South Asia Citizens Wire | 15 September, 2005
[1] Indo-Pak peace process - Dialogue format inadequate (M B Naqvi) [2] State and Missing People in Kashmir (Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons) [3] Between despair and hope: interrogating 'terrorism' (Dilip Simeon) [4] India: A tale of two bags (Shabnam Hashmi) [5] Publication announcement: Globalizing India - Perspectives from Below edited by Jackie Assayag, and Chris Fuller ______ [1] Deccan Herald September 15, 2005 INDO-PAK PEACE PROCESS - DIALOGUE FORMAT INADEQUATE By M B Naqvi Unless South Asia is rid of nuclear weapons and mutual mistrust, there will be little scope for a Kashmir solution Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are meeting in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Celebrating the 60th year of the UN is important enough. But the scheduled bilateral summit is of far greater interest. The two are expected to kickstart the stalled Composite Dialogue. The latter went through two full rounds; both failed. No agreement on any of the eight disputes was reached. It is true a number of CBMs, particularly the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service, were agreed upon. For the rest, the two-year dialogue produced no great credit entry. Neither side conceded anything. What characterised the earlier summit level agreements in 2004 is that they simply agreed to resolve disputes without identifying common goals. It is time to realise that a dialogue in political vacuum cannot be sustained, much less achieve results, despite objective conditions being exceptionally favourable. Both the people have unmistakably shown that they want peace and friendship between themselves with free trade and travel. The two sides could at least have agreed on issues such as Siachin and Sir Creek. Only a modicum of goodwill and some mutual trust was required. Even the water disputes could have been settled because neither side wants the 1960 Water Treaty to fail. For the Treaty to live, it is imperative that disputes like the Kishen Ganga Project and the Wullur Barrage are resolved. Open mind and a measure of goodwill are needed. These were not available. The fact is the two governments just do not trust each other; each believes that the other will, given a chance, do it down. This is true of Kashmir and both their security policies. Lack of faith Pakistan's security doctrine is avowedly India-specific. In India's case a good part of its deterrent will have to be Pakistan-specific in reply. In India's war gaming, the 'enemy' could only be Pakistan. India faces neither a Chinese invasion nor an American one. No other power is likely to invade it. Its build-up is sui genrie. It may not even be aimed at any one power. But Pakistan believes it is the only likely target. It is not wholly true. India is acquiring a blue water navy. To tackle Pakistan, India needs no blue water navy. But the harvest of hate and mistrust between them is the real threat. Can India deal with Pakistan's 'unfriendliness' without war? Doubtless Indian war preparations are way out of proportion to tackling Pakistan. A quick point is that Musharraf and Manmohan Singh should not start a Third Round without giving guidelines dictated by agreed common purposes for their bureaucrats or ministers to achieve. Meandering negotiations with no clear aim will result in repeating known positions. Each side will read its brief and that will be the end of negotiations. Officers cannot make political concessions. Even ministers can make only minor concessions. Disputes require political concessions. The current format cannot achieve desired results. The two leaders must find common purposes to strive for. Without which friendship will have no meaning. Today both countries are nuclear armed. Since only a few minutes' time is needed for a missile to reach India or Pakistan, the needed preparedness for either Nuclear Deterrent during crises and tensions, have to be instant readiness. The only effective use of nuclear weapons by either side is mounting an unexpected massive nuclear attack on the other to totally decapitate it. Short of that, use of the weapon would be senseless. Neither side can afford the losses inflicted by a few atomic weapons and in return the other's response will be massive. That will be utter disaster. Overall, from civilisation's viewpoint it is madness in either case. Actually atomic weapons cannot be used as the experience of 2002 suggested. Although India was ready to take advantage in conventional weaponry by challenging Pakistan to use its nuclear weapons first, it was Pakistan that wisely backed down. Indian response would devastate everything. Next time too, the same considerations will apply. Such issues cannot be tackled by officials. Cabinet and summits have to do much work. None should expect the Foreign Office or other officials to change a country's traditional position. They require mandate of what to talk. Top leaders have to give that mandate. Agra's lesson should not be ignored. Summits are where political concessions are made; they need careful preparations. Officials come after that. Officers can only be sherpas. They are told what to say or agree to. Summiteers have to work first. Issues need work Summits need in depth Track II diplomacy, which, in turn, would require a diffused but in greater depth Track III diplomacy of intellectuals. Three issues require this kind of sustained work: (a) identifying common goals; (b) Kashmir's settlement; and (c) nuclear weapons. This writer asserts that so long as there are two opposing Nuclear Deterrents, sitting so close to each other, there will never be enough trust to agree on an understanding over nuclear weapons. Unless South Asia is rid of nuclear weapons, there will be little scope for a Kashmir solution. Old contenders cannot be fobbed off with mere Confidence Building Measures. Major problems need trust for resolution. Should there be progress on Kashmir and nuclear matters, Siachin, Sir Creek and Wuller Barrage and other matters will be easy to resolve. But trust is a tricky business. It can come from a people-to-people reconciliation, economic development and some harmonisation of policies and regional economic integration. These will be worthy goals for India and Pakistan to pursue. Without these, there will never be progress in Indo-Pakistan dialogue. ______ [2] Economic and Political Weekly September 3, 2005 Letters STATE AND MISSING PEOPLE IN KASHMIR The following are extracts from the text of the resolution adopted by the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) in New Delhi on August 30, 2005. "We who are gathered here to commemorate the International Day of the Disappeared are deeply concerned at the recurring incidence of enforced or involuntary disappearances in Jammu and Kashmir, (the) use of doctrine