Religion, Power and Violence: Expression of Politics in Contemporary Times

RELIGION, POWER & IOLENCE &V VIOLENCE

RELIGION, POWER & IOLENCE &V VIOLENCE EXPRESSION

OF

POLITICS

IN

CONTEMPORARY TIMES

Editor Ram Puniyani

SAGE Publications New Delhi / Thousand Oaks / London

Copyright © Ram Puniyani, 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. First published in 2005 by Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd B-42, Panchsheel Enclave New Delhi 110 017 www.indiasage.com Sage Publications Inc 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320

Sage Publications Ltd 1 Oliver’s Yard, 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP

Published by Tejeshwar Singh for Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd, typeset in 10/12 Goudy Old Style at Excellent Laser Typesetters, New Delhi, and printed at Chaman Enterprises, New Delhi. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Religion, power and violence: expression of politics in contemporary times/editor, Ram Puniyani. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. India—Politics and government—1977– 2. Religion and politics—India. 3. Communalism—India. 4. World politics—1989– 5. Religion and politics. 6. Political violence. I. Puniyani, Ram. DS480.853.R45

320.954'09'0511—dc22

ISBN: 0–7619–3338–7 (Pb)

2005

2005005282

81–7829–474–5 (India – Pb)

Sage Production Team: Proteeti Banerjee, Rajib Chatterjee and Santosh Rawat

CONTENTS List of Tables Preface

7 8

Introduction: Religion, Power and Violence Ram Puniyani

12

1.

Religion: Opium of the Masses or . . . Ram Puniyani

27

2.

Globalization and Communalism: Locating Contemporary Political Discourse in the Context of Liberalization V. Krishna Ananth

3.

Terrorism and Imperialism: Two Sides of the Same Coin Thomas Sebastian

44

67

4.

Islam, Terrorism and the New World Order Jawaid Quddus

91

5.

Syncretism and Communal Harmony in Bengal J.J. Roy Burman

108

6.

RSS and the Raj Shamsul Islam

124

7.

Hindutva and Indian Diaspora Jawaid Quddus

144

6

Religion, Power & Violence

08. Hindutva and Weaker Sections: Conflict between Dominance and Resistance Prakash Louis

157

09. Mobilization for Hindutva Manjari Katju

176

10. Fundamentalism, Communalism and Gender Justice Vibhuti Patel

191

11. Hindutva Agenda and Dalits Anand Teltumbde

208

12. The Supreme Court, Media and UCC Debate Flavia Agnes

225

13. Educational Backwardness among the Muslims in India: A Case of Misrepresentation? Ranu Jain

248

14. Violence against the Cross Sarto Esteves

277

15. Gujarat—Hindu Rashtra Laboratory Uday Mehta

290

16. ‘After Gujarat . . .’: Making Sense of Reports on the Post-Godhra Violence and its Aftermath Rowena Robinson and D. Parthasarathy About the Editor and Contributors Index

306

319 322

LIST 3.1 3.2 8.1 8.2

O F

TABLES

Historical Background: ‘Links’ of US Officials to Al Qaeda and other Terrorist Organizations (partial list) Bush Administration Officials: Links to Al Qaeda and the 9/11 Terrorists (partial list) Sex-wise Literacy Trend among SCs, STs and Total Population—India Estimate of the Total Number of Persons and Tribals Displaced and Resettled by Various Development Projects in India: 1951–90 (number in lakhs)

13.1 Percentage Distribution by General Education, Household Religion and Area 13.2 Social Group-wise Literacy Rate of Indian States 13.3 Hindu–Muslim Literacy Gap in States/UT having more than 10 per cent of Muslim Population 13.4 Percentage of Muslims (aged 15 and above) in Kerala and West Bengal 13.5 Social Group-wise Participation in Literacy Programmes and Achievement of Non-Enrolled Children in the Age Group 6–14 13.6 Proportion of Population Completing Middle and Matriculation Level Education by Population Groups 13.7 Percentage Distribution of Students in the Age Group of 6–14 Years by States 13.8 Household Expenditure on Education by Social Groups and States in India 13.9 Age-Specific ever Enrolment, Discontinuation and Non-Attendance Rates (%) in Age Group 6–14

76 77 160

162 263 264 265 266

267 267 268 269 270

PREFACE

R

eligion and politics have coexisted in the whole world since ancient times. However, the recent manifestations of religions being exploited to further political interests have become much more overt. An intensification of communal violence over the last two decades has made this clear to us in India. In a similar vein the latent language manifested through theories like ‘Clash of Civilizations’, which states that the major conflict in the world is the clash between the backward Islamic civilization and the advanced Western one. Also the obvious manifestation of politics in the language of religion has surfaced with the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) after which some people were targeted politically for having been born in the ‘wrong’ religion, some countries were attacked as they were supposed to have harboured Islamic terrorists, some others are being targeted because the United States (US) has discovered a link between the terrorists and the administration of that country. The demonization of Muslims and the denigration of Islam has been the most overt observation in large parts of the world. In India we also have the anti-Christian tirade, an addition to the regular anti-Muslim attacks. Thousands have lost their lives in the name of this politics, which is being brought in apparently in defence of one or the other ‘religion’. This has converted the last part of the twentieth century as one amongst the most violent; it has also created fear in the psyche of the world’s second largest religious community, the Muslims. One nostalgically recalls the decades from the 1940s to the 1970s, the era of national liberation from the yoke of colonialism. The eras of Gandhi and Mao, of Che Guevara and Ho Chi Minh also comes to one’s mind. One recalls the likes of Cohn Bendits, Rohan Vijevira, Charu Majumdar,

Preface

9

Tariq Ali and the movements they were associated with. One recalls Mossadeq of Iran who nationalized his country’s oil wells, Pandit Nehru who laid the foundations of the public sector, flagging off the process of industrialization in this vast country. Now all those are things of the past. Currently it is the communal interpretation of the past, the elite of religious communities in countries like India, and the supreme power of the world, US, which rule the roost. The earlier discourses were around the issues of industrialization, education, social welfare, land rights, economic justice and a host of social and gender issues. Currently either it is jehadi terrorists initially trained by the US itself, or the crusade launched by the US to install its puppets in one country after the other, or Hindutva of Modi-Vajpayee variety which takes centre stage. Is it all religion? Or is it politics of the elite in societies and of imperialism the world over which is adorning the language of religion? As long as the alternative super power, the socialist block, existed parallel streams of thought prevailed and competed. With the demise of the socialist block, the US and its cohorts changed the track. The offence against ‘communist authoritarianism’ got transformed into the offence against the threat of the ‘backward religion’, Islam, and the task of hegemonizing the rest of the world was easy enough. Imperialist powers attacking any country at will became a matter of strategy. Iraq, Afghanistan, then Iraq again and now the possibility of Iran being on the chopping block is a matter of concern. But at the same time, identifying terrorism— Islamic—as the problem of the world has percolated as a part of social common sense the world over. The timing in the early 1980s of ‘Islam’ replacing ‘communism’ as the enemy of the world is very revealing. The deeper politics continues its journey. As demonization of communism, which was a way to usher in industrialization in the ex-colonies, was propagated through the massive media management of the US and its allies, the process of manufacturing consent for actions like its attack on Vietnam was there for all to see and for many to believe in. The manufacture of myths to demonize not only a community but also a religion became the central concern. What is most amazing is that we took so long to recognize the change in the language of political discourse, its real goal, and its agenda. Is it a mere coincidence that at the same time that the political scene in India is being dominated by the language of religion-based politics, global politics has also assumed the language of religion? It is also the period in which the weaker sections have been further marginalized and the social transformation of caste (class) and gender has taken a beating.

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Religion, Power & Violence

I started realizing the deeper meaning of the ongoing process mainly after the Babri Masjid’s demolition and the consequent Mumbai riots. It was the period just prior to the first attack on Iraq by the US. I was totally baffled by both these events and the intensity of violence in the name of religion. Since then more and more events took place in succession, forcing one’s attention on this issue. Accompanying this was the demonization of Muslim minorities in India and the identification of Islam as a religion of terror all over the world. It was agonizing to hear all around conversations about the nature of Islam and Muslims. It was beyond comprehension as to how ‘constructed social common sense’ accepted that religion could be the sole marker of human nature. It was also painful to see how one religion was targeted and how successfully and easily those with vested interests could do so. Social common sense did not blame imperialists for their cunning, for their plunder, for their cruelties in colonies but focused totally in blaming the poor minorities in this part of the world for all the problems here. The analogy with Hitler’s Germany is too obvious; one after the other minorities were picked up and targeted before Germany herself was destroyed by this divisive narrow vision of nation and communities. The gruesome burning of Pastor Graham Staines shook the conscience of India. While the international bodies kept protesting all these violations of human rights, their voices were of no effect in controlling the train of events, though these did come as grim reminders to the policy makers of the countries. The theorem that the world can be divided on religious lines was proved otherwise when ‘Muslim’ Iraq was attacked by the US and another Muslim country, Pakistan, provided the base for US planes refuelling, and other Muslim countries either kept quiet or approved the US actions. The biggest counter came not from the Muslims as such but from the global supporters of peace. Millions in US, Europe and other countries marched to condemn the dastardly attack on Iraq. And this holds a lot of promise. In India also, the anti-Muslim atrocities and anti-Christian violence were opposed by the secular movement, the progressive parties and groups who have stood for the democratic principles and are upholding the values of secularism. This progressive movement has over a period of time become more articulate in opposing every attack on secular values and the rights of minorities. Victims of communal violence have begun associating with this movement in large numbers. Two heartening phenomena in this grim scenario have come as a big relief. At the national level the horrific Gujarat violence aroused the

Preface

11

conscience of the social movements greatly. Most of the groups working on crucial social issues have realized that whatever be their individual area of concern, the issue of entrenched communalism has to be confronted by all of us. Since the last few years, these groups have made the fight against communalism an integral part of their agenda. In addition, groups devoted to communal harmony and national integration are springing up at various places with the goal to keep communal forces at bay. Worldwide, with the emasculation of the United Nations (UN), there is no effective counter to the might of US. The body bags from Iraq will force the hawks in US politics to the backseat, but it will not end the imperialist lust to control raw materials and the global economy. The rise of the global peace movement, global initiatives against war, against nuclear power, for protection of ecology and enhancement of human rights hold the promise for a better world in coming times. This is what led me to request friends working on related themes to put their ideas in the form of short essays which, together, can give the total picture of the global and local political scenario. The book has tried to analyse most aspects of contemporary politics, though some more dimensions could have been added. It tries to grapple with the changing paradigm of the political scenario of India and the world. Friends who have contributed are mostly associated with the understanding of social movements. I gratefully acknowledge the debt of contributors. One hopes this will contribute to a deepening understanding of contemporary politics. I also wish to thank my friends Asghar Ali Engineer, Shabnam Hashmi, Suma, and Daniel Mazgaonkar amongst others who have been a source of inspiration for me.

April 2005

Ram Puniyani Mumbai

INTRODUCTION: RELIGION, POWER AND VIOLENCE RAM PUNIYANI

CONTEMPORARY WORLD SCENARIO THE LANGUAGE OF RELIGION

T

AND

he beginning of the twenty-first century has been marked by two most dastardly crimes. The world witnessed with helplessness two airplanes ramming into the WTC and killing over two thousand innocent lives. In the immediate aftermath Osama bin Laden thanked the Allah for this event. At the same time US President George W. Bush announced that this was an act of Islamic terrorism and that the US would initiate a war on terror, a crusade against Islamic terrorism. This resulted in an attack on Afghanistan where bin Laden was thought to be living then, in the process killing thousands of innocents. In a nondescript town called Godhra in Gujarat, a coach of the Sabarmati Express was torched killing 58 innocent people. This was deemed an act of Islamic terrorism and it triggered off communal riots in which thousands lost their lives. The carnage which took place was well planned and thought to be abetted by the state government. People were led to believe that the carnage was in reaction to the Godhra incident. What connects these two tragedies mentioned above which occured in different parts of the world? The language used in violence takes off from the religion and ends in killing the people belonging to a particular religion, in this case Muslims. However, these are no exceptions. Politics

Introduction

13

over the last three decades has been conducted in the name of religion. It began with the overthrow of Raza Shah Pehlavi in Iran and the rise of Ayatollah Khoemini and his Islamic rule. This was celebrated as a revolution, and led to the creation of an Islamic state in Iran. In Bosnia and Rwanda too people suffered in the name of religion. Other changes which have made an impact on the world have been related to the collapse of socialist states and the emergence of US as the sole superpower of the world. It has also seen the World Trade Organization (WTO), World Bank and other economic institutions are presiding over the reorganization of the global economy. Islamic fundamentalism rose in alarming proportions—violence was witnessed in the form of IraqIran war (1980); it is alleged that Libya bombed the Pan Am flight killing 270 people (1980); the forces led by local war lords, bin Laden, US and Pakistan forced the retreat of Russian armies from Afghanistan; in 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait and to ‘rescue’ the Sheikh of Kuwait, the US attacked Iraq and later imposed economic sanctions which resulted in great hardship in Iraq. In 1993 Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman set off a bomb in the WTC basement killing six and injuring over 100 people; in the same year Timothy McVeigh dropped a bomb in Oklahoma, killing over 300 people; in 1996 a fuel truck detonated outside Khobar Towers, a US military housing complex in Dhahran, killing 19 Americans; in 2000 two suicide bombers aboard a small boat in Aden staged a midday attack on USS Cole killing 17 sailors. All this is labelled as Islamic terrorism and Samuel Huntington comes up with the theory of clash of civilizations according to which the less-developed Islamic civilization is attacking the advanced western civilization. In India one witnessed Rath Yatras (chariot processions) and the instigation of revenge against the atrocities committed by earlier Muslim rulers. The imagery of the Rath Yatra is associated with Lord Ram and other figures in Hindu mythology, where the Lords would embark on a chariot procession to destroy evil, demons, etc. In today’s parlance, it means that the charioteer of the Rath—the leader of the BJP—is undertaking this exercise to protect Hindus from contemporary demons—the Muslims. To begin with, the chosen target was a mosque in Ayodhya which was claimed to symbolize an insult to Hindu honour—the Islamic invader Babur had destroyed the temple of the Hindu deity Ram, who was also looked upon as the symbol of Hindu (Indian!) nationalism. This was followed by massive anti-Muslim riots all over the country for nearly six months, followed by a series of bomb blasts, allegedly by Islamic terrorists. During the trajectory of the rise of this politics, Hindutva, an additional

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agenda was added—to deal with the threat from the activities of Christian missionaries converting ‘gullible’ tribals into Christianity. To ‘solve’ the problem, to get rid of this menace, a Christian Pastor, Graham Staines and his two sons were burnt alive by a practitioner of Hindutva politics. While Christians remain a minor target of this politics, its preferred enemy is Islam and Muslims. This is why the Gujarat genocide, allegedly sponsored by the state government ruled by a Hindutva leader, took place. All the while the restructuring of the global economy to the advantage of the US and its allies continues unabated. Even during this anti-Muslim march of the US-led countries, their grip over the Middle East’s oil fields becomes tighter by the day. The global domination of the unipolar force, US, is almost unchallenged. In India the rise of Hindutva has intimidated and ghettoized the minorities. Christians are feeling the heat of the ascendance of Hindutva as nuns and priests are regular victims of the bearers of tridents and their political protectors, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Some questions come to the fore. Is it for the sake of religion that the ilk of bin Laden is striking the US and its allies in a cowardly manner— terrorism, the killing of innocent beings? Are the terrorists the representatives of Islam? Have they been representing the Muslim community locally or globally? Is the US undertaking a holy crusade when it is attacking Afghanistan or Iraq? In a similar vein, are the practitioners of Hindutva the representatives of Hinduism? Have they been chosen by Hindus to undertake the process of revenge as claimed by them? Another point to ponder is, are the bomb blasts and other acts of terror the outcome of Islamic teachings or are they a frustrated response of people whose back is to the wall? What is the link between bin Laden and his ilk and the terrorist attacks in Mumbai or the burning of the train in Godhra? Does religion hold the key to understand the policies of the world’s biggest power? Does Hinduism hold the key to understand the acts of Hindutva politics? Is it religion or deeper economic interests of the US and elite sections of Indian society who are masquerading their imperial and hegemonic ambitions under the cover of religion?

IMPERIALISM

AND ISLAM

The political discourse of the earlier decades of the twentieth century was marked by an intense debate between free world versus communism

Introduction

15

and free enterprise versus state controlled economy. It was the period when most of the colonial states surged towards national liberation. The colonial era in these countries had its own logic and at places the colonial powers sowed the seeds of divide and rule very deep in the body politic of those nations. Many colonies won their freedom by peaceful struggles and many resorted to revolutions, mostly under the socialist flags. The building of these nation states required the assistance of the state machinery as private capital was weak and in capable of building infrastructure for the industrial development of the country. The erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the torchbearer of socialism, supported various such state sponsored industrial endeavours, while the US preferred client states who could act compradors for their industries. Radicalism, the longing to change cultural and social values, marched with ideals labelled as socialism. Religion in the social and political space was conspicuous by its absence. It remained a private matter of individuals. The influential allies of the US had anti-socialism as their main political slogan. The national liberation movements and activities started weakening by the early 1970s and the state controlled economy started disintegrating by the late 1970s and collapsed in most socialist countries in due course. While the US led camp celebrated the victory of freedom, the ex-socialist states had by then developed industrial infrastructure despite the opposition from the so-called free world. With the demise of socialist economy and the coming of Iranian political change, religion, nay Islam, replaced socialism as the much-needed enemy for the dominant countries. The presence of a real and ideological enemy is a prerequisite for the agenda of ex-colonialists, now joined by a new power, US, which later emerged as the strongest amongst them. The presence of oil wells in the region inhabited by the followers of Islam gave the US and its allies all the more reason to target them as a political enemy. The attacks on Islam at the ideological level and the presentation of the ghettoized Muslim communities as the symbols of Islam were used by the US foreign policy to attack Muslim countries. Democracy became a rarity in the countries where Muslims were predominant. The US had a major role in ensuring that dictatorial regimes prevailed in the region at the cost of democracy. Political interests hid behind religion and in due course the mental ghettoization of Muslims all over the world started taking place. By now a global stereotyping of Muslims, Islam, and Islamic countries is close to complete along with the identification of Islam as a violent religion giving rise to terrorism. This matched perfectly with the

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changes in India; with the rising tide of Hindutva, the unresolved IndoPak ties manifested through the tension in Kashmir, the global demonization of Islam came in handy. So now even in India, any minor skirmish is alleged to be masterminded by Osama bin Laden. Just as the US needed an enemy to build its global agenda, Hindutva also needed an external enemy to consolidate its divisive politics. How the global agenda of the US matches with the domestic agenda of Hindutva is a matter that requires deeper analysis. The fact that the propagators of Hindutva politics were never against colonial rule comes as a point requiring further analysis. The victims of US policies underwent turmoil and restlessness. A section of Muslims adopted violence due to frustration, helplessness, and the feeling that justice was out of their reach. The Palestinian refugees took to the path of terrorism. The Jehadi terrorists were also trained by the US to fight against the communist forces occupying Afghanistan. Ayatollah Khoemini taking over Iran had a lot to do with the overthrow of Mossadeq’s regime and promotion of Raza Shah Pehlavi as a puppet of the US. The response came in the form of Islamic fundamentalism. The Al Queda also took its legitimacy from Islam and many an act of terror came to be identified with Muslims. What was common between the Jehadis trained to overthrow the communist regime in Afghanistan and the Palestinian refugees, between scattered attacks against US war machinery and those planting bombs in the streets and buses in Mumbai after the anti-Muslim pogrom there? The causes were different, the genesis of each reaction was different but since the only unifying factor was that those involved were Muslims, Islam came to be identified as the religion of terror. The conservatism and orthodoxy which got duly promoted came to be known as Islamic fundamentalism. In a way, this has been the insane reaction of people cornered by different isolationist policies, which were pursued in the quest for control over oil resources worldwide, and in pushing back the values promoting caste and gender equality in the Indian scenario. But there is a historical convergence here—that of the agenda of the US and its oil thirsty allies and the elite upper castes in India. The latter agenda pursues itself in the name of Hindutva. Politics in the name of religion emerges from three major sources. The first and major one is the oppressed communities, victims of US policies, starting from the formation of Israel to the Jehadis being trained to fight the communist forces in Afghanistan. The second is the one where regimes in the Muslim majority countries resort to it for their vested interests. This was witnessed in Iraq in full

Introduction

17

form, in Pakistan to a large extent, and in many other Muslim majority countries. One can put Hindu fundamentalism in the same category; its goals are similar to those of Khoemini or Zia-ul-Haq, the preservation of interests of the elite section of society. The third category comes in the form of mindless acts of terror like the ones of Kashmiri militants, or the one called the Gujarat Muslim ‘Revenge Group’. This is the group that took responsibility for the Mumbai blasts in the aftermath of the Gujarat violence. These are more expressions of local ignominies hurled upon sections of community.

HINDUTVA Hindutva, the politics in the name of Hinduism, came up from the mid1920s. Its earlier roots in the declining sections of Hindu landlord and priestly classes can be traced to the introduction of modern education and rise of Indian National Congress. It ran parallel to Muslim communal politics amongst the declining sections of Muslim landlords. It was articulated theoretically by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and further defined by Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar. Its deeper social goal was to oppose the quest for social and gender equality, which was being articulated by the non-Brahmin movement and the introduction of education amongst women. Its manifest aim was to oppose the politics of Muslim communalism and in the process its practitioners participated in mutual mud slinging. The partition and the consequent changes altered the paradigm of politics in south Asia. India took the path of secular democracy and Hindutva remained dormant till quite recently. In the early 1980s it started asserting itself and taking advantage of every possible event. Starting from the Meenakshipuram conversion of dalits to Islam, it went on to build itself aggressively in the wake of the Shah Bano case, which came in as an ideal pretext for Hindutva politics. It could consolidate itself with the Ram temple movement. This totally transformed the language of Indian politics and its priorities. The major social issues and problems got sidetracked, the liberal democratic atmosphere started getting stifled and in its place identity driven politics took centre stage. The hate propaganda, which this politics had been planting over several decades, became central to prevalent notions and started defining the stereotypes. The merger of these stereotypes with the image of terrorism completed the picture. The result was that communal

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violence started becoming more and more horrendous. Every act of violence showed the nadir of barbarity, to be surpassed by a new one. It was against such a background that the riots in Gujarat took place. Narendra Modi, an active member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), conducted the pogrom with the deft efficiency of an evil genius, polarized Gujarat along religious lines, and is currently busy protecting the perpetrators of the violence. With the cover of RSS ideology protecting him, the remarks of either the Supreme Court or human rights organizations do not affect him in the least bit. He constructs his own ideological defence by using all his training in RSS shakhas. The polarization brought in by this politics gave him another poll victory. It has also given him the chance to consolidate ‘fascism in a single state’ in the Indian context. It is not true that other Indian states are insulated from this threat. In many states where the BJP has been ruling, the roots of democracy are being loosened to make way for Hindutva politics. Uma Bharati, amongst the few top BJP leaders who has not seen the RSS shakha as women are not permitted to be the part of RSS, has taken the Hindutva agenda in a different direction also. During her tenure as Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, she turned the cow into the reigning deity of the society there, and a cow-based economy was projected as the foundation of the Hindu state. The rule of the BJP at the centre had been lacklustre as far as social progress was concerned. India dropped in the scale of social development and is, as per the UN Human Development Index, now amongst the bottom few on this scale. Unmindful of that, the BJP wasted crores of Indian taxpayers’ money to create the image of India ‘Shining’, a campaign that was difficult match in scale and extravagance. However, in erstwhile Prime Minister Vajpayee’s constituency itself, 21 women and one infant lost their lives in an attempt to get a sari, an election bribe masquerading as a birthday gift. The cost of the sari was a measly Rs 40. Hindutva also got a smooth entry into many prestigious institutions of learning and in school textbooks, especially history. Most of these books seem to be coming straight out from the RSS stable and thus its ideological poison can be spewed through the network of schools. India stands at the crossroads—Hindu rashtra or a secular democracy? The threat posed by Hindutva goes far beyond the electoral process. The poison has penetrated all levels of civic society through different channels of religiosity, the media, and cultural bodies. Hindutva politics has the proud privilege of operating through scores of organizations: BJP being the one on the electoral chessboard, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) being

Introduction

19

a conglomeration of sadhus and traders, Bajrang Dal being the storm troopers, and Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram carrying the Hindutva agenda to tribals in remote places, in places where they can later burn the likes of Pastor Graham Stewart Staines. The deeper connections of Hindutva politics and the US and its allies need to be brought out in some detail. Is it a coincidence that the RSS was pursuing an anti-communist tirade precisely during the McCarthy era? Is it a mere coincidence that it supported US policies on Vietnam earlier and in Iraq and Afghanistan recently? At some point this politics can go on to take the form of violence, a violence which essentially is one of cowards, directed against the weak. RSS followers were known to have bowed before the British in the past, and are now doing so in front of Uncle Sam in a shameful manner.

THE PRESENT STUDY The chapters in this anthology aim to grapple with different aspects of the problem at the global and national levels. Since the dynamics of contemporary politics is laced in the language of religion, it is imperative that we have a bird’s eye view of religion itself. Ram Puniyani in his chapter points out that when we use the word ‘religion’, it cannot indicate a single specific phenomenon. Since religion has multiple facets—prophets, holy books, places of pilgrimage, community functions, ethical values, and clergy—one should be specific as to which facet of religion is being talked about. Since in the current discourse it is generally not specified, it comes to mean followers of that religion and the clergy. The holy people associated with religion can broadly be put in two categories, those in alliance with the socially powerful like the clerics, an alliance most visible during feudal times, and the saints who are close to the ordinary people. In today’s parlance, the word religion is totally bereft of its ethical and moral content and its followers’ ways are used to characterize that religion. The clergy also presents itself as the sole representative of that religion. In the global context today, it has often become the rallying point of those being persecuted for political reasons. The clergy plays a double role; it puts up a front to the invading power, and it upholds the status quo in social relationships. At yet another level, the clergy has also identified itself with the politics in the name of religion. All said and done the major point which emerges is that, in most

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cases the use of the language of religion creates an emotional, blinding effect, a mass hysteria in which the powers that be are able to execute their social agenda fully. The socio-economic roots of politics are very crucial to understanding the political phenomenon. Krishna Ananth traces the economic developments in India and the economic compulsions which led to the need to promote the public sector and the consequent rise of the middle classes. Undoubtedly, the poor have been the victims of the economic policies pursued so far. A fall in the growth of employment generation and rise of the middle class has resulted in policies which undermine the public welfare as the affluent middle class does not depend on social welfare anyway. Liberalization, globalization, and privatization have adversely affected the poor. At a deeper level, this phenomenon has gone handin-hand with the rise of religion based politics. While parties which relied on communal feelings existed earlier also, it’s with the advent of the ill effects of globalization that communalism started gaining a stranger foothold, first through the Congress and later though the BJP and its multiple affiliates. One recalls here that communalism is again rooted more in the middle classes who have been the biggest beneficiaries of the economic development, and who may fear that they stand to lose what they have if the lower classes start fighting for their economic and social rights. The global scenario has been marked by another accompanying phenomenon—terrorism. While the concept of terrorism is difficult to define, it is easy to put into practice. This term came to the fore with a different vehemence and aggression after the 11 September attack on the WTC. As such terrorism associated with Muslims has been around since the middle of the twentieth century, in particular after the formation of Israel and the displacement of close to a million Palestinians. Later the same phenomenon was consciously promoted through the Al Qaeda which was formed to evict the Soviet forces from Afghanistan. Thomas Sebastian argues that while we are made to believe that only the likes of Osama bin Laden are terrorists, it is the US itself which is the root cause of the genesis of terrorism. Its aim is to have a control over global political and economic order and prevent the emergence of any other competitive power. Interestingly, the so-called war against terror is generally aimed against those very forces which were products of US machinations; be it Osama bin Laden or Saddam Husein, they have all been beneficiaries or products of US policies. Looking at the same topic from another angle, Jawaid Quddus points out that the present tendency to equate terrorism with Islam has been constructed for political reasons. It so happens that Islam is followed in

Introduction

21

areas which are rich in oil. Quoting from the Quran, Quddus points out that it does not support violence against innocents, which is what terrorism is. Islam came as a message of peace in the war ravaged Arabian society. It outlined the norms of peace between different individuals and also focused on the rights of women. In India also, contrary to popular perceptions it spread through peaceful means, through the teachings of Sufi saints and also through the interaction with Arab traders. The Muslim kings did use it occasionally to humiliate their opponents, but that again was primarily a political move and had nothing to do with Islam itself. The present projection of Islam as a terrorist religion is a political ploy of the imperialist powers with an aim to control the oil resources by politically controlling the countries producing it. He also cites examples from different countries where those belonging to practically all the religions of the world have resorted to terrorism. Socio-economic circumstances lead to this phenomenon and not religion per se. While hostility between religions is prevalent, people-to-people interaction binds them socially. J.J. Roy Burman, who has systematically studied such social interactions in different parts of India, outlines the basics and dynamics of such a process in Bengal. Bengal was where the Islamic tradition, Sufism, and Hinduism were widely prevalent. It was during the medieval period that both the Sufi and Bhakti traditions flourished and influenced each other to a great extent. The likes of Satya Pir, Ramdeo Baba Pir symbolize this culture. Like other Indian states, Bengal is full of shrines dedicated to pirs. Popular songs of folk groups, which permeates the average people of Bengal, similarly intermixes traditions. Burman argues that religious divides do not bother common people whose search for spirituality is not bound by any religious rigidities. These traditions shared another peculiar characteristic, sidetracking the clergy and rituals associated with the elite traditions of religion. While common people were unmindful of religious boundaries, the elite of society who felt threatened due to the rise of lower sections in the wake of industrialization, education, the possibility of land reforms, and elimination of nobility were the ones to use religion in the political space. The Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha-RSS were such formations and they, though appearing to be opposed to each other, shared a lot in common. One of the major factors shared was their aloofness from the freedom struggle. They were critical of the national movement and the values it represented. Shamsul Islam in his detailed and wellreferenced study points out that those who claim to be the major champions of nationalism today had nothing whatsoever do with the struggle

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for India’s independence. The role of three major icons of the RSS is brought out very well in his chapter. Hedgewar did go to jail but with different goals, M.S. Golwalkar called the freedom struggle reactionary and advised his followers not to have anything to do with it, while Vajpayee, who was arrested as a case of mistaken identity during the 1942 Quit India movement, was quick to give a letter to the British seeking his release. He also gave the names of the leaders of the movement in his village Bateshwar. They were subsequently jailed for their participation in the freedom struggle. Currently, the Hindutva camp has been on the rampage as it is flush with funds. Their so-called social work hides their spreading of hatred against the minorities and the subsequent violence. It has come to be known that large amounts of money for this divisive politics is coming from the non-resident Indians (NRIs). What makes Hindus settled in the US or UK fund these organizations has been investigated by a group of Indians committed to secular values. They also came out with a campaign, Stop Funding Hate, which was aimed at apprising the US corporations about the real intent and purpose of this charity, which is being routed through official channels. The psychosocial aspects of this issue are brought out by Jawaid Quddus in his second chapter in this volume. He traces the historical roots of the phenomenon, why a diaspora is formed, what memories it lives with and what compels it to keep these fresh, to contribute for the welfare of its homeland and yet support identity-based organizations for whom social welfare is a mere facade. The core agenda of religion-based politics is to promote the interests of the elite and middle classes of society; the poor and exploited are not the focus. How does its agenda reflect the needs of the poor and exploited sections of society? How does its work reflect its faith in the caste and gender hierarchy? Prakash Louis reflects on these questions by showcasing the elitist nature of its programmes and agenda and the plight of Adivasis, Dalits, workers, women, and minorities under the spell of Hindutva politics. Manjari Katju takes off from there to outline how this formation can mobilize the same sections of population it wants to oppress. The mechanism by which it is able to project a monolithic image of Hindus and the use of identity and other emotional issues to mobilize and coopt these sections into the politics of the Hindu right are well brought out in her chapter. Katju traces the machinations of the Sangh Parivar in making its forays in different sections of society, its creation of an ‘external’ image in Muslims, and to ensure that its mobilization is translated into electoral gains for the BJP. Needless to say, the biggest example

Introduction

23

of this mobilization is the Adivasis among whom the BJP is has gained a lot of electoral ground. Anand Teltumbde, in his chapter, outlines the relationship between the Dalits and Hindutva. According to him, the upper caste origins of the RSS are not a coincidence. Their ideological connections with the Italian Fascists and their fascination for the genocide conducted by Hitler tell a deeper tale. As Dalit aspirations were articulated, a section of brahmins, felt threatened and went on to construct the whole ideology of Hindutva, which is an anathema for democracy. Democracy is the system which is a prerequisite for the struggles of the downtrodden to achieve social equality. The whole Hindutva project is aimed at subjugating the Dalit’s agenda, culture, and rights. That it is capable of projecting itself as nationalism shows cleverness, an essential ‘virtue’ of brahminism. Vibhuti Patel broadens the issue into one in which the politics of fundamentalism, communalism, and gender justice are related. Suppression of the quest for gender equality is one of the major targets of fundamentalists, or for that matter any narrow nationalists including the fascists. She delves in detail about the status of Hindu women, and Hindutva politics. How Hindutva promotes the belief in gender hierarchy through different programmes is also highlighted. There are umpteen examples where the leaders of the Hindu right, the ones working on the women’s front of Hindutva have defended the abominable practice of sati (immolating a widow on the funeral pyre of her husband), women’s primary role as mothers and the like. While Hindutva suppresses Hindu women’s rights, it does not hesitate in shedding crocodile tears for the plight of Muslim women. In the wake of Shah Bano’s case, Hindutva took up the case for a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) to ‘reduce’ the exploitation of Muslim women. The arguments of Flavia Agnes come in the backdrop of the understanding that gender justice cannot be achieved in a single sweep in a community, especially when physical violence is the norm. Gender justice can be achieved by working for reforms of personal laws, religion by religion. Her passionate defence of the case of reforms should provide the basis of striving towards gender justice, and just laws cutting across communities should be uniform in the proper sense of the term. Madrasas have been in the news for wrong reasons. The places where the poor from the minority community study due to the lack of better facilities have been labelled as the breeding ground of terrorism. Another myth which has been spread is that Muslims are educationally backward. Ranu Jain deals with this issue in earnest to show that the uniform picture

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Ram Puniyani

of the community does not reflect this at all. The diverse trends among the Muslims are similar to the trends amongst other communities as well. The longing for education is guided by the sociopolitical situation. It is true that many Muslims are satisfied with a lower level of education, a level satisfying their needs of reading and writing and adequate for running their business. However, there are other enlightened trends as well, reflected by various movements for educational excellence within the community. The purpose of this broad generalization is not to alleviate the lot of the community but to further political goals. With the BJP-led government in power, the Hindu right also targeted the second largest minority, the Christians. As per their equating of Hindus as Indians, Christians and Muslims do not belong to this category and so they do not deserve the status of citizens at par with those whose religions originated in this land. The Christian missionaries in pursuit of their religious goals have been living in remote villages amongst the Adivasis. They have also established some of the best educational and health institutions in cities. But the urban institutions are not the target of the wrath of Hindu right. It is the work of missionaries in remote villages which has come under attack, based on the propaganda that Christian missionaries are converting the gullible Adivasis by force and fraud. The statistical data totally refutes this concoction but that does not matter; on such a ‘charge’ was Pastor Staines burnt alive and many other missionaries attacked. Hindutva’s upswing was crystallized in the state of Gujarat in the starkest manner. Here, social and political circumstances coalesced and ‘Hindu rashtra in one state’ came into being. Gujarat was hailed as the Hindu rashtra laboratory and a controlled experiment is underway here to intimidate and browbeat the minorities. This was unleashed systematically through a genocide, in which the state played a dubious role. The social and political backdrop of Gujarat is outlined by Uday Mehta, who looks at the specific factors of Gujarat which made it the ideal candidate for the experiments of Hindutva. It is a state where the reform movements have remained weak and the middle class, the rich peasants, and traders have remained the dominant force. The members of these families have been minting dollars and pounds from the Indian diaspora which, due to its own identity crisis, supports the obscurantist agenda of Hindutva. It is also a state which witnessed the worst of the anti-Dalit riots as a prelude to the anti-Christian and anti-Muslim violence. Gujarat in a way has become the benchmark for Hindutva forces to emulate in other states, and for the democratic forces to learn lessons from so that they can work

Introduction

25

in a direction which will ensure that another Gujarat does not happen and democracy prevails. The horrific Gujarat violence, apart from being a blot on our democracy, also shamed the whole nation. It is another matter that it was paraded by the Hindu right as the glory of Gujarat. Many human rights groups and concerned sociologists investigated the tragedy and wrote excellent reports on it. Rowena Robinson and D. Parthasarathy bring out the salient features of the significant reports. The reports make it clear that the violence was no spontaneous outburst. It was planned for a political purpose. It took place in the backdrop of the declining electoral fortunes of the BJP and led to the polarization of communities on religious lines which resulted in the BJP’s victory in the following elections. The planned nature of the violence was clear and women suffered the most. The violence against women of the ‘other’ community is the nadir of communal violence; driven by communal ideology, which in turn believes that women are the property of men, it can think of no better way to punish its enemies than violating ‘their’ women.

WAR

ON

TERROR

Two clearly discernible but deeply disturbing phenomena emerge from the current political scenario. The global scene is dominated by US policies and the so-called war on terror. Undoubtedly, terrorism itself is the product of American policies framed in its attempts to control the world’s oil resources. The US aim of strengthening democracy has had the opposite result in countries where it has interfered; democratic processes have been demolished there. While terrorism is projected to be the product of Islam, the real reasons of its rise lie in political and social aspects. The weakening of democracy in the oil producing countries has been accompanied by the rise in fundamentalism there. Fundamentalism in turn abolishes the social space and the possibility of struggles for social and gender equality. The pretext of religion is taken for this internal agenda, which is sustained due to the external pressure of the US and its allies. This type of fundamentalism is a direct offshoot of the imperialist agenda to gain control over global resources. The world is also witness to the decline of the UN. This was one institution which had the potential of democratizing nations the world over. The era of the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) is also on the

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decline. The only positive global trend during this period has been the breaking of the boundaries of European nations, leading to the formation of the European Union (EU) and increased interaction of those nations. But it remains a mystery as to why this power conglomerate could not and did not prevent the US onslaughts on Iraq and Afghanistan. The possibility of a unipolar world, led by a single nation is promoting both fundamentalism and terrorism. At home the rise of Hindutva, which approves of US policies in general and their attacks against Muslim nations in particular, is fundamentalism. It in turn promotes fundamentalism amongst the Muslim minority mainly due to the ghettoization subsequent to violence and genocide directed against them. While the Hindu right fuels fundamentalism in the threatened communities, its own core agenda is that of reversing the process of caste and gender equality, which has come up in a small measure postindependence. One understands that this cover of religion is essentially an attempt to deprive the weaker sections of their rights in a democratic polity. This kind of politics takes shelter in the name of religion because it is difficult to oppose any phenomenon based on emotions, especially emotions rooted in religion. The core question pertains to the values of democracy, globally and at home. Breaking the barriers of hierarchies is a very difficult task, especially in the post-colonial states. Its deeper link to the problems inherited from the colonial era is visible. The imperial policies are strengthening the same set of notions even today wherever their field of influence goes. How do weak nations overcome religion-based politics? How do weak communities overthrow the powers which are trying to impose religion-based politics? These are challenges posed to those striving for a humane and just world order. The rights of nations and the rights of individuals are at stake. Religion-based politics is stalking the world to trample both these rights. The need for a global movement to overcome the stranglehold of imperialism, the need for concerted efforts to strive for affirmative safeguards for the weak, gender and social equality for women and Dalits respectively, and the need for an uncompromising defence of human rights is long overdue.

RELIGION: OPIUM

OF THE

MASSES

OR . . .

1

RAM PUNIYANI

D

efinitions of religion are undoubtedly controversial. While most people define religion based on their own perception of it, most of these definitions have diverse elements. Religion is a multifaceted phenomenon. The last three decades have seen the rising global dominance of religion in various forms. Since the global movements for national liberation have gone through a new phase in their trajectory, the global debate is centering round religion in some form or the other. In Ayatollah Khoemini’s Islamic revolution, Taliban’s excesses in Afghanistan, Samuel Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilization’ theory or Hindutva’s campaign against the weaker sections of society for building a Hindu rashtra (nation), the language of religion is all pervasive.

RELIGION

IN

SOCIAL SPACE

Today one is witness to the presence of religion in the social space all around. The sociopolitical scene in India over the last two decades has witnessed political issues based on religion. Religious conversions, Shah Bano case, Ram temple movement, Babri Masjid demolition, and ‘Islamic terrorism’ present a picture of India different from the one in the earlier decades of the republic. This scene is duly backed by the rise of religiosity in different walks of life. Asaram Bapu, Aniruddha Bapu, Pandurang Shastri Athwale and their ilk draw large followings. Visits to the temple and functions there have become major events of communities. The media

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is devoting more space on the discourses of swamis and saints, and columns on religious values and religious functions are aplenty. Television serials depict the ‘guiding role’ of the clergy and there are special channels like Astha, Sadhana, and Sanskar to propagate particular versions of religiosity. In films the struggling middle class hero of the previous decades has been replaced by the rich patriarch constantly in touch with the priest for guidance in his regular affairs. ‘Current events in India reveal the continuing importance of religious nationalism . . . the religious aspects of Indian Nationalism have yet to receive adequate attention’ (van der Veer 1998). The NRIs are importing priests, building grand temples, dime a dozen, in the countries they live in, and helping the religious campaigns and their associated political hate propaganda here, thereby deepening religiosity and religion-based politics in India. Those returning from the Middle East promote madrassas and mosques or temples as per their religious beliefs. The global scene, though not as bad, is equally full of religion laced language. When President Bush used the term crusade to describe the war on terrorism, was he inadvertently revealing religious roots in American patriotism? In short, is religious sentiment, long considered the prime enemy of nationalism, actually one of its founding elements? (Stille 2003)

Samuel Huntington’s thesis of ‘Clash of Civilizations’, based on the conflict between the backward Islamic and advanced western civilization seems to be the hallmark of American policy. ‘Almost daily, the contours of religious nationalism change: new outbursts and incidents bring new reactions, both hostile and conciliatory, from its secular opponents’ (Jurgensmayer 1994). It is not only religion-based nationalism which rules the roost, but also a type of religiosity that has gained prominence today. The understanding of religion fluctuates between religious identities and community on one hand, to moral values on the other. The role of the clergy, which has generally been powerful, especially in feudal time, has become stranger. Their social power has risen along with the rise of religious cults and their following amongst diverse sections of society.

RELIGION: A COMPLEX ENSEMBLE When one talks of religion per se what does one mean, which aspect of religion is one referring to? It is very difficult to provide a comprehensive

Religion: Opium of the Masses or . . .

29

assessment and definition of religion as it encompasses the complex reality of society itself. That is also the reason why there are so many divergent definitions and understandings of religion. Karl Marx analysed the concept of religion thoroughly. He said, ‘Man makes religion . . .. This state, this society produce religion, a reversed world consciousness, because they are a reversed world . . . . Religion is the general theory of the world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in a popular form, its spiritualistic point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn completion, its universal ground for consolation and justification . . . . Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, just as it is spirit of spiritless situation. It is opium of the people’ (Marx 1972). Many classical schools of thought do make a distinction between religion as a complex organization owing its existence and influence to state patronage and in turn being instrumental in strengthening and consolidating the prevailing class and power structure, and religion: as located in popular religious and social movements of the oppressed strata of society articulating their grievances and registering their protest against unjust, inhuman exploitative practices of the dominant classes and striving to restore just, egalitarian social order. Religion as Marx and Engels noted was probably the only effective and accessible institutional mechanism that majority of oppressed masses could use in traditional societies for articulating their grievances. Even in modern societies, such movements continue to play a revitalizing role as reflected (those struggles inspired by liberation theology) in Latin American and social and religious movements of the oppressed strata even in this country, right from early period of Indian history. Numerous sects and cults right from the Mauryan and even earlier period, such as Lokayat, Ajivikas, Buddhist, Nath and Sidddha cults, various Tantric sects, medieval Bhakti and Sufi movements culminating in Mahatma Phule and other social reformers in nineteenth century, articulated the aspirations of oppressed sections of society (Mehta 1998, p. 22).

On a similar wavelength Irfan Habib points out, ‘Religion not only has suppressed popular movements, it has also played a role in uniting the rebels’ (Habib 1995, p. 2). Different sections of society look at different facets of religion. It has two important faces, one the popular religion and two, the state religion. ‘The folk, popular religion is directly linked to the average people’s struggles, aspirations and sorrows. It creates a faith in social life and gives

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solace in the times of crisis; giving it a humane face . . . . On the contrary state religion is promoter of status quo and is against change. It plays a role in suppressing dissent and serving the interests of ruling classes’ (Singh 1995, p. i.).

MULTIPLE FACETS

OF

RELIGION

It is often difficult to decipher what is being said when religion is being talked about. What constitutes religion? While some may identify a religion only with its texts, others bow to a deity and many consider the clergy to be the embodiment of religion. The genesis of religion can help us understand some core aspects of the phenomenon. Nature worship was the predominant aspect of early belief systems. The information about the early stages of religion comes from archeological sources. The consciousness of ancient human beings was oriented more towards practical matters which did not have religious abstractions. This can be called the pre-religion phase. ‘Some Soviet scholars maintain that the period of pre-religion lasted a long time, until the end of Early Paleolithic period, also covering the Mousterian Period (c. 100–40,000 years ago) when Neanderthal man hunted cave bears and other animals’ (Tokarey 1986, p. 9). This is in contrast to the view that religion was inherent in man. Belief in the supernatural goes back to 60,000 years in time. ‘Archeological evidence reveals that Neanderthal man in Near East buried his dead with flowers, tone tools and jewelry’ (Haralombos 1994, p. 455). While it is difficult to define religion and locate the origin of all religions in a single pattern, we can state that the main feature of religion is faith in the existence of a supernatural power. ‘A basic feature of religion, its defining characteristic, is the belief in the existence of souls, supernatural being and supernatural forces’ (Desai 1993, p. 9). Anthony Wallace sums up the essential features of religion: First is the supernatural premise, second are thirteen universal categories of religious behavior, which are intuitively recognized by anthropologists, theologicians and layman alike as the elementary particles of ritual; prayer, song, physiological exercise, exhortation, recitation of texts, simulation, mana (touching things), taboos, feasts, sacrifices, congregation, inspiration and symbolism. At third level, we have described the threading of events of these categories into sequence called rituals and the rationalization of

Religion: Opium of the Masses or . . .

31

ritual by belief. Fourth, ceremonies are organized into complexes, which we have labeled cult institutions. Finally we come to religion of society, which is describable only as a conglomeration of ritual (both calendrical and critical) and belief system, including pantheon, myth and values, whose components are logically well integrated only at the level of cult institutions (Mehta 1998, p. 15).

It is very important to take the dimensions of religion into consideration to avoid confusion when the word religion is generally used. These facts are (a) ritualistic, (b) experiential, (c) the doctrinal, (d) the mythical, and (e) the ethical. Religious experience has been explained thus: ‘No other aspect of religion can have religious worth unless it is enlivened by the subject’s inner experience of the “Divine” . . . . And that means that true religion starts only when it has become a matter of inner experience, an ultimate concern of one’s life’ (Smart 1995, p. 68). The element of revelation is present in all religions. It applies as much to the Vedas as to the Quran or Bible. Transcendentalism is another important ingredient of religious beliefs. Various beliefs are manifested in the form of rituals. Social dimensions of religion relate to the community. Attitudes towards the world and life are manifested in ethical and moral values, with a specific term denoting the same in each religion like dharma in Hinduism, din in Islam, and ethics in Christianity. While all these are important aspects of religion, probably the most influential one is the clergy. The degree and extent of this organization varies in different religions, but the essential factor of the authority of the religion is vested with the clergy. Often when one refers to religion, one does mean the dictates or sanctions of the clergy since they function as the final authority of the religion. Saints, however, are not vested with any divinely ordained authority or the power that accompanies with the political structure. In a way the dimensions of religion can be grouped into two categories, personal and organizational. By personal dimension we mean not only religio-mystical experience but also any beliefs, desires and conative responses that a religious person has . . . . In contrast, there is organized form of religion, which in fact forms a very major part of most people’s religion. It consists in sharing certain rituals with one’s co-religionists, and public profession of one’s faith. Organized religion is also dominated by priests, maulavis and gives far less scope for individual freedom and inner experience. It is also more accessible to mobilization by vested interests (Jhingran 1995, p. 77).

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TYPES

OF

RELIGIONS

Before institutionalized religion existed, religious beliefs were present in the form of animism and naturalism. The pattern of evolution of religions has changed over a period of time with the same religion also undergoing change. Though the following patterns are recognized, it is difficult to say that they succeeded each other chronologically.

ANIMISM Many social scientists do not recognize animism as a religion, preferring to call it a cultural element. Animism is prevalent amongst tribals and it means belief in a supernatural power that organizes and animates the material universe. Animism is based on man’s attempt to answer two questions related to the difference between the living and the dead, and what the human shapes appearing in dreams are. According to one understanding, ‘soul is a spirit being, which leaves the body temporarily during dreams and visions and permanently once one is dead. Once invented, the idea of spirit was applied not simply to man, but also to many aspects of natural and human environment’ (Haralombos 1994, p. 454). ‘Animistic images are spirits of deceased ancestors, souls of living people and personification of forces of nature. The spirits of elements could be benevolent, or, on the other hand they could threaten the well being of mankind. That is why small sacrifices were offered to them, when it was deemed necessary’ (Progress Publishers 1985, p. 19). Animism has close affinities to naturism, a belief that forces of nature have supernatural powers. It is likely that, awed by the power of nature, early man might have personified nature and transformed abstract natural forces into personal agents. Wind, lightning, rain and many such phenomenon became deified and continue to be worshippped.

ETHNIC RELIGIONS Historically these came later than the animistic beliefs. The common features of these religions are their being based on clans. They emerged with the rise of agricultural society. They also reflect the consolidation of various ethnic groups that later became nations. Judaism, Hinduism,

Religion: Opium of the Masses or . . .

33

Shintoism, and Confucianism are some of the religions belonging to this group. Some of the common factors are the daily rituals and practices, like the way food is eaten, the rules of hygiene, performance of ablution rites, and prescription of rules and taboos for interaction within and outside the group.

UNIVERSAL RELIGIONS These religions were founded around the teachings of prophets. There may not be much in common between one and the other. These are prevalent in different parts of the world, cutting across the geographical boundaries. Initially some of these did not have a clear-cut concept of a supernatural power, god. Over time the followers considered the prophets god (for example, Mahavir, Buddha). Jainism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism are the major examples of these.

CONCEPT

OF

SUPERNATURAL

The concept of a supernatural power has been the major component of religions. Even in tribal cults, the spirits have powers which transcend the limits of human perception.

POLYTHEISM Many earlier religions venerated multiple gods and goddesses. This phenomenon generally began with the disintegration of primitive society. These gods generally represent core functions of society; a sort of division of labour prevails among them and there is hierarchy as well. Hinduism, religions of ancient Greece and Rome are major examples of this. A typical feature of Egyptian religious belief was the deification of animals and birds. The town of Memphis worshipped the bull god, Apis, and the hawk-headed sky god, Horus, was worshipped in many towns. In India too we have a plethora of such gods and goddesses: cow, snakes, air, etc. In Babylonia the spirits of local rivers and canals and the spirits of the dead were worshipped. Ancient Iran had mountains and animals as gods. In China nature worship revolved around the earth and mountains.

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TRITHEISM Some religions and religious traditions show the intermediate phase of transition from polytheism to monotheism through tritheism. In these there are three major gods—the creator, the preserver and destroyer regulate the functioning of the world. The Universe and its activities revolves between the three of them. Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh in Hinduism is the major example of this. In Christianity the concept of Father, Son and Holy Spirit prevails as an idea which is quite nebulous, describing more the functions than the physical entities. However, the concept of this triple identity remains subordinate to that of God. It is in this stage that the supernatural assumes a male identity and which continues in the concept of monotheism as well.

MONOTHEISM One god is worshipped instead of multiple gods. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam adhere to this concept. The initial concept of a single god revolves around the physical being of the almighty. In due course, god was regarded as a supreme power who is formless. Many have attributed the status of godhood to some cherished values like truth and nonviolence (Gandhi) and Daridranarayan, god as an embodiment of the poor (Swami Vivekananda).

RELIGION

AS AN INSTITUTION

The clergy emerged in all religions in different forms. Christianity for example attracted the poor, freemen and slaves in the beginning. The state authorities persecuted them. These new followers were organized under the leadership of the Roman community. In due course hierarchy emerged in the religion with the establishment of the clergy. A powerful organized church evolved which played an important role in the political life of the society. Church and crown became the associate centres of power. The division of labour between the King and clergy came to be popularized. The example of Europe shows the role of clergy in a clearcut fashion. While no two social phenomena can be exact duplicates, one can say that the basic premise of the clergy’s role remains the same,

Religion: Opium of the Masses or . . .

35

cutting across all religions. In the hands of the clergy, politics and jurisprudence were considered branches of theology and were treated alike according to the principles prevailing in the latter. Church dogmas were political axioms at the same time and quoting the Bible had the same force as that of law. The clergy always tries to hold back rational thinking and the advance of science as these threaten the belief systems imposed by them. These traditional belief systems support the status quo, the prime aim of the clergy as a political entity. ‘Many scientists had to face inquisitions, imprisonment and other punishments for their scientific discoveries and ideas which had the potential of increasing the role of reason in social affairs. It is because of putting forward of these doctrines that challenged the deeply held beliefs of the Church, that Galileo was condemned, Giardiano Bruno and Servatus were burnt at the stake . . . Islamic science (Koran being the source of all scientific knowledge), and Vedas being fountainhead of most of the knowledge in general . . . are few of the examples’ (Puniyani 2001, p. 43). It is due to this that in Pakistan, where the hold of Mullahs is strong, the concept of djinns as the source of infinite energy is being pushed forward. In India since the coming of Hindutva politics astrology and karmakand (rituals) are being propagated with greater intensity. The role of the church in many Christian dominated countries changed with the advent of modern democracies. Many of the clergy undertook social service as the central part of their activities away from the alliances with feudal lords, who got wiped out due to the process of industrialization. As per the teachings of Islam, there is no official clergy. But de-facto at many places the mullahs did associate with the centres of power. The Islamic countries in most cases could not sustain democracies due to imperialist assaults aimed at controlling their oil wealth. This external interference has also resulted in the mullah’s role in the community becoming stronger.

CLERGY

AND

SAINTS

Of all the aspects of religion, the role and power of the clergy has been most striking. In agricultural societies with their feudal classes and kingdoms, the clergy was the defender of the system of exploitation based on the feudal relations of production. The association of the clergy with

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feudal lords has been the hallmark of feudal power structures, although expressions are different. The structure of clerical organization also remains diverse. In Christianity one sees the church enjoy close relation with the rulers. In Hinduism the king had a rajguru (royal priest) and the landlords had the blessings of the local priest. The revolts of poor peasants derived strength from pre-hierarchical Christian society and medieval mysticism. This opposed the power of the church which oppressed poor peasants. Munzer, deriving values from mysticism, led the poor peasants and attacked the church hierarchy. He repudiated the idea of the Bible being the only and infallible revelation. The role of saints vis-à-vis the clergy is manifested in different forms, there is no universal pattern in this. The opposition to exploitative systems also assumed various forms. ‘Revolutionary opposition to feudalism lasted throughout the middle ages. It took the form of mysticism, open heresy or armed insurrection, all depending on the conditions of the time. As for mysticism it is well known how much sixteenth century reformers depended on it. Munzer himself was largely indebted to it’ (Engels 1972, p. 88). The oppressed masses found sympathizers for their pain and sorrows a healing balm in saints. The impoverished masses who in the earlier phase of civilization were simply slaves and who in the advanced phase, became the property-less working class were henceforth confronted with a dual uncertainty and dual misery; those coming from still uncontrolled nature and those coming from the exploitative machinery of ruling class . . . . This made the life of masses too painful of suffering and uncertainness to be born without some palliative remedy, this was supplied by religion—the belief in God who alone could assure justice, if not right now at least sometime later, if not in this world at least in the afterworld (Chattopadhyay 1987).

It was the saints who offered solace to the deprived. In a way they challenged the power of the clergy. But this challenge was always articulated in a very positive language. They were critical of the established norms of religion and they evolved their own spiritual language which, while totally opposed to that of institutional religion, did create a bond of harmony amongst the poorer sections. Traditions like Lokayat opposed the caste system, the concepts of heaven and hell, and the blind faith propagated by Brahminism. It was through this blind faith that the dominant classes, feudal lords, exploited the poor. Lokayat called for resorting to reason.

Religion: Opium of the Masses or . . .

37

Saints, generally, did not believe in rituals, conform just to religious scriptures, nor invoke the established traditions. Their concept of god or a supernatural power was that of a friend, who is not to be feared as projected in the tradition of the clerics. Thus religion has two parallel traditions, one of clergy and the other of saints. The clergy sides with the oppressors and saints with the toiling masses: To the extent that the subjugated and oppressed class is able to resist the dominance of their oppressors, their ideological hegemony and are able to pose a serious challenge to oppressive religious doctrines, the oppressed can insulate their beliefs which later continue to symbolize defiance . . . . The philosophy of Charvaks, Siddha, Nath Tantra ran parallel religious traditions to the Brahmincal religion, more popular amongst the oppressed, right up to Bhakti movement (Engineer 1998).

Interestingly, in due course many of these traditions themselves are coopted again by the elite religious traditions. While Sai Baba is being Brahminized extensively, Lord Jagannath who was worshipped by Adivasis in Orissa has now become the god of the dominant classes and castes. In India the Bhakti and Sufi saints, though coming from different religious streams, had a strong impact on the masses. Bhakti is probably an outstanding example of the popular trend in Indian religious history. The Bhakti movement began in Tamil Nadu and spread northwards. The saints came from different streams and many of them were from low castes. Bhakti ‘opposed the institutionalization of religion, tried to decentralize it, and declared that it is a private matter. It gave respectability to the separation of state power and religion and merged the concept of God worship with the process of getting knowledge’ (Bhadu 2003, p. 33). The Warkari tradition of Maharashtra was a major trend. Chokhamela, a poet saint coming from a low caste, articulates the sorrow of the poor in his poems, reprimanding god for an unequal society, complaining to him about the world’s cruelty to the poor. The devotion in this trend turns away from Vedic rituals and its teaching differs from the Vedas and Upanishads. Chokhamela in one of his Abhangs, a form of folk poetry, says, ‘We have not read the Holy tomes, we are not experts in the interpretation of Vedant-Dharma but the core of religious teachings, the formless god is standing for us in the form of Vithoba. (Got standing on the brick) and so is accessible to us’ (Sardar 1999, p. 64). Tukaram is one of the most popular saints of Maharashtra. ‘His literature is free from the Sanskrit rich Brahminical literature, which keeps the

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average reader at a distance. Free from Brahminical elitism, Tukaram’s literature has a force to assess the world from a humanistic angle. The deep sympathies which his literature displays for the poor, contributes to enhancing his literary prestige’ (Nemade 1983, p. 9). Travails of poor people are the focus of his work. This Bhakti-based tradition gave respectability to many low castes and also to Muslims. Thereby it was able to pose a challenge to Brahmanism. The Bhakti tradition had specific features. These were to oppose the hegemony of Brahminism, rituals, and the vedic monopoly of the educated elite of society. They uniformly opposed Sanskrit and adopted the languages more popular with the masses. They opposed the prevalent polytheism and talked of one god. In India in particular, Hindu–Muslim unity has been one of the concerns expressed by most of the saints. Tukaram’s literature shows that There was prevalence of blind faith and rational thought was rejected by the dominant streams of society. Brahmins had a total hegemony on the faith, worship and knowledge . . . . Bhakti tradition (Nath, Mahanubhav, Gosavi, Warkari and Dattasampradayi) saints challenged and opposed this Brahmincial exploitation. The inequality in the field of spiritual attainments, which were opposed to the Shudras and women, had religious sanctions. Brahmins had vested interests in maintaining their own monopoly in religious arena . . . . These Brahmins had no problem in serving loyally the Muslim rulers as Diwan, Deshpande and Kulkarni (Ibid., p. 18).

In a way the Bhakti movements were not merely religious. They targeted social evils and opposed the landlord-Brahmin alliance. They propagated social equality and brotherhood. Sufi saints also played a similar role in the social sphere. They opposed the tyranny of the powerful and projected the popular elements of religion. Breaking the barriers of social inequality, they also united the people and struggled against the prevalent orthodoxy and blind faith. Their following came from the lower strata of society, irrespective of religion. Miyan Mir, Baba Farid, Gesudraj, Sheikh Salim Chishti, and Nizamuddin Auliya were revered by all for their humanistic preaching. An event in Nizamuddin Auliya’s life demonstrates how he shunned power and was close to the masses. He once received a message from the emperor to visit his court. Auliya politely declined the invitation. The emperor replied that he would visit Auliya’s shrine. Auliya refused to see the emperor and sent a message that his shrine had two doors, one in

Religion: Opium of the Masses or . . .

39

front and one behind. If emperor came from the front door, Auliya would go out from the back door. The Brahminical stream had its grip on the whole society, fully backed by those in power. This had its expression in the vedic rituals; in contrast the subaltern Bhakti developed its own forms of worship away from the Brahminic norms. ‘The reduction in the emphasis on priest compared to his role in the sacrificial ritual of Vedic Brahmanism gradually led to devotional worship—bhakti—becoming most widespread form of Puranic religion. The Vedic religion had well-defined rituals and was exclusive to the upper castes. The Puranic religion had a far wider appeal’ (Thapar 2002, p. 318). Bhakti tradition manifested in India in diverse forms, ‘As a broad based tradition . . . for the majority religion (Bhakti) remained an area of interplay, accommodation and contestation of a localized kind . . .’ (ibid., p. 351). Bhakti movement gave hope and awakening to the people. People oppressed by the spiritual tyranny of the brahmins got a feeling of their worth in society. This movement rejected the devbhasha (language of gods) Sanskrit and used the languages popular with the masse, like Marathi in Maharashtra and Avadhi in Uttar Pradesh. It came as a breath of fresh air liberating the people from the stranglehold of Brahminism. ‘The rise of Bhakti movement was a rebellion against the idol worship, the oppression of caste system getting manifested through the rigid rituals’ (Mukherji 1999, p. 70). ‘These movements were opposed to the Vedanitst concept of Sanyas, which involves no work. They bridged the gap between Hindus and Muslims’ (Mantri, p. 70). These also had very progressive attitudes on most matters related to the position of women in society. The scholars of syncretism have pointed out that many subaltern traditions defy the rigid classification into Hindu or Muslim in the continent, so thoroughly intermixed are they in their social expression. The ordinary people imbibed the prevalent traditions irrespective of their source if they appealed to them spiritually and socially. ‘Scores of communities scattered across this vast subcontinent still refuse to be neatly categorized as “Hindu” or “Muslim” or whatever, freely borrowing from diverse traditions to create their own way of understanding the world’ (Sikand 2003, p. 3). Kabir and Nanak stand tall as those challenging the authority of the clergy and in turn those in power. Their attempts to establish a religious language which could express the woes of the masses led them away from the power-centred Brahmins and mullahs. Kabir developed a set of values which were against the dominant elite and tried to unite people from both

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Ram Puniyani

religions. He denounced the caste system and was against untouchability in particular. ‘He upheld fundamental unity of man, and was opposed to all kinds of discrimination between human beings, whether on the basis of caste or religion, race, family or wealth. His sympathies were with the poor man with whom he identified himself’ (Chandra 1990, p. 127). Nanak was a mystic and he composed and sang verses to the accompaniment of the rabab, a string instrument played by his follower Mardan. He visited Mecca, Medina, Sri Lanka and other places searching for knowledge. Like Kabir he also denounced rituals, idol worship, and formal observances. He aimed at bridging distinctions between Hindus and Muslims in order to create an atmosphere of peace, goodwill, and mutual interaction. ‘Nanak and Kabir both insisted that they were neither Hindu nor Muslim, along with other similar iconoclasts, and defied the might of Brahmins and Mullahs’ (Sikand 2003, p. 9). The followers of both these major saints were the poor and oppressed sections of society. The story of Nanak in which he preferred to have meals at the house of a weaver Bhago declining the hospitality of the landlord is fairly representative of his social affiliation. The story in a symbolic way shows Nanak’s opposition to the landlords as their income is laced with the blood of the oppressed. The sufi tradition is basically derived from the teachings of Islam. The sufis have a mystical bent of mind and deeply spiritual. They were disgusted by the vulgar display of wealth and power. Hence they kept away from the state. There were many similarities between the ideas of sufi saints and Hindu Bhakti saints. They chose the Hindvai or Hindi language to converse with the people and many of their verses are composed in Hindi.

SECULARIZATION At a formal level the relationship between the state and religion varies in the modern nations. In England Anglican Christianity is the state religion and the monarch is the head of the church as well as the state. But British society is highly secularized. ‘The British state despite being associated with Christian denomination, enacts laws on secular considerations and is hardly motivated by Anglican Christian dogmas. Indian state, on the other hand, is secular and is not associated with any religious dogma but Indian society is highly religious, and the state despite its

Religion: Opium of the Masses or . . .

41

professed secularity and neutrality towards religion, its acts often come under the influence of one or the other religion’ (Engineer 1998, p. 15). The beginning of industrialization set into motion various changes, which had deep and profound effects on human thought and institutions. In Europe, the clergy started losing its grip on social and political affairs and social thought. Social norms started developing around modern rationality. It marked the beginning of ‘age of reason’ and a break from the ‘age of faith’. The former had its roots in science and technology and latter in interpretation of the word of God, its imposition of ideologies in the name of religion and the use of emotions of people to smoothen the exploitative system of feudalism. Historically this shift first occurred in the West where it manifested itself in the struggle between Church and state (Puniyani 2003, p. 185).

The church here represented the declining forces of feudal lords while the rising classes of industrialists, workers and women marched forward with the banner of rationalism. ‘This process assumed the undisguised role of displacing aspects of religion and faith manufactured by clergy to the private lives of the people, freeing social life from the constraints of orthodoxy and obscurantism . ..’ (Ibid.). This was the major change in the role and status of religion in the social life. In the Indian context this process had a very different manifestation. Transformation towards a secular society remained slow and weak. The efforts of Jotiba Phule, Savitribai Phule, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar, Periyar Ramasamy Naicker and their like were scattered all over the country trying to get rid of the Brahminical hold. Burning of Manusmriti was the high point of the assertion of this process. Even till date this process is not complete with the result that the hold of Brahminism continues. While the social stratum trying to escape the tyranny of the clergy derived strength from reason, the politics of declining classes based itself on Islam (Muslim League) and Brahminical version of Hinduism (Hindu Mahasabha-RSS). The freedom movement was the most powerful movement which marched a bit towards secularization. The post-independence rapid change in caste and gender relations started breaking the dominance of the clergy. However, post-1980s the process seems to be reversing itself and retrograde forces are at work. Parallel to this has been the rise of the acharyas and mahants and various gurus who have been preaching the values of

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the Manusmriti in modern language, even quoting an odd scientist here and there to derive legitimacy for imposing their domination on societal affairs. The VHP which has emerged as a major retrograde force has politicized the sadhu clans, communalized the social space and also created new institutions around its sociopolitical agenda. Our neighbour Pakistan had a worse time. Right from the beginning the grip of mullahs on the state had been strong. This became more manifest after Zia-ul-Haq came to power. While India is being pushed from a secular terrain to one dominated by religion, Pakistan is already deep in that terrain.

RELIGION TODAY Some scholars had predicted earlier that religion would decline or disappear with the process of secularization. Secularization is not complete in many parts of the world. The move of Communist party to ban churches in the USSR was a dismal failure; with the collapse of the socialist states, people are thronging to churches. In advanced western countries also, the social visibility of religion persists and is growing stronger at places. The current ascendance of politics in the name of religion is accompanied by various religious people. Many of them use the prefix sant, acharya, guru. The famous ones amongst these are Asaram Bapu, Pandurang Shashtri Athwale, Jaya Gurudev, Aniruddha Bapu, Ma Amritanand mai, Sudhanshu Maharaj and Sri Sri Ravishankar. These again have multiple roles, from assuaging tense nerves in an intensely competitive society to providing newer versions of Manusmriti-based systems. Some of them do it overtly like Pandurang Shashtri Athwale and Asaram Bapu, while others focus on calming nerves distressed by prevalent existential anxieties. The medieval saints had a way of expressing the pain and sorrow of the feudal-Brahminical system. The present genre of ‘saints’ are in a way upholders of status quo and providing raison de etre for the retrograde political trajectory of the society. ‘Traditional urban Brahminism is finding a rejuvenation in the new discourses of the new preachers, so called Maharshis, Brahmkumaris and their likes’ (Bhadu 2003, p. 129). The current expressions of religion are an accompaniment of the politics of Hindutva, which aims to bring back the rigid hierarchical society in a modern garb. Mediaeval saint tradition was the high point of

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India’s history. The current popularity of the so-called saints is a political accompaniment of Hindutva, its social infrastructure so to say.

REFERENCES A Dictionary of Believers and Non-Believers (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1985). Bhadu, Rajaram, Dharmasatta aur Pritirodh ki Sanskriti (New Delhi: Rajkamal, 2003). Chandra, Satish, Medieval India (New Delhi: National Council of Education Research and Training, 1990). Chattopadhyay, Debiprasad, Religion and Society (Banglore: Ma Le Publishers, 1987). Desai, A.R., ‘Introduction’, in Uday Mehta (ed.), Modern Godman in India (Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1998). Engels, Friedrich, ‘The Peasant War in Germany’, in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, On Religion (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972). Engineer, Irfan, in A.A. Engineer and U. Mehta (eds), Religion, State and Secularism (Delhi: Ajanta Publications, 1998). Habib, Irfan, in Kunwarpal Singh (ed.), Bhakti Andolan: Itihas aur Sanskriti (Vani, 1995). Haralombos, M., Sociology: Themes and Perspectives (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994). Jurgensmayer, Mark, Religious Nationalism Confronts Secular State (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994). Mantri, Ganesh, Gandhi aur Ambedkar (Delhi: Prabhat Prakshan, 1999). Marx, Karl, ‘Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’, in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, On Religion (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972). Mehta, Uday, Modern Godman in India (Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1998). —–———, ‘Secularism, Secularization and Modernity: A Sociological Perspective of the Western Model’, in Asghar Ali Engineer, Secularism, Secualirization and Religion: Western and Indian Experience (Delhi: Ajanta, 1998). Nemade, Bhalchandra, Tukaram (Delhi: Sahitya Academy, 1983). Puniyani, Ram, ‘One India One People’, Science Society and Politics, Mumbai, January 2001. —–———, Communal Politics: Facts versus Myths (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2003). Sardar, G.B., Social Impact of Saint Literature. Quoted in Ganesh Mantri, Gandhi aur Ambedkar (Delhi: Prabhat Prakashan, 1999). Sikand, Yoginder, Sacred Spaces: Exploring Traditions of Shared Faith in India (New Delhi: Penguin, 2003). Smart, Ninian, ‘The Religious Experience of Mankind’, in Saral Jhingran (ed.), Secularism in India (New Delhi: Har Anand Publications, 1995). Stille, Alexander, ‘Historians Trace an Unholy Alliance: Religion and Nationalism’, New York Times, 31 May 2003. Thapar, Romila, The Penguin History of early India (New Delhi: Penguin, 2002). Tokarey, Sergi, History of Religion (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1986). Veer, Peter van der, Religious Nationalism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998).

GLOBALIZATION AND COMMUNALISM: LOCATING CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN THE CONTEXT OF LIBERALIZATION1

2

V. KRISHNA ANANTH

I

t is now over over 10 years since the idea of a ‘socialistic pattern’ of development, the model that the Indian ruling classes had adopted at the dawn of independence (Nehruvian socialism), and the rhetoric associated with it were officially given up. On 21 July 1991, Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh, obtained parliamentary sanction for his economic policy resolution.2 The decade also witnessed a rise in the use of idioms that accord no importance to the inequities that exist in the socioeconomic order that was perpetuated by the elite who captured the Indian state apparatus at the time of independence. It is, hence, not mere coincidence that political discourse began to move in a direction that clearly attempted to negate the fundamentals of the republican Constitution rooted, at least in theory, in principles of democracy and its integral values such as the rule of law and a commitment to egalitarian values.

1 This chapter was written when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance was in power. Though the Congress, in alliance with a few regional outfits and the Left parties, wrested power and a new government with Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister was sworn in (on 22 May 2004), I do not see this change as significant at least in the ideological sense, especially in the context of the focus of this chapter. 2 The debate over the resolution in Parliament was an occasion when the ruling party (the Congress) received support from the main opposition party—the BJP—to this qualitative change in the economic policy. The BJP’s floor leader had just one qualification to make while endorsing the shift away from Nehruvian socialism. Mr Jaswant Singh’s point was that the Congress(I) had appropriated the BJP’s economic policy agenda.

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It is necessary to look for links of this nature because turning to religious and other denominational idioms in political discourse is taking place during a period when the living conditions of a majority of the Indian population has gone from bad to worse.

THE WAGES

OF

REFORMS

Notwithstanding the tall claims that the shift in priorities in the economic policy since 1991 helped revive the economy, the liberalization-privitizationglobalization paradigm did not benefit India’s poor. An illustration of this was found in a detailed study by Montek Singh Ahluwalia (incidentally, one known for his unqualified support to the liberalization agenda) in the course of his assignment as chairman of a task force constituted by the Planning Commission of India.3 The report confirmed a steady fall in employment generation and even negative growth in employment. These trends in a country with a billion people cannot but be taken as suggesting a deterioration in the living conditions. The report revealed the following facts. Although there was an increase in employment in the organized sector as a whole during the period between 1993–94 and 1999–2000 from 374.45 million heads to 397 million heads, the increase was just marginal (a mere 22.55 million jobs during the entire period). This, however, does not reveal the complete picture. From an annual growth rate of 2.04 per cent in 1993–94 (when the reforms programme was to have shown its positive results after the initial problems according to the then Finance Minister’s statements) annual growth in employment shot down to a mere 0.98 per cent in 1999– 2000.4 The data presented in the report also showed a significant negative growth in employment in such important areas as agriculture, manufacturing, mining and quarrying, and electricity; even in the area of financial services, a sector that the advocates of the reforms expected to grow in a big way, it was found that the rate of growth in employment was falling. Although the total number of those employed in this sector increased from 3.52 million in 1993–94 to 5.05 million (an increase of about 1.5 3 Report of the Task Force on Employment Opportunities, Planning Commission, Government of India, July 2001. 4 Ibid., p. 22.

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million jobs through the period), it is significant to note that the annual rate of growth had fallen here also from 7.18 per cent in 1993–94 to 6.20 per cent in 1999–2000. The only areas where employment grew (faster than the earlier period) were in the construction industry, trade and transport, storage and communication.5 The most significant aspect of this was the negative growth rate witnessed in employment generation in the public sector. From an annual growth rate of 1.52 per cent in 1993–94, the employment growth turned negative in 1999–2000.6 Apart from the fact that the shrinking of job opportunities in the public sector contributed significantly to the overall gloom in the employment market, the narrowing down of employment opportunities in the public sector had a direct bearing on the increasing resort to the religious idiom by sections belonging to the ruling elite. Those employed in the public sector, the middle classes, have indeed been integral to the nation building project as it was undertaken by the postcolonial ruling elite in India. The study also revealed that unemployment rose considerably in the rural areas during 1993–94 to 1999–2000. The percentage of labour force unemployed in 1999–2000 was almost as high as it was in 1977 in rural India. The progressive fall in the proportion of the unemployed as percentage of labour force that could be achieved in 1987–88 was not sustained and instead, there was a steady deterioration on this front. About 7.2 per cent of the labour force remained unemployed in 1999– 2000, which was an increase by at least 1.6 per cent between 1993–94 (which we may consider the base year for the reforms era) and 1999– 2000. It will be in order to add to this the prevalence of under-reporting of unemployment (by those rendered jobless) or even withdrawing from the process of seeking jobs, especially by women. The situation in the urban areas was no different. The study showed a marginal increase in the percentage of unemployed males while in the case of females, the percentage of unemployed to the total labour force had fallen, though marginally. This could suggest that the new manufacturing units (for export purposes) have opened up avenues for employment and that they prefer women over men to work there. But then, despite this fall in the unemployment figures among women in the urban areas, there is no evidence to suggest any drastic improvment in the wage levels of those employed and their working conditions. The experience with employment 5 6

Ibid. Ibid., p. 35.

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in such manufacturing units that have come up during the reforms era and located, as a rule, on the margins of urban towns, have hardly been promising in terms of labour standards. Trade unions do not, rather are not, allowed to exist in this sector. However, for want of any concrete evidence on this count, it is prudent to refrain from making a categorical statement on this aspect. The experience with the reforms process in the past decade has been the following:

• The reforms process failed to generate jobs on the scale it was • •

expected to. This is evident from the sharp fall in the annual rate of growth in employment between 1993–94 and 1999–2000. The number of unemployed as a percentage of the labour force increased during this period. The increase in unemployment was maximum in the agriculture sector; in other words, a large number of those in rural India were rendered jobless during this period.

THE SOCIALIST TRAJECTORY In the early 1970s, a crisis of a much smaller dimension caused widespread unrest across the country and took the form of a political movement against the establishment. There are, indeed, similarities between the crises across the spectrum—economic, social, and political—that were witnessed in the 1970s and the scenario as it emerged in the last decade of the twentieth century in the wake of the liberalization-privitizationglobalization programme. The mid-1960s was a period when sections within the ruling party attempted a pronounced shift away from the Nehruvian framework in the economic realm. The decision to devalue the Rupee then and the attempts by sections within the Congress to push the free market agenda at that stage was, however, repulsed after Indira Gandhi managed to dominate the Congress. The infirmities that were integral to the manner in which the socialistic agenda was furthered by Indira Gandhi, and also the premises on which the Nehruvian socialist project was based, were behind the distortions that set into the economic policy discourse. This in turn led to the crisis in the late 1980s and the early 1990s that finally forced the ruling

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establishment to justify policy measures that sought the withdrawal of the state from various welfare measures. The welfare state model was central to the working of the democratic agenda over the years and any attempt by the state to dilute its commitment on this front is bound to have an impact on the democratic edifice.7 This chapter will attempt to make sense of the social basis that lends legitimacy to the liberalization agenda from within the context of the dynamics of Nehruvian socialism. This will be followed by a section where I intend to argue as to how the interests of the ruling elite8 had guided, and continue to guide, the agenda of the mainstream political establishment, and establish a connection between this and the attempts now to orchestrate a rightward shift in the political discourse in order to carry on with the liberalization agenda. An understanding based on such an approach will also lead us to conclude that the paradigm shift in the economic policy initiated in July 1991 was a consequence of the Nehruvian definition of socialism rather than a break, in any radical sense, with the past.

