South Asia Citizens Wire | 26 September, 2004 via: www.sacw.net
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[1] Securing India: Treating Unlikely as Likely (Gautam Navlakha)
[2] Bangladesh:
- More Than 6,000 Arrested in Bangladesh (VOA)
- Crackdown on opposition : Mass arrests can never be justified (edit, The Daily Star)
- Jahangirnagar University teacher asks female students to wear burqa [veil]
[3] Pakistan: Why do other nations hate us? (Khaled Ahmed)
[4] India:
- Gujarat cops' new beat: Moral policing
- Moral brigade on the rampage in Kashmir
[5] India: ANHAD & Coalition for Secular Democracy Seminar "Why Remember Gandhi Today?" (Bombay, Oct.4)
[6] India: Letter to the Editor (Mukul Dube)
[7] India: Among Recent Additions on www.sacw.net:
- POTA in Gujarat and Its Meaning for India (Zakia Jowher and Mukul Dube)
- State Accountability in Communal Riots: Proposed Law on Duties of State Authorities (Harsh Mander)
[8] India: Cut out the censor? (Utpal Borpujari)
[9] India: Gandhi vs Savarkar: What of the others notables and not so notable nameless others
(i) The Kala Pani story - Neither Savarkar, nor Gandhi, represents its nameless heroes (Manini Chatterjee)
(ii) Victim of brahmanical secularism in India (V.B.Rawat)
[10] [3 articles on the recent hullabaloo around the Indian census reports ]
- The Sangh Parivar continues to thrive on myths about the growth rate of the Muslim population (T.K. Rajalakshmi)
- An irrelevant enumeration (Shardul Chaturvedi)
- Indian census and sensibilities (Shardul Chaturvedi)
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[1]
Economic and Political Weekly September 18, 2004
SECURING INDIA: TREATING UNLIKELY AS LIKELY
There is much to gain by disengaging from military suppression of popular aspirations, insisting on negotiations and thereby reducing the total defence budget. All this can help pay for a much needed increase in social investment and expansion of the country's social capital base. An actual reduction in the wasteful use of human and material resources could translate into considerably more. Not the least of this would be the release of pent-up energies of the people unburdened by war and want. In short, the security thus brought about is worth fighting for.
Gautam Navlakha
http://www.epw.org.in/showArticles.php?root=2004&leaf=09&filename=7695&filetype=html
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[2]
Voice of America, September 25, 2004 MORE THAN 6,000 ARRESTED IN BANGLADESH http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=BA62C419-5C11-42CE-9F46295503CCD692&title=More%20Than%206%2C000%20Arrested%20in%20Bangladesh&catOID=45C9C78E-88AD-11D4-A57200A0CC5EE46C&categoryname=South%20%26%20Central%20Asia
o o o
The Daily Star, September 26, 2004 | Editorial
CRACKDOWN ON OPPOSITION
MASS ARRESTS CAN NEVER BE JUSTIFIED
NOT five months after the government launched a similar crackdown on opposition party workers and activists, it has again initiated a country-wide mass arrest of the grass-roots level organisers of the main opposition parties. That the government would resort to this kind of heavy-handed and undemocratic tactic is neither acceptable nor politically astute.
We urged the government to give the opposition the space to fully air their grievances in parliament last week. Not only did the government choose not to permit the opposition space in parliament, it has evidently decided that it cannot afford to give the opposition space outside of parliament as well. Indeed, the fact that this latest crackdown comes on the heels of a successful human chain programme seems to indicate that the government is seeking to stifle any expression of opposition discontent.
The mass arrests raise all kinds of serious questions as to the rule of law and respect for civil rights. The mass arrests of April have now been thoroughly discredited for their excesses and for the thousands of innocent people who were thrown behind bars for no reason. It seems as though the government is intent on repeating its misstep of five months ago, and while (unlike last time) there are no reports as yet of people uninvolved with politics being arrested, the targeting of opposition party activists under Section 54 and the random and arbitrary nature of the arrests make it clear that the government is once again going too far.
We have long opposed Section 54 for specifically this reason -- that it can be abused to incarcerate those whom the government deems to be troublesome without due process of law and strict evidentiary standards. This certainly seems to be the case with the current arrests.
This latest round of arrests is a huge mistake on the part of the government. Not only is it acting in an undemocratic manner that is incompatible with the precepts and ideals of this nation's constitution, but the only possible long-term result of such measures will be a further diminution of respect for the government among the general public.
o o o
The Daily Star, September 26, 2004 JAHANGIRNAGAR UNIVERSITY (JU) TEACHER ASKS FEMALE STUDENTS TO WEAR BURQA http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/09/26/d4092601077.htm
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[3]
The Daily Times, September 24, 2004
WHY DO OTHER NATIONS HATE US? Khaled Ahmed's Urdu Press Review
Our complaint is that everyone is stepping on our tail. All over the world the Muslims are under attack. Islam is a religion of peace but everyone says it teaches violence. Muslims are poor with few resources but they are labelled terrorists. Why is the Muslim world under attack? Why is Pakistan being vilified in the region and at the global level?
