South Asia Citizens Wire | June 15-16, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2419 - Year 9
[1] Unlikely popular heroes of Pakistan's
opposition: lawyers (Mark Sappenfield and David
Montero)
+ All political detainees must be freed (HRCP Press Release)
[2] Sri Lanka: Public Statement by International
Independent Group of Eminent Persons
[3] Nepal: Supreme Court Orders Action on
'Disappearances' - End Impunity (Human Rights
Watch)
[4] India - Gujarat: MS University fracas -
independent inquiry please (Deepak Nayyar, Romila
Thapar, Andre Betaille)
[5] India: Where We Protect Our Own (Teesta Setalvad)
[6] Book review: Impasse in India (Pankaj Mishra)
[7] The many faces of multiculturalism (Sami Zubaida)
[8] Announcements:
(i) Public Forum: PSC Interim Report on
Electoral Reforms: Reforming the Electoral System
or (Re-)forming the Electorate? (Colombo, 21 June
2007)
(ii) Public Meeting: Revisiting Emergency:
Growing Assault on Freedom of Expression in
Gujarat (Ahmedabad, 21 June 2007)
(iii) Call For Papers - Genealogies of Virtue: Ethical Practice in South Asia
______
[1]
(i)
The Christian Science Monitor
June 11, 2007
UNLIKELY POPULAR HEROES OF PAKISTAN'S OPPOSITION: LAWYERS
Thousands of lawyers have taken to the streets to
protest Musharraf's controversial dismissal of
the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
by Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
and David Montero | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
(Photograph)
Hero's welcome: Lawyers march with the car of
suspended judge Iftikhar Chaudhry.
Anjum Naveed/AP
LAHORE and KARACHI, PAKISTAN - - Never having so
much as attended a protest before, S.M. Shah was
not keen to be manhandled, pelted with rocks, and
accused of terrorism for leading rallies against
President Pervez Musharraf.
But he has been, many times. As he sat in his
office two weeks ago, surrounded by the hefty
tomes of Pakistani law, the gray-haired president
of the Lahore Bar Association gave a hint of the
zeal of a Mohandas Gandhi in leather loafers.
For three months, he and tens of thousands of
lawyers nationwide have mounted the most serious
challenge to Mr. Musharraf's regime during his
eight-year tenure. They have taken to the streets
to protest the president's controversial
dismissal of the chief justice of the Supreme
Court earlier this year.
For defying Musharraf when political parties and
the disgruntled masses did not dare, Mr. Shah and
his colleagues have become inadvertent
revolutionaries - and the great hope of a nation
longing for change. Pakistanis have showered them
with flowers, given them gold rings, and offered
them free merchandise in local shops.
The outpouring is a measure of how dissatisfied
many Pakistanis have become with Musharraf's rule
as both president and Army chief. And it is only
appropriate that the challenge should rise from
the ranks of bar associations across Pakistan,
experts say, noting that they are one of the last
vestiges of democracy in a country ruled by the
military since Musharraf seized power in 1999.
"The bar is the only organization in Pakistan
that has consistently held elections, and we are
now reaping the benefits," says Asma Jahangir, a
human rights attorney in Lahore. "It is a very
functional democracy."
The protesting attorneys appear to have inspired
other dissenters. On Saturday, Musharraf
capitulated to a week of massive protests when he
rescinded an anti-media law designed to limit
coverage of the lawyers.
For its part, the Pakistani bar was first stirred
into action with remarkable effect on March 9,
when Musharraf tried to force Supreme Court Chief
Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry to quit, alleging that
he had misused his office for personal gain. Yet
despite reports of a five-hour private showdown,
in which Musharraf - in full military dress -
called in generals and politicians to intimidate
Mr. Chaudhry, the chief justice did not buckle.
Musharraf ended up tossing him off the court
anyway, but the judge's defiance rallied a
nation. Like most experts here, Pakistan's
lawyers were outraged, arguing that Musharraf
wished only to silence a judge who had been
ruling against him. "This was the first time a
person resisted all alone against the Army," says
Iftikhar Qasi, president of the Karachi Bar
Association.
At issue, lawyers say, was the independence of
the judiciary and the last check on Musharraf's
authority, and their response was immediate. The
following day, bar associations from Karachi to
Lahore called emergency meetings, in which tens
of thousands of lawyers chose to fight the only
way they knew how. "Lawyers know the law, and the
law says everyone has a right to express
themselves," says Shah.
In doing so, he has led a gathering that was
pelted by tear gas. He has also been roughed up
by police and he is now being investigated for
terrorist activities. But Shah remains unbowed.
Now, he says, he will not stop until Musharraf
promises that he will abide by the results of
elections this autumn and that the poll will be
free and fair.
"In the past, the judiciary has been in collusion
with the military," he says. "There is a chance
now - if it comes out from under the military,
that some relief will be given to the people of
Pakistan."
Since March 9, lawyers have led rallies to
coincide with every hearing on the chief
justice's appeal, as well as one nationwide
boycott of the courts each Thursday. Mr. Qasi of
Karachi estimates he has held 46 rallies in 90
days, and that nationwide, lawyers are
collectively losing $170,000 in income a day to
support the protests. In Pakistan, the per capita
income per day is about $2.60.