THE EMERGENCE

OF THE

MIDDLE CLASSES

A brief foray into the broad features of the economic policy adopted soon after independence is in order here. It is a fact, far too well documented in history, that the political leadership to whom the colonial masters transferred power on 15 August 1947 consisted of men who were opposed to any ideas involving a radical change leave alone a revolution of the communist kind. This was clear in the attitude of the interim government towards the incidents of working class protests; whenever the trade unions organized industrial strikes, most often demanding better living 7 I have discussed this in greater detail in an earlier article on the subject. See V. Krishna Ananth, ‘Political Economy of Communalism: Some Observations on the Contemporary Polical Discourse’, Social Scientist, vol. 29, nos 7–8 (July–August), 2001. 8 I am using ‘elite’ instead of ‘classes’. This, in my view, helps explain the ease with which the political establishment could manufacture a consensus in favour of the reforms even among sections consisting of the organized workforce and the salariat, despite the fact that such reforms in the long term have only affected these sections. Take for instance the squeeze on employment, the retreat of the welfare state and such manifestations of the liberalization agenda that have affected the living conditions of the middle classes in a big way during the past decade.

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conditions (in the post-World War II period), the political establishment under Jawaharlal Nehru (or the provincial satraps of the Congress party) let loose a reign of terror. They vied with each other in this and ordered the police to ‘act’ against any mass action organized by the trade unions or the peasantry, led by and large at that time by the communists.9 The Indian bourgeoisie, assured as it was of independence even while World War II was still on, came out with what was known as the Bombay Plan in 1944.10 Recognizing the need for state intervention in economic activity, the thrust of the Bombay Plan was state investment in infrastructure, particularly in those areas involving huge capital investments and a long gestation period apart from social overheads. Other salient aspects of the Plan were poverty alleviation measures by the state, deficit financing, and state investments in the consumer goods sector (in those areas which involved a long gestation period). Another aspect of this strategy was to erect protective barriers against competition from imports. Radical land reforms and freeing the agrarian sector of its feudal vestiges would have served the same purpose, that is enlarging the domestic market for consumer goods on the lines in which capitalism was built in the East Asian countries. But such a strategy was fraught with dangerous consequences from the point of view of the nationalist bourgeoisie. Its stability could have been challenged by an uprising (even if not a revolutionary upsurge) given the long tradition of mobilization of the small peasantry and the landless in many parts of the country under the leadership of the kisan sabhas.11 The influence of the representatives of the nationalist bourgeoisie over the affairs of the Congress party was so complete by this time, that they were in a position to ensure that the Congress did nothing that would disturb the socio-economic ‘stability’ in rural India. The Nehruvian era witnessed the implementation of the Bombay Plan; a substantially interventionist state and an economy with a sizeable public sector governed in the political sphere by a Constitution that provided for a multi-party parliamentary democracy, was put in place. 9

This aspect has been discussed in detail by historians of the freedom struggle. See A.R. Desai, Social Background of Indian Nationalism (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1959); R.P. Dutt, India Today (Bombay, 1949); Sumit Sarkar, Modern India (Delhi: Macmillan, 1983). 10 Purushottamdas Thakurdas, A Plan of Economic Development for India, vols 1 and 2 (London: Penguin, 1945). The signatories to the plan included J.R.D. Tata, G.D. Birla, Ardeshir Dalal, Sri Ram, Kasturbhai Lalbhai, A.D. Shroff, and John Mathai. 11 This, after all, marks the dynamics of the freedom movement in India and is one of the few areas in Indian history where scholarship is rich. I do not need to elaborate on this.

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Meanwhile, the Congress party under Jawaharlal Nehru could entrench itself in positions of power thanks to its unfettered claims over the legacy of the freedom struggle.12 By virtue of this headstart, the Congress could ensure that the power centres in rural India—the landlords, rich peasants and other sections of the social elite—joined its ranks. At the popular level, the Congress party was seen by the Muslims (in the immediate aftermath of partition) and the Dalits (thanks to the Congress being perceived as having inherited the Gandhian legacy) as their saviour. All these factors meant the Congress as a party could emerge as the natural choice; hence the need to address the challenge of poverty reduction in a concerted manner was not considered important. After all, the Congress party was assured of unflinching support of the poorer sections of society even otherwise.

POVERTY

OF IDEAS

A look at the broad contours of the first three five-year plans (1951–65) will reveal that there was hardly any thrust on tackling poverty; instead, the assumption was that growth along a wide front would translate into poverty reduction. This assumption was not completely off the mark. India did not have to export commercial crops to finance its budgetary transfer to Britain (a system that contributed to an enormous drain of wealth until 15 August 1947). This ensured an increase in foodgrains availability and, by extension, enabled larger amount of foodgrains consumption per head. With a substantial sterling balance India had accumulated during the war years, there was no compulsion to export foodgrains even in order to shore up reserves. This strategy, however, had its own inherent weakness; it depended on regular monsoons and normal harvests. This weakness was revealed in the very first bad harvest after independence in 1964–65, the last year of the Third Five-Year Plan. The 1964–65 food crisis was partly because the year witnessed a much faster expansion of mass demand than before 12

It needs to be mentioned here that, despite playing significant roles in the freedom struggle, the leaders who constituted the socialist block and the communists could not establish themselves on the national political stage as much as the Congress party under Jawaharlal Nehru. Among the reasons could be the fact that the leaders of these two platforms could not stand up to the charisma of Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad or Sardar Patel.

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(the growth registered by this time in the manufacturing and the service sectors leading to higher demands for food grains). This was compounded further by poor harvests for two years in succession: 1964–65 and 1965– 66. For the first time after independence, parts of north India, Bihar in particular, witnessed famine conditions. As much as 20 million tonnes of grains had to be imported to tide over the crisis.13 The five-year plans were truncated and instead annual plans were instituted until 1970. The thrust now was on promoting the use of fertilizers and building irrigation projects. A new regime of grain procurement, subsidised supply of fertilizers and the Food Corporation of India (FCI) were put in place along with the public distribution system (PDS). All these, however, did not prevent in any significant manner the continuing and rapid rise in food prices (which rose faster than the prices of other commodities), causing substantial erosion in the real wages of large sections in rural as well as urban India.14

A REVERSAL

OF

FORTUNES

The outcome of these was the reverses suffered by the Congress party in nine state assemblies across the country in 1967–68. For the first time after independence, the Congress party’s claim to power came under serious threat. Indira Gandhi would see the defeat in the elections to the state assemblies as a mandate against the measures initiated during the brief tenure of Lal Bahadur Shastri. The Shastri era was marked by an attempt to move away from the Nehruvian trajectory in which Indira Gandhi’s detractors in the Congress party too had been active participants, apart from the old warhorses from the Swatantra stable. The 1967 general elections too were significant in this context. The Congress party’s strength reduced substantially in the Lok Sabha.15 The downslide was 13

Prabhat Pattnaik, ‘On the Political Economy of Underdevelopment’, in Prabhat Pattnaik (ed.), Whatever Happened to Imperialism and Other Essays (New Delhi: Tulika, 1995), pp. 43–44. 14 Pattnaik, ‘Recent Phase of Economic Development’, ibid., p. 166. 15 The Congress could win in only 283 out of the 516 Lok Sabha constituencies in the 1967 general elections. The party’s strength in the third Lok Sabha (1962–67) was 361 out of a total strength of 488. The vote share of the Congress party too fell from 44.7 per cent in 1962 to 40.8 per cent in 1967. See David Butler, Ashok Lahiri and Prannoy Roy, India Decides: Elections 1952–1995, Third Edition, 1995, pp. 110–11.

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pronounced in such states as Uttar Pradesh and Orissa where the Congress party’s losses were gains registered by the socialists.16 The 1967 results had a different dimension too. The defeat of such stalwarts as S.K. Patil (from Bombay South Lok Sabha constituency) and the then party president, K. Kamaraj (Virudhunagar assembly constituency in Tamil Nadu) had impacted the dynamics of the Congress party. Patil’s stunning defeat weakened the anti-Indira forces within the Congress party considerably; similarly the reverses in Tamil Nadu (in the State Assembly elections) led to Kamaraj losing his clout within the Congress and vis-à-vis Indira Gandhi. Patil’s attempts, even after his defeat, to push the Congress party into adopting an economic policy that was distinct from the Nehruvian framework failed to find as many supporters as it did before the 1967 elections. The Congress Parliamentary Board held in that context turned out to be the platform from where Indira Gandhi could position herself as the supreme leader of the party. Her summary rejection of Patil’s assessment (of the factors leading to the Congress reverses) was accepted without a murmur.17

THE SOCIALIST HOBBY HORSE In fact, the move to nationalize banks, abolition of privy purses and other such ‘socialist’ programmes such as the determination to strengthen the PDS and enlarge the scope of the public sector further were an integral part of Indira Gandhi’s moves to strengthen her own hold over the Congress party and establish herself against those who constituted the Syndicate,18 rather than as any pointer to her earnest commitment to the 16

The socialist platform had split by this time into the Praja Socialist Party and the Samyukta Socialist Party. Despite this, the two parties had 36 Members of Parliament (MPs) in the fourth Lok Sabha, the highest tally until then. Ibid., pp. 120–21. 17 S.K. Patil had termed the Congress party’s reverses as a fallout of the party’s socialist agenda and advocated a shift to the right. The Hindu, 26 February 1967, p. 7. 18 The Syndicate in the Congress had only reflected and pressed for implementing the long-term prescriptions of the Bombay Plan, which was that the state withdraw from playing its role in industrial activity after the initial gestation period was over in the infrastructure sector and hand over such units in the public sector to the private entrepreneur. See Purushottamdas Thakurdas, A Plan of Economic Development for India, vols 1 and 2 (London: Penguin, 1945).

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principles of socialism. Apart from providing her with power to deal with her detractors, the socialistic agenda also helped stall the decline of the Congress in the following years. The death of Zakir Hussain and the presidential elections in 1969 and the formal split in the Congress party with 62 Congress Members of Parliament (MPs) forming the Congress(O) to join the opposition ranks had, even while rendering the government into a minority, helped Indira Gandhi strengthen her hold on the Congress.19 The landslide win by the Congress in the 1971 elections and the defeat of a majority of those who came to constitute the Congress(O)20 provided the context for Indira Gandhi to persist further with the ‘socialistic pattern’, and an increased thrust on public expenditure in both industry and agriculture.21 The socialistic agenda, however, was only a strategy against the ‘Rightwing’ in her own party. This explains the lack of enthusiasm on her part to take the logical course in this direction, that is meaningful land reforms. While procurement of foodgrains and building up the stock by the state could be carried out without much of a problem, thanks to the strides in agrarian production made possible by the Green Revolution, there was no effective means to check the prices of foodgrains. While increase in foodgrains prices was witnessed in 1972–73, the failure of the monsoons 19

The debate over nationalization of banks followed by Indira Gandhi’s decision to field V.V. Giri against the Congress party’s official nominee, N. Sanjiva Reddy in the 1969 presidential elections, and the developments in that context are far too familiar events and hence do not warrant elaborate discussion here. But they are significant in the sense that Indira Gandhi’s socialistic agenda was influenced by these factors more than anything else. 20 Of the 65 MPs who left the Congress to form the Congress(O) in the fourth Lok Sabha (1967–70), only 11 could get themselves elected to the fifth Lok Sabha. See Subash Kashyap, The Ten Lok Sabhas 1952–1991 (New Delhi: Shipra, 1992), p. 113. 21 The substantial reduction in incidence of poverty was partly the result of higher outlays on poverty alleviation programmes and more rapid economic growth in the 1980s, and partly because we find the emergence of regional parties engaging in competitive populism (I am not using populism in the pejorative sense here), laying stress on supply of food at highly subsidized prices even if it meant using up resources that could be invested in other areas of development. This was practised by, for example, the Left-led governments in Kerala and West Bengal and the Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh. It led to a considerable decline in the percentage of population living below poverty line (BPL) in these states and also to a marginal extent in other parts of the country. Public investment (as measured by gross capital formation) rose from 8.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1980–81 to 11.2 per cent in 1986–87 before falling to 9.5 per cent in 1989–90. See National Acounts Statistics of India (EPW Research Foundation, 2002), p. 72.

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in the following year and the global oil price hike of 1973 led to a sharp rise in the price index. This laid the basis for a popular perception that the Congress government was unresponsive to the needs of the people.22 The most important point here is that, unlike the foodgrains crisis witnessed across the country a decade earlier, the shortage this time was caused by a combination of factors and the failed monsoons was only one aspect. The 1974 crisis was more about rising prices rather than availability of grains and the effect was felt more in the towns rather than the countryside. In other words, there was a crisis of political legitimacy of the Indian state and Indira Gandhi obviously was concerned.

THE MIDDLE-CLASS JUGGERNAUT Of relevance to us in the context of this chapter is the coming into existence of the Indian middle class, estimated to have been anywhere between 10 and 15 per cent of the population by the turn of the century— about 150 million people out of a population close to one billion.23 In other words, the large network of banking as well as other financial institutions, the large units set up under the central (as well as various state) public sector undertakings (PSUs) and the huge army of central and state government employees, constituting the Indian middle classes. Their number, by all means, was large enough even in the mid-1970s and this indeed explains the nature of the upsurge against the regime at that stage. This has a lot of significance in terms of understanding the new economic policy, the domain from where it draws its legitimacy, and the implications of these for the campaign against the liberalizationprivatization-globalization agenda as it unfolded in the past decade. It is 22

Between 1972–73 and 1974–75 (when monsoons failed), the consumer prices increased by 53 per cent. See Handbook of Statistics on Indian Economy (Mumbai: Reserve Bank of India, 2001), p. 49. 23 S.L. Rao and I. Natarajan, Indian Market Demograhic Report, 1996 (New Delhi: NCAER). There may have been some exageration in the figures since the objective behind the study was to sell the idea of investment prospects in India to the foreign investors and they needed to be presented with a rosy picture of the situation. However, there is no reason to dismiss the number in an outright manner and the fact is that we find India turning out to be an important destination for foreign investors, particularly in the area of consumer durables.

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now clear that one of the cardinal features of the 1991 economic policy changes is the pronounced departure from the import substitution model for industrialization (as it was adopted in 1947 and defined as a socialistic pattern of development) in favour of a model where the ‘mantra’ is integration of the Indian economy into the global market. The overarching concern among the policy makers and managers of the Indian economy to contain the fiscal deficit, an idea central to the prescription laid out by the Brettonwoods institutions, assumes significance in this context. There could be nothing wrong with such a concern—that the fiscal deficit be brought down to somewhere between 2 and 3 per cent. But there is indeed a problem with the specifics of the strategy adopted since 198024 for it involves, as its basic principle, the idea to curtail expenditure towards such welfare schemes as supply of foodgrains to the poor at subsidized prices, apart from suggestions that the state withdraw from such development activities as education, health care, etc. The breach in these programmes in the nature of a substantial portion of the subsidy component not reaching the target groups (that the food subsidy for instance does not reach the poor and instead large chunks of the subsidy is spent in maintaining the godowns and the officials involved in these institutions) is an argument held out by the advocates of the new regime to rationalize the idea that the subsidy regime is put a stop to.

THE BURDEN

OF

PLENTY

There is indeed a lot of truth in this. It is a fact that more than half of the resources allocated to food subsidy is consumed in taking care of the storage and transportation costs. The cost of storage and transportation of foodgrains to and from the godowns of the FCI has increased by leaps and bounds and this goes up in direct proportion with the quantum of grains accumulated. Among the reasons for such a huge stockpile is the fact that several state governments have been refusing to take their foodgrain allotments for the PDS. While at the apparent level this might 24

It is important to trace the origins of the 1991 economic policy to at least a decade before the policy was formally announced. In any case, the concern over the fiscal deficit and the need to narrow it down was voiced frequently even before 1991.

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look like the ordinary people (a majority of those who are not part of the 100–50 million strong middle classes who articulate the political and social issues in the popular discourse and whose members revel in establishing that the PDS as a poverty alleviation programme has just not worked) have climbed up the BPL ladder and hence do not need the subsidy regime, the fact is that many of the state governments did not lift the alloted share of grains from the FCI godowns because the poor could not buy grains even if they were sold at subsidized prices.25 In this sense, a larger portion of the subsidy bill is taken up to store the grains, rather than benefitting those for whom the subsidy is intended. The media did highlight this paradox—of starvation amidst food mountains—in political debate once in a while.26 But then, the larger context of the crisis was not internalized by the media. There was no effort (by and large) to place the crisis within the ideological framework of market economy. In other words, the linkages between the prescription— that fiscal deficit be contained by way of cutting down ‘wasteful’ expenditure—and its impact on the offtake of foodgrains meant for such programmes as the food for work, the annapurna and other schemes were not discussed in any detail in the media. This flippant nature of the debate became the basis for unreason of another kind: that there was no point feeding the poor (even if it may help get rid of the food mountains and save them from rotting) because such a step will make them dependant on free lunches even after the surplus stocks are cleared. It was further argued that free distribution of foodgrains would lead to a sharp fall in 25

There are other factors that lead to this paradox apart from the inability of the people to buy even grains that are subsidized. An important one was the callousness displayed by state governments, particularly in those categorized as Backward States in terms of their performance in the area of Human Development Indices, in completing the task of identifying the BPL category for the purpose of issue of special ration cards as envisaged in the Targeted PDS (a concept introduced by the United Front government). This failure to identify the BPL class has left them ineligible to take food stocks from the godowns. Among those state governments guilty of such criminal negligence of duty are the secular dispensation in Bihar, the communal one in Uttar Pradesh as also the Government in Orissa which, by all means, can be described as being headed by someone who is innocent of ideology. 26 The role played by Star News (for whom NDTV was providing the news content then) in unravelling the story of hunger and starvation amidst the food mountains and the impact it managed to make in the minds of a section of India’s intelligentsia was significant. However, the campaign was not carried out for long. The issue of starvation deaths amidst food mountains ceased to concern the newsrooms after 11 September 2001.

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prices of foodgrains and this would have an adverse effect on agricultural productivity. The idea of clearing the surplus stocks by an increased stress on welfare measures such as the food for work programme and an efficient PDS is objected to from another side too. The argument runs as follows: such programmes having become sources of high levels of corruption and mismanagement, will not lead to any poverty alleviation. Interestingly, those who put forth this argument also happen to be from among the 100–50 million crowd. Those responsible for the distortions in these schemes are invariably members of this crowd.

THE REAL BENEFICIARIES The liberalization agenda was seen (and continues to be seen by a majority articulate Indians) as nothing but a liberalized trade set-up; in other words, a process that would allow the movement of commodities (and in effect consumer durables) without any restrictions across countries. Before going into the details, it is pertinent to deal briefly with a crucial aspect of the liberalization agenda in terms of its beneficiaries. The important point here is that one of the pronounced features of the liberalization programme (or the Structural Adjustments Programme or the Globalization agenda) is the shift away from the import substitutionindustrialization model towards a regime that would expose the Indian industry, particularly the manufacturing sector, to competition from outside. In the 1980,27 maturing bourgeosie, more confident of handling external competition, and a burgeoning ‘middle class’ hankering after higher levels of consumption, began pushing for a cautious integration into the global market. The most important aspect of this is the coming of age of the middle classes, constituting the top 10–15 per cent of the population. They are the ones who triggerred a consumption boom (in the 1980s) leading to a significant expansion in the durable goods sector; from an annual growth rate of 8 per cent, the durable goods sector (consumer goods) witnessed a rise in the annual growth rate to 22 per cent 27

Some of the fundamental features of the 1991 Economic Policy can be found in the philosophy that guided the budget proposals even a decade before that. In this sense, it is necessary to go back at least to the 1980s to make sense of any discussion on the economic policy changes and the crisis at the present.

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through the decade.28 This was the time when the idea of market and market economy as the only viable model gained an added sense of legitimacy. The disintegration of the Soviet model, associated so directly with the socialist pattern, added significantly to this process. In other words, the middle classes (the salariat more particularly) do not have to depend on subsidized foodgrains and such other aspects of the welfare state as education, health care and public transport. Instead, a large section of the generation after those who depended on the welfare state have come to constitute the 10–15 per cent of the population and they are the ones who have turned out to be the most vocal advocates of the liberalization regime and also the trenchant critics of the welfare state agenda. Interestingly, communal rhetoric appeals to this section more than anywhere else.

THE COMMUNAL CHALLENGE Despite the falling standards of life across the country, only those issues that centred around faith have dominated the contemporary discourse. The mainstream media as well as sections that play a prominent role in moulding public opinion devote most of their efforts to lament over the spectre of communalism, while the not-so-progressives among the intelligentsia brood over the decline of standards in the bureaucracy due to the measures initiated on 8 August 1990 by the then Union government to set apart a portion of jobs in the central government for members of Other Backward Classes (OBCs).29 The other prominent feature of the contemporary discourse is the legitimization of a militarist project revealed in such blatant fashion in the wake of the Kargil conflict in 1999 and the euphoria over the BJP-led government’s decision to embark upon 28

This includes such durables as a refrigerator, two-wheel automobiles, television sets, telephones; anyone with memories extending back to just a couple of decades will understand the significant changes these gadgets have brought about in the nation’s thought process.The increasing insensitivity to the larger good (more particularly to the fall in standards of life among the poor and the unorganized sections of society) that marks the behaviour of the middle classes, the professionals so to say, is certainly a consequence of this. 29 Sukumar Muralidharan, Mandal, Mandir and Masjid: ‘Hindu’ Communalism and the Crisis of the State (Madras: Indian School of Social Sciences, 1990).

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a nuclear adventure in May 1998.30 While the distortion of the democratic agenda was effected in such pronounced fashion by the BJP-led government along with the other associates of the RSS, the political establishment, including the main opposition party the Congress(I), had hardly shown any conviction to resist the march of the right. The challenge is sought to be defined as merely an attempt by the RSS to vitiate the political context by infusing concerns of faith into the discourse. There are serious problems with this approach. For instance, it fails to explain why such slogans and idioms began yielding political dividends in the past few years and not earlier. The right wing project based on conjuring up images of the Hindu faith being in danger31 and the consolidation of the Hindu identity in the political context should have found far greater appeal in the immediate aftermath of the partition-related violence. That was when a section of the Hindu community had suffered and even witnessed the killing of their brethren or had to leave behind their wealth and property before migrating to India. The RSS and the Jan Sangh could hardly find a place in the democratic discourse at that stage even if it is true that its ranks were associated in a big way in the agitations carried out in that context.32 In other words, the agitations of the 1970s 30

The striking feature of the discourse that surrounded the 11–13 May tests at Pokhran was the wide consensus in favour of the agenda among the political establishment and the desperation shown by the leadership of a cross section of the political spectrum to be seen as favouring the idea of exercising the nuclear option even while wanting to distance from the BJP-led NDA government. See V. Krishna Ananth, ‘The Politics of the Bomb:Some Observations on the Political Discourse in India in the Context of Pokhran II’, in M.V. Ramana and C. Rammanohar Reddy (eds), Prisoners of the Nuclear Dream (Delhi: Orient Longman, 2003). 31 This indeed is the core of the RSS agenda and the Bharatiya Jan Sangh (until 1977) and the BJP (since its inception in 1980) had articulated this line without any let-up. 32 It is a fact that the rising tide of protests in the mid-1970s had provided the right wing with an opportunity to enter the democratic space. But it is necessary to point out at this stage that the leadership of these movements cannot, by any means, be attributed to the right wing. Instead, these were instances when the mainstream Left revealed its weakness and ideological incoherence and left the space vacant for the right wing to appropriate. The massive railway strike of 1974, for instance, was not led by the Left unions; see Stephen Sherlock, The Indian Railways Strike of 1974 (New Delhi: Rupa, 2001). Similarly, the role of the Left, the Communist Party of India (CPI) in particular in the anti-corruption movement in Bihar during the early and mid-1970s was far from positive. While the formal position of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was to support the JP movement, the physical presence of its own ranks in the movement was at best marginal, notably in the Hindi speaking regions where the movement had taken a mass character. See Minoo Masani, Is JP the Answer? (Delhi: Macmillan, 1975).

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did not help the Jan Sangh or the BJP to emerge later on as the alternative to the Congress at that stage. While in the post-emergency situation, the anti-Congress forces would gather only around the persona of Jayaprakash Narayan—who was popularly known as JP—committed so firmly to the principles of Gandhian socialism,33 the sequence of events leading out of the dual membership controversy within the Janata Party just months after its formation revealed a concerted attempt on the part of the Lohiaite socialists to cleanse the scene of the Jan Sangh elements.34 This development within the Janata experiment and the socialist agenda in that context is significant in understanding the communalisation of the political discourse in most parts of northern India and Uttar Pradesh in particular. With a fairly large number of Brahmins (over 10 per cent of the population) and the vestiges of the vedic culture so strong, the Congress party in Uttar Pradesh remained immune from the changes in its own units elsewhere (Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Gujarat) where the leadership passed over to members from among the OBCs. In the case of Uttar Pradesh, the first two Chief Ministers—G.B. Pant and Sampoornanand— were Brahmins and, more importantly, ones who were firmly committed to the idea that the vedic civilization represented the pinnacle of India’s ‘national’ culture. Even after the Congress party began annointing nonBrahmins as chief ministers in later years, the party organization was dominated by Brahmin leaders even through the 1970s.35 While this resistance within the Congress to change (in the sociopolitical sense) assisted the growth of a socialist opposition, the record of the Congress party in the area of governance and the overall slowing down of the economy leading to underemployment in the agrarian sector, as well as the distortion of the various welfare schemes by the political contractors 33

The evolution of JP from one committed to conventional Marxism and an advocate of the socialist model as it worked in the former Soviet Union into trenchant critic of the same in later years and his transition into a Gandhian is traced so succintly by Minoo Masani. See Masani, Is JP the Answer? pp. 6–35. 34 The dual membership controversy was raised by Madhu Limaye and he orchestrated a campaign within the Janata Party demanding that the two members in the Union Cabinet from the Jan Sangh camp—Atal Behari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani—be told to choose between their association with the RSS or their membership in the Janata Party, and by extension their position in the Union Council of Ministers. 35 See Zoya Hassan, ‘Communal Mobilisation and Changing Majority’, in David Ludden (ed.), Making India Hindu: Religion, Community and the Politics of Democracy in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996).

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led to the erosion of popular support to the Congress party in the region. Although the Congress party managed to wrest political power in the 1980 elections (both at the centre and in the various states), it was not a positive mandate in its favour; it was rather a mandate against the Janata Party and its leaders. The increasing violence against minority communities across the country through the 1980s36 and the return of the Congress party to power is not a mere coincidence. Bhiwandi (in Maharashtra), Surat (Gujarat), Bihar Shariff (Bihar) and most importantly the anti-Sikh pogrom in November 198437 were all instances when the Congress party’s attempts to appropriate the Hindutva mantle was revealed so clearly. Equally significant is the fact that this was the period when the socialistic pattern and its accompanying rhetoric were jettisoned by Indira Gandhi and her party. The shift was indeed dictated by the increasing reliance on aid and assistance from the Brettonwoods institutions since 1981. The Union Budget of 1986 revealed this shift in a categorical manner.

THE ECONOMICS

OF

COMMUNALISM

The middle and the lower middle classes who faced the threat of losing their ‘secure’ jobs due to the changing concerns of the new economic policy needed to be taken care of. This had become the priority for the ruling elite during the early 1980s with the industrial sector hurstling into a crisis. Evidence of this was found in the stridency shown by a cross section of the organized working class. The call for a general strike and the mobilization by the textile workers in Bombay in 1982–83 is just an 36

A spate of communal rioting took place in Uttar Pradesh between February 1981 and 1987 including in rural areas. More importantly, between February 1986 and June 1987, Uttar Pradesh witnessed as many as 26 instances of such violence in which more than 200 persons, mostly Muslims, were killed and about 1,000 injured. Most of these riots occurred in towns with a spatial concentration of Muslims and particularly in those places—Aligarh, Varanasi, Moradabad, and Meerut—where the Muslims had attained a measure of economic stability through their traditional artisan and entrepreneurial skills. See Hassan, 1996, pp. 81–97. 37 The communal agenda that lay beneath the Congress party’s violent campaign in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assasination has been documented and commented upon extensively. See Madhu Kishwar, Religion in the Service of Nationalism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998).

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instance.38 The case of the Bombay textile strike is an instance where the cause of the crisis can be located, to a large extent, in the logic of the Indian capitalist class campaigning for a policy shift that would facilitate closing down the existing units and seeking investment opportunities in areas other than the manufacturing sector. The importance of the textile industry in terms of its share in the economy and the proportion of workforce in it has been the subject matter of extensive scholarship.39 Bombay in this context assumes a lot of significance and the experience of industry and labour in Bombay can be taken as reflecting the situation across the country. It was, for instance, home to over 60 cotton textile mills apart from units in the engineering sector, metallurgical foundries, chemical plants, and pharmaceutical plants. This, however, is a thing of the past. The cotton textile mills were in a crisis and on the verge of closure by 1976.40 This was taking place when the unemployed as a percentage of the labour force stood at 7.7 per cent. The state’s response at that stage to this crisis was two-fold. Changes were effected in labour laws41 with a definite objective to prevent industrial closures. This was followed by nationalization of units rendered sick in the private sector, a measure that led to far-reaching ramifications on the 38

The general strike called by Dr Datta Samant’s union has not been called off yet. Samant had supplanted the established unions in the Bombay textile industry in a big way and also caused a vacuum in the political space. See Achin Vanaik, ‘Rendezvous at Mumbai’, New Left Review (Second Series), no. 26, March–April 2004. 39 The importance of the textile industry in the Indian economy can be assessed from the following facts. It was one of the largest employers if one puts together the workforce in the mills, the powerloom sector, and the handlooms. Add to this the jobs provided in the garment industry established during the 1980s across the country in the wake of its vast potential in the world market. 40 Most important among the causes for the crisis was the myopic vision of the mill owners who refused to invest in any substantial manner in modernizing the machines and the mills. A direct fallout of this was that the mill sector began losing out to the powerloom sector that began flourishing in the suburbs of Bombay (Bhiwandi in particular) during this period. The powerloom sector could poach into the export markets and render the mills unviable. 41 The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 was amended and a new chapter (V-B) by which certain regulations were imposed before an employer effects a lay-off, retrenchment or closure of an industrial undertaking employing more that 100 workmen. The 1976 amendment to the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 specified stringent punishments, including imprisonment of the employer in the event of a closure, lay-off or retrenchment effected without obtaining necessary clearance from the state government where the industrial unit is located.

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very concept of PSUs.42 The compulsions before the then government to change the law were to be found in the overall direction of the political discourse then. The spectre of several thousand workers being thrown out of jobs one day and that too when the economy was not doing all that well was the motive behind the nationalization of private sector units. This was how the total number of PSUs added up to 244. The 1970s was a period marked by organized resistance to the ruling Congress and the consolidation of the political opposition. The general strike in the railways between 2 and 28 May 1974, was perhaps the only instance in post-independence India where the strength of organized trade union action was on full display.43 It was also when the mobilization of all sections of society against Indira Gandhi and her government was at its peak and culminating in the suspension of democracy by the Congress regime. Beginning with the 1980s, the context is just the other way round. The middle class had entrenched itself in the political discourse and even determined policies to a large extent. The political establishment had indeed learnt its lessons from the experience of the 1970s. Hence, the succussive dispensations began ‘taking care’ of the economic needs of the salariat even if that meant a fiscal imbalance. So much so, government employees were over-compensated substantially which left an additional burden of Rs 4,175 crores on the government’s wage bills for 1986–87. Interestingly, the deficit in revenue account that year was Rs 4,162 crores.44 This had a direct and adverse impact on government spending on poverty alleviation and other welfare schemes. It is another matter that the ruling establishment could ensure consent by enlisting the support of 42

This indeed is the story of the National Textiles Corporation (NTC) among the PSUs that today fall in the category of ‘chronically sick’ units. It is necessary to recall, at this juncture, that most of these units were rendered sick even before they became PSUs and they were nationalized at that stage only to protect those employed in those units. 43 See Stephen Sherlock, The Indian Railways Strike of 1974 (New Delhi: Rupa, 2001) for a detailed account on the strike and its political ramifications. 44 Eighth Plan: Issues and Perspectives (New Delhi: Planning Commission of India, Government of India, 1988). This document put the entire issue in perspective with the following comment: ‘The savings of Government administration have become wages and salaries. Between 1980–81 and 1985–86, the wage bill in public administration and publicly provided services has doubled. If the average compensation per employee in these sectors had increased only as much as the consumer price index and if the total number of employees had remained constant, the total wage bill for these employees would have been lower by Rs 4,500 crores.’

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middle classes (consisting the public sector employees and the salariat) who also played a decisive role in the nation building exercise since independence. The core of the argument here is that the budgeoning deficit in the revenue and the fiscal account by this time had imposed severe restrictions on the state’s ability to spend on welfare. This crisis had come to the fore in the decade beginning 1991 and it was imperative for the establishment (a condition imposed by the lending agencies as part of the Structural Adjustments Programme [SAP]) to contain fiscal deficit. With memories of the tumultous 1970s still fresh in the minds of the political establishment, they were not willing to initiate any harsh measure that could antagonize the articulate sections. In other words, the middle classes had to be guided on a different course before implementing the harsh measures that were rendered necessary by the terms of the SAP. Most sections of the organized employees45 had shown signs of being drawn into the consensus building process and were beginning to favour the shift away from the socialist paradigm even earlier than 1991. This perhaps was evident in the fact that the unions in such critical sectors as the railways, telecommunications and even in the PSUs refrained from even registering solidarity with the textile workers of Bombay when they heeded Datta Samant and stopped work in 1982.46 But then, the salariat could manage to ensure its economic ‘well-being’ without having to agitate in the same manner as the workers. There was, however, a pressing need to effect a shift in the concerns at the policy level with the Congress government under P.V. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister agreeing to the SAP; it was no longer possible for the government to persist with the idea of protecting employment. It was clear by this time that such policy measures (as initiated in 1976) had led to a drain on the finances. There was no 45

I am using the term ‘employees’ rather than workers intentionally in this context. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to explain why the trade unions in the railways or the telecommunications departments failed to orchestrate their demands in the fashion of the Bombay textile workers under Datta Samant. However, one can explain this in a limited way if one discerns the manner in which the liberalization-privitizationglobalization agenda is being orchestrated and the critical role that cultural notions play in this exercise. The notion of choice and the illusions that the new policies have managed to create among the middle classes through the supermarkets that have sprung up in several corners of our towns have helped immensely in manufacturing consent for the shift, even while rendering these very sections of the population into victims of the change.

46

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scope for ‘protecting’ jobs. On the contrary, it was imperative for the regime now to restore the law regulating employment conditions to the pre-1976 position.47 While an amendment to the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 with a view to permit closure of industrial units and retrenchment of labour whenever the employers so desired may not be effected in the immediate context, the fact is that the idea of sustaining employment in the public sectors by way of paying wages to idle workers, a concept given credence since the 1970s, has been given up. This explains the fall in employment in the organized sectors as discussed in the beginning of this chapter. The liberalization-privatization-globalization process has no doubt offered gains (real and prospective) to the organized sections of the working class, the salariat, and others constituting the middle class. This prevented a movement of the kind witnessed in the 1970s against the state and its institutions. All the peace, however, could only be achieved in the immediate context. The logic of free market economy in order to proceed further required the ruling elite to look for means other than the ones associated with notions and fantasies about the market. The supermarket culture, after all, is not going to help prevent a resistance and a political mobilization against the state, especially when avenues for employment are shrinking. This is the context from which the increasing resort to such idioms as religion and caste in the political discourse needs to be seen, rather than reducing the whole process of communalism as merely the outcome of a conspiracy by the BJP and the other associates of the RSS. The increasing resort to communal slogans, the thrust on militarism, the jingoism one has been witnessing in the political discourse during the 47

In more than a decade since the policy shift of July 1991, there is one aspect of the package on which all the regimes have refrained from acting—amending the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. The amendment, as it has been thought of, is to scrap Chapter V-B of the Act. There has been some indication in recent times of the establishment going ahead with this change. Yashwant Sinha, the erstwhile Finance Minister, had talked about this when he underscored government commitment (in February 2001) to the second generation reforms. There has been differences within the establishment on the exact nature of the change. While an Inter-Ministerial Working Group on Industrial Restructuring had recommended (in 1992) that Chapter V-B be completely scrapped, the political leadership seems to be veering around the idea that an amendment be effected in such a manner to mandate a prior approval/clearance by the state government only in case of those industrial units employing more than 1,000 workmen (as different from the 100 workmen in the existing Act).

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1990s are, in this sense, portends towards a fascist takeover and not just manifestations of a sectarian agenda. An indication that the ruling elite have managed to achieve a measure of success in this regard is evident from the fact that the unions are no longer in a position to resist the onslaught. The fact that those political platforms (the left parties in particular) that were in the forefront of organizing protests against the fallout of the SAP and also the larger implications of the liberalizationprivatization-globalization agenda had failed to bring these issues to the centre stage of the political discourse and instead settled down to sustain a Congress-led government at the centre (just in order to keep the BJP out) explains this unambiguously.

TERRORISM

AND IMPERIALISM: OF THE

TWO SIDES SAME COIN

3

THOMAS SEBASTIAN

A

significant amount of news items, discussions in visual and print media have been constructed around the theme of ‘war on terrorism’ since the unfortunate incidents of 9/11. Two wars have already been fought and millions of peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq have been subjugated under that name. The threat of attacks on the people Iran and Syria in the immediate future is persisting. Besides, the administration of the world’s only super power, the United States has been relying on this phrase ‘war on terrorism’ to justify their foreign policy and to define the enemy one cannot afford to take this concept of terrorism lightly.

TERRORISM: MEANING

AND

TYPES

The US Army manuals define terrorism as ‘the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature . . . through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear’ (US Army Operational Concept for Terrorism Counteraction, TRADOC Pamphlet No. 525–37, 1984). This definition was offered while the Reagan administration was intensifying its war on terrorism. Lately its coverage has been widened. Section 802 of the Patriot Act states that a person engages in domestic terrorism if they commit any act ‘dangerous to human life’, that is, a violation of the criminal laws of a state

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or the US, if that action appears to be intended to (a) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (b) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (c) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping. According to the Council for Foreign Relations (CFR), the leading think tank of the American elite, there are at least six different sorts of terrorism: nationalist, religious, state-sponsored, left wing, right wing, and anarchist. Their website goes on to define these various types of terrorism. Nationalist terrorists seek to form a separate state for their own national group, often by drawing attention to a fight for ‘national liberation’ that they think the world has ignored. Nationalist terrorism can be difficult to define, since many groups accused of the practice insist that they are not terrorists but freedom fighters. State terrorism is defined as those countries that according to CFR are sponsoring terrorism and terrorist orgnizations. The CFR depends upon the State Department for this. According to the State Department, Iran is the primary state sponsor of terrorism today; it also accuses Cuba, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. State-sponsored terrorist groups include the Hezbollah (backed by Iran), the Abu Nidal Organization (which according to them has been backed by Syria, Libya, and Iraq), and the Japanese Red Army (which often worked on contract for Libya). Left-wing terrorists are out to destroy capitalism and replace it with a communist or socialist regime. Right-wing terrorists are among the least organized terrorists, often associated with neo-Nazi street rioting in western Europe, especially in the early 1980s. The CFR sees signs of anarchist violence in the recent wave of protests against globalization. These definitions and categorizations do not throw much light on the nature of terrorism. However, they allow the US administration to call anybody who opposes them or their policies a terrorist. I found the definitions and categories given by George Pumphrey helpful in understanding the idea of terrorism and terrorist activities that the US is attributing to Islamist organizations. According to Pumphrey, there are three kinds of terrorism. These are ‘revolutionary’ terrorism (which most generally comes to mind when the word terrorist is heard), friendly fire terrorism, and false flag terrorism.1

1

Pumphrey, ‘Types of Terrorism and 9/11.’

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‘REVOLUTIONARY’ TERRORISM ‘Revolutionary’ terrorism is terrorism organized by people outside the powers of the state. They are neither influenced by the state or by any of its organs. The terrorists decide on their own how, when, and where to strike. They are mainly intellectuals who are impatient at the slow pace of the mass struggles for reforms. They break off from the main body of the mass struggle and take recourse to spectacular violence with the hope that they can extort some concessions from the ruling elite. Their ‘short cut to revolution’ is based on the illusion that the ruling classes can be forced to give up power or to make meaningful concessions to the powerless. This form of terrorism has to be distinguished from the national liberation struggles and their guerilla warfare against the ruling elite and against foreign occupation. There exists a lack of clarity on this point amidst the public. This confusion is conveniently used by the propaganda organs of the US administration to justify intervention to repress popular uprising against a client or puppet regime under a ‘war on terrorism’ banner. The point of difference between terrorism and a national liberation struggle is that the latter moves on to the phase of armed struggle at a point where it already controls an organized infrastructure capable of replacing the current social order. As opposed to this, terrorism lacks popular support. It has no viable social structure that it is both defending and solidifying. In fact ‘revolutionary’ terrorism is not revolutionary at all as it only tries to get some meaningful changes ‘granted’ by those in power. They have no plan of capturing power and bringing about revolutionary changes in favour of the powerless. The general assumption is that all forms of terrorisms conform to the type just dscribed. Relatively small groups engaged in armed struggle against the powerful state apparatus to provoke a change in the social situation automatically comes to our mind when we hear of a ‘terrorist attack’. According to the official version of the 11 September 2001 attacks, popularly known as 9/11, bin Laden and Al Qaeda are engaged in this form of violence. It further suggests that vengeance rather than extortion was the motivation behind the attacks. Vengeance, as a motive, is not very typical of revolutionary terrorism. The ambiguity about what actually constitutes ‘revolutionary’ terrorism among the people in general provides an opportunity for those in power and their propaganda agents. The state organs, particularly the

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intelligence departments, have decided to keep the ‘terrorist threat’ alive by transforming it into friendly fire and false flag terrorism. They do this to settle foreign policy issues and to extort from their political rivals and the population concessions granting themselves more power in determining the affairs of the country. Terrorism is a highly secretive activity requiring strict structures of small groups with extremely limited contact between them. It also requires a vast amount of blind confidence in the ‘comrades’. These aspects also make the terrorist organization vulnerable to infiltration and manipulation by the state agents. It also makes it possible for the state to recruit them as its agents. Another method of infiltration was to buy or blackmail terrorists to become agents. Some terrorists, having realized their mistake and wanting to leave the life of being hunted, are willing to remain in the terror scene, giving information about its structure, planned attacks, and eventually even become an influence agent for state-planned friendly fire terrorist attacks. In exchange they were promised freedom from prosecution when members of the terrorist organization were brought to trial. When the state is able to take over effective control of the terrorist organization, that terrorism is transformed into friendly fire terrorism.

‘FRIENDLY FIRE’ TERRORISM The objectives of the friendly fire and false flag terrorism are the same. They want terrorist attacks to be carried out so that it will create, on the one hand, fear in the minds of the people and on the other hand a ‘public enemy’. This in turn will create a sentiment of ‘let us come together as one family’ to fight the common enemy among the population. The government in turn can exploit this sentiment to win acceptance for restrictions of civil rights. The people give up their fundamental rights with the hope that these restrictions will bring a bit more personal security. Friendly fire terrorism is able to create a widespread ‘everybody can become a victim’ type of insecurity in the population, not just among the rulers as is the case with ‘revolutionary’ terrorism. The government comes forward with the solution of a dictatorial ‘complete order’. The beneficiary is the military organ of the state. State executive organs— the police, the secret services, and the armed forces—become the primary

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forces running the society as the nation slips ever further into fascism. Civilian government structures are forced more and more to the sidelines. Liberties of expression and assembly are viewed as threatening. The citizen becomes the potential enemy, the potential ‘terrorist’ or potential ‘terrorist accomplice’. The propaganda machinery of the state create a media fanfare around the arrest of ‘dangerous terrorists’ and the farcical trials that follow. This way the government can convince both the people and parliament to give up more ‘democratic rights in exchange for more security’. For effective friendly fire terrorism, it is enough even if the state has control over two or three top terrorists in an organization.

EXAMPLES

OF

FRIENDLY FIRE TERRORISM

The 1993 WTC Bombing: The first attempt to topple the World Trade Center was made in 1993 when a bomb set off in its basement garage killed five and injured more than 1,000 people. An examination of the facts surrounding this case throws a lot of light on the role of the US officials, their media, and their links to foreign powers operating on US territory. It took only moments for James Fox, Assistant Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to declare that Mohammed A. Salameh was the person who planted the explosives using a yellow Ford Econoline van for the purpose. His biography was ready and was widely distributed. The New York Times declared him a ‘Suspect Tied to an Islamic Fundamentalist Sect.’2 According to one source this terrorist attack was initiated by a Josie— or Guzie—Hadas, an Islamist who, according to the International Herald Tribune, was ‘long established as a Mossad operative’. She had hired two Arabs who were later arrested, Mohammed Salameh, a Palestinian, and Nidal Ayyad.3 Salameh was Hadas’ driver. In this function he was directed by Hadas to rent a transport van. Salameh rented the van in his own name.4 The telephone number and apartment listed on the rental contract were those belonging to Hadas.5 2 3 4 5

Schoenman, ‘Resist US Aggression!’ ‘Police Focus on Mosque Links’, International Herald Tribune. Ibid. Schoenman, ‘Resist US Aggression!’

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The man who proposed the bombing to followers of Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman (an Egyptian dissident) was Emad Ali Salem, a high level double agent working for Egyptian intelligence and an FBI informant/ provocateur. It was Salem, who provided the FBI with taped conversations and all other evidence for the trial. It was Salem who came up with the idea and drew up the plans to blow up the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, the UN and other targets and also commit assassinations. The FBI/Egyptian intelligence agent ‘provided the safe houses in which the bombs were manufactured, helped purchase the firearms and materials to be used in the attacks’ (Muslim World Monitor, 4 July 1993).6 Shortly after Salameh rented the vehicle, the van disappeared. Salameh reported the ‘theft’ immediately to the police to no reaction from them. He reported the ‘theft’ a second time. When the police refused to record the theft, he went to the police station to personally ask that the theft be recorded. He was outraged that the police officers—using ‘formal grounds’—still refused to do it. The bomb exploded the next day. Pieces of the van were discovered in the rubble. The day following the explosion, Salameh returned to the rental office to ask for the return of his deposit. He received a portion and was arrested a couple hours later. The FBI found ‘tools and wiring, and manuals concerning antennae, circuitry and electromagnetic devices’ during their search of Hadas’ apartment. ‘One expert interpreted these as evidence that a “bomb maker” had been in the apartment—the more so because “a dog trained in the detection of explosives” sniffed around and “responded positively”.’ Yet Josie Hadas was never brought to trial. Where she is today is not known. It seems not to have even interested the judge. Time remarked: ‘If Salameh is guilty, it still must be determined how to account for what looked like his extraordinary stupidity in renting a van under his own name, presenting a valid New York driver’s license with a real and traceable phone number and, instead of disappearing after the bombing, calling attention to himself by repeatedly trying to recover the deposit.’7 The FBI had all the documents relating to plans to blow up the WTC, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and other targets in their possession since 1990. Fifty storage boxes of documents concerning detailed plans to blow up the WTC were in police and FBI possession, as Los Angeles Times confirmed on 4 July 1993. Every time Salem met his stooges to 6 7

Ibid. Church, ‘A Case of Dumb Luck’.

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discuss these operations, he was ‘wired’ and the FBI was fully aware that the actions were Salem’s idea.8 In fact according to the New York Times, it was the FBI that decided to have the bomb explode. ‘Law-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives’, an informer said after the blast.9 This is a good case of friendly fire terrorism. The FBI is happy to show that terrorism is a threat also to the US and therefore Congress should heighten the means of repression on Arabs.

9/11 a Friendly Fire Terrorism10: Very often, while preparing for false flag terrorist attacks a string of evidence is laid. They are conveniently overlooked but discovered after the attack. This helps in increasing the credibility to the accusations of the designated scapegoat. On the 11 September attacks, the congressional enquiry said leads were there but the various intelligence agencies failed to communicate properly. One of these pieces of ‘evidence’ was Mohammed Atta’s (or his associate’s) testament, found in an automobile parked near the Boston airport. A closer examination of the testament’s text leads one to believe that it was not even written by a Muslim, but someone who would like to appear to be a Muslim.11 Another trail left by them was the radio communication picked up by ‘intelligence’ about two-and-a-half months before the attack, hinting that one was being planned. The International Herald Tribune reports: ‘American officials now look back to intelligence received in June and July as the starting point in their efforts to try to reconstruct the events leading up to Sept. 11 . . . . Officials familiar with the intelligence said the CIA got a series of intercepted communications and other indications that Qaida might be planning a major operation. In some of their communications, the terrorists used code words and double-talk to disguise their plans.’ What it does not tell is that this is an old trick of intelligence agencies aimed at manipulating other intelligence agencies. It is surprising how gullible even some intelligence officials appear to be. 8

Ibid. Blumenthal, ‘Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb’. 10 A detailed exposition of this can be found in Thomas, War against People, Chapter 1. 11 Fisk, ‘What Muslim would Write’. 9

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Ostrovsky explains the trick of the ‘Trojan’ relay system in order to create a false flag terrorist incrimination.12 Israel used the Trojan to pin the blame for the bombing of the LaBelle discotheque in Berlin on Libya, which led the US into bombing Israel’s enemy. Ostrovsky explains: A Trojan was a special communication device that could be planted by naval commandos deep inside enemy territory. The device would act as a relay station for misleading transmissions made by the disinformation unit in the Mossad, called LAP, and intended to be received by American and British listening stations. Originating from an IDF navy ship out at sea, the pre recorded digital transmissions could be picked up only by the Trojan. The device would then rebroadcast the transmission on another frequency, one used for official business in the enemy country, at which point the transmission would finally be picked up by American ears in Britain . . . . T he listeners would have no doubt they had intercepted a genuine communication, hence the name Trojan, reminiscent of the mythical Trojan horse. Further, the content of the messages, once deciphered, would confirm information from other intelligence sources, namely the Mossad.

It cannot be excluded that a ‘trojan operation’ may have been used to create a bin Laden scapegoat.

FALSE FLAG ‘TERRORISM’ When the state is unable to find collaborating ‘terrorists’, it may carry out the attack on its own and then put the blame on an existing or an imaginary terrorist organization. Suicide bombers could be any of the above three categories. It is possible that ‘revolutionary’ terrorists could have made their own decisions. Potential terrorists could be manipulated to sacrifice their lives and become martyrs for their cause, thus making it friendly fire terrorism. It is also possible that intelligence agencies, even after learning about the plans of the terrorists, may ignore or encourage them covertly and let it take place. There is also the possibility of disguising a bombing to make it appear as a suicidal act. 12

Ostrovsky, Other Side of Deception, pp. 113, 115–16.

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By examining the target of the attack, the expected response, the professionality of execution and the contents of the communication, we can generally decide which sort of terrorist act has taken place. For example, if the target is purely symbolic, aiming to kill ordinary people with the detailed knowledge of civil aviation procedures and no claims later as who did it and why, it would be difficult to believe that that particular act of terrorism belongs to the ‘revolutionary’ type. A strong reason to believe that the attacks by Al Qaeda are ‘friendly fire’ is the close connection the suspected terrorist organizations have with the US administration.

THE CONNECTION The close relationship between the US administration and organizations they consider terrorist is all too evident. Michel Chossudovsky has exposed the links between the US administration and Islamic terrorist organizations. His findings are given in Tables 3.1 and 3.2. The evidence presented in Tables 3.1 and 3.2 goes to show the close collaboration of the agencies of the US government with international terrorism. The US government has abetted the Islamic jehad, and conversely it has financed the flow of arms and mercenaries in US sponsored insurgencies in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union. With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI, who wanted to turn the Afghan jehad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan’s fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasas. Eventually more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jehad.13

THE STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM The US administration, besides organizing friendly fire and false flag terrorisms, also sponsors terrorism in different parts of the world to overthrow governments and put in place regimes that supports it. 13

Rashid, ‘The Taliban’.

Table 3.1 Historical Background: ‘Links’ of US Officials to Al Qaeda and other Terrorist Organizations (partial list) Official

Circumstances

Document or source

Jimmy Carter

Signed first directive for covert support to the Islamic militant network in Afghanistan in July 1979.

Interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Nouvel Observateur, 15–21 January 1998.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

As National Security Adviser to Jimmy Carter, Brzezinski was the architect of covert support to the Islamic militant network in the Soviet–Afghan war.

Interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski in the Nouvel Observateur, 15–21 January 1998.

Ronald Reagan

Signed National Security Decision Directive 166 (1985) which allowed for stepped-up covert aid to the Islamic brigades in the Soviet–Afghan war.

Washington Post, 19 July 1992.

George H.W. Bush

Continued the covert support to the Islamic militant network initiated under Carter and the Reagan presidencies. Provided support to Iran Contra officials during his term as Vice President. Business ties to the bin Laden family through the Carlyle Group.

Wall Street Journal, 27 Setember 2001; Fortune, 8 March 2002. The New York Times, 12 February 1989; Salon. com, November 2001. Foreign Policy in Focus, 30 April 2002.

Bill Clinton

Ordered collaboration of the US military with Al Qaeda operatives during the civil war in Bosnia. Supported the KLA, which was also being supported by Al Qaeda.

Republican Party Committee of the US Congress, 1997.

Anthony Lake, National Security Adviser to President Clinton.

Ordered covert support to the Islamic terrorist organizations fighting in Bosnia (1993–95).

Republican Party Committee of the US Congress, 1997.

Table 3.2 Bush Administration Officials: Links to Al Qaeda and the 9/11 Terrorists (partial list) Name of official

Nature of link

Source of information

George W. Bush

Business links in the 1980s when he was in the Texas oil business to the bin Laden family including Salem bin Laden (Osama’s brother) and Khalid bin Mahfouz (Osama’s brotherin-law)-identified in the 9/11 victims families’ lawsuit as the financier of 9/11. bin Mahfouz is suspected to have funnelled millions of dollars to the Al Qaeda network.

Intelligence Newsletter, 2 March 2000; AFP London, 7 November 2001; Salon.com, 19 November 2001; Boston Herald, 11 December 2001; Bush Watch 2001; In these Times, 12 November 2001.

Colin Powell, Secretary of State

Negotiated the terms of Pakistan’s cooperation in the war on terrorism with the moneyman behind 9/11, General Mahmoud Ahmad, head of Pakistan Military Intelligence (ISI). According to several reports including that of the FBI, the General was alleged to have transferred $100.000 to the ringleader of 9/11, Mohammed Atta. Colin Powell was also involved behind the scenes in the Iran Contra affair. Major General Powell authorized the illegal transfer of weapons to Iran.

Miami Herald, 16 September 2001; Washington Post, ABC News, 30 September 2001; AFP, 10 October 2001; The Times of India, 9 October 2001.

Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State

Involved in the covert plan to support the militant Islamic base from is inception during the Reagan administration. Also involved in the Iran Contra scandal which consisted in the illegal sale of weapons to Iran to finance the Nicaraguan Contras.

Miami Herald, 16 September 2001; Washington Post, ABC News, 30 September 2001; AFP, 10 October 2001; The Times of India, 9 October 2001.

George W. Bush Financial Scams, CRG selection of articles.

(contd.)

Table 3.2: contd. Name of official

Nature of link Richard Armitage also met the alleged moneyman behind 9/11, General Mahmoud Ahmad in meetings at the State Department on 12 and 13 September 2001.

Source of information United Press International, 18 July 2001.

Marc Grossman, Under Secretary of State

Meetings with Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Chief General Mahmoud Ahmad in the week prior to 9/11.

George Tenet, CIA Director

Meetings with ISI Chief General Mahmoud Ahmad in the week prior to 9/11.

Sen. Bob Graham and Rep. Porter Goss, Chairman of the Select Committees on Intellignece of the Senate and House

Meetings with ISI Chief General Mahmoud Ahmad in late August 2001 and on the morning of September 11. The Council on Foreign Relations views the ISI as a terrorist organization.

Miami Herald, 16 September 2001; Washington Post, 18 May 2002; Council on Foreign Relations.

John Pointdexter, heads the Total Information Awareness Program (TIA)

Involved in conspiracy in the Irangate Contra scandal. Indicted of ‘conspiring to defraud the government by diverting funds from secret US arms sales to Iran’.

Numerous press reports. See UPI, 13 December 1988; New York Times, 10 December 1988.

John Negroponte, US Permanent Representative to the United Nations

John Negroponte, the US official involved in current negotiations in UN Security Council, was involved in supporting paramilitary death squadrons while he was US ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s

New York Times, 13 December 1988; San Francisco Examiner.

The Contra were operating out of Honduras with military aid provided from the sale of weapons to Iran. ‘As the American Ambassador in Honduras from November 1981 to June 1985, Mr. Negroponte was instrumental in the military buildup of the Nicaraguan rebels [Contra]’. Thomas Kean, Chairman of the 9/11 Commission

Business partner of Khalid bin Mahfouz and Mohammed Al Ahmoudi in the Hess-Delta joint venture. Bin Mahfouz is, according to the CIA, the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden.

Sources: Salon.com: http://dir.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/11/19/bush_oil/index.html Bush Watch: http://www.bushwatch.com/bushmoney.htm http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/mainarticle/

Fortune Magazine, February 2003; Energy Compass, 15 November 2002. Global Outlook, no 4, 2003.

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Reagan’s contra war: A notorious example of US sponsored terrorism was Reagan’s contra war against Nicaragua. There the Sandinistas, a petty bourgeois revolutionary force, overthrew the dictator Somoza in 1979. Reagan began mobilizing ‘resistance groups’ of mercenaries representing bourgeois reaction against the Sandinistas when he came into office in 1981. The contras, organized by the CIA, would not confront Sandinista combat troops but instead carried out terrorist raids against Nicaraguan peasants. Reagan’s dirty war also involved mining Nicaraguan ports, strangling its economy with boycotts and an embargo, and carrying out large-scale practice invasions in next-door Honduras. Reagan’s terrorist policy against Nicaragua had support from both the ruling and opposition parties in the US. In 1984 the liberal Democrat leaders passed the Boland Amendment restricting direct military aid to the contras, but at the same time they allowed private aid to be sent to the contras using US military transport. They allowed Reagan to solicit contributions for the contras’ military equipment from private sources and also from other governments such as Israel. They also voted tens of millions of dollars worth of direct ‘humanitarian’ aid to the contras, supposedly for ‘refugee relief’. Reagan’s solicitation of funds for the contras included selling American military equipment to Iran. The contra operation also raised money by smuggling drugs to the US. Their planes would transport guns from Florida to the Honduras and return to Florida loaded with drugs.

Death squads of El Salvador: In the same period Reagan also backed the terrorist right wing government of El Salvador. Salvadoran revolutionary forces had organized armed guerrilla groups and had taken control of some areas. Reagan supported the government in its war against the guerrillas. But the government also tried to end support for the guerrillas by terrorizing the civilian population through the use of death squads, unofficial vigilante groups that would kidnap and kill the leaders of workers and peasant organizations. Anyone suspected of organizing dissent against the government was subject to being killed. This included the Catholic Archbishop Romero, who had expressed his view that the government should take it a little easier on the masses, and a group of Maryknoll nuns whose only offence was they did some social work among the poor. The death squads though operating in secret, did leave tell tale signs of their handiwork. They left mutilated bodies out in public view to terrorize the people. This was a classic example of state terrorism. The state has official rules against

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arbitrary arrest and punishment, so the government organizes a second shadow state that violates all these norms but which cannot be publicly condemned as government policy because the government disowns it. Once again the US and the CIA were major supporters. The Democrats in Congress helped Reagan by voting hundreds of millions of dollars for military and other aid to the Salvadoran regime, ignoring its death squads. The remnants of this savage policy remain with us today. Central America remains mired in poverty and political backwardness as the reactionary, wealthy monopolists remain in power.

A school for terrorists: Meanwhile US sponsored terrorism in Latin America continues. In Colombia, where leftist guerrillas have taken over significant sections of the country, the government’s military forces have organized a shadow military that carries out death squad operations on a daily basis. Many of Colombia’s military officers were trained at the US Army’s School of the Americas, a notorious institution that instructs Latin American military officials in how to fight ‘instability’ in their home countries. Nearly 60,000 military officers have been trained there, including some of Latin America’s infamous military dictators. The school, now located at Fort Benning, Georgia (and renamed the Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation), instructs its students in the fine arts of assassination and torture. State sponsored terror now murders hundreds of trade union and peasant leaders in Colombia every year. But it has not been enough to smash the leftist movement there, and so the US government is now contemplating the use of American troops in Colombia. Bush will advertise this as part of his ‘war on terror’, but in fact it is an escalation of state sponsored terror against the masses.

THE US: THE WORLD’S NO. 1 TERRORIST US imperialism is the world’s no. 1 terrorist. The US is the only country in the world that has been condemned by the International Court of Justice for international terrorism. The words they used were ‘unlawful use of force’ in their war against Nicaragua. That is international terrorism. There were two Security Council resolutions supporting that judgement.

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THE REAL OBJECTIVE

OF

WAR

ON

TERRORISM

To understand why the US administration has made maintaining terrorism the central point of their foreign policy, we need to understand the working of the US economy and the imperialist system as a whole since World War II. The law of value gives capitalism its character. In mercantilism, which preceded capitalism, the source of profit was in exchange. People who lived in distant areas and those who had different ways of estimating values were brought together by middlemen. In this exchange the profit went to the merchant or middlemen. Under capitalism the profit arises in the process of production. The capitalist, using the money capital he possesses, buys machinery, raw materials and labour and puts them together to produce commodities. Once commodities are produced they are sold in the market and the money is recovered with profits. It is in the production process that labour transfers values into raw materials. The value of a good is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time. Socially necessary labour time is an average amount of labour time required to produce a commodity. The socially necessary labour time required to produce a commodity is determined by the market forces of supply and demand for the product and the prevalent technology. Any producer who is able to produce a commodity below the socially necessary labour time is able to reap a profit. Competition in the market acts as an outside force on the capitalist to undertake production with labour time below that which is socially necessary. The capitalist feels helpless before the market. In fact, since it is force beyond his control, he starts worshipping it. In order to produce a commodity below the socially necessary labour time, the capitalist increases labour productivity by increasing the scale of production. A time comes when the size of the firm has increased so much that he is able to dominate the market and can influence the market price of the commodity. This is the monopoly stage of capitalism. Monopolization is an attempt to escape these laws of value. Monopoly tries to organize everything—the supply, the demand, the price, and the mind of the people through cultural conditioning. However, the law of value does not leave him. It surfaces in a new form. Remember, the capitalist was able to survive and flourish in the market thanks to his ability to increase labour productivity. Increasing labour productivity means getting things done with less amount of labour, which

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in turn means that a lesser number of people are required to produce a commodity. This in turn leads to more unemployment and a fall in the income of the people. In advanced countries the period from 1800–1870 was the period of competitive capitalism. During this period, capitalism in these countries moved from the competitive stage to the monopoly stage. The falling income of the people due to unemployment implied that it was difficult for the capitalist to realize values embodied in the commodities. This leads to over-production. The solution for this is to look for markets outside the boundaries of the country. The advanced countries of the Europe and the US did just that. There was a scramble for world market among the capitalist countries. They divided the world among themselves through wars between the peoples of these countries, and among themselves. Thus capitalism was transformed into imperialism. As the law of value asserted itself, the problem surfaced again. Different imperialist countries grow at different levels and hence their requirement of markets is different. Since by the end of the nineteenth century the world was already carved up among different imperialist countries, there was only one way to gain more market: re-divide the world. Since no imperialist country was willing to give up its market on its own, there was only one solution—war. War is the ultimate solution to the contradictions of capitalism. That is why Lenin had said, quoting Clausewitz, the Prussian war minister, ‘War is politics in other ways.’ The constant tensions between imperialist powers, the increasing resistance from nationalist forces, and the success of communist parties in overthrowing powers in some countries convinced imperialist powers that the colonial system is not an efficient method for extracting profit. Hence, imperialist powers granted formal independence to the former colonies after the World War II. Imperialism thus began a new career without colonies, a process termed neocolonialism. In fact, the method of exploitation through neocolonialism is not new. Most of Latin America was colonized by the Spaniards during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. After the Napoleonic wars, when Spain had become weak politically and militarily, Latin American countries became independent. However, they soon fell under the domination of Britain, and later the US. The US capitalists were able to exploit these countries indirectly. The method they adopted was to dominate these economies through foreign direct investment. While political control remained in the hands of the Latin Americans, investment in these countries was controlled by foreign capital. This, the US found, was a more efficient method of extracting surplus. What imperialists did after the World War II was to

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spread this system globally. New global institutions to manage this system, namely the UN, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, etc., were created. In creating the neocolonial system, the US had taken the initiative. The rules and regulations of these institutions are such that the US would always retain control over them. Though during the last 100 years of its existence imperialism has changed its international alignments, its class basis has remained unchanged. It is the division of the society between a labouring majority and a privileged elite under conditions of monopoly capitalism. The class basis still results in the partitioning of the world by powerful countries and economic monopolies. And the rich and powerful countries, such as the US, still dominate and exploit the poor and weak ones. They now prefer labour intensive activities in the neocolonies and import them. Known as outsourcing, it is one of the ways of transferring values to the imperialist countries from labouring people of the neocolonies. The name given to the new international exploitation through the new division of labour is Gobalization. That there is greater transfer of wealth from the neocolonies to the imperialist countries is clear from the fact that the gap in the standard of living of the people of the neocolonies and the imperialist countries has widened during the post-War period. Colonialism was imposed through brute force. Since neocolonialism is a more sinister and vicious form of exploitation, it can only be enforced with still more force. For neocolonialism to work successfully, the national bourgeoisie and their political agents, namely the political parties, have to cooperate. Anybody showing any kind of resistance has to be removed either through organized terrorism or external attack. The US administration refers to this as regime change. From Washington’s point of view, the aim of Globalization—breaking down all barriers to capital’s worldwide exploitation—is not just ‘corporate domination’ in the general sense, but US corporate domination. To achieve this domination, the ruling establishment often uses economic, political, diplomatic and military means in an integrated strategy, as they have against Iraq and Yugoslavia. ‘The basic challenge is that what is called Globalization which is really another name for the dominant role of the United States,’ said Henry Kissinger, secretary of state under President Ford in a speech in 1999.14 14

Lecture at Triniy College, Dublin, 12 October 1999, cited in Gindin, ‘Social Justice and Globalization’.

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Over the years US investments have become more globalized. They depend to a greater extent than before on military power to protect these investments. New York Times columist, Thomas Friedman noted: ‘For globalization to work, America can’t be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is. The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonaldDouglas, the designer of the F-15, and the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technology is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.’15 Under the neo-colonial system of exploitation, multinational corporations (MNCs) loot the neo-colonies while the US administration creates the conducive atmosphere for it. Conquering the markets is one thing, keeping it safe for one’s exploitation is another. To control the resources of the neo-colonies, the imperialist countries need still more force. General A.M. Gray, Commandant of the Marine Corps, expressed this difficulty in the following words: The Underdeveloped World’s growing dissatisfaction over the gap between rich and poor nations will create a fertile breeding ground for insurgencies. These insurgencies have the potential to jeopardize regional stability and our access to vital economic and military resources. This situation will become more critical as our nation and allies, as well as potential adversaries, become more and more dependent on these strategic resources. If we are to have stability in these regions, maintain access to their resources, protect our citizens abroad, defend our vital installations and deter conflict, we must maintain within our active force structure a credible military power projection capability with flexibility to respond to conflict across the spectrum of violence throughout the globe.16

The logic of the operation of globalization is this. For the imperialist countries to continue their expansion, resources spread all over the world are required. This cannot be attained without force. To enter an area they need an excuse. That excuse was earlier provided by the struggle against socialism. Today they find excuse in ‘war against terrorism’. Today the US has military bases in 40 countries. It has control over international trade and financial institutions. American popular culture 15

Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 28 March 1999. A.M. Gray, ‘Defense policy for the 1990s’, Marine Corps Gazette, vol. 74, no. 5 (May 1990), p. 19. Quoted in Esmail Hossen-zadeh, ‘The Persian Gulf War in the context of the debate over the political economy of US militarism’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol. 17 (1993), p. 252. 16

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and language is encircling the globe. No wonder then that some writers compare it with the Roman empire. But Americans shied away from the label of ‘empire’, preferring the ahistorical designation ‘superpower’ and euphemisms like ‘globalization’ to describe US dominance. Lawrence Summers, a reigning intellectual of the Clinton administration, liked to say that the US is history’s only non-imperialist superpower. But all are not as shy as Summers. In fact some of them have become so arrogant that they do not hide their objectives and the ways by which they intend to enforce their domination. ‘A political unit that has overwhelming superiority in military power, and uses that power to influence the internal behaviour of other states, is called an empire. Because the United States does not seek to control territory or govern the overseas citizens of the empire, we are an indirect empire, to be sure, but an empire nonetheless. If this is correct, our goal is not combating a rival, but maintaining our imperial position, and maintaining imperial order.’ Thus wrote S.R. Rosen, part of the Bush administration’s inner circle on foreign policy. ‘Imperial strategy focuses on preventing the emergence of powerful, hostile challengers to the empire: by war if necessary, but by imperial assimilation if possible’, he wrote. In September 2000, prior to Bush’s election to the US presidency and one year before the 11 September attack on the WTC, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) (one of the many US think tanks) published a statement called Rebuilding America’s Defense: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century. The document says the US must ‘discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role’. It refers to key allies such as the UK as ‘the most effective and efficient means of exercising American global leadership’. It describes peacekeeping missions as ‘demanding American political leadership rather than that of the UN’. It spotlights China for ‘regime change’, saying ‘it is time to increase the presence of American forces in SE Asia’. It also calls for the creation of ‘US space forces’ to dominate space, and the total control of cyberspace to prevent ‘enemies’ using the internet against the US. It also hints that the US may consider developing biological weapons ‘that can target specific genotypes [and] may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool’. Michael Ledeen is a member of another of the ‘think tanks’—the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He published an article ‘We’ll Win this War’ in the AEI’s The American Enterprise in December 2001. ‘We must wage revolutionary war against all the terrorist regimes, and

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gradually replace them with governments that turn to their own people’s freely expressed desires as the basis of their political legitimacy’, he wrote. These ideas expressed by various influential people of the US elite is reflected in the National Security Strategy published in September 2002. In this 25-page document we find the following: 01. There is only one sustainable true and right model for all peoples and countries, and that is based on ‘freedom, democracy and free enterprise’ and is the non-negotiable demand from which no nation is exempt. 02. The US will extend peace on every continent and promote economic freedom beyond America’s shores. 03. The US will act against threats before they are formed and act alone and preemptively, as the best defense is an offense, recognizing that enemies can not be permitted to strike first. 04. Rogue states who hate the US and everything for which it stands must be stopped. 05. Poverty is not the source of terrorism. 06. US strategy will be based on a ‘distinctly American internationalism’. 07. When openings arrive the US can encourage [regime] change. 08. The United States will rid the world of evil. 09. The US must dissuade any future military competition and develop access arrangements for long distance deployment of US forces. 10. The US will continue to oppose the application of the International Criminal Court to its personnel in the discharge of its global commitments. The point I wish to emphasize is that the US administration has a well documented plan to continue the imperialist exploitation of the world for corporate profits. In spite of their new strategy of controlling through dominance, imperialism is willing to colonize countries temporarily, as the examples of Afghanistan and Iraq show us. In general, the ‘war on terrorism’ is a policy of resurgent imperialism, whereby the US seeks to settle a series of foreign policy problems by direct military means. The US is to decide, and then other countries are to ratify these decisions and help the US carry out its military plans.

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THE SPIN: ESTABLISH DEMOCRACY

AND

WAR ON TERRORISM

While the above is the truth behind the war against terror, the US public was repeatedly told a different story by the American consciousness industry. The war against terrors, the American public is told, is a struggle to establish freedom and democracy and ensure security. This again is nothing new. It was in 1898 that the American empire ventured overseas. That year they killed over 60,000 Filipinos in their effort to assimilate Philippines into the US empire. At that time the US Secretary of War Elihu Root said, ‘the American soldier is different from all soldiers of all other countries since the world began. He is the advance guard of liberty and justice, law and order, peace and happiness.’17 In different words George Bush has said the same things while attacking and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq. Since 1898, the US has conducted over 170 military interventions in every region of the world. Each has been presented domestically as a mission to redeem the targeted country, and indeed the world, for freedom and democracy. In the weeks after 11 September 2001, George W. Bush did not talk of remaking the Middle East. But in successive State of the Union addresses, commencement speeches, press conferences, and televised appeals to the nation, Bush showed increasing faith in the ability of the US to extirpate tyranny and implant freedom in this agonized region. As the task of swaying public opinion grew more difficult, rhetoric around freedom and democracy has become ever more central. When he announced the US air strikes against Afghanistan, President Bush Jr said, ‘We’re a peaceful nation.’ He went on to say, ‘This is the calling of the United States of America, the most free nation in the world, a nation built on fundamental values, that rejects hate, rejects violence, rejects murderers, rejects evil. And we will not tire.’

IMPERIALISM

AND

DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS

Lenin pointed out that the imperialism of his time involved not only the struggle to crush rivals abroad, but to crush the democratic rights of the masses at home. He wrote in 1916 that in domestic politics as well as 16

Susskind, 12 July 2003, ‘Adjusting to Empire’.

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foreign affairs, ‘imperialism strives towards violations of democracy, towards reaction’. This does not mean that there would not be election or any democratic rights under imperialism. If that was the case it would not apply to the present times nor to Lenin’s time either. What he meant was the instability of democratic rights under imperialism. This is exactly what we see today. Bush’s ‘war on terrorism’ has shown that, with a stroke of the pen, the most cherished rights can be stripped from the population. This shows how the results of years of mass struggle for rights can be negated in a crisis. Many governments, including the US, instituted measures to discipline the domestic population and to carry forward unpopular measures under the guise of ‘combating terror’, exploiting the atmosphere of fear and the demand for ‘patriotism’. The Bush administration used the opportunity to advance its assault against most of the population and future generations, serving narrow corporate interests that dominate the administration. According to Amnesty International’s report for summer 2002, Australia, Belarus, Canada, China, Colombia, Cuba, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Jordan, Malaysia, Mauritius, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Uganda, UK, USA, Zimbabwe, the European Union, and the Arab League have already passed new laws or amended old laws to restrict the democratic rights of the people. In Amnesty’s words ‘from Australia to Zimbabwe, using new laws and old-fashioned brute force, governments are sacrificing human rights on the alter of antiterrorism’.

CONCLUSION The Afghan and Iraq wars illustrate some of the basic features of imperialism, as well as the connections between imperialism and terrorism. As we have seen, much of Bush’s ‘war on terrorism’ is directed at forces originally sponsored by the US. More generally, US imperialism has repeatedly made use of death squads, dirty wars, and terrorist assassinations in its struggle against popular movements and imperialist rivals. The US is not alone in doing this. Such methods have been also used by the major European imperialist powers and Japan, and also by lesser powers and would-be regional bullies. So the imperialist powers are not going to fight terrorism in general; they will only fight the terrorism of their rivals, and they will always keep terrorism in reserve to attack uprisings of the masses. They do not want to end terrorism, but to monopolize it.

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REFERENCES Amnesty International, Charting the ‘War on Terrorism’, Summer 2002. Available online at http://www.amnestyusa.org/amnestynow/war_terrorism.html Blecher, Robert, ‘Intellectuals, Democracy and American Empire David Barsamian: An Interview’, Middle East Report Online, 1 April 2003. Blumenthal, Ralph, ‘Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb used in Trade Center Blast’, New York Times, 28 October 1993. Brown Pete, No. 1 terrorist (from Communist Voice #28, January 2002. Available online at http://www.flash.net/~comvoice/TOC28.html Chomsky, Noam, Who are the Global Terrorists? 19 May 2002, http://www.chomsky.info/ articles/200205—02,htmZnet —–———, ‘Wars of Terror’, New Political Science, vol. 25, no. 1 (2003), ZNet http:// www.chomsky.info/articles/200303.htm Chossudovsky, Michel, Expose the Links between Al Qaeda and the Bush Administration. Available online at http://globalresearch.ca/, 15 March 2003. Church, George J., ‘A Case of Dumb Luck’, Time, 15 March 1993. Fisk, Robert, ‘What Muslim would Write: “The time of fun and waste is gone”?’ The Independent, 29 September 2001. Availble online at http://www.commondreams. org/views01/0920-07.htm Gindin, Samin, ‘Social Justice and Globalization: Are They Compatible?’, Monthly Review, vol. 54, no. 2 (June 2002). Goff, Stan, The Infinite War and its Roots (The Wilderness Publications, 2000). Available online at www.copvcia.com, 21 August/août. Green Joseph, ‘Imperialism in light of the Afghan war’, Communist Voice, vol. 28 (January) 2002. Available online at http://www.flash.net/~comvoice/28cImperialism.html Ostrovsky, Victor, The Other Side of Deception (Harper Collins, 1994). Pha, Anna, ‘Out of Their Own Mouths: Maintaining Imperial Order’, Guardian, 2 July 2003. Pilger, John, ‘America’s Bid for Global Dominance’, The New Statesman, 12 December 2002. Plitnick, Mitchell, ‘Terror And History’, 16 October 2002. Pumphrey, George, ‘Types of Terrorism and 9/11’. www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ PUM306A.html, 19 June 2003. Rashid, Ahmed, ‘The Taliban: Exporting Terrorism’, Foreign Affairs (November– December 1999). Rosen, S.R. ‘The Future of War and the American Military’, Harvard Magazine (May– June 2002). Schoenman, Ralph, ‘Resist US Aggression! Who are the Real Terrorists?’ Available online at http://www.igc.org/workers/to/terror.htm Susskind, Yiffat, 12 July 2003. ‘Adjusting to Empire’. Thomas, Sebastian, War against People (Mumbai: J&P Publishers, 2002).