Daily Pakistan (July 12, 2004) quoted Karachi police as saying that Dr Akmal Waheed and Dr Arshad Waheed kept Al Qaeda leader Abu Musa'ab Zerqavi in their house in Karachi and looked after him and then sent him to South Waziristan for onward journey to Afghanistan. Both the Karachi doctors were revealed as Jundullah members by the Jundullah leader, Ataullah. The doctors had admitted that they were members of Jundullah and that they had provided medical aid to Al Qaeda and sent men to be trained as Al Qaeda agents to Wana to Nek Muhammad through his brother. According to Jang the two doctors admitted that they had been members of the Jamaat Islami student wing and maintained till late their relationship with the Jamiat Tulaba Islam. They also admitted to helping Al Qaeda.
The entire doctors' community in Pakistan has been supporting the two Karachi doctors against the charges. They have been taking out processions in favour of them. Yet, when Zerqavi killed nearly a dozen poor Nepalis in Iraq, the Nepalis fell on the office of the PIA and generally blamed Pakistan. Why? Zerqavi is a terrorist who has also killed Pakistanis. Why did the Nepalis attack us? The reason is that Zerqavi was hosted by us and sent for training in terrorism in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. The world knows about it and the Nepalis too knew about it. Zerqavi was once our man. It is quite another matter that he has now started killing us. The fault is ours. Why did we host a man who had this kind of character? Why do the Russians hate us? Because we hosted the Chechen terrorist Shamyl Bassaev and sent him for training in terrorism to Al Qaeda camps. The only country which does not know these facts is Pakistan. Terrorism has a meta-history known to the entire world which is now scared of us and will take revenge whenever it can. Did the Karachi doctors know what their enthusiasm for Al Qaeda would mean for Pakistan? How could they come to this realisation if we are ourselves unanimous in supporting them? [...].
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[4]
Indian Express, September 24, 2004 GUJARAT COPS' NEW BEAT: MORAL POLICING http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=100535
The Times of India, September 26, 2004 MORAL BRIGADE ON THE RAMPAGE IN KASHMIR http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/863469.cms
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[5]
ANHAD & Coalition for Secular Democracy
Cordially Invite You to a
Seminar
WHY REMEMBER GANDHI TODAY?
Date: Monday, October 4, 2004 Time: 4.00-7.00pm
Venue: Convention Hall, 4th Floor, Y.B. Chavan Center Y. Chavan Pratisthan, Sachivalay, J. Bhosale Road, Nariman Point, Mumbai
Moderator: Harsh Mander
4.00-4.40 Keynote Address: Prof. KN Panikkar
4.40-5.20-Religion in Gandhi's Thought & Practice- Ram Das Bhatkal, Dr.Ram Puniyani
5.20-5.40-Gandhi's Mode of Conflict Resolution-Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer
5.40-6.00-Morality in Politics- Justice Dharmadhikari
6.00-6.20-Secularism & Civil Society- Kumar Ketkar
6.40-6.50-Release of the Marathi & Hindi Translations of Dr.Ram Puniyani's book 'The Second Assasination of Gandhi
6.50-7.00- Vote of thanks by Suma Josson
Anhad
c/0 Bhupesh Gupta Bhawan, 3rd Floor, Leningrad Chowk, 85, Sayani Road, Prabhadevi, Mumbai-400025, Tel- 9819235134
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[6] [Letter to the Editor]
D-504 Purvasha Mayur Vihar 1 Delhi 110091
24 September 2004
What Shri Murli Manohar Joshi said about Prof. R.S. Sharma in Patna was reproduced verbatim by at least one Hindi newspaper: "He has committed rape on history." Prof. Sharma is reported to have remarked later that, at the age of 84, he was no longer capable of any kind of rape. Can there have been a more obscene response to a perfectly rational argument?
Prof. Romila Thapar was not charged with rape; but her crime is no less grave. She continues to muck about in ancient swamps, Shri Joshi said, and has not troubled to look at the marvellous findings of the historical research conducted in the country's physics laboratories, of which the former Education Minister was absentee head for so long.
Mukul Dube
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[7]
Among Recent Additions on www.sacw.net:
POTA in Gujarat and Its Meaning for India by Zakia Jowher and Mukul Dube [August 15, 2004] http://www.sacw.net/Gujarat2002/Dube_Jowher15August2004.html
State Accountability in Communal Riots: Proposed Law on Duties of State Authorities by Harsh Mander [ August 13, 2004] http://www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ArticlesArchive/harshmander13092004.html
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[8]
Deccan Herald, September 26, 2004
Cut out the censor?
The last word has not yet been said on film censorship. A panel has been set up to review the Cinematograph Act.
Like a seasonal affliction, the controversy surrounding the Censor Board - officially known as the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) - is back again, riding the crest of the latest round of skirmishes with filmmakers. The CBFC, whose name could mislead people who have no knowledge of it - into believing that its job is to simply give certificates to films and not to "censor" them, has in recent times either banned or objected to scenes in films (just like it has done in the past) that deal with issues from politics to health, making the hackles of believers of freedom of expression rise - especially of the film industry.
But this time, filmmakers, especially those dealing with the realism of the day through documentaries, are not taking it lying down. Many have refused to send their entries to the National Film Awards as well as the government-run Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) as a mark of protest against the participatory rule that films must procure a censor certificate. The immediate result is that the stage is set for a wider debate on whether one needs censorship at all, and the government seems willing to address the issue this time. A committee of eminent persons will be set up to take a re-look at the Cinematograph Act, 1952, that lays down the rules for censorship.
