South Asia Citizens Wire - Dispatch 1 | 06 October, 2005
[1] Pakistan - India : Missile test agreement (Editorial, The News International) [2] Bangladesh: Countering religious propaganda (Editorial, The Daily Star) [3] The lure of fundamentalism (Salman Akhtar) [4] India : Moral policing in Tamil Nadu (Editorial, The Hindu) [5] India : Shyam Benegal slams NDA for 'saffronising' Bollywood [6] India: Earth is still flat for 6 pc of Indians (Kalyan Ray) [7] India : Superstition eclipses science (Dennis Marcus Mathew) [8] India : Book Review - Hindu nationalist politics (Jyotirmaya Sharma) ______ [1] The News International October 05, 2005 Editorial MISSILE TEST AGREEMENT Only hours before Islamabad and New Delhi signed an agreement on warning each other prior to testing any ballistic missiles, India test fired an Akash missile from a sea-based launcher, not once but three times, and without warning Pakistan. In fact, it never needed to because Akash, being a surface-to-air missile, does not fall under the jurisdiction of the agreement which covers only the testing of surface-to-surface missiles. The agreement, signed by Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri and his Indian counterpart Natwar Singh after reviewing the second round of the on-going dialogue process between the two countries, therefore, at best warrants partial celebrations. The missile programmes of both India and Pakistan intend to acquire everything that technology can offer: From long-range air-to-surface ballistic missiles like Pakistan's Shaheen and India's Agni to cruise missiles which the former is developing as Babur and the latter as BrahMos, with various machines of short and medium range falling in between, their arsenal is too varied to be covered by anyagreement which fails to cover all types of missile technologies available. A welcome development in its own right, however, the agreement is yet another step in the direction of preventing fatal and strategic accidents that may be caused by un-intentional, untargeted acts by the two countries. It's indeed a perfect follow up on 'Prohibition of Attack Against Nuclear Installations and Facilities' that was signed by the two South Asian neighbours on December 31, 1988. But the failings of the agreement on missile testing are as glaring as its achievements. On August 11, 2005, only five days after a memorandum of understanding was signed as a precursor to the agreement signed on Monday, Pakistan test fired its first cruise missile Babur. Now India's testing of Akash on the same day the agreement was signed only serves to highlight that any missile control regime in South Asia needs to go further than it has already gone. The Akash test is certain to evoke a response from Pakistan, first through diplomatic channels informing on its fall-outs, followed by scientific and military ones which can be translated as the testing of a similar looking machine. We have already observed India and Pakistan conducting tit-for-tat missile tests not once but on a number of occasions. This race to outmatch each other in the destruction, range, speed and accuracy of their missile systems will unfortunately go on, agreement or no agreement. The real need, therefore, is not to look for an improved agreement on missile testing or a different agreement covering different missiles, for none of them can be comprehensive enough to cover all the types and ranges of missiles the countries have, but to have an altogether different agreement: The one which ensures that Pakistan and India carry out no more nuclear tests at all. South Asia will become a safe region only once we stop producing weapons of mass destruction, along with the technology to deliver them, and ensure that the ones we have already acquired are not used. Till then, the two sides will keep benefiting from one flaw or the other in the early warning regimes to have an upper hand. ______ [2] [Bangladesh] The Daily Star 6 Oct 2005 Editorial COUNTERING RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDA The motivation campaign must be kept above party politics The government's plan to launch a motivation campaign as a counterweight to the Islamic militants' strategy of indoctrinating innocent and unsuspecting youths-- and using them for carrying out all sorts of subversive activities -- is no doubt a move in the right direction. The militants are exploiting the religious faith and sentiment of the youths and also the religious education that they are being imparted in madrassahs. And the result is an ideological onslaught on Islam itself by a fringe group of fanatics whose politics is based on violence and bloodshed, which deserves condemnation in unequivocal terms. Now, the question is what have we been doing all these years to neutralise the fundamentalist activities? Obviously, the matter never received the kind of attention that it ought to have until recently. And the religious extremists got the time to organise themselves and began to execute their evil plans. True, the ideological challenge has to be met by a similar counter offensive that can lay bare the flaws of what the militants are preaching in the name of Islam. But a word of caution would not be out of place here. First, any motivation campaign sponsored by the government itself might not be able to generate enough enthusiasm among the people because of its all too explicit political undertone. So the campaign has to be neutral in the political sense and party priorities must not be allowed to influence the campaign. Second, the government has to dispel the doubts that had crept into the public mind about its role vis-à-vis religious fanaticism, which was greatly bolstered by the ruling alliance's stand on the issue in the past. The government always tried to establish that no religious extremists existed in this country. So the motivation campaign has to be designed and conducted in a strictly objective manner. Finally, if the government acknowledges that a "kind of education" is working as the driving force behind creation of zealots and fanatics, it should go deeper into