[sacw] [ACT] sacw dispatch (26 feb 00)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Post - Dispatch
26 February 2000
--------------------------------------------
#1. On Pakistan making peace with India 
#2. Saffron Herrings in India
#3. How dare women question their status
#4. Vajpayee's Laxman Rekha
--------------------------------------------

#1.

News on Sunday / The News International Pakistan 
20 February 2000
Political Economy

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PEACE -- OVER ONE BILLION SOUTH ASIANS 
CONSTITUTE A MARKET THAT CANNOT BE EASILY SHRUGGED OFF

WANTED: A statesman armed with a 
new 'vision of peace' for the subcontinent

Given Pakistan's political dispensation, the military is the only 
institution which can talk peace with India. Ironically, though 
understandably, it is the one institution which gains the most from an 
atmosphere which generates war hysteria as well. If the new military 
government is serious about putting the interests of Pakistan and 
Pakistanis above its own far narrower interests, it will have to 
declare peace with India..... Political Economy reiterates a theme that

has been consistently running through our editorial agenda

[by] S. Akbar Zaidi

If Pakistan's new military government is serious about reviving the 
economy, it will have to consider declaring unilateral peace with 
India. It needs to rethink its entire foreign policy and strategy 
regarding the region, but most specifically, it must realise that the 
road to peace and to economic revival runs through Kashmir and through 
India. This policy does not in the least imply that Pakistan abandon 
supporting all just causes and stop protecting its borders and its 
sovereignty. It does suggest, however, that if Pakistan is to have any 
say in the comity of nations, and if it is to exist and function as a 
viable, independent state, it has to put its economic house in order. 
For this, it is imperative that the Political Economy of Peace become 
the foremost plank of the present military and subsequent governments.

This is not the first time that Pakistan has come close to being 
labeled a 'terrorist state', with real or perceived impressions that 
institutions of the state are involved in adventurous activities 
supporting a number of so-called independence struggles. If it is 
merely a misconstrued perception, something which all our governments 
claim it is, that Pakistan is involved in providing help and 
assistance, especial military training, to groups across the globe, 
then public positions have to be maintained which dispel all such 
impressions. Not just empty claims and promises, but concerted action 
will need to be taken to underscore the point that Pakistan provides 
nothing but moral support to these movements and struggles. If on the 
other hand, there is some element of truth in the allegations that 
institutions of the Pakistani state are actively training and involved 
in these various struggles, it is time for a major rethink.

There is little need to repeat the numerous problems which afflict 
Pakistan's economy and society, but perhaps a short list of the salient

problems will remind us of where we stand. Domestic and international 
debt of around $68 billion is today equivalent to 97 percent of 
Pakistan's GDP; the economy continues to be in a recessinary state and 
investor and business confidence is still at a low level where it has 
been for at least the last two years; all governments since 1988, 
including the incumbent military one, have adhered to IMF Structural 
Adjustment Programmes which have had very negative consequences on the 
economy; ironically, however, our dependence is so severe that 
Pakistan's economic machinery would come to a halt if it was not for 
multilateral and bilateral 'aid' and for bailing out packages, hence 
talk of 'self reliance' is a rude joke; 36 percent of Pakistan's 
population lives below the poverty line, and this trend has increased 
sharply in the last decade; many of our social indicators are amongst 
the worst in the world, with Pakistan located amongst the poorest 
twenty percent of independent nations, both in terms of GDP per capita 
as well as human development.

Two other sets of statistics would further emphasize the need for a 
redirection in Pakistan's political and economic priorities. The public

sector development programme (the annual development expenditure made 
by government) has been falling consistently over the last two decades.