Something bigger is at stake: a majority of filmmakers believe the best way is to either do away with censorship altogether or introduce "self-regulation" through a body comprising eminent film industry people who will not "censor" films per se, but will give ratings depending on their suitability to different viewers, as it is done in, say, the US. The government is also agreeable to the idea of self-regulation, at least in principle.
In the Indian context, where the government of the day would never like to let go - the CBFC - which allows it to control content in a medium as powerful as cinema, an agreeable form of this self-regulatory body could comprise not only filmmakers but also a limited number of eminent persons from other creative fields like literature and arts, and possibly, an I&B Ministry representative to coordinate activities. If the government is serious about it, as Mr Reddy says, then it should start the debate now, involving all the stakeholders - filmmakers, media, the intelligentsia and viewers, to generate ideas on film censorship, and whether self-regulation could work in a country as vast and as diverse as India.
The government, as can be expected, is cautious in its approach. As Mr Reddy said, "There is a need to re-look the entire Act. While I am all for progressive films, I do not know how I can do away with regulatory structure altogether. We can think of an alternate structure, like a self-regulatory system. His ministry, he said, would soon form the committee to have a "relook" at the Cinematograph Act and would eagerly await its report. "We will not hesitate to make changes in the law, provided they are liberal and practical," was his view.
Noted director Shyam Benegal, who will shortly be releasing his latest film on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, is one strong votary for abolition of censorship altogether, just like many others from his fraternity, but at the same time stresses that there has to be some kind of regulation in India. "I am against censorship and do not believe that it works and will work in the future� (but) I do believe that some kind of regulation is necessary in a country as diverse as India, though we do not need a system where the government has something to do with all this," he says. In effect, he advocates a self-regulatory body, just as his illustrious colleague Govind Nihalani does.
"I am personally against censorship. I prefer a rating system, giving the responsibility to filmmakers," Nihalani says, almost echoing Benegal's views. The director, whose latest film "Dev" took off from the events arising out of the Gujarat riots, says, "A censor policy should be so that it can evolve with time, as values, thinking and society change." While advocating a rating system overseen by a self-regulatory intra-industry body, Nihalani is aware that initially a new system might lead to a lot of muck, in the form of "dirty" films by unscrupulous directors. But, as he says, "All filmmakers are not so irresponsible. Initially, there will be a lot of dirt, like when a wound opens, a lot of pus comes out. It should be allowed to come out. One should remember that film ultimately is a medium of family entertainment. The question is ultimately whether the family can watch a film together. Give the responsibility to filmmakers, and they will fulfil it."
The ineffectiveness of the CBFC, as much as its overzealous traits, as many point out, is apparent from the way "hate films" were being circulated in Gujarat by allegedly Sangh Parivar-backed elements after the riots without a censor certificate. Manu Rewal, whose "Chai Pani Etc" has run into censorship problems, puts the issue in perspective when he comments on the objections to certain portions of his film. For instance, the heroine smoking a cigarette. "This objection is when all kinds of images can be downloaded from the web and where international programming as well as simulated sex in item numbers are used as promotional vehicles on television sets."
While only time will tell how effectively TV channels adhere to censorship rules, the people would be more interested in knowing how fast the government moves in starting a debate on whether we need censorship, and if the self-regulation system can be introduced soon.
UTPAL BORPUJARI
in New Delhi
*Chand Bujh Gaya", a Hindi potboiler starring Aamir Khan's down-and-out brother Faisal Khan and set in the backdrop of Gujarat riots, is refused a censor certificate because the screen chief minister looks too much like Narendra Modi. The regional Censor Board in Chennai refused to give debutante director Manu Rewal a certificate for "Chai Pani Etc" if he did not delete scenes showing Konkona Sen Sharma smoking a cigarette and another character using the term "reservationwallahs".
*Many film personalities, including Shyam Benegal, Karan Johar, Ashutosh Gowariker, Govind Nihalani, Shabana Azmi, Anand Patwardhan, Javed Akhtar and Aparna Sen appeal to the government to ask the Board to lift the ban on Rakesh Sharma's internationally-acclaimed documentary "Final Solution", which seeks to analyse the politics behind the Gujarat riots.
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[9] [Gandhi vs Savarkar: What of the others notables and nameless heroes ]
(i)
Indian Express - September 21, 2004
The Kala Pani story Neither Savarkar, nor Gandhi, represents its nameless heroes Manini Chatterjee
As Sushma Swaraj leads a contingent of 125 odd BJP MPs in a so-called satyagraha outside Cellular Jail in Port Blair today, chances are that not one of them has heard of Nani Gopal Mukherji or Baba Gurmukh Singh, Shiv Kumar or Subodh Roy.
In the summer of 1912, a couple of years after the first batch of political prisoners since 1857 were deported to the dreaded Cellular Jail in the Andamans, the teenaged Mukherji went on a hunger strike that lasted over a month. He was protesting against the horrific conditions in jail where prisoners were made to do slave labour - rope-making, coir-pounding and oil pressing. Oil pressing was the worst. Memoirs of prisoners of that period (such as Sri Aurobindo's brother Barin Ghose's Tale of My Exile and Upendranath Banerjee's Nirbasiter Atmakatha) recalled how the more hardy among them were yoked to millstones like bullocks and made to walk round and round in circles from six a.m. to six p.m. everyday. Protests were met with reduced rations and fettering to the wall. Diseases like malaria and dysentry were endemic and many died or went insane.