the matter and think in terms of redesigning the education system that is liable to breed religious extremism. ______ [3] Communalism Combat 12th Anniversary August-September 2005 Perspective THE LURE OF FUNDAMENTALISM What makes the human mind susceptible to the lure of fundamentalism? - A psychoanalytical perspective By Salman Akhtar A man urinates on himself and in the process he also breaks some expensive crockery as when the fit occurred he was sitting at the dining table. On another occasion the man who has epilepsy is driving a car when suddenly he has a seizure and as the car goes out of control many innocent people are killed. Obviously in such circumstances we have to take into consideration the kind of epilepsy he has, the manifestations of the seizure and which part of his body goes out of control, how unconscious he becomes et cetera and therefore how dangerous this situation can be. We must of course examine the consequences of the seizures on him and on things and people around him but to my mind those concerns pale in comparison to our wondering why this man has epilepsy and what causes this epilepsy. As physicians, I am a doctor myself, we certainly treat symptoms although that is not our preference. We treat symptoms if symptoms become very annoying but as good doctors we are most interested in pathology: What is causing the symptom? That is what we need to treat. The same thing applies to prejudice; the same thing applies to the topic at hand: fundamentalism. Certainly we should define it, certainly we should describe it, certainly we should think about its consequences but I think it is more important to worry about its causes. Why? What is the attraction? What pull, what hypnotic attraction does fundamentalism have that people succumb to it? And if we know why then we can devise remedial strategies that would go deeper and are not related merely to phenomena. What is fundamentalism? Please understand that when we talk of fundamentalism we are not talking of any particular religious group. We are not talking of Jews, we are not talking of Muslims, we are not talking of Hindus, we are not talking of Christians. We are not talking of any particular group because this is a human phenomenon and fundamentally or perhaps I shouldn't use the word fundamentally, basically all human beings are more or less alike and all of us have struggled with basically similar kinds of problems. There are two problems that we all struggle with. In fact, all human problems can be boiled down to two fundamental problems. One, that some things are impossible and two, that a few others are prohibited. If you can swallow this bitter pill, I think you are fine (you'll never need to see Dr. Sudhir Kakar, me or any other psychoanalyst!). When we say fundamentalism, we mean a complex set of five things that go together. First, there is a literal interpretation of some religious tract so what is written is no longer deciphered or deconstructed. It is not to be thought about, it is not to be given meaning, it is what it is. There is literalness to the interpretation - one. Second, there is an ethnocentric attitude. The fundamentalist says my belief, my religion, my book is the best one there is. So there is literalness and there is ethnocentricity. With that there is megalomania - We know and we have the solution and we can solve the problem; we know exactly what the problem is and we know exactly what the solution is. Megalomania, and then interestingly, a little spice, just as we add a little hing when we are cooking aloo gobi, a little spice of a sense of victimhood, a sense that we are endangered. Real or imaginary, it is a cultivated sense of delightful and delicious masochism, a masochism that will come very handy, as you will see. The imagined cultivated threat is what creates cohesion of the group and would then permit the enactment of violence towards others as a justified protective device. But this is merely a description. Why does fundamentalism have such a powerful appeal? If Marx called religion the opium of the people I believe fundamentalism is intravenous morphine. In my way of thinking, to be mentally healthy and to be sane is not an easy thing. Sanity comes with its own burdens. It is not easy to be mentally healthy. As psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, we write volumes about mental illness and its struggles, about what is ill, what is not ill, what is normative and what is not normative, and what do normative and pathological have to do with each other and so on, but we pay inadequate attention to what is healthy and the problems of mental health. When Freud said that the purpose of psychoanalysis, clinical psychoanalysis, was to reduce neurotic suffering into day-to-day misery, what did he mean by day-to-day misery? That is what I think we need to understand. I think that sanity has its own burdens; mental health comes with many problems. There are six problems that mental health poses and it is these problems that fundamentalism solves. This is the key issue here because mental health comes with some baggage, some problems and some burdens, and fundamentalism is the treatment of those burdens. (You could say that fundamentalism is the cure for mental health!) The burdens of sanity are the following six things. 1) Factual uncertainty. A mentally healthy person has to accept the fact that things are uncertain. We don't really know what is about to happen and what can happen. Who knew that the tsunami would happen and that so many people would get killed? Who knew that 9/11 would happen? Some people knew, of course, but in general who knew that 9/11 was going to happen? And we don't know, car accidents happen, you're taking a flight to Bombay and the flight is cancelled or delayed, we don't know. We don't know what will happen, what happens, what is happening right now. You have no idea what is happening right now, not only in Calcutta but even in Karol Bagh. Things happen. A mentally healthy person has to understand that things are uncertain. 