ISLAM, TERRORISM AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER

4

JAWAID QUDDUS

T

he word terrorism is almost impossible to define. It has different connotations for different people. Some have equated terrorism as a fight for freedom and terrorists as freedom fighters. In recent years it is equated with Islam without any distinction being made between the religion and the actions of a minority of the people who follow that religion. According to Bruce Hoffman, the word ‘terrorism’ was first popularized during the French Revolution. At that time it had a positive connotation. It stood for a regime de la terreur and signified a system of governance instituted by a government to neutralize anti-government activities of opponents and counter revolutionaries. During the French Revolution, the Committee of General Security and the Revolutionary Tribunal were vested with draconian powers. They could put to death anyone convicted of treason. This regime de la terreur may have its more recent counterpart in the Patriot laws of the US or the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) recently enacted in India and other similar laws enacted elsewhere. The turmoil in Kashmir, Palestine, Afghanistan and more recently Iraq may represent such a regime of terruer. Justified as a necessary means for getting rid of evil and for establishing democracy, governments use their modern missiles, fighter planes, and tanks to enforce their agenda, whereas the non-state terrorists use suicide bombers and time-activated explosive devices to enforce theirs. The fact remains that both are wrong. Terrorism to counter terrorism only leads to more terrorism! The destruction of the Twin Towers in New York came as a shock to all peace loving people of the world. This, in addition to various hijackings

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and bombings in Israel and Kashmir, the rule of terror of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the Talibanization of Pakistan all point to a common denominator, Islam. This is what Huntington has convincingly, but perhaps mistakenly, defined as what would lead to the ‘clash of civilizations’. The perception of many that Islam not only sanctions terrorism, but also rewards terrorists with the promise of paradise and celestial houris are incorrect.

A BRIEF

THE RELIGION OF ISLAM: HISTORY AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Islam is a monotheistic religion practiced by over one billion people. It is not the religion of the Arabs alone and being an Arab does not confer upon a Muslim any superiority at all. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) has very clearly emphasized the global nature of Islam. ‘No Arab has any superiority over a non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab. Nor does a white man have any superiority over a black man, or the black man any superiority over the white man. You are all the children of Adam, and Adam was created from clay.’ Islam means peace and enjoins all its followers to work to establish peace and justice. It is not a source of terrorism, it in fact is a solution for terrorism. The Quran very clearly specifies: ‘So we decreed for the tribe of Israel that if someone kills another person—unless it is in retaliation for someone else or for causing corruption in the earth—it is as if he had murdered all mankind. And if anyone gives life to another person, it is as if he had given life to all mankind. Our messengers came to them with clear signs but even after that many of them committed outrages in the earth’ (Surah al-Ma’ida-32). Anyone who defies this injunction defies Allah. He may be a Muslim; his actions, however, are not Islamic. Islam began in the seventh century in the Middle East. In addition to Islam, this region is also the birthplace of the other two monotheistic faiths—Judaism and Christianity. Thus Islam, Christianity, and Judaism share a common origin and a common history as well as a rivalry that continues to be a major factor in the turmoil that we are witnessing in these times. The prophet of Islam, Muhammad was born in Mecca on the 12th of Rabi’ Awal at dawn (the year 571 in the Common Era calendar). His mother died when he was just six, his father a few weeks prior to his birth. His uncle Abu Talib raised him and taught him the

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caravan trade. Muhammad (PBUH) soon earned the name al-Amin (the honest) by virtue of his honesty and character. Even before he became a Muslim, people used to come to him for advice and arbitration. They trusted him, his wisdom, judgement and fairness. During one of his meditation trips to the cave called Hira, Muhammad (PBUH), who was 40 years old, received the first revelation from Allah through the angel Gabriel. These divine revelations constitute the Quran. The Quran, in addition to the Hadith (the deeds and the sayings of the prophet), govern the entire Islamic world. For 13 years Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) preached to the people of Mecca, inviting them to join him and the oneness of God. A few people accepted his call but there was considerable opposition to this new religion. This was because Islam was seen as a threat to the economic as well as social structure of the inhabitants of Mecca. Meccan society was extremely corrupt with no concept of humanity or fair play. The position of women was pathetic and often girls and wives were buried alive at the whim of their husbands or families or at birth. Additionally there was constant infighting between the various tribes. Most people had multiple wives and slave girls who were compelled to co-habit with their masters. The Prophet (PBUH) was determined to stop all this, and hence the resistance. Assassination threats, continued opposition, and subsequent persecution and violence against all those who had accepted Islam forced the Prophet (PBUH) to send some of his followers to Abyssinia where they were protected by the Christian King. Soon afterwards, he along with his followers migrated to Yathrib, a city north of Mecca in A.D. 622. With this migration to Yathrib (now known as Madina) begins the Islamic calendar (hijrah). Madina became the Caliphate seat until Damascus replaced it in A.D. 661. The people of Madina embraced Islam and after a series of defensive battles and diplomacy, the Prophet (PBUH) and his followers entered Mecca after defeating the Meccans. On his return to Mecca, he (PBUH) forgave all his former enemies, reclaimed the Ka’abah and destroyed all the idols present there. He then returned to Madina. In 632, shortly after his last pilgrimage from Mecca, the Prophet (PBUH) fell ill and died after a final sermon asking the Muslims not to ‘stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone’. By this time most of Arabia had embraced Islam. Its message also spread north of the peninsula into Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Persia. Palestine was captured in 638, after the battle of Yarmouk against the Romans. The Romans, during their occupation of Palestine, had banned the practice of Judaism and Christianity and had destroyed the

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Jewish Temple. In addition they had expelled the Jews from Jerusalem (A.D. 70). After the defeat of the Romans at Jerusalem, Umar Ibn alKhattab (who was elected the second Caliph, after his victory at Yarmouk) made a historic Covenant with the leader of the Christians, Bishop Sophronious. This Covenant specified that the Christians would enjoy unhindered rights to practice their religion, use their houses of worship, and have access to their places of worship for all time to come. When prayer time drew near during this negotiation, Sophronious invited the Caliph to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which he courteously refused. The reason for his refusal was to prevent the Muslims who, in their zeal to commemorate this event, would have destroyed the church to erect a mosque there, an act that would have violated the directives of the Quran. Islam continued to spread, first to Egypt in 641 and then to all of North Africa by A.D. 654. By the Middle Ages Islam had spread all over the world. Islam was accepted due to the power of its vision. It gauranteed to the believers and the non-believers rights which no other religion or government had even conceptualized at that time. These rights included:

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

The right to life; Respect for the chastity of women; The right to a basic standard of life; Individual’s right to freedom; The right to justice; The right to the safety of life; The equality of human beings; Rulers not being above the law; The right to cooperate or not to cooperate; Rights of enemies at war; The rights of the non-combatants; The protection of the wounded; The sanctity of property; The sanctity of a dead body; The return of corpses of the enemy; Prohibition of breach of treaties.

The above guarantees constitute only a part of what Islam is all about. The basic belief of Islam consists of five pillars which include: (a) Affirmation of the faith which proclaims that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, (b) prayers five times a day,

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(c) fasting during the month of Ramadan, (d) pilgrimage to Mecca (Haj) once in a lifetime but only if family, relatives, neighbours and friends have all being taken care of, and if financially feasible, and (e) Zakat—payment of two-and-a-half per cent tax on one’s entire assets to be given to the poor annually.

SPREAD

OF ISLAM IN INDIA

Islam spread in India solely by the sword. This is what the Sangh Parivar would have everyone believe. Lies such as these are being incorporated into history books. According to the Sangh Parivar’s version of history, the Muslims came to India ‘with the sword in one hand and the Qoran in the other’ and ‘Numberless Hindus were forcibly converted to Islam on the point of the sword. This struggle for freedom became a religious war. Numerous sacrifices were made in the name of religion. We went on winning one battle after another. We did not let the foreign rulers settle down to rule, but we were not able to reconvert the separated brothers to Hinduism’ (Itihaas Gaa Raha Hai). According to them, ‘Arabs (barbarians) came to convert people to their religion. Wherever they went, they had a sword in their hand. Their army went like a storm in all the four directions. Any country that came in their way was destroyed. Houses of prayers and universities were destroyed. Libraries were burnt, religious books were destroyed. Mothers and sisters were humiliated. Mercy and justice were unknown to them’ (Gaurav Gatha, pp. 52–53). Strangely, there is no mention in their history books of King Harsha of Kashmir who, in the eleventh century, had appointed a special officer known as devotpatannayak (officer who uproots Gods) for the specific purpose of ransacking and looting temples whenever the royal treasury ran out of funds. The Parmar Kings (Shubhavarman, A.D. 1193–1210) who destroyed numerous Jain temples in Cambay and Dabhoi and other places are also not mentioned. Although Aurangzeb’s role in the destruction of temples does find a place, Aurangzeb’s role in destruction of mosques (Golconda’s Jama Masjid) and his awards of jagirs to many temples does not. While Shivaji is defined as the great Hindu King, the fact that he built a mosque in front of his palace and had Muslim officers and solders in his army is not a part of their history. Also not mentioned are the facts that the commander of Shivaji’s navy Siddi Sambal, his chief commanders Daulat Khan and Siddi Misri, and his foreign secretary Mulla Haider were

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all Muslims. Shivaji’s most trusted servant Madari Mehtar, a Muslim, who once saved Shivaji by helping him escape from Agra, has also been omitted from Sangh Parivar’s itihas. Maybe the Sangh Parivar is unware of the above facts or is just too afraid to admit it lest Bal Thakarey denounces Shivaji as a traitor and an appeaser of the Muslims and drops him from the list of Hindu icons! Mahmud Ghazni, the marauder who destroyed the Somnath temple, certainly finds a place in the history books of the Hindutva supporters. However, the fact that Ghazni had to fight with Muhammed Fath Dawood first and had to destroy the mosque of Multan in order to get to the Somnath temple, has been conveniently left out. Also left out is the fact that many of Ghazni’s generals (Tilak, Sondhi, Rai, Hind and Harzan) as well as his solders were Hindus. Such verifiable and well-recorded facts are of no historical significance in the Sangh Parivar’s scheme of things. For if Hindu generals and soldiers were also involved in the destruction of temples and mosques, with or without the Muslims, then the claim of Islam being spread by the power of the sword and intimidation is certainly weakened. The concept of the Hindus being brutalized by just the Muslims alone would then lose its appeal. This in turn would severely hamper the Sangh Parivar’s propaganda machine and create impediments to their dream of establishing a Hindu rashtra in India. Thus there has to be just one villain in their story and that villain must be vanquished. It is generally believed that Islam entered India with the invasion by Muhammad bin Qasim, a young general from Iraq in A.D. 711. This invasion was the Ummayad governor’s response to the plunder of a richly laden Arab ship passing through the mouth of the Indus. This invasion did not result in the permanent occupation of Sindh nor in the expansion of or the influence of Islam to other parts of India. An earlier foray to this region in 644 was abandoned because, in the words of the Arab commander of this first Islamic force, ‘Water is scarce, the fruits are poor, and the robbers are bold; if a few troops are sent they will be slain, if many, they will starve.’ Basically there was no incentive to spread Islam by conquest in this area for the above mentioned reasons. In addition, forced conversions are not compatible with Islam as this Surah indicates: ‘If your Lord had willed, all the people on earth would have believed. Do you think you can force people to be believers?’ (Quran 10:9). Islam actually came to India through the Arab traders. The Arabs had been trading in the Malabar region of Kerala since the pre-Islamic days. In fact, Malabar even derives its name from the Arabic ma’bar which means passage. Many of these Arabs, some of whom later converted to

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Islam, also married locally in Kerala. The Sufi saints who often accompanied these traders actually played a major role in the spread of Islam in India and beyond. Muhammad bin Qasim’s invasion was followed by other invasions such as those by Shihabuddin Ghauri and Mahmud Ghaznavi, mostly in the north. Many of these invaders, who came as marauders, did demolish temples but had no direct role in the spread of Islam. Their main interest was not Islam but loot. Islam does not allow for the destruction of places of worship, looting, rape or pillage. This is clear from the following injunctions: ‘O People who Believe! Do not enter the houses except your own until you obtain permission and have conveyed peace upon its inhabitants; this is better for you, in order that you may ponder’ (Surah al-Noor 24:27). These ‘Islamic’ invaders simply hijacked Islam to mobilize volunteers to conduct un-Islamic acts in exactly the same way the destroyers of the Babri Masjid used Hinduism to mobilize the stormtroopers to bring it down. Additionally, many of these invaders were actually invited by Hindu rulers to help preserve their kingdoms by defeating other Hindu rulers. The Sangh Parivar’s claim that Hindus were subjected to conversion by force seems unlikely considering the fact that most of these Muslim rulers worked in conjunction with the Hindu rulers and that a vast majority of their soldiers and generals were Hindus. A policy of forced conversion would have destroyed the cohesion of their armed forces and would have hampered, rather than facilitated their accession to the throne of all of India. Also, if the story of forced conversion was true, the population of Delhi, the capital of the Muslim empire for several hundred years, should have been predominately Muslims, but it is not. Anyone curious enough to study the population demographics of India will find that areas with substantial numbers of Muslims, for the most part, are outside the locations that were under direct Muslim rule. Muslim rule in these peripheral areas was mostly dependent upon local rulers who were predominantly Hindus. If Islam was imposed by force, should there not be more Muslims in areas where the Muslim rulers had the most control?

ISLAM

AND

TERRORISM

Islam is increasingly being equated with terrorism. Quotations from the Quran, cited out of historical context, are being used to prove the

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contention that Islam is by nature and design a violent religion. A closer look will reveal that these overnight propaganda merchants posing as Islamic scholars have little knowledge of Islam. Their forays into the study of Islam has been very superficial, biased and without critical thinking. Islam does not condone violence but like other religions does believe in self-defence. The Quran specifically states that ‘permission to fight is given to those who are fought against because they have been wronged— truly God has the power to come to their support those who were expelled from their homes without any right, merely for saying “Our Lord is God”’. (Surah al Hajj: 39–40). This clearly implies that Muslims are allowed to wage war only if they were oppressed and subjected to violence. The Quran further defines limits and prescribes a strict code of behaviour for conducting a war; ‘fight in the way of God against those who fight you, but do not go beyond the limits. God does not love those who go beyond the limits.’ The limits refer to the conduct of Muslims at war as per rules framed by Islam to make war civilized and more humane. These include not attacking a wounded person, not attacking or killing non-combatants such as any old person, any child or women, monks in monasteries or people sitting in places of worship. In addition, it is specifically prohibited to kill a prisoner of war, indulge in loot or plunder, destruction of villages, cattle, cultivated fields, trees and gardens. Muslims are prohibited from taking anything from the general public (even of a conquered country) without paying for it. Needless to say, Muslims are also prohibited from mutilating the corpses of the enemies and are to return the bodies of dead enemy soldiers without delay or compensation. Although people of the Islamic faith around the world have violated all of the above rules some of the time, they have done so despite Islam and not because of Islam. Herein lies the difference. The deadly suicide attack in the US and recent events in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Turkey and a number of other places, all conducted by people who supposedly follow the Islamic faith, have led many non-Muslims to indict Islam as a violent religion. The contention is that Islamic religion is the root of all evils and needs to be reformed or banished from the face of the earth. Verses from the Quran are used to create a paranoid fear about Muslims. Forgotten in this hoopla are the following facts: most of the victims of terrorism, Islamic or non-Islamic, are Muslims. Almost 200,000 Muslims were slaughtered in Bosnia by Serbian Christians; 22,000 Muslim females aged 9–82 were raped by Christian militiamen; more than a million Iraqi children died as a result of US imposed UN sanctions. Palestinians continue to die and starve in the filth of the refugee camps

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under Israeli occupation. In India, terrorism and counter-terrorism have killed over 60,000 Muslims and several hundred Hindus in Kashmir. Perpetrators involved in the destruction of the Babri Masjid, and now at the helms of the government in India, have continued with their agenda of subjugation of the minorities as evidenced in the recent riots in Gujarat. This pogrom against the Muslims has killed over 2,000 and driven over 200,000 of them from their homes into squalid refugee camps. These displaced Muslims are now not being allowed to return to their homes by the Hindu fanatics who demand they must either convert to Hinduism or live elsewhere. Over 300 mosques and old historical monuments and dargahs have been burnt to the ground and temples erected over some of them. Those arrested for the killing of Muslims have been acquitted after a sham trial. Many Muslims have been incarcerated under the draconian POTA laws without proof or cause, while not a single Hindu perpetrator of the carnage in Gujarat has been arrested under this same law. In Pakistan, terrorism by Shia and Sunni groups against each other continues to take innocent lives, whereas in the Philippines and in Chechnya, Muslims are being subjected to ethnic cleansing. Muslim despair, anger, helplessness, and frustration are growing. Victims of terror themselves, the Muslims for the most part are being further victimized in many parts of the world. ‘Islamic’ terrorists may feel that the end justifies the means; however, Islam forbids this. The Quran specifically indicates ‘And seek not occasions for mischief in the land: for Allah loves not those who do mischief’ (Surah 28:77). Islam forbids destruction of and violence against places of worship be they Islamic or non-Islamic; ‘Who commits a greater wrong/ The one who hinders prayers/And tries to ruin in his zeal/The places of worship of others’ (Surah al-Baqara, verse 117). Islam also prohibits suicide and by extension suicide bombers. The Prophet had very clearly mentioned this on many occasions. His admonition that ‘He who kills himself with anything, Allah will torment him with that in the fire of Hell’ and ‘Do not be delighted by the actions of anyone, until you see how he ends up’ very clearly indicates that there should be no second thoughts on this issue. To judge Islam by the conduct of a minority of its people is misleading and is fraught with danger. It stigmatizes a vast majority of law abiding peaceful citizens and defames a religion that is one of the fastest growing religions in the US and in many other parts of the world. In addition, it creates deep resentment in the hearts of Muslims and non-Muslims and makes the Muslims targets of non-Muslim wrath. When David Koresh

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created the chaos in Waco, Texas, President Clinton defined him as a mad man. Timothy McVeigh, the bomber of the Murrah building in Oklahoma was never defined as a Christian terrorist despite his Christian fundamentalist ties. Likewise no one blamed Hindu terrorists for the destruction of the Babri Masjid, or for the riots in Mumbai or Gujarat, or Buddhist terrorists for the gas attack in Tokyo. Certainly they were all terrorists, but were they representatives of Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism? No religion allows for such unjust violence.

FACTORS INFLUENCING TERRORISM

AND

POSSIBLE CAUSES

It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to fully elucidate the causes of terrorism. This is because of the complex and multidimensional nature of terrorism. Certain generalities can, however, be made. Terrorism results from what can be characterized as ‘the battered peoples’ syndrome. This may be a manifestation of state action or inaction, involve religious fanatics or people engaged in the fight for national liberation, inter or intraethnic conflicts, response to occupation, world domination and imperialism and globalization.

WESTERN IMPERIALISM The first half of the twentieth century was an era of turmoil with about half the world’s population under alien rule. Britain and France and the Dutch were the main three worldwide empires during the 1900s and in that order. The British empire controlled over 350 million people, the French about 56 million and the Dutch 35 million people. The US was the most rapidly expanding empire with 10 million people. In 1898 most of the US assets were in the form of naval bases on the continent of North America. In return for these bases the inhabitants were to be provided with statehood and US citizenship. After the war with Spain in 1898, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines were also added on to this list. Hawaii and Wake Island were then annexed and partial control over Samoa was also established. US also took control of the Panama Canal Zone in 1903 and bought the Virgin Islands from Denmark for $25 million. The scramble for control of land, shipping lanes, oil and other natural resources was on. With the advent of the 1900s, most of Africa,

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Southeast Asia and the Pacific were divided up into colonies, protectorates, and spheres of influence. Effective control was maintained through military conquest and punitive measures and rewards. Suffice it to say that the world was divided between different masters and in different ways. Western imperialism was and is based on world domination to ensure the following: new markets, access to natural resources, secure and safe routes to colonies in the Middle East, Africa, India and East Asia. With the discovery of oil, this compulsion for control became even more vital. The policy has been to install and support friendly governments that are almost always oppressive of their own people. The idea is to make these countries dependent on oil sales and import of western products. The wealth that the oil sales bring to these countries generally go into the coffers of the royal princes and the elite, rarely trickling down to the general public. The west’s expenditure on the procurement of oil is then recovered many times over by export of western products especially arms and ammunition. Like the ‘Islamic’ terrorists who use Islam for their nefarious activities, the west uses democracy as a ploy to impose its domination all over the world. It is, however, not democracy that they are interested in, it is control. Visualize what would happen if Saudi Arabia becomes a democracy and after a national referendum decides that they will sell only a fraction of their oil and that too only to their neighbouring Arab countries. Chances are that the western governments would not accept this kind of democracy. A dictatorship or a monarchy (both of which is in direct violation of Islamic laws) that will guarantee oil supplies will certainly be preferable to a democracy that does not give such a guarantee. A repressive government in Saudi Arabia is thus being kept in power despite the fact that the only freedom that exists there is confined to the members of the ‘royal’ family. In 1956 Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh of Iran was assassinated by the CIA and replaced by Raza Shah Pehlavi. To protect the west’s economic interest, Mossadegh, who was about to nationalize the Iranian oil industry, had to be eliminated and a puppet installed in his place. In direct contrast to this, when people voted to elect representative governments in Turkey and Algeria, democracy was nipped in the bud by western pressure. The Refah party and the Islamic Front were banned because of the fear of Islamic fundamentalism. No consideration was given to the fact that if people had the power to vote any particular party in, they would also have had the power to vote them out. At the least, it would have perhaps prevented the killing and turmoil that followed in Algeria and still continues as a result of this unjustified interference.

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During 1948 nearly 800,000 Arabs were expelled from Israel following the massacre in April of that year of over 250 Arab villagers at Deir Yasin by Irgun terrorists under Menachem Begin. These refugees, who now number several millions, have had all their land confiscated and handed over to Jewish settlers. Israel furthermore, has not restricted itself to the territories that were legally sanctioned by the UN. After the 1967 war Israel annexed the West Bank of Jordan, the Golan Heights and started a massive settlement plan. In addition, in the 1970s it took over the control of southern Lebanon up to the Littani River, an area always considered by the Zionists as belonging to them. The attempt to create a Jewish state and with total disregard for the human rights of the Palestinians has resulted in most of the terrorism that plagues the world today. While the west has no problems in dealing with the Begin, or in dealing with Sharon, the mastermind behind the Shatilla and Sabra refugee camp massacres, or in condemning Palestinian terrorism, they generally look the other way when Palestinian homes are bulldozed and Jewish settlements built in their place. The rhetoric has always been that ‘the Palestinian terrorists kill innocent people, the Israelis only kill terrorists’. Osama bin Laden was a CIA front man during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. The Taliban was intially allied with the US and the other western powers and so was Saddam Hussein. The west continued supplying Saddam Hussein with arms and ammunition despite the well known fact that Saddam had gassed hundreds of innocent Kurdish villagers opposed to his regime. The reasons as to why he had to be stopped so suddenly for attacking Kuwait are not clear. Hussein had fought with Iran for almost a decade without any effort by anyone to stop this war, not by the US, by the British, or even by the UN. There was no talk of taking him out then, possibly because he was killing the Iranians or perhaps the west needed the oil that they could not get from Iran any longer. US, British and soldiers from other freedom loving countries died defending Kuwait and ensuring that a despot leader (similar to Saddam) remains in power in Kuwait. Western economic interests superceded the rights of almost a million children who died as a result of the decade-old embargo of Iraq. This in addition to all the innocent Iraqis killed in the two Gulf wars. A situation analogous to that in Iraq is going on in Afghanistan as well. Both countries are under ‘friendly’ occupation, but without freedom for its citizens. Karzai has received a minuscule fraction of the funds that he was promised for reconstruction of Afghanistan. Not only that, while he

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was in the US, the Congress rebuked him when he tried to remind them of this. Just like the Palestinians and the Iraqis, the Afghani people are angry, hungry, and desperate. Karzai only controls a very small portion of Afghan territory, the tribal lords control the rest. Across the border in Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf gets $3 billion for his cooperation in the fight against Al Qaeda. The fact that he overthrew an elected government in Pakistan by force, jailed or exiled his opponents and has introduced a system of government whereby his rule is assured for a long time to come, has been brushed aside.

GLOBALIZATION Western imperialism in conjunction with globalization is creating global economic systems not only favouring a few core states but also being controlled by them. Opponents of globalization believe, and with some justification, that globalization is nothing but imperialism in a different context. Although the full impact of globalization is still to be felt, a recent analysis by Mark Wiesbrot and his colleagues, indicates that the effect of globalization has generally been negative. All parameters studied including economic growth, income, child mortality, progress in health as well as life expectancy have been significantly reduced. The worst sufferers have been farmers. The WTO, under the direct control of the west, mandates that poor countries must open their agriculture markets to rich countries and cut support to farmers. This has resulted in many farmers going out of business, some even committing suicide. It also allows the multinational agriculture companies to patent plant varieties or genetic sequences of animals. This policy prevents the poorer countries from having control over their own products. An example would be the patent by RiceTec on basmati rice. The story is similar for other commodities such as diary products, wheat, sugar, soya, maize, and coffee. In addition to agriculture, small business owners are also rapidly losing their business to multinational companies because of price fixing. The multinational companies can pick up commodities from any part of the world and sell them at a much lower rate than the indigenous business owners. Thus globalization generally benefits the rich, the sophisticated, the educated and those well connected at the expense of the poor. This unbalanced economic reality is polarizing society with the potential to cause great social upheaval around the world. Globalization in the words of Akindele et al. ‘is the final conquest

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of capital over the rest of the world’ and because of the ‘lopsidedness in the rules of the game therein, cannot benefit Africa and her people. This is so and would continue to be so because globalization is a new order of marginalization and recolonization in a neo-neo-collonial fashion’ (2002).

RELIGIOUS TERRORISM There is no such thing as religious terrorism although we have seen time and again religion being used for terrorism. The fact that criminals have hijacked religion is apparent, yet we continue to believe in the fallacy of religious terrorism. The so called ‘religious’ terrorists, in their blind quest to further their cause, go against and disregard the teachings of the religion they claim to uphold. Some of them are common criminals who will use any opportunity to enrich themselves, others imbibed with religious fervour become criminals in the process. For most, the end justifies the means and morality, ethics, and religious edicts cease to have any meaning. This is what we see in Palestine, in Kashmir, Pakistan, Chechnya and in other parts of the world. The crusaders, in their attempt to liberate the Holy Land, were involved in brutal massacres of the Muslims and Jews and in ransacking Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. They were not following any Christian laws from the Bible. The Protestant Ulster Freedom Fighters or the Ulster Volunteer Force involved in the fight for dominance with the Catholics in Ireland are not following any Christian laws. And neither are the Catholics! In the US, the white supremacist militia groups and hate groups such as the Christian Patriot paramilitary groups are not upholding the banner of Christianity high, they are actually insulting it. The assassin of Yitzhak Rabin who belonged to an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect claimed that his orders to kill Rabin came ‘from God’. This terrorist act cannot be in compliance with the laws of Judaism. The Taliban who destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan and the Hindutva Taliban who destroyed the Babri Masjid are certainly terrorists, but not religious terrorists. In Gujarat, the recent pogrom against the Muslim population, sponsored and abetted by the state government and whitewashed by the central government can be classified as state terrorism but certainly cannot be defined as religious terrorism. As already discussed, the suicide bombers and other terrorists in Palestine, Kashmir,

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Pakistan, Chechnya and elsewhere are in not fighting a jehad as defined by Islamic laws.

CONCLUSIONS There is a worldwide crisis perception regarding Islam. It is incumbent upon Muslims to convince the world that Islam is not the domain of the few who indulge in violent acts against innocent people, foreign embassies, diplomats and non-Muslims. They can do so by countering the media’s projection of Islam and by living a life that is in agreement with the advice of the Prophet (PBUH): ‘Three kinds of people destroy Islam, the ill-behaviour of a scholar, the polemics of a hypocrite in the Quran and misleading Imams’ (al-Firabi, Sifat an-Nifaq). When Europe was in its mediaeval state, Islam thrived as the most advanced civilization with the exception of China and India. The Muslims excelled in the arts and science. They were among the first to discover, expand on, and extend the frontiers of science and mathematics to areas beyond what had been achieved by the Indians, Chinese, and the Greeks. Muhammad Bin Musa Al-Khwarizimi for example, expanded the knowledge of Arithmetic into Algebra. Girard of Cremona translated Khwarizimi’s thesis into Latin. European universities until the sixteenth century used this translated version of Khwarizimi’s thesis as their main mathematical text book. Similarly, advances in areas of chemical research (Jabir Ibd Haiyan), physics and trigonometry (Ibn Haytham), botany (Ibn al-Baitar), anatomy (AbdAl-Malik Ibn QuraibAl-Asmai) revolutionized the world of science and critical thinking. The Umayyad Caliph Al-Wahad established the first Medical School in Damscus in A.D. 706. Tipu Sultan (1783–99) invented and designed the first (war) rockets, two of them on display at the Woolwich Museum of Artillery in London. In addition to advancements in science, the Muslims also excelled in architecture and art, the examples of which can be seen all over the world and exemplified in the Taj Mahal and the Humzanamah. In the words of Robert Briffault, physician and poet laureate of England: ‘It is highly probable that but for the Arabs, modern European civilization would never have arisen at all; it is absolutely certain that but for them, it would not have assumed that character which has enabled it to transcend all previous phases of evolution’ (1919).

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The decay of the Muslim ummah is a consequence of the Muslims having abandoned the path of true religion. This was the apparent reason for the decline of the Ottoman empire. Since then, despotic leaders or monarchs are ruling most of the Muslim land, determined to stay in power at the expense of the ummah. The legacy of the colonial and post-colonial policies of the US and the Europeans in supporting such unrepresentative governments has resulted in considerable anger against the west. The blind support for Israeli occupation has not helped as well. Some of this anger has been channelled by vested interests such as the Hamas or the Al Qaeda or the Hezbullah for jehad against the oppressors. Left in the lurch are the innocent civilians who are being decimated by the terrorists as well as by the west’s campaign against the terrorists. This vicious cycle is destined to create more terrorists, not less. Considering the fact that the technology for building weapons of mass destruction is easy to come by, the consequence of not providing aggrieved populations with a way out can be disastrous. The world of Islam is in turmoil today. Muslims should look within and take concrete steps to create a society consistent with the moralistic values of Islam. Blaming others will not solve problems, nor will violence. They should strive for a society that is as far removed from jahiliah as possible. It is jahiliah that is the root cause of the violence. Jehad should be against illiteracy, against poverty, against subjugation of women, against lack of health facilities, lack of schools and educated mullahs and for a more democratic mode of discourse. Muslim youth should be inspired to shun fundamental values (not to be confused with Islam), engage in social work and in nation building. Additionally, there should be unity of purpose among Muslims to prevent the radical Islamists from hijacking Islam. All this and much more can be done if a more democratic society with emphasis on equality for all, modern education, removal of poverty, hunger and freedom is put in place. How this can be done without clashing with the powerful western countries in control of the despotic rulers worldwide is anybody’s guess. ‘Islamic’ monarchs and emirs will certainly not give up their thrones simply because monarchy is prohibited in Islam. In addition, unjustified bias by governments who are subjugating a particular ethnic/religious group and subjecting them to violence and discrimination as is happening in India, Bangladesh or Pakistan cannot be resolved without their being a change in heart. What is needed is a commitment to justice and rule of law. Failing this terrorism will continue as long as tyranny continues.

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REFERENCES Akindele, S.T., T.O. Gidado and O.R. Olaopa, ‘Globalization, Its Implications and Consequences for Africa’, Globalization, vol. 2, no. 1 (2002). Available online at http://globalization.icaap.org/content/v2.1/01_akindele_etal.html Briffault, Robert, The Making of Humanity (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1919). Eaton, Richard M., ‘Temple desecration in pre-modern India’, Frontline, vol. 17, nos 25 and 26 (2000 and 2001). Gaurav Gatha for Class IV (RSS Shishu Mandirs). Hoffman, Bruce, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). ‘In the Name of History: Examples from Hindutva-inspired School Books in India’, South Asia Documents Online at http://www.indowindow.com/akhbar Itihaas Gaa Raha Hai for Std V (RSS Shishu Mandirs). Lewis, Bernard, Islam and the West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). Mandar, Harsh, ‘Counterfeit Peace: The Settled Injustices in Gujarat’, The Times of India, 17 July 2003. Mathur, Somesh K., ‘Globalization and Development: Some Issues and Empirical Facts’, 2002. Available online at http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidtrade/issues/ developmentpaper.html Maududi, Abul A., Human Rights in Islam (Leicester: The Islamic Foundation, 1983). Pointing, Clive, The 20th Century: A World History (New York: Henry Holtan Company, 1999). Punyani, Ram, Communal Politics: Facts versus Myths (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2003). Varshney, Ashutosh, Ethnic Conflit, 2nd. Edition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003). ‘We Have No Orders to save You’. State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat’, Human Rights Watch Publication (April) 2002, vol. 14, no. 3(C). Available online at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/india/gujarat.pdf Weisbrot, Mark, ‘The Score Card of Globalization 1980–2000’. Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2001. Available online at http://www.cepr.net/globalization/scorecard_on_globalization.htm Zahoor, Akram, Muslim History: 570–1950 C.E. (Gaithersburg: ZMD Corporation, 2000). —–———, Muslims In The Indian Subcontinent (Gaithersburg: ZMD Corporation, 2000).

SYNCRETISM AND COMMUNAL HARMONY IN BENGAL

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J.J. ROY BURMAN

I

n India communal riots between Hindus and Muslims are a common phenomenon. According to some Muslim leaders, about 3,000 riots take place annually in different parts of the country. But the figure can be interpreted in another way. In a country of about 1,000 million people of which Muslims comprise arond 12 per cent, the figure of 3,000 skirmishes rather seems insignificant. More importantly, the Hindu– Muslim communal conflagrations are very rare in the rural areas. It is mainly in the towns and cities with large number of migrant Muslim workers and petty business communities that the communal tensions reign high. Religious laxity, close economic ties and interdependence are often ascribed to the communal amity. There is another view that interreligious exchanges and composite culture at the grass roots and even at higher echelons provide a basis for harmonious living in India. In the case of West Bengal this is even more effective. The state has very few records of communal conflagrations compared to other states. Although composite culture is quite an important feature in India portraying a synthesis of Hindustani and Islamic music, dance, art and language, the eclecticism is confined mainly to the elements evident in North India and Pakistan. Besides, to brand something Islamic is a misnomer, since what is termed as Islamic basically refers to the cultural traits of Central and West Asia. Roots of these lie in the pre-Islamic age. It is usually ignored that majority of the Muslims of the world live in South and Southeast Asia and that they have cultural elements significantly different from Central and West Asia. The Manipuri Muslims, for instance, unlike the Muslims of Saudi Arabia, do not indulge in parallel

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cousin marriage. The Mappillas of Kerala follow the rule of matrilineal descent unlike the Muslims of Central Asia. According to certain quarters (Roy Burman 2002), it is the syncretism between Hindu and Muslim religions that play a crucial role in maintaining communal amity at the grass roots. The phenomenon of syncretism refers to an age-old social fact which received little attention in the realms of anthropology or sociology. It conveys the fusion or blending of religions by identification of gods, taking over observances, or selection of whatever seems best in each other. Often it relates to juxtaposition of two religions as well. The Dictionary of Religion (1944) defines syncretism as the process of amalgamation of conflicting or at least different parts or principles of cultures, more specifically assimilation of foreign groups. The foreign elements disappear as psychological and cultural entities of the other majorities enter into the minority, and the majority adopts both minority individuals and a selection of their cultural traits. This conveys certain elements of power dynamics. The definition provided by the Oxford English Dictionary makes this amply clear, ‘An attempt to sink differences and effect union between sects of philosophical schools— Thus it conveys strategy to contain conflict and promote tolerance.’ Asad (1983) tries to link syncretism to the growth of the concept of ‘natural religion’—a belief in and worship of a supernatural power which is found among all human beings.

THE CONCEPT

OF ISLAM

When dealing with the Hindu–Muslim syncretism, it is imperative that we briefly touch upon the concept of Islam and Hinduism. Steatite (as cited by Roy Burman 2000) states that, ‘Essential dogma of Islam is belief in the absolute unity of Allah, the creator of the world, who neither begot nor was begotten and whom nothing resembles. Allah causes all actions of men as well as every happening in the world according to his eternal predestination. At the same time men are capable of free actions, for which they are rewarded or punished. Among the prophets accredited by miracles the last and most eminent was Muhammad.’ Trimingham (1971) and Ahmad (1992) state that Islamic society is extremely varied and it has different ways in different parts of the Muslim world. Lokhandwalla (1987, pp. 104–6) states that Islam itself is highly syncretic, ‘In the early phase of Islam, local cultural elements of Arabic

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tribal mores were deliberately integrated with elements derived from the Judaic and Christian traditions.’ He also avers that at the theological level there were regional differences, however slight they might be, and each region had its own authoritative commentaries of the Quran, books on traditions of the Prophet and authoritative legal compendium. Miller (2000) similarly states that Islamic practices are attuned to the local cultures and traditions, more than 80 per cent of the Muslims inhabit different parts of the world outside the Arab region. He avers that though Islam is proclaimed to be monotheistic, faith on other supernatural powers—angels and evil spirits—is very common. In fact, Islam has incorporated many of the pre-Islamic traits of Arabia. Prophet Muhammad himself did not destroy the Kaaba, a pre-Islamic shrine in Mecca; rather he cleansed it. The pilgrims of Haj also kiss the black stone (a meteorite), another pre-Islamic shrine, placed next to the Kaaba. They also pelt pebbles seven times at the three stone structures representing the devils, located at Mina near Mecca. Male circumcision among the Muslims is again a carry over from the pre-Islamic ritual and so are the animal sacrifice rituals that we see today. Lewis (1984) too has shown many of the pre-Islam tribal traits evident among the Muslim tribes of Somalia.

THE CONCEPT

OF

HINDUISM

Similarly, with regard to Hinduism it must be stated that the term Hindu is a misnomer. Jawaharlal Nehru realized this and stated that Hinduism is vague, amorphous, many-sided, devoting various things to various men. It is hardly possible to define it. Unlike Islam, Hinduism is restricted mainly to India. Hinduism prevails in countries like Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia, Java, Sumatra, and Bangladesh. In Nepal Hinduism mixes with Buddhism. The Newar and Tamang communities are two good examples of this. In Southeast Asia, the people have their own versions of the Ramayana. Habib (1999) states, ‘Hinduism, just like the name “Hind”, is an entirely Iranian word. The style of writing “Hinduism”, as if it is a Sanskrit word meaning “land of Hindus” is a modern invention; the word in this form is unknown to classical Sanskrit. It was taken from the Iranians by the Arabs and Muslims in general, among whom upto the time of Albaruni there was little reason to distinguish between those who were Indians, and those who, besides being Indians, followed religious sects other than

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Islam. Once the Muslims established themselves in large parts of India, especially from the 13th century onwards, the latter restrictive meaning of the word began to predeterminate and “Hindu” assumed a religious colour. But by the Hindus themselves the name was not accepted before the latter half of 14th century, when the Vijaynagar ruler and, later, the ruler of Mewar are found styling themselves “Hindu” sultans.’ Frykenberg (1997, p. 83) strongly refutes the existence of an all India character of Hinduism, ‘There has never been any such a thing as a single “Hinduism” or any single “Hindu community” for all India.’ Nor for that matter, can one find any such thing as a single ‘Hindu’ or ‘Hindu community’ for any one sociocultural region of the continent. Furthermore, there has never been any one religion—nor even one system of religions— to which the term ‘Hindu’ can accurately be applied. Frykenberg identifies many forms of Hinduism, such as ‘Popular Hinduism’. ‘Temple Hinduism’, ‘Bhakti Hinduism’, ‘Village Hinduism’ and ‘Tribal Hinduism’. Frykenberg, taking a cue from Romila Thapar, further states that modern Hinduism is a form of corporate and organized ‘syndicated’ religion which, for example in South India, grew during the colonial period through the manipulation of the influential Brahmins and other upper caste Hindus. The government in Madras too facilitated this process. Importantly, many of the Dalit castes in Madras were opposed to the idea of devolving power to the Brahmins and high castes nonBrahmins. Thapar (1997) states that the present politicians using the Hindu card are trying to project Hinduism in the lines of Islam and Christianity and proselytizing the so-called backward classes—the Dalits and the Scheduled Tribes. The point of reference of this brand of Hinduism is the Brahminical Hinduism. She calls it ‘Syndicated Hinduism’. Rasheeduddin Khan (1987) considers the notion of Hindu religion a misnomer. According to him, the term includes people of different religious ways which ‘gives Hinduism a flexibility and resilience and a tradition base wide enough to cover the syndrome of Indian culture. Hinduism’s religious content has been generally referred to as Brahminism, while the term Hindu which was used by the ancient Persians, Greeks and later by the Arabs and the central Asia people, referred essentially to the ethnic geographic identity of inhabitants in and around Indus valley.’ Khan further states that the term Hindu does not occur at all in our ancient literature, the first reference of it being in a tantrik book of the eighth century. Stietencron (1997) views that the notion of Hinduism is a western construct. During the period of renaissance in the fifteenth century when

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the Christian missionaries became a part of colonial expansion, there grew an interest to study the heathen ‘natural religions’ for the purpose of conversion. The missionaries and the orientalists could not differentiate the different forms of heathen religions in India and put them together. Stietencron also states that the independent government of India, following the administrative lead of the British colonial government, had lumped various religions under the term of Hinduism. It was a negative culmination so that if one was not a Muslim or Christian, he/she had to be enumerated as a Hindu in the Census. Mohiuddin (1987) writes that the British as a part of their divide and rule policy distorted the facts and created new identities, ‘Before the advent of the British, Indian rulers were not designated denominationally as Hindus or Muslims but ethnically as Cholas, Chalukyas, Rajputs or as Pathans, Turks, Mughals. James Mill was the first British writer of Indian history, and in his book History of British India, he periodized Indian history in terms region—the Hindu period, the Muslim period and the British period.’ Partha Chatterjee (1995) similarly views Hinduism as a modern development but, in contrast to Stietencron, argues that the ‘Hindu’ term was a nationalist construct. The nationalism which emerged in India was a Hindu nationalism. ‘The idea that “Indian nationalism” is synonymous with “Hindu nationalism”. . . . Its appeal is not religious but political . . . . In the present context the majority politics of Hindu nationalists is presenting Hinduism in an altered manner.’ Sontheimer (1995) considers that folk religion is widely prevalent in rural India. But the modern Hindus would not accept it as Hinduism. He takes the example of jatra, which is an annual feature in many rural areas of Maharashtra. These jatras take place according to the agricultural cycles and not according to the Brahminical calendar of rituals. Many jatras end with a procession by the god who, with the help of a medium, declares the prospects for rains and harvest, formerly the possibility of wars. Kancha Illaiah (1996) presents a subaltern, Dalitbahujan view on Hinduism. He states that his parents belonged to the Kumatoolu Banjaras. They shared the Peerila festival (Muharram) equally with the Turukoolus (Muslims). But today with the rise of Hindutva, they are suddenly being told that they are Hindus. What Illaiah is trying to convey is that the majority of the Dalitbahujan peoples Scheduled Castes (SC), Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST)—just by worshipping stone images do not become Hindus though they have been drawn into the jajmani system.

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In India the element of syncretism is quite old and deeply entrenched. Kabir Panthi is the name of an old sect of followers of Sant Kabir. Kabir is believed to have been born to a Hindu family and raised by a Muslim weaver. Kabir roamed among the people and preached the philosophy of life indicating the similarities in all religions. He spread the message of communal harmony among the masses. Hindus and Muslims both considered Kabir to belong to their religion. Apart from the Kabir Panthi, India witnessed the emergence of a major syncretic religion—the Sikh religion. Guru Nanak, the founder of this religion was maimed by the Hindu–Muslim conflicts; he started revering and taking cues from both the religions and thus evolved the Sikh religion. Mohiuddin (1987) states that Islam could gain its footing in India in no time, mainly due to the influence of the Sufi saints. The saints led a simple life and adopted a very liberal form of Islam. ‘They were not very particular about formal prayers and fasting, duties that are regarded as essential in Islam. They believed in “wahdut-ul-wajood” (A sort of pantheism) and in “sulhe-kul” (Peace with all). Sufism came to India from Iran and was greatly influenced by Buddhism, Vedanta and Yoga.’ Ashgar Ali Engineer too spoke of Islam in India similarly and stated that Sufi saints were assimilative rather than rejectionists. Thus many of the Vedantic traditions representing different visions of life tended to become part of Indian Islam (Khizer 1990). The numerous Sufi orders, some localized and some with wide networks, flourished between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries by adopting the indigenous cultures and made a very significant impact on the society. The Sufi cults revolving around the pirs or saints were able to garner support from both the rulers and the populace. The Sufi tombs where the annual urs or the death ceremonies of the founding pir was performed became major social and political institutions. M.S. Gore (1995) states in this regard that both Islam and the Bhakti tradition played a symbiotic role for each other: Islam seems to have strengthened the de-ritualizing and egalitarian trends in Hinduism while Hindu philosophy seems to have strengthened the mystical spiritual strain in Muslim religious thought. It could not be an accident that during the long period of Muslim rule the Bhakti movement gathered considerable following in Islam. Neither of these variants in the two religions could be said to owe its origin to the other. . . . The Bhakti movement, which indirectly weakened the hold of the priesthood and deemphasized religious ritual and status hierarchy among the followers, must

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have found strength in the context of Islam and Muslim dominance. Similarly the mystic and devotional strain in Islam must have found a responsive strain among Indian Muslims. The saints of the Bhakti movement gathered considerable following among the middle and lower castes in the Deccan and in north between the 12th and the 16th centuries which was the major period of strong Muslim dominance. This was also the period of the spread of Sufism in India through the teachings of Chisti saints.

In India, the Hindu–Muslim syncretic trends were not limited only to Sufism and Bhakti. There were some other sects also which fully adopted the local systems into their fold. The Ismailis are one such sect. Lokhandwalla (1987) states: The Ismailis without taking recourse to political apologies or excuses, accepting the truth of every religion and interpreting Islam as the latest efforts to substantiate, support and revitalize the ancient truth that had been imparted to humanity. They stressed that every community and every book had its own share of truth and no book of religion should be ignored for one’s search of truth and wisdom . . . . It was mainly the Khoja branch of Ismaili religion that used the eclectic tradition of Islam to understand the Indian ethos, attitude and tradition. Islamic concepts were explained as a continuation of the old ancient faith . . . . Many parallels were drawn between Islamic personalities and Hindu pantheon. The word ‘Om’ written in Sanskrit was equated with ‘Ali’ written in Arabic, and the similarity between the two was stressed to convey the correspondence and resemblance of the two faiths. The Hindu pantheon of nine avatars was accepted readily and the tenth, the Kalkai avatar, which is awaited, was claimed to have appeared in Arabia. The word Kalkai was transferred to ‘Nakalanki’ meaning spotless, pure. To correspond their belief of Imam and Prophet being sinless and pure (mas’um) the Quran was preferred as Atharva Veda and the five Pandavas were equated with five pure bodies (panjatan). Muhammad was at times placed parallel to Mahadev, and Ali seen as Vishnu.

SYNCRETISM

IN

BENGAL

Bengal saw the largest concentration of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent (about 34 million in 1980) and their present aggregate in undivided Bengal (Bangladesh and West Bengal taken together) makes them the second largest Muslim population (about 100 million) after Indonesia (140 million). In Bengal syncretism between Hinduism and Islam appears almost ubiquitious. The first traces of syncretism can be traced here

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from the very inception of Muslim rule in the region since the thirteenth century. The first contact between Muslims and Bengal are recorded since the eighth century with the coming of the Arab merchants. But the first Muslim rule was started with the reign of Bakhtiar Khilji in 1204. The rule continued till 1765 when Siraj-ud-daulah was defeated at the battle of Plassy. The rule continued for 562 years. The syncretic trend could become possible mainly due to the entry of Sufism in every nook and corner of the region. Sheikh remarks that Sufism entered not only into big cities and townships but also to villages and established their settlements. The specific structure of Bengali society marked by extreme poverty stricken untouchable castes, the diminishing role of Buddhism and downfall of maritime trade, as well as the rise of Muslim power were responsible for this. The entry of Islam to Bengal was greatly aided by the Sufi saints belonging to different family orders, namely Quaderia, Chistia, Naqshbandi, Shattari, Madari, and Qualandari. It is a fact that even the high-caste Bengalis of the region showed remarkable receptivity to Sufism and praised the saints highly in their religious lores. Many have written about the rapprochment to the Muslims during the early proliferation of Islamic power in Bengal in forms, ceremonies, rites and usages. The religious mantras of Satyanarayan include praising of the Satya Pir. Satyanarayan puja is done more particularly to ensure well being of the villagers. According to history, Raja Ganesh of Gaur Pandua (near Malda) was strongly against the Islamic forces and is believed to have created difficulties for the Sufi saints. But his son, Sultan Jal al-adin, adopted Islam and patronized the Sufi order, which was actively involved in proselytization. He became closely associated with Pandua’s leading Chisti saint, Sheikh Nur Qutub-I-Alam. Ever since a number of Sufi saints from Iraq, Iran, Arabia and West Asia have entered Bengal and spread the message of Islam. But the Sufi saints in the process of their mission adopted a very liberal and dynamic approach whereby they did not find anything wrong in permitting the converts to retain many of their original cultural elements. This approach of the Sufis led to a rapid spread of their influence even among the non-converted Hindu population. No wonder that Pirism became widely accepted in Bengali society, Hindu or Muslim. Among the Muslims this was possible particularly as the majority converts adopted ‘Hanafi’ faith of the Sunni sect. Apart from the liberal stance, Sufism also actively enjoined the Vaishnavite movement, which was opposed to caste hierarchy in the

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Hindu society. According to Asim Roy (1983) many of the Muslim pada composition strongly resemble those of Hindu Vaishnavites. Many such Muslim authors were regarded as Vaishnavites themselves. According to history many of the Muslim rulers also patronized Vaishnavite authors. The Kayastha poet Maladhar Basu, for instance, is believed to have been patronized by Sultan Rukn-al-Din Barbak (1459–74) for composing his book Sri Krishnavijaya. Though the Muslims entered Bengal around the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Muslim rulers did not try to enforce Islam through the might of the sword. In fact, the Mughals were altogether opposed to any conversion. Eaton (2000) writes, ‘Islam Khan, the Mughal governor in Bengal, is known to have discouraged the conversion of Bengali Hindus and on one occasion he actually punished one of his officers for allowing it to happen.’ Roy (1983) states that there were a number of factors due to which Islam could become popular in Bengal. One of them is that a lot of Buddhists embraced Islam due to relentless persecution by the Brahmins. But he also cautions that it may not be the only factor for such largescale conversions. One also referred to the nebulous structure of the rather recently introduced Hinduism in the region and the oppressive caste system as well. The convert to Islam could not of course expect to rank with the higher classes of the Mohammedans, but he would escape the degradation which the caste system imposed on him. Eaton (1994) points out a great paradox of Bengali history, namely that although Muslim regimes had ruled Bengal since the early thirteenth century, a noticeable community of Muslim cultivators did not emerge there until the late sixteenth century, under a regime that did nothing to encourage the conversion of Bengalis to Islam and in fact opposed such conversions. First settlement of Muslim cultivators in the Dhaka region was reported in 1599 at a time when the local zamindars were losing their grip in favour of the Mughal imperial authorities. Muslim cultivators gradually became more numerous in the Noakhali and Rangpur region in the 1630s and 1660s respectively. Eaton considers that the pirs or the saints played a very important role in the colonization of these regions. They were the ones responsible for recruiting the cultivators and controlling them through the religious tenor: These pioneers played decisive roles in the religious development of the region, since one of the conditions for obtaining a grant was to build on the land a mosque or temple, to be supported in perpetuity out of the

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wealth produced on site. Grants made to Hindu institutions tended to integrate local communities into a Hindu-ordered cultural universe, whereas grants authorizing the establishment of mosques or shrines tended to integrate such communities into an Islamic-ordered cultural universe. Subsequent demographic patterns evolved from these earlier processes. Since most pioneers were Muslims, however, mosques comprised the majority of institutions established, with the result that the dominant mode of piety that evolved on East Bengal’s economic frontier was Islamic.

The mosques, of course, lacked the size and structure of the West Asian style. They were humble structures made of mud and bamboo thatching. But many of the humble pioneers later acquired the status of powerful pirs. While the pirs like Satya Pir, Manik Pir or Panch Pir are fictitious mythical figures, there were others who gained the position of pirs due to their extraordinary powers or the halo created around them. While there are some living pirs, others are dead and their commemorates are worshipped. We will be referring to some of the mythical pirs and those who are considered to have been real figures.

SATYA PIR The cult of Satya Pir is extremely popular in the whole of West Bengal. Satya Pir is obviously a fictitious character and there are a number of myths about him. Roy (1983) states, ‘The identity of Satya Pir seemed rather obscure, indeed even more than others. Although a few shrines bearing the name could be found, on examination of the relevant literature and tradition on the pir categorically rejects the historicity of the pir. Some traditions quite arbitrarily linked Husain Shah, a fifteenth-century sultan of Bengal, with the introduction of the cult.’ According to a myth a Brahmin was advised by god appearing in the guise of a Muslim mendicant to worship Satya Pir. God then appeared to him in the form of Krishna and again suggested he should worship the pir, and the Brahmin was then convinced to do so. According to another motif, a Hindu sea merchant and his son-in-law were, despite their initial scant regard for Satya Pir, able to save their entire fleet from a storm (due to the devotion of the daughter to Satya Pir). Both these versions are considered to be part of a process of a higher caste Hindu acceptance of the Satya Pir cult. Eaton (1994) writes on the other hand that in early literature written in praise of Satya Pir, one would note the impact of pirism on Hinduism. It portrays a folk society

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innocent of hardened communal boundaries and one that freely assimilated a variety of beliefs and practices that were in the air in Bengal’s premodern religious environment. Though the ambience has changed, the contents have not made much significant change, particularly in the rural areas. The credo of Satya Pir has now transcended into the faith of Satyanarayan. One of the early verses of Satyanarayan’s ‘panchali’ (religious poetry) reads: Satyanarayan took the form of Satya Pir and solaced a poor Brahmin beggar and asked him to pray to him seeking his desires. But there was a face of uncertainty on the Brahmin’s face. Noticing him the pir told him that there was no difference between Veda and Quran. No wonder that the dargahs and mazars of Satya Pir are abundant all over the state of West Bengal. There is a prominent dargah of his right on the main road of Raja Bazar in the heart of Calcutta.

MANIK PIR Quite like Satya Pir, another saint who is very commonly worshipped by both the Hindus and Muslims is Manik Pir. He is considered to be a guardian pir—protecting from sickness, protecting cattle, and ensuring fertility. Muslim mendicants and village bards sing ballads glorifying the pir. Manik Pir’s identity cannot be easily established. While sharing some of the characteristics of the Hindu god Shiva, he also resembled Gorakshanath. The linkage with Shiva is made because it is believed that Manik Pir had visited Kalu Ghose’s house uttering ‘Vam’, as one does in the worship of Shiva. Kalu’s mother gave him five coins in the name of panch pirs, but the pir refused to accept it and asked for milk. But she played a trick and Manik Pir in vengeance killed all the cattle and the milkmaids. The lady then apologized to Manik Pir to retrieve all that she lost. The Hindu–Muslim syncretic ties and communal amity are manifest best through the dargahs and mazars which are frequented by people of both the faiths. Here we will describe a few of them.

GHUTIARI SHARIF: THE DARGAH

OF

GHAZI SAHEB

Given the ambience prevalent in Bengal, it is not surprising that the Sufi saint Hazrat Ghazi Mubarak Ali Shah is so popular in the Sunderban area and is commonly known as Ghazi Saheb among the people. He is

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commonly propitiated along with the cults of Bon Bibi and Shah Jungli by the woodcutters and honey collectors of the region. The exact antecedence of Ghazi Saheb is not known, but he is believed to have come from Arabia and lived in the region some 300 years back. After his death a dargah was built at Ghutiari Sharif. Hazrat Ghazi is popularly known by various names like Ghazi Baba, Barkhan Ghazi, Ghazi Saheb, Mubarak Shah Ghazi, etc. There are many myths about Ghazi, but his war with Dakshin Ray—a forest deity—is legendary. It is believed that the war between the two was over the political control of the hitherto unpopulated forest region. In the fierce war Ghazi killed over seven thousand tigers and at the end he beheaded Dakshin Ray with his sword and gifted to Muhammad himself. But Dakshin Ray too possessed supernatural powers. His head reverted to the torso as many times as it was felled. The war led to severe misery of the people and god descended in the shape of Paygambar (Prophet) and Krishna and effected a truce between Ghazi Saheb and Dakshin Ray. With the truce it was decided that Barkat Ghazi would possess the southern Bhat coastal areas of Sunderbans and Dakshin Ray would rule over the rest. Since then, the cult of Krishna-Paygambar too gained popularity in the area. What is apparent from the above is that syncretic religion in the area has a distinctly political-economic overtone, and much of it can be traced to the settlement history of Sunderbans where human habitation started only in the nineteenth century because of the rapid clearance of the forests by both Hindus and Muslims. Conflicts must have ensued between the contending groups. But the harsh terrain, replete with fast moving rivers, estuaries, creeks full of sharks and crocodiles, and deep thick forests and marshes full of tigers certainly rendered it inhospitable for habitation. No wonder this necessitated strong mutual cooperation between all and sundry. Roy (1983) writes in this regard, ‘Taken together, the ferocity of nature and the anarchical conditions in the active delta, aggravated the conditions of institutional inadequacies in social and cultural terms, focused on the dire need of some binding forces of authority, stability, and assurance in a largely unstable physical and social situation. The deified animistic spirits like tiger-god, the serpent-goddess, and the crocodile goddess found some psychological answers to the problems of the peasants, the wood-cutters, the fishermen, and the boatmen of the delta.’ Besides, in an area devoid of centralized authority, mutual cooperation culminated into a political system, which gave primacy to the moral values and principles of reciprocity. This gains credence from the legend

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of the relationship that existed between Ghazi Saheb and Madan Roy Choudhury, the zamindar of the area. The legend states that once Madan Roy Chowdhury was summoned by the Nawab of Dhaka called Murshid Kuli Khan as he was unable to pay tax to the tune of Rs 303,000. But Madan Roy Choudhury had no money to pay, and in that moment of crisis Ghazi Saheb helped him out by entering into the court of the nawab in the form of a beetle and erasing the old cash book. He, in fact, manipulated the records in such a manner that the nawab had no option but to return a sum of half paisa to the zamindar. As a mark of gratitude Madan Roy Choudhury gifted 1,356 bighas of land to Ghazi Saheb. He also assisted in the construction of the dargah of Ghazi at Ghutiari Sharif. Besides, he constructed a number of mazars of Ghazi Saheb in the vicinity wherever he owned landed property, like the ones at Payali and Kurali villages. These mazars are supposed to be commemorates of Ghazi Saheb as his ‘baithak khana’ or seats where he had rested. In political realms, these suggest efforts made by the zamindar to keep his subjects (both Hindu and Muslim peasants) in good humour. Till now the first ‘sirni’—sweet offerings—are sent from the descendants of Madan Roy Choudhury to the dargah of Ghazi Saheb at the time of annual urs on 17 Ashar (30 June) when Amubachi mela is held. People from far-flung places throng the dargah for paying their obeisance. Many also visit the shrine seeking boons and fulfil the mannat, promises made at the time of seeking boons. The mannat can include offering of sweets, fowls, or even symbolically floating infants in vessels in the sacred pond adjoining the dargah (particularly after seeking boons by barren women). Many devotees float flowers on clay plates in the pond. Miniature terracotta horses are also sometimes offered as mannat. Disgruntled people suffering from family feuds frequent the dargah. Even the mentally challenged are brought to the shrine for a cure, particularly to the mazar of Pagla Baba located within the dargah complex.

SYNCRETISM

AND

NATURE WORSHIP

In the Sunderbans, Bon Bibi (Bon means ‘forest’ in Bengali and ‘Bon Bibi’ means ‘goddess of the forest’) and Dakshin Ray are two popular syncretic deities worshipped by both Hindu and Muslim woodcutters and hunters before entering the forests. In many villages Bon Bibi has been transformed into a tutelary deity. However, the images of the deity are of two

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kinds. In the Muslim dominated villages she wears a cap of herbs and shrubs, knitted hair, necklace, kurta pyjamas and a saffron scarf. She also wears socks and shoes. The deity invariably has a magic wand in her hands. A cock or tiger is her carrier. In Hindu areas, the deity wears a crown, necklaces and other ornaments. But she carries no magic wand. Nature worship by both Hindus and Muslims is further evident in the Ganga puja, whereby river Ganges is worshipped. In North Bengal both Hindu and Muslim boatmen and fishermen perform the Ganga puja. This again is a manifestation of attempts by the toiling masses to harness the fury of nature as a whole community. On the day of the puja, the devotees collectively float toy boats on the Ganges in the evening. Lamps are kindled and placed in the boats.

HINDU–MUSLIM SYNCRETIC COMMUNITIES Apart from the syncretic religious traits, there are syncretic communities as well in West Bengal. The Bauls form an important community who move around singing ballads. There have been many famous Bauls in the past, but among them Lalan Fakir was most renowned. Not much is known for certain about Lalan’s early life, but both Hindus and Muslims claim him as belonging to their religion. Lalan did not appreciate when anybody sought to learn about his caste and religion. On the basis of this inquiry, Lalan framed a song for himself—Sab loke kay Lalan ki jat sangsare: Everyone asks ‘Lalan what’s your religion in this world?’ Lalan replies, ‘How does religion look?’ I have never laid eyes on it. Some wear malas (Hindu rosaries) around their necks, some tabiz (Muslim rosaries), and so people say they belong to different religions. But do you bear the sign of your religion when you come or when you go?

CONCLUSION Though syncretic shrines are present all over West Bengal, they are to be seen more in the central and southern parts of the state, both in rural

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and urban areas. In the northern districts of the state like Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar very few dargahs are seen both in the rural and urban areas. This does not mean that North Bengal is any more communal than the rest of the state. In fact, the area seems to be even more liberal as large tracts of the region are inhabited by the Rajbansis, Rabhas and the Koch people. They all are like tribals and were incorporated into the Brahminical fold in a very loose way. They were not so much oppressed by the caste Hindus. Eaton (1994) of course states that majority of the people proselytized into Islam in the eastern parts of the region belonged to these communities. It is difficult to be certain in this regard as most the area he speaks of now is within Bangladesh. Many different reasons may be attributed to the existence of Hindu– Muslim syncretism. However, most significantly, it is perhaps due to the lack of penetration of the state apparatus to the grassroots. After all, the people of West Bengal mostly stay in rural areas and the rule of the administration is only marginal. It is the customary laws which are much more virile and effective. In places where there are no roads or effective means of communication, people have to mainly survive on the basis of their mutual cooperation. Religious exchanges among the toiling masses are very common and the rural masses do not consider them exceptional. When the pirs like Satya Pir and Manik Pir can be praised in the religious texts—Laxmi Thakurer Panchali—which Hindu housewives recite everyday, what more evidence of syncretism is required?

REFERENCES Ahmad, A.S., Postmodernism and Islam (London and New York: Routledge, 1992). Asad, T., ‘Anthropological Conceptions of Religion: Reflections on Geertz’, Man (n.s.), vol. 18 (1983), pp. 237–59. Chatterjee, P., ‘History and the Nationalization of Hinduism’, in V. Dalmia and H. Von Stietencron (eds), The Construction of Religious Traditions and National Identity (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1995). Eaton, R.M., The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier 1204–1760 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994). —–———, Essays on Islam and Indian History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Frykenberg, R.E., ‘The Emergence of Modern Hinduism’, in G.D. Sontheimer and H. Kulke (eds), Hinduism Reconsidered (New Delhi: Manohar, 1997).

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Gellner, E., ‘Doctor and Saint’, in A.S. Ahmed and D.M. Hart (eds), Islam in Tribal Societies: From the Atlas to Indus (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984). Gore, M.S., ‘Unity in Diversity’, Dr Zakir Hussain Memorial Lecture, delivered on 5 September 1995 at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Habib, I., ‘The Envisioning of a Nation: A Defence of the Idea of India’, Social Scientist (September–October 1999). Ilaiah, K., Why I am Not a Hindu (Calcutta: Samya, 1996). Jha, S.N., ‘Syncretism, Baul-Fakirs and Indian Secularism’, Indian Journal of Secularism, vol. 3, no. 1 (April–June 1999). Khan, Rasheeduddin, ‘Composite Culture of India as a New National Identity’, in R. Khan (ed.), Composite Culture and National Integration (Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1987). Khizer, M., ‘The Ideology of Universal Brotherhood & Social Integration of Sufis’, Paper presented at the Indian Sociological Congress, 28–30 December 1990, Calcutta. Lewis, I.M., ‘Sufism in Somaliland: A Study in Tribal Islam’, in A.S. Ahmad and D.M. Hart (eds), Islam in Tribal Societies: From the Atlas to Indus (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984). Lokhandwalla, S.T., ‘Indian Islam, Composite Culture and Integration’, in R. Khan (ed.), Composite Culture and National Integration (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, 1987). Miller, R.E., Muslim Friends—Their Faith and Feeling: An Introduction to Islam (Chennai: Orient Longman, 2000). Mohiuddin, M., ‘The Elements of Composite Culture’, in R. Khan (ed.), Composite Culture and National Integration (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, 1987). Mosse, D., ‘The Politics of Religious Synthesis: Roman Catholicism and Hindu Village Society in Tamil Nadu, India’, in C. Steward and R. Shaw (eds), Syncretism/AntiSyncretism (London: Routledge, 1994). Roy, A.K., The Islamic Tradition in Bengal (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1983). Roy Burman, J.J., ‘Hindu-Muslim Syncretic Trends in West Bengal’, Indian Journal of Secularism, vol. 3, no. 1 (1999). —–———, ‘Hindu-Muslim Syncretic Shrines and Communities’, Report submitted to the Tata Institute of Social Science, 2000. —–———, Hindu-Muslim Syncretic Shrines & Communities (New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 2002). Sontheimer, G.D., ‘The Folk Festival (Jatra) in the Religious Tradition of Maharashtra: The Case of Khandoba’, in G.D. Sontheimer (ed), Folk Culture, Folk Religion and Oral Traditions as a Component of Maharashtrian Culture (New Delhi: Manohar, 1995). Stietencron, H. Von, ‘Hinduism: On the Proper Use of a Deceptive Term’, in G.D. Sontheimer and H. Kulke (eds), Hinduism Reconsidered (New Delhi: Manohar, 1997). Thapar, R., ‘Syndicated Hinduism’, in G.D. Sontheimer and H. Kulke (eds), Hinduism Reconsidered (New Delhi: Manohar, 1997). Trimingham, J.S., The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971).

RSS

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SHAMSUL ISLAM

W

hat role the RSS played in the freedom movement since its inception in 1925 was not debated much till the election of an old and seasoned ‘Swayamsevak’ of RSS, Atal Behari Vajpayee, as Prime Minister of India in 1999. In fact, the RSS itself never claimed to have played any anti-colonial role as a thorough perusal of its literature/documents would make out.1 This could not have been otherwise as the RSS was ideologically averse to the whole concept of a fight against the British rule in India. This was made clear by none other than M.S. Golwalkar (Guruji) to whom the founder of the RSS, K.B. Hedgewar (Doctorji), bequeathed the leadership (1940), and is till date regarded as the philosopher and guide of RSS. While explaining the reasons for staying aloof from the anti-British struggle and not espousing a nationalism with anti-British or anti-imperialist content, Golwalkar said: ‘The theories of territorial nationalism and of common danger, which formed the basis for our concept of nation, had deprived us of the positive and inspiring content of our real Hindu Nationhood and made many of the “freedom movements” virtually anti-British movements. Anti-Britishism (sic.) was equated with patriotism and nationalism. This reactionary view

1 For instance RSS archives till quite recently had two small booklets titled RSS: A Stooge of British (Bangalore: Jagarna Prakashana, 1972) and Rashtriya Andolan and Sangh (New Delhi: Suruchi Prakashan, 2000) on the theme. Interestingly, in both the booklets more than two-thirds of the space is devoted to the post-independence incidents and there are only vague and unsubstantiated claims of participation in the freedom movement.

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has had disastrous effects upon the entire course of the freedom movement, its leaders and the common people.’2 Thus, according to Golwalkar anti-British patriotism and nationalism were ‘reactionary’ in character which hindered the growth of ‘positive’ Hindu nationalism. Truly, the RSS as a vehicle of the resurgence of Hindu nationalism could not be part of the freedom movement that aimed at overthrowing the British raj.

NEED

TO

‘MANUFACTURE’ ROLE

IN THE

FREEDOM MOVEMENT

However, with the ascendancy of RSS cadres as rulers of India for the first time after independence, there arose a crucial problem of legitimacy for them. India was being ruled by a group which did not share its antiimperialist and secular heritage. It needed to be ‘constructed’ at the earliest and the process did not take long to start. Erstwhile Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee issued a commemorative postage stamp to mark the 110th birth anniversary of ‘freedom fighter’ and founder of the RSS, Dr K.B. Hedgewar, on 18 March 1999 in New Delhi. It was the first instance since India’s independence that a postage stamp was issued commemorating the birthday of the founder of the RSS or any other leader of this organization. On this occasion, the Prime Minister, while addressing a gathering mainly of RSS cadres, took credit for the fact that by issuing the postage stamp his government had corrected an injustice whereby the great freedom fighter and patriot Dr Hedgewar was denied his due place in the history of independent India. Rajendra Singh, the then chief of RSS, and Union Home Minister L.K. Advani, too spoke on the occasion and described Dr Hedgewar as a great revolutionary.3 The search for a honourable place for RSS in the freedom movement also led to the release of a biography of K.B. Hedgewar4 by the Prime 2

M.S. Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts (Bangalore: Sahitya Sindhu Prakashana, 1996), p. 138. This is a collection of writings/speeches of Golwalkar and is considered the Gita of RSS cadres. The problem with this collection is that for most of the items no source or date is given. 3 The Hindu, 19 March 1999. 4 Rakesh Sinha, Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, 2003). This biography in Hindi was released under the series, Builders of India.

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Minister on 7 April 2003 in New Delhi in the presence of reigning RSS head or Sarsangh-chalak, K.S. Sudarshan as the guest of honour and Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, as the chief guest. Well aware of the fact that it was an uphill task to establish the credentials of Hedgewar as a great freedom fighter, Vajpayee admitted while releasing the biography: ‘I would not blame the people for not knowing much about Dr Hedgewar, even the Sangh swayamsevaks do not have much information. Whatever information that have been churned out is only through critics, which is negative and compromises with truth.’5 According to a report in the RSS mouthpiece, Organizer, he went on to claim that, ‘Dr Hedgewar knew only one language to deal with imperialism—that is struggle— either through violence or through non-violence. In fighting imperialism, Dr Hedgewar was completely devoted like a Yogi to the task of standing the Sangh on the nationalist soil.’6 In order to push forward names of Hedgewar and Golwalkar in the ‘honourable’ list of great freedom fighters, a few weeks earlier a senior ideologue of RSS, D.B. Thengadi had refused to accept the Padma Bhushan conferred by Government of India. In a letter to the President of India he wrote that it would ‘be inappropriate on my part to accept the award, so long as revered Dr Hedgewar and revered Shri Guruji (Golwalkar) are not offered the “Bharat Ratna”’.7 This is not the place to go into the issue whether revolutionaries and freedom fighters who challenged the might of the British rulers need the honours of this government or for that matter any other government. However, the fact of the matter is that the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, and the RSS chief were talking dishonestly. They were trying to pass off a pre-independence political trend represented by the RSS as a legacy of the anti-colonial struggle, whereas in reality RSS was never part of the anti-imperialist struggle. On the contrary, since its inception in 1925, the RSS only tried to disrupt the united anti-imperialist struggle of the Indian people against the British colonial rulers by inciting communalism.

WHAT

DO THE

RSS DOCUMENTS TELL?

The RSS claims to be the greatest embodiment of nationalism in the country today. There has been a concerted attempt to market it as being 5 6 7

As quoted in Organizer, 20 April 2003, p. 7. Ibid. As quoted in Organizer, 2 March 2003, p. 3.

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synonymous with patriotism in India. It is also a fact, though, that the claims of the RSS in this regard have always been challenged by individuals and organizations who were in the thick of the freedom movement. There is no dearth of writings exposing the negative role of the RSS during the freedom struggle. However, it has been attempted here to collect facts of the freedom movement era from the documents of the RSS itself. It has been the intention here that the documents of the RSS should be allowed to speak for themselves. The findings are surely going to disillusion those who believe that the RSS played any role in securing freedom. We will hear from the horse’s mouth that not only was a silence maintained about the evils of foreign rule, but also that concerted attempts were made to sabotage the fight against British imperialism. In order to find out the truth hidden in the RSS documents, a method of thematic scanning has been followed in which the available RSS literature pertaining generally to the period of the freedom movement was scrutinized keeping in view certain themes relevant for this study. For instance, we looked for references where the RSS might have given a call to the British rulers to leave India or supported the fight of the revolutionaries against the British imperialists, or written something on events which proved to be milestones in the history of the freedom struggle like Jallianwala Bagh tragedy, martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Chandershekhar Azad, Udham Singh and other revolutionaries. Through thematic scanning attempts have been made to reveal the actual attitude of RSS towards Khilafat Movement, Non-Cooperation Movement, Quit India Movement, Royal Indian Navy Revolt and movement of Indian National Army (INA) led by Subhas Chandra Bose. The final picture that emerges from this exercise is presented below with astonishing results.

HEDGEWAR WENT

TO

JAIL

AS A

CONGRESSMAN

It is not generally known that the ‘contribution’ to the freedom struggle for which the government led by Vajpayee honoured Dr Hedgewar was made by him as a Congressman and not on any call of RSS. He went to jail for the first time for giving an inflammatory speech in support of the Khilafat Movement (1920–21), long before the establishment of RSS. It is also a mystery why he went on to participate in the Khilafat Movement. An RSS publication tells us, ‘Doctorji disapproved of Gandhiji’s policy of launching the non-co-operation movement with Khilafat as its

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major plank. The Khilafat agitation aiming to restore the Caliphate in Turkey, Doctorji argued, would only breed extra-territorial religious fanaticism among the Muslims here. But he was not the one to stand aloof as a passive spectator during a national struggle merely because it did not come up to his expectations on all points.’8 It is interesting to learn that a person like Hedgewar who brooked no compromise with his principles went on to make inflammatory speeches in favour of the Khilafat Movement! He was subsequently sentenced to one year’s rigorous imprisonment. There were two other significant incidents related to this episode that need attention. First, he hired a well-known lawyer to defend himself, thus openly violating the directive of Gandhi and the Congress that all those caught while participating in this movement would not hire a lawyer or offer any legal defence. Hedgewar, who is paraded as a strict disciplinarian, thus violated this important directive. This could be the outcome of a feeling of cowardice but RSS has the following explanation for it: ‘Doctorji felt that no occasion should be missed to broadcast the message of Independence. Accordingly he decided to engage a defense lawyer.’9 Second, despite a year’s imprisonment with hard labour in the Ajani Jail, on the day of his release on 12 July 1922, ‘when he removed the prison uniform and tried to wear his old cloths, his old shirt and coat felt too tight! He had gained 25 pounds (+11 kilograms) in weight, in spite of the rigours of the prison life.’1 0 This could happen probably because he was very friendly with the British jailor. According to the publication of the RSS, ‘When Doctorji entered the prison, the jailor Sir Jathar had been newly appointed. And it was Doctorji who helped him to understand the jail manual in detail . . . Jathar was so much moved by the courteous and winning manners of Doctorji that he remarked: “… we were so much drawn to Doctorji by his amiable behaviour that after his release, whenever we went to the city (Nagpur), our feet would automatically move in the direction of his house.”’11 It is a pity that other political prisoners in the history of the freedom struggle in India were devoid of ‘courteous’ and ‘winning manners’ like Hedgewar and as a consequence had to suffer immensely at the hands of British jailors! 8

H.V. Seshadri (ed.), Dr Hedgewar the Epoch Maker (Bangalore: Sahitya Sindhu, 1981), p. 50. 9 Ibid., p. 51. 10 Ibid., p. 57. 11 Ibid., p. 56.

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According to one of the biographies of Hedgewar published by the RSS, ‘the experiences gained by him in the freedom movement till now, gave rise to a number of questions in his mind. He felt that some other way should be found.’12 It is further mentioned in the same book that Dr Hedgewar was attracted towards Hindutva by 1925 and ‘through his talent he found a new method of Shakha, different from the ways then prevalent, of doing public work and the type of efforts then being made for gaining freedom’.13 The truth is that Dr Hedgewar by then had openly taken the path, which Mohammed Ali Jinnah was to take later, of breaking the united movement of the Indian people against the British rulers and splitting it along religious lines.

THE ULTERIOR MOTIVE Dr Hedgewar was sent to jail a second time by the British government. This was the last time that he went to jail. The reason for his second imprisonment has been described in the same biography in the following words: ‘[In 1930] Mahatma Gandhi had called upon the people to break different laws of the government. Gandhiji himself launched Salt Satyagraha undertaking Dandi Yatra. Dr Saheb [Hedgewar] sent information everywhere that the Sangh will not participate in the Satyagraha. However those wishing to participate individually in it were not prohibited. This meant that any responsible worker of the Sangh could not participate in the Satyagraha.’14 However, rather surprisingly, Hedgewar decided to participate in Gandhi’s Dandi Salt Satyagraha as an individual. Of course, he had an ulterior motive. We learn about this from the same biography published by the RSS: ‘Dr Saheb had the confidence that with a freedom loving, self-sacrificing and reputed group of people inside with him there, he would discuss the Sangh with them and win them over for its work.’15 In this context it is further stated in the biography, ‘Doctor Saheb did not let the work of the Sangh get away from his mind (aankhon se aujhal nahin hone diya) even for a moment during his imprisonment. He established 12

C.P. Bhishikar, Sangh-viraksh Ke Beej: Dr Keshav Rao Hedgewar (New Delhi: Suruchi Prakashan, 1994), p. 9. Translated into English by the author. 13 Ibid., p. 11. 14 Ibid., p. 20. 15 Ibid.

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close links with all the leaders and activists [of the Congress] who were in prison, made them understand the work of the Sangh and obtained from them promise of cooperation in work for the future. He came out of the prison only after making plans for a big leap for work expansion.’16 It is clear that Dr Hedgewar chose to go to jail this time not because he was convinced of the cause but in order to break the ranks of the Congress cadre. These cadres were participating in the Non-Cooperation Movement and going to jails upholding the banner of a united struggle by the people of all religions of the country. In fact, the Congress leadership soon realized that communal and sectarian organizations were bent upon using the cadre of Congress for their vicious designs. In 1934, the All India Congress Committee passed a resolution forbidding Congress members from becoming members of the RSS, the Hindu Mahasabha, and the Muslim League. It needs to be underlined here that on the two occasions that Hedgewar went to jail, it was at the call of the Congress. If it is true that the Vajpayee government honoured him for his participation in Congress-led movements this should have been clearly stated. On the other hand, if he was being honoured as the founder of the RSS then the only ‘contribution’ for which he could claim credit was that of propagating the communal and disruptive ideology of Hindu rashtra—an ideology which divided and undermined the freedom movement. The people of this country would like to know which movements were launched by the RSS before 1947 to free India from British imperialism. Who amongst its leaders and cadres suffered repression under colonial rule? Who amongst them went to jail or became martyrs for the cause of the freedom of the country? The truth is that the foundation of anti-imperialist people’s unity, especially unity of the Hindu and Muslim masses, was firmly laid by the great struggle of the Indian people for independence in 1857. This unity formed the basis of the Non-Cooperation Movement (1920–22), in the course of which India’s struggle for freedom underwent a qualitative change. The single most important feature of the immediate post-World War I period was the politics of mass mobilization that Gandhiji initiated. The period following the Non-Cooperation Movement witnessed the growth of workers’ and peasants’ movements which strengthened the united anti-imperialist struggle.