Qasi doesn't calculate how much money he has
personally lost, but he does estimate that he
works 18 to 20 hours a day and only eats one meal
a week with his family. Shah of the Lahore Bar
Association has dropped legal work entirely to
focus on organizing rallies and mobilizing
support, rising at 6:45 a.m. and returning home
at 12:30 a.m.
Such dedication has won the hearts of many
Pakistanis, partly because the lawyers are not
part of any political movement - and therefore
their sacrifice is seen to be selfless. Qasi says
he recently went into a shop to buy a car mat,
only to find that the owner would not allow him
to pay. Judges, who normally sneer at lawyers,
say Shah and others, have opened up their
chambers to help lawyers organize protests.
"When people see me in the black coat [of a
lawyer], they give me the thumbs up," Qasi says.
Standing beside a makeshift juice stand near the
Lahore Fort, repairman Shakil Ahmed says the
lawyers are "doing a good thing." But for him,
the rallies are about much more than button-down
Clark Kents finding their inner Superman. In a
country where the military is perceived as acting
as a law unto itself, the question of justice
stirs people deeply - and the judiciary is seen
as the last bulwark of fairness.
"If someone like me needs justice, [the court] is
the only place I can go," Mr. Ahmed says, his
tunic stained and dirty.
(ii)
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan
Press Release
ALL POLITICAL DETAINEES MUST BE FREED
Lahore, 12 June 2007
Thousands of activists belonging to various
opposition parties are currently reported to be
in jails across the country, most of them in the
Punjab.
Claims by members of the provincial government
that only a handful of people have been detained
over the past few weeks, since the popular
agitation triggered by the removal of the Chief
Justice of Pakistan intensified, hardly seem
credible. Especially so in light of complaints by
the PPP, the PML-N and the MMA that hundreds of
their activists have been arrested in towns
across the Punjab. HRCP has also received
complaints from political parties regarding the
arrest of prominent figures. The leader of the
Labour Party of Pakistan, Farooq Tariq, is among
those being held. Some of the activists have been
detained for three months.
HRCP demands that the political workers held with
the obvious purpose of preventing rallies against
the current regime be freed immediately. The
misuse of laws on the maintenance of order to
incarcerate these persons is appalling. So too
are the reports of elderly workers being dragged
out of their homes late at night or of activists
moved to prisons located in towns at a great
distance from their homes as a means to harass
their families.
HRCP warns that such a blatant display of
contempt for people's rights to assembly and to
the free expression of their grievances will only
aggravate the current situation. The
indiscriminate jailing of people, in an attempt
to intimidate them, can only spur further
feelings of anger and add fuel to the deeply felt
passions that are currently pushing ahead the
movement against autocracy and injustice in the
country.
Iqbal Haider
Secretary General
_____
[2]
International Independent Group of Eminent Persons
Public Statement
15 June 2007
Further to our previous public statement of 11
June 2007, we, the International Independent
Group of Eminent Persons (IIGEP) are concerned
that the conduct of the President's Commission of
Inquiry to Investigate and Inquire into Alleged
Serious Violations of Human Rights (the
Commission) is inconsistent with international
norms and standards. Failure to take corrective
action will result in the Commission not
fulfilling its fact-finding mandate in conformity
with those norms and standards.
Central to our concerns is the role of the
Attorney General's Department in the Commission.
On 27 February 2007, we raised these concerns
with the Chairman of the Commission, stating that
the conflict of interest arising from the
involvement of the Attorney General's Department
in the Commission compromises national and
international principles of independence and
impartiality that are central to the credibility
and public confidence of the Commission. We urged
the Commission to reconsider the role of the
Attorney General's Department and to appoint
independent counsel in its place. On 12 May 2007,
the Commission conceded that the IIGEP's concerns
of a conflict of interest were valid. This
understanding was confirmed in writing by the
IIGEP on 13 May 2007. Contrary to this
understanding, on 14 May 2007 the Chairman of the
Commission publicly announced that the Attorney
General's Department was to make a statement
outlining the nature of the case currently under
investigation and would lead evidence of
witnesses. Despite further representations by the
IIGEP on this issue, to date the role of the
Attorney General's Department remains unchanged.
During the initial sessions of investigation and
inquiry, conducted between 14 and 29 May 2007,
the IIGEP observed examples of a lack of
impartiality. Prior to the presentation of any
evidence, when publicly outlining the case,
counsel from the Attorney General's Department
stated as fact matters which are controversial in
the case. Furthermore, the witness was improperly
led, material questions were not asked by the
counsel from the Attorney General's Department
and information relied on by the witness and the
Attorney General's Department was not made
available to the IIGEP. The Commission does not
seem to have taken sufficient corrective measures
to ensure that its proceedings are transparent
and conform with international norms and
standards of independence, impartiality and
competence. Throughout these initial sessions,
the Commission heard one witness' full testimony
and part of a second witness' testimony. Taking
evidence in this manner will not, in our opinion,
reveal the information and evidence necessary to
identify perpetrators of human rights violations
and enable the Commission to achieve its mandate
in a timely manner.