2) Conceptual complexity. Matters are not simple, all matters are complex. How to get from Place A to Place B does not have only one path - it can have many paths. What does a phenomenon mean? Four people will leave this particular meeting and may describe it in entirely different ways. Our reaction to the vice chancellor's leaving can be a complex reaction. Some people might respect him for the fact that he spared some time to come here and feel grateful for that. Some people might be annoyed at him for leaving. Some people might think that it was all a pretence, that he comes, just says a few words and leaves. Some people will say how humble and decent of him it was to take time out of his busy schedule, to walk over, give his blessings and shake people's hands, and so on. The same phenomena can be interpreted in many ways. Conceptual complexity - things are not simple. 3) The third burden of sanity is moral ambiguity. Freud said that there are two great human crimes: incest and parricide. Here Freud was right about incest, certainly. Why is incest such a horrible thing to do? Because it destroys the family structure and family is the unit of civilisation. So incest is an attack against civilisation. But parricide I'm not too sure about because the implication is that killing the mother is alright or killing a child is alright, infanticide is alright and matricide is alright. That is undeniably ridiculous but that was Freud's own personal phallocentric bias. The correct word he should have used is homicide. Two fundamental human crimes are homicide and incest. Between these instances most things are actually ambiguous. Take the example of stealing. Is stealing bad? Of course stealing is bad, but let us suppose that your daughter is terribly, terribly ill, near death, and you have no money. Should you steal money, or medicines from a doctor's cabinet? Of course! In fact, if you stand on ceremony, moral rights and righteousness at such a time that would be silly and that would be wrong. Murder? Certainly murder is wrong but sometimes murder in self-defence is the correct thing to do. And that's what Krishna says to Arjuna in the Mahabharata, "Jo avashyak hai wahi uchit hai (What is necessary is therefore appropriate)". So there is ambiguity about morality. What seems right in one place becomes wrong in another place. What seems right today becomes wrong tomorrow, what was right in one era is not right in another era, what is right in a certain context is wrong in another context - moral ambiguity. 4) Cultural impurity. A mentally healthy person realises that there is no such thing as purity. Purity, the search for purity, is the enemy of truth and the enemy and destroyer of reality. Reality is always hybrid whether we acknowledge it or not. I am an Indian who is an American psychoanalyst because I've been trained in certain modes of analysis that are prevalent in America. There is a psychoanalyst called Christopher Bollas whom you should read, he's very good. He is an American but he is a British analyst because he is trained in the British tradition. Bhimsen Joshi is a South Indian, I think from Bangalore originally, but trained in the Patiala tradition. The sitar is born out of the hybrid mixtures of Afghani drone instruments and the southern rudra veena. All things are mixed up, all things are mixed up. I am speaking in a language that is predominantly British in origin, predominantly, not exclusively, but British in origin, with profound Latin, Greek, German ancestry. I am speaking it in an Indian accent (all I haven't done is nod my head but I can do that too - "What yaar?"!) and here I am, having travelled on a German airline, Lufthansa. Life is mixed up. Life is not pure. I am wearing a watch made in Switzerland, a suit made in Italy and a tie most likely made in the USA or since most things in the USA are made in Korea Life is mixed up; life is not pure. The search for purity is an attack on reality - It is the refusal to accept the complex tapestry that human cultural organisations are. 5) Personal responsibility. We are all responsible for our actions, however accidental they may appear. If I knock over the glassware or crockery at someone's dining table, break some expensive pieces of their dinner set, I must take responsibility for my actions. Obviously on the surface it is a mistake but it is very likely born out of my envy of him and his wine glass or something, some hostile destructive intent is hidden in that somewhere. I can't just brush it off by saying it was a mistake. It was a mistake but I committed that mistake and I have to be responsible for that mistake. The epileptic cannot get away without an apology for breaking somebody's fine china. The epileptic needs to apologise. Even if it was out of his control, it was his action; it was his brain that messed the crockery up. As Freud says, the ego is first and foremost a bodily ego. Personal responsibility involves first and foremost an ownership of the body - its demands, its sensations, its agenda and its use and then the conscious and unconscious fantasies and drives emanating from the body and affecting the body in a dialectical feedback loop. One has to be responsible for one's body, one has to be responsible for one's sexual life, real or imagined, and one has to be responsible for one's aggression, one's hostile feelings - expressed, suppressed, conscious and unconscious. One is responsible for one's life. 6) Total mortality. A mentally healthy person has to know that he will be dead - some people in the audience will not agree with this but that's alright - complete and total mortality. We are all going to be dead. Nobody from this room is going to get out alive, nor is anyone from this world, unless there is a five million-year-old man hiding in Australia (we only think of Australia because it is kind of far away!), laughing at me. The fact is: all human beings die. The day we are born, on the day I was born a bullet was shot and that bullet is travelling in the air and is coming towards my forehead and I am merrily walking towards it and so are you, and so also are you. All