Baba Gurmukh Singh, convicted in the first Lahore Conspiracy Case, arrived in this hell in 1916. After the royal amnesty to selected political prisoners announced in December 1919, Gurmukh Singh was sent back to the mainland but managed to escape from captivity. Undeterred by the horrors he had faced in Kala Pani, he continued to be part of the national liberation movement, was caught in 1937 and sent back to Cellular Jail. There, he played a central role in educating the bulk of ''revolutionary terrorists'' in the then nascent ideas of scientific socialism.
Shiv Kumar, a member of Bhagat Singh's Hindustan Socialist Republican Army, was ''transported'' to the Andamans after Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged in Lahore Jail in 1931. As was Subodh Roy - the youngest member of ''Masterda'' Surya Sen's Indian Republican Army that conducted the famous Chittagong Armoury Raids on April 18, 1930. Touching 90, Roy remains a steadfast worker of the CPI(M) in its Alimuddin Street headquarters in Kolkata, his palms still bearing the scars of rope-making in Cellular Jail.
Kumar and Roy were not alone. From 1910 to 1937, hundreds of political prisoners - a large majority of them drawn from the ''revolutionary-terrorist'' groups active in Bengal, followed by freedom fighters from Punjab and a sprinkling from other states such as Maharashtra in the early phase - were imprisoned in Cellular Jail. The aim was to keep them away from the mainstream and the mainland, and break, over time, both their body and spirit.
The saddest part of the raging controversy over the Swatantrya Jyot - first designed under the instructions of former petroleum minister Ram Naik and then redesigned under the instructions of present petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar - is that caught in the crossfire of contemporary politics, the real heroes and martyrs of Cellular Jail have once again been denied their place in history.
For Ram Naik and the sangh parivar as a whole, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar is the only memorable hero among the thousands who lived and died in Cellular Jail. For Mani Shankar Aiyar, the alternative to Savarkar is Gandhi. The Mahatma may have been the greatest leader of India's freedom movement but he had always stood against those who believed in an armed struggle against the British Raj and who, without exception, peopled the dank cells in the Andamans. After the historic collective hunger strike inside Cellular Jail in 1937, Gandhi played a signal role in the negotiations that led to a general amnesty for all detenues and political prisoners and their repatriation from the island. Yet, to replace Savarkar with Gandhi does little justice either to him or to the ''revolutionary terrorists'' who leavened with their blood the mainstream Gandhian freedom struggle.
The choice of Savarkar is a much greater travesty. True, Savarkar in his early years was a radical who organised students, first in Pune and then in London. His daring escape from the porthole of a ship at Marseilles while he was being brought back to India to face trial has also passed into Marathi folklore, not least because of his skilful penmanship. But as far as Cellular Jail is concerned, Savarkar's eleven-year spell there did not enhance or deepen his early anti-imperialist inclinations; it ended it.
The conditions in jail, testified by numerous less-celebrated accounts than that of Savarkar, were inhuman. But unlike Savarkar, few of the Ghadr revolutionaries or Bengal ''terrorists'' pleaded with the British authorities for mercy. Nor did they agree to give up their struggle for India's liberty in exchange of their own personal liberty.
Savarkar did both, and what is more, he kept to his promise. On being freed from prison, Savarkar repudiated his past and devoted himself to preparing the blueprint of a Hindu Rashtra. His earlier anger against foreign rule was replaced by a pernicious thesis of ''punyabhoomi'' and ''pitribhoomi'' that rendered all non-Hindus ''alien'' to India. And unlike Khudiram Bose or Surya Sen, Asfaqulla Khan or Bhagat Singh who inspired generations of youth to join the freedom struggle, Savarkar, post-Andamans, is known to have inspired only the Nathuram Godses of this land.
For the BJP and RSS, Savarkar is a hero because of what he did after he came out of Cellular Jail. The premier ideologue of Hindutva, he has also become a useful icon because he is possibly the only ''freedom fighter'' that the sangh parivar can lay claim to.
But that does not make him representative of the hundreds of young men who turned prematurely old in Cellular Jail, men who suffered together, who organised hunger strikes and bitterly fought for better conditions; who set up their own library and even a ''university'' against great odds.