of national security by the government of India whereby no information is given about a missing person's whereabouts and condition, the continued trauma and suffering of their families and friends, and the refusal of the government of India to heed the demands of the APDP who have been demanding an independent inquiry since 1998 into cases of enforced disappearances. We demand: (1) That the government of India set up an inquiry under (the) Commission of Inquiry Act by August 30, 2006 with a mandate to look into cases of enforced or involuntary disappearances since 1990 and identify the perpetrators of the same; (2) The repeal of (the) Armed Forces Special Powers Act and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, etc, because they provide impunity to the security forces to arrest/detain people at will; (3) Urge the working committee of the UN Commission on Human Rights to agree to a text of a convention against enforced disappearances so that it can be placed for adoption next year by the member countries of the UN; (4) The national as well as state human rights acts should be amended to empower NHRC and SHRC to investigate crimes committed by the security forces. We call upon the democratic-minded people in India to set up a support group as a mark of solidarity with those aggrieved by enforced disappearances and to work with APDP to ensure that justice is provided." Pervez Imroz Srinagar, J & K, (Patron APDP) _____ [3] sacw.net September 15, 2005 http://www.sacw.net/free/simeon15092005.html BETWEEN DESPAIR AND HOPE: INTERROGATING 'TERRORISM' by Dilip Simeon [Published earlier as the cover story in Himal, September 2005] "The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is a more violent world." - Hannah Arendt The words 'terror' (meaning intense fear and dread), and 'terrorism' (the systematic employment of violence and intimidation to coerce a government or community into acceding to specific political demands) are steeped in controversy. From the time of the French Revolution, 'terrorism' has been used to describe a range of violent political activism, including certain forms of Russian populism; Italian, Serbian and Irish nationalism; anarchism; and the actions of the Ku Klux Klan. Nowadays, 'terror' is what the 'civilised world', led by the United States, is combating. It is identified with Islamist funda-mentalism, the Taliban, suicide bombers, Palestinian resistance and Maoist revolutionaries. Even though terrorism is quite clearly a form of political violence, mainstream journalism today does not associate it with aerial bombardment (although Hitler's use of the Luftwaffe against the Spanish town of Guernica in 1936 was considered an act of terror), armed actions by the American and Israeli defence and special forces against their real or perceived enemies, kidnapping, collective punishments, and encounter killings by the apparatus of various Southasian states. In India, 'terrorism' is also not generally used to describe the activities of the Bajrang Dal, VHP, RSS, the Ranvir Sena or the Shiv Sena, even though some of their activities would qualify them as terrorists within the dictionary meaning of the word. Yes, the usage of 'terror' is heavily politicised. Stark examples of these differentiated standards of judgement confront us when we consider the boundaries that religion shares with the world of terror. Contemporary common sense does not associate Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity or Hinduism with terror and terrorism. However, Sinhalese Buddhist monks have been known to participate in anti-Tamil violence in Sri Lanka. The Zionist Stern Gang and Irgun indulged in 'communal killings' of Palestinian villagers to enforce the evacuation of territory. Irish nationalists and loyalists alike (Catholics and Protestants) used terror for decades as an integral part of their politics. And it is the Hindu Tamil Tigers who began the latest use of suicide bombers - Rajiv Gandhi was killed by one in 1991. Let us not fool ourselves. Every major religious tradition has produced theological justifications for murder and mass killing in the name of sacred causes. And it is clear that terror is and has been employed by states and anti-state activists alike. Historically, national liberation movements and democratic movements have often taken for granted that violent means would be necessary for the attainment of their ends. The French Revolution of 1789 was the first major instance of the marriage of terror with modern democracy. "There is nothing which so much resembles virtue as a great crime", said Robespierre's comrade, St Just, one of the architects of the Reign of Terror in 1794. Mid-nineteenth century Italian nationalism was an inspiration for military style patriotism in the early twentieth century, such as the Serbian, Irish and Indian. Russian populism, which later emerged as the Left Socialist Revolutionary tendency, used terrorist methods in varying degrees, as did Anarchists and Bolsheviks. Trotsky wrote a lengthy pamphlet, Terrorism and Communism, justifying such acts as hostage-taking as a means of ensuring good behaviour by 'class enemies'. Terrorism is the quintessentially ambivalent political deed, the place where good and evil are mixed to the point where its proponents need to invoke God, or a secular metaphysic such as History or Revolutionary Destiny, as justification. Apparently transcendental dogma can transform great crimes into virtuous deeds. In a situation where terror has become normalised (virtually the entire span of the past century), it is to be expected that rational debate aimed at understanding political crises become next to impossible. For example, in the post-9/11 world, anyone putting forward a historical analysis of the emergence of Islamist fundamentalism against a background of Western imperialist policies in West Asia, Arabia, Palestine, Iran and Afghanistan, would draw suspicion in establishment circles as an apologist for terrorists - even if he or she vehemently denies such sentiments. Someone who adduces the reparations imposed upon Germany in 1918 as a factor contributing to the rise of Nazism is not necessarily a sympathiser of Hitler. In considering the history of Zionism, we would have to remember that Christian anti-Semitism provided fertile ground for Nazi ideology and the genocide of European Jews, which in turn fuelled the demand for a Jewish homeland. Such an analysis would not imply an approval of Israeli expansionism and oppression of Palestinians. It is the historian's job to suggest explanations of major events by weighing context with cause, structure popular moods and ideological developments. In today's world, however, history is rapidly being replaced by propaganda. Speaking about terrorism in 1998, the late Eqbal Ahmad described the official approach to it as one that eschews causation and avoids definition, because such concepts involve "analysis, comprehension and adherence to some norms of consistency". He cited a query about the causes of Palestinian terrorism, addressed by the Yugoslavian foreign minister to US Secretary of State George Shultz, twenty years ago. Shultz "went a bit red in the face. He pounded the table and told the visiting foreign minister, there is no connection with any cause. Period." (The New York Times, 18 December 1985). Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee told the United Nations General Assembly that all talk of 'root causes' served only to justify terrorism. However, his RSS soulmates routinely talk of 'root causes' when they need to defend the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992. Terrorism has a 'root cause' when we identify with it, but becomes a monstrous violation of human rights when we don't. Such ethical contortions are as common in the ranks of left-wing intellectuals as they are among religious fundamentalists and the ultra-right. The decline of conversation The dynamic nature of social reality implies the need for constant theoretical reflection. Without this, the radical imagination loses itself in the dominant discourses of capitalism, nationalism and identity. This is what is happening today, even within the so-called extreme left. Unfortunately this trend is buttressed by the habit of denigrating critical thought to a level inferior to so-called 'activism'. A further complication is that nationalist ideology and capitalist media have perverted the concept of truth. In the first case, God or Truth (sometimes named History) is always with Us. In the second case, truth is substituted by credibility. This is demonstrated by the phenomenon of advertising. The truth-content of a message is of no importance, what matters is whether it is credible or incredible. This is why the concept of 'image' dominates modern political vocabulary, despite the obvious distinction between 'image' and 'reality'. The war of images goes on in the political realm as well, and affects the question of terror. As they say, one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. We owe it to ourselves and the coming generations to pierce the imagery and arrive at a well-considered understanding of terror and political violence. The dogmatism surrounding political theory in India has reduced radical politics to a moribund condition. The Leninist concept of "the outside" and the Stalinist convention that "the party is always right" imply an authoritarian notion of truth. The comrades' habit of claiming possession of Absolute Truth (Party Line = Param Satya) is similar to the religious belief in divine revelation (ilhaam). Such approaches to knowledge are shared by organisations as far apart as the Vatican (with its notion of papal infallibility), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Taliban (and its variants), and various Leninist groups and parties. This attitude is an important causative factor for the fractious nature of Southasian leftism. An absolutist mentality finds ambivalence intolerable. Faced with historical complexity, it finds refuge in black and white ideas about the social universe. The resulting theoretical vacuum has left questions such as the value of democracy and the nature of violence to be treated as 'tactical' matters rather than as aspects of social relations. The political ideologies dominant in our time attach a pragmatic or positive value to violence and to the Nation. The word 'foreign' is too easily used as a term of abuse. Many radical political currents treat democracy as something to be used rather than preserved. Where it is yet to be achieved, its protagonists preach but do not practice democracy within the movement - they believe authoritarian methods can achieve democratic goals. Such issues need to be addressed. Unfortunately, it has become a habit among radical activists and intellectuals to attribute base motives to those who criticise established doctrine. Polemic is what passes for debate and discussion in the Indian socialist tradition. (polemos in Greek means strife). Our mode of debate is often coloured by personal remarks, sarcasm and pointless rhetoric. Indeed, there will be moments when nasty verbal contests become unavoidable, but the replacement of all political conversation by polemic is symptomatic of an authoritarian attitude to ideas. Polemic reinforces factionalism, causes useless distraction and is a waste of time. It also signifies mental laziness. Instead of a careful and rigorous consideration and/or refutation of critical ideas, we prefer to dismiss them with contempt. Firm adherence to dogma may be psychologically comfortable, but it can only ensure political marginalisation. The word 'terror' is used to distinguish between forms of violence. In commonplace conversation, it conveys the meaning of something other than war, mass resistance, police action, and so on. Closer attention will reveal that political terror is a manifestation of militarism in the domain of civil society - whether expressed by left or right-wing terrorists. Actually the very norms by which we define Left and Right need re-definition. Right-wing neo-liberals often talk of the need for far-reaching economic and political reform, whereas leftists seem to be taking a conservative position. Multinational corporations advocate a capitalist version of internationalism, whereas leftists appear to have become nationalists, paying lip-service to international working-class solidarity. Rightists fabricate history one way, leftists do it another way. Nobody can say whether the terms 'left' and 'right' carry any definitional meaning for ethnic identity movements - support for or opposition to Lankan Tamil, Kurdish, Baloch, Kashmiri, Naga or Tibetan self-determination depends upon political convenience or pure whim rather than consistent principle. When it comes to positions regarding war, militarism, nuclearism, violence, patriarchy, democratic freedoms, human rights or ecological degradation, it is difficult to discern a systematic difference between left and right. The Communist Party of China has become (effectively) the Capitalist Party of China. It supported Yahya Khan in 1971, and even launched a war against Vietnam in 1979. As Orwell once said, there is no enormity that we condemn in the conduct of our enemies that we would not commit ourselves. Is there a way out of this labyrinth? There is, but only if we embark once more upon fearless critique. Left-wing terrorists, including certain left-nationalists and communists, display a self-conscious attempt to convert social democratic protest and struggle into a form of warfare ('social democracy' is used here in its broadest and pristine meaning, as the original name of the socialist movement). The