P N Bhagwati
Chairman, IIGEP
_____
[3]
Human Rights Watch
Press Release
Nepal: Supreme Court Orders Action on 'Disappearances'
GOVERNMENT SHOULD TAKE IMMEDIATE STEPS TO END IMPUNITY
(New York and Geneva, June 15, 2007) - The Nepali
government should quickly implement the Supreme
Court's recent order to establish a Commission of
Inquiry to investigate the thousands of enforced
disappearances in Nepal's civil conflict, Human
Rights Watch and the International Commission of
Jurists said today.
On June 1, the Supreme Court ruled on a large
number of enforced disappearance cases, including
80 habeas corpus writs, and ordered the
government to immediately investigate all
allegations of enforced disappearances. The court
ordered that this Commission of Inquiry must
comply with international human standards.
"Nepal's new government has promised to find the
truth and ensure justice for 'disappearances,'
but has been slow to make good on these pledges,"
said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights
Watch. "Implementing the Supreme Court's order on
'disappearances' will be a key test of the Nepali
government's commitment to establishing
accountability and the rule of law."
Human Rights Watch and the International
Commission of Jurists welcomed the comprehensive
Supreme Court decision.
"Through this decision, Nepal's Supreme Court has
demonstrated the important role any judiciary can
play in upholding respect for the rule of law and
international human rights principles, even in a
country just emerging from conflict," said Wilder
Tayler, deputy secretary-general of the
International Commission of Jurists. "This
decision should be a source of inspiration to
other judiciaries in the world as they struggle
to deal with cases involving enforced
disappearances."
The Supreme Court also ordered the government to
prosecute those responsible for the death in
custody of Chakra Bahadur Katuwal. Katuwal was
transferred to army barracks following one day of
detention in Okhaldhunga District police station.
On the same day he was transferred to the army
barracks he was returned to the police station
showing severe signs of torture. He died later
that day. When his family enquired about his
whereabouts, they were told he had been
transferred to another district.
The Supreme Court also ordered that while the
investigations take place the government should
take administrative action against members of the
security forces under investigation for
involvement in Katuwal's death. The order
requires the administrative action to be in line
with the report of the Detainees Investigation
Task Force formed by the Supreme Court, which
recommended suspensions of those under
investigation for enforced disappearances.
The court ordered the government to provide
interim relief to the families of the victims of
the "disappeared," which is to be provided
without any effect on the final outcome of these
cases. The court also ordered the government to
enact legislation that would criminalise enforced
disappearances and take into account the new
International Convention for the Protection of
all Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
Thousands of individuals were reportedly
"disappeared" during Nepal's 10-year conflict.
According to the United Nations Working Group on
Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, Nepal in
2003 and 2004 recorded the highest number of new
cases of enforced disappearances in the world.
Between May 2000 and January 13, 2007, the
National Human Rights Commission of Nepal
received 2,028 cases of enforced disappearance.
The fate or whereabouts of over 600 of these
people remains unknown.
The Nepali government's failure to hold
accountable even a single perpetrator of these
enforced disappearances perpetuates the culture
of impunity in Nepal. This contributes to the
current failures of law and order in the country
and could lead to gross human rights violations
in the future.
"The government must address impunity for past
human rights violations, especially enforced
disappearances, in a meaningful way," said Wilder
Tayler. "Victims of human rights violations,
their communities and wider civil society must be
involved in decisions about establishing the
truth, ensuring justice and providing
reparations."
Human Rights Watch and the International
Commission of Jurists called on the Nepali
government to:
* Propose a new law specifically on enforced
disappearances, in line with the Supreme Court
order, rather than amend the Civil Code, as the
government currently proposes. Such legislation
should take into account the International
Convention for the Protection of all Persons from
Enforced Disappearance and recommendations made
by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights, Amnesty International and the
International Commission of Jurists;
* Form a ministerial-led taskforce from the
Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary
Affairs and the Ministry of Peace and
Reconstruction to take responsibility for action
on relevant parts of the Supreme Court order;
* Provide the families of the 84 victims with
the interim relief as ordered by the Supreme
Court;
* Initiate a criminal investigation into the
death in custody of Chakra Bhadur Katuwal and
prosecute those found responsible for or involved
in his death;
* Suspend those identified by the Supreme
Court as responsible for the death of Chakra
Bhadur Katuwal and other "disappearances."
Human Rights Watch and the International
Commission of Jurists called on the Nepali
government to take immediate steps to implement
the order of the Supreme Court.
"Nepal's government needs to end its
foot-dragging on impunity for human rights
violations by enforcing this order quickly and
comprehensively," said Brad Adams. "We'll soon
see if the government is serious about protecting
its own citizens."
_____
[4]
Indian Express
June 14, 2007
MS UNIVERSITY FRACAS: INDEPENDENT INQUIRY PLEASE
Deepak Nayyar, former vice-chancellor, Delhi
University, Romila Thapar, professor emeritus of
history, JNU, and Andre Betaille, professor
emeritus of sociology, Delhi University have just
written a letter to the prime minister, reminding
him that no action has been taken on the recent
incident at the
MS University, Baroda. (This is an edited version of the letter.)
Dear Prime Minister:
We are writing to you to draw your attention to
the recent incident at the MS University at
Baroda. This is a matter of grave concern to the
academic community, since it not only involved
the violation of the freedom of expression
granted by the Constitution to citizens, but is
equally an assault on university autonomy.
Members of a political party were permitted to
enter the university, destroy the work submitted
for examinations by a student of the arts faculty
and have the student arrested by the police. When
the dean intervened to protect the student, he
was suspended by the vice-chancellor.