human beings die but it is not enough to merely accept that. Of course, those of you who are young, in your twenties and thirties, you don't have to worry about such things yet - Consider yourselves immortal. You will find out that that's not true anyway. But when you are 50 or 60 the clock begins to tick and you can hear the rumble of the footsteps of death, at 3 a.m., when the wind blows, you can hear it. But it is not enough to accept that one will be dead, that is not enough. What is more important is to accept that one will be really dead and finally dead and totally dead. There ain't no coming back, either as a rat or a mouse or as a beautiful woman. (I would like to come back as a beautiful, gorgeous South Indian woman lawyer - that's what I would like to be!). He says I'll take you but that is not going to happen, it is not going to happen. I have to live with this fantasy; it is not going to take place. Once I die, I'm dead, and so are you. And the idea of heaven and hell? When I was 12 my father asked me, do you believe in heaven and hell? When you're 12 years old you're awkward and you don't really know what the hell is going on anyway so I mumbled something incomprehensible but he was in one of those moods, he said no, no, no, tell me, do you believe in heaven and hell, and I again tried to wiggle out of it by mumbling something silly so he gave me a stern lecture. He said look, these guys who made up the idea of heaven and hell, these are mostly people of the desert - Jesus, Moses, Muhammad. (They are all born within 300 miles of each other, and that's also weird actually, I mean, suppose somebody said all psychoanalysts are born in Bangalore wouldn't you be puzzled - Why?!) He said look, these were people from a hot climate; they were social reformers who were trying to do some good for people. And people don't move unless you give 'em something and they had nothing to give 'em so they gave them a few fantasies. And because it was a hot climate they made heaven cold and hell hot. If Jesus, Moses or Muhammad had been born in Alaska, trust me, ladies and gentlemen, hell would be cold and heaven would be hot. Think also of another strange thing - why is it that heaven is always up, nobody says you will go (down) to heaven. Why? Think about it. Why is heaven up? Because when we're babies we spend at least one year lying supine, lying unable to stand up, and even when we stand up we stand up weakly after a little while and then our mother picks us up onto her lap or our father picks us up onto his lap. And when they carry us we are up, when they put us down we are down. That (down) is hell; this (up) is heaven. These ideas are based on psychological experiences. But the idea of heaven and hell is a fantasy for god's sake, just as reincarnation is a fantasy - they are not really going to happen. When you die you are dead. Your children will remember you fondly and your grandchildren will remember you vaguely, and your great grandchildren will forget about you. If you write a few books and give a few lectures perhaps a few more people will remember you. But sooner or later people will forget about you. Who reads Sophocles? (I heard someone in the back say who the hell is Sophocles - That's exactly the point; that is exactly the point!) All of us start out and live with fantasies and may die as active memories. But we are dead, we are not coming back, please don't harbour such illusions - there is total mortality. 1) Factual uncertainty 2) Conceptual complexity 3) Moral ambiguity 4) Cultural impurity 5) Personal responsibility 6) Total mortality. This package of factual uncertainty, conceptual complexity, moral ambiguity, cultural impurity, personal responsibility and total mortality, this is the suitcase, the heavy suitcase of sanity. It is a burden that a mentally healthy person has to carry. Fundamentalism relieves this burden. We carry this burden because compensating factors are offered to us. We are offered safety, we are offered the pride of having an identity, we are offered the pride of having continuity in time, a sense of belonging, we are offered the factor of sexuality, we are offered the factor of efficacy, we are offered the honour of generativity - these compensating packages help us to bear the burden of sanity. When there is a threat, a real or manufactured threat to the compensating factors of safety, identity, continuity, individuality, efficacy and generativity, when this package is really threatened or a manufactured threat is made to this package then the reality becomes very, very difficult to bear and a person regresses into a simplistic world. Now instead of uncertainty he is offered certainty. The fundamentalist leader says we know exactly what's going to happen and what should happen. We know it, we can predict it, we can control it. Instead of complexity he is offered simplicity. He is told this thing means just this thing. Instead of moral ambiguity - things can be good, things can be bad, maybe this behaviour is sometimes good, maybe sometimes this behaviour is bad, he is offered moral clarity - this is right, this is wrong. You eat pork you go to hell, remember, you don't eat pork, you won't go to hell. What about the poor pig? When my son was five years old he asked me about the story of Abraham and Isaac. I said, well, god was testing Abraham's love for him so he said if you really love me you will sacrifice your son, this is your parichay, your initiation. (Even god carries out this sort of test, you know, he's not certain about himself. He's like a lover saying please tell me you love me, please, tell me you love me, if you love me you'll make an omelette for me today. God is like that - an uncertain lover. He says please praise me, the Book begins by saying 'Bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim' - In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful - I begin in his name, with praise to god. Why? He is the one writing the book and yet he's praising himself, it doesn't make sense to me!) Anyway, in answer to my son's question about Abraham