capitulation of Europe's major social democratic parties to war hysteria and patriotism in August 1914 was arguably the greatest political disaster in the history of international socialism. It is a complex and tragic tale, but the nature of twentieth century communism was unalterably coloured by warfare and the warrior cult. In fact, the century gone by has been the bloodiest period in the life of humanity. One result has been the appearance of Bonapartism, the domination of the communist movement by men of military stature - warlords like Stalin and Mao. Another was the erosion of any respect for human life - mass slaughter came to be accepted as the natural price to pay for 'victory'. This mixture of socialism, nationalism and militarism has produced many political hybrids. Subhas Chandra Bose was one of them. In India today, it is not a good idea to criticise Subhas, a popular icon for many leftists, even though he allied himself with Hitler's imperial war aims and bemoaned the defeat of the Axis. Although it takes off from a conservative standpoint, fascism, too, is one of these hybrids - and religion-based communalism is Southasia's brand of fascism. In summary definition, communal politics are projects for the militarisation of civil society. The ultra-left programme of 'people's war' feeds upon the same mentality. The utilitarian morality expressed by the phrase "the end justifies the means" has cast its effect on Left and Right alike. Quite apart from the matter of political ethics, it is remarkable that the Maoist world-view finds 'people's war' as relevant in India as it does in Nepal, despite the obvious differences in the constitutions of the two countries. Among some comrades, it would appear that strategies are decided upon first, and doctrinal justifications invented later. It is also significant that, on the whole, the ultra-left and the ultra-right avoid confrontation with one another. Thus, in its declaration of October 2004, the newly formed Communist Party of India (Maoist) stated that armed struggle would "remain the highest and main form of struggle and the army the main form of organisation of this revolution". The main purpose of mass organisations would be "to serve the war". The declaration makes a passing reference to "Hindu fascist forces", but makes it clear that it would keep "the edge of the people's struggles directed against the new Congress rulers in Delhi along with the CPI/CPM and their imperialist chieftains". On 15 August, the CPI-Maoist (allegedly) carried out an armed action in Andhra Pradesh, gunning down an MLA, his son, driver, some local Congress activists and a municipal employee. The ideology that can cast such ordinary people for the role of "class enemies", deserving extra-judicial execution, reflects a mentality closer to fascism rather than socialism. These 'revolutionaries' have not even publicly challenged the mass murderers responsible for pogroms in India during 1984 (Delhi) and 2002 (Gujarat), let alone call them to account. Yet they constantly direct scornful polemic at all kinds of moderate democratic politics. Apparently radical rhetoric establishes one's commitment to the public good; and proposing violent solutions provides proof of one's admirable character. A callous disregard for human life is apparent among 'revolutionary' groups in Southasia. In August 2004, 13 people were killed (including nine children) and 20 injured due to a bomb planted by the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) at an Independence Day function in upper Assam. In June 2005, 40 or more bus passengers, mostly peasants and working people, were killed in an ambush set off by Maoists in the Chitwan district of Nepal. The ULFA call themselves Marxists, as do the Nepali comrades. Marxist revolutionaries perceive themselves as guardians of human rights, democracy and justice. We need to ask them - what is the ground for your claim to represent the poor? Who gave you the authority to be judge and executioner and kill people without even the pretence of a consensual procedure to decide guilt and award punishment? Why do you complain about extra-judicial killings by the state when you have no qualms about carrying out such killings yourselves? Is there any human rights body that the victims of your cruelty (or your bloody 'mistakes') could approach for justice? Why do you talk about the "murder of democracy" (this is how the Indian Maoist party described the ban imposed upon it after their 'action' on August 15) when you have no respect for the lives of children and poor people, let alone for democratic values and norms? With honourable exceptions, human rights activists remain silent or defensive about atrocities committed by proponents of revolution and self-determination. This strengthens the impression among the general public that 'preferred' victims qualify as human beings, but if they happen to belong to the wrong caste or religion or profession, or simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time, their lives are dispensable. Sensitive observers the world over have rightly protested the atrocious principle of 'collateral damage' invoked by the Pentagon when its soldiers and pilots kill people they say were not targeted. It is equally infuriating when successive US presidents talk about 'American lives' as if Arabs and Rwandans and Vietnamese belonged to an insect species. But is it not apparent that revolutionaries of various kinds function with their own version of 'collateral damage'? And what of situations where civilians are deliberately targeted? World War II abolished the distinction between combatants and civilians. We, who dreamt of a better life for humanity, have descended to the point where the deliberate slaughter of bystanders and bus passengers by 'our' side barely causes us to raise an eyebrow. Even to point to this selective and self-righteous morality causes intense irritation among the ranks of the politically correct. For socialists to 'normalise' the commission of mass murder, is nothing short of an ethical-political catastrophe. And it lends a poignantly different meaning to Marx's warning that the choice before humanity is either socialism or barbarism. Autumn of the Patriarchs After the overthrow of the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings and the rise of democratic politics, the process of governing became impossible without some degree of popular legitimation. That is why even empires and dictators talk of freedom and the will of the peoples. But these developments, associated with modern capitalism, cannot occlude the fact that the state is the institutionalised crystal of centuries of warfare. At its core are the armies that (in 19th century Europe), countered universal adult suffrage with universal male conscription; and the ideals of equality, reason and