16

Ibid., p. 21.

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COMMUNAL MOBILIZATION AIMED AT WRECKING UNITED ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLE At the same time, an unfortunate feature of the national movement during the mid-1920s was the growing tendency of some of the prominent leaders to take positions along communal lines. This was a development which suited the British and the imperialist rulers left no stone unturned to encourage this trend. Hindu and Muslim chauvinists undermined the unity which had been built up during the Non-Cooperation Movement. The communal stance of the Hindu Mahasabha, which had the support of the Congress right wing, made things difficult for communal amity. As for the Muslim chauvinists, particularly the more obscurantist and reactionary sections among them, they tried to project the Khilafat issue as one concerning the Muslim community alone. By stressing on the religious aspects of the issue they diluted the political and anti-imperialist content of the movement. After the Non-Cooperation Movement some of them took to communal politics, while several others like Maulana Azad and Saifuddin Kitchlew, who were dedicated to the cause of Hindu– Muslim unity, became part of the Congress leadership. The Hindu and Muslim communalists thus complemented each other’s politics, and British imperialism nurtured both of them. It is against this background that Dr Hedgewar formed the RSS in 1925. Dr Hedgewar was born in 1889 in Nagpur. After completing his school education he went to Calcutta (1910–15) to study medicine. Although RSS publications claim that he was in touch with revolutionary terrorist groups there, no independent confirmation of this is available. Almost nothing is known of his political activities for nearly five years after he returned to Nagpur in 1915. It seems that Dr Hedgewar did not set up a medical practice. The details of the ‘formative’ period of his political career are vague. He was briefly associated with the Congress and as we have seen he was imprisoned during the Non-Cooperation Movement. In the Congress, Dr Hedgewar was close to the extreme right wing Hindu Mahasabha leader Dr B.S. Moonje. Dr Moonje was at that time in the Congress, though he was opposed to Gandhi’s programme for building Hindu–Muslim unity and was also willing to go in for limited cooperation with the British. After coming out of prison Dr Hedgewar criticized Gandhiji for his views on Hindu–Muslim unity and equated nationalism with a Hindu

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rashtra. A major theme of the RSS since its inception was the ‘disloyalty’ of the Muslims and other minorities to the nation. According to Dr Hedgewar, ‘As a result of the non-cooperation movement of Mahatma Gandhi the enthusiasm in the country was cooling down and the evils in social life which that movement generated were menacingly raising their head . . . . The yavana-snakes [i.e. Muslims] reared on the milk of non-cooperation were provoking riots in the nation with their poisonous hissing.’17 With the aim of propagating these views among youngsters, mainly teenage boys, he formed the RSS in 1925. The RSS concentrated on disseminating Hedgewar’s views of Hindu rashtra among youth. The organization was not engaged in undertaking any movement or launching any struggle against the British. Whereas on the one hand the revolutionary activities of Bhagat Singh and his comrades were shaking the foundations of British rule, on the other hand official documents of the late 1920s contain no reference to any anti-British activities of the RSS. The main task of the Sangh was to carry on a hate campaign against the minorities. It sought urban middle class Maharashtrian Brahmin boys for its audience, and in the early years this remained the main social base of the organization. It is pertinent that a spurt in the membership of the organization came soon after a riot in Nagpur in 1927. While the RSS embarked on its hate campaign the freedom struggle was, by 1927–28, ready to enter a new phase. The 1920s had witnessed the rise of a left movement in India with the formation of socialist groups and the founding of the Communist Party. A strong trade union movement had also come into existence. Towards the end of the 1920s a number of working class strikes swept the country. 1927 saw another development. This was the announcement by the British of another commission to go into the question of constitutional reforms for India— the Simon Commission. The nationalists opposed the Simon Commission and the Congress gave a call to boycott it. The boycott of the Simon Commission developed into a major mass agitation. The British relied upon the growing aggressiveness of Hindu and Muslim communalists to disrupt the unity of the anti-imperialist mass upsurge of the late 1920s and hoped that this would enable them to impose a constitutional arrangement which would safeguard British interests.

17

Quoted in Tapan Basu, Pradip Dutta, Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar and Sanbudh Sen, Khaki Shorts, Saffron Flags (Hyderabad/New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1993), p. 14.

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There is a vast amount of archival material and other documentation that provide detailed information about the activities of the Congress, the revolutionary terrorists and various other groups, which were engaged in the anti-imperialist struggle. The Communists, who throughout this period had to work secretly and remained underground due to severe imperialist repression, have already published a large part of the voluminous source material pertaining to their activities in this period. This source material is corroborated by the official and semi-official records, and can be easily verified and cross-checked. The revolutionary terrorists too, even though they worked in utmost secrecy, have left behind extensive evidence of their activities. However, no similar documentation has been forthcoming from the RSS. Nor is it possible to locate material in contemporary records which would shed light on the anti-British role of the organization. We have to rely exclusively on what we are told by RSS propagandists in their publications. Is the RSS not in a position to produce a volume containing documents that have a bearing on the role of the organization in the freedom struggle?

HEDGEWAR AND GOLWALKAR HAD CONFESS THE BETRAYAL

TO

The contemporary writings and speeches of RSS leaders have a very different story to tell. These leaders showed little enthusiasm for the antiBritish struggle. In the words of Golwalkar which is nothing but a confession for keeping aloof from the freedom struggle: There is another reason for the need of always remaining involved in routine work. There is some unrest in the mind due to the situation developing in the country from time to time. There was such unrest in 1942. Before that there was the movement in 1930–31. At that time many other people had gone to Doctorji. This ‘delegation’ requested Doctorji that this movement will give independence and Sangh should not lag behind. At that time, when a gentleman told Doctorji that he was ready to go to jail, Doctorji said, ‘Definitely go. But who will take care of your family then?’ That gentleman replied—‘he has sufficiently arranged resources not only to run the family expenses for two years but also to pay fines according to the requirements’. Then Doctorji told him—‘if you have fully arranged for the resources then come out to work for the Sangh for

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two years’. After returning home that gentleman neither went to jail nor came out to work for the Sangh.18

This incident clearly shows that the RSS leadership was bent upon demoralizing the honest patriotic persons to run away from the cause of freedom movement. At the time of the Quit India Movement Golwalkar stated: ‘There are bad results of struggle. The boys became militant after the 1920–21 movement. It is not an attempt to throw mud at the leaders. But these are inevitable products after the struggle. The matter is that we could not properly control these results. After 1942, people often started thinking that there was no need to think of the law.’19 There was great resentment amongst the RSS cadres against this indifferent attitude of the RSS leadership towards the Quit India Movement which is thus described without any remorse by Golwalkar. ‘In 1942 also there was a strong sentiment in the hearts of many. At that time too the routine work of Sangh continued. Sangh decided not to do anything directly. But swayamsevaks of Sangh were greatly puzzled. Sangh is the organization of inactive people, their talks have no substance was the opinion uttered not only by outsiders but also our own swayamsevaks. They were terribly angry also.’20 However, there is not a single publication or document of the Sangh which could throw some light on the great work the RSS did indirectly for the Quit India Movement. As we have seen, Hedgewar participated in the salt Satyagraha in his individual capacity and that too with an ulterior motive. The RSS scrupulously avoided any political activity which might be construed as being against the British authorities: ‘After establishing Sangh, Doctor Saheb in his speeches used to talk only of Hindu organization. Direct comment on Government used to be almost nil.’21 We need to compare such facts available in the archives of the RSS with the claim of Vajpayee that Hedgewar knew only one language against imperialism and that was ‘struggle’! Though it is possible, given the mass upsurge of that period, that some members of the RSS might have individually participated in some anti-British movement, these would have been isolated instances. The 18

Shri Guruji Samagr Darshan (Collected Works of Golwalkar in Hindi, henceforth referred as SGSD), vol. 4 (Nagpur: Bhartiya Vichar Sadhna, 1974), pp. 39–40. Translated into English by the author. 19 Ibid., p. 41. 20 Ibid., p. 40. 21 Bhishikar, Sangh-viraksh Ke Beej, p. 24.

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RSS as an organization never launched any struggle or campaign against British colonial rule or for the rights of the oppressed people. Nor was the top leadership of the RSS part of the freedom struggle. The political antecedents of Golwalkar, who headed the organization after the death of Hedgewar in 1940, reveal that he too was not associated with the national movement. Golwalkar took over the leadership of the RSS in 1940, at a time when the Muslim League’s Pakistan resolution had provided fertile ground for heightened communal propaganda. Under his leadership too, the RSS aggressively campaigned for a Hindu rashtra, but stayed aloof from the anti-British struggle. Golwalkar, in fact, made it clear that the variety of nationalism which the RSS espoused had no anti-British or antiimperialist content whatsoever. Virulent opposition to Hindu–Muslim unity and to a united people’s struggle against British rule was the programme pursued by the RSS throughout the 1940s. Gandhiji was projected as the villain who was a hurdle to the establishment of Hindu rashtra. Significantly the British, who encouraged Jinnah’s communal politics and used the Muslim League as a convenient tool for imposing partition on the Indian subcontinent, were never condemned by the RSS, whereas Gandhi who worked ceaselessly to prevent partition was demonized. This demonization of Gandhi culminated in his assassination in 1948. The RSS has never been able to shake off the allegation that it was involved in the conspiracy to kill the Mahatma. The RSS thus can be seen as having played an extremely dubious role throughout the freedom struggle. All evidence points towards its disruptiveness and the fact that the organization and its leadership was not a part of the freedom struggle. The single most important ‘contribution’ of the RSS was to consistently disrupt the unified struggle of the Indian people against British imperialism through its extreme exclusivist slogan of Hindu rashtra. In all fairness to Guru Golwalkar, he did not claim that the RSS had been opposed to the British. During the course of a speech at Indore in 1960 he said, ‘Many people worked with the inspiration to free the country by throwing the British out. After formal departure of the British this inspiration slackened. In fact there was no need to have this much inspiration. We should remember that in our pledge we have talked of the freedom of the country through defending religion and culture. There is no mention of departure of the British in that.’22 22

SGSD, vol. 4, p. 2.

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Golwalkar, the Sarsangh-chalak of the RSS, was never able to hide his opposition to any movement against foreign rule. As late as March 1947 when the British had decided to go away from India, Golwalkar while addressing the annual day function of the RSS at Delhi declared that leaders with narrow vision were trying to oppose the state power of the British. While elaborating the point he said that it was wrong to hold the powerful foreigners responsible for all our ills. He decried the tendency of ‘initiating the political movements on the basis of our hatred towards our victors’.23 While narrating an incident in the course of his speech he got more original on the issue: Once a respectable senior gentleman came to our shakha (the drill). He had brought a new message for the volunteers of the RSS. When given an opportunity to address the volunteers of the shakha, he spoke in a very impressive tone, ‘Now do only one work. Catch hold of the British, bash them and throw them out. Whatever happens we will see later on’. He said this much and sat down. Behind this ideology is a feeling of anger and sorrow towards state power and reactionary tendency based on hatred. The evil with today’s political sentimentalism is that its basis is reaction, sorrow and anger, and opposition to the victors forgetting friendliness.24

The RSS was not even willing to regard colonial domination as an injustice. In a speech on 8 June 1942, just prior to the call of ‘Quit India’ of Congress, Golwalkar had declared: ‘Sangh does not want to blame anybody else for the present degraded state of the society. When the people start blaming others, then there is weakness in them. It is futile to blame the strong for the injustice done to the weak . . . Sangh does not want to waste its invaluable time in abusing or criticizing others. If we know that large fish eat the smaller ones, it is outright madness to blame the big fish. Law of nature whether good or bad is true all the time. This rule does not change by terming it unjust.’25

HATRED

FOR

REVOLUTIONARY TRADITION

No one can beat RSS in ‘manufacturing’ facts. Recently it has churned out literature claiming that Hedgewar met Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and 23 24 25

SGSD, vol. 1, p. 109. Ibid., pp. 109–10. Ibid., pp. 11–12.

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Sukhdev in 1925 and continued attending meetings with these revolutionaries and even provided shelter to Rajguru in 1927 when he was underground after killing Sanders.26 We need to compare these claims with the memoirs of Balasahab Deoras (real name Madhukar Dattatreya Deoras who was the third chief of RSS) in which he narrated an incident when Hedgewar saved him and others from following the path of Bhagat Singh and his comrades. Interestingly these memoirs appeared in a publication of RSS itself. While studying in college (we) youth were generally attracted towards the ideals of revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh. Like Bhagat Singh we should do some or the other act of bravery, this came to our mind often. We were less attracted towards the Sangh (RSS) since current politics, revolution etc that attracted the hearts of youth were generally less discussed in the Sangh. When Bhagat Singh and his companions were awarded death sentence, at that time our hearts were so excited that (we) some friends together vowed to do something directly and planned something terrible and in order to make it succeed decided to run away from homes. But to run away without informing our Doctorji will not be proper, considering it we decided to inform Doctorji about our decision. To inform this fact to Doctorji was assigned to me by the group of friends. We together went to Doctorji and with great courage I explained my feelings before him. After listening our plan Doctorji took a meeting of ours for discarding this foolish plan and making us to realize the superiority of the work of Sangh. This meeting continued for seven days and in the night from ten to three. The brilliant ideas of Doctorji and his valuable leadership brought fundamental change in our ideas and ideals of life. Since that day we took leave of mindlessly made plans and our lives got new direction and our mind got stabilized in the work of Sangh.27

Moreover, there is ample proof in the documents of the RSS that conclusively establishes the fact that RSS denounced movements led by revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekhar Azad and their associates. Here is a passage from Bunch of Thoughts decrying the whole tradition of martyrs: ‘There is no doubt that such men who embrace martyrdom are great heroes and their philosophy too is pre-eminently manly. They 26 Rakesh Sinha, Dr Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, 2003), p. 160. 27 H.V. Pingle (ed.), Smritikan-Param Pujiye Dr Hedgewar Ke Jeewan Kee Vibhin Gahtnaon Ka Sankalan (a collection of memoirs of persons close to Hedgewar in Hindi) (Nagpur: RSS Prakashan Vibhag, 1962), pp. 47–48. Translated into English by the author.

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are far above the average men who meekly submit to fate and remain in fear and inaction. All the same, such persons are not held up as ideals in our society. We have not looked upon their martyrdom as the highest point of greatness to which men should aspire. For, after all, they failed in achieving their ideal, and failure implies some fatal flaw in them.’28 Could there be a statement more insulting and denigrating to the martyrs of the Indian freedom movement than this? It will be shocking for any Indian who loves the martyrs of the freedom movement to know what Dr Hedgewar and the RSS felt about the revolutionaries fighting against the British. According to his biography published by the RSS, ‘Patriotism is not only going to prison. It is not correct to be carried away by such superficial patriotism. He used to urge that while remaining prepared to die for the country when the time came, it is very necessary to have a desire to live while organizing for the freedom of the country.’29 It is indeed a pity that ‘fools’ like Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Ashfaqullah, Chandrashekhar Azad did not come into contact with this ‘great patriotic thinker’. If they had the great opportunity to meet him, these martyrs could have been saved from giving their lives for ‘superficial patriotism’. This also must be the reason that RSS produced no martyrs during the freedom movement. Even the word ‘shameful’ is not appropriate to describe the attitude of the RSS leadership towards those who had sacrificed everything in the struggle against the British rulers. The last Mughal ruler of India, Bahadur Shah Zafar, had emerged as the rallying point and symbol of the Great War of Independence of 1857. Golwalkar while making fun of him said: ‘In 1857, the so-called last emperor of India had given the clarion call— Gazio mein bu rahegi jub talak eeman ki/takhte London tak chalegi tegh Hindustan ki (Till the warriors remain faithful to their task/Indian swords will reach London). But ultimately what happened? Everybody knows that.’30 What Golwalkar thought of the people sacrificing their lot for the country is obvious from the following words also. He had the temerity to ask the great revolutionaries who wished to lay down their lives for the freedom of the motherland the following question as if he was representing the British: ‘But one should think whether complete national interest is accomplished by that? Sacrifice does not lead to increase in the thinking of the society of giving all for the interest of the nation. It is borne by 28 29 30

Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, p. 283. Bhishikar, Sangh-viraksh Ke Beej, p. 21. SGSD, vol. 1, p. 121.

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the experience up to now that this fire in the heart is unbearable to the common people.’31

HINDU NATIONALISM MODELLED ON HITLER’S IDEALS ONLY HELPED THE BRITISH MASTERS This equation of Indian nationalism with Hindu religion often drew flak from many Hindus as is evident from an incident narrated in a publication of the RSS. The incident occurred at a meeting at Banaras Hindu University in 1929–30, where both Hedgewar and Golwalkar were present: Doctorji explained to the gathering the meaning of the oath and asked those who were in agreement with its aims to take the oath. Doctorji used to keep always a small iron idol of Hanuman and a saffron flag. After the meeting, in the presence of Hanuman idol and saffron flag he used to go through the process of oath taking for the willing persons. The same day he used to appoint Sanghchalak and Karyavah also. When the time for the oath taking ceremony approached, some people got impatient. In the meeting some college professors and scholars were present. They said Sangh is undoubtedly good but they cannot agree to the mention of Hindu Rashtra. Doctorji refused to make any change in the oath. When people present in the meeting stressed on changing the text of the oath and offered to take the oath only after the changes were affected [Golwalkar intervened and said], ‘Doctorji has put before us a definite work and programme. Those who feel good about it should accept it, otherwise they should refuse. But there is no need to teach lessons to Doctorji. If he starts implementing all those suggestions which he receives while touring the country, then the coming into existence of the organization will be impossible.’32

After the meeting Golwalkar was appointed the Sanghchalak of the shakha of Banaras Hindu University. It is revealing that there is not a single line challenging, exposing, criticizing or confronting the inhuman rule of the British masters in the entire literature of the RSS from 1925 to 1947. It seems it had only one task to accomplish and that was minority bashing or, to be more specific, Muslim bashing. 31 32

Ibid., pp. 61–62. SGSD, pp. 173–74.

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RSS published Golwalkar’s book We or Our Nationhood Defined outlining its concept of nation 1939. This controversial book elaborated for the first time RSS thinking on the issue. In this book Golwalkar, while presenting his thesis of Indian nation (equated with Hindu nation), began by idealizing the Nazi cultural nationalism of Hitler in the following words: ‘German Race pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races—the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by.’33 Golwalkar unhesitatingly wanted to model his Hindu rashtra on Hitler’s totalitarian and fascist pattern as is clear from the following words of his in the same book: It is worth bearing well in mind how these old Nations solve their minorities problem. They do not undertake to recognize any separate element in their polity. Emigrants have to get themselves naturally assimilated in the principal mass of the population, the National Race, by adopting its culture and language and sharing in its aspirations, by losing all consciousness of their separate existence, forgetting their foreign origin. If they do not do so, they live merely as outsiders, bound by all the codes and conventions of the Nation, at the sufferance of the Nation and deserving no special protection, far less any privilege or rights. There are only two courses open to the foreign elements, either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture, or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow them to do so and to quit the country at the sweet will of the national race. That is the only sound view on the minorities problem. That is the only logical and correct solution. That alone keeps the national life healthy and undisturbed. That alone keeps the nation safe from the danger of a cancer developing into its body politic of the creation of a state within a state. From this stand point, sanctioned by the experience of shrewd old nations, the foreign races in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but those of the glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly 33

M.S. Golwalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined (Nagpur: Bharat Publications, 1939), p. 35.

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subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment not even citizen’s rights. There is, at least should be, no other course for them to adopt. We are an old nation: let us deal, as old nations ought to and do deal, with the foreign races who have chosen to live in our country.34

There is not a single word in the thesis about the British rulers who were then plundering the Indian people and nation. The book outlines only one programme, namely to subjugate the minorities who neither controlled the state nor shared any political or economic power. More than 95 per cent of them were artisans, poor peasants, landless agricultural labour or wage-earners. Golwalkar’s Super Hindu Race seemed to have no antagonism towards the British rulers who in fact were foreigners in the real sense of the term and who had given only misery, hunger, poverty, and death to multitudes of Indians, the vast majority of whom were Hindus.

HATRED

TRICOLOUR THAT SYMBOLIZED FREEDOM STRUGGLE

TOWARDS

UNITED

The RSS during the freedom struggle hated anything which symbolized the united struggle of the Indian people against British rule. The case of the tricolour is the most pertinent one. In December 1929 Congress at its Lahore session adopted Purna Swaraj as the national goal and called upon the people to observe 26 January 1930 as Independence Day by displaying and honouring the tricolour (it was the flag of the national movement by this time). In response to this historic united call for all the people of the country, Dr Hedgewar as Sarsangh-chalak issued a circular to all the RSS shakhas to worship the bhagwa jhanda (saffron flag). The circular said: ‘. . . all the branches of RSS should arrange a congregation of all swayamsevaks in their sanghasthans [places where Sangh meets] at 6 p.m. on Sunday, the 26th January 1930 and salute the National Flag, that is Bhagwa Dhwaj. A speech should be arranged to explain the true concept of independence . . . .’35 This circular makes it very clear that when 34 35

Ibid., pp. 47–48. As quoted in RSS: A Stooge of British, p. 20.

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the whole nation was saluting the tricolour as a symbol of a united struggle, RSS was raising sectarian issues to divide the people in the name of religion. This circular is often presented by RSS as a proof of its participation in the freedom struggle. On the contrary, it only shows its running away from any struggle against the foreign rule. Moreover, it directed the leading cadres to ‘explain the true concept of independence’ which meant creation of a Hindu state and not the goal of a secular India for which Congress was fighting. Golwalkar while addressing a Gurupurnima gathering in Nagpur on 14 July 1946, stated that it was the saffron flag which in totality represented their great culture. It was the embodiment of God: ‘We firmly believe that in the end the whole nation will bow before this saffron flag.’36 Even after independence when the tricolour became the National Flag, it was the RSS which refused to accept it as the National Flag. Golwalkar while discussing the issue in an essay entitled ‘Drifting and Drifting’ in Bunch of Thoughts has the following to say: ‘Our leaders have set up a new flag for our country. Why did they do so? It just is a case of drifting and imitating. . . . Ours is an ancient and great nation with a glorious past. Then, had we no flag of our own? Had we no national emblem at all these thousands of years? Undoubtedly we had. Then why this utter void, this utter vacuum in our minds?’37 The RSS leadership has always tried to defend its inactivity against British rule by taking the plea that theirs was a cultural organization and could not have possibly taken up political issues. Pro-RSS people in the media work overtime to strengthen this impression. The RSS keeps on changing its face as per its political convenience. On the issue of minorities, secularism and Hindu nationalism, they are extremely political. But the moment the issue of the inhuman British raj crops up, they are transformed into a cultural organization. Irrespective of the public postures of the RSS leadership, it may be worthwhile to know the ideas of Golwalkar on the subject of participation in political activities. While addressing senior activists of the RSS in a training camp, he said, ‘We know this also that some of our volunteers work in politics. There according to the needs of the work they have to organize public meetings, processions etc., have to raise slogans. All these things have no place in our work. However, the actor should portray the character given to him to the best of his capability. But sometimes volunteers go beyond 36 37

SGSD, vol. 1, p. 98. Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, pp. 237–38.

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the role assigned to an actor as they develop over-zealousness in their hearts, to the extent that they become useless for this work. This is not good.’38

RSS DILEMMA What did the British rule mean to an average patriotic Indian? It symbolized repression, plunder, and pauperization of the people of this country. It meant the divide and rule policy of the foreign rulers through which they encouraged communal and sectarian divisions in Indian society. And what could be the moving spirit behind any struggle against such a British rule? What could have been the essence of the freedom movement against British rule? It could not have been anything other than unity of all people and a call to throw the British out. The BJP leadership is very keen to project the RSS as a component of the freedom struggle. This is the outcome of a desperate attempt to gain greater respectability and wider acceptance. For a party which claims to be the touchstone of patriotism there is a lot in history which just cannot be wished away. The BJP finds it embarrassing that the RSS— to which the top leadership as well as the overwhelming majority of the cadre of the BJP belongs—was not a part of the freedom movement. It is really shameful for an organization like the RSS which constantly refers to its glorious past, that it has no legacy of an anti-colonial struggle—the mightiest struggle of the Indian people in the last century. The RSS lacks the courage to categorically state that it did not participate in the freedom struggle because its ideology prevented it from doing so. The political stream of the Hindu right wing has, of course, accumulated enormous experience in falsifying history. It is hardly surprising then that all manner of falsehoods are resorted to with the aim of distorting the history of the freedom struggle. Will a great nation, which has a glorious tradition of anti-imperialist struggles, fall prey to this attempt?

38

SGSD, vol. 4, pp. 4–5.

HINDUTVA

AND INDIAN

DIASPORA

7

JAWAID QUDDUS

hat defines the Indian diaspora? Why do people migrate? What are the forces in play that create the need for or compel people to migrate, sometimes at great peril to life, property and way of life? India is a country rich with its diversity of cultures, religions as well as genetic make-up. The biological diversity of India stems from its location at the tri-junction of the African, the northern Eurasian and the Oriental realm. An interesting study based on an analysis of mitochondrion sequences of 101 Indians and examined in relation to the linguistic and anthropological pattern indicates that the Indian subcontinent has been populated by a series of migrations. These included the Austric language speakers, the Dravidian speakers, the Indo-European speakers and the Sino-Tibetan speakers. India, thus, is a potpourri of cultural and ethnic diversity due to waves of migrations mandated by its geographical position and biological diversity. Streams of people have migrated to India from different directions and have created the most genetically and culturally diverse country in the world. Gadgil et al. of the Center for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Banglalore, seem to suggest that the ‘Indian population has been put together by people drawn from many different streams ultimately derived from the major expansion of non-African Homo Sapiens.’ The current estimation is that these people streamed into the country over 50,000 years ago.

W

Hindutva and Indian Diaspora

MIGRATION OUT

145

OF INDIA

The Indian diaspora is the third largest diaspora in the world, second only to the British and Chinese. It extends to each and every part of the world. There is considerable evidence to suggest that India’s link to Europe probably dates back to the tenth century B.C. Records exist to indicate that there was significant trading in ivory, peacocks, and spices during the time of King Solomon. In addition, India was also a very important market for gold, cotton, cloth, beads and other manufactured items, as well as slaves. King Ashoka (268–39 B.C.) and King Kanishka (A.D. first century) were alone responsible for the spread of Buddhism to Southern India, Eastern Iran, Central Asia, China, Greece, Kandahar, Southeast Asia and Indonesia. Indian settlements were also in existence in northeastern Africa at the time of Alexander the Great (356–23 B.C.). There also existed significant trade partnerships with Arab traders at the trade centres of Mogadishu and Mombassa. Indian traders, both Hindus and Ismailis and Bohra Muslims, were also concentrated in Zanzibar. India, in addition, had significant trade relations with countries in Southeast Asia. Java was colonized between the first and seventh centuries, with many Javanese converting to Hinduism. Indonesia, as well as parts of Afghanistan, also came under the influence of Hinduism. However, despite emigration during the early periods, no significant permanent settlements were established.

MORE RECENT MIGRATIONS During more modern times, there were three patterns of emigration: emigration during the 1830s to the British, French and Dutch colonies, emigration during post-World War II period to the industrially developed countries, and the final surge of emigration to West Asia. During the periods of 1846–1932 about 28 million Indians immigrated, mostly to British controlled territories. A vast majority of them, however, returned home. Abolishment of slave trade by the British empire in 1834, by the French in 1846 and by the Dutch in 1873 resulted in severe manpower shortage for labourers working in sugar, coffee, tea, cocoa, rice, and rubber plantations run by the colonists. This led to the introduction by the British of the indentured Indian immigration based in Calcutta and Madras.

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The indentured labourers worked under a contract for five years. They worked for money plus accommodation, food rations, and medical facilities. At the end of the contract the worker was free to reindenture or work elsewhere in the colony. At the end of 10 years, if the contract allowed it, he was either given free passage home to India, or a piece of land in lieu of ship fare. The work involved was strenuous and many of these young males were recruited by unscrupulous methods that included lying and kidnapping. Since most were men, this also led to legal prostitution and subsequent intermingling among various other ethnic groups, including those from Africa. About 1.5 million people migrated under this system, mostly from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Of these, 86 per cent was Hindu, 16 per cent belonged to the upper caste and 14 per cent were Muslims. Most did not return home after the indentured system was discontinued in 1917. As far as the Sikhs are concerned, they initially immigrated to East Africa as indentured workers to lay the Kenya–Uganda railway line, and then later as traders, policemen, and army men. Workers from South India were also contracted under the Kangani (Tamil for ‘overseas worker’ or ‘foreman’) programme to work in the tea plantations in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

MOST RECENT MIGRATIONS The Indian diaspora of recent years initially went to the Gulf countries, followed by emigration to the US, UK and beyond. This group, who numbered more than 20 million, are highly diverse in terms of ethnic, social, and religious as well as educational backgrounds. The incentive for most of these émigrés was economic gain. Those less endowed with education and sophisticated skills made a beeline for the Gulf countries where the sudden oil wealth-mediated economic boom led to a huge demand for labourers, construction workers and other short-term semiskilled and unskilled workers. People with more sophisticated skills, education, as well as those with a desire for furthering their education at overseas universities chose to immigrate to the US, Canada, UK, and to a smaller extent, France and Germany. In Canada, in addition to the skilled and professional émigrés, the early immigrants also consisted of thousands of unskilled and semi-skilled workers. A vast majority of them were Sikh farmers from Punjab.

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The main incentive for Indians to leave their homeland was financial. Thus the income earned abroad, for the most part, ended up in India in support of the family members left behind. The concept of establishing a permanent settlement in a foreign land was the last thing on their minds. For those who could not take their families with them (either due to financial or visa restrictions), the objective was to work for 10–15 years, save enough money to buy or build a house for their family in India, and marry off their daughter or daughters on their return home. For those who were lucky enough to leave the shores of India along with their wives or family, the situation was a lot more different. Although the incentive to go back home was also as strong as ever, most knew in their hearts that this was just an illusion. An illusion because they realized that with better schools, easier access to better nutrition, health care and prospects for a better life for their children, a return to their motherland was unlikely. In the US, the influx of Sikhs and Muslims between 1907 and 1924 was followed by a much larger wave of students and technocrats that continues to the present day. Sikhs were also among the first immigrants to Canada followed by other Indians; Hindus from Gujarat, Bombay and Delhi as well as Christians from Kerala, Parsees from Bombay and Muslims from various parts of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Immigration to the UK and the Europe started with the influx of factory workers in the 1950s and 1960s. By the 1980s South Asians constituted almost half the population of the UK. Immigration in many instances bettered the lives of the émigrés, but also created many problems. As the influx continued and increased in numbers, so did hostility. Loneliness and alienation often played into the psyche of the new immigrants. Alienation resulted in enclaves of Indians, such as Indian student organizations in almost every university campus in the US, most funded by the university as part of their international student programme. These associations provided an opportunity for the community to get together and celebrate Holi, Diwali, Eid and other Indian festivals, and of course watch Indian films. Such gatherings were fairly integrated at first, very diverse in terms of religion, ethnic origin, and language. Eventually as this Indian diaspora grew larger and wealthier, nationalistic ties gave way to regional, ethnic and religious ties. Thus the Bengalis formed their own organization, so did the Biharis, Punjabis, the Keralites, Gujaratis, etc., followed by various religion-based organizations comprising the Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and Christian Indians. With the perceived notion that the mores and moral standards of their host society presented a significant danger to the proper upbringing of

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Jawaid Quddus

their children and for the generations yet to come, organizations specifically tailored to the spiritual needs of the people came into being. It was apparent to all that the counter force to a culture that promoted dating, pre-marital sex and pornography had to be a structured religious upbringing. Temples, mosques, gurudwaras and churches came into being, first in individual homes and then as sprawling complexes. Apparently, the various religious denominations comprising the Indian diaspora were not any more religious than those that they had left behind. They, however, had a greater need to concentrate more on the spiritual aspects of their lives than their counterparts in India. They may have chosen to live in a foreign land; however, they were still reluctant to give up their Indian ways.

RISE

OF

HINDU FUNDAMENTALISM

The continued insurgency in Kashmir largely sponsored by Pakistan, the success of the Afghan freedom fighters against Russian occupation, and various other conflicts such as those in Chechnya, Bosnia, the Middle East, and the Philippines, have perhaps provided encouragement to groups around the world to seek answers through violent means. In recent years there has been an increase in the growth of fundamentalism within the major religions of the world. In India, Hindutva, neo-fascism in the guise of religion, right wing politics and nationalism are being forced upon the people. They have established themselves as a counter force to and inspired by the rabid fundamentalism of the jehad groups in Pakistan and elsewhere.

OVERSEAS ACTIVITIES

OF THE

SANGH PARIVAR

The Vishnu Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA) and other related Hindu organizations such as the Hindu Student Council (HSC) have actively propagated the Hindutva movement worldwide. They have done this successfully by playing on the emotions of the Hindu Indians living abroad. By organizing youth camps and by providing a distorted version of history and culture that they believe defines India. The destruction of the Babri Masjid and the construction of the Ram temple and the hatred of Muslims and Christians have become the centre of all issues involving India. This is an apparent attempt to convey a sense of urgency to the

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new generation of foreign-born Indians about the inherent danger the jehadis pose to India. The implication is that the survival of over 800 million or more Indian Hindus is at stake because the 120 million plus Indian Muslims exist only for the sole purpose of destroying the infidels. The fact that not one Indian Muslim was involved in any of the terrorist attacks in Kashmir, on the Parliament, or on Akshardham is irrelevant to this issue. The fact that not one Indian Muslim terrorist was caught by the US forces in Afghanistan and interned at Guatanmo Bay in Cuba is also irrelevant. It also does not matter that the vast majority of those caught spying against India and for Pakistan are Hindus. However, the fact that a few stupid Muslims burst crackers when Pakistan wins a cricket match is evidence enough to hang them all as traitors. The VHP has used religion as the driving force to generate a mass following of volunteers. The stated goal of the VHP is to promote the Hindu religion and create a Hindu rashtra in India. Large proportions of the Hindus, in their desire to faithfully follow their religion, either do not understand or ignore the subtle ways of the VHP. The VHP and other related organizations appropriate certain emotive, albeit non-issues, to mobilize Hindus. In the early 1900s, in Mauritius, for example, the movement for propagation of Hindi was used by the Arya Samaj and other Hindu organizations like the Hindu Mahasabha, to create a unified Hindu elite that would after independence dominate the political and power structure in that country. The propagation of Hindi thus became associated with the preservation of the ‘ancestral language’, although a majority of the Indians in Mauritius spoke Bhojpuri and Creole. Thus Hindi was associated with goddess Hindi Ma ‘Mother Hindi’ and Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of learning. Language was used to enforce the concept of one language, one culture, and one religion, the subliminal message being that India, Hindi, and Hinduism are one single entity. The destruction of Babri Masjid greatly empowered the Sangh Parivar activists to take their cause of the Hindu rashtra worldwide. Whether or not the Babri Masjid was the actual site of the birth of Lord Ram was irrelevant. That they believed it to be so was justification enough to replace it with a Ram temple and rectify the wrong that was done to them by the forefathers of the present-day jehadis. A campaign to collect money and gold bricks was used to motivate the Hindus to give up their ‘Hinduism of inclusion’ for the Sangh Parivar’s ‘Hindutva of exclusion’. VHP leaders such as Ashok Singhal and others talked at different world forums about the Hindu diaspora, fictionalized Indian history, Indian culture, and an Indian nationalism based on religion.

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Jawaid Quddus

Hindu temples abroad, mostly run by the VHP, started and supported numerous campaigns for the proposed Ram temple in Ayodhya. Guru Dakshina Days and World Hindu Conferences were organized overseas with the intention of promoting Hinduism, collecting donations, and influencing friends and supporters in politically high places. The VHPA is a tax exempt organization in the US. The laws there do not permit an organization with tax exempt status to indulge in politics or lobby politicians. This law, however, did not stop the Sangh Parivar from doing so. They continue to do this in the cover of numerous Hindu front organizations that they have created specifically for this purpose. For example, in Southern California, an organization called the Federations of Hindu Association was formed in Artesia, Orange County. Many other organizations such as Overseas Friends of BJP, the Friends of India Society International also exist around the world and function under the direct control of the Sangh Parivar. All function as the political arm of the VHP, entrusted to pursue Hindu political interests in the US by influencing public and world opinion for the cause of a Hindu rashtra in India.

HYPOCRISY

AND THE

HINDUTVA CAUSE

Members of these front organizations are usually wealthy technocrats who generate millions of dollars for the Hindutva cause by actively financing the fascist agenda of the Sangh Parivar. They support the Sangh Parivar’s agenda of a Hindu rashtra in India. But the hypocritical paradox is that despite their support for this philosophy, they still choose to and continue to live in the western secular democracies. While they may not shy away in demanding from the authorities in their adopted countries their right to build temples and propagate their religion, they want to prevent the Christians and Muslims in India, who are born Indians, their right to do so. As newly naturalized citizens in an alien country, they vote for political candidates of their choice but support organizations who stand for denial of these citizenship rights to minorities in India who are Indians by birth. This is because they endorse the Sangh Parivar’s contention that minorities in India, who have for generations been lawful Indian citizens, are foreigners or jehadis. These burger-eating expatriates who wear jeans and skirts, proudly drive their flashy cars, date western or westernized Indian men or women, and frequent bars and dance studios, also concomitantly support organizations in India that oppose by violence and threat of violence cow slaughter and social issues such as dating, the right to

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romance in the parks, Valentine’s day or New Year’s day celebrations, skirts and jeans. While they may propagate the drinking of urine for its medicinal properties, they frequent only the most technologically advanced hospitals if someone from their family needs medical attention. Some who support the idea of a Hindu rashtra in India prefer to live and work in secular countries such as the US and Britain. Among them, some who love their money more than their gods even prefer to live in the Gulf Muslim countries. Their hypocrisy is that although they may condemn the jehadis and the fundamentalists among the Muslims, they have no qualms about supporting fundamentalists among the Hindus. Shukla (2003) has very effectively chronicled the philosophy of the Hindu Taliban. They mimic the jehadis in their action and philosophy. These pseudo-religionists, the Hindu Taliban and the Muslim Jehadis, are birds of the same flock. Although they may condemn each other and claim to hate each other, the fact remains that they are in actuality very similar to each other. They empower each other. In order to carry on with their agenda of establishing their distorted utopian ideas, they create the necessary scenarios to justify their actions. Be it the destruction of Babri Masjid, the attack on Akshardham or the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas. A culture of hate and mutual suspicion based on falsehood, innuendoes, distortion of history is created and propagated. Human beings are transformed into zombies who, as evidenced recently in Gujarat, can rip foetuses from the wombs of mothers, indulge in beheadings, gang rape and other unspeakable atrocities.

FUNDING

THE

HINDU RIGHT

A report in The New York Times (14 May 2003) indicates that according to Merrill Lynch there are 200,000 Non-Resident Indian (NRI) millionaires in the US alone. A recent report in The Indian Express (3 April 2003) indicates that overseas Indians have remitted to India over $10 billion dollars in 2001. The bulk of this came from the US and Saudi Arabia. Recently certain groups made assertions against the Sangh Parivar in the US and France regarding overseas funding of the Sangh Parivar’s Hindutva agenda in India. It seems that these funds from the Hindu diaspora maybe responsible for funding hate crimes against the minorities in India. Although the Sangh Parivar denies this and claims that these allegations are concocted by the pseudo-secularists, the evidence does appear to be fairly substantial.

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Jawaid Quddus

Consider a simple fact. The General Secretary of the VHP, Mr Praveen Togadia, claims to have recently distributed about 5,000 trishuls in Gujarat and another 5,000 in New Delhi. His goal is to distribute about 500,000 trishuls by the end of 2003. If we assume that so far he has only distributed 10,000 and estimate the cost of one trishul to be about at least Rs 20, then 10,000 trishuls will cost about Rs 200,000, and 500,000 trishuls would cost about Rs 10,000,000. Where is all this money coming from? Surely, not from Togadia’s pocket! One thing, however, is for sure. We will never find out! No accounting has ever been made by the income tax authorities or by any other government agency in India to look into the finances and sources of funds being released to these groups. There has been no accounting also in regard to where and what projects the Sangh Parivar is funding! According to one released report of the VHP’s audited accounts, Mr Kapil Sibal, AICC(I) spokesperson had indicated that while VHP received Rs 2.70 crores in 1999, only Rs 10,101 was spent on charitable causes (The Hindu, 17 August 1999). Mr Sibal’s demand of the government to conduct a CBI enquiry to determine whether or not the donations were put to use only for the purpose that they were collected for fell on deaf ears. No investigation to date has been done to find out whether these organizations have fulfilled the conditions spelled out in Section 11 and 12 of the Income Tax Act. Indians and the world need to know, for example, who financed the genocide in Gujarat or the training camps where volunteers trained for months on the mechanics of bringing the Babri Masjid down. In Gujarat, according to eyewitness reports, rioters came in trucks, used cell phones and computer-generated voter lists to identify and target minorities, minority homes and business interests. Who paid for the thousands of cooking gas cylinders that were used as bombs? How and where was this entire operation planned, and who trained these criminals in the technology of converting cooking gas cylinders into bombs? Is it possible that the pogrom in Gujarat was financed by funding from overseas Hindus, with or without their knowledge? That some of the money sent by overseas Gujaratis and others for earthquake relief were spent instead on ethnic cleansing? In an article published in the 22 July 2002 issue of Outlook entitled ‘Deflections to the right’ the author Mr A.K. Sen has enlightened the readers about various organizations providing funds to the Hindutva groups. Among groups identified are the India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF) that raises funds in the US to support the RSS, and organizations such as Sewa International. This report and the recent

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expose entitled ‘The Foreign Exchange of Hate’ detailing the use of overseas funds in support of Hindutva activities in India has been strongly denied by all those implicated. However, Mr Shankar Talwandi, the RSS convener (foreign cell), has on record indicated that UK’s Sewa International and US IDRF have both collected donations in the past from Hindus to help victims of calamities in India from time to time. He has also reaffirmed that Sewa International has also been funding the education of 2,500 poor children in India (The Times of India, 12 June 2000). It is certainly noble to help earthquake victims and educate poor children. What is not noble is the fact that these funds are collected and distributed specifically to help only a certain section of the population with inherent vested interests. Sewa International is the largest Indian charity organization in the UK. It is a product of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) which in turn is the international wing of the RSS. The millions of pounds that the Sewa International has collected in the UK have gone into the coffers of Sewa Bharti, the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram, the Kalyan Ashram Trust and the Hindu Vivek Kendra. All Sangh Parivar affiliates. Sewa International’s advertisements for funds, however, do not indicate that it is associated with any Sangh Parivar organization. The IDRF has also denied any association with the Sangh Parivar. However, applications submitted by these organizations to the various US agencies for issuance of tax exemption certification very clearly identifies them as organizations that the IDRF has set up to receive the funds. Of the 75 sister organizations listed by the IDRF, 60 are Sangh Parivar organizations. In addition, the founders of IDRF including Ved Parakash and Bhishma Agnihotri, who is also the BJP-appointed ambassador at large, and several other high ranking officials of the IRDF are either all Sangh Parivar men or have been associated with it. Despite the spin and a futile attempt by the Hindutva forces to refute the above charges, the facts remain substantiated. In UK, the South Asia Solidarity Group has also started a campaign to expose the funding sources of the Sangh Parivar. In response to their efforts and efforts of other organizations in Britain, the British Charity Commission is now investigating the activities of the HSS and the VHP (UK). Sewa International raised £ 748,355 in 2000 and £ 217,571 in 2002 for Gujarat earthquake related relief work. There has, however, been no accounting regarding how much of that money was utilized for actual relief work. An article in The Hindu (23 March 2002) by Kalpana Wilson indicates that a BBC Channel 4 report on the Gujarat violence broadcast on 12 December 2002 implicates one of the organizations, the Vanavasi

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Kalyan Ashram in the pogrom in Gujarat. This organization is a direct recipient of funds from Sewa International and its leaders have been actively involved in the genocide in Gujarat. Of note is that none of these organizations ever launched a single fund drive to collect funds for the displaced refugees of the Gujarat violence, or contributed a single paisa to rebuild some of the homes and the historic monuments (mazars) that were destroyed by the Hindutva storm troopers.

CONCLUSION Hindutva is not Hinduism. It is a fascist political system that places the upper-caste Hindus at the top with the rest of the population subjected to the laws of Manusmriti that stipulates ‘Whatever exists in the world is the property of the Brahmana; on account of the excellence of his origin the Brahmana is indeed, entitled to it all’ (II–100). In the lexicon of the Sangh Parivar, the concept of tolerance, diversity or plurality needs to be redefined in terms of the laws of Manu, which exist, like the rest of the non-Brahmana world, only to serve the Brahmana. History is being changed to reflect a myopic and distorted view of India. The philosophies of the saffron nationalists mirror the European fascists of the 1930s. The ideology is the same. Their intent is not to glorify Hinduism or unify Hindus but to demonize the non-Hindus and to convert India into their version of a Hindu rashtra. The genocide in Gujarat was just such an experiment that will be implemented all over India. The VHP has warned of a ‘storm ahead which was not going to be limited to Gujarat’ (The Hindu, 18 December 2002). They have organized themselves like Hitler’s Storm Troopers and as the recent Gujarat pogrom indicates, they have done this very successfully, with impunity and with official government sanction. Their ‘Gaurav Yatra’ will therefore traverse the country looting, slaughtering, raping, and destroying all opposed to their fascist ideology of ‘one country, one religion, one language and one culture’. These Hindu Talibans will then glorify Hinduism by building a magnificent Ram temple for themselves, low-cost Swastika temples for the Dalits and for those Muslims and Christians who have realized the errors of their ways and have reconverted and come ‘home’. India appears to be on the abyss of destruction. It must reject the totalitarian and fascist agenda of the Hindu right and embrace what have always been its glorious tradition: cultural pluralism and tolerance. The

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Sangh conspiracy against our people and our nation must be rejected completely. The recent national elections culminating with the defeat of the BJP reflect the fact that the Indian people may have finally come to realize that the Hindutva assassins of Gandhi must not be allowed to set India ablaze. It is now incumbent on the present government to desaffronize our education system, our institutions and make it truly secular. Perpetuators of violence need to be punished, and all sections of our society, no matter what their religion, caste or creed, guaranteed all the benefits afforded to them as per the Constitution. Only then can Bharat be mahan and ‘shining’ as well.

REFERENCES Bhat, Chandrashekar, India and the Indian Diaspora: A Policy Issue (University of Hyderabad: Department of Sociology, 1986). ‘BJP for Better Control of Overseas Friends’, The Hindu, 13 March 2002. ‘Congress(I) Demands CBI Probe into VHP Funds’, The Hindu, 17 August 1999. Eisenlohr, Patrick, ‘Mediating Diaspora across the Indian Ocean: Conflicting Projects of Ethnolinguistic Purification in Mauritius’, paper presented at a conference on ‘Cultural Exchange and Transformation in the Indian Ocean World’, UCLA, 5–6 April 2000. Elliott, John, ‘India Moves to “Talibanise History”’, New Stateman, 17 December 2001. Engineer, Asghar Ali, The Role of Minorities in Freedom Struggle (Delhi: Ajanta Publications, 1986). Gadgil, N.V., U.V. Joshi, Shambu Prasad and Suresh Patel, The Peopling of India, Demographic History, Global, Genetic History, Mitochondrial DNA Base Sequences. In the Indian Human Heritage (Hyderabad: University Press, 1997). Islam, Shamsul, The Freedom Movement and the RSS: A Story of Betrayal (New Delhi: Joshi-Adhikari Institute of Social Studies, 2000). —–———, Know the RSS (New Delhi: Media House, 2002). Kandar, Mira, ‘The Struggle for India’s Soul’, World Policy Journal, vol. XIX, no. 3 (2002). Mahajan, Romi, ‘Malign Money and Misguided Multiculturalism’, 5 December 2002. Available online at http://counterpunch.org/mahajan1205.html Mander, Harsh, ‘Cry the Beloved Country: Reflections on the Gujarat Massacres’, South Asia Citizens Web. Available online at http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/ sSARKARonSANGHPARIVAR.html, 1993. Mody, Anjali, ‘US Corporations Funding Hate’, The Hindu, 21 November 2002. Narayan, K. Laxmi, Indian Diaspora: A Demographic Perspective (University of Hyderabad: Center for Study of Indian Diaspora). Available online at http://www.uohyd.ernet. in/sss/cinddiaspora/occ3.html

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Puniyani, Ram, The Other Cheek: Minorities Under Threat (New Delhi: Media House, 2000). —–———, Communal Politics: An Illustrated Primer (New Delhi: Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust, 2001). —–———, Communal Politics (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2003). Report of the High Level Committee on the Indian Diaspora, Ministry of External Affairs, Foreign Secretary’s Office, 18 August 2000. Sarkar, Tanika, ‘Ethic Cleansing in Gujarat. An Analysis of a Few Aspects’. Available online at http://www.indowindow.com/akhbar, July 2002. Shukla, I.K., Hindutva: An Autopsy of Fascism as a Theoterrorist Cult and Other Essays (Delhi: Media House, 2003). Singh, K.S. and S. Manoharan, People of India, National Series, Volume IX, Languages & Scripts (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997). Taneja, Nalini, ‘Hindu Rashtra in Action’, South Asia Citizens Web. Available online at http://www.indowindow.com/akhbar 2, 2002. Tharoor, Shashi, ‘India for Indians’, The Hindu online, 28 April 2002. The Foreign Exchange of Hate: IDRF and the American Funding of Hindutva (Sabrang Communications Pvt. Ltd, Mumbai and The South Asia Citizens Web, France, 2002). Wolpert, Stanley, New History of India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

HINDUTVA

WEAKER SECTIONS: CONFLICT BETWEEN DOMINANCE AND RESISTANCE AND

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eligious fundamentalism is an emerging phenomenon in the world at large. But at different sociopolitical milieus it assumes different forms. One common trend of religious fundamentalism is that in almost all cases it tends to be fascist in nature. In the South Asian context the emergence of Hindutva forces1 in India, the Islamization attempts in Pakistan, the Buddhist dominated Sinhalization in Sri Lanka, all state the fact that many countries are caught in the web of communal, fundamental, and fascist forces. The emergence of fundamentalist forces threaten the very existence of minorities in a country and pose a danger to the very core of any nation-state. Significantly, many of these fundamentalist forces claim to be the guardians of national interest. But their ideology and activities are contrary to the interest of any nation. A deeper analysis of the emerging trends of fundamentalism unravels the fact that in reality they want to uphold the hegemony and the monopoly of the dominant segment of the population. India also has been witnessing the emergence of communal, fundamental, and fascist forces in the recent past. The fundamentalist stream within the majority Hindu community is usually known as Hindutva forces. Since the term Hindutva forces is yet to be defined adequately,

1 Hindutva forces is a generic term used to describe the right wing fundamentalist or fascist trends in India. One can also hear terms like Sangh Parivar, the RSS related groups which refer to the same phenomenon. Sangh Parivar refers to the various forces that are motivated by similar right wing fundamentalist ideology supposed to be based on Hinduism.

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let us briefly deal with some of the features that go with the phenomenon Hindutva. Those who propagate Hindutva argue that Hindutva means Hinduism, that is, the total aspect of Hindu-ness. By constantly using the term Hindutva, the proponents of this ideology want to bring in an upsurge within the Hindu majority community who adhere to Hindu religious beliefs and practices.2 However, today the identity of the Hindutva force has moved from being religious fundamentalists to cultural nationalists. Those who adhere to this philosophy call themselves cultural nationalists, but in reality their actions have nothing to do with Hinduism or nationalism. On the other hand, it is using religion for carrying out a political agenda. Those who have carefully examined the debilitating consequence of Hindutva forces contend that Hindutva is the politics of the Hindu elite, drawn from Brahminical Hinduism. While Hinduism in general is the collation of multiple traditions, Hindutva is an attempt to construct a Hindu rashtra. Further, while Hinduism in principle is based on the tenant of tolerance and non-violence, Hindutva forces are essentially fascist in nature and operation.3 If one delves deep into the factors behind the emergence of Hindutva forces in India, one also realizes that the construction of the Hindutva force is an attempt to enforce the uppercaste hegemony, monopoly, control, dominance in general and Brahminical caste structure in particular on the exploited and oppressed. Stated in another way, the scheme behind the emergence of the Hindutva force is to present the socio-political-economic ideology under the garb of religious ideology, especially through religious symbols and slogans. Romila Thapar, in her analysis of the Hindutva force, argues that, ‘The new Hinduism which is being currently propagated by the Sanghs, Parishads and Samajs is an attempt to restructure the indigenous religion as a monolithic uniform religion, rather paralleling some of the features of Semitic religions. This seems to be a fundamental departure from the essentials of what may be called the indigenous “Hindu” religions. Its form is not only in many ways alien to the earlier culture of India but equally disturbing is the uniformity which it seeks to impose on the variety of “Hindu” religions.’4

2 Prakash Louis, The Emerging Hindutva Force: The Ascent of Hindu Nationalism (New Delhi: Indian Social Institute, 2000). 3 Ram Punyani, Fascism of Sangh Parivar (Bombay: Ekta, 1999). 4 Romila Thapar, ‘Syndicated Moksha?’, Seminar, 1987, p. 14.

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WEAKER SECTIONS In the Indian context, the Dalits,5 tribals and women are considered to be the weaker sections. Interestingly, the Constitution does not define the term weaker sections. But in clear terms it identifies what needs to be done to those who constitute the weaker sections and thus in extension identifies those who are weaker sections. ‘The State shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, and in particular, of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation’ (Article 46). From the perspectives of the framers of the Constitution, the SCs and the STs constitute specially marginalized and discriminated segments of the population. The Constitution of India has demanded in clear terms that all the citizens be provided with the basic minimum facilities and their rights be protected. Article 14 of the Constitution speaks about equality before law; ‘The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.’ Following in the same line, Article 15 says, ‘The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, places of birth or any of them.’ The framers of the Constitution did not remain at that, but went still further and reformulated their vision in favour of the weaker sections by amending it. Article 15(4) declares, ‘nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes of citizens or for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes’.6 Having located the status of the weaker sections within the constitutional framework, let us examine their social profile and then relate their struggles and aspirations with the emergence of Hindutva forces. 5

The term ‘Dalit’ is and has been defined exclusively and inclusively. There are some Dalits and non-Dalits who, under exclusive definition, refer only to the SCs or erstwhile untouchables. There is another group of Dalits and non-Dalits which includes SCs and STs under the category Dalits. Thus, 160 million SCs and 80 million STs are at times clubbed together and called Dalits. This group of people at times also includes all the exploited masses. In this book, the term Dalit has been used only in an exclusive sense. 6 For the Constitution and for details on the amendment refer to The Constitution of India (as on the 1 June 1996) (Government of India: Law and Justice Ministry, 1996).

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SCHEDULED CASTES: A PROFILE According to the 1991 Census, the SCs constitute over 14 crore, that is, they comprise about 16.48 per cent of the total population. It is an established fact that the SCs are the most disadvantaged segment of Indian population. They continue to be subjected to social exclusion, economic deprivation, political marginalization and caste discrimination. This social fact had compelled the founding fathers to provide affirmative action, introduce stringent laws like Prevention of Atrocities Act, institution of National Commission for Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, etc. But all these provisions have not made the impact they were supposed to. A brief examination of some of the social indicators related to this disadvantaged community highlight this phenomenon. Education and literacy are two indicators through which the participation of a community in national development is measured. In the case of the SCs, even after five decades of independence, their literacy rate is just 37.82 per cent. While the male literacy rate among the SCs is reaching the century mark, literacy rate of women is abysmally low at just 23.76 per cent. A comparison of the literacy trend among the SCs over four decades unravels the fact that the literacy level of this segment of the population has not even moved at a snail’s space (Table 8.1). The significant factor with regard to the literacy and educational indicators among the SCs is that all the children in this community do not get enrolled in schools. Among those who are enrolled, over 79.88 per cent of them drop out by the time they reach high school. This is also another factor for the persistent low level of literacy rate among the weaker section. It is expedient to highlight some of the factors that are responsible for maintaining a low level of literacy among the SCs. A probe team which Table 8.1 Sex-wise Literacy Trend among SCs, STs and Total Population—India Year 1961 1971 1981 1991

Total

Scheduled Castes

Scheduled Tribes

Male

Female

Total

Male

Female

Total

Male

Female

Total

34.44 39.45 65.60 64.13

12.95 39.45 65.50 64.13

24.02 29.46 43.67 52.21

16.96 22.36 31.12 49.91

3.29 6.44 10.93 23.76

10.27 14.67 21.38 37.41

13.83 17.63 24.52 40.65

3.16 4.85 8.05 18.19

8.54 11.39 16.35 29.60

Source: National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Fifth Report, 1998–99, vol. 1, p. 66.

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investigated this matter, highlighted, ‘First, what needs to be considered is not just physical distance but also “social distance”, taking into account various barriers that may prevent a willing child from reaching the local school. In many areas, for instance, villages are divided into separate hamlets, and children from one hamlet may be reluctant or unable to go to school in another hamlet, e.g., due to caste tensions. Only half of all hamlets in rural India have primary schools, and in states like Uttar Pradesh the proportion of such hamlets is as low as 30 per cent. For girls, restricted freedom of movement further enhances the problem of social distance.’7 Thus girl children suffer double discrimination. While the Dalits and the downtrodden are struggling to become literate, the Hindutva forces are busy saffronizing education, which would further deny social mobility among them. At the economic front since employment opportunities are limited to the SCs, they continue to live in rural areas. The landed gentry also block any opportunities that could benefit the weaker sections so that they continue to work as agricultural labourers for them and above all be dependent upon them. In the 1991 Census about 50 per cent of the SC population were agricultural labourers. But the reality is that more than two-thirds (76.22 per cent) of this population is engaged in agriculture and allied activities. Further in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, over 72 per cent of the SC population are landless agricultural labourers. Access to resources, control over labour, participation in political processes are the central demands of the Dalits. Hence, they do not figure in the agenda of the Hindutva forces.

SCHEDULED TRIBES: A PROFILE There are over 6.78 crore tribals in India, who constitute 8.08 per cent of the total population (1991 Census). It is repeatedly stated that they are supposed to be the original settlers of India. Keeping this historical fact in mind, the framers of the Constitution placed them under Scheduled Areas. This was another way of providing them a protective cover from the exploitation of non-tribal population and also a way of maintaining their sociocultural identity. This protective discrimination also could not save the tribals from being displaced and marginalized. 7 National Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Commission Report, New Delhi, 1991.

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Natural resources constitute the very lifeline of the tribal population. These resources make up the economic, social, cultural, political, and religious universe of the tribal community. The tribal women, in a special way, had a say and control over these resources. With the introduction of development-induced displacement, vast segment of the tribal population are displaced from their natural habitats and also are subjected to innumerable forms of exploitation. While land alienation and displacement have become an integral part of tribal history, rehabilitation does not seem to be part of the national agenda. Table 8.2 highlights the fact that over 74.10 lakh tribals have been displaced in Jharkhand alone due to displacement carried out in the name of development.8 Out of them only 18.45 lakh have been resettled leaving over 76 per cent of the displaced people in no man’s land. Thus, the tribals who lived in symbiotic relationship with nature are reduced to aliens in their own land. Women lose control over resources and this increases their burden in terms of finding fuel, fodder, and food. Table 8.2 Estimate of the Total Number of Persons and Tribals Displaced and Resettled by Various Development Projects in India: 1951–90 (number in lakhs) Type of projects Dams Mines Industry Wild-life Others Total

Total displaced 164.0 25.5 12.5 6.0 5.0 213.0

Tribals Tribals dis- Total Percentage Tribal Percentage displaced placed (%) resettled of resettled resettled of resettled 63.2 13.3 3.1 4.5 1.3 85.4

38.5 52.2 25.0 75.0 25.0 40.1

41.0 6.5 3.8 1.3 1.5 54.0

25.0 25.4 30.4 21.6 30.0 25.4

15.8 3.3 0.8 1.0 0.3 21.2

25.0 24.8 25.8 22.2 23.0 24.8

Source: Annual Report 1991–92. Ministry of Rural Development, New Delhi: Government of India, 1991.

There is also another perception about development-induced displacement. ‘For those who are displaced, these development projects usually have overwhelmingly negative consequences, resulting in social and psychological disruption, and often long-term economic improverishment. They have effectively become what one might call “people in the way of progress”, having to move to make way for, and to suffer for, the kind of 8

Prakash Louis, ‘Jharkhand: Marginalisation of Tribals’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 35, no. 47 (18 November 2000), pp. 4087–91.

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infrastructural development that is, for many people, the hallmark of progress. It is seen as unfortunate, but nevertheless as expedient, “for the sake of the nation”, that some should suffer.’9 Those who favour the developmental approach fail to take into account the marginalization of the tribal communities. Thus, land alienation and displacment have become burning issues for the tribals. But the Hindutva forces are busy with ghar vapasi, that is, reconverting them from other religions.

WOMEN: A PROFILE According to the 1991 Census, women comprise over 40.78 crores of the population of India. Since women are also a marginalized and discriminated segment of the population, it was necessary to make special provisions for them in the Constitution. Article 15(3) of the Constitution enjoins upon the government to provide adequate conditions for the empowerment of women. ‘Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any special provisions for women.’ Once again like the other weaker sections, women also have been victims of planned development. While legal provisions grew in leaps and bounds, the condition of majority of women is extremely deplorable. Significantly, empowerment of women was one of the primary objectives of the Ninth Five-Year plan. It needs to be stated here that any talk of women’s empowerment is encountered with cynicism. ‘The declaration by the Finance Minster in the middle of his budget speech, that the year 2001 would be the “Year of Women’s Empowerment” elicited hardly any reaction from the general public, and was greeted with bored scepticism by most women’s groups. This was not surprising—announcements of this kind are fairly routine, and any hopes that might be raised soon succumb to natural causes in the absence of significant financial outlays to back up the grand new schemes proposed.’10 Even basic human needs like sanitation and health have been denied to the weaker sections. A majority of India’s population does not have access to toilet facilities in their dwellings and lacks sanitation facilities or the disposal of waste 9 Chris De Wet, ‘Economic Development and Population Displacement: Can Everybody Win?’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 36, no. 50 (2001), pp. 4637–46. 10 Kalyani Menon-Sen, ‘Towards Equality’, Seminar, vol. 505 (September 2001), pp. 12–15.

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water. Apart from the availability of safe drinking water, lack of sanitation, particularly sewage and disposal of solid waste including ‘night soil’ has been observed as among the main reasons for prevailing ill health and morbidity levels in the country. As per the 1991 census, less than onefourth of the households in the country had toilet facility within the premises of their residence, the proportion was less than 10 per cent for rural households and around 64 per cent for urban households. Among the various population segments, access to toilet facilities for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes households was lower than that of other households in almost all States.11

ONSLAUGHT OF HINDUTVA FORCES WEAKER SECTIONS

ON

The 1996 election manifesto of the BJP, which is the political face of the Sangh Parivar, promised to work ‘For a Strong and Prosperous India’. The agenda of the Hindutva forces are clearly spelt out in the manifesto. ‘Hindutva or cultural nationalism, shall be the rainbow which will bridge our present to our glorious past and pave the way for an equally glorious future; it will guide the transition from swarajya, that is, self-rule to surajaya, that is, good-governance . . .. Hindutva is a unifying principle, which alone can preserve the unity and integrity of our nation. It is a collective endeavour to protect and re-energize the soul of India, to take us into the next millennium as a strong and prosperous nation.’12 These electoral utterances clearly indicate the agenda of the Hindutva forces. Though self-rule and good governance are spoken as desirable ends, the ultimate aim is to build a monolithic, hierarchical, and unequal Hindu nation. According to Jayant Lele, the Hindutva project has three essential characteristics of all its past manipulations. First, it is hegemonic, in the sense that it seeks to create a political constituency. The aim behind the building up of this constituency is that this can be regularly mobilized into an ongoing structure of support for electoral and other political activities. 11

National Human Development Report (New Delhi: Planning Commission, Government of India, 2001). 12 T.B. Hansen and C. Jaffrelot, The BJP and the Compulsions of Politics in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998).

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Those who are consciously engaged in the political project of Hindutva, the leaders of BJP in particular, know that the managing institutions of the global economy will actively cooperate with the Hindu nation if and only if it fulfils some basic requirements. The second feature is homogenizing. The political community that emerged under Gandhiji and was nurtured by Nehru had taken into account the enormous diversity of the emerging nation. But this was challenged by the majoritarian Hindu construct. The colonial rulers nurtured all of these as politically ‘equal’ interest groups. But from 1980s onwards there was an attempt by the Hindutva forces to create a new hegemony. It aims at a national consensus based on a homogenized Hindu identity. This is similar to the earlier project of Brahminization, that is, of homogenizing the diverse creative and critical impulses in the Indian tradition. Third, the Hindutva forces have followed the pedagogy of recapturing and releasing the power of symbols and deities that have lived this dual, pan-Indian and local existence in the memories and aspirations of the people. This fabrication is aimed at bringing in an illusion of security and trust and a sense of historically persistent solidarity, into a world that is increasingly characterized by anxiety, uncertainty, and disorder. The selection and the use of these symbols, events, and actors are also associated with pedagogic violence.13 Thus, in the ultimate analysis, the agenda of Hindutva forces is to continue to maintain the dominance of the caste and class elite. Further, it is an all round attempt to repress any form of resistance emerging from those who were subjected to dominance for centuries. An additional social fact also needs to be laid bare here. The emergence of the RSS and the ascent of BJP have their origin in the rise of Brahminism. The once socially, politically, and economically powerful Brahmin fold was losing out to other caste groups. They not only performed the typically mental jobs for the rulers in the past, they engaged in martial functions when necessary. They slowly realized that their fortunes were on the decline. Gandhi’s political mobilization too threatened the Brahminical values. In the western part of the country, Marathas and Gujarati banias were gaining the upper hand and the Brahmins were losing out to these socially mobile castes. It was at this juncture that the RSS came onto the scene. It is said that the RSS attracted many Maharashtrian Brahmins because it embodied their particular culture, one characterized by a combination of Brahminical and martial values. 13

Jayant Lele, Hindustan: The Emergence of the Right (Madras: Earthworm Books, 1995), p. xvii.

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In the past, they had performed Kshatriya functions, in particular by serving in Shivaji’s armies. However, they slowly realized that their fortunes were on a decline.14 Hence, the Brahminical social fold immediately sprang into action and formed the RSS. The venom with which the Sangh Parivar attacks the Dalits, tribals, women, backward castes and the minorities is a clear indication of the ‘threat’ envisaged from these castes and communities who are resisting subjugation by the upper-caste forces and revolting against Brahminical superiority.

DALITS

AND

HINDUTVA FORCES

The Hindutva forces and the Dalits constitute two opposing ideologies, ways of life, and processes in this country. As argued earlier, the Hindutva forces are hegemonizing, homogenizing, manipulative, and destructive. In contrast, the Dalits are the creative, non-owning but producing class. Irrespective of the fact that the Dalits were and are subjected to unprecedented and unimaginable cruelty and oppression, they continue to uphold the Indian polity and society. Whether it is the Chakwara incident where the Dalits were denied the right to enter the village pond or the Jhajjar incident where five Dalits were lynched to death while they were carrying out their traditional occupation of processing animal hide, all go to state that the Dalits can be disposed off by the dominant castes. While this is a historical reality, the most intriguing factor is that the Hindutva forces exploited these incidents to establish their base in the region.15 The barbaric and beastly behaviour exhibited towards the Dalits and the downtrodden by the dominant castes could be directly understood from the glorification of caste by the proponents of Hindutva. Savarkar’s views on caste expresses this in a telling manner. And thus we find that the institutions that were the peculiar mark of our nation were revived. The system of four varnas which could not be wiped out even under the Buddhistic sway, grew in popularity to such an extent that kings and emperors felt it a distinction to be called one who established the system of four varnas . . . . Witness the definition that tries to draw a line of demarcation between foreigners and us—the land where the 14 Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics: 1925 to the 1990s (New Delhi: Viking, 1993), p. 47. 15 Prakash Louis, ‘Dalit utpeedan: Chakwara se Jhajjar tak’, Hindustan, 29 October 2002.

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system of four varnas does not exist should be known as the Mlechcha [impure] country. Aryavarta lies away from it.16

Going further, it needs to be stated that the Hindutva forces not only upheld the anti-human, exploitative and oppressive caste system but also engaged in cultural manipulations of the weaker sections. It is expedient at this juncture to present briefly the various game plans employed by the Sangh Parivar to maintain its hold over the Dalits. To cite an example, the RSS has initiated different educational and developmental activities in the slums of Chennai. A youth of Munnusami Nagar of Chennai stated, ‘the RSS introduced North Indian ceremonies like Rakshabandan and Ramnavami in our slum to show that we are all Indians; our Ambedkar Night School was renamed into Hindu Samrajya School, where classes would begin with the slogan of “Jaybeem” and end with abusing the Muslims. They taught us to say that RSS is our mother and the BJP our father. They also claimed that Ambedkar was a[n] RSS activist and distributed key chains bearing the image of Ambedkar.’17 The Dalits and the downtrodden clearly and categorically see the manoeuvring that goes on in the name of building a strong and prosperous nation. A Dalit youth of Triplicane, another slum in Chennai asserted that, ‘The Brahminical oppression is pervasive in all fields. They control the cultural sphere like carnatic music. But above all, to divide the Dalits they have corrupted our leaders. Despite political differences, the Brahmins keep their caste unity intact. Our Chief Minister takes pride in starting her caste in the Legislative Assembly. It is their unity and pride of belonging to an upper caste which give them the strength to hold on to power and deprive us of our right to organise and assert.’18 Since the Dalits are deprived economically, politically, socially and culturally they cannot adequately counter the move of the Hindutva forces. The Sangh Parivar’s game plan to bring the Dalits into the Hindu fold is clearly expressed by the VHP’s leader Ashok Singal, ‘For us Hindu means all those religions which have come up from this soil of Hindustan. Dr Ambedkar upheld the spirit of this country when he stopped the flow of Dalits into foreign religions like Christianity and Islam by propagating the Ideals of Buddhism. That way he contributed greatly to the Hindu 16

V.D. Savarkar, Hindutva (Mumbai: Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 1989), p. 27. S. Anandhi, Contending Identities: Dalits and Secular Politics in Modern Slums (New Delhi: Indian Social Institute, 1995), p. 37. 18 Ibid., p. 45. 17

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Dharma. And that is why we consider him one of the pioneers of our ideology and our movement.’19 By this statement, the VHP leaders have achieved more than one goal. He has tried to co-opt Ambedkar too into the Brahminical fold. This can be called ‘Brahminization’ process.20 They have also made it appear that there is no antagonism between Brahminism and Buddhism. Above all, they have established this myth that except the Christians and Muslims the rest belong to the Hindu fold. By projecting the Muslims and Christians, the Sangh Parivar leaders have also kept intact their regular vote bank. Pralay Kanungo in his perceptive analysis presents the reason why Nagpur became the centre of RSS. Nagpur had many educational institutions and hence made greater impact. Newspapers like Hitavada and Maharashtra were published from here. One-fourth of the educated students in the province were from Nagpur and all of them were Maharashtrian Brahmins. Nagpur was the seat of political power under the Bhonslas in which these Brahmins had a dominant position. They continued to maintain their superiority vis-à-vis the non-Brahmins even under the British. But their dominance was challenged by the non-Brahmins. Nagpur was emerging as site of non-Brahmin assertion and consolidation. The All India Depressed Classes Conference was organized at Nagpur on 30 April–1 May 1920 and Dr Ambedkar emerged as a militant leader of the community challenging the leadership of V.R. Shinde, an upper caste social worker, who was dedicated to the cause of the depressed classes. In this background, Hedgewar a Maharashtrian Brahmin founded the RSS at Nagpur.21 Thus it can be argued that cultural nationalism is another name for continuing the culture of dominance.

TRIBALS

AND

HINDUTVA FORCES

Prabhakar Tirkey while analysing the substitution of the term Jharkhand with Vananchal exposes the exploitative factors and forces behind this 19

Ashok Singhal. Interview in Frontline, 31 December 1993. By Brahminization what is indicated is the attempt of the brahminical forces to coopt any one leader who was in the other end of the spectrum and posed a challenge to the very hierarchical brahminical order. The brahminical forces co-opt the leader so as to bring to the mainstream those who followed him. This is also being done with Ravidas and Dr Ambedkar. 21 Pralay Kanungo, RSS’s Tryst with Politics: From Hedgewar to Sudarshan (New Delhi: Manohar, 2002). 20

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sinister move. The Jharkhand struggle itself found its base in the concept ‘Jharkhand’ right from 1950, though the self-determination struggle is a few centuries old. But when the Hindutva force realized that the Jharkhand struggle as well as Jharkhand itself was slipping out of its hand, it projected Vananchal from 1990. The main social base of the Vananchal movement is the big business companies. But they managed to mobilize the small traders, petty businessmen (teli, sahu, bania) around the notion of Vananchal. It is these petty traders who are the exploiters of the tribals in the rural areas. The mobilizational initiatives came from the RSS. The Vananchal proposal came as a major boon for the petty traders whose activities have been restricted due to the emergence of All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) struggles. With the weapon of Vananchal these forces created division within the tribals in the name of tribals and Christian tribals.22 The Sangh Parivar carefully and consistently built on these opposing trends and roped in the non-tribal as well as the Sarna tribal communities as its basic constituency in the Jharkhand region. It is this social reality which provided a political platform for the BJP to establish its roots in Jharkhand. The Hindutva forces also succeeded in offering justification to the Hinduizing process. This process also, in a latent way, offered fertile ground to the Sangh Parivar to consolidate its membership. Interestingly, it is from the drought-prone and poverty stricken Palamu district of Jharkhand region, that the highest number of Dalits and tribals were taken to function as ‘Kar Sevaks’ at Ayodhya.23 Examining the assertion that is emerging from the tribals, John Lakra states that a few years ago the Hindu zealots went about writing on the walls all over the country, ‘garv se kaho hum Hindu hain’ (say with pride, ‘We are Hindus’). To this slogan, the tribals in Ranchi retaliated with their slogan, ‘garv se kaho hum Sarna hain’ (say with pride, ‘We are Sarna’). The Sarna intellectuals went one step ahead and in March 1997 declared, ‘Sarna adivasi na to Hindu hain, na to Sikh-Isai hain, aur na to Musalman hain’ (the Sarna Adivasis are neither Hindus, nor Sikhs-Christians, nor Muslims). Thus from the above presentation it is clear that the tribals are not Hindus. The jargon ‘tribals are Hindus’ is directed by the Hindus against the influence of the Christian missionaries on the tribals, yet it 22 Prabhakar Tirkey, In Tribal Unity: A Political Perspective (Ranchi: R.T.C., 1999), p. 30. 23 This was reported by a leader of the BJP who led a group of tribals and Dalits from Palamu for the demolition of Babri Masjid.

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ultimately goes against them, because by imposing their own values on the tribals these Hindus negate the very existence of their identity and religion.24

WOMEN

AND

HINDUTVA FORCES

Whether it is in the Chipko movement or the Uttranchal movement of the hills, the fisherfolk movements at the coastal areas all over the country, the Jharkhand movement, the peasant movements, the naxalite movements, anti-liquor movements, spontaneous outbursts or the women’s movements per se, women moved away from short-term political interests to challenge the very patriarchal system on which gender inequality is based. This has led the women’s movement to come into direct conflict with the powers that be. Patriarchal system draws its sustenance from the male dominated religious beliefs, religious traditions and scriptures. The emergence of fundamentalism has given a new lease of life to male domination, which was being dismantled in the recent past due to the rise of women’s movements. But the ascent of the Hindutva force is once again trying to drive the women to the homes and hearth. It is appropriate to view the fear of women and women’s movements towards the Sangh Parivar or the reactionary Hindu right wing forces from this backdrop. To understand the conflict that is going on between the women’s movement and Hindutva forces, let us look at the mindset of the Hindutva forces. Mridula Sinha, ex-President of BJP’s Mahila Morcha, in an interview stated that (a) a woman should not work outside the home unless her family is financially very deprived, (b) I gave dowry and received dowry, (c) I oppose women’s liberation, as it is another name for ‘loose morals’, (d) we oppose equal rights for both sexes, (e) there is nothing wrong with domestic violence against women; very often it is the women’s fault. We advise women to try and adjust, (f) women’s future lies in perpetuating the present, because nowhere else are women worshipped as we are in India, and (g) for us women’s liberation means liberation from atrocities. It does not mean they should be relieved of their duties as wives and mothers.25 24 25

Ibid. The Telegraph, 27 December 1992.

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Veena Poonacha while spelling out the reasons why women are frightened of Hindutva forces argues, Lots of goddesses are worshipped but religious discourses do not proceed from the vantage point of the women but predominantly from the male point of view. The Saptapada and the Kanyadan rituals of marriage devalue women. The garbhadan ritual makes women only the receptacle for the ‘seed’ planted by the father and hence he becomes the natural guardian of the child and thus property flows from father to son. Paradoxically the ideology of motherhood extols the duties and virtues of mother without giving any real authority over the child. The revival of sati at Deoralas was more to assert the Rajput ideology and to draw political clout than to highlight any religious sentiments. This is based on the stree-dharma. The presentation of Ramayana serial has helped in projecting a monolithic Hindu identity and has relegated women to an inferior place. Among all the variants of Hinduism the present attempt to homogenize the Hindu way of life has the least scope for the liberation of all women.26

From the above debate it becomes clear that Dalits, tribals, and women have not been part of the Indian society. With the emergence of Hindutva forces, these weaker sections are promised citizenship under the Hindu nationalism but in reality they are co-opted for maintaining this oppressive edifice. Sumanta Banerjee has the following analysis about the understanding of Hindutva by its various constituencies: The Hindutva ideology inspite of the tactical differences among the BJP, RSS, VHP and the Shiv Sena leaders and the ranks, a general consensus has emerged among them about the definition of Hindutva: a highly structured belief system involving the interpretation of the past, an analysis of the present, and a set of precepts and imperatives for future conduct. Under this they stress the inimical traits of Hindu religious myths and imagery and personalities like Rama, Hanuman, Ayodhya and denying and depreciating traditions like Buddhism, Islam and Christianity, which have been part of Indian tradition. These are translated into coherent set of metaphors, idioms and emotionally laden expressions in order to elevate them to a position of authority to impose unity over an amorphous Hindu community.27

26

Veena Poonacha, ‘Hindutva’s Hidden Agenda: Why Women Fear Religious Fundamentalism’, Economic and Political Weekly (13 March 1993), p. 438. 27 Sumanta Banerjee, ‘“Hindutva”—Ideology and Social Psychology’, Economic and Political Weekly (19 January 1991), pp. 97–101.