The BJP-led NDA government sought to wipe out the memory of that struggle by making Savarkar the sole hero of Cellular Jail, erecting his statue and naming the Port Blair airport after him. It is time to change that - not by naming it after Gandhi or Nehru but simply by calling it ''Shahid'' or ''Balidan'' in the collective memory of the faceless heroes of Kala Pani.
o o o o
(ii)
SACW | 24 September 2004
Victim of brahmanical secularism in India By V.B.Rawat
An interesting debate has started about Savarkar in India. Savarkar, who propounded the two nation theory much before Jinnah could do so but the unfortunate part about the entire debate is crucification of analysis and presentation of thoughts according to once ideological perceptions. How history or historian glorify one and vilify the others is visible when I read an article in the 'Outlook', magazine on Legacy of EVR. The author claimed that there is no one who remembers Periyar today in Tamilnadu. Ofcourse, when the bramins were at the helm of writing history in our Universities and colleges and the subsequent governments who came to power purely on the legacy and historic movements of Periyar, started compromising with brahmanical forces, then we cannot think of any Brahmin secular complaining about conspicuous silence over the Dravidian movement and its historic legacy. One may argue in the same way as who is remembering Gandhi in India and even his state of Gujarat and through a very a powerful khadi establishment of power. The fact is that despite all reservations, Gandhi was not killed by the Dalit or Muslim or any OBC but pure Maharastrian Brahmin. The same Brahmins who wanted India, a Hindu Rastra and at the same point of time did not want a separate Muslim land? How could it have been possible? They must thank their stars that their India does not revolve around Nagpur and Pune if their entire thesis was accepted. [...]
[FULL TEXT AT :
http://www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ArticlesArchive/VBRawat092004.html ]
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[10] [3 ARTICLES ON THE RECENT HULLABALOO AROUND THE INDIAN CENSUS REPORTS ]
(i)
Frontline - Volume 21 - Issue 20, Sept. 25 - Oct. 08, 2004
The population bogey
T.K. Rajalakshmi in New Delhi
Disregarding the well-established principles of demography, the Sangh Parivar continues to thrive on myths about the growth rate of the Muslim population.
IN the first week of September, the Census Office released the First Report on Religion Data emerging from the Census of India, 2001. The comparisons made in it of "unadjusted" and "adjusted" growth rates of the population of various religious communities created confusion and a political controversy. The Bharatiya Janata Party was quick to pounce on it, raising an alarm at the growing number of Indians, particularly the minority communities. With the Maharashtra elections round the corner, the Census figures became fodder for its campaign.
In Bangalore, on September 7, after a meeting of the party's national office-bearers, BJP president M. Venkaiah Naidu called for the uniform adoption of population control measures by people belonging to various communities. The findings of the Census, he said, should be a cause of concern for all those who think of India's unity and integrity in the long term. He was concerned that while the rate of growth of Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists had come down, the population of Muslims and Christians was growing at a higher rate. Any imbalance, he cautioned, was not a healthy trend. It was time for a national debate on introducing incentives and disincentives to encourage the two-child norm, irrespective of religious considerations. The party expressed its commitment to the national target of population stabilisation by 2026. It also expressed concern over the "demographic invasion" of over 1.2 crore Bangladeshi "infiltrators", especially in the northeastern region.
A day later, Census Commissioner and Registrar-General of India J.K. Banthia clarified that he had, while releasing the report, explained to the media the facts relating to "unadjusted" and "adjusted" data. The "unadjusted" growth rates of population were based on a comparison of the all-India totals of populations emerging from the periodic Censuses, without taking into consideration the fact that no enumeration was done in Assam in 1981, and in Jammu and Kashmir in 1991. In other words, they were based on comparing incomparable data. The "adjusted" figures, on the other hand, involved comparisons of population totals excluding the figures for Assam and Jammu and Kashmir. Banthia said that these revised or adjusted figures showed that the growth rate of the Muslim population had been steadily declining over the years since 1971 and that motives were being attributed to what was at best a clerical error.
While the initial reactions of the BJP are understandable given its ideological orientation, it was surprising to see the issue being resurrected on September 11-12 in a different form despite the Census Commissioner's clarification. During the two-day BJP Chief Ministers' conclave held in New Delhi, it was proposed that the Chief Ministers should push a population policy, favouring incentives and disincentives and based on a two-child norm, for all sections of the population. On September 16, the BJP president announced the setting up of a committee on "demographic invasion" to be chaired by former Union Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi. The committee was to focus on the "infiltration" from Bangladesh.
Despite clarifications, the BJP and its ideological affiliates continued to make population growth an issue. On September 19, the Web site of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) carried an article suggesting that Muslims constituted one-third of Assam's population. The report is likely to create an uproar in the State which has seen agitations on the `infiltration' issue. The facts, however, as borne out by the Census report, are that in Assam and in Tripura, the growth rate of the Muslim population is the same and not higher than the national average for the community. And in West Bengal, it is below the national average. Hence the infiltration theory is simply not corroborated by the figures.
An article by Sangh Parivar ideologue and columnist S. Gurumurthy in the same Web site says that the Census Commissioner should be congratulated on bringing out the truth. The article, titled "Congratulate him for bringing out the truth, bluntly", Gurumurthy writes: "The Census figures for 2001 have come out for the first time with statistics on religious demography in India. That the Muslim population in India is moving ahead of the rest is undeniable. Not denied in fact. Whether it is rising by 36 per cent in a decade or 29 per cent is the dispute. That all others Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists put together rise only two-thirds as fast too is undeniable." The Census-based fact that more Hindus than Muslims were added to the Indian population between 1991 and 2001 (4.8 Hindus for every one Muslim) was conveniently ignored while making such an assertion.