and Isaac I said, well, look, god was testing Abraham and said if you really love me you will kill your son. You sacrifice your son and I'll know that you really love me. And Abraham said, what the hell, you know, I have to prove to god that I love him. So he put a blindfold on his eyes and took a sword and chopped off his son's head but when he opened his eyes the son, Isaac was standing right there and a lamb had been cut and lay dead in his place - That's what the origin of the festival Id-ul-Zuha or Bakri Id is. But I'm proud of what my five-year-old son said in response. He thought for a second and said, but that was not fair of god, what did the poor lamb do? What did the poor lamb do? Instead of uncertainty fundamentalism offers certainty, instead of complexity fundamentalism offers simplicity, instead of moral ambiguity fundamentalism offers moral clarity, they tell you what is exactly good and exactly what is bad. Instead of cultural impurity and hybridisation fundamentalism offers purity; hybridisation is the nature of life, not just life today, not just immigrations - patterns of life today, life has always been hybrid. When you make a samosa the outer crust comes from wheat which is grown in a field somewhere, the potatoes come from under the ground, the spice comes from another place, the ghee in which you fry it comes from somewhere else and a stainless steel pan is needed. A samosa a pure thing? Nobody can say that we sell pure samosas. (Now you're probably thinking, how come this guy is talking about omelettes and samosas? - he must be hungry!) Instead of complexity - simplicity, instead of uncertainty - certainty, instead of moral ambiguity - moral clarity, instead of impurity - purity. We are pure people. We are pure Hindus, we are pure Muslims, we are pure Jews, we are pure Christians. Keep others away from us; don't let others mess this up. Don't let the mlecchas come near us, we are pure Brahmins. Then, instead of personal responsibility, of conduct, of life, where a person says I am responsible for what I am saying, doing, how I am behaving; my sex life, my hostile life, my greedy life, my financial life is my business and my responsibility. I take responsibility for what I am doing and what I have done to others and to myself. The fundamentalist says don't worry, we will take over responsibility, we will show you how to kill Muslims, don't worry. The fundamentalist takes over responsibility and says you are not responsible for your conduct, we are responsible. This relieves one of personal responsibility. And finally of total mortality, which is the deepest dread that all human beings live with. Young people deny and need to deny, it's good for them to deny that they are mortal. Fundamentalism promises rewards of immortality - you will go to heaven, you will get 72 virgins - I don't know what one would do with 72 virgins (I mean, 72 virgins for god's sake, I would rather take one or two non-virgins, frankly!). You will be born again, you'll come back, and if you behave well you'll come back as this or that kind of person. (Or as a German Shepherd whom Dr. Kakar will keep in his house and treat well and give good dog food too!) It's not going to happen; it is not going to happen. Fundamentalism, in a literal, narrow, ethnocentric and megalomanic manner takes a religious tract and interprets this in an extremely narrow, megalomanic and grandiose way, seeking to offer a world of simplicity, lack of personal responsibility, immortality, purity and simplicity. These are notions of children. This is how two-year-old and three-year-old children think. This is not how a grown-up, adult person thinks. Fundamentalism turns us from adults into children, turns us from individual units of flesh, psyche and spirit, thinking, pulsating, changing, constantly struggling with choices, decisions, tragedies, losses, mishaps, triumphs and victories - constantly in conflict, constantly in the inner Kurukshetra. Fundamentalism removes us from such war, from such complexity, from personal responsibility, from impurity, from handling looking death right up front in the eyes and then adopting to live in a more responsible manner. Fundamentalism lulls us into a sleep of childhood, a sleep of simplicity but it is worse than childhood because a child is always questioning and attempting to come out of its innocence bit by bit. Fundamentalism is worse than childhood because it takes us backward, not forward. And with fundamentalism comes its twin sister, prejudice, and its evil brother called violence. So what is the solution? If this is the pathology, what is the solution? The solutions reside in addressing the pathology. We have to make it possible for people to bear the burden of sanity. And how can we make people bear the burdens of sanity? - By offering them compensating factors, such as a feeling of safety. And if the feeling of un-safety is real, then we have to restore a feeling of safety. If the feeling of un-safety is manufactured for political purposes, then we have to teach, ignore and fight against it and inform people that this is a manufactured dread not a real dread. There are people in New Jersey, people in Chicago and New York, extreme right wing Indians who believe that not only are the conversions to Christianity in India a truly horrible thing but they are also proceeding at such an alarming rate that soon Hinduism will disappear from India. That is a manufactured dread, that is entirely a manufactured dread and it has to be logically questioned by education and upfront dialogue in social forums. But we have to provide people with a feeling of safety, we have to provide a feeling of efficacy - people should have jobs, people should be able to do what they want to do and see the results of what they do. Efficacy, safety, identity - everybody wants to know who they are and are proud of who they are. Suppose your name is Pradeep Saxena and I ask you who's Pradeep, you say me; I ask you who's Saxena, that's your father. Identity has to do with our selves and our sense of belonging to some place. We have