>From a high of 9.3 percent in 1980-81 and 7.5 percent in 1991-92, it is

currently barely three percent of GDP, the lowest in three decades. 
What this means is that Pakistan's state is no longer investing in 
resources for the future. In contrast, the recent symbolic reduction of

Rs 7 billion in military expenditure notwithstanding, Pakistan's 
military expenditures as a percentage of GDP, is the eighth highest in 
the world. This military expenditure is about twice the expenditure on 
health and education combined. Perhaps this is one reason why there are

nine soldiers for every doctor and three soldiers for every two 
teachers in Pakistan.

One is not going to make the crude argument, which one can and many do,

that each one percentage point reduction in military expenditure will 
translate automatically into an additional one percentage point of GDP 
for the social sectors. This is mere withful thinking for there are 
numerous other factors which determine where such an unlikely reduction

is better spent. Many would argue that such a reduction be set aside 
for debt retirement, an argument which would find many supporters. 
Nevertheless, a reduction in the military budget will free some 
resources which can be put to better use. However, it is not simply the

problem of a high military budget which is probably one of the many 
reasons for Pakistan's poor showing in terms of economic and social 
progress, but the rationale behind peace with India and the 
prerogatives of the Political Economy of Peace, are far wider.

A growing phenomenon in recent years has been the coming into existence

and the consolidation of trading blocs or clubs. One such organisation,

the European Economic Community, has even given ground to a far closer 
Union than before. The logic of such associations and trading areas is 
easy to understand. With increasing globalization and with the 
integration of the world market and the establishment of the World 
Trade Organisation, in order to protect themselves from the perils of 
unprotected trade, individual neighbouring countries feel that they can

protect themselves better collectively. Besides, granting most favoured

nation status to a few neighbouring countries makes good economic and 
political sense individually.

Pakistan must be part of such an organisation in the South Asian 
region. With India the only economin entity of any significance in 
South Asia, what is primarily required is a free trade deal between 
Pakistan and India. Rather than put peace first as a precondition for 
better economic and trade relations with India, little does our 
government realize, that by putting free trade and favourable economic 
relations between the two countries on top of its agenda, it is 
possible that peace is likely to follow. No country will want to 
interrupt a good economic deal which has far reaching positive 
consequences, by an atmosphere of war. 

A potential market of one billion easily accessible consumers, is not 
something to shrug off unthinkingly. Once proper trade and economic 
relations are established, it will look even more nonsensical than it 
does at the present, to talk of going to war with India over Kashmir or

over any other issue. It is important to emphasize, that it is not just

Pakistan which is likely to gain from such an arrangement, but India 
will also have access to a new, small, though relatively prosperous, 
market as well.

It is highly improbable, if not downright impossible, to 'solve' the 
Kashmir problem through war, whether 'real' war or some kind of proxy 
or limited war. As soon as this point is understood by the military 
high command in Pakistan, half of Pakistan's problems will be over. 
Once Pakistan is seen to be talking genuine peace in the region and 
withdraws from active engagement and support of the so-called jihadis 
in Kashmir, there is bound to be worldwide applause for such forthright

moves. This should certainly decrease, if not end, Pakistan's growing 
isolation and perhaps the 'terrorist state' label can be put aside once

and for all. These moves will have far reaching, highly positive, 
economic consequences as well.

Given Pakistan's political dispensation, the military is the only 
institution which can talk peace with India. Ironically, though 
understandably, it is the one institution which gains the most from an 
atmosphere which generates war hysteria as well. If the new military 
government is serious about putting the interests of Pakistan and 
Pakistanis above its own far narrower interests, it will have to 
declare peace with India. If it does only this, perhaps it will redeem 
itself for all the misdeeds that it has been allegedly responsible for 
in the past.
----------------------

#2.

The Times of India
26 February 2000
Op-Ed.

Saffron Herrings:
Strife as Diversion and Design

By SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN

VARANASI: In his seminal essay on the construction of communalism in 
colonial India, Gyan Pandey argues that colonialist writings made a 
distinction ``between the history of local society -- wild, chaotic, 
liable to unexpected explosions -- and the history of the state'', with

the colonial state standing out in contrast to ``the 
primitive...character of the local society''. The discourse and 
apparatus of colonialist law and order was erected around the myth of 
the volatile, combustible Indian, so consumed by primordial religious 
passions that he could be relied upon to explode in rage at the 
slightest provocation. 