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Arguing in the same vein, Ajit Roy states: The traditional communalism except the Muslim League variety was based on the politics of bargaining within the existing system for a better position and greater benefits. Hindutva by contrast is aimed at capturing power through sort of a coup with a view to fundamentally altering the character of the polity that is shifting from the participatory democracy to a form of authoritarian regime under the upper caste hegemony. Thus it will initiate the rule of B-3, that is the Brahmins, the Banias and the Bhumihars/ Babu Sahebs. There is also a meeting point of the obscurantist Sangh Parivar and the ultra modernist business houses and both stand to benefit from each other. So the urgent task today is to expose and combat the political essence of the Sangh Parivar’s present offensive, that is, to go beyond the framework of fighting against communalism of the traditional variety. The pronouncements of the Sangh spokesperson have made it clear that the logic of their politics implies not only suppression of the rights of the minorities but also of the weaker section within the Hindu fold and especially women.28

It is of seminal significance to state here that the Gujarat pogrom which not only shook Gujarat and the nation but shocked the entire world was the outcome of careful planning by the Hindutva forces. It was reported in the 2000, that the RSS’ slogan, ‘One village, one shakha’ is aimed at saffronizing the entire state of Gujarat by 2005. The new mantra for the RSS expansion will be explained at a three-day Sankalp Shibir (pledge camp) to be held at Kathwada in Ahmedabad district. The organizers are expecting about 27,000 swayamsevaks to attend the camp. This has led to communal tension in the state.29 The destructive consequence was the murder and the mayhem that was unleashed on Muslim minority community in Gujarat.

AMBEDKAR’S ALTERNATIVE

TO

NATION BUILDING

Against the communal and fascist forces, Dr Ambedkar presents an alternative form of nation building. Dr Ambedkar developed his social 28

Ajit Roy, ‘Hindutva’s Political Agenda’, Economic and Political Weekly (20 March 1993), pp. 499–500. 29 Asian Age, 7 January 2000.

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and political thoughts around the central concept of the individual and his/her rights. He stated that ‘the individual has certain inalienable rights’. In his view the individual and not the state is the object of supreme value and the state is only a human organization to promote the individual’s good. He wrote, ‘to protect itself against external aggression, maintenance of law and order against internal disturbance and guarantee to its subjects minimum standards of administration and welfare, which are expected from a modern state’.30 He insists that some kind of good government is essential for maintaining peace and prosperity among men, particularly when people fail to abide by law and order. For him this is the mission of a good government. Dr Ambedkar clearly understood the hold of caste on the Indian social order. He argued, ‘The effect of caste on the ethics of the Hindus is simply deplorable. Caste has killed public spirit. Caste has destroyed the sense of public charity. Caste has made public opinion impossible. A Hindu’s identity is his caste. His responsibility is only to his caste. His loyalty is restricted only to his caste. Virtue has become caste-ridden and morality has become caste-bound. There is no sympathy to the deserving. There is no appreciation to the meritorious. There is no charity to the needy. Suffering as such calls for no response. There is charity but it begins with caste and ends with caste . . .. There is appreciation of virtue but only when the man is a fellow caste-man.’31 Having exposed the hold of caste on Indian social order, Dr Ambedkar raised a vital question, which is relevant even today. ‘Have not the Hindus committed treason against their country in the interests of their caste?’ In spite of this, Ambedkar opted for democracy because he felt from his experience and readings that it is in a democratic form of government that an individual’s liberty is protected. But he went on to argue that ‘a democratic form of government presupposed a democratic form of society. The formal framework of democracy is of no value and would indeed be misfit if there was no social democracy.’32 Ambedkar also realized the fact that with caste system democracy can never work; hence his slogan, ‘Educate, Agitate and Organize’. To carry out this objective he founded the following organizations: the Bahiskrit Hitakarni Sabha, the Samaj 30

B.R. Ambedkar, Writings and Speeches, vol. 1 (Government of Maharashtra: Education Department, 1990), p. 381. 31 Ibid., pp. 56–57. 32 B.R. Ambedkar, Ranade, Gandhi and Jinnah (Jullundhar: Bheem Patrika Publications, n.d.), p. 30.

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Samta Mandal, the Independent Labour Party, the S.C. Federation, the Republican Party of India, People’s Education Society etc., to promote education, to advance the economic conditions, and to represent the grievances of the depressed classes. Ambedkar insisted on the economic welfare of the poorer sections of society and regarded economic values as only a means but not an end. Hence, he declared that, ‘if the machine and modern civilization have not benefited everybody, the remedy is not to condemn machinery and civilization, but to alter the organization of society so that the benefits will not be usurped by a few but will accrue to all’.33 He further argued that a society that does not believe in democracy might be indifferent to rational human relationships. He stated that a non-democratic society may well content itself with a life of ‘leisure and culture’ for the few and a life of ‘toil and drudgery’ for the many, but in reality a democratic society must assure a life of leisure and culture to everyone. Dr Ambedkar insisted upon the fact that the rational norms based on liberty, equality and fraternity can provide us with a sound social order. With regard to liberty he argued that everyone should be able to enjoy freedom from want and freedom from fear. It is with this clear thought in mind that he wholeheartedly supported the fundamental rights of individuals in the Constitution. He demanded liberty in the sense of a right to property, tools and materials as being necessary for earning a living. Respect for the free will of every individual is the cornerstone of Ambedkar’s social order. This is clearly spelt out in the Directive Principles of State Policy, ‘State shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting, as effectively as it may, a social order in which justice, social economic and political, shall inform all the institutions of national life.’ Ambedkar was aware of the fact that mechanical equality is not a possibility. But he insisted on sociopolitical equality. He demanded adult franchise for all as a fundamental right because he believed that the poor masses will become educated and will become aware of their rights so that the rich cannot usurp their productive labour. By equality what he meant was ‘equality of opportunity’. With regard to fraternity, he argued that if it is to function, it must involve the flow of the people, ideas and events, and shun all rigid human relations.34 While Dr Ambedkar envisaged and worked for an egalitarian, democratic, pluralistic social order, the Hindutva 33 34

Ibid., vol. 9. Ibid., p. 23.

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forces are bent on constructing a Hindu nation on the grave of the weaker sections. It is pertinent to conclude this debate by presenting the inherent pluralistic Indian ethos. For Chhedilal and Mohammed Matin, their friendship was more important than all the communal hatred their cities have witnessed in the past few years. Friends for more than 50 years, Chhedilal, a Hindu, lived in Ayodhya and Matin a Muslim, in Faizabad. When the news of Matin’s illness reached him on Friday, Chhedilal rushed to his house. But the old friend had already died, and at the sight of his friend’s body an apparently shocked Chhedilal collapsed and died a few hours later. At the Rakabganj crossing, the funeral processions of two friends met yesterday and the bodies were placed there for some time. Later, Matin’s body was buried in a graveyard and Chhedilal’s cremated at a burning gha’t.35

The Hindutva forces are bent on creating crisis and conflict leading to subjugation of those who do not adhere to their agenda. The common masses of this country continue to struggle to build an egalitarian, democratic, and pluralistic form of polity and society. It is the task of the civil society to enhance the rights of the common masses to carry out their agenda of building a better India for all.

35

The Hindu, New Delhi, 14 April 1997. Quoted in Partha S. Ghosh, BJP and the Evolution of Hindu Nationalism: From Periphery to Centre (New Delhi: Manohar, 1999).

MOBILIZATION

FOR

HINDUTVA

9

MANJARI KATJU

O

ver the last two decades Hindutva, characterized by an aggressive, communal, and authoritarian streak, has etched an influential place for itself in Indian politics. Venomous campaigns against minorities and an equally vituperative propaganda against secular and plural values have marked this forward march of Hindutva. It would be misleading to see this forward drive as a spontaneous mass outburst against a secular-democratic set-up and for religio-cultural nationalism. To identify it so ‘suppresses a whole history of meticulously organized efforts towards a Hindu Rashtra’ (Basu et al. 1993, p. 1). Rather than being a sudden upsurge, the spread of ideas represented by Hindutva is attributable to gradual and meticulous mobilizational work combining multiple strategies that are alert to contextual and social differences. Present-day Hindutva, both as a movement and as an idea, has a past that goes back to the colonial period. As a political movement its history can be traced back to the early twentieth century, to the founding of the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS. As an idea, it can be traced to the nineteenth-century writings of influential icons of the socioreligious reform and national movements like Vivekananda, Tilak, and Savarkar among others. But it was the RSS which made Hindutva a mass phenomenon in the post-independence period. Hindutva’s present spread has been the result of years of meticulous planning, organization and mobilizational activism of the RSS. A lot of work has gone into broadening Hindutva’s mass appeal and this chapter attempts to study this ‘hard work’.

Mobilization for Hindutva

THE RSS

177

AND ITS

OFFSHOOTS

Floating of front organizations was one of the important ways of ideological expansion undertaken by the RSS. Accordingly, the Rashtra Sevika Samiti (1936), Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) (1948), the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (1951, which subsequently became the BJP), the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (1955), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (1964), the Bajrang Dal (1980s), etc., were floated. Launching of these organizations was an effective way of mass work and ideological dissemination. These organizations work in tandem with each other, but have their own specific purpose to fulfil. For instance, the Rashtra Sevika Samiti was floated to work among women. The ABVP was set up to contain the influence of communism in college campuses and develop cadre for the RSS. The labour unit was also floated to contain the influence of communist trade unions among industrial labour. The VHP was set up to handle mass mobilizational work and to organize the ‘Hindu’ diaspora. A political party was indispensable to politically fortify Hindutva in state institutions and hence, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh became the electoral front. In 1980, after the debacle of the post-emergency coalition, it was re-incarnated as the BJP. The Bajrang Dal was formed in the early 1980s to organize the youth for the Ramjanmabhoomi agitation. The membership of these organizations is fluid, that is, their members move with ease between them. For instance, a member of the RSS can be a member of the VHP as also that of the BJP. The only exception is that women members cannot be part of the RSS, whose membership is restricted to men. These organizations work under the aegis of their parent—the RSS—mobilizing popular opinion in the name of Hindu religion. The RSS, on its part, calls itself a cultural organization engaged in character building and preparing volunteers in service of the Hindu nation.1 These organizations are collectively known as the Sangh Parivar and they articulate a right-wing Hindu supremacist ideology called Hindutva, which has found resonance among large sections of the citizenry at a time when economic and social relations are experiencing major shifts. India’s body politic is seeing a shift from a one-party dominant system to a coalitional set up. There are not only different parties in power

1

For a detailed account of the RSS see Goyal (1979) and Andersen et al. (1987).

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at the centre and the states, but also a singular set-up at the level of the central government is absent. It has become imperative for parties representing varied interests and regions to come together to run governments in the absence of an absolute majority for any single political party in Parliament. This is also a time when the Indian state is in retreat, trying to move from the welfarist position it had adopted after independence to a minimalist position. It is a period when developments like globalization are opening the domestic economy to uncertainities brought upon by the ups and downs of global trade and pricing, coupled with the harsh stance taken by the world financial institutions in favour of removing the few welfare nets provided by the state. In this backdrop, Hindutva has found acceptance among large sections of the middle and the working classes, and among both the upper and the disadvantaged castes.

INTERPRETATION

OF

HISTORY

Communalism interprets history in a particular way so as to advance communal politics. For communalism, religious prejudice rather than an objective view of history forms the basis of historical analysis. Here, religion and religious conflict are given centrality and their role exaggerated to such an extent that even simple rivalries over secular issues are seen through a religious-sectarian prism. The religious communities are considered primary historical agents and are perceived as internally undifferentiated. Historical narratives and memories of communities perceived thus are prone to distortions and de-contextualizations. It is possible to assert that Hindutva’s historical memory consists of deliberate picking and choosing of facts and peddling of half-truths to fit their world view. Such a communal interpretation is used as a ‘powerful ideology for creating communal solidarity’ (Panikkar 1991, p. 2). This sectarian vision of the past legitimizes Hindu communalism by laying maximum claims on Indian antiquity (Thapar 1991, p. 5). This interpretation of history politically fortifies Hindutva by equalling Indian history with Hindu history. The Hindu religion and Hindu community are depicted as going back to the earliest times (Panikkar 1991, p. 2). An ancient cohesiveness is attributed to them which is then paraded as superior status and an exclusive claim over Indian territory. India becomes a land of the Hindus who then acquire exclusive claim over rights of citizenship. The Hindus, according to this interpretation, become an

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ancient cohesive race and the original inhabitants of India. Conversely, the Muslims and Christians become outsiders or foreigners. Indian history is divided into historical periods based on the religion of the rulers. It is a history which does not take into account the complex currents and cross-currents that make up the historical process. This periodization of history—Hindu, Muslim, and British—is borrowed from James Mill’s, History of British India.2 It depicts ancient India as Hindu, medieval India as Muslim and colonial India as British. Besides officially endorsing and exaggerating the Hindu–Muslim antagonism, this British periodization creates monoliths out of religious communities giving them a non-existent cohesiveness. The votaries of Hindutva use the insider-outsider stereotype repeatedly for Hindus and the minority communities, respectively. This binary is then extended in branding the Hindus as members of the nation and the Muslims/Christians as excluded from this nation. The ‘Hindu’ becomes ‘Indian’ and vice versa. The religious minorities are also given stereotypes of voracious proselytizers, fanatics, violent and as having extra-territorial loyalties. Hindutva propaganda specifically targets Muslim men, who are accused of marrying four times, having innumerable children as well as abducting and forcibly marrying Hindu girls, all for the evil purpose of overtaking the Hindu population of India. History is used to build such stereotypes and consequently generate hatred for and fear of minorities in present times precisely because such a demographic threat is non-existent.

SIMPLICITY OF MESSAGE AND CAREFUL SELECTION OF CULTURAL SYMBOLS It is noteworthy that though the Sangh Parivar uses religion for political mobilization, there is no scriptural mastery needed to comprehend its worldview. Even the Sangh Parivar programmes are so planned as to generate an enthusiastic and unhesitant participation. One of the reasons that its appeal becomes attractive is ‘the basic simplicity of its ideological message, preached in a style that deliberately avoids complexities and debates . . .’ (Basu et al. 1993, p. 36). An analytical or a critical faculty 2

For a thorough analysis see Panikkar (1991) and Thapar (1991).

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is not a requirement for imbibing its message. Simplicity is a strategy used by the Sangh Parivar to take forward Hindutva, which includes a careful selection of cultural symbols. The symbols and icons picked up are not only objects of reverence but are also characterized by an easy recognizability. They are devotional rallying points possessing local sacred status with legends and folklore attached to them. Also, they have acceptability across regional and caste boundaries. This makes them potent in the hands of those wanting to deploy them for political mobilization. Myths built around these symbols are communally enveloped before dissemination. Gaumata, Gangamata, Bharatmata, Rama, Krishna, and Shiva are some of the symbols used by the Sangh Parivar for mobilizing the masses. These Hindu symbols and myths when combined with communal messages have socially damaging implications. But this is how communal hatred is generated and Hindutva strengthens its hold. Gaumata, or mother cow, a Hindu symbol signifying nurture, generosity, care and prosperity became a rallying symbol of the cow protection agitation of 1966 led by the Jana Sangh along with the Hindu Mahasabha and the Arya Samaj. The immediate result of this cow agitation, which had a strong political content, was that the Jana Sangh reaped a rich political harvest in the general elections that followed, especially in the northern Hindi-speaking states. It more than doubled its strength in the Lok Sabha from 14 seats in the 1962 elections to 35 seats in 1967. A significant feature of this agitation was an active participation of spear and trident carrying sadhus, whose tactical involvement in the subsequent mass programmes of the Sangh Parivar has been politically gainful. The cow protection agitation was of importance for building support for the Jana Sangh among socially orthodox Hindus in North India.3 The three symbols—Bharatmata (portrayed as a Hindu goddess often as an incarnation of Durga/Kali, the symbol of sakti), Gangamata (the river Ganges) and to some extent Gaumata—were used extensively during the Ekatmata Yatra programme in 1983. They became the three mother symbols on which this organized mass campaign was built by the RSS through one of its offshoots, the VHP. Through the month long yatras criss-crossing the country, undertaken ostensibly for the unity of the country, the Sangh Parivar aimed to broaden its social base and brush off the urban, upper caste label attached to it. The three mother symbols were used as symbols of Hindu unity, in other words, national unity, thus fusing ‘the Hindu’ with ‘the national’. The yatras aimed to popularize the 3

For details on this agitation see Graham (1993).

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181

idea of a united Hindu society in the wake of regional secessionist movements and the Dalit assertions. The yatras did work out well in using religious sentiments for largescale mobilization. Popular devotional participation occurred in an ostensibly religious event suffused with political messages. The yatras were met with a tremendous devotional response in course of their processional routes.4 Encouraged by the throbbing response to its Ekatmata Yatra programme the VHP-RSS launched the Ramjanmabhoomi ‘liberation’ campaign from 1984. The issue was communally sensitive, this was widely known. It had generated serious communal tension in the past, but it matched well with the sectarian goal of Hindu nationalism. Rama, a revered Hindu deity of North India, was an important symbol of mobilization. Some factors seem to have contributed to the VHP’s selection of Rama and to indicate that it was not a random choice. The dispute over Rama’s so-called birthplace was already a local issue of considerable importance when the VHP took up Rama and the cause of ‘Ramjanmabhoomi’s liberation’. Rama is a familiar name in India and he figures as one of the most important deities within popular Hindu traditions at the local level in North India. Rama and his exploits have been integrated into the myths and legends of people over a large part of India, except perhaps in some areas of the south. Local songs, stories and histories are replete with references to the life of Rama and every region in India has been touched by some episodes of the mythical Ramayana. Apart from the orthodox Hindu versions of Valmiki and Tulsidas, the various other living traditions of the Ramayana make Rama a widely known deity. Another factor, which facilitated the VHP’s bond with Rama, is that in the mid-1980s there was a tremendous growth of the electronic media in India, though under state control and supervision. In 1987–88 the serialized telecast of the Ramayana on the national television network encouraged the VHP to accelerate its campaign for turning Rama into the supreme moral ideal for the Hindus. Rama was presented by the VHP as a rashtrapurusha and also a maryadapurshottam. The calmness or shanta rasa with which Rama is traditionally associated came to be replaced by an aggressive or ugra bhava (Kapur 1993, p. 85). Rama was transformed from a tranquil, tender figure to an interventionist warrior (Kapur 1992, p. 48). 4

For more details see Katju (2003).

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The VHP itself admitted that Rama’s name is not only a symbol of devotion, but also of power, that it was the most potent and reliable way of galvanizing and unifying the Hindus.5 The consistent calls to ‘virility’ for the protection of the motherland by the VHP fitted perfectly its choice of Rama as a rashtrapurusha who could protect the holy and vulnerable Bharatmata from the ‘sinister’ Muslims, just as he saved his wife Sita from Ravana. Every Hindu was called upon to be like Rama and protect Bharatmata. Mobilizations in the name of Rama by the VHP and the Sangh Parivar led to the demolition of the Babri mosque in December 1992. The BJP’s electoral successes in the late 1980s and early 1990s and its becoming a mainstream party have much to do with Ramjanmabhoomi agitations. Added to this are the efforts of the VHP to construct the Krishna temple at Mathura, the Kashi-Vishwanath temple at Varanasi, and the Baba Budhan dargah, a sufi shrine in the Chikmagalur district of Karnataka—the rallying points of more communal upsurges for the advancement of Hindutva. The Sangh Parivar has been making attempts to whip up anti-Muslim passions through building communal propaganda about these sites.

ABSENCE

OF A

STRONG SOCIO-ECONOMIC AGENDA

Social conservatism and the economically modernist positions of the urban upper castes ensure support for Hindutva as it is an ideology that does not disturb the entrenched caste and class hierarchies. This nonsubversiveness attracts to it the support of the upper castes among the middle class. What is significant is that Hindutva has a substantial following among the OBCs and it is growing among the Dalits. This is because, for the upwardly mobile sections, Hindutva brings hopes of social honour and political position to parallel their growing economic selfconfidence. However, the inherent proximity of Hindutva ideology to the established social hierarchies and positions of economic privilege make it difficult for the Sangh Parivar to articulate a socio-economic agenda which would mobilize the larger masses. Issues like land reforms, right 5

Kotiya 1990, p. 7. This article was first published on 5 November 1989 in Rajasthan Patrika.

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to livelihoods, equitable distribution of resources and entitlements, right to education, health and gender equality, etc., lie outside the ‘corecompetence’ of the Sangh Parivar. In the absence of such issues, which can effectively mobilize the masses, the Sangh Parivar needs an agenda that can rally the masses in its support. This agenda is provided by raising religious issues which are part of the emotional baggage of the people, and are raised in a manner which is sectarian. These religious issues while sharpening the communal divide obfuscate the hierarchical lines of division inside the Hindu community and eclipse the existent social oppression. These issues become ideal tools for mass mobilization as they galvanize the community behind the Parivar and help it to establish itself in power. Themes such as ‘Hinduism in danger’, ‘unity and brotherhood of Hindus’, ‘liberation of Ramjanmabhoomi’, ‘minorities growing in numbers’, ‘illegal conversions’, etc., are communal themes that are indispensable for the Sangh Parivar to whip up anti-Muslim and anti-Christian sentiments to bring their political affiliate, the BJP, to power. The question that arises is, have these sectarian themes of mobilization become redundant for the Sangh Parivar with the BJP’s rise to power? Are they of no utility to the Parivar now? It seems that this issue has not even been settled within the RSS Parivar as the heated debates about the cause of defeat in the 2004 general elections within the BJP and between its fraternal organizations indicate. My answer to these questions is that the importance of such issues cannot diminish for the Sangh Parivar. Non-communal themes of mobilization, even if deployed, have a transient status. For instance, the secular theme of development does not have the same perpetual hold as the more communal themes of ‘Hindu society in danger’ and ‘Muslims— an anti-national community’, etc. Development as a mobilizational issue is being used of late but its ranking is secondary and it has a status of transience. The RSS and its frontal organizations have no other sustainable model of mass mobilization than the use of Hindu-specific themes. The urge to use these themes, in fact, becomes irresistible once they bring political power. Further, socio-economic issues are not integral to the Sangh Parivar’s ideology. Hindutva is not a plan for socio-economic transformation. It is a view of society that is pledged to building a Hindu rashtra in India by removing the secular, democratic, and plural values which formed the core of the freedom struggle and have formed the bedrock of the Indian state since. This is not to say that the Sangh combine does not or cannot talk

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of social oppression or economic exploitation. At times it does, but these issues do not form the core of its ideology or even the main agenda of its politics. These issues are raised, if at all, mainly as supplements to the Sangh Parivar’s core agenda during elections. In other words, they serve a purely electoral purpose. Therefore, it becomes that much more difficult for them to sustain a long-term campaign on these issues, however much they may speak about making ‘development’ their electoral agenda. The potential of Hindu communal themes for political mobilization has and will remain intact even when the BJP is in power. Additionally, such issues are needed:

• To keep the energies of the ground cadre, like the Bajrang Dal and

•

•

the VHP engaged. The cadre force, which makes for social presence and social force has to be constantly involved to prevent the organization from becoming loose and dispersed. Hindutva has to be maintained as a live movement lest it vanish from public attention. Its going into oblivion means taking the wind out of the Sangh ideology. Communal issues have to be made live issues because they help in keeping the support base intact and also lead to polarization along narrow religious lines and bring votes. Emotive religio-communal-nationalist campaign themes are needed during elections to counter rival political parties, and such themes have to be made more mobilizationally effective if the opposition is highlighting socio-economic issues, that is, the real issues that affect people or is becoming politically formidable.

VIOLENCE AS A

RELIGIOUS MINORITIES STRATEGY OF MOBILIZATION AGAINST

The violence against the Christians, especially during 1998 and thereafter, has to be seen in this light. The wrath of the VHP and Bajrang Dal against the Christians represent all what I have just discussed. It was the issue of conversions that became the pretext on which the Christian community was targeted. Conversions by minority religious communities (and this time especially the Christians) was communally interpreted and dubbed as anti-national. The Christians, thus, once again became the victims of Hindu revival under the VHP, much like the 1960s and 1970s when the early VHP was consolidating itself on an anti-Christian agenda.

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Hence, the Christian conversion question is not a new issue for the VHP, but a new kind of militancy was added to it, a militancy that was more physical than verbal. The BJP’s electoral victory definitely made an impact on the Sangh affiliates in the sense that there was an obvious upward mood swing, which was manifest in the flurry of sectarian activity and propaganda directed against the minorities. The Christian community was consistently targeted in the late 1990s. The expression of antagonism and distrust against it was marked by low intensity violence with its intentions openly flaunted. The sustained charitable work of the Christian missions among the tribal community within India prompted the ire of the Hindu militant groups and acted as a tool to mobilize the urban middle class. What was evident was that these attacks were as much political as ideological. The central agenda on which the BJP built its election campaign in 1999 was Sonia Gandhi’s Italian-Christian birth. The political nature of the brutal violence on Christians in tribal areas made it evident that it was not merely a Hindu versus Christian issue. The objective of building an opposition to the Congress by a propaganda that it was led by a Christian outsider and dubbing the Christians as ‘antinational’ was a handy strategy of containing the Congress’ influence in tribal areas and mobilizing the Hindu votes for the BJP. Targeting Sonia Gandhi served a political purpose. She was targeted more as a Christian ‘outsider’ than a Congress party leader. The Christians were accused of starting the destructive sprees and also for torching their own places of worship to help Gandhi and her Congress. This attitude of disowning an involvement in the violence on the part of the Hindu Jagran Manch, VHP and the Bajrang Dal was peculiar. The main reason for this denial seems to be doubts about popular support on the issue. Unlike the Rama temple issue, where the VHP went forth with the assumption of popular support, it did not seem sure of concrete mass support on the Christian conversion issue. It was not sure regarding the direction public opinion would take on the matter. While the Christian conversion issue was important for the VHP to keep the energies of its ranks occupied, and Sonia’s entry into politics provided it with an opportunity to direct its energies against the Christians, it also had to tread cautiously to gauge popular opinion. The missionary contribution to education in modern India especially of the middle classes and also recognition of its services towards the destitute made this uncertainty and doubt about public opinion very real. In case of an adverse response, the Sangh Parivar affiliates had to make sure that they did not to alienate the

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middle class support bases, especially at a time of political consolidation by their sibling, the BJP. Also, the BJP’s being in power at the centre meant that it should not face embarrassment6 on the minority question with its coalition partners and the Parliament which would jeopardize its career as a ruling party heading a coalition government. The common governance agenda of this coalition also restricted the BJP’s open association with overt minority bashers. Moreover, the focus of international media on India on account of the anti-Christian violence and the Pope’s visit to India in 1999 further made the VHP and Bajrang Dal leadership refute any suggestions of their involvement in the violence against the Christian community. Again, embarrassing the BJP before the international community and world opinion had to be avoided, especially in an era of economic reforms towards liberalization. In any case, it is interesting that the denial of involvement in antiChristian violence went along with militant utterances and certain dictats to the minority communities. These were accompanied by statements, which attributed demonic and fanatical traits to the minority communities and went on to assert that it is these traits in the Christian and Muslim communities that beget a violent response from the VHP. This use of weapons, however, is always stated to be in self-defence or defence of the Hindu dharma. These statements were accompanied by serious allegations that Christians are engaged in ‘an international conspiracy to divide India’, they nurture ‘anti-national sentiments’ and ‘encourage separatism’.7 Blaming the victimized Christians of burning their own churches and assaulting the Christian nuns and missionaries seems absurd, but it does strengthen the common impression that the already aggrieved and threatened Hindu community is further endangered due to the actions of minority religious communities especially when such communities are ‘anti-national’ and ‘separatists’—allegations which are loaded with serious implications in the context of strained Indo-Pakistan relations. It is not without implications that the RSS and its affiliates are parading themselves as defenders of national security where this ‘national security’ in both their words and actions acquires a Muslim/Christian versus Hindu interpretation—the anti-national/anti-Hindu element versus the innocent Hindu victim, respectively. The RSS commemorating the completion of 75 years held a camp in October 2000 with the aim of 6 7

An emotion it let go by the time Gujarat happened. Kang 1999, p. 25.

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conveying its claim that it is a mass organization of the Hindus, and interestingly the camp was called Rashtriya Raksha Mahashivir. A few months before, the Bajrang Dal was described by the VHP as ‘synonymous with security’ and as an organization which is a terror for anti-Hindus.8 It is noteworthy that the attacks on minorities are not so much attacks on individuals as on the identity of minorities as distinct communities. The target of anti-minority violence might be a Christian missionary or a tribal or a Muslim maulvi or a poor Muslim slum dweller, but what needs to be emphasized is that through all these assaults it is the minority community which forms the target of the Sangh Parivar.9 In fact, one can go a step further and say that the existence of minority communities as distinct entities forming an integral part of India is what the Sangh Parivar is averse to. A Christian or a Muslim who professes his faith as a community member having political rights of an Indian citizen is what the Sangh Parivar cannot stand. And a misconception that minority communities are monolithic political entities adds to this aversion. In other words, pluralism does not fit into the worldview of the Sangh Parivar. In Ashok Singhal’s words, ‘Islam has a future in this country only if it completely submerges itself among the hundreds of sects that already exist in India.’10 And again, ‘The interpretation of the Quran in this country must be set right. It [the Quran] should be adapted according to the great traditions of India.’11 These statements make it clear that giving up the community identity is the demand which the Parivar makes of the minority communities. The Godhra incident changed the political currents in Gujarat. The incident along with the subsequent anti-Muslim violence at the hands of the Sangh Parivar members and sympathizers brought the BJP back to power in the assembly elections in December 2002. The party based its electoral mobilization on a public stance, which made Hindutva synonymous with security, and terrorism as another name for the Muslim community. Under the banner of national security, the Sangh Parivar affiliates campaigned for the BJP in Gujarat. This political mobilization was preceded by a carnage which some say can only be compared to the post-partition riots in their brutality and suffering. The difference is that this time it was the Muslims who were 8

Joshi 2000, p. 25. I am indebted to Professor Javeed Alam for this insight. 10 Rajesh Joshi, interview with Ashok Singhal, Outlook, 22 February 1999, p. 16. 11 Ibid., p. 17. 9

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ruthlessly targeted in what can be compared to genocide. Hindutva (and violence for Hindutva) played an influential role in the elections and helped the BJP win an overwhelming majority at a time when local issues of development and rehabilitation (of earthquake and riot victims) had made the balance tilt heavily against it. In the year 2000, the BJP had lost major support in the local body elections. It had won only 27 per cent of the zilla panchayat seats compared to 82 per cent it had won in 1995. Most importantly, it had lost the Ahmedabad and Rajkot municipal elections and had suffered a few by-election defeats. The Sangh affiliates put their energies behind an aggressive communal campaign and publicized the Godhra train burning, the attack on Parliament and Akshardham as instances of Muslim ‘terrorism’. The BJP in Gujarat led by Chief Minister Narendra Modi, focused on the heavily communalized theme of ‘security’ which they put before ‘development’. The word that went around was that only when security is ensured can there be development. The 2002 Gujarat assembly election results12 display that the BJP did gain much through the pogrom in Gujarat. The BJP’s vote share rose from 44.81 per cent in 1998 to 51 per cent in these elections. In places of worst rioting—Panchmahals (which includes Godhra), Dahod, Vadodara districts of central Gujarat—the BJP won all the seats. It won 42 out of 50 seats in central Gujarat, the worst affected area, a big leap forward considering the fact that it had won just 15 seats here in 1998. In 1998, it was the Congress and its ally the RJP who formed the dominant force in central Gujarat. In the total 19 seats of Ahmedabad, where the Muslims were hunted unsparingly, the BJP stood victorious in 17 and the Congress ended up with 2. In 65 riot-affected constituencies the BJP won 52 seats and the Congress 13. In the 116 unaffected constituencies also the BJP performed better than the Congress and won 74 seats while the Congress won 38 and others 4. However, in the riot-torn constituencies the BJP’s vote share was higher than in the unaffected constituencies. It was 56.4 per cent in the 52 seats it won in the riot-affected constituencies and 45.6 per cent in the 74 seats it won in the unaffected ones, which indicates the gains it reaped through the communalization of the electorate. The Congress vote share on the other hand was 37.6 and 40.4 per cent in the affected and the unaffected ones, respectively. Gujarat has witnessed some intense caste and communal violence since 1969, but ‘it was not until the 1980s that frequently violent political 12

Election Data Sources: India Today, 30 December 2002 and Frontline, 3 January 2003.

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assertion of the upper castes and classes became routine in Gujarati politics’ (Desai 2002). The success of the Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi and Muslim (KHAM) alliance has much to do with it. The KHAM electoral formula of the Congress in 1980 threatened ‘the higher caste guardians of the dominant culture’ who then ‘found in the Hindutva-based Gujarati culture an effective and acceptable alternative’ (Parekh 2002, p. 29). The Hindutva ideology provided the upper caste entrepreneurial/middle classes a ‘sanction to pursue their own agenda of greater political, economic and social control’ (Yagnik 2002, p. 21). It hardly raised ‘any ethical questions for its supporters’ (Ibid.). Thus, the attack, allegedly by Muslims, on Hindutva activists at Godhra generated such intense anger among these classes that brutal violence on the Muslims was openly supported and justified. Also, the Dalit and Adivasi participation in this violence was something unprecedented, the reasons for which can be found in economic hardship and the need for social recognition. The ground work by the VHP since 1980s among the Dalit and Adivasi communities of Gujarat also explains their involvement in the anti-Muslim attacks in 2002. The startling recovery of the Congress in the 2004 general elections in Gujarat are further proof that for the BJP and its fraternal organizations, ‘development’ and economic issues can never become a substitute for the mobilizational strength of Hindutva issues.

CONCLUSION Contrasting 2004 with the Gujarat elections of December 2002, where the BJP trounced the Congress in the backdrop of the February–March 2002 massacres, foregrounds the Sangh Parivar’s successful strategies of mobilization. These strategies are contingent upon an internally cohesive Hindu community reacting in fear and hatred against anti-national ‘outsiders’ who are portrayed as threatening the very existence of the Hindus. This mass psychology is itself based on a communal interpretation of history and the use of religious themes and symbols as social markers which create a homogenized Hindu community where caste hierarchy is left intact but glossed over. Anti-minority violence, both verbal and physical, is an inseparable part of Hindutva’s mobilizational strategies. Attempts are made to generate hatred between the Hindus and the minority religious communities depicting the latter as foreigners with a false claim to Indian citizenship.

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This violence goes hand in hand with the villianization of minorities portrayed as fanatics, intolerant, anti-national, and terrorists. What is most worrisome is the steady acceptance of Hindutva among marginalized communities like the Dalits and Adivasis, as well as its growth in popularity among other oppressed sections like women and the urban working classes. The mobilization of large sections among these demographic groups for Hindutva is a trend which needs greater study and immediate action.

REFERENCES Andersen, Walter K. and Sridhar D. Damle, Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism (Boulder: Westview Press, 1987). Basu, Tapan, Pradip Datta, Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar and Sambudh Sen, Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1993). Desai, Radhika, ‘Blazing Gujarat: The Image of India’s Future’ (A shorter version appeared in The Hindu, 6 March 2002). Goyal, D.R., Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (New Delhi: Radha Krishna Prakashan, 1979). Graham, Bruce, Hindu Nationalism and Indian Politics: The Origins and Development of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Joshi, Rajesh, ‘Look Delhi, Aim Rome’, Outlook, 10 July 2000. Kang, Bhavdeep, ‘Method in Madness’, Outlook, 18 January 1999. Kapur, Anuradha, ‘Militant Images of a Tranquil God’, in Asghar Ali Engineer (ed.), Politics of Confrontation: The Babri Masjid Ramjanmabhoomi Controversy Runs-Riot (New Delhi: Ajanta Publications, 1992). —–———, ‘Deity to Crusader: The Changing Iconography of Ram’, in Gyanendra Pandey (ed.), Hindus and Others: The Question of Identity in India Today (New Delhi: Viking, 1993). Katju, Manjari, Vishva Hindu Parishad and Indian Politics (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2003). Kotiya, Kailash Chandra, ‘Ram shila se Ram mandir tak (From Rama’s brick to Rama’s temple)’, Hindu Vishva (January 1990). Panikkar, K.N. (ed.), Communalism in India: History, Politics and Culture (New Delhi: Manohar, 1991). Parekh, Bhikhu, ‘Making Sense of Gujarat’, Seminar, no. 513 (May 2002). Thapar, Romila, ‘Communalism and the Historical Legacy: Some Facets’, in K.N. Panikkar (ed.), Communalism in India: History, Politics and Culture (New Delhi: Manohar, 1991). Vyas, H.K., Vishva Hindu Parishad: The RSS Broad Outfit for Spreading Militant Aggressive Hindu Communal Poison (New Delhi: Communist Party of India Publication, 1983). Yagnik, Achyut, ‘The Pathology of Gujarat’, Seminar, no. 513 (May 2002).

FUNDAMENTALISM, COMMUNALISM AND GENDER JUSTICE

10

VIBHUTI PATEL

INTRODUCTION

I

t is my firm belief that if we do not engender our understanding of fundamentalism and communalism, women’s lives will be endangered. Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution of India have guaranteed freedom and equality to women irrespective of their caste, class, creed, race and religion. But fundamentalists prevent them from being realized in Indian women’s lives. Communal conflicts in the civil society create permanent scars in the psyche of women of different communities/ religious/ethnic groups and prevent their united efforts to realize gender justice in the personal and public domain. Fundamentalism has a connotation of a religious dogma that aggressively promotes, rather imposes, traditionalist beliefs and practices, including patriarchal gender roles (Kramarae and Spender 2000). It is oppressive because it asserts that women should be confined to the care of the home and children and must always submit to male rules and regulations. It insists that patriarchal control over women’s sexuality, fertility, and labour are god given and should not be contested. It reinforces its ideology by using vehicles such as family and kinship networks, media, state apparatus, criminal justice system and cultural constructs. Fundamentalism is a response to modernization, socio-economic changes, demographic shifts and multiculturalism. Two centuries back, communalism had a connotation of identity based on community. In the post-colonial discourse, communalism is

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understood as an antagonistic collective mobilization on the basis of religion leading to the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan and recurrence of communal conflicts (Maheshwari 2000).

BACKGROUND The issue of fundamentalism, communalism and gender justice acquired prominence in the political agenda during the mid-1980s, globally as well as in India. The UN Decade for Women (1975–85) Conference in Nairobi brought to fore first hand experiences of women who were at the receiving end of fundamentalist backlash. In several Latin American countries, the Philippines, Spain, and Italy Christian fundamentalists had penalized women who used contraceptives or underwent abortions. In many Islamic countries, the Muslim fundamentalists demanded denial of higher education for women. When women’s rights activists of Kuwait were actively taking part in the deliberations of the Nairobi Conference, back home their government had trampled upon Kuwaiti women’s right to higher education as the fundamentalist forces felt that higher education made women uncontrollable. In Algeria, female-headed households were burnt. The fundamentalists felt, ‘How dare women divorcees, widows, deserted and single women and minors stay without male protection? In the North African countries, women’s groups that opposed clitoredectomy of the African girls were witch-hunted. Dr Naval Saddavi, who as a medical practitioner refused to perform clitoredectomy and wrote best-seller books on the subject, was imprisoned’ (Saadawi 1982). Women scholars, writers, novelists, and professionals had to leave their native countries and live under exile due to fundamentalist backlash. Dr Tasleema Nasreen from Bangladesh is still leading a nomadic life as fundamentalists are after her life. In several Asian countries, women rights activists who demanded gender-just family laws were penalized and implicated in false charges of sedition. In South Asia, Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim fundamentalists imposed strict dress code. They punished women who cut their hair by throwing acid, physical assaults and social boycott. Antiquated, atrocious, mediaeval and anti-women family laws dealing with important issues such as marriage, divorce, custody of children, alimony, maintenance, right to stay in the matrimonial or parental homes were imposed. The list is endless. It is in this context that all those interested in women’s dignity were forced to examine gender question in identity politics. For the past two

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decades, it has remained one of the central concerns of the women’s movement. During the last quarter of the twentieth century only two movements have gained strength simultaneously. They happen to be feminism and fundamentalism. Disintegration of the organized working class movements have forced the toiling poor to search for new identities. In the contexts of homogenizing influence of corporate capitalism supported by the economic globalization, religion, ethnicity and caste-based identities have become aggressively assertive. All patriarchal powers perceive women as a repository of their identity and honour. Hence women end up shouldering the greater burden of identity politics. Scores of power struggles of identity politics are settled over women’s bodies by control (dress-code, restriction on mobility, code of racial purity and punishment for mixed marriages of intercaste, interreligious and interracial varieties), violence (rape and assault), forced fertility (ethnic cleansing) and psychological damage (by terrorizing, humiliating, and subjugating women continuously).

GENDER QUESTION

IN IDENTITY

POLITICS

Communal forces had strengthened their hold on important spheres of the state and civil society which include the subversion of constitution and judiciary and communalization of culture, media, religion and lifestyle. Women are the major casualties in the bargain. Communal politics has always played the major role in determining the rights and limits of women. From the beginning of the constitutional debates, the question of personal laws that govern important areas of the man-woman relationship, viz., marriage, divorce, custody of children, guardianship rights, maintenance, alimony and property has remained controversial. On the one hand, the Constitution of India guaranteed equality to all its citizens irrespective of caste, class, religion and sex, while one the other, in the name of respecting all religions, it formulated discriminatory family laws for women from different religions. The majority of communalists are demanding a UCC from a Hindu perspective. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s concern for Shah Bano’s plight and its criminal indifference and abetment of sati as in the Roop Kanwar case should be seen from this perspective to Hinduize the democratic norms of the UCC. This also creates genuine fear in the minds of minority communities that takes a perverse form in

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increasing rigidification and restrictions on women who are demanding gender justice in the personal arena. Any fundamentalist propaganda that concerns itself with identity makes use of the gender question to impose rigid norms on women who are identified as repositories of culture and tradition. These norms manifest themselves in son preference and female infanticide (quotation from Hindu scriptures: Be thy the mother of 100 sons; questions like ‘Did any heroes of Ramayana or Mahabharata have daughters? That shows daughters are inauspicious!’), glorification and sati (widow-burning)—thousands of sati temples have flourished all over India and Global Association for Glorification of Sati has its headquarter in Chicago—witch hunting of widows as they are perceived to be inauspicious, dress code, general demeanour and the social construction of the ideal woman who submissively accepts the patriarchal norm imposed by fundamentalists agendas. In the last Kumbh Mela 60,000 women devotees were deserted by their brothers, sons, and relatives. Allahabad police tried its best to take them to their respective families but the family members refused to accept them. Now, the government has made a special budgetary provision for abandoned widows at the pilgrimage centres and for women in difficult circumstances. The fundamentalist belief also takes the form of forced marriage of a widow to her brother-in-law (known as chader-nawazi) among Sikhs to stop division of property. Among Muslims, the same fundamentalist forces (qazis and agents) organize mutta (temporary) marriages with ready nikahnamas and talaqnamas. Young girls are traded by their poor, illiterate, parasitic and unemployed relatives in these marriages that are not registered and hence have no legal status. The main attraction for such contract marriages is Meher amount (cash as well as kind). The girls are mostly cheated and sexploited (Jawadekar 2003). Thus prostitution, under the garb of a religious ceremony, is perpetuated. The criminal justice system of the demanding countries and supplying countries do not take stern measures as currency received through tourism is the most crucial concern in this religious form of flesh trade. The kinship network is used by the fundamentalist forces for cross-country trafficking of women. Young, frail, weeping and hungry girls are wrapped in burqas while being transported from South Asian countries (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh) to the Gulf countries. Many die or disappear in the process. Those who survive the torturous assault are brought back to the native country by the same nexus after they become physically unusable due to sexually transmitted diseases or HIV-AIDS, and mental illnesses.

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VALORIZATION OF BARBARIC BEHAVIOUR WITH WOMEN OF MINORITY COMMUNITIES In the riots after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the use of video cameras to capture the gory details of the rape of Muslim women in Surat in the presence of military and paramilitary forces revealed the most horrific dimensions of the brutalization of the psyche of the civil society. Screening these films in front of jeering crowds left permanent scars on the minds of women and the children of minority women. Their sense of shame was complete. Even in Somalia, the fundamentalist forces used the videotapes capturing weeping and wailing, naked, violated women rape victims to terrorize, humiliate and intimidate other women and to show them their place of restricted existence. Cleansing operations in Bhopal (1992) and Gujarat riots (28 February 2002 onwards) have created a nightmarish situation for the Muslim women who experienced the worst forms of sexual violence (Engineer 2003). While rape is a crime perpetrated during communal conflicts, the use of media to record, duplicate and even sell videos of rape is unprecedented and speaks of the dangerous use of media. Apart from this, the insular feelings created after each riot results into confinement and restriction of the mobility of women and girls. The nation-states in all parts of the globe have proved to be ruthlessly against the minorities. In England, when temples and mosques are demolished by all types of chauvinist forces, Hindu, Muslim and skinheads, the state machinery chooses not to address these issues on the grounds of non-interference with minorities. The policy of ‘multi-culturalism’ in Britain and ‘respect for all religion’ in India should be seen in this light. Patriarchal bias of the state always compromises women’s interests so that the ruling party can fetch block votes by pleasing the patriarchs of the minority/migrant communities. ‘Non-interference’ by the state when adult ‘girls’ are confined by their family members so that they do not run away with their boyfriends and can be hurriedly forced into an arranged marriage is part of this game.

ROOT

OF

COMMUNALIZATION

OF THE

MINORITIES

During the last two decades the SAP and economic globalization at the behest of Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and MNCs have

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perpetrated tremendous human miseries by super-exploiting women workers and by attacking basic sources of livelihood and sustenance of large majority of the urban, rural and tribal poor people. Insecurity in day-to-day survival has opened the avenues for religious sectarian forces that promote ‘dog eating dog culture’. ‘Catch them and kill/maim/burn/rape them’ policy of the custodians of law and order in Gujarat has resulted into complete erosion of faith from the state administration and the criminal justice machinery. The labour, factor and product markets are segmented to sustain super-exploitation of women from the minority communities in the sweatshops situated in the stigmatized working class areas. Dual economy thrives on fundamentalist/communalist supported discrimination based on gender, caste, religion, language and migratory status of the workers (Patel 2003). Revolutionary mass movements of the working class and oppressed nationalities have faced tremendous crisis of leadership and the void thus created has opened the avenues for the flourishing of fascist forces. This phenomenon has now become global as is apparent from the deteriorating situation in Somalia, Bosnia and the Middle East. In this unipolar world, the aggressive stance of the Orvellian big brother, the US, in its economic and foreign policies to retain its hegemonic power aids and abets these fascist forces. The US after Kabul’s overthrow of Mujaheedins, made women’s liberation a major issue. At the same time, the US allowed fundamentalist warlords into positions of power. In Iraq, the US is joining hands with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, a conservative Islamic group tied to the clerics of Iran. Patriarchs of the Pentagon in charge of Iraq’s reconstruction have appointed only male judges and male lawyers to develop a legal code for Iraq (Basu 2003). Educated women in Iraq feel that the power vacuum left by Saddam’s fall will be massively filled by Shia Muslim political figures who may seek to impose conservative social mores such as the hijab, weeding out of women from the public life, and double standards of sexual morality (King 2003). International networking of the chauvinist forces of all hues, racist, casteist and religious, have posed a threat to all secular forces wedded to the ethos of pluralism in social, cultural, educational and political governance of human existence as never before. They are making extensive use of the media and internet. They are poisoning young minds with xenophobia. The ‘catch them young’ policy of fundamentalist forces snatch away milk and textbooks from children and groom them to be gun-totting terrorists. Science and technology in their hands generate death and devastation. Women suffer the most in this destructive game. Their hate campaigns generate endless human miseries. Thousands of women become

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widows and thousands of children become orphans. In the absence of economic independence (as fundamentalists do not approve of working women), women are forced to marry surviving and already married men. After each war/riot/carnage polygamy flourishes with the blessing of religious bigots. It happened in Afghanistan during the last decade (Chenoy 2001). At present, it is happening in Iraq. The chasm generated due to identity polities come to the fore even in the relief operations for natural disaster (such as Latur and Kutch) or man-made disasters as the communal ideological weapon of ‘we’ versus ‘they’ prevents minorities from taking any advantage. After every disaster, the minorities get further marginalized and get thrown in the stigamized labour market for intensive capital accumulation by the economically and politically dominant groups.

FUNDAMENTALISM, COMMUNALISM VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

AND

Denial of human rights and fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of India by the fundamentalists by imposition of dress code, not granting right to work and attacks on female-headed households have been objected by women’s rights groups. Extreme form of punishment meted to women by the fundamentalists is in the form of stoning to death ‘an adulterous woman’ by the assembled community. During the last decade innumerable women in several countries have lost their lives in a painful and undignified manner at the hands of self-appointed ‘custodians of morality’. ‘Honour killing’ has become most widespread among all types of fundamentalists and communalists throughout Asia, Africa and the Middle-East not only among the tribals, but among so called civilized sections of the nation states. Recently, the law court of Shariat in Nigeria has passed a judgement of stoning to death Amina Lowal, the mother of an infant, for adultery. There has been an international uproar against the judgement. As a result, for the first time, the state has not executed the decision of the Shariat.

SEX SEGREGATION The fundamentalists forces have prevailed upon the state to enforce sex segregation in Iran, Albania, Sahel in West Africa, Pakhtun, Malaysia,

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and Turkey (Hjarpe 1983). ‘Women in Saudi Arabia live complex existence which mingles strict traditions and codes of conduct with modern demands of education and freedom’ (Megalli 2002). Non-entry of women in the stadium and sports complexes are practiced in several theocratic states. On 22 January 2003, the chief justice of Afghanistan ordered a nationwide ban on cable television and coeducation (WLUML 2003). Al Badr Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Jabbar, an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Toiba, pasted a poster outside the government Higher Secondary School in Kashmir, asking girls to discontinue their studies on 19 December 2002.

DRESS CODE Kashmir conflict has created a situation of great fear and insecurity in women’s lives (Dewan 2002). Those who opposed the imposition of burqa by Kashmiri militants had to face dire consequencies. Under Taliban rule, Afghanistan went to absurd lengths to implement Islamic laws that made women’s life a never-ending punishment. It imposed ban on drivers of all types of vehicles from carrying women not wearing chador or chadri. It also prevented women from washing their linen in rivers and deserts (Pevrin 1997). A senior Shiv Sena leader, Mr Nanak Ram Thavani has urged the federal and state governments to formulate and implement a dress code for girls in all schools, colleges and other teaching institutes (WLUML 2003). Within hours of the expiry of their deadline for Muslim women and girls to wear the burqa, Kashmiri fundamentalist militants killed three women, including two students and a teacher on the morning of 20 December 2002 at Hasiyot in Thanamandi tehsil of Rajouri district (The Indian Express, 27 December 2002).

RIGHT

TO

WORK

Women were the first targets of theocratic states in the neo-colonial phase and the post-liberation phases in the Middle Eastern, the Mediterranean and the Northwest Frontier countries. In all these countries, women bravely fought along with their male comrades against the imperialist forces. But once, the ‘revolution’ or ‘the national liberation’ was attained, the fundamentalist forces dumped women into the four walls of domesticity. Arab News, the Saudi English language daily has revealed that

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Saudi women are more concerned about finding good work in tough jobs than being veiled. The Kashmiri militant group, Lashkar-e-Jabbar has asked muslim women to quit their jobs and stay home, or face punishment, including death (The Times of India, 21 January 2003). In spite of the threats by the fundamentalists, women are entering male bastions such as foreign services, diplomatic missions, judiciary, military, police force, sports such as soccer, political bodies, academic institutions, industrial chambers even in the theocratic states.

FEMALE-HEADED HOUSEHOLDS Fundamentalists perceive female-headed households as an eyesore and make all efforts to persecute, stigmatize, isolate, marginalize and terrorize deserted, divorced, single and separated women leading an independent, economically self-sufficient life with dependent children or senior citizens. They do not accept women as heads of the household. Wherever the fundamentalist forces have become powerful, the female-headed households face persecution and witch hunting.

COMMUNALIZED EDUCATION In the Xth National Conference of The Indian Association of Women’s Studies the issue of communalization of school and college textbooks was discussed at length as representatives of different states reported that there was ‘a systematic attempt by the Sangh Parivar to “educate” young and old through schools, shakhas, temple networks, satsangs, etc. Through such education which encompasses a whole range of institutions, the Sangh Parivar has managed to draw into its fold large number of women, who in turn seem to transmit this hatred to their children’ (IAWS 2003). Changes in the curriculum that is being pushed through the National Curriculum Framework and the new National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks portray women only in highly regressive patriarchal terms within the framework of the family. They have targeted women’s movement as being responsible for the break up of the family. Many women’s studies scholars have interpreted the Gujarat tragedy as a failure of education that created brutalized masculinity.

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The Kashmir situation has jeopardized education of women. The same happened in the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) affected areas in Assam and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) prone areas in Jaffna (Sri Lanka). The Christian fundamentalists in Latin America are no different. All of them use young women in suicide squads and as cannon fodder for their barbaric agenda. In the camps of the VHP young girls are brain-washed first with an ideological investment of communal education (‘Muslims will outnumber Hindus’, ‘Muslim men are lustful and Muslim women are breeders’, ‘Muslims are born criminals’, ‘Caste system is crucial for racial purity’, ‘Shudras and ati-shudras are pollutants’) and at the same time given training to use weapons (lathis, swords, and daggers) (Vaz 2003). Communal mindset created by Hindutva forces is so powerful that young college students of Wilson College got a humorous article based on stereotypes about ‘Muslim’ as a murderer, drug seller, a cheater in cricket, kidnapper, terrorist, published. Its title is ‘Pakistani Math Question Paper’. The very first question signifies man–woman relationship among the Muslims. It goes like this: ‘Abdul was sent to jail for murder. He has seven wives in his house. Abdul distributed money to his wives in such a proportion that the youngest and the most recent wife receives maximum and oldest wife gets minimum, and each wife gets double of her former competitor. Abdul has 1700 Rupees left in his house. Abdul’s oldest wife needs at least 25 Rupees per month. Find out the time when Abdul will have to break jail to come out so that his wives don’t have to starve.’ There are innumerable websites with similar constructions that demonize Muslim men. The most widely circulated cassettes of the speeches and slogans by Sadhvi Ritambhara, the crudest version of Hindutva ideology provides a Ram-centred and RSS-led perspective that has nothing in store for women but ‘Agni pariksha’ (i.e., enter the fire to prove chastity and purity). Sadhvi Ritambhara’s speeches and pet slogan ‘If there has to be bloodshed, let it happen once and for all’ during Ram Janmabhoomi campaigns organized by Hindutva forces between 1986 and 1990 played a crucial role in massacre of Muslims in the 1992 riots (Sarkar 2001).

BAN

ON INTERCASTE, INTERRELIGIOUS AND INTERRACIAL

MARRIAGES

Obsession about racial, caste and religious purity are deep in the psyche of fundamentalists that have strong aversion against inter-mixing and

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inter-marriages among citizens of different caste groups, religious communities and racial backgrounds. Newspapers are full of incidences of torture, abduction, forced abortion, lynching, murder of newly married couples with different caste, religious, ethnic or racial backgrounds. Even the state and criminal justice system miserably fails to provide adequate protection to such love marriages. Such couples have to face social boycott, cannot easily get jobs, accommodation and school admissions for their children. Conversion of husband or wife as a conditionality for ‘allowing’ couples to get married is a logical extension of an inward looking mentality generated by the fundamentalist mindset.

COMMUNALIZED VIOLENCE

AGAINST

WOMEN

The communalized violence women have experienced recently in Gujarat is unprecedented in terms of the degree of state complicity, the unashamed valorization of these acts of depravity, the horrific participation of women in the violence and the creation of an implacable wall of hatred that provides the reason and then the justification for its spiral effect. It took us 50 years to document excesses against women during the partition. One wonders how much longer it will take now. The following poem by Lara Jesani vividly captures the pain and pathos of women victims of fundamentalist wrath and communal carnage whether they were women victims in the 1992–93 Mumbai riots or women in refugee camps of Gujarat 10 years later, in 2002–03. Eyes raining, without mere control, Scruples hurt, thus dew drops roll. Lightened, piercing, still with grief, Forever, staring in disbelief. Hearts melting, defences down, Afflicted feelings, all around. Timeless moments, of unending sorrow, Darkened scars, that none can borrow. Deep in hurdles, full with distress, Pleasures replaced, by pure sadness. Love’s demise, of responsive pain, A day’s repose, then it starts again.

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In response to rising communal violence, several women’s organizations in Bombay have formed a united front to coordinate work regarding relief and rehabilitation based on the reports of fact finding committees of riot affected areas in the rural, urban and tribal regions of Gujarat. AawaazE-niswan, Akshara, All India Democratic Women’s Association, Documentation, Research and Training Centre—Justice and Peace Commission, Forum Against Oppression of Women, Forum For Women’s Health, Maharashtra Mahila Parishad, Maharashtra Stree Abhyas Vyaspeeth, Mahila Daxata Samiti, Majlis, NFIW, Sakhya, Special Cell for Women and Children, Stree Manch, Stree Mukti Sangathana, Stree Sangam, Swadhar, Vacha, Women’s Centre, Young Women Christian Association joined the commemoration of national protest day on 13 May 2002 against sexual assault, beating, rape and burning of women and young girls, the cutting open of a pregnant woman and killing of her foetus, the burning of babies and children. They condemned this violence and demanded that First Information Reports (FIRs) should be registered, especially in all reported cases of sexual assault and violence against women, accepting testimonies of survivors as witnesses, in all police stations with copies made available to public groups. Because of the state and central governments’ complicity, the women’s groups felt the necessity of organizing a special public hearing on Gujarat carnage in front of an independent Women’s Human Rights Commission (Nainar and Uma 2003). A crisis centre to deal with violence against women and housed in the Bombay Municipal Corporation Hospital, Dilaasa, that visited refugee camps for women victims of the Gujarat carnage has recommended that trauma counselling for the victims needs to be undertaken on a long-term basis (Bhurte et al. 2003)

GLOBAL INITIATIVES In March 2003, the International Criminal Court was established for the local groups spread all over the globe who seek justice at the international level when there is no hope in the domestic system. A dramatic development shocked most delegates and observers on the last day of the 47th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York. Only half an hour before the 15-day session was to end, Iran’s representative, supported by delegates from Egypt and Sudan, rose to register his government’s objection to paragraph (o), which

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read: ‘Condemn violence against women and refrain from invoking any custom, tradition or religious consideration to avoid their obligations with respect to its elimination.’ They were not prepared to have their reservations on the paragraph officially recorded after the document had been adopted by consensus in its entirety. Nor were other delegations willing to drop the paragraph so that the rest of the document could be adopted by consensus. The session was suspended in the absence of consensus on the ‘agreed conclusions’ relating to women’s human rights and the elimination of all forms of violence against women. Delegates were told they would be informed about a fresh date for the resumption of work. The crisis was caused by the inflexibility of a tiny minority and some observers felt that efforts towards the elimination of violence against women had been sacrificed at the altar of a few male egos. By the time the session is reconvened, most non-US based delegates and NGO representatives, who had come for the CSW, will not be around to keep a watch on the document. The agreed conclusions emerging from the CSW are meant to provide direction to policy and action at the national and international levels to promote women’s human rights. Women’s human rights and the elimination of all forms of violence against women was one of the two themes addressed by the commission this year. However, the final document that will presumably be adopted (with or without the ‘controversial’ paragraph) includes several significant features, such as the recognition that economic and social sector policies which increase economic disparities among and within countries can also exacerbate gender-based inequalities and violence; the recognition that violence against women is intimately linked to gender-based discrimination and stereotypes; and that men can play an active part in preventing violence against women if they are enabled to recognize their role and responsibility through education and sensitization.

CURRENT DEBATES Women are not victims of their gender alone. They also bear the brunt of a patriarchal system that operates at the level of the community too, even a besieged community. The very same community which stuck together in terrified solidarity for its survival has also sometimes turned its back on women who have been ‘defiled’ by the enemy. Women’s rights activists have seen this prejudice in operation before and this should not

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come as a surprise. Yet, it does seem rather unfortunate that a community that has intimate knowledge of large-scale violations does not hesitate to further marginalize its women. It is therefore a complex situation. Creating women-specific safety nets, autonomously managed by women become crucial in this context. Women’s groups such as Majlis (Mumbai) and Masum (Pune) are spearheading The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate ‘to bring an end to electronic collection and transfer of funds from the US to organizations that spread sectarian hatred in India’. (http://www.stopfundinghate.org)

WOMEN

AND

FAMILY LAWS

For the past two decades, women’s groups providing support to women in distress have been demanding gender-just family laws in the Asian, African and Latin American countries (Akhtar 1989). Migrant women from the developing countries settled in the industrialized world should also be governed by the gender-just family laws. In India, a majority of secular women’s groups support reforms in the family laws to ensure gender justice to the women of different religious group (Agnes 2003). Hindu communal organizations are demanding the UCC. Due to pressure of women’s groups, there has been reform in the antiquated Christian Divorce Act. Hindu Undivided Property Act has been reformed to give daughters a share of the ancestral property. The state of Andhra Pradesh has granted land rights to women. In the postindependence period, the only act directly concerning Muslim lives passed is the notorious Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986. The Act takes Muslim women out of the purview of Section 125 of Criminal Procedure Code that ensures maintenance to a divorced wife. ‘The 1986 Act empowers the magistrate to order mehr, maintenance during iddat (3 months following divorce) and a fair provision to be paid within a month of application. Following this payment, the husband is absolved of any financial responsibility and the onus of maintenance of the woman falls on the parental family, or as a last resort on the Wakf Board’ (WRAG 1997). Hence, the secular women’s rights groups have evolved a slogan ‘All women are Hindu, all minorities are men, but Some of us are Brave.’ It signifies double burden of ‘patriarchy that controls women’s sexuality, fertility and labour’ and ‘communalism that brutalizes minority and dalit women’ shouldered by women in the identity politics.

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On 6 January 2003, women’s groups in Bahrain demonstrated outside the Justice and Islamic Affairs Ministry to press for the establishment of civil courts to handle divorce and family cases (Jordan Times, 6 January 2003). Hindutva and discourse on equality have been at loggerheads in the current past. Domestic Violence Act, 2002 generated heated debate around the issue of whether casual/occasional beating should be considered as ‘domestic violence’ (Kapur and Cossman 1996). Centre for Women’s Development Studies (Delhi) and Majlis (Mumbai) organized a national seminar for women activists and lawyers on ‘Maintenance Rights of Muslim Women—Issues and Concerns’ during 6–7 May 2001 in Delhi. The seminar concluded with the three broad statements. 1. The personal laws of all communities should be strengthened to make them more gender just and weed out gender discrimination. 2. The Muslim Women (Protection of Right on Divorce) Act, 1986 must be strengthened to uphold positive and gender just interpretation. 3. The ceiling under Section 125 should be removed.

SUMMARY

AND

CONCLUSION

Globalization has made civil society more inward looking. Fundamentalist and communal elements are using caste, religious and kinship networks for their sectarian, short-term and narrow motives. Chauvinist forces all over the world have been supported by an equal number of women as men (Patel 1998). All networks with global connections are executing the projects of xenophobia, misogyny and jingoism. In this situation, only women’s rights activists with a multicultural perspective can play an important role as catalysts for women’s empowerment by promoting education, capacity-building programmes, employment and economic self-sufficiency, political and legal rights for women. Without ensuring women’s rights, no civilization can have a human face. We should not forget that globalization has widened the income gap between the resource poor and resource rich countries. Free play of market forces have made a majority of Indian women more vulnerable. We need both distributive justice in the political economy and gender justice in the civil society, the state apparatus and the political structures. NGOs have

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provided islands of security in some pockets. Inspiring experiences of Moholla Committee movement in which people and police work in collaboration for communal amity should be replicated (The Movement 2003). In this situation, affirmative action by the democratic institutions and the nation state in secular areas of human governance is the only answer. Because women are considered to be the repository of culture and tradition, women will have to evolve creative ways of dealing with identity politics. New symbols, icons, imagery representing multicultural ethos and praxis of gender justice will have to be actively promoted to counter fundamentalists and communalist forces. Building solidarity and sisterhood transcending religious barriers is a major challenge. At an interpersonal level, in schools, offices, communities, restaurants a pluralism in food, dress and recreationl activities has come about. But the political use of religion creates an artificial barrier. We need to stress that one can be ‘religious’ and ‘plural’. Liberative aspect of religion can be highlighted and symbols of Bhakti movement, Sufism and liberation theology in Christianity can be popularized by us. Sweeping generalizations about secularism become platitudes. We need to generate alternatives in our socialization patterns, celebrations and overall lifestyle (Patel 1995).

REFERENCES Agnes, Flavia, Feminist Jurisprudence—Contemporary Concerns (Mumbai: Majlis, 2003). Akhtar, Farida, ‘Family Laws and the Women’s Movement: Perspectives from Bangladesh’, in Claudia Von Braunnmhl (ed.), Towards Progress in Women’s Rights and Social Status in Developing Countries (Berlin: German Foundation for International Development, 1989). Basu, R., ‘Iraqi Women On Edge’, The Asian Age, Mumbai, 17 June 2003. Bhurte, Aruna, Qudsiya Contractor and Lorraine Coelho, ‘Keeping Hope Alive’, Urdhva Mula, vol. 1, no. 1 (November 2002). Chenoy, Anuradha, ‘Forever Victims: No Post War Role for Afghan Women’, The Times of India, 7 December 2001. Dewan, Ritu, ‘What does Azadi Mean to You’, in Urvashi Butalia (ed.), Speaking Peace—Women’s Voices from Kashmir (Delhi: Kali for Women, 2002). Engineer, Asghar Ali (ed.), The Gujarat Carnage (Delhi: Orient Longman, 2003). Hjarpe, Jan, ‘Attitude of Islamic Fundamentalists towards the Question of Women in Islam’, in Bo Utas (ed.), Women in Islamic Societies—Social Attitudes and Historical Perspectives (London: Curzon Press, 1983).

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Indian Association of Women’s Studies (IAWS), Newsletter, Pune, April 2003. Jawadekar, Prachi, ‘Nikah Now, Talak Later: Tourist Marriages Flourish’, The Asian Age, Mumbai, 27 April 2003. Kapur, Ratna and Brenda Cossman, Feminist Engagement with Law in India (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1996). King, Laura, ‘Freedom to be Veiled’, The Indian Express, Mumbai, 3 May 2003. Kramarae, C. and D. Spender, Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women—Global Women’s Issues and Knowledge, vols I & II (New York: Routledge, 2000). Maheshwari, A.P., Communalism—Handled with a Difference (Delhi: Ajanta Books International, 2000). Megalli, Mona, ‘Saudi Women Face Complex Choices’, available online at www. amanjorden.org.19-11-2002 Nainar, Vahida and Saumya Uma, Combatting Impunity—A Compilation of Articles on the International Criminal Court and Its Relevance in India (Mumbai: Women’s Research and Action Network, 2003). Patel, Vibhuti, ‘The Shah Bano Controversy and the Challenges Faced by Women’s Movement in India’, in Asghar Ali Engineer (ed.), Problems of Muslim Women in India (Bombay: Orient Longman, 1995). —–———, ‘Campaigns against Gender Violence, 1977–93’, in Shirin Kudchetkar and Sabiha Al-Issa (eds), Violence against Women, Women against Violence (Delhi: Pencraft International, 1998). —–———, Women’s Challengers of the New Millennium (New Delhi: Gyan Publication, 2002). —–———, ‘Inevitable Trends of Economic Globalization’, People’s Reporter, Mumbai, 25 March–10 April 2003. Pevrin, Jean-Pierre, ‘Afghanistan Goes to Absurd Lengths to Implement Islamic Laws, Women Living Under Muslim Law’, Dossier 17, Paris, June 1997, pp. 106–10. Saadawi, N., The Hidden Face of Eve—Women in Arab World (London: Zed Press, 1982). Sarkar, Tanika, Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation—Community, Religion and Cultural Nationalism (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001). The Movement, Newsletter of Moholla Committee Movement, Mumbai, January– March 2003. Vaz, Hubert, ‘The VHP Back in Training’, The Indian Express, Mumbai Newsline, 19 May 2003. Women Living Under Muslim Law (WLUML), Newsheet, ‘Shiv Sena Calls for “Dress Code” for Girls’, Shirkat Gah Women’s Resource Centre, vol. XV, no. 1, 2003, p. 19. WRAG, Women, Law and Customary Practice (Mumbai: Women’s Research and Action Network, 1997).

HINDUTVA AGENDA

AND

DALITS

11

ANAND TELTUMBDE

INTRODUCTION

T

he fact that the Dalits and tribals were foot soldiers of the Hindutva brigade in the heinous carnage of Muslims in Gujarat sent shockwaves across the length and breadth of secular India. Many people lamented this unfortunate development which drowned the facts about the losses the Dalits suffered during these gory times. It is now clear that the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat had also a little Dalit blood accompanying it. The Dalits lost 108 lives in Gujarat; 38 deaths alone in the city of Ahmedabad, which makes not an insignificant percentage of the official death toll of Muslims.1 The heartrending devastation that visited Muslims during this macabre campaign of communalists was also shared by the Dalits, albeit in a small way. The experience of agony, the tears and tribulations, the pangs of pain that overwhelmed the Muslims had besieged the Dalit community too. Even the camps for victims from both the communities resounded the similarity of their pathetic condition. Despite the seemingly ‘connected’ people frequenting these ‘Hindu’ camps, their condition was not a shade better than the Muslim camps that were run by the community volunteers. The condition of Dalits in these camps thus clearly mirrored the material reality that

1 Anand Teltumbde, ‘Damning the Dalits for the Bania-Brahmin Crimes in Gujarat’, available online at http://www.ambedkar.org

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Dalits, irrespective of what label they are given, cannot be part of Hindutva privileges. Whatever their contradictions with their Muslim neighbourhood, they could not really escape their predicament. The Gujarat violence clearly highlighted the truth that communities do not make much difference in people’s suffering; their classes do. The communal conflagration in Gujarat has thrown up many issues of vital importance. The issue of Dalit participation is of particular importance, not because it magnifies the menace of communalism, but because it decimates potential opposition to it. It was plausibly explained away by the fact that the Gujarati Dalits did not have ‘Dalit’ consciousness created by the Ambedkarian movement elsewhere. But recently, when reports on Bheemshakti-Shivashakti alliances started coming from the heart of the Ambedkarian movement—Mumbai and Aurangabad in Maharashtra—it sent shudders down the spines of those who had some hope for the secular future of India. Some people thought that ‘hegemonic Hindu nationalism’ harboured ‘certain genuine cultural concerns’ and might result in dampening the caste system. ‘The new organizational, quasi-ecclesial structure that is emerging within Hinduism, is an attempt to meet the need.’2 A series of incidents that followed the Gujarat carnage, particularly the most infamous of them all, lynching of five Dalits in broad daylight at Jhajjar in Haryana, proved it wrong. The Hindutva brigade that silently co-opted Ambedkar into its sanctum sanctorum, did not hesitate to call him a ‘false god’3 and has recently stooped so low as to show him as anti-Muslim. While on one hand, Hindutva seems to woo the Dalits into its fold, its cohorts are exceeding all previous limits of exploitation. This chapter seeks to expose the real face of the Hindutva agenda visà-vis the Dalits, delineate its ill impacts on their project of emancipation, and tries to indicate ways to mitigate them. The first part exposes the caste connection of Hindutva, how it is a product of the anxiety of the Hindu hegemon about the vulnerability of the margins of Hindudom. The second part exposes the fascist pedigree of contemporary Hindutva and its predominantly fascist character. The third part attempts to articulate the ideology of Hindutva as that of neo-Brahmanism. In the fourth part, an attempt is made to show how injurious Hindutva is to Dalit interests, by mapping its impact. The fifth part takes stock of Dalit resistance to 2

S. Kappen, ‘Hindutva—Emergent Fascism’, in M. Muaralidharan et al. (eds), Understanding Communalism (Bangalore: Visthar, 1993), pp. 60–67. 3 Arun Shourie, Worshipping False Gods (New Delhi: Bilblia Impex, 1997).

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Hindutva. The final part sums up by emphasizing the need to create a peoples’ resistance movement against Hindutva, possibly with the Dalits in the vanguard, and provides certain tips derived as the learning through history as to how to go about doing it.

CASTE CONNECTION

OF

HINDUTVA

The genesis of Hindutva lies in the Hindu revival movements that took place in the nineteenth century. Muslim rule, for nearly eight centuries, had suffocated Hinduism. Although it uniquely survived the onslaught of Islam, mainly on account of its caste organization, it could not go unbruised and unhumiliated. Islam came as a message of equality for the masses of lower castes, particularly the Dalits.4 It came as their salvation from oppressive Hinduism.5 They converted in large numbers to Islam. In this process Hinduism lost nearly one-fifth of its population to Islam.6 This exodus of the low-caste people was arrested only when the egalitarian zeal of Islam was mostly eclipsed by the caste-like inequality brought into Muslim society by the converts from the upper-caste Hindus, who were readily absorbed into the Muslim ruling class. Those who stayed on as Hindus were also culturally attracted towards Islam under the influence of Sufism, the mystic sect of Islam that propagated equality and universal brotherhood. Its influence among the Dalits was particularly deep and widespread. The wounded psyche of Hindu hegemons had congenial space for the first time during British colonial rule. With the advent of British rule, another onslaught on Hinduism began in the form of conversions to Christianity. The humanitarian work of Christian missionaries was attracting the tribals and the Dalits in large numbers.7 It is this visible drift of Dalits and tribals towards Islam and later 4

Swami Vivekanand, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekanand, vol. I, 21st reprint (Calcutta: Advaita Ashram, 1995), p. 483. 5 Ibid., vol. III, 17th reprint (Calcutta: Advaita Ashram, 1997), p. 294. 6 Swami Vivekanand had written, ‘It would be the height of madness to think that it was all the work of sword and fire’, ibid. 7 ‘. . . from the 1860s onwards missions in various parts of India began to focus their efforts on the conversions of low caste and tribal groups. Groups were often converted en block, following the decision of caste or tribal elders to take the step.’ (D.B. Forrester, Caste and Christianity: Attitudes and Politics on Caste of Anglo-Saxon Protestant Missions in India (London: Curzon Press, 1970), p. 69. This trend has been termed

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towards Christianity that impelled the Hindus to start the Hindu Sanghatan (the unification of Hindus) when opportunity for it arose. The Hindu Sanghatan movement, though basically revivalist, presented itself in the form of Hindu nationalism by the English educated bhadralok of Bengal who pioneered it. Its nationalism, however, was not against British subjugation. Right from Keshab Chandra Sen, who is generally identified among the first proponents of Hindu nationalism, to Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, to the later day Hindu nationalists of the RSS in Maharashtra and its present day cohorts, the compromise with imperialism can be seen as the characterizing theme of the movement. It was only concerned with the sustenance of its own imperialist hegemony over the Indian social structure of which the Dalits constituted an important part. The questionable status of the Dalits and tribals in relation to Hinduism made them particularly important to the Hindu nationalist discourse, which always sought to articulate clearly the limits of Hinduness, whilst at the same time maintaining the marginality of such groups in terms of sociopolitical power. The Hindu nationalist mind has always been oversensitive about the vulnerability of the Hindu margin, a la borders of their empire that the Dalits and tribals defined. Any attempt at independent organization by such groups—religious, social, political—therefore has been vigorously opposed by Hindu nationalism. The Dalits and tribals therefore occupy a critical position in the articulation of Hindu identity.8 Generally, the origin of Hindutva is attributed to V.D. Savarkar, who had coined that word and provided its definition. But at a conceptual level, it goes back to Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who not only saw the potential of religious ideology in political mobilization for the first time, but effectuated it by starting public celebrations of Ganeshotsava and Shivaji Jayanti, the latter as a protector of cows and Brahmans. The basic motivation for it was to win back the celebration-loving masses of the lower castes that had adopted Islamic festivals like Muharram, etc., under the Sufi influence. Tilak had also propounded the intellectually juvenile ‘Aryan Theory of Race’ that claimed a white racial stock for upper ‘mass movement’. Census figures confirm rapid increases in the Christian population between 1871 and 1901, and most reports record the predominance of low caste and tribal converts as a feature of this increase (Census of India 1901, vol. 1, India, Pt. 1: Report [Calcutta: Government Printing Office, 1903], pp. 387–92). 8 John Zavos, ‘Conversion and the Assertive margins: an analysis of Hindu nationalist discourse and the recent attacks on Indian Christians’, South Asia, vol. XXIV, no. 2 (2001), pp. 73–89.

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caste Indians and accepted the Vedas as their core literature. Essentially Tilak represented the contemporary Chitpawan struggle, to revive the lost glory of Brahmanism that had nothing for the lower castes other than their assigned caste rungs. The motive force behind the entire Chitpawan struggle against the British, the militancy of which misled many to class it as revolutionary, was provided by the intense desire to win back their lost kingdom called Peshawai, infamous for its degenerate casteist and reactionary character. The humiliation and oppression of the Dalits in Peshawai had reached legendary heights. Dalits were not allowed to use public roads before 9 A.M. and after 3 P.M. lest their elongated shadows during these hours pollute any Brahmin walking on the road. They were required to tie a pot at their neck to contain their spit and a sweep stick to their back for erasing their polluting footprints. When we talk of Hindutva in relation to the Dalits, this revivalist context can never be ignored!