The September 19 issue of the RSS organ, Organiser, also carried several articles on the issue, including one titled "Census politics with Muslim numbers". The article suggests that in just two days, the Census Commissioner, under pressure from the ruling Congress, altered the figures of the rate of growth of the Muslim population by juggling statistics. The editorial titled "The Population Bomb" says: "The Census 2001 has given India a wake-up call. A Hindu majority in every region of the country is an implicit guarantee of its integrity, civilisational vitality and economic prosperity. It is a tragedy; India has no uniform civil code. In the absence of which some minority groups are given the privileges of democratic, modern, permissiveness, even as they enjoy the protections of outdated religious diktats. In such a situation all efforts of the state to have an enlightened population policy are defeated. The changing religious profile of Indian population has a strong impact on the future of India. And it continues to be amongst the major determinants of strife."
APPARENTLY, the BJP and its ideological allies have a short memory. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government was in power when the National Population Policy (NPP) was approved by Parliament in 2000. The NPP embodied the spirit of the International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo, 1994, which laid stress on the slogan "development is the best pill". India became a signatory to the Cairo declaration and it was assumed that any population policy would be in consonance with the basic principles enshrined therein - the pursuance of population policies that are non-coercive and not based on any disincentives and incentives. The NPP, among other things, pledged to improve social indicators of women's development such as literacy, access to health and medical services and address unmet contraceptive needs. A National Population Commission was set up under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister with a corpus of Rs.100 crores to suggest ways to implement the policy. The NPP cautioned correctly that while a two-child norm was desirable, it should not be achieved by resorting to either coercion or by using incentives and disincentives.
So what explains the BJP's about-turn and the sudden emphasis on population control and the two-child norm? The only plausible reason is that the use of terms such as "demographic invasion" and the call for a national debate on population control stem from political expediency and not from a genuine concern for the health of the people. In a statement criticising the BJP's propaganda, the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA), the Delhi Science Forum and the Sama (a group dealing with women's health issues) pointed out that in States that had higher indicators of social development the population growth rate for all communities had come down. "It was access to basic rights that determined the family size and not religion," it said.
Another fall-out of the controversy over the figures has been a debate within the All India Muslim Personal Law Board. While its vice-president Maulana Kalbe Sadiq declared that the Board would promote family planning, its president Maulana Rabeh Husni Nadwi rejected the idea and stated in Lucknow that family planning was "un-Islamic". It is intriguing that the socio-economic backwardness of Muslims, which has emerged as a result of the cross-tabulated data, has not been the focus of interest of any of these groups. Interestingly, the BJP welcomed the views of Maulana Sadiq on family planning.
Sughra Mehdi, vice-president of the All India Muslim Women's Forum, has a different take on the issue. She told Frontline that while there was nothing "un-Islamic" about family planning, the population problem was not that of a particular community as such. It concerned the entire country and nobody should be forced to adopt the small-family norm.
But there are other concerns as well. Sahba Farooqi, general secretary of the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW), expressed apprehensions about the misuse of the Census data. She said: "Despite the clarification by the Census office, the BJP and others continue to focus on some selective aspects of population growth. While some of us can see the politics behind the growth rate hysteria, it is very difficult to reverse the damage done by the Census office and the manner in which sections of the media covered the issue." A little cynical about the release of such data on the eve of the Maharashtra Assembly elections, Farooqi said that it eventually reinforced stereotypes and gave an opportunity to conservative parties to attack the minorities.
Moreover, history has shown how Census figures have been manipulated. Charu Gupta, feminist historian and Reader in History in the University of Delhi, has documented several instances where the Hindu Right used such data to its advantage. In a paper titled "Censuses, Hindu Communalism, Gender and Identity: A Historical Perspective", she cites examples from Census Reports of pre-Independence India to show that historically Census data has been used not just for enumeration but also for comparison. According to her, in 1979, the Hindu Mahasabha brought out a publication, "They Count Their Gains, We Calculate Our Losses", which tried to raise a scare about rising Muslim population by using Census data in a distorted manner. Many of these debates, she says, can be linked to the present situation. With such arguments, even a religious majority can project itself as an endangered minority. The whole discourse of the Hindu Right around Census is aimed at obliterating the pluralism of identities, by provoking a fear of the "Other" and perpetrating myths about catastrophic decline of the Hindu population.
The BJP and its ideological partners are not going to stop harping on inflated growth rates or raising the bogey of minority population explosion. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, on the other hand, while not going into the merits of Census 2001, has declared its intention to conduct an inquiry into the confusion over the Muslim growth rate. This is despite the Minister of State for Home admitting that the confusion was the result of a "technical aberration".
It is surprising that neither the Congress nor the BJP has found it prudent to stress on the strengths of the data on religions - especially those relating to work participation, sex ratio and literacy - and dismiss the technical aberration.
(ii)
Indian Express - September 16, 2004
CENSUS SENSATION, PART- II
the way we indians are
An irrelevant enumeration
The concept of the Census itself is a colonial and retrograde one designed to benefit an imperialist master.
Shardul Chaturvedi
The debate in the media about the 'implications' of Muslim growth is nauseating. The Parivar is jumping with a sense of triumph. Their age-old allegation about Muslims multiplying faster than Hindus have been proved, by a secular agency, under a secular government. Secular gharanas are silent, understandably so, they have routinely dismissed this knowledge as communal propaganda. Now they have nowhere to look.