At the same time, colonial administrators were keenly aware of the even

greater threat the lack of religious animosity might pose. It was far 
more dangerous to allow Indian crowds to fraternise with one another on

the streets than to attack each other in their homes. Even as they 
expressed revulsion at the `excitability' of Hindus and Muslims, 
therefore, the British did all they could to foster divisions along 
religious lines. Riots were tolerated, if not encouraged, but any 
peaceful political or even cultural activity that threatened the 
colonial order was always suppressed.

Law and Order 

The first instance of a `communal' riot in Varanasi was in 1809. Though

Hindus and Muslims allegedly slaughtered each other in large numbers, 
the riot is known to us only through what British administrators chose 
to record about it. As Pandey has shown, colonial documents from 
1809-1810 put the numbers killed at no more than 30 and the site of the

disturbance as Lat Bhairav, outside the city. Over the years -- as the 
need to find evidence for the `ancient antagonism' between Hindus and 
Muslims increased -- the riot description became more fanciful. By 
1909, the District Gazetteer was confidently asserting that ``several 
hundred'' had been killed. The riot location was also conveniently 
shifted to the Gyanvapi mosque, site of the old Vishwanath temple and a

more volatile -- and durable -- zone of contestation than the Lat 
Bhairav.

One hundred and one years later, when a mentally disturbed man egged on

by the BJP and RSS rowed out to the middle of the Ganga and attempted 
suicide in order to stop the shooting of the film Water, he was merely 
playing out a role that had already been scripted for him by British 
colonialism. But it was a chronicle of an attempted suicide foretold in

more ways than one. The district magistrate had been warned in advance 
and local photographers accompanied the would-be suicide at every step.

Even though the number of political activists protesting was no more 
than a handful, the DM sought refuge in the colonialist myth about the 
explosive, emotional Benarasi, and externed the film crew in the name 
of law and order. 

At an impromptu meeting in the Kabir Mutt, activists from various 
civic, political and cultural organisations -- Nari Ekta, Manavadhikar 
Jan Nigrani Samiti, Vidyarthi Yuvjan Sabha, Jansanskriti Manch and 
others -- linked the attack on Ms Mehta's freedom of expression to the 
greater aggressiveness of the sangh parivar in other spheres. The 
anti-Christian campaign in various areas; the UP chief minister's 
statements on Ayodhya; the UP Religious Places Act; BJP state 
governments allowing their employees to join the RSS, and Prime 
Minister Vajpayee himself granting his benediction by describing the 
organisation as a `social and cultural' one. The latest example of this

trend: the attempt by the HRD ministry and the ICHR to suppress the 
publication of history books that expose the role of the RSS and Hindu 
Mahasabha in the freedom struggle.

Strategic Interests 

Apart from furthering the strategic interests of the sangh parivar, 
issues like Water or the constitutional review might also serve a more 
tactical purpose. Even as the nation at large was debating Ms Mehta's 
film, the Vajpayee government sold off Modern Foods -- an asset- and 
land-rich public sector company worth several hundred crore -- to the 
multinational Hindustan Lever for a paltry Rs 106 crore. A number of 
other privatisations are on the anvil, and while this is not the place 
to debate the wider question of the `second-wave of reforms', it is 
vital that valuable public assets not be sold off for a pittance in 
sweetheart deals. Unfortunately the Opposition, which rightly opposes 
the Vajpayee government on the RSS issue, has completely failed to nail

the BJP on the undervaluation of PSUs. Of course, in its time, the 
Congress and UF governments did the same. But unless people speak out, 
Indian Petrochemicals Ltd, Indian Airlines, ITDC and other companies 
will all be sold for a song. Could it be that the Vajpayee government 
is deliberately embroiling the nation in divisive issues so as to push 
through another hidden agenda, that of crony capitalism?