Soon after the incident, two of us wrote to
President Kalam expressing our anxiety over what
had happened and requested him to intervene if
need be through the governor of Gujarat... We are
not aware of any follow-up action that may have
been initiated by the president.
Meanwhile, there have been a large numbers of
protests at many universities across the country
as also by Indian academics abroad, over this
incident, in particular the action of the
vice-chancellor of MS University. The vehemence
of the protest is also a reflection of the
feeling that such actions bring shame to the
country as a whole.
We recognise that higher education is a state
subject and the MS University Baroda is not a
central university. Even so, we are writing to
you because we believe that actions such as these
are not confined to a single state. They can
quite easily become a mechanism of curbing the
pursuit of independent knowledge at a university.
We are writing to you not only as the prime
minister of India but also as a person who has
been a distinguished academic and recognises the
sanctity of university autonomy.
Furthermore, this is not an internal matter of
the university, since it involves outside public
intervention in the functions of the university.
Therefore, in our view, an inquiry conducted
internally by the university cannot suffice. A
pre-condition of such an inquiry is that the dean
be reinstated and the charges against the student
be withdrawn, until such time as the inquiry has
been completed.
We would request that either the governor in his
capacity as chancellor of the University or the
University Grants Commission be asked to set up
an independent inquiry committee. Such a
committee should not be constituted by the
vice-chancellor, since his actions are being
inquired into, nor should it be constituted by
the state government. The committee should
consist of academics from other universities and
concerned citizens from other states.
We feel that this is particularly necessary to
set the right kind of precedent. University
functionaries... should not be allowed to behave
in an authoritarian manner and should be reminded
that there is a wider university community beyond
the particular state and its government, to which
they are accountable.
We sincerely hope and trust that you will take some action in this matter.
_____
[5]
Deccan Herald
June 15, 2007
WHERE WE PROTECT OUR OWN
by Teesta Setalvad
In the majority of cases where witnesses turn
hostile in criminal trials it is because trials
take too long to reach completion and because
both the police and defence lawyers (sometimes
even the prosecutors) are the vehicles used to
turn the witness.
Weeks back, another scandal rocked the nation's
media waves, forcing the hands of a Member of
Parliament and also the august legal body that he
is a member of, to take a stand.
The issue was one of basic professional ethics,
the role of an advocate (the prosecutor in the
instant case) exhorting a key witness to turn
hostile and offering hard cash to facilitate the
process.
Splash, the media had played its role and after
the immediate waves that were created, the matter
died down. There was no sense of outrage among
our legal bodies and Bar Associations.
The essence in a criminal trial is this, a public
prosecutor needs both ability and integrity
whereas all the defence advocate needs is
debility, the ability to turn a witness hostile.
These were the pearls of wisdom offered by a
senior defence counsel, a respected professional
in the presence of this writer, following the
developments in the now well-known Best Bakery
case. Well-tested practices, then within a
criminal justice system that is widely accepted
today, as being on the brink.
If it was criminal trials like the Best Bakery
case, the Jessica Lal case and the Priyadarshini
Mattoo case that focused national attention on
what ails the system, especially the role of
police as investigating agency, public prosecutor
as officer of the court and the key role of the
witness, who in over 75 per cent of our trials
turns hostile.
Ironically, however, in all these cases, the role
of advocates, in the apex court and in the trial
courts was seriously questionable, our courts
themselves (with rare exceptions) stopped short
of pulling up advocates for their questionable
roles.
So, while Zahira Shaikh paid the price for
committing perjury, her legal representatives who
assisted her in this suicidal course, escaped
even mild reprimand from the august judiciary.
Similarly, be it in the Jessica Lal case or in
the ongoing Khairlanji trial (a family of Dalits
was brutalised and massacred a few hours from
Nagpur on September 30, 2006), a witness turns
hostile before a moffusil court.
If courts are not meant to be mere spectators to
crime and subversion of the rule of law, an
inquiry must be ordered into each and every one
of these instances and stringent ethical
practices and deterrence's placed on every lawyer
in the country from assisting and abetting
witnesses from turning hostile.
Despite the lofty words of the country's apex
court in historic judgements like D K Basu v/s
state of West Bengal and Zahira Habibullah Shaikh
v/s state of Gujarat, police stations in the
country default every day in the non-registration
of FIRs (first information reports) when serious
crimes have been committed and registration of
malicious complaints.
In the majority of cases where witnesses turn
hostile in criminal trials it is because trials
take too long to reach completion and because
both the police and defence lawyers (sometimes
even the prosecutors) are the vehicles used to
turn the witness.
Yet instead of getting to the bottom of the
matter, except in piecemeal cases, the system,
even august institutions of democracy tend to
protect their own.
State governments and even the Centre are given
the easy treatment by our higher courts; lawyers
escape stringent remarks and professional
rebukes. The system, corrupt and discriminatory,
lives on.
While citizens continue to approach the judiciary
for the deliverance of justice, the faith in the
legal system is not robust enough to prevent poor
witnesses from turning hostile.
Society, institutions (including the omnipresent
media) need specifically to focus attention on
witnesses who can and do stand up and deliver.