About thirty years after they silenced the last rebel gun in the great revolt, the British decided to make sense of the country they had come to acquire. And from this curiosity, arose the most novel and extraordinary endeavour of human mapping: the Census. Quite understandably, the British did not know where or how to begin, for Indians needed to be defined, classified, measured, numbered and put in categories. What were these categories? Who were to devise them? These were the daunting questions our benevolent masters faced, and not for the first time in their rule and certainly not for the last, they settled for the easiest and the most damaging answer.
They summoned a bunch of Maulvis and Brahmins to Calcutta, sat them down, and settled once and for all, the fundamental definitions of a Hindu and a Muslim. Maulvisque and Brahmanical perspectives - parochial, textual, and most certainly very communal - gave the British their basic understanding of Islam and Hinduism. We were defined hence by our most fundamentalist representatives; men who often knew little beyond their Arabic and Sanskrit texts and had very little connections with the actual anthropological realities of India. And with such categories in hand, British officers jumped into the Indian leviathan, numbering and categorising people, deciding their races, observing their noses, measuring their jaw structures, categorising them as Moslems, Hindoos, Parsees, Sikhs, martial, effeminate, brave, treacherous, criminal, thugs, genteel.
More often than not, Indian realities did not fit into the categories given to the British by Indian 'representatives'. It was tough to decide whether Punjabi Rajput Muslims in what is now Pakistan, were culturally Muslims, Rajputs or Punjabi. But the thumb rule was: when people did not fall into categories, categories were clamped on to them. This was the great Census of 1881, which rather than generating identities from Indians, imposed them on the people, often herding them into categories they themselves did not comprehend. But soon, informed of who they were, and how much in numbers, of what race, how brave, how respectable, and the rest, Indians quickly internalised the knowledge, and started believing, behaving, demanding, combining and aspiring according to their newly found categories.
Rajputs 'realised' that they were warriors, Sikhs - martial, Brahmins - intellectuals, Mewatis - Muslims, Tamils - Dravidians, Punjabis - Aryans and Muslims - a new category - minority. From that day we can safely date Muslim distrust in number politics and in democracy, and the Hindu confidence in it.
The Census of 1881 is widely seen as an event of huge consequence in Indian self-image and identity. Unsurprisingly, it marks the beginning of the politics of identity - of communalism, casteism, and racism of the Aryan-Dravidian type. Besides, most Indians, when they learnt that they were not 'adequately' something, became more desperate to mimic the prototype. Categories were hardened, genealogies purified, languages codified and accents chastened. And the Census, a complete colonial artefact in methodology and intent, continues to replicate itself in our times, provoking similar responses, fears and demands.
Indians who follow Islam continue to be seen as ''Muslims'' - an almost homogenous monolithic block, and when we are informed that there is something called the Muslim growth rate, we believe in it, though it would be fairly obvious to an even casual observer that Muslims and Hindus of the same class grow at the same rate. Muslims grow faster because more Indian Muslims belong to the lower classes than Indian Hindus and if Muslims were compared to the Hindus of the corresponding classes, the similarity would be striking. But then our Census sees people in terms of their religion, not class, which could be another, perhaps fairer method of understanding people, because members of the same class show social and cultural similarities, which very often members of the same community do not. Most upper classes, for instance, show a decline in the rate of reproduction, irrespective of religion.
Except the Jains, who have startled all by their alarming rate of growth, and given that most Jains in India are not particularly poor, there needs to be serious examination of their growth rate. And I am alarmed, not because they constitute any threat to India, but over the simple issue of population explosion. In the similar way I am disappointed that lower and lower middle-class Muslims have not taken to family planning. Addressing such an issue requires complex and sensitive responses, certainly more sensitive than seeing Muslim growth as a threat to the country.
The threat logic is confusing. Venkaiah Naidu wants us to believe that if Muslims continue to grow at the current rate, they would soon imbalance the demographic equilibrium and threaten national security. How? By simply overtaking Hindus in numbers? That might, hypothetically, change the cultural idiom of the nation state, but why and how would that threaten national security?
The writer is a history scholar who completed his research from Oxford University.
(iii)
Mid Day September 12, 2004 http://www.mid-day.com/news/nation/2004/september/92229.htm
Indian census and sensibilities By: Shardul Chaturvedi
Perhaps, it should not affect me. Not after Bombay and Gujarat. Blood has not been spilled, mosques have not been attacked and most Indians, Muslims or otherwise, shall go untouched by the nauseating debates in the media about the 'implications' of Muslim growth.
And yet, for all my efforts, I hang my head in shame. The Parivar is jumping with a sense of triumph. Their age-old allegation about Muslims multiplying faster than Hindus has been proved by a secular agency, under a secular government.
Secular gharanas are silent, understandably so; they have routinely dismissed this knowledge as communal propaganda.
Now they have nowhere to look. Nor do I, though I share neither the triumph of the Parivar nor the embarrassment of the gharanas.
Yet, I sulk in shame and helplessness that some citizens of my secular country have to listen to debates about whether their 'disproportionate' growth rate is a threat to their own country or not. Of course, most participants in the debates are saying it is not.
Muslims are still very few compared to the Hindus.Kashmir was not included in the last census, so the statistic means nothing.
The explosion is more in Bimaru states; Muslim population spurt is hence nothing more than an indication of their underdevelopment.