The fomenting of strife by the RSS also helps the government in another

way: It diverts attention from the failures of the BJP on the economic 
and social front. The party came to power making tall claims about 
providing education, jobs, drinking water, sanitation and housing for 
the poor but hasn't the slightest intention of fulfilling any of its 
campaign promises. If anything, its economic policies will make life 
harder for ordinary citizens. How convenient, then, to let them attack 
each other over cultural and religious issues. To let the thirsty fight

over Water, not water.

Gyanvapi mosque 

In Varanasi, one of the most pressing concerns is the state of the 
Ganges. At the point where the Varuna and the Ganga merge, the sacred 
river is black and huge methane bubbles constantly burst onto the 
surface. The fecal coliform level is more than 3,000 times the 
permissible level. Pandit Veerbhadra Mishra, mahant of Sankat Mochan 
and a tireless campaigner for a clean Ganga, says anyone worried about 
the culture of Varanasi should be most concerned about the quality of 
the river's water. ``The VHP says `This is pavitra Ganga jal, 
Brahmadhrav. How can Deepa Mehta call it water' but they are not in the

least bit interested in cleaning the river. If pollution continues at 
this rate, the day is not far when people in Kashi will stop bathing in

the Ganga. That will kill our culture. Not the making of some film''. 

So irrational are the arguments of the sangh parivar that it is obvious

the movement against Ms Mehta's film is a smokescreen for something 
else. In fact, RSS and BJP activists in the city openly say that their 
real target is not Water but the same Gyanvapi mosque mentioned in 
colonial records as the scene of fearsome riots. After the Babri 
masjid, this is the next `temple' that saffron hotheads would like to 
`liberate'. If the political economy of crony capitalism demands it, 
they might very well have their way. Even if ``several hundred'' had 
not been killed at the masjid in 1809, there is no reason why 
historical fiction cannot become future fact. The false colonial 
dichotomy between an unruly people and an orderly state can then once 
again be dissolved, with the state itself becoming the vehicle for 
chaos and disorder.
----------------------

#3.

February 2000 
Special Report 

WATER ON FIRE 

by Urvashi Butalia

How dare women presume to question their status? That is the key issue 
behind all the agitation over Deepa Mehta's film-in-the-making=A0 

Some days ago I was on a television programme with Mr=A0Mohanlal Singhal,

a BJP=A0 
MP and brother of the fa mous (or more correctly, infamous) Ashok 
Singhal, leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. In response to a question

from the presenter, Mr Singhal informed us that the VHP had nothing to 
do with the agitation against the film Water. That, in fact, it was the

"people of Varanasi" whose "sentiments" had been "hurt" and if the 
newspapers said the VHP had either engineered or upported this 
agitation, they were lying. The very next day, newspapers carried 
reports that Ashok Singhal had declared that the filming would be 
allowed only "over his dead body".=A0 
When questioned further on the programme, it turned out (not 
surprisingly) that although Mr Singhal =97 in what has now become the 
BJP's classic tactic of overt dissociation but covert support =97 denied 
that the VHP had anything to do with the agitation, he, his family and 
his political brothers, fully supported what the agitation was about. 
He had many objections to the film: it denigrated India, he said, it 
projected a bad image of the country for foreigners.=A0 
He was upset that the director had chosen to make a film about a time 
as long ago as 1930 when there was such a rich present to hand. (He had

no answer when I asked him why then had his colleagues not protested 
when the Mahabharata and Ramayana, which were about much more "ancient"

times had been filmed). He said the film=96maker had done no "scientific"

research about the position of widows in India, and was not 
knowledgeable about the Hindu shastras =97 else, why would she say that 
widows were denigrated, called vaishyas, socially ostracised? According