compassion with hierarchy, faith and the glory of war. We may judge for ourselves which set of values conquered the 20th century. The Great War of 1914-18 ended with the overthrow of four medieval autocracies. But alongside the establishment of Weimar democracy, the defeated German army of 1918 set in motion a political process that culminated in the conquest of the state by Nazism. It is the greatest historical irony that it was democracy that enabled ex-corporal Hitler to become Reich Chancellor, and that his actions led not only to the overthrow of democracy but to the complete destruction of the German Army. Fifty-five million people paid the ultimate price. Hitler's regime was the historical acme of state terrorism - those who use these words frequently ought to study it - and the most glaring feature of the political mobilisation that preceded it was the binary dynamic of fear and revenge. Contrary to their self-understanding, the political paramilitaries and revolutionary warriors of all kinds are the loyal opposition of capitalist modernity. They share its fascination and structural use of revenge, martyrdom, heroism and patriarchal codes of honour, that invariably imply mysogyny. Hence they are the last refuge of patriarchy. Each of their 'heroic' actions strengthen the state, as each side counters war with more war, terror with counter-terror, revolutionary militarism with statist militarism. The link between state violence and the violence of left-right radicalism has become seamless - each feeds upon the other. This process is unfolding before our eyes. With 9/11 and, indeed, with every act of murderous resistance, hard won democratic rights are further eroded, and the state gathers legitimacy to impose draconian laws. With the growth of a universal climate of fear, the bonds between governments and the ordinary public are strengthened, rather than dissipated. This takes place, not on the basis of class interests, but on account of the dreadful fear of the murder of innocent people. What happens then is an unending spiral of violence, driven by the lust for revenge and very difficult to control. As Hannah Arendt said, all this bloodshed will indeed change the world, probably for the worse. It is impossible to achieve democracy by authoritarian means. A new dispensation may be realised, by such methods, but it will carry with it the whiff of tyranny. Those who survive such a revolution will be a brutalised and damaged people. Undoubtedly the Nepali establishment, an outdated remnant of arrangements made between Nepali feudal potentates and the British during the heyday of imperialism, has managed to survive by maintaining the sheer poverty and educational backwardness of the population. Their decision to impose customs duty on educational books is only the latest example of their investment in ignorance. The government has also been assisted by cynical neighbours. The monarchy is not a 'pillar of stability', as its Indian well-wishers like to portray it, but the reverse. The Nepali state's brutal aversion to democratic governance perpetuates instability. But the sad state of affairs has been worsened by the ruthless and destructive policies of the revolutionaries (including the recruitment of children and disruption of education); and the bankruptcy of the moderate democratic opposition, who found it impossible, especially during the troubled decade of the 1990s, to construct a responsible united front. Constant factional fighting and egotism are also symptoms of authoritarianism. The politics and practice of revolutionary terror are detrimental to socialist ideals. They represent and reproduce desperation, cynicism, organisational autocracy and doctrinal dogma. As such, they generate fear and paranoia in the ranks of the revolutionary cadre themselves, as well as among the very people they seek to liberate. Most persons drawn towards terrorist politics are undoubtedly sincere in their vision and aspiration for a humane socio-economic order. But how easy it is to commit atrocities for the sake of kindness! To interpret our primeval lust for revenge as a source of 'modernisation', and 'progress'! Nearly 30 years ago, in 1976, this writer had the privilege of participating in a conversation (along with some close friends), with the great Marxist historian and peace activist E P Thompson. It was the year of the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, a development that had forced us to think seriously about the value of democratic rights. He made the acute observation that the use of the prefix 'bourgeois' before 'democracy' was the most self-defeating practice of communists the world over. Democracy, said Thompson, was a hard-won institutional gain of the international labour movement and in the Indian case, of the struggle for Independence. Rather than dismiss it as 'bourgeois', we ought to work for its preservation and extension into social life - that was what was meant by social democracy. Many of us in India have realised the truth of this approach as we have traversed the difficult and painful quarter-century from the 1980's till today - a period that has seen the rampage of communalism and the politics of mass murder. It is significant that the Indian Left took a very long time to recognise the fascist nature of communalism. Even today, the relative weakness of our democracy is reflected in the fact that no party dares place a resolution in Parliament condoling the death of thousands of victims of communal violence. Nonetheless, despite its terrible flaws, certain democratic norms, institutions and practices remain alive in the Indian polity. Groups that support the politics of secession or armed revolution still manage to openly propagate their ideas. Would it be possible, say, for a Tibetan version of the Hurriyat Conference to function in China, before or after Mao's death? Or for Baloch or Sindhi secessionists to advocate separation from Pakistan, and conduct meetings with a visiting Indian dignitary? How much democratic freedom of expression and organisation could political opponents expect under a People's War regime? An urgent political issue confronts those of us who identify with the civil liberties movement of the 1970's. The revolutionary movement of that time aimed at the violent overthrow of the constitutional polity, and the Indian ruling elite took refuge behind the rule of law. A quarter of a century later, significant sections of the radical left and its well-wishers became staunch defenders of the democratic rights and liberties enshrined in the Constitution, while the Indian establishment repeatedly showed its discomfort with constitutional proprieties. In fact, the most massive violations of law (witness the carnages of 1984 and 2002), have been practiced by establishment parties and politicians. This should make