to make sure that people are able to maintain their identities and their identities are not threatened. If they have safety, if they have efficacy, if they have identity, if they have opportunities for sexual pleasure and if they have opportunities for generativity or passing on, cultivating, elaborating their myths, language, symbols and rituals and imparting them to the next Orphic generation in a safe, tender, protective and loving way. If we can restore this package - safety, efficacy, identity, sexuality and generativity - when it is really threatened, or when there is a manufactured threat to it, if we can prove in dialogue, by political discourse, that there is no such threat, then this package can come alive. And when compensating factors are in place then human beings are able to bear the burdens of sanity. And although burdened with sanity they then live life in more peaceful ways - peace outside and peace inside. And when they have peace inside, this is a mixture, a product of post-burdened sense, post-mourning sense, post-realisation that life is complex, difficult, limited and hybrid. When they have an inner peace, and when they know that even this peace that we have is fragile, it comes and goes, then that peace anchors them more solidly in reality and takes them away from dreams, poisonous dreams and dangerous dreams especially. They grow up, they can tolerate other people and they can tolerate differences. They can even learn from differences and enjoy differences. They know life is limited, they know life is complex; they know that there is no moral certainty. And it is when they live with this attitude that they do not require hate because they don't hate themselves and they do not need to hate others. And when they don't need to hate others, they do not need to idealise themselves. And when they do not need to idealise themselves and take this intravenous morphine that fundamentalism offers them then they walk out wide awake, open-armed and with a good and clean heart. Thank you. (Inaugural lecture at the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Delhi. Dr. Salman Akhtar is an eminent psychoanalyst, an award-winning professor of Psychiatry, Jefferson Medical College, a lecturer at Harvard Medical School and a well known author and poet, and scholar in residence at the Interact Theatre Company, Philadelphia, USA). _____ [4] The Hindu Oct 01, 2005 Editorial MORAL POLICING IN TAMIL NADU A rash of recent events has exposed an ugly vein of intolerance, chauvinism, and sexism running through a section of Tamil Nadu's police, media, and polity. Pictures published in two newspapers of a private party in a five star hotel become the basis for the Chennai city police ordering the suspension of its licence, arresting two of its managerial employees, and even threatening to take those surreptitiously photographed into custody. A popular actress who speaks her mind about matters of sexuality is coerced into apologising, thanks to an orgy of politically backed protests, which include effigy burning and shrill cries for her arrest and banishment from the State for allegedly "denigrating Tamil women." In an engineering college in Chennai's suburbs, a student is pulled up for wearing a dark shirt in violation of the institution's `code' that requires male students to wear only light-coloured shirts! The incident happens a couple of months after the Vice-Chancellor of Anna University `bans' the wearing of jeans, T-shirts, and sleeveless tops in 231 engineering colleges across the State to make students dress "in a way that befits our culture." Something of a trend can be discerned in these disparate happenings. The culture cops of Tamil Nadu are menacing young people's rights, including freedom of expression; and also targeting girls and women in a sanctimonious, sexist way, as several women's organisations have pointed out. Tamil Nadu has a tradition of being socially and politically progressive, of having a culture of tolerance and respect for diversity. It is a sad commentary that an actress' personal opinion on pre-marital sex has been viciously misrepresented, and blown out of all proportion, as an attack on Tamil womanhood by political parties keen on playing the chauvinism card. Likewise, it was a gross over-reaction for the Chennai police to order the temporary revocation of the hotel's licence because a couple of Tamil newspapers published photographs of a fashion show held within its premises. The photographs of young men and women drinking and couples kissing were published to reveal the `immoral' goings-on at the party. The odd thing was that no one in these pictures was "scantily clad" (as alleged by the police) but the affair exposed the hypocrisy of a tabloid and tabloidising section of the press that regularly publishes `scantily clad' and suggestive pin-ups of film actresses as a circulation booster. As for dress codes, university and college campuses in developed countries have "student rights officers," and it is well recognised that it is a serious transgression for college teachers and administrators so much as to comment on such personal matters as dress, demeanour, lifestyle, ethnicity, and the social background of students. Morality is a contentious and complex subject. Laws and rules, such as the prohibition on serving alcoholic drinks to minors, must of course be strictly enforced. But morality, ethics, and core values can be inculcated only through education, which must begin at home, and friendly persuasion - not by backward-looking diktats and sanctions from an obscurantist, intolerant, and sexist moral police. ______ [5] The Hindu October 5, 2005 BENEGAL SLAMS NDA FOR 'SAFFRONISING' BOLLYWOOD Aligarh, Oct 5. (PTI):Bollywood reflected "saffron" agenda during the NDA regime popularising a misconception by tying Pakistan and Muslims on a single string, noted film-maker Shyam Benegal said here on Tuesday. "Saffronisation of the polity during late 1990s was sharply reflected in popular Hindi cinema made in that period. Some of the Hindi films made during that period displayed