Cultural Militarism, South Aisa

The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives Cultural Militarism, South Asia

Contributors: Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi Edited by: Paul Joseph Book Title: The SAGE Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives Chapter Title: "Cultural Militarism, South Asia" Pub. Date: 2017 Access Date: May 6, 2017 Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc. City: Thousand Oaks, Print ISBN: 9781483359892 Online ISBN: 9781483359878 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483359878.n172 Print pages: 432-434 ©2017 SAGE Publications, Inc.. All Rights Reserved. This PDF has been generated from SAGE Knowledge. Please note that the pagination of the online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.

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South Asia is a complex and unique region, made up of multireligious, multiethnic, and multilinguistic groups living together in eight countries. This multiculturalism or pluralism often works against the unifying principles of nationhood, and the dividing forces conspire together for cultural militarism; social, political, and regional indoctrination spreads in the form of cultural identity politics through group, community, and class. The conflicting cultural groups act like a cultural army, using violent, armed, and criminal means of subsistence, along with political and ideological reasons to encourage cultural militarism. Generally, religion and language work as components of ethnic identity, but they can also form a dividing line among different groups in South Asia. Due to interest in cultural issues, such as local languages and regions and the same castes and religions, the secessionist group succeeds widely in the complex diversity of multilingual and multiracial countries. The formation of a new country in the past, such as Pakistan from India, succeeded because of the differences of religion; forming Bangladesh from Pakistan succeeded because of language, as an example of cultural militarism where both the states adopted violent approaches. In Bhutan, religion binds the multilingual Bhutanese against the Nepalesespeaking Hindu migrants. In India, the conflicts in Kashmir and Punjab remain due to language difference. Many times, the root of cultural militarization lies in the selfish interests of political leaders, such as the violent clash in the Kashmir Valley being supported by Pakistan as a means to weaken India’s footing as a superpower; identity and ego-based politics are to blame for the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan. Similarly, the Sri Lankan secessionist group has been exploiting Tamilians to lead a suicide bomber campaign as a violent political force in the region. Dissatisfied groups in Nepal mushroomed into criminal, violent, and armed forces after the Comprehensive Peace Accord in 2006. The ultimate aim of such cultural militarism is not for peace, progress, and prosperity in the respective regions but rather to foster wars for their vested self-interests. The demolition of the cultural artifacts of an enemy people and region as a means of dividing, terrorizing, eradicating, or dominating has always been another tactic of cultural militarization. Buildings of cultural importance, rather than people, are targeted and devastated. In India, Hindu volunteers (Karsevaks) demolished the 16th-century Babri mosque on December 6, 1992. On September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center in New York City, popularly known as the twin towers, was destroyed by Islamic cultural militants. In one such incident, statues of Buddha in Afghanistan were dynamited and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban. Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Taliban Militia, passed orders for the destruction of the statues while the foreign minister of Afghanistan claimed that this demolition was only about carrying out Islamic religious iconoclasm. The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas became a symbol of cultural oppression and drew attention for the freedom of religious expression. This sort of damage is the direct result of military maneuvers to gain a region by destroying dissimilar religious or cultural identities or of a desire to wipe out the foe’s gods and goddesses in order to make them feel degraded and weaker. The leveling of houses, buildings, and cities of the rival groups has always been a necessary exercise of conducting hostilities through armed forces in cultural militarization. The Somnath Temple has been destroyed many times by Muslim rulers and kings, including Mahmud of Ghazni, Allauddin Khilji, Muzaffar Shah I, Mahmud Bagada, and Aurangzeb. The aim of such cultural destruction is not the rout of an opposing army but the pursuit of

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genocide or ethnic cleansing or the rewriting of history in the interests of a victor reinforcing his victories, often in the form of rioting. Religious violence is also an act of cultural militarism, including acts of violence by followers of one religious group against institutions and followers of another religious group. Cultural Militarism in Ancient and Medieval India In ancient India, it is said that the Buddhist king Ashoka (324–232 BCE) ordered a massacre of around 18,000 Jains when it was reported to him that someone had drawn a picture of Gautama Buddha bowing down at the feet of Mahavira, an important figure in the Jain religion. In cultural militarism, architecture takes on a totemic quality: A temple, for example, is not simply a temple; it represents, to its foes, the presence of a community marked for erasure. Generally, it is evidence that a given community exists, its presence extending into the past and legitimizing the community in the present and on into the future. In medieval India, historians state that Hindus were persecuted during Islamic rule in the Indian subcontinent. In the early eighth century, when Islamic armies attacked the Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms in the northeast parts of the Indian subcontinent, their armies destroyed temples and monasteries, built mosques and minarets, enslaved women and children, and plundered wealth. Mahmud of Ghazni invaded the Indian subcontinent in the 11th century. In 1024 CE, he attacked and destroyed the third Somnath temple and killed more than 50,000 Hindus. During the reign of the Delhi Sultanate (1206–1526 CE), cultural violence became a state-sponsored affair, and it continued through the Mughal Empire. In 1545, Sher Shah Suri led a campaign of religious violence across the eastern and western states of the Indian subcontinent. Akbar, in the early years of his reign, ordered a massacre of Hindus of Garha in 1560 CE. The Mughal historian Aub-l Fazl states that 40,000 peasants, along with 8,000 Rajputs, were executed. The fourth Mughal emperor, Jahangir, targeted mainly the followers of Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs. In a notable incident, Jahangir ordered the torture of Guru Arjun and executed him in 1606. This incident led the Sikhs to form khalsa (military brotherhood) in 1699 under the leadership of the 10th Sikh guru, Gobind Singh. It is estimated that around 4.6 million people were killed during the reign of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. Cultural Militarism in Colonial India During the colonial period, the first inquisitor, Aleixo Dias Falcäo, forbade Hindus from the public practice of their religion, instilling fear of death. The Portuguese forced conversions to Catholicism, and 57 Goans were executed between 1561 and 1774. Tipu Sultan, an antiChristian ruler of Mysore, made captives of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam. Historians state that from February 24, 1784, to May 4, 1799, around 60,000 people of the Manglorean Catholic community were captured by the sultan, out of which 20,000 died on the march to Seringapatam. Not only Christians but the Nair and Kodava communities of Hindus were also persecuted by the sultan. The Indian rebellion of 1857 is considered by many historians as a revolt against the East India Company charter of cultural militarism that permitted government-sponsored missionary activity. Taking lessons from the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British started exploiting the cultural differences between Hindus and Muslims and began encouraging Muslims, in particular, to forge a separate cultural and political identity from the Hindus. The partition plan between