While no news may be good news and bad news news,
it must not be only the story of hostile
witnesses that hog the headlines.
Months ago, when the Prof Sabherwal murder in
Ujjain once more shocked the nation, cameras
rolled and headlines screamed. It was a murder
that took place in front of hundreds of people,
yet no one really "saw" Prof Sabharwal being
killed.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Chauhan was
quick to call Prof Sabharwal's murder an
accident. The allegation was that the CM was
protecting the student body affiliated to his
party, the BJP, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi
Parishad. He also claimed that no FIR was lodged
in the case.
But Komal Singh Sengar, a peon at Madhav College
where Prof Sabharwal used to teach, came out,
stood strong and said that he did file a
complaint with the police the same evening Prof
Sabharwal was killed. Komal is now a witness in
the case.
Shockingly, the sole witness was interned in a
police lock-up and the witness was thereafter
threatened by the superintendent of police.
Komal Singh spent 72 hours in police custody
facing intense pressure from the police to change
his statement. Sure enough, all the key witnesses
in the case, including Komal Singh, turned
hostile a few days later. He told a media channel
that he was pressurised.
No one from Ujjain came forward to support or
protect him. No representative from the
established criminal justice system spouted lofty
words on justice delivery and initiated action
against the brazen actions of policemen,
including the SP.
The statement of the chief minister, unnecessary,
and untimely (in that it could influence
investigations) was not queried or investigated.
(The writer is co-editor, Communalism Combat)
______
[6]
New York Review of Books
Volume 54, Number 11 · June 28, 2007
IMPASSE IN INDIA
by Pankaj Mishra
The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious Violence, and India's Future
by Martha C. Nussbaum
Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 403 pp., $29.95
Last summer Foreign Affairs, Time, Newsweek, and
The Economist highlighted a major shift in
American perceptions of India when, in cover
stories that appeared almost simultaneously, they
described the country as a rising economic power
and a likely "strategic ally" of the United
States. In 1991, India partly opened its
protectionist economy to foreign trade and
investment. Since then agriculture, which employs
more than 60 percent of the country's population,
has stagnated, but the services sector has grown
as corporate demand has increased in Europe and
America for India's software engineers and
English-speaking back-office workers.[1] In 2006,
India's economy grew at a remarkable 9.2 percent.
Dominated by modern office buildings, cafés, and
gyms, and swarming with Blackberry-wielding
executives of financial and software companies,
parts of Indian cities such as Bangalore,
Hyderabad, and Gurgaon resemble European and
American downtowns. Regular elections and
increasingly free markets make India appear to be
a more convincing exemplar of economic
globalization than China, which has adopted
capitalism without embracing liberal democracy.
However, many other aspects of India today make
Foreign Affairs' description of the country-"a
roaring capitalist success-story"-appear a bit
optimistic. More than half of the children under
the age of five in India are malnourished; failed
crops and debt drove more than a hundred thousand
farmers to suicide in the past decade.[2] Uneven
economic growth and resulting inequalities have
thrown up formidable new challenges to India's
democracy and political stability. A recent
report in the International Herald Tribune warned:
Crime rates are rising in the major cities, a
band of Maoist-inspired rebels is bombing and
pillaging its way across a wide swath of central
India, and violent protests against
industrialization projects are popping up from
coast to coast.[3]
Militant Communist movements are only the most
recent instance of the political extremism that
has been on the rise since the early Nineties
when India began to integrate into the global
economy. Until 2004 the central government as
well as many state governments in India were, as
the philosopher Martha Nussbaum puts it in her
new book,
increasingly controlled by right-wing Hindu
extremists who condone and in some cases actively
support violence against minorities, especially
the Muslim minority. Many seek fundamental
changes in India's pluralistic democracy.
In 1992, the Hindu nationalist BJP (Indian
People's Party) gave early warning of its
intentions when its members demolished the
sixteenth-century Babri Mosque in North India,
leading to the deaths of thousands in
Hindu-Muslim riots across the country. In May
1998, just two months after it came to power, the
BJP broke India's self-imposed moratorium on
nuclear testing by exploding five atomic bombs in
the desert of Rajasthan. Pakistan responded with
five nuclear tests of its own.
Reading the World ad
The starkest evidence of Hindu extremism came in
late February and March 2002 in the prosperous
western Indian state of Gujarat. In a region
internationally famous for its business
communities, Hindu mobs lynched over two thousand
Muslims and left more than two hundred thousand
homeless. The violence was ostensibly in
retaliation for an alleged Muslim attack on a
train carrying Hindu pilgrims in which a car was
set on fire, killing fifty-eight people.
Nussbaum, who is engaged in a passionate attempt
to end "American ignorance of India's history and
current situation," makes the "genocidal
violence" against Muslims in Gujarat the "focal
point" of her troubled reflections on democracy
in India. She points to forensic evidence which
indicates that the fire in the train was most
likely caused by a kerosene cooking stove carried
by one of the Hindu pilgrims. In any case, as
Nussbaum points out, there is "copious evidence
that the violent retaliation was planned by Hindu
extremist organizations before the precipitating
event."
Low-caste Dalits joined affluent upper-caste
Hindus in killing Muslims, who in Gujarat as well
as in the rest of India tend to be poor.
