unite! a network of
Asian Women's organisations in Britain
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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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