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India and Pakistan was accepted, considering different religions. In 1947, when Pakistan and India became independent, 14.5 million people crossed borders for safety, but without British authority to deal with the migrations, there was much violence on both sides of the border; high estimates of the number of deaths range around 1 million. Cultural Militarism in Independent India India has witnessed 10 of 18 multiethnic conflicts in past 50 years. Following independence, the ideology of cultural militarism resulted in many riots, such as the 1969 Gujarat communal riots that broke out between Hindus and Muslims. Over 48,000 people lost their property, 1,074 were injured, and some 660 people were killed. In 1984, when Jarnail Bhindranwale, the Akali Dal leader, demanded Sikh autonomy in Punjab from India, Indira Gandhi, then prime minister of India, suspended the Indian constitution and imposed an emergency on the nation. During the emergency, thousands of Sikhs were attacked, and many thousand died. Moreover, Indira Gandhi’s assassination provoked mass rioting against Sikh community. This resulted in pogroms, and around 17,000 Sikhs were burned alive or killed, with at least 50,000 Sikhs displaced. Cultural militarism advocates the ethnic cleansing of the enemy in different cultural and religious groups. More than 300 Kashmiri Pandits were killed between 1989 and 1990 in various incidents in the Kashmir Valley. Islamic terrorists waged jihad against India and forced Kashmiri Pandits to leave the Kashmir region. More than 500,000 Pandits have migrated outside of Kashmir since 1990 due to fear of persecution by Islamic fundamentalists. During cultural militarism, many inhuman policies and practices were carried out, including murder, rape, other sexual assaults, forcible removal and displacement, deportation of the civilian population, arbitrary arrest, detention, deliberate military attacks or threats, and destruction of property. Conflicts in Other Regions of South Asia Pakistan witnessed five ethnic conflicts, followed by one each in Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Three secessionist movements arose from the demands for autonomy in Sri Lanka, East Pakistan, and Bangladesh. In Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the ruling government followed a policy of ethnic colonization that hurt the sentiments of the tribal people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and Sri Lankan Tamils, respectively. The Sinhalese elites in the government and the Punjabi majority in Pakistan in the postcolonial period adopted a policy of suppression toward the minorities in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, respectively. Uneven distribution and allocation of economic resources also became a cause of conflict in Pakistan, and the Mohajir community lost out in the job sector in private and public enterprises. See alsoBangladesh; Bhutan; Cultural Militarism; India; Partition of India; Militarism; Nepal; Pakistan; Religion and War; Sri Lanka Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483359878.n172 10.4135/9781483359878.n172 Further Readings Ballard, Roger. The Bitter Drama of the Sikhs. Heidelberg, Germany: Universität Heidelberg, 1984. Berlatsky, Noah. The Taliban. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2011.

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Bullaty, Sonja, Angelo Lomeo, and Paul Goldberger. The World Trade Center Remembered. New York: Abbeville Press, 2001. Chandra, Satish. Essays on Medieval Indian History. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003. Chitnis, Krishnaji Nageshrao. Medieval Indian History. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2003. Dalmia, Vasudha, Angelika Malinar, and M. Christof, eds. Charisma and Canon: Essays on the Religious History of the Indian Subcontinent. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001. Holmes, George, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval Europe. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1988. Kaul, Ravender Kumar. Migration and Society: A Study of Displaced Kashmiri Pandits. Jaipur, India: Rawat, 2005. Kilam, Jia Lal, and Advaitavadini Kaul, ed. A History of Kashmiri Pandits. Delhi, India: Uptal, 2003. Langer, William L., and Peter N. Stearns. An Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged. 6th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Nizami, Khaliq Ahmad. Studies in Medieval Indian History. Aligarh, India: Cosmopolitan, 1956. Rashid, Ahmed. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. Scherer, Lauri S. The Taliban. Detroit, MI: Greenhaven Press, Gale Cengage Learning, 2013. Sender, Henriette M. The Kashmiri Pandits: A Study of Cultural Choice in North India. Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 1988. Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960. Smith, Philip. Why War? The Cultural Logic of Iraq, the Gulf War, and Suez. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Talbot, Ian, ed.The Deadly Embrace: Religion, Politics, and Violence in India and Pakistan, 1947–2002. Karachi, Pakistani: Oxford University Press, 2007. Titus, Murray Thurston. Indian Islam: A Religious History of Islam in India. London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1930. Winter, Jay. Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Yousafzai, Malala, and Christina Lamb. I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2013.

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