THE FASCIST AGENDA The Fascist fangs of Hindutva were never really hidden. Hindutva is a product of an evil integration of Hindu majoritarian communalism and the fascist programme imported from Italy and Germany. The Italian researcher of Indian politics, Marzia Casolari has done pioneering work in tracing fraternal links between the RSS founders on the one hand and fascism and Nazism on the other. Savarkar was admittedly inspired by Italian fascist Giuseppe Mazzini in founding his secret society in 1904 called ‘Abhinav Bharat’, which was just an Indianization of Mazzini’s ‘Young Italy’. He had great liking for Hitler’s Nazism and Fascism of Mussolini, which surfaced consistently during World War II. His justification of Hitler’s anti-Jewish pogroms almost applies to the Muslim problem in India when he said: ‘A nation is formed by a majority living therein. What did the Jews do in Germany? They, being in minority, were driven out from Germany.’9 Dr K.B. Hedgewar, who founded the RSS, was a follower of the famous Hindu Mahasabhaite B.S. Munje, an associate of Tilak. Munje had specially visited Italy to study Fascism and had a personal audience with 9

R.A. Ravishankar, ‘The real Sarvarkar’, Frontline, vol. 19, no. 15 (20 July–2 August 2002), available online at http://www.flonnet.com/fl1915/19151160.htm

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Mussolini on 19 March 1931. His account of this visit vividly describes how impressed he was by Mussolini’s fascist organization. On his return, he started to work for the militant reorganization of the Hindu society. M.S. Golwalkar, RSS supremo after Hedgewar, is too well known a Hitler fan to require elaboration. He often eulogized Hitler’s model of racial cleansing and even adopted it as his own. He unhesitatingly wanted to model his Hindu rashtra on Hitler’s totalitarian and Fascist pattern. His book We or Our Nationhood Defined is replete with idealization of the Nazi cultural nationalism (the phrase being used lately to describe the strategy of communal programmes by the BJP) of Hitler. It is not a coincidence that the Sangh Parivar’s slogan ‘one nation, one culture, one religion, one language’, exactly resonates the Nazi slogan ‘Ein volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer’ (one people, one state, one leader). Even Nehru noted in 1947 that the RSS was ‘a private army which was proceeding on the strictest Nazi lines’.10 After independence, the RSS spread its tentacles through a host of mass organizations11 and created a Sangh Parivar that variously followed the Fascist dictums in its virulent anti-communism, organized terror against ‘internal enemies’ (minorities in India in place of Jews in Germany), rumour-mongering and whipping up a mass frenzy. The fascism of the Sangh Parivar is also manifest in its revivalism (revival of vedic glory like Fascist revival of the ancient traditions of the race, of imperial Rome, of ‘Aryan pride’), absolute statism, expansionist foreign policy (Akhand Bharat that includes not only Afghanistan, Pakistan and entire South Asia but also Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc., in the Far East!). As the Nazi slogan provided motivation for the most inhuman forms of destruction, the Hindutva slogan has already succeeded in symbolically incapacitating the Indian state when it demolished the Babri Masjid and enacted an unprecedented carnage of Muslims in Gujarat. As in Fascist Germany, the Sangh Parivar has effectively created a ‘we-ness’ identity based on Hindu tradition and rituals and in corollary, created ‘the other’, apparently comprising Muslims, Christians, communists and those who could be in apparent disagreement with them like, Ambedkarite Dalits. 10

Christopher Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics (New Delhi: Viking, 1996), p. 87. 11 A list of 75 organizations is provided by Louis Prakash, The Emerging Hindutva Force: The Ascent of Hindu Nationalism (New Delhi: Indian Social Institute, 2000), pp. 298– 301, but by some accounts the figure is far higher than this number.

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Insofar as Fascism blocks the democratic revolution, insofar as ‘fascism is a most ferocious attack by capital on the mass of the working people; fascism is unbridled chauvinism and predatory war; fascism is rabid reaction and counter-revolution; fascism is the most vicious enemy of the working class and of all working people’,12 the Dalits shall be at unique disadvantage.

IDEOLOGY

OF

NEO-BRAHMANISM

The ideology of Hindutva represents a Brahmanical counter-revolution to pre-empt the democratic aspirations of the downtrodden people. It is based on brahminical Hinduism duly adjusted for the new reality of parliamentary democracy. The core of that order, upper caste supremacy, is embedded in the majoritarian concept of the Hindu national community, of which Dalits and Adivasis, although excluded socially, are made to be a part. While Hindutva cries hoarse about ‘one people’, it neither shows any remorse for its oppressive past, nor has any programme to undo it in the present. If at all, it is proud of its ‘glorious’ past and tends to trivialize its problematic present. The fog of Hindu unity could never really hide the revivalist agenda of neo-brahminism to re-subjugate Dalits. One gets a glimpse of the ideological proclivities of the Parivar occasionally. The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), one of the active organizations in it, had presented its vision for the governance of the Hindu rashtra. It consisted of a Guru Sabha instead of the Constitutional parliamentary democracy that we have. Its five-point plan in this regard provides a clue to the ideological schema of the Parivar. These five points are: (a) bringing about a brahminical social order, (b) the majority (poor) shall not have voting rights, (c) reservation shall only be for the elites, (d) the minorities shall become second class citizens, and (e) the Supreme Court shall be subservient to the Guru Sabha.13 The professed 12

‘CPI (ML) Red Flag, Imperialism and the growth of fascism: a case study of India’, paper presented in the International Communist Seminar on ‘Imperialism, Fascization and Fascism’ at Brussels, 2–4 May 2002, available online at http://www.wpb.be/icm/ 00en/seminar/india_rf.html 13 The Indian Express, 20 August 2000. Cited in Lazar Thamzraj Stanislaus, The Hindutva and the Marginalized: A Christian Response. Available at http://www. missionstudies.org/IACM/Papers/Hindutva%20and%20Marginalizd.doc, accessed on 9 February 2005. Also see Rajesh Ramachandram, ‘The Constitution as ABVP would have it’, The Times of India, 7 August 2000.

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goal of the Parivar is to form a Hindu rashtra, which may not necessarily be a religious state, as the likes of Mr Advani assure us, but it will certainly be a state reflecting the essence of brahminism in the garb of modernity, with the pre-modern social hierarchies imposed on all sections of society. It has clear-sighted aim to establish a Hitleresque Aryan rule in India with the concomitant code of Manu. The hegemonic, homogenizing and pedagogic14 Hindutva essentially reflects a fascist ideology of which neo-brahminism is a specific feature. As a matter of fact, Hindutva could be potentially worse than the familiar variety of fascism in Italy, Germany and Spain. Unlike these countries, it has a well-established caste-ridden and hierarchy-structured social base and a well proven oppressive ideology at its service. In our semi-feudal, semi-colonial society, fascism is essentially an anti-democratic agenda implemented through mass frenzy around certain fabricated myths. The myth of unity of Hindus and Hindutva’s response to its problems in caste are but a subterfuge to deny the Dalits whatever little space the Indian Constitution has given them. It tends to trivialize the entire Dalit history, Dalit culture and the Dalit struggle for emancipation.

IMPACT

OF

HINDUTVA

ON THE

DALITS

The impact of the fascist revivalist neo-brahminic Hindutva on Dalits can be seen as follows.

DEMOLITION

OF THE

DALIT SOCIAL AGENDA

The Hindu rashtra campaign successfully took away the social agenda of Dalits, comprising eradication of untouchability, poverty, inequality, and discrimination. Along with it, the concepts of rights and dignity enshrined in the Constitution are being sought to be replaced by the notion of obligations inherent in Brahmanism. It does not relate even remotely with the inhuman condition that the Dalits live in. Worst, it tends to deny the existence of these evils as though they were mere propaganda of the pseudo-secularists. As for castes, its ambivalence could not manage 14

P. Louis, The Emerging Hindutva Force (2000), pp. 76–77.

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to adequately hide its support to the institution of Varnashramdharma as a ‘scientific’ institution of division of labour and its agenda of its revivalism. In the myriad of voices issued from hundreds of outfits of the Sangh Parivar, one does not find a trace of apology. On the contrary, there is a full-throated advocacy of the system externalizing the blame for its evils to ‘them’. None other than the Shankaracharya helps us to see the fangs of the current proselytizing Hindutva. While providing the solution to the problem of placing the newly converted Hindus, the Shankaracharya of Govardhan Peeth in Puri had stated that ‘low-cost’ temples should be built for the Dalits and tribals who convert from Christianity and Islam. He advocated that they should not enter the existing Hindu temples and they should also not marry other Hindus.15 How true Ambedkar sounds when he says that Hinduism cannot exist without castes! To the extent gullible Dalit masses fall prey to the allure of instant brahmanization from Hindutva, the social agenda of Dalits gets eclipsed.

SUBJUGATION

OF

DALIT IDENTITY

Although originally a movement of revivalist brahmins, which is potentially antithetical to the Dalit interests, Hindutva could never enact its agenda by ignoring the Dalits and tribals who numbered approximately one-fourth of the total population of the country. It is neither feasible from the electoral logic of securing political power nor from the fascist imperative of creating mass hysteria by launching street battles. With this realization, the shrewd Sangh Parivar had commenced working among the tribals and successfully Hinduized their tribal identity. The efficacy of this transformation is only realized in the recent Gujarat experiment. Later, they launched a skillful co-optation programme for the Dalits. The co-optation process started from the systematic inclusion of the greatest Dalit icon, Babasaheb Ambedkar into the Sangh Parivar icons. They made him Pratah Smaraniya and variously propagated him as though he was a staunch Hindutvawadi. They started celebrating his birth anniversary, organizing festivals and seminars, publishing books with the systematic vision of saffronizing him. Although they chose the day of his 15

A.J. Philip, ‘Low Cost for Low Caste: Letting the Cat Out of the Bag’, The Indian Express, 9 June 2000.

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death anniversary for their infamous demolition of the Babri Masjid, they have been celebrating the demolition day with the images of Ram and Ambedkar placed alongside. For the gullible Dalit masses reared on symbolism by the degenerate post-Ambedkar Dalit leadership, the cooptation of Ambedkar meant change in attitude of the brahmin camp. If Ambedkar symbolized concern for Dalits, Sangh Parivar did not lack in resources in making exhibitionist demonstration of this concern. It helped certain eager Dalit elites to cross over to the resource rich Sangh Parivar through its Samarasata Manch. Although, Dalit masses did not follow these opportunist Dalit elites it certainly helped in softening the anti-Dalit image of the Sangh Parivar and at the same time blurring the Dalit identity. The efficacy of the process is seen in the unthinkable discourse of alliance between the Dalits and Hindutva in various forms these days.

SUPPRESSION

OF

DALIT CULTURE

Culture is the most potent weapon in the hands of fascism to subjugate masses. As fascism constructs its culture as a blend of the old traditions, norms and values of the ruling class that were getting eclipsed by the progressive culture and the artifacts of modernity required for their luxurious living, Hindutva has created its cultural cocktail with a selective mix of brahminic traditions and imperialism-ordained modernity and has promoted it as national culture. At the level of civil society, there is a renewed zeal in the promotion of Kumbh Melas, Vaishno Devis, Santoshi Matas, etc., and the old and the newly invented festivals. Some of them are being planted to divert people from the secular engagements. For example, for some years now, there has been visible spate of public Satyanarayan pujas performed on Republic day in Mumbai. There have of course been rath yatras and kar sevas that galvanize vast masses of gullible people and intoxicate them with Hindutva. The Sangh Parivar has been running thousands of schools that have been silently acculturating people to their creed. Their Vanvasi schools in the tribal areas well exemplified the cultural conversion in the recent Gujarat experiment. Now, having had the reigns of power in their hands, they have been emboldened to saffronize entire school syllabi. Dalits and tribals, as working class people, have a distinct culture from the parasitic dwija castes, which has provided them a motive to wage struggles for their emancipation. Hindutva does not tolerate cultural

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diversity.16 Suppression of the Dalit culture would mean putting a lid on the aspiration for emancipation.

DALIT

AS

CANNON FODDER

OF

HINDUTVA

Hindutva’s core rests on the upper-caste/class rich farmers, the businessmen and industrialists, and multiple segments of middle classes that constitute bureaucrats, professionals, traders, etc., who have latched on to the big capital. However, these are not the people who could themselves execute the socio-economic and political agenda of dominance. Fascism enforces its writ through physical force, which typically requires foot soldiers from the lower strata. In the name of ‘Hindu Unity’ the Dalits and tribals are brainwashed and made to perform this role. Inevitably, they become Hindutva’s cannon fodder in any communal conflagration as illustrated in the case of Gujarat.

SPECTRE

OF

SLAVERY

The contradictions between the Dalits and the upper-caste/class Hindus that constitute the core of Hindutva can be glossed over merely through the emotional slogans of Hindu unity. The need for polarization into ‘us’ and ‘they’ is prompted by the process of gaining political power within the prevailing political framework. Once this objective is accomplished, the agenda could shift to the next higher level, to enforce strict hierarchical social structure, not quite strictly, one hopes, as based on birth as ordained in the varnashram dharma, but one that is externally based on secular considerations and which internally corresponds to the age old caste lines. The simple dictum that is passed in the name of globalization that only the select few should have access to higher education, as the Ambani-Birla framework for reforms in education proposed, will effectively exclude all the Dalits from the realm of higher education and ensure their confirmation to Manu’s dictum without actually prescribing so. 16

As Golwalkar puts it in the context of his ‘others’, either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture, or to live at its mercy. M.S. Golwalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined, Fourth Edition (Nagpur: Bharat Prakashan, 1947).

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INCREASING ATROCITIES With increasing revivalistic fervour, the contradictions between the Dalits and the non-Dalits are bound to increase. The atrocities are but the manifestation of these contradictions, the recent statistics expectedly shows a dramatic rise in all types of atrocities on the Dalits during the 1990s that could be identified with the rising onslaught of Hindutva as compared to those during the previous decade.

STATE

OF

RESISTANCE

Unfortunately, there is no resistance to this fascist onslaught to be seen from the Dalits. For many years now, the real issues of peoples’ lives have been taboo in the Dalit politics that has been getting propelled by the emotional outburst of its self-seeking leaders. Whereas this virtualization of the Dalit issues has fragmented the Dalit movement into innumerable outfits, it also has given rise to a phenomenon known as Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) that enthroned a Dalit lady in one of the casteist and conservative states of India. The numerous outfits literally operate as petty shops dealing in Dalit interests in the political super bazar of India. BSP relatively distinguished itself in terms of its vision (it had certainly a longer term vision of securing political power than most others), organization structure (BSP has essentially emulated the organization model of the RSS), acute pragmatism indistinguishable from crass opportunism (it has elevated opportunism to an ideological level in the name of promoting Dalit interests), and novelty of discourse (it talked of pitting all Dalits, tribals, religious minorities, and backward castes against the upper castes comprising Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas). It created a lot of hope among the Dalits. But eventually the inevitable happened; this phenomenon too betrayed the rising Dalit hope by coming in full support of Hindutva. Mayawati’s canvassing in Gujarat in support of Narendra Modi was the last straw on the back of the hopeful Dalit camel. Some progressive groups among Dalits strove to work among themselves in the wake of the Gujarat carnage but they could not even scratch the Hindutva imprint on the minds of the Dalits. Even the Jhajjar incident17 could not shake the Dalit organizations beyond a certain point. 17

Editorial, ‘A Dastardly Killing’, Working Class, November 2002, available online at http://citu.org.in/wclass_nov02_ed.htm

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It was responded to by the religious conversions that were organized by the Lord Buddha Club under the leadership of Udit Raj. He has been by far the clearest anti-Hindutva Dalit voice in the political arena. Ostensibly, Udit Raj has followed the low-risk, high-return model of Kanshiram so far. He distinguished himself in two respects, one, his emphasis on Buddhism as the path shown by Babasaheb Ambedkar and two, his relatively radical stand on the contemporary issues. Although he has taken the inevitable step of launching a political party—Swaraj Party— recently and set himself to plunge into the whirlpool of electoral politics, it must be said to his credit that he has taken an uncompromising stand against Hindutva so far. The voices from the Parivar confirm its commitment to get Dalits into the Hindutva fold. Recently, Mr Vinay Katiyar, the ex-General Secretary of the Bajrang Dal and current President of the BJP, Uttar Pradesh, propagandized through his yatra that Dr Ambedkar was anti-Muslims that he called the Muslims terrorists, etc. Anyone who has even perfunctory acquaintance with the writings of Ambedkar can say that these are pure lies. But then the entire Hindutva myth is based only on such lies. While these developments shock even the non-Dalit secularists, paradoxically the Dalit political establishment appears to be receptive to the Hindutva overtures. The recent discourse on Bheemshakti-Shivashakti alliance in Maharashtra, the very centre of Ambedkarite movement, amply illustrates this trend. Whether all the Dalit parties eventually go with the Shiv Sena or not, the tenor of the discourse itself spells the worrisome degeneration of Dalit politics. While this apathetic attitude of the Dalit movement is a reality, it would be wrong to single it out on that count. As a matter of fact, there is almost no resistance to Hindutva in the country from any corner. The activity of resistance is only confined to certain progressive intellectuals and the leftist organizations. But even they could not articulate their resistance creatively enough to appeal to the masses. This disturbing apathy perhaps characterizes the current phase of history. The forces of imperialist globalization have successfully pulverized society into a mass of autonomous individuals who are too engrossed with the immediate crisis of living to consider the possibility of their long-term salvation. The cultural onslaught of globalization moreover, has been systematically disorienting their minds from such possibilities and miring them into incessant consumption. It is interesting to note that the spread of globalization is associated with the rise of religious fundamentalism, rightist and fascist movements all over. Even the rise of Hindutva can well be

Hindutva Agenda and Dalits

221

correlated with the process of liberalization initiated after the second coming of Indira Gandhi through her successor, Rajiv Gandhi, to the formal adoption and implementation of a policy package of neoliberal globalization in 1991. This strong correlation cannot be ignored when one is confronted with the horrific reality of the absolute fascist rule.

BY WAY

OF

SUMMING UP

In the war against Hindutva, there is no more potent and proven a weapon than Ambedkar’s thoughts. Dalits have been the natural heir to it. It is a pity that they never realized its power and let it be misused by vested interests. While chanting devotion to Ambedkar, they have totally forgotten the revolutionary import of his ideology. It is one of the most unfortunate paradoxes of history that the so-called disciples of Ambedkar should be inclined to join hands with the forces that represent the very antithesis of what Ambedkar stood for, that they should be willing foot soldiers of the brigade whom Ambedkar had declared as his enemy and relentlessly fought against. Dalits must realize that they have basic and antagonistic contradictions with the forces that Hindutva represents. They must remind themselves that Ambedkar had identified their enemy as brahminism and capitalism. They have since let these enemies grow into monsters of fascist Hindutva and imperialist globalization. Both are devouring the lives of the people. It is not only myopic but utterly suicidal to think that these monsters would help them or that they would be able to use them in their endeavour. The Dalits must realize that the path of their emancipation goes over the corpses of these monsters. It is not in their power, however, to fight them alone. They must join others who relate with them, by similarity of suffering and pain. It needs to be understood that this relationship transcends caste cleavages, this relationship alone would pave the way for annihilation of castes. Hindutva can only be resisted and won over by building an effective peoples’ movement against it. In order to build this movement certain crucial learnings through history may be summed up as follows: 1. Hindutva is a myth. Myths are mere symbolic interpretations of the reality in terms of transcendent events; it is never a rationally constructed project. Myths are a precept not a concept. Myths

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Anand Teltumbde

therefore cannot be effectively countered by other myths even if the latter is about secularism. Myths are exploded only by facts, concrete reality. The reality is that Hindutva is murderous, it is devastating peoples’ lives, it is poisoning peoples’ minds. People need to be awakened to the material reality; they need to liberate themselves from their intoxicated state, they need to rely on their lived experience. 2. Hindutva is a political mass movement and can only be effectively countered by a similar political mass movement. The masses for this movement can be mobilized from the working strata of the Dalits, tribals, and the religious minorities like Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, etc., and particularly from their womenfolk who have potential contradiction of some kind or the other with Hindutva. 3. Hindutva is not a religious movement. It is essentially a political movement and can therefore be effectively resisted by only a political mass movement. Some people, both Hindus as well as Muslims, tend to diagnose the religious propaganda as being responsible for rousing communal passions in people. Consequently, their prescription leads to launching a movement to spread correct teachings and tenets of the respective religions. Unfortunately, this is wrong. Likewise, the religious conversions of Dalits that have taken place in protest of Hindutva may be said to be misdirected. It is enough here to remind that the Bheemshakti-Shivashakti syndrome is created not by the Hindu Dalits but the Ambedkarite Buddhists! 4. Hindutva is a fascist myth. As Dimitrov pointed out, ‘Fascism acts in the interests of extreme imperialists but presents itself to the masses in the guise of a champion of an ill-treated nation, and appeals to outraged “national sentiments”.’18 Fascism relies on falsehood because truth will never favour it. While on one side they kept people in a state of confusion with their Swadeshi rhetoric, on the other side they have accelerated the globalization process to the benefit of imperialists. It therefore follows that the movement against Hindutva will have to be based on the unity of the lower classes/castes potentially in contradiction with not only Hindutva but also imperialist globalization. 18 Georgi Dimitrov, The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism (2 August 1935). Available at http// www.ex.ac.uk/projects/meia/dimitrov/1935-rep.htm, last accessed 9 February 2005.

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5. Hindutva and globalization are complementary and mutually sustaining. Neo-liberalism that provides the philosophical base for imperialist globalization has given rise to fundamentalist and fascist forces the world over, through atomization of the individual and autonomizing its enterprise in the ‘market’ sans any moral precepts. Globalization has been directly responsible for galloping unemployment and consequent lumpenization of youth that produce and reproduce Modis and Zadaphias. It is not a mere coincidence that the rise of Hindutva (even including the Congress variety followed after the second coming of Indira Gandhi through Narasimha Rao) has been closely correlated to the progress of liberalization, privatization, and globalization followed by the government. The BJP with a strength of two MPs in 1984 gets catapulted to power with 182 MPs in 1999. The resistance to Hindutva must necessarily target the forces of globalization also as its enemy. 6. Hindutva is the ideology of the ruling class and therefore it is futile to expect any alternative out of the mainstream politics. The last Gujarat elections have clearly shown that the hard Hindutva of the BJP cannot be countered by supporting the soft Hindutva of the Congress. It must be remembered that the egg of this monster was laid during the reign of Indira Gandhi and it became a recognizable reptile during Rajiv Gandhi’s times. The Parivar just hijacked it and made it into a monster that we face today! Therefore, the effective counter to fascism can never be articulated through a conventional parliamentary medium. 7. Hindutva is a fascist movement. Fascism relies on mass frenzy whipped around certain myths. It does not leave any space for reason. History shows that fascism can only be effectively countered in street battles. The mass movement against fascism has to be proactively directed to battle on the streets. These street battles may orient and influence parliamentary processes, but the latter cannot be relied upon as a primary counter. 8. While Hindutva could be resisted by people coming on the streets, its ally—imperialism—brings in the state in its support. The resistance to Hindutva has to necessarily take into account this composite force. It might necessitate a viable defensive strategy to the military offensive of imperialism. Exact methods to create this defensive apparatus will depend on the state of mass organization, gravity of the situation and the available resources.

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9. The root cause for Hindutva lies in the weakness of leftism in this country. The leftist forces have consistently refused to learn through history. Their doctrinaire approach has variously reflected the essence of brahminism, which is antithetical to the cause they intend to espouse. In the semi-feudal, semi-colonial country, the contradictions between peasantry and land owning gentry are distorted by fault lines of caste. Its manifest form is always Dalits versus all others, as the pattern of atrocities on Dalits reveal. It is imperative for the leftist forces therefore to have a conscious programme to combat caste integrated within the agenda of class struggle. Rather the class struggle in India must necessarily embed caste struggle. They have to come clearly in support of the Dalits against all upper castes without any vacillations. That alone can win them Dalit confidence. That alone shall decide the fate of the anti-Hindutva struggle.

THE SUPREME COURT, MEDIA AND UCC DEBATE

12

FLAVIA AGNES

INTRODUCTION

P

eriodic pronouncements by the Supreme Court urging the state to enact a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) have received wide media publicity. The myriad opinions expressed in support of the UCC are governed by three distinct undertones—gender equality, national integration, and concepts of modernity embedded within notions of middle-class morality. The gender concerns project the demand for an all-encompassing and uniform code as a magic wand which will ameliorate the woes and sufferings of Indian women in general and Muslim women in particular. This concern places gender as a neutral terrain, distanced from contemporary political processes. From this point of view, the agency for change within communities becomes highly suspect. Minority women are projected as lacking a voice and an agency either in their own communities, or through the process of litigation to claim their rights within existing structures, or to bring in changes which are egalitarian and gender just. It projects state intervention in the form of an enactment of a uniform code as the only option to bestow gender justice upon minority women. At another level, for the liberal, modern, English educated, middle classes (both from the majority and minority communities), the demand is laden with a moral undertone of abolishing polygamy and other ‘barbaric’ customs of the minorities and extending to them the egalitarian

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Flavia Agnes

code of the ‘enlightened majority’. This position relies upon the western model of the nation state and liberal democracy, and scorns simultaneous sexual relationships in the nature of polygamous marriages in the name of modernity, but at the same time endorses sequential plurality of sexual relationships (through frequent divorces), and also the more recent trends of informal cohabitations which have gained legitimacy in the West. Within a communally vitiated political climate, the demand also voices concerns of ‘national integration’ and ‘communal harmony’ and projects Muslims as the ‘other’, both of Hindus and the nation. At times the distinction between these two terms collapses and they become interchangeable. It is projected that in order to be one country, one nation, and in order that citizens receive equal treatment, everyone has to be governed by the same laws. It is indeed a matter of grave concern that this position, advocated by the Hindu right wing, received a boost through judgements pronounced by the Supreme Court of a secular state, and more often than not by the presiding chief justice, carrying either veiled or direct inferences which were often totally out of context to the issues litigated before it. It is interesting to note that no matter what the core issue litigated before the apex court, the comments regarding the enactment of a UCC are always made in reference to ‘national integration’ and either a veiled or direct insinuation against Muslim law, thus creating a myth that Hindus are governed by secular, egalitarian, and gender-just family code and it was high time that this code was extended to Muslims to usher in modernity and gender equality among them. This posture of the apex court gets affirmed when we examine the constitutional challenges to archaic provisions under the Hindu law. For instance, when in 1984 the Delhi High Court affirmed an archaic provision of restitution of conjugal rights under Hindu Marriage Law which was challenged on the basis that it violates the provision of equality under Article 14 and freedom under Article 21, not only was there no mention of a UCC and ‘national integration’ but the court went further and ruled: ‘Introduction of constitutional law in the home is most inappropriate. It is like pushing a bull into a china shop. It will prove to be a ruthless destroyer of the marriage institution and all that it stands for. In the privacy of the home and married life, neither Art. 21 nor Art. 14 have any place.’1 Later in the same year, the Supreme Court affirmed this decision in the Saroj Rani2 1 2

Harvinder Kaur v Harminder Singh, AIR 1984 Del 66. Saroj Rani v Sudarshan, AIR 1984 SC 1562.

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case and overruled the Andhra Pradesh ruling which had struck down this provision as unconstitutional.3 While the blame for igniting the controversy must lie primarily with the Supreme Court, the blame for repeatedly fanning it and keeping the issue alive in popular parlance lies with the media as this controversy makes a ‘good copy’. While the Shah Bano4 judgement provided the first impetus for highlighting the polarized opinions into mutually exclusive segments—those in support of a UCC as modern, secular, rational, and gender just, and those opposing it as fundamentalist, orthodox, male chauvinist, communal, and obscurantist—it has continued to frame the issue within these binaries even when the lines between these two sections have become blurred. In the two decades since the Shah Bano ruling, the ground realities have changed considerably. The demolition of the Babri Masjid, the rise of the Hindu right wing, the attacks on Christian and Muslim communities and, more particularly, the gruesome sexual violence upon Muslim women during the recent Gujarat carnage, the altered situation of Muslim women’s economic rights after the Supreme Court ruling in the Daniel Latifi5 case have all been factors that have necessitated a re-examination of the earlier call for a UCC, ostensibly to secure the rights of minority women. Many progressive groups and some women’s organizations no longer support this demand. Even the Muslim intelligentsia, which during the Shah Bano controversy spoke out in favour of UCC, has changed its position in the context of a threatened Muslim identity. What is even more relevant is that the BJP, the dominant segment of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition, itself did not foreground the debate during the five years that it was in power, though this was one of its major election planks (along with the building of the Mandir at Ayodhya and abolition of Article 370 of the Constitution—a cultural thrishul—the three pronged attack against Muslims). This demand was not included in the NDA election manifesto during the last polls in which the NDA alliance was voted out of power. It almost seemed as if the BJP had to dilute its Hindutva card for the sake of keeping the NDA coalition intact. Despite this, polarization in the media continues and the same old controversy gets whipped up time and again and is savoured with relish by the English speaking urban, liberal, middle class. This class, which is 3 4 5

T. Sareetha v T. Venkatasubbiah, AIR 1983 AP 356. Mohd. Ahmed Khan v Shahbano Begam, AIR 1985 SC 945. 2001 CriLJ 4660.

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otherwise indifferent to political processes of the country, becomes the ardent defender of the demand for the UCC. Every time the Supreme Court makes a comment, what one sees in the media are images of purdah clad Muslim women and opinions of Muslim religious leaders opposing the demand. Many times in the media reports, the core issues litigated before the Supreme Court are blurred and the call for a UCC is projected as a pronouncement against the Muslim minority. My concern in this chapter is to examine the core issues litigated before the court in each of these cases, their co-relationship to the demand for a UCC, and the subsequent media projection of the cases which rendered the rulings as anti-Muslim pronouncements. The first and as yet the most widely acclaimed among these is the Shah Bano6 judgement pronounced in 1985 by a Constitutional Bench headed by the then Chief Justice Y.V. Chandrachud; the second, the Sarla Mudgal7 judgement pronounced in 1995 by the Division Bench headed by Justice Kuldip Singh; and the most recent, by a Division Bench headed by Chief Justice V.N. Khare in the John Vallamattom case pronounced in 2003. The judgements are analysed not only within their legal entirety but also their social, political and economic ramifications to gender equality and minority identity.

JOHN VALLAMATTOM JUDGEMENT ON TESTAMENTARY DISPOSITION FOR CHARITABLE PURPOSES BY CHRISTIANS Let me begin this exploration with the most recent and least known Supreme Court pronouncement. On 21 August 2003, Chief Justice V.N. Khare gave a call for the enactment of the UCC. The remarks for enacting the UCC were part of a ruling which held S.118 of the Indian Succession Act as unconstitutional and discriminatory. Who had filed this writ petition, what was the core issue before the court, whether it had any link to gender justice or national integration became immaterial in the wake of the renewed fervour to highlight the UCC debate. The newspapers and magazines solicited comments from two mutually exclusive groups— spokespersons of the Muslim religious leadership and women’s rights activists. But before jumping into the bandwagon of UCC, few journalists 6 7

Supra, n. 4. Sarla Mudgal v Union of India (1995), 3 SCC 635.

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and ‘experts’ paused to shed some light on the co-relationship between the Supreme Court verdict, gender justice, national integration, and the UCC. The petitioner, a Roman Catholic priest had challenged S.118 of the Indian Succession Act which is reproduced below: ‘Bequest to Religious or Charitable uses—No man having a nephew or niece or any nearer relative shall have power to bequeath any property to religious or charitable uses, except by a will executed not less than twelve months before his death, and deposited within six months from its execution in some place provided by law for the safe custody of the will of living persons.’ The underlying principle contained in Section 118 of the Act indisputably was to prevent persons from making ill-considered death bed bequest under religious influence. This section had its roots in an ancient British statute of 1735 known as ‘Charitable Uses Act, 1735’ and was enacted for the purpose described earlier, at a time when the church regulated all land transactions and wielded great influence upon its flock. Through this, the British Crown sought to curtail and regulate the power of the church over its flock. In 1888 the earlier statute was repealed and this provision was included in another statute titled Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act, 1888. Ultimately, since the statute had lost its relevance (basically, since the church had ceased to exercise such power over its people) the British Parliament, by an Act known as Charities Act, 1960 repealed this provision. Interestingly, despite the severe restrictions against bequests of land for religious-charitable purposes, the Mortmain statute had exempted gifts of land of any size for public parks, museums, universities, colleges or to any local authority, etc. The Indian Legislature, while enacting the Indian Succession Act, 1925, advertently or inadvertently, omitted these exemptions and hence S.118 of the Indian Succession Act was even more restrictive of personal freedom than the parent statute. Such archaic remnants of the English principles are found in almost all Indian (or for that matter, South Asian) statutes. The Indian Contract Act, the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Transfer of Property Act and many other statutes contain a generous sampling of irrational, outdated, and sexist provisions which have been retained even after they have been either struck down or amended in the country of origin. The exemption in favour of marital rape8 and the sexist provision of adultery9 under the 8 9

Exception to S.375 of IPC. S.497 of IPC.

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IPC, the out dated and sexist provisions of public morality under the Indian Contract Act10 which prohibits ante-natal contractual agreements regarding settlements in favour of women in the eventuality of a divorce, etc., are merely the tip of the iceberg. Some of these have been upheld despite litigations challenging the constitutional validity of these stipulations11 or have been retained even after the relevant section has been amended.12 The petitioner, John Vallamattom, through the present petition, challenged the violation of personal freedoms on the ground that since the original statute upon which this stipulation was based had been repealed in England, there could not be any reasonable justification for retaining the same in the Indian statute. Since this discriminative provision had already been struck down by the Division Bench of the Kerala High Court in 1998,13 the task before the Supreme Court was a simple and easy one. Answering the short question before it regarding the constitutional validity of S.118 of the Indian Succession Act, the Supreme Court ruled: A charitable disposition of property for the benefit of the public in the advancement of religion, knowledge, commerce, health, safety, or any other object beneficial to the mankind has specifically been acknowledged not only in different religious texts but also in different statutes. Charitable purpose includes relief to poor, education, medical relief, advancement of objects of public utility, etc. Charitable purposes are philanthropic and since a person’s freedom to dispose of property for such purposes has nothing to do with religious influence, the impugned provision treating bequests for both religious and charitable purposes is discriminatory and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. Assuming that the purpose of Section 118 of the Act is to prevent bequest of property under religious influence, there is no justification in restricting testamentary disposition of property for charitable purpose. Once it is held that the underlying purpose for enacting the said provision was merely to thwart influence exercised by people professing religion resulting in death-bed disposition, having regard to the fact that such a contingency has adequately been taken care in other provisions under the Act, the purpose and object of the Act must be held to be non-existent. 10

S.23 of ICA. This provision was challenged and the Supreme Court upheld its constitutional validity in Revati v Union of India, AIR 1988 SC 835. 12 For instance, the amendment to rape law in 1983 retained the exemption of marital rape despite opposition from women’s groups. 13 Preman v Union of India, 1998 (2) KLT 1004. 11

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Based on this reasoning, the Supreme Court struck down S. 118 of the Indian Succession Act as being unreasonable, arbitrary, and discriminatory and therefore violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. While striking down the provision, the court also relied upon the Declaration on the Right to Development adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights of which India is a signatory, and on Article 18 of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966 which provides as follows: Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching. Freedom to manifest ones own religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedom of others.

As one can observe from these discussions, the question before the court was not of gender justice or national integration, but that of personal freedom of a Christian priest. Contrary to popular belief, through this petition, the petitioner-priest sought to protect his right of religion freedom and the right to follow the dictates of one’s religion. While defending cultural plurality of belief, worship and practice by invoking the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, the court ruled in favour of religious minorities, by upholding their right of religiouscharitable bequests. The court held that violation of this right amounted to discrimination under Article 14 of the Constitution. Yet, this judgement became popularly known as one in favour of the Hindu right wing’s anti-minority demand for a UCC. How did this happen? The blame lies not just with the courts and the media but also with the petitioner. In order to strengthen his case, the petitioner advanced a rather unwarranted argument that it is an essential and integral part of Christian faith to contribute for religious and charitable purpose, and the stipulation under S.118 violates the right to freedom of conscience guaranteed under Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution of India. It is in this context that the court explained: Article 25 provides freedom of ‘profession’ meaning thereby the right of the believer to state his creed in public and freedom of practice meaning his right to give it expression in forms of private and public worships. A

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disposition towards making gift for charitable or religious purpose may be a pious act of a person but the same cannot be said to be an integral part of any religion. It is not the case of the petitioners that the religion of Christianity commands gift for charitable or religious purpose compulsory or the same is regarded as such by the community following Christianity. Disposition of property for religious and charitable purpose is recommended in all the religions, but the same cannot be said to be an integral part of it. If a person professing Christian religion does not show any inclination of disposition towards charitable or religious purposes, he does not cease to be a Christian. Even certain practices adopted by the persons professing a particular religion may not have anything to do with the religion itself. Article 25 merely protects the freedom to practice rituals and ceremonies etc. which are only the integral parts of the religion. Article 25 of the Constitution of India will, therefore, not have any application in the instant case.

Had the petitioner not pressed the argument of violation of rights under Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution, he would still have won the case and secured his rights (and that of others in his community) of testamentary bequests for religious charitable purposes. At the other end, even if the issue had been raised, the court could have answered the issue in the negative and the matter would have ended there. But out of the blue, Chief Justice Khare went on to add a comment, totally out of context to the core issue before him in the following words: Before I part with the case, I would like to state that Article 44 provides that the State shall endeavour to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India. The aforesaid provision is based on the premise that there is no necessary connection between religious and personal law in a civilized society. Article 25 of the Constitution confers freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion. The aforesaid two provisions viz. Articles 25 and 44 show that the former guarantees religious freedom whereas the latter divests religion from social relations and personal law. It is no matter of doubt that marriage, succession and the like matters of a secular character cannot be brought within the guarantee enshrined under Articles 25 and 26 of the Constitution. It is a matter of regret that Article 44 of the Constitution has not been given effect to. Parliament is still to take step in for framing a common civil code in the country. A common civil code will help the cause of national integration by removing the contradictions based on ideologies.

The link between the Christian priest’s personal freedom to make a bequest of religious charitable nature and the issue of national integration

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through the enactment of a UCC was not explained and the reader was left guessing. But this comment provided the fuel for the media to interpret the judgement as one that was anti-minority and pro-UCC, rather than a judgement in defence of personal freedoms and cultural plurality. Ironically, the next day and through the weeks that followed, the newspapers were flooded with reports and editorials on UCC with quotes from Muslim religious leadership and Muslim intelligentsia on one end and women’s rights activists at the other, while the judgement itself was of relevance neither to the Muslim identity nor women’s rights.

THE SARLA MUDGAL14 JUDGEMENT CONVERSION AND BIGAMY

ON

The second significant judgement on this issue is the Supreme Court verdict on conversion and bigamy by Hindu men in the Sarla Mudgal case. Here again, neither Muslim law nor rights of Muslim women were the core issues before the court. The court was examining the validity of a Hindu marriage contracted between a Hindu man and a Hindu woman, and the subsequent marriage by this man to a subsequent woman, also a Hindu, contracted after a fraudulent conversion to Islam. But the parties to both marriages continued to be Hindus and practiced Hindu religion and rites. It was not the claim of any of them that they are now Muslims. So in a nutshell, the court was examining the rights of two Hindu wives of a bigamous Hindu husband. There was no Muslim before the court and the gender inequality within Muslim law was not an issue. But unfortunately, the judgement and the media publicity that followed focused primarily on the issue of UCC in the context of nation, national integration, and minority identity. Yet, in the much publicized judgement delivered by Justice Kuldip Singh, the court commented: Since Hindus along with Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains have forsaken their sentiments in the cause of the national unity and integration, some other communities would not, though the Constitution enjoins the establishment of a common civil code for the whole of India . . . . Those who 14

Supra, n. 7.

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preferred to remain in India after the partition, fully knew that the Indian leaders did not believe in two-nation or three-nation theory and that in the Indian Republic there was to be only one Nation, the Indian Nation and no community could claim to remain a separate entity on the basis of religion. In this view of the matter no community can oppose the introduction of common civil code for all citizens in the territory of India.

The obvious reference to partition and to the choice to remain in India are targeted towards the Muslim minority as Parsis and Christians did not have any choice in the matter. The discourse of choosing to remain in India after partition has long been a warning to Indian Muslims from the Hindu right. The reference to civilized and human in relation to the UCC suggests that those who oppose the code (read Muslims) are barbaric and uncivilized. The comments also seem to suggest that Hindus are governed by a secular and gender-just family law and that Muslims as a community are the uncivilized enemy to national integrity because they follow their own personal law. Kapur and Cossman15 have argued that the language of the judgement in deflecting attention away from the continuing religious and discriminatory aspects of Hindu personal law and in attacking the Muslim community is disturbingly similar to the political rhetoric of the Hindu right. In this view, all religious communities must be treated the same and it is the dominant Hindu community which is to be the norm against which equality is judged. But the norm of monogamy of the Hindu society, which was the issue under scrutiny before the apex court, escaped all public debate. The spotlight was turned on polygamy of Muslim men and the plight of Muslim women and solution offered to liberate Muslim women was the immediate enforcement of a UCC. There was also a hint that the uniform code would render Hindu marriages more stable by curbing the bigamous tendencies of Hindu men. A reading of the judgement seemed to indicate that the only breach of monogamy among Hindus was by conversion to Islam. To quote from the judgement, ‘. . . there is an open inducement to a Hindu husband, who wants to enter into a second marriage to become a Muslim . . . .’ The norm of Hindu monogamy presumed by the judgement needs further scrutiny. Monogamy was introduced among the Hindus through

15

Ratna Kapur and Brenda Cossman, Subversive Sites (New Delhi : Sage Publications, 1995).

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the Hindu Marriage Act in 1955. Prior to this, Hindu men were absolved of the criminal consequences of bigamy under S.494 of IPC. After 1955, a Hindu wife could divorce her husband on the ground of bigamy and also prosecute him under the penal law. The right to dissolve the marriage on the ground of bigamy is also available to a Muslim wife under the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act. The additional relief that the Hindu wife can avail of is criminal prosecution for bigamy. But since only the first wife can initiate prosecution, a popular notion prevails that a Hindu husband can remarry with the consent of his wife and at a practical level, this notion is not far from the truth. So although on paper the position of a Hindu wife appeared slightly better than a Muslim wife in respect of her husband’s bigamy, the statistics of bigamous marriages among Hindus and Muslims are comparable. By declaring that the earlier marriage was valid, the only legal remedy (apart from a petition for divorce on the ground of bigamy) that the litigating women were entitled to is a prosecution for bigamy. It is in this context that judicial attitude towards bigamy by Hindu men has to be posed as the central issue. The judgement seemed to indicate that the judiciary has dealt severely with all breaches of monogamy among the Hindus and the only loophole through which a husband can escape is conversion. But an examination of the decisions of the Supreme Court and the various High Courts reveal that bigamy of the Hindu male persists despite statutory restrains and judicial attitude has been extremely lax towards Hindu bigamy. Ten years after the provision of monogamy was introduced, the Supreme Court dealt with the case of Bhaurao Lokhande.16 The errant husband was convicted by the lower courts. But the apex court acquitted the husband on the ground that essential ceremonies for a valid Hindu marriage—vivaha homa and saptapadi (invocation before the sacred fire and the seven rounds) had not been performed in the second marriage. The court ruled that the bare fact of a man and a woman living as husband and wife does not give them the status of husband and wife unless valid ceremonies of a marriage have been performed and hence such cohabitation would not warrant conviction under S.494 of IPC. This principle was followed by the Supreme Court in 1966 in the Kanwal Ram17 and in 1971 in the Priya Bala cases.18 While acquitting the 16 17 18

Bhaurao Lokhande v State of Maharashtra, AIR 1965 SC 1564. Kanwal Ram and Ors v The H.P. Administration, AIR 1966 SC 614. Priya Bala Ghosh v Suresh Chandra Ghosh, AIR 1971 SC 1153.

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errant husbands, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that proof of essential ceremonies is a precondition for conviction. The court further ruled that this condition must be met even when the husband and the second wife admit the marriage or the fact of cohabitation. In the intervening period of 30 years from Bhaurao in 1965 to Sarla Mudgal in 1995, the various High Courts not only followed the trend set by the Supreme Court, but in their zeal advanced the logic to absurd ends, stumping out all hopes of justice and fairness in criminal prosecutions. Ceremonies performed in a temple, registration with the caste panchayats or temple authorities or even with a civil registrar fell short of the degree of clinching proof which the first wife was expected to produce. The paternity of the child of a second marriage if proved could only lead to its bastardization and not proof of bigamy by its father. The complainant wife could also lay herself open to the risk of invalidating her existing marriage.19 The decisions ignored the reality of a pluralistic Hindu society and thrust upon it an absurd notion of uniformity. The second marriages of lower castes were judged by the yardstick which can only be applied to marriages of upper caste virgin brides. The lower castes did not follow the brahminical rituals, permitted divorce and remarriage prior to the Hindu Marriage Act and followed distinct ceremonies to distinguish the first and the second marriage. Hence a remarriage of a lower caste person could never meet the high judicial standards set by the courts in coordination with the provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act. A discernible pattern emerging from prosecution for bigamy is conviction by the lower judiciary and leniency by the apex court. The higher judiciary rescued the errant husbands by applying the standards of brahminical rituals of homa, saptapadi, and kanyadan. The complexities of bigamous Hindu marriages and the afflictions of both the first and the second wife were addressed neither by the courts nor by the media while the focus continued to remain on Muslim bigamy. The Supreme Court declined to address the issue of various fraudulent means which the husbands’ adopt to escape the stipulation of monogamy under the Hindu Marriage Act and restricted itself to a pronouncement on the unpatriotic approach of the Muslim community in holding on to their own personal law. 19

For a detailed discussion on this issue see Flavia Agnes, ‘Hindu Men, Monogamy and the Uniform Civil Code’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. XXX, no. 50 (1995), p. 3238.

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SHAH BANO JUDGEMENT20 AND RIGHTS OF DIVORCED MUSLIM WOMEN The earliest among the three judgements discussed in this chapter, was delivered by a Constitutional Bench headed by the then Chief Justice Y.V. Chandrachud in 1985 in the Shah Bano case. This judgement set the tone for communalization of the demand for a UCC and for projecting the Muslim law as backward and anti-women. Until then, and more particularly in the 1950s when the debate around the Hindu Code Bill was raging, it was the Hindu law that was projected as ‘archaic and anti-women’ and in comparison, the laws of the minorities were far more progressive and modern. The ruling is significant also because, among the three rulings on UCC, this alone had a Muslim woman at its centre and hence the controversy it created surpassed the others. In fact the media debates following the subsequent ruling were only churning up the old hash and remarketing it as new debates. The facts of the case are now history and hence do not merit an elaborate discussion at this juncture. For the purpose of this chapter, it would suffice to mention that the Supreme Court elected to comment upon Islam and the Muslim Personal Law while deciding the right of maintenance under a secular and uniform statute for the first time since independence. But this was not the first instance of the apex court upholding the rights of a Muslim woman for maintenance under S.125 Cr.PC. Two significant decisions of the Supreme Court delivered by Justice Krishna Iyer in 197921 and 198022 had placed the divorced Muslim woman’s right of maintenance under this provision upon a secure footing without arousing a political controversy These decisions examined the right of Muslim women from the context of social justice. The unwarranted comments and the uncalled for demand for UCC, while debating the rights under a secular statute in the Shah Bano ruling evoked a communal backlash. Relenting to the pressure exerted by the Muslim orthodoxy, the government introduced the Muslim Women’s Bill which sought to exclude divorced Muslim women from the purview of S.125 Cr.PC. This move by the ruling Congress party headed by Rajiv 20 21 22

Supra, n. 4. Bai Tahira v Ali Hussain Fissali, Air 1979 SC 362. Fuzlunbi v K. Khadir Vali, AIR 1980 SC 1730.

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Gandhi, came to be projected as the most glaring instance of the defeat of the principle of gender justice for Indian women, as well as the defeat of secular principles within the Indian polity. This move met with severe opposition from secular and women’s rights groups. As the debate progressed, the media projected two insular and mutually exclusive positions, those who opposed the Bill and supported the demand for a UCC as modern, secular and rational, while those in the opposing side as fundamentalist, orthodox, male chauvinist, communal and obscurantist. To be progressive, modern and secular was also to be nationalist and conversely the opposing faction could be labelled as anti-national. As the controversy escalated, the Muslim was defined as the other, both of the nation and of Hindus. Muslims in turn could be mobilized to view this as yet another threat to their tenuous security. The rigid approach of the Muslim leadership provided further fuel to the Hindu right wing forces in their anti-Muslim propaganda. The Muslim intelligentsia distanced itself from the opinion of the Muslim religious leadership and approached the government with a Petition supporting the judgement and opposed the proposed Bill. Ironically, the fury which was whipped up seemed to be divorced from the core component of the controversy, a paltry sum of Rs 179.20 per month, far too inadequate to save the 73-year-old ex-wife of a successful Kanpur-based lawyer, from vagrancy and penury. The raging controversy and the communal turn of events finally led Shah Bano herself to make a public declaration renouncing her claim, strengthening the popular misconception that Islam subverts economic rights of women. If this entitlement was against her religion, she declared, she would rather be a devout Muslim than claim her right of maintenance. A sad comment indeed, warranting reflection from campaigners on both sides of the divide. The statute, passed under a party whip, led to a further strengthening of the Muslim appeasement theory in judicial discourse and in popular media at one end and crystallized the anti-UCC position among Muslim religious leadership at the other. Once the Act came into effect, the protesting groups were left with no option but to appeal to the judicial sensitivity to set right the wrongs caused to Muslim women by the legislature. The hurriedly drafted and hastily enacted statute was full of contradictions and loopholes. But despite its limitations, the Act was of immense historical significance as the first attempt of independent India to codify the Muslim Personal Law. But the positions across the divide were so rigid

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by then, that they left no space to contemplate upon this milestone in the history of personal laws in India. It is when the dust raised by the controversy settled down that one could examine the relevance of this statute titled, Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 (MWA for short) to the divorced Muslim woman. But since it was enacted amidst protests from women’s rights groups and progressive social organizations, it was viewed with suspicion and foreboding by these sections. Hence the first response of the protesting groups was to challenge its constitutionality, rather than examine its viability. While the writ petitions were pending in the Supreme Court, the Act gradually unfolded itself in the lower courts. Appeals from the decisions of various High Courts gradually started accumulating along with the original writ petitions. What was intriguing was that while the writ petitions were filed by groups agitating for women’s rights, the appeals were from husbands aggrieved by the verdicts of various High Courts. Since the Act was passed amidst protests from rights lobbies, writ petitions challenging its constitutionality by these segments seemed to be in order. But difficult to rationalize were the appeals, which were filed by husbands, that started accumulating from the rulings of various High Courts. If indeed the Act was depriving women of their pre-existing rights and was enabling husbands to wriggle out of their economic liability towards their ex-wives, why were the husbands finding themselves aggrieved by the orders passed under a blatantly anti-women statute? Lurking beneath this observation was a faint suspicion that perhaps the ways in which the Act was unfolding itself in the lower courts, was indicative of a different reality defying the premonitions. This fascinating phenomenon provided the first indication that perhaps the ill-famed Act could be invoked to secure the rights of divorced Muslim women. Hence, it became expedient to examine whether the new Act provided Muslim women with a more viable and feasible alternative to the prevailing remedy under S.125 Cr.PC. by invoking Islamic principles of a ‘fair and reasonable settlement’. A seemingly innocuous clause, which had missed the attention of protesters and defenders alike, had been invoked by a section of the lower judiciary to pronounce judgements which provided greater scope for protection against destitution. Section 3(1)(a) of the Act stipulated that a divorced Muslim woman is entitled to ‘a reasonable and fair provision and maintenance to be made and paid to her within the iddat period by her former husband’. This clause, along with the preamble, ‘An Act to protect the rights of Muslim women who have been divorced by, or have

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obtained divorce from their husbands . . . .’, had been invoked by the judiciary in defence of Muslim women’s rights. Though initially just a trickle, the judgements were a pointer towards a possibility. They affirmed that the new Act was to protect the rights of divorced Muslim women and not deprive them of their rights. They further stressed that any ambiguity within Clause (1)(a) of Section 3, must be interpreted in such a manner as to reconcile with the proclamation contained in the title of the Act. Banishing divorced women to a life of destitution would not amount to protecting their rights as stipulated by the statute, they declared. Suddenly, the lump sum provisions for future security, which the courts were awarding within the framework of Islamic principles, seemed to be a better safeguard against destitution than the meagre sums which women were entitled to under S.125 Cr.PC through a monthly recurring entitlement. A reading of the judgements indicates that the Act had rid itself of the agenda of alleviating vagrancy and destitution among divorced women and had extended itself to the claims of women from a higher social strata, than merely those who live below the poverty line. The statute enacted in haste, at the insistence of the conservative leadership, seemed to have boomeranged. In a significant number of cases, a concerned and sensitive judiciary carved out a space for the protection of women’s rights from what appeared to be an erroneously conceived, badly formulated, and blatantly discriminatory statute without invoking a political backlash. Endorsing the spirit of Islam and the shariah and reflecting the sensitivity of the Prophet, who is hailed as the greatest champion of women’s rights the world has ever seen, the courts read into the statute, notions of justice and equity. Doing precisely what the Act in its title proclaimed, protection of rights of divorced Muslim women, the judiciary turned what had initially appeared to be a misnomer and a mockery into a factual reality and ushered in a silent revolution in the realm of Muslim woman’s rights. It would indeed have been tragic if these concerted efforts were invalidated through a single stroke of the pen from the apex court. The most significant issue which emerged out of the enactment revolved around the stipulation of ‘a fair and reasonable provision’. Drawing on the Islamic concept of mataaoon bil ma’aroofe (fair and reasonable provision), several High Courts opened a new portal for the protection of divorced Muslim women. The remedy, which the courts so carefully crafted out of the controversial legislation, in fact, seems to provide a better safeguard, than the earlier anti-vagrancy provision under S.125 Cr.PC.

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The first significant judgment on this issue was pronounced by Justice M.B. Shah, then presiding over the Gujarat High Court, on 18 February 1988.23 But even before this, the dice was cast in women’s favour by a woman judicial magistrate in Lucknow on 6 January 1988. The woman concerned, Fathima Sardar, was awarded Rs 85,000 as maintenance during iddat period, mehr entitlement and fair and reasonable provision. Following the judgement of the Gujarat High Court, the Kerala High Court upheld this view in two significant rulings.24 These judgements were pronounced in the months of July and August 1988 respectively. In another unreported judgement, the Kerala High Court upheld the woman’s right to Rs 300,000 as a fair and reasonable provision and also awarded Rs 7,500 as maintenance during the iddat period.25 Soon several High Courts followed suit. In the years that followed, the full benches of Punjab and Haryana and Bombay, the division benches of Bombay, Kerala, Madras and Calcutta and single judges of several other High Courts upheld this view. The courts ruled that even when a wife has some source of income the right under S.3 of the MWA is not extinguished. But the controversy regarding the constitutional validity of the Act prevailed and not just the media, but also secular and progressive groups and women’s rights lobbies continued to drum the same old tune that the Act has deprived divorced Muslim women of their crucial rights. Also certain High Courts had given a contrary ruling and rights of Muslim women varied depending upon the High Courts under whose jurisdiction they happen to reside. Finally, the entire controversy was laid to rest and uniformity was assured through a ruling of the apex court pronounced on 28 September 2001. A five judge bench headed by Justice G.B. Pattanaik unanimously declared that the Act is constitutionally valid and upheld the positive interpretations given by various trial courts in respect of fair and reasonable settlement for a life time!

MUSLIM WOMEN, DOMINANT IDEOLOGIES

AND THE

MEDIA

Law is not merely a statute, but its essence lies in the manner in which it is unfolded in law courts. The empty words of a statute come to life 23 24 25

Arab Ahemadhia Abdulla v Arab Bail Mohmuna Saiyadbhai, AIR 1988 Guj 141. Ali v Sufaira 1988 (2) KLT 94 and Aliyar v Pathu, 1988 (2) KLT 172. P.K. Saru v P.A. Halim.

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in the trial courts where they are contested, interpreted, and validated. Right from 1988, the courts have engineered women’s rights through innovative interpretations, ushering in a new set of rights within the established principles of Muslim law. The lower judiciary gave a clear verdict in favour of a ‘fair and reasonable provision’ for the divorced Muslim woman. Several judges in trial courts declared that ‘provision’ contemplates ‘future needs’ and that the Parliament has replaced one set of obligations of a Muslim husband with another. The claim under the MWA does not operate through a rider of sexual purity or postdivorce chastity, unlike S.125 of Cr.PC the original provision under which Shah Bano was awarded maintenance. The judicial pronouncements delivered divorced Muslim women from the cumbersome burden of recurring monthly dues, which hinged upon post-divorce chastity. The historic ruling of the Constitutional Bench in Daniel Latifi case finally put its seal of approval on the interpretations given by the lower judiciary. But rather unfortunately, within the communally vitiated atmosphere, the advances made by divorced Muslim women under the provisions of the MWA have been made invisible and glossed over by the media. During the Shah Bano controversy, the denial of rights of a meagre maintenance dole was lamented by all and sundry, not withstanding the fact that the maintenance awarded to the wife of an advocate with a flourishing practice was just Rs 25 in the first instance and Rs 179 in appeal. So long as the debate could be used as a stick to beat the community with, these minor details did not seem to matter. What did matter is the fact that a communal campaign could be mounted upon a patriarchal paradigm and thereby legitimized. The demand for a UCC was couched as a ‘liberal and modernizing mission’. The irony lay in the fact that the groundwork for mounting this campaign was laid by the women’s movement, with genuine gender concerns, but firmly located within the cultural ethos of the mainstream. Within this framework, a similar appeasement of Hindus, by strengthening coparcenaries by various legislative measures, could be deliberately ignored. The ‘modernizing mission’ is an important tool for establishing racial and communal superiority and is used constantly by dominant classes and hegemonic cultures. During the colonial rule, the introduction of the Anglo-Saxon legal structure was seen by the British administrators as an important forte of its civilizing mission. Through this structure, it was projected that the Hindu society could rid itself of its barbarism and enter an era of

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‘civilization’. An image of the cruel and superstitious native who needed Christian salvation was deliberately constructed by the evangelists. Lata Mani, in her pathbreaking work on the colonial Sati discourse comments: ‘Tradition was not the ground on which the status of women was being contested. Rather the reverse was true—women in fact became the site on which tradition was debated and reformulated. What was at stake was not women but tradition. Women were neither subject, nor object but the ground . . . .’26 In another context, while discussing the discourse around Rukhmabai case on the colonial legal remedy of restitution of conjugal rights (decided by the Bombay High Court in 1884), Sudhir Chandra argues that it was not simply a ‘civil war’ involving different groups within the Indian society, but within the colonial ambience a war between the rulers and the ruled in which the two sought to distinguish their respective institutions, ideals, and values with regard to women, marriage, and family in order to claim superiority over the other. The issue of law and justice which figured prominently in the ensuing controversy, deepened the civilizational encounter between the ruled and the rulers.27 This discursive practice of using women’s rights and status in society as the ground on which tradition is reformulated was also deployed by the nationalist project to emancipate India from colonial rule. As was the case in the nineteenth century, tradition became the site for the elaboration of state power and in this instance, the power of the national state. The conflicts and contests between the orthodox/reactionary, the imperialist, and the reformist helped to carve out a new woman for the new nation. As Partha Chatterjee28 points out, the distinctiveness of the national culture and tradition was built around the conceptualization of a new form of femininity. This process inaugurated a new patriarchy to which the new woman was subjected. It explicitly distinguished itself from the patriarchy of indigenous tradition. The new woman, the bhadramahila or respectable woman was contrasted with the characteristic of the 26 Lata Mani, ‘Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in colonial India’, in Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid (eds), Recasting Women (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1989), p. 118. 27 Sudhir Chandra, ‘Enslaved Daughters’, in Flavia Agnes, Sudhir Chandra and Manmoyee Basu (eds), Women and Law in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004). 28 See Partha Chatterjee, ‘The Nationalist Resolution of the Women’s Question’, in Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid (eds), Recasting Women (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1989), pp. 233–53.

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‘common’ woman who was coarse, vulgar, loud and quarrelsome, sexually promiscuous and subjected to brutal physical oppression by males. Since the reform of women’s lives came to symbolize national sovereignty and the project of reform addressed the lives of Hindu middle class women, this demographic section came effectively to constitute the ‘nation’. Chatterjee also shows that the nationalist resolution of the women’s question, built on a system of dichotomies of the inner/outer, spiritual/ material, feminine/masculine, gave birth to a national state and a notion of rights and citizenship which was exclusive in that it applied to the new middle class. The project of reform, which located the state in the nationalist resolution of the women’s question, excluded those sections of the middle class which felt themselves culturally left out of the specific process of formation of the ‘nation’. Indian Muslims, for example, were left out of this hegemonic cultural construct of the nation. The hegemonic ‘national culture’ that was built through the above process also excluded vast masses of people who could never be culturally integrated with this concept.29 One needs to examine the invisibilizing of the Muslim woman’s struggle within the cultural construct of hegemonic claims. The communal fervour could be sustained only by denying the fact that the Act provided for an alternate remedy, far superior to the one that had been denied to Muslim women under S.125 Cr.PC; by negating the fact that since 1988, the Act was being positively interpreted by various High Courts in the country by awarding substantial amounts as ‘settlements’; by glossing over an important development in the realm of family law, that of determination of economic entitlements upon divorce, rather than the prevailing right of recurring maintenance. So even while homes of poor Muslim women were looted, gutted, and razed to the ground in various communal riots which broke out in the country, while teenage sons of Muslim women were killed at point blank ranges in police firings, while Muslim women were raped under flood lights in post-Babri Masjid demolition riots, the mainstream continued to lament over Muslim appeasement and denial of maintenance to ‘poor Muslim women/the Shahbanos’. One could overlook even this. Perhaps there was a justification. Denial of maintenance by husbands was perhaps as loathsome as rape of women in communal riots. In the ultimate analysis, it was the ‘poor Muslim

29

Ibid., p. 251.

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woman’ who suffered. So far so good. But how can one logically explain the recurring motif of ‘Muslim appeasement’ even after the Supreme Court decision in Daniel Latifi30 case, when the controversy was finally laid to rest by upholding the constitutional validity of the Act and simultaneously securing for the Muslim women maintenance rights which in actual terms are superior to the rights bestowed upon a Hindu woman? Yet, the rhetoric continues and is used yet again, in defence of the Gujarat carnage. ‘They had it coming. . . they have been ‘appeased’ beyond tolerance. Why should they demand a separate law in a secular country? Why should they be allowed to marry four times? Why are Hindus alone bound by an obligation of maintenance?’ What is startling is that the grievances are mouthed not only by Hindu extremists but also by centrists, the liberals, the people who inhabit my social space, the urban, cosmopolitan, middle class. Within the cultural ethos of the mainstream, an injustice to a Muslim wife gets magically transformed into a Hindu injury which could be invoked to justify communal carnage. Without this tacit approval by the middle class, the recent Gujarat carnage could never have spread so wide nor so deep. The rhetoric conveniently overlooks the fact that abandonment and destitution of wives is as rampant among Hindus; that the matrimonial faults of adultery and bigamy are evenly distributed across communities and that Hindus, Christians and Parsis, with equal zeal, guard the patriarchal prerogatives within their respective personal laws. Further, around 80 per cent of all women burnt in their matrimonial homes are urban middle class Hindus! That patriarchal prerogatives cannot be abandoned even when a law is being codified is something we have learnt in the process of Hindu law reforms. Even when codification is sought in the name of either ‘uniformity’, ‘national integration’ or as a ‘civilizing mission’ these prerogatives will be retained. The saving of Hindu undivided family (HUF) property under the Hindu Succession Act is a glaring example of this. The Hindu urban and rural propertied class and family business establishments have gained the maximum concessions of tax benefits due to this. Any move to abolish this even under the guise of a UCC will be opposed vehemently by this class, as it will upset their apple cart. For them, the UCC debate is confined to abolishing the ‘barbaric’ Muslim culture of polygamy and to liberate the Shah Banos, while simultaneously turning a blind eye to the sexual promiscuity and multiple sexual relations among them. The women bound in these relations can 30

Supra, n. 5.

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easily be discarded as ‘concubines’, ‘mistresses’ or partners of contractual agreements, maitreyee karars (this is the modern term for these alliances) lacking legal validity and devoid of any rights, as one experiences during contested claims of maintenance by these women. The symbolism becomes even more stark when one is confronted with the gruesome sexual violations of women during the recent carnage in Gujarat in 2002. While exploring possible legal portals to place these blood curdling barbarities, one hits a dead end at each turn. As one hears the narratives of young women, running helter-skelter, slipping, falling and becoming prey to the marauding mobs, their violated and mutilated bodies being thrown into open fires, the question keeps haunting: where and how does one pin the culpable? When violence of this scale supercedes the confines of criminal jurisprudence which is bound by conventions of proof and evidence, medical examinations and forensic reports, when criminal prosecution itself is a closed-end process in the hands of the state machinery, what legal measures can be invoked to bring justice to the dead and the surviving? It is then that the covenants of equality and equal protection mock you in the face. At the other end, there is a danger that these violations do not form part of ‘official records’ they can be conveniently negated as baseless allegations or normalized as routine occurrences. Viewed within this background, the struggles of individual divorced Muslim women who defied their culture and tradition and dictates of patriarchy have to be acknowledged as acts of assertion. But the struggle has not been easy. Divorced Muslim women had to fight every inch of the way for their rights, from the trial courts in small district towns right up to the Supreme Court. Their crucial right of survival hinged upon interpretations and explanations of simple words like ‘within/for’ ‘and/or’ ‘maintenance/provision’, disjunctures and conjuctures of words and phrases. The ambiguities which surfaced due to callous drafting, posed hurdles to women in their struggle to claim their rights. The Act provided ample scope to husbands to exploit the situation which led to protracted litigation beneficial to husbands and a nightmare to women. But women withstood the ordeal with courage and determination, with patience and perseverance and overcame the seemingly unsurmountable hurdles. Through this laborious process, the criteria for the civil right of divorce settlement has been taken out of the earlier legal premises such as ‘inablity to maintain’, ‘prevention of vagrancy’, ‘a dole to hold together body and soul’. After a decade-and-a-half, the end results of this persistent struggle are clearly discernible.

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In the final battle in the Supreme Court, both sides, the women’s rights groups who had challenged the constitutionality of the Act as well as the Muslim religious leadership who had pressed for their claim that the Muslim woman’s entitlement ought to be limited to three months of iddat period lost out. Who emerged victorious was the divorced Muslim woman who had waged a relentless battle to defend her rights. It is time the media took note of this silent revolution waged by individual Muslim women and acknowledge the fact of their agency in bringing about changes within their personal laws.

EDUCATIONAL BACKWARDNESS AMONG THE MUSLIMS IN INDIA: A CASE OF MISREPRESENTATION?

13

RANU JAIN*

H

indutva politics portrays Muslims as educationally backward and links this to the religious orientation of the community. Projecting the Muslims as a homogeneous unit, it depicts the community as being under the control of the religious leaders, for whom education is a tool for inculcating fundamentalist notions. In this ideological framework, madarasas promote terrorism and do not give much space to progressive learning. The view is ahistorical and does not accommodate the heterogeneity existing among the Muslim population. This chapter submits that just like other religious communities, the Muslim community has divergent educational experiences and contextual requirements. It states that when placed on class dimensions, one does not find much difference among the Muslims and other communities in the initial stage of educational achievements. However, the differences are conspicuous in the later stage. Further, the educational behaviour of the Muslims has regional and cultural variations. One feels that these variations and the levels of achievements have not been adequately captured in the text, which dwells on the political reaction, orthodoxy and backwardness among the Muslims, not bringing forth the progressive dimensions and also not exposing the political economic forces that have resulted in backwardness in the community. * The author is grateful to Prof. Ram Puniyani’s encouragement while writing this chapter, to Dr Abdul Shaban for critical comments, and to Mr Sai Prakash for assisting with statistical details.

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In this chapter attempts would be made to deconstruct the homogeneous image of the Muslims in India, especially the component of educational backwardness associated with it. Dwelling on the historically developed variations in the life situations and their impact on the educational behaviour of the individuals and the community, the chapter would submit a need to look at the educational backwardness of the Muslims beyond the religious orientation to the class character of the community. Due to the absence of substantial authentic data, the submissions are made at a hypothetical level.

A REACTIONARY IMAGE Failure to capture heterogeneity is rooted in the difficulty in procuring authentic data on the various segments of the Muslim population in a historical-spatial perspective. Although the Census of India, 2001, provides data on literacy by religion, these were not available in the earlier reports since 1931. This lacuna has made it difficult to draw trends across the Muslim population. Lately, certain independent studies have been conducted on the Muslim community. Although providing valuable insights on the local character of the community, these studies do not generate a national-level profile of the community. The writings on the Muslims in India focus on Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. This can be explained in terms of the concentration of the Muslim population in Indian states. According to Census 2001, 22.2 per cent of Muslims are in Uttar Pradesh and 14.6 per cent in West Bengal, followed by 9.9 per cent in Bihar. Together these constitute 46.7 per cent of the Muslim population in India. Other than these, Maharashtra holds 7 per cent, Assam 6 per cent, Kerala 5.7 per cent and Jammu & Kashmir 4.9 per cent of Muslims. Altogether these states hold around 70 per cent of Muslims (Bose 2005, p. 371). Concentration on Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal has created a major lacuna in developing a theory on the Muslims of India as the historical profile and life situations of the Muslims varies in different parts of the nation. The North Indian story is the story of invasions and of developing an identity reactionary to colonialism and two nation theories, while the decisive factors for East India are migration of the landed gentry to Pakistan/Bangladesh and the staying back of the poor converted class in India. In comparison, the history of South Indian Muslims focuses on

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trade; hence, it has a high possibility of depicting a picture of cooperation and peaceful coexistence that forms an integral part of trading culture. The continuing trade relations with the Gulf countries, however, have a possibility of developing a pan-Islamic identity. Although in the absence of authentic data it is difficult to make definite statements on the historical forces that might have shaped the Muslim community in India, one feels that focus on the three forces of trade, conversion, and active participation in politics might help in explaining differential power equations and acceptance levels of the community in India. As has been stated earlier, the image of Muslims in North India is mainly shaped in the political context of the two-nation theory. Somewhat reflecting the Hindutva ideology, the theory projects Pakistan as an aspiration and a role model for the Indian Muslims. Backwardness among the Muslims in this part of India is explained in terms of voluntary rejection of the state-offered opportunities by the community in memory of lost glory and in non-acceptance of the loss of power. For the nonMuslims of North India, the disintegration of India into India and Pakistan is an evidence of disloyalty and non-identification of the community with the Indian nation. Such a perception makes them hesitant towards extending minimum citizenship rights to the Muslims. They feel that having voted for Pakistan, the Muslims should reside in Pakistan. The fear of prosecution and discrimination, on the other hand, has obstructed the process of mass mobilization for citizenship rights within the Muslim community. Smith (1957, p. 264) has described the social conditions that have shaped the community in North India in an appropriate manner, The community in its present form was born in bloodshed and hatred . . . the gradually intensifying and shrill animosity that had gripped the land as the two great communities suffered misunderstanding and estrangement, then fear and acrid anger. The rejecting and being rejected of strident, frenzied communalism provided the background from which this community came, . . . to be a minority in a dominion whose general populace they considered, and who considered them, alien and bitterly hostile.

Smith talks about easy acceptance of some Muslims especially those who were recognized as nationalist, ‘The bulk of their community, however, neither trusting nor trusted, held aloof. It continued to cower; rejected, mistrusted and afraid’ (Ibid., pp. 264–65). In this atmosphere of distrust and rejection, the Muslims of North India have evolved their identity—an identity that is bound to extend negative influence on availing the opportunities offered to them. The

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problem magnified due to the migration of Muslim leaders out of India, which left the people deprived of effective leadership. Although migration of leaders was a process that affected the Muslims of entire India, its influence was severe in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The migration not only deprived the community of those who could have led it to progressive changes but also of those who could have funded the relevant programmes. In the words of Smith (Ibid., p. 277). . . . most of the productive centres of Islamic culture in India—from a semiclassical institution such as the Nadwah at Lucknow to a Westernizing journal such as Islamic Culture of Hyderabad—were chiefly financed either from landed property or from the largesse of princes; that is, from obsolescent remnants from an earlier age . . . . [The migration] left Muslim feudal institutions unprotected in an industrial-technological age.

The withdrawal of the power of the native princes and abolition of zamindari system were two other processes that drained the community resources to a large extent. Even when these policies affected other states of India, their impact was conspicuous on the Muslims of North and East India as the general trend in these states was of rejection of the stateoffered opportunities, which meant falling upon earlier accumulated resources. To quote Sonalkar (1993, p. 1345), Unlike among the Hindus, there was no indigenous Muslim capitalist class that developed under the British into a modern one. Those that did, migrated to Pakistan in 1947, with an exception of some Gujarati speaking Muslims in western India. They too did not go for industrialization in a big way but remained largely in trade or extension of traditional occupations. In the countryside, the post-independence land reform, incomplete though it may have been, impoverished many a Muslim landlord more thoroughly than it did many a Hindu zamindar.

Throwing light on how the image of backwardness got associated with the Muslims, writings on the Muslims of West Bengal, depict dynamics different from that of North India. These works also help in deconstructing the myth of the Muslims being a closed community. Ahmed (1981, p. 1) describes the intermixing among the non-Muslims and the Muslims vividly; A striking feature of the 1872 census of Bengal—the first ever to be taken in the area—was the discovery that Bengal proper, hitherto considered principally the domain of the Hindus, was inhabited by an unexpectedly

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large number of Muslims. Contrary to all expectations, the census revealed that nearly half, or 48 per cent, of the total population in Bengal proper were Muslims, the majority of whom lived in the marshy, low-lying tracts of eastern Bengal—the area covering roughly the present state of Bangladesh.

This means that the cultures of the Muslims and the Hindus were assimilated to such an extent as to make conspicuous visibility of the two religions difficult. In some parts of the state, especially the northeastern area, even the names, in particular the first names, were similar (Roy 1983, p. 30). Further, the concentration of the Muslim population was not found in the centres of Muslim power like Dacca, Malda or Murshidabad; rather, the members of the religion were found dispersed all over the state. Above all, Ahmed claimed the Bengal Muslims as belonging to the cultivating classes with only a handful being noncultivating land owners. These facts support the theory of conversion and help in understanding the status and socio-economic profile of the Bengal Muslims, in general considered as converts without pressure. The theory of conversion holds the affluent Muslims in Bengal as migrants from the outside world, who had racial, linguistic as well as class differences with the converted Muslims of Bengal. The affluent Muslim migrants did not identify with the converted indigenous population. The deep-rooted strife between the two communities is recorded as, ‘Ashraf (sing sharif) meaning “noble” or “persons of high extraction”, included “all undoubted descendants of foreigners and converts from the higher castes of Hindus . . . . All other Muhammadans including the functional groups . . . and all converts of lower rank, are collectively known by the contemptuous term “Ajlaf” [or its Bengali corruption atraf], “wretches” or “mean people”’ (Ibid., p. 59). The distance among the two is conspicuous in a statement of Maulawi A. Wali, a late nineteenthcentury Bengali Muslim scholar with marked sharif leaning (Ibid., pp. 63–64). As no Brahman concerns himself about the controversies between Baidyas and Kayasthas, so no Ashraf Muhammadan of India cares what the majority of the Muslims are called. To them, they are wine-vendors, weavers etc., with all their pretensions. Some of the writers go so far as to say that they are not truly Musalmans, but for political and other reasons it is well that they should be called Muslims.

Roy has mentioned that the Bengali Muslim press in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries often expressed concern at ‘the

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sense of Brahmanism among high-born Muslims’, who were given to ‘social exclusiveness’ and ‘cultural and educational monopoly’ and were also gripped by the ‘fear’ that the commoner ‘might aspire after the aristocracy status’. This exclusive behaviour strengthened the Bengali cultural base of the converted Muslims. There are evidences of their interest in Hindu Puranas and other religious text like Ramayan and Mahabharat as well as of their preference for the Bengali language, while the Ashraf favoured Arabic, Persian and Urdu languages. Roy (1983, p. 67) has talked of fatwas being issued ‘by the Muslims divines castigating Bengali as the “language of Hindus”, and also to the prevailing prejudice against the holy books, like the Quran and the hadith being translated to Bengali as well as against any Islamic matter being discussed in this language’. According to a nineteenth century sharif (Ibid., p. 71), ‘The refusal or inability of the higher Mosalmans to adopt the Bengali has greatly affected the relation between them and the lower Mosalmans. We do not learn the Bengali—whilst our lower orders cannot learn the Persian, cannot learn even the Hindustani. There are thus no means of fellow-feeling or of acting together. The knowledge we possess does not reach down to our lower neighbors—our character, ideas and habits of thought do not affect them.’ The Muslims of Bengal were identified as backward since the late nineteenth century. Hunter Commission Report explained this backwardness as rooted within the community structure in terms of pride of race, a memory of bygone superiority, religious fears and a natural attachment to the learning of Islam. In the words of Basu (1974, p. 151), It is a generally accepted theory that Muslims held aloof from the new system of education because it was opposed to their tradition, unsuited to their requirements and hateful to their religion: that they kept away from English schools because of the want of Muslim teachers, the absence of any provision for teaching the Muslim languages and the absence of religious education in these schools. Every succeeding report on Muslim education accepted without question these explanations offered by Hunter.

Not rejecting the possibility of religious prejudice and fear of conversion to have deterred many Muslims of aristocratic birth from attending English schools, Basu feels that the cultural reasons provided above do not explain acceptance of western education among many, in particular rich Muslims of Bengal. She feels that main reasons for backwardness among the poor were their caste and class compositions, inaccessibility

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of schools, and impoverishing of the community in the British period. To quote her (Basu 1974, pp. 150–51), The administrative reforms of Cornwallis dealt the first major blow . . . since, under the new system, the higher executive posts were reserved for Englishmen. The Permanent Settlement, by placing English Collectors in each district and elevating Hindu Collectors to the position of landlords, allowed them to accumulate wealth which otherwise would have gone to the Muslim tax collectors. Upper class Muslims who held a considerable proportion of the Government posts under Muslim rule and even after 1757 were affected by the 1837 decision to substitute English for Persian as the language in courts and offices, as well as by the Resolution of 1844, which gave preference in all future appointments to those who had received an English education.

One agrees with Basu that backwardness among the Bengali Muslims cannot be understood only in terms of a historically developed structural gap between Ashrafs and Ajlafs and that the British political economic policies like the Permanent Settlement, change of official language from Persian to English and Bengali, preference given to Englishmen and Hindus for bureaucratic positions further deprived the community of its resources almost as badly as observed in the case of Muslims of Uttar Pradesh. Very few works of sociological nature are available on the Muslims of South India and these works reflect prevalence of cordial atmosphere in the region. The differences between the South and North Indian atmosphere has been adequately captured by Varshney (2002, pp. 119–48). Comparing the North Indian town of Aligarh with the South Indian town of Calicut, he mentioned better intercommunity trust and communication in the civic life in Calicut of Kerala. He found many similarities in the two towns. Both had somewhat similar proportion of Muslim population (36–37 per cent in Calicut and 34–35 per cent in Aligarh) and witnessed significant improvement in the educational involvements and economic profile of the Muslims due to migration to the Middle East after the oil price increase in 1973. Yet, to quote Varshney (Ibid., p. 121), Calicut and Aligarh, however, are also a world apart. A deep intercommunal civic engagement marks life in Calicut. Neighbourhoods are remarkably integrated, and so is the city’s business and professional life. In Aligarh, Hindu–Muslim civic engagement is minimal. Calicut has not had a single communal riot in a century, although it came desperately close

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to breaking its harmony in 1921 during the so-called Malabar rebellion. Aligarh is infamous for frequent outbreaks of Hindu–Muslim violence. It is among the most riot-prone cities of India . . . .