"Approximately half of the victims," Nussbaum
writes, "were women, many of whom were raped and
tortured before being killed and burned. Children
were killed with their parents; fetuses were
ripped from the bellies of pregnant women to be
tossed into the fire."
Gujarat's pro-business chief minister, Narendra
Modi, an important leader of the BJP,
rationalized and even encouraged the murders. The
police were explicitly ordered not to stop the
violence. The prime minister of India at the
time, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, seemed to condone the
killings when he declared that "wherever Muslims
are, they don't want to live in peace." In public
statements Hindu nationalists tried to make their
campaign against Muslims seem part of the US-led
war on terror, and, as Nussbaum writes, "the
current world atmosphere, and especially the
indiscriminate use of the terrorism card by the
United States, have made it easier for them to
use this ploy."
A widespread fear and distrust of Muslims among
Gujarat's middle-class Hindus helped the BJP win
the state elections held in December 2002 by a
landslide. Tens of thousands of Muslims displaced
by the riots still live in conditions of extreme
squalor in refugee camps. Meanwhile, the Hindu
extremists involved in the killings of Muslims
move freely. Though denied a visa to the US by
the State Department, Narendra Modi continues to
be courted by India's biggest businessmen, who
are attracted by the low taxes, high profits, and
flexible labor laws offered by Gujarat.[4]
Describing the BJP's quest for a culturally
homogeneous Hindu nation-state, Nussbaum wishes
to introduce her Western readers to "a complex
and chilling case of religious violence that does
not fit some common stereotypes about the sources
of religious violence in today's world." Nussbaum
claims that "most Americans are still inclined to
believe that religious extremism in the
developing world is entirely a Muslim matter."
She hints that at least part of this myopia must
be blamed on Samuel Huntington's hugely
influential "clash of civilizations" argument,
which led many to believe that the world is
"currently polarized between a Muslim monolith,
bent on violence, and the democratic cultures of
Europe and North America."
[. . .].
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20339
______
[7]
opendemocracy.net
5 - 6 - 2007
THE MANY FACES OF MULTICULTURALISM
by Sami Zubaida
Tariq Modood's revised multiculturalism
acquiesces in rather than critiques the
essentialising, religious mythology that
surrounds the subject, says Sami Zubaida.
[Sami Zubaida is replying to the article by Tariq Modood:
"Multiculturalism, citizenship and national identity" (17 May 2007)]
Tariq Modood is clearly correct in pointing out
that common citizenship and nationhood do not
depend on cultural uniformity or ideological
consensus - which are, in any case, impossible to
create in a complex society. Questions, however,
can be raised about his argument - in his new
book Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea (Polity,
2007) and openDemocracy article
("Multiculturalism, citizenship and national
identity", 17 May 2007) - as to what constitutes
multiculturalism in the present context, and how
it is related to social and political alignments.
? Cultural diversity vs. unit cultures
Multiculturalism in modern societies is clear for
all to see: cultural diversity, hybridity and
fusion in music and the arts, literature, food,
dress and religion. Media, travel and commerce
accelerate these processes of cultural mixing.
This is a different sense of multiculturalism,
however, from the idea of distinct unit cultures,
whether ethnic or religious.
Cultural boundaries are fluid and shifting,
especially over the generations. There are
identifiable groups and locations of, say,
Bangladeshi culture (more specifically, Sylheti),
or Pakistani (more specifically Kashmiri and
Punjabi), although these are in various processes
of transformation and mixing over the
generations. Each one of these cultural complexes
includes a religious component.
Can we, however, discern a "Muslim culture" as
such? There is a tendency, and Modood can be seen
as contributing to it, of presenting religion as
the essence of group identity. Sunny Hundal makes
the point very well in his response, that diverse
Muslims are totalised into a "Muslim community".
It is not just that there are ethnic and social
diversities within Muslims, but that many of them
are nominal Muslims, and religion enters
marginally, if at all, into their lives.
The political implication is that all Muslims are
to be "recognised" in terms of their faith, as a
community, which is clearly not sociologically
viable. But it is politically pursued by those
individuals and institutions that seek communal
authority and leadership, encouraged by
government quarters which seek such "leaders" for
shows of consultation and participation.
? Islam and culture
Islam is woven into the cultures of different
ethnic communities. It is often hard to
disentangle what is religious from what is
cultural. The question of separating the two
arises frequently in relation to women and family
issues, including veiling (are these rules and
customs Islamic, or merely cultural?). Arguments
on the issue proceed between conservatives,
modernists and fundamentalists.
A most important consequence for the subject in
hand is the emergence on different fronts of
"pure" Islam, purified from culture, which had
added to it layers of popular religiosity and
practices which are judged by modernists and
fundamentalists alike to be contrary and
antithetical to "true" Islam. Salafis/Wahhabis,
as is well known, reject and denounce the
religious practices of the "folk". The veneration
of saints, the celebration of the birthday of the
Prophet Mohammed, the inclusion of music, dancing
and charismatic elements in ceremonies, or indeed
in weddings and other celebrations - all common
folk practices of south Asians and other Muslims
- are anathema to the fundamentalists.
Those latter have been most successful in
recruiting the younger generation to their
causes, whether conservative or militant. Active
young Muslims, including jihadis, have rejected
the religion and culture of their parents in
favour of the stern religion of the scriptures
and the sunna. Equally, modernists inclined to
accommodation of Islam to the European
mainstream, the Tariq Ramadan school, have also
rejected the cultural boundaries of the older
generation.