More secular rebuttals are yet to emerge. When they do, I am sure they would match communal propaganda in intellectual vacuity.
About thirty years after they silenced the last rebel gun in the great revolt, the British decided to make sense of the country they had come to acquire. And from this curiosity - much anthropological as political - the most novel and extraordinary endeavour of human mapping: the Census.
Quite understandably, the British did not know where or how to begin, for Indians needed to be defined, classified, measured, numbered and put in categories.
What were these categories? Who were to devise them? These were the daunting questions our benevolent masters faced and not for the first time in their rule, and certainly not for the last, they settled for the easiest and the most damaging answer.
They summoned a bunch of Maulavis and Brahmins to Calcutta, sat them down and settled once and for all the fundamental definitions of a Hindu and a Muslim.
Maulvisque and Brahmanical perspectives - parochial, textual, and most certainly very communal - gave the British their basic understanding of Islam and Hinduism. We were defined hence by our most fundamentalist representatives; men who often knew little beyond their Arabic and
Sanskrit texts and had very little connections with the actual anthropological realities of India. And with such categories in hand, British officers jumped into the Indian leviathan, numbering and categorising people, deciding their races, observing their noses, measuring their jaw structures, categorising them as Moslems, Hindoos, Parsees, Sikhs, martial, effeminate, brave, treacherous, criminal, thugs, genteel.
More often than not, Indian realities did not fit into the categories given to the British by Indian 'representatives'. It was tough to decide whether Punjabi Rajput Muslims, in what is now Pakistan, were culturally Muslims, Rajputs or Punjabi. But the thumb rule was - when people did not fall into categories, categories were clamped on to them.
This was the great census of 1881, which, rather than generating identities from Indians, imposed them on the people, often herding them into categories they themselves did not comprehend.
But soon, informed of who they were, and how much in numbers, of what race, how brave, how respectable and the rest, Indians quickly internalised the knowledge and started believing, behaving, demanding, combining and aspiring according to their newly found categories.
Rajputs 'realised' that they were warriors, Sikhs martial, Brahmins - intellectuals, Mewatis - Muslims, Tamils - Dravidians, Punjabis - Aryans and Muslims - a new category - minority. From that day, we can safely date Muslim distrust in number politics and in democracy, and the Hindu confidence in it.
The census of 1881 is widely seen as an event of huge consequence in Indian self-image and identity. Unsurprisingly, it marks the beginning of the politics of identity - of communalism, casteism and racism of the Aryan-Dravidian type.
Besides, most Indians, when they learnt that they were not 'adequately' something, became more desperate to mimic the prototype.
Categories were hardened, genealogies purified, languages codified and accents chastened.
And the census, a complete colonial artifact in methodology and intent, continues to replicate itself in our times, provoking similar responses, fears and demands.
Indians who follow Islam continue to be seen as 'Muslims' - an almost homogenous, monolithic block. When we are informed that there is something called the Muslim growth rate, we believe in it, though it would be fairly obvious to an even casual observer that Muslims and Hindus of the same class grow at the same rate.
Muslims grow faster because more Indian Muslims belong to the lower classes than Indian Hindus and if Muslims were compared to the Hindus of the corresponding classes, the similarity would be striking.
But then our census sees people in term of their religion, not class, which could be another, perhaps fairer method of understanding people, because members of the same class show social and cultural similarities, which very often members of the same community do not. Most upper classes, for instance, show a decline in the rate of reproduction, irrespective of religion.
Except the Jains, who have startled all by their alarming rate of growth. Given that most Jains in India are not particularly poor, there needs to be a serious examination of their growth rate.
And I am alarmed, not because they constitute any threat to India, but over the simple issue of population explosion, in the similar way I am disappointed that lower and lower middle-class Muslims have not taken to family planning.
I am not negating that the reasons could be both in general ignorance and in religious prejudices and inhibitions; any numbers of liberal maulavis or Muslim intellectuals screaming from the pulpits or from television channels that Islam does not forbid non-reproductive sex does not negate the latter. Addressing such an issue requires complex and sensitive responses, certainly more sensitive than seeing Muslim growth as a threat to the country.
And finally, I am confused about the threat logic.
Mr Naidu wants us to believe that if Muslims continue to grow on the current rate, they would soon unbalance the demographic equilibrium and threaten national security.
How? By simply overtaking Hindus in numbers? That might, hypothetically, change the cultural idiom of the nation state, make it look more Muslim. But why and how would that threaten national security? Unless of course, Hindus, minorities then, decide to threaten the Muslim nation state.
That all this might happen when Delhi-ites are buying farmhouses on Mars is a different thing. Besides, if Muslims decide to be a threat to the country, they don't really have to grow spectacularly for that.
Thirteen million - current population - is threat enough, Mr Naidu.
The 2004 census showed:
*that Muslims now account for about 13.4 per cent of India's population, up from 11.4 per cent in 1981, including Kashmir.
*that the proportion of Hindus has fallen to 80.5 per cent from 82.6 per cent during the same time period.
*Christians were the third largest religious group with 24 million people, while Sikhs accounted for 19 million.
*that the Parsi community's population dwindled to just under 70,000 people, from about 76,000 a decade earlier.
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