Salamatullah (1994, pp. 35–36) holds a somewhat similar view for the South Indian cities in general. He feels that the social atmosphere of these cities does not reflect insecurities and rejection. Reactions of Muslims to western education in north and south India were different. While there was a lot of active opposition in the north in the beginning, Muslims in the south accepted the modern system of education without resistance. This is obviously due to the fact that British rule adversely affected economic and social positions of Muslims living in the northern provinces of the country. But in the Nizam’s territory, it was not so; this was true also of other parts of southern India, where Muslims took interest in developing trade and commerce, and were not as dependent on government jobs as the Muslims in the north. Nor did the Britishers impose on southern India such a disastrous measure as the Permanent Settlement to pauperize the peasantry.

HISTORY

OF

MUSLIM EDUCATION

As has been mentioned earlier, Muslim education1 has been projected as religious education lacking space for progressive secular learning. However, the historical contributions of the Muslims to the body of knowledge are significant, whether in the field of administration, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, architecture, or philosophy. India has gained from the services and scholarship of the members of the Muslim community, especially of the ‘progressive’ ‘socialist’ writers and poets, who were radical in their orientation and who kept pace with the changing world. The community has given three Presidents to India and has distinguished itself by providing eminent jurists. The contributions in the field of information technology can also be mentioned in this context. Then, why is the community identified as backward and inward looking? And why are the roots of this backwardness being located in the Islamic religion? 1 ‘Muslim education’ in this chapter indicates education being provided by the Muslims mainly for the Muslims.

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Traditional Muslim education is associated with institutions like Maktabs and Madrasas. Both of these institutions are projected by Hindutva politics as breeding grounds for fundamentalism and terrorism. However, it would be incorrect to relate the two exclusively with religious education and separatist tendencies. Rather, these institutions should be seen as community based educational institutions like pathshalas and gurukuls. The writings on the Maktab and Madrasas of earlier days give an impression of a balanced curriculum comprising Arabic language and literature along with mathematics. For instance, Imam Ghazali (1058–1111), an eminent philosopher and educationist, recommended vocational education following which agriculture and industrial crafts were introduced. Ibne Khaldun (1333–1406), an educationist, recommended the study of Arabic language to facilitate understanding of the Quran, but this study was supposed to be undertaken along with that of geometry, arithmetic and industrial craft (Salamatullah 1994, p. 10). Akbar is claimed to have an integrated approach towards education. To quote Salamatullah (Ibid., p. 12). The reign of Akbar, during the sixteenth century, stands out as a unique period in the history of Muslim education in India. Akbar was the first monarch to set up a separate department of education, and paid attention to the education of his subjects, irrespective of their caste, colour or creed. Both Hindus and Muslims were taught together, though a part of their respective courses of studies was separate, catering to the needs of their specific faiths. Mathematics, including arithmetic, geometry and mensuration, history, geography, economics, political science, physics, philosophy, logic and agriculture, were common subjects of study. Muslims and Hindus pursued their theological studies separately. The curriculum for Hindu students included vedantic philosophy, Patanjali grammar.

Capturing the historical trends, Salamatullah states, (Ibid., p. 11) . . . upto the fourteenth century, there was no trace of the rational sciences in the curriculum of Muslim educational institutions in India . . . . However, the predominance of theological teaching in educational institutions, later in the sixteenth century, was leavened by introducing secular elements, such as, philosophy, logic, mathematics, etc. in the curriculum. So much so, that teaching in Madrassas came to be dominated by philosophy; and it was only towards the end of the eighteenth century that the dominance of rational sciences was reduced. During the reign of Aurangzeb, in the seventeenth century, a course . . . Dars-i-Nizamia, was adopted. It included such subjects as arithmetic, algebra, astronomy and physics . . . .

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Even when the statements of the above nature provide an overall trend, one has to be cautioned against sketching a homogeneous image of the Muslims of the entire nation. One does find regional variations in the attitude towards ‘other cultures’ in the religious population. For instance, as early as the thirteenth century there are evidences of Bengali Muslims translating Indian epics into Bengali. Presence of such an attitude has a high possibility of affecting the curriculum of educational institutions in the area. Undue religious orientation of the educational institutions of the Muslims started only after the disintegration of the Mughal Empire. Shah Walliullah (1703–62) initiated the first movement among the ulema and launched a powerful campaign to recapture the lost glory of Islam and reinstate the political power of the Muslims in India. Hasan (1988, p. 4) feels that Shah Walliullah was apprehensive about the possibility of the establishment of British rule. Further, being deeply concerned about the excesses of the Marathas, he did not want the Muslims to become a part of the general milieu of the subcontinent. He wanted them to keep alive their relations with the rest of the Muslim world so that their ideals remain located in Islam. Shah Abdul Aziz (1746–1824), son of Walliullah, pursued the dreams of his father. His approach, however, was neither negative nor exclusive towards Indians belonging to other religions including Hinduism. Referring to the British in India he considered India a DarAl-Harb (enemy territory). He issued a fatwa prohibiting Muslims to learn English. He found lots of similarities between Hindus and Muslims and recommended cooperative interaction between the two communities. In fact, in the period 1763–1898, Muslims of India witnessed many movements led by religious leaders. Nizami (Ibid., pp. 2–3) has classified these religious movements in six categories. Only two of the six mentioned by Nizami focus on religious and spiritual issues per se. In general, these movements deal with political and economic changes in order to reinstate the lost power and glory of the Muslim people. Such movements can be seen in all religious groups especially when confronted with weak political leadership. The period mentioned above should not be associated solely with religious orientation. Muslim is a heterogeneous category and one finds evidence of divergent activities in the population including in the sphere of education. For our interest, the most important are the activities indicating interest in promoting English education. For instance, in 1781, a prosperous merchant of Hoogly (West Bengal), Haji Muhsin, advanced a substantial amount of money to the East India Company for promoting

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secular education among the Muslims. Thus, the madrasa Aliyah of Calcutta came into being (Salamatullah 1994, p. 13). Salamatullah (Ibid., p. 12) has mentioned many centres of general education for the Muslims, like the Delhi College established in 1824 which illustrated interest in western education. English was introduced in the college in 1831 and at that time the college had an enrolment of 300 students. The famous Calcutta Madrasa was established in the year 1781. It was a Persian college teaching Muslim law and related subjects. English was introduced as a subject of study in 1829. Hindus were also admitted in the college till 1833. Till 1837, both Hindus and Muslims of the upper class followed Persian education mainly for its utilitarian value. Proficiency in the language held the promise of lucrative jobs in the Mughal empire. Even in the British period it continued as an official language till 1837 when English replaced it. Succinctly, one finds evidence of both extremist and liberal attitudes towards western culture and education among the Muslims in contemporary India. In the aftermath of the 1857 revolt, these attitudes led to two very different approaches towards education as evidenced in the establishment of Darul-Ulum at Deoband and M.A.O. College at Aligarh. Guided by the ideas of Shah Waliullah, Darul-Ulum, Deoband, was established in 1866. Although focused on religious education, the madrasa was not averse to western learning. According to Salamatullah (Ibid., pp. 27–28), . . . one of the most important founders of the institution, Maulana Mohammad Qasim Nanautawi, was not averse to western learning, he held the view that it could not be combined with religious studies. He did, however, allow western education to be acquired after completing the religious education. One of the fundamental principles of Darul-Ulum was that the government and rich people could not be associated with the institution, as their influence was considered detrimental to the best interests of education . . . .

The Darul-Ulum, from the very beginning, had been following the theological studies and had international reputation for the same. Later, however, it introduced secular subjects like arithmetic, geography, history, Hindi and general science. On the other hand, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, who aimed to promote western education among Indian Muslims, established M.A.O. College. The process started with the establishment of the Scientific Society in the year 1864 to translate textbooks of western science into Urdu. The

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contributions of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan in the field of education of Indian Muslims are remarkable; however, it is sad to note that he did not see any need for education for the girls or even for the poor (Minault 1998, p. 19). M.A.O. College, founded in 1886, aimed to prepare the Muslims of India for government employment and to make them ‘worthy and useful subjects of the crown’. The college was elevated to the status of Aligarh University in 1920, which is recognized for playing an important role in promoting the idea of the two-nation theory and creation of Pakistan. However, it had its share of progressive and socialist thoughts. The themes of capitalist exploitation, class conflict, and of revolt against imperialism were popular in the writings of former Aligarh graduates like Hasrat Mohani, Sazzad Hyder Yaldaram, Vilayat Ali ‘Bambooq’, Qazi Abdul Gaffar and Abdur Rahman Bijnori. The younger generation, whom Mohamed Ali described as the men of Nai Raushni, promoted their own version ‘Islamic Socialism’. It is stated that, disillusioned with the apolitical stand of the management, a few radical students moved out of the Aligarh Muslim University to establish Jamia Millia Islamia University. However, the pro-Congress orientation of the students of the Aligarh Muslim University continued even after the establishment of Jamia Millia Islamia University. In fact, pro-Pakistan and Muslim League attitude became prominent in Aligarh Muslim University only by the late 1930s and even at that time it was only one of the trends. Jamia Millia Islamia was established in the year 1920. The vision was to create a synthesis of the traditional, modern, and national schools of thought. It drew from Gandhi’s concept of basic education and focused on vocational education. Most office bearers and the students of the University were radical in orientation and were anti-British and proCongress. In the year 1874, the Anjuman-i-Islam was founded in Bombay. It established a chain of schools and at present is administering many centres of higher education, which include polytechnics and engineering colleges. The educational efforts of the Anjuman-i-Islam should be appreciated for extending educational facilities to the women and the poor especially in view to the fact that it was operating in the period of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan who, though active in the field of education, excluded the same for the women and the poor. Hyderabad was noticed for its liberal approach. It had many schools that conducted both theological and scientific courses. The state was neither averse to western education nor to the efforts of Christian missionaries in promoting it. Salamatullah has mentioned various schools

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including a medical school that was established to promote western education. Mention should also be made of a translation bureau and a printing press that were established in the year 1834 for the purpose. As early as 1859–60, a scheme to establish two schools—one Persian and one vernacular—in each taluka (block) was implemented. These schools offered lessons in mathematics, history and geography in addition to the languages. In 1878, a public school on the pattern of the English public school was established for meeting the needs of the affluent from both the Hindu and the Muslim communities. In 1881, the first Hindu AngloVernacular Girls’ School was established to cater to the needs of both the Hindu and the Muslim communities. The education system for Muslims in Bengal also had a secular component. According to Mondal (1997, p. 77), the fields of study covered at a madrasa during the mediaeval period included religious subjects like tafsir (exegesis), hadish (tradition), fiqh (jurisprudence). kalam (scholasticism), tasawwuf (mysticism), tajrid (art of quranic pronunciation) along with general subjects like grammar, literature, logic, philosophy, arithmetic, geometry, algebra, and astronomy. Although not very successful, since 1836 attempts were being made to promote English and western education for Bengali Muslims. These efforts had a setback in 1937 when the official language in the state was changed to English and Bengali. As a reaction to ceased power, the Ashraf continued education in their indigenous institutions like maktabs and madrasas. ‘The result was that upto the year 1854 the Muslims were not found in considerable number in schools set up by the British Government’ (Ibid., p. 81). Since the 1860s, one finds efforts to promote English and western education among the Ashraf Muslims. For instance, Calcutta Muhammadan Literary Society (CMLS) was established with the aim, ‘. . . t o change the conservative attitude of the Muslims and to convince them of the need to accept the knowledge of western education’ (Ibid., p. 83). Although promoting rational spirit of the times, the society also advocated continuation of traditional learning through madrasas, creating a balance between modern and religious knowledge systems. Fifteen years after the establishment of CMLS, Central Muhammadan Association came into being under the leadership of Sir Sayed Amir Ali for promoting English and the process of modernization among the Muslims. It established its branches in all districts of Bengal and maintained friendly relations with the Hindus. It is important to note that as all of these movements were oriented towards Ashrafs, the Ajlafs did not draw much benefit from the same. The

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poor Muslims continued to send their children either to the village maktabs for Arabic and religious learning or to a pathshala for education in Bengali (Mondal 1997, p. 81).

STATISTICAL DATA

ON THE

MUSLIMS

Salamatullah (1994, p. 40) explains the low educational statistics associated with the Muslims due to their resistance towards formal education till the mid-nineteenth century. The scenario changed by 1870. He mentions an improvement in the rate of enrolment from 22.8 per cent in 1871–72 to 27.7 per cent (population 25 per cent) in 1931–32. Aparna Basu confirms the development. Discussing the situation in Madras, she states, ‘Between 1871–72 and 1880–88, while the number of Hindu pupils under instruction doubled, the number of Muslim pupils quadrupled’ (Basu 1974, p. 148). Referring to certain reports of the local governments on Muslim education produced in the mid-nineteenth century, she ascertains that ‘Muslims were not an educationally backward community everywhere. In Madras, the percentage of Muslim boys in schools to Muslim boys of school-going age was 15.1 per cent while the percentage of Hindu boys in schools to those of school-going age was 13.7 per cent’ (Ibid.). Further, ‘In Broach District . . . of the pupils in government and private-aided schools in 1877, 9.7 per cent were Brahmins and 19.43 per cent were Muslims. The Gujarati Bohras, Shias and Sunnies were quite advanced in literacy since they were trading castes and a minimum of education was necessary for their livelihood’ (ibid., p. 149). The urbanized non-agriculturalist community Muslims of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh were found to be educationally ahead of the Hindus. ‘The Muslims here were not even backward in higher education. The percentage of Muslims to the total population of United Provinces was 14.1, but the percentage of Muslim pupils in colleges was 18.6 in 1896–97, 19.7 in 1901–02 and 20.8 in 1916–17’ (ibid., p. 150). As the census does not provide community based data on education since the 1930s, it is not possible to make available current national level educational profile for the community. One, however, can attempt to construe some impressions from two sample surveys conducted at national level. The first was conducted by National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) in the year 1987–88 and the other by National Council

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of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in the year 1994. The NCAER survey covers six social groups from 1,765 villages of 16 states in the year 1994. Although small in size, the survey, conducted almost six years after the National Sample Survey (NSS), provides the latest comparative base and helps in developing insights on interstate variations in the Muslim community. The following discussion dwells on the educational and other relevant data that would help in understanding the educational behaviour of the community. A deliberate attempt has been made to provide comparative data on the Hindus in order to understand class character of the two communities, a feature generally ignored in Hindutva political projections. The NSS (1987–88) data shows more than 50 per cent of the Muslim population (57.5 per cent in rural and 53.4 per cent in urban area) to be self-employed. Further, 28.9 per cent were found to be in the salaried class and only 13.4 per cent in casual labour in the urban area. The percentage falling in the category of casual labour in rural area was comparatively higher (34.3 per cent). It is important to note that cultivation forms major part of self-employment in the rural area. However, NSS data records more than 50 per cent (54.9 per cent) of Muslims as holding less than 2 acres of land that in the year 1987–88. Even NCAER survey shows that Muslims held less land (2 acres average per household) than Hindus (3 acres average per household) and other minorities (3.1 acres average per household). According to NCAER survey, the average household income of Muslims was stated to be Rs 22,807 in comparison to the national average income of Rs 25,653. The per capita income for Muslims was Rs 3,678 p.a. against national average figure of Rs 4,485 p.a. Further, as shown in Table 13.1, in agriculture including allied activities, the average annual income earned by the Hindus was Rs 20,828 p.a. in comparison to Rs 16,388 p.a. earned by the Muslims. In case of craft and industrial work, Muslims earned a sum relatively better (Rs 12,260 ) in comparison to the national average of Rs 11,044 and the earnings of the Hindus (Rs 10,806). In the organized business, gap between Hindus (Rs 26,761) and Muslims (Rs 22,591) was found to be comparatively bigger. Interestingly, Muslims were found to be earning Rs 17, 444 p.a. against Hindu’s Rs 15,965 p.a. in qualified professions. Data contradicts the myth of professional backwardness among the Muslims. Again, it is interesting to note that in almost all of the other fields the difference in income is marginal with Hindus earning slightly better. However, due to higher concentration in the categories of agricultural and allied activities, artisan and industrial

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Table 13.1 Percentage Distribution by General Education, Household Religion and Area Urban Education level

Not literate Literate and below primary Primary Middle Secondary Graduation and above Not recorded

Hindu

Muslim

Male

Female

Total

Male

Female

Total

25.3 18.8 16.6 13.9 17.2 7.9 0.3

42.2 17.2 15.0 10.3 10.7 4.2 0.3

33.4 18.1 15.8 12.2 14.1 6.2 0.3

42.4 20.9 16.3 10.0 8.0 2.3 0.1

59.5 18.5 11.4 5.4 4.3 0.8 0.1

50.5 19.8 13.9 7.8 6.2 1.6 0.1

62.8 15.5 10.6 6.5 3.8 0.7 0.1

58.2 18.6 12.2 6.9 3.4 0.6 0.1

76.1 13.1 6.9 3.0 0.8 – 0.1

67.0 15.9 9.6 5.0 2.1 0.3 0.1

Rural Not literate Literate and below primary Primary Middle Secondary Graduation and above Not recorded

51.3 19.0 13.5 9.2 5.7 1.2 0.1

75.0 11.8 7.5 3.7 1.7 0.2 0.1

Source: NSS, 43rd Round, Sch-10: 82–87.

work as well as petty trade and small business, the overall average income of the Muslims (Rs 22,807) fall much shorter to that of the Hindus (Rs 25,712). The national average income was mentioned as Rs 25,653. Table 13.1 provides NSS data on general education for Hindus and Muslims by sex and area. The table projects national average illiteracy rate as 35.5 per cent in urban and 62.5 per cent in rural area. Hindus were somewhat closer to the national average while the Muslims were found to be far behind (50.5 per cent) in urban areas and comparatively closer in rural areas (67 per cent). The table reveals four trends: first, Muslims of rural areas had better educational statistics in comparison to those from urban areas; second, males from both the communities were at par till primary level; third, differences in the educational statistics between the two communities increased with the advancing levels of education to the extent that the Hindu population at the level of graduation almost doubled in case of rural areas and trebled in urban areas; and fourth, Muslim women were far behind Muslim men in their educational achievements.

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Table 13.2 is extremely revealing as far as interstate differences in the educational achievement of the Muslim population is concerned. The literacy rate of the community ranged from 27.8 in case of Rajasthan to 86.9 per cent in case of Kerala. Although behind the Hindus by around 1 per cent even while having a high literacy rate in Kerala, the community had left Hindu community behind in cases of Tamil Nadu by around 17 per cent, Andhra Pradesh by around 10 per cent and Karnataka by around 4 per cent. Not only in South India but also in West India the community was stated as ahead of the Hindus by 0.02 per cent in the case of Gujarat and 5 per cent in the case of Maharashtra. Even in Madhya Pradesh the difference was mentioned as around 5 per cent to the advantage of the Muslims. Again, it is important to note that both Hindus and Muslims Table 13.2 Social Group-wise Literacy Rate of Indian States States

ST & SC

Hindus

Muslims

Other minorities

North India Harayana Himachal Punjab

46.0 63.2 46.5

55.9 68.3 61.7

29.7 57.6 32.7

71.0 84.6 60.2

Upper Central India Bihar Uttar Pradesh

28.2 32.5

44.5 48.2

43.2 35.0

31.8 65.8

Lower Central India Madhya Pradesh Orissa Rajasthan

31.6 35.1 29.9

43.6 54.4 41.7

48.9 53.9 27.8

59.1 59.6 33.4

East India Northeastern West Bengal

74.5 53.9

45.8 61

46.0 52.1

86.2 55.4

West India Gujarat Maharashtra

46.6 43.1

59.2 58.4

59.4 63.7

91.3 53.1

South India Andhra Pradesh Karnataka Kerala Tamil Nadu

38.5 43.7 77.5 47.6

49.4 54.4 88.2 63.0

60.5 58.6 86.9 79.7

54.6 75.5 94.8 75.6

All India

40.8

53.3

49.4

65.2

Source: NCAER 1999, p. 267.

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265

were at par in case of Bihar, Orissa, Gujarat and Northeastern region. However, in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, where Muslims have concentrated for decades, the community was found to be lagging far behind. In fact the trend is similar for the Northern and Central states. Nevertheless, the table confirms the hypothesis that the community should not be treated as a homogeneous unit. Bose has discussed differences in the literacy rate among Hindus and Muslims for those Indian states which have districts having more than 30 per cent of Muslim population. The relevant data from Census 2001 is given in Table 13.3. Table 13.3 Hindu–Muslim Literacy Gap in States/UT having more than 10 per cent of Muslim Population States/UT

Literacy gap (H–M) Hindu

India Uttar Pradesh West Bengal Bihar Assam Kerala Andhra Pradesh Jammu & Kashmir Jharkhand Haryana Uttaranchal Pondicherry Lakshadeep

Male

Female

9.4 13.6 14.4 9.7 20.9 –0.4 –7.8 22.2 0.5 22.6 28.5 –9.6 2.6

3.0 6.1 7.8 2.0 18.5 0.3 –5.5 22.3 –3.6 32.4 23.0 –15.8 15.0

Muslim Total

Male

Female

Total

6.4 10.3 11.2 6.2 19.7 0.0 –6.7 22.6 –1.4 27.2 24.7 –12.1 9.1

11.6 22.3 16.5 10.8 13.7 1.6 4.6 18.4 3.5 23.7 24.3 –3.4 4.6

10.7 20.6 19.1 7.1 17.0 3.6 1.8 25.0 –1.0 31.7 28.3 –6.1 14.4

11.2 21.7 17.2 9.3 15.3 2.7 3.2 22.2 1.6 26.6 26.1 –4.4 9.9

Source: Bose (2005: 372–73).

Table 13.3 shows higher literacy gap between the Hindus and the Muslims of urban area and again higher in the case of males than among the females. Regional differences in the literacy gap is apparent with very high gap recorded for the states like Haryana, Uttaranchal, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam. It is important to note that in certain states and union territory like Pondicherry the literacy rate among the Muslims is reported to be high at times as high as 15.8 per cent as in the case of rural females. Again, higher literacy rate is recorded for South Indian states like Andhra Pradesh and for rural women of

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Kerala. Jharkhand also reports high literacy rate for rural Muslim population in general and for females of both rural and urban Muslim population in particular. Bose has also discussed differences in the literacy gap among the two communities in districts within states. For instance, in Uttar Pradesh, which has high literacy difference to the disadvantage of the Muslims, one district Balrampur shows higher Muslim literacy in comparison to that of the Hindus among the rural population. Only three districts have been mentioned for Kerala and the literacy gap in these districts is negligible if not higher for rural Muslim population. One does not find much difference even in the case of urban population. Mari Bhat and Zavier have discussed differences in the literacy rates of the Muslim women population of two states of Kerala and West Bengal. Data reflects remarkable differences to the advantage of the Muslims of Kerala. The relevant table is given below. Table 13.4 Percentage of Muslims (aged 15 and above) in Kerala and West Bengal

Illiterate Below middle Below matric Below graduate Graduate and above

Educational categories Kerala

Total literacy rate West Bengal

28.5 25.1 20.6 9.7 4.7

38.3 21.1 10.8 5.3 2.2

Source: Mari Bhat and Zavier (2005, p. 392).

The NCAER data reveals an enthusiasm in the community towards literacy. The Table 13.5 states that the Muslims shared with STs the secondbest participation rate in literacy programmes; however, they appeared to have made optimum use of the programme by having maximum people in the fourth level of achievement (6.8 per cent), which indicates fluency in the reading and writing skills. Despite performing well in adult literacy programmes, which might be indicative of recent interest in education and also implies short-term involvement in the field of education, Muslims did not appear to have good achievement rate in higher levels of learning. In fact, researches and personal experience reveal higher the educational level poorer the performance of the community. Table 13.6 reveals poor completion rate of the Muslims in the middle and matric levels of formal education.

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267

Table 13.5 Social Group-wise Participation in Literacy Programmes and Achievement of Non-Enrolled Children in the Age Group 6–14 Religion

Participation

ST SC Hindu Muslim Christian All India

Level of achievement

rate

1

2

3

4

1.3 1.6 1.4 1.6 2.2 1.5

74.0 47.2 57.7 33.3 25.9 53.1

18.5 11.2 17.6 18.8 Nil 18.0

02.6 41.6 24.0 41.1 74.1 27.3

4.9 Nil 0.7 6.8 Nil 1.7

Source: NCAER 1999, pp. 296 and 197. Notes: Level 1—cannot read or write. Level 2—can read but not write. Level 3—can read and write with difficulty. Level 4—can read and write fluently. Table 13.6 Proportion of Population Completing Middle and Matriculation Level Education by Population Groups Social groups

Middle level (aged 15 and above)

Matric level (aged 17 and above)

Person

Male

Female

F/M

Person

Male

Female

F/M

Caste STs SCs

9.2 10.1

12.7 14.6

5.4 5.1

0.43 0.35

4.9 4.9

7.3 7.3

2.3 2.3

0.31 0.31

Religion Hindus Muslims Christians Other minorities All India

13.0 12.0 21.2 12.3 13.0

16.9 15.8 22.5 15.7 16.9

8.6 7.6 19.9 8.6 8.7

0.51 0.48 0.88 0.55 0.52

8.5 5.9 18.7 11.5 8.6

12.0 8.3 19.0 15.3 11.9

4.7 3.2 18.4 7.3 4.9

0.39 0.38 0.97 0.48 0.41

Source: NCAER 1999, p. 118.

Table 13.7 shows around 49 per cent of the Muslims to have enrolled in the government schools; 37 per cent in government aided schools and the remaining 13 per cent in private schools. It is important to note that the community had maximum entries in the categories where fees had to be paid.

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Table 13.7 Percentage Distribution of Students in the Age Group of 6–14 Years by States Social groups STs SCs Hindus Muslims Christians Other minorities All India

Govt. school

Govt-aided schools

Person

Male

Female Person

Male

67.1 71.5 70.3 49.4 42.9

64.0 71.2 69.4 51.4 41.6

72.2 71.8 71.5 46.9 44.3

29.2 22.6 20.2 37.3 47.5

31.7 21.7 20.0 34.2 48.7

25.2 23.8 20.5 41.3 46.2

80.4 67.9

78.4 67.4

82.8 68.7

6.6 22.1

7.5 21.6

5.5 22.8

Pvt schools

Female Person

Male

Female

3.2 5.8 9.3 13.3 9.6

3.8 6.9 10.4 14.4 9.6

2.3 4.2 7.7 11.9 9.5

12.3 9.8

13.1 10.8

11.3 8.3

Source: NCAER 1999, p. 279.

Table 13.8 reveals national level preference for private schools in the community. However, expenditure pattern is difficult to understand as it ranges from nil to Rs 4,808 per year and is difficult to associate with the educational achievement of the community within the state. Still it is important to note that the Muslims of six states—Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu—have spent a substantial sum on private schooling. Again, in three out of these six states—Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka—the community appears to have spent substantial amount in state education also. Even in the states of West Bengal, Kerala and Bihar, the expenditure on private schooling was substantial. Muslims of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Northeastern region and West Bengal had spent a substantial sum in state schooling. One notices presence of all the four states of South India and left-oriented state of West Bengal in the 10 states mentioned above for incurring substantial expenditure on education. It is unfortunate that Shariff has not provided explanation of the rich data mentioned above. The reasons for greater expenditure on education may be varied including non-availability of government schools, inaccessibility to school, preference for quality education or even preference for specific schools. Anyhow, the tendency in the community to incur expenditure reflects their interest in education. Table 13.9 on the ever enrolment, discontinuation and non-attendance rates for the age group 6–14 further strengthens the submission on the interest and involvement of the community in general education. The table records ever enrolment rate in the community as higher in comparison to that of the Hindus. Similarly, discontinuous rate is higher and nonattendance rate much lower in comparison to the Hindus.

Table 13.8 Household Expenditure on Education by Social Groups and States in India Regions/States

Household expenditure (Rs) on education in age group 6–14 years in government schools Social groups ST & SC

North Haryana Himachal Punjab Upper Central Bihar Uttar Pradesh Lower Central Madhya Pradesh Orissa Rajasthan East Northeast Region West Bengal West Gujarat Maharashtra South Andhra Pradesh Karnataka Kerala Tamil Nadu All India

Hindus

Muslims

1,017 1,444 644

1,090 1,550 884

679 1,441 300

397 401

523 493

388 272 585

Household expenditure (Rs) on education in age group 6–14 years in private schools Social groups ST & SC

Hindus

Muslims

Other minorties

1,762 1,520 934

1,351 2,657 1,371

2,179 2,760 1,702

2,327 Nil 2,618

4,321 2,960 2,260

609 496

448 367

1,191 573

1,781 926

1,062 501

2,034 672

430 421 793

703 309 469

634 482 556

932 79 1,305

1,051 596 1,225

2,480 Nil 450

1,827 138 Nil

549 401

445 488

853 568

627 Nil

534 1,672

5,362 1,469

155 1,345

Nil 710

368 450

434 518

356 385

772 421

1,988 677

2,042 834

Nil 616

Nil Nil

231 421 701 436 434

Nil 500 856 481 619

318 525 687 71 515

467 705 1,093 361 719

468 1,376 2,362 1,139 840

1,547 1,285 1,666 1,233 1,728

4,808 2,677 2,047 2,900 968

600 551 1,661 2,282 1,990

Source: NCAER 1999, pp. 288 and 292.

Other minorities

Table 13.9 Age-Specific ever Enrolment, Discontinuation and Non-Attendance Rates (%) in Age Group 6–14 Religion

Ever enrolment rates

Discontinuation rates

Age group

6–9

6–11

12–14

6–14

6–9

Hindus Person Gender disparity

66.90 0.81

59.40 0.78

62.70 0.72

60.30 0.76

Muslims Person Gender disparity

55.60 0.86

59.30 0.83

66.80 0.91

All India Gender disparity

66.10 0.85

69.60 0.85

75.10 0.83

Source: NCAER, p. 105.

Non-attendance rates

6–11

12–14

6–14

6–9

6–11

12–14

6–14

1.10 0.81

3.10 1.10

16.80 1.37

7.20 1.20

10.50 1.25

10.20 1.27

9.80 1.12

10.10 1.24

61.60 0.86

0.40 1.60

1.40 0.55

17.70 1.34

6.90 1.21

7.80 0.59

7.60 0.77

7.10 0.62

7.50 0.73

71.40 0.84

0.80 1.41

2.10 1.60

13.50 1.58

6.00 1.56

7.80 0.95

7.40 0.98

6.20 1.03

7.00 1.00

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The above discussion reveals interest of the Muslims in education at least till the primary level. The less preference for the higher education may be due to the occupational nature of the community. One can have some reservations in drawing conclusions on the NCAER data, which is at least a decade old data and the situation might have changed considerably given the drive of universalization of education witnessed in the nation today. However, at least in case of five villages belonging to the three states of West Bengal, Assam and Uttar Pradesh, a similar trend was revealed in a recent study conducted by Jha and Jhingran. They mentioned similar occupational profile for the Muslims of these villages. To quote them (2002, p. 138), ‘The majority of Muslim households in rural areas are marginal agriculturalists, wage earners and petty craftsmen or traders. Traditionally, they survived more on skill-based craftsmanship and, except for a few households in certain areas, did not possess much land.’ They have discussed the linkages between the low socio-economic status and poor educational profile. They state, ‘that formal education does not have much value for those who do not have the means to complete higher education and access to those who are powerful and control resources’ (Ibid., p. 145). Further, ‘One of the clear reasons for preferring religious education, emanating from the village reports and discussions held with Muslim parents, is highly perceived employment linkages . . . . While formal school education does not provide any longterm benefits e.g. jobs, the scope for getting employment as a religious teacher . . . on completion of religious education is good’ (Ibid., p. 150). In this context, one has to remember that the Madrasas can provide the little knowledge required for low skilled jobs. Besides, the quality of education offered to the poor in formal schools leaves much to desire. ‘The government primary schools in all these five villages function irregularly . . . inadequate infrastructure characterizes them all . . . . Teachers are irregular at all these schools . . . all these schools function as single-teacher schools where all classes are held together’ (Ibid., p. 146). Further, As against indifferent and irregular government schools following rigid procedures and norms, madrassas, . . . are much more flexible and suit poor families. The absence of grades and fixed time-frames for completing the curriculum offers flexibility that suits parents. Children could be irregular in attendance and could also be withdrawn at any time . . . . The maulvis or teachers in madrassas generally belong to the same village and generate greater trust. This is especially important for sending girls (Ibid., p. 152).

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It would be pertinent to note here that a comparative study2 of a madrasa and an Urdu medium municipal school revealed a desire for general education and higher learning among the students of both educational institutions. The researcher found the students of the Madrasa more open and willing to participate in general/secular public programmes. Above all, the students of the Madrasa were found to identify with the Indian nation and no evidence of any kind of terrorist activities or attitude was witnessed.

CONCLUSION In this chapter, attempts have been made to critically look at the myth of educational backwardness among the Muslims and its attribution to the religious orientation of the community. The chapter reveals that the Muslims do not make a homogeneous unit and reflect regional and cultural variations. Just like members of other religions, they have a notion of individualism reflected in the choices that they make in accordance to their occupational bearings and perceived capacity to utilize the resources offered by the government and other sources. Educational backwardness among the Muslims should not be considered a universal phenomenon, applicable to the entire Muslim community and should be comprehended in its class character. Although emphasizing on religious education, all madrasas should not be taken as averse to general learning programmes. Not only in the historical text but also in the real life situations, madrasas have been seen as a means of extending education to the poor. Again, studies conducted on madrasas do not support the fear of it being a breeding ground for terrorism. In fact, as seen in many cases, they have created a fine balance between the religious and nonreligious courses and have offered their services to both, the Muslims and the non-Muslims. The concentration in the writings on the Muslims of Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal has generated the error of universalizing the particular, that is, building an image of the entire community on particular experiences developed in specific historical and cultural junctures. The error has in its roots non-contextualization of the text and absence of adequate 2 M. Phil. dissertation of Nibedita Datta on ‘Muslim Education’ submitted to the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in 2002.

Educational Backwardness among the Muslims in India

273

writings from other parts of India. This homogenized image is vulnerable to political manipulations as seen in the case of the Sangh Parivar. The chapter aims to contextualize the educational behaviour and experiences of the Muslims; however, it suffers due to an inadequate database. It pleads for authentic work, which would bring forth regional and individual variations in the Muslim population. In the absence of adequate data, though it is difficult to make definite statements on the historical forces that might have shaped the identities and related behaviour pattern of the Muslims in India, focus on the three forces of trade, conversion, and active participation in politics might help in understanding the differential power equations and acceptance levels of the community in the wider context of India. The Hindu–Muslim politics in North India has resulted in developing an identity reactionary to colonialism and two-nation theories. It is rooted in alienation and distrust; ‘in rejecting and being rejected’. The paradigm of ‘the other’ has denied basic citizenship rights to the community. The natural outcome of this identity is withdrawal or an aggressive stance against the Indian state, which might build a resistance towards optimum utilization of meagre resources and opportunities offered by the state and the society. Educational backwardness witnessed among the Muslims of Uttar Pradesh is the obvious assumption in such circumstances. Religious conversion implies sociocultural reaction to an unfavourable political economy. It is rebellious in nature; however, this rebellion does not challenge the status quo. The structural gap continues between the haves and the have-nots along with the lack of identification of the powerful with the converts. In such circumstances, as seen in the case of Bengal, the structures and constraints of deprivation continue. Educational backwardness in this case also is an obvious assumption. The assumption of rejection or non-availability of resources to improve one’s position cannot be made in case of a non-reactionary cordial atmosphere facilitating business transactions. One perceives spontaneous cultural dynamics and exchanges in such a situation creating a healthy atmosphere facilitating intercommunity links and economic returns. This creates a positive atmosphere encouraging adaptation to social changes and utilization of non-governmental resources for one’s promotion and communitarian development. The educational achievement of the Muslims of South India especially Kerala, substantiates the above-mentioned thesis. The above discussion should not be considered indicative of homogeneous trend in these regions. Local circumstances and individual assertions affect the Muslims just the way these affect other communities

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in the world. The myth of unchallenged control of the Imams and the Ulemas subsumes individualism and impact of local as well as cultural forces. The evidence provided in history of the challenges thrown by the Muslim individuals to the prevalent ways of life deconstruct the myth. Instances can be given of progressive socialist writers and poets like Ghalib and Nazrul as well as of radical individuals taking a stand not only in the matter of politics as seen in the case of Aligarh Muslim University but also in the field of education as seen in the cases of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Mohamed Ali. Movements evident in Bengal for western education and in Uttar Pradesh for traditional education again reflect individual will and independent thinking which, somehow or the other, does not get credit in the discourse on Muslims. The independence of the intellect and decision making also reflects in the educational choices being made by the members of the Muslim community. As shown in the chapter, Muslims are interested in education however limited the extent. The data portray the Muslims to be mainly involved in petty business and self-employment, where practical relevance of education gets limited to enable minimum reading and writing for business purpose. Hence, one finds good participation of Muslims at the primary level and then discontinuance of education. Nevertheless, in recent years a trend towards secular education is visible. The reasons for the same may be gradual evolving of a Muslim middle class in postindependence India. In the absence of empirical data it is difficult to make a definite proposition. One still can deduce with confidence that the trend reflects independent decision making in case of individuals especially when they exercise their choice in getting enrolled in non-minority educational institutions or in demanding education in non-Urdu, Arabic or Persian languages. However, it is important to note that individualism can best be practiced in an atmosphere of trust and security—an atmosphere that India failed to provide to Muslims in certain states in the immediate post-independence period and to the entire nation in the postGujarat period. In the post-Gujarat period, ghettoization appears to be on the increase, which has a higher possibility of subsuming newly evolved individualism under the pressures of collectivity and the process should not be taken as a voluntary practice but as an imposed choice in a failed democracy. The imposition of a homogenized identity of a closed community on the Muslims can cause tremendous harm to the community, especially when this identity locates the problems of the Muslims as rooted within the structure and culture of the community. This refers to the religious

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and non-progressive orientation of the leaders and their control on the community. Such an approach puts the onus of change and problem solving on the community and its meagre resources, without any reference to the impact of the outside forces on the same. Further, projection of a false image of suffering due to one’s own doing reduces the involvement and commitment of the wider society in helping the community, many a times even obstructing the activities of those community members who appear interested in challenging the prevailing system. The approach, one fears, might result in the withdrawal of the outside support to the community, whether financial or moral. Acquiring knowledge on the heterogeneous local base and acculturated adjustment practices among the Muslim community is the political need of the day and the first support that can be extended to the 12 per cent of Indian citizens. This requires reading and observing the community in its context, keeping it at par with other community members of the similar socio-economic background. Such an understanding would deconstruct the myth of the community being a closed and nonprogressive one under the control of Ulemas producing fundamentalists. Treating the individual members in their own rights, providing them opportunities to develop their potentials and giving them a chance to live a life of their own choice is yet another support that can be extended to the Muslims of India. Such practices, one feels, would provide confidence to the individual members of the society and would make the community less vulnerable to political manipulations.

REFERENCES Ahmed, Rafiuddin, The Bengal Muslims 1871–1906: A Quest for Identity (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981). Basu, A., The Growth of Education and Political Development in India, 1898–1920 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1974). Bose, A., ‘Beyond Hindu–Muslim Growth Rates: Understanding Socio-Economic Reality’, Economic and Political Weekly, 29 January 2005. Hasan, Q., Muslims In India: Attitudes, Adjustments and Reaction (New Delhi: Northern Book Centre, 1988). Jha, J. and D. Jhingran, Elementary Education for the Poorest and Other Deprived Groups: The Real Challenge of Universalization (New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research, 2002).

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Mari Bhat, P.N. and F rancis Zavier, ‘Role of Religion in Fertility Decline: The Case of Indian Muslims’, Economic and Political Weekly, 29 January 2005. Minault, G., Secluded Scholars: Women’s Education and Muslim Social Reform in Colonial India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998). Mondal, S.R., Educational Status of Muslims: Problems, Prospects and Priorities (New Delhi: Inter-India Publications, 1997). National Sample Survey, 43rd Round (Delhi: Govt of India Press, 1987–88). Roy, A., The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983). Salamatullah, Education of Muslims in Secular India (Chandigarh: Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, 1994). Shariff, A., India Human Development Report (New Delhi: National Council of Applied Economic Research and Oxford University Press, 1999). Sonalkar, S., ‘The Muslim Problem: A Perspective’, Economic and Political Weekly, 26 June 1993. Smith, W.C., Modern Islam in India (New Delhi: Usha Publication, 1979). Varshney, A., Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002).

VIOLENCE

AGAINST THE

CROSS

14

SARTO ESTEVES

F

or over 50 years since the country attained Independence in 1947, a liberal, secular democracy of sorts was being established in this subcontinent. The spirit that impelled the Indians to take to the streets to challenge the colonial powers, to suffer and even die so that at least their children could regain their self-respect, live in peace, harmony, and free of dictatorial firmans, man-made slavery and fascist actions of the powerful seemed to be in sight. All this, and its likely psychological ramifications on a society that had never really experienced the type of freedom that was held out to them, was generally not forgotten by those who inherited the mantle of a free nation.

FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS

AND

EQUALITY

OF

CITIZENS

After detailed discussions the Constituent Assembly framed, among other provisions, Part III of the Constitution which embodies the Fundamental Rights of the citizens. Every religious community, linguistic group, social and cultural section of our society was represented in it and every member was taken into confidence and allowed to freely express his views which were carefully noted and respectfully considered for all their worth. Thus Article 14 and several others that follow it provide for complete equality of all the citizens before the law. Arbitrary action against any citizen, group or section of citizens is a negation of equality

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which many of these Articles guarantee to the citizens. Under our Constitution, equality must become a living reality for the masses. In Article 15, the Constitution further provides that ‘the State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them’. The entire Part III of the Constitution is the Magna Carta which the people of India have given to themselves freely and without any interference or pressure from any quarter. These Rights, it is provided, are to be enforced by the government1 at all times, throughout India, whoever or whichever political party or group may be in power. There have been numerous instances, particularly since 1998, when the various offshoots of the RSS like the VHP, BD, BJP, HJM, etc., have been giving orders to the Christian community to leave the country by a fixed date;2 the Christians have been called ‘traitors’, ‘foreigners’, ‘thieves’, ‘second-class citizens’;3 they are asked to win the ‘goodwill’ of the Hindu community if they wish to continue to live in India;4 they are denied the full right to avail of the freedom of religion given to the citizens of India in Article 25. In this connection it will be good for everyone in the country to get a few basic facts right. The country does not belong to the Sangh Parivar, to any of its outfits, to any single religious community, majority or minority, to any sociocultural group, or to any other group, however powerful it may be. The country belongs to all the citizens of India, with citizenship as defined in the Constitution; no other meaning or interpretation of it can be accepted or entertained. There is no law in the country that empowers any citizen or any group of citizens like the members of the Sangh Parivar to make any laws and try to enforce them. The government in recent years has failed in its duty to protect its citizens and to call upon these self-styled rulers to behave themselves. Any religious community has a right to take no notice of any such instructions if ever given by rulers of the type described. The political parties will do well to note that India has not gone to sleep. The result of this harassment of the community will be known when elections come around.

1

See Part III, Article 32. The Asian Age, 6 September 1998. 3 M.S. Golwalkar, We or Our Nationhood Defined and a detailed study of the subject in A.G. Noorani, ‘RSS and Christians’, Frontline, 1 January 1999. 4 V.B. Rawat, ‘Trading the Religion’, Indian Currents, 31 March 2002, pp. 8–11. 2

Violence against the Cross

CHRISTIANS,

279

NOT

TRAITORS

The Christians of India are its committed, loyal, citizens. They have been Christians for 2,000 years. At no time have they given any cause to anyone to even remotely imply that they can be lumped with those to whom the appellation ‘traitors’, ‘second-class citizens’, etc., may apply. Christian missions are scattered all around, in remote villages of Rajasthan, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkand, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and other states running orphanages, hospitals, hostels, homes for the old, dying, disabled, those suffering from incurable diseases, the deserted and forsaken women, running schools, colleges, universities and institutes of higher learning, to mention a few. ‘As Christ went about the towns and villages healing every type of sickness and infirmity, as a sign that the kingdom of God had come’ (The Gospal according to St. Mathew, The Acts of the Apostles), so the Church, through its children, joins itself with men of every condition, but especially with the poor and the afflicted, and willingly spends itself for them(cf 2 Cor. 2:12–15). 5 This is Christianity. It is practised at every moment of their lives by its followers; every activity of the Church is a sincere effort to practise what it preaches. The Constituent Assembly did not succumb to the temptation of catering to the whims of religious bigots, fanatics, feudal merchants, zamindars, and the twentieth century obscurantists. What they have turned out is the framework for a genuinely secular, open, liberal, democratic Constitution where every citizen has equal rights, where every citizen has complete freedom to hold his own views on religions and religious traditions. He has the ‘right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion’ (Article 25). This right to practise a religion of one’s choice and propagate it was discussed and debated to allow everyone to have a say, along with the views of those leaders who insisted that the right to practise and propagate a religion, among others, must ensure for the citizens the right to change one’s views, opinions, beliefs or convictions just as one can change one’s views on a political or a social ideology. Christianity also has the mandate of Christ to carry his message to all human beings in the world whatever one’s religion or beliefs may be. This 5

‘Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity’, Chapter ii, Vatican Council ii (Mumbai: St. Paul Publications, 1965).

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is what the Church does or teaches. There is nothing in it to shock anyone. The Church does not engage in any surreptitious activities, in coercion, in fraudulent methods, to convert people, or in denigrating any of the other religions prevalent in India or in any other country of the world. The hallmark of Christianity is love personified. Its innumerable activities in our country and in every part of the world among the suffering and the socially or economically disadvantaged to come up in life, to be useful to themselves, to their families and to the society at large are a standing testimony of all this and more. The Church does not engage in forced or mass conversions. The very idea of it is foreign to real Christianity. It is fully conscious that conversion, true and genuine, is the result of a deep, personal conviction which can come about with profound knowledge of a religion, examples of those who practise it, and a sincere desire to emulate it. Any attempt to bring about conversions through force, fraud, bribes and crooked methods to obtain quick, startling results will ultimately prove fruitless. This approach of the Church is highly rational and faultless; it can only evoke admiration of any impartial observer and not rouse any ‘sense of outrage’.6

ANTI-CHRISTIAN VIOLENCE Equality before the law is guaranteed to every citizen of India, and everyone has a right to freely practise any religion one chooses to and to change one’s religious beliefs if one chooses to do so. This is an intensely intimate, personal decision which one is free to take in our free, liberal, democracy and no one has any right to question that personal decision of any individual. The RSS and its cohorts are not empowered by any law of the land to dictate to Christians or to any citizen of India whether and which religion he should believe in and practise, whether he should change his religion, whether anyone professing a non-Hindu religion should be brought forcibly into the Hindu religion because someone in the Sangh Parivar thinks that, before he embraced Christianity or any other non-Hindu religion, he was a Hindu. No member of the Parivar can issue any instructions to any citizen in this regard, and if issued, they will have to be ignored. 6

Sumit Sarkar, EPW Special Articles, 2 June–2 July 1999.

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Christianity, according to them, is a ‘fake religion’ and Christ is ‘an artifice of aggression’, ‘junk’.7 All responsible citizens of India should, however, know a little more about the nightmare faced by the followers of this ‘junk’ since 1997–98 when the BJP formed a government in Gujarat and later at the centre. The Minister of State for Home informed the Lok Sabha on 28 August 2001 that there were 417 attacks on Christians in India since 1999 in which 33 persons were killed and 283 were injured.8 They should know also that during the first 50 years of independence, there were just 35 incidents of a minor nature involving the Christian community. In the months and years after the statement referred to above was made by the Minister in the Lok Sabha, the attacks have increased and multiplied, and are occurring in every part of the country, Bombs have been planted for the first time in the history of Christianity in India in its churches in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Goa; bodies of the dead have been exhumed from the cemeteries and left at the Church entrance by VHP/BD workers in Gujarat; principals of schools, teachers, priests, religious, nuns and missionaries all over India have been attacked, murdered, maimed, and even paraded naked on public streets; copies of The Bible have been torn to pieces, burnt and strewn on the streets.9 Above all, what has been happening in Gujarat since 1997, the murderous attacks on the Christians and their institutions on 25 December 1998 is what even primitive races were not known to be resorting to. The entire holocaust has been documented in all its detail in innumerable reports, books, articles in national and foreign press, and in a Report prepared with meticulous care and precision by the Citizen’s Commission on the persecution of Christians in Gujarat 1998–99 entitled Hindu Jago, Christi Bhago.10 After the BJP came to power in Gujarat in 1997, the various offshoots (29 of them) of the RSS and the government headed by the Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel began accusing the Christian community and its missionaries, virulently and consistently, of ‘forcible conversions’ of Dalits, Hindus and others of the Dangs district. The officials, police and the bureaucracy, the reports confirm, were made to

7 See Noorani, ‘RSS and Christians’, and Sarto Esteves, Freedom to Build, Not Destroy, pp. 65–68. 8 The Free Press Journal, 2 September 2002. 9 Sarto Esteves, Freedom to Build, Not Destroy, see Appendices, pp. 253–88. 10 John Dayal (ed.), Gujarat 2002, Untold and Retold Stories of the Hindutva Lab, vol. 1, January 2003 edition, pp. 772–839.

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work on Sangh Parivar’s instructions. The Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM) organized a rally on 25 December 1998 for which preparations had begun some weeks earlier; slogans like Hindu Jago, Christi Bhago (Hindus awake, Christians run away), Gali Gali Me Shor He, Padri Sab Chor Hai (there is a public outcry that all Christian priests are thieves), and others were being freely coined by ‘commission agents’ and publicized through print and other media to whip up communal frenzy. A highly reputed school, Deep Darshan High School, which had started about 24 years earlier at the specific request of the Collector of the Dangs district and other government officials to the Christian community to do so, was accused of forced conversions and anti-national activities; a play on communal harmony enacted and staged by the school eulogizing the unique services rendered by Mahatma Gandhi was given an entirely false, unconnected twist: that it desecrated Lord Krishna which would arouse communal passions. This misrepresentation, a concocted story by the HJM spread like wild fire all over the state. The Principal of the School, Sr Carmen Borges (a Goan but the world around told that she is a foreigner), reported the true facts of this play and the way the school was being harassed by communal elements, to Prime Minister Vajpayee when she met him during his visit to Gujarat on 10 January 1999; he, of course, listened to her but took no action against anyone, nor showed any dissatisfaction with the way creative, educational activities of this nature are being blatantly turned and twisted to serve RSS’s partisan objectives. At about 4 P.M. on Christmas day a violent mob of 125 men ‘armed with trishuls, lathis and sacks filled with stones’ attacked the school and damaged boy’s hostel, smashed window panes.11 This is what the Citizens’ Commission has to say on this subject: ‘We have ourselves seen the video recording of the play, and there could not be any objection from anyone, as it purported to preach communal harmony and the futility of violence.’12 In 1998–99, the school had 840 children of which only about 100 were Christians, the rest were non-Christians; and out of 24 members of staff, only seven were Christians. There is a stampede to secure admission in the school by Hindus every year. Almost all students are successful in the school leaving examination each year. Professional training imparted in computers, etc., is appreciated by even the most backward, illiterate people of the Dangs district. 11 12

Ibid., p. 787. Ibid., p. 786.

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The rest of the Christmas day and the night that followed witnessed several attacks on Christian institutions, including 37 churches, houses of Christian families, looting and confiscation of their belongings including cash. Navjyot High School (a Catholic School run by Jesuits) was similarly attacked; a jeep and a motor cycle parked in the compound were set on fire; a school room where grain was stored for students was smashed and the ration was looted. When the students were asked by the Commission whether Christians had made any attempt to convert them to Christianity, they denied this and pointed out that the large majority of them in the hostel (only 30 out of 225 boys are Christians) were nonChristians.13 The Commission maintains that there was no provocation by the Christians to cause any violence on 25 December 1998, or prior to or after that date. But the pamphlets distributed by the HJM to the public openly all over the state asking the Hindus to ‘teach a lesson to Christian priests and put them in their place’, the campaign conducted in all its ferocity by the Gujarati language press and other such threats did; they created a hatred for Christians among the ignorant masses; the officials of the government who were requested by Christian organizations to withhold permission to the HJM to hold the rally on Christmas day ignored it. The violence against Christian tribals and their prayer halls and other institutions on 25 December 1998 was an ‘organized crime’; the HJM and other RSS organizations told the Hindus that the Christian population had increased by thousands in the Dangs district because of forced conversions of Adivasis and Hindus, although there were no forced conversions. If anyone is forcibly converting anyone it is the members of the VHP/BD/HJM/RSS who are forcibly ‘Hinduizing’ the Christians; 14 they are making them believe that they were Hindus before they became Christians; that all Dalits, SCs, STs, OBCs, Adivasis and the poor, downtrodden people of India were Hindus for centuries before they embraced Christianity. They have been threatening these weaker sections of Christians to either come back to the Hindu fold or face dire consequences if they do not ‘re-convert’ themselves to Hinduism. They were attacked by hooligans and, what is worse, those members of their families who are not Christians and are still practising their traditional religions like animism, natural religion, etc., are made to suffer by the Sangh Parivar. The tribals are not and have never been Hindus, and hence the question 13 14

Ibid., p. 789. Ibid., pp. 791–99.

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of ‘reconversion’ or ‘home coming’ does not arise; the Adivasis were never Hindus. The role of the Gujarat government has been equally ‘biased and arbitrary’ with even the Chief Minister and the Minister of State for Home trying to ‘minimize and play down reports of assualts on Christians’; they repeatedly criticized the English language media, the Christian community, the opposition parties of exaggerating the attacks on Christians. The entire fraternity of the Sangh Parivar, spoke with one voice to the Commission that the forcible conversions brought about with foreign money are responsible for the trouble in Gujarat. It is the duty of the media to uphold the Constitution, to come to the rescue of the community, to expose the unwarranted interference with the rights of the weaker sections of the community by religious bigots and obscurantists, and demand that the law of the land be respected, and not be twisted and mutilated to satisfy the hooligans masquerading as leaders of the country; to ensure that honesty and integrity of the media are not thrown into the outer regions because the powers that be are in a position to buy any individual, any organization, with public money, whatever the cost. The press in Gujarat, but in particular the leading Gujarati language dailies like Sandesh, Gujarat Samachar and Nav Gujarat, carried on a relentless campaign for months with highly inflammatory, hatred-ridden, communal propaganda and reports of forcible conversions. This went on for months as if the media which is expected to defend people’s democratic freedoms and consistently work to defend the Constitution and establish democracy in the country had been purchased by the Sangh Parivar to propagate its partisan, Hindu ideologies.

FORCED CONVERSIONS

AND

‘HOME COMING’

The word ‘Conversion’ is a creative expression, very much applicable to all rational, intelligent human beings. It shows the pragmatism of a person, that he is capable of thinking practically and deciding what he wants to do with himself, what is good for himself, and even formulate his philosophy of life. But in India during the last few decades it has been turned into one of the dirtiest, despicable and uncivilized words or ideas. Today not even an educated and enlightened person wants to have much to do with it, much less the illiterate and ignorant masses. It has been made so by the Sangh Parivar conglomerate entirely to malign the Christian

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community and achieve its political objectives. It tried to come to power through all types of strange ideological formulations and subterfuges for nearly 40 years after independence. Christians are accused of forcibly converting Dalits, Adivasis, Hindus, SCs, STs and the weaker sections of our society through bribes, coercion, fraudalent methods, cash doles, free admissions for children in their schools and colleges, jobs for youth, luxury cars. The people are made to believe, by constant, endless repetition, a la the Nazi fashion, that millions of Dalits, Hindus, Adivasis, etc., are being converted everyday and that soon the Hindus will be reduced to a negligible minority and that Christians will be the majority community in India! It will be helpful for everyone to look straightaway at the most authentic, official figures of the Christian population in India provided by the Census from 1951 to 2001: Census figures of the year

Percentage of Christian

1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001

2.35 2.44 2.60 2.44 2.32 2.21

These figures are not picked up from the roadside. They are part of the highly dependable statistics that the country gathers every ten years on the various aspects of life, of people residing in the country, its natural resources, etc. If the Sangh Parivar is unable to appreciate such weighty statistics and information about our country and make sense out of them, then no one will be able to help it. Christianity has been practised and propagated in India for 2000 years and if during the last 50 years since the country attained independence the population of Christians is seen as actually diminishing, then anyone with a little common sense will admit that this talk of Christian population overtaking other communities is bogus; it is a figment of the imagination of the Sangh Parivar. It is a white lie for the gullible to swallow. The Christian community is not wasting its time and resources to convert anyone forcibly. For centuries it has practised what it preaches, and in the process has taught many to live in peace and harmony, love one’s neighbours, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, care for the dying. The Citizen’s Commission which investigated the attacks on Christians in Gujarat found the charge that the population of Christians would soon outnumber Hindus was ‘false propaganda’ only to

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instigate Hindus to attack Christians. It states: ‘We found no evidence of any forcible conversion to Christianity. The established institutions like the Deep Darshan High School at Ahwa, and Navjyot School at Subir run by the Jesuits have at no time indulged in any act of conversion.’15 There are several statements made by police officers, public leaders, government officials, NGOs, and others in their testimony before the Citizen’s Commission. What comes out clearly from them is that it is the Hindus, that is the members of the VHP, BD, HJM, RSS are busy ‘Hinduizing’ the Christians in large numbers. They are forcibly converting Adivasis who have been Christians for many years to Hinduism by threats, force, fraud and allurement which is a violation of human rights under the Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the UN, and Article 25 of our Constitution. They call those activities Ghar Vapsi, ‘home coming’, and all types of other phrases are coined to give the impression to the world at large that these are honourable, constitutionallysanctioned deeds and actions. But they cannot make anyone with some common sense believe this tripe. The Adivasis, Dalits, SCs, STs and even many OBCs are not Hindus. The religion they practise is animism or a natural religion to which they were born and which their forefathers had practised for centuries. Writers, scholars and leaders of the community like Dr B.R. Ambedkar have written volumes to prove this beyond a shadow of doubt. In their ignorance, however, some of the weaker sections may be even calling themselves Hindus because they were born in Hindustan, and because the finer aspects of different religions and religious traditions may not be known to them; they may also be finding it in their interests to do so in order to avail of the educational, economic and other facilities made available to them under the Constitution if they declare that they are Hindus. The purification ceremony which the RSS/VHP/BD members and their sants carry out at these ‘home coming’ functions is nothing but forcible conversion,’16 they do not accept also that the Adivasis deserve ‘equal status in conservative Hindu society’. The Sangh Parivar does not agree that the term ‘Adivasi’, is the right word to describe them; they refer to the tribals as ‘vanvasis’. The Adivasis, however, are indeed happy to be what they have been, and actually ‘admit that they experience a sense of liberation, be it educational, social, moral or spiritual on becoming Christians. Such an experience cannot be

15 16

Ibid., p. 802. Ibid., p. 814.

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considered as forcible conversion’.17 If any reason for this new-found love in recent years of the high caste Hindus for Dalits is to be found, it is their anxiety to make the Dalits, the weaker sections of our society, and the world believe that Dalits are Hindus, then claim that an overwhelming majority of the people of India are Hindus and make the Dalits vote for the BJP by preaching hatred against the Christians. They want to come to power, with an absolute majority, to establish Hindu rashtra in India. The RSS knows quite well that the old feudal elite, the high caste Hindu society is a vanishing tribe. It is now trying to ‘derive legitimacy through religion’18 by claiming that Buddhists/Jains/Sikhs/Dalits/SCs/STs/OBCs/ Adivasis and many more are all Hindus which make up an overwhelming majority in the country. The Fundamental Rights which guarantee, among other things, the right ‘freely to profess, practise and propagate religion’ were framed in the manner they are after discussing every aspect of it. Everyone in the country has a right to propagate one’s religion. The decision to embrace any religion is a personal decision which the individual concerned alone can make. The Christians are showing by example, by actually living their Christianity what Christianity is. It is for the individual to see what it is as it is lived, as it is practised by its followers and ‘embrace’ it if he so chooses. That decision of his cannot be challenged because he is a rational human being who is free to decide for himself what he wants to do with himself. Our Constitution has acknowledged his right to think. Article 14 of the Constitution has given him equality before the laws. The Christians in India are its full-fledged citizens equal in every respect to any other citizen of India including members of VHP/BD/SS/RSS. When a person is prevented from embracing another religion if he decides to do so, he is denied the freedom which Articles 14 and 25, among others, give him. This cannot be allowed; when the government yields to pressures in various ways to prevent an individual from availing of the freedom granted to him in these Articles, it fails to defend and uphold the Constitution. Moreover, the very concept of freedom of religion has no meaning whatsoever if what is granted to the citizens in Article 25 is taken away by the various so-called Freedom of Religion Acts which are passed and are being enforced in five different states with more to follow. The nine-judge bench which delivered the landmark judgement dealing with

17 18

Ibid., p. 803. Ram Puniyani, The Second Assassination of Gandhi, p. 29.

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the Babri Masjid demolition case and the subsequent developments has dealt with a number of issues of far-reaching importance which are of relevance here:

• • • • • • •

•

Secularism is one of the basic features of the Constitution. No political party can simultaneously be a religious party. Politics and religion cannot be mixed. Any state government which pursues unsecular policies or unsecular course of action acts contrary to the Constitutional mandate and renders itself amenable to action under Article 356. Democracy stands for freedom of conscience and belief, tolerance and mutual respect. India being a plural society with multi-religious faiths, diverse creeds, castes and cultures, secularism is the bastion to build fraternity, and unity with dignity of person as its constitutional policy. The state guarantees individual and corporate religious freedom and deals with an individual as citizen irrespective of his faith and religious belief and does not promote any particular religion nor profess one against another. The concept of the secular state is, therefore, essential for successful working of the democratic form of government.19

DUTY

OF

GOVERNMENT

In the larger interests of the nation, and in order to ensure that the liberal, secular, democratic system of governance that the nation has chosen for itself and has been struggling to establish firmly and permanently, these divisive forces in our society have to be disciplined and curbed. In the early part of this chapter, it has been shown in sufficient detail that ours is a country where equality of all citizens and their right to profess, practise and propagate a religion is guaranteed to all the citizens of India. This is a right we have given to ourselves. It is not a gift from any section of Indians to anyone or a favour done to anybody by any political party. There is no restriction of any kind on this freedom of the individual to 19

See Stanley J. Tambiah, ‘Secularism in India: The Recent Debate’, in Rajeev Bhargava (ed.), Secularism and its Critics, p. 449.

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decide for himself which religion he should practise, change his beliefs or convictions if necessary, and switch over to another religion if one so wishes as long as this is done within the limits laid down by the laws of the land. If any citizen transgresses any law of the land or fails to carry out any obligations that he is expected to fulfil, then the duty to take action for the violation of the law is of the government, and not of any private citizen or group or any non-official, social, cultural, communal or sectarian organization. We have only one duly elected and legally constituted government and not half a dozen of them. Therefore, members or sympathizers of these largely self-constituted, sectarian organizations like the RSS/VHP/BD/HJM/SJM and others have no right under any law, or locus standi to issue orders or firmans to Christians not to convert others to their faith, to leave the country, to ask their priests, religious and missionaries to stop their activities, to make totally false, unfounded accusations against them of bringing foreign money and other resources to bribe, influence, defraud and convert Dalits and other sections of people, of a conspiracy to colonize India from the backdoor and of antinational activities of Christians who have been loyal, patriotic, committed, peace-loving and law-abiding citizens. In a multi-religious country, it is the foremost duty of the Government to work at all times to bring about peace and harmony among the various communities. Communal harmony cannot be established by antagonizing the helpless minorities and conniving at the deliberate, concocted accusations against them without any basis in fact. The minorities have lost all faith and confidence in the government because it is actually helping the hooligans to implement the Sangh Parivar’s communal agenda and not protecting the weaker sections. All this has to stop. The government is not to presume that it can shield anyone in this regard, however good a ‘friend’ he may be of the ruling party. If the Sangh Parivar wants to find a place for itself in our political horizon it has to do so through democratic methods and within the four corners of our secular Constitution, and not with musclepower and fascist methods. The BJP and its cohorts will have to renounce its communalism; democracy has taken roots deep enough to defeat its communalism in the elections to come.

GUJARAT—HINDU RASHTRA LABORATORY

15

UDAY MEHTA

T

here is no dearth of appraisals that seek to explain why and how the Sangh Parivar could succeed in making deep inroads in the social, cultural, administrative, judicial, economic and political set up in Gujarat, extending its influence from urban to rural and tribal areas, and in provoking a series of violent anti-Dalit, OBC and especially anti-minorities disturbances culminating in the ghastly post-Godhra genocide in 2002. This is an attempt to briefly review the findings of some of the significant studies that bring out the nature of subjective and objective factors contributing to the success of the Sangh Parivar in making Gujarat a model laboratory for the realization of their future project of establishing the Hindu rashtra in this country. Gujarat has witnessed a reformist, revivalist trend in social, cultural and religious spheres of civic society right from the mediaeval period. Along with the liberal, humanist trend represented by Narsingh Mehta, Akho, Dalpatram, we find the revivalist current manifested among Dayaram, Govardhanram Tripathy, and others. Narmad, who advocated social reform in casteist Gujarat society, succumbed to the pressure of the dominant conservative upper-caste lobby and retracted from his earlier position.

CONTRAST

WITH

MAHARASTRA

In sharp contrast to Gujarat, Maharashtra, for instance, witnessed a radically different situation right from the mediaeval period. During the mediaeval period Maharashtra saw the emergence of several eminent

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saints like Tukaram, Eknath, and others who came from lower castes, but exercised profound influence on the religious and social spheres. The Varakari sect, which still has a strong presence even in present Maharashtrian society, is the outcome of the impact of the teachings of these mediaeval saints. OBC and Dalit movements also played significant roles in contesting the hold of the upper castes in Maharashtra during the nineteenth century. Maharashtra has a rich tradition of the Dalit along with Muslim Marathi writers. There were also a number of progressive and radical literary figures of great eminence who dominated the Marathi literary scene during the freedom struggle. The state also has a history of a powerful working class movement and heroic leadership subscribing to communist and socialist ideology. Unfortunately, Gujarat has no such parallel in any of these directions. Gujarat has no history of either OBC or the Dalit movement. The left movement could not make any headway here. Similarly, Gujarat has not witnessed any strong presence of progressive, radical or Dalit writers during either the pre- or even post-independence period. Under the circumstances, it is not surprising to find that society in Gujarat has traditionally been quite conservative, based on strict adherence to norms and rituals of the caste hierarchy. Gujarat is also notorious for its extensive practice of untouchability, molestation of Dalit women, suppression of women and the consequent high rate of women’s suicides. Saurastra, known for its large number of princely states, was dominated by feudal values and institutions for ages. Traditionally Gujarat has acquired a distinct reputation for the dominance of the traders’ lobby and culture. Despite the rapid industrialization and modernization witnessed by the state, especially over the last three decades, feudal values, and institutions and trading culture still exercise dominant influence in Gujarat society. In order to better appreciate the success acquired by the Sangh Parivar in the state, it is imperative to keep in mind the prevailing social and economic structure of the society in Gujarat. In the absence of any political-socio-economic radical movement, as Girishbhai Patel aptly argues, the Dalits remained outcasts and the Adivasis remained marginalized, creating almost a political ideological vacuum. The Hindutva forces under the leadership of the BJP, VHP and RSS found an open field for their unhindered propaganda and indoctrination and did succeed in penetrating these communities substantially. Instead of Marx, Ram became a rallying point.1 1

Patel Girish, ‘Narendra Modi’s one-day cricket, what and why?’, Economic and Political Weekly (30 November 2002), pp. 4827–28.

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Though OBCs constitute as much as 40 per cent of the population, they are defragmented into cluster of castes and sub-castes which are highly heterogeneous, having no link with each other. The freedom movement hardly made any impact on them. As an overwhelming majority of these communities were small and backward, also recruited from erstwhile nomadic tribes, there was little scope for any political or social movement. Some of the traditional occupations of OBCs could transform themselves into modern occupations in a new bourgeois society, such as tailors, cobblers, barbers, carpenters, etc., while others lost their significance. The Jan Sangh and the BJP could get entry easily and could recruit any number of leaders from OBCs, as the latter sought upward mobility in the Hindu hierarchy through sanskritization. The BJP exploited their socially lower position and gave them status by appointing many of them to various offices of their organizations. In contrast to the Dalits and Adivasis among whom there were some movements and conflicting ideologies, there was no movement of any kind or any working ideology among the vast masses of amorphous backward classes, numbering almost two crores cutting across their different communities of castes or operative even in the major community. They were neither untouchables nor marginalized, but very much part of the Hindu society, of course forming the lower stratum. Their ambition was to be a part of the Hindu mainstream either through upward social mobility or economic advancement, but not to be part of any depressed and oppressed communities.2 Gandhi’s approach to industrial relations deserves serious consideration. Ahmedabad actually became a model of his philosophy of labouremployer relation based on the principles of class harmony and class reconciliation in place of the Marxist perspective of class conflict and class struggle. Gandhi’s concept of trusteeship implies submission of labour, and under the INTUC leadership labour became a docile force. The same approach was extended to agricultural and sugar cane workers in south Gujarat where most of those recruited from the tribal areas were exploited as bonded labour, known as Hali for decades. Similarly, the peasant movement during the pre-independence period was dominated by rich patidar farmers under the leadership of Vallabhbhai Patel. It never adopted any radical programme promoting the demands of agriculture labour and poor kisans and always stood for peaceful agitation. Thus the Gandhian influence on trade unions, kisans and Adivasis

2

Ibid., p. 4834.

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curbed the growth of any radical organization, or militant struggle in Gujarat. These peculiar features of the social history of Gujarat obstructed the growth of the left, progressive or radical movement of the oppressed in the state. As against this peculiar background, there were other factors which facilitated the growth of the Sangh Parivar in Gujarat. We shall briefly narrate some of these features, which helped in promoting its hold over the state and civic society. Gandhi’s upholding of Varnashramdharma and the caste structure promoted the influence of Hinduism, which indirectly helped the Sangh Parivar in promoting its advocacy of its concept of the Hindutva and the Hindu rashtra. Apart from this, the extensive influence of both Jainism and the Swaminarayan sect among patidars and NRIs with their fad for vegetarianism and anti-Muslim bias respectively have proved useful in extending the hold of the Sangh Parivar in Gujarat civic society. Even in the political sphere the conservative, rightist leadership dominated the Congress party since its inception. Sardar Patel, Morarjee Desai and their disciples had decisive voices in shaping the policy and programme of the party since its formation in the state. Not surprisingly, the first major challenge to the Congress came from the further right, reactionary feudal and pro-industrial lobby for free enterprise and against the state intervention in economy. The political formation, designated as the Swantra Party, posed a serious challenge to the Congress in the 1960s and in the 1962 and 1967 elections the party came quite close to capturing power in the state assembly. Some of the important leaders of this party who came from princely Rajput families and the patidar caste switched their support to the erstwhile Jan Sangh and subsequently to the BJP, and were instrumental in consolidating the hold of the Sangh Parivar in Gujarat. Keeping in view the existing socio-economic structure of Gujarat, Madhav Singh Solanki extended the KHAM policy, consisting of the alliance of Kshatriyas, Harijans, Adivasis and Muslims, together constituting around two-third of Gujarat’s population. This advocacy could prove effective for some time, but as Girishbhai Patel rightly points out, as it remained merely an expedient combination of four castes or communities without any broad ideological framework, it would be fragile, opportunistic, ad hoc and would not transcend caste or religious loyalties. The alliance was a double-edged sword—it could lead to a radical movement or it might entrench caste and community loyalties and identities. As a matter of fact, exclusions of higher castes/classes from political power and threat to their hegemony alienated them and forced

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them to fight back. This actually happened after 1980. This first SC/ST anti-reservation agitation by the higher intermediate castes—Patels, Brahmins, Baniyas—against the reservation policy for admission to institutions of higher education and in promotion erupted violently and resulted in open riots between the two. This prevented, to some extent, the upward mobility of Dalits and Adivasis belonging to better economic strata, and forced them to go back to their poor brethren. When an attempt was made for increasing reservation for OBCs from 10 per cent to 27 per cent, it led to the second anti-reservation agitation in 1983 and 1985 wherein more than 39 per cent of OBCs were brought into conflict with the privileged classes. The agitation was so violent and hostility (between higher castes, OBC and Dalits) so intense, coupled with strong vested interests of the builders’ lobby dominated by Patels and led by exChief Minister Chimanbhai Patel and the BJP, that Rajiv Gandhi with his elitist background opted for appeasement of the dominant sections of Hindus, particularly the middle class. He advised Solanki to resign as Chief Minister and installed Amar Singh, Chaudhari, the Adivasi leader, instead. The KHAM experiment was over, leaving behind only dangerous caste conflict and bitterness. The Congress(I) lost its moorings. Chimanbhai with his Janata Party/KMPP represented some sections of Patels and builders, while the BJP, being roped in, spread its nets particularly among Dalits, OBCs and subsequently Adivasis—the politically rootless communities which can easily fall prey to temptations of higher mobility through sanskritization and higher political participation through opportunism. The Muslims, confused by the Hindu caste conflicts and losing faith also in the Congress, had hardly any space in Chimanbhai’s party and could not join the BJP. Slowly and gradually Gujarat politics and society moved towards its final goal, Hinduism.3 Apart from the above factors, the erstwhile Jan Sangh and RSS policy of indulging in anti-Muslim propaganda and fomenting communal disturbance in the state also played significant roles in extending the Parivar’s influence in Gujarat. The anti-Muslim bias prevalent among the upper caste Hindus, especially among the Rajputs, Brahmins and Banias, facilitated this process. Local party functionaries fuelled these sentiments through speeches, circulation of rumours and attachment of charged symbols to localized conflict between the two communities. According to official figures there were as many as 2,938 instances of communal violence between 1960 and 1969 in Gujarat. Some of them were major 3

Ibid., pp. 4831–32.

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riots in Saurashtra and Kutchha. The Indo-Pakistan war in 1965 further aggravated tensions and provided fertile ground for rumour mongers. Anti-Pakistan sentiments could often be transformed into hatred against local Muslims. In 1968, the RSS organized a rally attended by 1,615 volunteers from different districts of Gujarat. M.S. Golwalker, while addressing the rally, stressed that only Hindus were secular. They had tolerated all sorts of suffering at the hands of various ‘others’. He pleaded for the making of a ‘Hindu rashtra’, a concept on which there had already been extensive discussions in the press in Gujarat. The major thrust of the debate was that Muslims had destroyed Hindu culture and now enjoyed special favours in the country. Further, Hindu rashtra was identified with Indian nationalism. Some religious leaders and the Jan Sangh formed the Hindu Dharma Raksha Samiti (Committee to defend the Hindu religion) in Ahmedabad in 1968. The committee played a very important role in fomenting anti-Muslim feelings in the city before the 1969 communal riots. The tension between two communities culminated in the large-scale communal riots in September–October 1969, which spread to several cities. The Jan Sangh and RSS workers were actively involved in spreading unrest either by provoking the people, taking initiative in leading mobs, or simply by providing money or material to the rioters. The Congress, which was in power, not only failed to control the riots, but its leaders also shared a good deal of the Hindu communal outlook. Not surprisingly, they also participated directly or indirectly in the strife, and were instrumental in helping the Jan Sangh to expand its support base in urban areas.4 The tension between Hindus and Muslims, as Shah argues, was at a high emotional peak in the late 1980s on the issue of the Ram Janmabhoomi. In 1989, the Sangh Parivar organized the Ram shila Pujan, a campaign aiming at collecting and consecrating foundation bricks for the future temple in Ayodhya. Religious sentiments were fanned by recitals of bhajans, slogans, legends, myths, movies and rituals. L.K. Advani started his dramatic rath yatra from Somnath in Saurashtra in September 1990, and several mini rath yatras were organized by the BJP to spread the message of Ayodhya. Trishuls, saffron flages and caps, sticker inscribing slogans like, ‘Say with pride that I am a Hindu’, and slogans swearing by Ram that the temple would be constructed at the same place 4 Ghanshyam Shah, ‘The BJP’s Riddle in Gujarat’, in Thomas B. Hansen and Christophe Jaffrelot (eds), The BJP and the Compulsions of Politics in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 245–46.