an intransigence where Pakistan and Muslims are made synonymous," he said delivering the annual Sir Syed Memorial Lecture at Aligarh Muslim University. Speaking on 'Secularism and Indian Popular Cinema,' he said, "nationalism and by implication secularism was considerably narrowed down and made an exclusive preserve of the Hindu Community." "You can see this in J P Dutta's hit film 'Border.' Excessive jingoism is even more crudely depicted in another film Ghadar," Benegal, whose latest film on Subhash Chandra Bose created a controversy, said. However, he said, the same period also gave rise to successful films like Lagan, Fiza and Bombay which equated an "inclusive secular unity with nationalism". The film-maker, who was among the pioneers of new wave cinema in the country, said the horrific riots in Gujarat "aided by the non-action of the state" had threatened to dangerously divide the polity and entire edifice of the society. Urging film makers to confront the challenges faced by Indian society, Benegal said, "imaging of the minorities in popular cinema constitutes an excellent barometer of the attitudes in the cinema. It can easily be considered the coal miners canary of Indian society." ______ [6] Deccan Herald September 30, 2005 EARTH IS STILL FLAT FOR 6 PC OF INDIANS >From Kalyan Ray DHNS,New Delhi: The India Science Report reveals the ignorance of a number of people who are either clueless of the contributions of science or reluctant to acknowledge them. The progresses made in science and education notwithstanding, almost six per cent Indians still believe that the earth is flat and more than 10 per cent are under the impression that human beings were created by Brahma. Moreover, a large section thinks that seeing an eclipse adversely affects the unborn child (18.8 per cent), earthquakes are caused by the shaking of the mythological snake (18 per cent) and rainbows are actually the bow of the God Indra or Rama (8.2 per cent). These are some of the findings of the first ever India Science Report, an initiative undertaken by the Indian National Science Academy and the National Centre for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), which was released by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday. In one of the largest exercises to find out the national progress made in science, its impact on the society and students' perception about science, the NCAER survey was based on 30,255 responses picked up from 3.46 lakh people in 152 districts in the mainland. They were further classified into various subgroups for the survey. On people's perception about science, the report shows that close to a one-third of the surveyed population did not acknowledge contribution of science and technology in improving national security and 21 per cent don't think weather forecasting has improved because of advancement in science. Among the educated, there is an overwhelming perception that "scientific work is harmful", "scientists are considered peculiar" and they are not religious. The survey has identified the reasons for women being ill-treated in the society as 28.6 per cent of the respondents have expressed ignorance on the fact that the gender of a baby is determined by the father. A comparison with the USA Science and Engineering indicators, 2002 shows that 65 per cent Americans know that the mother has no control in determining the sex of the child. As many as 60 per cent illiterates said one should not sleep under a dense tree and 75 per cent said plants are living organisms - a sign that traditional medicine is alive and kicking, said NCAER economist Dr R K Shukla who led the effort. The India Science Report points out that 58.7 per cent have not visited a zoo and 64 per cent have not seen a museum. More than 60 per cent have not seen an aquarium, planetarium, and science parks. SUPERSTITIONS Seeing an eclipse adversely affects unborn child (18.8 pc) Earthquakes are caused by the shaking of the mythological snake (18 pc) Rainbows are the bow of the God Indra or Rama (8.2 pc) _____ [7] The Hindu Oct 04, 2005 Superstition eclipses science Dennis Marcus Mathew HYDERABAD: As the beautiful spectacle unfolded across the skies with the moon partially hiding the sun, tradition and superstition pushed science aside and threw a blanket of abstinence and prayers over the twin cities on Monday. There were many who did not budge from their seats and remained indoors for the entire period, which lasted around two hours, refusing even to relieve themselves. In offices, many left by 3 p.m. so that they could be inside the "safe confines" of their homes before the "dragon swallowed the sun". Many others observed fast. No marks! Housewives were busy before the eclipse placing `darbas' and tulsi leaves on food items and throwing away cooked food to prepare fresh food later. Pregnant women too were tense, sitting tight for fear of hurting their babies. Some grandmas prevented them from scratching too for the fear that the newborn would have scars! These were the deeds of those who believed that a solar eclipse was not the best of times of to do anything. The list actually is much longer. "A cyber city in the 21st century, and all these?" was the question the progressive ones raised. Panicky NRIs "I got several calls from non-resident Indians, asking about precautions when the eclipse would occur in their country. I told them there was no need of such fears," says the director of the B.M. Birla Science Centre, B.G. Sidharth. "These beliefs have no scientific backing. In fact, many reasons are actually contradictory," says Y. Ravi Kiron of the Association of Amateur Astronomers. Science-speak "For instance, they say you should not go out to avoid the radiation. Truth is that during an eclipse, the sun's rays are blocked and radiation is minimised! As for food getting spoiled when it becomes dark during the eclipse, what about the daily sunset? And on normal days too, it is harmful to look directly at the sun," Mr. Kiron argues. "Same logic applies for worries of pregnant women getting affected due to ultraviolet