leftists think about their attitude to democracy - is it merely a tactic, or do democratic norms and institutions deserve a deeper philosophical commitment? Subhas Satyagraha The left could begin to rejuvenate itself if it gave up its revelatory approach to truth, its dogmatic approach to knowledge, its metaphysical attitude to politics, and its addiction to the warrior cult- society's oldest and most powerful preserve of authoritarianism. The comrades should examine their conscience and consider the social consequences of children being denied an education and made accustomed to bloodshed and cruelty, and of armed groups and individuals functioning with the same kind of impunity that the army and police display. A mature course of action would be to agitate non-violently for a programme of political and social democracy and demilitarisation, and engage in constructive work to better the lot of the people. This would gain them wider credibility and respect than they will ever get via armed struggle. It will also gain them the gratitude of people whose lives are too full of violence and uncertainty. A close friend took a photograph of a slogan on the wall of a building in the village of Ghandruk in central Nepal after an armed clash between the army and the Maoists: "Maobaadi + Shahi Sena suniyojit daman banda gara." Addressing both the the Maoists and 'royal army', the graffiti asks them to desist from bloodshed and 'deliberate suppression'. Whatever the support base of the Nepali comrades, there are also those who are tired and fearful of the bloodletting. Whatever the romance of extremism may once have been, freedom from fear has become a major political aspiration. Terror is no longer a means to an end - it has become an end in itself, autonomous of social and political control. It is no longer merely a symptom but the disease par excellence of capitalist modernity. Socialists should remember that respect for life and liberation from fear must be the foremost ideal and goal of socialism. Or else they will make themselves instruments of the system they claim to be combating. The recruitment of women cadre and soldiers by paramilitaries is hailed by some comrades as a symbol of female 'empowerment'. Actually, this should be characterised as yet another manifestation of the oppression of women by entrenched patriarchy. Would it not seem ridiculous to view child-soldiers as liberated children? Warfare empowers neither men nor women, it imprisons all of humanity in an endless spiral. Since 1914, we have never had peace - more than 200 million people were violently done to death in the 20th century - and it is clear that 'modern civilisation' is structurally dependent upon war. That it is now recruiting women and children in the name of 'empowerment' is a travesty. The struggle for the complete equality of the sexes continues to be opposed bitterly by patriarchal structures and politicians. (The fate of India's Women's Reservation Bill is proof of this fact). Subjugation by fear is a common experience for women from all classes across the globe. Feminism is hence (implicitly) a struggle against militarism and terror. The abolition of state terror and its twin brother requires the collaboration of all groups and movements working to end the grip of caste oppression, patriarchy, racism and the exploitation of labour. Wide-ranging campaigns are necessary against all forms of oppressive institutions, including militarist ones, in order to defang the enemy-producing killing-machine that the 'West' has become. But ambivalence about brutality as a means of resistance must cease. Millions of Europeans and Americans are opposed to war. The imperial system can only be encouraged to implode, as did the USSR. It cannot be destroyed by military means without exacting a merciless price that no revolutionary could wish on the common people. Terrorist attacks will only increase fear and feed conservative ideologies, which is the aim of the rulers. Badshah Khan Is it possible to combine a radical programme with non-violence? Indeed it is. Undermining the British Empire was the most radical programme in Southasia in the first half of the last century. In a time that identifies Pathans with religious fundamentalism, we may yet learn something from the work of Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan of the North West Frontier Province, aka Badshah Khan and the Frontier Gandhi, and the Khudai Khidmatgar ('servants of god') movement of the 1930's, whose commitment to non-violence was based on Pukhtunwali culture and Islam. The Khudai Khidmatgar's alliance with the national movement as a whole, its popular constructive projects and openness to non-Pathans and non-Muslims alarmed the colonial rulers, who subsidised the clergy to denounce its members (popularly known as the Red Shirts), as Bolsheviks and enemies of Islam. Confronting massacres, torture and repression, the Khudai Khidmatgar emerged as one of the staunchest Gandhian movements in the history of Southasian nationalism. The Frontier Gandhi instructed his followers: "abstain from violence and do not defame your nation, because the world will say how could such a barbarous nation observe patience". Even as the 'civilising' Englishmen behaved like mad dogs, the 'volatile' Pathans were teaching their rulers a lesson in restraint. A Turkish scholar who visited the Frontier in the 1930s suggested that the Pathans had developed a new interpretation of force. In her words, "non-violence is the only form of force which can have a lasting effect on the life of society... And this, coming from strong and fearless men, is worthy of study". Badshah Khan was the last of those Gandhian stalwarts who could walk across four international boundaries in post-1947 Southasia and be treated by the citizens of each country as one of their own. His life work exemplified the compassionate spirit that stayed alive during the bleakest period of the twentieth century, proof that the self-assertion of the oppressed need not always be strident and narrow-minded. That he was an Indian national leader even after he became a Pakistani citizen ought to give chauvinists of all colours some food for thought. Not for nothing was it written of him, that "people brought him food and sat him down in the shade of trees". Let us also spare a thought for Chander Singh Garhwali, a platoon commander in the Garhwal Rifles, Hindu soldiers facing a Muslim crowd in Peshawar in 1930. He was court-martialled for refusing to order firing on his fellow-countrymen. Somewhere, somehow, Chander Singh and his troops too had been affected by the spirit of ahimsa. Decades before, so had the ordinary Russian soldiers who refused to shoot women demonstrators on International Women's Day in St Petersburg in 1917, thus heralding the overthrow of Tsarism and the advent of the Russian Revolution. Would it not be truly radical for the revolutionaries to prevail over the soldiers and policemen via their conscience rather than through fear? Did not Gandhi speak profoundly when he said that what is obtained by fear can be retained only as long as the fear lasts? The radicalism of satyagraha consists in this, that it (potentially) abolishes the distinction between method and goal. 