How, then, are we to accommodate this de-cultured
Islam to Modood's idea of multiculturalism? It is
not a cultural complex that seems to be Modood's
object, but an imagined religious community. It
should more appropriately be labelled
"communalism" rather than "multiculturalism".
? Culture and social boundaries
For the earlier generations of Muslim immigrants,
cultural difference coincided with social
boundaries. Residential concentrations, language
barriers, confined sociability and intermarriage,
perpetuated inner worlds of distinct cultures
(now being recreated in certain quarters; see
below). From a socio-political point of view,
these cultural/social boundaries posed little
problem for social order. The complete otherness
of the British was taken for granted and did not
typically lead to hostility. Equally, barring
limited racist hostilities, the dominant British
attitude was one of indifference more than
tolerance. Cultural difference and social
boundaries in that situation posed few and mild
problems. The problems that are perceived now are
the product of the erosion of cultural boundaries
and the emergence of de-cultured religious
ideology, which is not indifferent to the other.
New forms of social boundaries are being erected.
Conservative salafis, such as those of the
Tablighi sect, preach and practice total
separation of Muslims from the surrounding
society. Strict ritual observance and avoidance
of the ambient world of sin, separate and
insulate the believer from the infidel.
Apologists and spokesmen for these groups argue
that they are apolitical and that their
religiosity does not imply hostility or militancy
against non-believers. But in practice it is but
a short step.
The other orientation of separation is that of
the militant and jihadi ideologies. These are
explicit in their hostility to non-believers and
their solidarity with a (theoretical) umma of
Islam, which is under attack from equally
totalised Christians, Jews and Hindus. These
views are typically held by the "de-cultured" new
generations of Muslims, such as the actors of the
7/7 London bombings. These men are not culturally
distinct from the mainstream. They were
proficient and articulate in English, spoke with
local accents, were products of British
education, social life, sports and
entertainments. They had separated from the
cultural religion of their parents and embraced
militant salafism. Their hostility to their
British compatriots did not proceed from cultural
difference but from ideological hostility, one
that is phrased in the idioms of British culture.
The recorded conversations played at the trial of
other would-be bombers revealed them justifying
the planned slaughter at a nightclub in terms of
the "slags" dancing there: who could say they
were "innocent"?
? Social segregation
There is another form of social segregation, with
cultural components which cannot be seen as
compatible with "national integration" (itself an
ideological notion). This is the continuation, or
rather the reformation of ethnic and racial
boundaries in poorer communities, especially in
the old industrial enclaves of northern England.
Many reports show that schools in these areas are
increasingly segregated, with over 90% majorities
of pupils of Asian or white (see "Revealed: UK
schools dividing on race lines", Observer, 27 May
2007). This is partly accounted for by racism,
discrimination and "white flight". But there is
also the inward consolidation of Asian
communities, close intermarriage, including the
importation of partners from the subcontinent.
Media technology, satellite broadcasting and the
internet, connecting these communities to the
milieus of their "home" cultures, reinforce the
insulation. These reinforced communal boundaries
contribute to the disaffection and radicalisation
of the youth.
This phenomenon is not "multicultural", but
rather a socio-cultural ghettoisation. Expansion
of faith schools can only contribute to this
segregation. This phenomenon has been noted in
relation to Turkish communities in some German
regions (see "Many German Turks Wedded to
Tradition", International Herald Tribune, 26-27
May 2007). It is estimated that as many as 50% of
Turks seek their spouses from the home country.
Children of these unions are less likely to be
proficient in German language or culture, thus
perpetuating segregation and alienation. In some
towns, it is reported, Turks are self-contained
within their parallel communities, with separate
services and commerce.
? National integration
The trends surveyed here are not characteristic
of most British or European Muslims, who, if
religious at all (and we don't know how many are)
tend to be "cultural" Muslims. However, the "umma
nationalism" of the radicals - the idea of a
totalised universal Muslim community under attack
by Christians and Jews - constitutes an
"ideal-type" discourse which appeals to many
otherwise indifferent Muslims.
The logic of this belief is that the allegiance
of a European Muslim is to those of his community
under attack, often with the connivance, it is
perceived, of his/her European compatriots. Most
ordinary people are not engaged in resolving or
rationalising this dilemma, and, like most people
drift into the routines of life which tend to
integrate them into their societies, as revealed
by the attitude surveys quoted by Modood. That
umma nationalism, however, remains in the
background, and is brought forth and strengthened
by the surveillance and discrimination instituted
by the security regimes in the west in
confronting the hostility and potential violence
of the jihadis.
A reality test
Tariq Modood refers to the powerful myth,
discussed in the foregoing, of the complicity of
British and European countries in the
victimisation of "Muslims" in many parts of the
world, and the sympathy and hostility this
arouses among Muslims in Europe. This myth is
prevalent, and has the effect of essentialising
diverse conflicts as ones of religion.
American imperialism, in fact, sides with some
Muslims against others (Saudis vs Iranians, for
instance), and that has little, if anything to do
with their being Muslims. During the Iraq-Iran
war of 1980-88, the United States - alongside the
Soviets, the British and most Arab governments -
supported Saddam Hussein against Iran, then
turned a blind eye to the massacres he
perpetrated against the Kurds and the southern
Shi'a.