to him, while this may be something that was part of Hindu custom, it 
was not part of Hindu religion.=A0 
He had other objections: the two or three lines that Deepa Mehta had 
agreed to delete were cited. One had to do with widows, the other with 
the Ganga. How dare she put these lines in the mouths of characters who

had names like Narayan, he said. Why not in the mouth of someone called

Javed or some such Muslim name? This led him to object about the names 
of the women in Fire. Why were they not called Uzma and someone else? 
Why Radha and Sita?=A0 
If the status of widows was deplorable in India, he was asked, why be 
fearful of a film depicting that? Perhaps this might lead to a debate 
and discussion which are after all the precursors of any kind of 
change. But he said there was no scientific research on whether or not 
the status of widows was actually bad. The film-maker, he was convinced

(he did not know this, it was just a conviction) had not spent any time

at all with widows. How could she know anything? How could Shabana Azmi

know anything? She was a rabble-rouser anyway.=A0 
Then, another question was put to him: if a character in a film says 
something, surely that does not mean that that is the point of view of 
the director or the script=96writer. The film, after all, is a fiction 
film. This elicited a vehement response: this film was not fiction, it 
was the director's view, and it was part of a grand foreign plot to 
denigrate Hinduism.=A0 
Was it not shameful, I asked him, that Varanasi was full of rapacious, 
avaricious, corrupt Pandas who were out to make as much money as they 
could from visitors? Did this not sully the face of Hinduism? Why was 
it that the continuing pollution of the waters of the Ganga had 
elicited no response from his party or his colleagues, but if someone 
referred to the Ganga as water (and if I am not mistaken, an 
Indian=96French painter called Vishwanath has made a deeply moving film 
which features the Ganga as well as other rivers, called Water and no 
one protested) this became a cause for such heartburn and violence? To 
this, too, Mr Singhal did not have an answer.=A0 
I mention all this because I was confused by his responses. I was not 
sure, at the end of this discussion (I think tirade would be a more 
appropriate word for it) exactly what the Hindu right's objection to 
Deepa Mehta's film was. Was it to the title? The film=96maker? The 
subject? Surely they knew nothing about the subject =97 as Mr Singhal 
himself admitted, no one had really read the script. So all the noise 
was based on something else. At one point Mr Singhal said two things, 
and it was in these that I felt his (and that of his colleagues) 
deepest objections were rooted. He said, somewhat angrily, that there 
was no sanction for the ill=96treatment of widows in Hinduism, and that 
what did those people who were making the film know anyway? After all 
they were women. Put like this, in cold print, this phrase does not 
carry any of the vehemence of speech. But when I heard it, I was struck

by what to me sounded like a deep dislike and almost hatred that lay 
behind it.=A0 
And political considerations apart, I think it would not be wrong to 
say that this, in many ways, is the motivating factor behind much of 
what is going on around this particular film, and also generally around

the articulation of any voices of dissent, especially those that have 
to do with women. The status of widows in Hindu society is a shameful 
thing: newspapers in the last few days have been full of the widows of 
Vrindavan and the conditions they live in. It's not the first time this

kind of thing has figured in the media. But a brief spell of coverage 
and then nothing, is not what will help to change this.=A0 
I remember, some years ago, being shocked by a three line reference in 
the newspapers, to the death of Bina Bhowmick, one of the best known of

what were then called "women terrorists" of our nationalist period. She

had died, unloved and unknown, in the widows' ashram at Vrindavan. 
Where were our agitators then? Or, indeed, why did we not raise a 
similar discussion about the ills of widowhood when Charan Shah died on

her husband's pyre, or when Roop Kanwar was killed?=A0 
Mr Singhal was emphatic that sati, or widow immolation, was not 
sanctioned in our shastras. But I don't seem to remember leaders of the