rays. The UV rays are blocked during an eclipse. Avoiding scratching to prevent the baby from getting scars is also unscientific. They say the fall in temperature is dangerous. What about winter?" he asks. Still, science and its advocates had few listeners in the cyber city on Monday. ______ [8] The Hindu September 27, 2005 Book Review HINDU NATIONALIST POLITICS Jyotirmaya Sharma Describes the matrix of the Sangh Parivar and traces the rise of the right wing in Indian politics THE SANGH PARIVAR - A Reader: Christophe Jaffrelot - Editor; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 675. Lists can be tedious, but they also serve a useful purpose. At the outset, therefore, it would be useful to list the organisations that, in popular perception, constitute the entity known as the Sangh Parivar. These are: Akhil Bharatiya Adhivakta Parishad, Akhil Bharatiya Sahitya Parishad, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, Bharat Vikas Parishad, Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojna, Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, Bharatiya Sikshan Mandal, Deen Dayal Shodh Sansthan, Hindu Jagaran Manch, Pragya Pravah, Rashtra Sevika Samiti, Sanskrit Bharti, Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, Sewa Bharti, Samajik Samrasta Manch, Vigyan Bharti, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Vidya Bharti and the Vanwasi Kalyan Ashram. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) calls these affiliates `inspired organisations', implying that they derive their inspiration from the overall philosophy of the Sangh. Conspicuously absent from this list are the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Bajrang Dal. The deletion of the BJP from this list has more to do with the constant theme perpetuated by the RSS that its agenda is non-political. In fact, the RSS Constitution, Article 4(c), clearly states that the "Sangh is aloof from politics and is devoted to social and cultural fields only." Periodic turbulence Christophe Jaffrelot's useful introduction to this volume rightly likens the idea of the Sangh Parivar as a `purely descriptive proposition'. Jaffrelot's argument, on the other hand, that the RSS was largely inspired by Savarkar's philosophy is a proposition that needs infinite refinement and additional nuances. The story of periodic turbulence within the so-called `parivar', largely due to the BJP's role within national democratic politics is also sufficiently well etched, though the similarity between the Sangh's discomfort with the Savarkar's brand of Hindu Mahasabha politics and the current political role of the BJP requires greater elaboration. In effect, apart from the introduction, this volume is a collection of chapters or articles already published in well-known books. Many of these are classics, but require substantial updating. The exclusion of excellent pieces from an issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies 23(3) is also surprising, since they appear as part of a chapter in yet another edited volume brought out by the Jaffrelot et al production line on Hindutva (reviewed in The Hindu on July 19, 2005) and published by the same publisher. Paradigm shift Overall, the volume suffers from the endemic academic and publishing peril of recycling. What could have potentially been a useful `reader' is reduced to a collection of well-known tracts, without covering the entire spectrum of the Sangh Parivar. Only a handful of the `inspired organisations' mentioned above find any place in the volume. Extracts from the original texts of the Sangh ideologues would have been a useful addition as well. Reviewers, however, can endlessly quibble about what a book under consideration ought to have been. But reviewers are also readers. For them, the crucial question is one of the bind in which the Sangh and its affiliates find themselves after the BJP's six-year stint in running a coalition government at the Centre. The paradigm shift, therefore, lies in the inability of the Sangh to come to terms with democratic politics and its demands. Even the so-called cultural and social agenda of the Sangh requires democratic consecration. Sangh studies will now require a major reorientation towards taking into account this significant change. In other words, the weight and vehemence of ideology has been tempered and compromised by the imperatives of public endorsement and scrutiny. This is not to suggest that the days of fundamentalist politics are over. What it simply means is that the current configuration of forces within the polity and society are unprepared for jehadi Hindutva and its diabolical agenda. Democratic politics, unguided by secular institutions that command emotional and intellectual allegiance, can also endorse again the Hindu Right in the future. Limitations There was a time when countries of Western Europe likened the Orient as despotic, largely as a ploy to argue for greater freedom within their own societies. Many Western commentators today liken the Sangh Parivar and its politics to Fascism in order to make sense of the growth of extremist politics and intolerance within their societies. This simplistic transference has done great injustice to our knowledge of Hindu nationalist politics. Neither does reducing Hindutva or the Sangh Parivar to preoccupations of postmodernism serve any purpose. Feminist attempts to study the Sangh are circumscribed by the very limitation that every ideology offers: unable to see the wood for the trees. There is yet another trend that reduces the Sangh Parivar to be a factor of deviant Hinduism. The book partakes of all these limitations and at the same time offers intermittently small slivers of light out of these. Otherwise, it is an irregular collection, bound together by no thematic unity, other than the inevitability of having been published. How else can one explain a Sangh Parivar Reader published in 2005 without a single piece on Gujarat after Godhra and the riots of 2002? _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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