During those episodes and subsequently, Saddam
killed a great many Muslims, but not on account
of their being Muslim. Yet when Saddam fell out
with the Americans and most Arabs in the
occupation of Kuwait (more "Muslims" killed),
Islamist militancy confronted "the west" in the
name of religion, with the mounting agreement of
Muslim opinion in many quarters. Clearly, those
situations, and the current ones in
Palestine-Israel, Iraq, Kashmir and Afghanistan,
can only be understood as political and military
issues, not as wars on Islam. It becomes
important for scholars and public intellectuals
to point out these political considerations and
not to acquiesce in the mythology of religious
wars.
Sami Zubaida is emeritus professor of politics
and sociology at Birkbeck College, London. Among
his books are Islam, the People and the State:
Political Ideas and Movements in the Middle East
(IB Tauris, 1993) and Law and Power in the
Islamic World (IB Tauris, 2003)
______
[8] ANNOUNCEMENTS:
(i)
Law & Society Trust
LST FORUM
PSC Interim Report on Electoral Reforms:
Reforming the Electoral System or (Re-)forming
the Electorate?
Kingsley Rodrigo
Peoples Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL)
&
A. Kandappah
Political Analyst and Commentator
Thurs 21 June 2007
5pm @
3, Kynsey Terrace, Colombo 08
RSVP Janaki 2691228 /2684845 Email <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(ii)
INVITATION
PUBLIC MEETING
REVISITING EMERGENCY: Growing assault on FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION in Gujarat.
(Focus on Fine arts faculty - MS University incident)
: SPEAKERS:
Chair person: Com. DWARIKA NATH RATH (Political Activist)
1. Mr. IFTIKHAR (Member of ACUA-Association of Academics,
Artists and Citizens for University Autonomy-and
Reader History Dept. M.S University)
2. Dr. Saroop
Dhruv (Poet; Writer and Cultural activist)
Others to be confirmed.
DATE: 25th June, 2007 Monday.
TIME: 6-00 P.M. (Sharp) to 8-30 P.M.
VENUE: MAHENDI NAWAZ JUNG
HIMAVAN
PALDI
AHMEDABAD
ORGANISED BY:
INSAF-GUJARAT; SAMVEDAN SANSKRUTIK MANCH; DARSHAN.
CONTACT: 079-2681 5484; 6541 3032: 94261 81334(Hiren Gandhi)
(ii)
CALL FOR PAPERS - Genealogies of Virtue: Ethical Practice in South Asia
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, September 2007
Daud Ali Anand Pandian
SOAS, London UBC, Vancouver
Recent scholarship in numerous fields has renewed
attention to the subject of ethics, understood as
a concrete practice of self-engagement and
self-transformation rather than as a collection
of moral rules or abstract judgments. We intend
to contribute to this vital conversation by means
of an international workshop on the subject of
ethical and moral traditions in South Asia.
These traditions have either been celebrated in
nationalist writings as the mirror opposite of
Western modernity, or easily derided in scholarly
prose as idioms of religious or political
ideology and social oppression. A serious
interdisciplinary engagement with the myriad
textual, historical, and quotidian answers to the
question "How ought one to live?" in South Asia
is still wanting. We intend to invite up to
fifteen scholars from the fields of social and
cultural history, cultural anthropology,
historical sociology, literary history, religious
studies, comparative philosophy, and philology to
share papers and contribute toward a published
volume on the subject of South Asian ethical
thought and practice. Our approach will address
these ethics in their historical and contextual
specificity: in relation to social processes such
as class and caste formation, political
developments such as nationalism and state
building, and moral horizons such as legal codes
and religious doctrines. We examine the moral
and ethical traditions of South Asia in all their
historical diversity, contemporary vitality, and
uneven resonance with those of the West, with the
conviction that they may cast a new light on the
intractable problems of a troubled global
present. We invite papers addressing topics such
as:
1. Formation of ethical subjects. How do
individuals in South Asia come to inhabit an
ethical world and deploy its practices, dictums,
and purposes in their daily lives? What forms of
discourse-scriptural, poetic, pedagogic,
proverbial, nationalist, cinematic, and so
on-prove most consequential in particular
instances of ethical formation?
2. Moral horizons of ethical practice. In
relation to what moral traditions and collective
orientations-courtly, martial, commercial,
ascetic, scribal, agrarian, and so on, if they
can in fact be described as such-do ethical
practices evolve and gain their intelligibility?
What metaphors of discrimination and discourses
of virtue orient ethical lives?
3. Ethics in history. What role have changes in
economy, state, society, and ideology played in
the transformation of ethical discourse and
practice? How do South Asian practices of virtue,
for example, intersect with Western discourses on
the exercise of moral judgment in public and
private life in the nineteenth century?
4. Ethics and politics. How are ethical
practices of self-making enlisted in the
formation of larger communities of identity and
affinity? How, for example, does the vast corpus
of "wisdom" literature become transformed into an
instrument of nationalist pedagogy? Under what
conditions do ethics emerge as an effective idiom
of social critique?
Contact Anand Pandian ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) or Daud Ali ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), 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/
SACW archive is available at: http://insaf.net/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/
DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
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