Hindu right making any such statement at the time. Rather, they did 
quite the opposite =97 not only the men but also the women. And the list 
does not end there =97 for every woman who is burnt as a witch in 
Jharkhand or elsewhere in the country, it would not come as a surprise 
to know that most of them are widows and behind their deaths lie very 
material concerns of property and wealth. For all their poverty, many 
of the older widows in the ashrams of Vrindavan are legally entitled to

pension which is creamed off before they ever get to the women. But 
none of the so=96called protectors of Hinduism protests about this insult

to the religion.=A0 
It seems to me there are many things that lie behind this agitation by 
self=96styled protectors of the Hindu religion. The key issue here is 
this: how dare women presume to question their status? Further, how 
dare a "foreign" woman (Deepa Mehta) and a Muslim woman (Shabana Azmi) 
do so? While this is the case, I doubt they would be any more tolerant 
of the questioning had it come from a devout "Hindu" woman. More, in 
the minds of the majority of men, whether they are self=96styled 
protectors of Hinduism or not, lies a deep anti=96woman bias.=A0 
I do not say this irresponsibly =97 it may sound like an extreme 
statement, but I think we need to see this agitation, and the 
intolerance it symbolises, as part of a continuum of increasing 
violence against women which is taking new forms every day as women 
become more articulate and adept at claiming their rights. Clearly, 
they are transgressing the boundaries that have been set for them. 
Virtually every religion sanctions the terrible belief that a woman's 
status is defined by her `belonging' to a man: a woman without a man is

deeply suspect.=A0 
There is no way of controlling her sexuality, none of keeping her 
within the ordained boundaries, none therefore, of keeping her under 
the power of a man, or many men. This is why so much suspicion attaches

to women who are single, or indeed those who are widows =97 the latter 
present a greater threat because, theoretically, having been in sexual 
union with their husbands, they might actually know what sexuality is 
about. What better way to keep these women in their place than to 
divest them of all rights and privileges (hence take away their sources

of income such as pensions, land), or of all support (hence throw them 
out of their homes and send them off to ashrams) and to label them 
vaishyas, prostitutes, randis?=A0 
Where widows are concerned, things are worse. Our society has been 
relatively successful in locking widows away into remote places, 
silencing their voices by claiming that they have no life, or no right 
to live a life, after the deaths of their husbands. Hence we have the 
ashrams, where hundreds of women live in penury and silence. Imagine 
the fear if these women were to suddenly rebel, to claim back their 
homes from which they have been thrown out, to claim back their wealth 
which they have been divested of, to claim back their rights from an 
indifferent State which discriminates against them in law. There would 
be chaos: sexual, political, familial chaos.=A0 
We have the experience of Partition to tell us that this is a possible 
danger =97 that is why at Partition the Indian State took on the 
responsibility of looking after all the women who were widowed. They 
were put in homes, given training and jobs, pensions, and "allowed" to 
live a mainstream life rather than being socially ostracised like most 
widows. But the moment they became old and theoretically "useless" it 
was their families who threw them out of their homes and took over 
their properties.=A0 
A single film is not going to change this shameful state of affairs in 
India. But it might just succeed in raising a discussion =97 something 
which we badly need. And yet, this is precisely the fear, and it is 
this fear that is the motivation behind the agitation by the 
self=96styled protectors of the Hindu religion.=A0 
They know, husbands and mahants and politicians and others, that if 
widows are allowed to enter and be part of mainstream society, they 
stand to lose not only the wealth that can be amassed through property 
and pensions, but also the control that can be maintained by claiming a

monopoly over what the shastras say. And it's very convenient to set up

an agitation, and claim that it reflects the sentiments of the "people"

of a particular place.=A0 
A question we need to ask is: are women not people also? If the status 
of women is deplorable in this society and someone wishes to depict 
that in a film, it's not something that reflects on the Hindu religion,

but rather on those who see themselves as the protectors of that 
religion. And that's why they are so opposed to it: for more than the 
religion, it is its self=96styled protectors who are exposed by such 
questioning.=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 

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