'Overcoming' ceases to be a military concept and social democracy transcends its hysterical tension over ends and means. Today, when Southasia is engulfed in civil strife and civil war, it is time to consider again whether the pursuit of truth and non-violent resistance are not the only radical social procedures left for the survival of the biosphere. The movement must be the germ of its goal. Social-democracy's associative principles and active ethos must prefigure those of the society it wishes to create. Ahimsa is not a tactic but the ethos of respect for life. That which claims to be new must stand on its own feet. Speak the truth Stop the killing This article includes material extracted from the writer's earlier publications including a lecture in Patna delivered in 2000, entitled The End of History or the Beginning of Transformation?; the seminar paper, The Brains of the Living: A Discussion on Political Violence (Patna, April 2003); and the articles The Enemy System (Hindustan Times, December 6, 2002); The Threads of Conscience (Biblio, March-April 2002); and Out of the Shadow (Communalism Combat, February 2003). _____ [4] The Asianage 12 September 2005 A TALE OF TWO BAGS by Shabnam Hashmi I take out a notebook from the open bag. I read the name Akash. A few books are lying on the floor and sketch pens of various colours are strewn all over the old sofa. Adjacent to the sofa is a divan with the remnants of a few more books which have turned into ash. On the wall is a big Ambedkar portrait, it survived the loot and the carnage. I imagine Akash being dragged outside the house by his parents to survive the attack. He did not get time to put his sketch pens away, which his parents must have bought from their hard earned money. I move to the next house, the owner Raja has just come back. He is crying inconsolably. There is nothing left in his house, except a broken washing machine and black soot. Raja asks me to see his kitchen. The gas cylinder is lying horizontally, there is stench in the kitchen. In one corner a hen is sitting dazed. I am amazed at her will to live and survive. The whole house was burning, she was sitting in a corner on ten eggs, she did not move, she still does not move. She survived for the sake of her future chicks. The other ten hens, cloth worth thousands of rupees, the furniture, happiness, laughter, everything has perished. So far only five families dared to come back to look at the losses. The stories that we hear are the same. The pattern is the same. My mind keeps flashing back to the pattern of the carnage in Gujarat. The attackers were well equipped with petrol, kerosene, spears, lathis. They first looted and then smashed everything else which they did not want to carry with them, opened the gas cylinders and once there was enough gas inside the houses, threw burning sticks inside, or in other cases threw petrol and then lit it. Everyone in Gohana was talking about it. The panchayat had declared that they were going to burn the Balmiki Basti on 31st morning at 11.30. Pushpa and her husband decided not to leave the Basti. After all, they were state government employees, how could anyone attack them was their simple logic. According to Pushpa the police came and threatened them: "Leetar lagenge tab nikloge kya (Would you leave when we beat you up with shoes)?" A strong contingent of 200 policemen could not stop 1,600 attackers. How could they? They were busy in guiding them which house to burn and which to spare. Khurana Sahabs STD booth was saved in time by the timely intervention of the policeman on duty: "Arey yeh Dalit ki nahi hai bhai, ise kyon jala rahe ho (This does not belong to a Dalit, why are you burning it)?" The senior police officers turn a blind eye. It took only 15 minutes for the miscreants, we couldnt stop in time say the DSP and SP both. The DC goes a step further they want compensation that is why they are exaggerating. I suggested to Mr Goel, the DC, if he would also like to do the same burn his house and demand compensation. The timing almost coincided. August 31, 2005. Vigyan Bhavan. The National Integration Council has been reconstituted after 13 years and the meeting is in progress. After Prakash Karat reads out his speech, which has a strong reference to Gujarat, the home minister in all his wisdom immediately gives the floor to Narendra Modi. By then the proceedings have already been interrupted twice, first by me to demand the withdrawal of the formal agenda papers and the second time by Udit Raj to raise the question of Dalit atrocities. Not too happy with my demand of withdrawing the agenda papers, which are highly communal, the home minister first says treat it as a scrap of paper, just discard it; and then says the meeting is going on very well, please, let it proceed, we will give you time to speak. I relent only after registering a strong protest and wonder how the home ministry could distribute "just a scrap of paper" to the members of the National Integration Council. The mob enters the Balmiki Basti, everything is set on fire. Narendra Modi is happy to have got the mike. From the liberal amount of time that he gets as compared to others, one can take out two important things said in typical Modi style full of venom: one, strong relation between minorities and terrorism, two, the importance of preserving a caste-based society. The members are agitated. The chair doesnt think there is anything to be refuted. We have democracy, democracy to kill, democracy to burn, democracy to stifle those who resist, democracy to hide the facts. Towards almost the end of the meeting and after sending several reminders and raising my hand many times, breaking the protocol, the home minister finally relents and calls my name. Many co-fighters who have spent last 10-15 years fighting against communalism Harsh Mander, Teesta Setalvad, Ram Puniyani are not included in the NIC. Probably the combination would have been too lethal. If you look at the NIC list and the way people are seated it runs in sequence except for three names, Naved Hamid, John Dayal and Shabnam Hashmi. Three people who wrote strong letters to the Prime Minister objecting to the agenda papers. These are times when we learn to manage things and manage people, and I hear that this was an exercise in managing the meeting, not to put the troublemakers close to each other. Unfortunately, with my street theatre-demonstration-dharna background I have a loud voice, loud