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appeared in the cities and towns and captured the public imagination for Hindu unity and nationalism. During the rath yatra, communal riots occurred at 26 places, killing 99 persons between 1 September and 20 November 1990. Repeated communal clashes, high pitched campaigns for Hindutva and the issue of the construction of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya helped the BJP a great deal in the 1991 Lok Sabha elections. The next phase of the campaign for the demolition of the Babri Masjid and construction of a Ram Mandir at Ayodhya began in November 1992. Several hundreds of kar sevaks from various castes including the OBCs, Dalits and tribals were deputed from Gujarat for Ayodhya. Gujarat actually sent the largest member of kar sevaks to Ayodhya. Following the demolition of the Babri Masjid communal riots took place on a large scale in different parts of Gujarat; communal holocausts were most intensive in Surat, where they continued for over six months and claimed more than 200 lives. 1993 proved very tense in Gujarat. This emotionally highly charged year helped the BJP to sweep the state assembly elections in 1995.5 In the recent assembly elections as well, the BJP could win largely through taking advantage of the post-Godhra genocide, registering an unprecedented success in riot-affected areas. There were 13 electoral districts out of the total 25 that were affected by post-Godhra communal violence. These 13 riot-affected districts have 66 per cent of the total 3,213 million electors in Gujarat and 62 per cent of them exercised their rights to vote in the 2002 assembly elections. 71 per cent of the total votes obtained by the BJP in Gujarat were obtained from riot-affected areas, these (Ahmedabad, Panchmahals, Vadodara, Mehsana, Dahod, Anand and Saberkantha, etc.) accounting for 116 assembly seats and mandated BJP with 91 seats, 50 per cent of the total seats in the state. Congress presented a quite dismal picture in 2002 election, getting only 8 seats and 36 per cent of the total votes in these riot affected districts.6 Apart from the above multitude of factors that contributed in consolidating and expanding the Sangh Parivar’s influence in the state, there are some significant processes operating at a national level, which also facilitated the emergence and growth of the Sangh Parivar in Gujarat. Along with politico-economic changes ushered in India since independence, the contours of Hinduism as practised by the urban and rural middle classes 5

Ibid., pp. 247–49. Aseem Prakash, ‘Re-imagination of the State and Gujarat’s Electoral Verdict’, Economic and Political Weekly (19 April 2003), p. 1604. 6

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especially in Northern India have also been rapidly changing over the past several decades, providing a favourable context for intervention by the organized forces of Hindutva. Even before the VHP came into its own, there was an upswing in certain new modes of worship and sacred symbols. These included, among many other things, a proliferation of Jagarans around mother- cults like Jai-Mata Di in places without such cults so far, a media invented goddess like Santoshi Ma; devotional popular music; a rush to modern ‘hi-tech’ pilgrimages for the upper middle classes, like Vaishno Devi, and charismatic gurus or godmen, each with a distinct interpretation of Hinduism and salvational strategies for well defined clienteles. The new forms of religiosity from the 1950s and 1960s coincided with a visible decline in the importance of traditional sanyasis, sants and mahants within the middle class milieu. Perhaps this accounts for the easy success of the VHP mobilization drive, which invests them with renewed authority. Certain tentative connections may also be suggested between the growth of Hindutva and the specific pattern of north Indian city and small town development in recent years. The new urban middle class, spreading out fairly deep into rural hinterlands, has based itself largely on the rapid growth of relatively small industrial enterprises and an attendant trade boom. Government planning since the 1970s has promoted small private industries through training, initial support, and bank loans granted on an individual basis. This new sector has achieved a significantly higher growth rate than that of the large-scale industrial units, whether public or private. The Green Revolution in parts of Uttar Pradesh has increased rural purchasing power significantly. These feed into the boom in urban enterprises, consumerism and trade. These smallscale units flourish without the concomitant growth of the organized working class, since individual work places are far too small to consolidate the labour force and enable effective unionization. The recent growth of small towns has depended largely upon such developments. Even a metropolitan giant like Delhi is crucially dependent on these strata. Growth of this kind was accelerated under Rajiv Gandhi with the boom in ‘screwdriver’ technology. In significant contrast to the credit and trade networks based on kinship and the caste structure which had characterized earlier phases of Indian capitalist development (especially Marwari enterprises), the new middle class tends to be fragmented into smaller, more individual units. They are marked by intense internal competition, the steady pressures of new opportunity structures, ever expanding

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horizons for upward mobility, and a compulsive consumerism that keeps transcending its own limits. The very pressure of growth is disturbingly destabilizing; the brave new world of global opportunities creates anomie and existential uncertainties. The more reckless the concrete material fact of competition and fragmentation, the greater, perhaps, is the need for an image of shared anchorage and a theory of collectivity, for disciplined commitment to a system of values that would never, however, challenge the basic material interests and aspirations of these classes. New cults have therefore flourished and godmen are created, while the RSS shakhas, which had worked primarily among urban trader groups since the 1920s, remained highly relevant with their disciplined solidarity, routine actualization of brotherhood, and claims to a pure, traditional system of samskaras. But more, perhaps, as so aptly suggested, came to be needed. The relatively quiet shakhas with their long-term character-building perspective had probably reached a plateau by the 1970s. Militant rhetoric found little outlet in action, and there seemed small hope of dramatic political success. The BJP electoral performance reached its nadir in 1984. The cadres of Hindutva needed a new activist programme, the social groups from which they came could not be entirely satisfied with Jai Mata Di, Vaishno Devi, or godmen. They were still too individualized, unable to convey a sense of intense solidarity and collective life. Organized Hindutva was able at this conjuncture to effectively insert the new, aggressive, Ram-centred communalism, which raised solidarity to a new intense emotional level through its inherent militancy. One of its major departures compared, say, to godmen cults, is the continuous invocation of a threatening ‘other’ with whom an endless war has been joined through the campaign for Ram Janmabhoomi; far beyond Ayodhya looms Mathura, Benaras and the vista of around 3,000 temples still to be regained. The Muslim ‘other’, despite the propaganda about its threatening presence, is in real life a minority, grossly under-represented in the bureaucratic, military, professional and business elites, while Hindutva can rely on complicity from many elements in the state apparatus. The court judgements about Ayodhya in 1949 and 1946, the PAC involvement in innumerable Uttar Pradesh riots, the role of the television serial Ramayan, and the prominence of ex-army men and retired civil servants in BJP today are just some illustrations of these crucial linkages.7 7

Tapal Basu, Pradip Datta, Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar and Sambudha Sen, Khaki Shorts Saffron Flags (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1993), pp. 111–13.

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The same authors conclude that the conjuncture of the 1980s crystallized into today’s powerful wave, not automatically, but because an ideological formation had emerged already over a long process of historical development which they have tried to trace. This formation, again, is far from being free of contradictions and inadequacies, and opportunities still remain for effective secular-democratic interventions to block the thrust towards Hindu rashtra. What is true of the North Indian scenario is probably more relevant and applicable to the prevailing situation in Gujarat today. Economic development in Gujarat since the 1970s has proceeded along this line and it has witnessed a mushrooming growth of small capitalists especially in the golden corridor (Ahmedabad, Vododara, Surat, Mehsana, Anand and Navasari district) and traders, along with a new class of professionals who have emerged as strong supporters of the Sangh Parivar and the BJP.

GROWING ECONOMIC CRISIS The impact of the deepening recessionary trend in the Indian economy and specially in Gujarat (where the earlier boom has disappeared) in vitiating the atmosphere of communal harmony cannot be overstressed. As K. Nag remarks, with the pressure on agriculture, both Ahmedabad and Vadodara have seen large-scale migration from rural areas in recent years. Vadodara, which was on par with cities like Pune and Bangalore in the early 1970s, is now a stagnating city. All the large central public sector units of companies like Indian Oil and IPCL survive but many of them are in bad shape. Ancillary units in nearby industrial estates are closing down. All this means that no new jobs have been created to absorb the migrants or even the new generation locals. After the decline of the textile industry, Ahmedabad, which was once called the Manchester of the East, has been left bereft of any substantial manufacturing activity. Apart from this gloomy scenario, the size of the organized industry like the diamond industry, polishing and power looms in the city, is too small to absorb all the manpower available. Neither has retailing or construction activities of any substantial size been spawned in Ahmedabad. All this has given rise to a class of young, unemployed persons in the two cities, full of energy and without any work to do. Many of these young persons have fallen prey to the ideology of hate spread by certain political

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formations and without any thought have participated in the dance of death seen on the streets of Ahmedabad and Vadodara recently.8

RE-IMAGINATION

OF THE

STATE

Since the last several decades, as we could see from our earlier discussion, social and political space in Gujarat has been gradually used by reactionary politics, allowing political mobilization only around the idioms of religion and caste. As aptly argued by Aseem Prakash, Congress tries to strategically mix both while the Sangh Parivar has embarked on its project of ‘re-imaginating the state’ through weaving a matrix of the ‘Hindu’ religion under the ideology of Hindutva. The re-imagination project entails restructuring the social domain—consolidating all social groups except the minorities for dominating electoral politics so as to contribute to its objective in the material domain, sanctioning certain castes/class to own and control productive assets and sustain the existing hierarchy in social relationships through control of the state apparatus. Nearly 13 per cent of Gujarat’s population, as we stated earlier, comprises of Patidars or Patels. They initially constituted the social and political base for the Swantra Party and then deserted it in favour of the Congress, and towards the end of 1980s switched their loyalty completely to BJP. Patels as a caste were originally cultivaters. Their present prosperity has become possible largely because of the government’s land reforms programme, Green Revolution policies, state subsidy given to agriculture and resources of numerous cooperative societies. The surplus generated through agriculture allowed them to diversify in other trades and shift their economic base to fast growing urban areas while also keeping a close link with rural areas. Patels and Banias benefited tremendously by the state subsidy given to small-scale industries (SSIs) and became a powerful entrepreneurial class. Banias constitute only 3 per cent of the state population but dominate in business and industry. Brahmins who occupy top positions in educational institutions and dominate the professions of doctors, architects and engineers constitute 4 per cent of the state population. Recently they have also moved into business. As indicated earlier, forward castes together constitute 26 per cent of population but occupy

8

K. Nag, ‘Tinderbox—Gujarat—Economic Woes Fuel Flames’, Times of India, April 2002.

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75 per cent of the middle class and 95 per cent of rich class. Rajputs, with small exceptions, stand closer to backward classes in terms of their economic status (Shah 1998, 31, Patel 2002 4828).9 These are the castes that have benefited the most from institutionalization of market-led growth. The prime aim of the material domain of the re-imagination project, as Prakash suggests, is to preserve the social and economic positions of these castes. In this context, Takashi Shinoda’s appraisal of the social composition of entrepreneurs with the help of their surnames across all the districts of Gujarat in 9 SSIs deserves special consideration. Takashi notes that Brahmins and Banias, including Jains and Patidars, are found to be owners in all types of industries in all districts, though their concentration is highest in central Gujarat. Their presence is more pronounced in the units that are capital intensive. Artisan castes, Muslims, Rajputs, followed by Dalits and Adivasis, have presence either in the type of industries with which they have some traditional linkages or in a industry that required a low amount of capital to enter and is labour intensive. Shinoda also notes that agro-based and rural based industries, as well as the construction industry have also played a very important role in the entrepreneurial development of the Patidars.10 The other face of burgeoning entrepreneurial caste/class of Gujarat is represented by urban traders, that is, owners of modern showrooms, hotels, shopping malls, share brokerage, large and medium grocery shops, architectural firms, construction companies, trade in electronic goods, transport, jewellery shops, etc. Prakash, on the basis of his field work, suggests that the dominance of the Patidars and Banias is followed by Brahmins in the commercial and trading activities of Gujarat. His survey also reflects that Patidars, Banias and Brahmins largely control trade and commerce. Koli Patels, Panchals and Sonis coming from OBCs have only marginal presence in these activities. Patidars, Banias and Brahmins though constituting around 20 per cent of the state population, today rule the state. As the same author argues that it is in the interest of political and economic elites (who mostly come from upper castes) to preserve the 9

Reproduced from Prakash, ‘Re-imagination’, p. 1606. Shinoda Takashi, ‘Institutional Changes and Entrepreneurial Development in the SSI Sector of Gujarat’, in Indira Hirway, S.P. Kashyap and Amita Shah (eds), Dynamics of Development in Gujarat (Ahmedabad: CFDA, 2002). Reproduced from Prakash’s article, p. 1606.

10

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economic order, that they seek refuge in a social ideology that legitimizes the status quo. The Hindutva ideology in all its manifestations has never questioned caste and class inequality. The Hindutva-envisaged social order and neo liberalism both rely on the beliefs that one has to be satisfied with whatever endowment one originally had. The political manifestation of this logic is BJP and its social forms are RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal and numerous other institutions and religious orders. This is probably the reason for the affinity of trading class with right-wing social and political formations. The majority of sampled traders were members of any one of the social collectives representing the Sangh, particularly the VHP. Majority of Brahmin traders were found to be members of the RSS. The sampled small traders, for instance grocery shop owners, stationery merchants, milk dealers, etc., were found to be members of the Bajrang Dal. Nearly 70 per cent of the owners reported that the membership of the social collectives preceded their political choice of the party. Individual traders are not only members of collectives represented by the Sangh, but at times are also important district and state-level functionaries of these collectives. If these collectives and the political executives managing the state understand the society, politics and economics from the same vantage point—which is precisely the case in Gujarat— then the strength of the former translates into the might of the latter and vice versa. Thus state policies are efficient in spearheading the growth of commercial capital with the help of tax concessions and cost-related incentives, comprehensive infrastrutural support and eliminating redtapism and bottlenecks. For such a growth most of these initiatives have come after 1996.11 The beneficiaries of these policies are primarily the three dominant castes. State loans and subsidies are important for the growth of SSIs. Such enterprises owned by Dalits grew at nearly 4 per cent after 1992–93 but declined steeply in 1996–97.12 The BJP, not surprisingly, came to power with an absolute majority. State subsidy given to economic sectors like industry, irrigation, power and agriculture is much higher compared to the social sector as education, health, water, welfare of Dalits and Adivasis, where subsidy is reduced.13 During the course of field 11

Ravindra H. Dholkia, ‘Liberalization in Gujarat: Review of Recent Experience’, in Indira Hirway, S.P. Kashyap and Amita Shah (eds), Dynamics of Development in Gujarat (Ahmedabad: CFDA, 2002), pp. 197–223. 12 Shinoda, ‘Institutional Changes’, p. 223. 13 Archana, Ravindra H. Dholkia, ‘Non Tax Revenues and Subsidies in Gujarat Issues and Evidences’, in Indira Hirway, S.P. Kashyap, Aminta Shah (eds), Dynamics of Development in Gujarat (Ahmedabad: CFDA, 2002), pp. 145–50.

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interviews conducted by Prakash, almost all traders hesitantly accepted that membership of the social collectives representing the Sangh, along with their monetary contribution to their activities, permits proximity to the state power, which in turn allows them to speedily pursue their interest with the state government, deter frequent sale tax raids and demolition of business space beyond the legal limit. It is the livelihood activities of OBCs, Dalits and Adivasis that has the last chance to be integrated with this nature of growth process. Gujarat is witness to the declining quality of employment due to the informalization of labour, thereby making urban poverty in the state higher than rural poverty.14 The (un)planned capitalist growth and the ownership pattern of the forests coupled with the absence of any infrastructural support for private commercial activities has resulted in the highest urban and rural poverty in the eastern adivasi districts of the state.15 The agricultural sector in Gujarat is also heading towards stagnancy, while it has benefited the class of rich farmers who can cultivate rich cash crops.16 The secondary sector that used to provide the bulk of employment have started offering diminishing wages and lower number of working days. NSSO 35th round data also reveal that in Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Surat the absolute number of the unemployed has come down but at the same time there is increase in the number of casual labourers coupled with a decline in regular salaried employees between 1993–94 and 1999–2000.17 If we keep in mind the fact that these cities had nearly 41 per cent of the smallscale industries in the state in the year 199718 and nearly 61 per cent of the total state’s investment in the factory sector in the year 1996,19 the gravity of the situation becomes quite evident. As Prakash suggests, the state policies not only creates conditions for the growth of commercial

14

Indira Hirway and Piet Terhal, ‘The Contradictions of Growth’, in Ghanshyam Shah, Morio Rutten and Hein Streefkerk (eds), Development and Deprivation in Gujarat (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2002), pp. 36–53. 15 Ibid., p. 48. 16 Niti, Manthur and S.P. Kashyap, ‘Agriculture Development in Gujarat: Problems and Praspeals’, in Indira Hirway, S.P. Kashyap and Amita Shah (eds), Dynamics of Development in Gujarat (Ahmedabad: CFDA, 2003), pp. 238–67. 17 NSSO, Employment and Unemployment Situation in India, 1999–2000, NSS 55th Round, Government of India, June 2000. 18 Shinoda, ‘Institutional Changes’, pp. 220–22. 19 N. Dinesh Awasthi, ‘Recent Changes in Industrial Economy of Gujarat: Issues and Evidences’, in Indira Hirway, S.P. Kashyap and Amita Shah (eds), Dynamics of Development in Gujarat (Ahmedabad: CFDA, 2002), p. 187.

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capital, but is also prompt in removing market anomalies as understood from the standpoint of private capital. But at the same time it refuses to address the adverse effects of market on the assetless. The contradiction of growth allows certain castes/classes to sustain their domination in the market, which in the face of the state-nurtured exclusion of other castes/ classes also preserves the hierarchy in social relationships.20 BJP could win the 2002 assembly election with two-thirds majority on the basis of the Hindutva platform for establishing the Hindu rashtra based on the alliance of upper castes/class with OBCs, Dalits and Adivasis. But this alliance is fragile and cracks within this formation have become visible umpteen number of times, culminating in a major spilt within the party with the departure of Shri Shankar Singh Waghela, erstwhile BJP president, from the party. The Sangh Parivar has sought to accommodate OBCs, Dalits and Adivasis in their organizational set-up. However, their presence is quite marginal as the party and other affiliates of the Parivar are dominated by the higher caste/class leadership. Apart from this, contradictions in their material interests are so sharp that this alliance would be unstable and remain in a state of perpetual tension and conflict all the time, although attempts are made to provide opportunity for upward mobility to some sections of OBCs especially through the Hindutva platform and sanskritization process. Moreover, one should not overlook the fact that the BJP could register a decisive gain in OBC, Dalit and especially Adivasi districts only in those areas which were deeply affected by the post-Godhra riots, and the overall gain obtained in increasing their voting percentage compared to the Congress among OBC Dalits and Adivasis is only marginal. Voting figures and the BJP’s gain in the 2002 assembly election could be only explained in terms of the party’s ability, in total connivance with the state power, in vitiating the atmosphere in the riot-affected areas and gaining an overwhelming majority of the assembly seats from these communally charged districts, viz., Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Panchmahal, Dohad, Mehasana, Godhra, Sabarkantha, etc. Unfortunately, the Congress hardly provides any kind of viable alternative to the politics and strategy adopted by the Sangh Parivar and the BJP in Gujarat. As a matter of fact, there is hardly any qualitative difference between mindsets of the BJP and the Congress voters in terms of their response to the Godhra incident of train burning and post-Godhra

20

Prakash, ‘Re-imagination’, p. 1608.

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riot retaliation. Even during the 2002 assembly elections and earlier, since the mid-1960s, the Congress by and large has followed soft Hindutva policies that have really helped the BJP and the Sangh Parivar to consolidate its position in the state. In this sense there is hardly any alternative to the BJP in Gujarat. During this election, voters categorically rejected the rest of the political parties by reducing them to the status of non-entities. In this context, any suggestion for building an independent movement of OBCs, Dalits or Adivasis as an alternative to both the Congress and the BJP hardly makes much sense, because the identity politics and struggles based on these issues have almost reached a dead end. This becomes quite evident from the political scenario in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and now even in Tamil Nadu. Whatever relevance the ‘Social Justice Platform’ under the leadership of V.P. Singh acquired in the late 1980s is now more or less completely lost. With the adoption of the new economic policy of globalization and liberalization, especially since the 1990s, and the resultant gradual withdrawal of the state from social welfare, education and public health arena, the space for political manoeuvre on this basis has shrunk drastically. Hence, in the context of the nation and especially in Gujarat, only the collective struggle and organizations built around the demands and grievances of all oppressed and exploited sections of society could pave the way for an effective alternative to the Sangh Parivar and the BJP (with their dream of building up the Hindu rashtra) in the state.

‘AFTER GUJARAT . . .’: MAKING SENSE OF REPORTS ON THE POST-GODHRA VIOLENCE AND ITS AFTERMATH ROWENA ROBINSON

AND

16

D. PARTHASARATHY

W

hile dealing with a theme of this nature, it may be expecting too much from an exercise such as this to come up with radically new insights into the relationship between communal riots, the state and law. It is difficult for a theoretical understanding of communalism to be more advanced than the struggle against communalism. It is only when the struggle against fascist and communal forces reaches an advanced stage that it becomes possible to understand the forces that aid and abet such phenomena. That stage has not yet been reached in India. What is needed now is the presentation of detailed, clinical descriptions regarding the ways in which communal forces are fostered, and the actual role played by different sections of the state and civil society before, during, and after communal riots. The series of reports that have come out after the 2002 Gujarat violence provide detailed descriptions on these (Concerned Citizens’ Tribunal 2002; Dayal 2002; Varadarajan 2002).1 Enquiry commission reports and those of other people constitute good reference material for scholars starting out on research on the relationship between communal riots and the agents of the state. More importantly, by documenting accurately the actual role of the law enforcement agencies during communal riots, those participating in the struggle against

1 These books contain several of the fact finding and inquiry commission reports. Details of these are provided in the references at the end of the article.

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communalism will be enabled to take up a clearer position against the institutions of the state. Media reports as well as reports of inquiry commissions in the aftermath of the Gujarat violence have pointed out the planned rather than the spontaneous nature of the pogrom, police complicity (rather than apathy), the large-scale sexual violence and mutilation of women’s bodies, participation of (Hindu) women, Dalits, and Adivasis in the attacks on the Muslim community, the spread of violence to rural areas, the role played by the vernacular media in fomenting violence, and the absence of government rehabilitation for victims of attacks. While doing some work on issues confronting Muslims in contemporary India in recent months, one of us has been meeting various relief organizations and social activist groups as well as attending their meetings. Everywhere conversations and talks are prefaced by the pregnant and poignant words, ‘After Gujarat . ..’. What is the significance of this loaded phrase? This chapter analyses several reports on the the Gujarat carnage following the Godhra train burning incident and tries to uncover the syntagmatic and paradigmatic shifts in political culture and violence signalled by the trauma of 2002.

GUJARAT 2002: PORTENTS

FOR THE

FUTURE?

There are many things ‘exceptional’, so to speak, about the violence of 2002 but not all of them are the ones commonly, and sometimes mistakenly, pointed out, for instance by the media. For one, not too much should be made of the amazement sometimes expressed that such intercommunity violence could play itself out in Gandhi’s homeland. Despite being the famed land of Gandhi’s birth, Gujarat has had a long history of communal violence including that against Dalits, even though the high level of violence there has been punctuated by long periods of quiet. Indeed, Varshney’s data (2002, pp. 95–107) shows that it is Gujarat that has had the highest per capita rate of deaths in communal incidents between the years 1950–95. Gujarat also has the largest number in terms of total deaths in riots; this number is higher than for the states of Uttar Pradesh or Bihar, states commonly considered prone to communal violence. One of the implications of the phrase ‘After Gujarat . ..’ is immediately brought home. The year 2002 saw extremely high violence but also violence that continued for many months, rather than conflict which

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peaked and died soon after. Violence continues to plague the state: every few days or weeks smaller incidents take place; every now and then tension is reinforced by the declaration of bandhs or by aggressive public celebrations of festivals. Clearly, Gujarat’s history of being a state prone ‘to big violence amid long stretches of peace’ (Varshney 2002, p. 100) has changed and for the worse. It is definite that for Muslims in Gujarat, whatever their class, caste, linguistic or sectarian background, the resumption of and retreat into ‘normalcy’ in the experience of the ‘everyday’ has not been achievable. In other words, the radical distinctiveness of the 2002 violence lies both in what took place and how (process), as well as what it implies or has come to stand for (paradigm, model to be replicated and followed elsewhere). Further, it lies in both the violence itself as well as the aftermath of the violence, the processes of dealing with the violence and the violated. Indeed, the massacre and the attacks on property may be said to have taken the form of a pogrom against the Muslims of the state. It seems almost perverse then to talk in calm tones of how the Gujarat violence this time was ‘different’. From the perspective of the sufferer or the victim, do such finely nuanced distinctions make any sense? They do. Sufferers of the violence in Gujarat 2002 return again and again to the point, if in varying ways and diverse voices: ‘In the past, violence was never like this. This time it was different.’ What made it different? From their point of view, the fact that Muslims were safe nowhere, the fact that neighbours turned on them and the fact that the violence continued so long they could not return to their homes for months. For some of them, the return has become impossible. As violence victims in Vadodara said: ‘Earlier, if there were riots there was stabbing or stone-throwing in the streets. If Muslims stayed at home they were safe. This time it was not like that. They came to destroy houses, loot and burn.’ ‘Our neighbours were involved in the violence; we have lost our trust.’ ‘We could not return home for months after the violence.’ In some cases, people returned to their devastated houses and shattered lives over a year after the first outbreak of violence. This was without precedent in the long history of aggression and conflict in Gujarat. The scale of the violence and the length of time over which it continued, the participation of social groups across the spectrum, the scale and intensity of brutality and inhumanness, the spread of the attacks in rural as well as urban areas, the management of the carnage by state and law and order functionaries, the processes of rehabilitation—all these have rendered the experience of the violence irrevocably different. And

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these were not all. There was a larger political and public context, which shaped the response to the violence in markedly specific ways. In saying all this, and we shall elaborate on these aspects further, there is one disquieting thought to note. This violence has been different from prior attacks; there is no reason to believe it will be different from future ones.

PATTERNS

AND

SCALE

OF

VIOLENCE

It is not enough to say that the state machinery distinctly collapsed in Gujarat, permitting the violence to assume proportions it would otherwise have not, or to state that the police and authorities behaved in a partisan manner. The partisan role of the police, state authorities and even paramilitary forces has been pointed out in riots over the decades and in different regions. The pogrom against the Sikhs in 1984 in Delhi has made us acutely aware of such possibilities. What needs emphasizing is the legitimacy that has been publicly accorded and bestowed on the state: the outcome of the December 2002 elections is only one expression. Other aspects are outlined. The state in this instance and functionaries of the ruling party openly expressed justification for the attacks on the Muslim community and abandoned its constitutional obligation to protect the life and property of citizens. It is true that social analysts had earlier not paid much attention to the signs of social strife in Gujarat that might have given indication of the tumult to come. A depressed working class and non-existent Dalit movement, growing sanskritization among tribals and the frustration of their economic aspirations, vicarious participation in a globalizing economy: these and other elements can no doubt feed the success of hate campaigns. In any case, there is evidence that tribals and Dalits were paid in cash and kind to kill; loot was, moreover, the reward of the marauders (Human Rights Watch 2003). It must be stated without any ambiguity whatsoever though, that no matter how high passions run or to what extent groups and communities are willing to go in committing acts of aggression against one another, a state, a police force, and an army pledged to maintain peace and protect the law can control the violence without difficulty. Where the state and the police fail, the army has to be sent in without delay. In Gujarat this did not happen: stemming the violence was not a priority, leading and participating in the carnage was an objective for the government and political leadership.

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Places of worship have been attacked and destroyed in all intercommunity conflicts. Rebuilding these by local state authorities together with the people has been part of the typical mechanisms of peace building followed over the decades. The first major place of worship to be destroyed and not rebuilt is, of course, the Babri masjid. It is not surprising that after the demolition, the then Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, had committed himself quite unequivocally, perhaps even automatically, to the reconstruction of the masjid; the assurance later vanished from the rhetoric of the Congress. Rebuilding masjids, dargarhs and temples after violence has been part of Gujarati state practice. It is a practice on which people repeatedly commented because of its striking absence following the 2002 carnage. At this time, hundreds of small sacred places were razed to the ground; debris was removed and the areas tarred over. Where this did not occur, the authorities have manifestly refused to accept the obligation to rebuild Muslim sacred sites. In other words, standard administrative procedures for ‘riot’ management, however problematic these may occasionally be, were not followed in 2002 in Gujarat. Such was the implicit faith of Muslims in the law, such their trust in democratic procedure that raped and assaulted women, tortured and almost naked, trudged to police stations in remote areas to file FIRs. Medical assistance was sought afterwards, the reports filed first. Of course, we now know that many of these reports were not properly filed by officers; the accusations were toned down or minimized (Human Rights Watch 2002). An analysis of the Gujarat violence combined with the struggle against communalism not only lead to a better understanding of the phenomenon, but also brings out the real character of our ‘democratic’ institutions. The constant self-praise regarding India’s successful retention of democratic institutions and norms now stands exposed. Amidst all the current discussions regarding good governance, the decline into prejudice and partiality of our executive and judicial bodies, and the general decay of ‘civil society’ organizations and associations of various forms have not been given much attention. Likewise, the debates over communitarianism have neglected to note that many of India’s oppressed classes have frequently discarded their ‘autonomous’ consciousness in favour of externally derived and imposed laws which promised them something that they did not have as a matter of right—freedom from arbitrariness. It is a matter of the maturing of the real character of ‘democratic’ institutions in India today that one by one each of these once hallowed institutions are crumbling. What remain in the relations between classes and communities are forms

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of domination determined to an extreme degree by arbitrariness. It is a matter of the immense possibilities inherent in modern legal institutions for a progressive transformation of society, that the current dispensation in power has consistently run down the potential of these institutions for dispute resolution and democratic governance. The Ambedkarite movement for social justice and the long struggle of the Dalits had shown how changes in social and political power structures could be brought about through influencing state structures and legal institutions. When minorities demand the rule of law therefore, they threaten the ruling elites of this country as never before. That is why the forces of fundamentalism and communalism are undermining each institution in India one by one. The series of reports that have documented the Gujarat violence and pogrom against Muslims, and similar reports that have come out earlier, constitute evidence of the deliberate undermining of democratic institutions, and the direct complicity of the law enforcement agencies and the state in communal riots targeting the minority communities. When agents of the state are neither impartial nor effective, it is highly ‘mischievous’ (Ansari 1997) to ask the usual question that law enforcement agencies and judicial commissions take up to resolve—‘who started the riots?’ By focusing on the immediate incidents leading to the outbreak of riots, such questions elide the provocative behaviour of members of the majority community. When rioting is often a part of the political agenda of ruling forces, one has to pose a counter question—how is it that aggressive behaviour by the Hindus does not turn into a riot? In fact the very term communal riots often conjures an image of members of two communities engaging in conflict which spontaneously originate from a precipitate cause. This is essentially a ‘police’ statement of the problem useful for developing an evenhanded case of rioting against members of two communities. What is usually the case, and this is something which is becoming more and more obvious, is the deliberate planning and targeting that goes into ‘creating’ a riot. This can be understood and even perceived only if we recognize what is referred to as the ‘communalization’ of the police, and the pattern of police lawlessness and attacks on members of the minority community during communal riots over the last three decades. We need to closely scrutinize the role of the civil administration during riots, the character and behaviour of the security forces, and the process of administration of justice, all of which are documented in the many enquiry reports that have come out post-Gujarat violence. The brittleness and lack of vitality of many bourgeois democratic institutions in post-colonial countries is something that has not been

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adequately studied. Perhaps the fact that most post-colonial nation states adopted ‘modern’ form of governance and state/legal institutions which were not shaped by long periods of struggles by the oppressed and the exploited, by the struggles of emerging capitalist classes as it were, are partly responsible for this. Thus in situations of crisis, as during communal conflagrations, in cases involving violence against women or Dalits, the real nature of these institutions comes to the fore. In Gujarat, the spread of violence beyond the traditional geographical confines of communal trouble beyond the walled city to middle class localities, has paralleled the participation of women, Dalits and Adivasis in these attacks. The theory of lumpen elements being involved in acts of rioting and arson in a ‘spontaneous’ manner has always been suspect in the case of many riots in India. However, mobilization for targeted violence has really come into its own as part of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, though targeted violence has been a feature in some cities earlier also. While scholars like Tanika Sarkar have provided a lot of insight into the increasing participation of women in Hindu fundamentalist bodies and movements, women’s participation in violence is something that requires more attention (Parthasarathy 2002). Much of the literature on this relate women’s violence to mobilization and wooing by Sangh Parivar organizations.2 At the height of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, and during the destruction of the Babri masjid, women did participate in large numbers in destructive and violent activity, especially in Mumbai and in several cities in Gujarat. But the kind of violence we are observing now where entire families, with women and children included, participate in arson, looting, and murder, points to a situation where violence has become a ‘normal’ social activity. In a society where kinship and family norms do not even permit women to show their faces outside of their homes, what changes have led to women participating in an activity on equal terms with men? Has the legitimacy given to violence provided legitimacy to changes in women’s behaviour as well? Similarly, what prompts and motivates Dalits to join their upper caste oppressors in carrying out attacks on members of the Muslim community? Do strategies of the Sangh Parivar in bringing women, Dalits, and Adivasis into their fold lead to their greater participation in violence? Is it possible to make a direct connection between political and social mobilization for

2

See articles in Sarkar and Butalia (1995).

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a cause and the readiness to indulge in violence? Women often bear the brunt of violence from their husbands, kinship group members, etc. Given this fact, what changes occur in their ‘collective mentalities’ that they are able to so quickly transform themselves into supporters and perpetrators of communal violence? Is it possible to explain violent activity by women on members of another community, as just pent up emotions being released, given an opportunity and a situation where one is not likely to be admonished/punished? These are issues that have to be understood in the context of what has been happening in the Indian polity and society roughly over the last two decades. Particularly, two discrete but interrelated streams of discourse and action seem to be at the heart of socio-political transformation. One is the reactionary mobilization of upper castes to increasing empowerment of the Dalitbahujans, reflected especially in the antireservation movements in the second half of the 1980s and the early 1990s. The first time that large-scale violence took place in Ahmedabad outside the walled city, and which involved the middle classes actively participating in violence, was during the anti-reservation riots in 1985 which turned communal. During the anti-reservation violence against the Mandal Commission report as well, large-scale violence was mostly treated benignly by the state machinery, and it was for the first time that many middle class young people, especially women, were involved in violence. For many, it was probably the first time that they came out into the streets and participated in public protests. The transformation of antireservation riots into attacks on members of other communities has been observed in other areas as well.3 It is not an accident that the rise of the BJP in coastal Andhra Pradesh has occurred in those areas notorious for ‘atrocities’ on Dalits.4 The political linkages between the movement for a mandir and the anti-mandal agitation are of course well known. Scholars have also established the ways in which the ‘manuvadi’ forces have reacted to the Ambedkarite movement and their role in the growth of the Hindutva bodies. However, we also need to understand the 3

The vast number of sociological studies on communal violence, and the relative lack of serious studies on violence against Dalits is worthy of sociological attention. 4 The infamous Chundur incident had a little known aftermath wherein the upper caste–Dalit conflict was transformed into an attack by upper castes on Christians. The Reddis organized other upper caste communities and led an attack on the Andhra Christian College in Guntur, not just because the institution provided shelter to the refugees from Chundur, but also because it had played a significant role in educating and imbuing Dalits in the district with a new found confidence.

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particular ways in which the anti-Mandal agitation marked a watershed in Indian politics. Especially to be noted is the language of rights which dramatically shifted political action away from a focus on marginalized groups, and cast empathy for the underprivileged in a derogatory framework. Pride in one’s status and derision for the Dalit was now openly expressed. More important, the movement opened up new possibilities of action including forms of violence against the state and other communities which were regarded as legitimate or which were not condemned or put down in unequivocal terms. It is this absence of a negative sanction and the permitting of violence, the sanctioning of violent activities as it were, that also perhaps explains women’s violence—as part of family violence. Women are not likely to face oppression as result of partaking in violence against members of other communities. This is one activity where perhaps the male members cannot or will not impose restrictions or force reprisals. Just as fear of reprisal keeps women in check and ensures their conformity to dominant norms, the very absence of fear in this case makes them do things which they would otherwise not do. Perhaps violence is just a catharsis, a release for these women. Perhaps it also provides them feelings of empowerment. What is important is that they get feelings of being ‘included’—into the family and into a community—in whatever way it is defined. This points to the second stream of events namely the manner in which new ways of belonging and feelings of inclusion are produced for individuals by the Hindutva movements.5 As Arvind Rajagopal has pointed out, more emphasis has been given to their disruptive effects, compared to the possibilities of increased inclusion generated by these movements. The puzzle of increased participation in the Hindutva movements of groups such as Dalits, OBCs, and women—who have had to bear the brunt of Brahminical violence—is explained by precisely this kind of analysis. In Gujarat of course, inclusion was accompanied by an attainment of pride. The open expression of pride in aggressive and brutal behaviour reached its apogee in Gujarat. Hence it would not be quite appropriate to call the carnage in Gujarat ‘animalistic’ behaviour. Apart from the usual argument that animals kill only for food, the ‘animalistic’ behaviour view misses out on the social sanction, the pride, the pleasure, and the carnivalesque character of violence, all of which came about due to the absence of fear and the support of state structures. 5 Several of the articles in the volume edited by Sarkar and Butalia (1995) deal with these issues.

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If legitimacy for violent action on members of other communities has played an important role in enabling women’s participation in violence, the failure to de-legitimize domestic violence is another reason why women, by not differentiating between different types of violence, actively collaborate with perpetrators with violence. The lack of support structures for women are frequently used to explain why women are afraid to actually confront violence within the family. This does not, however, explain how women are able to overcome their antipathy to male violence and become active collaborators in violence. One explanation could be related to the way in which the majority of people in this country, male and female, view domestic violence. Despite the long history of legal action to protect women’s rights and constant attempts by women’s organizations to get laws passed and courts intervene on issues related to violence against women, a majority of women themselves perceive domestic violence as a ‘social evil’ at best, and not as a crime defined by law. This is partly an outcome of the way in which political parties have related to such issues. Even left parties have ‘ghettoized’ the women’s wing of their parties, refusing to mainstream women’s issues, leaving them to be taken up by the women’s wing (AIDWA, Mahila Dakshata Samiti, etc.). Many women’s organizations affiliated to political parties have just not had the political support to launch struggles to change the law, even though there has been no dearth of attempts to do so. Thus struggles relating to women’s issues were often reduced to ‘social’ struggles in the form of public awareness campaigns, taking up individual issues for redressal, etc. Also as is well known, women leaders in the Hindutva movement have themselves spoken about the ‘normality’ of male domestic violence, the need (for women) to ‘adjust’ to violent domestic life.6 Viewing domestic violence by men in this manner, effectively takes it out of the sphere of law. Likewise, the so-called atrocities on Dalits have usually been seen as ‘civil’ conflicts, ignoring the power structures that allow and perpetrate such atrocities. As in the case of violence against women, most men who commit such acts get away with them. It is also important to remember that women are often complicit in caste violence and oppression. The combined effect of legitimacy for attacks on members of other communities and the failure to label domestic and caste violence as criminal or illegitimate, has thus created a situation where women and

6

On this, see especially Anitha et al. (1995) and Sarkar (1999).

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Dalits may find it much easier to collaborate with their own oppressors in inflicting violence upon others. In India in the past few decades there has not been adequate condemning of various forms of violence including those related to caste, lumpen and political violence, police atrocities, and even casual violence between individuals and groups deriving from minor incidents. Social codes relating to violence, and the meanings of legal codes have changes making it easier for people to indulge in violence. While legitimacy and the knowledge that illegitimate acts will not be punished are significant in explaining why people are violent, socialization practices, levels of exposure to violence, and political mobilization—all determined by ones location in social space—are also equally important in explaining how people become violent actors. The turn towards violence for most individuals, but especially for women, is not a simple act, and the participation of women, Dalits, tribals, and the middle classes in general in communal violence marks a dangerous and disturbing turn. One of the tragic but inevitable outcomes of the conflict in Gujarat in 2002 and the way in which it was handled by the state is that violence as a norm for settling disputes of any kind or as a valid mode of reaction to stress, within or outside the family, seems to have grown enormously. One sees evidence of this in the high number of suicides and that often by whole families that Gujarat has seen in 2002 and 2003. It is also seen in the recurring violence between groups of all kinds, castes or religious communities that has been recorded over this period by the media, a phenomenon that Allen Feldman calls the ‘militarization of everyday life’ (2002). Second, what has been established is a sinister model of violence that can be unleashed or withheld as political manoeuvre may demand. Violence as aakrosh or pratishodha legitimized by the state for a crime that can be pinned on a particular community enabled the dividing of society on religious lines and reaped unlimited benefits in the elections. However, subsequent crimes, in Akshardham for instance, which could also so easily have been used in the same way, was not. There was clearly more political mileage to be made at that point in time by proving Gujarat could remain calm in the face of seeming militancy than in unleashing once again the forces of lawlessness. What this indicates is that violence has become part of the semantics and language of dominance and power, of intercourse between communities. Violence is being used as a means of communicating messages, as codes by the dominant group, gaining a spurious legitimacy from the spiral

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of violence among and between groups of all kinds. Thus the issue of state complicity should not blur the focus on the changed spatiality or geography of violence. State violence in police stations and prisons, and in encounter deaths which can be presented in ‘sanitized’ and ‘legitimized’ forms are now replaced or supplemented by attacks in the streets and in victim’s houses and workplaces. Sanitization and legitimation are no longer necessary where there is majority public approval and state and political support for genocide and attacks on the weak, and where no action by the majority and the powerful is labelled is illegitimate. Third, one needs to analyse more closely than we are able to do in this chapter, the caste and class linkages of the violent groups, the processes of the creation of new dominant groups in rural areas and their connections with the urban class network in order to uncover the broader developments that might have, in part, fed the violence as well as the long-term consequences of it. Finally, and this stems from our last point, it becomes clear that efforts to build communal harmony in Gujarat will have little effect until we are able to address larger struggles for development and to bring under purview the concerns of the Dalits, unemployed, and working classes.

REFERENCES Anitha, S., Manisha, Vasudha and Kavitha, ‘Interviews with Women’, in Tanika Sarkar and Urvashi Butalia (eds), Women and the Hindu Right (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1995). Ansari, Iqbal A., Communal Riots, the State and Law in India (New Delhi: Institute of Objective Studies, 1997). Concerned Citizen’s Tribunal—Gujarat 2002, Crime against Humanity: An Inquiry into the Carnage in Gujarat, Findings and Recommendations, vols 1 and 2 (Mumbai: Citizens for Peace and Justice, 2002). Dayal, John (ed.), Gujarat 2002: Untold and Re-told Stories of the Hindutva Lab (New Delhi: Media House, 2002). Devy, G.N., ‘Adivasis and Dalits: Tribal Voice and Violence’, in Siddharth Varadarajan (ed.), Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy (New Delhi: Penguin, 2002). Dutt, Barkha, Women’s Panel, PUCL—Vadodara and Shanti Abhiyan, ‘“Nothing New?”: Women as Victims’, in Siddharth Varadarajan (ed.), Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy (New Delhi: Penguin, 2002). Fact Finding by a Women’s Panel, ‘How has the Gujarat Massacre Affected Minority Women? The Survivors Speak’, in John Dayal (ed.), Gujarat 2002: Untold and Re-told Stories of the Hindutva Lab (New Delhi: Media House, 2002).

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Feldman, Allen, ‘X-Children and the Militarization of Everyday Life: Youth, Victimage and Violence in Transitional Societies’, International Journal of Social Welfare, vol. 11, no. 4 (2002), pp. 286–99. Human Rights Watch Report in John Dayal (ed.), Gujarat 2002: Untold and Re-told Stories of the Hindutva Lab (New Delhi: Media House, 2002). Human Rights Watch, ‘We have no orders to save you: State participation and complicity in communal violence in Gujarat’, vol. 14, no. 3 (2002), pp. 1–68. —–———, Compounding injustice: The government’s failure to redress massacres in Gujarat’, vol. 15, no. 3 (2003), pp. 1–72. Independent Fact Finding Mission, ‘Gujarat Carnage 2002: A Report to the Nation’, in John Dayal (ed.), Gujarat 2002: Untold and Re-told Stories of the Hindutva Lab (New Delhi: Media House, 2002). Interim report, Interim order and Final report on Gujarat, National Human Rights Commision, in John Dayal (ed.), Gujarat 2002: Untold and Re-told Stories of the Hindutva Lab (New Delhi: Media House, 2002). Namishray, Mohandas, ‘The Violence in Gujarat and the Dalits’, in Siddharth Varadarajan (ed.), Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy (New Delhi: Penguin, 2002). Parthasarathy, D., ‘Women, Communal Violence, and Rights Rhetoric’, Manushi, no. 129 (2002). People’s Union for Democratic Rights, ‘No Relief, No Rehabilitation’, in Siddharth Varadarajan (ed.), Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy (New Delhi: Penguin, 2002). Rajgopal, Arvind, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Public in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Sarkar, Tanika, ‘The Gender Predicament of the Hindu Right’, in K.N. Panikkar (ed.), The Concerned Indian’s Guide to Communalism (New Delhi: Viking, 1999), p. 148. Sarkar, Tanika and Urvashi Butalia (eds), Women and the Hindu Right: A Collection of Essay (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1995). Varadarajan, Siddharth (ed.), Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy (New Delhi: Penguin, 2002). Varadarajan, Siddharth, Rajdeep Sardesai, PUCL—Vadodara, Shanti Abhiyan and Anil Chamaria, ‘The Truths Hurts: Gujarat and the Role of the Media’, in Siddharth Varadarajan (ed.), Gujarat: The Making of a Tragedy (New Delhi: Penguin, 2002). Varshney, Ashutosh, Ethnic conflict and civic life: Hindus and Muslims in India (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).

ABOUT THE EDITOR CONTRIBUTORS

A N D

THE EDITOR Ram Puniyani was a Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. He is also Secretary, Centre for the Study of Society and Secularism, and a member of EKTA, Committee for Communal Amity, Mumbai, and has been associated with different secular initiatives for many years. He has been working on the themes related to communalism and the rise of fundamentalism. He has contributed articles to various magazines and journals on these themes. He is also the author of Communal Politics: Facts versus Myths (2003), Fascism of Sangh Parivar, The Other Cheek: Minorities Under Threat and Communal Politics: An Illustrated Primer (2001).

THE CONTRIBUTORS Flavia Agnes is a lawyer and activist, engaged in women’s movements. She is Secretary, Majlis, an organization working amongst women with a focus on legal issue. She is a prolific writer, and contributes regularly to newspapers, magazines and journals.

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V. Krishna Ananth, a student of history from Jawaharlal Nehru University, was formerly with The Hindu. He is currently a freelancer and teaches at the Asian College of Journalism. Sarto Esteves is a Ph.D. in Political Science from Bombay University. He has been a freelance journalist for over 50 years, contributing original articles to various publications all over India. He has also authored several books, including Freedom to Build, Not Destroy (2002); Nationalism, Secularism and Communalism (1996); and Prospects of Indian Democracy. Shamsul Islam teaches Political Science at Satyawati College, University of Delhi. As an author, columnist and street theatre activist, he is known for his unrelenting opposition to the politics of religious intolerance, communalism, de-humanization, imperialism and the persecution of women and Dalits. He writes in English, Hindi and Urdu, and has authored several books on the above issues. Ranu Jain is Reader, Unit for Research in Sociology of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Her Ph.D. dissertation was on boundary fixation and maintenance processes of ethnic groups. Her research interests include related phenomena like communalism, minority–majority issues, plural society and polity, and culture and education. She is currently pursuing a study to understand the process of hegemony-building, as well as the possibility of multi-culturalism in the era of cultural nationalism in India. Manjari Katju teaches Political Science at the University of Hyderabad. She is the author of Vishva Hindu Parishad and Indian Politics (2003), and is keenly pursuing the issue of the rise of communal politics. Prakash Louis was Executive Director, Indian Social Science Institute, New Delhi. His major publications are People Power: The Naxalite Movement in Central Bihar, and Political Sociology of Dalit Assertion. He contributes regularly to journals like The Economic and Political Weekly, Mainstream, Social Change, Vikalp and Seminar, and national dailies like Hindustan, Jansatta and Rashtriya Sahara. Uday Mehta is a retired Vice Principal of Mithibai College, Mumbai. He is a sociologist and his main work is in the arena of peasant studies, religion and society. He is also an activist associated with issues related to the struggle against Hindu fascism, and the housing rights of slumdwellers.

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D. Parthasarathy is Associate Professor in Sociology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay. He has published widely on issues related to collective violence, caste conflicts, law and governance, social impacts of technology, and agricultural change. Vibhuti Patel is Professor and Head, Post-Graduate Department of Economics, S.N.D.T. Women’s University, Mumbai. She was awarded the Association of Commonwealth University Fellowship to be visiting faculty at the Development Studies Institute, The London School of Economics and Political Science, in 1992–93. She is a Trustee of the Centre for Enquiry into Allied Themes (CEHAT), Women’s Research and Action Group (WRAG), Satya Vijay Seva Samaj (SVSS), and Vacha in Mumbai. She has authored many essays and books on issues related to economics and gender. Jawaid Quddus completed his doctorate in Medicine from The American University of the Carribbean, Montserrat, British West Indies, and went on to obtain his postdoctoral training at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is now a Board Certified Family Practitioner at the Kenosha Community Health Center in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He is a social activist and a prolific writer on human rights issues around the world. Rowena Robinson is Associate Professor in Sociology, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay. She is the author of Sociology of Religion in India (2004), Christians of India (2003) and editor (with Sathianathan Clarke) of Religious Conversion in India: Modes, Motivations and Meanings (2003). J.J. Roy Burman is at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. His research interests centre around the Adivasi and other ethnic issues. He has also done a lot of work on syncretic traditions in various parts of India. His work on syncretic traditions of Maharashtra, Hindu–Muslim Syncretic Shrines and Communities, was published in 2002. Thomas Sebastian teaches in a Mumbai College and is associated with social movements related to democratic and economic rights. He has worked on the policies of imperialism, and is the author of the pathbreaking War against People (2002). Anand Teltumbde is a Mumbai-based management professional. He has been associated with various peoples’ movements for more than three decades. His work on globalization, human rights, Dalit issues, Hindutva, and so on have been widely translated in most Indian languages.

INDEX Aawaaz-e-niswan, 202 Abhangs, 37 Abhinav Bharat, 212 Abu Nidal Organization, 68 Abu Talib, 92 Adivasis, 24, 214, 189–90, 283, 285–87, 292–93, 303–5 Advani, L.K., 125–26, 215, 295 Agnes, Flavia, 23, 204 Agnihotri, Bhishma, 153 Ahluwalia, Montek Singh, 45 Ahmad, Mahmoud, 77–78 Ahmed, Rafiuddin, 251 Akbar, 256 Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), 177, 214 Akhtar, Farida, 204 Akshara, 202 Akshardham temple, terrorist attack on, 151, 188, 316 Al-Ahmoudi, Mohammed, 79 Al Badr Mujahideen, 198 Al-Khattab, Umar Ibn, 94 Al-Khwarizimi, Muhammad Bin Musa, 105 Al Qaeda, 16, 20, 69, 75, 103, 106; US official links to, 76–79 Al-Wahad, 105 Albaruni, 110 Ali, Mohamed, 259, 274 Aligarh Muslim University, 259

All India Democratic Women’s Association, 202 All India Depressed Classes Conference, 168 All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU), 169 Ambedkar, B.R., 41, 167–68, 209, 216–17, 220–21; on alternative to nation building, 172–75 American Enterprise Institute (AEI), 86 Amnesty International, 89 Ananth, Krishna, 20 Anarchist terrorism, 68 Anglican Christianity, 40 Animism, concept of, 32 Aniruddha Bapu, 27, 42 Anjuman-i-Islam, 259 Annapurna scheme, 56 Anti-Muslim violence, 24 Armitage, Richard, 77–78 Arya Samaj, 149, 180 Aryan Theory of Race, 211 Asaram Bapu, 27, 42 Ashfaqullah, 138 Athwale, Pandurang Shastri, 27, 42 Atta, Mohammed, 73, 77 Auliya, Nizamuddin, 38–39 Aurangzeb, 95 Ayyad, Nidal, 71 Azad, Chandershekhar, 127, 137–38 Azad, Maulana, 131 Aziz, Shah Abdul, 257

Index Babri Masjid, destruction of, 27, 100, 104, 148–49, 152, 182, 213, 217, 227, 244, 288, 296, 310, 312 Babur, 13 Bahiskrit Hitakarni Sabha, 173 Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), 219 Bajrang Dal, 19, 177, 184–85, 220, 278, 281, 283, 286–87, 289, 302 Bamiyan Buddhas, destruction of, 104, 151 Banerjee, Sumanta, 171 Banks nationalization, 52 Barbak, Rukn-al-Din, 116 Basu, A., 249, 253–54, 261 Basu, Maladhar, 116 Basu, Tapan, 176, 179 Battered peoples’ syndrome, 100 Begin, Menachem, 102 Bengal syncretism, 114–20; Ghazi Saheb dargah, 118–20; Ghutiari Sharif, 118–20; Manik Pir, 118; Satya Pir, 117–18 Bhakti Hinduism, 111 Bhakti movement, 37–39, 206 Bhakti saints, 37–40 Bhakti tradition, 21, 38–39, 113–14 Bharati, Uma, 18 Bharatiya Jana Sangh, 177, 180 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 13–14, 18, 22–25, 58–60, 65, 142, 153, 155, 164–65, 169–70, 177, 183–89, 193, 213, 220, 223, 227, 278, 281, 283, 287, 289, 291–93, 294–98, 300, 302, 304–05, 313 Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, 177 Bhat, Mari, 266 Bhaurao Lokhande case, 235–36 Bheemshakti-Shivashakti alliance, 209, 220, 222 Bhurte, Aruna, 202 Bigamy, Supreme Court verdict on, 228, 233–36 Bijnori, Abdur Rahman, 259 Bombay Plan (1944), 49 Bombooq, Vilayat Ali, 259 Bose, Subhas Chandra, 127 Brahminical Hinduism, 111, 158 Brahminism/Brahmanism, 36, 38–39, 111, 212, 215–16

323 Brahminization, 165, 168 Briffault, Robert, 105 British Charity Commission, 153 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 76 Buddhism, 33, 110, 113, 115, 145, 167–68, 220 Bunch of Thoughts, 137 Bush, George H.W., 76 Bush, George W., 12, 28, 77, 86, 88–89 Calcutta Muhammadan Literary Society (CMLS), 260 Campaign to Stop Funding Hate, 204 capitalism, 82–84 Carter, Jimmy, 76 Casolari, Marzia, 212 caste system, Hindutva and, 210–12 Central Muhammadan Association, 260 Centre for Women’s Development Studies, Delhi, 205 Chandra, Sudhir, 243 Chandrachud, Y.V., 228, 237 Charitable Uses Act, 1735, 229 Charities Act, 1960, 229 Chatterjee, Bankim Chandra, 211 Chatterjee, Partha, 112, 243–44 Chaudhari, Amar Singh, 294 Chenoy, Anuradha, 197 Chipko movement, 170 Chishti, Sheikh Salim, 38 Chistia order, 115 Chitpawan struggle, 212 Chokhamela, 37 Chossudovsky, Michel, 75 Choudhury, Madan Roy, 120 Christian Divorce Act, 204 Christians/Christianity, 24, 33–34, 36, 92–93, 167; anti-Christian violence, 24, 280–84; conversion to, 210; forced conversions, 284–88; government’s role to bring harmony, 288–89; liberation theology in, 206; violence against, 277–89 Christians’ testamentary disposition for charitable purposes, Supreme Court Judgement on, 228–33 Church, role of, 34–36

324 Citizen’s Commission on the persecution of Christians in Gujarat, 281–83 Civilizations, clash of, 28 Clergy, 31, 34–41; saints and, 35–40 Clinton, Bill, 76 Colonialism, 84 Committee of General Security, France, 91 communal violence, pattern and scale of, 309–17 Communalism, 126, 178; amongst minorities, 195–97; barbaric behaviour with women of minority community, 195; challenge of, 58–61; Dalits and, 209; economics of, 61–66; fundamentalism and gender justice, 191–206; politics of, 23; violence against women and, 197–202 Communist Party, 132 Confucianism, 33 Congress party, 20, 49–52, 59–60, 185, 188–89, 293–94, 300, 304–5; antiIndira forces in, 52; communal challenge and, 58–61; defeat in elections, 51–52; RSS and, 129–32, 136; split in, 53 Congress(O) party, 53 Constitution of India, Article 14, 159, 191, 226, 230–31, 277, 287; Article 15, 159, 163, 191, 277; Article 18, 286; Article 21, 226; Article 25, 231–32, 278–79, 286–87; Article 26, 231–32; Article 44, 232; Article 46, 159; Article 356, 288; Article 370, 227 Conversion, Supreme Court verdict on, 228, 233–36 Council for Foreign Affairs (CFA), US, 68 Crossman, Brenda, 205, 234 Cultural nationalism, 140, 142, 168, 213 Dalitbahujan, 112 Dalits, 182, 189–90; atrocities on, 24, 219; cannon fodder of Hindutva, 218; Christian missionaries and, 210–11; conversion issue, 281, 283,

Religion, Power & Violence 285–87; convert to Christianity and Islam, 167, 216; culture, 217–18; Hindutva agenda and, 23, 166–68, 208–24; impact of Hindutva on, 215–19; Islam and, 210; movement, 291–92, 303–5; oppression of in Peshawai, 212; politics, 219–21; social agenda, 215; subjugation of identity of, 216–17 Dandi Yatra, 129 Daniel Latifi case, 227, 242, 245 Darul-Ulum, Deoband, 258 Dawood, Muhammed Fath, 96 Death squads, of El Salvador, 80–81 Deep Darshan High School, Ahwa, 282–83, 286 Democracy, imperialism and, 88–89; use as ploy to impose control, 101–2; war on terrorism and, 88 Deoras, Balasahab, 137 Deoras, Madhukar Dattatreya, 137 Desai, Morarji, 293 Desai, Radhika, 189 Dimitrov, Georgi, 222 Directive Principles of State Policy, 174 Disposition of property for religious and charitable purpose, Supreme Court judgement on, 228–33 Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 235 divorced Muslim women rights, Supreme Court judgement on, 227–28, 237–41 Djinns, concept of, 35 Domestic Violence Act, 2002, 205 Dwija castes, 217 Eatom, R.M., 116–17, 122 economic policy, communalism and, 61–66; middle classes and, 48–50, 54–55, 63–65; poverty and, 50–51; reforms in, 45–47; socialist programmes and, 52; socialist trajectory, 47–48 Egypt, religious belief in, 33 Ekatmata yatra programme, 180–81 employment, in public sector, 45, 64–65; rate of growth in, 45–46; reform process and, 47

Index Engineer, Asghar Ali, 113, 195 ethnic religions, 32–33 False flag terrorism, 68, 70, 74–75 family laws and women, 204–5 fascism, 212–15, 217–18, 222–23 Federation of Hindu Association, 150 Feldman, Allen, 316 Food Corporation of India (FCI), 51, 55–56 food crisis (1964–65), 50, 53–54 Food for work programme, 56–57 foodgrains, burden of plenty, 55–57; crisis, 53–54; prices, 53–54; starvation amidst plenty, 56; subsidy issue, 55–56 Forum Against Oppression of Women, 202 Forum For Women’s Health, 202 Fox, James, 71 Freedom of Religion Act, 287 French Revolution, 91 Friedman, Thomas, 85 friendly fire terrorism, 68, 70–75 Friends of India Society International, 150 Frykenberg, R.E., 111 Fundamental Rights and equality of citizens, 277–78 fundamentalism, 170; barbaric behaviour with women of minority communities, 195; communal violence and, 201–2; communalism and gender justice, 191–206; identity politics and, 193–94; intercaste, interreligious and interracial marriages, 200–201; politics of, 23, 25–26; violence against women and, 197 Gadgil, N.V., 144 Gaffar, Qazi Abdul, 259 Gandhi, Indira, 47, 51, 61, 221, 223 Gandhi, Mahatma, 129–32, 135, 165, 259, 282, 292–93, 307 Gandhi, Rajiv, 221, 223, 294, 297 Gandhi, Sonia, 185 Gandhian socialism, 60 Ganesh, Raja, 115

325 Ganeshotsava celebration, 211 gender justice, 23; fundamentalism, communalism and, 191–206; identity politics and, 193–94; violence against women, 197 Gesudraj, 38 Ghalib, 274 Ghazali, Imam, 256 Ghazni, Mahmud, 96 Global Association for Glorification of Sati, 194 globalization, 84; as cause of terrorism, 103–4 Godhra genocide, 12, 14, 290, 296, 304 Golwalkar, Madhav Sadashiv, 17, 22, 213, 295, 124–26, 138–42; confession of betrayal, 133–36 Gore, M.S., 113 Gos, Porter, 78 Graham, Bob, 78 Gray, A.M., 85 Grossman, Marc, 78 Gujarat, Adivasis in, 294, 303–5; anti-reservation agitation in, 294; carnage, 12–14, 18, 99, 104, 152, 154, 188, 208–9, 219, 227, 245–46, 290–99, 304; communal riots in, see, carnage; contrast with Maharashtra, 290–99; economic crisis, 299–305; Hindutva campaign in, 296–97, 300, 302; OBCs in, 294, 301, 303–5; pattern and scale of violence in, 309–17; peasant movement in, 292–93; post-Godhra violence, 306–17; Sangh Parivar influence in, 290–305; social history of, 291–99 Gujarat Muslim Revenge Group, 17 Gujarat Samachar, 284 Guru Dakshina Days, 150 Guru Sabha, 214 Habib, I., 110 Hadas, Josie (or Guzie), 71–72 Haider, Mulla, 95 Hamas, 106 Hanafi faith, 115 Hedgewar, K.B., 22, 124–27, 138–39, 141, 168, 212–13; confession of

326 betrayal by, 133–36; views of Hindu rashtra, 132; went to jail as Congressman, 127–29 Hezbollah terrorist group, 68 Hezbullah, 106 Hindu Anglo-Vernacular Girl’s School, 260 Hindu Code Bill, 237 Hindu Dharam Raksha Samiti (Committee to defend the Hindu religion), 295 Hindu fundamentalism, 17; communalism, 178; funding Hindu right, 151–54; hypocrisy and Hindutva cause, 150–51; overseas activities of Sangh Parivar and, 148–50; rise of, 148–54 Hindu Jago, Christi Bhago, 281–82 Hindu Jagran Manch, 185, 278, 282–83, 286, 289 Hindu Mahasabha, 21, 41, 130–31, 176, 180, 212 Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, 226, 235–36 Hindu–Muslim syncretic relations, 114–22 Hindu nationalism, 13, 139–41, 171, 181, 209, 211 Hindu rashtra, concept of, 132, 135, 140, 149–50, 154, 158, 176, 214–15, 290, 293–95, 304 Hindu right, funding for, 151–54 Hindu Sanghatan movement, 211 Hindu Student Council (HSC), 148 Hindu Succession Act, 245 Hindu Swayamsevak Singh (HSS), 153 Hindu Taliban, 151, 154 Hindu Undivided Property Act, 204 Hindu Vivek Kendra, 153 Hinduism, 17, 21, 32–33, 36, 41, 97, 99, 109–14, 149–50, 154, 158, 209–10, 294, 296–97; influence of, 145; Islam syncretism, 114–17 Hindutva, 13–14, 16–19, 22–23, 26–27, 42–43; agenda, 208–24; campaign for, 296; caste connection of, 210–12; Dalits and, 166–68, 208–24; fascist agenda, 212–14;

Religion, Power & Violence fascist movement, 223; fascist myth, 222; funding for, 151–54; globalization, 223; growth of, 297, 313; history interpretation and, 178–79; ideology, 157–59, 182, 189, 200, 214–15, 300, 302; Indian diaspora and, 144–55; learnings through history, 221–24; message and cultural symbols, 179–82; mobilization for, 176–90; organizations working for, 177–78; political movement, 222; RSS and, 177–78; resistance to, 219–21; Sangh Parivar and, 148–51, 179; Scheduled Castes and, 160–61; Scheduled Tribes and, 161–63; 168–70; socio-economic agenda, 182–84; violence against religious minorities, 184–89; weaker sections and, 157–75; women and, 163–64, 170–72 History of British India, 112, 179 Hitavada, 168 Hitler, 23, 139–40, 212–13 Hunter Commission Report, 253 Huntington, Samuel, 13, 27–28 Hussein, Saddam, 20, 102 Ibne Khaldun, 256 Illaiah, Kancha, 112 imperialism, 83–84, 87, 126–27; democratic rights and, 88–89; Islam and, 14–17; terrorism and, 89 Independent Labour Party, 173 India, diaspora and Hindutva, 144–55; migration out of, 145–48 India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF), US, 152–53 Indian Association of Women’s Studies, 199 Indian Contract Act, 229–30 Indian National Army (INA) movement, 127 Indian Penal Code (IPC), 229–30 Indian Succession Act, 228–31 Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, 65 International Monetary Fund, 84 Iraq-Iran war (1980), 13

Index Islam, 33–34, 41, 167; Bhakti tradition and, 113–14; concept of, 109–10; crisis perception about, 95–97, 105; dalits and, 210–11; five pillars of, 94–95; guarantees constituted in, 94; Hinduism and, 114–17; history and historical perspective, 92–95; imperialism and, 14–17; in Bengal, 114–17; religion of, 92–95; spread in India, 95–97, 105; terrorism and, 12–14, 97–100 Islam, Shamsul, 21, 320 Islamic Front, 101 Islamic fundamentalism, 13, 16, 101 Islamic socialism, 259 Islamic terrorist organizations, link with US administration, 75–81 Ismailis, 114 Jain, Ranu, 23, 320 Jainism, 33, 293 Jajmani system, 112 Jallianwala Bagh tragedy, 127 Jan Sangh, 59–60, 180, 292–95 Janata Party, 60–61, 294 Jatras, 112 Jawadekar, Prachi, 194 Jaya Gurudev, 42 Jesani, Lara, 201 Jharkhand movement, 170 Jinnah, Mohammed Ali, 129, 135 John Vellamathom case judgement, 228–33 Judaism, 32–34, 92–93 Justice and Peace Commission, 202 Kabir, Sant, 39–40, 113 Kabir Panthi, 113 Kamaraj, K., 52 Kangani programme, 146 Kanshiram, 220 Kanungo, Pralay, 168 Kanwal Ram case, 235 Kapur, Anuradha, 181 Kapur, Ratna, 205 Karzai, 102–3 Kashmiri militants, 17 Katiyar, Vinay, 220

327 Katju, Manjari, 22, 320 Kean, Thomas, 79 Khan, Daulat, 95 Khan, Murshid Kuli, 120 Khan, Rasheeduddin, 111 Khan, Syed Ahmad, 258–59, 274 Khare, V.N., 228, 232 Khilafat Movement (1920–21), 127–28 Khilji, Bakhtiar, 115 Khoemini, Ayatollah, 13, 16–17, 27 Kisan sabhas, 49 Kissinger, Henry, 84 Kitchlew, Saifuddin, 131 Koresh, David, 99 Krishna Iyer, 237 Krishna-Paygambar cult, 119 Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi and Muslim (KHAM) alliance, 189, 293–94 Kumatoolu Banjaras, 112 Laden, Osama bin, 12–14, 16, 20, 69, 77, 79, 102 Laden, Salem bin, 77 Lake, Anthony, 76 Lakra, John, 169 Lalan Fakir, 121 land reforms, 49, 53 Lashkar-e-Jabbar, 198–99 Lashkar-e-Toiba, 198 Laxmi Thakurer Panchali, 122 Left Wing terrorism, 68 Lele, Jayant, 164 Lenin, 83, 88–89 Liberalization, beneficiaries of, 57–58 Liberalization-privatization-globalization paradigm, 45, 47, 54, 65–66 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE), 200 Lokayat, 36 Lokhandwalla, S.T., 110, 114 M.A.O. College, Aligarh, 258–59 Madari order, 115 Madrasas, 23, 256, 258, 271–72 Maharashtra Mahila Parishad, 202 Maharashtra Stree Abhyas Vyaspeeth, 202 Maheshwari, A.P., 192 Mahfouz, Khalid bin, 77, 79

328 Mahila Daxata Samiti, 202 Majlis, Mumbai, 202, 204–5 Maktabs, 256 Mandal Commission, 313 Manik Pir, 117–18 Manipuri Muslims, 108 Manusmriti, 41–42 Marx, Karl, 29 Masum, Pune, 204 Mayawati, 219 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 212 McVeigh, Timothy, 13, 100 Megalli, Mona, 198 Mehta, Uday, 24 Mehtar, Madari, 96 mercantilism, 82 middle class, economics of, 63–65; emergence of, 48–50; liberalization and, 54–55, 57–58 Mill, James, 112, 179 Miller, R.E., 110 Minorities, barbaric behaviour with women of, 195; communalization of, 195–97 Modi, Narendra, 18, 188, 219 Mohani, Hasrat, 259 Mohiuddin, M., 112–13 Moholla Committee, experiences of, 206 Mondal, S.R., 260 Monotheism, 34 Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act, 1888, 229 Mossadegh, Muhammad, 101 Muhammad, Hira, 93 Muhammad, Prophet, 92–93 Muhsin, Haji, 257 Musharraf, Pervez, 103 Muslim communalism, 17 Muslim Jehadis, 151 Muslim League, 21, 41, 130, 135, 259 Muslim Personal law, 237–38 Muslim ummah, decay of, 106 Muslim women, dominant ideologies and, 241–47; media and, 241–47; rights of divorced women, 227–28, 237–41, 246 Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, 204–5, 239–42

Religion, Power & Violence Muslims, achievement of non-enrolled children, 266–67; distribution of students in 6–14 years age group, 267–68; educational backwardness among, 248–75; enrolment, discontinuation and non-attendance rate among, 268, 270; expenditure pattern on education, 268–69; history of education of, 255–61; in India, 249–55; literacy rate, 264–65; proportion of population completing middle and matriculation level education, 266–67; reactionary image, 249–55; socio-economic educational statistics on, 261–72 Mussolini, 212–13 NFIW, 202 Naicker, Periyar Ramasamy, 41 Nanak, Guru, 39–40, 113 Naqshbandi order, 115 Narasimha Rao, P.V., 64, 223, 309 Narayan, Jayaprakash, 60 Nasreen, Tasleema, 192 Nation building, Ambedkar’s alternative to, 172–75 National Commission for Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, 160 National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), 199 National Democratic Alliance (NDA), 227 National Security Strategy, US, 87 Nationalism, 125–26 Nationalist terrorism, 68 Naturism, 32 Nav Gujarat, 284 Navjyot High School, Subir, 283, 286 Nazism, 212 Negroponte, John, 78–79 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 49–50, 110, 165, 213 Nehruvian socialism, 44, 48 Neo-colonial system, 84–85 Neo-colonialism, 83 Nicaragua, Regan’s contra war against, 80 Non-Alignment Movement (NAM), 25

Index Non-Cooperation Movement, 127, 130–31 non-resident Indians (NRIs), 22 Organizer, 126 Other Backward Classes (OBCs), 58, 60, 182, 283, 287, 290–92, 301, 303–5 Overseas Friends of BJP, 150 Pagla Baba mazar, 120 Panikkar, K.N., 178 Pant, G.B., 60 Parakash, Ved, 153 Parekh, Bhikhu, 189 Parliament, terrorist attack on, 188 Parthasarathy, D., 25 Patel, Chimanbhai, 294 Patel, Girishbhai, 293 Patel, Keshubai, 281 Patel, Vallabhbhai, 292–93 Patel, Vibhuti, 23, 196, 205–6 Pathshalas, 256, 261 Patriot laws of the US, 67, 91 Patriotism, 125, 127 Pattanaik, G.B., 241 Peerila festival (Muharram), 112 Pehlavi, Raza Shah, 13, 16, 101 People’s Education Society, 173 Pevrin, Jean-Pierre, 198 Phule, Jotiba, 41 Phule, Savtri Bai, 41 Planning Commission of India, 45 Pointdexter, John, 78 Polytheism, 33 Poonacha, Veena, 171 Popular Hinduism, 111 Poverty, 50–51 Powell, Colin, 77 Prakash, A., 300–301 Prevention of Atrocities Act, 160 Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), India, 91, 99 Privy purses, abolition of, 52 Priya Bala case, 235 Project for a New American Century (PNAC), 86 Public distribution system (PDS), 51–52, 55, 57

329 Qasim, Muhammad bin, 96–97 Quddus, Jawaid, 20–22 Quit India movement (1942), 22, 127, 134, 136 Rabin, Yitzhak, 104 Radicalism, 15 Rahman, Sheikh Omar Abdul, 13, 72 Rajguru, 127, 136–38 Ramjanmabhoomi agitation, 17, 27, 177, 181 Ramayan, 181, 298 Ramdeo Baba Pir, 21 Rashtra Sevika Samiti, 177 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), 18–22, 41, 59, 65, 152–53, 165–68, 172, 176–77, 181, 183, 186, 211–13, 219, 278, 280–83, 286–87, 289, 291, 294–95, 298, 302; anti-imperialist struggle, 130–35; betrayal by leaders of, 133–36; campaign for Hindu rashtra, 132, 135, 140; communal mobilization, 131–33; denounced movements led by revolutionaries, 137–38; dilemma, 143; documents, 126–27; hatred for revolutionary tradition, 136–39; hatred towards tricolour, 141–43; Hindu nationalism, 139–41; opposition to Hindu–Muslim unity, 131–32, 135; Raj and, 124–43; role in freedom movement, 125–26, 133, 138, 141–42 Rath Yatra, 13, 295–96 Reagon, Ronald, 76, 80–81 Reagan’s contra war, against Nicaragua, 80 Reform movements, 24 Religion, as institution, 34–35; based nationalism, 28; clergy and saints, 35–40; complex ensemble, 28–30; definition, 27, 29; dimensions of, 31; ethnic religion, 32–33; facets of, 29–31; features of, 30– 31; genesis of, 30; in social space, 27–28; organizataional dimension of, 31; personal dimension of, 31; popular religion, 29–30; secularization,

330 40–42; state religion, 29–30; types of, 32–33; universal religion, 33 religion-based politics, 22, 28 religious fundamentalism, 157 religious minorities, violence against, 184–89 religious terrorism, 68, 104–5 Republican Party of India, 173 Revolutionary terrorism, 69–70 right wing terrorism, 68 Ritambhara, Sadhvi, 200 Robinson, Rowena, 25 Roop Kanwar case, 193 Roy, Ajit, 172, 252–53 Roy, Asim, 116–17, 119 Roy Burman, J.J., 21, 109 Royal Indian Navy Revolt, 127 Rukhmabai case, 243 rupee, devaluation of, 47 Sabra refugee camp massacre, 102 Saddavi, Naval, 192 Saints, 35–40, 42–43; Bhakti saints, 37–40; clergy and, 35–40; Sufi saints, 37–39 Salamatullah, 255–56, 258–59, 261 Salameh, Mohammed A., 71–72 Salem, Emad Ali, 72 Salt Satyagraha, 129 Samaj Samta Mandal, 172–73 Samarasata Manch, 217 Sandesh, 284 Sangh Parivar, 22, 95–97, 164, 166–70, 177, 179, 199, 213, 216–17; concept of Hindutva and Hindu rashtra, 290, 293; influence in Gujarat, 290–305, 312; overseas activities of, 148–55; violence against Christians and, 278, 282, 284–86, 289 Sarkar, Tanika, 200, 312 Sarla Mudgal case judgement, 228, 233–36 Saroj Rani case, 226–27 Sati, practice of, 23 Satya Pir, 21, 117–18 Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar, 17, 166, 176, 211–12 Scheduled Castes, 159–61, 283, 285–87

Religion, Power & Violence Scheduled Castes Federation, 173 Scheduled Tribes, 159, 161–63, 283, 285–87 Sen, A.K., 152 Sen, Keshab Chandra, 211 Sewa Bharati, 153 Sewa International, UK, 152–54 Shah, Hazrat Ghazi Mubarak Ali, 118–20 Shah Bano case, 17, 23, 27, 193; judgement, 227–28, 237–42 Shastri, Lal Bahadur, 51 Shatilla refugee camp massacre, 102 Shattari order, 115 Shintoism, 33 Shiv Sena, 220 Shivaji, 95–96 Shukla, I.K., 151 Sibal, Kapil, 152 Sikh religion/Sikhism, 33, 113 Simon Commission, 132 Singh, Bhagat, 127, 136–38 Singh, Kuldip, 228, 233 Singh, Manmohan, 44, 64 Singh, Rajendar, 125 Singh, V.P., 305 Singhal, Ashok, 149, 167, 187 Sinha, Mridula, 170 Smith, W.C., 250–51 Social Justice Platform, 305 socialism, 15, 85 Solanki, Madhav Singh, 293–94 Sonalkar, S., 251 South Asia Solidarity Group, UK, 153 Special Cell for Women and Children, 202 Staines, Graham, 14, 19, 24 state-sponsored terrorism, 68, 75, 80–81 Stietencron, H. von, 111 Stop Funding Hate campaign, 22 Structural Adjustments Programme (SAP), 57, 64, 66, 195 Sufi saints, 37–38, 40, 113, 115 Sufism/Sufi cults/orders, 21, 40, 113–15, 206 Sukhdev, 127, 137–38 Summers, Lawrence, 86

Index Sunni sect, 115 Super Hindu Race, 141 Supernatural, concept of, 33–34 Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, 196 Supreme Court judgements, on conversion and bigamy, 233–36; on rights of divorced Muslim women, 237–41; on testamentary disposition for charitable purposes by Christians, 228–33; urging state to enact UCC, 225–41 Swantra Party, 293, 300 Swaraj party, 220 syncretism, 39; between Hindu–Muslim religion, 109, 114; dargah of Ghazi Saheb, 118–20; definition of, 109; Ghutiari Sharif, 118–20; HinduismIslam, 109, 114–17; in Bengal, 114–20; Manik Pir, 118; nature worship and, 120–21; Satya Pir, 117–18 syndicated Hinduism, 111 Teltumbde, Anand, 23, 321 terrorism, causes of, 100–104; connection, 75–79; factors influencing, 100–104; false flag, 68, 70, 74–75; friendly fire, 68, 70–74; globalization and, 103–4; Islam and, 97–100; meaning and types of, 67–68, 91–92; national liberation struggle and, 69–70; objectives of war on, 82–88; religious terrorism, 104–5; revolutionary, 69–70; state-sponsored, 75, 80–81; US and, 76–82; war on, 25–26, 67, 69, 82–88; Western imperialism and, 100–103 textile workers strike, Bombay, 61–62, 64 Thackarey, Bal, 96 Thapar, Romila, 111, 158, 178 Tilak, Bal Gangadhar, 176, 211–12 Tipu Sultan, 105 Togadia, Praveen, 152 Transfer of Property Act, 229 Tribals, Hindutva forces and, 168–70

331 Tukaram, 37–38, 291 Tulsidas, 181 UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), 202–3 UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, 231 UN Decade for Women (1975–85), 192 UN Human Development Index, 18 Ulster Freedom Fighters, 104 Ulster Volunteer Force, 104 Unemployment, in rural areas, 46; in urban areas, 46; labour force, 46, 62 Uniform Civil Code (UCC), 23, 193, 204; Supreme Court judgement urging enactment of, 225–41 United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), 200 United States, as terrorist, 81; links with terrorist groups, 75–81; objective of war on terrorism, 82–87; sponsored terrorism, 75, 80–81 Vajpayee, Atal Behari, 18, 22, 124–27, 134, 282 value, law of, 82–83 Vananchal movement, 169 Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, 153–54 Varnashramdharma, institution of, 216 Varshney, A., 254 Vaz, Hubert, 200 Vishnu Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA), 148, 150 Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), 18, 42, 149–50, 152–54, 167–68, 177, 180–82, 184–89, 200, 278, 281, 283, 286–87, 289, 291, 297, 302 Vivekananda, 176 Waghela, Shankar Singh, 304 Wallace, Anthony, 30 Walliullah, Shah, 257–58 War on terrorism, 67, 69, 82–88; democracy and, 88; objectives of, 82–87 Warkari tradition, Maharashtra, 37

332 weaker sections, Ambedkar and, 172–75; Dalits, 166–68; Hindutva and, 157–75; onslaught of Hindutva forces on, 164–72; Scheduled Castes, 160–61; Scheduled Tribes, 161–63; women, 163–64, 170–72 Western imperialism, and terrorism, 100–103 Women, ban on intercaste, interreligious and interracial marriage, 200–201; barbaric behaviour with, 195; communalized education, 199–200; communalized violence against, 201–2; current debate, 203–4; dress code, 198; family laws, 204–5; female-headed households, 199; global initiatives to curb violence against, 202–3; Hindutva forces and, 170–72; identity politics and, 193–94; movement, 170; Muslim women, 227–28, 237–47; of minority

Religion, Power & Violence communities, 195–97; profile, 163–64; right to work, 198–99; rights, 23, 227–28, 237–41; sex segregation, 197–98 Women’s Human Rights Commission, 202 World Conference on Human Rights, 231 World Hindu Conferences, 150 World Trade Center (WTC), terrorist attack on, 12–13, 20, 69, 71–74, 86 World Trade Organization (WTO), 13, 84, 103 Yagnik, Achyut, 189 Young Italy, 212 Young Women Christian Association, 202 Zafar, Bahadur Shah, 138 Zia-ul-Haq, 17, 42