enough to be heard even without a mike. But this time I was given a mike officially. And also the voices of the people, who fight for a dream, for a better world, cannot be stifled by merely wishing them away. I raise, very inconveniently, questions about the subversion of justice in Gujarat, the condition of the 2002 carnage victims. Quoting from Gagan Sethis recent report I remind the house that even today there are 10,000 internally displaced families in Gujarat, the fact that Orissa is being turned speedily into the second laboratory of Hindutva, the deadline being 2006 to coincide with Golwalkars centenary. I demand a relief package for the victims of 2002 carnage, a committee to look into the present communal situation in the country as it is very clear from the agenda papers that the home ministry has no clue of what is happening or has deliberately distributed the RSS version of the communal situation. The Prime Minister is visibly moved by the interventions of the civil society members and advises the home minister in his concluding speech to look into the rehabilitation package for Gujarat, to have a committee to assess the communal situation and to relook at the relationship with the Northeast. The media was made to leave Vigyan Bhavan right in the morning and the official briefing does not carry any of even the Prime Ministers suggestions, leave aside the fact that the agenda papers had to be officially discarded. I am standing in front of Balmiki Basti exhausted with what I have just witnessed. Zee TV wants to talk to me. I receive a call from a senior Congress member were you at the NIC till the end? Yes, I was. Modi is saying that the Prime Minister praised the rehabilitation work. It is an absolute lie. A day after the NIC, the Gujarat media called me and also sent me the copy of the SMS which was being sent out from Modis office. I had immediately forwarded it to senior people in the PMO and other Congress members. I wonder why they did not refute it till actually the media started reporting it. After talking to Zee I go back inside the Basti. Akashs open bag and the colours haunt me. He must have been planning to draw an open sky with singing birds, or maybe the picture of his little sister. There must be so many other children who have also lost their bags and school books. I come out of the Basti and decide to issue an appeal: Dear NIC members, could you please donate your fancy Samsung briefcases that the home ministry sent you two days before the NIC meeting? I would find buyers, sell the briefcases and raise the money to buy school bags for Gohanas Dalit children. "Mans dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world the fight for the liberation of mankind." Nikolai Ostrovsky Shabnam Hashmi is a well-known social activist ______ [5] GLOBALIZING INDIA Perspectives from Below Jackie Assayag, and Chris Fuller Format ISBN Price Hardback 1 84331 194 1 £45.00 Paperback 1 84331 195 X £16.99 Publication Date: July 2005 288 pages 234×156mm Quantity: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Series: Anthem South Asian Studies Description This book is one of the first to present a collection of writings on the effects of globalization on India and Indian society. The concept of globalization itself needs critical examination, and one productive approach is to focus specifically on the local impacts of globalization in its various guises through comparative ethnographic investigations. Such research also permits examination of the relative significance of globalization, as opposed to national, regional or local factors of change that may actually be more salient. Assayag and Fuller have assembled a team of eminent academics, who present a series of critical discussions about important issues of economy and agriculture, education and language, and culture and religion, based on ethnographic case-studies from different localities in India. This challenging collection also includes a major study of the history of globalization and India that sets current trends in perspective. Globalizing India is a major contribution to South Asian Studies, interrogating a topic of contemporary importance both within the region and internationally. About Authors, Editors, and Contributors Jackie Assayag is Director of Research in the CNRS. His publications include At the Confluence of Two Rivers: Muslims and Hindus in South India (Manohar, 2004) and La Mondialisation vue dailleurs: LInde désorientée (Seuil, 2005). Chris Fuller is Professor of Anthropology at London School of Economics. His publications include The Renewal of the Priesthood: Modernity and Traditionalism in a South Indian Temple (Princeton University Press, 2003) and The Camphor Flame: Popular Hinduism and Indian Society (Princeton University Press, 2004). Table of Contents List of Contributors vii Acknowledgements ix 1 Introduction 1 Jackie Assayag and C. J. Fuller Part One: Economy and Agriculture 2 On the History of Globalization and India: Concepts, Measures and Debates 17 G. Balachandran and Sanjay Subrahmanyam 3 In Search of 'Basmatisthan': Agro-nationalism and Globalization 47 Denis Vidal 4 Seeds of Wrath: Agriculture, Biotechnology and Globalization 65 Jackie Assayag 5 Weaving for IKEA in South India: Subcontracting, Labour Markets and Gender Relations in a Global Value Chain 89 Geert De Neve Part Two: Education and Language 6 Children are Capital, Grandchildren are Interest: Changing Educational Strategies and Parenting in Calcutta's Middle-class Families 119 Henrike Donner 7 Of Languages, Passions and Interests: Education, Regionalism and Globalization in Maharashtra, 18002000 141 Véronique Bénéï Part Three: Culture and Religion 8 Maps of Audiences: Bombay Films, the French Territory and the Making of an 'Oblique' Market 165 Emmanuel Grimaud 9 Malabar Gods, Nation-Building and World Culture: On Perceptions of the Local and the Global 185 Gilles Tarabout 10 Globalizing Hinduism: A 'Traditional' Guru and Modern Businessmen in Chennai 211 C. J. Fuller and John Harriss Anthem 75-76 Blackfriars Road | London SE1 8HA | United Kingdom | Tel : +44 (0)20 7401 4200 | Fax : +44 (0)20 7401 4201 [EMAIL PROTECTED] _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace and democratisation in South Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit citizens wire service run since 1998 by South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/ SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/ Sister initiatives : South Asia Counter Information Project : snipurl.com/sacip South Asians Against Nukes: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org Communalism Watch: communalism.blogspot.com/ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. _______________________________________________ Sacw mailing list [email protected] http://insaf.net/mailman/listinfo/sacw_insaf.net
